Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: The Desire for Freedom

by Repenexus

Chained by an unknown power to take the blame for another's crime, a Shinx must escape captivity and find the true culprit to clear his name.

32. Chapter 32

In case you forgot, here are the currently known Epsilon Fusions and the people inside the Epsilon Fusions:

Phosophor Fusion: Phosophor (Central Fusion), Nero (Malamar), Parasel (Metagross), Meteor (Rotom), ? (?)

Diane Fusion: Diane (Central Fusion), Sephyle (Ribombee), Penelope (Roserade), Io (Morpeko, only spoken about so far), Pandora (Hypno)

Selene Fusion: Selene (Central Fusion), One (Cutiefly), Two (Roselia), Three (Morpeko), Four (Drowzee)

---

"What are you waiting for?!"

"Do you like this?"

"Having to hide your identity, having no family or friends you can truly trust, your life always on the line?"

"Because I don't!"

"All I can do is run, run, run!"

"You have your entire life ahead of you!"

"If you aren't being controlled by Selene, then run!"

"You can always make new friends!"

...

Eve's eyes snapped open. It took her a second to recall where she was, and what she had been doing.

And, more than that… what had happened.

"Could that have gone any worse?" she asked herself. She'd wanted answers… and, help, she realized while talking to (no, begging with) Helios. Anna was wonderful, but she couldn't do everything. That Zenny guy Anna had introduced to her was a bit weird, but he was helpful too. The two of them weren't enough, though.

Chain's hands stretched far and wide. They had control of the gates (most of the time… she had been able to leave that one time, but hadn't taken the chance), and while she knew they wouldn't mind her leaving too much if considered in isolation, Selene would.

An Elgyem bodyguard and spy… the spying meant that Selene hadn't trusted her. The bodyguard was a bit touching, but the spy bit… no, Selene didn't trust her. When had she stopped trusting Eve?

Eventually, the question boiled down to…

"... how well do I know the real Selene?" she asked. The Elgyem servant could teleport if it was able to warn Selene in the Citadel from the gate. She could escape. She didn't need Chain's help, did she?

Did she even want to leave anymore? Did Selene want to stay with these monsters?

Eve fell to the ground, flattening her ears and covering her head with her paws. Every little doubt she'd had about herself and Selene had been magnified by her meeting with Helios. He'd always been on Selene's side, through everything. He'd gone with them to stop Culus, to help Selene clear her name. And now, he was their enemy…

… or, to be more precise, Selene's enemy. He'd begged her to leave, to run away. And Eve couldn't because she'd attached herself to Selene. A friendship she'd considered invaluable before.

When Selene had found out she was on the run, Eve had been scared and horrified for her - but, secretly (but not so secretly) happy too. After all, while it had meant that Selene was in danger, it meant that they didn't have to leave each other. It was just like the stories that she had read in the library - two plucky gals, leaving home on an adventure and finding themselves along the way (or something like that).

Of course, the novels didn't touch on the… unpleasantries of travel. Your food wasn't given to you, or even widely available. You had to forage for whatever you could find, and often, that hadn't been much. Between the travel from Ascendance Palace to Pinnaleis, and the travel from Logain to Nucifera, she and Selene went hungry for many days.

Even with the unpleasantries, it had been bearable. That only lasted, though, until Selene's condition had popped back up. Those pills that she had always taken didn't just take care of her illness but suppressed her real form. The Rhythm, something she'd always considered interesting but not a real threat, had grown to completely eclipse everything their relationship had meant.

More than that, Selene had a family. An orphaned mutant to someone treated like royalty, with four sisters she shared a mind and body with. Eve had found some family here too, but it was one that didn't treat her like family. Relm paid attention to her when she tried to explain Eonian royal history to him, but he was still dismissive towards her as a whole.

Things had changed, far beyond her control. She couldn't evolve… unless they were lying to her about that. Were they? Were they not? She was caught in a shadow war between Chain and Key, with Selene on one side and Helios on the other. She felt just as trapped as she had before, when she was in that stupid arranged marriage with Yurime, except this had more than just her on the line.

She'd dragged Anna into this too - Anna had left last night without telling her. Everything felt like it was against her - and she didn't even know what was right…

"... I never should have left," she said to herself. She felt like she was losing everything. Nothing was in her control, nothing was within her reach. Novels never had things like this. There was always something the heroes could do - a solution was always within reach. And it was always a cool solution, something that made her jaw drop and continue reading forward, hungry for more.

When was the last time that she could say that she had done something like that? She had fled toward Pinnaleis, trying desperately to adapt and keep herself and Selene alive. She found out about the Collar and what it had done to her life, throwing so many things she knew into question. Slate and Selene had done the hard work of finding where they had to go, and Eve just stowed away.

She had fought Culus on the boat, during the Nightmare (and won, since he had been paralyzed at the time), but that hadn't solved anything. All through this, Selene had been getting more and more ill. Something that she had always been sympathetic about, but never really considered. The next thing she knew, Selene was half-dying, and she had to flee toward Nucifera with Selene on her back.

Then she had failed. If it wasn't for Four popping up, Selene would have died, Eve in the clutches of that 'sponsor'. She had gotten captured by Penelope, brought here, and met Relm, Anna, and Thorn, and had everything she'd known about Selene thrown into question.

She didn't feel heroic, she didn't feel strong. She didn't feel like she was learning more about herself, or that she was growing as a person. She just felt trapped, weak, and pathetic.

Powerless.

She heard a knocking at the door. "... uh… Eve?"

It was Thorn. Her old training kicked in, and a plastic smile covered her face. "Yes, Thorn?" she asked sweetly.

"It's breakfast," he said.

The smile became a little more genuine as her stomach rumbled unhelpfully. "Thanks, Thorn," she said, before getting up. She didn't particularly feel hungry or anything, but Selene had told her, a long time back, that mood and energy were eroded with hunger. She certainly didn't want to feel as bad as she did, so something to help her through this could be helpful. "I'll be there in a minute."

She took a minute or two to clean herself, having been in no state to do so last night, before coming out. Thorn was there waiting for her… as was a butler.

Her smile grew thin, but she turned to Thorn as valiantly as she could. "So, breakfast?" she asked.

Thorn nodded. "... yeah. It's downstairs." His head was downcast, so she couldn't see the expression on his face, but there was a strong note of sorrow in his voice. She couldn't bring herself to feel much empathy, though.

"Let's go."

The butler led them through the halls to the dining room, where they would normally have breakfast. The day wasn't particularly pleasant - a thick fog covered the outside of the windows, though the butlers and maids hardly seemed to care, working as hard as normal.

It was… uncanny, in a sense. It felt like who the butlers were and how they acted were completely separate from the situation, as though all that mattered was the task at hand. So what if it was foggy? They were butlers and maids, and butlers and maids served. Nothing more, nothing less.

Eve and Thorn were led to the dining room, where Penelope waited for them. She had been discussing business with one of her subordinates - belatedly, Eve remembered that she headed a Nip cartel. The fact that she was probably on the lower end of criminality in that family was concerning, with how much of a doting mother she was with Thorn.

"... ennitas. We'll play this safe as much as possible." Penelope turned to them, her face lighting up. "Thorn, Eve! Come here!" She patted the seats in the dining room next to her, large and set up with comforters. Used to this by now, Eve wordlessly climbed onto her seat.

"What would you two like to eat?" Penelope asked. "We have berries, muffins, jam, and bread, anything you would like!"

Eve paused. Penelope was acting nicer than usual, which was saying something considering how she tried to make Eve feel at home as much as possible.

"Just mashed berries, like usual," Eve replied slowly. The sad thing was that the tasteless mush was starting to grow on her. Flavorless, but predictable, and still enjoyable. Something that wouldn't throw her for a loop.

Thorn tilted his head. "What about Starf Berries?" Had he already developed a refined sense of taste?

Penelope shook her head. "I'm sorry, Thorn," she said. "But we don't have any."

"... oh," he frowned. "Well… that's fine."

Penelope looked concerned for a brief second before her eyes flicked over to where Eve was sitting. Eve couldn't find that concern a moment later, though, as she looked as cheery (fake, a slightly more jaded part of her felt) as she had before.

"Alright, then!" She shook the bouquets on the ends of her arms, and in a blur of movement, several shadows took off with the food, returning with bowls of bashed berries a couple of seconds later. "Dig in, you two!"

Eve did so (if they were going to harm her by making her eat something, they had all the chance to do so when she was sleeping). As she ate, she noticed that Penelope wasn't eating any food. She'd been here longer than they had, so she'd probably eaten something already. If so, she was here for another reason - probably to spend time with them.

She decided to open a topic of conversation. "Ma'am-" Eve began, only for her to be interrupted before she could get more than a word in.

"Please, dear, call me Penny."

"... alright," she said.

She felt a distinct sense of deja vu, for whatever reason, her original topic for the conversation having fled her head completely. She paused in her eating. Right now, Penelope reminded her distinctly of when they had first met - back when she first awoke in Nucifera.

Penelope's main goal then had been to get Eve's willing trust and cooperation, to make her think less poorly of Shadow Workers. It had even worked to a small extent, Eve felt a little shame to mentally admit. Previously, all she'd had to associate with the idea of Shadow Workers were Culus and slaves, and while the idea wasn't exactly wrong, it… dehumanized wasn't the right word, but it made Chain seem less than it was.

Thorn, technically, was a part of Chain, being Penelope's child. He certainly wasn't a slaver (even if he benefitted massively from their existence), and he hadn't fit into Eve's initial ideas of what the Temptress's organization had been.

And it hadn't even been the Temptress's organization. She heard the Temptress come up in conversations, but only as a vague boss figure. From what she remembered of their original plan on coming to Nucifera, the Temptress managed the distribution of Collars and Shadow Workers. Penelope's portion of Chain dealt with Nip, Diane's portion dealt with… she didn't want to know. She especially didn't want to know what Pandora or Sephy did.

And whoever their final sister was (maybe the Temptress, but instinct screamed at her that it wasn't the case) hadn't popped up on Eve's radar at all.

Chain's existence was something that still kind of baffled her. How did an organization this powerful and massive stay hidden? Well, hidden outside of Citadel Abaddon, that is (the Temptress's Millinery acted as a strong police force within the walls).

"What's wrong, dear?" Penelope's voice broke her out of her little funk. She opened her mouth to respond, but before she did, she noticed that Penelope wasn't looking at her. Rather, the Roserade was looking at her son, who was looking into his mashed berries with an expression that wouldn't be out of place in the stencils of a funeral.

What was wrong with him?

Thorn looked up at Penelope's words. "... Mom? When are we going to leave?"

You could hear a pin drop in the room. "Thorn? Is everything… alright?"

"I miss the outside," Thorn said, genuine misery in each of his words. "The roads, the clear sun…" Tiny tears began to appear in the corner of his eyes. "I don't want to be here anymore."

Eve saw a conflicted expression cross Penelope's face. "It's alright, dear, you just need some time to get used to it."

"But when are we leaving?! You said that we wouldn't stay here for too long, but we've been here forever!" Thorn bowed his head even more. "You said that we would stay until Big Sis Selene was better! She's been better for a long time now, but you haven't even talked about leaving!"

Eve's attention was caught by a couple of things. One was the phrase 'Big Sis Selene'. That meant that he had more than one 'big sis' - and that Selene was one of them. She was his cousin, though…

… she was looking too deeply into this. Thorn wasn't speaking in code, he was only a few years younger than she was.

"Things are a bit more… complicated, now," Penelope said. Her smile was strained - not enough that it was readily apparent, but Eve managed to catch how her expression didn't match the look in her eyes. "We'll be leaving soon, but not that soon."

"But I want to go now!" Thorn shouted. "I'm tired of being here! The Shadow Workers - they're all so… creepy! And I miss the forests and the swamps and… and… "

Thorn's blubbering made Eve's chest ache. Penelope, on the other hand…

"Thorn, I need you to be patient," she repeated. "We don't have the option to do that right now."

"B-b-b-but… But why?!" Thorn half-screamed. "She's been okay for ages now, and I - I miss…"

Penelope's eyes trailed over to where Eve was sitting. "There are… important things that we're doing right now," she said. A non-explanation if Eve ever heard one. "Please, Thorn, understand."

"But - but I don't wanna!" Thorn bawled. "I JUST WANT TO GO-"

"THORN!" Penelope shouted, a flash of rage crossing her eyes. Thorn immediately quieted, quaking a little. Penelope took a couple of deep breaths, then responded. "Thorn, that's enough. For now, go to the nursery."

"But - but…"

"No. More."

A butler came to pick up Thorn's bowl of mushed berries. Eve just watched as Thorn's eyes watered, the butler nudging Thorn out of the chair. Together, they walked silently to the dining room's door.

Then, just as Thorn was to cross the threshold, he turned to look directly at Eve. "Aunty Mable found out you were trying to escape. She read your dreams."

The words lodged themselves into her heart. Next to her, she saw Penelope's eyes flash with irritation, though she couldn't notice. As Thorn left her sight, her thoughts were only along the lines of:

'They found out.'

This - this Aunty Mable read her dreams. She found out about her plans to escape.

Chain knew.

Penelope sighed. "I was afraid of this," she muttered. "I'd told him to keep silent, I'd bribed him with more toys. I should have paid more attention…"

Eve turned to her. "You know?" she repeated if only to be certain.

"Pandora was made well aware of the meeting at the gates. She… has the right connections, so to speak." Penelope's speech was vague. Eve felt as though it were intentionally so. "To assuage Diane's concerns, Pandora looked into your dreams to determine what, exactly, you were trying to accomplish."

"And my privacy?" Eve's words rang hollow in her mouth.

"You were never supposed to know - but Thorn overheard me issue new orders to the staff. I bribed him to keep silent, but you saw how that turned out."

The shard of ice in her heart was slowly shrinking, but she felt no better for it.

"We're… sorry that you feel unwelcome," Penelope said, looking over the table. "Please understand that we mean you no harm. It's simply a matter of fact that we needed to keep Chain safe, and we still need to keep our intentions unknown. You are a possible leak, so you need to be… confined."

"... you're doing a wonderful job of selling the idea to me." Eve had no idea how she was keeping her emotions relatively veiled, for all of the good that it did. "And you know… everything?"

"Playing with that moss was dangerous, Eve."

They knew everything. Everything. She had no informational advantage on Chain anymore. She couldn't keep an informational advantage, considering how she needed to sleep and they could send a dream reader to observe her mind whenever she did.

Actually, not even then. The Elgyem had been able to read her mind, hadn't he? Her mind, her plans, they were all an open book for Chain to read.

"The library is open for your use," Penelope said at last. "Try to enjoy yourself. You'll find yourself happier if you do."

Penelope then stood up, before walking away. A butler arrived to escort her, shooting a strange look at Eve as it did so. Eve just turned back to her bowl of mashed berries, appetite lost completely.

"... what's the point?" she said at last, before pushing it to the side. Wasted food it may be, but waste never truly mattered to her.

She left the dining room, the fog outside having gotten only thicker. The butlers and maids all bowed to her as they were supposed to, but Eve couldn't feel any gratitude towards them. After all, to her, they were more of a prison guard than anything else.

She walked back up to her room. On the way there, she found herself in front of the library. For a few seconds, she considered taking Penelope up on her advice and going into the library to have a little bit of fun. Relax, unwind…

…

… she left. For whatever reason, she didn't want to feel better. Certainly not by burying herself in fiction or trivia.

Once she arrived at her room, she coughed. "If any more spies and bodyguards are looking over me, knock twice" she said, a little awkwardly. Recent developments had prompted it, though, and she had long since learned to never assume that others were dumber than she was.

Book smarts stopped translating to victories long ago.

There was no response. Either they had left, they weren't there, or they didn't listen. Repeating herself would be futile, so she went inside.

The first thing she did, though, was to release a few of her Swift's stars to search the room for any sneaks. It would even go after Ghost types, so if she had any intruders, it would find them. As it stood, they just orbited the room before fading away entirely.

Still not feeling completely secure, she covered her maw in Dark-type energy to counteract ghostly illusions and started searching the place. After five minutes of searching in every hidden nook-and-cranny that she could think of - under the bed, inside the nearby bathroom, inside the closet, etc. - she felt marginally safer.

Marginally. There was always the case that some psychic Chain had sent her way was reading her thoughts. There wasn't anything she could do about that, beyond maybe keeping some Swift stars in orbit around her. If the psychic had a larger range than her Swift did, she was out of luck, but hopefully they felt like she wasn't worth the risk trapped in here.

Oh, who was she kidding? They'd probably check up on her in her sleep and pry every secret out of her unconscious mind.

She lay on the ground, her eyes losing focus. Her mind strayed to the past, to her time with Selene. It was the time when she didn't have doubts, and when she wasn't under someone else's thumb all of the time. It was less than three months ago, but it felt like forever.

So much had changed, and mostly for the worst.

She didn't know how long she just sat there. Time had effectively lost its meaning to her. There was nothing to look forward to. She couldn't meet with Selene because of her training, and honestly, she didn't want to meet with Selene with the Rhythm in play. Anna had been supportive of her leaving, but with Chain both aware of Anna and her intentions, she doubted that their meetings would be the same.

Relm was gone, Helios was an enemy, and she was a prisoner of a gilded cage. She had access to a library, but she couldn't even bring herself to go there. She just felt… sad. Hopeless.

The candles for the lamps started to burn out, and she heard one of the butlers open the doors - probably so that she didn't get carbon monoxide poisoning or something like that (Selene had mentioned some problems with leaving a candle burning in a closed space, that being one of them). She didn't react, didn't respond. Time went by, but she didn't know how much. It all blurred together in a meaningless haze.

"Dear?"

That was Penelope, a note of concern in her voice. Eve couldn't care less.

"Leave." Her order was emotionless, concise, and clear.

She heard a strange sound, and almost out of sight, there was a rainbow glow. Eve sighed.

"Hello, Eve."

It was strange how her surprise was the emotion to break through the haze - that was Sephy if she remembered correctly.

She turned her head and saw the Ribombee, fluttering in the air, spilling dust and scales from her wings as she did so. There was no concern, no worry, nothing like that on Sephy's expressionless face.

"... what do you want?"

"To distract you." Sephy flapped closer to her, spreading those scales closer. Eve flinched - that would take forever to get out. She'd hate to be whoever had to clean her room. "Is it working?" Sephy asked.

Eve blinked, before shaking her head. Inane thoughts aside… "Not really. I just need some… alone time."

"It's been three hours since you entered. A butler went in to check on you, and you weren't moving. You've had your alone time, Eve." Eve's claws curled. Who did Sephyle think Eve was?! Some pet you had to shower with constant affection and attention? "If I might ask what's bothering you?"

Eve just stared at her. She wanted Eve to confess, did she? "Leave," she ordered, not raising her voice from before. "I'm not going to say anything."

"Pandora has pried all of your secrets," Sephy said simply. "You have nothing to hide, nothing to keep."

Eve drew her legs closer, taking on a centered pose. "I have my dignity."

Sephy said nothing. Eve's legs began to ache, having fallen asleep and now tingling wildly. She repressed the thought as best as she could and maintained the pose.

Sephy then sighed, and the blank look on Sephy's face faded away to a more concerned one. He fluttered to Eve's bed, before sitting down on it. "I can't make you talk," Sephy explained. "But I can ask questions. And Pandora can give me the answers, whether you like it or not."

Eve scoffed. "It's not much of a choice, is it?"

"No," Sephy agreed. "But this way, you can control what we know."

"You can always look into my mind whether I'd like it or not."

"Pandora doesn't make a habit of peering into dreams. Certainly not of people who she's allied with," Sephy said. It was a claim that had nothing behind it - the threat was real, the threat had happened, and she didn't have any trust in Pandora. "She's too busy."

Eve said nothing. She didn't agree or disagree.

Sephy frowned, before looking off to the side where Eve wasn't. "If you would like, I can guess what ails you. You can lie or tell the truth, but I will make my guess nonetheless."

What was Sephy playing at?

"Your trouble," Sephy began. "Has to do with your trust in Selene."

Eve's heart fell. There was no hiding what she knew.

"A great fear of whether her Rhythm has played with your thoughts beyond what you know of," Sephy continued. "The nature of your best friend - she had played with your mind in ways you can't comprehend, and the nature of friend and foe has been scattered beyond anything you can parse."

Eve's lips were dry. She tried to open her mouth, to say the word 'no'. It vanished into thin air halfway through her esophagus.

"More than that, you feel trapped," Sephy continued. "You'd been trying to escape the Citadel, Selene in tow. Hopefully, you'd run away from us - then, Selene could take care of her polarity shift. Something you barely understand, if I'm right. She'd stop using her Rhythm, you'd find Culus, and Selen would take him to Regilia. She'd clear her name, we would be unable to pick her up…" Sephy gestured her hands in the air nonsensically. "... somehow. Then you'd get old enough and evolve, and return to safety and security. Everything solved."

… Eve hadn't thought that far ahead. All she'd wanted was to leave. Being around Chain - people who had helped orchestrate the tragedy that had led to her arranged marriage, the people who robbed her of everything - was something she just wanted to stop. All she had wanted was Selene by her side and Chain far, far away.

"Need I continue, Eve?" Sephy concluded. "Or would you like me to dig deeper?"

Eve's mouth finally opened. "Why?" she rasped.

"Why what?" Sephy pressed.

"Why - why do all of this?" she asked.

"Because Penelope feels bad for you, and-"

"N-No," Eve denied. "I mean… why is Chain here?"

Sephy paused. "You don't know? Hasn't anyone told you?"

They might have, but Eve couldn't remember. She had just wanted to leave, leave, leave.

"Chain exists to find a way to separate Epsilon Fusions." Sephy's smile fell. "Someone like you… you can't understand what it's like."

"Don't you… love your sisters?" After all, she was here at Penelope's request.

"Of course I do. But we're chained together beyond what should be." Sephy folded her hands across her lap. "My sister, Io - she detests Chain and its methodologies."

"To brainwash innocent people and form an army, and to subvert and control organizations across the world," Eve said flatly. "I can't imagine why she wouldn't like it."

Sephy smiled. "She agrees with you - she's paying attention to our conversation, even though she's halfway across the world."

"Maybe I should talk with her instead."

"She doesn't want to talk with you. She pities you, but she has her own life to attend to."

"Right," Eve drawled. "I completely believe you."

Sephy sighed. "Perhaps a better example would be Phosophor's brother," she said.

"Which one?"

"The one who doesn't like acknowledging that he's a part of an Epsilon Fusion. If Io dislikes Chain, he loathes Chain."

Eve blinked. "Excuse me? The brother of Chain's creator - who I assume was there at its creation?"

"He was."

"That brother is an enemy of Chain. And Phosophor knows about this, and is okay with it."

"Yes," Sephy said simply. "Of course, he can't do anything against Chain. He can't do it without every single one of his brothers forcing him into the back of the mind, at the very least. He is a prime example of the curse - if you make yourself an enemy of your brothers and sisters, you are forced back without choice - indefinitely, even."

Eve pursed her lips but kept silent.

"The truth of the matter is that being an Epsilon Fusion denies you so much - your freedom, your privacy, your ability to form genuine bonds with other people."

Eve raised her eyebrow. "That last one…"

Sephy sighed. "Let me explain: suppose you don't tell a person what an Epsilon Fusion is. You are keeping something important about yourself hidden - they have befriended, fallen in love with, a lie. Suppose you tell them. Now they know that every secret they tell to you will be shared with four other people. Four people who you don't share the same bond with, four different people who are each a failure point for keeping a secret. Four people that you have no choice but to occasionally be."

"'Forced'...?"

Sephy's voice took on the quality of an instructor. "There are two 'polarities' an Epsilon Fusion can be in - 'Five in one', and 'one inside four'. Your friend, Selene, is in the first category. The fusion consists of five separate bodies, four of which are 'hidden' at any one time. To change whose body it is, the one who's not hidden and the one being changed into 'switch' their states."

Eve slowly nodded. Yesterday, she remembered Two shifting into Selene and back.

"That polarity is one that we, by nature, despise," Sephy said, a strong note of anger in her voice. "Four of us are silenced at any one time, and we scrabble for control. We make alliances, promises to each other to behave, but whenever anything important comes into play, we can all turn on each other, causing great distress to the one in control."

Eve winced.

"Because of this, Phosophor created the 'polarity shift'. It's an ability the central fusion - the 'mutant', meaning he, Diane, and Selene - can exclusively perform. That nature of 'five inside one' turns into 'one among four' - the way we and Phosophor's fusion are now."

"And… 'one among four' is…" Despite herself, Eve couldn't stop asking questions. Sephy had piqued her curiosity, in a way she couldn't resist or hide.

"Instead of only one body being able to exist, four separate bodies can simultaneously coexist, each one a separate individual. In this state, only one person is 'hidden', residing in the mind of one of the four other members of the fusion."

"So Penelope is… somewhere else now?"

"No, Penelope is in my mind. We all can still communicate with each other, though reading each others' thoughts requires us to co-inhabit a body. However, she is the only one paying attention to me. Pandora, Diane, and Io all are doing their own thing, completely disparate from us."

Eve nodded. "I think I get it…"

"But, in the end, the same problems exist. While 'control' is less of an issue, we can still force any arbitrary member into non-existence with effort. Positive relationships within Epsilon Fusions, while possibly genuine, are of necessity. If we become enemies, we suffer."

"... don't you love your family?"

The room was silent. Eve considered what she just said, why Sephy was even here, and then she winced. Her and her big mouth.

"... like siblings. As siblings, born the same way at the same time." Sephy's voice was a little over a whisper. "But it's not about my love toward them. It's seldom about each other, except when things are at their worst. It's the control. We - we want to be normal, Eve."

"Normal?"

"Normal," she said with determination. "To be alone in our bodies, so that none of us are 'hidden'. So that we aren't chained to each other in ways we can't ignore, even if we want to. That's the goal of Chain - to break the chains. When the chains binding the fusions finally disappear, so will Chain."

"And the brainwashing?"

Sephy waved her hand. "We've always had the capacity to brainwash. Diane and Selene have their Rhythm, Pandora, Four, and Nero have their hypnosis, and Phosophor… well, in addition to weak hypnotic abilities, he had a power not dissimilar to what the Collars and Cores do."

Eve perked up. "The Cores?"

Sephy went silent.

"..." Eve figured that now Sephy was on her guard about what she was saying, she wouldn't get more. It wasn't her concern, either way. "Still, you don't need to-"

"The central fusion's abilities become a discomfort with prolonged disuse. Selene is still riding out a decade of disuse and has minimal control over it. It's a part of her she needs to learn to use." Sephyle shrugged. "We don't have a choice but to be brainwashers. And it is very convenient, after all, to turn enemies into allies - a vulnerability into a boost of strength. More convenient than killing, too."

"But… but Chain seems to revolve around brainwashing…"

"We're playing the long game, Eve. Phosophor spent the first few decades of his life trying to figure out how to break the fusion. He accomplished the polarity shift, but it's not enough." Sephy smiled. "Then, during an expedition a small way away from Nucifera, he learned about and began to develop long-forgotten Collar technology."

Did that mean that these things existed before Phosophor?!

"By developing Chain as we have, we've magnified our power while gathering, weakening, and subverting our enemies. We don't expect to break the fusion any time soon, so we have to make sure that we have enough time and power to conduct research when new avenues come up."

"And - and that's why you killed my aunt?!"

Eve froze as the words echoed around her room.

"The minutia of politics don't matter, and someone Nero takes a personal interest in buying our services," Sephy said awkwardly. "That's all you need to know."

Eve's chest tightened. They didn't have an excuse. They could bluster and justify anything and everything they wanted, but she wasn't going to listen to a word of it.

"Before I leave," Sephy asked. "There's something I wanted to ask you. During that meeting yesterday, you were placed under some sort of 'Pressing', correct?"

That was part of her memories… "Right," she said awkwardly. "It was painful, but I got used to it after a while."

"Could you move around?"

What kind of… "No, of course not," she said contemptuously. "If Pandora saw my memories, she knows how trapped I was. I was chained down, completely unable to move. There was nothing I could do but wait until Helios let me go."

"I see." There was a strong note of disappointment in Sephy's voice. "And can you do the Pressing?"

She had to be joking, right? "Of course not."

"Can you try?"

Eve scoffed. "No," she spat. "No, I won't. I don't want to try and 'Press'. I don't want to think about being able to 'Press'. I don't want to think about anything related to yesterday right now."

Sephy waited for a little while before getting up. "I see." She offered a light smile. Fake or not, Eve couldn't tell. Her tail curled protectively around her paws regardless. "I have business in Hovete. I'll be seeing you soon, Eve. Please take care, and remember: we're on your side."

There was a flash of rainbow light and a piece of a song before Penelope entered her sight once more. Penelope looked around, before wincing.

"Eve, I need you to-"

"Just go," she said. "I want to be alone again. I don't want to be near… you. Any of you. Just go." She formed a Swift star above her tail, buzzing softly next to her ear.

"Please understand, Eve, Sephy was just curious about the Aspects-"

"Go."

Penelope's eyes didn't betray anything of her mood. The bouquets on the ends of her arms shook, however. A few seconds later, they calmed down - Penelope had calmed herself. "Supper will be ready soon. I expect to see you there," she said. "Don't make me force someone to come retrieve you."

Eve didn't know whether to feel happy or sad that she had pushed Penelope out of her 'motherly' nature. As Penelope walked out of her room, she realized that she felt nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

The Swift star dissipated into nothingness. Without a target, there was nothing for it to lash out at. Completely aimless.

Woodenly, she walked over to the door and closed it. A second later, she walked to the candle and blew it out. Any and every candle inside the room was snuffed. She was completely, totally, utterly alone - another Swift star confirmed it.

So then… what now?

Eve just sat there. There were people she could have talked to - Anna, Thorn, maybe even Zenny if she could find him. She felt no desire to go be among other people, though.

'So this is what brooding feels like.'

It didn't feel pleasant in the slightest, but she didn't want to stop. Somewhere, among all the other fears and dreads in her heart, she worried about what would happen if she were to… accept her station. To know that Chain was evil, and to do nothing.

'But then, you haven't minded before,' an evil voice whispered in her mind. Probably her imagination. 'You knew of the suffering in the Moat well enough before all of this strife. You still know of it. You do nothing. You take advantage of it, however feeble your plans may be.'

She - she had her priorities straight. She was trying to leave with Selene so that they wouldn't be with Chain.

'And yet they care for her. They heal her, feed her, and heal and feed you as well. Neither of you are in danger within the walls. You are safe. Secure. Yet you try to rob yourself of that.'

Her eyes throbbed painfully. She shut them, trying to block her thoughts. She - she was just h-h-having a rough patch…

'This is your life. You have to live with your passivity, your selfishness, your malice…'

Eve felt the tears coming down her face. She felt nauseous and dizzy. She fell to the floor, but vertigo had nothing to do with her lessened sense of balance.

'For everything you have tried to be… you have failed. You failed your family… your friends… yourself.'

"I-I…" Her voice was choking on itself. "I-I…"

'The world is better off with you dead.'

*CRACK*

Everything broke away. She gasped for air, tears falling. Her claws had scratched and torn the rug beneath her paws. Pain, pain, pain…

She needed it to stop, she needed everything to stopstopstopstopstopstopSTOP!

And then she felt it again. That painful, overwhelming pressure, pushing down on everything.

Coming from her.

She heard glass breaking and large crashes - whether that was her mind screaming at her or her ears warning her, she couldn't tell. The power pulled and pushed and tugged at her, and it was painful, PAINFUL. Almost fearing for her life, she begged the pain to stop.

Somehow, miraculously, it did. Everything returned to normal - except for her. Her stomach heaved violently, and she threw up into a puddle by her nose.

And she cried. She cried, and she cried, and she cried. She was pathetic, utterly pathetic. Lower than the lowest commoner, no higher than the manure they tilled berry fields with. Everything lay bare, everything a nightmare.

...

She didn't go to dinner that night. She had no energy left in her to move. The butlers and maids found her, and they diligently got to work cleaning up after her. She was brought to the hospital, where she was given a clean bill of health. For the night, she slept there.

They let her go with another clean bill of health the following day. The psychics there pronounced her sane and hale of mind. A delusion, she thought, but she didn't contest it. She could, but there was no point. She felt no more 'at home' at the hospital than she did in the mansion. Any counselors they would offer would be either so completely out of their depth that they would be useless, or they would be in Chain's pocket (though, it was more likely that they would be on a Chained leash).

Thorn didn't come to greet her. Penelope didn't come to greet her. She hadn't seen any of the members of that Epsilon Fusion since the previous day. She hadn't seen Anna. She hadn't seen Selene.

She felt as alone as she did before. She had cried her tears the last night - though now, even if she tried to pull them out, force herself to weep, they wouldn't come. She didn't want to push it either way. It had done nothing for her.

She sat in her room, alone. She had specifically requested it, even as the butlers and maids suggested that she read comfortably in the library ('to keep an eye on you', another nasty part of her whispered. 'You're not trustworthy anymore'). Eventually, after they learned that she was still unable to be budged, they let her stay in her room again.

Again, she was left with that crushing emptiness. She didn't dare try to get to the root of it, though - her curiosity had betrayed her yesterday. Instead, she distracted herself with inane, irrelevant thoughts.

As she looked at the bookshelf, she idly noted how the selection of books was arranged differently than they had been the following day - and one of the candles had been replaced, too. Looking near the bottom of where the candle stood, there were tiny shards of glass, somehow missed by the maids.

What had been broken… right, she had heard the sound of breaking glass. From the looks of it, it hadn't been in her head.

But no one had come in at that time. Had there been an illusionist - no, it made no sense why both the bookshelf and the glass candle holder would be broken. Multiple illusionists?

Even that was a stretch. That didn't give her a concrete explanation as to why they near-simultaneously started fumbling around, either…

…

… unless…

Eve cast her mind back to the few seconds before she heard the broken glass. It had felt like she was choking, trapped. Except, not in the emotional sense, but in the 'my limbs have been glued to the floor' sense. There was a concrete difference there.

Hadn't Sephy questioned her about her ability to perform the Pressing? At the time, she'd been wondering if Sephy had been off of her rocker - Helios had been the one to wield that ability, not her. And yet, the question stayed in her mind, worming its way around gleefully.

Now, she couldn't help but wonder if there just happened to be some kernel of truth in that question. Maybe… Anna had developed the abilities? Helios had implied that he and Culus were the only ones that could use that sort of ability, but he'd also been nervous and evasive.

She didn't know why, but she planted her paws on the ground, before sending out a Swift star to catch any illusionists or hiding Pokemon. Hopefully, it would stop any telepaths from sneaking into her mind as well. It's not like she was going to… experiment…

…

… she closed her eyes. Helios did it in a panic, only having it for a month, so it wasn't a power hard to pick up and master. What was Helios's mentality when he used it at the gate, and when he purportedly used it in Fylak? What was her mentality when she used it here?

Scared. Panicky. Desperate.

Those words came into mind - and as they did, she felt something move around inside her. Eerily familiar, and yet not so.

She was getting closer. Okay, three facets of spirit: knowledge, emotion, and desire. She knew what she was trying to poke at; specifically, that 'thing' in her. She knew what she wanted to do - to Press down on everything, make things unable to move (and break things, she guessed). That was knowledge. She could pull up that… dread. That scared, panicked state. That emotion.

And her will…

'... to control… to conquer… to silence everything…' The words flitted through her mind, sounding similar to last night's. It was enough to push her far enough, though.

Her power released itself. She felt herself root to the floor, and she felt the bookshelf creak as the force was applied to it - the Pressing. More than that, she felt her Swift star dismiss itself - the Pressing pulling it apart.

She opened her eyes, cutting off the power. The Pressing stopped.

"It's possible," she whispered. Helios had been spouting bullshit yesterday - she could use it too. Anyone could, she suspected, since she knew Nimbus wasn't anyone special. Nationality, evolutionary stage, species, gender, class - between her, Helios, and Culus, they had the entire spectrum on lockdown.

And then she remembered that Sephy, one of Chain's top members, was interested in her using it. Even though they had hundreds of Shadow Workers to try and do the same. They didn't think that any of the Shadow Workers would be able to use it. Why was she able to use it? Why was Helios able to use it?

Helios only developed the ability after Culus did. She developed the ability after Helios did. Pokemon-to-pokemon contact? No, that would make lots of the other Shadow Workers potential users, since Helios had to have come into contact with other Shadow Workers at Fylak. Some sort of inheritance - but then, they could mimic it.

Then she mentally reviewed what had happened to her recently - to try and categorize anything that might have been able to cause the power to spread - and realized that there was one thing she had 'suffered' that no Shadow Workers had.

The Pressing.

Being Pressed was the vector of propagation. Somehow, if you were Pressed, you would gain the ability to Press yourself. The power could spread - but then…

… she slapped her face with her paw as different things popped out at her.

Pandora was made aware of the meeting of the gates before she had read Eve's mind - how?

Sephy said something about 'Aspects' at the closing of their talk yesterday. That, along with the knowledge that she may have the ability to Press, suggested that she knew more about the nature of Pressing than she did - why?

Helios had lied to her, that much was obvious. About the Pressing - but about what else? How many people had he made able to Press?

Who was Helios working with? Did Chain have their hooks in them? She needed to-

Breathe…

Eve, recognizing that she was about to spiral off into a mental tangent, reoriented herself. Right now, investigating was, interestingly enough, the foolish option. While information, in general, was always useful, investigating the causes and results of everything would waste time and potentially let Chain know of her intentions before she was ready to act.

Helios had been able to move around in Kite's Pressing, right? Could that mean that she could move around in her own Pressing? She didn't have too much of a reason to believe it as such, but it was better than moping around.

Her moss plan was scrapped. They knew too much - they might even try to read her mind and intrude on her training sessions to gain people resistant to Pressing. She'd need to find a place hidden, someplace where she was trapped, but no one could come in to check on her.

She thought, and she thought some more. Anna was compromised - if Chain viewed her memories, she knew that Anna was in as big of a danger as anyone else was. They'd probably send someone to check up on her memories as well, or maybe they would reassign her so that she didn't try to bring Eve away from the Citadel.

Her heart clenched, but she soon consoled herself. This was better for Anna's sake.

There weren't many other locations she could go to. Chain controlled every square inch of the Citadel, so there wasn't a place that she could go to that they couldn't. If she spent time alone for hours on end in her room, she'd pique their curiosity at some point.

Was it hopeless?

She breathed. Calm, calm thoughts.

Okay, she couldn't find someplace 'private'. She could have micro-training sessions in the bathroom… but that was assuming that Pressing could be learned quickly. She couldn't go to the bathroom at frequent intervals, or it would get dangerous.

What concerned her more than anything was sleep.

She was vulnerable in her sleep. There was nothing she could do to stop it - she had to sleep, and if Pandora had the right idea and slipped into her room at night, the rest of her secrets would be laid bare. So then… what could she do? Sleep somewhere else? Find a way to protect herself in her sleep?

Was there a way to do that? A way to hide without letting anyone know? If there was, she didn't know it.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized how limited her options were. She was alone, with no real powers or friends by her side. She needed allies to trust in, allies with some defense against Pandora's telepathy. The only way to be immune to telepathy was, if she remembered correctly, being a Dark...type.

Zenny.

And then, a possible solution fell into place.

---

Brylle watched with curiosity as Sable banged her head against the wall repeatedly. "I. Want. To. Leave."

"You couldn't leave the headquarters," she said, snorting. "You were fine with staying still there."

"Yeah, but my mom could bring me into a dream, and I could explore that. I can't do that here. It's just the same eight rooms, over and over again. It's been so long!"

"A week, Sable. It's been a week."

"Kapun got to leave yesterday!" she shouted, pointing to the Deino in question. Kapun, meanwhile, looked taken aback at being dragged into the conversation. "It's so boring - why can't I leave?"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Brylle turned to see Hastor punching the ground in frustration. "YOU STUPID BRATS ARE THE REASON WE'RE LAYING LOW!"

"Hastor!" Wyvell barked. "None of us want to be in this lockdown. We just need to let things simmer down, and get everything under control. Stop shouting at the children who've done nothing but their duty."

"Can we even trust these kids, Wyvell?" Hastor countered, voice filled with venom. "Next thing we know, these brats are going to try and escape."

"And they won't. Because they can't," Wyvell asserted. "Don't make things harder for us by screaming, Hastor."

Hastor growled, then turned and punched the ground. Wyvell turned to Brylle, face bowed. "I'm sorry, may we continue?"

As Sable stormed off ("I have to go to the bathroom!"), Brylle nodded, before announcing her next move. "New tile at I-3." She placed down the tile she had carved for the game, before flipping all the necessary tiles up.

After Helios's… mistake yesterday, they had been forced to stay inside the confines of the base until further notice. Namely, when Mother thought that the time was appropriate for them to leave. Until then, all seven of them were stuck inside these walls.

Some of them, namely Sable and Hastor, were not happy. Hastor, she could understand, but Sable's cabin fever was something she hadn't known too much about. Then again, with those dreamscape missions with her mother, there wasn't too much of a problem with that. Not until now.

Others, like Kapun, Kair, and Esmerel, were just bored, but training. Kapun offered to teach Kair how to Stifle while they were stuck in one place, but Kair said that he wanted to keep 'his core set focused', whatever that meant. Stifling training had gone on like before, but all three of them had lost their stamina and were waiting for their energy to return before continuing their training.

In the end, Wyvell brought Brylle to the side and asked her if she could make stone tiles and a stone board for a board game from her childhood. Brylle, of course, could do so, and within a couple more minutes, the game was set up.

The game worked by a simple set of rules. The board was an eight-by-eight grid, and each tile had two distinct sides to it (marked by a simple sigil, a lightning bolt, and a circle). The game started with four tiles in the middle, two lightning bolts, and two circles. You could flip the tiles by placing tiles such that between two of your tiles were nothing but the enemy tiles. Putting down the tile and 'surrounding' the enemy pieces converted them to your pieces. Each player took turns putting down tiles until there were no more places for them that could flip tiles, at which point the tiles would be counted - the player owning the largest number of pieces would win.

While the rules were understood simply after just a single game, it was clear to her that Wyvell understood the game more than she did. Brylle had lost every game, and while it had felt like she would win at some points in the game, Wyvell would bring the score back easily, leading to a crushing defeat.

It was a bit infuriating, considering how easily she could dismantle Brylle. Not to mention, her power… wasn't helping, so much as demoralizing her. It told her how close to 'perfection' she was at any time, with anything. It made her highly aware of how many flecks of berries she had on her plate, how close she was to sleeping, and how likely her current chances of winning were.

Currently, it was sitting at a 43% chance of winning, from 39% a move ago. She guessed it was a 'strength of her board' metric in this situation.

Wyvell placed another tile on the board, flipping a small number of tiles over. 35%

Brylle thought about the state of the board - where could she put her tile to flip the largest number of Wyvell's tiles?

Once she finished deliberating, she placed her tile down, making her move and flipping the necessary tiles up.

31%

Her jaw dropped. "Oh… no…" With a horrible realization, she realized exactly how she had messed up.

Wyvell smiled. "I'm sorry that I had to do this to you," Wyvell said, before placing down one of her tiles in the corner - where Brylle had just given her the ability to move. "But you'll get better eventually." Wyvell didn't flip too many tiles, but that didn't matter - that was the last corner tile.

7%

The rest of the game continued unremarkably. While Brylle had more tiles flipped in the beginning and midgame, Wyvell's control over the corners gave her tiles that couldn't be flipped, since the corner tiles couldn't be surrounded on opposite sides by her tiles. Using them, she was able to swing the game in her favor quickly near the end, demolishing Brylle's 'lead'.

Then, when there were three spaces open left, her power told her the final percentage.

0%

"I give up. Good game," she muttered, the percentage still stuck in her head.

"You did well," Wyvell said cheerfully. "Simply try to push me out of the corners, and try getting the walls too if you can. Want to play again?"

Brylle sighed, tapping her hand on the ground. With her geokinesis, she made a small stone die and began spinning it around on her finger. "No thanks, I'm… good."

Wyvell winced. "I had to lose some games as well. Maybe if you hadn't given up, you could have-"

"I couldn't," Brylle shot down instantly. "Look at the board. Any remaining combinations of moves would result in your win. You couldn't lose with that game state even if you tried. No one could."

Wyvell paused, before looking down at the board. "... huh. You're right," she said. "There is no way you can win from this position. I would have to forfeit myself if I wanted to lose, though-"

"But you wouldn't, so I knew there was no point in wasting time."

Wyvell hummed. "Still, you analyzed the board excellently, Brylle," she praised. "You're getting better."

Brylle sighed. "No, my power told me that I had no chance of victory. 0%, precisely."

"Your talent, right?" Wyvell asked. Brylle nodded. "It does… what, exactly?"

"Tells me how close I am to completion, or victory, or something like that," she weirdly waved her hands. "Just deciding to do something doesn't change the percentage - only acting does. It gives me great hindsight, and it tells me when victory is impossible, but…"

"It doesn't give you the tools to win," Wyvell completed. "So it just judges what you've done, essentially."

Brylle thought about it. "That sounds about right," she says. "It's not as useful as Rowan, or Sable, or Culus's powers."

"And Helios's power?" Kapun asked, off to the side. He'd been observing the matches for a while now, but not pitching in.

"My power doesn't work against me," she said in response. "So there's that." She then paused. "What about your talent?"

Kapun winced. "I… don't know. Still haven't 'awakened' it, though, so it could be something amazing, for all I know."

"That's the spirit. I bet you and Thilia will get great talents." Neither Kapun nor Thilia had gotten their talents, as far as she knew.

"Esmerel, what's wrong?"

Their attention was drawn to the side, where Esmerel, the resident Gothitelle, was meditating. While she usually had a blank-yet-serene expression on her face, she was frowning for whatever reason.

"My psychic senses," Esmeral began. "Are acting strangely."

Those words drew everyone's attention. "How?" Wyvell pressed.

"Where I'm sensing Sable's position… it's changing, without her moving." Brylle suddenly became aware of the fact that Sable had gone to go to the bathroom a long, long time ago. Too long…

"Sable?" Brylle shouted. "What's taking you so long?!"

Esmerel's eyes snapped open. "She's gone."

There was a pause. "Gone… where?" Wyvell asked.

"She's left my sensory range…" She closed her eyes. "I can no longer sense her."

"But how-" Wyvell's eyes widened, and then she flew across the room, all the way to the hall where the bathroom was. Brylle felt something turn in her stomach. "Sable? SABLE?!"

Brylle practically fell out of her chair to run after Wyvell. Kapun was hot on her tail - and when they arrived at the bathroom.

"She's not there," Kapun said dumbly.

"Teleportation," Wyvell hissed. "She teleported out of the bathroom."

"But - but she can't teleport," Brylle countered. "She doesn't know how!"

"It's highly possible she just learned," Esmerel's voice came from behind them. Brylle turned to see her normally serene face in a pensive expression. "Leaving the base may not even be her fault. At the beginning stages of using teleportation, if I remember correctly, teleportation is hard to control, as it can easily be mixed with spatial visualization by psychic powers. With a poor sense of distance, it can create disastrous results."

"But - but why did she learn now?!" Brylle pressed.

"I only have the testimony of other psychics," Esmerel said. "But teleportation can be discovered through a variety of means. I imagine Sable's frustrations led to her developing the ability while she ruminated on the toilet." She turned. "Accidental power usage is one of the reasons a psychic must retain a placid heart at all times."

Wyvell growled. "It doesn't matter - we need to retrieve her. Hastor!"

Hastor, who hadn't bothered to follow them, poked his head out of the communal living room. "What?" he asked belligerently.

"Get Kair - we need to conduct an emergency sweep of the city. The lockdown's been violated, possibly by accident. Either way, we need to retrieve Sable." She turned to Esmerel. "What's the likelihood that she's still in Lition?"

"Highly likely. She's a novice, so long jumps would be difficult."

"Then we have some time." Wyvell looked at her and Kapun. "You two, stick with Kair. Don't wander off, understood?"

"But we need to look for her too!" Brylle countered. Then she realized who she was talking with. "I mean…"

"Yes, you do," Wyvell agreed. "If anyone's power could help out in this situation, it's yours."

"What do you…" Brylle then caught onto Wyvell's meaning.

Her completion percentage could be used to estimate a distance - in other words, triangulation.

"Esmerel, Hastor - we fan out. Try to go in populated areas, since that's where Sable's most likely to end up if she gets lost. Kair, Kapun, and Brylle: go and triangulate Sable's position. Get her back as fast as possible."

There was no time for arguments. Kair, who had shown up when he heard the commotion, grabbed both her and Kapun. A few seconds later, they had opened the door to the base, and Brylle entered Lition proper for the first time.

It was a… city. It was the first time that she'd even been inside a real one, not one of Pandora's designs. Right off the cuff, she noticed how much more it was. More buildings, more people, more noise, more everything. She was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed, but closed her eyes and counted down for a little bit.

It wasn't 'tour' time, and she couldn't treat it like that. Instead, it was 'find Sable before she got into trouble' time. That was something she was familiar with.

"Brylle, Wyvell said something about triangulating Sable's location?" Kair asked.

"My power - it gives me some sort of 'completion percentage'," Brylle explained, though she knew that it was somewhat inaccurate. "It judges what I've done - actually, no, it judges how well I've done it."

"Will it help?" Kair asked.

"Wyvell thinks so," Brylle answered. "I - I guess we can give it a try?"

Kair flew them to a rooftop. "If it gives you a sense of distance, then I'll try and fly you around the city. Tell me whenever this 'completion percentage' goes up, okay?"

Brylle nodded. Kapun got off, before sitting down. "Do you want me to stay here?"

Kair nodded. "If Brylle's talent doesn't work, we'll need your help to try and find her on foot. Every Pokemon can help."

Kapun sighed. "I… I guess that's alright," he said. "But hurry up!"

Kair grabbed Brylle tighter and they flew higher, ever higher into the air. Soon, they were flying above the city, and Brylle could see it in all of its glory.

"What is your power telling you, Brylle?"

Brylle closed her eyes and concentrated. "It's… 0%." 0%? That was a 'terrible job', by the standards of her power.

Kair began to fly in circles. "How about now?"

"It's… still 0%."

"Now?"

"No change."

It went on like that for a couple more minutes. Kair and Brylle flew across all of Lition - and yet, there was no change described by her power.

"I don't understand!" Brylle groused as they landed by Kapun some five-to-ten minutes later. Kair had decided that if it was going to go on like this, they'd have a better chance of getting to Sable on foot than by mystical powers. "It was working earlier! Why is it failing me now?!"

Kair crossed his arms. "You said it wasn't a completion percentage earlier, right?"

"Yes, but…"

"So why are you treating it like it, then?"

Brylle frowned. "I - well… when I first used my talent, it acted like a completion percentage. I had to fix something, it started at a low percentage, and the more I fixed the higher of a percentage it became."

"And earlier?"

"It was an indicator of how good my board was," she explained. "When I was playing a board game with Wyvell."

"You said that it judged you, right?"

"I - that's what it feels like, intuitively," she said, scratching the back of her head. "It judged my board, and… well, it judged how much of fixing I had completed."

"So it worked on something already started for both times?" Kapun interjected.

Brylle paused. "I - yeah," she acknowledged. "Why do you…"

"Because it 'judges' you. It has to judge something, doesn't it? The state of the board, the amount of completed fixing - something!"

"Yes - but I don't get why it isn't changing when we look for Sable," she said. "We flew around and around, waiting for it to change-"

"You weren't looking for her," Kapun interrupted, "but trying to use your power as a radar."

"I - yeah?"

"So it doesn't have anything to judge."

"It has the distance."

"No, you were trying to use your power as a radar - maybe that's what your power was judging, the attempt of using the power itself. It wasn't measuring distance at all because that wasn't what you were trying to judge."

"So what does that mean, then?"

"Try… looking around normally. Don't change your direction based on what your power says until it starts changing on its own."

"How is that different than before?"

"Because you weren't looking around normally. You were trying to get your power to change, and it judged itself as 'not changing', and since you only wanted the power to change instead of getting closer, it had no reason to change."

What was he talking about? "I - you're giving me a headache," Brylle muttered, rubbing her head in confusion. She was only 47% of the way to understanding Kapun's attempt at an explanation.

"I think we're wasting time," Kair said. "Brylle, Kapun, you two go on foot. I'll conduct a sweep of the skies and try to get a bird's eye view. If you two see any suspicious characters, avoid them. Be back at the base within the hour." He then stopped, before adopting a serious expression on his face. "Right now, things are tense. You need to show that you're reliable in a tight pinch, kids. Understood?"

"Understood, sir!" Brylle said, happy to get into familiar territory. She decided not to rely on faulty powers, and instead work using her trusty eyes and ears. "You can count on us!"

Kair nodded, before turning and flying away in a great gust of wind.

"So… first step?" Kapun asked. "After all, you are my direct superior right now."

… holy shit, he was right. This was her first mission - well, no, it was the first mission that she was properly leading. Right now, she didn't have a commanding officer like she did in Fylak, with Kair. Right now, she was to lead Kapun to where Sable was… wherever that was.

"Let's go to the center of Lition," she decided. "We can start looking from there."

"Aye-aye, Brylle." Kapun saluted. It looked strangely rehearsed - ah, right, he was with Kenki for a couple of months.

"You - uh, don't need to go that far, Kapun. Let's just get moving." Brylle turned away from him, before taking a breath. "Okay?"

"Sure thing."

They walked through the streets of Lition. Since they had to look for Sable, wherever she was, Brylle couldn't fixate on any one thing about Lition for too long. That meant that she couldn't look at the canal, the in-air theater, that they couldn't visit the amphitheater…

..drowning… it was going to be alright, it was just a dream…

She shook her head. She had been replaced by a dummy before she had felt anything remotely close to painful, but she had been able to watch from its eyes. She had seen how desperately Culus had tried to save her - how he succeeded.

"We're here," she announced, as they arrived near the center of Lition. A large central plaza, with many marketplaces in sight. Off in the distance, she could see what she thought were governmental buildings. They were fancy enough for it.

"Alright - where are we going to go from here?"

"I… don't know." Her mind had gone blank again. She thought that being on an actual mission would make her more able to think and that she'd have more options. She technically had options, Pandora wasn't here to make limitations on what she could do, but the increased amount of choices made it, strangely, harder to choose. "Any ideas?"

"Uh… ask the locals?" he hedged.

Right… except, that gave them the chance to tip off possible Shadow Workers - no, don't think about Shadow Workers, she and Kapun were just… looking for a friend. Yeah, that excuse would fly.

"Let's go for it." She went up to a nearby stall owner. "Have you seen a Drowzee here in the past twenty minutes or so? Short, stout, bad-tempered?"

The stall owner just looked at her flatly. "All Drowzee are like that, miss."

"R-right." Taking a closer look at him, she noticed that the stall owner (an Oranguru) was offering beauty treatments for hair, a small pair of scissors in his hand. He was covered in white fur and what looked like paint… a Smeargle, she guessed. From his tight frown, it looked like it didn't go too well. "Thank you anyway."

She went over to another stall owner. Drowzee weren't too common, were they? "Ma'am, have you seen a Drowzee earlier today?"

The Pokemon, a Growlithe, nodded her head.

"Where?!" She had found it.

"Over by the fountain. They were cracking jokes with their friends an hour or two ago."

… Drowzee were more common than she thought, and the Drowzee the Growlithe saw was not Sable. "Anyone else?"

"No."

...

"Anything?" Kapun asked her, fifteen minutes later.

"No," she said, a little angry. "Everyone either hasn't seen a Drowzee or saw a Drowzee that was here one-and-a-half hours ago."

"Right, them. That's what I've been getting too."

So it was a waste of a quarter of their time. Considering how long it took to get here, they were over halfway through their allotted hour of searching, with nothing to show for it.

"We're not close enough," she said, crossing her arms. "We need to be closer."

Kapun sighed. "But how likely is it that we're going to find her in the next fifteen minutes?"

"Only about 52%."

"..."

"... it worked… " she whispered. She had completely forgotten about her power in the effort to find Sable - and it popped up now, instead of before when she needed it to come.

Except, she had changed what she was judging - instead of 'how close she was to Sable', it was 'how likely she was going to find Sable in fifteen minutes'.

"The question matters," she concluded. That was what Kapun meant - what she was trying to do was what was being judged, and her intentions were measured.

"But we can't use it as a source to lead us." Brylle blinked as Kapun countered. "We'll use it to measure our progress towards the goal, but we can't use it to lead us directly. It doesn't function as a guide - it probably can't."

Brylle wasn't sure - but when she tried to ask the question, 'how likely was she going to find Sable before they had to return, the number had gone down to 46%. They didn't have the time to waste arguing.

Kapun then blinked. "I - I think I just saw something," he said slowly. "It's… it's faint, but…" Kapun started running off southwards.

"Kapun? Kapun, where are you going?" Brylle asked.

"Towards Sable… I think!"

Before Brylle could say anything else, he was running off. Hasty, stupid - it was only 98% likely that they would find Sable if she went with Kapun!

…

… never mind, then.

"Wait for me!" she shouted. Kapun ignored her and continued running. She stamped her feet on the ground so that it would give her a bigger boost as she ran through the city. "Kapun, slow down!"

It was as if he couldn't hear her. Brylle eventually stopped trying to slow Kapun down, instead focusing on speeding herself up so that she could catch up to him - Deino were definitely faster than Larvitar.

Insanely, he sped up. Kapun hadn't been going at his full speed. Had Brylle not been trying her damn hardest to keep up with the Deino, she would have taken a second to admire it.

The two of them tore through the streets of Lition. Some of the residents even shouted 'Nupak!" for some reason (was that a Litionese thing or was she crazy?). Soon, Brylle began to lose track of everything but Kapun. She had to keep up the momentum, or else she was going to lose Kapun.

And then he stopped, and Brylle had to throw up four walls to prevent herself from crashing into him.

"K-Ka-" Before she could say anything to him (maybe a swear word or two for forcing her to go through all of that), Kapun held up a paw to her mouth. "What's going…" Then she followed his gaze. "... huh."

Sitting on the side of a river was Sable, kicking her feet back and forth. As she did, she talked to a Trubbish girl, who was talking animatedly.

"... to learn teleportation," the Trubbish said. "I mean, it sounds like it'll be hard at first, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it."

Sable sighed. "Oh, I'll probably get the hang of it," she agreed. "But I don't particularly like getting flung miles away from where I'm supposed to be, Felcha."

"That.." Kapun murmured. "I met that Trubbish, yesterday."

"When you were touring Naixe?" Brylle asked.

"Yeah, we played soloccer ball together." Soloccer ball? She tried playing that once with Sable and Thilia a year ago. It wasn't that fun. "I didn't know her name, though."

Brylle patted his back, her breath finally coming back to her fully. "Well, let's not be rude. Let's go and say hi!"

"Just, ah, one thing." Kapun blushed. "She thinks my name is 'Nupak', so… uh, call me that, okay?"

"'Nupak'?" Brylle asked. Then she figured out how he came up with it. "That so… so dumb…" She giggled a little.

Kapun sighed. "Yes. Yes, it is. But call me that, okay?"

She pushed down the remainder of her giggles. "Got it." After they hashed out one or two more details, they went toward Sable and 'Felcha' to go talk to them.

Sable saw them first, her eyes widening a little. But Brylle made sure to put a hand over her mouth, before pointing to her head.

Immediately, she was besieged with a headache. '... took you guys… long?!'

'Sable, for now, call Kapun 'Nupak' and me…' She mentally resigned herself to the 'codename' Kapun had come up with for her, since they hadn't been able to think of anything else within the short time. 'Lyrb.'

'... Lyrb?'

Brylle waved. "Hey! We were looking for you!"

'You have a lot to explain later.' Sable smiled. "Took you guys long enough! I was wondering when you would find me!"

Felcha turned to her before Kapun caught her eye. "Nupak?" She broke out into a smile, before waddling over. "How's it going?!"

"It's, uh, going well," Kapun said awkwardly. "My friend Lyrb and I were looking for around half an hour."

Felcha turned to Sable. "Do you recognize these guys, Sable?" Did she use her real name?

Sable nodded. "Obviously," she drawled. "Or did you not hear me flag them over?"

Brylle winced. Felcha, though, didn't seem to mind. Instead, she looked pensive. "But you said that you'd teleported far, far away? How would your friends know where to find you?"

Kapun stood forward. "We've run across a lot of Lition, and we covered way too much ground." He walked forward to stand next to Sable. "But Sable, we have to get going."

Felcha groaned. "But I was just getting to know her, Nupak. Heck, I barely even know you! Seltz wants to know if you're up for another game of soloccer! He saw your super-cool kick yesterday and wants you to teach him it!"

Kapun's eyes softened a little. "... well… I am up-"

"Then wait here while I go get him! He lives across the river, and there's a field two blocks north!" Felcha jumped straight up, fire and energy brimming in her eyes. Brylle side-eyed Sable, who just seemed amused with the whole thing.

"N-No, you really don't have to-" But Felcha didn't seem to hear him. She ran along the side of the river, to get to the bridge fifty feet away.

And then a banana peel, having fallen from her sack in her hurry, slipped under her foot. Gasping, she careened to the side, her plastic tendrils grasping at air.

But with the river bank as wet as it was, the attempt was futile. Rooted to the ground in shock, the three of them watched Felcha fall into the river… watched her sink into the river.

"... oh… oh no…" Brylle's eyes quickly looked around for any Water-types, but only she, Sable, and Kapun were around. "S-Sable!" she shouted, trying to mentally grab onto the situation. "Teleport back to the base and get - get someone!"

"I can't!" Sable shouted back. "If I could, I - I would have already done that! My teleports keep missing their mark!"

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Brylle couldn't swim, and Sable didn't know how. "We have to find a Water-type!" But they only had a 0.2% chance of finding one before Felcha drowned, so it was practically doomed anyway! "Kapun, what do you… Kapun?"

Kapun was staring into the river. "I can…" Before she or Sable could do anything, he leaped into the river where Felcha had fallen in.

"KAPUN!" Brylle ran to the river bank, making triply sure not to slip on any water or trip into the river. She remembered the last time she drowned, even if it was only a dream. "S-Sable, do…"

Her mind had gone completely blank. Even as she looked around, desperate to find a Water-type, any Water-type, she knew that the chance was dropping. There weren't too many people around them, and the few that were around them were Flying-types or Poison-types.

The river is polluted, she realized. And no Water-types want to be here. Felcha was probably here because the river was a Poison-type paradise, and Water-type hell.

But Poison-types couldn't swim, and for some reason, Kapun dove in after her. The water was a thick, murky black - she couldn't see even half a foot into it. But Kapun hadn't resurfaced for air…

Sable drew in a breath of air suddenly. Brylle turned around. "What is it?!"

"I feel Felcha! She's making her way back up - no, she's being dragged up!" Dragged up - no way, was Kapun…? "... she's slowing down, though!"

"Grab Felcha with psychokinesis and drag her up!" Brylle ordered. It was sad that it took this long for her to think of that.

"Got it!" Sable closed her eyes and held out her arms. A second later, Felcha burst out of the water, covered in a psychic glow.

"Now do Kapun-"

"I can't!" Sable flung Felcha onto dry land. "He's Dark-type, I can't even feel him anymore. He'd be too big anyway!"

No, no, no! She couldn't - she couldn't fail. She was going to fail Kapun, and-

There was a light glow from underwater, breaking through the inky blackness of the polluted river. A second later, in a much larger burst of water, a Zweilous broke out of the river.

"Help!" Kapun shouted.

Brylle then realized, feeling absolutely stupid, what she could do. With a giant stamp of her foot, she concentrated her geokinesis and sent a small pillar of rock directly to Kapun. Kapun, though, wasn't grabbing onto it. Instead, it looked like he was having trouble treading water…

"Sable, if I fall, catch me!" Brylle shouted, looking at the river in trepidation. But Kapun - Kapun jumped in. She could do at least this much. Before Sable could do anything else, she steeled herself. She had to do this.

She stepped onto the pillar of the earth. It nearly crumbled her weight, but she pulled more stone from the riverbank to fortify it. The chance she would save Kapun was 70%... 68%...

She was wasting time. She walked across the pillar a little hesitantly, before hurrying up as Kapun dipped below the surface of the river. She plunged her hand into the disgusting murk and clutched a furry flank.

She had him.

Filled with energy, she dragged Kapun out of the river. The Zweilous coughed and sputtered with his two heads, and Brylle knew that neither of them was out of the water yet - that that was quite literal.

She took even more time to fortify the pillar, before pulling a waterlogged Zweilous across the horizontal pillar and onto dry land. He just kept coughing and coughing.

Sable was performing some sort of maneuver, and Felcha was spitting out mouthfuls of murky water. A second later, Felcha's eyes snapped open, and she began gasping wildly. Sable spun around. "Brylle, help out Felcha! I'll help Kapun!"

They switched places immediately. Sable was performing the maneuver on both of Kapun's heads, and Brylle was just… well, she tried to replicate Sable's maneuver when it looked like Felcha couldn't breathe. It was disgusting, but Brylle couldn't pay it any mind as she just tried to help Felcha breathe again.

"Th-than-" Felcha coughed even more. "T-Thank…"

"Keep. Breathing," she ordered. "And don't even think about talking anymore." Felcha obediently coughed.

Next to Sable, Kapun stood up. "Ar… are you okay?" one of his heads asked weakly. "Do any of you…"

Kapun swayed on the spot, and Sable caught him. "Easy there~," she said.

"... candy… " the other head murmured. "Can I… can I have some candy?"

Sable side-eyed Brylle, who shrugged. What was either of them supposed to do?

"Uh… sure. Yeah, you can have some candy."

"That's… good. I'm going to take a nap now…" With that, the second Zweilous head slumped over.

"Ugh… " Kapun slumped over. "I… I wish I could go to sleep too…"

"Don't, we need to go back to… home," Sable said lamely. "Just try to stay awake, okay?"

"... okay…"

Once again, she and Sable switched places. Sable went back to tending to Felcha, who was still coughing wildly. She sat down next to Kapun. "So, you evolved, huh?"

"... yeeeep," he said. A small, tired smile came over his face. "This is… going to be annoying."

"What do you mean?"

"Two heads with control over one body. Two minds." He nudged his sleeping head. "I didn't want candy, though I wouldn't say no to it. I have no idea what he's thinking or dreaming about."

She winced. "Here's hoping you evolve into Hydreigon quickly."

"Hear hear," Kapun said, a weak smile then fading. "Ugh… Dad is going to be pissed about what I just did…"

She blinked. "Why?"

"Jumping into a polluted river? Almost drowning?"

"... good luck," she offered lamely.

Then, in the corner of her vision, Felcha stood up. "I… I'm going to go home." Felcha looked at the river and shivered. "I… I want Mom…"

"Do you want us to take you home?" Brylle offered.

"... okay."

...

"I'm so proud of you!" Kair gushed, hugging Kapun. Kapun squirmed, trying to get out of his father's grasp. Luckily, his other head hadn't woken up yet, or it would be even worse for him. "You two have grown up so much!"

"Are you talking about Sable and Kapun, or just both Kapuns?" Wyvell asked.

"All of them!"

Brylle smiled. After they had brought Felcha back home, they immediately went back to the base. Kair had been fussing nonstop over Kapun for a while, while simultaneously hugging him to death

"We'll need to make a report to Angira," Wyvell continued. "For now, it's likely that both you and Kapun will be sent to HQ shortly if only to have a private area to become accustomed to your new abilities and forms without fear of exposing this base."

Sable rolled her eyes. "That's fine with me. We're not doing much here anyway. Accidentally teleporting into Lition was the most fun I've had all week - if not all year."

"And the lack of control you had?" Wyvell asked.

"... it was still really fun," she defended. "Even if it was dangerous."

Kapun looked nowhere near as enthused. "I just hope that I'll be able to deal with another brain. The other me - he doesn't really… think as I do. I hope that we'll be able to work together." He yawned. "I'm going… to sleep. Evolving took a lot out of me."

Kair just hugged Kapun tighter. "It's alright," he murmured. "Just try to rest. I'll bring you to your bed."

They all watched as Kair carried Kapun outside the common room. Hastor just held his arms across his chest, scowling as always. Esmerel hadn't expressed anything since they returned with Sable in tow, going back to her meditation once it was clear that the emergency had already cleared up.

"You did well," Wyvell praised, turning to Brylle. "You're lucky that Kapun evolved when he did, but other than that, you two composed yourself well."

Brylle flushed, a nice warm feeling creeping up her chest. "It was nothing," she said. "I'm just lucky that Kapun found the way to Sable."

It was no exaggeration to say that everything would have been worse if Kapun hadn't led the two of them to Sable. What the Shadow Workers could have done to Sable - the kind of information that they could have pulled if the Shadow Worker that found her was unscrupulous.

And she… she had almost no part in it. All she'd done was waste their time during the mission. She wasted Kair's time with the attempt to use herself as a method for triangulating Sable, and she wasted Kapun's time near the center by failing to get any good information. The only thing she'd succeeded in was saving Kapun at the end.

"How did you find Sable?" Wyvell asked, drawing her from her inner musings. "Esmerel's telepathy pulsed over a wide area, but she wasn't able to find her. From what Kair said earlier, you weren't anywhere near Sable when he left you two to your devices."

Brylle straightened a little. "When we were searching in the center of Lition, Kapun started muttering oddly. A few seconds later, he ran in the direction of Sable." She faltered as she continued. "He then made twists and turns perfectly, and I could barely keep up. It didn't even look like he stood around thinking. He only stopped when we arrived."

Wyvell's brow furrowed. "His talent?"

Her confidence drained even more. "I don't know. Probably?" she asked rhetorically. "Once he wakes up again, we'll see if-"

"KAPUN?!"

Kair's panicked shout echoed through the base, cutting through their conversation as if it wasn't there. A second later, Brylle was off running toward Kapun's room, thoughts of his talent gone.

She and Wyvell arrived only five seconds after the initial shout, Sable already having run in. Kair was standing over Kapun's bed in panic and shock. Kapun, meanwhile, slept peacefully. Well, as peacefully as the Deino could, considering the stupid grin on his face as he murmured nonsense under his breath.

"What's the problem…," Brylle's brain caught up with her. "He devolved?!"

Kair just stared at his son. "I - I was tucking him in when he began to glow dark. Then he shrank, and… and…"

He devolved. Her thoughts began to run in wild directions. Did having the ability to use the Aspects prevent people from evolving - wait, no, that made no sense, Helios had evolved a long while back without any repercussions. Evolving had nothing to do with the Aspects.

Unless… was his talent the ability to force a temporary evolution?

Going to sleep would shut off his use of the Aspects, she assumed, since the power was used voluntarily. If Kapun had devolved in bed… likely, when he finally fell asleep…

But then, what was with Kapun earlier today, when he led her to Sable and Felcha? What was his real Aspect?

Hastor summed it up the best.

"What the fuck is going on?!"