(A/N: Hi here it is. Sorry it's a bit late, I got distracted playing pokken.)
"There's a kid with a golden arm
He admits to the forest fire
That he started up from the lack of
Something better going on."
—"All Medicated Geniuses" from The New Romance by Pretty Girls Make Graves
"How does it feel?" Max asked. Eleos paused its survey of the plaza around them to raise a brow at Max. He glanced around to see if anyone could hear him and clarified, "You know, having a body, now."
Eleos nodded, closing its eyes in thought and bringing a paw to its chin. All its practice controlling the body made its overacting simple emotions a bit funny to see. "It is… strange," it finally answered. It quickly glanced around and suddenly started tugging Max toward a bush. "Come!" Not like the chu had much choice: Eleos had insisted they keep holding paws, and Max had no interest in letting go.
It snatched a branch off the bush the moment it could reach it and showed it to Max. Wood. Bit too small for bark. He looked up from it, failing to see Eleos's point. "Feel it," it demanded, shoving it towards him. Max carefully obliged with his free paw but still didn't get it. "You cannot inhabit its space, and it cannot inhabit yours. Correct?" Max nodded. "That's what you feel when you touch it, or indeed touch at all."
"Dark-er, Eleos, I know how touching works," Max mumbled.
"I did not," it said. "Here, may you turn around?" Their grip on each other's paws finally relented, though Max hesitated for a moment. With a shrug, he turned half-way around and felt the branch thwap into his back.
"PIKA!" he swore, slapping his paws against where it hit. "What the fuck was that for?"
None of his reaction phased Eleos in the slightest. In fact, it seemed excited. "Pain! Right? Did it hurt?!" it asked.
"Yes," Max hissed, remembering he needed to hide his speech.
"But it didn't when you touched it!" Eleos cheered. "I presumed the sensation of inhabiting the space of another would inevitably result in suffering and hurt." It brought the branch up to look at it in awe. "Yet, instead there is simply… sensation."
"You could have just said that!" Max growled. He really wanted to break that branch over its head.
Eleos looked around the branch at him in concern. "Is something upsetting you?" it asked.
"You!" Max screamed. Secrecy be damned, he couldn't keep quiet at this point. Its eyes fell, and it shrunk down a bit. The sight tossed an ocean over Max's burning rage. He slapped his paws on his cheeks and tried to knead the burning rage away. "Look, don't. Hurt people like that!"
Eleos nodded. "Did you understand what I meant, though?" it asked.
"Max?" someone shouted. The voice sounded familiar, and sure enough, Max saw Cori jogging over when he looked. They slowed their approach when they saw Eleos, but kept coming. "Are you all right? I thought I heard… uh," they glanced at Eleos and started coming up with a lie, "Some odd, uh, imitation of your voice."
Max grit his teeth and grumbled, "Yes, I screamed because this asshole hit me with a branch."
Cori's eyes went wide. "M-Max!" they said, then forced a chuckle. They shot a few nervous attempts at jovial glances towards the unfamiliar charmander and bumped an elbow into Max. "Y-you can't keep on with that silly voice you do! Someone might get the wrong idea."
"Was Max doing a silly voice?" Eleos asked.
What Max wouldn't give for that branch. He'd bludgeon both of them. After all the bullshit he'd gone through, didn't he deserve to bludgeon a few of his friends? As a treat? "Tell them who you are and that you already know about… this," he said.
Rolling its eyes, Eleos turned to Cori and said, "Hello, Cori. We have already met. If you cannot recognize me, I am—" Max coughed, so it checked for anyone within earshot, "—Dark Matter. Call me Eleos." Cori seemed to follow along fine, so it waved a paw Max's way. "He is currently unable to speak. We are unsure why."
A lot of information at once. Max hoped it wouldn't overwhelm the little toto. "Oh, all right," Cori said. They gave Max a worried glance, then turned back to Eleos. Pushing the branch aside, they leaned side to side to look all around while their eyes grew wider in admiration. "Wow, you did a great job!" The praise made Eleos shiver slightly. "How does it feel?"
Eleos's eyes popped open, and it clutched the branch a bit tighter. It started to ask, "Could you turn—"
"No!" Max shouted, snatching the branch out of its paws. He tossed it away and glared at Eleos. "Stop!"
Eleos crossed its arms in frustration. "I believe they asked me, did they not?"it said.
Rage. His vision turned varying shades of red.
"Wh-what?" Cori mumbled.
Max rubbed his face. For all of its drawbacks, he never had to deal with this in Dungeons. He didn't remember dealing with much of any problem, in fact. Sure, his memory had been near completely dissolved, and it became arduous to recall even the slightest details before he'd escaped to them, but was that really such a bad thing?
His partner's face blazed in his mind and stabbed through his heart. Even idly considering the option felt like taking his old friend's life. If he'd stayed, at least he could remember him. Now? It was as if Max had let him die again.
"Max?" Cori whispered, shaking his shoulder. "You all right? What's wrong?"
"Huh?" Max mumbled, then quickly shook himself out of his thoughts. "N-nothing, sorry."
"He felt frustration at first," Eleos started to explain. "Now, however, it has shifted to an overwhelming sense of guilt. Is that correct?"
Of course. That explained why others emotions hadn't been torturing Max lately. If that happened because of Dark Matter absorbing other's negative emotions, then of course the sensations'd stop when it assumed an corporeal form. Max almost wanted to tell it to mind its own business, but bit his tongue and nodded instead. It only meant to help.
Cori rubbed a paw along his back and smiled when he turned towards them. "Wanna talk about it, or," they offered. "You could write?"
"I can understand him," Eleos said, and Cori perked up at that.
The two looked back at Max expectantly, but he grabbed his left arm with his right paw and turned away, shaking his head. "I can't. Not right now," he mumbled. Neither of them had any way to help. The memories were his; no one else could find what he'd decided to lose.
A chilly hug yanked Max out of his stupor; Cori had both arms latched around him, staring up with a characteristically wide toto-smile. "We're here for you, okay?" they assured. Max felt his cheeks warm at that as he nodded along.
When Eleos joined, the flush escalated to a shower of weak sparks. He returned the group hug as best he could, but they both had his arms on semi-lockdown. A weak whine squeaked out of his throat; whether it came from embarrassment or joy, he had no idea. The disappointment when they let go suggested the latter, but he couldn't be sure.
After releasing, Eleos didn't back up. Max almost started explaining personal space when it started saying, "I suggest that we relocate to a more private area. That way, you may speak freely without fear of who may overhear."
The suggestion caught Max a bit off guard; he mostly wanted to walk, not hang out. Before he could say as much, Cori said, "Oh, good idea! What about the spring?"
Max chuckled. They hadn't gone there in a while, had they? "No," Eleos said, making Max glare at it for a good reason they shouldn't. "Max could hardly stand when he awoke, and I fear his strength has yet to return."
Okay, it was a decent reason, but Max never let a good reason or common sense stop him before. "C'mon, I'm fine," he argued, gesturing to his stance with a paw. "I've been walking around for a while, and I'm not tired."
Eleos crossed its arms and looked down at Max. Standing so close, Max couldn't help but feel their gap in height in its glare. Its eyes looked him over with a clinical gaze; he felt like a child asking its parent permission to stay up late. "You understand the height of the hill, correct?" it asked. Max nodded. "The climb has given you trouble before, yes?" Another nod. He looked to Cori for help, but they looked confused.
"I suppose we may try," it finally said; Max felt like he regained access to his second lung. "However, you must promise that you will accept our assistance should the trek begin to exhaust you." Max nodded, sheepishly looking around in fear of someone watching this. "Cori, you will help me watch him."
"Huh?" Cori mumbled. "Uh, yeah. Okay?" They raised a brow and looked over at Max.
The chu just shrugged. Eleos wasn't so protective before. Was it because of its new body? Maybe it was always like this, but now it had the means to act on it. Max tried to think of a reason it could have for the change, but all his thoughts burst into glitter and sparkles when Eleos grabbed his paw and started tugging him towards the place.
"This town had good hearts,
Bad blood, emotional scars.
Never get to say what you really wanna say."
They hadn't made it a third of the way up the hill before Max had trouble getting enough air in. He tried to keep from gasping in, at least, but his breaths grew noticeably heavier. His steps slowed as well, but he only noticed that when he started to feel Eleos's arm pulling his; he hadn't even noticed it started passing him before then. He tried to scramble back up to speed, but bopped his nose square in Eleos's chest.
The impact sent him back, but Eleos grabbed him before he could fall down the hill. It pulled him closer, but he shrank in its grasp to prepare for its gloating about how right it was. "Should we take a break?" it asked.
Max shook his head, mumbling, "It's fine," and went to keep walking. The attempt didn't last a step: Eleos dug its paws under his arms and lifted him enough that his paws kicked only air. "He-hey!" He tried to kick his way out of its grip, but after a few flailing kicks, his exhaustion caught up and left him panting.
Once his lack of breath forced him to calm down, Eleos swung him to the side and sat him on a log. It slung an arm over his shoulder and sat next to him, but Max turned to avoid its gaze. More than a lack of breath burnt in his chest; he should've expected as much. Standing winded him this morning—what did he honestly expect? And then, when his own bullshit caught up with him, he'd thrown a fit in retaliation. Like a child.
Or a wild animal.
Thoughts and frustration boiled in his head so much that he snapped when Eleos started to say, "I'm s—"
"I know!" he shouted. "You were right! I should've listened to you! I'm—," his lungs demanded more air, but he didn't let himself stop, "—an idiot! Fine! I—," spots began appearing in his vision, "—should just roll over and do what everyone else says! Everyone—," his limbs felt fuzzy, "knows what I should—," he started swaying, "—do—," his lungs forced a breath in, "—except," Eleos caught him before he could collapse off the log, "—for me."
The forest disappeared. His vision had gone almost completely black. He could barely hear what sounds surrounded him. At best, he could make out faint whistles he had to guess were wind while rumbles that might be voices hummed in the back of his mind. His paws chilled as a warmth wrapped around him and pressed against his cheek. When his frigid paws started to shiver, he felt heat hovering between them. His breath steadied while his heartbeat hammered in his head, against his chest, straining to spread what little warmth it could carry.
"—e gonna be okay? What was he yelling about?" Cori asked. At least his hearing returned, but he still couldn't see.
"I'm not sure," Eleos whispered. "I felt rage building in him and wished to comfort him. When I began to apologize, however, he began to yell." Fuck. It only wanted to apologize. A knife of lodged itself in his chest. "Ah, he seems to feel guilty about that. Perhaps he can hear us in his sleep?"
Sleep? He wasn't asleep. Why would they think he was—oh. Oh that's why he couldn't see. He tried to peek his eyes open, but his left cheek had pressed against Eleos's chest enough to smoosh that eye closed. His right managed, at least, and the warmth felt too good to pull away from just yet.
Max looked around to see Eleos's tail right under his forepaws, and Cori standing in front of them both, keeping a careful watch on him. "Oh, he woke up!" they said.
"Chuu, Pi ka…," he grumbled, but gave up his rebuttal.
Eleos leaned over and looked at his open eye. "Ah, so he has," it said. Shivers tingled down Max's spine when it started combing its claws down the fur on his back. It knew just where to scratch—even better than Neb did. "I'm sorry for upsetting you. I meant only to help."
All peace or pleasure Max had vanished. "No," he snapped out. "You didn't do anything." Their gap in height came to haunt him once again; he looked up to see it stare concern down on him like a waterfall, cradling him like a pet. It made him want to confess and clam up in equal measure. "Sorry."
Even as it translated, it kept its eyes trained on him. He wanted to look away, but his eye only looked deeper. Cori hummed out the beginning of a thought, but still Max couldn't break his gaze away. "Should we go somewhere else, then?" they asked.
That brought Max enough shame to make him look away at least. "Not yet," Eleos said. Max perked an ear up, but kept his gaze out of its bewitching stare. "Here." It pulled a paw away, and Max just barely managed to suppress a whine at its absence. When it brought an oran to his lips, he grabbed it himself and sat up.
"Thanks," Max said, then he started munching on it. He went to adjust his bag's strap and realized Eleos had taken it off him.
"Oh, good idea!" Cori said (with a decent dose of forced excitement Max decided to ignore). "That make you feel better?" Max raised a brow with a hint of a grin since he hadn't had more than a bite or two. He pulled it away just enough to show as much to Cori, then got back to munching when they crumpled in embarrassment. "W-well, let me know if it does."
"Pika," Max giggled in agreement. The oran didn't take long to demolish, of course, since they tended to be pretty small, but before he had a chance to report back to Cori, Eleos already dangled an irresistible apple in front of him. He choked down the half-chewed remains and lunged for the treat. The ambitious swallow forced some coughs out of him, but he didn't let that stop him.
The apple was a bit of a runt, but made up for it in its striking green skin. The sour scent spritzed its way out of the shell enough to make Max take a moment just to sniff it. Sour wasn't his favorite, but he loved them all the same. They cut up the monotony, at least. He chomped down into the apple with a satisfactory crunch. A bit soft for his liking, but not mushy at least.
None of its mediocrities mattered, however, when Eleos started once again combing its claws through his fur. On its own, the petting had been soothing. With even a half-decent apple, it became heavenly. So nice he even slowed in devouring the apple. Of course, even his version of slow left the apple demolished in no time at all.
Max suckled on the core with a dumb smile and leaned into Eleos's side while it continued to pet him. So total a comfort came over him that he let his eyes fall shut, and a low rumble shook out of his chest. He paid it no mind, merely basking in the comfort, until he realized what he was doing.
Purring.
He threw the apple down and shook away from the embrace, hopping off the log. Cori and Eleos both flinched, ready to catch him if he fell, but luckily he'd gotten enough strength back to stand. He looked down and away while his cheeks blazed with embarrassed sparks. He didn't even know mice could purr.
"What happened?" Cori asked.
"Nothing," Max squeaked. "J-just, let's go. I'm good, all right?" He looked up at both of them in hopes of agreement.
Eleos eyed him carefully as it translated, but Max made sure to avoid meeting its gaze directly. "If you're all right," Cori said. "Sure?" Yet, while ostensibly talking to him, they looked at Eleos instead for confirmation. Probably only because it translated for him, but Max couldn't shake the feeling they expected him to ask its permission.
"That's up to him," Eleos said. Max blinked. "He knows himself better than us." He couldn't help looking directly at it and saw a warm smile. "No one knows what he should do except him," it said with a wink on the side opposite Cori. The wink also happened to turn Max's limbs to jelly. A little.
Max shook himself out of it and said, "Thanks. Yeah, let's go." He started to walk as Eleos translated, and they continued up together.
Eleos hung back just a bit, though, and offered its paw to him. Max didn't hesitate to take it. They stopped twice more, but both breaks combined took less time than the first. It helped that Eleos and Cori made sure to 'let' (make) him lean on them when he so much as sniffled. By the time they got to the top, though, Max had given up all resistance and happily let them take turns carrying half his weight for him.
Even with all that help, though, he still rushed to sit against a tree once they went over the crest of the hill. He could see the spring from there, which was enough for him. Cori and Eleos didn't seem to mind, sitting around him without complaint.
"That dream really took a lot out of you, huh?" Cori asked. Max nodded. "Do you have nightmares a lot?" He shrugged.
"It wasn't just a dream," Eleos said. "His very soul left and returned burdened."
Cori's eyes popped open, and he stared at Eleos. "You mean that metaphorically, right? Or like, figurative at least?" they asked.
That suggestion made Max slap his forehead."I swear to God if all of that was figurative," he growled.
Tilting its head in confusion, it translated Max's words and went on to say, "No, I mean what I say quite literally."
"Oh," Cori said. Max watched the abject terror on their face, idly wondering if they were going through the same feelings he had when Eleos told him all about this. It definitely seemed as much until they nearly bounced when realization shined in their eyes. "Is that what happened at Amphy's? Before the tea?"
Max felt his cheeks burn but forced a nod. That entire interaction… he wished he'd never bothered. Not like any good came of it anyway. Jake's smug grin in his mind's eye tugged his mouth into a snarl.
"What got you so mad at Jake?" Cori asked.
"He's full of shit!" Max barked. "And he knows he is! That 'you're only a rookie' speech—he knows I'm not! He was the first one who figured it out!" This rant didn't take as much out of him as the last, but Eleos nonetheless gave him a glare telling him to be careful as it translated.
"Well," Cori mumbled, shifting in their seat. "I'm sure he has his reasons, you know? Maybe he forgot? Or… um."
Right, they were a fan of him. "Never meet your idols," Max grumbled. For their sake, though, he tried to come up with some good faith reason he'd acted so. So. So full of shit. But nothing came up. "Even if he does have reasons, he's hiding something."
"Fear filled his heart when you mentioned the dungeon's extra floor," Eleos said, jerking Max out of his introspection. "Through the entire conversation after that point, it was as if you threatened his life, no… not quite his life, but close."
"That piece of shit!" Max shouted, jumping up and slamming a fist in his other paw. Vindication and rage filled him in equal measure.
"B-but he's a Grandmaster!" Cori argued. "You can't get that rank unless you want to help people!"
They weren't wrong. "Assuming he really is…," Max shook his head. No way he'd be able to fake that. What would he even gain from faking it? Drawing on his own experience with the gengar, he wasn't malevolent. A dick and a pain to share air with, absolutely, but he didn't seem to have malicious intent. No particular insight came to mind, so he shook his head and looked to Eleos to ask, "Any other weird parts you noticed about his emotions?"
Eleos tilted its head back in thought. "Well, upon entrance to the conversation, he seemed nervous to see you," it said. That made enough sense considering their meeting before. It dropped its head and looked back to Max. "Beyond that, I did not recognize any especially strong emotions."
Max nodded, his gaze bouncing steadily to Cori with the nods. They had their snout drooping toward the ground and their head nearly merging with their shoulders. "Cori?" Max asked. They jerked up once Eleos translated and looked back to Max. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Cori said. Max narrowed his eyes and waited. They met his glare with indifference, but he kept it trained on them like a beam. They glanced back at him, a chink in the armor, and then fell apart. "I thought he was cool, all right? Sorry."
The admission made Max want to slap himself across the face. Talking shit about someone they looked up to… yeah, he should've been at least a bit more tactful. "No, I'm sorry," he said. "I don't like him, but that doesn't mean you can't."
As Eleos translated, Cori squinted in confusion at it, then at Max. "Yes it does?" they said. "If he's awful, then I'm wrong for thinking he wasn't."
The calculus ran in Max's head for a minute, trying to untangle the various variables into an equation that made sense, but he couldn't manage it in the end. "No," he said. "You didn't know him. You just knew about him."
Cori rolled their eyes and grumbled, "I still should've known."
"How. How would you?"
Staring back at him, Cori's mouth hung open for a moment until they realized they didn't have a good reason.
"One may accomplish great feats, but remain insufficiently skilled in social graces," Eleos said, both Max and Cori staring at it as they translated the Ancient Speech (and its misbegotten notions) into modern terms. It took hold of its captive audience and went on, sweeping a paw to Max. "He managed to defeat me, prevent me from throwing the Earth into the sun, yet he still can not understand the complexities of friendship or communication. It would be easier to count his successes than his failures."
Max's ears flopped down, and he looked away. "I get it," he whimpered.
"H-hey," Cori said. "It's not—you're not that bad! You're, y'know, you can make people like you!" Rather than improve his mood, their inability to describe a single accolade merely twisted the knife. "I like you!"
"It's fine," Max growled. "Can we just move on?" Cori flinched away, but nodded. "The point is, this extra floor is a known thing, but it's one we aren't supposed to know about." As long as he spoke with enough force and strength, they wouldn't think he was embarrassed. "Let's see what we can find on our own about them, but we have to keep it covert."
While he talked ostensibly to them, it was mostly to himself, so he failed to notice Cori's growing concern. "W-why us?" they asked, popping Max out of his trance. When he looked over to Cori, he found they'd shifted their gaze to the ground. "Aren't there, y'know. Higher ranks or better teams or, like." They flung their paw around the conspiratorial circle. "Don't we have enough going on?"
Max grit his teeth a bit, but Eleos spoke up before he could to say, "They are not without point." Cori glared at its less than pleasantly phrased support. "Your own mental stability is far from enough to endure those distortions at present, and Cori has barely completed one mission."
"I just can't talk," Max growled. "I'm in control—completely!"
Eleos stiffly crossed its arms and said, "But what of your physicality?" Max almost started defending his weight as completely within a pikachu's healthy range before, "You could hardly have made it up this hill without our help." The words in his throat smoldered into a growl. "Surely you don't expect a dungeon to be less strenuous than a moderately steep hill." Whether it intended to or not, its monotone, clinical delivery cut into Max like a scalpel.
Even Cori started to speak up in his defense until Max proved that to be a mistake by leaping up to scream, "I'm fine!" Eleos gave no reaction, which left all the rage Max attempted to vent blow back at him. "I did this once, I can do it again. Y'all can be cowards all you want, but you're not talking me out of—"
"Then prove yourself," Eleos said, pushing up onto its paws. It swept one paw over the grass while keeping the other firmly planted on the ground, then pulled its forepaws up to guard its chest. Even standing against him, the pose smacked so much of some awful martial arts movie that Max felt the beginning of a giggle cutting into his rage.
"Have you fought even once since last time?" he sneered.
"I have not," Eleos said. "Thus, it should be all the easier for you." Max squinted at it, so it filled its gaze with malicious determination that chilled Max to the core. It hadn't had eyes back then, but he felt the same hatred that had surrounded his partner and him when they first faced off. A hint of concern crushed under the weight of its vindictive grin, a swirl of darkness billowing out of its mouth. "Come defeat me as you have before, hero."
Cori tried to get between them, but the air's tension strangled the opposition out of him. When they tried to run forward, their paws backed them out of the way. Neither Eleos or Max even glanced their way. They probably couldn't get the two's attention if they wanted to. The best they could do was sit back and whimper at the inevitable.
Idly, they wondered if the air felt so thick when the world hung in the balance.
"Tell your friends it's a four alarm
Just a smoke screen we're all liars
Better to stew in discontentment then to admit we're wrong."
