Audino Agatha drew on her notepad in the evening so much her ideas leaked into her dreams. The Audino tossed and turned in her bed out of annoyance till she woke up in the middle of the night.

She stared at her ceiling and wiped her hand across her face. She didn't know if she wanted to sleep or not, and had to make the decision. Although it took a while, she forced herself to go back to sleep.


When she woke up again, she felt like the ground swayed back and forth. As she tried to orient herself, rolled and took a surprise fall off of her mattress, landing face down.

Agatha let out a long groan and pushed herself up. She reached with one of her arms to bring her prosthetic feet to her. After she got them in her grasp, she pushed her back against the mattress to sit up and put them on. They were always cold at first.

After checking her phone, she has two or so more hours till sunrise. She could tell she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, so she decided to do some early morning training instead.

After sneaking past Mightyena Claire as she slept, Agatha went outside for some exercise. She jogged alongside crickets in a wide circle around the trees and bushes, embracing the feeling of freedom from not wearing her cloak or glasses. She had put on some muscle over the months, but it felt gross with all the scars. She never looked in a mirror anymore.

After a short jog, she situated herself in a tiny clearing around the trees near the house. She walked a bit to cool down and start up something still new to her.

Most other people didn't learn how to use moves or abilities that often unless they were competitors in the arena, but Agatha had been working with her body's energy for the last few months to learn them. It became a habit before she realized it. Getting stronger addicted her. It made her a little cocky sometimes; a far cry from what she would feel being weak and having prosthetics.

The first step was to use her body's energy well enough to make her muscles and senses stronger. This step alone could be taken to the extreme, which took a central role of actual fighting. After this, she could focus it differently to use moves. Agatha had to look into books to discover the right way, past all of the internet's crappier ways of doing things. As an Audino, her species had a stereotype of all becoming doctors and healers, but after researching what moves her species could learn, she decided to snap that in half.

Explosions were more fun, and she could learn enough moves to make one look like a rainbow. It was her first goal in mind. For now, though, she stuck to normal type moves since they would be easiest to start with. She chose to start with the move Wish, which she hated since it matched the healer stereotype. But for day to day life, it made sense to learn it. She kept tripping and getting small cuts. It annoyed her enough.

Agatha stood with her metal feet apart and arms curled. Her body glowed white as Wish took effect. It wasn't easy to mistake the feeling as anything else: a calm, invigorating rush that grew stronger from when she did it yesterday and the day before. And just like today, she kept practicing.

She stopped earlier this morning, though. Not having much energy would be bad for school.


Audino Agatha went back to her home after catching her breath to grab her things and head out. When she pushed open the door, Might Claire was still skulking around. Her eyes were closed and she mumbled to herself.

Agatha heard that Claire would sleepwalk sometimes. When she heard about it, she looked up on the internet what to do. Her heart rate went up a little. She had been wanting to try this.

"Hey, Claire?" Agatha asked. "What're you doing?"

"Going out getting groceries," Claire said.

"You should go back to bed. You're tired."

"Okay."

Claire walked back to bed, her eyes closed the whole time, and lied down. Agatha smiled and nodded, then went up to her room. She put on her white cloak, heavy glasses, and light backpack and went out the door at dawn before Claire woke up.


Despite the early morning, the school's doors were unlocked when Agatha walked up to them and yanked on the heavy handle. The lights in the hallways tricked her into thinking it later than it really was, but she knew better. She went to the same spot in her classroom and had to wait forty minutes until the building showed signs of life. She jotted down the designs of her prosthetic feet again in her drawing pad, trying to think of ways to improve them.

As expected, Agatha couldn't figure out exactly how to outdo educated doctors with more years of experience than she had in her whole life. They designed them without even a loose screw. The balance, weight, and materials were as ideal as she could imagine.

Agatha zoned out until groups of pokemon started coming in. She glanced up at all of them, but only one group glanced back.

A Pikachu, Elektrike, and Lillipup shared a look. They were all walking her way, making direct eye contact every time she checked. Agatha thought about a few options for what to say. She shifted back and forth in her scratchy cushion.

Pikachu came up first. Agatha noticed a purple and gold badge on the yellow fur of his right shoulder.

"Hey," Pikachu greeted, "Agatha, right? My name's Simone."

"Hi?" Agatha said.

"You're new this year, right? School doesn't do a good job of getting new students introduced."

"Yup."

"Well, I hope you're at least comfortable around here. Mind if I sit here today?"

"Okay."

Pikachu Simone and his friends sat around her. Simone sat on her right, and Electrike and Lillipup sat in the two seats in front of her.

While he spoke with them, Agatha stole a glance. Simone had crystal orange eyes and scruffy fur. When he turned towards her, she turned her head back down before he could notice her staring.

"Where did you go to school before?" Simone asked.

"I was home-schooled," Agatha said.

"Do you like it so far?"

"I'm not sure," she sighed. "I'm a bit bored."

"Well, what're you working on with your notebook?"

Simone's glossed over the open pages. Agatha fiddled with the notebook to make it harder to see.

"Designs for something. It's not really that important."

"Oh," he said. "I usually just study in class, but after school I do a bunch of stuff. I don't get back home till it's time to sleep."

"I'd rather be home earlier than that, at least."

"Good home, that's good." He smiled.

Agatha winced a little at his undertone. Simone seemed to notice.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, "that was insensitive. I don't mean to make you feel weird."

Agatha hadn't held a long conversation with a complete stranger for a while. She ran through a tree of responses in her head.

"It's fine," Agatha said. "I just… don't know whether you're right or not." She was starting to get this numb, unpleasant feeling.

"Hey, look," he said, "if you want someone to talk to about it, the student counselor is a nice guy. And some of us, too."

"Are you trying to tell me to get help?"

"N-no, of course not. I help make sure everyone knows."

"Why are you being so defensive?" Lillipup asked, turning her head to the side.

"Shenise," Simone hissed.

After his sharp voice cut the air, there was no conversation left. Agatha's shaky, deep breath out rumbled through the air a tad louder than she wanted it to be. She wanted to slap one of them, not sure which.

Others started to come into the classroom in waves and fill the air with chatter again. Agatha's pulse settled back down as Flygon Mr. Rivers started to teach class. She returned to her drawings while the others went about their stuff.

While they were reading during class, Mr. Rivers called different people to read out loud. Agatha's ears just barely managed to snap her out of her daze to hear her voice being called.

"Agatha?" Mr. Rivers called. "Would you care to read?"

A couple others turned around, looking in all sorts of different directions. They were probably wondering who he meant.

Agatha shook her head and looked back down.

"Miss Agatha? I would really like you to read today," Flygon pushed.

"No thank you," Agatha voiced. There were a few entertained giggles.

"Alright," Flygon sighed, "I'll read this next part."

The class continued on. Agatha continued to focus on her designs, with a new idea coming into her head after she thought over her prosthetic feet. It would be embarrassing if she broke them, but she wanted them to have more usage than being replacements.

When lunch came, she had the design idea sketched out to turn her prosthetic feet into boosters that used her own body's energy. She would use a material to transfer her body's energy and form it into a rim, then make a screen with a material that rejected it. Though simple, she needed to know a lot about both metals that she didn't yet.

Pikachu Simone, Electrike, and Lillipup left the room with the rest of the class, but came back and ate their lunches at their seats. After a few minutes of mindless staring, Agatha laid back on the cushion facing the ceiling with her hands on her head.

"You good, Agatha?" Simone asked.

"Yeah, just tired," she answered.

"You should take a break and eat something," he suggested, "I've got an extra sandwich if you want."

"I'm good, but thanks."

"Hey, Simone," Lillipup said, "could I show you something in the hall?"

A short moment of silence passed as the Pikachu reacted to the question. "Uh, sure," he said.

Pikachu and Lillipup went outside, leaving Electrike eating her lunch while Audino Agatha continued to draw.

She got distracted, though. She wanted to know what they were talking about, so she stretched her ear's feeler and touched it against the wall.

"… weird, okay?" Lillipup's voice said. "Let's just get away from her."

"You're overreacting," Simone's voice said, "chill. She's just different. You don't know what people are going through, and she's sitting alone. This is a you problem."

Agatha took her ear from the wall. Electrike didn't notice her sit back up in her chair with her arms folded.

When Simone and Lillipup came back, Agatha rolled the feeler of her ear in her fingers, giving them an eye. Simone's face gave away that he noticed, but he sat back down without another word.


Agatha didn't talk for the rest of the day. She daydreamed and gazed at her drawings and math in her notebook. Her fur stood up when the bell rang. She probably couldn't even remember a single sentence said during the series of classes.

The day ended the same way after lunch, with study hall and then gym. She sat on the bleachers again, still drawing until it was time to go back to the classroom for the last bell.

Once it rang, Agatha waited to leave while everyone filed out of the room. Unlike other times, Flygon Mr. Rivers waited by the side of the way out. A part of her could tell it was because of her.

As Agatha walked to leave, he floated in front of her with his arms full of books.

"Agatha, a quick word," Mr. Rivers said. "Please be kinder to your fellow classmates."

"What did they say?"

"That doesn't matter."

"So you're not going to tell me what I did wrong and hope telling me to do better will just fix it?" Agatha asked.

"I need you to be more respectful," he said. "Okay, look. I heard what happened from Simone. You don't have to strike back a hundred times harder when someone's rude. You're all children and still growing in this building. You're bound to be treated unfairly at some point, it's up to you to handle it how you see fit. Do you feel like someone's out to get you?"

Agatha had a sharp, stinging headache. She wanted to go home.

"No," Agatha said. "Can I go now?

"You can, but I want to see you participate more in class, okay?"

"Okay," she hissed.

Agatha stormed past him out the doorway, pushing him to the side without even touching him. As she blended in with the mob in the hallway, her headache got worse.