#swsh bede

Social media exploded when Diantha publicized her resignation as the Champion of Kalos and announced that she would move to Galar.

“Even on better days, I have no time to look through all the inquiries and comments,” she said to Bede as she shut off her phone and stuffed it firmly to the bottom of her purse. “I insisted that I won’t be taking interviews any time soon. I hope everyone respects my need for privacy.”

Bede rolled up his sleeve. “Don’t worry, my Pokemon and I will take care of anyone who won’t.”

She smiled. “That’s so kind of you, but I hope you’re not too serious about that. You need time with Opal as much as I do.”

While the former Champion of Kalos had resolved to set aside her phone for a while, Bede busied over his. “I’ll tell my fellow Gym Leaders to keep an eye out for anyone nosing into our business.”

He had all of their phone numbers now. They were just a call or a text away, as they had promised, and the thought of them having his back comforted him. As the days of the last week ticked by, Bede was bracing himself for the last day, for the time that he would have to say good-bye.

He and Diantha strived to make Opal as comfortable as possible. Halfway through the week, she couldn’t get out of bed even with support from the two of them.

At that point, Professor Magnolia was the only visitor allowed inside the house, because Opal would ask for her company during teatime.

Because her hand was too shaky to handle hot tea, Bede stuck around to help her guide the cup to her mouth. “Lately there’s been a fog over my memory, like a soft thick blanket I can’t see through,” Opal told Magnolia. “Sometimes, though, there would be rays of sun shining down, so I could see. Like the day we had met, when we had a Gym match, and I showed you the Impidimps, and you came up with the name for my son.” The stroke kept Opal from curling up both corners of her lips when she tried to smile. “I’ll always remember times like that. You were there for a lot of those sunny spots, Mag. Thank you.”

The teacup trembled in Magnolia’s hand, though not from a stroke. The professor’s eyes watered behind her thick spectacles. “It’s an honor to have been your friend for so long.”

Opal rested her good hand over Magnolia’s, and the two elderly woman said nothing for a while. As quietly as he could, Bede took the empty cups of tea from them and drew back into the kitchen.

#

Bede and Diantha’s routine to make Opal comfortable in her home was interrupted by Opal herself.

“My dears, would be so kind to help me outside to the living room?” she asked them. “Park me right by the fireplace.”

Bede frowned. “Are you cold, Ms. Opal?” She couldn’t be. She always had a fluffy coat around her, and blankets never too far out of reach.

“Oh no, my boy, I’m as snug as a Charjabug. I’d like to be by the fireplace nevertheless.”

When they did as she had asked, she motioned with her good hand to the shelf near the kitchen. “Diantha, please bring me that unlabeled binder by my mum’s manual.”

“What’s in here, Auntie?” the former Champion asked as she brought it over.

“Scripts for plays that my husband never finished,” Opal murmured. “Sometimes, when I was younger, I’d pull it out of the shelf and try to finish them myself.” She chuckled. “I couldn’t even get through reading them without crying, though. I couldn’t bring myself to touch his work. So I left them tucked away in that shelf for years and years.”

“You’ve decided what to do with them now?” Bede asked.

“Yes. Burn them.”

He gasped, and Diantha said, “But Auntie...”

“You heard me right.” Opal kept her voice low and calm. “I haven’t gone off my rocker. I know what I’m doing, and I want them burned. I don’t think of it so much as destroying my husband’s work, but sending it up to him, so we can work on them together when I see him again. And I’ll be seeing him soon.”

Bede tried to blink mist out of his eyes as he started up the fire. Then he helped Diantha strip the binder of its contents, taking turns with her to carefully toss small stacks of paper into the flames. Roger’s incomplete stories blackened, curled, and crumbled away. Bede watched this along with Opal, figuring that she could be seeing words go up in smoke somehow.

It took visible effort for Opal to then turn her gaze toward Diantha kneeling beside her. “As for the scripts he did finish, I trust that you will do a good job bringing them to life on stage, in my place.”

Diantha clasped her great-aunt’s thin, withered hand. “You can leave it to me. The show at Ballonlea Theatre will go on. That’s a solemn promise, from actress to actress.”

Bede felt a surge of gratitude towards the former Champion of Kalos. The theatre could not ask for a better successor. He couldn’t make that same promise to Opal. What he could do was become the Gym Leader Opal wanted him to be.

#

He became an expert at tucking Opal into bed. He didn’t need Diantha’s help for that. On a rainy night, the night before her time to go tomorrow as Celebi predicted, he fought to get the words “good night” out of his mouth. His throat closed up and the words felt dammed up behind it.

Before he could get them out, Opal said, “Bede, I need ask of you an important favor.”

“Uh, sure.”

“Be a dear and fetch the letter from the drawer in my nightstand, will you?”

He did as she asked, but she didn’t stop there. He handed Opal the letter, but with a raised trembling hand, she gently pushed it back toward him and said, “Would you mind reading it out loud to me? My sight’s been spotty lately.”

Bede opened up the folded paper, and the name he saw scrawled at the end made his breath hitch in his throat. The note from Kestrel. His last words before he had taken his own life in prison. For decades that note sat unopened.

He looked up at her. “Are you sure you want to—“

“Yes, I’m sure.” Opal closed her eyes and leaned back into her pillows. “I think I’m finally ready to hear what my little brother wanted to tell me all those years ago.”

She looked like she was about to go to sleep, but Bede knew that she would listen with rapt attention as he edged near the glow of the nightstand lamp and dropped his gaze back to the letter.

“Dear Opal,

I don’t know where to begin. I don’t even know if you’ll ever read this. I have to say something, nonetheless. My sentence is almost up, but done as it may almost be in the eyes of the law, I know that it wouldn’t ever be done in your eyes.

In the isolation of my cell, I try to think back to happier times: sharing stories of wanderlust and adventure with my brother in-law, and letting my nephew fly on the wings of my Pidgeot. It’s my fault that I dashed all of those to the ground, that I destroyed every chance to make more of those happy times. Most of my fellow prisoners look forward to the day they’re released. Not me. I dread it. Actually, I wish I could stay locked up in here forever. I wish for that, because I know that when I’m a free man, I would never be able to look at you in the eye. Would you be able to look at me in the eye, Opal? Speak to me again? Let me back into Ballonlea Town, back into your life? I don’t know, and I won’t ask. I’m afraid to find out your answers to these questions.

There isn’t enough space in this paper, in this whole world, really, to tell you just how sorry I am for everything I have done. I’m sorry, Roger. I’m sorry, Jasper. I’m sorry, Randall. And I’m sorry, Opal. I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. This is good-bye.

All my love, regrets, and sympathies,

Kestrel”

Bede set the letter aside on the nightstand. Opal didn’t move or say anything. The only sign of life from her were tears welling in her eyes and running down her cheeks. Bede pulled out the corner of a blanket and reached over to dab her face dry.

“I forgive you, Kes,” she whispered. “After all these years, I finally forgive you.” She smiled up at Bede. “Thank you for reading that letter to me. I think I’m ready to call it a night now.”

“Good night, Ms. Opal.” He bent down to peck her cheek. “See you tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, see you tomorrow,” she assured him.

With that, Bede went to bed sleeping easier than he had thought.

#

He roamed the house to throw open all the curtains. Morning in the canopy-covered Ballonlea Town wasn’t streaming in sunlight, but the rain from last night had stopped to leave fat drops all over the windows. Several light taps sounded from the front door. Bede jumped. Mightyena and Obstagoon stirred from their sleeping places in the living room, then they quickly joined Bede as he trudged up to the door with a frown. An unwanted visitor? He braced himself for the obligation to chase away whoever had the nerve to stick their nose where they shouldn’t.

He cracked the door open, then stepped back in disbelief. “Celebi? You came!”

“Bi.” The time-traveling Pokemon hovered before him at eye level.

Bede drew back to let Celebi inside while patting Mightyena and Obstagoon. “It’s okay, Celebi’s a friend,” he told the Dark type Pokemon. “It’s here to—“ He choked up, then went on in a small voice, “It’s here to say goodbye to Opal.”

“Who’s that at the door?” Diantha stumbled out of her bedroom in her nightgown. Her eyes, heavily lidded from just waking up, went wide at the sight. “Je n’y crois pas,” she breathed.

“I couldn’t believe it, either,” Bede replied. “But Celebi’s really here.” He had picked up a decent amount of Kalosian from Diantha since she’d been staying in Opal’s house.

He led Celebi into Opal’s room. To his relief, the old woman was blinking sleepiness out of her eyes. She didn’t sit up, though.

“Celebi, so lovely to see you.” The cheerfulness in her voice outweighed the recent weakness for a moment.

Celebi wouldn’t be the only Pokemon in the room. Mightyena and Obstagoon came in behind Bede and Diantha, and he released his entire team from their balls so they could surround the bed.

Opal let out a laugh that sounded more like a cough. “What a delightful crowd. You’re all making me feel like a celebrity again.” The merriment faded from her face as she schooled her features to a serious expression. “I didn’t want to leave you all without a few words first.” She paused before she went on, “People always wanted to know the secret behind how I lasted on earth for this long. For a while, I didn’t know the answer myself. It’s not like I’ve been the best at looking after my health. You’ve seen me over the years, Bede...I smoked like a chimney in Motostoke and love to eat my weight’s worth of sugary stuff. It’s not because of Fairy type Pokemon magic, either, as most people like to believe.” She reached out with a trembling hand to rest it over Bede’s. “It’s because of you. I waited for you to come along. I had to wait for a bloody long time. At one point, I feared that I would never find the Gym Leader to succeed me, but you came after all, like a burst of bright pink after years and years of darkness. That was worth the wait.” Opal tried to smile up at him. “When I’m gone, and people still wonder how I had lived for as long as I did, tell them that the reason is you.”

With a huge lump in his throat, Bede managed a wordless nod.

“Now I need to give you some last-minute life lessons, in case you didn’t get them the first time around from your trip with Celebi.”

He already knew, but he wanted to keep hearing her talk. He couldn’t bear to think of her being forever silent and still within minutes, or hours, or however long it took for death to come for people her age.

“Diantha, you may have not traveled with Celebi through time, but you need to hear this, too.”

Bede gently squeezed Opal’s hand, silently prompting her to go on.

“Don’t be like me and let anger and loneliness eat up your life. Surround yourself with people and Pokemon you love and trust. Accept kindness and friendship when they’re offered to you. You two are still so young, with your whole lives ahead of you. Or maybe you don’t, like Roger and Jasper. You never know. Either way, if you cut yourself off from the world, you either don’t live long enough to have that chance to turn around, or you live long enough to regret it.”

Bede and Diantha shared gazes glittering with wetness before they turned back to Opal and nodded. He had seen how Opal’s vindictive rage had led to the destruction of her younger brother, and the near-destruction of herself. He was determined not to follow Opal down that kind of dark path.

The old woman sighed and closed her eyes. “I think I’ve said everything I wanted to say. I will leave this world in peace, knowing that the Gym and theatre of Ballonlea Town are in good hands.”

Tears that had welled up ran down Bede’s cheeks as he squeezed his eyes shut. He knew he had to let her go. There was nothing he could do to stop that. So he had better get this out before it was too late. Bede leaned in to wrap his arms around Opal as tenderly and delicately as he could. “I love you,” he croaked.

“I love you too,” she murmured.

Bede couldn’t stop his shoulders from shaking as he kept his arms around Opal and wept into  the pillow. Diantha rested a hand on his back, and when he turned his head to peek over his shoulder, he saw that she had the other hand pressed over her eyes. Mightyena pressed its nose against Opal’s palm with a whine. Obstagoon placed a big dark paw over her arm. Togekiss, the only one light enough to sit on the mattress, snuggled at Opal’s side. The other Pokemon who couldn’t get on the bed huddled up beside each other, mourning quietly with Bede and Diantha.

Only Celebi didn’t have its head down. Instead it was looking up at something no one else could see.

#

Opal felt herself leave her own body with the last breath that left her lips. Her heart didn’t have to beat anymore, yet it ached as she looked down at her grieving family. Bede, the poor boy, cried the hardest of them all. She joined Diantha in resting a comforting hand on him, even if he couldn’t feel it.

He would be all right, she told herself. He won’t be alone. He has a family now.

Celebi was the only one who could see her in her new body. She smiled at it. “Thank you so much for bringing me and Bede together in the way only you know how.”

Making no sound to avoid alarming the others, Celebi silently acknowledged Opal’s gratitude with a smile of its own and a nod.

Suddenly laughter drifted into Opal’s ears. A child’s laughter. But not just any child. Startled, she straightened up her back, which she hadn’t done in years. “Celebi, did you hear that?”

Celebi gestured with its small green hand to the door, clearly encouraging Opal to follow the sound. She stepped away from her bedroom, the guilt of leaving Bede and Diantha behind eclipsed only by the drawing pull of laughter she hadn’t heard in so long. In her new body, Opal didn’t need to open the door to her house. She went straight through it. Who she saw just outside her door, laughing and skipping around in her front yard, sent the same thrilling bolt of wild joy that came with seeing Bede in Hammerlocke.

The little boy before her, dressed in the same suit he’d been buried with, stopped flapping his arms around like a bird Pokemon and smiled up at her. “Hello, Mummy.”

Opal trembled from head to toe and blinked hard. “Jasper, is that really you?” He jumped into her arms, and she enveloped him in a tight, fierce hug. “My darling, my baby boy,” she whispered into his dark curls. And she broke down as she held him. Jasper clung onto her firmly yet patiently, never squirming around to be let go. Finally she put him down and looked at her hands, her bony, thin 88 year-old hands. “I-I’ve changed so much since you last saw me. It’s been so long. How did you know I’m your mum?”

“I just know,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’ll always be my mummy.” Jasper reached up to hold her hand. “Come on, I’ll take you to Daddy.”

Opal gasped. “You know where your daddy is?”

“Uh-huh. He isn’t far.”

Opal let her son take the lead. For a little five year-old in the woods filled with Fairy type Pokemon that liked to lead travelers astray, he really knew his way around. He skipped by her side and didn’t stop to look around like he was lost. In their past lives, Opal would be the one to hold her son firmly by the hand and lead him down the scenic trails, to make sure that he didn’t wander out of her sight.

Now it was Jasper guiding her, and she realized that he was taking the route to the Ballonlea Cemetery. They had to cross a bridge over a brook along the way, and as they did, Opal looked down to find her reflection no longer elderly and white-haired, but young and dark-haired again.

Jasper looked over his shoulder and beamed at her new appearance. “That’s the mummy I remember.”

She smiled back at him. “Just like old times.”

The Ballonlea Cemetery was livelier than she had known it during all her prior visits. That was because she had only known it when she was alive. Now she saw departed spirits, just like herself, loitering around their headstones and enjoying the morning shade. Winston, the former butler at her family’s estate, bowed at her when she and Jasper passed by his headstone. Opal couldn’t help smiling at that. Old habits were hard to break, even in the afterlife.

Farther into the cemetery, Jasper broke away from Opal to run ahead. “Daddy, I’m back,” he called. “Look who I brought!”

Out of sight, a familiar voice called back, “Jasper, you had me worried, running off on your own like that!” The owner of the voice stepped into view from behind a headstone.

Opal stopped right in her tracks, and though her heart could no longer skip beats, she found that she couldn’t speak. All she could manage to get out was the name of the man she had married for five years, and loved for many, many more. “Roger?”

“Opal.” He made a wide smile underneath his beard. “Welcome home.”

She ran up to her husband and threw her arms around him. Like their son, Roger wore the suit that went down with his body during the funeral, though there was no smell of dust and decay to either of them. Instead they were bright and brimming with second life.

Opal realized that Roger didn’t return her hug with both arms, but with only one. He was holding something in the other. She pulled back from his embrace. “What do you have there, Roger?”

Amusement twinkled in his eyes. “Not what. Who.”

The swaddled blankets in his arm stirred, and Opal gasped. “A baby!” She reached out with a trembling hand. “Could...could this be...”

“Yes, dear, she’s ours.” He rested a hand on the small of her back. “You were carrying a baby girl.”

“Oh.” Opal felt on the verge of tears as Roger handed over their second child to her. “Oh, Roger, Jasper, she’s lovely. Absolutely gorgeous. I can’t believe it. A daughter...”

The baby responded to her mother’s breathless disbelief and adoration with a toothless smile. She broke out laughing when Jasper, being the silly big brother, made funny faces at her. Opal found herself laughing along while crying at once.

“This feels like a dream, a dream come true to be a family together again.”

Roger kissed her cheek. “It’s not a dream, dear. This is real.”

“What’s our daughter’s name? I imagine she has to have a name by now.” Opal felt some of her old humor return as she glanced over at Roger. “Heaven forbid if she’s been nameless for this long.”

He laughed. “She has a name, all right, although I admit I felt bad for naming her without you.”

“Don’t be, darling. You didn’t know when I’d be joining you, and I was the one who named Jasper. Remember how we agreed on taking turns to name our children?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“So what’s our baby girl’s name?”

“Pearl. But do feel free to voice any suggestions or objections—“

“No, I think Pearl is perfect.” Opal leaned back into Roger’s embrace while keeping their daughter cradled in her arms.

He murmured into her ear, “Thank you for sending up my unfinished scripts, by the way. Much appreciated.”

She smiled up at him. “Of course. I figured you’d be itching to work on them again.”

“And you’ll help me finish them, as you’ve always done. We’ll be ghostwriters. How about that?”

Opal rolled her eyes. “Ha ha.” Her smirk widened when Pearl gurgled as if laughing along, and she bounced her daughter in her arms. “Your daddy just had to slip in a dad joke, huh?”

“There’s so much we can do, not just finish writing the plays together,” Roger said. “We can visit the other departed in their resting places. If you want, Opal, we could go all the way to Kalos to see Randall, or...”

Her husband trailed off, but Opal knew where he was getting at. “I’d love to do that, dear. Yes, I’d like to see Kestrel too, where the Wynwall correctional facility used to be.” She looked back at the path she and Jasper had taken to reach the cemetery. “But first, before we travel far and wide for that, there’s someone we should visit right here.”

#

Diantha called for the paramedics to collect Opal.

Bede stayed out of the way and couldn’t bring himself to watch her being taken away from the house. Though it was morning, he curled up back in his bed like a Shuckle hiding in its shell, wanting nothing more than to sleep. He’d been given plenty of instruction from Opal and Diantha on how to make funeral arrangements, all the legalese on claiming ownership of a deceased person’s Pokemon, getting registered as an official member of the Pokemon League, and so on. He was prepared, but he wasn’t ready. Right now he just wanted to sleep.

After much tossing and turning, Bede slipped beyond consciousness. He was still in bed, and even in his dreams he didn’t want to climb out of it. Someone from behind gently shook his shoulder. He turned in his bed, expecting to see Diantha, but who he saw instead made his heart almost stop.

“Ms. Opal?” he breathed.

“Long time no see, my boy.”

The Opal who stood before him was young, glowing, and beautiful, her short hair dark as the night sky and her eyes twinkling like bright blue stars. Bede sat up in bed and rubbed at his eyes, astonished beyond words. She didn’t come to him alone. Beside her were the man and boy Bede recognized from his journey through time.

The boy, Opal’s five year-old son, threw himself on the bed and at Bede to hug him. “Thank you for taking care of my mummy.”

Bede patted the top of Jasper’s dark messy hair. “O-of course. More like she’s been taking care of me.”

“You took care of each other,” Roger said warmly. He was holding a baby in his arms.

Bede looked between the reunited couple. “Is that...is that who I think it is?”

Opal smiled and nodded. “Bede, meet our daughter, Pearl.”

Like Jasper, Pearl took after her mother with the vivid blue eyes and dark, curly hair. Bede raised his hand to wave at the cooing baby, then he raised both frantically as Roger leaned in to hand her over. “Oh no, I-I don’t know how to hold a baby—“

“It’s okay, it’s not that hard,” Jasper said.

Bede found himself getting an armful of Pearl despite his flustered protests. The baby girl wiggled in his arms, as if to settle in, not out of fussiness. He smiled down at her. “Hi, there. Crazy to think that I’ve been under your mum’s care for longer than you have. But you’ve got her, now. You’re so lucky to have such a great mum.” He tapped at her button nose with a light, playful finger. “Yes, you.”

She giggled at his touch, and Opal extended her arms to relieve Bede of the baby.

“I thought we might visit you as soon as we could,” she told him. “Roger and Jasper wanted to say thanks, we wanted you to see Pearl, and you were crying so hard when I had left.”

Bede’s cheeks grew warm and he looked down at his hands. “I-I’m going to miss you so much, Ms. Opal.”

“She won’t be far,” Roger assured him. “You can always come talk to her at the cemetery. You might not know it, but she’ll hear you.”

“We’ll be flitting out and about sometimes, but look hard enough and you’ll find us by your side,” Opal said.

Knowing that she was never really gone gave Bede joy and peace he had never known before in his life. For much of his life he was used to being alone. Now he would have to get used to being surrounded by loved ones. Not that he was complaining.

Opal handed Pearl over to her husband. “Well, dear, let’s get going to visit Kes over at Wyndon. You’ve got to see how much it has changed over the years! And this time we don’t need a car or Flying Taxi to get there.”

With one arm Roger held his daughter, and with the other he took her hand. “First family trip in decades. Looking forward to it.”

Jasper bounced in place as his mother held his hand. “We’re going to see Uncle Kes! We’re going to see Uncle Kes!”

It seemed that the whole family had forgiven Kestrel, and knowing that made Bede happy for the poor man, wherever he was now.

Opal looked back to him. “This is good-bye, Bede my boy, but not forever. We’ll be back.”

He nodded. “Enjoy your next life,” he said softly.

The family turned to leave, and Bede ran outside of Opal’s house to find her, hand-in-hand with her spouse and son, flitting among the giant mushrooms of Ballonlea Town, weightless and soaring despite having no wings, and filling the air with tinkering laughter. Bede smiled through his tears, his heart overcoming how crushed it had been from losing Opal, so it can soar with them. He thought that they would leave without looking back, but then Opal briefly let go of Jasper’s hand to wave at Bede. He waved back at her and, like fairy dust, they shimmered out of sight.

#

Gone were the days that Bede had to wear Opal’s oversized Gym jerseys. Now he had his own that fit him. It felt strange no longer having to tie the extra length behind his back. He used to hate looking at himself in the mirror, finding the bright pink and blue ridiculous on him. But now, on the first day back to the Gym since Opal was laid to rest, Bede saw glowing, shameless pride in his reflection.

He emerged from the changing room, bypassing the clamor of the lobby to head backstage. Voices from Diantha, the stage crew, and actors drifted into his ears. Pen and clipboard in hand, the Kalos Champion-turned-theatre manager asked for another lighting test when Bede walked in.

She waved at him. “Leader Bede, you’re ready for your match with the newest challenger?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he replied. “And how’s preparation for the play coming along?”

“So far so good. Everyone’s excited to have an audience fill the theatre again.”

“Count me in that crowd.”

Both the Gym and theatre had to close during the days following Opal’s death. The backdrop behind him and Diantha switched colors as the lighting was being tested. Bede noticed that Diantha, with her stylish white blouse, pale blue eyes, and short brown hair darkened by distorted lighting, didn’t look too different from Opal in her younger days. His chest twinged at the nostalgia.

“You’re coming to the premiere later tonight, mon cheri?”

Diantha’s Kalosian accent brought Bede back to the present day, and he shot a broad grin at the young woman he came to know and love as a big sister. “You bet I am.”

“Glad to hear it.” She gave him a good-hearted pat on the back. “Now go break a leg out there, Gym Leader!”

Bede left backstage to make his way to the other side of the Gym. He never got a direct answer out of Opal on what pink meant to her. Not that she would just hand him the answer so easily, anyway. He spent his walk mulling it over. The last time she had seen the most pink in anyone before him was in her son, Jasper. He had seen what that boy was like before his life was cut short, and what he was like if his life had been allowed to run its course. That bright, bouncing little boy had charmed everyone around him, much like a Fairy type Pokemon, and had charmed his mother most of all. Bede then considered himself: not exactly steeped in charm, but brimming with promise and potential that Opal was able to spot before he could. Yes, that must be what pink had meant to her. Promise and potential to inherit her legacy. Jasper couldn’t live long enough to fulfill it, but Bede would take his place.

“Keep thinking about the right answer,” Opal liked to say, “and eventually you’ll create the right answer.”

That cryptic favorite saying of hers would make people throw up their hands in frustration, because no one could make heads or tails of her impish ways. But Bede knew what she had meant, and remembering that saying stirred in him such warm fondness for her that he stopped at the entrance to the stadium to wipe at his eyes before being noticed by the audience or the Rotom camera.

He squared his shoulders and drew in a deep breath before striding into the spotlight. Cheers flooded the stadium. Bede soaked it in and let it wash away any performance anxiety that might’ve built up from his walk. He approached the Gym challenger, a girl he guessed to be thirteen or fourteen, in the middle of the arena. She was decked out in dark, studded clothes. A local from Spikemuth, maybe?

She opened her mouth, and the rough way of talking confirmed his guess. “All this cotton candy Fairy type aesthetic is makin’ me sick, y’know. I’ll kick your soft, pink, sissy team to the curb!”

A saucy Fairy-bashing lass, Opal would call her. Probably smug from the string of Gym victories up to this point, too. Bede kept his cool and only gave the challenger a jaunty Opal-esque smile. “Don’t be so quick to dismiss Fairy type Pokemon.”

After that brief obligatory exchange at the center of the arena, Bede turned away to reach his side of the stadium. The Gym holding its first match since Opal’s funeral resulted in a massive turnout. Shots from the Rotom camera projected on the big screens revealed familiar faces among the audience: Professor Magnolia, Sonia, Victor, Gloria, Hop, the current Champion Leon and the former one, Mustard. And of course, Bede’s fellow Gym Leaders. They all showed up to give him their support for his first steps taken without Opal’s guidance. His heart swelled in appreciation for all of them.

Bede glanced up at the audience on his way, and nearly stopped in disbelief. Standing by the rails, seemingly invisible to the crowd sitting behind them, was Opal and her family. She carried her baby daughter while Roger had Jasper propped on his shoulders.

“Put on a good show, my boy,” Opal called down to him.

Somehow, despite the roar of the audience, Opal and her family cheered for Bede the loudest. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and he blinked hard. The tears went away, and with them, Opal’s family. His wide, confused gaze lingered where they had vanished, but they didn’t reappear. Was it just his imagination? Bede shook his head. He turned to face the challenger and close his fingers around the first Poke ball in his belt. No, they were there, even if he couldn’t see and hear them all the time. Opal promised that she would never be too far.

That sent a surge of comfort and confidence through him. The new Gym Leader of Ballonlea Town, Opal’s successor, extended the ball of his first Pokemon with a flourish at his challenger. “I’ll show you how marvelous Fairy type Pokemon can be!”

Notes: Musical inspiration for this chapter/epilogue: “The Place Where Wishes Come True” from Clannad.