I suspect this chapter wouldn't have been as hard to write if I would have just remembered a week ago that Devine is not an exposition fairy, and should never be asked questions you want a straight answer to, unless you enjoy headaches. Or rewriting the chapter half a dozen times.


Leaving the forest was the first priority. There were still several unanswered questions about the events that had transpired, but the answers to those would have to wait. Shadow was understandably concerned that the longer they lingered within the forest, the more likely it was for them to become embroiled in yet another conflict.

The Espeon was also adamant about them not taking the same exit route as before, and despite the detour that had taken them to that forest clearing, it took a surprisingly short time to work their way to the forest's exit. No one spoke much during the walk, in favor of keeping an eye or ear, if not one of their more abstract senses, tuned for anything that might further hinder their traveling.

"Shame we couldn't simply Teleport," Leaf commented, his tone peculiarly casual compared to his ordinary demeanor. Actually, that wasn't really the best way for Frost to describe how oddly Leaf had been acting ever since Frost had caught up to the others in the forest clearing. After Leaf had basked in the provided sunlight sphere, his battle style had transformed into an unusually aggressive variation. The shift had been bewildering at first, not least of all because Leaf seemed surprisingly competent wielding such a style, despite its radical departure from his usual battle style.

More concerning was his swift and direct method of dispatching the possessed Riolu just when it seemed that the conflict was coming to a close. Maybe there was more to the context that Frost was unaware of that made such an approach appropriate for the circumstances, but even then, the Glaceon never would have suspected that Leaf would be capable of using such force. Even now, he seemed calm, almost nonchalant, with no indication of regret or concern in the aftermath of using such a vicious, and likely fatal, means of ending a battle.

His tone had also shifted, and it had taken Frost a few moments to really find a way to explain what was so off about it. Namely, Leaf's tone lacked the usual inflections that he spoke with. He wasn't whining for attention, but neither was he displaying any enthusiasm, irritation, or other such emotions. It was as if the nonchalance was the only emotional variation allowed to his words, and it made everything he say come off as smug and cocky.

Even that last comment seemed weird coming from Leaf. It was a lamentation, but not a complaint. It was the simple stating of an unfortunate fact, yet somehow untroubled by the implied inconvenience that went along with it.

In addition, the Leafeon's eyes had remained that distinct shade of golden brown, and the more that Frost thought about it, the more he became unsettled by the change.

It was fascinating, but incredibly off-putting.

"Even if I knew how to Teleport, it'd be wasteful and extremely risky to Teleport such a short distance," Shadow remarked, his voice carrying a noticeable twinge of annoyance.

"Being restricted to foot at all times is likewise risky," Leaf noted casually, flashing a smirk at his brother. Frost raised an eyebrow, a brief frown crossing his face. The Leafeon's smirk was another element that he was becoming increasingly concerned by. It was an odd expression, the likes of which he had never so much as glimpsed upon the younger Pokemon's face before, but the real weirdness was the way that the Leafeon positioned his jaw, allowing only the fang on the right side of his mouth to be visible.

Shadow cast his brother an annoyed look, but evidently chose not to say anything, because he faced forward soon after, and awkward silence overtook the group. Astrid was the one leading them, seeing as her sense of direction and navigation seemed to be a step above theirs, at the very least, so she was overall quiet, but whenever she paused to look around, Frost spotted the subtle shadow of reflection within her eyes.

It was still far too soon for Frost to get a full read on the Absol's battle capabilities or history, but he had noticed that of the group, she was the only one who had been knocked unconscious in some manner, something that Diablos had claimed credit for when facing against Leaf. Whether it was a sense of shame over her performance, or something else was unclear, but it would not have surprised him if that was the case.

Furthermore, it made her the only one of the group who had not seen Leaf's battle against Diablos, and no one had bothered to try to fill her in, not even to explain the crimson streak staining the Leafeon's tail.

Frost cringed as sunlight abruptly pierced through the previous veil of darkness cast by the thick forest, and it was only now that he realized that they had emerged from the forest's clutches.

Shadow seemed momentarily disoriented by the bright light, but his silver forehead gem immediately began to shimmer, as if drawing energy from the rising sun. Leaf grinned, his leaves becoming even more vibrant as his body absorbed as much sunlight as it could manage.

"This good for you guys? Do you need anything else?" Astrid asked, glancing back at them with a smile that seemed a little more forced than her usual manner. Once the Glaceon's eyes had adjusted to the sunlight, he gazed around swiftly, ascertaining that they were within a short distance from the campsite that they had spent the previous night at.

"Well, since you asked," Leaf said, practically drawling the words. He flicked his tail to draw attention to the crimson-stained leaf. "I do need to clean the blood from my tail. It's gotten a little dried on, but it's out of reach for me to lick it off myself. Would you like to do the honors?"

The Leafeon's eyes flicked to meet Astrid's gaze, and responded to her blank look with another single-fanged smirk. Shadow cringed, and Frost was relieved that he was not the only one who found the request somewhat...questionable. Normally, he would have dismissed the notion on the basis that Leaf's age and Shadow's discomfort with similar subjects made it unlikely that Leaf understood the implications present, but the specific focus on Astrid and the cocky smirk made it seem at least partially deliberate. Either way, Frost was just happy to see that he was not the only one whose thoughts drifted to an inappropriate conclusion.

"Sorry, little guy, I'm going to go ahead and pass on that one," Astrid answered with a playful smirk, but as she glanced around the area, Frost noted the flicker of confusion within her green eyes. "There's a stream right over there you can use, though," Astrid added, nodding towards the water source.

Leaf shrugged, seemingly unfazed by the rejection, and he casually wandered over to the aforementioned stream. Once the Leafeon was out of earshot, Astrid gave the older Eeveelutions an inquisitive look.

"He was definitely asking me to lick his tail, right? I'm not just imagining things?" she asked.

"I really wish I was the only one who noticed that," Shadow sighed, and Frost had to fight to keep a straight face.

"Definitely going to want an explanation now," the Glaceon told Shadow, frowning to better conceal that he had been on the verge of laughing at their reactions. "He's been acting weird ever since I caught up to you guys."

Shadow grunted in acknowledgement, his silver eyes flitting in Leaf's direction, until convinced that they were still out of earshot. "It's happened once before, but never this long. I thought I imagined it the first time."

"What, does he have like...a split personality or something?" Astrid wondered, her tail wagging with the enthusiasm of an excited puppy, seemingly oblivious to how inappropriate her mannerisms were for such a troubling subject.

Shadow frowned, biting his lip thoughtfully. "I...wouldn't go that far. I admit I don't fully understand it myself, not enough to explain it to you, anyway."

"Give it your best shot, then, because we're way too much in the dark about this," Frost said, offering Shadow a small smile of encouragement. To his surprise, this gesture seemed to relieve some of Shadow's hesitation, because he nodded.

"When I first evolved, I managed to link my mind with Leaf's by accident. When I did that, I encountered three Pokemon that...apparently share roles in managing his mind and personality."

Shadow hesitated, as if expecting the other two to burst into laughter and mock him for saying something absurd, but neither Astrid nor Frost seemed to find this ridiculous enough to immediately dismiss. Not being a Psychic-type Pokemon himself, Frost had absolutely no right to dismiss anything of the sort, and he had glanced through some of A/C's books, some of which did have subjects concerning the infrastructure of the mind. However, he had found such subjects too daunting to read at the time, with no practical applications for himself.

"Some time after that, when we got into trouble with a Pokemon trainer...almost literally right where we are now...Leaf intervened, and his battle style had become vicious...just like when he fought Diablos earlier," Shadow said, now addressing Frost specifically. The Glaceon nodded, dimly recalling that the Espeon had mentioned something about a trainer in his story earlier that day, and further recalled that Leaf himself had brought up an incident with the trainer when they were back at Solaceon.

Astrid cocked her head curiously, but evidently chose not to interrupt. Shadow glanced at the Absol, but seeing that she was going to remain silent, he pressed on, taking a deep breath.

"During that time, his eyes had...briefly changed to how they are now, but right afterwards, they went back to normal. I thought it was a trick of the light and didn't think much of it, other than how weird the battle style had been," Shadow said, frowning. "After the incident at the Ruins...when I went to bed early, I...had a nightmare, but it was interrupted mid-way through."

"Oh?" Frost raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised. From what he had been able to observe, Shadow's restless nights had all but ended soon after the Solaceon Ruins incident, to the point where he was under the impression they had ceased entirely. It wasn't until this morning that he even knew what the nightmares might have been about in the first place, or the sort of stress the Espeon had gone through.

Shadow nodded solemnly. "The one that claimed credit for interrupting my nightmares was a vaguely familiar Espeon. After half a dozen obnoxiously vague clues, he identified himself as Devine, one of the three I had encountered when I linked with Leaf's mind. But the way Leaf's been acting...all of it matches."

"What do you mean?" Astrid asked, confused.

Shadow gestured in the direction of the stream. "The golden eyes. The whole nonchalant attitude. That weird smirk he keeps doing. Devine does all of those things. Every single one. And he acknowledged me calling him by that name, so...I'm guessing he somehow takes control."

"Ha! I get it now!" Frost marveled, his eyes lighting up. Astrid and Shadow gave him a blank look, and the Glaceon grinned sheepishly. "Leaf said it was an act of 'Devine Intervention', remember? It was that joke neither of us got. It's a pun."

"Puns aren't funny," Shadow noted blandly.

"I dunno, that one seems kind of clever, now that I get it," Frost mused.

"No, puns are never funny or clever," Shadow insisted.

"Kind of have to side with Shadow here," Astrid giggled. "Then again, most of my old team had pun-related names, so we got sick of them fast. Like, Thresher was caught as a Scyther. He lucked out that his name isn't even obviously a pun."

Frost raised an eyebrow. "How is YOUR name a pun?" he asked.

"Let's...not get into that," the Absol said flatly. Frost and Shadow exchanged puzzled glances, but whereas Shadow seemed to shrug and not concern himself with the matter further, Frost was not so quick to give up.

"Why do I get that kind of response all the time?" he asked, bemused. "You're literally the third Pokemon who outright refused to discuss her name's origin."

"Were they all female?" Shadow asked curiously. Frost blinked, but nodded, and the Espeon cracked a grin. "Maybe Raze was onto something with the rhethorical questions doing you in."

"Maybe most Pokemon don't want to explain the extremely lame puns and in-jokes associated with their name," Astrid suggested with a giggle. "Renard lucked out, but he was also much older than everyone else."

Frost waved his paw dismissively. "But you're not really ever going to escape that. My name is ice-based, but it's not a pun, it's coincidental. Leaf is the same way, and it's not going to change the initial impression when you introduce yourself by a name conveniently related to your evolution. I daresay Shadow wasn't named for having black fur, but everyone's going to assume that."

Shadow rolled his eyes. "Yeah...well, it was a tradition to name us after the first thing we touched. Dad used to say that was weird."

Astrid giggled. "Wait, Echo said that tradition was weird? Can't blame him. He was a Vaporeon whose mate's name was Rio...I can only imagine the look on his face if he saw his kits now."

"I'm wondering how many variations you can even come up with, considering such a bizarre criteria for naming ideas," Frost said thoughtfully. "I suppose touching snow or ice has plenty of variety...but what's the most likely thing a kit's going to touch after it's born? Eggshells? Grass?"

"Its mother," Astrid suggested, but this only made Frost more perplexed.

"So if Shadow touched his mother...it'd be a...mother-related name?"

"My mom was a Jolteon, I'd probably have gotten a name based on electricity," Shadow conceded. Frost was more surprised that the Espeon was able to mention his parents so casually, when previously the mere mention of parental figures would cause the Espeon to become more withdrawn and vague.

"So even wild Pokemon name their kits with puns? Is that just an Eevee thing?" Astrid wondered. "I've never seen anyone else do that, but wow, the Eevee line seems to love them."

Frost smirked. "I have no idea, but I'll make a mental note to ask every member of the Eevee line for elaboration on naming conventions and such in their family. Sadly, I'm still tackling the vague clue about a snow globe, so-"

"Thresher always teased about that," Astrid giggled, her green eyes glazed over as if reflecting on a happy memory. Frost looked at the Absol in confusion. Her response had absolutely nothing to do with what he had been saying.

"About what?" he asked blankly.

"How did we even get on this topic?" Shadow asked abruptly. "Weren't we originally talking about what happened with Diablos, and Devine?"

"Ooh, talking about me behind my back, Shadow?" Leaf asked casually, waltzing back into their midst, his tail now devoid of bloodstains. "How rude of you."

Shadow scowled a little at the Leafeon. "Well, I had to explain to them what's wrong with you."

"Wrong with me?" the Leafeon repeated with false hurt in his voice, only to break into an amused grin instead. "You're so ungrateful sometimes, Shadow. One of these days, I might start to think you don't want my help."

Without waiting for a response, he sat down beside the Espeon and began grooming himself idly. Frost privately noted that although he was going through the motions of grooming, the quality was a bit lacking, as if the Leafeon wasn't really concerned with his appearance. It was the type of grooming job one would do if they just needed to do the absolute minimum for the sake of claiming that some effort was involved, disregarding the results.

Shadow sighed. "Do I even want to bother asking why you're still in control of Leaf?" he wondered wearily, as if he had been suffering for several days, rather than just the course of an hour or so.

"Nettles needed a nap," the Leafeon replied nonchalantly. The Espeon rolled his eyes.

"Didn't think so," he muttered. "Not like you ever make sense in the first place."

There was an awkward pause as Astrid and Frost glanced at one another, then at the two brothers, clearly unsure whether they were supposed to acknowledge the Leafeon's return, and if so, whether to acknowledge that a separate identity was involved.

"But...he's not possessed, right?" Frost clarified tentatively.

"Not in the sense that Diablos does it," Shadow answered wearily. "Just don't bother asking him questions, unless you enjoy headaches."

"Ooh, that reminds me," Astrid said brightly, but her expression sobered with remarkable haste. "Who or what is Diablos? He's the one who uh...did that stuff, right?" she asked, giving Shadow an uncomfortable glance as she spoke.

The Espeon nodded solemnly. "From what I've been told, anyway. He attacked my home, killed my parents, and has targeted me ever since. I still don't fully understand why. Half of what he says sounds like a riddle."

Astrid bit her lower lip and nodded slowly. After a pause, she looked up at Shadow inquisitively. "What happened when I was...knocked out, or whatever?"

"Yes, I still need to be filled in one some of the details of what happened before I arrived," Frost agreed. Shadow furrowed his brow, and Frost could see that he wasn't entirely sure where to start things off from. The impression that Frost had gotten from the situation was that there were several overlapping elements in the story as a whole, experiences shared by some of them, but not by everyone.

"Hang on, do you think we could go over this while on the move?" Astrid asked, before Shadow had even started to say anything. The three Eons all blinked at her blankly, and she giggled. "That was like...perfectly in sync, or something," she said, smiling. "Um...I just want to check back in with Renard. I think there's a lot of things that happened in the forest that he should be made aware of."

"Who's Renard?" Frost asked. The name had been mentioned by the Absol earlier, yet he hadn't been given any genuine context for the name, other than he was someone she knew that had been fortunate enough to evade being named with a pun.

"Shadow's met him," Astrid replied, her tail wagging. "He's a Ninetales, currently looking over...I guess it's considered Shadow's territory now. It's not too far, but it'd save time to explain a few things on the way, especially since that might be something Renard should be told about."

The Glaceon frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose that'd be okay," he said, glancing inquisitively in Shadow's direction, but the Espeon didn't seem to notice. "So long as it's not too much of a detour."

"I may as well come with you," Devine stated, stretching nonchalantly and flashing a passive smirk at the other three Pokemon. "Been wanting to take a look at the place again, anyway."

Shadow merely shrugged and stood up, wincing a bit from the residual soreness he must have picked up from the earlier battles. "I could probably use another bit of his advice, when I'm not in as much a hurry," he admitted.

"Good idea," Astrid agreed, her tail wagging playfully, and with that, she turned and led them further away from the forest, towards the direction Shadow had come from the previous evening. Devine followed at her heels, only for Shadow to telekinetically pull him back a few paces, so that he was walking more alongside the other two Eons, earning a mildly annoyed look in the process.

"You need to learn personal space boundaries," Shadow told his brother blandly.

"Sheesh, keep me on a leash, why don't you?" Devine muttered.

"Don't tempt me," Shadow retorted.

Frost hid a smirk. If not for the fact he had been told the reasoning behind Leaf's recent behavioral shift, he might never have guessed by the present interactions that this was the case. It certainly led credibility to the claim that the one currently in control of the young Leafeon was an aspect of the original's personality in some form. Sadly, this still left a number of questions unanswered, but he could appreciate that now wasn't the best time to delve into such a subject.

There still was the matter of the things that Diablos had said back at the clearing, specifically in regards to what a person's darkness was. Frost had not yet had time to mentally sift through the explanation, and still preferred another to be able to bounce thoughts off of, but it sounded like a fascinating concept. Did that mean there was another avenue of getting stronger that every person had access to, if they had the sufficient drive to unlock it?

And was this the sort of thing Lin had referred to, when she told him to find purpose? That without one, he could never match her? Did that mean the Weavile already knew about her own darkness, and was able to use it?

So many new questions, but not enough answers. Perhaps there was an added benefit to meeting with this Ninetales. Loathe as Frost was to seek advice rather than carve out his own path, it certainly couldn't hurt to get the insight of someone older and wiser.