Wave: Epidemic The Wave: A Shallow Reach (1), a pokémon fanfic

Part 5.5 - The Wave

Period Six - A Shallow Reach (Episode One)

Fate THREE: Nirva

Note: Hey guys! Longer chapter here. Action's gonna start kicking off again. Turns are still as sharp as over, so you should really hold onto your hats, 'cause THEY MIGHT FLY OFF DUE TO THE SPEED AND VELOCITY OF THE TURN, CAUSING INERTIA TO DRAW YOU TOWARD THE CENTER OF SAID TURN, WHICH MAY ENSUE IN LOOSE OBJECTS LEAVING THE PREMISES OF YOUR BODY. Buzzang~! :D

DISCLAIMER! I don't own Pokémon! All characters belong to me and stuff, but any Pokémon involved are of their respective owners.

Here, a stain of night in the broad daylight, I was. I became a concept before a concrete creature. Then, I became a very busy espeon.

That place again—Ridge Hospital. It was as tall as a mistake that cost lives. I looked up and I saw walls of white, broken glass, shutters; indeed, I shivered. I found it a disquieting sight. It meant birth, but death all the while. Why, because of me, it meant rebirth now. What a beacon. What a conflux. What a seed for the tree of my Blue to bloom across the world. I had my Bell, too, but his color was fading from Blue to Black. His ring was succinct as it should not have been; however, unlike that ring, the eyes were cloudy—I couldn't see past them. All of the cycles before now have been legible books, and I've myself become a living library, a phantom study of quasi-history, branches, the many of my Blue, some of the Red.

The library's wings have spread, opening to an egregious Black and a terrible White, the former shaped like a smile, the latter shaped like a cross. And how little could I forget of the shape that remained my nemesis through and throughout the folds of time and the fibers of space. Oh, Circle. Hatred fed me to feed a fire for you. But, on this plane—on this cycle—I could not deploy a vengeance. I could but spare the life of an enemy for the sake of a color. I hated them. I fell, because of them. I fell into holes deep within the universe. My scars ran so deep that my body no longer had space for them, and I no longer had space for a body, and space no longer had a need for me. Oh, Circle. I haunted you, because you digested my willpower, made it your pride, and defined it as victory. Yes, congratulations, Circle. You defeated me.

The weight of my head was as real as though a head was there. I hid my gaze from the hospital building, showering the street with a ruby gleam—my own, to which it responded with somber gravel, raindrops hopping at my paws. Fear, I felt. No more hatred. I lied to myself. I lied to the boy whose life I rendered broken, unwoven. I feared, because, I, as an espeon, could not predict a sorry thing anymore. I became a tool of my own design. I wanted to change the world forever, but I forgot that changing was so difficult. Now, I was to change, but how could I? I couldn't see anymore. I couldn't know the future with so many new colors—the Black and White.

I was like the humans. They were so afraid, so they bit at the hand that feeds. They feared the unknown, as I had feared, but never as I had opened to show, for ever was there a time I could talk it could only be to a sibling. I called them my Champions, and they were so distant from humanity. My, was that they only way I could make them understand me? Take their humanity? Truly, I understood nothing about humans. By that, I understood nothing about life.

Yet, the urge to spread my Blue was as mighty a tug as a puppeteered heart. Yes, I must have become an alien creature. I was nothing but the instinct in which I was a mother putting her children on this world. Nary did I detest the Circle anymore, then, as I had felt such a turgid concern for the boy whose world I rocked into a shallow lullaby. To save him from the Black was my new mission.

But I have failed, because there were two boys, and the other smelled of paranoia and butterfly dust.

Once, I believed I could save this world by destroying it.

I was going to be the hero.

Then, I believed I could change this world, then save it.

I was going to be the savior.

Finally, I lost someone named Laza and became someone else who called himself Laza. I lied.

I became a liar who believed his own central fiction.

Gamma. Hundreds and hundreds upon hundreds of these cycles, and Gamma taught me that the mind was infinite. Rearranging neurons, recoloring thoughts, moving tiny, near-imaginary particles around created a brand new person. All it took was one droplet to make me, and a boy who believed in something.

Perhaps... I understood. I was afraid, now, because of another Gamma in this world. Perhaps even I could be made into someone I was not. I could be transformed. But, where did this fear come from? Did it come from Laza, or was it hiding somewhere inside of the first Laza? Who was the first Laza?

Goodness...

The shame became quantum.

The hero became the fool. The hero was always the fool.

…

A head hung low, ghostly whiskers drooping by the weight of the raindrops. I was corporeal now, but my body was mere imagination, perception of the senses. They only saw me as I was now because I let them. I visited their minds. I made their minds perceive me. I made their minds perceive themselves transforming.

Gamma... You became real when the world began to perceive you.

All was perception. All was imagination.

And I, the imaginary king.

…

But, a voice in my heavy head gave it substance where substance was forbidden.

"Oh, friend," she manifested, clear as dust in a sunbeam. "Now you're back to square one. Why do you do that? We're working together. Remember? Heh, if anyone has the right to complain about whether or not they are imaginary, it should be me."

"Luna," I hummed, the warmth of her echoing voice shedding its silken warmth into my heart again. "A participant I understand even less than Edge. How long do you plan to reside within my head?"

"Only until we get your piece back. That's the whole reason you made Sera, is it?"

"I would cringe to call her a means to an end," I disclaimed. Nary was any Champion of mine a tool, yet Sera and that boy Zatch happened to be so close in their fibers of fate.

"I would never refer to her as such either, mind you," she told me—yes, she heard my thoughts, for they were neighbors to her, and yet I was speaking aloud, only to reassure myself that I sounded like less of a fool. "It looked like she and Zatch did well together."

"Yes, but," I sighed. "How could that piece of the meteorite contribute to your release from me?"

"It's a task to explain when I can hear all of your questions at once. It's mildly crowded in here, friend."

"I am... sorry that you've had to put up with that for so long now."

"Don't apologize. I should be sorry for stepping in on your most personal space. But, in the end, I think you needed a little push to get away from the Imaginary King idea. Your mind told me all the times you went up against this world and lost to a group of very hopeful kids. It also told me about the color Red."

I felt something sour sting my tongue. Red, yes. I knew the Red, the tinge of blood, very well. It was a Gamma that came from me. It could not exist without me, because I happened to be on the opposite side of the same coin. Blue and Red. White and Black...

"Why do I force myself to forget the name of the Red King within each cycle?" I asked. Surely, she could not know, for she knew as far as my mind reached, and my mind put blotches of black over the spots where the Red King showed his twofold face.

"I would be a damsel in distress before I knew that, friend. However, I know that YOU know that the Azabell would know: What he does is he calls this Red King by another name. He calls the Red King 'Laza'. Why, Laza?"

I shook my head immediately, almost as if to fling her echoing voice from my thoughts for a moment. My back ached with a dormant fury, as though I had a back, a spine, a means to perceive pain.

"He's no 'Laza'. He doesn't deserve a name remotely close to it. I am Laza, because my name is Lazareon, and his name will go unspoken. How could he be Laza if his name is not Lazareon?"

"But how do you know that if you fail to remember his name?"

"I know it," I confirmed, welding uncertainty and determination together. "I also know that you know I am lying."

"Yes, friend...What's your name?"

"I had told you, no? What is this question, Luna?" I leered behind my eyelids, shutting them, attempting to gaze within. My dream-woven heart was beating faster than I could muster up the articulation for a question following the previous.

"I look back and I see something that connects you and the Liberty Azabell. I won't speak it, because it would unravel you. Metaphorically speaking, it's your Cross, your shade of White. This White is much to bright for you to look at."

"I don't understand to what you..."

"I know you do. And I already know the answer to the question I asked. I want to hear you say it, so that I know you can face him."

"I can't face him. I hate him..."

"You hate whom?"

"You already know." I growled.

"For you to say it..."

"I hate Laza."

"Why?"

"Because his name," I opened my eyes and looked into one of the many windows of the decrepit hospital. "Is not Lazareon."

"And your name is Laza because?"

"Because I wanted to be him, so that he could never exist. That is how much I hated him. I hate Laza, and Edge would even call him Laza as he would me. But, Edge hates me as I hate him..."

A confused tear, ghostly, falling, mixing with smoggy rain...

"Do you see, friend?"

"I... need to help this world... I need to save it... I need to save the world..."

"Try again."

"No, that's enough. You know it yourself. We both know where I will be within minutes of time."

I pictured a boy of blue, eyes of golden, a bell around his neck. He was standing before a tree as tall as the hospital, his own place of thought. In puddles, we were mere reflections of one another. I found one at my forepaws and looked into it. I saw what the light told me. It told me, 'espeon'. But I knew that it lied. I was that light, and that light lied to the world.

"It's time to face him. It's time to face hatred, Blue King."

…

I gave the place of my birth one final moment of silence. Luna did likewise. I awakened, and my birth came before me—a birth by sleep, so to speak.

I turned, tail high. No longer was I to fade beneath the folds of time-space and human thought. I was real. I was a real person, a real espeon, with a real quarrel in this world tainted by my pride. Hatred, my greatest adversary, was not afraid of me. I was afraid of hatred. I made my subjects love me like the king I always wanted to be, but I had done so out of reach of their will.

Now, I stepped from this building, seeking to be hated, to be freed. Again, I sought liberty, and it began with Azabell.

The end of us...

It came ever closer, and so much sooner than in any previous Wave.

…

-PERIOD-SIX

…

"Laura?" Kat asked, the chorus of raindrops singing over her.

I grimaced, sheepish and struck silent by the way she had asked. Her tone went low at the end of the name, implying she knew Laura—at the very least, she knew Laura well enough to pronounce the name so confidently. I took a breath; it was not deep, but it was still a breath. I couldn't get away from the scent of blood somewhere close by, and the breath served to reinforce that. It did little to help the topic.

"Laura was the first person I met. When I ran into her, I saw in her eyes how she perceived me: I was someone like Laza. When that happened, I could only imagine what she saw around me. Gamma can make you see the whole environment change, and when it does that, you know you want the world to look a little different. I saw that in her, and I realized how important she could have been to Brother. It was only until she got messed up that I understood she was important to me."

I did what I could to sound genuine, even though the words hurt to articulate. That was before I looked—really looked—at the sight ahead of me: A street, a decline, a few acres of farmland here and then, and an orientation of buildings that looked like they didn't belong a good distance down and down the road ahead. I saw it before, but not from this spot. Was that the school? I'd forgotten what the kids here called it, but I'd been there with Laura. Something always drew me there, burrowing a hole into my pseudo-lungs and stifling my breath until I was standing in a certain spot, looking at a certain thing that was so painful, all of my qualms just felt painless in comparison.

The smell of rain, given the distance of gray, was pungent now, emphatic, loud on my nose and my sight, but quiet on my ears. I had the urge to run forward. I loved running. One of my sisters loved running with me. I wanted to remember her, but I had to do my duty before I was allowed to. Laza wouldn't give me memory until I gave him an edge on this world. 'Till I gave him the edge...

"I only met her today," I disclaimed, red welling up beneath the fur at my cheeks. Innocent red. Pure red. Not the bad Red. "But this is still my first day visiting this land. I'm picking up bad first impressions."

"It's... not normally like this." Kat sighed. I felt the sigh against my chin.

"I know. The impressions don't come from humans. They come from Gamma. Hey, talk 'n walk, yeah?" I offered, trying to make a smirk at the black eevee. I wasn't sure what my lips did to her, other than tell her I was scared.

She didn't say much to it. She made a noise with her nose like she wanted to start laughing, but it never took off. We started our descent along the paved road, worn by the rain. There were indentations on either side of the road as if to catch the water—drains of a kind. I watched the water flow down, before dispersing into the dirt, a portion of sidewalk cracked and wrecked, with no one to fix it. The water bled into the street and made a puddle. It also disappeared into the thirsty earth. It branched. It went in two directions and it had no choice. Someone could come along and fix it, insuring that it flowed one way. Another could come to triplicate the flow. Then you had three branches.

It all looked familiar, but foreign, and too smothering of a concept for my head to wrap around and squeeze any sense out of.

I couldn't make any sense of Kat either, but I looked back at her like a dependent child. I wanted her around 'cause she was another person—admittedly, she was helping me out by being an eevee, too, but her innocence looked long faded. She had more smells to her than I had (even though you couldn't smell yourself all that well after a time) and that pulled, tied, and bound me to her.

"I know Laura." she said, monotone, telling me she knew that I knew.

"I kinda guessed."

"Am I that easy to read?" she added, making a smirk much better than my own. "Yeah, she and I are Seniors at the school."

"Seniors? You're not that old." I shook my head. Senior? I couldn't follow that. What'd that mean? Was that a term for something else in the context given? Gah, didn't know. Had to figure it out.

"What? What're you—oh, dammit Nirva, no. Seniors are what fourth-year students are called there," she barked back, accented with a chuckle and a playful squint. Still, I felt a bit downplayed, but I let it slip by. "Laura and I have been there for four years. I don't talk to her much. She's too preppy for me. I don't have a thing against her, but I never knew her on a personal level. She knew me though. Everyone knew me. I was a freaking monster girl, or... whatever. I wouldn't be surprised if she was one of those girls who liked listening to rumors and gossip and shit about me. 'Guess that's what put me off about her. Too popular. I think she had something for—what's his name—Zack? Somethin' with Zack and Zatch. DJ brothers. Cruce's friends..."

Her tone of voice was steering away from my ears, like she was webbed up in her own thoughts at the latter end of her explanation. I battled myself with the names like she knew I knew them better. I didn't think that she could have expected me to know anyone but Laura from this place. Still, the way those Z's were put in front of those A's, and then the way the hard consonants came at the end made my fur itch against my skin. My chlorophyll felt stunned, and, for a sec, that made my breath pause between intervals. I got that feeling a lot with Laura's name. When I heard it or thought it, I went all, 'yeah, I know that person—how're they doing?'.

But I didn't know anyone named Zack or Zatch, and like, that was weird, right?

Paw pads itching with clueless anticipation, I started cantering against the ground, impacts of my feet and the wet pavement harder. My legs were longer than Kat's, so it didn't shock me when she voiced her concern at my acceleration. I looked back and told her we needed to hurry up. She didn't argue with it, but some manner of reluctance shined through her eyes. I wondered why it was there at all. Did she not want to help or was she left for dead by that Cross in such a raucous sense that she was beaten by all the clamor, the death around her, made hopeless inside and out? The pain she showed me was as real as pain got. I couldn't empathize with it, only sympathize.

The closer we got, the more that school smelled like a dull memory. I was forged off of someone else from this world. That person may have had something to do with the school. I heard a name back when I was corrupted. It began with a D, but it didn't stick around in my thoughts long enough. Right when I met Kat, I started following a new line, and there was no room in my tired head for exhausted identities. Still, with every step, my Gamma felt just a little more untidy—it did so in a separate sense from its current issue, what with the whole bloody thing and off-putting color. It was like a cloud breaking up in the sunlight, something that belonged shining through, trying to, screaming at me to come back.

I remembered the sunlight. I remembered that I didn't like it, so I... I did something to avoid it. Now, I needed it for photosynthesis, but... I-I remembered... that I didn't like it.

What'd I do to keep it from bothering me?

…

A scream. Screams. Screams upon screams, running, throwing themselves to one ear, then the next—they came from both sides. We were upon the grass in front of a building dripping with water, piping system broken at its roof. The splashes were as loud as the school grounds were tired and worn for wear, worsened by the gray of the day and the coming of the dusk. That dusk was far from unkempt. There were humans here, dressed in black, holding machines, but never using them. They were chasing Pokémon.

I made the observation and went nowhere else with it. Really though, I was a scientist, and I didn't like to stop at observations.

"Nirva!?" Kat swung at me with words like bricks, finally terrified. For all the right reasons, I smiled at that terror.

The ground felt too shaky to confirm any suspicions through a quiet, analytic tone. That was boring. Didn't need it. Needed action. 'Sides, with nothing to go off from, all I had left was to get to the center of this place and help out some stragglers along the way.

But before I could do that...

"They're here!" Kat added.

"Who's here?!" I turned forward, then back again, searching Kat's face for answers before she could tell me anything.

"Yeah, it is them," she said, failing to answer, her face warping into dread. "That's Delta Meadow."

I looked and stepped ahead, my eyes following a bright Pokémon's colors, chased by those darker than its own. The Pokémon was flying, trying to find a gust of wind gentle enough for his wings to push. In this rain, the air was heavy, and the wind was an adversary. All he could do was stay within grasping range. I found myself running ahead, following a wet path onto a corridor leading through the buildings, roofed, but not so much indoors. The butterfly Pokémon was flying through here now, screaming someone's name. I saw others at different spots, human and Pokémon alike, out of the corners of my eyes. A loud grunt from behind told me that Kat was still here, but she didn't object to my recklessness like Laura had done—only then did I realize I was being reckless right now.

I stopped, throwing my rump against the cement and letting my feet slide. There was a loud smack, but the smack came from something semi-invisible at a crossroads separated by two buildings and two lawns of grass. The butterfly Pokémon plowed into a flash of violet light, the ephemeral barrier pulsing out of reality before he fell to the wet ground, allowing the armored human soldier to capture him. Grabbed brutally by the point where his wings met his back, he was lifted, wings twitching, trying to flap, but with no clearance to do so. From around the corner of a building—classroom, maybe, came another Pokémon dressed in a white gown. I knew this one. These were strong Pokémon. I blinked, sighing thankfully, knowing that this Pokémon was safe.

But just as I was about to turn—hell, I felt Kat's eyes waiting for mine—I heard something that made that sigh a cold lament.

"This one is a problem, but flight will do poorly in the weather. I still suggest that one remove the wings, or at least clip them."

I bit my lip at that comment, because in no way could it have come from that human. The voice didn't fit him. That was the other one. The gardevoir. Only she could have put up that barrier, anyway. It stank of psychic power. I smelled a trace of Gamma on her. She was of Laza's design, something I recognized best as simply being a Pokémon, yet she was against this bug-type here. Was she working with them? These strange humans?

The man who grabbed the bug-type held him in one hand, his black machine in the other, arm's length for the former, like he carried a disease. The two went out of sight, headed the way the gardevoir came. When she left, she left in thought, her hand up at her chin, like she had been pondering something to do with something or someone else. My nose picked up souls, scared and trapped. Naturally, I followed that lady. I had to see it. I went around that corner and stopped when I came to a wide paved path that showed me a very, very big fire-type laying under the rain, breathing heavy on the wet grass. The man with the bug-type was no longer here, the quick visual of him entering a door on the left. The gardevoir was under an overhang sported by the building, her arms in the same position as from when I had last seen her. This time, there was context: She was facing the fallen fire-type, canine in his structure, black and orange, with a creamy white mane. Were I not part-Gamma, this would be the type of Pokémon to make quick work of me. He was still too human, though. I could see it in his colors. But then, so was the gardevoir. They were once humans. Why were they fighting? Were they fighting at all?

"It's convoluted," said the gardevoir, accent thick. With no knowledge of this world, I couldn't assume anything of her culture or background. What troubled me most about the way she spoke was that she knew we were here without looking at us. "But let's say he had 'connections'. He had to go."

Finally, she looked at me, her mouth straight as the horizon. Her arms fell to her sides. Kat was here, too, otherwise she wouldn't have looked to the right of me like that. I did the same and found a loyal eevee right here, waiting for more words to leave this mystery of a Pokémon.

That fire-type was an arcanine. I smelled little life left on him. Beneath the bloody scent of this strange Gamma within myself and Kat, I found a natural blood on him, but I couldn't see it well enough in the rain. His wounds were precise, enough so to be hidden under the cover of his position of collapse. He was keepin' them nice and tucked away, or maybe someone had injured him so carefully on purpose. That told me we had a smart killer or two around. I looked at how he was laying there, his body begging to go stiff. Someone left him in the rain, too, making sure he felt pain all the way to the end. If I tried anything now, I...

"Don't," the gardevoir interrupted my thoughts—should'a known. "We have snipers positioned carefully around ideal points. This 'man' will die, and they will ensure that I am his executioner by being YOUR executioner, need be."

"That's, uh, nice," I scoffed. Fear didn't have me here. These were barkers, and I knew a biter when I saw one. "You did this to him?"

"He did this to himself," she claimed, showering him with a gaze more tenacious than the rain. "Rodriguez knew that he would meet this day the moment he opened his mouth. Sir, I will spare your daughter the misery of watching you die if you would kindly die quickly. The sooner you leave, the less of a chance she'll have to watch, no?"

"What the fucking..." Kat cursed, running ahead of me. Something red flashed on her, round and tiny. A few more of these lights came to her body. I looked around, noticing they hailed from beams. My eyes found a flare, similar to the kind a mirror would make had it reflected off of the sun. This flare was red, like that of a laser.

"Kat! Something's-"

"No! I don't care—she can't do that!" Kat yelled, homed in on the gardevoir, her tail high with fury.

"Kat? Excuse me? 'Kat' who? 'Kat' is not your shape." she mused, returning her attention sideways, watching the eevee.

"That's not even important here," she bellowed. "You're with that Meadow?!"

The gardevoir made an apathetic motion with her left arm, lifting it and flicking her wrist upward once. A second following, Kat shook her head and backed away like she had gone too deep into the heat, finding some space to cool down.

All in a moment of time too soon to put numbers to, a bang came. The bang was louder than thunder, but quicker. Its snap deafened me, leaving nothing but a ringing in my ears. I cringed, lowering my neck. A visible wind whizzed by Kat's body, disappearing into tiny fragments as the main body struck the building's wall at level with the eevee's head.

Kat was stunned. I was stunned. The gardevoir put her own surprise in the form of a slight tilt of her head, as if she hadn't been shocked by the noise, but the lack of contact between its embodiment and Kat.

I realized something.

Kat could have died. She could have been killed in the time it took for that tiny object to leave its exit point and then get to her. She stepped back, though, and she was safe. She... she could have died. I could have just watched her head burst in that time, quicker than the blink of an eye.

But then I realized who she was. She was chosen by a Cross. She couldn't have been killed that easily. I told myself that again and again. She was chosen. She wasn't easy to kill. She was chosen.

"I imagine that shot will be coming out of his paycheck," the lady joked, hiding her own laughter. "Yes, imagine that: You could have been headless on the road by now. They saw you coming long before you saw yourself coming here."

The words she spoke didn't shake me as much as the second motion she made with her hand. I stood tall, looking high for any signs of another burst of wind, or whatever had tried to pierce through Kat. She was still silent, one of her front legs lifted, looking at the spot the where thing had connected and shattered. There was no second bang, as the motion was different. It meant something else.

"We have already procured Katalyn Valentine. You must only be a skittish resident of Autumnridge, then. But, you know Delta Meadow, and that makes you a target. I knew I shouldn't have let that boy live." she explained, clever in her disregard to any specific information other than one point: Katalyn Valentine.

They had 'already procured Katalyn Valentine'. Kat was telling the truth. There really was another Katalyn out there. So, if that was true, and it was starting to look that way, then...

"Another Katalyn... then maybe Nasce really is..." I mumbled. Maybe Nasce really was another part of Katalyn. But... how? The Cross? How?!

Caught between the desire to know the truth once again, the urge to save this arcanine, and the fearsome need to pull Kat away from this dangerous lady, I hardly noticed the fourth figure at the entrance to the building. He was wearing white, ridged with red patterns at the clothing's lowest points. The attire he wore had a hood, which he had only just draped over his head, hiding his tall ears. He was short, his body arranged in an unfamiliar way. While he was a Pokémon who should have been standing on four feet, he stood on two. While his eyes should have been green, they were red. While his fur was white, it stank like black sin. While he was short, the hunched horror behind every step he took was tall, until he reached the gardevoir. She stepped aside, making room for him, so much so that she was on the grass in the rain. The bipedal Pokémon, a shaymin trapped in a state of sky and mutated form, brandished something from his cloak, silver and bulky in his green paws.

"Silver Lotos, can you keep it down out here? I'm trying to get answers in there, you know? God," he spoke, eyes shut at the last word. He was grinning like he enjoyed all of it: the orders, the rainfall, the situation. "Rod dead yet?"

"I'm waiting on that now. I think that his body is quite resili-"

Bang bang bang.

The shaymin's arm was held out to the side, but his face was still forward, watching my eyes, which left his own. I followed his arm to the tip of the silver barreled device he held, ears ringing loud once more. I moved more to the right. More, more, more... I found an arcanine as still as ice, three holes spaced out, following the trajectory of the shaymin's arm. My jaw was stuck, wide open, sore.

"Whoof," the shaymin groaned. "Tell ya, this body's not muscly. 'Ol deagle here packs a punch."

He was stroking along his extended arm with his other as though it had been hurt, voice jolly like he solved the greatest dilemma in the world. He was a hero, having done the work of another.

…

One smile, the rest verbless frowns...

...

"AAAH! NO NO NO!" a scream, saline with tears, left the room as quickly as a brown blur. She was tripping over her own self on her way to the deceased arcanine. A buneary, I thought.

But that was the only thought that crossed my mind before my ears were burnt with that loud bang, the pop at its start so deafeningly loud that I felt my entire skull shake. The buneary bounced in response to the shot made, but she wasn't affected otherwise. There wasn't a spray of red or a sudden silence present in her body. She did go still, but she was standing up.

"Whoops, thought I told 'em not to let you guys out. What, so you were watching this whole time? Ah, shit me, kid, that kind of sucks. Now you're scarred for life, eh? Ah well. Might as well go the whole way."

He fired free again. This time, the projectile struck something.

It wasn't a body.

There was a Cross standing tall before the frightened buneary. I remembered that shape. I had just seen it. It belonged to Kat in more ways than one. It was her spirit, standing on its sharp end as if defying gravity, laughing at such a concept as weakness. The projectile was gone, swallowed by the shimmering force of the Cross.

Kat stumbled. I sniffed her pain.

"No more," Kat growled deep into her own throat, capturing the attention of the gardevoir first. The shaymin only looked after he made a connection—the same I had done upon seeing the Cross. Given the moment of air, the buneary approached the slaughtered fire-type, dazed, stone-still. "I need to hurt you all and give you the Crossblade... I want you to hurt so bad, you'll cry for death."

"Oh. Okay. I get it," said the shaymin, lifting an eyebrow, making a menacing smile, the corners of his mouth high and horrible. He pointed his firing arm at Kat. My legs became rigid. "You're one of those Symbi people. Such luck."

"Nothing about it is lucky. You don't know what you're saying, so shut up!" Kat screeched.

"Holy hell, you're loud," he groaned, eyes shut halfway. "That's the funny thing about little girls, you know? They make the loudest fucking noises, but when you put 'em down, they're oh so quiet. Such a big change... Maybe that's why I like them so much. They go from one thing to the other so fast. It's art. Reminds me of a girl I just met the other day."

Something obsessive and haunting plagued him. It was finding its way to me, dripping with liquid sin. Yeah, he pointed that weapon at me when he started talking about the other girl, the sick freak...

"What was her name? She was like you. She was one of the 'Laza siblings'." he told me. I ruled out Laura right away, maybe... I couldn't decide whether or not to. He was some guy to kill another Pokémon like that, and try to kill a little girl. I got a grueling, tainted odor from him. Of course I wanted to keep someone like this from Laura. Now that he mentioned Laza, I was put as high on my haunches as I could be. Was it Nasce?!

"You're screwing with me! Wanna give me some names, punk!? I'll take you on. I'll take all you Delta Meadow saps on 'n won't even take a scratch. You WATCH!" I asserted.

"...'Ey," he said, turning his head and lifting his paw to his cheek. He wasn't speaking to me anymore. Was he insane? Clearly, but was he talking to himself? "Don't go loud from here, guys. Calling in the rookies."

The rookies...?

"Silver Lotos," he continued, watching the gardevoir. "Get Scourge out here and move Rod out of the way before he stinks up the place. And do something about that rodent girl. I'unno. Give her to Sam. We gotta have a plaything for her so she doesn't get all emotional again."

"Copy that." said the agent, professional, with no argument ready. She moved away, minding little of the rain. She put a hand to the side of her head as the shaymin had done and began speaking to herself, quiet enough to go unheard.

I looked around her and didn't notice anymore of those beams of red. No more dots were showing on Kat. The buneary was leaning up against the arcanine with her arms around him as far as they could go, face lost in his fur. I heard her sobbing. It made Kat more furious than I. I was angry, but it felt like there wasn't enough room for me to be so mad when I already had a burning eevee over here. She summoned her Cross because of this wicked little shaymin. He was that bad. She brought it out for him and myself now. That was how much she hurt herself just to talk to strangers. She bore a loud Cross.

The shaymin reached into his coat to grab something rectangular, or at least prism-like. He exchanged something inside the grip of his weapon with it, concluded by an audible click, as the former occupant of the slot fell to the cold ground. I noticed the dashes in its shape.

With one paw on the top of his gun, his muzzle pointed down, he laughed. I could really only see his nose, hood hiding the rest of his face.

"Mi tío... You killed him... How could you do that?! H-how could... ANYONE do that?!" screamed the buneary, finding space to wail her concerns through her shapeless despair.

"That's the thing, girlie," he commented, keeping his head low and his grin wide. "ANYONE can do it with the flick of a trigger. And when you do it enough, the world'll start watching you. When you do it MORE than enough, gods start watching you," he paused, lifting his head, revealing the tenacity of his grin. "And when that happens, you better have a damn big smile on your face, so you can show it to them."

He put it way past the line. A vine extruded from the back of my neck. It stung, scratching me. It wasn't supposed to be painful. It was supposed to be smooth. It didn't stop me from reaching for him and squeezing around his puny, pipsqueak body. I dangled him in the air, my vine wrapping around his chest, binding his arms. I didn't want to kill him yet. I wanted to know him before I killed him. But, I was a Champion. I wasn't allowed to kill people. It was unheard of. Laza told us not to do that. If we did that, we were no longer his siblings...

But Laza didn't tell me anything anymore.

This guy didn't even squirm. He just let me hold him. It was unsettling, so I squeezed him tighter. He feigned a groan of pain louder and louder the tighter I pressed in. Was he not feeling it?! Was it not enough?!

"Oooooh, okay," he mocked, snarling at me. "Hey, prick, what'cha wanna do? Kill me? Go on. Do it. Squeeze the life right out of my lifeless body. Let's see you kill a guy. Yeah yeah, do what I just did. You ever kill someone before? I don't think you have. You still got that kiddy face."

Kill someone... I've never killed anyone. I felt my vine shiver. I felt his words weigh me down. How was this person alive to see the daylight? How could anyone like him have lived this long? Or were humans just this bad? They had to be to let this guy run free and blurt commands to others. But, Kat wasn't bad... sh-she wasn't, right...?

"I've killed before," she said. I gasped. I nearly dropped the shaymin. "I'm not afraid to do it again. I'll do it to you... to prove that."

Humans... killed each other... She just said it. They killed each other.

"Hush hush, pumpkin, be patient. I'll get to you in a second." the murderer shooed her off.

"Humans," I began, throat hoarse with malice. "Gotta change. You can't just off each other like that."

"Whaaaat the shiiiiit," he laughed. "Stop preaching. There're nine billion of us on the planet, asshole. Might as well get rid of some of the shitty ones. And hey, besides, who're you and your Laza crew to tell us not to kill others? How are you any better? You're changing us so that we fit the bill and think like different people. Hypocrite, much?"

"Stupid. You don't know a thing about Laza or my siblings or my people." I retaliated.

"Awwh, ffforgot, hey—you're right. Why don't'cha tell me about yourself 'n your neck-dick here? Go on. I'm listening."

"M-my what?!" I scoffed, or tried to without it sounding like a bluff. Neck-dick—was he talking about my vine?!

No, he wanted to know me. I didn't... I didn't remember much. I knew I had siblings. I knew I was made from a human body some time ago...

"I don't remember anything beyond when I was created," I sighed, fretting at my amnesia, legs shaking. "I'm a Champion. I'm Laza's brother, but... he didn't tell me there was another 'Laza' in that meteorite, and now I'm..." I stopped with a loud huff, looking at the tips of my red paws. I had just recalled the whole reason I came here. It began with a floette. "Where's Laura?"

"Whoa, fuck! Thanks! So that's what it is, eh? Been trying to ask your Laura friend what's the deal with those crazy looking tears, but all she does is just whine. So, 'nother Laza? Somethin' tells me you're not talking about... ehhh, I'll shut up now."

I didn't...

I didn't think. I just gave him information. Shoot. I just screwed up AGAIN.

"Where's Laura?!" I repeated, angered by my mistake, hatred deepened by his victory.

Now wasn't the time for the answer I wanted. Figured.

Something orange and round and absurdly hot came crashing through my vine, bursting as it struck the wall. The pain registered after the ball of fire phased right through my appendage, leaving it charred and black. I grunted and retracted it, the sting cooling off the moment it returned to my body. My vine wasn't easily damaged—it healed quick. Kat had taken a clumsy leap away from the point of impact, a black scorch mark left on the wall. That poor wall. There were lines deviating from the center, showing evidence of the explosion.

Imminent danger. I smelled three more Pokémon.

...

I spun to the side, limbs apart, watching and waiting for another blow. Senses honed, fixed to the moment, I saw the three—one large, the others small, one truly dangerous. A charizard came to assist the gardevoir, leaving the other two to meander into my road. They looked determined. They were coming for me. No doubt. These were the rookies?

"Kat, get back!" I warned.

I didn't see if she reacted to that. She was still somewhere close by. I wanted to tell myself that she got far enough away from both the shaymin and the others here. I was on my own in this situation, but that was okay. I looked at the buneary. Kat's Cross wasn't near her anymore. She took it and went somewhere and that was what I needed to know. Now, I could put my head to the task at hand. I bit down, closing my rows of teeth together. I was rusty. I knew I was in for a battle. I watched both of those Pokémon come closer. One preferred to stay out of the rain. The other was, to no one's surprise, at ease with it.

"Glad you two could make it, 'n spite of the short notice. Anywho, welcome to your unofficial training simulation, where you'll be asked to operate on our test dummy." said the weapon-wielding shaymin.

"What did you do, Ch-"

"Nah-ah-ah, shush you, girlie," he cut her off, throwing his empty paw up and waving it back and forth.

I didn't even know what I was looking at here. I hadn't ever seen one of these Pokémon—the one who spoke. She was made of fire, and, because of that, I didn't expect her to fly into the rain. She was freaking tiny, too. She didn't have arms, but the end of her tail looked like it could morph into a small hand. She had this fake fiery hair that stayed put in a wide ponytail and a few embers sticking off her head to make it look like she had more hair there. Her chest had two shapes—wasn't sure what they were for, but they were darker red, kind of like a shirt or something. She... she really reminded me of Laura, or maybe just a floette in general, despite the lack of arms.

And, that other...

Well, that was jirachi. She was with a jirachi—Delta Meadow found a jirachi! How?! How could a legend like that come to serve such... no...

That was no legend. Something was off about her. She looked legit, but—well, first off, I could tell she was female just by her scent alone. Legends didn't have that. They didn't have sexes, even though some of them liked identifying with one. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was something 'left over' on her body. Gamma was strong around her. Real sour smell to it. Didn't fit nicely to a jirachi's shape of power.

Still, holy... A jirachi—no, THE jirachi?! Really?!

There had to be a mistake. There HAD to.

"I-I don't..." I stood there like the biggest oaf...

"What's'a matter? Cold feet? Fff, now?! C'maaawn." Ch-something teased me. Ch-'something'. That fiery fairy girl almost said his name, and it was 'Ch', then something...

"Uhm, are we supposed to fight him? He looks kinda tough." asserted the jirachi 'girl', pointing at me. I knew it. There was a mistake. These girls were being used.

Were they? Gah, dammit, were they?!

"Naaah, fight 'im! Find out what you can do. C'mon, your minny here believes in you, little ladies. Do your thing. Don't mind the big doggie there, eh, he's just taking a long nap."

Liar... Sick liar...

"Remember our deal?" he continued, pressuring them.

"We know, we know!" the fire girl spoke, tired of his voice. I pictured her rolling her eyes.

I pictured someone taking her place...

…

It looked... sad, the way I saw it.

I looked at her, ashy eyes cute, but not without a ferocity that I had to vault over before I could really get to know her. I could tell she was a Pokémon, even if I'd never seen her before. Pokémon had that unforgettable color to their spirits. To me and my siblings, it was blue. Every 'mon had it, despite their favorite color or whatnot. Spirits didn't think like that. Blue was the uniform color of our world, even for someone with a body of fire like her.

And when I looked hard enough at her, I got dizzy with melancholy.

"Sorry," she said to me, semi-genuine. "We gotta do this."

"No hard feelings, please!" said the jirachi, ready for battle, her small arms out, yellow scarf-esque cape blowing high in the chaotic wind.

I readied myself, balancing all four legs to pounce or hop to wherever I needed to be. I was faster than any opponent I could remember, but I couldn't remember any opponent, so all I had left was that I was fast. Good enough. I remembered how to fight, even when I didn't want to. I wanted to fight that shaymin, but I didn't want to take my eyes off of my opponents, since there happened to be two of them. I couldn't let my guard down. One was a fire-type, the other a legend. But I was a Gamma, and Gamma was a conqueror!

My veins raced with its energy. No longer did my markings glow blue, however. They glowed red. I hadn't the time to worry about it, lest it messed with my flow in battle. For now, all I could do was focus myself, charge up, and, if I was lucky, get these girls back in their right minds.

My plate was getting busy with girls I had to save...

…

Invigorated, I jumped, my legs flourishing with Gamma's magic. They brought me high. I set down on the roof of the one-story building, getting a quick analysis of the view from up here. Some buildings were taller, and most buildings had machinery atop them—boxes and such. For the most part, it was all empty space and puddles up here, dilapidated drainage systems and tin reinforcement. As for the immediate surroundings, I was out of luck. I didn't like fighting around so many sharp corners. I was alright with highs and lows, but there was nothing natural about this place, so I couldn't get a grasp on the safest spots. On the other paw, the weather was ideal for me. I was chill with the rain under these circumstances. I rarely had an issue with weather in battle, thanks to the whole grass-type affinity. Blizzards were a little crappy, but I could get by.

I had two opponents, one of which had just presented herself to me, rising over the edge of the building. The jirachi was here, the other elsewhere. Despite the shortcomings, I had the advantage over them. Given a fire-type to battle, maybe it would've been an issue throwing out some damage, but with the rain, she was pretty much useless. I had Gamma on my side, and legends like jirachi didn't fare too well against it. Plus, I knew what I was capable of; however, that was all I knew. I didn't know a thing about what that little fire-type could really do, or what a legend here could be capable of.

The jirachi knew how to use moves. She did a brief spin, her yellow cloak kicking up shiny dust, quick enough for me to stand by and let it hit me. Before I had time to turn and react, she got me with these little bits of stars, yellow streaks of light that went faster than the eye could follow. The sensation of being struck by it was odd. It wasn't a brute-force attack. Instead, it felt like blades slicing through you, but they didn't leave a mark. I stepped back, realizing I'd just tanked a move called swift. Without that normal-type connection, she couldn't put out very much pain.

She pretty much told me she wanted a fight, and I couldn't disappoint someone like her. Too cute, after all. I let out my vine, still a bit brown from the fireball beforehand, but nothing I couldn't shake off against cool rain. What worried me more than the burn was the former discoloration. I didn't have time to let it weigh me down in the scuff here, so, instead of wetting myself, I made my move—I figured I was time to let this roll since I had two opponents who smelled as if they were dependent of one another in battle and the other wasn't present.

Lifting the vine straight, high above my head, then curving it forward like a scorupi's tail. A round light of faint blue began to form at its tip, accruing more radiance, collecting Gamma from both beyond and within my body to created a beacon. The greater it grew in size, the heavier my body felt, but the lighter my head became, my senses a little foggier with this much energy amassed. I cut the chord, letting the lights gather at their own pace rather than forcing them to collect, left with a swirling sphere at my vine.

I was ready, the small, scythe-like leaves at my paws brimming with liquid light, ready to drive right through my foe.

Giving no more quarter to time, I pushed on, breaking into a sprint ailed by the weight of my collection of lights. I could still race sound itself, but I didn't need to slip off the building now. Skidding along the roof, I met the jirachi with a blindside swipe, turning a sharp angle before I could fall off of the building. Most of the impact came from my tail, swift as a blade, with enough of a kick behind it to send the girl flying—it wasn't like she was a stranger to that. I expected an instant recovery. In response to said expectation, I let my heavy sphere home in on her position, small bubbles starting to rise from the fluid surface of the orb, before they left as a projectile, rapid and long, soon a barrage of radiant strings shooting forth like an automatic turret. The other grass-types had this move to. I had made some adjustments to it. Energy ball, they called it. Put a little Gamma in there and you had something I liked to call 'energy cluster'.

I was still in mid-stop by the time her friend came up to find and besiege me with a dash through the air, unfazed or bothered by the rainfall. She was scorching, aura of fury so loud and intent that I could taste smoke. Maybe she was the one I had to really worry about. I wanted to wait and see what her move would be before I made my own, but, given the sudden flash of red pain in my neck, skidding along my underside, I had to guess she had no other plan of action but to dive right through me. The sting made it difficult to breathe for a moment, followed by a deep, sharp cutting sensation within my veins. I knew it well. You got it when you took a burn where you shouldn't have. Fire liked to mess up grass in the most agonizing way. It killed your cells fast, and made you fatigued like nothing. I staggered for a moment, only having just realized how the fire-type's size had a role to play in her advantage. She was behind me, having dashed between my legs. I didn't get the chance to turn around. The jirachi was in front of me again as a result of that overpowered teleport move. She didn't look too happy about my last attack. Caught between two hostile ends, I grunted loudly, slamming my vine into the roof like a hammer, the energy cluster erupting, blinding myself and, hopefully, my opponents.

I didn't put a whole lot of force into the smash, so the building should've been okay. I was fine myself—Gamma attacks didn't tweak me up. I huffed, looking back, left, right, and ahead. I just picked a scream above. I looked up. Someone red was falling down. The jirachi was up there, though, so I failed to connect. She was flying forward, moving to catch the red girl—the fire-type. I'd blown them away, but they didn't suffer much damage. In a pinch, that move wasn't so much about damage as it was about keeping pressure off of me. I hopped back once, twice, thrice, before landing with a slide on the third jump.

I needed to up my game. These girls were tough. Since there were two of 'em, I lashed out, a second vine pulled from a concealed slit on the back of my neck, motions manifesting through my stomach and my limbs as the positions of my innards shifted. That second vine, neighbored by the first, came down onto the roof, a vertical swing crashing into the surface. Limbs parted, I arched the vines, placing myself a few feet back between the two. With the burn on my belly and the insatiable pain of muscles being put to the test, I slung myself forward, catapulting off of the power of my new appendages. Aimed at the two air-stumbling girls, I flew through the frigid sky, the moment's flight pulsing through my body.

I could do anything! I shouted at my own momentum, commanding it to go further, for my limits to break the boundaries! When I got to the girls, I let my vines seize them, taking their steady point in the sky and anchoring myself to it. Beneath them from my position, I heaved down, hurling the two into the cement beneath. I began to descend. Before descent became free fall, I pointed my head down, vines shooting into the ground. Long enough to reach it, they acted as support beams, balancing me high. I opened my maw wide and reassured myself with a deep breath, fierce as nature. With a snarl as contorted as worn bark, I roared, a reddish collection of energies swirling at my mouth. These weren't born of Gamma or grass-type affiliation or all that. I knew this move from hard times. It never failed me.

Hyper beam, I thought. And, as I thought, I gave it all, sparks flying around my face. I didn't close my eyes. I had my target in sight...

I tilted my head up a few inches, pointing my mouth at the mischievous murderer. I could see him just past the building's overhang. I knew where he was standing. No more waiting. With the crackling power of my ancestors burning at my mouth, I cried my rage free, the beam bursting forth, labeling the air with its bright red hue, each drop of rain capturing it, like blood falling from the sky. I noticed that. In a moment, I was gone, seeing nothing but blood-rain.

…

I was scared again. Bloody rain... It made me feel so horrified. I wanted to curl up and hide somewhere dark, dim, dusky, dusty. Then, I would die, because in darkness, I couldn't live. I had the urge to die in fear and blackness.

I knew myself. I knew how little fear came and went through this body. Fear was a joke for me. I didn't need it pesking up my head. I needed to act. I needed to be the brave one.

Sometimes, being brave was a bad call. You didn't get what you wanted when you put your paws to hard work all the time. When you didn't meet your goal, you had a little thing called despair. Maybe you had a tiny bit of it and you got over it in a moment. Or maybe you had a lot and you developed something else because of it: fear. In the wake of despair came fear.

I was afraid I couldn't set things right. How could have valor when my own brother put me face-to-face with a demon like that? How could I make it better when I was the one who hurt Laura?

…

No... Stop that. Stop it, Nirva... G-get a grip on yourself, you pathetic leafeon. Punk of a Pokémon. Step up your game. Make it count. Shut up and play your part. You're a hero, man. You gotta be a hero. You gotta be big. Do good. Don't be scared.

Just so hard to do it when it feels like you got walls closing in on you...

Stupid walls... so close... stop looking at me... I-I can't... focus.

…

I was standing now. I must've landed.

My eyes were half-shut and I felt loose. I was sore all over. My teeth were hurting. My nostrils were burning and my eyes felt like they'd been watering. I heard rainfall. It was raining. I heard thunder somewhere.

My vines were out—the both of them, limp, just lazily laying around my feet. I used them, then. I fought. I fought two girls and I struck them both with a hyper beam, all because I was so happy to be here, fighting again.

Except, I made a quick call at the very end there. I moved that hyper beam. Teary eyes brought me to the shape of a bipedal shaymin, hooded and horrible, eyes gleaming red. He had this silver weapon that shot out metal projectiles, but it didn't look like he was using it now. His arms were crossed and he looked kind of tired, like he was about to yawn. At his feet was a girl, white, but not with fur, unlike the shaymin. 'Ch'-something. Yeah. The murderer. I growled, but it was silent.

The girl had collapsed. She was prone against the cement. The fiery fairy girl was with her. The ground was dry, so it must have been dry where I was, too. It wasn't. The overhang above me... wasn't above me. It had been wrecked. What? Did I do that? No. I wouldn't have done that. Man, I broke all that.

But, what happened to the jirachi girl? A-and Kat? Where'd she go? I looked around for her. I couldn't see her anywhere. That guy—what, Rod?—was gone, too. He was an arcanine. He was the whole reason I called this shaymin a murderer. He knew this buneary girl, and... sh-she was gone, too. The charizard and the gardevoir were... uh, they weren't, rather, here. It was just us now.

I gasped, sending a squint forward that was too ashamed to be confused—so what if I didn't catch what happened? I just used hyper beam. That took a lot out of me. Normally, I was okay to keep going after those kinds of attacks. I was special that way. I... didn't feel so special...

The way the jirachi was laying... It looked like she got hit with something. Legends were pretty powerful Pokémon, so I didn't suspect I'd see any sign of injury on her. But she was out of it. She got wrecked by something. Was it my attack? I didn't aim for her. I didn't want to hurt her. One of my sisters once told me that I was too merciless in battle. I craved blood when I fought. She taught me how to change, but I still had that mouth-foamingly wild urge to turn them to dust.

I was just lucky I had someone worse than me around to shoot instead... And, even then, fate gave me a girl lying wounded on the ground because of something I did. What, though? 'The hell did I...?

"Good job. No, really," the armed shaymin mused under his ragged breath. His head was high, but his gaze was low, looking down on the jirachi like an object. "You did good out there. Tsh, guess that's what I get for throwing you at some Gamma kid."

"Chevron! Can't you be a little more understanding?!" snapped the fire-type, hovering by her unconscious friend's side.

"Language, please," he laughed. "I don't like it when you give my name away. Hey, would be terrible if anything were to happen to such a cute little girl who can't even remember HER own name."

"I do remember my name! Willow! That IS my name—quit making fun of us! I'm so sick of that," she whined, rather than objected to him, like she was helpless, in way over her head on demands. "We're doing your dirty work because you promised you'd help us figure out our amnesia situation. Do promises, like, mean absolutely nothing to Delta Meadow? Young promised she'd help us leave, but then she left us there. Now we gotta deal with a guy who talks to us like we're babies!"

"Oh, for shit's sake, you're loud. Maybe I'll stop treating you like toddlers once you learn to walk straight. Not all of us can float all the time, you know. Gotta build those muscles by giving your legs a chance. Wait, you don't even have legs. Eh, who'm I kidding? I guess I'm only speaking for Jirachi. But she's less alive now, so..."

"She's what...?"

I bit my own tongue so hard, it felt like I just cut it right off. My mouth was numb.

"Hah, gotcha," Chevron nodded, giving a light smack to Willow's back. He yelped and laughed afterward, shaking his paw, as if burnt. Big shocker. What a miserable person... "Damn, you don't have legs, but you sure do have a funny face, 'specially when it gets all... Oh, what's the word?"

Lightning...

"You're a joke," I whispered. He caught that, though. His face went black as midnight when he returned my glare. "Not even. You're not funny, so you're no joke. You're just a piece—a pile of trash so rancid it can't be used for anything but target practice. I wanted to believe in you humans for a bit back there. I told myself that you were in danger and needed someone in their right mind to guide you a little bit—not like Laza's guidance. I wanted to help out, and make sure that nothing like that Cross could hurt you. Now, I look at you, and I want to spit in your eyes. Humans are murderers..."

…

Thunder...

…

Those bodies...

All that blood...

I... got scared, then.

…

Chevron took a few steps forward, both arms at his sides. His weapon glistened. A few steps became a few more. His feet were quiet against the floor. He wasn't scary. I told myself that. Why did I have to? I shouldn't have had to. Maybe it was true already, but I was petrified by something other than him. I couldn't see it. It was closing in me. I assumed it to be him, then, because he was...

...close.

"'Humans are murderers'," he echoed, tapping the barrel of his weapon against his waist. "Okay. You're not wrong. Humans have murdered before. That means you're partially, y'know, right. There's a problem with your assessment, champ."

He put his weapon-heavy arm up, examining his metal-slinging device from handle to point. Short breaths began to escape my nose. I could grab him now and slam him against a wall. I could conjure up a few leaf blades and impale him. I could smash him into the overhang over and over...

"I'm not very human. I used to have that, but something, uh, 'blue' got in my way. Heheh, I wasn't ever worried about losing my humanity, since I had another Element Gamma in me—look at me, telling you all this info. I should get some thank yous. I am the gratitude Pokémon after all." he preached, lifting his arm a little bit higher. I blinked, then I...!

I was tasting something...

I went cross-eyed. There was silver in my mouth. My tongue was still. I lifted a front paw and tried to take a step back, but I... I couldn't do it. He was going to fire. What was the consequence of that?! What if I stepped back now?! No, it was just a little toy. There was no way it could end my life like that. I was a Gamma! R-right? What if Laza's... evil 'clone' thing did something to me to make me weaker? I could die now. I was... I was scared...

...And the metal—it tasted like white smoke. My lips felt hot, and my chest cold.

"And the gratitude Pokémon is going to kill you," he rumbled, shadows lining his eyelids, insanity outlining his smile. "Mm, wouldn't that make me, a Pokémon, a murderer? One of your own kind is a murderer? How's that feel? You turned me into this because you thought it would be beautiful, but I'm still going to kill everyone in this town until I get my fucking wish granted. Heard that about Jirachi, so I thought I'd enlist her help, too. Might as well, yeah? Shit me, shit me, shit meee... My own personal murder playground. None of you even know how soon the end is, and it's just... aesthetic. It's almost... sensual, hahahahaaa...

Hey... wanna know why I stuck this gun in your mouth? 'Sides the obvious—I've always wanted to see a good, healthy Gamma brain. No, not that, though. Not now. I put this gun here because I don't want to hear you call me bad names. I'm just so sick and tired of being sick and tired of it. 'Oh, Chevron's such a lousy douche bag', 'Chevron's just a little kid who throws tantrums when he doesn't his way', 'Chevron's a pervert who likes to kill little girls for pleasure', or, my favorite, 'Chevron's just crazy and he can't be helped, but they let him do what he wants because he's super high up'.

I didn't want to hear you say any of it before I pulled the trigger. Funny story is that it's not because I'd deny any of that. Opposite, actually. Very, very opposite. I love that I do these things. I'll admit to them. Killing is... so fluffy, for me. It needs to happen, y'see? Oh, and, eheh, yeah, I may be a little bit of a brat when I lose my battles. So what? What's the poor 'ol world gonna do? Help me? No. I can't be helped, remember? The world said it. But, really, I'm so sick of the world repeating itself. And, champ, if I heard you say something like that—like, something the world here would say, I, y'know, might hop off my rocker and just got absolutely batshit-fuck-all crazy. Know why? 'Cause now I got another world telling me off, thinking they know everything—that they're better than me.

I want to kill you in silence. I want this to be a shared, wonderful experience for us both. Something very new. I'm an empiricist. Do you know what that is? An empiricist is someone who yearns for experiences, grows off of them, and makes his decisions based on such experiences. I've never gotten to kill someone so quiet before... Almost makes me not wanna do it at all. But you can't turn your back on these things, huh? Just like you? You want to save Laura, don't you? Mmmhmhmhm, shit... Well, shit.

Laura's not here. Not anymore. Little kerfuffle you had with the girlies gave us enough time to gather up our toys and leave the others to some time before the big event. They need to think about us. They need to know us. Know me. Know Delta Meadow, at least before you die. Why don't I do that for you? Here. Have a favor, champ: You come to Delta Meadow—yeah, you come to the Meadow, invade us, save your princess, come back here... aaand then I kill you both. Deal? That way, when you're done jacking off with your neck-cock in your moment of pride, you had a nice big, sumptuous taste of the people who want to really, really, REALLY change the world. Not Laza. Not Scion. Delta Meadow, little man.

But, before all that," he finally paused, moving his position, retracting the gun from my mouth. My lips shut instantly. I couldn't even feel my damn heart anymore. "Hate me some more. Get all blinded and shit so you suck at fighting and deciding. Be a dumb bitch for me."

He turned his back to me and walked away.

I could have grabbed him...

Why didn't I do that?! What... was he? Was he really human? Was that really this... place?

I didn't want to be here... I wanted to go home...

Help me... Hold me...

H-hold me...

...N-no no NO!

NIRVA!

Shadows. Shadows. Shadows under my eyelids! I closed them, but I could still see their faces.

There was an eye in the middle of all of them. Somehow, the eye was smiling against a black surface, white slits cut into that surface. It looked like a mask. The mask was speaking through its eye.

I thrashed. I threw my head back and forth and back and forth, the pain of impact coming at every motion, my skull smashing against the walls he trapped me inside of. Walls left, walls right, walls up and down and inside and outside...

Laza?! Laza!

But no! But no, he betrayed me! He made me, then left me, because I was too reckless. When I was too reckless, I did stupid things, and that made me feel useless. I didn't want to be useless. I couldn't have that! That wasn't me! I was a Champion! I was Nirva! Even if Azabell called me Rinavay, I knew my real name! I was a changed leafeon. I could be the hero.

But how could I help these people? I couldn't do that. They were murderers. They were going to kill me, too. They left me here. They all left me here.

Nirva. Nirva because I was Nirvaneon. Nirva because I was Nirvaneon.

They put me in a facility and made me into an abomination, then made that abomination a father of many more. Scientist? Scientist?! I was a sadist. I was a fascist. I wanted my home to be perfect. Love? Love?! I wanted to know where love really, truly, honestly came from. I gave it to my brother—I called him my brother because he made me do that. He told me how to feel around him, but not in his own words.

And then the Liberty came. The Liberty changed it all. It made me regret my life.

Liberty. Nirva because I was Nirvaneon. Nirva because I was Nirvaneon. Nirva because I was Nirvaneon Nirva because Nirvaneon Nirva Nirva Nirva.

Don't hurt me. Don't set me free. Don't make me one of the hive. I can't be one of yours. Not the hive. Not the hive. I'm me. I'm Nirva. I'm not just one emotion. I'm NOT SCARED OF YOU!

Vy-VY

SIA.

…

Earlier

It was getting loud out here.

…

But this was no time for groveling for mercy at the foot of a headache.

…

Lightning, thunder, rainfall that burned against my fur... This wasn't looking like the town I was born in anymore. Well, reborn. Hard to fight with semantics nowadays. I didn't really have time for any of that either. Laza always said he was a busy espeon. I'd second that. Yep.

I was a very busy glaceon.

And I was about to be busier than ever before. Things weren't coming together so well. Laza should have had all of his Champions completed by now, but with only Sera and me, I had doubts he was doing good out there in the cold clutches of the Black Gamma. That stuff was mean, and it liked to put you so far off course that you ended up all on your lonesome with not a boon or spirit to give you a paw to cling to. I was lucky enough to have VC with me the whole way. Now, with Sera, it looked like we ran this old town.

We weren't enough to even consider for a sec that Scion was within our grasp. Nah-ah. No show. I fought him once, and I ended up a part of his color—his chess pieces.

Before we could think about that, we needed to get Nirva on our side. Heard he was out in the wild. Didn't surprise me. He had this weird way of justifying his actions by saying they were good for his health and he didn't regret doing them later down the line, because he grew from it. Such a loner. He needed us. I couldn't bear to think what would happen if he met Scion.

Sera was fortunate. She did have some encounters with the anti-Gamma, but those guys were nice enough to let her skip on her way. Skywisps, I think. Yeah, they were okay. I wasn't sure if Laza had a shine to 'em yet, but I liked them. VC agreed with me, and Sera thought they were pretty huggable. Couldn't go wrong there. Even Black Gamma had some pretty things to look at. Not everyone was that lucky, though. Vampires made up the bad half of them. I was looking for one of those.

And she was looking for me.

And all that?

That was on the sidelines, waiting for us to get this hasty journey done. Impatient audience, I oughta say!

Right now, a boy named Edge was our big mission. Sera came by with something important: A piece of that rock that struck the earth here. It had a lot to do with Laza. Laza told her to go grab it, so she did, and now she was with us. This was gonna help us set things chill with Edge. I always thought the kid needed to cool down. I was almost scared to see how he was coping with the existence of an anti-Gamma. If he hated Laza, then this... thing... wasn't going to pass him by that smoothly.

Plus, with VC here, we had a showdown coming soon. He wanted his two cents with Edge. I wanted to tell him off, but he was just a little boy. He didn't get it. They could have their roughhousing, then the adults needed to step in. I wasn't going to let it go so far that either of them would be hurt. What was worse was that Sera didn't know VC's history with Edge. I couldn't explain that to her in the day it took us to travel from the Meadow to here. The weather put us in a bad spot. Must've done that for that other group of girls, too.

I walked down a path as twisted as destiny let it be, and I had a lot of unanswered questions knocking away, looking for an opening. It started with a brother, then a Cross came and blinded me, and now I had to find and fix the most dangerous Pokémon in the world. Couldn't do it without our brother Nirva.

Hold tight, Leafy. Sis's got ya!

…

The smell of...

...something bodily...

...filled me up when I walked...

...this street. I knew the smell.

I only knew it because someone else did. A brother of mine knew it.

And I remembered.

That smell began with a Liberty...

...and ended with a bell.

To Be Continued