Part 8: The Bell

Chapter 61: Too Lucky

Episode THREE: Vocal Eyes

There's a sub-title in DA that calls this episode "Happy Hug Time"

Sure lol

I don't own Pokémon.


Cruce

I couldn't say whether or not the place was as inviting as the Grove. I wasn't so sure which I preferred: nightmare red sky or crazy static sky. I did find it pretty interesting that the bell tower was still here, where, in the Grove, I was thinking it may have been replaced by that old dead tree that Pokémon gathered in. Here in the Paradox, this 'copy' of our woodland (or what little of it there was) looked a lot more homely than the one back, well, home. That wasn't to say it was much better. Honestly, the people filling the landscape were more important than the landscape itself, and with a good amount of those important people here, that was all that mattered to my eyes. All, y'know, four of them.

I walked beside an idle Bryan, donning his Symbi Solacea for better or for worse. 'Guess he didn't want to risk having Nikki get pulled away again – the lady in question had her tail in a knot from that encounter, but here in this moment, with so many eyes (of different shapes and sizes) on us, she could put that further behind her.

"The real Grove," Bryan muttered. I was thinkin' he was about to say something like that. He just stood awing over it, like it had more meaning than... say, the obsidian circle. "Where Atti plays."

Right to the point, I thought.

"Atti?" I asked, at first flicking my attention to the bloody red buizel, then finding a particular dressy diamond Pokémon in the mix. She had one hand over her cheek like we'd gone and made her speechless – 'course, she was staring right back at Bryan and his Symbi. The anticipation was contagious. I could feel it shake my tails and tingle my cheeks. "Atti Diancie?"

A loud whoosh of air overcame me, colored bright blue, with specks of black and yellow. I fell backwards, overwhelmed by the force of whatever owned these colors. I landed on my tails, but the sudden shock made me feel threatened. I perceived pain somewhere, even if it was nowhere at all – my back? My arms? My shoulder! It was in my shoulder! Two sharp points dug into my fur and flesh! I flicked my tails madly, trying to push myself up, but whatever was keeping me in this lock was so much stronger. Blue arms and a long, blue and white tail squeezed the tears right out of my eyes – clear ones at that, tracing and trickling over the Flux markings that were already there.

Then, the pain ceased, and the fear shortly after that. I was still being squeezed. The thing squeezing me could smell my intentions. It knew I was weaker. It knew I didn't stand a chance. It didn't need to waste so much energy on getting me in its bind. I closed my eyes and took a deep sniff. Something oily, kind of sour, but underneath that, a pungent honey stirred and woke me right back up to common sense – of course this was her. She straight-up told me she was going to wreck me if I followed her in here. Knowing this, I pushed against her with a burst of strength when she least expected it. It wasn't much, but it was enough to wriggle one of my arms out from underneath her tail. It didn't do much for the two small points of pressure having glided from my shoulder right to my neck, just shy of the Bell's strap. She breathed onto one of my cheeks, putting her snout into my view – actually obscuring it somewhat.

Worst of all, this was starting to tickle. I knew she didn't mean for it to, but it did. With her trying to search for my free arm and battle it back into submission, her tail trying to find the best spot to anchor me down – I COULDN'T TAKE IT! THIS WAS ABUSE!

"ABUSE," I blared between short, hysterical bursts of laughter. I was panicking, squirming harder than ever – holy shit the fatigue from it all was worse than anything she could do herself! "TH-THIS IS—HAAAAH! AAAHAHA!"

"Seems like some habits die hard," came a girlish voice by one of my ears. I flicked both, but thrashed all the while. I caught a glimpse of gray and white. Nikki? Crouching here? NOT HELPING?! "Does he really deserve this?"

"Hey, c'mon now," another familiar voice said. To this, my heart stopped, my legs tingled all that tickling sensation into nothingness, and I went numb to Alli's assault. Vay, I thought. "Easy on the pipsqueak, y'hear? Alli, here I done thought you said you weren't all that crazy for 'im."

A loud huff. A puff of wind against my face. The pressure in my neck had disappeared, but Alli's tailed seized so tightly around me once more that it fought back the numbness Vay gave to me. She lifted her head back. I caught her giving a pretty bitter glare over to Vay. Then, she struck me with it, finding me just... looking up at her with a dumb smile, because that was just how my face looked.

You're so lucky I can't talk.

"Actually," I said back, even though I was the only one who heard her communicate. "Now you have so much more you can do with your mouth."

She lurched down. Pain bled into my neck and I did something between a shriek and a discordant giggle. I kicked at the soft dirt and dead leaves.

I tried to look away. When I finally managed it, I found another set of eyes so close to me that our noses touched. Big, red, shiny eyes, surrounded by the darkest black fur.

"Boop~," rang the eevee. "Alli's such a crunchy, spicy wispy. She's like a lightning strike!"

"Rayse," I pleaded, eyes watering. "He-... help! She's feral!"

"N'awwwwkay, but just 'cause y'er sooo CUTE!" she said, throwing her head and ears back to enunciate the last word as ear-shatteringly loud as possible. "Alli? I don't think you should have a murder picnic with Cruce. He's Flux! He tastes like crud!"

Another defeated huff. The pressure let up again, this time on all accounts. I was released. Alli's tail uncoiled, all my formerly covered fur puffing out, making me feel large and free. Like the slithering monster she was, all however many inches of her long body disappeared from view and I took it as my one and only opportunity to get my ass GONE. I threw myself around to my belly, flailed my arms and legs wildly until traction did its job, then skittered out of there like death was pinching the fur at my tails. I thought back to Mew and wondered if this was worse. My bell was there to jingle with each step and remind me it wasn't all that bad. So was Vay, who made himself my own personal blockade to crash myself into. For some split seconds, I became worried that, at my speed, launching myself into him would have hurt him. Than I remembered how puny I was and figured I could just be a squirrel rocket for a little bit.

Impact! Except not. It was more like he took all of my momentum and peeled it away from me, leaving just a very traumatized, bitten Pokémon on his... back? He grabbed me somehow – maybe from his vine. It didn't cut me up though, despite its spikes. I didn't think it had spikes on the inner curl, so, y'know, good for him not making pieces out of me. I blinked, chest planted against his back, my arms and legs hanging over the sides. Instinctively, I wrapped them both around him as far as they could go. The dude was muscly – I mean, I knew this already, but just coppin' a feel right around his shoulders and haunches did that some more justice that ever before. His scent was divine. I shoved my face into all of it, hiding my mouth, nose, and the Bell in his fur, just letting my eyes glaze over in the refuge, like nothing could judge me or take me away from here. I knew I was wrong. I was just blissfully oblivious.

His vine was still out, prodding my backside, making sure I didn't just topple off of him. It was strange, seeing it from the back of his neck. A little unsettling, actually, the way it appeared glossy, wet, and, for lack of a better term, kind of... butthole-ish. Except with a tentacle. Yeah, his and my own anatomy were things I was gonna need to get a lot more comfortable with. Flux 'n all. Whatever. Didn't care much right now.

"Vay's got a sphincter on his neck...~" I hummed loud enough only for him to hear, softly closing my eyes halfway, as he turned and met them before they could shut all the way. He didn't return the gaze with as much affection as I'd wanted – that and he couldn't really turn his head one hundred eighty degrees.

"What?!" he peeped. "Where'd that come from? I ain't get what's going on with you and Rayse sometimes."

"Like, dude," I lifted my head a tad, ventured forward with one arm and gave the base of his vine a couple soft pokes, right down to where the leafy opening was. It was surprisingly taut. This thing could crack open a friggin' boulder! "This is totally a butthole. Eh? C'mon, you can't stand there and say it's not. Look at it!"

"It's the back of my neck, Cheeks – it's like the one part of me I can't interact with much," he lectured me. "Is this really what we're opening with?! No, 'Oh, my love! I was so worried about you!'? Instead, we're just... j-just buttholes?!"

"We're not buttholes..." I told him. I didn't smile with it, but boy I wanted to. I gave a sneerless chortle, but that was about it. His mouth hung open. I swore he was gonna just buck me off of his back, but nah. I probably shouldn't have been testing him just after he saved me from a hungry skywisp. "Okaaaay. AHEM. Vay, my... uh, love, thank you... y-... yeah. See, now that we're here in front of everyone, I'm... embarrassed 'n shit."

"Oh, pfft," he scoffed hard, spit flying out of his mouth, but none of it hit me. I could feel my face heating up though. Vision around the cheeks was getting as blurry as it always did with Vay. "Like being in public's stopped you before. Am I right, Diancie?"

Diancie, I thought? Was she with us? I didn't see where she was anymore. Propping myself up on my arms and letting Vay's vine help me balance on his back, I looked around for her – she wasn't hard to miss. She also wasn't really paying any attention to us. She was with Bryan, the two off on their own. They looked too busy for us – yeah, no one gave a fuck what we were doing, and all those other Pokémon and humans standing around were doing their own thing. Lot of tension over there, actually, so I was glad I wasn't a part of their game. There was a swell little moment here between Vay and I. It was good. I liked this.

"Hey Neckbutt." I grabbed Vay's attention again. Here came that unamused, defensive look again. I smiled wide and stuck my tongue out, then buried it in his fur.

"No. Bad Cheeks. You ain't callin' me that."

"You call me Cheeks!" I contested.

"You like being called Cheeks!" he argued. Again, the 'ol face flushed up. This time I had to look away from him. Awww, he said it so sincerely, too – he knew I liked that. Made my heart go all fluttery and tingly and it was so great – NNNGH, heart emotes all over the place with this guy!

I'm just happy to see him.

I'm proud of myself for getting here, chasing after him and Alli.

Makes me feel like I really do have a place alongside Vay as a Gamma being. Sure, I can do this!

"C'mere." he prompted me. I didn't have a choice – everyone else was bigger and stronger than me, and to exemplify that, Vay's vine wormed itself underneath my chest and guided me off of his back.

I rolled off of him and landed on my tails instead of my feet, but it did feel good to fall and not have any jarring impact on landing. I loved that about this body. I could cushion any fall and get away with it laughing. I just smiled this off though, since the next thing to come into my vision was Vay's shadowy chin right above me, upside down, that stoic expression on his muzzle. He gave me his eyes, brow furrowed, as I just kinda... reached up to him with both arms and legs.

"Good job." he said, monotone with sarcasm.

"Thanks," I told him, dazed by just how much space he occupied compared to me. He practically eclipsed the entire sky from where I was, which made it all the more appealing to see him and not an insanity-inducing sky-scape. "Have I told you that before? Thanks? Because... thanks."

"Thanks," he repeated, probably just to hear himself say it back, as he tucked his legs in to lay down. Despite how much closer his face was to me, he still seemed to tower over me in every way. His breaths drifted into my nose, mine into his. We let our warm, wet noses touch one another's. My front paws went limp. My heart felt like it was about to explode from all the recent stimuli. "You'll do fine, Cheeks."

"Uh...?" I chirped back.

"Mmhm. A Champion," he said. "A new one, who has a lot of work to do."

"You..." I took a breath, contemplating what he said. We'd talked about something like this before, where he was losing his patience and wanted to turn me into a Champion so I could understand all this Gamma nonsense better. 'Cept, back then, he didn't use a word like 'new'. But, he knew. He 'knew' that I had to be 'new', because a Champion couldn't be a Champion without being a Gamma being – uuugh, my head didn't like that thought too much. A brief pulse of pain somewhere in my left temple told me to stop overthinking it. "You knew I was a Gamma being?"

"All along," he said, nodding, his nose brushing over mine, stroking between my eyes and landing on my forehead, which he gave a few hot puffs of air, a wet lap, then a slightly drier kiss, lips pulling at my fur. "You're as much a Gamma as me. Bit of a handful, too."

"I know..." I said back, the fur on my tails standing on end with static electricity.

"And that's just fine," he deflected, a second, more intricate kiss parting the fur between my eyes. "Something like... being a Gamma? Yeah, that doesn't pass over me."

"They said I was Scion," I told him. "And I don't think that's a very nice thing."

"Scion? Hm, I'd heard the name tossed around here and there," he said. "Something to do with the Crossblade?"

"Yeah. And that's something you have now." I reminded him. Maybe not the best time, since I was enjoying the kisses, and what I'd said caused him to lean away from me. Objecting, I even put my nose forward a little more, hoping to catch his before it left. I swallowed my heart back and let him think over it. It was a serious thing to have to deal with. I literally couldn't imagine the pain he was in when wielding it, or the pain he might've been in now.

"I don't know how I brought it out, but when I did, it was one of the strangest feelings, I tell ya," he went on. "Hurts, but you know there ain't a thing wrong with your body. It's – well, it's deeper than that, and the only way to get rid of it is to do yourself somethin' awful. Somethin' I'd never do. Too much pride, even for all the crap I've done here so far. I'm guessin' that if you're supposed to be at the root of all this then you know what I'm talking about."

"For empathy's sake, I wish I did," I admitted. "I can tell you about the Crossblade – technicalities and stuff. I can't tell you about the feelings it brings. I think my cousin Topher's better for that."

"Excuse me," a young boy said. Dignity evaded me, as I budged not an inch in Vay's shadow. "This... Is this a good time? You two look comfortable."

"Shaymin," Vay greeted, and yeah, there Shaymin was – damn, he really was smaller than me, this little floating thing. What was he, a reindeer? With... punkish green hair? Actually, my red hair might have felt exactly like his. He had sick ears though, and a cool little red scarf. Same guy who gave Vay a hard time back in the Down. "Thinkin' you can shed some light on our questions?"

"I know I can," he said, his four green paws touching down onto the brown leaf pile next to me, with hardly a crunch. With how close he was to me, it seemed he demanded my attention. I put my affection away for another time, parted my tails, and let myself up. Just sitting here, I was as tall as him standing up, so that made me feel pretty cool. "A-and to clear any skepticism, no, I am not Chevron."

"Don't worry," said Vay. "I believe you. You're my handiwork."

"True," the little reindeer guy sighed. "But I have most of Chevron's memories. When I heard you mention Topher, I just couldn't contain myself any longer. I'm a coward, yes, but Fausti will never let me live it down if I don't tell you. That's how much this man's – Chevron's – mistakes mean."

"Don't be ridiculous. You buy into what Fausti says?" Vay asked, a nerve struck. "That's stupid. She's crazy – you're not Chevron anymore, even if you wound up with his memories. Y'can't seriously let her guilt-trip you like that."

"I'd like to agree – really, I would," Shaymin paused, bit his lip, and shook his head. The next time he looked back up at the leafeon, there was a fierce glint to his green eyes. "But, in spite of whether or not Fausti's wrong about me, she's right about Cruce."

"Uhm, me being... a Gamma?" I guessed. Shaymin looked at me like I'd gone and jumped the gun so hard that the bullet wouldn't have been able to catch up.

"Huh, so either she told you or Young did. Either way," he started. "You are a Gamma, but that's not something Fausti would ever want to tell you. To her, you're just Cruce, and she doesn't want to risk losing any amount of Cruce. I think it would kill her."

"But why?" I wondered, more annoyed than confused, but still confused aplenty. "Why do I matter to her?"

"You'll want to get comfy—er, again," he instructed, letting his rump sink into the leaves. "There's so much you need to know, and it's finally time I told you."

Heavy silence was drawn out between myself and Shaymin. Vay didn't put anything in the middle of that. He must've thought Shaymin wasn't supposed to end up with all the memories of somebody he was trying to erase. From the bitter look on this little Pokémon's face, Shaymin must have pulled the shortest straw here. His cheeks and ears looked like they'd been waterlogged with the memories of a madman. All of a sudden, my heart ached. I couldn't read through Shaymin's thoughts and I didn't need to. I could feel the words on his tongue begin to crumple up my spirit like old paper before they even left his mouth.

What is it...?

Come on. Tell me!

Moments ago

Alli

I could not roll my eyes any harder. Jeez, it actually HURT how hard I was rolling them. Every time I caught a glance of Cruce and his new crush, they were just all over each other. I couldn't even tell them to go get a room, because my voice was broken. I put a hand over the bandage around my neck, squeezed slightly, and let my tongue roll out just to see if that hurt. It didn't, which was nice, since I put a lot of investment in havin' my tongue taste at the air. Just little things caused this to hurt, too, so it was nice to see what I could get away with and what I couldn't. After all that biting I did on that little rodent Cruce – all the growlin' I thought I could do, it left my neck all sore and shit. Glad Rayse got me away from him and gave me somebody else to bite. I much preferred her taste over his – er, if Cruce was still a dude. Pretty convenient for the little fuckball to end up with a big strong boy-toy...

I crossed my arms. Whatever, I thought, as I let my tail coil more tightly around my black fluffy Champion. I had her torso trapped down near the tip of my body and she had no complaints whatsoever. Plus, she was warm. Hooo boy, was she warm. I needed my own personal heater, and Rayse was it. Put plenty of smiles on my face when I needed it, too.

Leaves crunched near me. A voice called my name. She was... shorter, I thought. Even with a third of my body occupied holding Rayse, I looked down at her. Her big poofy hair and tall ears stood about on the same level as my eyes. I let my tongue flick out. No oily scent here – somewhere else though, and heavily blotted with a thick, metallic taste. This chick was more like roses and pond water. It tickled my tongue, before I sucked it back into my lips, letting my eyes do the rest of the work. It was like Cadi shrunk – honestly. She was as voluptuous, just cuter now. Yeah, I liked that look, but I was worried that my siren self wouldn't have had a buddy.

"Oh, your hair's looking kind of rough," she told me. I went cross-eyed and searched for the strands of black hair dripping over my forehead. "I hope you'll still let me do it for you, even if Arcadia isn't with us anymore."

I wanted to question her – no sooner did I blink and aim my eyes at her. Every time I had the compulsion to speak, I could feel that drive pressing against every surface inside of my throat, stinging it, mocking me when I realized noise was too painful to make. I couldn't even take my Crossblade out, distract myself with that pain, and speak from there. I always felt like it was too rough to get even a peep out of my mouth, but then when I actually tried my damnedest, there was no noise left inside of me. I didn't want to live my life speaking to Fluxes through my eyes, but I didn't want to be a Flux either. And, well, eat your heart out 'siren form' (literally), since you didn't have much of a working set of organs in your chest cavity anymore. I couldn't just go back to that. I didn't even know how.

"Alli?" said the little Cadi. I gave a shake of my head, my hair whipping me in the nose. Right, hair. Right, Arcadia! She said Arcadia wasn't there? I got distracted. I couldn't respond, though. I felt so weighted down with helplessness that I could collapse over this sweet fluff-bag of an eevee. Did just that. I, uh, put away my 'flight' somehow, let myself fall, 'till my chin landed over a big puff of red fur. I put out a long, tired breath. She was so warm. My underbelly felt great over her. I could stay here all day, but I didn't know how much oxygen this psychadelic-ass place had, nor did I think Rayse wanted an entire skywisp laying over her. Maybe she did. Kinky girl, I thought. Kinda loved that.

"Dirt!" Rayse exclaimed. I had no clue why. Might'a been 'cause her head got forced into the ground when I fell over her. Yeah, her head was around here somewhere. She and I were just a mess of fur, limbs, and 'me'. "Miss Cinccino, you sure like changing shape. I don't smell as much Gamma in you as before. What happened?!"

"Mmh, Arcadia abandoned me. I must have done something wrong, but I'm not sure how. She was controlling me," said... Nick, then. It was Nick again, but she spoke so sourly. She was angry. "I remember everything up to a point where there's... just whispers and silhouettes. Then, I was awake and alone. She left me."

"That's horrible! What the HECK, that's awfuuuul – Miss Cinccie! Oh nooo..." Rayse whined. "But Cadi loved you! She was awesome! There's gotta be a perfectly perfect reason for what she did."

"I don't suppose I'll ever know. I wanted to put my faith in Gamma, but..." Nick – Miss Cinccie sighed. That pessimism, man. That was Nick for sure.

"I'll hang onto it for you," Rayse offered. "Gimme yer faith! I'll go places with it! Me and all my siblings will!"

"Eeh, right," she squinted. "Who are you again? I don't think we've met."

"Rayse..." Bryan mumbled. Yeah. That guy. No idea why the hell he was here, but they dragged his psycho ass with them. Bryan, all dripping blood-stuff and looking about as Fluxed up as I last remembered him in his puddle of filth. And yet, he had the source of that oily smell there in his gross paw. That was a Symbi, eh? That was the one they described to me – the one that could heal injuries, no matter how malignant. "She's Rayse, a Champion."

"Rayse! That's you?! Why," Nick paused, a hand gently resting against her fluff-covered bosom. Her gesticulation was still as effeminate as Cadi's, her mannerisms similar... Even her way of talking was a little like Cadi's. So weird. I watched her from on top of Rayse's head. She looked down on us like a couple of filthy animals. Sure felt the part. "You're minuscule!"

"We're all a little littler!" the Flux 'vee giggled. I could feel her tail thumping against mine somewhere in the mess of 'us'. I forced my arms underneath her belly, hugged tight, and lifted us both up. She wasn't weightless, but once I got myself flying, weight didn't matter anymore. I stamped her to my underside, arms around her neck, tail around her tum-tum, with nothing but her own fluffy brush of a tail poking out from underneath. She purred with joy, like the most lovable thing on the planet. I caught her attention, her little head looking back up at me. I smirked, snout against her face.

"Rayse and I spoke through eyes," Bryan began. I saw him checking that glowing, crystal rod out like he was looking for any imperfections to it, nicks and bumps and the like. "You guys were looking for Symbi Solacea so you could heal Alli?"

"Uh-huh. Alli got a boo-boo and can't talk no more. No fun. I like her crunchy voice." Rayse described, using crunchy for a second time to refer to me. Yo, I kinda liked that.

"So that's what happened," said Nick, lifting her tail around her legs, the soft white fluff drifting onto a pile of leaves. "Not very becoming of our all-star."

"Um, I'm sorry, Al," Bryan went on, looking through his Symbi all the while, magic strings floating around the points of it like they were alive. "I wasn't ever a very good friend, huh? I thought about the Circle a lot when I was with Travis. I didn't ever do anything for you guys. I wanted a place, but all I ended up doing was making fun of everyone. It's easy to see why you guys wouldn't want somebody as annoying as me around. And now, I have a hard time thinking. I remember things from before I was Flux, but I don't think I can be the same. My mind's not fixed all the way. I need help, but I also want to help you."

Ugh, c'mon dude, just get on with it. Take your magic stick and cast a healing spell on me, er whatever.

You ain't getting through to me with that sappy-ass apology. Couple minutes of heartfelt BS comin' outta your Fluxy mouth's not gonna cut years and years of shit you gave Patty or Topher for being who they are.

I didn't ever like you...

...I didn't...

The way he spoke... He was having trouble putting words together, not because he didn't know what he wanted to say, but because he literally didn't know how to say it very well. That wasn't on account of his personality, but his Flux. He was fucked in the head the last time I saw him, but now he was better. Not all the way okay, just better. He mentally couldn't be the same person he once was. Good riddance.

He needed to be a better person. Less of an asshole, if he could help it, and he said he wanted to help it.

All those times I got into some drama with Emi – that was how my heart felt right now. Felt low. Felt like I was the shitty one. She always told me that there was merit to that. Meant that my heart knew better, and now I was getting it again. I squeezed Rayse more tightly, hoping that would quench it. Even as close as she was to my heart, her soft body only warmed my scales.

"I know. Sorry..." Bryan said again, like he heard my thoughts. It was hard to tell whether or not I was 'speaking through my eyes'. Fluxes caught on, though. They heard your thoughts if you were lookin' right at 'em. Happened to be that I was looking right at the guy, too. He was checking me out now, so he must'a caught the tail end of my thoughts. I didn't like him, and all he had to say was sorry again, and again... and again. "Here goes nothing."

He raised his arm wielding his magic artifact thing. Standing a good meter or two away from Rayse and I, the little crystal bar had some distance to cover if it was gonna do something. Also, it had an eevee to go through if it wanted any part of my neck. Figured this was a good time to let Rayse down, so I arched my body, let my tail unfold, and set the girl down, tail still trying to curl around her feet. She just sat right there at the base of my body. She didn't want to leave me.

I sighed. This looked for real. Those wiry bits of the Symbi were flying right for me, albeit too slow to scare me. Yeah, I was a tad nervous – I'd never done this before. Had I? I couldn't remember. This was Mari's Symbi, but I'd hardly seen it in action. 'Guess I was going through with it nonetheless, and part of me had to believe in both myself and Bryan if I really wanted it. Believe in Bryan, I thought. Really? That was where this led me? I get thrown into a trippy new world, Cruce chased after me, picked up Bryan along the way, and now I was at his mercy. Scents were dancing all around me, some good, others sharp and repulsive. The Symbi's threads were closing in. One of them touched against my bandage. Another touched against my chin. It felt feathery and warm, almost too hot to touch. All of the little things were hovering around me now, radiating heat, twirling and vibrant.

A lapse of numbness. A comforting hum – something I could hear with my body, drizzling into my stomach, my mouth, and my tongue. It tasted like sugary fire, but it didn't burn. Lights dazzled me. I closed my eyes, finding more comfort this way. Tiny surges of pressure broke through the numbness, tickling me for instants so minute that I didn't bother to be bothered. It was like someone had taken a duster to my neck and let the tiniest hairs of it touch against my scales. I swallowed. It didn't hurt. I swallowed again, depicting the strings inside of my neck. Could I have swallowed them? I took a deep breath, let my eyes drift open to a sky crawling with television static. I could feel everyone watching me. The humming came to an end, and then I heard more voices than before – voices I recognized.

No more glittering, no more tickling, no more apprehension. I was calm. I heard giggles, 'ooh's and 'aah's of anticipation. I was encompassed by them, the star of the show. I breathed, and breathed again, because no more did it feel like I was playing into pain. No more swelling in my throat. No more burning. No more fear.

I took one hand, put my thumb under a fold of the bandage on my neck, other digit over it, and ripped it right off my body, the satisfaction of how loose and poorly tied it was going up in a glorified moment. As I threw my hand back, I let the bandage go, hurling it wherever it wanted to go in this windless place. Prolly not very far, but it didn't belong on me no more! I let my other arm join whatever the hell my first arm was doin' back there. Ended up putting 'em both out into a stretch, shut my eyes, let my mouth open, and...

"AaaaaaHA!" I blared, almost afraid to do so. Noise came out of me. My noise! I MADE that noise! The vibrations, the pitch, the breath – all the shit that happened down there in my throat actually worked right! He did it! This jerk-ass really did it! "Yo, get PUMPED; it's your wisp ALLI!"

I flew. Didn't care what I was doing, I just wanted to fly – let that air pass me by. I laughed it all the way through, arms out, doing a big loop-de-loop in the sky, then doing another. I wasn't held back! I wasn't muted! Wind rolling through my hair, I dove out of the second loop, earthbound. Rayse was there, smiling back up at me, hopping around in shared excitement. I grinned right at her, gave a wink, then pointed myself upward and changed course for that slimy Flux Bryan, standing all hunched over with his damn fine magic weapon. He looked weary – 'course he did. I was comin' in like a bat outta hell ready to dive-bomb his scrawny self. I dodged him right at the last second – dude didn't smell all that great up close, but I didn't mind it much. I swerved right 'round his backside, slowed my flight so I could let my tail drag along the ground without burning myself, half-coiled around him, and got a little bit lower, right to his level. My left arm swung up and around him, resting on his opposing shoulder, and I pulled him right up close to me, gratitude steering me.

"Haha, soooo 'bout earlier, bud," I told him, making sure to speak as loudly as possible. Felt obnoxious and I loved it. "You know, you aren't so bad! I think I'm chill with you again, yeah? Friends?"

"You like me? Really?!" he lightened up. One of his creepy, dark eyes locked onto mine. I flicked my tongue out. Smelled like blood. This guy needed a shower, lest he washed away in the water. Weird how I was kinda hugging him and it didn't seem like any of it was rubbing off onto me. He actually felt soft, like he was made of fur. Slimy fur.

"Yeeeeah, you're alright," I teased him. Didn't want this guy getting too comfy. Still, I wrapped my arm all the way around his head, pulled him closer, and got my other fist right up in his gross fur, giving him the slimiest noogie to date. Taking my fist from his fur, I looked at it. It dripped with his goop. My smile went front what it was to a scowl, followed by me brushing Bryan's remnants back onto him. I pushed him away lightly, cleared my throat, and shook my arm free of his slime. "Guh. 'Nough of that."

"Ohh, he just needs a good cleaning or two! Don't judge him too hard on that," Nick instructed, approaching my side, chipper. "Lovely to have you with us again, Alli!"

"Yo, I been here all along," I told her, hands on my hips – or lack there of. Never really figured that out. "I ain't going anywhere!"

That's not entirely true.

I gotta get out of this place, and with all my home girls right behind me. And Bryan. Possibly Cruce.

If we can still be the Circle after all this is over, we can do anything. We can own this Gamma! We'll be just fine...

'Cause that's assuming we ever get Topher back. Rayse's right about somethin' here, and that's to have faith. Vague, but sure. I'll bite.

Still, I don't know where to put any of that faith for Topher. Bryan made up. But Topher?

Can't see it happening.


To Be Continued...