The sand burned Abel's feet with every step he took. It didn't matter how he positioned his paws; the grains would dig into his skin regardless and scorch his paw pads. Only scurrying across the barren desert as fast as his legs could carry him brought his aching feet solace, if for a pitiful second.

But though the pain was immense, it was nothing compared to the turmoil raging in the Shinx's heart. No matter how much he replayed everything in his head, nothing made sense. Why had Jera thrown him into this desert? Who was that strange Braixen? And what did she mean when she said Jera had wanted to kill Caran?

Jera would never hurt anyone, he knew that. Jera was a good Pokémon and had only wanted to find Caran because he needed to save the world with her. Caran was just like Abel and was a special Pokémon. So why had that scary Braixen said Jera wanted to kill him? And why was that Braixen looking at Jera like she wanted to hurt her? Why had everyone looked so scared?

He held back tears as he hurried across the sand. He needed to find somewhere to rest. What he needed was to find an oasis. In exploration books he read with Hawthorn sometimes, it said that some deserts had those patches of life where there was water and trees. They were safe havens from the desert's cruel heat and could be easy to spot, so long the land was flat and not riddled with towering dunes. Mercifully for Abel, this desert didn't have a dune in sight.

He scanned the horizon for even the slightest speck of green. The glare from the sun hurt his eyes and forced him to squint, but he spotted what he thought was a single palm tree far off to the right. It seemed to be at least a few miles away.

With a deep breath, Abel hurried his pace and headed for the potential oasis. He could reach it, he knew he could. As a future explorer, trekking across long sprawls of desert was to be expected. If he couldn't reach that oasis now, that meant he wasn't good enough to be an explorer when he finally went home after saving all of existence.

At least… that was supposed to be true. That's what Jera had said would happen when everyone stopped the worlds from falling apart. He and Caran were both the same in that they could go back to their lives after they found everyone. Yet, that Braixen had said Jera wanted to kill Caran, who was also supposed to save the world. It didn't sound like he would go home after the world was saved. Did that mean Jera also wanted to kill him…?

No, no he couldn't think about this right now. He didn't want to. Jera would never do that. Jera would never hurt him. She was a good Pokémon!

He shoved the awful thought away and kept running. He panted as he ignored the burning in his paws and kept his eyes on the oasis ahead. He hoped there was a decent amount of water there; his throat was getting parched, and his body felt uncomfortably hot. He hoped this would be the last desert he ever had to cross, even when he became an explorer. Unless he had an ice or water-type with him, that was. Then maybe he wouldn't mind so much.

It was so tempting to collapse in the sand. Though it burned his paws with every step, keeping his pace hurt more. His muscles ached and protested with every movement. He couldn't even hold his tail up anymore, that was how drained he Abel persisted, telling himself he couldn't stop now. If he stopped, he'd die. He'd never see his parents, Hawthorn, or anyone he ever knew. He wouldn't be able to save the world if he perished now.

Run. Run. Run.

He repeated this endlessly in his mind as he raced across the desert, keeping his eyes set on his only salvation.

Eventually, somehow, he made it to the oasis. As he had hoped, it was home to a fairly large body of water and surrounded by many lush palm trees. A few Skorupi lingered in the shade of the trees, but the moment Abel rushed into the oasis, they scurried away. The Shinx launched himself at the water, landing right at the shoreline and lapped it up hungrily. The cool water instantly soothed his cracked throat, but it wasn't enough. His body still felt unbearably hot and miserable. He could barely see straight and his fur might as well have been on fire with how hot he felt.

Without a moment's hesitation, he dove into the water. He didn't care that he was dirtying his drinking supply. He needed to cool down, right now.

He dove beneath the surface and the relief he craved flooded over him. The fatigue and the heat melted away as the water washed over his entire being. Sweet euphoria came over the little Shinx as he remained beneath the water with a blissful smile, letting it soak him completely.

When he came back up for air, he returned to the sand and settled beneath the shade of the nearest palm tree. Though the water had invigorated him, his legs still ached. He needed to rest his weary muscles, and that's exactly what he did. He closed his eyes as he lay on the ground, feeling pleasantly cool from the water still clinging to his fur. The Skorupi that had fled didn't emerge from their hiding places, leaving the Shinx to relax in peace.

Abel took a few minutes to lounge in the shade, letting his mind wander as he waited for the pain in his legs to settle down. He deserved the rest after trekking through the desert for so long without any supplies, and by himself! He'd be sure to brag about that to Hawthorn when he went home. Maybe he'd even brag about it to the guild and they'd be so impressed that they'd let him get a bronze rank instead of the rookie rank when he joined.

He rested until his body no longer ached. Now he was invigorated, feeling just like whenever he woke up after a long nap. With this newfound energy, he now needed to figure out what to do with himself. Did he leave the oasis behind and seek out civilization at the risk of getting stranded in the desert and dying from the heat? Or did he wait here where he could survive off the water and any prey he could find, all while waiting for the tiny chance that some traveler would see him?

The Shinx stared into the distance. He didn't see anything resembling a city or an end to the desert anywhere. The desert seemed to stretch into eternity with this oasis being the only haven from the relentless heat and sand. Abel momentarily wondered if he was dead and this was a torturous afterlife. He quickly pushed the thought aside. He had been a good boy all his life. He wouldn't end up somewhere like this if he was dead. The afterlife was peaceful and beautiful, not a land of eternal suffering. Besides, he wasn't dead. Jera had only knocked him into this place.

That begged the question though… Where was Jera? Sure, she had seemed a bit busy with fending off the Braixen, but she wouldn't leave Abel behind! The two of them were supposed to work together to save the world!

Maybe she had followed Abel into the desert, but Abel had left her behind when he ran. She was a slow Pokémon after all, being old and also only having those tentacles to crawl around on. Abel's heart sank at the realization. She was probably baking in the intense heat, all because Abel didn't wait for her and fled here alone.

He needed to save her. He got to his feet and started to go back the way he came in. It wasn't difficult when his messy footprints were still pressed into the sand. However, before he could leave his oasis, he remembered what that Braixen said about Jera. About how Jera wanted to kill Abel and Jera's horrified reaction to that. He stopped as his paws suddenly became very heavy.

He wanted to think that Braixen was lying about Jera. After all, she was a bad Pokémon that wanted to hurt him and Jera and bad Pokémon lie all the time. Yet, there was a certain sincerity in her words, something that didn't feel like a lie to Abel. If Abel went back to rescue Jera, would she actually kill him like that Braixen had been saying? Was she really not to be trusted?

Abel suddenly didn't know what he wanted to do anymore. He had thought he was just saving the world with Jera and finding a bunch of other special Pokémon to help them, but now he wasn't so sure. Suddenly all of this felt very wrong and it made his head hurt just thinking about it. He could only stand there as all of this weighed down upon him, all while his claws involuntarily slid out of his paws and dug into the ground.

"Hello Abel."

The Shinx swiftly turned around to find a familiar Braixen standing a few feet away. She held her branch in her hand, ready to shoot a fireball from it at any moment. Abel's fur stood up on end as he stepped away from the Braixen, cold dread consuming him. Breathing suddenly became difficult as he locked gazes with her, that uncanny familiarity coursing through his veins alongside the terror that screamed for him to flee.

And that's exactly what he did.

He ran into the desert, leaving behind the oasis. He didn't know where he was going or if he'd ever see an oasis again, but he had to run. He couldn't be anywhere near this Braixen. Even if Jera wasn't a good Pokémon, that didn't make this Braixen a good one by default. Maybe everyone was a bad Pokémon that wanted to hurt him.

Abel tried not to cry as he fled. However, his efforts didn't matter. He had barely left the oasis when those familiar white lights came raining down all around him, sealing him in a transparent dome with the Braixen. He skidded to a stop just before he could crash into the wall. He knew it was pointless to break the wall, so instead he started to dig. Maybe the barrier didn't go beneath the ground.

He ignored the burning in his paws as he dug through the sand directly beneath the wall.

"Abel, that's not going to work," came the Braixen's voice from behind. "We're in a pocket dimension. You can't dig out of it and escape into another world."

The Shinx looked back to find she was standing directly behind him, watching him with a long, disappointed frown. With her standing so close, he realized just how small he was compared to her. She practically engulfed little Abel in her shadow.

"Leave me alone!" Abel screamed.

He ran again. He knew it was pointless, that this little pocket dimension had suddenly grown tiny and he could barely get five feet away from the Braixen, but he didn't want to give up. He couldn't. He needed to get home. He needed to see Hawthorn and his mom and dad and his classmates and go join the guild and be explorers and see everything the world had to offer and maybe even see a legenda-

Something invisible picked up Abel and slammed him into one of the invisible barriers. The impact knocked the wind out of him as he fell onto the sand, wheezing and gasping. He couldn't even get back on his feet, that was how bad he felt. All he could do was watch the Braixen approach him, her jewelry clinking softly with every step she took.

"Abel, if you want to make this as painless as possible, I suggest you stop fighting," she said. "I don't want to hurt you anymore than I have to."

"W-What are you going to do to me?" Abel asked, barely able to gasp out the question.

"Assimilate you."

"Wh-What do you mean? What does 'assimilate' mean?"

"It means that I-"

The Braixen grimaced as she grasped her scalp, as if fighting off a migraine. She pointed her wand to her head as she muttered something in a strange language, but it didn't seem to help her. Her uncomfortable frown seemed to get worse. Abel knew he needed to hurt her, now that she looked distracted. His mom and dad said he was never supposed to hurt anyone, but they had also said if someone wanted to hurt him, he every right to fight back. He didn't know what "assimilate" meant, but it couldn't be good.

He fired a thunderbolt at the Braixen. It hit her head on and she flinched from the sudden attack. He quickly followed up with a headbutt, ramming his skull into her chest. He knocked her down, but at the cost of giving him a massive headache in return. He moaned as he stumbled off the Braixen, barely able to see straight.

He was launched into the barrier again, but harder this time. The impact was so great that when he hit the ground, he couldn't get back up. His paws felt weak and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stay standing without collapsing seconds later.

He watched in horror as the Braixen got back to her feet, rubbing her head and chanting in that strange language again as she drew closer to the Shinx. He tried to crawl away, but even that proved futile. The Braixen stood directly in front of him and pointed her branch at his face.

"Enough," she hissed. "It's over."

Even still, with his faltering strength, he hit the Braixen with a weak lightning strike. Unlike his last attack, this didn't faze her one bit. She scowled as she jammed the stick against his snout.

"One more move like that and I will set you on fire," she warned. "Stop, now."

Abel knew he was done. He folded his ears back as tears filled his eyes. He told himself not to cry, that he was a big boy and needed to be brave. It was over. This Braixen had him cornered and now she was going to assimilate him… whatever that meant.

"Please… please don't hurt me," he whimpered.

"If you don't fight it, then it won't hurt," the Braixen stated. "It'll be as painless as falling asleep."

"Y-You mean when you assi… assintilate me?"

"Assimilate. And yes."

"What does that mean though? What's… what's going to happen to me?"

"It means you're going to be a part of me. It means you'll be in my head and give me your strength while I stop my home from being destroyed in this multiverse calamity."

"B-But why? I thought… I thought a bunch of Pokémon were working together to stop all the universes from falling apart! Why do you need to assimilate me to do that?! Why do you have to hurt me?!"

"Because it's the only way to save everyone. We work together by becoming each other. That's how we get the power to save the multiverse."

Abel's heart shattered. He wanted to think all of this was a lie, that it was as Jera said that they just needed to team up and together, they'd muster up some secret power and stop the worlds from destroying each other. But he saw the Braixen's eyes, and he saw the sincerity in them. He saw she wasn't lying.

"Wh… What's going to happen to me if I become you?" Abel then asked.

The Braixen didn't answer.

"I… I can go back home after this is all done, right?" he asked. "We're all going to save the worlds and then we can be ourselves again and go back to our families, right?"

Again, she didn't answer.

"R-Right? I can see my mom and dad again, right?"

The Braixen was still scowling, but her gaze seemed to have softened just a tiny bit. She looked a little bit like Jera in that moment, with that soft, almost motherly gaze the Octillery always had.

A few seconds of silence passed between the two of them before she pulled her wand away. She sat down next to the little Shinx and then leaned her head against the invisible barrier. She waved her wand around and all of the sand beneath the two of them shifted into cool, comforting grass. Even the desert sun that had been scorching Abel became more mellow, casting soft warmth upon his fur instead of relentless heat.

"Listen, Abel," she said, looking him straight in the eyes. "I'm in a hurry to get everyone, but I'll make an exception for you. You clearly don't understand anything going on right now, and you don't deserve that. You don't, because you're an innocent child caught up in this awful situation you should have never been a part of."

"Huh?"

The Braixen sighed as she put her wand in her bushy tail. Her posture finally relaxed as she clasped her hands together and looked at the Shinx like a patient teacher would with a young student. He didn't know what to think of her sudden change in demeanor, but it wasn't as though he could flee. He was too tired to move anymore. There was also a part of him that was curious to know why she had a drastic change of heart and yearned to know what she was talking about in the first place.

"At the end of the day, I can't let you go," she said softly. "I feel bad for you, but my kingdom is too important for me to abandon my mission. However, I can at least offer you an explanation, a better one than what Jera gave you. Because you don't actually know what's really happening, do you?"

"Me and a bunch of other Pokémon like you and Jera and Caran are saving the worlds, aren't we?" Abel asked. "That's what Jera said…"

"She wasn't wrong. All of us are preventing the annihilation of the multiverse. However, she wasn't entirely honest in how we're supposed to do that. I imagine she did that because you'd never come with her otherwise. The truth is that we'll all become one entity to stop the worlds from destroying each other, like I said before."

"Yeah. And then we can be ourselves again and all go home, right?"

"No. We don't. In all of the visions I've had about our unification, we don't splinter off again. We all become one entity and our individual personalities cease to exist. In a way… we all die after we save the worlds."

Abel's gaze fell. Though he hated to admit it, that explained a lot about Jera, like why she seemed so hesitant to let Abel join her on her mission to save all of existence. She should have been thrilled he wanted to help her if they really would be going back home after everything was said and done.

"So I'm not going to see my mom and dad again," Abel said quietly.

"No, you're not."

Abel couldn't take it anymore. He sobbed loudly as the revelation sank in, hurting him so deeply that it felt like a knife was carving out his heart. He wanted to see his parents again and nuzzle both of them for as long as he could. He wanted to see Hawthorn and join the guild like he promised him. He wanted to go back to school and enjoy the rest of his days without a care in the world.

"I want to go home," he whimpered. "I don't want to do this anymore."

"I can't let you do that, Abel. If I let you go, my own home gets destroyed."

"But it's pointless! You just said we all die when we save the worlds! I don't want to do this anymore! I want… I want my mom and dad!"

"So do I. But I can't have that anymore. I either die, or I watch everyone else die all around me, knowing I could have stopped it all."

"And you're okay with that?! You're okay with dying and never seeing them again?!"

The Braixen frowned pitifully.

"No, of course not," she answered earnestly. "Why would I willingly want to die? Why would I want to slowly lose myself with every fragment I absorb? Why would I want to destroy so many lives, strip my other selves of their existence and condemn them to the silence of my mind? I don't want any of this, Abel."

"Then why are you still going along with this?"

"Because this is about more than me, more than any of us. It's about everyone else that lives in all of existence. It's for all of the families, all of the friends, all of the strangers we pass by on the streets. The lives of all those Pokémon we see every day of our lives are the reason I continue this suicide mission. Everything I do, I do for them.

"You love your parents, don't you, Abel?"

"Yes."

"And that little Riolu you're always hanging out with… you love him too, right?"

"Yes."

"Would you do anything for them to be happy?"

"Of course! Why wouldn't I?"

"Then you understand why I need to save everyone, even if I have to die. I love an entire kingdom, not just a family and a best friend. I want them to be happy, even if it costs me everything."

Abel looked miserably at his paws. He understood what she was saying now. He saw that she was scared like him, but she was willing to be brave for the sake of everyone. She was like those heroes in those comics he was always reading, that character that sacrifices themselves to save hundreds of others from destruction. Like how Rayquaza stopped a meteor hurtling toward the planet, shattering it into thousands of harmless meteorites and using up all of his energy in the process. Without strength, he plummeted into the ocean and never resurfaced.

This was like that, wasn't it?

"It's time," she said after a moment. "I'm afraid it's time for you to go now."

"It is…?" he asked weakly while drying his tears with a paw.

"Yes, it's time. I've spent too much time with you and I have many others to find."

"Is… Is Jera one of the others you have to find? What happened to her anyway? Did you already…?"

"Yes, I did. I assimilated her after she threw you into this desert."

Abel couldn't say he was surprised, but it still stung to hear her say that, especially when she said it so plainly. The Braixen offered her hand to the Shinx, as if wanting him to shake it.

"You won't exist anymore, but know that your life will still leave an impact on your world," she told him. "Though everyone you ever loved will miss you dearly, know that you saved them. Know that you were brave and that I'm sorry for this. Know that I'll be joining you soon too as a soul erased from all of existence."

"Will everyone be okay when I'm gone?" Abel asked feebly.

"Eventually. It'll take time and a lot of tears, but eventually, they'll be okay. Eventually, they'll understand why you had to leave them."

Abel nodded slowly. His heart felt heavy and the world looked blurry behind his tear-filled eyes, but he would be a brave boy now. Though he'd miss everyone, he had to do this. He couldn't let everyone die.

He placed his paw in the Braixen's hand and felt her grasp it softly. Everything around him slowly changed into hazy colors and shapes. He focused on what he thought was the Braixen's face as his world became these soft colors that reminded him of the warm insides of his egg.

He smiled softly as the tears flowed down his cheeks.

And the little Shinx melted away.