I have returned with another update. I apologize for the wait, but I have been sick recently, so I haven't been able to get much done. Anyway, let's continue, but first, I have a review to respond to.

To ChronicAsylum: Thank you for the compliment. So, after you mentioned it, I actually went back and read over the chapter again, and I do agree with you, but to an extent. I do agree that the blushing portion was to much for the story, but the reason that the whole 'beautiful face' remark was something that he said to cheer her up, as she was feeling guilty about him getting hurt. And, in response to your other question, I don't really know to be quite honest, he just does.

I Hate Your Cool-headedness

I heard a knock on my door as I finished trying my boots.

"Yeah?" I said, straightening up.

"Hurry up, man." Kyle's voice said from the other side. "We gotta leave soon."

"Almost ready." I said, followed by his footsteps retreating from the door.

I went over to my desk and grabbed my phone, before pocketing it. I grabbed my backpack from next to the door and left, before heading towards the stairs. I had been given the all clear by the doctor, so I was actually allowed to walk, but I was cautioned to take it easy and not really do too many strenuous activities, but Maxwell seemed to take that slightly too seriously, as he had originally wanted me to stay in my bed whenever possible, but I had argued with him, and we had finally agreed on me just staying in the house the whole time, which I had no issue with, as Kyle and Jessica had been nice enough to stick with me and not leave the house either. When I got to the foot of the stairs, I saw that Kyle and Jessica were already waiting, ready to go, with Maxwell standing there as well.

"Finally dude." Kyle said. "Do you know how pissed off our teachers would be if we were late on the first day of school?"

"Sorry." I said. "And besides, I didn't take that long, so calm down."

"It doesn't matter how long you took," Jessica said, sighing, "let's just go."

"Right." I said, nodding.

We started for the front door, but Maxwell stopped me, putting his hand on my shoulder. I turned to him, and immediately knew what he was going to say.

"Listen, Riku," he started, "are you absolutely sure that you want to walk to school? I mean, I could always drive you."

"I'm fine with walking." I said. "I promise, it's no big deal."

"Are you sure?" He asked. I nodded, so he hesitantly said, "Alright then. You can go now."

I nodded, before following the others out the door. When I got outside, I saw Jessica and Kyle waiting for me, and impatient look on Kyle's face.

"Alright then," he said, "now we can go."

We started walking, Kyle slightly ahead of us, as he was on the verge of running, rather than walking. As we left the property, I fell back slightly, and Jessica followed.

"What's with him?" I asked. "I never thought that he'd be this eager to get to school."

"Well, there are only two reasons that I can see," Jessica said, "either he really wants to see his girlfriend, or he doesn't want to piss the teachers off even more by being late."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Has he already found some way to piss them off?"

"Well," she said, "I don't imagine that failing the first year of high school would make them too happy."

"He failed his freshman year?" I said.

"Yep." Jessica replied. "Maxwell got slightly pissed about it and almost didn't let him go with his girlfriend this summer, but he decided that he could go anyway."

"How did Kyle feel about failing?" I asked.

"He didn't really care." She said, shrugging. "In his eyes, it just put him in the same grade as pretty much everyone else. I mean, I'm a freshman, Adam's a freshman, Ashtynn's a freshman, his girlfriend, her brother, and her brother's boyfriend are all freshman. Literally everyone he knows is a freshman."

"Why?" I asked. "Does he just hate everyone else?"

"Not necessarily." Jessica said. "It's mostly just due to the fact that he isn't the most social person in the world, so he was always hanging out with me, so he just never met anyone in his grade."

"I bet that sucked." I said.

"Probably did at first, but now he doesn't really seem to see any bad parts about it, since he's in the same boat as us." She said.

I shrugged, and we continued walking in silence. We eventually reached the school, and we entered it to hear a group of unintelligible voices coming from the cafeteria. We went to the cafeteria, where I saw Buneary-morph and a Garchomp-morph sitting outside of the door, behind a table with a sign on it reading 'Pick up schedules here'. We went over to the table and I stepped in front of the Buneary.

"Hello." She greeted me, cheerfully. "I don't think I've seen you around before, so allow me to say welcome to our school. If you would tell me your name, then I can get you your schedule."

"Riku Mathers." I told her.

She flipped through a stack of papers in front of her, before pulling one out and handing it to me, saying, "Here you go. I hope you enjoy this school."

"Yeah," I said, feeling slightly awkward due to her peppiness, "thanks, you too."

I turned and entered the cafeteria, which was full of other students, all of them talking loudly.

I stood there, unsure of where to go, when I heard a voice say, "Yo, Riku!"

I turned to my left and saw Adam walking towards me.

"Hey." I said, walking over to meet him.

"So," he said, "how does it feel to be in a high school after so many years?"

I chuckled, before saying, "Dude, I was here a week ago. What the hell do you mean by so many years?"

"Haha, jackass." He said, sarcastically. "You know what I mean. Where's Jess and Kyle?"

"Still getting their schedules, I imagine." I said.

"Alright, well let's go meet up with the others." Adam said.

We started walking through the cafeteria to the back, surrounded by voices on all sides.

"Arceus, people here are loud as hell." I observed.

"You've got that right." He said. "Don't worry, our little group is fairly quiet."

We finally reached the back, where I saw Ashtynn sitting at a table with a Jolteon-morph, a guy with shaggy black hair, and a girl with long brown hair.

Walking over to them, Adam said, "Look who I found wandering around."

I sighed, before saying, "I wasn't wandering around, idiot; I was standing there, as I had just gotten my schedule."

"Whatever." Adam said, sitting down next to Ashtynn.

"Hey Riku." Ashtynn said, waving. "Sit down, we'll be here for a little bit."

I sat down next to Adam, with the Jolteon-morph sitting across from me, his arm around the guy.

"Ashtynn, I truly think you need your eyes checked." The Jolteon said. "You said that he was only, like, 5,1 or some shit."

Ashtynn chuckled, before saying, "Well, he was last time I saw him. How tall are you now, anyway?"

"I think we decided that I was somewhere around 6,4 or 6,5 now." I said. "Granted, those are just rough estimates based off of Kyle's height."

"Well, congratulations," She said, "you somehow went from being the shortest one in our group to the tallest in less than a month. How the hell did you even grow more than a fucking foot in such a short time?" I simply shrugged, so she said, "Whatever, it doesn't really matter. But, you should probably be introduced to these guys."

"We have names, you know," the guy said, "I mean, we aren't normally a collective group."

"Dude," Adam said, "this is school. Everyone is part of some collective group."

"Good point, I guess." The guy said, shrugging. "Anyway, I'm Alex, and this is my boyfriend, Leonard."

"I can introduce myself, y'know." Leonard said, sighing. He waved to me, before saying, "Nice to meet you, Riku. You can just call me Leo if you want; I prefer it over Leonard anyway."

"Even though I find Leonard to be a cute name." Alex said, scratching behind Leo's ear, causing Leo to face-palm.

"Okay then." The girl said, awkwardly. "I'm Valerie, Kyles girlfriend. Where is he, by the way?"

"He should be coming." I said. "I mean, we all got here at the same time, obviously."

At that moment, Kyle came around from the other side of the table and set down next to Valerie.

"Here I am." He said. "Sorry about that, I had to have a little talk with my counselor."

"What about?" Valerie asked him.

"Oh, y'know, the usual." He said, nonchalantly. "Just something about me being kicked out if I fail again."

"That isn't the usual." Valerie said, pushing him, almost knocking him off of his seat. "That's horrible. You can't get kicked out. Do you know how much it'll fuck up your future?"

"Calm down, calm down." Kyle said. "I won't fail again. And besides, if I fail again I won't have to worry about my future, as I'm pretty sure that Maxwell will kill me."

At this, Valerie sighed, saying, "Whatever, just keep your damn grades up this year."

"I will, don't worry." Kyle said. "So, anyone seen Jess yet?"

"Not yet," Ashtynn said, "but I imagine that she's off finding Levi."

Suddenly, Jessica dropped down on the seat next to mine and said, "Hey, I'm here. I was just comparing schedules with Levi."

"Right," Adam said, "that reminds me. We need to compare all of ours. C'mon, give them here."

We all took out our schedules and handed them to Adam, who immediately began reading through them. After a minute or so, he handed them back to us.

"Okay," he said, "so, all of us guys have Math together first period, while you girls are all in a different Math class than us; Riku, Ashtynn, and Valerie have History together for second; the girls and I have Home Ec for third, while the rest of you have Biology together; and then we all get to meet back up for the same lunch period, followed by PE for fourth. And, obviously, anyone that I didn't say for something is off on their own."

"Shit," Jessica said, sighing, "that reminds me, we really should have gotten you an excuse just in case, Riku. You really shouldn't be doing any jogging or anything for a while with what happened."

"Don't worry about it," Kyle reassured, "Coach Grimley is pretty understanding; if you just explain the situation, then he should let you sit out."

"Alright, good." Jessica said. Suddenly, the bell rang, and she said, "Well, I guess that's our cue. See you all in lunch."

We all said goodbye, before getting up and leaving the lunch room, the girls going one way down the hall, while I went with the other guys down the other hall. We eventually made it to the classroom, and upon entering, we saw that we were the only ones in there at the moment. Looking at the whiteboard, we saw that it said to choose whatever seat we wanted, so we all sat in the back right corner, with Kyle in the corner seat, myself to his immediate left, and Adam next to me, and Leo in front of me, with Alex to his right. We sat there talking, as other students started to come in, and we eventually got onto the topic of what happened at the skate park.

"So, you really landed a jump from more than twenty feet up?" Leo asked, the awe prevalent in his voice.

"Yeah." I said. "I passed out shortly after, but I landed it."

"Damn man, that's awesome." He said.

"It wasn't really anything special," I said, modestly, "I just did what first came to mind."

"Shut up man." Adam said, nudging me. "If not for you, Jessica would probably be dead, so stop acting like it was nothing."

"So I guess that explains it." I heard a familiar voice say.

I looked up, behind Alex, and saw Archer and Andrew standing there.

"Explains what?" Adam asked.

"How that little whore is still alive." Archer said.

At this, I quickly glanced over and saw Kyle tense up, ready to leap up and attack Archer. Reacting quickly, I reached over and barred him from getting up.

This was apparently hilarious to the two, as they both started laughing, followed by Archer saying, "Is Mr. Emo here your new anger management counselor, or some shit?"

"I advise that you leave," I said, "or I will stop restraining him."

"Oh yeah," he mocked, "I'm so scared."

At this, Adam readied a Shadow Ball in his hand, saying, "I believe that he said to piss off."

Archer laughed again, saying, "What; is he your new ringleader or some shit?"

"No," I said, "I'm merely the guy who told you to sit down before things get out of control. Now, take my advice, or you won't leave in one piece."

At that point, the bell chose to ring, which prompted the teacher, a portly Typhlosion-morph, to enter. As he went to stand behind his desk, Archer and Andrew took the only remaining seats, in the front, and Adam quickly dissipated the Shadow Ball.

"Okay then class," the teacher said, "let's get started, shall we?"

"Seriously," Adam was saying, as the two of us were walking through the cafeteria, "it's almost like they fucking planned it."

The two of us had met up after third period, while the others were either still packing there things up in class or, in Kyle's case, speaking with the teacher about something. Since Adam and I were the first to meet up, we had decided to go ahead and find a table empty enough for all of us in the cafeteria.

"I doubt that they planned it," I said, "it's just shit luck."

"I know." He replied, sighing, as we found an empty table. Sitting down at it, Adam sat his tray on the table in front of him, saying, "But, how the hell could we end up with all of us that have classes together having at least one of them in each of them? It fucking sucks."

We were currently discussing the fact that, in every single one of our classes, we had all managed to have either Archer, Andrew, or Trinity, and Adam was convinced that they had somehow planned it.

"Look at it this way," I said, "they may not be in fourth with us."

"With our current luck," he replied, sighing, "there's probably a fairly high chance of it happening."

At this, I merely shrugged. After a few seconds, we were joined by Kyle, Leo, Alex, and Valerie.

"Where are Jessica and Ashtynn?" I asked, as they sat down.

"Jess wanted to go and see Levi before she came to lunch," Kyle answered, "and Ashtynn decided to go with her."

I nodded in response, saying, "I guess that that's understandable."

After a few more minutes of us just sitting there talking, Jessica and Ashtynn joined us, bringing the group back together.

"Hey guys." Ashtynn greeted.

"Hey." Adam said, poking his food with his fork.

"What are you doing, exactly?" I asked.

"Deciding whether I'm hungry enough to risk food poisoning from this shit." He replied. "I mean, did you even look at this shit?"

Having not paid any attention to the food, I looked at his tray, and saw that his concerns were fairly valid.

"What the fuck is that?" I asked.

I picked up what appeared to be a piece of chicken smothered in bread crumbs from his tray. I ripped it in half and saw that it was a bright shade of red almost all the way through.

"This shit isn't even cooked completely." I said, dropping it down onto his tray. "Holy shit, that's disgusting."

"Yep." Adam agreed, pushing his tray away from him.

"Wait," Jessica said, "Riku, are you not eating lunch?"

"Hell no." I said. "Did you not just see that?"

"You need to eat something." She said. "You didn't eat breakfast this morning, and you barely ate anything at dinner last night."

I just shrugged, saying, "I'm not that hungry, I guess. Besides, as I said, this is barely food."

Jessica looked like she was about to reply, but Kyle cut her off, saying, "Just leave him alone, Jess. If he doesn't want to eat, he doesn't have to eat. And for the record, he's right about the food. Trust me, this isn't just a fluke, the food is always this bad."

"Then what exactly do you eat here?" Leo asked.

"Well, the school store opens in the second week of school," Kyle replied, "and they sell chips and shit like that there, so I pretty much solely ate junk food all year."

"That doesn't sound much better." I said.

Kyle shrugged, saying, "I didn't say that I ate it often, I just did whenever I was extremely fucking hungry."

"I guess that's a valid reason." I said.

We continued just sitting there, talking, until the bell rang, prompting all of us to rise and head for the gym. The gym was a large room, with multiple fluorescent lights hanging from the high ceiling; a basketball goal at each end, and bleachers lining the two long walls.

"C'mon, let's go ahead and sit down." Kyle said, leading us up the set of bleachers to our left to the very top, where we sat down.

"Are you sure that Riku will be alright?" Jessica asked. "He really doesn't need to be running or anything."

"Relax," Kyle said, reassuring her, "as I said this morning, Grimley will understand and let him chill on the bleachers if we actually do any physical activity."

"Good." Jessica said.

After a few minutes, we saw three very unwelcome faces enter the room, causing Adam to groan loudly.

"Fuck." He said, sighing. "All three of them? Seriously?"

The three morphs in question appeared to hear him, as they turned our way. As Archer's eyes met mine, a wide grin spread across his face and they started up the bleachers towards us.

"Well, if isn't our favourite classmates." Archer said, mockingly, when they reached us.

"What do you want?" Ashtynn said.

"C'mon," Andrew said, "we just wanted to say hello. Is that too difficult for you stupid Goths to do?"

"Piss off, asshole." Leo said.

"Shut up, you fucking faggot." Trinity retorted.

Trying to defuse the situation before it got out of hand, I said, "Leave. Now."

"Why the hell should we?" Archer said, getting into my face. "The teacher can't save you now, bitch. Coach Hill will take our side over yours any day."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Kyle said. "Coach Grimley's the teacher here, not Hill."

"Not for this week, he's not." Andrew said. "He's still on vacation, so for the first week, Hill will be taking over."

"Congrats." I said. "Now go away."

"Fuck no." Archer said, getting in my face again.

I was about to respond, but I was interrupted by a voice saying, "I'm sorry, Mr. Mullins, I don't think I heard you correctly. What did you just say to them?"

All of us looked at the foot of the bleachers, where we saw Mrs. Skythe standing there, a stern look on her face.

"Oh, um, nothing, Mrs. Skythe." Archer quickly said. "It was nothing, just asking him a question about Math is all."

"That's what I thought." Mrs. Skythe said. "Nevertheless, I advise that you go ahead and take your seats, as Coach Hill is sure to be in here soon."

"Yes ma'am." Archer replied, nodding.

As he and the others started down the stairs, I sent a nod of thanks to Mrs. Skythe, which she returned. As they sat down at the bottom of the bleachers, Mrs. Skythe left the room.

"So, who exactly is Hill?" I asked Kyle.

"He's the football coach here." He replied. "And he's an absolute dick to any student who isn't on the team."

"Which includes us." I said, sighing. "Great."

"What about you needing to sit out?" Jessica asked.

I just shrugged, before saying, "I don't know."

"We'll still most likely just go over rules and shit today," Kyle said, "so it doesn't really matter."

We continued talking as more students came into the room, sitting down on the bleachers. Eventually, a man wearing sweatpants and a red t-shirt came in, and he stood before us.

Clearing his throat to get the class's attention, he said, "I'm Coach Hill, and I will be your teacher for the first week of school." A Plusle-morph in the front row raised her hand, and Hill pointed at her, saying, "Yes?"

"Where's Coach Grimley?" She asked.

"He's not here, and that is all you need to know." Hill replied, rudely. "Now, normally you would get an introduction to the class today, but, as I don't feel that that is needed, you all will be playing dodge ball today." He did a quick head count, before saying, "Alright, divide into four teams of eight."

As everyone started to team up, Jessica grabbed my arm and said, "C'mon, let's go talk to him."

We got up and went down the bleachers and over to Coach Hill.

"Excuse me," Jessica said, when we reached him, "Coach Hill?"

He turned to us, and said, "Yes?"

"Riku can't really play dodge ball today," she said, "he got hurt recently and shouldn't be doing any sports for a while."

"Do you have a note?" Hill asked.

"Um, no." Jessica replied.

"Then you're playing." He said. "Now go find a team."

With that, he walked away, leaving us standing there, a look of disbelief on Jessica's face.

"What the fuck?" She said. "He just blew it."

I just shrugged, saying, "There's nothing we can do about it. If he wants to be an ass, we just have to accept it."

"What?" Jessica said, outraged. "You fell down a twenty foot drop. The last thing you need to do right now is play dodge ball."

"It isn't a big deal." I said. "I'll just play and hope that I don't get hurt any more. C'mon, let's head back to the others."

I started back up the bleachers, Jessica behind me.

When we got back to the others, Kyle asked, "So, what did he say?"

"I'm playing." I said, simply.

"What?" Adam said. "That's bullshit, he can't make you play."

I shrugged, saying, "Technically, he can, and he is. There isn't really anything that I can do."

"Why are you being so calm and accepting of this?" Jessica asked.

I shrugged, saying, "Why not?"

Kyle sighed, saying, "I'm really starting to hate your cool-headedness."

Jessica and I sat back down as Hill said, "Alright, you should be in teams now. Now to decide what teams will be first."

I saw Archer raise his hand, before saying, "Why not our team against Riku's?"

Hill looked at Archer's team and then ours, before a wide grin spread across his face.

"Yes," he said, "that would be a perfect match. Teams, onto the floor."

We got up and went over to the side of the gym closest to us, as Archer's team went over to the other side. Looking over at the other team, I saw that Archer's team consisted of him, Andrew, an Electabuzz, a Charizard, a Swampert, a Machoke, an Aggron, and a Wartortle, all of which were wearing football jerseys.

"Alright, I'll be back in a minute." Hill said, before leaving the room.

"Why do I have a sinking feeling about this match?" Kyle said.

"Probably because everyone on the other team is a football player." Adam said, sighing.

"So, essentially," Leo said, "this isn't going to end very well."

"Pretty much." Ashtynn said.

"So, should we just go ahead and get ourselves eliminated as soon as it starts," Alex asked, "or should we wait and see how many times we get assaulted first?"

"I see no reason to accept defeat so easily." I said.

"Are you kidding me?" Adam said. "Dude, we're fucked to begin with, no matter what we do, we'll only be postponing the inevitable."

"Well, you're very optimistic today." Jessica said.

"He's right though." Leo pointed out.

Jessica shrugged, saying, "Probably, yeah."

At this point, Hill came back, seven rubber balls in his arms.

He sat them in the middle of the room in a line, saying, "I couldn't seem to find all eight, so you'll have to make do with seven." He stepped back over to the bleachers, before yelling, "Begin!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, Archer's team had the balls in their hands, and their arms cocked back, ready to throw the balls at us.

"Fuck." Kyle said, right before they launched their arms forward, releasing the balls.

Kyle, Adam, and Valerie were immediately hit, knocking them off of their feet. Leo, Alex, and Ashtynn quickly followed, and all six of them went back over to the bleachers and sat down. I looked over and saw that Archer was still holding his ball, smirking at Jessica and I.

As the already thrown balls rolled back over to their side, Jessica said, "So, you gonna throw it or not?"

Instead of replying, he wound his arm back and sent the ball flying directly towards Jessica's face. I quickly moved in front of her, catching the ball with ease. As soon as I caught the ball, I sent it flying back, and it collided with Archer's stomach with enough force to send him flying back against the wall.

I could feel all eyes on me as I said, "So, shall we continue?"

As I spoke, the rest of Archer's team grabbed the balls off of the ground and sent them flying back.

"Jessica, duck." I said.

She looked at me, confused, but complied. As the balls got closer to me, I leapt up, doing a back flip over all six of them. As soon as I landed, I grabbed two of the rubber spheres and sent them at the opposite side, both colliding with two of my opponents. I sent two more flying over, but only one of them made contact, the other one hitting the opposite wall. I grabbed the remaining two and launched them over, bringing the enemy count down to two. The two remaining opponents, being Andrew and an Electabuzz-morph, grabbed a ball each and sent them flying my way. I once again leapt up and caught the balls. As I began falling back to the floor, I sent both balls flying their way, and they both collided with their targets within seconds.

As I landed, I said, "I believe that is a victory."

Jessica stood back up, and, upon seeing the other team on the floor, said, "Holy shit. How did you do that?"

I just shrugged and went over to the bleachers and sat down. I looked over at Hill and saw that his face had a dumbfounded look on it.

Composing himself, he said, "Um, winner: Riku's team. Other teams, to the floor."

As the other two teams played, we just sat there talking.

"How the hell did you accomplish that?" Kyle asked me.

I shrugged, saying, "I just played the game, that's all."

"Have you ever played dodge ball before?" Adam asked me.

"No." I said. "Today was my first time. And, judging by everyone's reactions, I did fairly well."

"That is an understatement." Ashtynn said. "You singlehandedly took out a team of nothing but football players. That was impressive."

I just shrugged in response, prompting Kyle to say, "Once again, your calmness is starting to get annoying."

At this point the bell rang, signaling that the school day was over. We all got up and grabbed our bags, before heading for the door.

"So," Kyle said, when we were outside, "you guys wanna come over and hang out?"

"Sorry," Valerie said, "we can't. Our parents want our help doing cleaning the house today. Dad's boss is coming over for dinner."

"Alright." He said. Turning to Adam and Ashtynn, he said, "What about you guys?"

"Why not." Adam said, shrugging.

"I don't have to work today," Ashtynn said, "so, sure."

Valerie kissed Kyle, before saying, "See you tomorrow."

"You too." He replied, as Valerie, Alex, and Leo started walking from us.

"See you guys later." Leo yelled back. "It was nice to finally meet you, Riku, and even better to watch you kick some bigot ass."

"Yeah, nice to meet you too." I responded.

"So," Adam asked, "is Levi coming, as well?"

"No, he has a job interview today." Jessica responded. "So we can go ahead and head home."

We started walking home, discussing what all happened today, which mostly consisted of us discussing what happened in PE.

We had been walking for ten minutes or so when I heard a voice yell, "Hey, Mr. Emo!"

We turned around to see Archer and Andrew standing there, along with the rest of their team from earlier.

"Yes?" I replied.

"We didn't really appreciate what happened in class today," he continued, "so we decided that we would come and talk about it."

As he spoke, everyone in his group started charging up a ranged attack, causing me to second guess his intentions. As we stood there, I felt the others tense up next to me.

"Your friends don't seem very talkative." I said. "In fact, they appear to be quite antisocial."

"Oh, did I say talk?" Archer said. "I really meant that we planned to kick your ass."

As he spoke, they sent their attacks flying at us. It's been years since I've done this, but fuck it, let's try. Shortly before their attacks made contact, I started glowing a faint blue, and a large, transparent blue wall formed in front of us, blocking the projectiles.

Everyone looked at me, shocked, and I said, "Leave here, now, or there will be consequences."

"What the fuck are you doing?" Archer asked.

"I said leave." I said, before sending the wall flying at them, knocking them back.

They all scrambled to their feet, before dashing off. The others continued looking at me as Archer and his group disappeared from our sight.

"Dude, what the hell was that?" Adam asked.

I sighed, saying, "I'll explain when we get home. Let's go."

I turned and started back home, with the others following me. We walked in silence, the only sound being passing cars. When we finally got home, I opened the door to find the house silent. I went into the living room and saw Ashley asleep on the couch. I sat down on the couch next to her and the others sat down as well.

When I sat down, I had apparently woken Ashley up, as she raised her head and yawned, before saying, "Hey, you guys are back."

"Yeah," I said, petting her head, "sorry about waking you up."

"It's alright." She said, shrugging. Noticing the silence of the others, she said, "What's with you guys?"

Instead of responding, Kyle said, "So, are you gonna explain what we just witnessed or not?"

I sighed, before saying, "I just controlled aura, that's all."

"Bullshit." Adam said. "I've met Lucarios before, and none of them have been able to do that. What the hell was it?"

Ashley looked at me, confused, before saying, "Riku, what are they talking about?"

I sighed again, saying, "It may be easier to show you, rather than tell you."

With that, I created a transparent blue Shinx on the coffee table, made entirely out of aura, causing the others to let out gasps of shock.

"What is that?" Ashley said.

It opened its mouth, before saying, "I am a Shinx, isn't it obvious?"

Ashley recoiled, before saying, "Did it just talk?"

The Shinx leapt onto the couch in front of her, saying, "Yes, I spoke. And for the record, I'm not an it, as I am technically a part of Riku."

Ashtynn sighed, saying, "Seriously, I'm really fucking confused. Riku, could you please explain what the fuck is happening."

"Alright." I said. "As Shinx said, it is a portion of my aura."

"Yeah, we heard that." Adam said. "But what the fuck does that mean?"

I sighed, saying, "I assume that you all know what aura is, correct? Y'know, all of the emotions and feelings that a living being has." They all nodded, so I continued, "Well, ever since I was young, I've had an odd ability to control my own aura and make things out of it. Other Lucarios can do this in the form of the Aura Sphere, but I can do more than that. By harnessing a certain portion of my aura, I can form something that corresponds to that emotion or part of me. That large wall was from the protective part of me, as I needed to do it or we would have been hurt. Shinx here is the happiness in me."

"So, you can just make anything this way," Jessica asked, "with no restrictions?"

"Not necessarily." I replied. "Depending on how much I feel of that emotion, I can make what I form into different sizes and intensities. So, for example, on the streets I was feeling extremely protective over all of us, as I didn't want any of us to be hurt, so I was able to create a wall that was large enough and strong enough to protect us from harm."

"Cool." Kyle said. "So, what all can you make with the happiness part of you?"

"The strongest thing that I can make with that emotion is what you're looking at." I said. They all looked at me, confused, so I said, "Think about it. I lived on the street until a month ago, I haven't had too much to be happy about until recently. And if you think that that's bad, before I moved in here I didn't even have enough to make anything, the emotion pretty much just existed."

Kyle sighed, before saying, "Dude, you are really fucking weird, and I hope that you know that."

"Trust me, I know." I said, reaching over to Shinx and petting it.

Yay, plot twists. Because, y'know, why not have a bad ass power as well, right? Anyway, this was a fun chapter to write, so I hope that you guys enjoyed it. I just wanted to say that I am currently going into the last two days of my school year, being Wednesday and Thursday, so that means that i will be on summer break soon, which means that I shall try to write more than I have been recently, as I will have more time to write, which should mean that I will update more often. So, that is hopefully good news, but always remember that I can still be a victim of procrastination, so that is always a threat. Oh well.