Wave: Epidemic

by Mnesia

The sequel to Wave: Endemic. The wave of change spreads, driving friends and families apart as those fighting for their humanity attempt to control the infection. The surreal, space-born fragments rest in the town of Autumnridge, having planted the seeds of mass transformation. Join the victims of the aftermath as they come together, facing challenges small, large, and awkward.

35. The Wave: A Shallow Reach (2)

Part 5.5 - The Wave

Period Seven - A Shallow Purge

Fate Four: The Pokémon, The Ancients, The Circle

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

---

Oh,

my brother,

how I miss you.

I remember you,

but I cannot remember your name, what you did, the kind of Pokémon you were...

I only remember a brother being there,

and then you disappeared, never came back, and left me to wonder if the world was rotten.

Brother,

if I changed the world,

would you come back?

…

"Oh, friend, you're not okay. I've seen it all from the start."

I was walking through puddles deeper than my own memory, murky as my conscience. These streets were darker now, the hour late, the sun low, sheepish and gray.

Luna was speaking from within such conscience. At times, she was my angel. As I had no devil upon the other shoulder, hearing her voice became tiresome, causing me to fall under the illusion that she was doing nothing but nagging me, criticizing my fragments of memory.

But I had none other than her to guide me. The next best thing to lead my way was the stench of blood. It belonged to humans, Pokémon, and those sorry enough to happen across the Black Gamma.

Yet, this blood was natural to few of them. Many of those who walked within the hue of Blue also had the tint of Red underneath their skins. Perhaps even all of them had this bloodshade.

"You don't deny the Red King anymore?" Luna asked me.

"I had never done that," I disclaimed, gazing forward, stepping from concrete onto dirt. My journey into the woods began yet again. "I had only denied his name."

"I see otherwise." she, irrefutably, argued.

I carried myself with bitterness on my back but clarity in my intention. She was right. I knew that she was right about everything she said.

Though true, she only knew what I knew, and what I knew quickly became very difficult for anyone who was not me to understand. I assumed she had as many questions as I did, quite for the very purpose of myself having those questions. I would have thought she had more, as I knew little about her.

"W-well, yeah, but I don't have a reason to be asking myself questions," she replied, aware of my intrusive thoughts. "And your thoughts are hardly intrusive, friend."

"You say that, but I believe you don't mean it." I waded through the structure she began to put up.

"It can't be helped," she dismissed. "New subject. You're always thinking about Celebi. Is she important to you?"

"Wouldn't you already know that?" I teased her. I had no intention to go without answering, yet I felt as though she, too, was wringing my tail, mocking my thoughts, my desires, my aims.

And so I did to the best of my ability to answer the question of Celebi.

"Celebi used to be a very dear friend of mine," I began, the lament calm, snowy, fuzzy with soft white memories. "She was the first of my Champions. In that other world, when I met her, she talked with me about the destiny of the planet. She yearned for a better future. She wished for a savior. The legends above her decided to leave Pokémon to their devices, run the world into deprivation, and turn their own people into slaves of abominable technology.

Celebi was a lonely girl. She was a different breed of legend. She wanted to open the eyes of Pokémon everywhere, awaken them to the dangers of their pursuit of knowledge and power, and bring them back to the right path. She could never muster the valor to do it on her own.

I offered to help her. She must have felt sorry for me. At the time, I was very ill with Gamma poisoning. Maybe, if it wasn't for her, I would have died there. She blessed me with strength, and I picked myself up. We set out on a journey to find and persuade some of the greatest legends our world had ever known into changing the fate of our home planet. Many disagreed. Some were even insulted at such heresy.

But there were a good few who took our words to heart, tested our resolve, and became a part of our cause. Of course, Celebi knew them well, which had a heavy influence over their decisions. Pokémon of ancient myth like Victini, Shaymin, Jirachi, and Diancie... They saw the light in our motivation.

When there were enough of us, we became the Enlightened.

As the Enlightened, we held protests against powers of the world. We spoke out against the corruption eating our land away, and the despicably poor efforts of space travel.

Most importantly, we lashed against the harvesting of Gamma matter.

Such a sick thing, that Gamma...

Gamma made you stronger before it killed you. But, if it didn't kill you, you, as a Pokémon, evolved to fill that little mortality chink in the armor—a little speckle of the 'Arcane'.

They had this. They had the 'Arcane' power. Having enough of our protests, they thought to silence us time and time again, over and over until we became separated.

Even the power of ancient legend couldn't match the power of Gamma.

I became so bitter over the many days I spent in prison cells. I let myself sink into long periods of hatred, but I had faith in the friends I made. Celebi was always with me in spirit. I... rotted, or perhaps grew, in prison with such a dreadful combination of faith and hatred, integrity and hopelessness.

To hate... Such a concept is so funny to me. I looked at the federation destroying our planet and wondered why they hated the cause of the Enlightened. I didn't think to act on it quite back then, but I put that thought away for another day."

"And of Celebi? You did see her again, I assume."

"I did. The story doesn't end there." I reflected.

"Continue, please!"

"If you say so," I smirked, my cheeks thick with cruel reluctance.

"Once I was freed from the federation's grasp, I had to face reality. Compensation paid, I searched for my Enlightened friends again. I found them nowhere. Instead, at a loss, I happened across an old wilderness. There, I found a village called the Grove.

The residents of the Grove were so primitive. They lacked the advancements made over the years, using simple sticks, stones, and mud to make their homes and schools. They could be wiped off the earth in a matter of split-seconds. Yet, they didn't live in fear. They were brimming with happiness. They loved one another like family. It was such a nice little town, the Grove...

It made me think of Celebi, and with it, I got strength.

In the Grove, I met an eevee whose name I lack in my own mind; however, like my passed brother, he became so dear to me. He was hardheaded, bashful, and hasty. He dreamed of leaving his village to explore the unknowns of the world. I promised him that I would take him on a great expedition when he was a little bit older, but he insisted on joining me as soon as possible. How could I say 'no' to so much spirit?

I didn't even tell him the disgusting truth about the world.

Not only had the world been explored from end to end, but it was being destroyed. He was so lucky to be alive in his Grove, untouched by 'mon, yet to be soured by the fate of our tainted soil.

I toured the lands in search of the Enlightened, my new eevee friend by my side. For the first time, he saw architecture unlike anything he'd ever dreamed of, devices that made his head spin, and attitudes toward nature that chilled his little spine. He would always ask me so many 'Why's and so many 'How's. I was scared that I couldn't answer any of them very honestly.

I did my best to explain to him the concept of Gamma and how it caused Pokémon to evolve into a resource-hungry species. I kept going on and on and on. I was shocked to find him listening closely after a good hour of what he might've thought to be complete nonsense! Well, he did think a good chunk of it was crazy.

I brought him to the federation's doorstep. After paying for my crimes, I was assured they would allow me into their domain. Well, I suppose it could be considered anyone's domain, seeing as how their capital 'city' was a massive space station. For my eevee friend, it was his very first time away from his home planet. He kept telling me he was scared, shaking, laying flat against the ground and crying because he couldn't smell the same smells or because he was so much colder. Inside, the tough eevee was just a little boy, easily brought to pieces by things as mundane as culture shock. I couldn't fault him for it. Going from a simple, humble lifestyle of logs and fire pits to a spaceship running on an ultra-powerful element from the stars... I see the divide.

We toured the federation's facility, a world in itself. With my leftover funds, I treated my friend to some of the more bearable sides of the space station, such as the entertainment wing. We saw a spectacular performance by a traveling circus troupe. I forget their name and the ringleader, but one of their members caught our eyes. She was a lovely sylveon who leaped around the stage like a flare of grace, her ribbons like stellar wind against backdrops of light. As fate would have it, we had the joy of meeting her backstage. Up close, she was an adorable girl, even if her personality was a little strange. My friend was starstruck, but he didn't hesitate to ask the girl if she was... happy.

I saw her hesitate then. For the first time, after that endearing performance and her bouncy attitude, she frowned. Yet, she responded with a yes, a smile glued on, and hopped away because of her 'duties'.

We went to another show. I have always had a fondness of drama, and, as such, I found myself viewing classic play from upon a balcony. My friend took to the floor in slumber, but I was entranced through the whole thing. Such sweet irony, yes—the leading lady's race of Pokémon was perfect for her part. A glaceon, eyes of aquamarine excellence, the air frigid as ice around her. In the play, she was a cold mistress mourning the loss of her loved one. Each and every 'mon she crossed paths with was lucky to see her face beyond a veil of black. As the antics came and went, what with all manner of cross-dressing, drunken dancing, and absurd dueling, the drama ended on a laughably wonderful note, with our glaceon lady reunited with the warmth of comfort and contentedness, at peace with a new love.

She gave a few words on her character after the play was over for anyone who stayed for the after-showing—oh, what were these events called again? Mm, doesn't matter. But, yes, this was when my eevee friend woke up and got to see the real side of our leading lady. She was, well, cool! Very different from her personality in the play. She spoke with a lot of laid back slang, even putting in more 'dude's than I could count. She had the sweetest laugh, too. It was shame we didn't get to meet her then, but our paths would cross again soon.

After our tour, we settled for a night in one of the station's inns. I met some old friends passing by on their duty. There was a meowstic boy and his duoblade companion. We talked about the days we spent together as children, espurr, eevee, and honedge, exploring the wilds. My meowstic friend had met Celebi. I wanted to know where she was, be he couldn't tell me that. It led to a very untimely disagreement. I believe that was the ultimate decider of our divergence. My new friend rampant to return home, we left the following day, my heart empty.

Upon returning to the Grove, my friend took me to a secret little 'base' in his woods where slabs of deep purple obsidian surrounded a larger stone, covered in moss. There, he shared with me his desires to return to the stars and remind us Pokémon, driven by Gamma, where our home was. After such a speech, he evolved into a leafeon.

I felt fulfilled. I felt like I had made a brother.

I had to ask myself what I was fighting for again. I wanted to change the world. There was good in what the federation was doing, but it couldn't be found anywhere in their efforts to advance our kind. It was found our hearts, the wings of love and happiness we flew by, and the companionship and rigor we encountered on our journeys as Pokémon. Someone like my eevee—my leafeon friend knew that. Why couldn't the federation?

I knew I couldn't defeat them on my own, or even with Pokémon as prodigious as the legends. I needed to become an idol. I needed faith. I needed love.

Sadly, I needed Gamma.

I took some time alone to mull over how I could revive the Enlightened, to bring back my Champions. It meant that I had to leap through hoops held in place by the federation. I assumed they had Celebi in their custody, and, by extension, the other mythical Pokémon we'd befriended. Tagged confidential, I couldn't get very close to them. Yet, I could have my leafeon friend help me.

The wildest thing occurred to me. I could even get that glaceon and sylveon to widen our roster. An inner circle of eeveelutions bent on bringing happiness back to the hearts of Pokémon everywhere? Isn't that ideal? That sounded so glorious at the time.

Through toil, I gathered them together. My leafeon... brother... was the easiest, as we were acquainted rather well. The two girls proved a little more vexing. I cut corners to meet them again, but when I disclosed my thoughts to them, they opened to me. They applauded my tenacity, my charm, my willingness.

I arranged a meeting for us on the home world. We were to meet at the Grove—the circle of obsidian rocks where a new leafeon was born.

That was the rebirth of the Enlightened, a research team dedicated to unlocking greater depth of Gamma by wielding it with honest emotion, genuine feeling... How could Gamma change us for the better before it helped us realize our faults of terrorizing our own planet?

Slowly, the Enlightened grew in size, as more and more Pokémon joined our cause. My brother, who I called Nirvaneon, rallied them, gave them hope. My sylveon sister, Serapheon, was such an angel, cheering us on in the darkest of hours. My glaceon sister, Nasceon, was my closest research partner, aiding me in delicate experimentation with Gamma mutation.

Over years, we formed an organization known as the Sabre Laboratories, easily the largest Gamma research facility on the planet.

...

Pokémon flocked to me.

The more I fought with Gamma by my side.

The more I became loved for it.

And the more I loved Gamma...

It tasted so divine.

The way it sizzles... on your tongue...

…

This is where the memory hollows and the tide of ambiguity advances.

...

Celebi came back. She was with the federation. She was with that meowstic and that duoblade.

They fought me in my pride. They won. They ruined me.

I came to again, brought the Enlightened back, and fought...

But they defeated me again. And again. And again and again and again.

They didn't love me.

Why?

I had Gamma, too. Why didn't they love me, Luna?

If they didn't love me, I had to make them love me.

So, I did. I...

I gave them all my Gamma, that which I'd accumulated and relished.

They felt me. They were touched by me, my voice, my eyes...

I loved them, too.

But that meowstic still didn't love me.

If he didn't love me, I needed to act, because he would always win.

He had Celebi, too. She didn't love me at all.

Celebi had everybody behind her, loving her, loving the meowstic, my old friend.

Love became a pandemic.

In light, there is a blind spot. A darkness.

In love, there is hatred somewhere, if not but hidden in a single, fly-sized spot somewhere in one's peripheral.

I found that hatred when I looked deep inside of myself...

If everyone—every other Pokémon loved me, and I couldn't get HIM to love me.

Then... he would be me.

I would make him me.

Because I hated me.

And he would hate himself forever.

In light, there is darkness.

In love, there is hatred.

Always."

…

"Friend," Luna creaked, shy and scared. My voice had begun to tremble, stumble over consonants, and yet my legs kept moving all the same. "I want to help you. You're not okay."

"I'm very 'not okay', Luna." I sighed, eyes welling with clear mist.

"If I may ask another thing," started my ghastly conscience. "With what name did you carry yourself through your ordeal?"

"Name..." I repeated.

"It wasn't Laza."

"No, because my name wasn't Lazareon.

…

It was Vyrosia."

…

"I see... How things have changed."

"Yes. Gamma has a habit of changing you."

I stopped at nowhere in particular, put to a heavy halt in the center of a muddy trail, trees hugging each others arms above me to bar the rain. Albeit not too significant an obstacle, I marveled at the handiwork of the branches, browns blocking blues, the world's own defenses saving its soil from liquid which seemed to fall from stars. Science of precipitation aside, it always felt splendid to think that raindrops hailed from the tears of supernovae, vaporous nebulae descending into a rock to create life, birthing with a mind, a means of thought, a way to be enlightened, and a willpower to take steps forward.

In this moment, I was weightless. Nay, I was always weightless with this false body—this Gamma spirit, but, in my heart, I was feathery, like I had let go of something chaining me down. It may have left a stain on my soul, but, in being less of an obstacle and more of a challenge, I could accept it.

It was hatred.

I needed to go and see how that hatred had changed over the cycles of my Wave, and just how blighted it'd become with the nightmarish Cross and the Scion roaming about.

…

The sky went ablaze, a beacon of blue and white shooting into the air, a display most extravagant.

Being one such used to bright lights, I found myself captivated, looking into this phenomenon, unable to categorize it. Yes, indeed, there was Gamma there. That sizzling taste again, tickling my tongue, pulling my ethereal fur like a phantasmal magnet...

It was very near, perhaps even in this woodland.

The light began to bend wildly, as if alive, flickering through the foreground of a canopy obstructing my vision. All around me, the scene was given a strobe effect, this monstrous serpent of light arching sideways, front and back, before bending out of sight, its rampant hum decaying into a forlorn whimper of energy, electricity, angelic choir of fluid swishing in the ear.

It wasn't my destination, but it seemed I wasn't the only one with problems.

Shame.

…

…

…

-PERIOD-SEVEN

…

Earlier

"So, waiwaiwait. When you jump off of the sand, you enter a certain point in time?" the skywisp asked, squinting to her espurr companion.

"That's what I've been told!" the pink espurr proudly recalled, his tiny paws clung to his hips.

"So then why didn't we just go back in time and stop this all from happening?!"

"Because Xima said not to, or else the universe gets cooked. Inside and out. A lot."

"Mmmmkay, well, that's a valid reason. What's her deal, dude?! She explains crap so... so, like..."

"Vaguely? Yeah, she's weird."

"Kinda hot though."

"She's got some nice curve," said the espurr, his stature shrinking into a unsure pause, round eyes going small, an audible gulp descending his throat. "But I swear, if we talk about stuff like that, I feel like she'll jump out of the ground and roundhouse kick us in the junk."

"'S not like I have to worry about that."

"Oh, right, sorry. You're kind of a girl."

"Whoa, you don't say! Hey, I forgot about that! Thanks! You're an asshole!"

"Wh-wha—it's not like you don't have 'junk', just... I-it's like a different junk—more of a trunk, actua-"

"Aah-ah, ssshhhjust stop, dude, I don't need to think about it," the bright blue wisp commented posthaste, managing a bright blush, despite the reptilian suggestion to her appearance. She crossed her small arms tightly, shoulders high, aggravated. "S-so why'd we end up here at the obsidian circle anyway?"

"Oh, that! Falling out of the Timescape puts you near a certain piece of the meteorite. We ended up here." said the espurr, turning around to face the fragment in question, a haunted look revealing itself through his brow.

"This thing?" asked the wisp, facing the same object. "Doesn't smell right around here."

"Really, it doesn't. Kinda gives off that metallic smell, like... like wet blood. I mean, it's raining and everything, so maybe..." he paused, looking high, the strange, infrared light of the meteorite finding a means of communicating with his eyes, an impossible color.

"Maybe what?"

"I don't know. Random qualm. Happens, you know," he shrugged, turning back to his friend and grinning. "Let's meet up with the Circle."

The skywisp's tail-tip flicked forward, eyes of electric yellow going wide. She gasped, but it was silent beneath the rainfall.

"I've got a good feeling we're close. C'mon!"

While the small pink feline took to the narrow, muddy trail between the thickets, the wisp remained behind for a moment, thinking over the words, running their meanings through her head once, twice, thrice. The Circle was here, she thought to herself. Of course they were. This was Autumnridge. This was where the Circle was born. Why wouldn't they be here? They were always here.

They were probably looking for her. Him, rather; but, Al was nowhere to be found. Al was Alli.

It made sense to her. She even nodded to herself, alerting her body, telling it that she understood. After all, it had a lot to do with the body.

Giving herself a scan from the tail up to the belly, she sighed, and then darted ahead, allowing her tongue a brief second to flick into the air and sense her mammalian friend. He was still near. He was always this near. He never went anywhere. She was still angry about that, but happy to be angry, because it meant she cared. She knew that. He knew that. There was nothing to hide.

She wanted to share it with the Circle.

So, off they went.

…

…

…

I couldn't get away from the tears. Ever.

They were falling all around me, and I was never able to make them. I was too sad to cry. Why wouldn't my sadness let me cry?

Maybe I was crying, but I felt nothing. I loved the water against my fur, but, for whatever reason, when the water was tears, mine or otherwise, I felt nothing. I only wanted to get away from it, but I couldn't even do that. I looked to Bryan for it, because he never cried. He just held me quietly.

In Charley's arms, I was the quiet one, her own tears mixing with the rain against me. I felt the need to scowl at every sniffle she made, every jarring, sudden breath she took. Her scent was nice, however, comforting me. She didn't smell totally like Bryan, even if she was related somehow. She had a honey perfume-esque, gritty scent to her skin, or maybe scales. When I looked close enough at her belly and her arms, there were no lines insinuated segments or scales. She was smooth as stone, soft as moss, shiny as the surface of water. These creatures—skywisps—were from something somewhere in someone's mind. Wasn't I told that once?

It sure wasn't by Laza. He didn't say anything when he came to me. It was from someone in black. At the time, I gathered the black didn't mean anything, but in giving a close sniff to Charley, I might have been really wrong to assume that. The black did mean something, because it was inside of her, too. It wasn't the same exact smell of black. It was so hard to describe a scent in color, because I never would have thought of smells being tagged with colors when I was human.

Who was I kidding? I was never human. I was just a walking personality. Davidson was always there to remind me of that. If I ever turned the other cheek, it wouldn't have been very good for me, and no one would have even noticed.

Unless they were Bryan, but now he was gone.

I didn't have it as bad, did I? Was it worse being you, Bryan? How long did you have that parasite creature in your head? Could I get you back?

If I could do that, not just for me but for your family and your real friends who didn't keep secrets, then I could go on feeling okay. I might even feel well. Although, if there was no way to bring you back to our side and Gamma was really that nasty, then I only wanted what Delta Meadow wanted for Autumnridge: to be a part of it for a little, take what I could, then go out with a bang.

All to make sure that no one else had to suffer...

All to ensure the safety of the rest of the world...

I knew it was unfair, but no one else would have had the time to think about that. It was my thought and mine alone up until the moment of destruction.

Maybe if I was lucky, I could take out a few HX operatives with me, just for spite's sake. I did want what they wanted, yes. I also wanted nothing to do with them.

I'd always wondered if death was the only way out, but I would have killed myself long ago if I was ever convinced that Kaiser's heart-reshaper project was a complete waste of time and effort. I liked it too much to give up. They wanted me for it anyway. I already signed my soul away. Dying wouldn't have meant anything.

Now, it had so much more power.

It chased a vendetta pushing at the core of my being.

"Charley," I quipped, letting the pink skywisp know I was still here as a person rather than a cushion. "Could you let me go?"

"Uh?" she squeaked, her grip around me relenting. It tightened again very quickly. She didn't want to leave me, because she knew I would do something beyond her control.

She wasn't wrong.

"Please," I insisted. "Let me go."

"Uh-huh." Charley obliged, letting her arms drop, then pulling them inward.

When I stepped away, I saw just how pathetic she looked, her small digit-less hands folded over one another, tail coiled around nothing before her, head as low as gravity could take it. I couldn't tell if the water falling from her snout was from her or from above. In a sense, they were from something that should have been in the sky. She was here on the ground, and so were the clouds—I was blinded by them, their fog.

I couldn't see very far ahead. I never could. It led me to wonder.

"Charley, uhm," I began, taking a few more steps from the skywisp until I turned away, standing at the broken railing on the bridge. The water below was still sanguine and shimmering. "Do you think it can get much worse?"

"I don't know," she sniffed, looking at me without moving her head. "All I know is that you're in control of a lot of people's fates. I-if, and only 'if', it gets worse, what'll you do?"

"I'll make it better," I said, lazy seconds putting themselves between my words. "I'll make it better by putting it under a mushroom cloud."

"How's that supposed to help make things better?"

Thunder answered her before I could. I didn't even have an intention to answer. Her voice flew at me like she was looking ahead rather than down. I wanted to look back and check if I was right, but I knew how powerful her sky blue eyes were. I didn't want deterrence and obviation like that.

How would it make things better? Maybe it wouldn't. Maybe it would just stop them from getting any worse.

"I know how easy it is to spread Element Gamma," I started, speaking more quickly. I knew what I wanted to say. "And I'm okay with what it used to mean. I'm okay with the whole entire world turning into a a big Pokéball,, but I just saw Gamma do something it's never done before."

"How can you be so sure of that?" she addled me.

"Because, back at HX," I remembered. "They labeled two Gammas: Scion and Laza. Laza's made you into a Pokémon, and Scion's..."

I stopped.

I knew Scion's Gamma, too. If Charley was really with HX, did she know that?

"Travis?" she cooed.

I forgot I went quiet all of a sudden. While it was true that I knew what I wanted to say, I couldn't find the words to fill the spaces. Instead, looked into the river, imagining the shellfish and discarded coins beneath the surface. I didn't ever go down there. It was too much of a hassle diving underwater with all of my natural buoyancy. I'd always wanted to get to the riverbed, but Bryan beat me to it. To me, it was undiscovered, and there was no way of knowing what was on the other side. Bryan wasn't coming back to tell me. He'd been down there too long.

This was our river once, but only for a short time. Seconds, really, in the grand scheme of things.

"You're not going in there, Travis!" she yelled, like she knew my actions before I did. That wasn't wrong of her.

I thought back to the moment we spent in each other's arms, long, awkward, and bitter. Thunder and gunshots from afar made our heads lift up, but didn't do enough to move us from our spot. Knowing how gentle and loving Charley was for an HX operative, she would have lurched from me at the sound of those cracks, sniffing for gun smoke, finding the shooter and silencing him or her with her lacy weapon. It was sad that she didn't do that. She was done playing the heroine, because it proved nothing of the person she needed to be in Autumnridge. She needed to be a brave father, and she couldn't do that when she was a skywisp with a deranged alter ego wielding an otherworldly weapon. She got changed by Gamma.

Changed by Gamma, I thought. Heh, there really was no point in me. Delta Meadow was right. That was why they turned me into a bomb. A fail-safe. A firework show.

For a second, I wondered if blowing up would have killed me. After all, Chevron said that he and Delta Meadow were going to kill me over and over and over again, right?

Then I thought how stupid that was. Bombs killed people. When you were the bomb, you died too. Easy. I was going to be turned to ash faster than I could feel pain. That was sweet.

"Travis! G-get away from the edge! You're scaring me here—stop!" she shouted again, her voice above me. She must've been floating now. Was I really that important? She needed me to cry against and I didn't feel like being the sponge anymore.

I didn't feel like being the tool.

"Hey, Delta Meadow," I swallowed, trying to find any shade or shape in the water below. "I know that blowing up wouldn't kill you off, but I hope Gamma does. You're trying to redefine death now, aren't you? Well, I hope it changes all of you into people who actually think about what they're doing.

Like this: I've thought about what I want to do, and now I'm doing it."

I took a step forward, and the wooden bridge was no longer beneath me. I heard Charley call a name behind me. It may have been mine, but I didn't care anymore. I heard what I wanted to hear: sounds. That was enough.

The plunge was short, climate cooler than the waters I fell into. I heard bubbles wrap around me, gargle above me, whisper beneath me. The rainfall sounded like static far, far away, out of reach and mind. It should have been a blue experience—maybe even deep indigo, swirling brown and black, hint of green, but it was all too red. Sediment lifted, obscuring the sight of the bubbles. I could only feel them rushing past me. Even with my kinship to water, I couldn't tell up from down. This wasn't just water, then. That much was obvious even before Al and Bryan dropped into the river. There were plants, fish, and dirt. But, water was the only liquid around. Now, there was more. Something thick.

I managed to stop myself from surfacing, simply staring into a blank brown and red distance, particles of indistinguishable brightness passing me by at an angle. I was holding my breath, but without trouble. I was fine for another ten minutes, give or take one or two. My arms were out to either side. They didn't contribute much to my body's buoyancy, so I didn't need to keep them straight. I couldn't help but keep my tail high above me. For the most part, I was in stasis, just watching ahead, waiting for something.

Anticipation.

Shivering.

It was warm, but I was shivering.

I didn't see Al anywhere. I was too enraptured by the hollow scene ahead, only filled with the unknown. I thought of wild marine life. I pictured the shadow of a shark or a crocodile entering the fray, wriggling, tail pushing the water, growing larger, coming closer and closer. It was all illogical, yet I had this feeling of helplessness, of being the prey in a sealed tank with no escape. I fed myself to the monster.

Here it was.

Jagged lines tore through the murky, muddy and bloody water. I counted a good ten lines, zigzagging, the whole thing owning a curvature that resembled the glowing smile of a jack-o-lantern, lit by its own means, pouring white light into the water. The sharp smile arched across an area larger than I was wide at my thickest point. After this shape spawned, two more followed. They were round, only a small distance above the mouth. At first, they were dim, only two tiny white orbs. They, too, were glowing, providing enough light to reveal a black, empty rim around them. It had depth. Given that there were two by each other on the same plane at the same height, I couldn't see them being anything other than eye sockets. Slowly, those white pupils grew, filling a larger space within the sockets.

I tried to breathe. I choked.

The water that filled my lungs was dealt with by means I'd no understanding of. I couldn't explain the inner workings of a Pokémon like myself. All I could relay to anyone was that it happened and I felt it happen, like waste washing away from the body, a wound healing in seconds, a bad thought replaced with a good one.

The canvas of brownish red became more defined, shiny, and crimson. The light from the eyes and the wicked smile showed me the body to which it was attached. At first, I thought it to be amorphous. I was wrong. It did have a shape. Large, with segments of it worming like overgrown maggots, it appeared to be a heart, albeit without regard to the organ. It was a heart of the whimsical, more playful kind—the shape everyone recognized as a symbol of love and happiness.

It was the symbol I associated with Bryan.

And now, even that innocent, lovely little shape was an organ, given tissue, made filthy and organic, slimy, pulsing, writhing with four prurient tendrils in the murk.

"It's me, Bryan," I wanted to say. Of course, beneath the water, I couldn't hear the all of the sounds very well, but I could still picture how it could be interpreted correctly. Would it reach him though? "Remember me? 'Course you do."

"Would you-be a friend-if told you-that... be-friend, tell-you, be-friend, be-happy, friend kkhehehehe!"

It spoke.

He spoke to me. He sounded like Bryan paired with a monstrosity, a voice put through a thousand filters aimed to bring out only the part of you that sounded like you were happy and thrilled to be alive. Abstract aside, the voice was pasty, like it'd been ground to dust and then minced again. It sounded like meat and teeth, thorns and phlegm, mucous and laughter. It was clearest thing in the water.

"Khhee, my-lovely, I want-you out of those-walls, so-you-can be happy—khhehehehe—with-me-me-meehehehehee!"

I couldn't tell how exactly he was speaking. His mouth wasn't moving. It remained still, that zigzag never parting, and still, I heard him well.

He was still okay, wasn't he? Yes, he was okay! He knew me! He remembered who I was. Ma-maybe his mind was a little bit hurt from that thing coming out of it, but he was okay, right?!

"Bryan! C-can you say my name? Please! Let me know you're okay, and we can surface together. We can float on the water like old times. We can still be happy together." I implored, reflecting on those final two words. He liked the word 'happy'. He used it a lot. He must have wanted it, too.

"Travisssss vissss vis vis vis-vis-vis-visisiskhEHEHEHE!" he cackled, the white pupils shrinking, twitching in their place as if suspended in the sockets.

"Bry," I whined. "You gotta be Bryan, don't you? You are! You're still him!" I roared, growing tired of hearing my voice beneath water.

"Nooonooonooo, I-like-you-love-yousomuchSOMUCH! Khheeee, want-to be-happy. Travisvisvis makes-me haaaappy. I-want-to be-part Travis. Vis-me? You-Tra. I-be Vis, you-be Tra! Bryan—kkkkhehehee—would-never admit-he loved you."

"No, he would—h-he..." I whimpered. It became a girlish scream when I felt something shove me from behind, knocking me forward. I was bound for this heart-like creature. When I made contact, I felt soft. I didn't look up. Instead, I kept my face low. I didn't know where I was relative to his large body. I could've been inside of it for all I knew. He was so gooey and squishy. I didn't know where I was. That was until a pair of the tendrils met my tail, then my backside, pushing me closer against him. Then, I knew I was half-submerged into his flesh. There came a point where he stopped pushing.

It was a hug. He was hugging me.

His body was so warm.

I didn't even care that it was painting me red or it smelled like decay.

He remembered me, didn't he?

"I-was-Bryan," he cackled. "But-he didn't want-to-laugh, to-play. Only-you made him-happy. He-left-the-world, but-left behind me-for-you, to-make you happy-too. I couldn't-be without-you, so that's-why-I'm-VIS, kkkhehehehkheheheee!"

He wanted me to be happy. He was still Bryan. He just didn't want to say. Bryan always wanted me to be happy. That was why he helped me in the first place. He felt something inside of himself that he never wanted to tell me. He was no different now. I just needed to help him. I needed to help him come back to the place he used to be.

"You'll-be-happier without your-walls," he sneered.

I had no time to object or decline anything. Something was burrowing into my fur. It became sharp, stinging, an inferno of liquid pain.

I was screaming, the sensation of fiery drilling tearing into my sides coming from somewhere unseen. My eyes were closed, bubbles spewing from my mouth. I couldn't stop. The pain made me nauseous. Wanted to vomit. Wanted to make it stop.

I felt my insides get twisted and ripped, stretched and pulled away from the places they belonged

The holes he carved into my sides were opening wider, two points which he'd used to create them touching inside of me, meeting at the tips, squeezing out what remained.

There came a point where pain felt like pressure, and pressure felt like the ephemeral spot between dreaming and being.

I was dying.

How was I supposed to be happy like this?

How was I...

...was...

...was I...

…

…

…

Someplace other.

We were finally here, our footsteps fast on the wet woodland ground. Since the crack of the gunshots, we'd put ourselves into a mad dash mode. Pity was me if I couldn't get back home in the time it took me to get taken away from home. Realistically, we had the rain to blame for an impasse. Poor weather conditions stopped us, put us under an old roof for a night, then woke us with thunder, lightning on a horizon I called Autumnridge.

I'd wondered why I hadn't ever missed running on two tall legs. They were burning, sore. After all of the running I'd done today and yesterday, I found myself wishing that I was still a regular Pokémon so that Young could carry me. Surely, that was a burden, and I had convinced myself overnight that the positives of this body outweighed those of my previous two. I was still debating on whether or not it surpassed my human body. It didn't get the gender right. Emelina wouldn't ever let me hear the end of that.

I had Arcadia. I was Arcadia. That much I felt I could be proud of, had I known what it meant. Xima didn't explain enough, but I appreciated the succinctness she left me with. Really, would I have been able to take much more? After watching Jack and Ki get scorched alive like that, probably not.

Along the trek, Young gave us a streamline of detail regarding Flicker.

Flicker was a project labeled FLKR-HX3, the third of the Meadow's greatest Gamma accomplishments. She told us that this project was more of a statement than anything else. It was an emblem of proof that they didn't need a certain other experiment. Gamma had done everything they ever dreamed of, supposedly. If that wasn't enough, the Flicker project was also a means of putting an end to the 'savage victims' that were the residents of Autumnridge. I didn't know much about the town, since I'd only seen things from the Meadow side. Lots of white coats. Sure, I got to experience first-paw all of the horrible things that happened to people when Gamma introduced itself—more of a forced introduction—to the body. Save for that, this Symbi was a flashing neon sign of how little the Meadow knew about Gamma or what it could do. Mars knew more. Death Knell might've even known a bit more.

Now, Flicker? From what I gathered, Flicker was almost the opposite of what I was.

Xima called me a siren. I brought this up with the girls. A siren was born when a very, very powerful node of Element Gamma Scion found its way into someone with Laza's Gamma. Under the right conditions, whatever that meant, a siren could ensue from all of that.

Young called Flicker a purge. This was essentially the vice-versa complex of a siren. When one had some amount of Gamma Scion in them, then had extended exposure to Laza's Gamma, something a little bit different happened.

…

The Previous Night

…

We were huddled together in the cold, seated in as circular a circle as four could make. Rain danced against the thick roof above, never drawing us from the only source of noise between us. Young.

"FLKR-HX3," she spelled out, dry and of little variation in pitch. "Flicker. Dubbed this because of the observations made. The subject would flick between variations of Gamma, notably blue and black, predominantly blue. Researchers questioned why blue was dominant over black. Experimentation indicated that the subject's tendency to show one Gamma over the other was suggesting a failure to mix. Previous subjects failed to replicate this. Injecting Element Gamma Laza into a subject after Element Gamma Scion was present resulted in no change. However, the latter Gamma would become constantly present. Instead of a 'flicker', researchers described these subjects as having a soft 'pulse' between their Gammas, predominantly black. Henceforth, these subjects would be called PLSE-HXN.

Researchers to this day, myself included, don't know the distinction between these subjects and Flicker. It may have to do with research prior to Gamma's appearance. The only thing I can think of is the heart-reshape experiment, but that's unlikely.

PLSE-HXN subjects became controls. Scientists wanted to find any sort of difference between them and Flicker. This ignited a few more projects down the road, such as Cryhex, an experiment centralizing the effects of Gamma on the body, and Nikki—you, Arcadia—a project where were to supervise personality change. During this, we concluded that Flicker's abnormality was tied to something we only understood as far as Death Knell—DT-HX2. It was something very destructive. Higher-ups didn't want something like that around the facilities, so they came up with a trigger to initiate that destructive capability. Death Knell himself. The measurements matched. These two had something that resonated. When exposed to one another, the instability shown in the flicking Gamma would rupture, and a purge would be the result—a complete, explosive release of a specific element of Gamma. Yeah, if you ever wondered why that guy was called 'Death Knell', now you know.

We only know purging from Chevron's case. While we weren't able to get a close look at whether he 'flicked' or 'pulsed', the purge was destructive enough to cause a massive collapse of sediment and rock from underneath the Deep Meadow. You all saw the effect."

"Wait, does that mean Chevron was actually a Pokémon BEFORE he got made into a human vampire thingy?" Emelina asked.

"Yeah. A shaymin. The Doctor Kaiser himself operated on Chevron. No one talks about how he did it, but he did. He turned a Pokémon back into a human. Kind of. And then Sera jumped out of nowhere and reversed it. She's right. We don't understand Gamma, and we'll never understand it at this rate, especially with Flicker running free."

I shuffled in place, criss-crossing my legs and tucking my fluffy tufts behind my scarf into them, hugging around my cold arms.

I dreaded to think what kind of person Flicker was. He or she could've been someone like Chevron. Maybe it was worse. Maybe this Flicker experiment was a good person altogether. Why was that worse than being a sadistic murderer? You were used to do the murdering. You were a tool. You were innocent, but you were a tool.

It reinforced my feelings about Delta Meadow and Gamma. I wanted to end one, but I still had no idea what to do with the other. I told Xima I wanted to be rid of Gamma, but Sera wouldn't have let me do that. I got a good vibe from her. No malicious intent or anything!

So, was Flicker that way, too?

"I have a limited database on HX experiments," Pat commented, her voice as clear and human as her appearance suggested otherwise, and furthermore, all in due point that it was an illusion masking her more metallic self. "I'm an access terminal for information regarding these things, but my ability to encrypt has been mitigated severely. A number of firewalls have blocked access to Flicker's profile. This was done to prevent information leaking, should I go rogue."

"But Patty, you're a person, and people use their memory! So, when you did have access to all that stuff, you were thinking about it in some way, yeah yeah? Sooo, can you remember what you thought about?" Emelina continued. Not a bad call, actually.

"It's hard to say I was really 'thinking' for myself back then," Pat gloomed, leaning forward to stretch. I imagined it felt nothing like a stretch of my own, cables and flexible crossbar material loosened to simulate the feeling of a real stretch. "To put it simply, my 'life' was my 'objective'. I don't even think it's right to say I was 'alive'. With that, I'm sorry to say I can't 'naturally' remember anything about Flicker. It's frustrating, to say the least. If I'd just awakened a little sooner..."

"It's like ten thousand percent not your fault." Emelina said.

"That's a very unlikely value." Pat doubted herself, though part of her was amused with the estimation Emi gave.

"Emotion took you from your robotic state," Young clarified, looking at the bipedal mudkip. "Psychology's been shown to trump basic survival needs, studying methods, healthy diet—you name it. It's unreliable, but, under the right conditions, your emotions are probably the most powerful thing about you. Once they come out, you're going to have a backbreaking time putting them back inside. These things—emotions—have some big repercussions. This is why I'm worried about Flicker. No, this person's not like Chevron. That makes it scarier. If emotion's still the metaphorical 'king of the soul', then even Gamma can't make a difference. Maybe you can change a person with it, but you can't change emotions. They'll always be there in some way. And boy, when they come out, they make a scene. I don't want that scene to look like a purge."

"A purge," I muttered, looking into my lap, raising my hands, scanning the heart-shaped bands of fluff around my wrists. I thought to myself how much different a purge could be than a siren. Were they different? Did Delta Meadow even know what a siren was? "Remember what I said about Xima?"

"That's right. You met Xima back there. HX practically put a bounty on that girl ever since Chevron encountered her, but I don't need to repeat myself on that issue." Young recalled, a sparkle showing in her eyes, revealing something of an abstruse fascination with Xima. "She gave you that staff. A Symbi, as Mars would have reported it."

"Yes." I confirmed, lifting my hands above my legs.

I concentrated, putting my soul into my grasp, fingers curling around an invisible presence. The more I focused on making that presence manifest, the more intrusion I felt introduce itself into my palms. Alighted was the presence, the air forging a pole between my hands, extruding either side, one end decorated with the five golden rings suspended in midair-stasis, the bottom end complete with its encased pyramid. Arcadia came to me without hesitation, trusting me, at peace with me as her host, the staff's pink lacing and ribbons curling over my own fluffy tail.

It was a gracious feeling to have her back, my heart elated and fluttering. Laying my staff across my legs, I scanned for expressions, noticing the open jaw of Pat, the 'ooh' in Emelina's muzzle, and the raised brow which Young always seemed to present perplexity and invite inquiry.

"It behaves like Death Knell's sickle." Young noted.

"Nick-adia's is less of an eyesore, though. It's really sleek! I so wish I had something like that." Emelina commented. I smirked at the remark. Eyesore? Oh, was that a pun? The scythe Knell fought with did have that eye. It haunted me, but it also reminded me how alive these weapons were.

"In a time of two point four seconds flat, my sensors go haywire with incredibly potent Gamma particulate in the air," Patricia mused, observing the device at her wrist—well, I knew it was there, even though it looked a lot like she was just looking at her own bare wrist. Presently, her illusion hid any sign of technology. "One thing I do remember very clearly is the battle we fought. Nick-adia's staff drained my resources of energy."

"Big light show, too. D'you think that's just what the staff does?" Emi pondered.

"Safe to say, since Xima put both of us to the test. From what I've seen, it just absorbs energy. Heat and Gamma, I guess." I smiled, giving that Timescape 'training session' a quick thought, running through the possibilities in my head. What if I wasn't fast enough? What if I'd been killed by that attack?

"Absorption of energy? Well, so long as the energy exists somewhere, it doesn't go totally against the laws of thermodynamics. It could be used as a countermeasure to Flicker, but if that purge is anything like Chevron's, then I..." Young paused, staring at me, concerned, her cheeks sagging.

"What, me?" I laughed. "I thought you said you could slow Flicker down with some Pokémon you knew!"

"But time's been against us. We've not been very lucky with the weather. We're also on the run with an injured Pokémon." she said, turning to Emelina.

She was wearing my—or Young's—sky blue ribbon around her leg as a bandage. An unfortunate victim of the crossfire between Pat and I at the time, I thought to patch her up with all I could think of at the time. I myself was wounded in the fight, but my injuries weren't too bad—a scratch here, laser-saber impalement there.

Emelina'd been running with us this whole time on a hurt leg. I felt bad I couldn't do a little more. Wasn't there a weapon, or Symbi, rather, that could heal people in the blink of an eye? Xima may have mentioned it. Oh, was it the one that Mars wielded? Or Mari? What was her name again?

Or was that something other?

"I'm only saying that if all else fails, we'll need to have your staff on the ready. It's an absolute last resort." the human scientist stressed. She must've cared, but she had a very stony way of telling me that.

"I know, I know," I nodded, gripping my staff, trusting it as it trusted me. Could I stop something that big? "But, as important as that last resort is, we should think of a plan to prevent Flicker from ever purging."

…

The rest of that night went by with too many words and too little sleep. Emelina's plans followed a emotional route that I could smile at, but it didn't tie up any loose ends or prevent anything dangerous coming out of the future. Pat's plans were more logical, but with too much logic came a shortage of that emotional 'trump card' Young talked about, and kept talking about, since she couldn't seem to give a contribution. She wasn't telling us something.

That was always the problem with Professor Young. I liked her and respected her, but she was too married to science and secrecy. Delta Meadow must have hammered her with that train wreck of thought for years. Though, still, why now? She left Delta Meadow. She said it herself on HX—was it HX they called Delta Meadow?—property. This former doctor of the Meadow was on her own from here on out. She couldn't really do that if she had enough unsaid to follow her here. Oh, maybe things were better left unsaid.

A woman like her... I was sure she made a lot of mistakes. I was one of them. With her caliber of researcher, I wasn't the only one. She didn't want to tell me anything about it, but it wasn't like asked, or even wanted to ask.

I just wanted to know how to get through days and nights now.

Until then, I wouldn't get a good night's sleep. Pat and Emi could, and Pat was a cyborg now. I slept less than a cyborg? Embarrassing.

Most embarrassing was the idea—no, the usage—of me as a pillow. I had so much fluff that I blanketed everyone here but Young. Pat and Emi sprawled over me like kids.

I guess I was happy. They were the Circle. I was the Circle. I had my friends with me. I fought for these friends, and they fought for me. That was a real stellar feeling. It made me feel airy and brave.

…

Today

No matter what happened, I had a resolve to fight.

I wanted to fight for Young. I wanted to fight for Emelina and Pat. I wanted to fight for Xima, for Sera and her sister.

I pinched a strand of my white hair between two fingers, catching hold of something thin and straight. I recalled the pink kitten and the white rose he gave me.

I felt so bubbly around him. He was a sweet little guy. I even called him an angel, but the urge to do so was inexplicably sudden.

I paused, simply running a finger across the stem of the flower, smiling, reminiscing over him. Without him, I wouldn't have gotten out of the Timescape so easily.

I was going to fight for him, too. Angel. I wanted to fight for Angel.

…

Autumnridge smelled different. There was a gross chase to its taste under my tongue. The woodland was important to me. I came here almost daily with the Circle. I knew how it should have smelled, looked, tasted, and felt. It was different the last time I came here.

That was when I first transformed. Everything still seemed so right back then.

If the woodland felt as wrong as it did now, I only imagined the look of town. Were people safe? What did the streets and parks and schools look like? Young convinced us to travel the southbound dirt paths through the forest, generally staying close to the river. We had no time to be captured by the Meadow. Oh, I didn't stomach the thought of returning to Winston very well. Good riddance to that guy. It wasn't as if I was done with him. I had a sick feeling he'd be back to claim some part of someone's body. What a wretched, miserable doctor. Almost as bad as that O'brien skywisp.

Sam was what Young called her. She was... supposed to be bad. One of the worst.

I felt our trail grow colder beneath my feet. My fur and fluff were heavy with rainwater, a sorry inconvenience I had to deal with with no refuge but the fleeting cover of trees. The canopy was becoming thicker overhead. That was homely. One of the main east-west trails of the woodland had this pattern of arching trees all the way from start to finish. It was how I met up with my friends after school. Most of the time, we traveled together. Other times, we came together after meetings. Bryan had his basketball practice, Al had his rugby. Emelina had cheerleading and Pat would go with her sometimes.

How were they?

Emelina and Pat were with me, so I knew they were fine; but, Bryan? Al? Cruce was out for the count as far as we knew. Was Topher doing okay? I wanted to keep myself in high spirits, but this vague, eerie feeling of sinister wind blowing through my body kept my head pointed low, like I needed to watch my step, like I didn't know where I was, and like the fear of the unknown was this woodland's overseer. All of those fables of the forest may have held some legitimate meaning now.

A flash if light. Lightning.

Why did I never believe in those fables? I never believed in things like this.

Thunder rumbled. A deep sense of malignant fear rolled down my back, straightening me. I wanted to bring my staff out, but with no need, I assumed it would have been a waste of energy somewhere. I knew Arcadia wanted me to bear her as many times as possible, but I didn't want to depend upon her like I needed her to do everything for me. I wanted to be useful. I wanted to be strong. That doubt prevented me from using my own power.

Oh, was that right? Was it my own power?

Should I have called it something other?

…

"Is anyone else scared?" Emelina asked. I looked down, catching her eyes.

She must've looked up around these trees to see something akin to a haunted forest lit by moonlight. That was where I felt like I was. The dark of the rainy dusk was aiding little.

"That's a natural response. We're getting closer to the site of Wave's beginning." Young said, doing nothing to damage her own stature. I wouldn't have expected anything else!

I sniffed. A sanguine scent was thick against the backdrop of muggy humidity.

"Young," Pat mewed, timidity showing in her normally unmelodious voice. "My sensors indicate that... someth-..."

"Patty, you okay?" Emelina chirped, hopping by a chilled Pat's side.

"I don't like it," Pat cried. "I didn't wanna come home to this feeling."

"Focus, Patricia," Young pressed. "You'll be okay with us. What are your sensors saying?"

"I-is it Laza?" she wondered, half-answering, half-asking us for more questions.

"What's Laza?" I blinked.

A disquieting gust tore through the leaves. An advent, the ghost of wind left.

"I'm trying to remember, but I wasn't alive back then. I didn't have my..." Pat paused, looking at her wrist, as if trying to analyze, make sense of something—she was already one step ahead of us. We knew nothing. We were all scared. She might have had more of a reason to be. "There's something that separates the two elements of Gamma. I could best describe the divide as two colors, one a hue, the other a deprived shade. Right now, I'm receiving a steady influx of something like Element Gamma Laza, but I... I... E-error. I'm having an error. Failure to compute viable hypotheses."

"Don't malfunction on us. That's just making things scarier!" Emelina barked, pushing against Pat's orange cheek with her muzzle.

"Sorry. I don't know what else to do. It's like Laza's Gamma, but much more biological. Do any of you smell blood? Well, it's not blood at all. It's Gamma." Pat said, providing the common ground. I forgot she was a computer. It must have been difficult. She had to over-think everything. It was how she was designed.

"Is that what it is?" I gasped, smacking my lips afterward. Blood-scented Gamma? I hadn't ever been able to smell Gamma before. Oh, no, there was the Timescape. It had a refreshing, perfumy scent to it, like sugary aloe with an undertone of ash. "It's nasty. Why is it here?"

"We can't answer that right now. We'll go until we find where we need to be, then we can take a rest." Young advised.

"Where do we need to be again?" asked the vulpix.

"If Anne's remote trackers were anything to go by, it's a place called the Grove. Should be heavy with Gamma. Just stepping around it puts Laza's Gamma in you."

"Whoa, er—will you be okay, Young?" I peeped. I didn't want to see Young get transformed. That would have bothered me a little more than my own transformation. I didn't even get to see that. Couldn't have imagined a mirror right there.

"I should be good," she dismissed. There went my worries. "It's close. Just on this path."

I took the cue. She wanted us to move ourselves.

The bridge was only a jog away, and the closer we came, the smokier the clouds became, raindrops falling to a crimson smell in a lightless day. I could still see the outlines of thunderheads, occasionally flashing with meek lightning, showing me their translucency, their skyward eruption, hidden beyond the texture of a canopy I'd locked away inside of my imagination since childhood.

It didn't look the same with that background of menacing clouds, put into a juxtaposition with the stench of mortality. The magic was all here, but it was bad magic, something I had to fight off with high hopes and good dreams. Forgive me for finding it harder to do that in a body that provoked people's tired heads to rest on and cuddle. If being a snuggle station was what got my friends and I through this mess, great! The less I had to do, the less chance of me messing up.

Not the attitude I needed. I needed to walk forward with Young, Emi, and Pat. I left the Meadow with a solid resolve. The coldness of Autumnridge should've hardened it, sharpened it, and pointed it forth like a spear's edge.

…

We found instability.

Our steps went frenetic, or eyes wide and our gazes as alert to the altercation as a choir to a melody's lead. Coming to the bridge, we were greeted with damage, both in form and in face, a skywisp leaning over the side of a busted railing, her hands gripping the ridge as she peered into waters muddied with maroon dismay. Under one of her small blue hands, a crystalline weapon lay, radiant laces lain over its surface.

In large, she was pink, but the most enthusiastic parts of her were blue, glowing, showing louder than the others. Her eyes in particular were the greatest in this regard, lost, flicking across random points in the water below. In spite of the rain, the river's surface was disturbed, in its last state of recovery, burying the evidence. Surely what had happened was recent enough for this skywisp—for Mari to be in such a state.

"Mari?!" Young yelled out, vying with the volume of the rain slapping against the open water.

The troubled wisp returned the look before Young had even finished pronouncing her name.

"He-HEY! HELP! HELP ME! PLEASE!" she screamed, ear-esque quills high, aggressive.

She wasn't in any apparent pain. I remembered Mari had something very strange about her. She conducted herself differently based on who her body was displaying at the moment. Mari and Mars. Oh, was she Mari right now? She sure seemed that way, whereas Mars was more collected and analytical.

"What's going on?!" Young ran ahead, hands making fists.

"Young! Young, Travis is down there! He jumped in after my s-...I don't know what to do! Mars isn't here anymore. I can't go down there—I-I don't know what to-"

"Travis? Travis who?!"

"THAT Travis!"

"HX?"

"Yes!" Mari exclaimed, her snout pointed up to Young, quills splaying. Her mouth went wide with a frown, bottom lip forward. It looked like she'd been crying.

I joined up with Young after a moment, Emelina and Pat spreading out, securing the bridge. No one instructed them to. The intensity on the bridge may have been the reason. It was everywhere, and everyone wanted to take their share. We were a team here, I guess. It was our neck of the woods anyway.

"Who's Travis?" Emelina queried, standing closest to me.

"Searching for identities under 'Travis'," Patricia commented, her eyes closing for a brief moment. "Search yields no results."

"That doesn't surprise me," Young huffed, looking low. Patricia joined her, standing at the other side of the frantic skywisp. "That's not just water, is it? Why is it red? What's the actual issue?"

"It's my-"

A tidal splash cut Mari off, hissing into the air.

Emergence.

My legs took me back one, two steps. Reflexively, I found myself bringing my staff forth, both arms ahead, nervously conjuring the lights that made Arcadia. A moment later, the staff achieved solidity. My ears were high, my tail frozen, lungs filled to the brim.

There was laughter amidst the splashing, bursts of red water flung into the sky by stray tendrils, dripping with a thicker fluid, a consistency of ooze, reluctant to leave its home. One of these tendrils, thick as a telephone pole, crashed into the bridge, crushing a section of the railing. A second repeated the action, nearly striking Patricia, lightning flaring behind the scene.

Following the two slams, a second set of these tentacles came forth, embedded within a round, blue object. I couldn't focus on the blue ball. The abomination behind it caught me in a lock, it's jagged smiling mouth and soulless round eyes. Maybe they were eyeless, but I could feel them seeing me like any other eyes, surrounded by black, alight with glowing white marbles. The aberration was coated in a layer of slime that looked like it could fall loose. Oh, something that could shift shape?

Right now, it's shape was of a heart, two tall horns on each of its humps. At the point of these horns, I could see orange structure, solid, unlike anything else on this creature's body. Easily a train car in width, the blood terror hunched over, tall and foul, with a smile spelling madness.

The water settled, the laughter ceased, and I could finally absorb the detail that came to me most quietly. That sphere of blue in the monster's grasp wasn't just being held. It'd been impaled. Seeing the girth of the tendrils made me shudder at the thought of how excruciatingly deep the impalement had to be, entering from either side of the round-eared, string-and-ball-tailed animal—Pokémon, without a doubt.

Muddy, shiny fluid dripped from the entry points in the blue Pokémon. They were from both he and the tendrils. More than likely, the blue mouse-like Pokémon was already dead. Appendages of that size would have crushed his internal organs in no time. I had a moment to consider his direction. Had he been facing us, I wouldn't have been able to look. He was facing inward, pointed toward the aberration.

He?

Where did his gender come from? Only my assumption that this was Travis.

Must've been. Not the monster, no? Was the monster the source of our fear? Was he the reason Autumnridge tasted and smelled as cringe-worthy as it did? Something that atrocious had to be. I hadn't seen anything this disgusting at Delta Meadow. There was a reason they wanted to destroy our town, and this was it. This was the blood Gamma Pat mentioned. Arcadia was telling me.

What was she saying? I was scared. I couldn't hear her. I had to listen closely.

It was...

It was part of Laza?

I squeezed the staff, poising myself with a touch more grace than before, letting my legs relax, one forward, one back.

"Holy shit! G-get back, get back," Young ordered, Mari behind her already. The skywisp was holding her Symbi in one hand, raised forward like a rapier. The expertise she advertised a day earlier had all but vanished. Young's arms were out, making herself as large as possible to something inconceivably more deadly. "You DID take Travis! Put him down."

"What is—Oh my GOD, WHAT is that?!" Emelina screamed.

"Professor," Pat panted, her body shining, bolts of red licking the air around her. "Get behind me! I will detain the anomaly!"

"You're not fighting this thing with Travis there," she argued, her voice the scratchiest it's ever been, like it had used this volume a long time before today. "If it can hear us, we try communicating. No one act on impulse!"

"Kkkheheheheheheheheheee!" the aberration cackled, a voice like a hacksaw within a throat, split into two tones, detuned and sandy. "He-loves-me, he-loves-me-not, HE-loves-ME, HE-loves-me-NOT, HE-LOVES-ME, HE-LOVES-ME-NOT, HELOVESMEHELOVESMENOHEEEEKKKHEHEHEHEE!"

"What the shiiit?" I muttered through chattering teeth, the curse sounding notably ugly in this voice.

That was Travis, and my staff was crying for him. I felt helpless. I needed to 'retrieve' him. As Arcadia, I had a duty around him. My mind raced with images of a faceless person I'd never met in any body. Epilepsy erupted, strobe flash invading my mind, a lost duty putting me on the stage once again.

Once again? Oh, no, not again. I mistook the first time for an authentic event when it was only an audition. This was the realest of the real. Xima may have even called it something as absurd as 'showtime'. If I could be like her, I could be triumphant, and yet she never talked to me about this fashion—this breed of monster. She never prepared me for something this egregious. The only defense I thought was that this was no battle of mine. Then, why did I feel the need to fight? Why did my staff gleam with each pulse of my flurrying heartbeat?

"G-guys, don't," Mari yelped, flying high, on level with the aberration's stretched face. "He's hurt! He's my son!"

"What in God's mercy are you talking about!?" Young clamored.

I looked at the Pokémon in the red creature's hold, then back to the skywisp, seeking a connection. Travis was Mari's son? He looked like the only one hurt in the circumstance.

"Doctor, you're-all-out of time! Khehehe! But-don't be sad. Be-happy! Be-happy he-lives! He-LIVES!" screeched the bloody beast, a deceptively mocking undertone to its broken voice, made with a mouth unmoving.

"Travis is still alive," Young growled. "He's hanging on. Shit, what do I do?! What do we do?! He'll bleed out faster than we can help him if we detach those tentacles from his body."

"I can heal him! I can fix his wounds and it'll be like he never had them!" Mari argued.

"How fast can you do that?!" asked Young.

"As fast as you need me to! Just get him away from B-..." she stopped, her mouth left open in a trance, no words left for us to hear.

"Look-at-MEEEHEHEHEHE! Look at-usss! We're so MERRY-together! You-can all be MERRY-too," hacked the creature, the bridge trembling beneath the strength of its tendrils. "Let's-all-become ONE. Khhhheeeee, so-that-way we don't need-to-worry about anything ELSSSSEEHEHEHEHE! One mind, one thought, one feeling-forever, a feeling-forever! All you-need to-do is let-go-of-your WALLS!"

"Our walls?" I asked, taking a step forth. "Oh, get out!"

"Yeah, for real!" Emelina rallied, her fan of six tails spread apart.

"No smack talking if we can help it," Young ordered, glaring at Emi and I for a quick, sharp moment. Yeah, she was right. We couldn't take any risks. Not now. Not after this much running, that many steps, Delta Meadow behind me. "This person, Pokémon or otherwise, is in some kind of catatonic state. It might not be aware of what it's saying. Is it under someone's control?"

For a moment, Young was speaking away from us, yet to us, only feet from the aberration. Her gall calling it a 'person' made me envy her bravery more. I'd already written it off as a mindless, rampant thing; but, Young was better at seeing the value in people than a lot of us—me, most specifically.

"Listen, we understand what the things you're saying mean, but we can't comply to them," Young started, speaking directly to the monster, her posture serene, shoulders low. "Can I ask you something? What does Travis mean to you? Obviously he's important if you want to hold him like that."

"Travisss-vis-visssseehehee..." the aberration hesitated, white pupils fixed upon the human scientist. "He-filled me—filled-my-void, made-me... so happy. He-worried I wouldn't-be happy khhehee—I wouldn't-be happy if-he told-me the truth—but I-know everything. I-know-the-truth! It-makes-me HAPPIER!"

"What do you want to do? You want to hurt people to make them happy? Eh? You're going to kill this innocent Pokémon. He's not like you. He nor we understand the motives behind your actions. To us, it looks like you're about to make a bunch of people very sad. Trust me, one of them is bound to get mad before that. She's not afraid to act on it." Young put forward, my respect for her showing in the shape of a proud smile.

"The Young Professor is-so-unhappy," the monster spoke, and suddenly, like a switch from light to dark, things turned. "You're-so mad-mad-mad-mad-mad-mad. Maaaad kkheheheheeee... Is-it-because you don't-have your family? You-think you can-substitute patients, no, SUBJECTS, NO, THINGS-for-family? You-think it makes-you happy?! She's-so lonely. She's-old-and-lonely. That's why she's-Young. Khehe! She wants to be Young-forever! Does Young-miss her little girl?! Does Young miss-her boy, all-grown up and happy without her?!"

Young's hands were fists again.

"How can I take your insults to heart when you know jack-all about me?" she combated.

"I-know... you... I'm-... I-have one feeling, and... it-makes... the truth so-much-easier to see. I-just want you to see-the-truth, be happy, and see the truth, be-happy-see-the-truth!"

"Don't let it offend you, Professor. This is Gamma we're negotiating with." Patricia reminded us—me, at least, though I should've taken my staff's warnings to heart in a much more conscious way than mere instinct.

"Trust me, I'm aware. Gamma's been known to piss on what you know, but I've never had it pretend to know me like that. Pitiful," the somber professor spat. "You're not solving anyone's problems—God help us all if you think you can fix mine."

"But-I-can," the aberration teased. "My-lovely filled your VOID, too. Isn't that-what-he did? For-you? For-Young, he pretended to-be-a-happy son, and Young, his mother, kkhehehehehehehe..."

"Sh..." Young inhaled, fingers squeezing her palms.

"Let-me-take-your walls and-we can be-happy together, with Travis. Remember-how-much he-looked up to you? Remember-the smiles you gave-him? I want-to-laugh and make you smile forever. If I-can't fix-you, Travis can. He-always has. Your-drug. Your-fix. OUR-fix, kheheheheheeeHEHEHEHEHE!"

Young didn't say a word after that.

I felt my legs moving. I was approaching her. One time, I gave her happiness, and likewise, she returned the favor. We were happy together. When I found out that it was all a lie, I was sad, but I still believed in her for some stupid, optimistic reason. When she came around again, I was so ecstatic I couldn't even show it, but she knew it already. All of this went without saying. She was an awesome, wonderful woman.

"Young, I'm with you," I simply said. "Remember what we came here for?"

She said nothing. I had to push harder.

"This isn't the time for regrets. I know you're not about to let this thing make you question your life decisions. It's not worth your time. People like Pat and Emelina and I—we want to be worth your time. We ARE worth your time, because you've stayed with us for this whole trip. You've told us that, and we've believed in you." I ranted, feeling a little foolish. I was terrible with these sorts of moments. As Arcadia, I needed to learn more about them. I was... supposed to be a beautiful person. I still had to grow, to change.

"Nikki," she spoke up, wasting no time. "Arcadia, even. I didn't tell you everything. No one has the time for that. I told you half-truths. I've always been telling you half-truths."

"Half... truths? When did you...?" I cooed.

"You aren't just an experiment. That's a half-truth. If you weren't an experiment, then you wouldn't have ever been important to me, because I would've had nothing to experiment with. But, you're still someone I care about. This thing with Travis... is the same, but it's been going on for a lot longer than 'you and I'," Young explained. The way she organized her thoughts jabbed into me hard. So blunt, Young. She always was. "I am who I am, not just because of my discarded feelings or my laughable excuses for leaving my family, but because of Travis."

"Y-Young..." I chimed.

"I was always terrified of the thought of Gamma ever changing me. When I found out that I was to be watching over your transformation, Arcadia, I felt so sorry for you. I would get sick thinking about it. To be honest, I hate chamomile tea. I drink it when I'm feeling sick to my stomach." she continued.

I changed from Nick into Nikki because of Delta Meadow, and she was there to ensure that, but she was afraid?

"Kill me? Psh, I should've died a long time ago," she remarked, asking a question to nobody and attempting a chuckle. "Don't reincarnate me. I would've rather died by Gamma than be reshaped by it. Funny, isn't it? The latter years of my life had been spent around someone we'd been trying to reshape. So funny, that.

Half-truth are half-lies,

and I want to be perfectly honest now. I will change if it means I can be happy with Travis."

A pair of gasps, one of which was my own.

"Young, no!" Mari dissented.

I stepped away.

"Grrrr... That's it! We're stepping up our game! C'mon girls, we gotta get messy!" Emelina roared.

I wanted to flourish by her call, but I was weighed down with a betrayal, a dubiety, a full flip of what I knew about the invulnerable professor.

…

Thunder.

A sense of terror, the worst of its kind.

Once again, that dread of metal and machinery, science and fiction, two sides of evil.

As Arcadia, I shook, my body sore as to alert me to the inevitable disaster.

There was someone else here, a seeker.

There was someone other, an old monster, standing at the helm of my greatest fears.

A loud recourse, a bright display, crimson metal slashing through soft flesh, scarlet following the wake of the blade. Heat came forth, bouncing from the spectacle into my eyes. I didn't shield them. Instead, they were wide, watching the scene tear itself apart. A blur of silver and burgundy, dark gray and smoke went by the aberration's face after having sliced one of its tendrils, the loose ooze bursting, failing to survive a solid existence without a larger body. The metallic blur made quick repetition of the second tendril, then the third, and then the fourth, the blue Pokémon falling onto the bridge, its wounds exposed quite violently. There were two tremendous holes at the mouse-like Pokémon's sides, leaking with all manner of hues, glowing and shady. Like such fluid, my arms moved forward, pointing the staff they owned—perhaps vice-versa—at the Pokémon. A reflex? A fear?

The metallic assailant landed beside Patricia as the aberration laughed and flailed, enamored by its own pain, stubs that were once tendrils waving with volatility before retracting into the slimy flesh.

I heard screams. I couldn't find their sources. All I could do was point the ornate staff ahead and hope for reason, for justification of such, images swarming my head, smiles, frowns, blades, shields. Zero context given, I waited and watched.

"The Death Knell cometh," said the hulking, mechanical man, his inferno of a sickle held frozen in the follow-up of a strike. He spoke underneath a cybernetic veil, head shielded by an opaque visor, a helmet that appeared as integral to his suit was integral, or a part of, his body. Slowly, he moved his sickle to one hand, lowering it, blade against the wood, the eye at its center wide and shaking. "Roused by the drums of war."

His voice... He still had a voice. I'd never heard it.

"Knell?!" Mari screamed, taking her Symbi in both hands and moving to the grievously wounded Travis. She put her mystic weapon forward, but took it back in a heartbeat, Death Knell's scythe dropping before her and narrowly missing the Pokémon, its blade loudly crashing into the wood, splintering and carving a hole into the bridge.

The wood pooled with red around the blue ball. It wasn't coming from that ball or Knell's blade, rather the eye in the sickle, crying crimson mist, bright as plasma. Mari retreated, turning in each direction, checking for the aberration, for Young, for Travis, for Death Knell, and for a once-Cryhex.

The oozing beast was still here, sinking back into the water, giggling maniacally all the while. Its pupils were near-invisible, like it'd dipped itself into an obsessed sleep, staring into nothing at all. It was sinking into the river at a tilt, its smile disappearing beneath the bridge, followed by its eyes, then its horns.

I felt more unsafe than before. It was underneath us.

Young was stationary, stuck standing at the edge. She watched the thing sink, head going lower, lower, lower. Much like the aberration, Travis was sinking, although not into any body in particular. A necrotic pool of fog consumed his body like quicksand. Despite the scramble of the moment, my legs didn't work. I stood in place. I questioned myself. I needed to save him, didn't I? He was important! He was! What was I doing?!

Emi and Pat were stunned. The former was pulling for Young's attention, the latter as audacious as considering a forward movement against Death Knell, her size not permitting that endeavor.

And in all of that, Travis went lower.

"Orochi," the robotic man chanted, his voice slowly working its way through each vowel. With his back arched, his shoulders straight, and his free hand's fingers curling into a mad warp, I saw the Knell in a state unlike before. He was trying. What was he trying? Why was he giving so much insane effort into being rid of this Pokémon? "We've found the match, haven't we? We've found the reason."

"No shit," Young finally sighed, turning her head, the whites of her eyes boasting their contrast against the gray river. "Did you just figure that out, Knell?"

He didn't speak back.

Travis appeared to reach up.

"Get away from him!" Young hissed, showing her full face, teeth grinding, her other eye shown to be welling with a tear—a second tear, as the first had already fallen from her cheek.

The tear was darker than its natural color, ashy and unnatural.

Another gust of wind, fierce howling, a choir of the maelstrom. Thunder raged behind it, rain surging with its lead, cold against my fur.

"The reason for our unity, our collaboration with these Ancients," the monstrous cyborg started, burying Travis deep enough within the pool of mist to distort his color, making him into naught but a shadow, highlighted with his own wounds. Silhouettes of hands, dead and thing, reached for him, pulling him into their wake. "Is born from the hinge connecting life and death. We are pawns of an unending war, the liaisons of chaos. For, without toil, we are nothing, and toil we must, or else the Storm wouldst quench the flames we have nested. We will fight, or we will waste away, and fate itself will grow bored with our lethargy."

"What're you spewing?! Knell, let Travis go right now, hey!" Mari cried out.

"I am saying nothing more than your mouth had, Mari," the mech remarked. "Your mouth. It belongs to you. Everything about that body belongs to you. Don't be fooled. Look closely at your Solacea and tell me that Mars is in control."

"Ma-..." Mari stopped. "Mars is... Where did she go?" Mari asked, ignoring the comment on her Symbi, simply gripping it harder.

"And you," the cyborg turned to me. I held my breath. "Arcadia. Why were you chosen? Why was a suburban boy chosen to wield a scepter of divine beauty and feminine grace? Well, did you think about the battle it would bring? The Storm wanted you to battle with yourself. It wanted to be entertained."

"Knell, you're a DRONE," Young yelled, footsteps pounding against the wood, approaching the mech. "You take ORDERS. You do TASKS. You don't SPEAK, because you know NOTHING about Gamma. Nick's case was special. Don't put her down to your level, you-"

A contact.

Young was seized.

The scientist was lifted with the harsh thump of a gauntlet against the skin of her neck, wheezing. Her own small hands wrapped around the larger one at her throat, chin high, feet dangling.

"You... can't do that... Knell..." Young squealed, no breath in her words. I wanted to yell. I wanted to run over and swing at that demon of a man with my staff.

But...

"I hate you, Brackor," someone cried, shattered and crumbled into a heap of decaying remnants. The little blackened ball of a Pokémon was reaching up to the sickle-wielding man. "I hate you, Delta Meadow. I hate that I always know more. I hate who I am. I hate what this town did to me. I hate Autumnridge."

Silence.

The rain stopped. The wind desisted.

A reason.

My gut was tight, my heart hot, yet still.

Throat was racing with gulps.

Of most importance, my head replayed an incident where I was filled with fear and fulfillment.

The sound of waves crashing upon sand in temporal stasis flooded my memory, made me think of lights, pink, blue, orange...

I heard a giggle.

It was so coy.

It didn't take away from the memory. It was a piece of that memory. It was Xima.

What did she say about me? I was special? No, not quite that.

She wanted me to breathe.

I took it to heart—to lung, rather, searching for the rhythm of the waves.

And when I found it, I breathed.

When I breathed, I was home.

My light and Arcadia's light were one and one, and, somehow, that still made one.

Gamma was complicated that way.

…

I put that breath into the now.

As Arcadia, I was the leading lady.

I got to shine as bright as the liquid starlight.

…

…

…

A Purge

"I hate you, Brackor," I shriveled, nothing but shadows in front of my eyes, behind my eyes, inside of my brain, my heart, and shuffling beneath my skin. The more I thought about the pain, the more it hurt. Endless. A Cycle. Infinite. The more I hurt, the more I hated.

I tried to reach out to something—anything. I wanted to take them all with me. I wanted to act in spite. I wanted to drown this evil world in death with me. All with me.

"I hate you, Delta Meadow," I persisted, unable to tell whether or not the words were audible. My mouth felt like it was filled with tar, bubbling. It tasted like rot. I hated the taste. I wanted to spit it up.

"I hate that I always know more," I moaned, vehemently reminded of my time spent at HX versus my time spent in the real world, knowing I could be stabbed dead, shot quietly, silenced forever, all if I made one noise that they didn't like.

"I hate who I am," I chattered, now blind. I couldn't smell anymore. I couldn't even hear anymore. I could still think, and I hated that.

"I hate what this town did to me," I spilled, feeling no more structure from within my body.

"I hate Autumnridge," I continued, numb, lost in a shade of dark gray. I wasn't scared. I didn't have the ability to be scared. I didn't have the ability to love, to laugh, to be as happy as he wanted me to be. It was like I was becoming one thing. One concept. Something abstract, yet felt everywhere. I hated that, too.

Yes, I did.

I hated it.

I hated everything.

…

But then, I...

...felt nothing...

I was lost.

I died.

I lost consciousness, and my last memory was miserable, painful—a nightmare.

If I wasn't there anymore,

I must've been dead.

…

Didn't they redefine death at HX?

They did that to me, huh?

…

Oh, yeah.

They sort of did.

…

I wasn't always a marill.

They covered my real infection up with Element Gamma Laza.

…

Somehow, that made death mean something totally different in every way.

So, when I died, I...

…

Oh my gosh...

No. No, hold on, no no no no, I don't want...

No! Wait, I don't hate Autumnridge.

…

Light.

A change of scenery, blurry pinks and whites. Droplets of sky bluish paint-liquid fell from nowhere, making ripples, thin circles in a groundless floor on which I was standing, but had no legs to stand, no body to hold up. With no body, I felt things. I felt compressed, for example. It felt like I was being choked, but I didn't have any lungs, so I didn't need to breathe anyway, and that made it feel more like a hug around my throat, or lack there of.

It was fluffy. Everything was fluffy. Dead or dreaming, I couldn't tell, but it was like being in a world of cotton candy, dissolving and shifting in color once it hit the floor. Was I cotton candy? Why?

I wasn't tangible. I had no eyes or ears or nose, but something gave me the capability to see, hear, and smell. I guess you didn't need senses if something else put its senses into you. Was I like a computer then? Was I some kind of technology? No, that didn't fit the atmosphere at all.

Where was I? What was I?

"Hey? Where..." I echoed, but not like regular speech. I was hearing my voice as if the volume of my words was backwards.

"Relax, child," a lady sang. She didn't have the strange effect to her voice. It was vivid and remarkably gorgeous. "Be at ease. There is no place safer than this."

"Where are you?" I asked, attempting to move. I could still do that, but with no body, it was hard to tell where I was moving. I just wanted to see who was speaking.

She phased into my sight, or maybe allowed me to see her with a magic I couldn't understand. She was a snake woman, not unlike a skywisp, but owning a greater size and a much more complex body structure. I saw four arms, all of which forward, clawed hands open as if to welcome me. While her lack of features was paralyzing, the manner she presented was as alluring as a pool of warm water exposed to fresh sunlight. I wanted to go to her. I wanted to hug her.

She was beautiful! She had quills that reached all the way down to her shoulders, with jagged decoration hanging from her back. Clothing or bodily ornament, I thought. I didn't see where her tail ended. I couldn't even see her color. I just saw her, a shade of beauty.

"Woah, you're really... wha..." I muttered, stupefied infinitely.

"Hmhm, yes?" she urged me on. I would've taken a quick, panicked breath if I could.

"I-I thi—ahm, wh-a-are you—Hi, uh, God...?" I stuttered.

"God? Oh, prithee no, child. I cannot do the work of any god. I can only be a mother and a guide," she mused, her image unchanging. "And for you, I shall give love."

"Love?"

"Mm, my child, you have met a fate most ill. Your spirit has encountered a plague of Flux. I can only tell you very little of the Flux, as this adversary is very new to me. Much like a grand evil I know, it transforms one's spirit. Unlike that evil, it causes the spirit to manifest as an emotion, rather than a weapon. Sealing away the mind and tainting the body, the symbiosis of spirit and body devolves into an act of puppeteering, where a corrupted soul is forced to feel but one emotion."

"Flux... One emotion?" I repeated.

I remembered the hatred I felt. Was that why I...

"You have become fluxed. Upon then, the sickle of death, Orochi, had executed you."

"Oh... Then I am dead. B-but don't tell me, HX changed death. They changed me."

"Indeed, child, you are of different lineage to Gamma. Why, it would be ideal to say that you have entered the lineage of Gamma quite some time ago."

"So does that mean I can be alive? I can still..."

"You shall live. You have purged the Gamma of Laza into the world. Your body has become a flare of formless energy, and my pupil has taken you into my haven. My blessings ring loud for her, for she wants to save you, too."

"I purged... I purged?! W-whoa, hang on a second, if I purged, then I destroyed the whole town already?!"

"Not so. Though you were designed to erupt and engulf the small town in a fireball of starlight, Gamma itself has countered your design. I cannot promise you will be at peace with the result of your purge, but you can rest well knowing that your home is safe."

"Gamma countered me? What did Gamma do?"

"Mhm, my child, I encourage you to ask my pupil. But, first, I shall adhere to the laws of the Wave. Your spirit as wounded as your friend's. Bryan, yes? I cannot reach out to him, but I can and will reach you, Travis. As Arcadia, my wish is to embrace the lonely and cradle those thirsty for love. My being is that of a mother.

I need you to be a mother where I cannot.

Before the Flux, you had another color to your soul. Susano'o.

Susano'o, granted to you by sheer retaliation, the urge to vindicate oneself, and bring refuge to those who oppose the usurper sickle Orochi. This is how you became what Delta Meadow refers to as a purge. The power of Symbi Susano'o embedded within you, you became a frighteningly dangerous being once masked with the color of Laza.

You possess a crowded spirit, Travis.

If I may bestow you with my personal touch, so that the Flux shall leave you...

I give you love. I give you motherhood."

She was finished speaking, her body phasing away, swallowed by the pinks of the realm of her own making. I didn't reach for her. I felt secure. I felt empowered by her voice.

…

I had a... tingly feeling in my chest...

The fake choking sensation was fading into numbness and, for a moment, I was afraid I was going to return to the numbness of death, but I was wrong. It was a numbness of sanctity. I was protected.

My spirit, for a moment, flickered.

I caught a glimpse of the hatred I once had, and then it became rosy. Rosiness became peachiness, happiness, genuine care and love.

With no cheeks, I still managed a smile. With no face or hands, I still managed to touch mine, the warmth of my touch there. I was here. I had a reason again. The reason was Orochi. The reason was Bryan. The reason was Young. I cared so much for Autumnridge. I didn't want to destroy it. I wanted to help it. I knew more than a lot of people. I should have used that for good. Now, with my chance to soar above Delta Meadow, I could be the person I've always wanted to be.

The lights around me dimmed.

They went back to gray.

Gray went back to black, and I faced that black space knowing I would win.

…

All was right again. There was rain, wind, and crying. I'd wished I didn't have to return to this, but at least I could return at all. I was alive. I was ready to BE alive.

For a fleeting moment, the world looked as if it had a film over it, grainy and wavy all the same, like static. I was in motion. My nose seemed to be further ahead of me than usual, my head heavy—that was probably to say that I actually had a neck separating my head and body, which felt a little like two bodies after being a marill for so long. That meant that I wasn't a marill.

I was walking now, my legs carrying me forward from a point unknown. I looked back to make sure that point existed. I saw the woman with the white fluff, holding a fancy, magical staff at me, but—oh gosh, when I did that, I saw the bushiest tail imaginable. It was attached to my butt! Spine, if we wanted to be technical, but as fluffy as this tail was, it was on my butt for the sake of expression. It was blue, with a gradient at its end, the fur fading into white. The tail itself was taller than me.

That led me to a full stop. I was tall? No, I was still smaller than the lady with the staff—the sorceress, I decided. I really changed. Like, really. When I looked low, I felt thick strands of fur pulling my head back, rubbing against my shoulders and arms. Eyes meandering, I noticed they weren't necessarily strands as much as they were ears. Rabbit ears, at that, but my tail didn't quite scream 'rabbit'.

I had a very thin waistline with developed, womanly hips and, to go with that package, a pair of sizable breasts that were in no way as concealed as the sorceress'. I had no fluffy scarf for that. I bit my bottom lip, rolling it into my mouth a little bit. My two front teeth were a tiny touch larger, but, as a marill, I'd remained used to buckteeth already. What I wasn't accommodated to was the presence of breasts. At all. Where did these come from?! Was I supposed to use them?

I had hands again, the fur drifting into a cloudy white. They were three-fingered, with a familiar opposable thumb on each. My legs were carved as round—smaller, though—as the sorceress', furry white stockings draped over what would have been blue fur all the way down. These stockings weren't just for show. They were part of my body, leading all the way to my small foot-paws.

I didn't need to inspect my thighs too much. I knew what this frame meant.

This was so odd. I'd been this before. I felt taller now. I felt like I had grown, even as far as feeling a leftover sensation of stretching pain, not just in my chest, but in my legs, my arms, and my mind. This body I owned had been transformed again. I had this fur, these ears, and these three-fingered hands before I became a marill. The tail was new, and certainly the torso, as well as the stockings. Must have been the distinctions between a male and a female of this species.

I put my hand up to my fluffy cheek, a white line of fur separating it from the blue that was the rest of my face, of an alike shade of a marill. I wanted to speak. I even opened my mouth to do so. When no words came out, I could only feel sorry for myself for causing all of this. I should have been dead, but I purged instead.

It was because these people came and saved me.

I looked around. The bridge was damaged, but the river was still there. The trees were standing. The sky was cloudy and crying. My fur was damp, speckles of cold pattering against it. The feeling was repugnant. It used to be immaculate, but now I disliked water against my fur. I sighed a breath that escaped me as an unfamiliar, effeminate acceptance.

All eyes on me again, huh?

What an old feeling.

But, yeah, hello everyone.

They started calling me Flicker back at HX.

I guess I'm Flicker.

…

…

…

I did it?

I did do it, yes? Oh, what on Earth DID I do? Borrowing from Xima's advice, I must have synced myself to Arcadia's power. Was that really enough to settle that enormous flare? It contorted into my staff like a giant piece of licorice. Plasma licorice. The staff slurped it up like it was liquid in a straw. Upon doing that, my palms tickled as I held the pearly staff, energy racing inside of it like fluids in a body, coursing through veins unseen.

The outcome was more bewildering than the event itself. In the time it took for Death Knell to flee, a lady had flown from my staff, her body forming from a pinkish cloud of mist, shifting from its color to a gentle seaside blue. It made me think of the Timescape's sea, smaller portions of her white fur summoning images of the beach's opalescent sand. Her eyes, upon meeting mine with a concerned curiosity for her well-being, were of twofold hue, plum inner circle and magenta outer. Her tail, as elegant as Xima's set of three, made me jealous... f-for some reason.

Was this Arcadia's true appearance? Her ears made me think of a rabbit. They were so floppy! Mine weren't like that at all. It gave her head the shape of a heart, ears playing the role of hair, though tufts of white did show between those ears.

No no, this couldn't have been the real Arcadia. She wouldn't have been so confused.

"What..." Mari broke the silence. "What—what, wait, hey. Did you just stop Flicker?"

"Flicker?" the blue bunny lady answered the skywisp, turning quickly, ears flipping up in the wind. "Nope. That's me. Uhm, what happened? Where's Young?"

"Yo-..." Mari mewled.

"You're Flicker?! WHOAAHEEEE~! You're as pretty as Nick-adia!" Emelina sang. I blushed.

"Wh-what?!" I puffed up, standing straight and moving my staff to my side. "Now hang on. I just pulled in a huge lightstorm and you popped out!"

"Oh," Flicker turned to me, silent for a span of seconds. Her face lit up with a fluffy smile. "Cool!"

"Wha—'COOL'?! I'm half scared to death right now! Where'd that blood monster go?! Why'd Death Knell run off?! Where is HE?!" I panicked, working myself into a tired pant. Honestly, like, good freaking lord, that aberration could've been under this bridge and Death Knell, I don't know, was still Death Knell. I hated that freak of machinery for what he did to Jack and Ki, and now he was running around Autumnridge! Hell if things were still okay!

"Patty, do scanny things!" Emelina prompted. Wait, what? Scanny things?

"Initializing," Patricia booted up, her eyes flashing with a reddish light. "Scanning for project DT-HX2. Location confirmed... Mm, no good. I can only confirm his current position as 'Autumnridge'. My trackers have been sabotaged."

"Well, no no. That's still something." Emi responded.

"First Bryan and now this." Mari shook her head, sighing loudly. It evolved into a mad groan.

"Bryan? What happened to him?" I asked. Bryan knew Mari? Well, that was a pleasant surprise.

"Oh, Charley, is he okay?!" Flicker gasped.

"Aaaand who is Charley...?" I added.

"Th-that's me, hey," Mari raised her arm, waving with her wrist. "I'm Bryan's father."

"Y-... Yeah? How's that going for you?" I blinked, completely vulnerable.

I mean, you were actually kidding me. I've slipped and fallen and my ability to 'even' had been disabled. This was the part where one curve ball met other curve balls and both balls blew up in a big light-snake thing that I had to absorb with my magic powers that I got from a rock from space going inside of my body followed by a cat lady on a timeless beach telling me how to use them. Good day, world! Good day!

Oh, and I turned into a woman.

Apparently so did Bryan's dad. But what happened to Bryan?

After all, I hadn't even seen the guy since he flaked out on the first day of the infection.

"It's bad. That big monster who was holding Travis was... I-I'm thinking that was Bryan. I'm not a hundred percent on it, but call it a father's—erm... mother's intuition." Mari, or Charley, murmured.

"It was him," Flicker confirmed, moving her arms slowly, as if unsure what to do with them. It was like she was a little bit unfamiliar with the body. "He's lost it, but I'm sure there's a way to get him back. I won't give up until we find that way. I'll do it myself if I have to..."

"Aw, Travis, I'm with you, but let's not get too ahead of ourselves." said the skywisp.

Wait a damn minute.

"Wait a gosh darn minute!" Emelina interjected. That went to show how much more quickly she spoke after thinking than Pat or I.

"Wuh-"

"You're TRAVIS?!" she blurted.

"Yep, I'm... ooh, okay, I see why you're a little confused. We've never even met, huh?" Travis or Flicker asked, suddenly and clumsily crossing her arms over her chest as if just realizing her nudity situation. "Nyah! Holycrap, I've never met you guys and I'm naked. Hooohmygosh, holy crap—just look away! Wait! Young?! Where did she go?! I can use her coat!"

"Ehm, your size negates that option," Pat analyzed. "But, I should've at least remembered your body. Now that I scan you, I can find only one match within my database. HX researchers, with the aid of Mars at the time, had labeled you as being a member of a species that shares a world with skywisps."

"Mhm, Mars did help us figure out a few photographs they took of you before you got changed into a—uhm, a marill, was it?" Mari remarked. "What did she call you again? A... Mysti-kah? Oh, I don't know at all, hey."

"Y-you do the 'hey' thing. You really are Bryan's dad." I whispered, voice too low for anyone to hear.

'Hey'. That was what Bryan's dad always ended his sentences on. I thought it got annoying coming from a man who thought he was funnier than he actually was. Coming from a skywisp with a voice so much more 'minuscule' than that was a little bit cuter.

And Bryan.

Bryan was that horror we faced. I shook my head at that. He was always the gross-out weirdo-type. He usually did the crap talking and made the most noise out of all of us. Seeing him all messed up like that just... It made me wonder if us prisoners of Delta Meadow really had it anywhere near as bad as the people here. Had anyone else gotten it that bad? What did Autumnridge look like? I put all my hope in Bryan's visceral transformation being the worst of it. The worst of it was already freaking nightmare-fuel, so if Death Knell running amok was the only other thing we needed to keep out for, we had our work cut out for us.

Oh, of course that wasn't the only other issue. There was what Xima mentioned. Laza and Scion and that Cross. I knew next to nothing about all three of them.

Oh yeah, and Travis was now a woman, too. Trend much? At this rate, with our apocalypse going, repopulating the world was looking tougher by the moment. Thankfully, this style of Armageddon was just a couple notches more acceptable than an insta-gib meteorite impact or a zombie outbreak. This one fell somewhere in between those two.

Whatever—knowing Travis beforehand would've made it strange, but I was meeting her for the first time. I was meeting Flicker. Travis was Flicker, and had a whole lot to do with Young.

...Young?

Young was here before, and now she wasn't.

I looked across the bridge, letting my staff fade into the ether. Or wherever it went. My head went to an angle as I checked the far east end, then to another angle to check the west. I returned my focus to the center. Flicker was ahead of me. I approached her, walking to her side. I dwarfed her in height, easily a good foot and a half of an advantage on her. It made her cuter, actually. She was the third tallest one here, Pat being a close fourth, and Emelina being a close fifth to that fourth. I couldn't take Mari's height into too much consideration.

I was including Young. She was first in my book.

At the blue bunny girl's side, I took note of what she saw in place of Young. Why didn't I see this? Was I stupid? No, just a little blinded by the lights I absorbed? No, not even. Poor excuse. I didn't look hard enough. Maybe too many people were standing in the way.

It was her stuff. Young's white coat and black shirt and denims. There was something underneath the discarded pile of clothing. It must've been her boots.

I couldn't breathe.

She didn't get hurt, did she? The thought of me hurting her indirectly—I felt my chest seize up, my throat closing around fear, squeezing it, wringing it into my veins. Her clothing was so crumpled up, like it'd just folded around something.

"What happened here? This is Young's stuff, but no Young. Why no Young?" Flicker asked, looking around for comfort. She stopped at me, her magenta eyes peeling warmth out from underneath my own eyes. Tears, I thought. I didn't want to cry before I even knew what the deal was. That was so pathetic of me.

"She was awfully close to you when you did that purge, hey," Mari said, joining us. Pat and Emelina came along, the five of us making a circle around the remnants of the scientist. "I got away in time, but Young and Death Knell took a hit from hit," she looked at me. "He-her Symbi started sucking up the energy, but Young was right by you and Knell, Travis—uh, Flicker. She may've been caught in that blast."

"That's really, really bad." Flicker whimpered.

Really bad?!

"Really bad?!" I repeated aloud. "Is she dead?! Sh-She could be dead! What do we do?!"

I wasn't thinking very clearly. Like before, my head was filling in the gaps. Stuff was moving a lot faster. The rain was getting louder, like static on the brain, blocking out all the reason and opening the door to assumptions. This was Young. This was my friend. Half-liar or not, I needed her with me.

God damn, Bryan was my friend, too. Had that not been the case, I would've tried to do something to save Travis earlier. Maybe he wouldn't have blown up and Young wouldn't have been blown to bits.

My ears flicked.

It wasn't that I heard anything, but thinking about the explosion made some space for clarity.

That was an explosion, right?

Explosions didn't just blow people up and leave the clothes laying there.

Those clothes were soaked and everything, but I wouldn't have called them damaged. Hardly.

"You guys are thinking what I'm thinking, I hope." I ventured forth, bringing one knee to the soggy wood and resting it against the cold surface, placing a hand forward, prodding the pile.

"Uh, maybe totally, but maybe totally not, because, like, well, er," Emelina said, speaking with filler as usual. "Why didn't her stuff get all singed?"

"It would be worse than that. If I purged and she was caught up in it, she and all of her things would have disintegrated." Flicker added.

"The nature of a purge is that you release a huge swarm of Gamma. You were a Pokémon, so you got rid of Laza's Gamma in a big explosion, hey." Mari commented.

"Wouldn't that meeeeean..." Emi paused.

"Lifeform identified," Pat joined. I looked to her. "Detecting traces of Element Gamma Laza omitted from the nova. It appears there's someone underneath there."

My gaze returned to the clothes. The white coat was still knotted up. The black shirt was moving now. What I had thought to be Young's boots was a single unit of something. It was the source of these movements.

"Oh, no way," I mouthed, my hand limp above the pile, fingers pointed down. I journeyed ahead again, this time grasping the loose fabric between my thumb and pointer finger. I took a short breath, blinking a few times to assure myself that this wasn't about to be another transformation case. Young, a Pokémon? No way. "No way, no way, no waa-hay..."

I pulled up. The fabric relented until I'd tugged it a good foot away from the hump. That was when it gave some resistance. I had to try and guide whatever was hiding beneath the clothing through the one of the shirt's gaps. The torso was nearest. I let out a long, uncomfortable groan, rolling the lump of what may've been Young along the material.

An object came tumbling out of the shirt. Oh, no, that was no object. That was a person.

That person had a thin coat of fur as white as mine—even whiter, actually, with the short time to dry off buried beneath the apparel. The creature's entire backside was black, jagged bolt-shaped tail included... Mmmaybe not 'bolt-shaped', but more wing-like in its edges, three sharp lifted prongs each acting as ridges to the tail. The creature's body was as small as Travis' used to be, sans the chubbiness. It had no legs, small feet, stubby and pointy paws, and a layer of bright yellow on a pair of fuzzy skin flaps hanging from its arms and back.

I was under the assumption this was the Pokémon variant of a flying squirrel? Its face was round, with circles of that same yellow on its cheeks, a tiny black dot for a nose, big beady eyes looking back at me, and even bigger round ears, beneath which its black fur met a curve of white, two jagged spikes falling inward around the center like some sort of puny hairstyle.

It was upside down from where I was leaning over, it's tail between its feet. I quickly retracted my hand, grimacing with my teeth and squinting at the little squirrel, um, thing.

It wasn't amused.

Actually, one of its eyes looked like it had a problem. There was a curved black marking beneath it, swerving and thinning through the white fur, almost like a tattoo of a tear. It made me think of the last time I saw Young. Her right eye was welling up with a dark fluid. Oh. Oh God, there wasn't much mistaking this one then.

"Ohhhheheheheh..." Emelina giggled, breathy and quiet.

…

No one wanted to speak up. I didn't blame them.

"Well, would anyone like to start by explaining what the HELL IS GOING ON?!" Young exploded, the voice used opening our eyes wider than they already were. Mine were already on their way out of their sockets. This voice didn't sound like anything we had expected. What did you expect a woman having turned into a tiny Pokémon to sound like? My bets were on the classic 'little girl' sound, or at very least an adolescent.

Nope.

It was a boy's voice.

A young boy, or a boy Young.

Young slapped both paws against that little rodent mouth, covering it, ashamed and silenced.

"Young's a—is that Young?" Emelina questioned.

"C'mon, keep up, Emi," I laughed sheepishly. "Young, th-that's nothing to worry about, ah-haha. You'll be just fine?"

"You ended that interrogatively, Nick-adia." Patricia mocked.

"I-I don't know what to say, for frick's sake!" I retaliated, hands around my mouth.

Young took her, possibly his, paws off of her mouth, looking at the palms of them, stubby, pointy fingers curled in, locked in a ghoulish stare.

"Oh shit no, shit my goddamn, motherf-"

"Oh-whhhooo-hey, okay!" Emelina spoke over the montage of curses.

"So Travis is a girl and Young is a boy? That can't be coincidence!" Mari analyzed, but I didn't see any way of figuring this out. My sex swapped long ago. Pat probably didn't have a sex anymore, and Mari was answering to Charley. Everything was upside down.

"Actually, I dunno," Flicker murmured, a blush visible in her white fluffy cheeks. Her hands were behind her back, folded tightly. "I feel like I got turned into this for a reason. Maybe we need to go and ask Laza?"

"You made that sound like it's so easy," Young growled. "Good idea. No, I love it. I'll tear his split tail down the middle right up to his asscr-"

"SHHEEEEE'S THE maaaan, yes she iiiis~!" Emelina sang loudly, with no real form to her melody.

"Emelina?!" a voice came from one end of the bridge. I had to look, standing up as I did.

Another skywisp? This one was blue, white belly, yellow rings around her wrists, two long, smoky pigtails hanging from star-shaped hair ties. She was all perked up, her arms way out behind her, as if pushing herself into the air.

Wow, those golden eyes, I thought. They had such a sizzle to 'em. Had I seen them somewhere before? Yeah, it was somewhere before all of this.

"Who said that?" Emelina poked up, looked back. She turned around, stepped forward, and lifted a paw, leaving it limp. "Hi!"

There was another person there. Him.

The pink kitten.

He was with that skywisp. At first, he was blurry, but seeing the rain jump off of his shiny fur reinforced that he was there, standing with a little hole-shaped mouth that expressed his puny, adorable excitement. My heart raced as it did in the Timescape.

"Whoop whoop. Alli, we got lucky." he said, crossing his small arms and looking up to his companion. She seemed to ignore him, simply caught up by the sight of our vulpix here.

"E-Emi, you're okay. And Pat, too. You're both okay!" cried the golden-eyed girl named Alli.

Alli?

"I sssswear, I'm trying," Emelina said with a slight shake to her head. "I'm tryyyyying to recognize you, but I-"

"Al! Alphonse Sanders—I don't care if I look like this! J-j-jeez I'm so happy again! Oh God, I gotta... I gotta...!" she shriveled, lowering herself to the pink cat and squeezing him in her arms, opening her mouth and clamping it shut on his furry cheek. She was biting him?

…

She was Al.

"Al? But you weren't a skywisp before." Mari said.

"Yeah, what happened to you? And why are we all ladies? Except Young." Flicker, bravely, commented.

"Shut up, Travis." Young grumbled. I looked to see her—him, sitting hunched over, arms crossed, making a vicious snarling face that only worked as far as attracting someone in for a hug, if anything.

"A-and how are you biting the air like that?" Mari continued. That was a weird question. What, she couldn't see the bright pink fluffball standing there?

"Al...? You're... so..." Emelina began, threatening all of our ears with an octave higher than the screams of the gods. She skipped over to our gender-bent rugby all-star. "KAAAAWAAAIIIIIIIII~!"

Oh, the pain...

I held myself together though, even though I couldn't conceivably cover my tall ears with hands this small. I endured, giving Young a shy smile, eyes half closed. Following that, I went ahead after Emelina, Pat by my side, her auditory inputs likely recovering from the outburst.

Once we got to the two, we all huddled close together. I practically fell onto my knees, touching down onto a surface still dry enough to be called dirt beneath the canopy. I didn't care that it messed up my flawless fur.

Pat was thrilled, leaning in with her blue hands folded flat, grinning, giddy and giggling to see her two besties together again.

Emelina had buried her muzzle right underneath Al's snout, while the new skywisp embraced Emi's neck in her arms, laying her nose atop the vulpix's gently curled, orange hair.

And I gave a warm, welcoming smile to the kitty. I was wondering why he was here and not in the Timescape.

"You can see me, can't you?" he asked me. Weird question for a weird little guy.

"What do you mean, angel~?" I flirted, reaching for his tummy and tickling it with a single finger.

"Whaawawawawaa-hahah," he cackled, backing away and batting at my hand softly. "Why didn't you see me up on the hill that one time?! Aaaah, that's riiiight, you have a Symbi, and sometimes they CAN see me, other times they CAN'T—it's all a big poopstorm."

"Hm? Who's this?" Emelina asked, staring right at the kitten.

"Mmm, unknown individual. Scans show that his body is constructed of an unequal mix of both Element Gamma Laza and Scion. Were it not for my Gamma scanners, I might not be able to 'see' him." Patricia said, providing more info than even Xima—but, wait, Xima never said anything about this boy.

"Eeeh, you can BOTH see me?" the boy queried, rubbing the back of his head, mouth left open like he'd been laughing, not counting the giggles from my tickles.

"Well, durr~! You're standing right there. Oh oh, hang on, but Patty says you're all Gamma-y and stuff." said Emi.

"Hehehe," I giggled quietly, a hand up to my mouth, another over the stem of the rose by my ear. "He's the one who gave me this flower in my hair here. He's a sweetheart. I call him an angel because... I don't know! He's just so-"

"He's Cruce." Alli closed.

My heart stopped.

My eye sockets were getting sore now, what with all the wide-eyed staring and wet wind rushing into them.

"'Sup." Cruce waved coyly, a stupid smirk on his dumb, idiotic, not-cute face that I wanted to punch right off.

"FREAKING PRICK!" I yelled, backing away from the group and standing up.

"Yeah, I let him have it, too." Alli smirked, embarrassed, looking away with mischievous intentions since passed.

"Sensors indicate unavoidable contact." Pat noted.

"By who?" Alli asked.

"ME." she continued, slamming both fists onto her hips.

"No, US," Emelina joined in, now side-by-side with her best friend. "You made us practically SICK with worry, you dumb-dumb. Oh my God, you made Topher CRY! No one makes Topher cry! Nah-ah, mister! I don't care that you're a fwuffy little cat. I'm going to enjoy biting that tail 'till YOU cry!"

The two of them stepped closer. Cruce shrunk away, one arm back and the other in front of his chest defensively.

"And me?" I said, clapping my hands together, before wiping them on each other's palms, a dark grin crossing my face. Oh, what to do? I could wring him until all of his Gamma drips out. Ohoho! No, I could trap him inside of my staff if he was Gamma. Maybe he could emerge from it a girl just like Travis. Maybe he could jump on board the sex-swap train. "Well, I have some special plans for you, 'ANGEL'."

When I stepped closer, he stepped back a second time, a shadow of horror in his face, just beneath his round eyes.

"And I'll join too, because last time, I bit the crap out of him and he enjoyed it as much as I did. Ain't that right, hon~?" Alli chimed, ending the thought on a strangely precise Southern accent. She flew behind him, flanking him. He had no escape now.

We were closing in on Cruce.

After all we'd been through, wouldn't it be right for him to succumb to a terrible fate as well? Hmhmhmhm, it felt right! It felt just!

Time to pay for making us wait, Cruce!

"Uh. Huh. Really missed it when no one could see me," Cruce lamented. "I guess there is a such a thing as being 'scarier than Scion'. G'job, ladies. HEY LAZA, WANNA JUMP IN, BUDDY?!"

He may have called, but no one came to his rescue. He was all ours now.

…

…

…

"Who in the world are they standing around like that?" I asked, looking to my left and to my right, down during the first and up during the second, matching eye-level with my friends.

Seriously, I had no idea. It was like they were talking to a ghost. I sort of knew what that felt like, but I was never an invisible ghost. Redundancy? Not really! I looked at Young when the thought of ghosts failed to leave my mind. She... I mean he, was staring back at me, half-interested. It took him a little bit to figure out how to stand on those stubby feet. For me, it took a little to get back in the swing of having actual legs. We could have taught each other a few things. This was like a role-reversal! How fun! I swayed my gigantic tail around the rainy air at the thought of holding Young like a little squirrel pet!

But she might've not liked that a little bit.

"I heard 'Cruce'. This happened before. It was when I was with Katalyn. She saw someone she called 'Pinkie'. I didn't see anyone there. Maybe I don't have the qualifications, hey." Charley explained. Huh? So that was Cruce? Bryan talked about him a bit. So did Al and Zatch and company. Was he the famous coma guy?

"Cruce..." I echoed, putting a hand up to my chin, touching just below my mouth.

I just wanted to hear myself say that name in this voice.

"Cruce, eh?" Young scoffed. "One of the connections I have. Not like I know the kid personally, but... still. Charley might. Was with my daughter, so... I don't know."

"Huh? What'cha mean?" I asked the squirrel Pokémon, hand still touching my chin, childlike.

He sighed and moved away from Charley and I, leaving the safety of his useless, oversized clothing. I considered trying on the shirt, but it was still way too big for even me. That sorceress may have been able to put it on. Young was over by the edge of bridge now, standing aloof. I blinked, putting my arms to my sides, and joined the newly-made-male professor.

"It's a departure." he sighed again, looked out at the river's ever present blood tinge.

"Hm?" I heard Charley mumble behind me.

"A departure? I don't understand, Young..." I said, standing by the scientist's side again, as I'd always done at HX overlooking the hills by dawn, a horizon painted with red and purple, oranges below. This one had too many reds for my liking, even though there was an appeal to red I couldn't quite find in the surface of water here.

"There's a group of kids here called the Circle." said Young.

"Oh yeah! I was friends with them. Bryan was a member." I solemnly put out, maybe a little too soon.

"I heard my daughter was in a martial arts class with Cruce, the happy-go-lucky captain, or whatever they call it, of the Circle." he continued.

"Katalyn spoke pretty highly of Cruce all the time. She really wanted to find and wake him up. That's why I can't believe those kids could be talking to him. Just doesn't make a whole lotta sense." Charley joined us, hovering above the water, peeking below for any sign of Bryan. I did the same, but all I saw was murky maroon water. It smelled gross, like maggots and spoiled food. When I leaned over to look, I put both arms back, hands open, trying to keep myself from going too far.

"I never got to know him, because he was supposed to be out cold." I stated.

"I think he's the one who turned me into a skywisp." Charley mentioned.

"Y'know," Young whispered. "You were his doctor, Charley. You had him as a patient at Ridge. When you changed, Sam took your results. And when that happened, a whole shit-ton of bad things followed. The Doctor Kaiser got ahold of that data. Used it to make Chevron. You know the story from there."

"Ye... Yeah..." Charley whined.

"Mmh..." I did the same. Young was talking about Chevron and Kaiser and Sam. I knew these names, because I was always so close to the top of the chain at HX. I don't know how someone so numbskullish like me got that high, but my brains didn't matter. I was just a test subject anyway. Hard to believe I ever got away from Delta Meadow. Maybe I should have thanked Laza if I saw him again.

"That Scion stuff comes from Cruce. Sam's really not happy about it," Young started again. "And I know why. I know how it feels. I didn't just come back here for you, Travis. I came back for my daughter and my husband. I don't-the-hell know how I'm going to face them now, but... maybe they've thought the same thing about me."

"You can do it. I'll come with you." I urged him. I did want him to get back together with his family, too. What a nice thought!

"Pft," he chuckled once, his shoulders lifting with it. "That would be nice, kid. Do that, and I'll have to return the favor by getting your boyfriend back."

"My boyfriend? Ooh, well..." I said, heat rising in my cheeks. I stood tall and threw my hands behind my back again, thinking of Bryan as a buizel again. He would have like me like this, I think. Ooh, actually, um, I think I really wanted to be with him like that, now that I...

"That makes three of us, hey," Charley decided. "He's my son! I won't let that blood clot take over his mind. Heck no, I'm coming after whoever's responsible for that!"

"You and I working together, Charley? Tch, old times... 'S like the Inner Circle's actually all friends again." said Young, his determined gaze thrown above my head, locked on a course for Charley.

"The, uh, Inner Circle?" asked the wisp.

"Oh, hah, yeah. Your memory is crap. Sucks," he nodded. "You'll get there. Stick around. We got a lot to catch up on. One step at a time... I just hope Winston doesn't eat us before we all get back together. Sh-shit, I left those girls... Well, they'll be okay... Yeah, they'll..."

"Uhm, 'one step at a time', Young," Charley teased, before putting one of her small hands on my left shoulder. She looked me in the eye. "And you, Flicker. I hope you're okay. You don't feel wrong at all? You said some horrible things before you disappeared."

"I feel okay," I nodded back, reaching for my left wrist and grasping with my right hand. "A little bloated, but that's just 'cause I'm bigger now."

"Bloated? Gosh, your other form was the bloaty one." the skywisp joked.

"Hehehe, yeah, it feels like I can move around a lot more now. I like it. Remember how I looked like this before?" I said.

"A-actually, I don't, eheh..." she admitted.

"Oh. That's okay~! We can, um, make new memories of each other?" I suggested, hoping I wasn't sounding too detestably cheesy.

"Sounds great." she agreed. Whew, she was even okay with me after I jumped into the water after Bryan. Oh, right...

"Hey, you're not mad at me for, you know, jumping in the river like that?" I wondered.

"Mmmmm, nah! You wanted your friend back. I would've done the same if I didn't have such a comfy crying cushion at the time." she told me. I was happy she was telling me the truth, but it still kind of made me a little bitter. I still hated tears. Since they were water, I hated them even more. I still had some hatred left over. Could I get rid of it? I didn't want it sitting there. Well, what if I tried crying into somebody's shoulder? I think I needed Bryan back if I wanted to do that. We always met at this bridge. We needed to meet up again.

"Yeah. S-sorry though. I shouldn't have been so careless and stuff, so I'll let you know the next time I'm gonna jump off things." I offered her, smiling with my tongue out a little bit, just to let her know I was being a silly bunny-fox-thing!

"Ah-ha, swell, thank you." she replied.

"We'll get your Bryan back. I said I wanted to understand Gamma more," said Young, one arm at his face, rubbing just underneath the black marking beneath his right eyelid. "It'll knock out a lot of questions along the way. You better be damn ready for that way to be a tough son of a bitch."

"I'm ready. I promise I'm ready. I'm Flicker now! I have my Susano'o. I can fight if I need to!" I exclaimed, proud of my Symbi for choosing someone as wimpy as me to fight against that giant Death Knell.

"Wh-what's the deal with that, by the way? I don't think I've ever seen your Symbi. I read in reports that you had something like Orochi, but I didn't get to see it." said Charley.

"I couldn't ever bring it out as a marill 'cause I had no good way of holding it. Here, watch!" I prompted them, lifting my arms skyward, before setting them flat ahead of me, my fingers high. Stretching out like this felt so good! I could actually put my hands above my head! Heck, I actually had hands~! I grinned while summoning my Symbi, honestly so happy that I could finally bring it back out. The air started to pulse and shimmer around my white hands, lines of pink plasma showing, before a solid surface began to form around the pink, flashing before revealing itself as a white, gilded barrel, glass lines running through each side with that pinkish streak pulsating within. At the end of the barrel was a smaller, shorter one, golden rings hovering around it, suspended in space like the sorceress' staff.

The rest of Susano'o, a pearl-colored, mystic mechanism, completed. Its back end was a bit more triangular than its barrel end, a horizontal rhombus shape connecting said barrel to a handle beneath that curved into a circle. This was where I was supposed to put my hand so that I could aim the weapon better. Behind the rhombus mainframe was a stock that was better suited for people who had shoulders. Oh look! Shoulders! I fit the weapon in its place, resting the padded, fancy white folding stock on my right shoulder, grasping the loop handle, and aiming Susano'o into the horizon, sparkles of yellow and pink fluttering away from its magnificence! A few whirring sounds came from within it, gizmos activating at my touch. Being such a long rifle, I could hold Susano'o out at arm's length, my fist vertical, with it being nice and comfy for my body build.

"See? Isn't it cool?!" I boasted, giggly and rampant with so much excitement I was practically hopping in place. I felt Susano'o's flow inside of me, mixing with my blood. It was a refreshing feeling, nice and cool, making me nostalgic.

"It's a gun?!" Charley meeped.

"Teeeechnically, it's a rifle, but it's okay to call-"

"Peekaboobs!" some girl interrupted meeeEEEHEHEHE!

SOMETHING. TOUCHING. BOOBS! T-TICKLING!

"AAH! Heheheheheheeeeaaaah!" I screamed, Susano'o instantaneously vanishing. I fell backwards, landing safely onto my tail. Even trying to move away, there was something still touching my cleavage, poking in between the mounds and flicking about. I must have been blushing enough to turn my whole body red. I was squirming like a fish right out of the water, my feet kicking, but with no good result! I wasn't kicking anything. I tried to look down to locate my assailant. It was a ribbon?! It was a white ribbon feeler thingy with blue bands separating a bright violet edge. N-no, it was two! There were two, and they were both assaulting my new sensitive spot! This was bad! Th-this was the worst thing that could ever happen right now! I tried to swipe at them, but they just kept coming back for more, stroking through the fur quickly enough to appear like blurs!

I kept giggling. I started to cry. No one was helping me!

"Whoops-a-doops," the owner of the feelers chirped, giddy and bouncy, moving into my field of view with a tiny, girly smile. "Hi Miss Buns! I'm calling you Miss Buns~! Hehehe!"

Wh-wha... h-help me...

This girl was after me! She was...

Whoa, she was really not what I was expecting. Standing over me, she looked a little bit like Laza, but with a bow in front of one of her ears. Actually, her ears were a little different, too. She still had that white and blue trend that I remembered Laza having, but with blues in different places, like her bows—there was one on her neck, too—and her aqua eyes. Her cheeks weren't as puffy as mine, but they had a touch of make-up, I think. They had little red circles, accenting her face with a rosy sparkle. What was the scariest thing about her was the fact that she had twice as many feelers as the ones that were already prodding at my chest. The good thing was that they were occupied holding a...

...a piece of the meteorite?

Who was this?

"Sera? What—how did you get here?!" Charley squeaked.

"That's easy! All ya gotta do is follow my PoV and you can see every step I took to get to this spot I'm at right now!" she mused, a blue tail flipping back and forth behind her.

"PoV...?" mumbled Young.

"Fwaaah, so fwoofy fwoof~," Sera baby-talked, directed at me. She lowered her whole face into my bosom. I swear, I wanted to scream again. Her breaths were short and hot, seeping right into the deepest crevice of my cleavage and fur. "Mmwaah~!"

I closed my eyes and feigned short sobbing breaths. Was I really living this? Was this moment really happening? She smelled nice and everything—friendly and caring, but she wasn't gentle at all.

Ooh... o-okay, maybe she was...

Nnh...

I couldn't help myself. Whoooa. She was good. I bit my lip and let out a tormented purr. She kept rubbing her nose back and forth in the right spot, huffing those short warm breaths where it felt really, really good, and-

"No—hey! Please, stop! This isn't a good time for that." I pleaded, poking the bow by her ear. She raised her head, after which I crawled away, sitting up quickly and squeezing my own torso, closing myself off to her perverse nature. She didn't follow me. She was sitting down, chin high, bashfully smiling to the rainy sky.

"Sowwy. Hey guys, you seen my sister anywhere? She's about as high as me, looks a little bit like me, has white fur like me..." Sera described, albeit poorly. I didn't know anyone else besides Laza who looked like her.

"Are you talking about that glaceon?" Young asked. "I haven't seen her. I thought you guys were together."

"Word! We were, but I took a detour, had a big shabang, and came here. I think Nascoo is gonna be mad at me. We gotta help Edge, not goof off. Hey, d'you guys wanna help us?" Sera offered. My arms fell into my lap at the thought of Edge being in any danger, too. I always sorta relied on him to get us out of trouble and teach us how to use our powers, but now he was having problems. She said we had to 'help' him, but I didn't even know where he was.

"Sorry," Young answered. "We're busy enough."

"Uh-huh, it looks like! I saw a big explosion over here, so I came skipping! I hope everything's okay, yeah?" she looked at each of us, waiting for an answer. No one spoke, so she just kept talking instead. "Anyway, if you help us help Edge help us help Edge help everyone, we can learn a few things about why Gamma's acting so naughty lately."

"Gamma, hey," Mari quipped. "I'll take any opportunity I can to figure out what's wrong with Bryan."

"Mm? You sure we're not getting sidetracked?" Young asked, his ears flattening out, telltale signs of his apathy. He gave us a thick sigh, heavy and noisy. "Well, I'll subscribe to the 'mother's' intuition for now. Anything I can do to learn more, or whatever..."

"That's almost the spirit!" Sera giggled, patting the flying squirrel Pokémon on the head with one of her free feelers. I flinched as a response, thinking somehow she was going to really offend Young with that. Luckily, the professor wasn't in the most enlightened of moods to care whether or not he was downsized. That wide frown spoke enough words, his back hunched and his arms hanging forward like a punished, tired child too sleepy to talk back.

Well, that was solved. Before we saved Bryan, we saved Edge. Maybe this was the wisest course of action. I really wanted to go find Bryan and bring him back around so that we could live happily together, like he told me. How could I be so sure that would happened with everything else around us crumbling to pieces? There was no way to know when the sun would come out and greet us again, make us smile, help us make memories, and let us live a life that didn't include blowing up, for starters.

We still had Delta Meadow to worry about. We still had Element Gamma Laza and Scion to be paying close attention to. Even though I sincerely questioned the motives of someone like Sera, it seemed like her priorities were in order. Edge knew more than all of us. It was exasperating to think he slipped away from Metedia High while Bryan and I were out, but I guess a lot did come our way in the time being. Anyone would've gotten restless. Plus, those gunshots in the direction of the high school made me think HX found out some stuff they weren't supposed to. Anne was still there, and so was Davidson. For the sake of reuniting with them, I had to put my heartache for Bryan aside, work with Sera and a freshly formed Circle, and...

...and save this town.

I wanted to save it now. I didn't want to erase it anymore. That was the coward's way out. If you really cared about something, you put in the effort and time to make it as good as you can, for the greatest benefit of everyone if at all possible. I couldn't believe that I once thought I was going to take Autumnridge out with me. I couldn't even believe I said that I hated it. In that possessed moment, I think I saw what Bryan saw. I felt manipulated into saying these things, like my soul was chained up. And, true, it may have been stuck inside of my body, but at least it could communicate with my mind that way and tell me what to feel where I needed to feel it. Without that, I just... I just dropped off into an abyss.

I looked at Young, then Charley, then Sera.

I looked at those friends, a group called the Circle, laughing and gathered around a person I couldn't see.

There was still so much to learn, and, even though it felt like catastrophe had been dodged thanks to unexpected intervention, the ever-pouring rain and dismal gray above couldn't even quench the feeling of ticking, clicking, a second-hand cycling around, threatening us with its minutes to midnight.

It felt like everything was turning upside down.

It was my turn to help Bryan, Edge, and Autumnridge, Susano'o keeping my head high along the perilous way and my friends holding my hands.

I watched the four friends by the bridge—or was it five? I wanted it to be five at the very least. I hoped they would still accept me after what happened to Bryan. I wanted to be a member of the Circle, too. It sounded fun. I didn't ever have friends like that. Folding one hand over the other at my waistline, I smiled and took the first few steps toward them.

It was just an innocent question.