Flashing lights surrounded the Summerland Ranger Base. Forensics were on the scene taking pictures, collecting evidence and securing the crime scene. While an officer did press for information, Cameron intervened and insisted he let the student rangers receive medical attention before answering any further questions. Leilani, Percy, and Lunick were all taken to Fall City hospital, while the grievously injured Alejandro was taken to Summerland's emergency room. They heard news that he was paralyzed from the waist down, unable to move his legs and ultimately loosing his ability control his bladder and bowels, now having both urinary and fecal incontinence as a result of the gunshot. None of the rangers felt any remorse for him at all.

Percy was able to walk away with a concussion while Leilani and Lunick had more severe injuries. Leilani sustained a partial hip fracture as well as several grade II contusions all over body and a black eye. Lunick suffered a few spinal cord injuries including a herniated disc, fracture dislocation, and fractured vertebrae as a result of having a ladder broken across his back from Alejandro's assault. He needed a back brace as well as pain medication in addition to his intensive physical therapy for his abdominal injuries from his own gunshot wounds a few months prior.

Leilani lay in her hospital bed, playing with the ends of her braids. She had already given a statement to the police about what had happened and filed a report. Because she did shoot someone, she was restricted to desk duty once she recovered as the Union reviewed and investigated her case. She also filed for a protective order against Alejandro. Despite being paralyzed, she had no doubt that he would find a way to get to her and finish what he started.

There was a knock at the entrance to her room and Leilani looked up to see Solana and a heavily bandaged Lunick standing there. She grew teary-eyed as she reached out towards them.

Solana quickly hurried into the room and embraced her friend tightly, while Lunick took his time walking carefully and rigidly from the back brace he was wearing.

Solana cried as well. "Oh…Leilani…I'm so glad you are safe!"

"It's all thanks to that amazing beau of yours," she opened her eyes and looked up at Lunick as he finally neared the bed. "I don't know what I would have done without you, Lunick…You saved my life."

Lunick smiled weakly. "I only wish I got there sooner. I could have prevented all these horrendous injuries."

"Lunick, you fought him not even at 100% and was able to keep him away long enough for me to land the shot. I would not be alive if you had not busted in when you did. He would have had his way with me and then offed me then and there at the base."

"I'm just relieved I was able to prevent him from hurting you anymore. Thank God I decided to interview Iyori that afternoon about the fire. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if he…If he actually…you know…"

"Well, he didn't. And it's thanks to you, Lunick. You're a real bonafide hero. Even if you hadn't saved the world twice already, you more than showed your true mettle. I don't know if I can ever repay you for what you've done for me. I'm finally free of him. At least, until the court date."

"You don't have to do anything for me, Leilani. I'm immensely glad I could help you."

Leilani nodded tearily. "You've got yourself a real one, Solana. Don't ever let him go."

"I wouldn't be able to," she replied warmly.

Leilani looked back to Lunick and outstretched her arms. Lunick delicately walked over to her. Leilani reached up and held his face, bringing him down to her chest and kissing him lightly on the forehead.

"I hope this kiss is all right with both of you."

"I think it's all I needed to know that you'll be okay," Lunick said softly. "I know it's not gonna be easy, and they'll be a lot of work to be done, but for now, you can rest easy knowing that sick bastard won't ever be able to put his hands on you again. By a clear shot. And I'll always be here to protect you."

Leilani rested her forehead against his. "You're an Angel in flesh. You're truly one of a kind, Lunick."

"I am what I is." He said goofily, warranting a light chuckle from Leilani.

Murph tentatively peeked into the room. "Leilani?"

Leilani's eyes instantly lit up when she saw him. She let go of Lunick and she reached her arms out as she called him. "Murphy!"

Murph rushed inside and wrapped his arms around her, embracing her tightly.

"I was so worried. Are you all right?"

"I'm a far sight from all right. But I'm better now that you're here, Murphy."

Lunick cleared his throat. "Hey, Murph? Can I holla at you for a minute?"

"Sure. I'll be right back, Leilani," he soothed as he gently broke out of her embrace.

Nodding, Solana and Leilani held hands as Murph and Lunick stepped out of the room into the hallway.

"You're really banged up, Lunick." Murph observed.

"I'll be fine. Don't worry about me. I wanna talk to you about Leilani."

"What about her?"

"Murph, you know she has feelings for you. You know how much she cares about you. And you knew how vulnerable she was when you went to her house yesterday. I understand you were hurting, but I need to know if you're taking this as seriously as she is."

Murph's eyes lowered to the floor.

"Do you love her?" asked Lunick.

Murph's waited a few pensive seconds before slowly looked away from the floor back to Lunick and answering. "It's a little early to say anything like that, don't you think?"

Lunick's shoulders slumped as he gave him an impassive lackluster look. "Murph…Murph, man, come on, Murph!"

"It's not what you think! I wasn't!…I mean I didn't…I was just so angry with Aria."

"You're angry with her so you go and sleep with Leilani? Do you know how you sound right now?"

"I know."

"Do you know how messed up this is? You know exactly how she feels about you, she's confessed to you more than once. And you go and do something as stupid as this? All because you were angry with Aria?"

Murph twiddled his thumbs. "Maybe I shouldn't have slept with her."

"You think?!" Lunick cried incredulously.

"It wasn't planned."

"I don't care if it wasn't planned! You know better than this, Murph. You know right from wrong. How could you do something this stupid?! Do you have an idea how much this will hurt Leilani when she finds out?"

"I know, Lunick! I know, okay? I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing to me? Don't apologize to me! Leilani's the one you should be apologizing to."

"I'm open to dating, Leilani. I like a her lot."

Lunick wiped his face in frustration. "This isn't about you being open to it, Murph. Leilani thinks you two are an item. She is committed to you in so many ways. I just can't believe…This is going to crush her. This is going to fuck her up bad."

"Tell me what to do. How do I make this right?"

Lunick dropped his hand. "I don't know if you can make this right. I'm not the one you should be talking to. Leilani is who you should be talking to, you big idiot!"

"I'll talk to her. I promise."

"When?"

"Soon. Now's not the right time. She needs me now like I needed her."

"Murph, do not drag this on. It will only make things worse."

"I care about Leilani, Lunick. I care about her a lot."

"But you don't love her. Not romantically."

"I don't know yet. I just know she's the most important person to me in my life right now and I need her. I don't want to go on without her."

"So you do love her?"

"I don't know."

"Why can't you say it?"

"I just got out of a relationship with someone I loved and who I thought loved me. I'm not ready to say what this is between me and Leilani right now."

Lunick raised his hands. "Fair enough. But if you break her heart, again, Murph -"

"I know. You don't gotta worry about that."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. Right now, Leilani needs me to be there for her and I am absolutely going to do what I can to help her feel safe and overcome all the emotional and psychological damage that's been done to her by that creep. There's no way I'm going to allow her to feel the immense pain losing me would do to her right now."

Lunick dropped his hands. "Okay, Murph…Okay."

Sighing heavily, Lunick stepped aside and walked back towards Leilani's hospital room.

Murph also sighed before painfully following behind Lunick.

Bill watched sorrowfully as Mew squirmed and cried out in pain in the stasis tube, her tiny body wracked with pain as it twitched and jerked unnaturally within the container. He had prodded, poked, injected and extracted so much from this graceful creature. Plus, the solution in the tank was made of contaminants that literally poisoned and infected the Mew, draining her life force, paralyzing her, and rendering her completely helpless. It made him utterly sick watching the torture he was inflicting upon her. But if he valued the lives of his beloved Pokémon, he would have to commit this atrocious sin. There was no forgiving the man he had become. He was damned to rot in eternal Hellfire for sure.

Pressing a few buttons on his keypad, he lowered another extraction needle into the tube. He pierced the Mew in its side and the poor Pokémon emitted a horrendous shriek. Blood filled the syringe as a tuff of Mew's fur was plucked from it using another tool. Pressing different buttons, the syringe needle and tuff of Mew's smooth downy fur were exited out of the tube and deposited into another test tube.

Bill moved away from his control panel and walked over the the other stasis tube. Inside, instruments he constructed were moving fervidly, intermixing Mew's DNA with a part of the injured Deoxys' broken core that had chipped away. As the instruments moved, the piece of Deoxys' core started to glow emerald green and fill with Mew's blood.

Rubbing his forehead, Bill walked back over the his control panel. He pressed another button and a rod lowered from the ceiling of the test tube Mew was in and impaled her center. She shrieked.

Far away in the Sekra Mountain Range, Celebi's eyes snapped opened. He floated out of the hollow opening in the tree he and his offspring were sleeping in and looked out at the starry night sky, staring intently at the brilliant moon.

"Mew," he whispered softly. "Where are you, my darling?"

"Papa," uttered a young voice quietly.

Celebi turned to see his little one, a small shiny Mew, lifting her small head from the pile of leaves she was sleeping on.

"What's wrong, Papa? Why have you awoken?"

"Nothing is wrong, my young one. Please, go back to sleep. Rest your eyes. Slumber is essential for ones young as yourself."

The baby Pokémon lowered her head back down on the pile of leaves and curled her long tail around her body.

"When will Mama return from her journey across our homeland?"

Celebi looked back out at the starlit dark sky.

"I'm not sure, young one. But hopefully your mother will return to us soon."

In a cave far away in an unknown region, the genetic Pokémon Mewtwo was pondering the same thing as he too stared up at the night sky.

"Mew…" he uttered softly, his voice croaking as his eyes started to tear, "You foolish creature."

"How have you been, Solana?" Reina Yamamoto asked as she opened her office door to let Solana inside.

"Great. Everything's going much better," Solana said as she walked over to the sofa and sat down. "Lunick's slowly healing and was discharged from the hospital today. He'll be on desk duty for a couple weeks before he can go back in the field but he's taken it all in stride."

Reina took her seat across from Solana in her wingback chair. "That's great to hear. I saw what happened at the Summerland Base on the news. How's your friend, Leilani?"

"She's a fighter. Probably saved hers and Lunick's lives with the way the fight was going. She's pretty banged up but I'm sure she'll recover soon, physically at least. Mentally and emotionally, I'm not so sure."

"She's been through an ordeal. Surviving the abuse is only one part of it. The road to healing is a process. Everybody's journey is different. The emotional damage can be devastating and requires careful care and attention, not to mention the mental scars she's suffered as a result. I would advise you to encourage her to seek professional help to help her through this."

"I have. I'll keep insisting actually. I'm worried about her. She's a tough cookie but she's never been through anything like this before. And I know how hard it can be for her to ask for help. I know how hard it is. She was beaten for over half a year, I know that's had to have affected her. Years of abuse has definitely shaped me into who I am today."

Reina clasped her hands together on her lap. "You're actually bringing it up. Voluntarily on your own."

Solana nodded sadly. "Seeing what Leilani's gone through, hearing the heavy hopelessness and helplessness etched in her voice…It's brought back up a lot of stuff for me…As much as I want to forget all of it…I can't be in denial about it anymore."

"That's a big step. I'm proud of you."

Solana shook her head. "I'm still not sure I'm ready to talk about it yet…To talk about him yet…"

"That's perfectly fine, Solana. We're moving at your own pace."

"There is something that has been bothering me, though recently."

"Go on."

Solana shifted uncomfortably on the sofa and crossed her legs.

"The abuse with…that person…it went on for years…And my mother…I love her dearly…I always believed she didn't know anything about what was truly happening to me."

"Are you starting to question her participation and role in your abuse? Do you think she was complicit and aware of what was happening to you?"

"I…am not sure…I know I tried my best to hide it…To make it seem like everything was okay and still the same and that I was still her and my Dad's happy little girl…But I was miserable…And I thought, I encouraged him to do the things he did to me…Made him do all the stuff that he did…That I was the one in the wrong…But something inside me just doesn't sit right with me that she wouldn't have noticed anything even the slightest bit off about me and my behavior. My Dad, I can understand - he no longer lived there and didn't see me that often. But my mom…I mean, wouldn't she have mother's intuition? I'm just having difficulty grasping her ignorance of everything lately."

"What would it mean if your mom knew? About the abuse?"

Solana shook her head fervently. "I don't even want to think about it. I don't even know why I'm even having these doubts right now or questioning any of it. I really don't think she knew."

"Maybe so but that doesn't excuse her inattentiveness or emotional neglect of you. She may have had her blinders on, she may have been wearing rose-colored glasses. It can be difficult to believe that someone you love is hurting your own child. But that in no means gives her a pass. You were still abused under her care."

Solana tapped her knee as her right leg began to shake.

"It's just…I have been carrying this all on my own for so many years…And I distinctly remember hiding it…Leilani's situation, what she's going through…My flashbacks have started coming back and more intensely than ever before."

"That makes sense. You're being triggered by her circumstances as well as the horrendous abuse she suffered by that criminal. And if I recall what you've told me before correctly, he actually tried to rape her at least twice to assert his toxic masculinity and dominance over her."

"He did."

"And of course that would bring back memories and nightmares of what you endured with your stepfather."

"Yeah but my story is not hers and vice versa."

"That doesn't mean it won't affect you, Solana. You've suppressed a lot of what has happened to you but sometimes when we become flooded with information, memories of traumatic events years after the fact, it could be your system telling you you're ready to deal with the pain."

"I'm not. Not at all. I can't even say his name anymore. I don't want to deal with this. Any of it."

Reina looked empathetically at her patient. "You've got to, Solana. You cannot keep suppressing and forcibly stuffing down all the things that bother you, especially trauma. You will implode. You don't have to talk about it today but -"

"He's the reason I am so weak," Solana cried. "Everyone thinks I'm this strong, brave warrior but I am not nearly as resilient as everyone believes. The reason I am so insecure, that I have so much self-doubt, such great negative self-perception - it all stems from him. He made this version of myself that I absolutely hate. And anytime I see or am reminded of him I just become that weak scared little girl who submitted and allowed him to do whatever he wanted behind closed doors."

Reina leaned forward and hardened her stare slightly. "Solana, you were a child. You were vulnerable. It was not your responsibility to police him and stop the abuse. That was your parents' job."

"They didn't know! I didn't tell them! That's why I'm so bothered - I didn't tell anybody, not even my own mother what her husband was doing to me. I kept all that shit to myself, allowed it to go on for years until I became so paralyzed by fear that I ran away without saying a single word to Mom. I have no right to resent her or feel weird about it because I know she didn't know. I'm just looking for an explanation when the truth is it's all my fault."

"Solana, it was not you responsibility nor was any of it your fault. As a child, your brain is not fully developed; you don't have the functioning in your prefrontal cortex to reason. Even a full grown adult would have difficulties going through and coping with what you had to, so I can only imagine the amount of damage that would do to your younger self who was still growing and developing. Nate knew what he was doing. He's carrying that load, that burden; he's the one at fault, not you. And whether they were aware of it or not, it is a parent's job to protect and take care of their children and you were not protected. They failed you."

Solana broke down in tears as she crossed her arms across her stomach and heaved forward, almost wailing.

Reina got up from her seat and went over to a chest that was resting near her work desk. She pulled out a jumbo plushie of a Jigglypuff and brought it over to Solana.

"Squeeze this. Hold it close. Cry into it, scream, throw it, do whatever you need to in this moment to comfort that child inside who's been let down by everyone around her. Hug her, kiss her, sit with her. Let her know that she is loved and not alone anymore."

Solana sat up slightly and looked at the pink plushie through a stream of tears. She took the large pink toy from Reina and buried her face in it, screaming and wailing as she dug her fingernails into its sides, tearing the doll with small slits.

Reina walked back over to her wingback sofa chair and sat down, observing her distressed patient.

"I'm so sorry, Solana. I know this is so painful. But you will get through this. I am here to help you find your way through all of this mess. For right now, just let it out. It's okay. I'll remind you that you are safe here and nobody can ever hurt you the way that man has while you are in this office. You are safe, Solana. Child you and current you. You are safe."