... I remember waking up by water, groaning while I refocused my sight.

I blinked my eyes a few times and carefully rose to my knees... It was actually pretty easy. I looked at my arm and even lifted it... No sprain... That wasn't right. I checked the rest of my body out and, even if I was still disgusted with the way I looked, it was all fine. Everything looked like it had never been damaged...

I looked back to the water and blinked, then walked closer, but something was very wrong... I had no reflection, again... I finally understood what was going on. This was a dream and I was back in "my forest home".

Turning and looking around, I saw that I was indeed correct. There were the pecha trees. To my right was the stone mom sat on in passed dreams next to the pond. And ... in front of me, there SHE was, towering above me and smiling brighter than the sun... only this time, I personally felt wrong about it.

"Hello, dear~. And sorry for the rough ride..." Her brows furrowed as her smile shrunk. She crouched down and rubbed my head as I closed my eyes and tried to relax... but that never happened. "It was all I could do to keep you from the blast."

... Ordinarily, I would have admired my mother for doing something like that... I instead shook my head with a smirk. "Hah hah hah hah hah!" It was all starting to "make sense" to me and I couldn't help but laugh, not because it was funny... but because it was all too convenient...

My mother seemed worried as she frowned and stopped rubbing my head, just holding her hand to it as if she forgot about it, there. "...Ralina...? What are you...?" She smiled nervously. "I-is there by chance something I've missed?"

"How could you have? You're me..."

She lost her smile immediately, her face contorting with great worry. "...R-Ralina, what are you saying?"

I shook my head and swat her hand from my face, much to her gasping shock. I just stared into her, emptily. "Why is my own mind asking me what I'm saying? I know you are just me wishing my mother was here..." I glared into what I claimed was a hallucination. "The fact is that my REAL mother is dead. You can't be her."

"Mom" sat there with a shocked and frowning face, eyes wide as the hurt showed through as her brows furrowed. "... I... No, please. Wait a moment, Ralina. I-"

"Shut up!" My glare erupted into a contorted scowl. "I don't wanna hear one more word! I don't want to keep having this same Arceus abandoned dream over and over and over, but my mind is probably so broken that it's the only one I know!" With this grotesque smile on my face, I chuckled. I wanted to cry. I was taking stabs at my mother's hallucination and it STILL felt wrong. "I've just been comforting myself...! I've been making you up so I don't feel how dang alone I am! I even made up some logic for why you could come into my dreams like this...!" I clutched my face and breathed. I don't even know why I was breathing when I didn't need to. I was so worked up that I hadn't even realized there was a great hole in my logic...

"Mother" was slowly brought to empty sobs... before tears started rolling down her cheeks... I couldn't shed tears here... Why could she...? I just thought that it was just another punishment, like metaphors standing for something... "R-Ralina, please...! No... I-I'm not a part of your mind... I c-ould never tell you the truth! What would have happened?! How could I ever tell you that-"

My temper finally got the better of me as I bared my teeth. I threw my hands from my face and screamed at the top of my lungs! "SHUT! UP! I DON'T WANT THESE LIES, ANYMORE!"

I suddenly gasped awake from my sleep as I sat up and shouted, "I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE! ..." My eyes flew open as I stared ahead of me and saw... what appeared to be the inside of a lit cave. And once again, I felt extremely sore... My injuries were back, even the one I seemed to be forgetting... I collapsed back down when I realized that, crunching something beneath me. I didn't hear that sound that time. My mind was too busy buzzing.

... ... ... So, you realized that, huh? Yeah... I'd never realize my contradiction in logic until I was made to think about it. I was a child, no matter how "mature" I was supposed to be for my age...

Anyway, getting back to that lit cave, I looked around for the source of the light and found a campfire going strong a few paces away from me. Looking down beneath me while turning over to one side and hearing crinkling snaps, I realized that I was laying down on a bed made of hay... or something like hay. I wasn't certain. "What in the world...?" {Where am I,} was my immediate thought, blinking over the area.

I then heard footsteps, gasping and rolling over to the wrong side as I rolled right atop my sprained arm and grunted loudly, falling to my back again as my other hand flew to that same screaming arm, gingerly gripping where it hurt as I hissed. "Augh! My arm!" I looked down at it and blinked in angry suspicion at what looked like small planks holding it straight. It was secured by tight strings of some sort... String shot? I'm pretty sure that's what it was. I had unconsciously begun to try ripping the binding string off, but it was harder than one might figure.

The footsteps sped up as a creature emerged from the tunnel of the cave! "No no no! Stop that! It hasn't re-set, yet," came an unfamiliar pokemon's soft voice as a pair of three fingered, small, pudgy hands eventually came over my grasping hand as they pried it away. I gasped in air as my eyes snapped to the pokemon, seeing an Audino looking at me with a scolding glare. A pink and yellow pokemon. Same one I couldn't really make out finding me first, before that white, black and green blur came from behind it...

You know what an Audino looks like, right...? ... You don't know what an Audino is, period? Oh boy... Uh... Well, they're these somewhat rotund pokemon that have sitrus berry shaped forms to them, if you include their round head with chubby cheeks. They have pudgy arms that lead into small, three fingered hands and these cute, stubby legs with two toed feet. They have these floppy, almost wing-shaped ears that have curled up, long lobes coming down from the inside of their ears that help hearing even better than their already huge ears probably could, naturally.

Their eyes are essentially like ovular Sapphires that have no real schlera, but they do have a hard to see, oval pupil in the middle. I don't think I've ever seen eyes so shiny. Their mouths are small and usually form V's when they either try to smile or frown. They also have a tail which is essentially just a big fluff ball of poof shaped like... ... ... Hmm... Hey. Spray that cracker with whip cream... Yeah. There. See that? it's shaped like an oversized dot of whipped cream. It even has the same white color.

They have coats that are both cream colored and pink. The cream color is whatever's left when you try to imagine it wearing a form fitting, flare jacket that's waaay too frilly on the bottom, frilly hood that covers down as far as their eyes, included. Their ears have pink as far as half way down their length, the cream otherwise, including their lobes. That should comprise their usual fur pattern.

So... I guess now, the best way to describe the audino I had staring into me at the time is to tell you what made her different. Her eyes were Emerald green in color. BRIGHT emerald green. The lobes of her ears seemed to be twice as long as usual. She seemed to wear this red ribbon with blue trim that was as long as her arms, even kinda wide for a ribbon. Something was written all over it, but it was King's Tongue lettering. At the time, I didn't understand any of it and neither did she. I now know it read, "Falling over means you have to get up, again." Ironic, considering...

She spoke. "Listen here, you. I spent a good while splinting that arm. Don't go dislocating it with rash movements and DON'T pull off that splint! Aren't you in enough pain?"

I was a bit stunned into silence for a moment, eyes wide and lips pursed... I looked away while I frowned and shook my head. "Why help me? You don't even know if I'm worth helping."

"I don't need a reason," she stated in a matter-of-fact tone with eyes closed and brows raised as her hands leave me to fidget with her ribbon. I looked at her with a cocked brow as she went on. "But if you can count me seeing you slam straight into a tree and scare me half way to death, I guess that you can have that one."

She smoothed her ribbon down before she turned to the tunnel she came from. "Not to mention..."

As she paused, I blinked at her gaze in confusion before turning to see the tunnel myself, just in time to see a familiar white and black pokemon float in, then set down on her feet a small distance from me... It was Aria, looking at me with a worried frown. "A-are you okay, Ralina...?"

When I saw and heard her, I felt my heart skip as my eyes were once again wide... I then settled quickly as I stared listlessly into her eyes, then turned my head away. "...I told you not to call me that name, anymore..."

Aria sighed and shook her head. She obviously didn't like it, because of what it stood for. "... Fine. Fate. But still... I was worried about you... You did a cra-"

{Don't,} I thought to her as she flinched in mid-word. She closed her mouth and looked at the Audino, who looked curious.

She stood up from me, looking back and forth between the two of us, inquisitively... "You do both know I can hear you're both nervous, right," she cheekily informed us as she smiled and rolled her eyes. She pointing to her ears as they flicked and bounced.

I hadn't and neither had Aria, both of us seeming to freeze.

See, Audinos have such incredible hearing that they can tell what someone's feeling through listening in on their heart. They don't even need to be near them. It's just like my own ability to read feelings, but I do it with thought. Needless to say, that didn't quite make her a mind reader, because she got no context from that alone.

She huffed a bit and shook her head as she crossed her arms. "You two are free to keep secrets all you like... But if you keep them, I'm not using Heal Pulse and you heal slowly. And that would speed recovery along nicely for... Fate, was it? Might not take care of that sprained arm of yours, but you'd be in a lot less pain and have none of those cuts and bruises."

The both of me and Aria stared at each other... I didn't need to read her mind to see her eyes pleading with me to let her talk... With a sigh, I shrugged and looked away. "Fine. Just don't blame me if she thinks I'm a monster..."

The meloetta sighed and smiled a little. "Honestly, Ra- Fate. You don't exactly scream monster quite like a Nidoking or Aggron do."

The audino was looking at me with a cocked brow. "What's so scary about... whatever you are?"

Aria looked at her with a frown. "... She's actually a ralts."

That made our "nurse" cover her mouth, looking at me with wide eyes. She dropped her hand and spoke. "Oh! Oh my, now I see it! The horns should have given it right away..."

And then, Aria and I started telling her everything about the lab and the experimentation. I omitted the parts that had me asleep for 5 years and seeing my mom in my dreams. It went about as expected when I told her about the "I killed a lot of humans" part...

After a bunch of exposition and argument over morality...

The audino was holding her head and thinking. She'd taken a seat on the ground next to the fire, trying to calm down and think rationally. {Okay... So, to sum it up nicely, I have a killer angry child in my cave, but her reasons are sound. I don't believe she will kill me the second her arm is healed.} She sighed and took her hand off of her head, looking at the both of us. "Okay. I am clear on your story and intentions. I am clear on the fact that you had every right to be outraged, even if I don't personally agree with what you did."

I had sat up with help from Aria and shrugged my shoulders, staring at the fire. "I know this is where I should say you're right, because you are, but I don't care. 117 pokemon killed and then they killed my mother? Ask me if I regret my choice."

Aria, who had come to sit at the foot of my hay bed, nodded, even though she still wore a frown. "I still think it should have been me."

"Yeah. Why do you think I knocked you out?"

She turned to me and glared for the first time on her own. "I wanted to keep you safe from them! You're younger than me! I was the closest thing they had to human right from the start, so it should have b-!"

I tightened my face into a glare right back as I cut her off. "Yeah, and I didn't want to lose the only other person that mattered to me! You decided everything without a second thought! I know because I READ THEM!"

Aria quivered at how loud I got, still just barely holding her glare at me. Apparently, I WAS scary in some way.

My head dipped low as my hair fell over my small shoulders and obscured my face. "... You didn't tell me anything. I had to get it all from your head... So, when I learned that you were going to leave me there all alone... I almost lost it... I'm afr-... hate.. being alone... And with my mom gone, that's exactly what I would have been..."

The sudden realization dawned on the meloetta as her eyes seemed to grow wide, brows curled... "I..."

I shook my head, holding up my good hand. She didn't try to talk after that... "I was the youngest they had. The leader of whoever those Guardian guys were told me as much, like I said. Going by the logic the old human gave us, I had the best chance out of my mom, you and myself. So yes... I don't actually totally hate my new body, because I'd rather have this body and have someone than risk losing everyone..."

Aria looked down at her lap while she held herself, frowning and saying nothing for a while...

The audino just sat where she was an observed. She wasn't as worked up about it as us. I didn't realize it at the time, but she was letting us be so that we'd know how we were feeling. That might not make sense, since I should have been able to tell what Aria was feeling, but I wasn't really reading anyone, right then. I was just keeping to myself.

"I'm sorry..." Aria finally spoke and it was soft. Not her usual tone. "And... It's okay if you hate me..."

... I moved my hair from one eye, tossing it from my face and over my shoulder as I sat straight. "If I hated you, why would I have done that? I said that I care about you, didn't I? We ARE still friends, right...?"

With a grin as she pulled her head back up and looked me in the eyes, she nodded. "...We better still be~."

And that's about when I opened myself back up to outside thoughts, listening to Aria's. Perfect timing, too. {I hope you know how much I mean that...} I could feel the warmth behind the thought. It was comfortable and inviting.

I smiled for the first time in what felt like forever. "I do..." My statement only further lifted her mood as her grin grew. She even blushed a little.

{Well, I believe that will do~.}

The stray thought sounded like the Audino as her calm warmth mixed in with Aria, much to my confusion as I looked over to her just in time to catch her having risen to her feet. She had her eyes closed and a smile on her face while her hands hovered close to one another. A small shimmering of green light began to appear within her grasp. Every sparkle grew together before combining to form a ball of shimmering light.

She then gently extended her arms outward as the ball flattened out and became a wave that swept outward, much to our surprise!

I instinctively guarded my face and shut my eyes as the wave washed over me and Aria both, making my body tingle as pain quickly ebbed away... When I realized this, I opened my eyes and looked around at myself. Not a single bruise was left and my cuts had all been closing up as I watched in awe. It only took moments for every single last one to vanish from completely healed skin. I looked over to our apparent friend and blinked. "Thank you."

With a pleasant smile, she nodded and spoke. "My name is Neloe, by the by. Despite the things you may have done, it IS nice to meet you both."

My eyes focused back to my arm, still in that strange splint... I tried to move it and instantly hissed at a dulled pain, my other hand holding whatever it could of my stinging arm... I took a sigh and stared into it as I spoke. "Guess that WAS a lot to expect."

Neloe came over to me with a sigh, looking sternly into my eyes as I turned and looked into them. Her arm folded as she said, "I told you not to. My Heal Pulse can heal and deal with your regular every day cuts, bruises, scrapes and so on, but expect it to heal a major injury and you'll be disappointed. Nothing but time and patience can heal your sprain."

I shrugged and thought for a moment. If my arm wasn't going to be ready for anything for a while, that meant extra caution. Though, I would be lying if I said that was the only thing going through my mind. I still had things I needed to do. PEOPLE I needed to find... and possibly end...

There was ONE thing I needed, otherwise. I looked back up at Neloe and Aria. "Can I at least finally see my face? I have no idea what I look like, just what I feel like."

Aria was the one to smile, even if only a little. She turned to face Neloe as the audino met her gaze, blinking from confusion. Aria asked, "Can I bring Fate to the lake? I think it'll help her to see she's not a monster once and for all."

Neloe was about to speak as she opened her mouth, but I immediately said, "Doubt that." The audino's eyes fell upon me as she cocked her brow.

If I have to explain what my face must have looked like right then, I guess dull and listless would be best.

My meloetta friend looked at me with a disapproving glare. She was getting fed up with how I kept going on. She had a burning feeling about her. Anger. She thought, {Fate, I know I can't understand your full pain, but this isn't a good way to handle anything. Hell, you're not handling it at all! You're just burying yourself with what YOU think and refusing to listen to anything but bare essentials! Give yourself a damn chance, because there is a reason I'm still here and there is a reason these people helped you, despite everything!}

A gasp escaped out my mouth while my eyes widely stared into Aria, who looked a little taken aback as her glare melted quickly. She instead blushed a bit, embarrassed. "Oh shoot, you can read my mind." She hadn't meant to chew me out, funnily enough.

I know my stomach still turned then and it still does now to think of how biting my friend's thoughts could be. I bent my head low and took a moment to myself... Then, I let out a sigh and looked up at her as she went to apologize, but again, I cut her off. "Stop. I get it." My lips curved into a slight grin. "I... am.. being a brat, aren't I? I'm sorry... Just ... Well, give me time. I have to get used to..." I gestured to myself, losing my grin. "Well, this.. at some point, because it's not going away. It's just gonna take me a while to accept that." Even as I uttered the words, it felt forced, but I knew what I was saying was very real. I had to accept this or I was not going to be able to live. I still looked up to her and found her and found her giggling a little, making me blink. "What?"

She chuckled into a goofy smile. "Nothing, but that was kinda comical for me. I hadn't even meant to tell you any of that stuff, but now I'm glad you heard it." She huffed out her last laugh and then stood up, quickly levitating up as her smile relaxed into a grin. She offered me a hand and said, "Right hand, please~. I'll help you up. And don't think just because you're taller now doesn't mean I can't!"

I just stared at her hand for a minute, a little lost on how she could still laugh after everything. I think I started to admire that about her. With a small grin, I took her hand within my own, gripping firm as she put effort into lifting me from the bed with little more than a "hup!"

I rose from my spot, erecting my legs and ending up on my feet before even a moment passed, much to my surprise. I looked at her, honestly astounded that she was just grinning like it barely took anything. "How did you just do that? I have to weigh at le-"

{Psychic powers rock~!} A feeling of bright and warm. Pride.

And suddenly, my face turned blank with my eyes staring into her...

She blinked her grin away and cocked her brow, before realizing she thought "aloud" and let out a small erk, sweat dribbling the side of her face. She tried to whistle it off... Yeah, that's what I call bad acting.

Smirking to myself, I chuckled. "Oh, I get it. You used a move."

She pouted with an irritated leer, arms crossed. "Oh, shut up. It works, right?"

My eyes rolled until an unfamiliar voice... of... honestly questionable gender spoke up.

"Oh look, the cute one's up. Well, I mean, the OTHER cute one."

I cocked my brow as my eyes trailed over to the tunnel. I spotted a normal enough looking Vaporeon standing there with a sweet enough smile on it's face. "Hi there!"

Honestly, by that point, I was well convinced that things were happening just to keep me from seeing my face... But I cocked a brow, either way. "Uhh... Cute?"

"Oh," came Neloe as she padded over to them with a grin. She was about twice as tall as the new pokemon, but the vaporeon was unquestionably longer in body. I have to bet that if they stood on two feet, the tallest one would change pretty easily. There was a bodily gender confusion about them. They had mixed features that seemingly blended well together, but also made it impossible to tell if they were a boy or a girl. A well-kept figure was theirs, doubtlessly from living as all wild pokemon do for years. Their brown eyes were large, yet charti berry shaped.

... Why don't I just say... Almond shaped? What the heck is an Almond? ... Huh. Well, I guess those could work, too. You'll have to show me one so that I can be sure about that, though.

Anyway, getting back to their face... They had a short muzzle, as most of Eevee's evolutions do. A small berry nose of navy-blue dotted it's upper half. The ear fins they had were every bit as large as could be expected.

The fin atop their head was smaller and the frills around their neck seemed to drape over their back and shoulders, acting... kinda like a poncho? I suppose that's a good way to see it. The spines down their back were almost normal, but around the base of the tail, they were longer.

Neloe pat this new arrival on the back with a smile directed my way and spoke. "This is Alex! They came around after your friend showed up and helped me move you into our cave. As an additive, they would also happen to be a close friend of mine."

"And stopped Aria here from throwing her into a tree." Alex's words made Neloe stiffen up as the grin on her face grew nervous... She looked down at the vaporeon's face with a passive aggressive glare. They looked back up at her with a sheepish smile. "W-what...? Wasss... I not supposed to tell her anything about that?"

...I turned and looked Aria in the face, only to have her nervously fidgeting with her thumbs. She only looked at me after a moment passed. I just stared into her blankly. "...What?"

With the clearing of her throat, she spoke with a shrug and a guilty smile. "I... thought she was gonna try to.. um... attack you? Sooo, I almost Psychic'd her into a tree?"

Raising my brows, my face had to have a grin on it. I was gonna instigate the nerve, but she slipped behind me with alarming speed and began to push me forward, almost causing me to trip! "Hey!"

Pushing me again, she guided us both into the tunnel before to long, saying, "That's enough talking- let's go see that face of your's! You need to see how cute you look, like the Vaporeon said!"

Even as I protested with wants to stop or for her to cut it out, I could still hear the vaporeon say, "Uh, did I mess up?"

Let's disregard the fact that the two of them probably had rocks to throw for a bit. It didn't really matter at this point.

We walked for a while in silence, me just following Aria while she guided me through the forest we found ourselves in.

I looked around at the surrounding trees, cracks in the leafy branches making way for sunlight and blue sky. Every bit blinding with how shaded the area was overhead, I ended up having to hold a hand over my eyes to continue looking up like that and block the sun.

When I did that, I noticed bird pokemon in the trees. The weird thing about them was that they weren't just one region's signature bird. Tailow, pidgey, I know I saw a pidove making a nest with it's mate... Looking down to the sunlight speckled area that stretched on through the trees, I could see Bidoof' wandering the bushes, A lone Trapias eating leaves off of high trees and many of a quadruped dog pokemon I still don't really know much about. Some were big, small and anything in between, but they all had brown furred faces with this cream facial fluff. The small ones had no real direction to the fluff. The mediums looked like they had eyebrows and mustaches. The biggest of them and the only one like itself had an even more extreme case like the medium's but it was so long that the mustache stretched around near all it's body...

... ... ... Lillipup, Herdier and Stoutland? THOSE are their names? Hah! Well, those just sound silly.

This place had a weird mixture of pokemon in it, whatever the case. So far, no place I'd ever been to either living or passing through had ever had these pokemon living side by side with one another. I doubt I'd forget it if that case were otherwise.

Looking on ahead, the heated light of a way through the trees strikes me as familiar. I walked off ahead of my meloetta friend as she hums in confusion.

As the light grew closer and closer, I squinted through the trees, making out blue surrounded by green. As I exited the the thicket, my eyes quickly adjusted to the light, allowing me to take in the true scene...

I was back at the lake- the same one I had passed out at when Neloe and Aria first found me.

That had been the first time I had truly been able to take it all in. Aria came along side me while I gawked at the lake. She smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder, drawing my attention. "This is where we found you. If I had to guess, this place is maybe a mile or so away from what used to be the lab the humans brought us to."

I blinked, remembering the explosion that sent me flying a ways. It surprised me to know that it sent me so far. Looking over the lake again, it surprised me even more to think that this beautiful place was just on the other side of a forest from our prison.

Before I thought too much about that, the meloetta pat me on the back as giggled as I looked back to her with a gasp. "Hey. Don't get lost in thought over that. We're free now, thanks to you." With a relaxed grin, she turned to look at the edge of the land right nearest the lake and spoke again. "The water's perfect here. You can get a clear reflection of yourself if you look." Turning back to me as I looked at the edge of the lake, she went on to finish with. "Go right ahead. I don't think you'll feel as bad about yourself when you do."

I did a double take on her... but decided not to say a thing. Instead, I walked away, looking out over the lake. Grass crinkled underfoot with every step my feet took and even rustled as my "dress" dragged the surface a bit.

As I stopped near the edge, I looked down and into my own reflection. I think this had been the first time I'd seen my face so clearly, minus the ripples in the water. These liquids were the cleanest I'd seen in my life. Everything was so quiet. Even the breeze seemed to fade into obscurity for me when I saw my face.

It was rounded, as I thought when I first woke up in that tube. My jawline seemed more apparent, a slight bend visible in the nearly perfect roundness where my chin was. Hah. I remember thinking, I have a chin? ... Anyway, my features were more defined. My mouth was definitely bigger, no longer just a small thing that looked a bit small for my face. It fit. My lips pursed more and more with every feature I made out. I saw my deep red eyes, still very round, but slightly narrower. They grew wide when I took in my appearance. I had this small, noticeable nose in the middle of my face. Same thing I'd felt before when I first woke up.

I never had actual eyebrows before, but there they were; green in color and thin. My green lashes even showed up more, even if only slightly more, making a small tail at the ends of my eyes. My hair was so long that it draped the sides of this face, fitting over my shoulders much like a curtain of deep emerald green. In the middle of the top of my head were my now somewhat bigger horns, red, vaguely transparent and still every bit centered, thank Arceus. My head was still pretty large and neck not that much thicker, but it was obvious that my body had the most growth, especially in height.

Speaking of my body, for what I could see, it was indeed slim and still underdeveloped... for a HUMAN child. Overdeveloped for a Ralts. That's right... It had become more human-like than I realized. By that, I mean my bone structure was much more defined, not auspicious like any normal Ralts's was. It was near totally human, only softer. There was also another big thing that kept it from being human, that being that my "dress" was still loose from my hips down, making it look like I was wearing baggy pants, maybe. We already know what my arms looked like. They were no longer the longest limbs of my body, however. That was obviously my legs, even if my "dress" was still loose, there.

I gave my face an honest pass over with a hand, making sure this was really me I was looking at. When I saw the same thing in the reflection of the water right as I did it, I knew for sure. That was me. This was my face, my body...

"Not bad, huh?"

I turned my attention back to Aria with a blink... then looked back into the water at my hair, grasping my bangs with the one free, good hand. Measuring them up to my arm, I couldn't actually stretch it out enough to equal the length. "... My bangs seriously need to be cut," I answered flatly. I didn't want to admit anything. I didn't look like what my mind made me feel like.

The meloetta rolled her eyes and smirked. "If you say so, but you know you look n-"

"Aria..."

She flinched a little as she blinked, then just stared at me, awaiting what I'd say.

My face felt dirty. As I wore that dulled and tired stare, I shook my head ever so slightly. "...Just give me time. Sorry, but we both know this isn't right, even if I don't look like a terror."

She nodded, even if she frowned. "Sorry. I guess I just want to make you feel better... You're just... Well, seeing anyone hurt like this would make me want that." She took a sigh and shook her head at the grass, looking down at it as she continued. "But... the fact is that you went through the worst of it all... I need to get that through my thick head, right...?"

I dropped my bangs and looked back to the lake. I could have been THAT person and brought up mother, but I decided not to say that. I myself wasn't comfortable talking about her right then, because my mind couldn't stop remembering those vivid dreams of her.

Shaking my head, I looked back to Aria, turning from the lake. "I think I've seen enough. Can we head ba-a-..." I blinked my eyes wide as I spotted something out the corner of my eye, then quickly snapped my head to the side to see Neloe and Alex, just as they ducked below the bush they were hiding behind while it rustled. That drew Aria's attention next.

I just stared at the bush with a cocked brow. "...Why? Seriously, just come out. That isn't necessary. I don't have Bite or anything." At that, Aria cracked up with a chuckle.

After a moment, the both of them walked out side by side, smiles the very picture of nervousness. Alex spoke for the both of them. "We... didn't want to interrupt you."

With both brows raised, I shook my head. "There's not really anything to interrupt." Relaxing my face, I shrugged as I spoke again. "But I AM glad you're here, because I've got an honest question for you. Please don't take it the wrong way."

Alex blinked, then smirked with a raised brow. "Is it about my gender?"

"No i-..." I stopped and just stared with surprise. Turning completely toward them, I nodded my head. "Actually, yes. That IS what I was gonna ask. Are you a boy or a girl?"

Neloe seemed to grin especially wide. "Oh, but here we go."

Alex rolled their eyes at her, shaking their head. "Oh hush, you." Then, they refocused on me with a grin while I just stood there, kinda lost. "Well, to give you the simple version, right NOW I am male."

That answer made everything even more confusing. I stared at him with a cocked brow before speaking. "Right NOW? I don't see how that makes it simple. Are you saying you change it?"

"Yup," he responded with a big smile.

"...How?" Aria was giggled to herself at all of what was going on. I didn't really pay her much mind.

Relaxing his face into a grin, he explained while his tail swished idly. "Well, since you WANT the whole answer, I'm technically a loose form of shape-shifter, but I can only really transform between male and female. As an Eevee, I was born male, but when I became a Vaporeon, I realized that I could kinda control which I was, though not at first. When it first started happening, I was just trying to get away from something that kinda spooked me, so I used my Acid Armor to dissolve into water after I jumped into a river. When I came back out of it on dry land and retook natural form, I accidentally forgot to "remember my gender", so I came out without one. Can you say panic attack? I eventually thought that if I used Acid Armor again, that would fix me, but I came out the wrong gender again, this time female. I think it took me a week just to get back to male. Maybe less? I was so nervous that I just lost track of time. Well, after that heart attack, I started getting... understandably curious. So, I played around with changing it and eventually figured out that I needed to be thinking of the right gender to be that gender. Otherwise, it would either be that I had none or was the first gender that popleo'd up into my mind. As time went on, I tried to even control aspects of my appearance so that the transformation was more defined and obvious..." He shrugged his shoulders and made a rolling gesture with a paw while sighing through a disheartened half frown. "Buuut I think you can tell how that went. It's still every bit a work in progress. You had problems telling which gender I am, after all."

My stare became more intense and I was understandably uncomfortable. I started thinking about how much of a horror that would have been if I came out a guy every time I teleported myself. Then, with sweat rolling my nervously grinning face, I asked, "A-are all.. vaporeon like this?"

"No," answered Neloe as Alex was opening his mouth. He made an irritated smirk, narrowing his eyes at her. She just stuck her tongue at him and rolled her own, then went on to tell me this. "Normal Vaporeons have no problems keeping their genders clear, effortlessly. Acid armor or not, every vaporeon other than Alex could keep their forms, to the most obscure of details. Alex specifically is the only Vaporeon I've met- not speaking for volume since I've only met 5- that has ever had this issue."

With a huff, she held her forehead, frowning. "And it CONSTANTLY confounds me! I just can NOT keep track of which they are half the time. I myself would very much like to know how this is possible, but I have no way of finding out."

The use of the pronoun "they" seemed misplaced, being that it described only Alex. I cocked my brow at it. "I'm sorry, but 'they?' Alex is just one person."

Alex smirked and poked his nose into the air. "She says that so that she doesn't have to keep track~."

Neloe nodded as she rubbed her face down with her hand, before letting it fall back to her side as she looked at me. "They has two meanings. It can be used for a many or it can be used for one, usually used in this way when the one is an unknown or unspecified something, Alex's case half the time with me."

"They" started to make sense to me, when the two of them explained it like that. So, in light of that, I decided to adopt the usage as well- as I will from this moment on while describing Alex in the gender pronouns. I nodded my head. "Okay then. They it is for me as well, otherwise I don't think I'm going to be able to keep up, either."

Alex and Neloe both smiled, but Alex was the one to pipe up, smile turning smirk with sultry eyes. "Don't worry about it too much. I'll eventually decide what gender I like best~." "Maybe," they added under their breath.

I could feel the sweat just dripping down my temple with my nervous frown. "I heard that..."

The ribbon clothed Audino stepped up to me and Aria with a hum and neutral expression. "I don't suppose you need me to ask this, but will you be staying? You should think about doing so for at least the amount of time it will take for your arm to heal."

My gaze trailed over to Aria, who had this pleading smile and Rockruff eyes.

As much as I wanted to leave straight away and find the humans I needed to confront, I could admit with a sigh and the bowing of my head that I had no idea where to begin. It was unavoidable, though. I would have closure to at least that. Looking over my one good arm, my eyes bored into it for a good moment or two. My thoughts? Whatever the case, they needed to be "held responsible" for their work.

I looked up from my arm and back to Neloe, narrowing my eyes and nodding. "Fine. I can at least wait for this arm to heal, but no longer than that. You won't agree with me. I get that..." I leered to the side with my eyes alone. "But the ones that got away need to pay for not only what they did to me, but what they did to my mother and all those other pokemon they killed. I won't be satisfied until then."

Of course the Audino shook her head, closing her eyes. The vaporeon seemed to blink in both concern of the tone shift and confusion. And so, Neloe spoke in a low tone. "It's your business what you do when that time comes. However..." She looked at me with a dead serious stare. "Do you TRULY believe that? Will it really help anything in the end? You still won't have anything they stole away from you. I don't claim anything on your scale, but I've gotten my own revenge a few times. It didn't really feel like a victory after the day passed."

Her words stirred something in my stomach as I made a low groan... I didn't give her any answer, instead shaking my head of the feeling, trying to hide it through a strong glare. "So, we'll be staying in the cave with the both of you, right?"

That frustrated her as she spoke, eyes opening as she took a step toward me. "That's no-"

"That's a pository~!" Alex interrupted her as she snapped her head over to them, appalled and glaring with her lips pursed. They smiled and raised a paw. "Just let it go. Stubborn doesn't beat stubborn, ya know."

"Oh I'll beat YOU with stubbo-"

Clearing their throat and quickly looking over at us, the vaporeon waved us over. "WELL! Care to go back to the cave for now? I might show you two around some of my favorite places when we've eaten something."

I couldn't help but grin a bit, seeing as the "guy" had bailed us out of lip flapping sessions with his friend.

And so that little intercession brought us all to walk back into the forest for the cave. I stopped there in the bushes while the others went on... I turned around and looked over the lake with an uncertain feeling in the pit of my belly. As I looked around, it felt like there were eyes looking on at us from somewhere... but where?

... Eventually, my eyes locked onto the waterfall and watched it's far off display of power. However, what I was in true awe of was the fact that the lake taking all of it's raging waters was not flooding over. I don't know where the thought came from, but it eventually struck me that this image seemed almost... like a metaphor.

The waters raged on, but the great lake ever stayed the same, never flooding over. I'm sure that if you think about it long enough, it's easy to see the metaphor. Regardless, that's your only answer for now, wrong or right.

After my staring contest with the waters, I turned away and walked off into the forest, following behind the strange friends I'd come to make...

... There were questions you wanted to ask that I wasn't really leaving time for. I've been talking for a while, so maybe it's a good time to ask them.

... Why? Well, I didn't really have much choice. A sprain can be pretty terrible to deal with, even if I don't use the arm. It'll still hurt if I'm doing something too crazy or doing something that would make me move it, unconsciously.

... Yeah, I didn't much understand it either. Alex just seemed like they liked to mess with people, back then, though there was a good and pure reason for it. I'll tell you about it when we get there. It took me a good while before I fully understood... or even accepted that there were guys like them.

... I don't understand the question. ... ... ... I don't think I can really answer that. Me and her... ... ... Let's wait for that one, too. Honestly, I'm not sure, myself...

... ... ... Do I miss my mother...? ... Well, yeah. In ways more than others. I know I've said it more than I've given you straight answers, but you won't understand what I said until we can get to that part. ... ... ... It's a bit too complicated not to explain in full and I don't want to break my own continuity. This has been helping me just as much as educating you, if that makes sense.

... Hah. Yes, you would. They're still out there. Them and the other you don't know about, yet. I've just not been around them for a ... well, good long while. A few weeks, at most. I have my reasons for that.

Thoooough, you might want a translator. You won't be understanding them much yourself if you're without one, obviously.

... Understand them, huh? Well, I can't understand EVERY pokemon. I can only understand the ones that... Well... How to put this... If a pokemon can say their "name", then I will be able to understand them. If they can't, well... It's every bit because they are either a wild animal or speaking a very different sort of language. There are exceptions, but most have issues.

For instance: If I tried to talk to a legendary bird, there is definitely gonna be a problem. I can't understand the ancient language they speak. It's part of the reason so many legendaries have issues with trespassing pokemon, though not every legendary speaks that language. Mallory is a perfect example of how the language is starting to fall out. So is Aria, who never even learned it.

I can't understand Onyx, either. I don't think many know this, but they speak no language. They're loyal and intelligent, but can't. Rock jaws will do that. They CAN understand them, though.

Better watch what you say, too. They have tempers. Think Beedrills but slightly longer.

... No difference. Steelix are just as nasty, if not worse.

Any other questions?

... ... ... Hah. I knew you'd ask. A pokemon doesn't evolve by merely aging. A ralts can go it's whole life- long time to do this, but possible- without ever evolving, if it doesn't get significantly stronger. And the answer to why I haven't evolved...? I have no idea... I think that part of me is just broken. Besides... What the heck would I become if I did? Definitely not a kirlia.

Whatever the case, I don't mind if it doesn't happen. This was enough to get comfortable with.

... I think that's enough, for now. Let's take a break for today. We'll start again, tomorrow...

And now, we are all caught up.

Well. I think it's fair to speak about my plans to continue this story and my other two. I don't plan on stopping here or where I did in Megaman Y or Sonic is Gone.

I will alternate between these three stories until I reach each of their conclusions. This story has had it's hiatus over on DeviantArt, but as there is still one more chapter I'd like to get done on Megaman Y's side, that comes foremost. It's a big one and might be split up into two parts, even though I don't like to split events. It's just too big.

As for Sonic is Gone, it too has had a long hiatus, I admit. Thing about it is that I already know exactly where the story will go. I know the ending. It's not hard to imagine, either. However, it's the in between that I'm not so certain about. In ways, I want to just keep exploring the world left to Tails and co, but I know all too well that the end will happen sooner than much of that can happen. Fact is that this story ends when Tails finds what he's looking for. However, Tails isn't all who matter. That wouldn't seem right. There are many characters to know and understand. Many sides of this story that can't be seen if they are not observed. After the next chapter of that story, that will be where focus shifts. Question is "who" and "how". That may become it's own collection of sidestories if it spans too long in the planning process.

All that said, there are many ideas that can be used in this very story- by which I mean "What I Am." Of course the main focus is Fate and what she will do. However, there are now a few characters involved. Yet another story with many characters to explore. The question here is "what to explore?" And there is also, "is it important enough?" And that brings about conflict and sidestory possibilities.

And that is what all have been constantly on my mind. I don't want to just write something that literally has nothing to do with the main story and put it in with the many chapters. That's filler and barely anyone wants THAT. I know I wouldn't. So. While there are interesting ideas to explore with the characters, they might just belong in aforementioned collections of sidestories more than cluttering the chapters of the main story.

I guess that me saying that is like me saying that definitely will happen. :-)

But this has all been a ramble-on. Still. I thought it best to let you all know.

I hope this all has been informative in some ways.

And regardless of any of this, thank you all for reading! ^^ I truly do love writing these fanfictions.