Dewott dodged backwards in an attempt to avoid an attack. While he did avoid the paws that carried the brunt of the force, tufts of strong fur that were attached to the attacking arms swung out further and made contact with him, whipping at his skin. The pain of it was much greater than one would initially anticipate.

Even with his skin stinging in pain, Dewott wasn't willing to get demotivated by it. He planted his feet into the ground and fired off a Water Gun attack from his mouth. Mienshao put her arms in an 'X' shape to block the attack. The damage was completely negligible, it only served to dampen her fur. The moment the stream ended, she ran forward and made a spinning kick to get back at Dewott.

Taking advantage of how he was now much smaller than her, Dewott ducked down to let the leg go over his head. He leaped forward, totally horizontal, and slashed with his right-hand scalchop. It connected, but Mienshao stepped back just in time to mitigate the damage.

Mienshao returned with a curved punch before Dewott had landed. As he couldn't dodge very much without his legs on the ground, Dewott responded by trying to block with his left-hand scalchop. While her paw did hit against the hard scalchop, she put in enough strength and follow-through that it completely overpowered the block. Guard broken, Dewott was struck back by the blow; knocked to the ground.

The otter had some fight left in him, but knew he couldn't take much more. He noticed Mienshao pulling her leg back to prepare another kick. He knew she was smart, that after he managed to duck under one attack she would shift her tactics to make sure that didn't happen again, so Dewott thought one step ahead of that.

He exerted as much strength into his legs as he could and hopped into the air. Mienshao's lowkick slid under him and only nicked his toes. But unlike his last jump, this only had vertical momentum, he wasn't jumping towards Mienshao to get within attacking range nor jumping away to get some distance.

Before Dewott could make an attack, Mienshao threw one of her arms forward again. She hadn't pulled it back to make a strong punch, but that wasn't her intention. She grabbed onto Dewott's shoulder and clenched tight to it. Dewott felt that he got grappled, and immediately began using Aqua Jet to attempt to get out. The force of his move versus Mienshao's strength and grip, the Aqua Jet wasn't enough to win out. Mienshao got her other arm on Dewott and slammed him onto the hard ground. An explosion of dust came from the ground and was casted in all directions, some particles going meters into the air as he got pushed into the ground and she let out a huff of breath.

After the attack, Mienshao could sense that that was it. She let go and took a few steps back. "A-alright, enough," Dewott stammered out. "You win."

"Are you okay?" was the first thing Mienshao said once the battle was declared over.

"Y-yeah, just help me up," he replied.

She reached one paw forward, and Dewott grabbed onto it with both of his hands. Mienshao pulled while Dewott held on, getting pulled out of the dewott-shaped hole in the dirt. As he was brought up, Mienshao could tell he wasn't as okay as he let on. Nothing big was broken, but his fur was completely messed up, there was a visible bruise where her fur had whipped him, and he was battered all around. He removed one paw from Mienshao's arm to place on his shoulder to try to soothe it.

"That evolution really did make ya stronger," Dewott said, holding out the pain just long enough. "Quite impressive."

"Yes, yeah. We need to get you an oran berry," Mienshao said. She was still leading Dewott on by holding one of his paws.

"Were you able to get any training done while with yer family?" Dewott asked while being led to some backpacks. "I knew you'd get quite a bit stronger from evolving, but I was hoping I'd catch up at least a bit if I could get some training done in the meantime."

"Umm, yeah," Mienshao said. The real answer was no, she did not get any training done. But she just wanted to make him feel a bit better about himself.

She sat Dewott on a stone and gave him an oran berry. He ate it to heal himself, fixing his bruises but not getting his fur back in order. He leaned back and let out a sigh into the sky. "Good fight, glad to have you back again, don't really want to do another fight right now though," he said. "Anything else you can think of right now?"

"Not at this moment, but can we get inside first?" Mienshao said.

"Sure."

The two got up and grabbed their bags, then began the short walk back to the guildhouse.

The entrance and interior of the guildhouse still felt off to Mienshao. She had been back at the guild for a week now, but still wasn't used to it. She remembered everything being so much larger when she was a mienfoo, but now the things that once stood over her were at her chest level. She was also used to buildings that were well accommodated for her size after spending three months within her family's home, but that wasn't what the guildhouse was in the least.

The furniture cabinets were made for pokemon around the size of a pikachu to around the size of a lucario, but she now dwarfed all of that. Even Armin the lucario was closer to the intended size range, the only one that was still taller than her was Max the Arcanine by one-fourth of a meter.

The pokemon looked different at that height too. Her friends she could once see at eye-level she now needed to point her head downwards to look at.

"So, what else do you want to do?" Dewott asked as they traveled down the halls.

"I'm not sure, I will have to think about that," Mienshao replied.

"How about another cooking competition?"

"We already did one this morning, and you won," Mienshao said.

"We'll make it a best two out of four then," Dewott told her. "No wait, out of three."

"No no no, I heard what you said," Mienshao injected. "Best two out of four, how does that even work?"

"Draws are possible," Dewott explained not-so-seriously.

"Challenges the purpose of a competition like that, doesn't it?"

"Fine then. We'll do best three out of seven. That way, everyone can be a winner."

"Best three out of four. Sometimes there are no winners in war."

"Of course, there are no better ways to do it."

"Best zero out of zero… I win."

"Best four out of three."

"An allegory on the futility in life," Mienshao followed up.

The two laughed with each other. The jokes themselves weren't enough to get them to laugh that much, but them giggling caused the other to laugh more as well. The fun came from enjoying the time together more than anything else.

Once they calmed down, Dewott glanced around the room they were in for ideas, but the paintings, pathways and other things did not spark any light bulbs for him. But then he saw a cup with pens in it, and that did capture his attention.

Dewott walked over to it and grabbed two pens.

"Alright, I've got an idea now," he showed the utensils to her.

"What is it?"

"Writing sprint. Each of us try to write a story on paper as fast as we can. The one who writes more words in twenty minutes wins," Dewott grinned while holding the two pens parallel to one another.

"What story do we write?" Mienshao asked.

"You have to figure that part out yourself," Dewott said. "C'mon, let's try it. We should have just enough time before supper."

"Seems interesting enough!" Mienshao agreed.

"Great! Let's get to my room, I have some paper and a few timers in there," Dewott said.

The otter pokemon turned and walked off to his room, and Mienshao followed. She needed to be more careful when going through the guildhouse now, as her size made it easy to accidentally run into pokemon and objects by mistake.

The two locked themselves into his room. They sat around a table he had, Dewott on a stool and Mienshao on the floor. Each of them needed a few minutes to figure out what they could write about. They had both read books before and had some passing thoughts about what they would make if they could create their own work, but now that the time had come to actually do that, the pressure made it seem like they suddenly forgot about every idea they previously envisioned. It took a few minutes of scratching at their memory to force them to resurface.

Once they got themselves ready, Dewott started a twenty minute timer and they both went straight into the writing sprint. The first words came out in a flurry as their pens dashed across the paper and they held them with death grips. Their stamina and creativity gradually decreased throughout the competition, but the small chime the timer made with every minute that passed gave them a small burst of motivation.

They both wrote what they knew, as nothing else could produce the speed they needed. Mienshao wrote the beginning of a drama story, seeming to forget how this was a one-off thing as it was mostly set up for a story that would never be. It seemed to consist of more world building than actual story telling. Dewott went the avenue of writing an adventure story, telling a story of pokemon going far, far away from their homes to somewhere unknown. It followed a team going through a searing desert in search of a fabled oasis, and carried themes of survivalism through it all. He had to make guesses on what desert treks were like, but the raw feeling of adventure he could tell authentically.

The duo both lost track of the time, getting immersed in the tales they were writing and getting those words down on paper as fast as they could. They kept going until-

Ding-ding. Ding-ding the timer chimed.

Dewott slammed his pencil down onto the table the split second he heard that, not bothering to finish writing the symbol he was on and causing the pencil to break with the sheer force he did it. Mienshao was more relaxed, she spent an extra two seconds to finish the sentence she was on and put down a period.

"That's time!" Dewott declared, even though Mienshao was already wrapping up.

"Phew… that was honestly more tense than I thought it'd be," she replied.

"I know, right?!" Dewott said. "Alright, let's count the words now."

"Right," Mienshao said as she rubbed her paws, relaxing now that she no longer needed to clench a pen with them.

"One, two, three, four…" Dewott and Mienshao quietly counted up how many words were on the papers in front of them.

The counting took minutes by itself, and tension slowly incremented. The ordeal was going exactly as Dewott had hoped it would.

"Three-fifty-five, Three-fifty-six, three-fifty-seven!" Mienshao finished counting, "I got three-fifty-seven words written. How about you?"

Dewott couldn't immediately respond as he was still counting. He was doing it silently now for the added suspense. "Three hundred and sixty-four!" He declared, throwing his arms into the air.

"What?!"

"That's how much I got!" Dewott flipped the paper around to show Mienshao. The penmanship was actually quite fine, but the grammar wasn't entirely consistent. She took a quick glance at it, not having enough time to count it herself but getting a general gist of its length.

"I won!" Dewott said, smiling widely. It wasn't the smug grin like one would expect from a sore and taunting winner. It was a wholesome smile, like a child celebrating his birthday.

"Well dang, looks like you did," Mienshao said. She wasn't usually this surprised by his victories, but for this competition in particular, she really thought she would've had the edge.

"Yep."

"It does look like I was using some longer words though," Mienshao said while comparing the two papers. She pointed to her own writing, and the word "ruminating" tucked within one paragraph. Evidently, she had made use of her more expansive vocabulary in her work while Dewott had focused primarily on winning the competition.

"Huh, maybe," Dewott glanced over to look. "I guess you could've won in that regard, if you want to say it. But we were going for word count on this, and a draw just ain't as interesting.

"True enough," Mienshao said as she took back her writing.

Just then, a sound of a bell rang. It wasn't the timer like before, this wasn't localized within the room. It was reverberating through the entire building.

"Ah! Dinner's out now!" Dewott said as he got up from his chair. "C'mon, let's go."

"I heard it as well," Mienshao replied, standing upright as well, "don't need to tell me."

The two ran out of the room and over to the mess hall, Dewott being far more energetic and focused on getting there than Mienshao was. They grabbed plates and joined in on the meal.

Even though it was a month past winter, they could still appreciate the change in atmosphere. People were less on-edge, and there was more cheeriness and socializing. With missions returned, they could now tell stories of their most recent feats. Locke had had a smile on his face for a few days in a row, Snivy and Swana were still taking in their surroundings as new guild members, even Tamin had a foot outside the shell she usually tucked herself in. The minccino sat beside Nidorino and the two calmly talked, still enjoying each other's presence.

As for Mienshao and Dewott, things were both comfortably familiar and frustratingly different. In Dewott's case, he just kept eating the amounts of food that he usually did during meals; which was about the amount of food he actually did need, taken to the power of two. For Mienshao though, she had a much larger body and needed to consume more to sustain it, something that was still throwing her off just a bit. She used to be able to eat a plate of food and feel mostly satiated, but now felt like all she had was an appetizer and she would need a second or third plate after that.

There was more love at the table then the guild then there had ever been before. Sebastien with Espeon, Tamin beside Nidorino, Mawile eyeing Rustin- and of course- Mienshao with Dewott. They could all at least keep to themselves while they were eating food, though. All aside from Sebastien, that is.

Once the meal was over and as they were cleaning up the tables, Dewott wasted no time before he piped up again.

"Hey, want to shee who canf cleahr thisf table thish fasthesht?" Dewott proposed, his words slurring from the food still inside of his mouth.

"I love the offer, but I don't know if I'm in the mood for it at this moment," Mienshao admitted.

Dewott properly swallowed the food in his mouth. "Ah, that's alright, then. We did just get done with one so I get that," he said. "Do ya have any other plans or tonight?"

"I was going to go out with some of my other friends to a tavern. I want to catch up with them as well," Mienshao said.

"Oh! Right-right-right, you told me about that this mornin'. Sorry, I forgot," Dewott spoke. "Are you planning on heading out soon?"

"We were planning on getting there at eight-twenty," Mienshao replied.

"Oh! I see. Hey, you can start getting ready now, I'll get the rest of this cleared off," Dewott said, performing a mild gesture to sort of shoo her away without coming across as rude.

"Oh, thank you very much," Mienshao excused herself from the room, walking off with a small bow.

"No probs!" Dewott waved as she left.

Even though Mienshao did have plenty of time to prepare herself, she didn't exactly need to do a whole lot with that time. Fundamentally, all she needed to do was to get to the tavern on time and make sure she had money for getting there.

She checked to make sure Fraxure and Max were still up for it, and the moment they confirmed they were up for it was the moment she became fresh out of things she needed to do. She considered taking up a new hobby project that came to her mind a while ago, but there was simply no time for that. A frustrating paradox, but not one she'd have to suffer from for very long.

Her two main options were to chat with others in the meantime, or use the time to be alone with her own thoughts. Since she had already been with Dewott for hours and was about to be at another social activity, she chose the latter to mix things up.

Mienshao came into her own room, and sat down. Even though she had a chair that was appropriate for her new size, she chose to sit down on her carpet instead and entered a lotus position. Mienshao wasn't exactly an introvert that needed to rest between social interactions, but she still had many things she wanted to think about.

Just her room gave her much to think about. This was the one place in the world that was free for her to customize, as the guildhouse was outside of her control. Even her chamber back at her family's home wasn't entirely her own, her parents had put up quite a few decorations up in it themselves and there were certain things which Mienshao knew they would freak out if she put up. But as for her room at the guildhouse, this was the one place in the world she was free to customize, her one sandbox.

Yet despite that, many parts of it looked the same as her room at her family's keep. Thinking about it more, she realized she didn't have any real desire to take down the decorations her parents put up, and even less of a desire to put up things they would reject. Her freedom for that was limited, but did that really make much of a difference in that case?

She opened her eyes to gaze around the room more thoroughly, and that was when she made a new realization. Plenty of the things there were actually Dewott's ideas that she accepted, not her ideas she came up with on her own. The chairs were made with the same woodworking styles that Dewott had grown up with, not her. Most of the artwork she had was amature made, the kind you don't have because they look incredible but because you appreciate the heart that was put into it. They were creations of crochet and simply paintings, not the ceramics she had in her family's home.

Now she wanted to spend an entire hour or two in that room meditating on these matters, but knew she couldn't since the bar was scheduled soon. Frustrating, especially considering that she started this alone time specifically because she didn't think it would take long, and now she's leaving it incomplete regardless.

Going from having time to kill to racing against time, Mienshao got her purse and went out into town with it. She had to be more careful and slow with getting through the guildhouse to avoid hitting anything incidentally, but that was more than counteracted by the fact that longer legs let her go through streets much faster. Casual walking as a mienshao had comparable speed to hustling as a mienfoo as each step covered more distance.

Eventually, she was able to find the tavern that was agreed upon. It wasn't exactly hard to spot out, it was the only store in the district that had a vertical sign instead of a horizontal one. As she took a good look at the exterior, she got an odd feeling. It wasn't that she felt there was something wrong about doing this, but felt like it was wrong that she felt nothing wrong about doing this. It was the type of feeling that she couldn't name with a single word, the kind that takes a fair bit of reflection to solve just what it is. Of course, she didn't have the time to do that, and the feeling was faint anyways. She stepped into the building's doors.

Dewott was still at the guildhouse. He was helping get the mess hall cleaned off with every leftover thrown away or stored again.

Once things were back in reasonable order, he rubbed his paws against each other to knock off what crumbs remained on it, and smiled at his work. "Aight, that's done, now to find somefin to do," Dewott quietly said to himself.

He looked around for Locke, figuring that shinx would be a good second pick after his girlfriend to spend time with. But as he looked around, even stepping into other rooms to search, he couldn't spot him anywhere. "Now where did that bugger go…?" he thought.

Dewott had to spend a second to think, but the answers came to him soon enough. "Ah, right. He's probably with his sis right now, still really close to her.

Hmm, he'd be at the ice cream shop right now, so maybe I could meet him there and we could see who can eat more before we get a brain freeze… nah, I should probably leave him be.

In the meantime… I don't know, I'll just look around right now."

He lifted his head back up after he had his chin resting in his paws, and took more looks around. There were about three dozen pokemon currently in the guildhouse- he knew that much- so he figured there had to be at least one person there who was willing to hang out while Mienshao was busy.

Dewott started walking around aimlessly in the guild, searching for heads he recognized. His pace was relaxed, he wasn't under any actual deadlines and knew he'd find someone eventually, so he wasn't stressed.

The otter pokemon rounded the corner, and saw someone right away. He saw a lucario with his back turned on him, he was walking at the same rate. After making line of sight, it occurred to Dewott that he didn't actually see Armin around that often, which made him want to take advantage of this opportunity.

"Hey Armi!," Dewott called out, putting one paw up in a friendly gesture, like waving but without movement.

The lucario stopped moving, and looked over his shoulder. "Hey," he said.

"Been awhile since I've talked with you (or really seen you). How have you been?"

Armin turned around while shrugging. "Alright," he said. His tone was dismissive, exhausted. Put Dewott off for a bit, but he felt he had already committed himself enough that he couldn't back down.

"Well, think you'd be up for any quick competitions?" Dewott said, "Figured you'd be pretty good for that, since you're the strongest in this guild-n-all. Oh, it could also give me some more experience on competing with someone taller than me."

"Why not just do that with your girlfriend then?" Armin asked.

"She's at a bar with some of her other friends right now."

"Then join her there. I'm pretty sure those have some games in it."

"Oh, I don't drink."

"...Really? I've seen you do blender challenges and stuff like that, but alcohol is where you're drawing the line?" Armin replied, his shaking a tad in confusion.

"Well, it's just not for everyone, y'know?" Dewott awkwardly said, scratching the back of his head a few times.

He made a gesture with his paw, beckoning Armin to him by pointing one finger to himself and moving it back and forth. The lucario noticed this, so he got closer to Dewott and kneeled down to get on his level.

Dewott moved his head closer to Armin's ear. "I've tried it before, and I've found that having an overactive bladder and drinking alcohol is just a really bad mix," he quietly and awkwardly said into his year. "So… yeah…"

Armin began standing up again, and readjusted his black baseball hat while going up. "Well, hope you're able to get that fixed then. I have some other stuff I wanted to do."

"Wait," Dewott said just as Armin finished fully standing upright.

"Yeah?"

"Well, there's gotta be something we can do together."

"Toss out some ideas then."

"Umm…" Dewott put one of his paws at the point between his eyes to think. "Maybe somefin with cards?"

"Well, what do you want to do with those? Go fish? No wait… never mind, I think I'll just go off on my own again. Sorry."

"What are you planning on doing to pass the time?" Dewott asked.

"I'm just going to draw for awhile," Armin said as he turned around again. He didn't even have eye-contact with Dewott as he spoke.

"Alright. Bye then," Dewott said as he walked off.

The lucario turned the corner and broke Dewott's line-of-sight. He was alone again.

"Well, gotta find another person to kill time with, I guess," Dewott thought again. "Hmm, I wonder what Mienfoo- Mienshao's doing right now."

Three mugs of beer slid across the countertop, splashing foam onto the lacquered wood as their momentum slowed. Three sets of paws quickly grabbed their handles.

"First round's up!" Fraxure loudly cried out in what was most certainly not an indoor voice.

Fraxure, Mienshao, and Max the Arcanine brought the mugs to their lips and leaned backwards, letting the liquid flow into their mouths. They took deep glugs to let it cascade down their throat, and willingly let the foam get all over their upper lips.

Fraxure and Max placed the mugs back down, complete with a satisfied exhale. Mienshao took two more gulps before she put her beer down as well.

"How's it tasting, Mien?" Fraxure looked to her left to ask.

"Wonderful~" she replied, wiping the foam off of her mouth by using the fur stripes like clothes.

"Is this the first time you've had a beer before?" Max asked, also looking at Mienshao.

"Yeah," Mienshao smiled widely, "must say it's a lot rougher than the wine my family had, but I think I like that. Much better for chugging instead of just sipping."

"Uh-huh, that's definitely right!" Fraxure said. "I tell you, I've been to a few different bars across this continent, and ain't one of them as good as this one. They're not going for the 'best thing to ever touch your tongue' vibe, they're going for the 'just gimme something to chug down and talk with my friends' vibe."

"Yep, yeah. I can definitely see that," Mienshao said, staring into the beer. The white foam still rested above the liquid. She couldn't see any sort of reflection in the beer, it was completely obscured by the foam, thicker than any fog.

She pulled the mug up again, put it to her mouth, and slammed her head back. Gulp after gulp, she indulged herself with that drink. Mienshao didn't even think about how much was left in the mug, she just kept drinking like it was an unlimited supply. Fraxure and Max returned to drinking as well.

Eventually, the beer stopped flowing and Mienshao could feel air on her tongue again. She shook the mug around to shake out some few remaining drops, then placed the now-empty mug back down onto the countertop.

"I'd like another, please," Mienshao grinned as she spoke.

"Are you sure? These are pretty hard," Max asked.

"Nah, I'm wanting to try out my new body weight. Plus I can pay the tab no problem," Mienshao reassured.

To her request, the kricketune bartender got another mug and filled it up at the tap, holding it at an angle to get the ideal fill. He placed the glass in front of her, and she grabbed it.

Through the evening, she would order more past that, and the three continued drinking together. They talked between sips, shared jokes even. But with every drop that went down their throats, their speech and mental process got more distorted. It didn't take long before they were barely coherent at all, and giving hearty laughs at very little.

"Alright, so that's your last card. That means I've won," Dewott said, sitting with his legs crossed and a fan of cards in his paws.

"Yep, seems that way," Tamin replied, sitting across from him. "Good game."

"Yeah! You played pretty well for a first time-r," Dewott said encouragingly.

"Thanks," Tamin sat up. "So did you want to do another game, or call it quits?"

"Nah, it's been awhile. I want to check up on Mienshao to see if she's doin' alright," Dewott replied, beginning to gather all the cards together again.

"So you're making it a best one out of one then, good to know. I was wanting to get back to Nidorino anyways," Tamin said as she headed off.

Momentarily Dewott wondered why Tamin said that. Was it a coincidence, or did she somehow know about their previous conversation? He didn't ponder it for long though, he wanted to move on to seeing Mienshao again.

He got every card collected and put back into a rectangular card holder. Once things were cleaned, he was off on his way.

The streets were clear that evening, not much going on. The sun was beginning to set, and shops and the shops were closing down for the night. It was notably cold outside as well, or at least felt cold to the water type pokemon. It was perfectly crisp all things considered. Little activity and little noise was around the streets.

Dewott didn't know the exact place the bar was, but he had an idea of where it could be. Towns had some order with how things were structured, a general set of rules that you couldn't easily put into words but could follow it with instincts. So Dewott was confident that it wouldn't take him long.

Hiccup… hiccup… hiccup.

"Mienshao are you okay?"

"Hic… y-yeeeaaaahhh, I'm hic alriiiight."

"How many drinks have you had?"

"Heh, more than you, hic."

"Mienshao, you're drunk. You should really be getting back home now."

"What are you- hic- n-no, I'm aalllll fine. I'm not d-drunk. I could take another! Hic."

"I'm sorry, but I can't give you any more. I'm going to have to ask for you to leave now."

"Wh-what are you taaaalking about hic I'm your cuuuustomer."

"Alright Mienshao, that's enough."

Fraxure grabbed one of Mienshao's arms and put it over her shoulder, beginning to physically lift her up. She was pulled off the bar stool and onto the wooden floor, it didn't take much to do it either.

Max turned back to the bartender and pulled out a pouch of money. "Here, this should pay for what she got," the arcanine said.

Mienshao continued attempting to make protests and pleading that she wasn't actually drunk, but her words were incomprehensible. It sounded like every three words she completely changed what sentence she was attempting to say. As she had hindered motor control, Fraxure had an easy time pulling her across the bar.

The bar doors were opened up, and the two left through it. Fraxure stopped supporting Mienshao up and let her go, letting her stumble her way out onto the concrete. She was unable to keep herself standing upright and moved around funky.

"I'm really sorry it didn't go great this time, but there's always next time," Fraxure apologized.

Mienshao began recovering for a second- but it was just that- one second. She felt a funny feeling in her stomach, which quickly rose up to her throat, and past that. With little warning, Mienshao began puking on the road right outside, at the places where rainwater would usually gather. She created a putrid puddle of viscous yellow liquid, giving off a foul odor which made her puke even more. A self-feeding, repulsive loop.

"Uhh- I'm going to go back to Max now. Stay safe," Fraxure said. "Just… don't leave here, alright?"

The dragon pokemon gave an awkward wave before re-entering the bar, just trying to escape the disgusting scene she was made to bear witness to. Mienshao heard the sound of the doors being opened and closed, but wasn't in any condition or position to react.

Mienshao got it all out of her system, only bile was left in her stomach. With double-vision she attempted to look around and make out what was around her. It was sunset at that point, with dark roads, wood buildings, concrete roads, and puddles of disgusting liquid. The intoxication had gotten to her sense of space, she had no idea which way was north or where she was in relation to the guildhouse. It was like she was on a small island of light, surrounded by an unknown and unchartable void in all directions.

She fell onto her butt against the wall of the bar. She placed her paws onto both sides of her head and began breathing irregularly.

"Where am I? What happened? How did I get here?" She thought to herself, squirming scared at that spot. "I'm a noble, just a month ago I was with my family. How did I get here? What led to this? How would my parents react to this? Why'd I let myself get drunk?

I was just doing noble-stuff a month ago, I was self-disciplined, I swear I was. Why am I now drunk and by my own puke? No, this can't be me. This isn't the same person I remembered, this isn't similar at all. Were they making me do this? I don't remember. If this is me, then who was I a month ago?"

Mienshao remained there, thinking to herself and making futile efforts to solve these questions. Her sense of time was skewed, she wasn't sure if she was leaning against the wall for thirty seconds or fifteen minutes. But eventually, she was able to make something out.

"Mienshao?!"

She lifted her head up and looked towards the source of the voice. It took a second for the two images her double-vision gave her to combine, but once they did, she could make out a blue, bipedal pokemon with an orange scarf.

"Mienshao, are you alright?!" he declared as he began running closer to her.

Dewott got close, ignoring all the bad smells, and inspected her closely. He could instantly identify what was going on, and slowed his movements down to not be overwhelming. "Don't worry, things are going to be alright," Dewott said, getting even closer and petting her fur a bit.

"O-okay," she managed to say.

"Stand up, I'll get you back to the guildhouse," Dewott said. "I'll get you some more food so you're not as drunk when we're there, let's get you in bed after that."

Dewott helped her get onto her feet, needing to push instead of pull because of their height difference. He lightly grabbed the loose tuft of fur on her right arm and led her by it, taking her the way back to the guildhouse.

Her memories were a haze on what happened next. She was taken back to the guildhouse, sat down in the mess hall and given some food to eat, which included heal seeds. After puking her dinner out, it felt nice to get something else to fill her stomach up. Dewott then took her to her bedroom and sat her down on her bed. Mercifully, the intoxication mostly wore off relatively fast, throwing up a large amount of it removed much of the problem, and the heal seeds worked wonders as well.

But what didn't so easily leave her was the thoughts that tormented her when she was beside the bar. No matter how intoxicated or sober she was, it wasn't something she could make sense of. When she was with her family, she was quite self-disciplined. She was meditating by herself, keeping a high etiquette at all tables, watching her tongue carefully, and doing calm activities. But when she was with Dewott or her other friends, she did what got her adrenaline pumping, she did things that had a winner and a loser, and she was reckless with herself. The difference between the two was stark like summer and winter. As some level-even if just subconscious- she recognized the difference between them, but just tried to ignore it. But now, the whiplash was too great for her to disregard any longer. It was only a few weeks where she went from walking through ornate halls to being drunk and throwing up on a side street for reasons that were her own doing.

She knew these things were not explainable by the same personality type. So that left her with an existential question to figure out, did she have two completely different personalities? Was this her real personality and she was inside of her shell when she was with her family? Or was how she acted with her family her real personality, and it was peer-pressure from Dewott and her other friends that made her act completely differently? Mienshao wished she had certainty to say which one of those was true, but she couldn't, she had no idea which was the case.

Mienshao put on an acceptable front, staying lax in the bed, thanking Dewott for helping her, and saying she was fine when Dewott asked if she needed anything. But when he left to get some items for himself, she watched for the door to close. The moment she was alone, she muttered "who am I?" to herself. She heard no answer to the question come.

End of chapter 28.