Vero

The Nest has been a bit of an unorganized place as of recent. Ever since that gallade came from nowhere and tried to both take Shiro and kill Kage, most pokemon have been in a panicked state. It wasn't really surprising, after all, this place was always considered a safe place to stay for all of the Ravens that work here, and to have their security breached like that so suddenly was… unsettling to say the least. That's not to say it didn't affect me at all, but I feel like everyone else was freaking out about the situation more than they should have been. Then again, I don't think I've been here long enough to make a judgement like that.

Kage has been slipping in and out of consciousness for the past few hours, but he was in better condition than he was initially. The first day his injuries were given to him, he didn't wake up at all, so at least we had some signs that he was getting better. Honestly, when I brought him back to one of the Nest's infirmaries right after he was attacked, I was a bit more than worried. I knew he was training earlier that day, and his mentor isn't exactly lenient. Not only that, but the gaping wound on the side of his body made me nauseous. I was glad I stopped his bleeding as soon as I could, otherwise he might have actually bled out. I was, however, grateful that he had managed to do a lot of damage to that gallade before I stepped in to battle him, as it made the confrontation fairly one-sided. For some reason, the gallade didn't go through with their initial decision to mega-evolve on me, and although I don't understand why, I can't complain, it made my life a lot easier.

Along in the infirmary to watch over Kage with was Shiro, who still seemed shaken after the experience. I don't blame her, I may have thought that all of the other Ravens were taking this too harshly, but Shiro had more than an excuse for it. Even if you don't take her age into consideration, the fact that she knew that the gallade was there specifically to take her must have put a lot of fear into her mind. It was relieving that the situation was over and done with, and even more so that everyone made it out okay, despite the discord that came with it, but hopefully it wouldn't affect Shiro for too long. She already has enough to think about, this weighing on her won't help anything. Hopefully when Kuro and Naru come back, they can help with how she's feeling.

At the moment, Shiro was just staring at Kage, who was unconscious for the time being. The infirmary was a good place to have an injured pokemon rest, since the room looked a lot like a traditional hospital room. The walls had white tiles covering their entirety, along with the floor and the ceiling. The room had two counters on the side of the room opposite to the bed Kage was resting on, which were separated by the door leading into the infirmary. The bed that was used here had white cushions, contrary to the straw beds that most of the rooms had. It was necessary for certain tests or exercises that pokemon needed to do while they were here, plus it just helped with the comfort of the patient. Part of me wanted to try and comfort Shiro in some way, as she was obviously worried about Kage, but I felt like all of her worries matched up with mine, so there really wasn't much I could say to her, and I didn't want to lie. I just sighed to myself, waiting for Kage to eventually regain consciousness again, since that would make both Shiro and I feel better about the situation.

After a little while of leaning against a wall and resting my mind, I heard the door to the infirmary creak open, and I turned my head to look in that direction. I was expecting it to be someone who I was familiar with, but I wasn't expecting Kuro's mentor to walk into the room. After he closed the door behind him, I began to think of possible reasons why he might be here, but none really came to mind. I knew that he had some interaction with Shiro in the past, so maybe he was here to make sure she was alright after what happened? Kai turned his head to look at me with a poker face.

"Hello. I'm here to inform you that Kage should be waking up soon, according to some doctors, although, he's going to have some soreness to deal with." He informed me. It was… odd to get this information from Kai of all pokemon, as I don't think he's ever interacted with either me or Kage, but I just went with it. I was relieved to have the information regardless.

"Thank you, my worries were starting to come back, seeing as he hasn't stayed awake for more than ten minutes at a time." I looked at Kage and let a small smile creep onto my lips. Glad you're going to be okay.

Kai just nodded his head, but he looked like something was bothering him. As if to confirm my suspicions, he turned his head back up and looked at me again. "I have a quick question. You didn't happen to notice a scar on one of the eyes of the gallade that attacked you, did you?" He almost sounded concerned. Also, this was the second time I was being asked this, the first time coming from Core, wanting to confirm that the gallade did indeed have a scar over one of his eyes after he got in touch with Kuro and Naru via these strange mechanisms that communicate your thoughts. Why does this keep coming up..?

"Yes," I put one of my claws over my eye to imitate what kind of scar the gallade had. "Right about here, he had a scar that kept one of his eyes closed." Kai seemed to think about this information I had just given him for a few seconds with his head down, before looking back up at me once more.

"Okay, thank you. One more question, are you familiar with a leader here named Aven? The flygon?" Alright, now I was really starting to get confused. Why did he come up all of a sudden too? I nodded my head to Kai, after all, it was kind of hard to forget the 'Nest leader' who tried to kill you by throwing you off a multi-hundred thousand foot drop. "Good. If at all possible, keep that girl away from him at all costs." Kai rose one of his paws to point at Shiro, who had just been observing the conversation from the side. She tilted her head, and I wondered why as well. "I… can't really say why, but you need to keep her away from him no matter what. Otherwise, we may have a repeat event of the other day."

Well, I kind of had my question answered. I suppose if that gallade was a Void member, and Aven was as well, then they would both be after Shiro, but then the 'why' came back to my head. Why did the Void want Shiro in the first place? And how does Kai know about Aven if they're both leaders at the Nest? One question was answered, only to bring two more out into the open.

"You don't really need to be secretive about why Shiro can't be near Aven." Kai looked up at me questioningly. "I'm not going to pry on how you know about it, but I've nearly been killed by him in the past, in the Void's base no less, so I know that he's dangerous."

"Right, I forgot you were one of the three that got taken by the Void a while ago." Kai seemed to re-enter his mind and look back to the ground again. I was glad he came to inform me that Kage was going to be okay, and the heads up about Aven showed me that Kai actually cared about his position here at the Nest, his position to keep pokemon safe. I'm actually having a hard time imagining him beating up Kuro right now…

"Just how dangerous is Aven compared to the rest of the Void though? I mean, when I ran into him, he seemed like he had a high position there."

"More than you can imagine." Kai responded without looking up. "Keeping your distance is the best thing you can do when it comes to Aven, because if you press your luck too much, he won't hold back." Kai shook his head.

"Do you have any idea why the Void might want Shiro?" Kai squinted his eyes towards the ground for a second, an action I found a bit odd. He went into another few moments of thinking, as if considering whether to tell me something or not. I had no idea how he knew so much in the first place, or what more information he might have, but he obviously had more knowledge of what went on behind the scenes than most Ravens, so I was going to salvage this while I could. After a minute or two passed, Kai took a breath and looked at me.

"Shiro has been given a drug that took away her memories." My eyes stayed on Kai's, but I did see Shiro sudder out of the corner of one of them. Kai almost looked like he didn't want to continue because of her being there, but I nodded at him to signal more of an explanation. It would be better for Shiro to hear it first-hand anyway. "I'm… fairly positive, based on patterns from some of the Void's victims in the past, that this is the first time the Void has tried using this drug, and they want to monitor its effects on the body. In order to confirm their research, they would need Shiro back." Kai gave a small sigh. "That's only one possibility though, there's an alternative that can either work in our favor, or backfire."

"And that is?" I curiously asked.

"Certain drugs that the Void produces have… varying side-effects. I don't mean to scare Shiro, but it's very possible that this drug did more than just erase her memory." I looked at Shiro to see her begin to slightly shake, but I rested one of my paws on her back to help her a little bit. I felt guilty for pushing this subject, despite Shiro being right here, but we needed information. "Now, this may not necessarily be something to worry too much about. It's most likely not going to kill her, and it likely won't hurt her. Considering that the Void went as far as to send an admin into the Nest in order to attempt to retrieve her leads me to believe that. If it was going to make her suffer or kill her, they would just leave the situation as is and wait for the result to take place. The fact that they're putting so much effort into getting Shiro back there… makes me think that the drug is going to do something much more than just cause death."

I started to rub Shiro's back, hopefully comforting her through this information dump. Admittedly, something Kai just said bothered me, but I couldn't think about it right now. "Do you have any idea what it might do?"

"If I had to give my best guess, I'd say it may enhance her body strength, or control over her element. By the looks of certain Void members, it looks like a drug like that is what they're trying to produce as of now, but I'm not certain." Kai looked at Shiro. "You should let someone know if you feel different at all at any time. It might have something to do with what they gave you." Shiro shakily nodded her head. "In the future, if anything happens, relay the information to me, and to Kuro and Naru assuming they don't already know. " After that statement, Kai abruptly turned around and exited the room. It almost looked like he was getting uncomfortable with the conversation.

I thought back to something that Kai said in the middle of our conversation, something that bothered me. I told myself I wouldn't question how Kai knew all of this information, but I couldn't really ignore it after what was said. He would be able to figure out what the Void was trying to do through patterns in their victims, but not certain Void member's positions. He called that gallade an admin… and Core described him as a member when he talked to me… So how would Kai know what Core doesn't?

I turned my head behind me at the sound of moving. Kage was stirring in his sleep, and looked as if he was finally going to wake up for good. I decided that I would talk this uneasiness I had over with someone else another time, and focus on Kage for now.

Kuro

I felt myself wake up, but I just stared at the back of my eyelids. I found it hard to move, and I didn't really know where I was. Below me, I felt cold stone, like I was still outside somewhere, but under my head felt decidedly softer, rough, but not quite as much as the ground below my body. I felt sluggish, sore, and immobile. I took a guess and thought that the poison that was injected into me by Grace hadn't fully worn off yet, and that's why my body didn't only feel sore, but also had a distinct numbness to it. Because I wasn't dead, and because of the texture below my head, I was able to deduce that we were somewhat safe, or at least, not captured by the Void, which was a positive. With that thought in mind, I let my body relax for a few more minutes.

After said time passed, I slowly opened my eyelids, looking up at a blue sky, and seeing the top of two buildings on either side of me. Luckily, the buildings were blocking the sun for the most part, so I wasn't practically blinded upon opening my eyelids. I was laying on my side, and my head was resting on my bag, which was covered by my scarf. I managed to lift my head up after a little bit of effort, and after the lulling pain in my neck settled down, I turned my head to observe the area I was in.

The first thing I noticed was that Naru was also passed out, lying right next to me in a similar fashion. I gave a large sigh of relief that she was okay, because I remember her coming to help me near the end of our battle with Grace, but her poison was affecting my hearing rather negatively. I could tell Naru shouted something from right next to me, and I couldn't make out exactly what she said, and when Grace asked me how I was still standing, I had to read her lips. In short, I barely had any idea of what was happening right at the end, other than the fact that I used my synchronize to poison Grace while I still had the strength to do so. I felt relieved that Naru was okay, as I was unsure.

I noticed something else while looking at her though, and that was the giant, crimson-stained bandage on her head. I remembered that Naru got slashed pretty badly during the fight, and I was glad that it was bandaged, but that rose an obvious question. Who did this..?

That wasn't all, she also had a lot of smaller bandages all over her body seemingly to cover any other wounds we received from Grace that weren't nearly as bad as the one on her head. I looked down at myself to see that I was patched up the same way, although not quite as much. What weirded me out was that I had bandages over wounds that I didn't even remember receiving in the first place. She must have hit me even more than I thought…

While looking around at my surroundings, I didn't see anyone other than the sleeping glaceon next to me, which made me wonder who exactly found us and made sure we didn't bleed out, and not leave us in the middle of a street. Who would take the time to help us and then leave immediately..? Considering my past experiences with this town, it was a bit odd to be helped out by who I assumed to be complete strangers, especially after we were kind of the cause of quite a bit of damage to the buildings surrounding us, but they may have taken our injuries into account and assumed it was the work of someone else. Either way, I'm glad whoever did this took the time.

I was about to attempt to push myself off of the ground, but I immediately realized that was a mistake. I could barely feel any of my legs, so moving them in order to stand was not going to happen. Even if I did manage to get up off of the ground, I would probably fall back down immediately. I wonder how long this poison is going to last..? I let out a sigh, hoping that nothing would happen while the two of us were pretty much incapacitated on the ground.

After a few more minutes passed, I felt the numbness in my legs slowly dissipate, and I attempted to get up. After falling to the ground a few times, I managed to push my upper body up with my two forepaws. I began to take deep breaths, making sure not to fall down again. All that was left was to push up off of my back paws, and stand myself up. I didn't feel nearly as numb as I did right as I woke up, but it was still there, as was muscle soreness, but it wasn't to the point of stopping my movement. I took another deep breath and began to push off the ground with my two back paws, and I started to rise off of the ground. Once my body was being fully supported by my four legs, I just stood in one spot and tried to get my legs used to standing. I was a bit unsteady, but I held my stance and felt more numbness leave my body. If I just stay like this, then I should be better in a little bit.

I turned my eyes to Naru, who was uncomfortably twitching a little bit. She was probably close to waking up, which was good, because I felt like we should get out of the position we found ourselves in as soon as we could. Grace seemed to be gone, and that poison was going to do just as much to her as it did to me, if not more, so I wasn't worried about her coming after us. I was more worried about what other pokemon might do if they find us in this kind of condition. With the rate that my nerves are coming back, I should be able to move better in a few-

My thoughts were cut off when something swept under one of my back legs, throwing me off-balance and making me fall back onto the ground, my head missing my bag and colliding with the stone. I felt an ache travel up my head, and the numbness in my body return a little bit. I let out a small groan in both pain and slight annoyance. I looked behind me to see one of Naru's back legs right next to mine, she probably moved in her sleep and kicked me by accident. I sighed, but also smiled, before moving my head back to my bag while waiting for the ache in my head to settle down a little bit.

After a few more minutes of not moving at all, Naru's body began to shift more, scraping against the rocky ground under us. I turned my head to look at her, and picked it up off of my bag, the ache having settled. I watched as Naru's eyes tiredly opened, and looked up into the sky, just as I did. She let out a small groan, similar to what I did after she accidentally kicked me. I would think she's a lot more sore than I was, considering the wound on her head. After staring at the sky for a bit, Naru looked at me as I was trying to push myself on my front two paws again. She immediately put a paw to her head after moving it an inch, and groaned again. She ended up being hit in the head multiple times during our confrontation with Grace, so it was probably killing her. If my soreness was any indication, than she was probably feeling worse, as I didn't take multiple hits to any one area of my body, just a lot of hits in general.

"Hey, Naru." I greeted, prompting her head to turn towards me. "How are you feeling?" A bit of a stupid question.

"Ugh…. my head feels like it's about to explode…" Her voice sounded pained. "What about you?"

"I'm numb all over, and sore, but probably not as much as you." Naru looked up with her head resting on the bag beneath her.

"Didn't you pass out before me? How did we get here?" Naru slowly turned her head from one side to the other, looking at the walls that surrounded us, but she flinched every time she moved, which was hard for me to watch.

"I'm not sure who took us here," I felt the nerves in my two front legs begin to come back to me. "But, whoever it was, I'm glad they did. Otherwise we would have been out in the middle of the street, and who knows how that would have turned out…"

"No… kidding…" Naru groaned again. She really must be in a lot of pain…

"You should keep resting, it'll help with your pain." I really didn't like seeing Naru like this. It stirred up a very uncomfortable feeling within me, especially since I knew I couldn't do much to help her with it.

"Will you be okay... here by yourself? In case someone dangerous comes by?" I shook my head.

"I'll be fine. I'm starting to feel my muscles again, so I'm sure I can deal with a problem if one arises."

"If… you say so…" Naru slowly closed her eyes and her breathing became steady. She had taken her forepaw off of her head and placed it to the side of her body, on top of her other forepaw. While she was laying on her side, facing me, I realized that the reddening of the bandage on the top of her began to leak out, which meant her head wound was still bleeding. I tried my hardest and managed to slide my body back a few feet using my two front legs, and I dug my head into the bag I had just been laying on. After a bit of searching, I found a small roll of bandages that I brought here, although, it looked a lot smaller than when we first arrived here. Not that it was surprising.

With a bit of creative movement from my front two paws, I managed to peel off a large bandage from the roll and stick the top part of it to my leg. I then adjusted my body more in order to face Naru. I bent my head down and managed to grip the very end of the bandage on her head with my teeth, and I slowly pulled it off, careful to not disturb Naru to the best of my ability. After putting the bloodied bandage to the side, I got a good look at Naru's wound, which initially made me flinch. She had a deep red slash on her head, which was now leaking out more blood. Trying my best to not think about how that felt, I bent my neck down to my leg, and slowly took the bandage off, taking a few barely visible strands of my fur with it. I, somewhat bashfully, brought my face back down right over Naru's. I adjusted my head so the end of the bandage I wasn't holding landed on one side of her wound, and then placed the side I was holding on the other end. After bringing my head back up, I took a deep breath, and then rose one of my front paws, putting the weight of my upper body onto one leg. I took a second to steady myself, and then gently placed my other paw on the end of the bandage on Naru's head, before slowly smoothing it out, once again, trying my best to not disturb her in any way. Once I saw that the bandage was firm, and now absorbing whatever blood was still leaking from Naru's head, I placed the paw that I used back on the ground, making it much easier to hold myself up.

I took in another breath, and then pushed my back two legs against the ground, pushing the rest of my body up to stand. My back legs were shaking, but I was standing, and after my whole body was used to standing with the numbness, I could give walking a shot, which would probably take me a few tries. I definitely felt better now than when I woke up initially, and I felt ready to move my body. I lifted one of my forepaws off of the ground and placed it down a little bit ahead of my body, and then did the same with one of my back paws. I then took my other forepaw and placed it forward to match with the first one, and repeated the step with my other back paw, successfully taking a step forward, but it took a lot more effort than I would have liked.

I took a few more steps, slowly walking in a circle. Each time I moved my paws forward again, I felt my muscles resisting, but step after step, I felt the numbness in my body slowly leave me. My movements began to feel fluent again, despite still feeling somewhat forced. After about fifteen small circles, I felt confident in my ability to walk, although, I was swaying back and forth a bit on occasion. I didn't mind it too much though, it was a lot better than my lack of movement beforehand. I decided that it would be a good idea to walk to the entrance of the alleyway and see what kind of place we ended up in, so I did just that.

Once I made it to the point of entry, I looked back and forth down the street, observing the many random pokemon that were passing by. This was definitely not where Naru and I battled Grace. The buildings were different colors, as well as sizes. They were a lot smaller here, and there was no damage to the road or the buildings themselves, so this was clearly not the same place. We should apologize for the damage later…

The street we were next to seemed to be somewhat crowded, a large amount of pokemon walking down it, nearly filling the entire thing. I quickly adjusted my scarf to cover my Raven symbol, or as quickly as I could, still feeling just a little bit numb. I didn't want there to be any more Void members lurking in this town, and if they were present, I didn't want them to jump Naru and I while we were unable to defend ourselves well. We were playing a waiting game at this point, the two of us needed to be in a half-decent condition before we moved out again, but I wasn't sure how long that was going to take. It's not like I have the strength to carry Naru at the moment, and she shouldn't be walking much until she feels better.

I was about to turn around and walk back to Naru, but I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, something quickly gliding above the crowd of pokemon walking down the streets. At first, I couldn't make out what it was, but it looked like there were two of them, and they seemed to be flying back and forth over the large group of passing pokemon. The two blurs of motion looked like other pokemon, although because of their fast movement, I couldn't really determine what species they were. One of them looked mostly dark, with a hint of red in the blur, and the other one had a combination of blue and white. The two shapes seemed to slow down a bit as they got closer to the alleyway, and I began to make out features, such as one of them having large, cloud-like wings, the other set of wings being a dark color, matching that of the blur. Wait… Isn't that…

The two shapes seemed to notice me looking at them and then sped in my direction swiftly, both of them stopping right in front of me after nearly slamming into a majority of the crowd. Because they no longer looked like unrecognizable clumps of matter, I was able to identify the two pokemon hovering a little bit off of the ground in front of me. One of them was Aria, and the other one was, oddly enough, Cole, the one I battled in the semi-finals of the applicants' tournament. I tilted my head in slight confusion. What are they doing here..?

"Silent Umbreon!" The Altaria greeted me with a nickname I wasn't too fond of. "Glad to see you're okay! I was worried about you and Naru!" She was… worried?

"Everyone at the Nest is panicking right now, so I'm glad we didn't lose two Ravens all the way out here. Glad to see you're all right!" Cole told me. This was the first time I had ever spoken with him, he held a similar energetic tone to Aria's, although not quite to the same volume as her. Cole exaggeratedly put one of his wings in front of his chest and tried to bow his neck exaggeratedly. "As you probably know, my name is Cole, nice to officially meet you, Silent Umbreon!" I appreciated his politeness, but not the nickname that Aria seemed to have spread to him. In response, I gave a small chuckle, hiding the slight annoyance I felt. After all, considering the situation that Naru and I found ourselves in, I was more than happy to see these two right now.

"Nice to officially meet you too, Cole." I bowed my head slightly. "Also, I'd prefer if you called me Kuro." Cole laughed in response.

"I would have greeted you normally, but Aria convinced me that you had a normal nickname that other pokemon called you, I guess I should have stayed skeptical." He took a quick glance at Aria who was chuckling to herself. I just lightly sighed and smiled.

"It's no big deal. What are you two doing here though?" I curiously asked, and in response, I received a confused look.

"What do you mean? Looking for you and Naru of course! Neither of you have responded to Core trying to get in touch with you, so he sent us to come and investigate!" Aria exclaimed rather loudly. When did Core try and come into contact with us..? Last time he sent signals to Naru and I, the two of us recognized it instantly, and it seemed like it was a hard thing to miss, but then a possibility popped into my head. The two of us have been out for a while…

"It's… kind of a long story." I told them with a small sigh.

"I would think so, judging by the bandages plastered all over your body." Cole added. "But, first off, where's your partner?" I shakily stepped to the side and gave Cole and Aria a line of sight towards Naru, who was still resting on the ground, using her bag as a pillow. She looked like she was resting peacefully, but I knew that the second she woke up, her pain would be back in full force.

"The two of us had a bit of an unfortunate encounter yesterday." I glanced back at Naru again. "We ran into a Void admin, an extremely dangerous one at that. She put us through the fight of our lives, and we barely made it out alive." I thought back to what we went through last night. It really was a miracle that the two of us were alive after that. "We both took a beating, but Naru definitely got the worst of it. Luckily, the two of us are both alive, but it's pretty clear that we didn't get out of that unscathed. She ended up getting hit in the head a lot, and even has a pretty severe wound spreading across the top of her head. Hopefully she'll come out of this all right…" I said worriedly.

"Wow… sounds like you two had an excuse to not respond to Core, sorry for yelling so loudly earlier." Aria said with a nervous chuckle, raising one of her cloud-like wings in the air. I shook my head.

"No, you and Core had every right to worry, there wasn't anything telling you the kind of situation we were in, so you don't need to apologize. I don't think we should move from here until Naru is feeling better though, her head was absolutely killing her when she woke up the first time." I explained to the two of them, and received two separate nods.

"Well, I'm glad the two of you are all right! Plus, I want a rematch with you sometime." Cole rose one of his wings and pointed it towards me. "You beat me because I didn't think you could do much against an aerial opponent, but you clearly proved me wrong… I've gotten a lot better, so you should spar with me when we get back! When you're healed of course." I smiled at Cole's challenge. To think, this is the first time I've interacted with him since our battle in the applicants' tournament, and he already wanted a rematch. I forgot how competitive some pokemon could be, and Cole certainly had some competition ready for me.

"Sure, why not?" I told him, changing my expression to a more challenging smile. "But you know, I've gotten better too. It won't be a walk in the park, especially when I take experiences from my mentor."

"I wouldn't expect anything less! I'll look forward to it!" Cole exclaimed with a similar expression.

"You know, when you talk, you're pretty entertaining Silent Umbreon!" Aria exclaimed with a laugh. "I didn't take you to be the kind that had any kind of competitive spirit, but I guess you proved me wrong!" I kept a smile on my face but let out a sigh.

"Even when I actually talk, you're not going to lay off that name, are you?"

"Not a chance!"

Cole and Aria both laughed, and I held my smile. It felt strange to interact with these pokemon so openly, despite having minimal interaction with them in the past. I didn't even feel awkward like I usually would, I was just speaking with others normally, something that wasn't possible a month and a half ago. Also, these were my teammates, fellow Ravens, pokemon I know I'd have to interact with when the time comes, so it was good to know that I'd be able to if the need arises. It was also good to know that there really were other pokemon on my side, other pokemon than the ones I usually interact with.

I turned around and shakily walked towards Naru again, wanting to check up on her. I still had more than a few issues walking, but I was slowly getting better as time went on. I stood a few feet away from Naru, observing the bandage that I replaced on her head. Luckily, it looked like her head wound had stopped bleeding for the most part, as there wasn't any blood leaking from the bandage that I had placed on her head like there was previously. Looks like she's doing a little better.

I looked up towards the blue sky, thinking about the events of yesterday a bit more. Besides the injuries we sustained, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't shaken. That Void admin… She acted so… nonchalant. Like she didn't have any type of association with an organization that has probably killed millions. Yet, even with this attitude, she terrified me. I was knocked around like a toy, not doing any damage in return aside from one attack. To think she wasn't even trying… I shivered slightly. I can't let myself freeze in front of any more Void members… But would I be able to move if I needed to face her again? The uncertainty of my own future actions was getting to me, so I told myself I'd talk with Naru about it when she got better. I already knew what the result would be if I kept it within myself, so I decided that I wasn't going to make that mistake again.

I turned to look at Cole and Aria, ready to explain my situation.

Hello Readers!

Another chapter done, I'm trying to get a chapter out before a week passes from the previous chapter, so hopefully, I'm able to stick to this. (I may end up releasing chapters in less than seven days depending on my schedule, but I'll try my best to not update after seven days.)

I've gotten quite a few more reviews/PMs lately, which really, REALLY makes me happy, so thank all of you who communicate with me! Once more, thanks to my beta-reader to clean up all of my stupid mistakes! (8-BitUmbreon) [You're welcome]

See You Next Chapter!