"Acting on regrets, acting on regrets.
Acting on regrets."
"MMMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAX!" a familiar voice screamed loud enough to shake the region. Max jerked his head up from the flowers and tried to find the cubone with a spike of fear. He started turning around when the cubone's weight slammed into his back and toppled him forward.
"Pi!" he squeaked in surprise. Sam always greeted him like this after their first proper introduction, but familiarity didn't make him any better equipped to combat it. At least the panic was more exhilarating than horrifying anymore. He laughed and wrapped his arms around her once his head caught up. "Pi, Chu! Ka pika pichu?"
"You're doing the thing," Sam said. She hopped off him with her bone and waved it around over him like a braixen's wand. "Pika-squeak to pikapi! Pika-speak to pika-me!"
Max rolled his eyes while she cast the 'spell' Neb decided to teach her. "Pi-Thank ch—you," he stuttered. Learning to speak hadn't taken too much effort, especially since it was apparently remembering.
Neb had started encouraging him to try a week or two ago, and he'd managed to figure it out pretty quick. The start had frustrated both of them a lot with Neb telling him to say something and not seeming to recognize that he was saying what she asked, just in the wrong language. Well, of course she knew that, but he struggled to keep up with which was which.
Like singing the wrong melody to a still-fitting harmony, he could only tell he'd started wrong when someone let him know. Otherwise, he'd finish with whatever he started. He could manage mostly speaking normally, but he slipped back into pikaspeak any time he got excited. Or startled. Or tired. Or bored. Or annoyed. Or most any feeling that meant he didn't have complete focus at his disposal.
"Hey, Sam," he repeated, getting up and dusting the dirt off himself. "How's it going?" Despite the fact she had just tackled him to the ground, he had a big smile on his face. After amending their first encounter, he'd had a lot of fun getting to know her.
"Great!" she cheered. "A weird sirfetch'd from somewhere came to read us a book his brother's cousin wrote about their sister's dad's mom's daughter in law's encounter with Dark Matter and what happened to it and you were in the book!"
"Mhm," he mumbled along. She was a kid, so he didn't necessarily pay attention to every word as much as he probably could. It was only when he echoed the last few words she'd said on habit, "I was in the book?" when the statement registered. "Wait, what?"
"Yeah! It was you! No one else believed me, but I saw the picture and that pikachu wore a purple scarf, too!" she hurried to explain. "They said it was probably just a coincidence, and the pikachu in the book was just called Pikachu, but Pikachu lived on the Water Continent and this is the Water Continent! So, is it true? Did you beat Dark Matter with a hug?" Max did his best to politely nod, not letting himself chuckle. This theory seemed important to her, so he'd happily play along as best he could. "What was it like when you turned into stone?!"
His blood ran cold. "What?" He forgot every other question she asked. "Stone? Where'd you hear about turning into stone?!"
"I knew it!" she cheered, completely oblivious to his anguish as anything but proof to her point. "Dark Matter did it! That's why you wear this! Right?!" She tugged on his scarf, and he impulsively gave it a possessive grab in retaliation.
"Sam!" a marowak yelled, bounding up to the pair and grabbing Sam.
"Oh hi mom!" Sam greeted.
The marowak towered over Max. He could smell the typing on her, and it sent chills down his spine. "Sweety, you can't just run off," the mom admonished lightly before turning her gaze to Max. "Hello, Max. Are you all right?"
"P-pi!" he answered. They'd met plenty of times before, and he'd made significant progress. Unfortunately, that only meant he didn't bolt for his life in any direction when he saw her. He'd not managed to avoid the paralyzing sense of terror she brought him, yet.
"Max!" Sam giggled. "You're doing it again!" She started lifting her bone to cast again when her mother pulled her back.
"Stop that," she commanded. "Ferals talk different than us, sometimes." Sam went on to argue that Max talked like they do all the time, including several stories about that happening running in parallel, and her mom let her while smiling politely down at Max. "Tell Neb I said hi, okay?" She reached down to pat his head, and then used that same paw to grab Sam's. "Let's go, honey."
A few whimpers of horror slipped out of Max while she walked away. Flashes of stone covering him, surrounding him, strangling him took over. He grabbed his scarf and took a deep breath. Fine. He was okay. He still had flesh, not stone. They were just nightmares. He was just a feral fresh from the dungeons. She was just a kid with an imagination excited about a book. The author probably only thought getting petrified by 'Dark Matter' made for a nice story beat. They probably made up Dark Matter whole cloth.
What do you think I am?
Max jerked up out of his own thoughts. The voice barely surprised him at all anymore, and he'd mostly accepted it as a fact of life, if perhaps a fact strange and unique to him. "Ka?" he asked. The one good part about the voice was it didn't seem to mind when he slipped into feral, while nobody else could ever understand him.
What, do you think a Dungeon formed and birthed you? They cannot create, only pervert and distort what is already there.
A light chill dusted his fur. "Kapi Pii ka chupika," he suggested.
No, you are not the exception. You have a life to remember.
The demand tripped some wire within him, twisting his mouth into disdain. Both the voice and Neb insisted he had much to remember, but the idea always left him revolted. Talking and table manners were fine, but some part in him resisted drudging up his episodic memory. It's not like it held any special importance, anyway. He'd rather leave them all to rot in the pit of his stomach they churned in.
A violet and pink flower grabbed his attention. It appeared to glow for a moment, but that was just his imagination. Even while it sat perfectly still, he saw its colors twist and churn with an otherworldly light in an abyss of isolation. The memory surfaced unbidden and transfixed him with wicked beauty.
If you fail to face your memories on your own terms, they will face you on theirs.
The voice again shook him out of his own thoughts. He turned to go back home, but the flower held tight to his gaze. His paws felt too heavy to step away, so he took a few glances around. The garden had strict policies on not picking flowers, but surely one wouldn't much matter. Another look and he didn't see anyone around. In one swift motion, he pinched the stem, hid the prize in the folds of his scarf and ran off.
Luckily, Neb's house sat fairly close to the garden. Unluckily, a stray branch lay between the house and him. His bandaged paw barely grazed it enough for the bandage to get caught on it and almost toppled him over. It jerked his paw out from under him, leaving him to hop on his other until it had unraveled enough to jerk his paw back underneath him.
"Chu," he cursed under his breath at the first step. He could still run, but he was giving it a rest the instant he got home. Each step got a little bit easier, a bittersweet blessing since he knew it'd come back to bite him once he got off it.
Despite it all, he managed to dash home without anyone noticing him. He didn't bother getting all the way to his room and instead flopped belly down onto the rug in the middle of the living room. He felt fine until one. Two. "Pika!" he swore. His leg twitched to bring his ankle up to his paws, but the floor blocked its path. A blessing in disguise, really. Now, he didn't have to talk himself into letting go of it to stretch… in a minute. For now, he basked in his victory. A flawless heist. He reached a paw up to his scarf to grab his prize—it was gone.
He jerked up to a sitting position and glanced around him to no avail. It must have fallen out when he tripped. "Looking for these?" Neb asked, barely a yard behind him.
"Pika!" he shouted, hopping up and holding his tail up as a shield until he recognized the source. On one side, she had his ripped bandages, and the flower floated on the other. His tail drifted back behind him. "P-pi, pi ka…," think of a lie, think of a lie, think of a—bingo, "Chu ka, ka pi kachu pi! Pi chuka pi pika pichu ka Pi chuu ka piiika pi!" He smiled with confidence. A flawless story.
Yet, his confidence faltered under her gaze. She didn't look mad at all. In fact, she had a smile. Confident she'd found the culprit? No, more amused. "Max," she giggled. "I still can't understand pika-speak." His ears drooped down with his while a wave of heat burned at his cheeks. "Not that it matters, though." He looked up at her with his head tilted. "You're still terrible at hiding your guilt."
"P-pi!" Max started to protest.
"Pika-speak," Neb said.
"K-ch, th. Thank. Thanks," he mumbled. He almost started with his story when he felt a soft bulb against his right forepaw and looked down to see the flower. He grabbed it and looked up at Neb with a quizzical gaze.
"It's one flower," she explained with a chuckle. "Just don't make a habit of it, all right?"
"O-oh," he mumbled. "All right." Still deflated with guilt, he didn't notice her coming in to nuzzle his cheek. "Pi!" he exclaimed.
Luckily, she didn't seem to mind his surprise (if her giggle was any indication). She sat down next to him, and then a roll of bandages dropped in front of him. "Remember how to wrap that up?" she asked, pointing a paw at his ankle.
He nodded, a confident smile splaying across his cheeks. "Pik-err, easy," he exclaimed, not letting the slip get to him he definitely wasn't blushing his cheeks redder nope not at all. He grabbed the roll in one paw while the other slipped the flower back into his scarf. The bandage unraveled easily after he dug a claw beneath the light adhesive, he put one end at the tip of his paw, then got to unrolling layer after layer around his paw with each pass overlapping by roughly half the width. "Secure," he mumbled. "Tight enough to be uncomfortable, but not tight enough to hurt."
After the last pass, he unraveled it a bit further from himself and slashed the roll free with an iron tail. "I have scissors," Neb complained under her breath. She floated the roll out of his paw and put it back in the cabinet without looking. "I heard you had a run in with Sam."
Max smiled at that. "I did! She said, um," he trailed off as he remembered that discussion. His smile faltered while it ran back in his head, and a familiar, warm kneading in his chest began. He bit his lip and tried to hurry out with it, finish talking, whatever Neb was trying to get him to do with this before it got worse. "Er, well," he forced out, ready to say the first thing that came to mind. "How much do you know about a thing called Dark Matter?"
The kneading began crushing his heart, and the warmth now had chills all over his fur to contend with. Ice. He felt frozen, like he couldn't move, petrified, he was—
"Max?!" Neb shouted. He realized he'd doubled over in pain. "What's wrong?"
Max curled up into a shivering ball. One paw grabbed the scarf like an iron vice while the other tried to excavate the pain out of his chest. "S-stop," he wheezed. Oh, he wasn't breathing. "Please."
Neb took a step back, once fear filled eyes now full of confusion Max couldn't see because the ice in his fur had left. "Stop?" she asked. "Stop what? I'm not doing anything."
A whimper squeaked out his throat. "Ch-chu—chest," he strained. "Squeezing my chest." He glanced up at her in desperation, but didn't see an iota of understanding. "You stopped the chill." That only got more confusion from her. "You're doing this, aren't you?"
No, she isn't.
"What?" he asked the air, briefly worsening the kneading in his chest. He knew she couldn't hear the voice, but he talked to it anyway.
It's me.
Guilt coated the voice. Max tried to understand, but couldn't think straight while the kneading in his chest only got worse.
I'm absorbing her negative emotions. You're my vessel, so you feel them.
A shadow of disbelief cast across his face.
Ask her what she's feeling. If she answers, she'll say something like worry for you.
Max probably would've raised a brow if a grimace didn't have complete hold over his expression. It remained his only lead, though, so he finally looked back at Neb. "A-are you con—,"
If you feed the answer to her like that, you won't believe me.
"Erm," he mumbled. It had a point. "What are you feeling?"
Neb, for good reason, looked at him like he had lost every part of anything that could even be considered a mind. "How am I feeling?" she finally asked. He took a deep breath and nodded, the kneading throbbing slightly worse in his chest for a moment before fading just a bit. "...Concerned."
His eyes popped open with surprise. That remained only half the answer, though. "Concerned about what?" he drilled.
"About you," she said.
Max blinked. The voice was right. "Um. Could you stop?" he asked, barely confident enough to get it out in a whisper.
She stared at him for a minute. All the experience with ferals Max usually saw in Neb's eyes had left for complete and utter bewilderment. At the very least, the kneading did fade a bit more. "You want me to stop worrying about you?" she asked.
The best he could manage was a forced smile. "I'm okay, I just need to explain, okay?" he said. The kneading stepped down a bit when he said he was okay. "Yeah, like that." It ratcheted up and squeezed a wheeze, "No, other way," out of him. All but the worst of it disappeared. He took a deep breath of relief and dropped down to the ground.
"Mother Mew," Neb gasped. "How long have you been able to feel my emotions?" Breaths wheezed in and out of him, and he only glanced up at her. "Right, I'll give you some time."
"Ka chu," he thanked. She nodded, experienced enough with him to catch the meaning of that particular phrase, and turned to the stove. A kettle floated out of the cabinet, under the faucet to fill up with water, and then onto a stove. The coils on one corner began to redden. Max watched them go from barely red to bright orange while his breath returned. The kneading hadn't fully left, but he could relax at least. One paw clutched his scarf, and he sat back just as the kettle let out a high pitched whistle.
It popped open and floated over to him, arriving just as a porcelain teapot did, and poured most of the boiling water into it. The steam floating out of the teapot brought a light, sweet aroma with a pinch of rose and a dash of lemon. The smell alone relaxed him to his bones. A cup clanked before him, and clinked on the other side of the teapot where Neb went to sit while the pot poured tea into Max's cup.
Max watched it do the same for her cup and reached down to pick the cup and its saucer up. When he brought it up, though, it floated out of his hands. "Hot," Neb explained. "Let it cool, first."
Right, he'd almost forgotten. "Pi ka chu," he lied.
"Pika-speak," Neb informed him. Any chance at avoiding ignominy disappeared along with the lies stuck in his throat. He slumped over and looked away while the cup floated gently back to the floor. "Do you have any other psychic abilities?" she asked. "It's rare, but not unheard of for pikachu. Maybe your parents were from a tropical region. Does that sound familiar?"
Max rolled his eyes. "I dunno, does not wanting to bother with remembering that sound familiar?" he spat.
Neb giggled, "I might've heard something like that before." Why couldn't she just leave it alone? What did it matter where he came from? He half wanted to explain to her why exactly it didn't matter again when, "Do you ever get especially lucky with little things? A juicy apple falling off a branch barely out of reach. A flower popping off a stem by itself."
His frustration withered away at that example. "No?" he said. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Neb pulled her cup up to her lips, took a sip, and then explained, "It's a way telekinetic abilities sometimes manifest."
Max followed suit and carefully took a sip from his own cup. The tea washed over his mouth, coating it in the sweet flavor the aromatic scent teased. The warmth sapped the tension out of him as it slid down his throat, leaving a slight hint of citrus. "Well, no," he said. "I don't think I'm any part psychic."
Neb raised a brow. "Then how are you feeling my emotions?"
Another sip offered Max a perfect opportunity to hide behind his teacup, and he shrugged after. "I don't know."
A light silence hung between them, both thinking it over. Max considered trying to contact the voice again, but decided not t—
No, it's not psychic abilities.
The voice made him jump a little bit, splashing a sprinkling of nearly scalding tea onto his nose. "Max?" Neb asked. "Are you all right?"
Max rubbed the tea off with his free arm, thankful not much got on him. "Pi—iii, ka. Aaah. Ah-ee. Ai. I. I'm fine," he stammered. He hated taking it syllable by syllable, but sometimes he couldn't manage it any other way. "Just had an idea." Placing the cup down, he looked up to see Neb's expectant gaze. He raised a brow at her before he realized she was probably waiting for him to mention that idea he made up having. Perhaps lying was a bad idea, but he figured telling her about the voice in his head would be worse. "Well, not an idea exactly. Were you feeling… cold?"
The memory alone of the frost earlier sent a shiver through his fur. "Cold?" she asked. "Max, it's barely August."
At least the heat of summer made a good excuse for the warmth in his cheeks. "Not like that," Max said. "I felt a really strong chill, too. I think it was when I mentioned Dark Matt—pika!" The same chill froze him over for a moment. He rubbed his forepaws along his arms for any amount of warmth and briefly considered pouring the hot tea over his head.
"Fear," Neb said. His teacup floated up to his shivering lips while he still tried desperately to rub warmth back in, and it felt like he'd managed to get at least some back in his veins. He leaned forward to sip from the cup. "It must be an advanced ability if it can distinguish between different emotions. Can you remember—," he shot her a glare, and she shook her head. "Sorry, I didn't mean to force the issue."
Right as his shivering had faded to bearable levels, Max felt a minor stab in his gut. "Chu!" he swore. He doubled over to clutch the invisible wound, and that started the kneading back up. The complex assault left him reeling. He clenched his teeth and took a deep breath. Every feeling hurt him worse, and his reactions brought even more pain. The feedback loop kept spinning. His racing mind only managed one idea: if her concern hurt, he'd act fine.
All of the pains faded at once. They still hid in the background, but they stayed at a bearable level. He looked up and saw Neb sitting with her eyes closed, taking deep breaths. "I'm sorry," she said. "Worry, guilt, and fear. You felt all of them?"
Max bit his lip, fearing how answering that might make her feel. Especially if guilt was that stabbing sensation. Still, he needed someone to help him parse this apart. Even if it wasn't really psychic in nature, he didn't exactly have other people to go to. "Pi," he answered with a nod. He looked up to see Neb looking back.
"That was a yes, right?" she asked, and he tilted his head. "Pika-speak."
Frustration clenched his teeth, and anger brought enough warmth to combat the lingering chill. "Piiiii-KA!" he shouted.
"Deep breaths," Neb said. "Speaking requires a clear mind." He knew she was right, but his lips still pulled up into a snarl. Not mad at her, but more frustrated at himself for still needing her reminder. "Drink some tea."
Now that, he could do easy. He shook his head clear and brought the cup to his lips. Breathe, sip, breathe, calm. "Pi-eeee, i-eh, yes. Yes, it was," he said. Even the warm tea couldn't combat the cold in his veins. "Fear," he mumbled. "Oh." He deflated a bit and looked away. "A-am I scaring you?"
After he put his cup back down, the teapot floated over to replenish it. "Damn, you're good," Neb giggled. "No, it's not you." He looked up at her, waiting for more, more she seemed reticent to say. After a moment, she finally looked away with a deep breath. "It nearly destroyed the world, Max."
A chuckle nearly burst out of him from pure surprise, but her somber gaze quickly sobered him up. "What did?" he asked.
The chill grew stronger for a moment, but then Neb took a deep breath. "Dark Matter," she said. "Those nightmares you told me about, you said you turn to stone?" Max shrank away, clutching his scarf and nodding. "I believe those are manifestations of a memory, because it did that to thousands."
As much as he tried, Max couldn't curl up any tighter. For a moment, he thought his paws had turned grey, but the hallucination faded with a blink. He tried to convince himself it was just a story, some creation myth for the world, or at the very least an ancient tale. "H-how could that be a memory? Wouldn't that make me really old?" he asked, taking considerable effort to speak properly.
Neb chuckled despite herself, a laugh barely able to breach the somber ocean for a moment before sinking back down. "It was barely less than two years ago," she said.
Max couldn't tell if the chill was still Neb's fear or his own, anymore. When he tried to convince himself it wasn't real, that Dark Matter was just a myth and Neb was messing with him, he remembered what that voice had said when he thought about it earlier. Breath lingered on the back of his neck, active but silent. "Ka-k-g-m-b-but Dark Matter died, cha?" he asked.
No relief came when he watched Neb nod. "Well, we aren't in the sun, so I have to assume so," she said.
Max didn't notice the attempt at levity. The flower crawled into his fore-paw. A pulsing, pink and purple orb of dark light in an all encompassing void of spite. "Ka pi, er, how did it die?" he stuttered.
Neb's fur brushed against his own, making him jump a little. "Well, if Sam is to be believed," she said, nuzzling him. "You did it by beating it up and then hugging it." Her warmth surrounded him, but couldn't penetrate his fur. "But there are a few more chu in the world than just you," the tea cup floated to his lips, and he took another sip from it, "and both the pikachu and the charmander seemed tight-lipped about what happened, so only they know for certain."
The tea in his throat bit his lungs when she said charmander. He saw the one in his nightmares crawling towards him, begging to be remembered as they both turned to stone. "Pi pikachu, pi-ch-jh—PI!" Neb's tail ran down his back while he tried his best. "The chumander, did chu-he get better?"
Neb tilted her head at him. "Did Sam tell you the whole story minus the end? He's fine now, yes, but how'd you know the charmander was a boy?" she asked. The question seemed innocent, like a light change in direction, but Max couldn't bring himself to meet her gaze.
"Lucky guess?" he said. Her tail pet him again, and she brought the tea up for him to sip at once again. The charmander lived, at least, but Max anguished over the pain he might've put that poor charmander through. As much as the visions horrified him, he felt worse memories lurking beneath. "What is Dark Matter, then?" He tried to think of what pokémon the flower reminded him of but came up with nothing.
Neb held him a bit tighter as she brought the last of his tea up to his lips. "It was us," she answered. "In a sense, at least. No one knows for sure, not even our little heroes, but, at least in my opinion, the best theory is Dark Matter was," she gave him a squeeze, as if to comfort him with the past tense, "all of our negative emotions. All the pain and suffering of our hearts closed off, isolated from the love that could heal it."
Max's eyes glazed over. Too many dots connected. "It feeds off negative emotions?" he asked.
Another squeeze. "I think it did, yes," Neb answered.
Max clutched the scarf tighter and looked down at it. "Did the pikachu wear a scarf like this one?" he asked.
"Oh, Max," Neb chuckled. She gave him another squeeze and nuzzled him. "Every pikachu and charmander on this continent wear those. Kecleon Bros. inc made a fortune selling look-alikes." Her tail left his back to brush down the scarf, but he yanked it away, so she brought her tail up to pet his head. "You are exceptional, though, so who knows. Maybe I've been nursing the world's savior back to health." She chuckled and looked up to him. "Though, you're still infamous around here, so try being one legendary pikachu at a time for now."
Her tone stung at his ears, too cheery. He wasn't ready to cheer up, but then he remembered the kneading feeling in his chest. If he felt that, how bad must it hurt her? How much was this already hurting her? He took a deep breath and tugged his mouth into a thin smile. "I guess that'd make you pretty incredible, too," he said.
Neb nuzzled him again and said, "Oh, thank you." He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back. They held together for a moment, and just as it started turning his smile genuine, she started to get up.
"Chu! Ka-erm, where are you going?" Max asked, failing to look nonchalant.
Neb looked back at him and giggled. "A few feet away," she said. "We've talked our way to dinner time."
Without much of a reason (that he wanted to share), he rushed up beside her. He saw her quizzical gaze for a nanosecond before deciding to instead look at his forepaws rubbing over each other. Think of a lie, think of a lie, think of—bingo. "Can I help?" he asked.
Even with his scarce glances up, he could easily make out Neb's skeptical gaze. "Just wanted to help?" she asked. He nodded, trying not to let on how much he cared that she didn't seem convinced. "You're not, say," a stool dropped on the floor in front of him as a knife, some veggies, and a cutting board dropped on the counter above it, "trying to get all close because you wanted to hug for longer?"
"Chu—ka," he said, looking wholly unconvincing in every conceivable way on top of being so flustered he fell to pika-speak. "N-no, I just, uh. Hm." He hopped up on the stool and looked at the knife. It didn't seem quite his size, so he brushed it aside. "I've got nothing better to do," he said with distance as forced as a paddle ball from its paddle.
Neb laughed, and that made Max chuckle despite himself. "Oh, well then by all means," she said. He nodded, grabbed a potato, brought his tail down on it and activated iron tail the instant it made contact. The first slice took about as long as all the rest combined, and he had it thoroughly diced in no time. "Sweet Dialga, you're proficient with that thing." The genuine admiration lit a spark in Max's chest. Now, he had to impress her. "Maybe you really were the hero of the world."
Somehow, the implication didn't horrify him this time. Probably because he focused too much on grabbing the nearest tomato to notice it. Another flurry of slices chopped it up so quick, it took longer to scrape the bits up into a pile. He reached for the onion, but his paw met air even though he knew it had sat there a moment ago. Had it moved?
It hadn't, but he definitely had. He couldn't even reach the counter, anymore, too far away. It all clicked when he looked at Neb and saw her amused gaze. She curled up beneath him and floated him down next to her. "You sure that little whimper when I stood up was nothing?" she asked. He rolled his eyes and finally embraced her again. A warmth of joy bubbled up and spread his smile wide. "I'm glad I met you. You'll make a great member of the community."
Max hugged her tighter. The cold, restless nights of a dungeon fell into his past. He had food, shelter, and pokémon he didn't have to fight to survive. He was surrounded by nice people ready to meet him. Even scaring the Christ out of Sam hadn't hurt their relationship at all, and Neb offered him a place with all of them. He had a place to belong. Everything anyone could ever want was right there for him.
So why did it fill him with dread?
"Gone are your friends in need when you broke their heart
So sad, so sad. So hopeless."
Another bunch of berries piled up in the basket weighing Max's forepaws down. "Chu," he grunted. He looked up at Neb to watch two baskets floating effortlessly beside her. His ears flopped down, and his tail drooped. "Why am I here if you can float everything around you?"
Neb looked down at him with a smirk. "Weren't you the one who insisted on coming to help me get stuff from the store?" she asked. Max opened his mouth to argue, but quickly clenched it shut. No good argument came, so he stuck his tongue out. When Neb did the same, he started laughing so hard he struggled to keep the basket stable. Neb laughed along for a bit, but kept walking, and he followed.
"You are helping me, don't worry," she said. "It looks easy, but telekinesis takes energy, too. The exhaustion can really creep up if I'm not careful." She reached a paw into a bunch of eggplants and examined a few before deciding on one and adding it to Max's basket. "Since I don't have the same physical limits as I do if I lift stuff normally, it's easy to exhaust myself, completely oblivious to it until I'm collapsed on the floor." A grimace of a past memory flashed across her face, then a chuckle replaced it. "That first week of evolution was horrible. Exciting, fun, and terrible." She nodded her head towards him. "Yours was probably the same. I've heard freshly evolved pikachu take a bit to get used to the bigger charge tolerances."
Max shrugged, tilting his head up in thought. "I don't think I evolved," he guessed.
Neb glared at him with a smile, and he raised one ear in confusion. "I'll get you to remember sooner or later," she said. He almost argued he meant what he said until her words processed fully, and he shrunk down, looking away. She'd mistaken his sincerity for snark before, too. He usually tried to clear it up, but she didn't need to know how successful she really was. "Does electricity feel the same?"
"Same?" he asked, looking back at her. "Same as what?"
"Telekinesis," she said while glancing two spice bottles over.
While she pondered seasonings, he pondered her question. "Sort of?" he mumbled. "I mean, I know when I'm out of electricity since I get…," he trailed off. He'd spent most of the last week in the training grounds since he'd basically healed all the way, testing his abilities, proficiencies, and blowing off a lot of steam. A combination of the last two had left his cheeks completely empty one day, and he assumed he'd lost consciousness, too, until Neb informed him he'd gotten a bit affectionate with a few of the other pokémon there. Luckily, the gym leader knew what was going on, so he didn't do anything past some awkward, long hugs before Neb carried him back home.
"Horny?" Neb asked.
Max jumped, almost dropping the basket. "No!" he shouted. "I was gonna say loopy!"
Neb laughed at him, tossing the darker spice into one of her baskets. "Oh, gotcha," she said. "All running on empty did was daze you."
"Mhm," he mumbled.
"You were already horny, then," she said.
"CHU!" Max shouted. Neb burst out laughing again, and he felt embarrassed sparks pop down his cheeks. The basket was heavy, maybe it could slam him underground and out of sight if he dropped it on himself. Of course, with as hot as his cheeks felt, the sudden impact might make him spontaneously combust. That certainly sounded tempting, but the flames might catch the food on fire, and that'd be too big a waste. Instead, he buried his muzzle in his scarf as best he could and waited for oblivion.
Neb pat his head with her paw, and it took quite a bit of restraint not to shock her to kingdom come. "Don't worry about it, Max," she said. Oh good, comfort. That could probably help. "We're an accepting lot. 'Alternative lifestyles,' as some suit decided we call them, aren't looked at any differently than others." Max furrowed his brow as embarrassment took a back seat to confusion. "Well, you seemed equally eager to embrace all the pokémon there, regardless of their gender, so I just assumed."
Death. He wanted death. Sort of. The topic embarrassed him to high heaven, and he'd much rather have it alone instead of in public—not at all would be ideal!—, but the reassurance did comfort him. His eyes wandered along the ground. "Thanks," he whispered.
Neb's paw ran along the back of his head. "Of course," she said. "And if anyone bugs you about that, get me so we can kick their ass together."
That managed to get a chuckle out of Max, laughing a lot of the nerves away. "Deal," he said. "Is that everything?" He held his breath while she looked their haul, and let out a sigh of relief when she nodded.
"Yes, I think you could carry some more," Neb said.
"K-ka?!" Max whimpered.
His worries evaporated when Neb started laughing. "I'm kidding," she said. "C'mon, let's head out." She gave him a friendly head pat to get him up.
"Christ, Neb," Max chuckled. "You scared me."
Neb glanced at him strangely. "Never heard a swear like that before," she said, then headed for the exit. Max followed her most of the way there until he realized they hadn't paid for any of it. What was Neb thinking? She must have forgotten, because she was already only a few steps away from committing a crime! She seemed way too honest to do this on purpose.
Before he became an accessory to theft, he gently dropped the basket and dashed around in front of her to block her path. "Wait!" he shouted in a whisper. She took a few steps back and eyed him with intense confusion. He looked around to see if anyone watched, and luckily no one seemed to have noticed. "We didn't pay!" he explained.
That didn't dissipate her confusion the slightest bit. In fact, it seemed to get exponentially worse. She squinted at him for eon long seconds to examine every inch for the point of this, and her confusion started rubbing off on Max as well. What part of this didn't she get? "M-Max," she said. "This is food."
He looked at her like she hadn't explained anything, and she looked at him like he'd recently crash-landed from an alien planet. "It's still a store!" he said, and she let out an exasperated breath.
"Food store, Max," Neb sighed. "As in storage." The wheels started turning in Max's head, but he remained mostly lost. She could only laugh at his persistent confusion, shaking her head as she said, "Max, look around. Where would we even pay?"
Max started glancing around for a cashier, but instead noticed a rhydon barreling towards them. "Pika!" he screamed, pointing at the imminent threat. It had already skid to a stop barely a foot away by the time he'd decided to run for it, plenty close enough to grab him by the tail if he tried to turn around.
"You're that feral pikachu, aren't ya?" he asked, and his voice rumbled Max's chest like an earthquake. The debilitating stench of earth filled his nostrils, and the typing's hold over him sent his panic into overdrive. "Step aside, ma'am, I'll take—"
"Oh sweet son of Giratina, would you give it a rest, Pete?" Neb shouted, a tense headache of her frustration crashing into Max's temples. Rather than step aside, she stepped between him and Max. The cover calmed his nerves somewhat, but he didn't dare take a step towards her, Pete plenty tall enough to keep an eye on him even with her in the way.
Pete kept his gaze square on Max and let out a scoff. "Didn't that dirty rat beat up a bunch of kids?" he said with a sneer.
Neb's frustration must have doubled, because Max definitely felt the headache get two times worse. "They provoked him. Everybody knows that," she said. Max clutched his scarf tight and let out a whimper. Neb set down her baskets and stepped close enough to him to stroke his back with her tail. "Feral pokémon aren't monsters. They're still pokémon, pokémon that need our help!"
Pete rolled his eyes and said, "You might've pulled off helping some others—"
"A dozen others," Neb corrected.
"Whatever," Pete groaned. "But that one," he pointed a disgusted claw at Max, "has been rotting in dungeons for at least a few months. I heard he'd been seen in 'em as much as a year ago." He wouldn't take his eyes off Max, and Max couldn't look away from the constantly worsening sneer. "I'll bet it can't even talk anymore."
Neb rolled her eyes and looked back at Max. She gave him an encouraging pat and nod towards Pete. Max just needed to speak to prove her point. That oppressive gaze flattened his ears against his head, and he moved to hide behind Neb further. "P-pi chupi," he whimpered. Terror made him shiver. "Pi pika Pi chu kapi." He buried his eyes into Neb's leg to hide from the leer, but he could still feel it burning holes through his fur.
Neb's tail rushed to comfort him. "It's hard for anyone to talk with an idiot like you taking precious oxygen from the air," she spat.
Pete snorted. "Whatever," he grumbled. "You can believe what you want, but if you keep taking these wild animals in, they're gonna rip this community apart. Haven't you seen in the news what kinda damage feral's are doing everywhere?"
"Mother Mew," Neb groaned. "Watch a channel other than Delphox." She moved a bit, making Max squeak in fear until he felt her wrap defensively around him. "Get away from him, or I'll make you regret it."
Max peaked an eye open. Pete's leer had shifted to Neb, but he still took glances over at Max. He stared at her for a while before finally shaking his head. "Whatever," he grumbled. "But whatever that thing," he pointed a claw at Max, "does," his claw shifted to Neb, "is on your head." He stood there for a second to make his point, then stomped away. Every step shook the earth beneath Max, making him flinch in fear the ground itself might swallow him up in an attack.
Isn't that convenient for you.
Neb nuzzled up to comfort him, and he shot a quizzical gaze at the air to ask the voice what it meant.
Well, if anything you do is Neb's fault, you don't have to face any of your own consequences.
The joke, now clarified, made Max roll his eyes and chuckle. It took him a moment to see Neb's face looking at his own with a raised brow. "What's so funny?" she asked.
"Well, uh," he mumbled. "I guess I don't have to worry about the consequences of my actions if you're taking the fall for all of them." Now, it was Neb's turn to roll her eyes.
Joke thief.
"Oh, don't worry," Neb said. She straightened up and placed a paw on his head. "I'll make sure the pogrom goes for you after they get me." She bapped his nose lightly, and they both started chuckling. "Don't worry, though. Everyone else came around after the third pokémon I rehabilitated." The baskets she carried moments ago started floating again. "Speaking of which, let's go. Drake always arrives way too early."
Max nodded and turned to get his own basket only to bump his muzzle into it. After sending Neb's giggle a side-eye, he grabbed it and felt the weight drop into his paws, and they headed off. Apparently, she kept up enough with the other's she'd rehabilitated that they liked to meet up fairly frequently. It started as support group meetings to help ease some of them back into socialization, and while it still held that purpose in theory, everyone decided that parties were a great way to socialize anyway, so why not?
It all sounded cheery and fun in theory, but smoldering nerves charred Max's chest when he thought about it. By the time he caught his ears and tail falling, Neb had already noticed. He tried to correct and smile at her anyway, and said, "Can't wait!" but she saw right through him.
"Y'know, for a pikachu, you're quite the loner," she mused. "But it's all right." Her pace slowed until she got close enough to nuzzle the crook of his neck. "You can hop into your room at any point, and no one'll think anything of it." He nodded along; it offered some comfort, at least. "They all went through it, too, and they never hesitate to help whoever needs it." Some of the smoldering in his chest faded. "They're all excited to meet you, well," she smirked at him, "the ones that haven't met you yet."
"Ka?" Max asked. "Pi've met them chufore?" Rather than answer, Neb bobbed her head and kept her eyes mostly forward aside from several snide little glances. "C'mon!" Her mirth started rubbing off on him, and his facade of fury couldn't sustain past his growing smile. "Tell me!"
"You'll see," she sang with infuriating cheer. She had him so riled up, he barely heard the hurried thuds of pawsteps running toward him. The threat came from the side opposite Neb—of course, they'd started working together recently. She must've seen the threat approaching first.
The basket dropped carefully to the ground, and Max flashed his tail into iron. One swift motion turned him to face Sam—she was already airborne—as his tail stabbed into the ground behind him to brace for impact. Some bag flapped in his face, but he still caught her just in time, and she laughed up a storm while he tried to gasp in air to replenish the exertion. Kids grew fast; he didn't know how much longer he could keep this up. "Haha-how did you know?" she giggled.
"You really do have incredible reflexes," Neb said.
"Of course he does!" Sam cheered. "He beat Raikou!"
Max let her down with a grunt, and Neb looked at him with an amused smile. "You did?" she asked.
"He did!" Sam answered. She bounced up and down, cheering, "Tell her! Tell her! Tell her! Tell her!" over and over again.
Max looked sheepishly up at Neb while she looked at him expectantly, and Sam's cheers threatened to burn his cheeks off. "Well, y'see," he mumbled. His paws traced over each other, and he decided that made for a better sight than either of the other two pokémon. "...it's a long story, and we're kind of in a hurry."
The giggle coming from Neb barely made it to his ears past Sam's agonized groan of disappointment. "Don't worry, Sam," Neb said. "I'll make sure he tells all his new friends about how he beat the Legendary Beast presiding over his own element." He looked at her with pure terror that sent her into a laughing fit.
"Oh, okay," Sam said. All her agony had apparently left with that.
"W-well," Max mumbled. "I don't know if I remember all the details, y'know?"
Fret not; I can fill in when necessary.
It took all his self-control and then some not to shout at the voice. An insanity plea didn't have much of a chance of saving him from the current allegations. He bit his lip instead and looked down at Sam, finally addressing the bag that'd flapped in his face. Sam had never worn it before, and it looked eerily familiar. Dead memories clawed at the ground, threatening to dig themselves up. "What's that?" he asked.
Sam tilted her head before jumping up. "Yours!" she cheered. His expression made her keep bouncing from one paw to the other. "You recognize it! I knew it!" Max had to pull in a deep breath and bite his lip to force a smile. "I started making it a few weeks ago when I found out you saved the world since you didn't have the bag that you had in the book, but bags are really important for going into dungeons because if you don't have one you can't carry stuff, well I guess you can carry two things, but then you can't fight here!"
Thank God she talked too fast for Max to keep up, since it meant he got to bury his fears in the paragraphs she spewed every second. He held out his paws to take it, and started looking it over. Every seam, stitch, and strap widened his eyes with further surprise. She'd done an amazing job. He tried to come up with the words to say until he finally gave up and said, "Wow. This is incredible." It was too good. He felt a twinge of guilt about taking it. "Are you sure you want me to have it?"
Sam tackled him to the ground with a hug. "Of course I do!" she cheered. He started trying to choke breath back into his lungs, and then she squeezed the hug tighter. "Thanks for liking it!" Since he couldn't take in enough air to talk, he nodded instead. Her weight on him dwindled as Neb mercifully used her telekinesis to lighten the load. He finally took a full breath in, mouthed his thanks at Neb, and then squeezed Sam as tight as he could. They'd hardly known each other for a month, and she'd acted so sweetly to him that he almost felt guilty. The immense sweetness came with the sense he didn't deserve it.
For now, though, he shook the complications out of his head and kept hugging her, the bag laying right next to them. "Okay, bye," she said, releasing the hug and getting up before he had a chance to blink. "I didn't tell mom where I was going so I gotta get home before she does." She looked over at Neb and waved, "Bye, Neb!" and hightailed it home.
She'd already made it out of sight by the time Max had gotten back up. He picked the bag up again, looking over it while the memories clawed at his consciousness. As much time as he'd spent rejecting them when Neb or the voice brought them up, they kept coming to him in new ways, as if to enthrall and seduce him into remembering. The more he resisted, the more of a hold they had on his mind. That flower weeks ago, pokémon that itched with foreign familiarity, and now this bag that, despite never holding before, his paw had already found the hidden compartment in the back.
If you don't face your memories on your terms, they'll face you on theirs.
Max nodded, not certain if the voice had said it again, or if he'd remembered it saying such before. Either way, he shook himself out of his stupor and tossed the strap over his shoulder with novel, practiced ease. "How close are we to home?" he asked. Then, he saw the house barely more than twenty yards away.
"Tell me more about this encounter with Raikou," Neb said. Despite her joking tone, her eyes held concern. "You're usually relatively mature. Of all the ways I'd expect you to finally act your age, I wouldn't expect you making up stories about saving the world to impress a child."
Almost unbidden, the response, "I'm older than I look," hopped off his tongue. He didn't know what he'd meant by it, or how he'd said it with such conviction, but he did know he had a facade to put on. Turn away, shrug, smile, look back. "It's just to entertain her, y'know?" Max said with perfectly practiced confidence. The warm kneading in his chest made him flinch for a moment, but he recovered quick.
Neb nodded, keeping inquisitive eyes on him. "Like looking at the bag as if it gave you war flashbacks?" she asked. He tilted his head and shrugged before raising a brow. She took a deep breath and blew it to the side, fading the kneading away for him. "Max, listen." She relaxed her shoulders and let a concerned smile float onto her expression. "Is that why you don't want to remember?"
Max swallowed before he could stop himself. Despite Sam and the voice's insistence, he wasn't entirely convinced he was the same pikachu. His defenses fell as Neb approached and wrapped herself around him. The tantalizing insistence from the voice and Sam already made it hard enough to dismiss the idea. He didn't know if he could keep it up if Neb joined them.
"You're afraid you'll remember a life other than the pikachu that saved the world?" she asked.
Oh, perfect. His eyes popped open, and he nodded. "Y-yep—yeah!" he said. Neb's gaze gained a new dimension, letting him know that eagerness had closed his easy out. Still, he hoped against hope he could salvage it. "Y'know, it's just, with the scarf and stuff, I must've been a really boring guy to build my entire personality around being someone else. I think it's better to leave the slate clean and do a clean start."
His smile begged her to believe him, but Neb's eyes held disappointing news. "You're afraid you really are him, aren't you?" she asked. His facade shattered, and he deflated. Neb hugged him tighter to prop him up. "What if you are?" He didn't bother trying to give an answer he didn't have, so his eyes stayed trained on the ground. "What would it change?"
Max's face twisted into a scowl. "A lot?" he said. "I can't live with a weight like that on my chest! If I had to deal with that pressure, being someone like that, of course I'd—" he slammed his mouth shut before he could finish, but it was too late. His eyes glanced up at her against his will. Even her neutral, supportive expression felt too judgmental. The silence she left around them to air out the emotions suffocated him.
It's not a weight you need to carry alone.
A combination of the encouragement and Neb's embrace gave him enough strength to meet Neb's gaze, at least. "You'll still be you," she said. He tilted his head and waited for the point, so she put a paw on his shoulder. "You're a sweet pikachu that met with a terrible fate. Now, you're getting better."
Max looked at her paw, then back at her face while mulling the words over in his head. He wished the comfort worked, a pang of guilt fighting for his attention with the light kneading in his chest, but he couldn't even force a smile. Without any comfort coming, he shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know," he said.
She pat his shoulder again with that same comforting smile. "You don't have to," she said. "Just let the memories come." She stood back up, shaking off the bit of dirt that got in her fur during the hug. "If you do turn out to be the kid that saved the world, well," she looked down at him with an amused smile, "I guess you won't owe me quite as much as the others do."
Max couldn't laugh, but he managed to smile up at her. Whatever it took to get this over and done with. "Can we go, now?" he asked.
The basket hopped in front of him, and Neb's tail pet him from behind. "Sure," Neb said, getting a sigh of relief from Max. "We can talk about this more later." The bombshell as well as the basket dropped on him simultaneously, giving him no time to complain since he had to put all of his effort into staying upright.
"Chu!" he shouted, his best available attempt at rebellion. At least he didn't have to worry about it right at that second. He looked forward to the empty house, thought about maybe taking a nap or a bath since no one had likely arrived yet, and let out a sigh of relief (at least, as much of a sigh he could with the basket in his paws). "Clear off the kitchen table darling," he hummed. "'Cause on the kitchen table I must lie." Neb giggled and pushed the door open, he walked inside, and all his dreams of relaxation died at once.
"Well, look who finally decided to join us," a voice obscured by the basket boomed. Max shuffled over to the table and dropped the basket down to peek over it. A fraxure, and a vaguely familiar one at that. He'd stay hiding behind the basket for now.
"This is breaking and entering, Drake," Neb said.
"Door was unlocked!" Drake rebutted. "That means it's only entering, and that's not a crime of any kind." He crossed his arms with a self-assured smirk. Neb retorted powerfully by sticking out her tongue and getting to work on the food. "This what you're cooking for us?"
"Maybe," Neb answered. "Though, you'll have to exclude yourself from that us if you don't straighten up." She undercut the threat with a wink.
"Well, you should be careful with the potatoes," Drake said. He looked at Max's basket, then right into his eyes. "They're old enough that they're growing eyes." Max dropped down to hide his eyes from view. "And ears." He threw his ears flat against his head, and then Drake dealt the final blow. "And a tail."
Before he could pointlessly hide his tail as well, a new voice appeared barely a foot away from him, "You must be Piika!"
"CHU!" Max screamed and jumped away from the existential threat greeting him.
The illumise tried to introduce herself before he got off an attack when Drake shouted, "Oh no way, it's you!" Max looked over to him. "Lily, he's the little hornball that hit on me!" Max's eyes shot wide. No, that couldn't be why Drake looked familiar. He looked to Neb for help and received none beside her knowing grin.
"So you're the one who hit on my man?" Lily asked.
"Ch-chu!" Max denied while she closed in on him. As he shook his head, he saw Drake get up from his seat out of the corner of his eyes.
"Oh yeah, he definitely is," Drake said. Max had started shuffling away from Lily, so Drake flanked him from the opposite side. The two creeped closer, closing in around him until he had nowhere to flee.
"I can't blame you," Lily whispered with a titillating rasp. She used every inch of her height to intimidate, running a paw down his chest while looking down on him. "He's very big." She winked, and Drake sat down right next to him.
Drake's claw ran down his back, sending a shiver down his spine that it then followed. "He's so small, though," Drake whispered. Max tried not to think about how the scales running along his fur felt.
"That's the thrill of it, though, isn't it?" Lily asked. She pressed harder against his side, squishing a squeak out of him. "Besides," she leaned in to whisper directly into his ear, "he's big enough for me." Against all odds, that sentence proved Max could look even more terrified than he already did.
"Okay," Neb shouted. "That's enough, you two." Max could have offered his immortal soul in thanks to his savior until she finished with, "Save it for after everyone's here. I don't like my guests feeling left out."
Max's horrified whimpers got everyone else to laugh. "Calm down, little buddy," Drake chuckled. "We're just joking around, all right? No worries." He lifted Max and squeezed him into hug like one would a plushy. "You are pretty soft, though." The tantalizing size turned threatening, which paradoxically twisted all of Max's horror into frustration.
"I'd be careful teasing him," Neb warned. Drake turned to ask why when Max flashed his tail into iron and smashed it across his face.
Drake dropped him to rub his jaw, and Max hopped back to bring his tail up in front of him. "Okay," Drake said. "I deserved that." He put on a thin veneer of anger to dismiss it with a smile. Lily hopped on Drake's lap, and he placed a paw around her, incidentally revealing their matching bracelets. "Still working on speech, buddy?"
"Chu," Max said.
Lily giggled, and he realized he'd switched. "It's all right, Piika," she said. "I took a while, too."
Max took a breath, relaxed his tail, and shook out his nerves. "Kaaa-ee. A-ee. I can talk. I just slip, some times," he said. His cheeks burned with embarrassment, so he didn't look up at their presumably judgy expressions. "You took a while? How long?"
The question surprised Lily and confused Drake. "How'd you know it took her a bit?" Drake asked. He turned to Neb to ask, "Did you tell him?"
"What? No," Max interrupted. "She just told me, didn't you hear?"
"You understood that?" Lily asked.
Max joined in her confusion. "Yes?" he said. "Why wouldn't I?"
"That was poké-speak," Lily answered, as if the question hadn't been rhetorical. Max still didn't get it, so she went on. "Most of the others lost it completely after a few days. Me and Mandy are the odd ones out for keeping it, but even we can't understand each other." Her eyes shot open in excited realization. "Wait, that means," she hopped up and shouted, "I told you!" pressing a paw into Drake's chest. "I knew it wasn't just gibberish!"
Drake rolled his eyes. "All right, whatever," he whined. "What did we bet?"
Lily nearly started her list of demands, but then realized she'd forgotten it. "I… don't remember," she said.
"K-ka?" Max mumbled. He completely lost track of the conversation, and he'd sent it in this direction. Pika-speak had stayed with him for long enough that calling it only unintelligible yips was pure nonsense. "Did you need to lose a bet or something?" he asked.
Lily giggled. "Tell him!" she cheered.
Drake narrowed his eyes at Max who realized he didn't feel the slightest bit intimidated. "Think you're clever, Piika?" Drake asked, and Max realized he'd started smirking.
"Maybe," Max said. Finally comfortable enough, he grabbed a pillow and took a seat. "Oh, and it's Max."
Neb laughed, and floated a tray of veggies, chips, and various dips between them. "I was wondering how long it'd take you to tell them your real name," she said, sauntering over to grab a pillow of her own. "And how long it'd take you to stop acting so timid."
"Acting?" Lily asked.
"Oh yeah," Neb said with an exaggerated nod. "Don't let his size fool you. I think we finally found someone with as big a head as Drake."
"Hey!" Max and Drake shouted in unison, sending the girls into a fit of laughter.
"I take offense to that!" Drake went on with a fake sneer at Max. "I take great pride in my massive head." Max looked away, drooping his tail, flattening his ears, and digging his muzzle into his scarf to look as hurt as possible. Unfortunately, his scarf didn't hide his own smile very well.
"Oh I know," Neb managed through her laughter, then went on when it finally died down a bit more. "But do you think you saved the entire world?"
"Neb!" Max shouted. A spike of panic invaded his joy, but didn't destroy it like he'd expected.
"Oh, give him a break, Neb," Lily said. "It's a popular style of scarf."
Neb looked over at Max, his eyes begging her to leave it there. "I know," Neb said. She looked him over for a moment, and he realized too late he hadn't covered his smile. "But he's also told a nice little cubone about all his epic quests."
"Come on!" Max complained. He shriveled up at the embarrassment, yet still felt his smile fighting against his cheeks to grow wider.
"That reminds me," Neb said. Max looked at her with instant recognition. It was too late, he knew that, but still shook his head to beg for mercy. "You promised Sam you'd tell us about how you defeated Raikou, didn't you?"
"Please," Max begged. No mercy came, though, with everyone looking at him with rapt attention. As much as he wanted to feel mad, having his trust violated like this, he just couldn't. Of course he'd wanted Neb to keep this between them, but he still only managed token resistance to the idea. The taboo, touchy subject felt like any other incidental topic of conversation. Hell, he hadn't thought twice about pika-speak when it came up, and that embarrassed him to no end. Despite knowing these people for barely any time at all, he felt safe.
He shrugged and leaned in to grab a carrot. "I made it up for Sam… mostly," he said, dipping the (strangely shiny) carrot slice and bringing it back to his seat. "It wouldn't interest adults for more than a few seconds." A tingly warmth wrapped around his neck, and he unconsciously nuzzled into his scarf. It always felt comfortable, but suddenly it had become a warm embrace in the depths of winter. Only when he saw everyone else's wide eyes did he think twice about it, and looked down to see it glowing bright.
"How are you doing that?" Drake asked.
"I-I don't," Max said, but he couldn't finish. The memory of a scaled paw grabbed his own. He felt life return to his stone limbs, looked up to see a charmander's face and shook the memory away. The shock snapped his warm comfort into an icy chill, and his scarf faded back to normal. He held it up and watched as the last of the glow left it. The suspicions of where he came from solidified right before his eyes and, to his horror, in front of everyone else's eyes.
"Told you he had a big head," Neb said. Everyone else looked at her with confusion. "He did the same thing a week ago." Neb looked at Max and winked with the eye opposite Drake and Lily. "It's just a weak, prolonged version of flash."
Max swallowed all the complex emotions to save them for later and put on an exasperated frown. "Come on!" he whined. "You couldn't have gone along with it for at least a minute?" A quick glance betrayed his thanks to her without drawing the notice of either of the others in the room.
"I knew it was fake," Drake said.
"No you did not!" Lily argued through a laugh. "You're just mad there's a bigger ego than yours for once." She wrapped a paw around one of his claws, and a chiming announced both that Neb stood up, and that she'd put on a matching bracelet of her own.
"What are those?" Max asked.
"What was that, our amazing and humble savior?" Lily asked with a dangerously thick layer of sarcasm.
Max leered at her with a smile. "Those bracelets," he said.
"Oh, Mandy!" Lily said. She hopped off Drake and walked up next to Max. She took it off and dropped it into Max's waiting paw while he did his best not to assume the worst of her saying these were in some way the person she'd mentioned earlier. "She makes one for all of us. Aren't they neat?" Max let out a sigh of relief and looked it over. "She's a glass blower, and she engraves them with our names."
Several beads sat along side each other, connected by a sturdy string. They all had deeply colored glass, but somehow still managed to be perfectly clear, the only hints of a blemish the four that had 'Lily' written on them. "I hope she didn't put Piika on yours," Lilly giggled.
"I told her his name first chance I got," Neb said.
"I-I'm getting one?" Max asked.
"Of course you are!" Lily laughed. She wrapped her arms around him with a hug he didn't get a chance to refuse. "Welcome to the family!" Max froze for a moment, struggling to remember how hugs worked for a moment. Lily didn't seem to mind at all. She kept squeezing him until he figured out how to do the same. As well as squeezing back, he buried his head in the crook of her neck. Hugging, laughing, loving, he could get used to this.
The door slammed open. "Sorry I'm late!" shouted someone. Max didn't pay attention, too engrossed in the hug.
"Speak of the devil, look who it is!" Drake said.
"Late?" Neb chuckled. "The party starts in the afternoon."
Lily squeezed Max and tapped twice: the universal signal of "okay, that's enough," so he begrudgingly obliged. "If you're not there before the host, you're late," Lily said. "Speaking of, meet the mon of the hour!" The timing couldn't have been worse for Max; he'd just tossed the end of his scarf to dry them in case he'd accidentally let any tears out.
"You have got to be the worst at hiding," Drake laughed. Max yanked his scarf down and looked up at the new face.
A charmander. "Hey, Max!" Mandy said. His blood ran cold. He couldn't move at all. The warmth leaving his body felt like flesh turning to stone. Max knew she wasn't him, she barely looked like him at all aside from species, but his heart stopped nonetheless. "M-Max?" He couldn't hide his reaction, and now he'd hurt her. He knew it, so certain that he didn't bother looking at her eyes to find the hurt he already knew was there. Just another impossibly nice person he'd hurt.
"I-I," Max tried to force his petrified tongue to cooperate. Lily placed a concerned hand on his shoulder, but he shoved it off. Tears started clouding his vision. "I'm sorry." He wiped the tears away and ran to his room. Every memory he fought to bury finally dredged up from their premature graves.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" A full sob wracked through him. "Are you just that full of yourself? You have to make up shit about other people for an excuse to be an asshole?" He begged for stone to take over his fur, but none came. "I know this isn't you." The memory of a scaled paw resting on his shoulder cut his heart with dread. "But I can't just sit back and watch while you lash out like this." His throat trapped all the words he needed to say like it had before. "And if you won't tell me what's wrong, I can't help you."
Every second he'd spent with Neb ran through his mind, tinged with guilt at the lie he'd told her. He hadn't met with a terrible fate; he was the terrible fate. Every meal, bandage, healed wound wasted on him would have been better as garbage tossed after its expiration date. Every smile, laugh, hug rotted in his mind with guilt. A new bunch of people he'd tricked into seeing him as a friend instead of the monster he was. He bit his cheek until the metallic taste of blood coated his tongue.
Time to set things right.
Four knocks tapped the door. "Max?" Mandy asked from the other side. The door creaked open enough to peak her head through. "Can I come in?" Her face shifted and corrupted to that of his partner's. "Here, look." She nudged the door open a bit more to show a bowl in each paw, one with carrots and the other with dip.
His throat cinched shut. He couldn't speak. Didn't want to speak. He took a deep breath and nodded. She flashed him a thankful smile and carefully stepped forward. Tears started clouding his vision. He blinked them away and bit his cheek. Maybe he could bleed more resolve into himself.
When she passed the middle of the room, her eyes popped open. "Oh right," she mumbled, and stepped back to the middle. The care in her expression as she watched him ripped his heart open. He didn't want to do this. But he knew he had to.
You don't.
Max ignored the voice and nodded. "Thanks!" Mandy said before apparently remembering something. "Sorry," she started whispering. "Thanks." She was taking the same steps Neb had before their first meeting. He watched as she took a few more careful steps forward and put both bowls down in front of him. She sat down, and he took a carrot. "I know it's tough."
He raised a brow at her and dipped the carrot before eating it. "Recovery," she continued. "I'm always afraid I'm slipping back. Sometimes the instincts start up, and it's really hard to resist the temptation." A blight of shame blocked the light in her eyes. "It's all too much sometimes, and I miss retreating to that place. All my worries faded away, and I don't even think enough to think twice."
A wet slime of her regrets coated his ribs. "But when I did, I'd end up doing more things I wanted to forget," she said. She looked back up at him with a new sprinkling of tears in her eyes. "It's addicting." Her paw moved to grab her wrist. "Isolating."
She clicked a claw against a bracelet that matched everyone else's. "That's why I make these," she said with a smile, and pulled a little drawstring pouch out from behind her. "This one's yours." His paw went to take it from her's against his will. "We're always here for each other, but we're not always together. These are just little reminders when the itch comes."
Max dumped the bracelet out of the bag and into his paw. Five beads, alternating black and yellow with 'Piika' etched in red letters. "I was actually late because I forgot to etch beads with your real name," she chuckled. "They're in the bottom of the bag." When he squeezed the bag to feel them there, she put a paw on his shoulder. "When you feel like a monster, or alone, just know that you've got people here who care. Whatever happens, we'll do whatever we can to help."
Tears clouded his vision when he looked up. He could barely tell if her face was there. He wanted to push her away, needed to make her leave and never come back, but he couldn't. The scaled paw on his shoulder, the hurt smile that wanted to help, her open vulnerability all swirled in his mind with toxic memories he'd already abused into excuses for his isolation. He wanted to scream and tell her the monster he really was, show her how evil he really was, but she hadn't done anything wrong. She'd been nothing but kind. She didn't deserve it, and he couldn't bring himself to do it.
So, he dumped every part of himself beneath instincts and let them take over. The friend comforting him left, and a charmander invading his territory took her place. A tackle, a scream, a barrage of attacks all vanished in the passage of time. No matter how deep he hid his consciousness, though, he could never suppress the pure horror on her face during his assault. An overwhelming drowsiness took him over, and his consciousness faded into sleep.
"Don't speak of Golden Dreams, there's no time.
You know this time it's over."
Max ran his claws along the bandages on his paws, counting the wraps again and again, squeezing them to feel the pain. A reminder of what he'd done. Who he was. He didn't let himself forget it and ran through every second he could remember to burn it into his mind. Now they knew who he really was, and he wouldn't let himself forget again.
He squeezed his paws hard enough to stab his claws through the bandages. It hurt. The pain clenched his eyes shut, giving his memory free reign to run through his mind again. A warm kneading ripped into his chest, so he opened his eyes and saw Neb standing in the doorway. "What?" he barked.
"Checking in," she said, stepping through the doorway. "Don't torture yourself for making a mistake."
His mouth twisted into a scowl, and he shot a leer at her. "Mistake?" he asked. "What do you think happened?"
While she hid any visual reactions perfectly, he felt her kneading concern build. "You lost control, and instincts took over," she said. "You're not the first to relapse during a support meeting." Max's tail rose unconsciously as she approached, so she took one step back and sat. "You're not even the first to attack Mandy," she said with a dark smile. She shifted to the side and stretched her neck to show deep slashes of scar tissue beneath her fur. "That was Drake." She turned back to face him. "It's part of the job."
A mix of anger and terror flooded his mind and ripped at his heart. He clenched his jaw and ripped his gaze away from her. She still wanted to help him. "I didn't lose control," he said. "I," a quiver entered his voice, and he didn't bother hiding it, "I gave it up."
Neb tilted her head. "What do you mean?" she asked.
Tears started to flood Max's eyes, so he slammed them shut to force a scowl of anger. "I wanted to attack her, so I did," he said. He prepared for her anger to give him a headache, but it never came.
"If you wanted to," she said, "then you wouldn't have had to retreat into instinct to do it." He looked back at her in rage, and more tears sprinkled into his eyes. "So, tell me," she slumped down to prepare for a longer discussion, "Why'd you do it?"
Max clenched his jaw hard enough to weld his teeth together. "Because I'm a monster!" he screamed. He stood up, squeezing his forepaws tight enough to throb more pain into them. "I remembered everything just like you wanted!" He pointed at her and tried to yell louder than the pain creeping into his voice. "I remember who I am, and I'm someone who hurts people if they get close!" Tears flowed freely down, and he didn't bother trying to stop them. "You should've let me die in that dungeon!"
Neb didn't flinch once during his tirade. She sat perfectly still, not once moving to interrupt him. The silence left every word out in the open to bake. She watched as his guilt dissolved his anger, and finally intervened. "You've been a nice person this entire time," she said. "What you've done, what you're running from, it doesn't have to be who you are. You can get better."
She stretched her legs, stood up, and walked over. Max raised his tail to start pulling in a charge, but she didn't hesitate to put a paw on his shoulder. "Go ahead," she said. "You saved the world, beat Raikou, and killed Dark Matter. Surely you can dispatch me with ease."
Every word stung his ears. He charged enough to send sparks flying off his cheeks, turned his tail to iron to conduct even more, but the attack wouldn't come out. "That it?" he spat. "You feel obligated to forgive me because of that?" He slapped her paw off him and stepped back.
"No," Neb said. She placed her paw down without any sign that he'd hurt her at all. "I wouldn't care if you were Dark Matter. I care about you because you're my friend, and have been for months now." Every word she spoke jabbed into his defenses, but he forced himself to cover them back up. She met his leer with care, not once faltering against its weight.
Finally, she smiled and leaned in to nuzzle him. "We can talk again once you've calmed down," she said. She left, but stopped halfway through the door. "Oh, and Mandy wanted me to make sure you knew we put your bracelet in that bag Sam made for you."
The door shut, and Max collapsed into a sobbing mess. Their kindness felt like his failure. Every second they cared about him put them in danger. He couldn't bear the risk. His sobs went on long after he exhausted his tear ducts, and it tore his soul apart that he couldn't hide them from Neb. He pressed his paws painfully into each other.
It didn't matter anymore. He needed to leave. And he needed to burn any chance he had to come back.
"Acting on regrets, acting on regrets,
Acting on regrets."
"Well maybe relationships aren't something you can understand," Max said. Even the moon had fled to shield its gaze from that night's darkness.
Perhaps I don't, but I can understand you with ease.
He sneered at the air. "So, you understand why I can never come back?" he whispered. No one else could know he had done this, or else Neb and everyone else would have to face the consequences.
Cute.
Anger shook down his spine.
You may have convinced yourself of the lie, but you haven't convinced me.
"What lie?" he asked. He looked around the entrance, every inch covered in dried leaves, and twigs. About as much as he could get in one night. Looking it over one last time, he tugged some of the bigger branches out. They might cause actual damage if they caught fire.
You're not protecting anyone but yourself. Just like always, you're too much of a coward to open up and let others care for you.
Max bit his cheek, tearing right into a now familiar wound.
People want to help you, and you can't stand the thought that you're wrong.
"Shut up," he growled.
You decided everyone should hate you, and it maddens you that no one else will play along with your fantasy.
"Stop." He dropped five lettered beads onto the ground beneath him, tears splashing on top.
This will prove nothing but your dedication to hating yourself.
The slightest trickle of doubt entered his mind, and he instantly shocked the kindling to light the fire. Flames tore the darkness out of the night, and he felt his paws glued to the grass. He needed to run, let it burn, but he couldn't. His paws brought him to the emergency bell in the center of town, and he ran from there.
See? You'll never be the monster you tell yourself you are.
Max ignored Dark Matter and ran until his lungs burned for air, then ran another mile. The woods before him shifted slightly in the night. A few more steps, and he'd be back.
A new life to forget living?
His claws pressed into his pawpads. "No," he mumbled. "I'm not making that mistake again." Forgetting had led him here. Forgetting had brought him to new people to hurt. Forgetting only numbed the pain enough for him to hurt more. He turned away from the dungeon and trudged on. Memory weighed on him as he walked, and he let it drape around him. His only company would be the echoes of people he'd tricked into calling him a friend.
(A/N: Hey, I've been pretty consistent in the weekly update schedule, but heads up because that might not stay. I've recently found out I need to find a new place to live in two weeks, so I might update a bit later. Still, I'll do my best. Hope you understand. Thanks for reading. Hope you like it. Lemme know what you think, it'd mean a lot.)