Author's Note: Long time no see. Truthfully, I have worked on this chapter since April this year. Only now, however, am I getting around to finishing it and releasing it. I do apologize if I have disappointed people. I am working on a novel, if that helps explain why. However, I will be getting back to this story. It is (spoiler alert) close to its conclusion, and I want to bring it to its happy end- I mean, realistic end, however you wish to interpret that. (/spoiler alert).

Also, I am well aware that this chapter is short, at only ~2,400 words. I am going to push out a new chapter soon, but I will keep its subject secret, except to say you might gain some insight into Blood's past after reading it. Is it a flashback? Is it a narrative? Only I know, hehe.

P.S. Interesting to see the quality of my writing change, if only slightly. If you do notice it...tell me where you think the break off of the April part is, and the start of the July part. Between then, I have done intensive writing, though of course I continue to write in the style of how Minun speaks even in the July part.

Days passed. Then weeks...then months.

Sometimes when Plusle and I were little, I'd ponder at how it all seemed to pass so fast. All those happy memories and memorable experiences from a time long gone...it seemed like it only lasted a split second. Perhaps it was because I'd enjoyed it so much. And when I enjoyed something, it was always over before I knew it. Just like my parents. Just like Plusle.

Just like Evie.

That was how it was with the team of us. Not everything we did was fun; in fact, sometimes I hated getting up early, following Flame down the tunnel to the main chamber, and getting escorted by Blood all the way to the hollow. Sometimes I hated listening as Blood explained all the tiny details of landing a precise attack on the relic while leaving me enough energy to escape before it could react. I didn't want to sit and listen. I wanted to do something. I wanted to train; I wanted to improve myself.

Yet I never said anything, because I knew that if I ever wanted to become powerful, if I ever wanted to avenge Plusle's death, I would have to learn the new skills that Blood taught me almost every day.

But my frustration showed, and Blood knew. He understood. We tried to spend as much of my training time battling the other team members to hone my skills. Whenever we weren't training, we would all gather at the main chamber to relax, and talk. Though we often fought roughly in the training battles we had, we all cared for each other in a way that was amazing to me. Shelly the Lapras and the Mawile, called Alexis, would help Blood gather edible berries and delicious plants from the hollow, and we'd have grand meals made of them. Over the juicy platters of food, we'd have all kinds of discussions. The others told me of their lives before joining the team. Flame entertained me with folklore about a time when humans used to inhabit the region.

Blood even answered some questions of mine, which everyone loved to listen to. Although I hated to dig up the memories again and force myself to relive them, there were questions that were left unanswered, and I had an explainable urge to know their answers. It was almost as if without them, I felt my past was incomplete, full of holes where I could not explain something and it remained forever shrouded in mystery.

One of the biggest questions I had was why Plusle had immediately become so...enthralled with the onix egg upon seeing it. It was almost like he was being hypnotized, helpless to resist as he staggered towards it. Although at first Blood didn't have an answer, he seemed to reach a conclusion after a day of thinking about it between training rounds:

"Minun - I think...maybe there is an answer to your question," he told me as we came back after a long day of learning how to use the relic to fight against itself.

"Okay," I answered. He had already said this twice, although he seemed to reconsider and tell me that he would keep thinking about it.

"Well - maybe this won't be entirely correct, but it does make sense to me. You said it was an onix egg...from what I remember, there are many ancient tales about onixes being legendary for their ability to alter the mood and thoughts of people and pokemon alike. After all, they are snakes, even if they are made entirely out of rock, which I suppose may limit their psychic abilities. Perhaps they have lost much of their previous power since then, but I think that an onix egg is, at its core, still very much the egg of a snake. It would indeed make sense that the egg may still retain its hypnotizing qualities - perhaps to hold predators captive until the mother arrives, as it did in your situation - even if as an adult an onix loses much of the ability it once had.

He smiled tentatively at me, hoping I would agree with his theory, and I did. "Let's get back to the others," he concluded.

Besides my questions and other team members' stories, what we enjoyed most was when Blood recounted his childhood life with Ice, before they went their own ways. He was so reluctant to talk about those times that it took all of us pleading with him before he opened that secretive chapter of his past, if only just slightly. A small story of what it was like to live in the rugged mountains up north, or a little time where they got in trouble for being mischievous and throwing stones down the cliffs at wild pokemon...never anything serious, or anything that would give me too much of a clue as to what happened to make them separate.

But I understood. Despite the fact that the other team members were constantly teasing him about being so secretive, I knew that if anyone asked me about my past, I would not want to tell them too much either. It wasn't as if I was too ashamed or fearful of it to talk about it - I simply didn't want to think of it anymore, because it would bring back fresh pain and suffering that I'd already endured enough of already.

And Blood did occasionally seem slightly distraught whenever Shelly or Alexis kept joking about him "covering up" his past. Maybe they never thought he was feeling anything as he sat quietly, listening to them. But even though he tried his best to keep his feelings from showing, I could see it.

His true feelings were lurking right underneath his usual, steady mood, and occasionally they managed to make themselves known - whenever the jokes got particularly rough (as they sometimes are, especially among Shelly and Alexis), there was often a faint shimmer in Blood's eyes, and I could see the corner of his mouth twitching almost imperceptibly. He never looked at Shelly or Alexis when they hounded him, and it was almost painful to watch as he desperately tried to stop his pain and sorrow from showing.

Usually, Blood's expression was impassive, revealing nothing...but in those brief moments where he seemed close to breaking down, I had a rare chance to glimpse a little deeper into who he really was. For all I knew of him, the first time I saw it happening I expected him to be angry and bristling at the two forcing him to relive his past, but instead of aggression, all I saw was silent suffering, the kind that comes only after suffering so long that there wasn't any way for it to show anymore. He never told them to stop, and only once did he actually get up and leave, telling a confused Shelly and Alexis that he "had something to do."

Eventually I told the two about what I noticed, but they were quick to laugh it off. "It's great that you're concerned about Blood, but-" Shelly started, but Alexis cut in: "But you know, it's all in good fun - and besides, I don't think he's really going through all that anymore. It's been so long since everything happened that he seems to treat it as if it's all a past that isn't worth thinking about." She paused to smile at me, but I didn't return it. "Though, you know, we all appreciate your concern about Blood."

From what I knew about Alexis, I suspected that she didn't really understand the nature of those kinds of memories - they don't fade away, and even if I wanted to, I could not simply make them disappear. I could only try to forget about them, but eventually they would come back. And then I would try my hardest to forget about them again, to "move on", and unless someone brought them up they might not come back for a while.

But they were always there, just waiting for someone - or something - to remind me about them. Then I would be forced to try to forget about them yet again, unless I wanted to keep remembering and keep suffering. It was a cycle I had gone through many, many times, back in the first month or so when the team members (but especially Alexis) often asked me about my past, curious about why "little Minun" seemed to always have a sad, heavy look.

Now my suspicions were confirmed - Alexis really had no idea what it was like. Maybe to her it was in good fun, but I knew that Blood suffered through it all. Even though he never said anything or did anything about it, he was still distraught and I knew it and could see it. Sometimes I wondered how they never saw the obvious, if very subtle, signs that they were disturbing him, forcing him to relive his old memories that like he was trying to bury. Maybe it was because they'd never had to bury any of their past - but I couldn't bear it as I watched Blood sit through it week after week.

Even just one little mention made in passing, if it was done at the right time, was enough to disturb his carefully kept calmness and leave him in a moody, melancholy state. Other times, Shelly - but mostly Alexis - wouldn't stop until he really seemed devastated, and then they might finally get the hint and suddenly start talking about something else, much to his relief.

But in that one moment frozen in time, just before they realized he was suffering and stopped - I could glimpse into his eye and there would be nothing except unreserved pain and sorrow. In that one moment, I could see him for what he really was - fragile and vulnerable at heart, yet full of hope and the immense strength and stubborn willpower to carry on. Blood was still grieving over his past - and it showed - but somehow, he never gave up trying.

Sometimes, I wondered about him - just truly wondered about who he was and where he had been, unlike the casual curiosity and bantering of Shelly and Alexis, which was shallow at best and harsh at the worst. I wondered about the absol called Blood, and what kind of life he had led, and what happened to cast him away from it. I wondered about his fragility, and how vulnerable he was...and yet, how he determinedly made a life for himself in the harshest of places, like the snowy, secluded mountains that he called home.

I wondered why an otherwise lonely pokemon like him would neglect his own nature to take us all in and nurture us and train us. I wondered why someone so hardened and scarred like him could still show so much concern for how I felt and what I was going through.

It was as if everything he had endured forced him to cast off who he was before and forge a new identity for himself. The Blood of the past: shrouded in mystery, with only the occasional glimpse from the stories we were told...and the Blood who was here: urging me to train harder, helping the others to master every aspect of the life we led, and silently enduring the lighthearted teasing that, unbeknownst to Alexis, was striking him right in the one place he couldn't defend himself - it was as if they were two different pokemon altogether.

But there was something else, too. There was always something else about Blood. In those moments where I could truly see who he really was - full of pain and grief - there was something else, too. Suffering alone couldn't explain why he did what he did and why he chose to live as far away from civilization as he could, spending his days preparing other pokemon for their futures when his was slowly slipping away.

There was some other feeling, buried even deeper than his immense grief - and though I knew it was there, I couldn't tell what it was. I knew it wasn't anger or resentment - he seemed to be beyond that. I felt anger and resentment when I hated something, when I wanted it to disappear and never come back. Instead, it was the exact opposite - he seemed to be longing for something. Something that he could no longer get.

And then one night, tossing and turning on the cold stone bed, waking up from a nightmare where Evie and Blood were slaughtered by the onix as I ran away, only to look back and wish I could have done something... I realized what the feeling was. What it could only be.

Deep down, past the immense grief and sorrow and pain that seemed to consume everything in him, Blood was feeling a different sort of pain.

Blood was feeling guilt...and, with it, regret.