Chapter 12

Revelations

What am I?

"Hmm?"

…

…

…

Like a sun rising over a cloudy horizon, light filtered through Alex's eyelids. Blue light, tinged white, and annoyingly bright. Where am i? what am I doing? How did I get here?

Bang…

Oh… that's right… crap. I got shot… Alex squinted as he stared at the light hanging above him, two cylindrical fluorescent bulbs set in the light burning brightly. Huh… I'm still alive… He thought, remembering the lines he sung from Eminem's "When I'm gone". Crap. I sung that for nothing? He thought with his usual sense of humour returning. Great, big, dramatic exit for nothing. Dammit. Sure, I can do it next time I die… but it just won't be the same…

"Are you alright?" Alex turned his head on his pillow to see a young man wearing a doctor's uniform standing beside him, holding a clipboard in one hand. A pen was tucked behind one ear over a pair of reading glasses. His nametag read "Samson".

Alex raised one hand a little under his blanket to give a thumbs up, and felt a little pain nagging in his left shoulder. "I'm alright." He said with half a shrug, keeping his left shoulder still.

The doctor nodded as he read up and down his notepad once more. "You're a tough bastard, aren't you?"

Alex nodded with a grin. "You've got the right guy." He affirmed cockily, sitting upright. The doctor made a jump for him, but seeing how he didn't break into a frenzy of screaming and painful spasming, stopped halfway, watching him curiously. Alex half shrugged again. "Ain't that bad." He commented, looking at the bloody bandage wrapped under his arm. Seemed that the bullet had entered just below his shoulder and exited about the same place on the other side. A clean shot through, luckily. Though, I'd have preferred not to get shot in the first place… He thought as he poked the bloody patch carefully with his opposite arm. "So where's Haley?"

The doctor rested his clipboard on an end table beside the bed as he thought. "The Ninetails?" Alex nodded.

"That's her."

"She wasn't allowed to stay in here." Samson told him. "Pokémon are only allowed to stay a certain period. Though, we had an… interesting time getting her out of here, to say the least."

Alex grinned at this. "Yeah. That's my girl."

"She's obviously very attached to you by the way the others had to drag her out of the room. Lucky that older guy eased her a bit or she could've killed someone." Alex smiled at the image that created. Doctors trying to drag Haley out of the room. She would have put up a hell of a fight for sure. "Did you notice she's in heat?"

"What?" Alex snapped out of his daydream to stare at the doctor, his lip hanging slightly.

The doctor nodded, removing his glasses and placing them on the end table. "Yes. She's in heat."

"In… heat?" Alex asked as the doctor sat beside him in a soft chair. "Like… that sex thing female Pokémon do? When they… need to have sex?"

"Want to have sex." The doctor corrected him. "But they're really quite persistent about it, I'll tell you."

"Oh…" Alex's mind drifted off a little, a small feeling of embarrassment growing in his cheeks, but he hid it. All this time he had been flirting with a horny Pokémon without realising it. "I didn't know that…"

"I don't suppose…" Samson paused a bit, wondering if it was too personal or not. But he was a doctor for both humans and Pokémon, and felt he should give this boy as much details as he could about what was going on. "I don't suppose she used to be a breeder, did she?"

Alex stared for a bit. Technically, yes, she had been. Could Samson pick up on something? Deciding the doctor already knew the truthful answer, and lying would only make him suspicious, Alex said: "Yes. How did you know?"

"It's all in the timing." Samson continued, feeling pleased to be in his field of expertise. "Ninetails' usually regulate through their heat in such a way that their heat falls in spring. Now is summer, so this indicates she has been regularly bred."

"What?" Alex shook his head with a shrug.

"It's all in her head." Samson tapped his forehead with one finger. "Pokémon who receive sexual stimulation regularly, breeders, become accustomed to sexual stimulation, and therefore their brain causes the body to crave that stimulation as regularly as they are usually bred. I assume by your lack of knowledge in this field, that you weren't her breeder?"

Alex shook his head. "My dad bred her." He answered, literally.

"That's what I thought." Samson confirmed. "Say, for example, she was bred every month. After her breeding stops, her heat still continues, still expecting that same stimulation every month that she would receive." Alex nodded for him to continue, listening carefully. "Especially abusive breeders, such as ones who breed every few days or so, since young Pokémon develop in their mothers astonishingly quickly, let their Pokémon bear egg, let them lay the egg, then breed them right afterwards, almost three days after they first fall pregnant. Those Pokémon, after being freed of their breeders, continue with their heat cycles every few days, craving the sexual attention they are so used to." Alex stared at the man, realising what this meant for Haley.

"They can't go three days without craving sex?" The doctor nodded. Alex fell back onto his pillow; a new dilemma had emerged now. "That's so… sad…"

"It is unfortunate." The doctor agreed solemnly.

"So… what advice do you have for me?" He asked. "For Haley?"

"Just keep her away from males whenever she falls into heat." The doctor suggested. "The males are aroused by her scent and will try to mate her."

"Right." Alex nodded. "Keep away males."

"Especially fire types." The doctor cut in quickly, causing Alex's heart to sink suddenly. "Fire types are the worst." The doctor glared, shaking his head. "Those idiots are so full of hormones and get so fired up, it's hard as hell to get them off once they get riled."

"All fire types?" Alex asked, suddenly a lot quieter.

"All of them." The doctor said with a nod. "Runs in their genetic code. They just can't resist, especially a when there's a fiery Ninetails in need of attention. They love them."

The first thing that came into Alex's head: Craaaaaaaap! He gulped, but the doctor wasn't done yet sharing his depth of knowledge in this field, and was enjoying himself, feeling intelligent.

"And you even have to watch out for the subtlest things." He continued. "Sometimes you think it's okay between the two. You think they act normal, but they're actually flirting."

"Flirting?" Alex repeated, his sinking feeling hitting the seabed.

"A common practice among Pokémon is biting and licking and grabbing, if they have hands." He explained. "Always around the neck and head. The don't realise it, but it's in their DNA to bite or hold the scruff of their mate's neck as they mount, and they do this without realising it, like they're naturally preparing to mount the other."

I'm so boned. Alex thought with a dreadful, nervous twitch, remembering all the attention he had been unwittingly paying to Haley's neck, rubbing and scratching and grabbing. His mind was trying to root her!

"But you may want to consider finding her an acceptable mate." The doctor added. "Pokémon can go through a lot of agony in their heat if they aren't stimulated, and seeing how close you two are I really don't think you want to see her go through that and see her hurt." Alex shook his head, worrying further. Somehow this guy knew just what to say so sink his heart in his chest. "So catch her a good water type maybe? I've known people to use water types or ice types to wean fire types out of their heat. The contrast dulls the sensation apparently, and the dulling reduces the frequency."

"So…" Alex knew he shouldn't ask, but did anyway. "Say I have a fire type for her, what effect would that have?" The doctor murmured in his throat, taking his pen from behind his ear and chewing the top.

"Well…" The doctor thought. "In the presence of just another fire type, such as a random straggler, like a Growlithe you may pick up, her heat will continue at whatever frequency it is at.

Dammit!

"However…" The doctor pointed the end of his pen at Alex. "When a fire type female grows attached to a fire type male, there is a slight chance that she may increase her heat frequency due to the bond the two share, in anticipation of mating with her desired male." Alex went silent. "But this is of course, only in the case of a fire type. Whatever the connection is, a water type would still wean her off slowly."

I am so boned. So, so very boned… "Well that's a bit of a bummer…" Alex pressed masochistically. "She's pretty close to this other fire type I have…"

"Well I advise you be very careful when you have them both released at the same time." Alex nodded with a hidden gulp.

This is not good… not… good… at all…

Samson had handed Alex a note before he left, following a not too persuasive effort to keep him in bed, but Alex had none of it, and thrown on his clothes being careful of his shoulder and headed out. He simply slipped the note into his pocket passively as his mind focussed solely on one thing burning in the front of his mind.

West. He didn't even need to read the note, he knew where Haley was, and he was heading straight there.

As Alex entered the park, he decided to finally dig the note from his pocket. Sure enough, the directions enclosed plotted directions to where he was. He half-folded half scrunched the paper and thrust it back into his torn pocket. All his clothing still bore the scars of battle, as did his body. Though oddly enough he didn't mind the little extra attention he received from passers-by.

The trees in the park were tall pines, flaky, dry leaves hanging from spiny, spindly branches, like giant arrays of needle clusters even though the leaves were soft to the touch. They just rose up everywhere, dotting the grassy field. That brilliant, fresh pine smell hung in the air, yet disturbingly enough, Alex was overwhelmed by a sudden urge to burn it all to a pile a ash, cutting a swathe through the nature's scent and letting it ascend to heaven from its frying floral corpse. He shuddered as he tried to shoulder the thought away. It was true what Haley said. The fire inside him was getting the better of him. I only hope my Pokémon side doesn't get the better of me. He added to that with a gulp. Or of Haley… Haley… he tried to focus his mind on Haley again, but his mind kept scrolling back to under that tower, fighting that Absol. Every time he remembered it he would just stop on the spot, breathing heavily. His movements were his own, but weren't controlled by him. His words came from somewhere else, but were still his. He had acted solely on impulsivity throughout that entire fight, starting when Maric had set him off with that comment he made to Haley, and from then on until the end of the fight, his brain had little say in what he said or did. Everything came from the heart… and Maric had hurt his heart.

He didn't want that, but part of him did. His body wanted that rush again, the rush of sparking the air, lighting it up from a mere spark into a burning sphere of death and throwing it into the enemy, shattering them with his explosive force. The rush of jumping and ducking and diving as death shot back at him, missing by mere inches. That colossal power he controlled, devastating all that it touched and razing it to the ground. He liked that animalistic side, that side leaving him under its control, but leaving everything else under their control… he liked it. He felt in touch with something in that fight, and through all the intensity and through the battle rocking to and fro, he felt some kind of inner calm… like his dream…

Something took hold of him, right then as he tried to remember.

'Alex. Come join me.' Alex's eyes burst open, a light of sorts pertaining from somewhere… But he saw fire. The unmistakeable tongues of flames which licked at his dreams, so hot they burned… or perhaps they weren't hot… no, they were hot, they burned and wavered with energy, like his soul… this was what was inside him. But now it had a voice… 'Alex.' It says. Alex turned around with a blank expression, wind whipping across his face. There was a man there. His shadowy blurry body seemed to be cloaked in darkness, yet the light of flames lit up his outline and his hair caught the colour of the fire…

'I know who you are' Alex's voice held strongly, glazed in a confidence he had never known, keeping calm despite the devastation around. The man turned. His outstretched hand held a flame. A small, blood red flame contained in the palm of his hand, a flame which yielded no light to give the figure a face. 'I thought so.' Alex. It was Alex.

'What is this?' His voice carried subtle venom, its potency great, yet haste, none.

'It's me.' Alex answered. The man's opposite hand revealed itself, unmerging from his side; his hand hovered over the flame, swirling over it slowly as the flames angled and tilted to his skin hungrily. His cold thin fingers reached into the touch of the flame and stroked it. Stroked it like a pet. Grooming the spires of red trailing from the central body. "I know you are. I can feel it." He said. He could feel the strokes at his inner being, each gentle touch tempering his soul, changing him.

Fire whipped through the air, slicing between Alex and himself in a wave, washing away the image as the flames spiralled around in a column. Alex stayed where he was. He wasn't afraid of the fire of the wall spinning around him and enclosing him in an infernal twister column around his body. A thin beam of light cut down, jutting out of the darkness above down the centre of the twister and onto Alex's face, and he stopped. The sinister blackness around him that was a background to the flames grew grey slowly. His white skin was illuminated by the twisting red and white lights about him as the world changed, and he was confused. The dancing blaze was reflected in his eyes, held set strongly in a gaze of dark fascination. The fire…. The heat he was feeling… the raw power of the flames, how they moved, live they lived… but it was different. The flames didn't flicker and flash as if they had a life of their own, he moved them. Each breath lowered the flames, then raised them on exhalation. The flames, their life, was not his life. He was their life.

He was engulfed wholly, not just by the flames but by the light, piercing shroud of darkness infinite and sweeping across him from everywhere. The black pit of fire he had once known, was a glowing void of life, personified as a twister of golden energy, wavering and shimmering.

"What… is this?" Alex's voice finally wavered itself, looking around quickly. The place that was his soul, his own dominion, was not what it appeared to be.

From somewhere, there was laughter. "You are such the narcissist, Alex." His own voice called back, cutting through the flaming twister. "The fire isn't evil, dumbass." He shut his eyes as the fire closed in on him, the column dragging its orange and crimson body of energy across his skin in an intense feeling of inner warmth as it became one with him. His eyes flashed open, something finally registering within him. "You see it now?"

"I get it…" He muttered. "Fire is balance… life and death…"

"Good…" from the flames, stepped forwards himself. Exactly the same torn clothing, exactly the same body, eyes, hair, everything. "Why are you so determined we are evil?" He asked innocently. "You're so sure I'm turning you into a monster, into an animal… I'm not." He said. "You're turning us into a monster because you're so severely misled as to what we are; I'm trying to keep us balanced, because I understand the other side." The other Alex stopped talking, and from his side his hand raised.

"I am alpha." He said. Alex raised his hand to meet it.

"I am omega." Alex chanted after him, staring back into his eyes.

"We are alpha." The other Alex said indefinitely. Alex paused for a second, realising what he was getting at.

"We are omega."

"We are life…"

"We are death…" the other Alex was gone.

Alex stood alone, inside that vortex of fire encircling him, thinking. The other Alex was gone. There wasn't another Alex. There never was. He understood.

I am alpha, I am omega.

I am life. I am death. I am fire.

Alex's head shook, and he was back. He looked down at his hands, shaking his head slowly. What the fuck?

"Alex!" his head jerked up at the surprise voice.

"Haley?"

"(Alex?)"

"(What? Where?)"

"(Where's Alex?)"

The bush ahead exploded, and a fluffy golden blur flew at Alex at full speed. Alex staggered backwards. "Arm… arm… careful of the arm- uugh!" Haley tackled him at full speed with reckless disregard for his injury. "Shit!" Alex cursed, grabbing hold of his shoulder as a look of sudden pain crossed Haley's face.

"Oh no-no-no!" She quickly jumped off Alex and ran around his side. "I'm sorry I'm so-so sorry I was just-" Haley cut off as Alex delivered her a sharp smack on the nose.

"Shaddup." He grinned as he sat upright, hiding a painful grimace beneath a smile. "It's okay, I can't feel anything anymore.

"(Alex!)" Alex's eyes went wide as suddenly the bush ahead exploded with more Pokémon.

"No-no-no-NO!"

…

…

"Well it's good to see you in one piece." Merlin commented as he poked the pile of dwindling embers with a stick for some reason, despite the afternoon air being pleasantly temperate.

"Yeah…" Alex threw the Pokémon behind him a quick glance, and then looked back with a sigh, a pain still twanging in his shoulder from the dogpile. He watched Merlin's stick with hazy eyes, a little fatigue beginning to spring up, but he wiped his eyes quickly with his thumb and forefinger and rid himself of it. "So… what happened with the tower?" He asked, forgetting how curious he had been earlier yesterday. "Did you get whatever done?"

Merlin looked to his right, at Derrick. The Smeargle wasn't paying attention, and had his mouth full to the brim with marshmallows. "Derrick?"

"Mmmf?" Derrick turned to Merlin.

"Did you get it done?"

Derrick nodded slowly. "Mmmf." He confirmed.

"So…" Alex drawled inconspicuously, scratching one hand on the back of Haley's neck without realising as she lay at his feet with a grin. "What was going on in there?" Merlin dropped his stick. It fell into the embers propped up on a rock.

He stood up slowly and stretched with a yawn. "Actually, there's something I need to talk to you about first." He made a "follow" gesture to Alex as he began walking away. Alex turned to Haley.

"Stay here, I'll be back soon." Haley nodded slightly with a short whine, opening one eye to watch Alex go.

Merlin trudged through the park for about a minute, before coming to a secluded spot under a different, larger tree. He turned around with that "confronting" sort of expression. "What can you tell me about that fight with the Absol?"

Alex shrugged, grinning a cocky grin as something came into his mind. "It was over 1,300 words long." Merlin stared, arms crossed. "What?" Alex shrugged again. "That's a pretty damn good length for a fight scene." He looked upwards and raised a high five to the sky. "Shot!"

Merlin glared. "Flattery's going to get you-"

(Shut it Merlin, the guy's talking..)

Merlin looked up now, blinking twice, then grunted, falling back against the tree. "Damn biased writer…"

"I'm the main character." Alex said with a shrug. "He' allowed to be biased."

(*snaps fingers* enough…)

Alex grinned sheepishly at the sky. "You're the boss." He said with a shrug. "But-"

(Nyeh! Less ass-kissing, more story)

Alex fell against the tree with a sigh, beside Merlin. "I'm not sure…" He said as memories came back of the experience he had just before Haley tackled him to the ground. "I was like… an animal…"

"That's how I would have put it." Merlin agreed.

"But it's okay." Alex pushed up off the tree, turning around and walking backwards slowly. "I had this conversation with myself about it. I think we're sorting it out. He… me just told me a couple of interesting things about myself… like an epiphany." He turned around and began walking back to their makeshift campsite.

Merlin grumbled in his throat a bit and followed after Alex. "Should that worry me as much as it does?"

"No." Alex said with a quick shrug. "He-slash-I just told me-slash-myself all this stuff about being "alpha and omega". I reckon I'm slowly beginning to understand what this is all about."

Merlin stopped. "He said alpha and omega?" he asked, a smile growing a bit.

"Yeah." Alex turned around. "And this stuff about "fire is balance" and so forth. I sort of get it. He-slash-I seemed to think that he-slash-I is-slash-am-"

"Stop it." Merlin cut in.

Alex shrugged again. "He says I'm not as much of a monster as I think I am, but I don't understand." He looked away again. "If I'm not an animal then what was that in the tower?"

Alex's head lifted a little as he felt a hand on his shoulder. "With great power comes great responsibility." Merlin stated simply. "You're just going through a weird phase with all your new power. You're still adjusting to all your changes in your body and mind, and that's why you went crazy like that. You don't know how to control yourself fully, the fire inside you."

"And I am still balancing." Merlin went silent briefly.

"You could say that." He said. "All fire types are like that at some point, and they lose control and go crazy, but they soon become used to it and have total control over it."

"You're saying I'm a fire type?"

"In heart and soul."

Damn… "One last thing." Alex turned back around to confront Merlin, staring him in the eyes. "Why were you egging me on? that was the thing that made me go off!"

"Because it unlocked something." Merlin said with a blank stare. "I did. I made you go crazy like that, but better then than another time. Now you know what can happen to you, and I dare say you learned quite a lot about yourself from that. And I wanted to see your power." Merlin grinned. "Like I said, you're going to become much stronger soon, and you're going to need to get used to a lot of power, so I suggest you prepare yourself." This time, Merlin left, leaving Alex behind in thought.

He stared at the ground as he thought about everything that happened, but one thing remained in his mind wholly.

"You're so sure I'm turning you into a monster, into an animal… I'm not." He said. "You're turning us into a monster because you're so severely misled as to what we are; I'm trying to keep us balanced, because I understand the other side."

"I'm not a monster. An animal… I'm not…" But… I think I am..?

It was getting dark now, and clusters of stars were beginning to dot the deep blue sky overhead, light peeking between the pine branches. Merlin had found some sleeping bags by some means, Alex decided not to ask how, and everyone was getting comfy around the fire. Well, everybody being Merlin and Derrick. Other Pokémon stored snug in their balls for now, Alex had towed Haley away from the campfire for reasons yet unknown to her.

"Alex, what is this about?" Haley begged as she followed after him, no idea of what was going on. "Is it the fire again?"

In a sense… Alex thought with a grimace. "We need to have a talk." He said. It took him a hell of a lot of courage to decide to do this, but it had to be done. Alex turned to face Haley and sat down on a tree root. Haley quickly sat just before him. "Haley… are you feeling alright?"

Haley nodded, her face not revealing anything the matter. "I'm fine… why? Is there something wrong with me..?" She looked to her left and right, checking her coat over for anything that could be wrong.

"No, nothing…" Alex's voice went soft. "You're perfect…"

"thank you…" Haley leaned towards Alex, but he held up a hand to her nose, stopping her just gently enough so he wouldn't hurt her feelings.

"It's just a concern I have." Alex said, managing to keep his voice from going shaky. "Are you feeling any different from usual? Anything out of the ordinary?"

Haley shook her head, becoming worried herself. "Not at all, but why do you insist on asking?"

"I'm just making sure you're okay." Alex answered quickly. "But you've been through a lot. Pokémon in your situation have been known to get a little funny… they sometimes feel weird feelings… and stuff…" As Haley and Alex stared awkwardly at one another, something clicked.

"You know…" Haley's heart sank.

"I do know…" Alex confirmed, keeping his voice as calming as he could in this situation. "You're in heat."

"Alex, i-"

"It's okay." Alex cut in quickly. "I understand. The doctor told me all about it… about what it does to you." Haley could do nothing but watch on, held immobile by silent guilt and shame now that Alex had found out how she was feeling, how lost she was to her body. "It's a natural thing… I just want to help keep you safe… that's all."

"I'm fine…" Haley said, chancing a step closer to Alex and placing a paw on his knee with a slight tear. "I can handle myself. I can hold off any male who may… attempt me… it's no concern." She tried to kill the topic as fast as she could.

"It is a concern, Haley." Alex said seriously and took her muzzle gently in his hands, forcing her eyes to look into his. "I'm worried about you. I'm worried about what could happen to you."

"I won't let a male near me." Haley promised, licking Alex's cheek, this time to comfort him. "I have no interest in these males. I love you." This time as Alex's head hung, eyes disappearing from view, Haley saw something cross his face she hadn't seen before. Shame. True, shame.

His lips moved so slowly. "It's not the other males you should be worried about…" Haley retreated a bit, shocked at what he was implying. "It's me you have to be careful of."

"I know you, Alex." She maintained, moving back closer again. "You wouldn't…"

"I don't know what I might and might not do." Alex interrupted, looking up again into Haley's worried gaze meeting his. "I'm changing. I don't know how I'm changing, or by how much I'm changing, but you have to know that I am, and I don't know what I'm going to feel as I change…" Haley didn't say anything as the two continued to stare each other down, so Alex continued. "You have to be careful around me from now on..."

Alex couldn't bear the moments passing after his last sentence. The sheer shame and guilt instilled in him, the thought that he could perhaps change at any minute and do something to Haley he would regret, it drove him crazy. He couldn't risk anything after that violent surge he felt under lost tower. He stood up quickly and walked back to camp, drowning in his own resentment of himself.

Haley's eyes watched keenly after him, quaking and trembling softly that he could even insist such a thing. a hatred in her heart burning for herself, a dreading, terrible hatred that she had brought this upon their relationship…

Samson hummed tunelessly to himself alone as he walked through the lab, fluorescent lights lighting up the darkness shining through the windows. He was alone.

In his hand he swirled a little test tube of blood, labelled with a complex number and two letters at the front. He stopped in front of a large machine in front of him and tilted the test tube slightly, removing the bung on top. He quickly brought up a syringe and drew a blood sample from the test tube, then replaced the bung. He then touched the needle on the edge of a dish on a face of the machine, and squirted the blood into it.

A few bulbs lit up as the machine set to work, processing the sample as Samson stepped back and observed.

A moment passed, one longer than it should have been, then the machine stopped, making an odd blinking noise.

"Huh… that's funny…" Samson bent forwards so his eye was level with a small screen on the side of the machine. He read it a few times, each reading spread the look of confusion he had. He cleared the machine, and repeated the process, thinking I was a minor technical glitch. Once again, the same result.

He grumbled to himself and reached for his cell phone in a pocket of his coat.

"This is… interesting…" The new scientist observed as he read the screen and its odd recordings.

"It did that the first time around." Samson explained, standing behind the newcomer. "So I put it through again with a new sample, and the same thing happened. There must be something wrong with the machine."

The newcomer shook his head and stood up. "This number…" He pointed to a number on the screen, stepping aside where Samson could read it too. The giant number that filled most of the screen. "I've seen it before, in Veilstone police department. That same number showed up on a scan. They thought the machine was buggered, but it was working fine."

"But surely," Samson began in protest, "to have such a high count of-"

"Samson." The newcomer butted in, face turning serious. "Whose blood is this?"

"Guy called himself Reggie." Samson said. "About yay high, red hair-"

"Red hair?" The newcomer butted in again. "Like ginger, or proper, blood red."

"Blood red." Samson said quickly. "His eyes too, were this funny brown, almost red…"

"The same guy." The newcomer looked at the ground briefly, then back up. "The same guy as they had in the police station."

"Who is he..?" Samson asked as he took another look at the screen, making sure for the tenth time his eyes weren't deceiving him.

"Alex Black." The other man answered. "Serial killer and arsonist."

Seriously, do people actually read this series? I doubt it sometimes…