Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

A/N: As always, thanks to those who read, put it on their favorites, and reviewed it. You guys are awesome. This chapter is a little on the short side, compared to the eight others, but hopefully no less enjoyable. Oh, and a new character will be introduced.

Back To Pallet Town

The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who,
in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.

I set the city on fire and saved it in the process.

Chalk one up for the good guys. Oh, yeah.

Not really. Life is seldom fair. Live and learn, and do it fast, 'cause this life is not an easy one.

Innocence is always and forever the first thing that goes flying during a time of crisis. You see, in my humble experience, normal people are never more or less than what society demands them to be, merely reflections of the norms and standards weighted down on them throughout their entire lives. If a man has to portray a fucktard of a business man to survive, he will portray that business man to perfection, if a woman has to portray a shrieking bitch to go unnoticed in the crowd, then she will be the fucking loudest bitch of 'em all, man.

Rule one if you want to blend in: make a mask of the most unlikeable, unsociable loser you can come up with, and everybody will ignore you, turn their gaze the other way, or pretend you aren't really there – sometimes they will make fun of you, of course, but that's okay. They don't know who you really are, anyway, so why would it matter shit what they thought, right. Basic human instincts right there, man, always look out for your own.

Why do you think we got this far out of proportions? You think the wars were started because we got greedy, because we founded those wars based on our want for more wealth – oil – in the past? Well, a little of the way, yeah, that's correct. But no, of course it isn't that simple. It is much, much simpler.

We stopped caring.

We stopped giving a flying fuck about each other – as long as we got our fair share, then everybody else could go fuck themselves, right. And I don't mean the wars or the unnecessary bloodshed, not entirely, at least. I mean the common people, the Jane's and the Joe's on the street. We are, as a species, getting more and more cold, calculating, and blind for every day.

Society demands no less of us, of course. Either you stick with the way things are or you get consumed and shipped off to a far-away island never to be seen, or heard, again. True story, that.

You wake up every morning, go to the bathroom, look into the mirror, choose what kind of mask you want to portray today – angry, happy, sad… you name it, I got it – then you submerge yourself into that mask, and then you hide behind it. And you never let anybody in. Because that's dangerous, right? What dark and hidden intents can possibly lay behind those warm, friendly eyes?

Look me in the eyes and tell me it isn't like that. Think about it… just think about it. Think about your own life, man. Have you never, in your entire life, felt like you were just bullshitting your way through the days of your life?

Not everyone is like that, mind you, some people are smart enough to see that we dug our own graves a long time ago, and are currently only two steps away from it. But those people are also people who are doing well for themselves, those are people who sit behind their TV or computer screen and bitch about the unfairness and hardness of the world they see round them; a world they're not really a part of – merely a lesser reflection.

But that's as far as they dare to go, because they might be the good guys, but they wouldn't dare to actually risk their lives for a cause, or risk their wealth for something where chances are you're gonna lose everything.

We don't want justice – not really. We just kinda want it.

We don't want to be told the truth about ourselves – we just want to be told enough about ourselves to justify who, what, and how we have done things in our lives.

The truth is we voted for that Gym Leader, the truth is we turned a blind eye when someone was getting robbed in the middle of the street. In broad day light. The truth is we are just a bunch of cowards, talking big but doing nothing because we don't want to get our hands dirty, or because we are afraid that we might end up losing something.

Everybody can see when someone is doing something wrong.

Everybody can see what it will lead to.

Yet nobody does anything.

We stopped caring about anybody but ourselves. And the saddest thing is, I can't remember it ever being differently. I can't remember a time when our clever inventions were made to help humanity. As a fucking whole. Not just the selected few who talked bullshit and got voted into some office that nobody really gives a shit about.

But some people do remember, Drew. Have you never heard old people talk about the good ol' days where everybody was much nicer and helpful toward each other? I don't know if it's just wishful thinking on their part, or if it really was like that…

But do you wanna know something? Something from the deepest, most secretive part of my cold, calculating, and deceitful heart. It gives me courage to know that people at least still believes in those things. It gives me hope. And I know that hope can be a two-edged sword, but right now, when we are so far over the edge, I'll take every little glimmer of hope I can get.

You see, during the fight with Monsters, and Lance and his League Pals, I saw something unsettling. I saw humanity on the edge of the abyss, and we made it ourselves, Drew. I saw people, with the power to do good – and – they – fucking – didn't. Out of fear or out of indifference, I do not know, but does that really matter? The end result is the same. Lance, however big a cunt he is, at least tries, you know, at least he is willing to stick his neck out and try some. Though not against Giovanni. We don't wanna do anything too hasty, right.

Sorry? What? Kids? You have – really? You really want to ask me if I have ever considered getting kids? Me! That's the stupidest, most outlandish question anybody has ever asked me, man. Here I am, working myself up in a tone of self-righteous, glorious, freedom-inspiring speak of motivation for the indomitable strength of the human spirit, and you just up and ruins it with fucked-up crazy-talk of getting children!

I mean, really! Didn't my speak move even a little of that needy brains you got going for ya, huh?

No. No! Forget about it, my little gremlin; let's just get back to the story.

By the Master's above as my witness… do you hear me sigh?

…Beneath the starry sky and twinkling Legends to be.

I'd saved the city – I'd won.

I blinked awake, seeing nothing but darkness around me.

I felt asleep, and then I awoke again, fighting for my consciousness.

I basked in the sun. No. I didn't. I was submerged in mercurial water, floating on nothing but my wits and good, honest intentions. The world round me was… unimportant, without meaning. I was submerged in terrible, real darkness and blinking red lights – and nothing else mattered.

You never truly know yourself until you know what it means to be truly alone, you know? Of course you don't, Drew. But I was alone in the waters. Alone with nothing but my thoughts speaking to me.

My energy, my Aura, my will for life had been drained for the day, it seemed, and left me cold and alone in the dark waters of the ocean. I was in a state of stupor, somewhere between unconsciousness and consciousness. Memories were flashing through my flaccid and wrecked psyche, unwrapping it to my gaze like a present for the Masters above.

I was back, back on the lane of bittersweet remembrance. There is nothing as cruel as memory – nothing as unrelenting. Nothing as haunting. And when you face those things, the sums of all you have ever been, the dreams of all you could ever imagine, the nightmares of all your failures, you get drawn into something that you can either cry about, or use to work toward new heights, towards new things – to reach for the stars…

I saw a shooting star once, you know, flashed right past me and into the whatever… and I dreamed that I could just lift my hand and… pluck it right out of the sky, revel in its glory like I was something – something – extraordinary, and have my name written among the stars.

I was seven.

Now, I'm twenty-four, and I just saw a shooting star again, I think. I was, after all, submerged deep beneath the waters. And I found the old dream returning to me. But it was just a dream. And the shooting star really could have been anything. It could have been masked by the quivers of the mercurial waters; it could have been a fragment of my imagination. It could be a giant Pokémon swimming toward me, looking like it had every intention to eat me as I floated closer and closer to the bottom of the ocean.

It could be a motherfucker of a Wailord, man – the most bigass thing I've ever seen.

Turned out it was a Wailord, and it was floating so gracefully in the water, like you wouldn't believe it, Drew. The funny thing was I knew a thing or two about those enormities. I knew that they could go for years without any food. For years, Drew. That's a pretty long time, you know. I also knew that it was too big for its own good, at least if it got out of the water. Heh… they can't survive it. They're too heavy. Their bones will snap, their muscles will fry off like an overheated computer, and they will be stranded all flaccid-looking.

That's actually kinda cool to watch.

I'm not a morbid bastard…

They were made for water, though, not for ground, which is why no trainer ever tries to get one. Well, that and the fact that its fucking huge.

This one looked like it was ready for its yearly meal; its mouth completely agape and sucking in water and mud and everything and going straight for me. And then there was the sound it emitted. It echoed in the ocean, reaching every corner of every part of the world, or that was what it felt like, at least. And I was alone. Just so alone-

"ASH! Are you alive?" Oak yelled from the other side of the comm.

-Or not.

"Yeah," I breathed, my pulse suddenly pounding something fierce, and I swear to you, it was like waking up from a nightmare. The world made sense, the strange red light that kept flicking off to the side of my visor made sense, and the smooth, silky, almost cruel voice that kept whispering danger definitely made all kinds of bad sense.

I was still kicking, man, and I was still in the fight.

I took a deep breath and prepared to start spamming those muscles again. Yeah, bitch! But that breath gave me pause for two seconds – how the fuck was I breathing under water? – but then my brains worked again and I started kicking and screaming for the surface and the starry sky above.

The suit was at work, and that was not to question. Not now, at least.

It turned out that the Wailord didn't really want a fight. The moment it saw me start moving, it stopped its pursuit of me, closed it eyes, and emitted a sound that suggested long suffering. Maybe it wasn't that hungry, after all.

Five seconds after I started moving again, five seconds where I swam faster than I ever have in my entire life, I broke through the surface, groaning as hot lances of pain ran down my spine from my chest. Somehow, against all rational reasoning, the Poké Ball I'd caught Fearow with was still in my hand.

"Oak," I said, admiring the orange glow on the sky as the sun slowly started to rise, "think you can give me a ride out of here?"

I heard him sigh and rustled with some stuff on the other side. "I'll send Charizard to your location immediately. It should be there in a couple of hours."

"Great." I lay back and floated on the surface, preparing myself for the long wait, the sounds of sirens from Saffron City ringing in the background. "This, I did."

I dried my forever unruly hair with the towel and wrought it round my waist, stepping out of the side-bathroom and into Oak's lab. He sat by his desk, typed something on his computer, fingers drumming lightly along the keyboard, and studied my every move at the same time.

He looked concern – as always these days. "That doesn't look good, Ash."

I nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly, and looked down my chiseled and bruised chest. The Hyper Beam had done more damaged than I'd realized during the fight. The suit probably had something to do with it. The black skin – as dark as the darkest hole – covered most of my chest and stung like a motherfucker of all pains. "It isn't…"

"What did that?"

I met his eyes. "A Hyper Beam," I said, "from a Dragonite."

Oak looked away, unnerved, and focused back on his computer screen. "Well, doing your… lapse to insanity." He sent me a scratching look, and I bowed my head, suitably cowed for the time. "You did manage to do something useful and bring me a test subject."

"Yeah, about that," I replied, walking toward him and leaving a train of water on the cold, steel floor. "Why did you suddenly want me to catch one of the controlled Pokémon?"

He gestured to the scanning machine beside his computer. "You wouldn't know any of this, Ash, but a Poké Ball is installed with its own artificial DNA-code, and that code, upon capture, binds with the target. After the capture is done, the DNA implants itself with the Pokémon's, effectively – depending of the trainers skills, will, and DNA comparability with the Pokémon – binding the Pokémon, in some way or form to the trainers will."

I blinked, that was news to me, but the Ring on my finger seemed to love the new information given, throbbing almost contently. I had a feeling I would never forget what Oak had just told me. That was kinda awesome but mostly just horrifying.

"That's all good and well," I said, frowning, holding back a grimace of pain because my chest was starting to close up and block my windpipes. "But what's that got to do with the Fearow?" I paused, suddenly thinking of something. "And for the Poké Ball to bind the Pokémon's DNA to the trainer's, wouldn't it need a DNA sample of the trainer, as well?"

Oak's eyes lighted up like Christmas came early. "That's correct, Ash – how very astute of you. I didn't know you had that in you."

"Well…" I trailed off, not sure how to tell him that the Ring once again throbbed like mad and probably had something to do with my new insightfulness. "…I guess I have so surprises in me."

He nodded. "You are absolutely right, of course. A Poké Ball steals some of your DNA whenever you use it for capture…" He ended his answer there and studied me, almost expectantly, like he was waiting for me to finish the sentence.

He'd never done that before.

I jumped like a good school kid for the invite, though. "The touch on the button, of course," I said, almost eagerly, snapping my fingers, and driven by my new understanding of things. "There is a scanner on the button, right, which scans your finger every time you enlarge the Poké Ball. When you enlarge the Poké Ball, it stores your DNA with its own, and then it captures the Pokémon and, like you said, binds it to the DNA – simple and effective."

Oak was impressed. "Right again, Ash – you know, if you had just tried a little harder in school we could have made a fine, honest man out of you."

I laughed, really not sure if I should feel insulted or proud. "Not sure that's my thing, considering…" I gestured with my head to the silent TV hanging on the far-away wall. It showed the news, of course, and with the latest updates from the showdown in Saffron. According to Oak, May was on TV some time ago, as one of the first living reporters on the scene, and had gotten some pretty sweet screen time. "A quiet, honest life seems pretty far away now."

Oak sighed, all happiness evaporated like smoke from his face. "I suppose that's right. At least nobody found out who you are – and May didn't tell them anything, either."

I frowned. "Of course she didn't."

"What – oh…" Oak lifted his hands, suddenly looking like he was ready to make a run for it. "I didn't mean it like that, son. It's just, seeing you with that – that thing on… it's weird."

I shook my head, to tired and in too much pain to argue May's case. "Well, you still haven't told me what the Fearow is gonna help us. It can't have been caught by another Poké Ball, otherwise mine wouldn't have worked."

Oak jumped at the subject. "It's not, but maybe that doesn't matter. The Pokémon exhibited a fair amount of signs that they were indeed under someone's control during the fight. At first I thought that maybe they weren't controlled by one man, but that they were all simple just captured Pokémon doing the bindings of multiple evil men."

I sighed. "Again – I wouldn't have been able to use my Poké Ball on the Fearow."

"Exactly, Ash, exactly," Oak said, not bothered by my tone. "Which disproves that theory, of course. So that meant the Pokémon were controlled by something other than simple Poké Balls."

"And you think that device can find what or who is doing it?"

"No idea," Oak said cheerfully, looking happy for the challenge. "But I think so – these Pokémon were bound by something, Ash, and that enslavement will almost always leave some mark behind…" He paused, and I looked at the scanning device, seeing the infrared lights flashing over the box containing the Poké Ball. It was in the middle of a no doubt highly advanced, highly classified, and highly illegal scanning of the Fearow inside. Oh, don't worry; we weren't hurting the poor thing. Arceus knew it had already suffered enough. "…A mark just waiting to be found."

What? Oh, that's right. You guys can't see infrared. Well, I can – surprise.

Anyway, I had nothing to say to that and it didn't really matter either way because my throat just contradicted on me, and suddenly my windpipes were blocked and I was down, man, grasping for air like a fish above water.

"Ash? ASH!"

There was no memory lane this time, no excruciating pain to endure.

I just blacked out, the pain of the fight finally leaving me.

I felt like one big déjà vu.

We have the capability, technology and man power to explore space, to leave our little planet and discover what's out there. We have the power to explore what's never been explored and with new technology to leave our galaxy and go beyond Earth. We're just one planet in one galaxy. Astronomers find there are billions of other galaxies out there with trillions of planets. We could discover them, find life, find answers to so many questions we have.

But it seems money and greed holds us back from doing it. We'd rather play the game of power here on our little planet and kill each other in pointless wars, be distracted by media and live our lives in a little box. We are a small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those Gym Leaders and tyrants so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot, never becoming conscious enough on the wide scale to realize, we're all humans. We are the great cosmos, star stuff; we are the basic particles that formed this planet in the first place. We should all be on the same team.

We are the rulers of this planet, the mightiest species of Earth. Our innovation brought us to this point, our capability to think beyond the box, to explore what has never been explored before, to make the unknown known is our greatest accomplishments.

I mean, look at me, look at the Suit, Drew; it was designed, if you can actually believe it, by the Gods and would-be-Gods of another realm of another Time of another galaxy of another dimension all together. And we're catching up to this technology. We might not be there yet, but someday in the not-so-distant-future we will.

And wouldn't that be the greatest?

Yes, of course it would be the greatest if technology like this would be available for all, of course it would help make a lot of lives a lot easier, and of-fucking-cause it would save a tremendous amounts of people. Every. Single. Day.

We are still evolving, still pushing the laws of physics. One day we will be able to teleport matter across Time and Space, one day we will be able to bend the rules of Time and journey backward or forward. Hell, for all I know, we might be closer than any of us thinks and the governments are just not sharing. And that, in its core, is the biggest problem.

You see, as long as some people hold all the power like that, as long as some people sit on their dastardly asses, playing dumb for the sake of not revealing a weakness or new discovery to the enemy, we will never be able to move beyond, never be able to step out of the shadow cast by our deceitful hearts and truly reach for the stars above, the unseen and the unbound.

I was meant to inspire goodness in the hearts of men, Drew. That was all I ever wanted. Not fight wars on all sides, that's just a mask, man, that's just me trying to cope with the enormous responsibility I've been bestowed with. But I am but one man in a never-ending ocean of lives and existences. I am far greater than anything you could ever imagine, anything you could ever hope to fathom, but I am still only a human being going up against the enormity of creation.

We have the power to explore unknown territory of unseen, foreign planets in unseen, foreign galaxies, but before we can do that, we need to start saving our own, or maybe the answer of all our good and honest intention gone awry lies above us…

Maybe we should all look to the stars.

"You never said what's he's been up to, Professor…?"

"Believe me, Serena." Oak sighed. "You wouldn't believe me if I said it."

I heard 'em talking from afar, man, heard them roll it and throw it. Oh, yeah. I'd lost coconsciousness. Again. That was starting to get a little embarrassing. Nothing to it, I just had to roll with the flow – know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

"I still can't believe he is actually alive," Serena said, caressing my cheek, or I hoped it was her. If it was Oak I wouldn't know what to do, I think. But oh, that felt so good and so sinful at the same time, a right clouded in a wrong. "I thought he went away to, you know…" She trailed off; even with my eyes closed I could imagine her tearful gaze on me. "The last time I saw him, he looked so angry – so vengeful."

A silence clung to the heart of us, right above and beside and inside of me. I didn't want to break it, didn't want to open my eyes and announce my reentry to the world of the living. Serena was a different temper than May, not quite as rough and short, but she had a mean streak when the Devil took her. Mostly, I was afraid she was gonna cry. I'd never been good with that.

Why did she love me again?

And that was the saddest part of it all. I knew Serena loved me – always would. I knew her feelings for me far more surely than I knew May's, because even to a stumbling idiot like me, that kind of love was as obvious as the sun on a cloudless day.

And I know it's bad, Drew, like really bad and wrong of me, but I've never been able to turn my back on any of the two, never been able to reject one and choose another. May and Serena… two completely different girls with two completely different personalities, and I loved them both. Equally.

I was in love – double over.

Have you never been in love with two guys at the same time?

What? You're not gay? Look, c'mon, there is nothing wrong with it, you can admit it to me – we are all alone in this dungeon. Well, if you can forget about the fact that there is a fuck ton of Gym Leaders and Elite Four members on the other side of the window. Seriously? Not gay?

Oh well. Shocks on me, then. Well, have you ever been in love with two girls at the same – are you sure you're not gay? Then why the fuck do you continue to flick that hair at me like that – even after I told you I would snap you hand off the next time you did it?

Never mind, you've never been in love with two women at the same time, then? Of course you haven't, because that would be morally wrong, and mommy and daddy raised a perfectly well-mannered boy scout.

Serena sighed, still caressing me. "Look, Professor, I'm not stupid – I've seen the footage of last night. I can connect the dots."

"Then you'd know that we have a highly delicate operation going for us here, sweetheart" I said, sitting up and unplugging myself from the tubes and stuff. The healing machine, usually operated on Pokémon only, stopped flashing and went cold. "We're, in this moment, the only ones doing anything about what could prove to be the greatest threat we've ever encountered."

Serena looked at me unblinking, not registering my words, like she was trying hard to believe I'd just woken up like that. That was kinda the reaction I'd hoped for – so chalk one up for me. Then she gasped and threw her hands round my naked waist, squeezing what little life right out of me.

"Ouch," I groaned, keeping a swear word or two back. Motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker, I thought instead, just to even it out. "Careful, Serena, still a little tender here."

"Shut up and hug me back," she said. She did, however, lessen her hold significantly.

I lifted my arms and held her. Ah, to die in the arms of sweet love and forget…

The moment stretched into the next, and I didn't let go, didn't want to let go. She was one of two lights in this terrible world of mine, and I was far too selfish to let any of that go to someone else.

But finally the pain in my chest got to demanding and I released her, already missing the way her soft curves pushed against my naked chest. I was a touch desperate, perhaps. I braved a peek down my body and – surprise-surprise – my black-hole-of-a-wound didn't look nearly as black as before.

"I called Serena after you collapsed," Oak offered, noting my gaze. "That was ten hours ago, so… I had to be a little creative in the meantime…"

"You put me in the Pokémon Respirator." I laughed a hearty chuckle at that. "Sounds oddly fitting, don't you think?"

Oak smiled a little. "I did find it a little… ironic – and it worked wonders on you."

"Well, my good doctor," I said, turning to Serena, who had been observing me and the old man closely. "What is my condition?"

"Beyond insanity?" she jested, though she sounded serous as a heart attack. She must have seen last night then. "Not really sure – you body is regenerating faster than anything I've ever seen before."

Of course it does, I thought. "Faster than a Pokémon?"

She nodded. "Faster than anything I've seen," she repeated. "When I got here, you body had already healed so much I couldn't tell what the injury was."

"Awesome," I replied, jumped out of the bed – really happy all of a sudden that Oak had put some boxers on me while I was out of it – and started going toward the bathroom.

Serena made the proverbial glance down my body, but, to her credit, almost didn't show any signs, beyond a little blush, of it affecting her. "You've worked out," she said, a teasing glint in her eye. "Not the scrawny little kid anymore, huh?"

"Hey!"

So… a shit, a quick brush of my teeth, and some clothes on my well-worked body later, and I were good to go again. Well, except for the pushy pain in my chest-level, but that was workable for now. The lab was empty when I left the side-bathroom, but the door to the rest of the house was open, and I could hear voices and laughter and smell some kind of insignificant food waffled through the air.

I sought out the party.

I hadn't really had time to appreciate the finer things in Oak's grand manor. He was a wealthy man, and had built that wealth up with an enormous expertise in anything Pokémon. Maybe I could do the same when I got old and grey, or maybe not. What was my expertise in anything? Fight and war, perhaps? Yeah, sure, fight and war.

I am a pioneer of war.

With the way things were going right now, I probably wouldn't make it till I was old and grey anyway.

I reached the living room. Serena and Oak were laughing quietly to themselves, sharing a cup of tea, it seemed. For the first time, I had a chance to admire the beauty of her.

And I, of course, took that chance gladly.

She was so lithe. Always the first thing I noted. So small. She went to my chest, at most. She had long light-brown, bordering on blond, hair, kept in a ponytail today, which could reach all the way down to her waist if she let out of it. Like May, funnily enough, she had deep, startling blue eyes. She was dressed in a black tank-top, which showed nothing but a peak of her cleavage, and a red skirt, which ended a little above her knees and revealed her creamy pale legs that I wished would go on forever. They didn't and she wore some simple black sandals on her delicate feet.

She was just as breathtakingly beautiful as May Hutton.

Had it really only been last night I was fighting against the unbound madness and insanity of controlled Pokémon?

I swallowed a lump in my throat, thanking the Masters above that I wasn't caught staring this time, and made my presence known to the room by clearing my throat loudly.

The talking seized and I found two pairs of eyes on me. I searched for a friendly, at-ease smile and found it easily. "Hello," I said and paused, searching for something cool and sophisticated to say. "I got dressed."

Yeah, small talk – not really my thing. Nope.

Serena offered me a smile for my efforts, though, lighting up the whole room. "Yes, much better." Her smile turned to concern. "How are you feeling, Ash?"

"Better," I replied, walking fully into the room and sitting down in the unoccupied soft chair. "Better than I've any right to, at least."

Oak blinked. "I don't follow."

"You both saw the footage, right?" I asked them. They nodded. "Then you saw the Hyper Beam hit me directly in the chest." I paused, shaking my head like I was trying to rid my mind of all the dark thoughts I had. "It should have killed me – I barely staggered."

"Ash," Serena said hesitantly, leaning forward in her seat. "What is that – that thing you wore last night? Professor Oak wouldn't say much, but from what I could grasp…"

"Things are pretty messed up," I finished and nodded. "It's a – power-suit, generated by my Aura-"

"Your Aura!"

I took it from the top. And I took it all the way down to the bottom. I explained to her, as I did with Oak, the how's, the why's, and the when's – and with all the grizzle little details that I could conjure. I told her about Riley, about the training I had to endure. She was more compassionate than Oak about that. And then I told her about the Tree of Beginning, or the Tree of Time and Space, or whatever the hell it was.

Then I told her about the suit and how I got it.

"He died?" she breathed, a hand held to her heart.

"Yeah." I nodded, no sugarcoating it here. "He died."

We turned to lighter stuff not long after that, clearly Serena didn't want to ruin the happy reunion with unhappy, cruel memories. And I could once again bask in the moment of being with a loved one. I could be myself, a little at least, and just sit back and enjoy it all.

"…and then my mother said-"

KNOCK!

KNOCK!

KNOCK!

I blinked, caught off guard. I'd been lulled to some kind of false security by Serena's presence, thinking that darkness couldn't come knocking on my parade any moment. I stood up, rigid and in a fighting stance, and readied myself to say the code to the Suit.

My vision turned blue, as did the world round me, and I tracked the sound of the knocking back to the door and the source.

Then, like somebody had decided to punch me in the face with a sledgehammer, I felt all fighting spirit and Aura leave me. It was unthinkable. It simply couldn't happen to me. I'd just saved an entire city from getting burned up and this was my reward? This!

No. No guy, however big a bastard he was, deserved that.

May Hutton was standing on our doorstep, still clad in her revealing red dress.

I was about to stop Oak from opening the door, about to convince them both that we should be silent and let whoever at the door think we weren't home, but Oak was already at the door, had already opened it, and May was already looking inside at me. She had a great smile on her face – a smile that could lit the whole room, as well – which then gradually slit off her face when she noticed Serena now standing beside me.

Oh.

Fuck.

I was a Dead Man Walking.

Thank you to all those that made it this far. Hope you liked it. And as always reviews would be greatly appreciated.

Bye for now.