I am so sorry this is being posted so late! I had a really busy day, helping my mom, going to work and helping my sister with my two nephews (their the cutest in the world!). Also, I had no idea it would take this long for me to be able to post this chapter. I was thinking I could do it in the morning before work, but those plans were thrown out the window! So, I hope you enjoy this super late chapter. And yes, I left this one at a cliff hanger and I'm so sorry about that.

Warnings: Strict rules of order. Talking about fears. Death (major spoiler warning, but you all need to know about it). Outlaws.

Disclaimer: In case anyone's wondering, I don't own Pokemon. Autumn is mine and the information about the UB-01 Symbiont that is not in the show is made up.

-Autumn's P.O.V.-

I woke up to be surrounded by rock and nothing else. I slowly sat up and noticed that I was literally sitting on a floating rock with all other rocks… not that close, but I'll still be able to move around, "Alright, how can I get back?" I asked, looking around.

I slowly tried to stand up, but was harshly reminded of my wrist. I hissed in pain and quickly wrapped my jacket around my wrist after tearing it into multiple strips, "Are you alright?" I looked up to see Lusamine, who was still combined with the Ultra beast.

"Lusamine!" I cried out, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," She smiled slightly, but it was a bit hard to see since her head was inside the membrane of the Ultra Beast, "But you're hurt."

"I promise, I'm fine," I reassured, "But we need to separate you from that Ultra Beast."

"No!" She cried out and I backed away into the rock behind me, "Nothing's wrong with me!" She quickly calmed down, "But you need help," Another Ultra Beast that looked a lot like it, floated over, "You're not complete."

"Don't come any closer!" I put up a shield around me, blocking it from coming closer, "I don't want to merge! And you shouldn't either, Lusamine! You have two children waiting for you back home! We need to figure out a way back! Before we're stuck here forever!"

"Everything is fine," One of the tendrils pierced my shield and drained it, "You need help. This is a once in a lifetime experience that everyone should enjoy."

"What about Lillie and Gladion?" I asked, sharply, "They both love and care about you. They don't want you to stay like this! Please, help me find a way back."

She looked like she would accept, but shook her head, "I can't stay around you! You're making me confused! I will be back!" Then she floated away with the other Ultra Beast following.

"Lusamine!" I cried out, but she either ignored me or didn't hear me. I groaned and quickly finished tieing the strips around my wrist. My eyes widened as I realized my Z-Ring wasn't on me, "Please say I didn't drop it here," I tried looking around, but it wasn't anywhere that I could see.

"You look weird," I turned to see a UB-01 Symbiont coming closer to me.

"No! I don't want to merge!" I told it, quickly taking a rock off the ground.

"Merge? Can we do that?" It asked.

I blinked, "Yes. Another one of you is merging with my friend's mother. I'm here to stop it!"

The Ultra Beast shivered, "That sounds terrifying," It admitted, "But I've never seen anything like you before. I know!" It perked up, "I'll put you in my membrane to learn more about you!"

"That's merging!" I lifted my hand with the rock once more.

It froze, "What?! But that's how we learn new things! How am I going to learn new things now?"

It dropped to the ground, seemingly defeated. I slowly walked towards it, "Well, you can ask me anything you want. I can answer most, if not all, of your questions about me."

It perked up, "Really?" I nodded as it clapped two of its tentacles, "Great! Where did you come from? How do you move around? Why are your tentacles shaped so weirdly? How do you eat? What is that cloth that's on you? Why are one of your tentacles wrapped?"

"Slow down!" I smiled, laughing, "I can only answer one question at a time."

"Sorry," Now it was nervous, "I just want to learn more. And you're willing to talk to me!"

"How about this," I suggested, sitting next to it, "You ask me a question that I answer. Then I ask you a question that you answer. We can go back and forth!" And we kept on asking questions.

It didn't last long though, "Are there more like you in your world?" It asked me first.

I nodded, "Yeah, every single one of us are different, whether it be looks or personality. No one is the same as anyone else."

"Wow," I think it looked towards the sky, but I still didn't know where it's eyes were, "That sounds amazing. Everyone here acts the same and looks the same. If you don't, bad things happen."

"I'm sorry," It just shrugged, "Alright, what's your name?" I asked, "I would like to call you by your name. Mine's Autumn."

"What's a name?"

"You don't have names here?"

"Nope. We just point or poke who we want to talk to. We can see everything happening around us so it's easy to get someone's attention."

"Well, names are a way to identify someone. It's what people call you or use to refer to you whenever they're talking about you… Would you like a name?"

"Sure!" It perked up, then deflated, "But I don't know what I would name myself."

I thought about it, "What about Winter?" I asked, "The witness of your body reminds me of snow back in my world."

"Winter," Winter checked it out, then beamed, "I love it!"

"Alright, your turn," I smiled.

After a moment, Winter asked, "Are you alone?"

"No, but I feel alone sometimes," I admitted, "I feel most alone when I'm standing in the middle of a crowd. Why do you ask?"

"I haven't been able to interact with anyone for a long while," She admitted, lowering herself closer to the ground, "Because I'm different. I don't think like the others, so I don't fit in. Every day I've woken up to someone attacking me to take me in, but… if they catch me then I won't live for long."

I didn't say anything for a moment, then placed a hand on her, "I know how that feels. I have to be on guard every day back in my world because of my father. He… isn't how a father really is. He forces me to hurt people and Pokemon, hurts me when I don't listen to what he says and makes me become 'stronger' by making me skip meals and then asks me to put a shield around the house and hold it as long as I can as his Pokemon fires at it."

"Why do bad things happen to people?" Winter asked.

"To make us stronger," I answered, "Everything we're going through helps us become us. If we're able to get through challenges then we come out stronger than before. Our problems will never fully leave us, but it's our job to do the best we can to live a happy life."

We talked for who knows how long, I couldn't tell time here, but we learned a lot about each other. She wants to be part of society here, but knows she never will be because of how she thinks. I told her about how scared I was about having friends because he could go after them to get to me. Then she asked, "Why are you here Autumn?"

"I'm here looking for my friend's mother," I answered, "She's being absorbed by one of you and I didn't want my friends to go through losing their mother. So, I accidently came along."

"Then why are we just staying here?" She asked, starting to float again, "Why not talk and look for her?"

"I would, but I can't go anywhere but this rock," I gestured around us, "I can't fly."

"But I can! I can just carry you in my feelers to different platforms and once we've looked everywhere on one, we can go to the next one."

"Are you sure?"

In response, she wrapped two feelers around me and started flying, "We can even continue talking while I'm flying!" I laughed as we continued our questioning.

"Winter?" I asked as we walked around, "What are these rocks made of?"

"Our food," She answered, "Energy from things and beings that have since passed."

"When you merge with something," I asked, even though it wasn't my turn, "Do you eat off of them?"

"Sadly," Winter looked completely depressed as she picked me up and flew me to another rock, "First, we pick them, then they slowly combine with us. If you don't get someone out before their feet are in our membrane's then they'll die as soon as you pull them out," I looked horrified, "Then we take all their energy, absorbing their memories as well, but we're able to sort through them and keep what we want."

"I hope we find Lusamine in time."

"So do I," Winter agreed, "So, what is the cloth you are wearing? I've never seen anything like it!"

I laughed and answered, eventually giving her a ribbon that she tied around her membrane. I would have given her more, but I didn't have my bag with me. She was letting me rest when we heard them, "We've had reports of the stray around here," One said, "Keep a lookout."

"Yes sir!" A plethora of voices answered.

"Are they the one's who're after you?" I asked her.

Winter nodded, "Yes. They don't like my individuality."

I frowned, "I can throw them off, but it's going to take a lot from me."

"I can't ask you to do that for me," Winter immediately denied.

I smiled, "Nonsense! You're helping me find Lusamine. It's the least I can do," I didn't wait for her to say anything else and quickly got to work.

Something that hardly anyone knows is that with Aura, you can create a projection of someone or something else. No one knows because it takes a lot of Aura to sustain it. I only knew about it because I did it by accident once and used it to get away from my father the time I ran into Ash, "There they are!" One of them called out.

"Get them!" Another called out and they were all running after it instead.

Winter quickly picked me up and silently started flying away once they were all following the fake Winter, "How are you doing that?" She asked me.

I groaned, "It's because of something called Aura," I admitted, giving the projection one last boost of Aura, "It's the life energy of… everything in my world."

Winter didn't like the sound of that, "You're life energy?! Does that mean you're going to die?!"

"No, I'll be fine," I answered, "Just exhausted."

"Here," We went into a cave nearby, "You can rest here before we leave. They've never found this place and I don't think they'll find it soon."

I smiled sleepily, "Thank you Winter," I was out a second later.

It didn't last as I was woken up to an explosion from the back of the cave, "Here! They're in here!"

I was picked up and we started to move, "They found us!" I cried out, trying to find a spot where Winter could let me down and fly faster.

Winter was freaking out, "I don't know how either! They shouldn't have been able to see it! I found it accidentally!"

"There!" I pointed to a rock that had multiple places I could hide, "Set me down there and you can get away from them."

"No!" Winter tightened her hold, "I won't let you get hurt or die because of me. You need to find Lusamine to help her before the merge becomes permanent!"

"Winter," I turned to face her, "I'll be fine, I promise."

I was too late as Winter got hit with a shadow ball, "AAHH!" We crashed onto the ground, no doubt getting multiple bruises and cuts.

I quickly got out from under her, "Winter! Are you alright?" I wish I had my bag with me. I would be able to heal her if I did.

"I'll be fine," Winter answered, getting up.

"Surrender now!" Multiple voices cried out, "And give up the strange creature!"

"Autumn is not strange!" Winter defended.

"It is not like us!" The clear leader stated, "Therefore, it must be uncontaminated."

"How can you think like that?" I asked, "Just because someone or something looks different or acts different doesn't mean it's bad! Change can be a good thing! You just have to be careful with what changes and make sure everyone benefits from what you want to do! Someone being different gives new ideas and they look at things differently! It's good to have a variety of different ideas to figure out which one works best."

"No," Their leader said once more, "Change and differences aren't for this world. There must be no differences."

"You're scared of what's different," Winter cried out, figuring something out, "You have one of us learn something so they can tell the rest what they thought was important! There's no variety because no one knows any better!"

They were done talking, "Now!" And they all fired moves.

I was about to put up a shield when Winter wrapped her feelers around me, accidentally poking me multiple times. All the attacks hit at once and it was clear that Winter wasn't going to make it, "Winter!" I cried out as she slumped against me.

She looked at me and just me, "Find Lusamine and don't get caught," She told me, "And thank you… for everything you've done for me," And she started fading.

I gently laid her on the ground, "No! Winter! Please!" I tried waking her up, but she just continued to disappear.

It didn't take long for her to disappear and leave a rock shaped heart in my hands with the ribbon I gave her wrapped around it in a bow. I cried and held the rock to my chest. I was just given a moment before I had to act, "Get that thing!" Instinctively, I put a shield around me and they all crashed into it.

Although, it looked a little different. It was a lighter blue than it normally was, "Why did you do that?" I asked them, "Winter was just being herself and asking me questions instead of merging with me to figure things out! Why don't you like change so much?" Tears were streaming down my face.

Instead of answering my question, they just said, "All new things must be purged," And came after me again.

I ran away, trying to think of a way to harmlessly push them back. There wasn't actually a way I could do that, though. So, I created a shield from Aura and forced them back, "No one will be getting me," I muttered once they were far enough away.

That's when all my injuries made themselves known and I was in pain! It wasn't so bad that I couldn't move, but they may get worse before I'll be able to disinfect them and bandage them properly. I started walking around, calling out Lusamine's name in hopes of finding her once more, "Stop calling for me!" Surprisingly, I did.

I whirled around to see Lusamine almost to her waist inside UB-01 Symboint's membrane, "Lusamine!" I smiled as much as I could at that moment (which wasn't much), "Thank goodness you're not fully absorbed! Please," I held my hand out, "Take my hand so I can get you out and we can go home!"

"No!" Lusamine shook her head, "Don't you see?! This is what I've wanted for a long time and I finally have it! I won't let you take it away from me!"

"Lusamine! Wait!" I tried to follow her, but had to stop at the rocks edge for a moment. Lusamine was still fighting if she was creating rocks for me to walk on to follow her said anything, "Alright Lusamine," I told myself before I started jumping from rock to rock, "I'm going to get you free!" And I ran, jumping on the first one and continuing from there.

I crash landed on a big rock that I thought Lusamine was on and tried to find her. Instead, I heard someone else, "You normally do research and make sure you're prepared before you go exploring an unknown world, but there was no time for that!" Sophocles said.

I came out from behind the rock, "Guys?" I asked, tentatively.