CONTENT WARNING: Gender struggles & graphic violence. See end of chapter for details if that content may upset you.


"Before you fall, you have to learn to crawl
You can't see heaven when you're standing tall
To get the whole sky
On the ground you have to lie"

—"Thunderbird" from The Spine by They Might Be Giants

Joint missions were when two teams of any rank came together to take on any mission that one or both couldn't take on alone. Often, higher ranked teams took lower ranks on them to recruit or teach. In a few cases, they could even be assigned a team by an official, though that was usually as a punishment for both. It supposedly had a great track record after the first instance of a certain "Team Meanies" being forced to assist the provisional teams they'd once tormented.

Success, in this case, meaning the team disbanded. Generally, however, this wasn't the goal. In this particular case, however, it was a nice solution.

No one quite knew what to do when someone was on both teams. As founder of both Team Plasma and Team Hazard, Max was also the leader of both—which wasn't supposed to even be possible—meaning she got to invite and accept the offer herself. She did not do that.

The joint mission was Goon's idea. Max didn't know why she agreed to it, but she had. Goon even convinced her that bringing a member or two from the old team along would be a good idea by suggesting it when Max was too nervous to refuse. A brilliant strategy that made Max wonder if it was intentional. Goon definitely knew her well enough.

Max thought it very important to consider all the deep, intricate politics of a joint mission because it meant she didn't have to think twice about if she really wanted to go out in a sports bra and shorts. They'd be in a dungeon. No one would see her but her teammates, so it was largely pointless, which comforted her.

Alone she sat against the wall of her house. Eleos went to collect Cori for their mission, and Max had locked that door for the first time since she moved in. She had no idea why pokémon even had sports bras. She'd asked Cori about clothes (in the abstract so they wouldn't catch on), and they'd said some pikachu a long time ago was obsessed with sewing and human fashion.

Whatever the reason, she felt an odd comfort wearing it. She was neither the right species or sex for it to do what it was designed for, but it felt like a little sign that, even if no one else could read it, let her express herself.

Herself. It still felt weird, but she liked it.

She had ample access to plenty signs that anyone could read, though. Four lay crumpled around her. Tail sleeves. Wearing shorts and a bra, she could get away with and still avoid suspicion, but anyone would know what she was trying to do with a tail sleeve. She'd picked out the most discrete few, but they weren't perfect. It still felt fresh to her, but she'd apparently felt this way since before she left her old team.

A million probabilities and technicalities ran through her head as she tried to figure out exactly how badly this could go. With her mind racing, she didn't notice her paws tying the sleeve around her tail's end. No matter how much she tried to talk herself out of it, she'd already made the decision.

Now, she just had to understand why.

Four exact knocks preceded Eleos calling, "Max, Cori and two people whom I've yet to meet await with me."

"C-coming!" Max shouted. She really wasn't ready for this, and she definitely wasn't ready for anyone from her old team to see her like this, but she didn't have the heart to take off the sleeve. She tucked the tie underneath it and hopped up. Looking down to tug at the tight band along the bottom of the bra, she realized it was tight enough to squeeze a bit of shape into her chest.

Maybe being chubby wasn't so bad.

Eleos knocked on the door again, so Max shook herself out of it and tucked her scarf tighter into itself as she went over. She was glad she didn't have a mirror since a wayward glance at herself would've probably killed what little excitement overcame her dread. With careful attention to control her breathing, she gingerly opened the door.

Not even an inch to the right of it, Eleos stood waiting. "Hello, my precious bolt," it said with a smile. Max was glad she was dating it, because anyone else suddenly this close to her would have made her scream (and even still, she was struggling not to). "What are you wearing?"

"Stuff," Max mumbled. She really didn't want to have to explain herself, but as its eyes looked over her outfit, she felt her heart beating out of her chest. Hopefully it wouldn't be upset she hadn't told it sooner.

Its eyes finally landed on her tail. Eleos paused with no reaction as it looked at the new addition. Max tried to keep a nervous smile on while it stared, but it was paper thin. Would it get what this even meant? It seemed to roughly grasp the concept of social situations, but it had also referred to her mind as an enigma before, and she could only pray that it wouldn't hate her—

Eleos tapped its paw on her head and said, "Pre-tty girl friend."

Max threw her arms around it and yanked herself up to kiss it. "Thank you," she sighed. She was worried over nothing, thank God. The relief couldn't last forever, though, because she had other people waiting on her, too. More reactions to worry about.

After another quick kiss, she pulled back to see Cori very passionately talking to Goon and… a dewott? At least Max only had to meet one old friend, but she hoped this relationship was at least a bit less strained. Eleos grabbed her paw, and she appreciated the support. As she started to head over, though, it pulled her back to whisper in her ear.

"That is Oshton," Eleos said. "In the time I was with you, she remained agreeable. In the approach to your departure, she was only moderately hesitant to spend time with you."

A debrief was nice, but that was way too much information to use. "D-does she hate me?" Max whispered.

Eleos shook its head and squeezed her paw to say, "If so, only slightly." Max whimpered. Eleos kissed her on the forehead. "Fret not, for I will not let her hurt you."

That sounded more like a threat than comfort, yet somehow, it worked. Max nodded and finally headed over. Luckily for her, Cori was doing a great job of stealing their attention. Their unending sociability never ceased to amaze her, but the cover they gave her was fleeting.

"Oh, Max!" Cori shouted, waving her way. They turned back to continue talking to Goon and Oshton, but the other two had already turned their attention to her. Cori looked about as disappointed as Max was nervous.

Max had at least grown accustomed to Goon, or at least less terrified of talking to him, but Oshton was a different story. Not only did Max not know how they'd left off, but Oshton was giving her an intensely inquisitive once-over. Max could only keep her nervous smile on and pray she wasn't about to die. Was this a covert assassination?

"Right, so," Cori started once Max and Eleos walked in range. "This is Goon, and that's Oshton!" they explained, pointing to the respective pokémon.

"Don't worry Cori, we've met," Oshton chuckled. Goon jammed an elbow into her side, and she suddenly nodded. "Right, sorry, I forgot he—" Goon elbowed her again. On her way to glare at him, Oshton caught a glimpse of Max's tail, and realization flashed on her face—immediately followed by frustration. "Dammit," she grumbled, looking down.

Max froze in place. What the hell was that about? What did that mean? Frustrated?! "K-ka Pi ka chuka chu?" Max whimpered.

Oshton glanced up at her, then shook her head. "Oh, sorry, it's just that Ithos owes me four hundred," she explained.

Max's eyes shrank to pinpricks. "Ka?" she squeaked. This—did Ithos have a bet with Oshton? While the struggle to process any of that stunned Max, Oshton swooped in to yank her into a hug. Surprise after surprise caught Max off guard—and she didn't even have time to reciprocate the embrace before Oshton leaned down to deliver the next surprise.

"It's nice to see you again," Oshton whispered. "Because now, I get to have my payback." Max yelped in fear as the dewott hoisted her up in the air by her armpits with a grunt. "Oof, still not too easy." Oshton started to waver, and Max only made it worse by trying to flail out of her grasp. Oshton let her fall, and Max scurried around behind Eleos.

Eleos held its arm over her to give little pats to her as best it could without stepping out of the way. Max could hardly control herself as she cowered behind it, barely able to peek around to get any view at all. Everyone's stares bored into her soul, but she felt the most humiliated looking at Oshton's. That thick visage of embarrassed regret Oshton wore yanked Max back into the inky black of memories lost.

The instant Oshton moved forward to apologize, Eleos stuck its arm out to guard Max. "To touch the slightest breadth of a single strand of her fur or speak the most minor of offenses to her is to forfeit your life," Eleos spoke. "You are but a—"

"Eleos!" Max barked at it, throwing her paw over its mouth. Her other paw had such a strong grip on her scarf that it would've ripped if not for its enchantment (or whatever protected it from damage, dirt, and grime). "Don't fucking—," sparks rained from her cheeks once she heard herself, but she tried to recover, "—p-pi-pi-bi—be. Nice."

Eleos relented, but not before giving her a side-wise glance and said, "As you wish." Max nodded and forced herself out from behind it. Eleos turned to the others with her and quickly made her second guess coming out by bowing deep with a paw to its chest. "Accept my sincerest apologies. I care deeply for Max and will never allow harm to come her way." It rose back up to say, "You may call me Eleos."

Goon and Oshton shared a confused glance. Luckily, they didn't seem upset. Hopefully its threat barely registered to them.

"So," Goon hummed at Max, nodding to Eleos. "That your escort, or your bodyguard?" He started to chuckle even as Oshton whipped him across the arm with a scallop. After glaring daggers into the side of Goon's skull, Oshton turned to hear Max's answer.

"Oh, they're dating," Cori explained. That might not have been their answer to give, but Max much preferred not having to talk since it meant she didn't have to risk slipping.

Despite everything, this was somehow among Max's least humiliating first impressions.


"We like fun, me and my girl
We'll have fun fun fun until
T-bird takes her dad away"

A trio of snakes, two arbok and a seviper, shot across the ground to Cori and Oshton while the two water types sprayed a muk down to a puddle. "Behind!" Max shouted. She'd already started darting over, leaving Eleos to finish off the vileplume, but she was too slow to get there in time. Neither Cori or Oshton heard her. "Cori!" But it was too late—the snakes were less than a yard away.

Max launched a shock right into the center arbok, which managed to get its attention as well as the other arbok's, but the seviper was already primed to lunge for Cori. The seviper launched for Cori right as they turned around, giving them barely enough time to see the incoming attack and none to react to it.

Goon snatched the seviper up by the neck and thrashed it into the ground before slashing through its throat with claws coated in darkness. The two arbok gave no heed to their fallen friend, though; one continued in its pursuit for Max while the other coiled in place a few yards back to launch a stream of acid at her. She dodged right for the other arbok and slammed an iron tail into it right as it lunged for her.

From underneath her, it flicked Max back with its tail to leap up and crash back down into the ground in front of her right as she landed on her hindpaws, then driving the earth itself against her. The harsh thud smacked into her with a familiar pain. She couldn't recognize the attack, but she could tell it was a ground type.

Then, the footing beneath her started to tremble. It shook and threw her to the ground. She rolled over onto all fours and tried to find it. The last streams of a water pulse shot through where its friend had sat, and she couldn't see it, either. If someone else finished it off, they weren't anywhere near it. Max kept a vigilant eye all around her for the slightest glint of purple, but none came.

"Max!" Oshton shouted right as the ground began to quake again. A sinking pit in Max's stomach prepared her for the worst, and Oshton hastily confirmed it. "Dig!"

Max only had time to nod in thanks before it was too late. She leapt out of the way right as it burst from the ground, then jumped right back into it with a storm of lightning coursing through her. Electricity paralyzed it as she rolled with it in the air until she landed, skidding across the ground.

She kicked her hindpaw into it as she spun around, grabbing it again to leap into the air and slam it back down beneath her weight. Cracks from the residual lightning and its illusory bones sang in unison as it faded into the air. Max hopped up to look around for the next enemy only to find the entire place spinning around her. Only the faces of her party surrounded her, though.

Daze finally caught up to her balance, and she fell back with her head in her paws to still its spinning. "There a reason you left the seviper to me?" Goon asked, holding an oran down for her. Max shrugged and grabbed the berry. Goon's playful smile made her feel a bit at ease but only a bit.

"Still a show-off, I see," Oshton chuckled. She reached a paw down to Max who gladly took the help getting up.

"I was?" Max asked, embarrassed sparks bouncing down her cheeks. Goon and Oshton both seemed eager to talk about her past, but she wished it wasn't so pathetic. It also did nothing to help her remember, which left her feeling disconnected completely from it. She felt so disconnected from herself already. Maybe she was a different person than she used to be, but that left her wondering if she could even connect to her current self.

Did that even make sense?

"She tries!" Cori offered, the topic at hand forcibly reasserting itself to Max. "Usually, she just gets in way over her head, though." Max winced and looked at Cori with pleading eyes.

A warm, comforting paw came to rest on her shoulder, tugging her into a half-embrace. "None have more to show than her," Eleos said. "In a sense, her show is never off." Just when she thought she had an ally.

Max shrank away from its hold and grumbled, "Great work, everyone. Thanks for the help." Everyone suddenly decided to notice her reactions and held back on whatever they were planning to say. Oshton started to say something, but sufficed with an apologetic glance before looking away. The sight made Max wish she'd just endured the jabs.

The group relaxed a bit, all moving just enough to tend to themselves after the battle. Goon came over to Eleos's side, biting into an oran of his own. "Hell did you learn to fight?" he asked, elbowing Eleos.

"How do you mean?" Eleos asked.

Max took its distraction as an opportunity to slink just a bit away from the group for a minute. Still in the same room, but out of their immediate range. She loved Eleos, sure, but she also sometimes loved her time away from it just as much. She flomped down to sit on the ground and brought her tail around. The knot looked fine, but she started retying it just to look busy.

Half-way through her knot, she could sense someone approaching. When she looked up, Oshton stopped in her tracks with an awkward smile. Max returned one equally as awkward. In that moment, the two could justify Distress Mountain's name alone.

"Hey, you all right?" Oshton asked, sitting across from Max (who was retying her tail-sleeve again) and right next to the entrance they'd come in from. Still nervous, Max nodded without a word. That didn't appear to convince Oshton, as she winced and looked away. "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be mean." It was as if Max hadn't answered that she was, in fact, fine. "Oh, are you quiet because of, uh. Your thing?"

"No," Max mumbled, shaking her head. Admittedly, she was half-worried that one wouldn't come out right. They'd delved pretty deep into the Dungeon at this point, and it took a concerted effort for her not to pay close attention to everyone else in the room with her. Oshton was too close not to pick up on, though, and Max could feel worried glances even with her eyes firmly on the knot in her paws. "Just on edge."

"Really?" Oshton asked, slightly scrunching her brow. "Huh, and usually you're running headlong into danger." She smiled at Max, and Max chuckled a bit herself.

"Well, I still do that," Max said. For the first time, she thought she might be the same person they talked about. She had an impulse to leave it there, not give Oshton any more information than absolutely necessary but tried to fight it. Reminding herself to try and be better, she finally stopped pretending to fiddle with the knot and look at Oshton. "I'm not really nervous about the Dungeon, though."

Oshton started to tilt her head and ask further but stopped when she saw Max flick her tail behind her. "Oh, that?" she asked.

Max flicked her tail further behind her again and said, "Well, I guess that, too." Once they'd gotten in the Dungeon, her apparel had mostly faded to the back of her mind. The reminder was less than pleasant.

"I think it looks cute," Oshton said with a smile. Somehow, the compliment only made Max feel worse about it.

"Thanks," Max said. "I just meant, I don't know." She glanced at Oshton with her mouth twisted down, trying to figure out why she didn't see the same unease on anyone else. "Doesn't this feel awkward to anyone else?" Goon, Eleos, and Cori all easily spoke to each other, and she could almost make out their conversation. Her awareness had slipped out on its own again.

"What's awkward about it?" Oshton asked. "Just like old times, right?"

"Maybe if you have old times to remember," Max spat. The moment the words left her lips, she wanted to take them back. "Sorry." She shook her head and tried to pull her awareness back in. Right on the edge, she felt something. She didn't even need to reengage its range to feel the newcomer—it dashed right back in range.

"Watch out!" Max yelled, jumping between Oshton and the entrance, but nothing was in the passage. The mystery didn't last long once she felt it rumbling beneath her, path unchanged. Whatever it was zeroed in on Oshton from underneath. There was no time to warn her properly.

Max tackled Oshton down right as the krookodile erupted from the earth and slammed right back down onto them. The brunt of the attack hit Max, and they started rolling right into the hole it had dug. Max tried to regain any of her balance, but it was hard with an entire dewott in her arms. Instead, she wrapped her tail around Oshton to try and protect her as they dropped into it.

They hadn't hit the bottom of the hole before the walls started shaking around them. Earth tore apart and slammed into itself, much of it grazing and hitting them both. Max managed, at least, to shield Oshton from most of it, and the iron tail helped a lot more. It couldn't stop the ground from disrupting her internal electricity, though.

Every hit rattled Max from the inside out, and her grip started to waver. The landing wasn't going to be fun, especially since the pit seemed to have no end in sight. It followed them as they fell, smacking them from wall to wall on the way down. Instead of reaching a bottom, it instead opened up entirely. A sliver of light grew into an opening just a bit too small.

They crashed through it, breaking their fall just enough that Max didn't faint when Oshton landed right on top of her. The impact threw her arms down, and her tail went slack before drifting to the ground. Every bone in her body ached but didn't feel broken.

Since she was finally still, Max finally realized how dizzy she felt. Her charge was completely absent in parts while nearly bursting out in others, and none of it felt like it went in the right direction. She closed her eyes, not sure if she'd see a spinning world or a still world, nor could she tell which would disorient her more. The weight on top of her left, reminding her she had someone else to worry about.

"Hhh, h-are you all right?" Max stammered out. A yellow berry shoved itself into her mouth for her efforts.

"Mother of the Sea, how are you alive?" Oshton breathlessly whispered. Without waiting for an answer, she went to looking over Max for injuries. "Hope you're not conscious enough to mind," she mumbled as she tugged the bra up to look and feel for any swelling, then did the same for Max's shorts. Luckily, she was right, and Max was too preoccupied in chewing to notice.

That is, until she felt a paw on her tail.

Max shot up and jerked it to her chest—the turbulent spinning worsened around her. She nearly fell back down but managed to hold strong. Her arms squeezed tightly enough around it to feel the horrible aches all through its length.

"Max, I need to check it," Oshton said.

"It's fine," Max said. She squeezed it tighter and winced when Oshton tried to reach for it and screwed an eye shut from the pain. Despite that, she didn't falter in her grip and kept resolute against Oshton as they stared each other down. It didn't take particular effort to fend Oshton off, though, and she relented after a few seconds.

"All right, sorry," Oshton said. Still, she kept a bewildered look trained on Max. The sitrus had already started working on the physical aches, but Max felt like her balance could falter at any moment. It was Oshton's stare that took the majority of her attention, though.

"What?" Max asked.

Suddenly realizing she was staring, Oshton looked around and said, "Sorry, just. I'm honestly impressed, I guess." Max joined her in looking around. It didn't take long to see that they were somehow on a different floor, but she kept her eyes elsewhere anyway. "Ithos told us how you used to feel so bad for not throwing yourself in harm's way for others."

Oshton shook her head with a smile. "You had such a hero complex," she chuckled. Even while she nursed wounds from those very consequences, Max wanted to object. "Why did you do that?"

Max looked back with her brow furrowed. "The attack would've hit you otherwise?" she said, somewhat incredulous she had to explain that part. Blocking a hit, to her, had pretty self-evident reasoning to it. She didn't get what part there even was not to get.

"Yeah, and it wouldn't have hurt me nearly as bad," Oshton said, just as incredulous. A quick check in on her still disturbed charge gave Max the first half of a clue before Oshton filled in the rest. "Grounds don't hit me as hard as they hit you. You know that, right?" Max didn't have an answer, so she shrugged instead. "What were you thinking?"

"I didn't really think it through," Max snapped. She tried to reel herself back by squeezing her tail for comfort—bad idea. It worked, though. The pain made it a lot harder for her anger to flourish. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't keep back this festering frustration. She wanted to prove she was trying to improve, yet she couldn't seem to make any progress.

"You're right, sorry," she admitted before she could think twice. "I don't know why. I just felt the attack coming for you and knew I had to do something about it."

Oshton looked back, mouth twisted down in thought, then smiled to say, "Well, thanks."

Max flashed a flat smile to reciprocate and dropped it in the same instant. Most of her body felt better aside from the end of her tail, but it only hurt when she squeezed it at least. Her charge still fuzzed and fizzled in odd splashes, but it wasn't coursing the wrong way through her veins anymore. She hazarded an attempt to stand, and Oshton held out a paw for her to balance on.

"Thanks," Max said, grabbing the paw. She didn't end up needing it, but it assisted her confidence if nothing else. Her body didn't particularly appreciate standing. She dug into her bag and scarfed down an oran. Without all the frustration brewing in her head, she could actually give any thought to Oshton's earlier words. "Did I really say that to Ithos?"

"Say what?" Oshton asked, realization flashing in her eyes before Max had to answer. "Oh, the guilt?" Max nodded, vague familiarity coming as she tried to reform the scene in her mind. "Well, he said so, but I wasn't there." Oshton shrugged with an apologetic smile. "It sound familiar?"

"Kinda," Max said, then started to move out. They'd spent too much time dawdling. Oshton followed close by just in case. "I don't really remember anything." She flashed a regretful glance to Oshton. Goon didn't take it personally, but would Oshton?

"Damn," Oshton said. Her only distress seemed to come from empathy, at least. "Oh, how feral are you right now?"

Max grimaced and bit back a snarl, but she gave a quick glare up at her, grumbling, "I'm not a fucking feral." She immediately stopped in her tracks and hissed out a deep breath. Even when it had a clear source, her anger didn't feel justified. "Sorry." How many times had she said that already? After what Goon said yesterday, she had to wonder if it even sounded genuine to anyone else.

"It's all right," Oshton said, patting her on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, too. I thought that was just what it was called." The apologetic smile she sent down made Max want to rip her ears off, but Oshton brought her back to Earth with another pat to the shoulder. "You didn't used to be this prickly. It seems like you've got a lot on your mind."

A rebuttal started itself before Max had anything to say, forcing her to shut her mouth before she'd said a word. She started walking to have anything else to do beside stand there. "I thought I was always a dick," she said, forcing a chuckle and a playful smile.

It wasn't convincing.

"Not to me," Oshton said. "Not unless something was bothering you." She balled her paw into a fist to lightly rap Max's shoulder, and they both started forward again. The orans and sitrus were making it a lot easier for Max to walk already. "So, what's up?"

"I mean, I don't know," Max said, anticipating the same mental block she got from talking to Goon. When she thought about it, though, opening up to Oshton didn't immediately make her want to curl up and die in quite the same way. "I feel like I'm—" Her ear shot up to listen. Steps, sets of them? No, it didn't even sound like two legs.

Max held a quieting paw up to her own mouth, and Oshton nodded in response, though she swept the room as a whole. The pokémon was coming from their left, though, so Max prepared for an attack from that direction and motioned her to do the same.

The tunnel formed itself in Max's mind, and she could feel its walls and its inhabitant clearly. "Wobbuffet," she whispered, getting a confused look from Oshton.

"What?" Oshton asked, narrowing her eyes. "Max, I don't hear anything. What are you talking about?"

Max just held a finger up to her lips again and waited. It felt so clear, so obvious to her that she had trouble understanding Oshton's confusion. Even if she knew it was her awareness, it felt like such a natural extension to her senses that she could barely imagine its absence. When the wobbuffet finally hopped around the corner, Max's thunderbolt hit it before it hit the ground.

By the time it did, it had begun to disappear. "Oh," Max mumbled. "Sorry, I guess I overreacted." In a dungeon with a danger rating like this, she'd assumed the pokémon would put up more of a fight.

"Max, what the fuck?" Oshton asked, eyes staring wide at the chu. Max squirmed a bit, already feeling a bit embarrassed for all the stealth she demanded for one attack. "How the hell did you know that was coming?" Then, Max was squirming for a different reason. She'd forgotten to even pretend to keep this under wraps. "The attack earlier, too—and didn't you say something about the big group fight?"

"Look, I don't know," Max said with a shrug. As much as she'd love to open up more, this wasn't the topic she needed to open up with. "Just… get these feelings, y'know?" She couldn't say it with any more conviction than sheepish, so she used that to her advantage. "E-ever since… y'know. Blacking out." Why couldn't she lie to Neb this well?

"Oh," Oshton said. She eyed her still, but with sympathy undercutting the brunt of the suspicion. "Is it like instincts?" The relief that her lie went over well couldn't show on her face; Max shrugged, mumbling something vaguely affirmative. "Hey, it's all right."

Oshton wrapped her arm around Max again. Their surroundings suddenly started to fade and flow into places Max recognized, but couldn't remember. It made Max's balance waver, but Oshton simply pulled her tighter into the embrace. Max tried to get back up, but it only made her lean deeper into Oshton's embrace. She eventually gave up and let Oshton hold her while the episode ran its course.

"Y'know, it's crazy you managed to black out at all," Oshton said. Max squinted up at her and got an extra tight squeeze. "Humans aren't supposed to have instincts."

"What?!" Max blanched, jerking up. Barely enough balance had returned to let her stand on her own. "H-human? What makes you—," Oshton was already chuckling at her. Maybe she couldn't lie after all. Sparks bounced down Max's cheeks, and she looked away. "I can't believe Goon told you."

"What?" Oshton giggled. She shook her head and looked right at her with a quirked brow, but Max couldn't bring herself to look back. "Max, you told me."

"I what?" Max balked. She tried to think back for a nanosecond before catching herself and avoiding the headache. "I, but I thought I didn't tell anyone." Her paw went to the back of her head, the very beginnings of an inkling of a memory tickling at her mind. No concrete events came to mind, but she felt the glass wall between her and Oshton fade more and more.

"Hey, you there?" Oshton asked, grabbing her by the shoulder. The touch diverged slightly, but Max definitely recognized it—and not just from earlier that day.

"Y-yeah," Max said. The nerves started to slightly fade as she talked to Oshton. She tried to run through the reasons that could cause it, and the first, most obvious answer cut at her heart with guilt. "Were, I'm sorry." Forgetting a friend was horrible. Forgetting a best friend was worse. "Were we… close?" Based on how terrified Max was of Oshton's response, she already knew the answer.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Oshton said—casually. Like Max had dropped a jelly bean. "Goon told me how fucked your head was." The blunt wording caught Max so off guard that she expected it to cut at her, but she was already laughing. "You remember anything?"

"No," Max chuckled—how was she still chuckling? "More of a feeling."

"Awww, you don't remember Girl's Night?" Oshton whined, paw clutched to her heart like she was auditioning for a lead role. The performance didn't diminish Max's surprise, though. Oshton watched the embarrassed sparks bounce down her cheeks, which only made more happen. "Guessing that's a no."

Max shook her head, even if it was redundant, and started heading further into the Dungeon. At this rate, they'd never catch up with the rest. What was their goal, even? Goon had picked the mission—missions?—and he'd tried to clear them with her first, but she didn't exactly pay attention. Cori and Eleos were capable enough that she figured she didn't have to worry.

"It's kinda cute," Oshton said. Max raised a brow at her. "That face you make when you're pretending to think about something else."

"I-I am not," Max stuttered.

"Whoah, you okay?" Oshton grabbed her arm to pull her back. Max tried to jerk out of her grasp, but Oshton's quieting stare stopped her. Oshton looked terrified—but Max had no idea what scared her.

"Kaa chu?" Max asked, answering her own question. "Ka, Pii pika," she said with her paws up, but the message didn't go through. She took a second to still her breath, right paw going to the bracelet and counting the beads. "I'm okay."

The understandable speech helped, but Oshton still looked mortified. "Max, we're not risking this, all right?" she said, reaching for her own badge.

Max grabbed Oshton's paw and shouted, "Wait!" That day Drake and Lily found him played in his mind for a moment. She realized how hard she was squeezing Oshton and let go all at once. Oshton yanked her paw back to rub her wrist but didn't go for her badge again. "Look, it's not because of the Dungeon." Even though the fears were justified, Max struggled not to get mad at the reaction.

Oshton looked her over for a long moment, very intently examining her eyes in particular. The intense stare made Max writhe in her clothes. As Oshton looked her over, Max couldn't help but adjust the elastics squeezing into her fur. It wasn't remotely what Oshton was looking at, but Max couldn't get it off her mind.

"All right," Oshton sighed. They both relaxed in unison, but Max still hid her tail behind her on instinct. "Sorry, I don't really know how this works." Oshton's eyes looked distant, hurt in a way that cut into Max. It didn't feel like fight or flight, but a different kind of fear.

"Oh," Max said. She looked away, and Oshton did the same, but the gaze was only half of the pain. Max could still feel Oshton's paws shaking, her throat tightening. "Look, I'm not going to let it happen again, okay?" Max reached over to still Oshton's quaking paw. While she tried to think of what else to do, she'd already begun to wrap her arms around Oshton.

The motion felt familiar, and so did Oshton. Even if she'd evolved since, Max could recognize the feeling of wrapping her arms around the dewott. They must have hugged countless times, which only made the fact she couldn't remember a single one sting worse. Oshton's arms wrapped around and cloaked her in a soulful warmth. It was the most tangible remnant of what she'd left behind, and it was still no more than vague recollection.

"I…," Max started, but her voice failed her. This warmth that she'd left behind felt larger than life. She'd prepared for people to hate her for what she'd done, not miss her. All she'd planned had failed, and now she had to face the consequences. "I didn't know it… affected you like this." She started to pull away, but Oshton squeezed her tighter.

"Me neither," Oshton said. She gave Max another tight squeeze, then let her go. Max was relieved to not see her crying, at least. "I mean, come on." Oshton looked down with a smirk and shrugged. "Who doesn't get over a guy in almost two years?"

Max bit back her objection before it could form. The hurt broadcast clear as day from her eyes, though, as she flicked her tail behind her again.

"Right, sorry," Oshton said. She rubbed a scallop in her paws and darted her eyes across the floor. The sight made Max regret being bothered by it at all. "It's, I'm still getting used to it, and you still look pretty much the same. I just forgot, are you okay?"

"Fine," Max grumbled. She wasn't, but Oshton looked too upset to hold accountable at this point. Max also feared what other comforting excuses would come to make her feel worse about herself. The way the fabric tugged and pressed uncomfortably into her fur made her feel even more out of place in her own body. "I know what I look like. It's not your fault."

"You sure?" Oshton asked. The way she looked at Max made her feel like her heart was on display. It felt like she couldn't hide anything, a familiarity that would tell everything to a person she only had a day of concrete memories with.

What should've made her feel seen instead made her feel like prey.

"I just want to move on, all right?" Max said. She almost started to head deeper again but began to wonder the point of that. "I don't think we're going to catch up at this rate. We're definitely on a lower floor." She stopped to listen in on her instincts' pull and nodded. "Yeah, definitely at least three or four." Oshton gave her a curious look, so she shrugged. "I have a sort of feel for it."

Oshton nodded and started to say, "Yeah, but—"

The entire mountain shook. Far off, Max felt shifting walls collapsing into themselves and shattering into new thresholds that formed and faded. A violent quake sent both of them to the ground, and Max only barely managed to catch herself on her forepaws while Oshton fell to a kneel. They shared a glance and started reaching for their badges when Max thought about Cori.

"Max! Where are you going?!" Oshton shouted.

Max hadn't even realized she'd started running. "What if they need help?" she shouted back, barely able to stop. It took all her energy to keep herself from darting off again. Even looking back enough to barely see Oshton was pushing it.

With one look at Max's eyes, Oshton's expression changed from annoyed confusion to hardened resignation. It only took that one look for her to know Max wouldn't change her mind. "Don't run off alone, then," she grumbled. The aftershocks rumbled under their paws, but they could at least keep their balance. By the time Oshton had stood, Max was already bursting at the seams to run.

"Follow me!" Max shouted back and darted off before Oshton could ask for clarification. With every slight quake, parts of the cavernous mountain snapped open into new thresholds. Holes in the ceiling, fissures in the walls, as if the Dungeon itself was collapsing in on itself.

It felt too bizarre, unnatural to be real. Yet, when Max turned the corner, she could see the subtle ripples of a threshold in a fissure on her right. It was too small for even her to go through, so she kept running deeper. At the end of that pass, the wall had caved in, and the debris left a convenient ramp up into the hole it left behind.

Max hopped up it without a second thought, barely even a glance to make sure Oshton was still following, and leapt into the threshold. The familiar twisting in her guts greeted her. She stumbled but didn't let it stop her.

Her pace was agonizingly slow, and she was already running out of breath—right. Right as Oshton made it to her side, Max dropped down to run on all fours. It was barely any faster, but it at least matched Oshton's pace. "Max, what—" Oshton started, but shook her head. "Have you ever seen this happen before?"

"Nope," Max said. Dungeons were ever shifting mazes, but they had never collapsed into themselves like this. Not that she'd ever seen, at least. "Left!" she called, darting left at the next intersection and hopping through the closest fissure. It had broken wide open—probably would've even been big enough for Goon—so she knew Oshton could take it, too.

Her stomach almost inverted. Max stumbled to the ground while her vision faded and blurred. That was more than one floor—it felt more like ten. The low hum of instincts grew to a gnashing chatter in her head. She threw her paw to her bracelet and held it tight while the new wave crashed over her.

"Max? Max!" Oshton shouted behind her. Oshton jumped by her side. "What happened?" She looked around for a feral but kept her attention on Max. "Did you get hit?"

Max shook her head, trying to claw for control back. They hadn't been prominent enough for her to make out, earlier, but they had just become clearer than even Oshton's voice. The elastic, fabric rubbing unnaturally into her fur, the uneasy tugs from the bits of her fur that got trapped in either—her clothes. Everything about them felt wrong to her instincts, but none were as loud as her tail.

The doppelgangers stood over her again, tail bound to her back. She tried to move it freely, but she could still feel the sleeve. Every inch of the fabric on her body and tail was wrong. The light pain in her tail from the earlier attack only made her instincts louder.

It was just because a pokémon wouldn't wear them, right? She clutched to her scarf, the only fabric that wasn't making her skin crawl. Her instincts—was it rejecting something deeper? Was it—it all felt wrong. The tail sleeve, the shorts, the top, none of them even fit right. They did nothing but look out of place and unnatural on a guy.

On him.

Max shot up to throw the sports bra off followed immediately by the shorts. Tears in his eyes, he dug his claws into the tail sleeve to rip it off, but his paws wouldn't cooperate. He tried and tried to get his arms to rip it off, but they wouldn't move. He gripped the sleeve tighter and tighter until he could feel his claws stabbing into the skin below and finally ripped his paws off the sleeve. The rest was enough. He felt empty, naked, hideous, miserable—right.

"Max?" Oshton asked.

"Come on," Max grumbled, shooting off again. With as deep as they must have been and the hurricane of emotions tearing him apart, he couldn't expect himself to speak in anything but feral. All he could do was run fast enough that Oshton didn't have time to talk to him.

His tail, he could still feel it. Not just the sleeve but his tail itself. It felt just as off and uncomfortable as the clothes had been, but then again, didn't it always?

Instincts buzzed in his mind alongside the entirety of the Dungeon Floor splayed out before them. The path to the next floor was almost a straightaway, so he darted in that direction. A sound cut through the air, halting him in his tracks. Both ears shot up to listen while he sniffed at the air. The entire cavern reeked of the earth. This wasn't a natural earthquake. It seemed far more than even a legendary could manage.

The sound came again—whimpering—a child! Max dashed off to the right as fast as his awkward gait could manage. If only he'd let Goon show him how to actually run on all fours—but he didn't have time for regrets now.

As he approached the sound, he could smell earth and scales, even feel the shape of a gible before he turned the corner to see it. A little girl curled up in the corner of the room. Max grit his teeth to rein himself in—running at a crying child would only make her more terrified. She hadn't even noticed him yet. He wanted to call out to her but that would probably just make her think he was a feral.

He got up on his hindpaws and started tip-toeing over to her, reaching into his bag to grab an oran. Oshton came barreling in from the room behind, so Max threw his head back to motion her to be quiet the instant she laid a paw in the room. Oshton looked ready to scream at him until she saw the little gible in the corner.

Max nodded, Oshton reciprocated, so he started to head over holding out the oran again. Oshton stealthily caught up to Max. Once they got to the middle of the room, the little girl glanced up to see them. Fear froze her in place until she saw the oran, and she ran up to grab it.

Ostensibly, at least, until she threw her stumpy arms around Max (at least, as around as the nubs could manage). "M-mister!" she cried out; Max felt the last remaining piece of his heart shatter. "My mom! My mom! Help her!"

Max slipped the oran back in his bag as he wrapped his arms around her. She had to be a tenth his age, and yet she was already almost as tall as him. He tried to comfort her as best he could physically by squeezing her tight and running his paws down her back, but that could only accomplish so much. He gave Oshton an urgent look.

Oshton nodded and knelt next to them, coaxing the little girl's face out of Max's chest. "Hey, what's wrong?" she asked.

"M-mommy!" the gible sobbed. "She got really angry at some mean people and chased them!" Oshton and Max shared a look, both wondering if those 'mean people' were ferals, or their teammates. "They yelled at her a bunch, but then an earthquake made everyone disappear!" Max squeezed her tighter as she quaked with sobs. The little girl tried to say more, but couldn't get more than whimpers out.

"Hey, don't worry," Oshton whispered, running a paw along the girl's chin. "We'll help her, don't worry. Did she say anything about where she went?"

"N-no," the gible whimpered. After a few false starts, she shook her head and hugged Max tighter—for a child, she could sure make it hard to breathe. "Sh-she stopped talking after nap time." Max felt his blood run cold. Without looking, he could tell Oshton realized the same thing as him. If the mom had already succumb, the kid didn't have much more time.

Max snatched his badge off his bag and pulled back to show it to the girl. It got her attention enough that she let go to look at it. He started to give it to her so she could look at it closer. Right before he let go, he clicked the button. The blinking got her attention as well as Oshton's.

No objections came until Max pulled away right before the badge whisked the little girl out of there. "Max!" Oshton screamed. "What are you doing!? You have to get out of here, too!"

Max shook his head, the best he could do to get his point across. The mom needed their help just as much. He wasn't going to leave the Dungeon unless he knew for certain everyone was out. He pointed to Oshton's badge. With his gone, Oshton didn't really have a choice. As distorted as this place had become, their only sure fire way out was a badge.

Oshton grabbed hers, but with only one look she could tell Max wouldn't let her use it yet. "Max," she growled, but he turned to head out before she could finish—time was a resource they didn't have. Before Max could drop down, though, Oshton wrapped a death grip around his shoulder.

He turned to see an inferno in her eyes. "You said you won't let it happen again?" Oshton asked, more like a command than a question. Max opened his mouth before closing it to nod instead. A single tear dripped down from Oshton's eye. "Don't you dare go back on that promise." She yanked him into a hug. "I don't care who we have to leave behind—I won't let it be you."

Max crumpled into the hug with shame just in time for Oshton to let go. He wanted to say more, but he already knew she wouldn't understand. He didn't even know what he could say. Every thought caught in his throat as he stared at her until finally he gave up and led the way again.

No one else was on this floor, so he made a beeline for the main exit. Plenty of fissures and chasms were closer, but he had no idea which floor they led to. The floor had stopped shaking beneath them finally, so they could both move faster without fear of falling. They had to go through a few rooms before the threshold to the next floor.

Max darted through it without hesitation, ignoring the vicious grip on his guts and the screech of instincts demanding he flee this place reeking of ground type. As his awareness spread to the new floor, they screamed in a greater crescendo. Only a few rooms away, a garchomp tore into the walls, screeching.

Searching.

Max couldn't move his paws. The stench of earth filled his lungs more than air. He cowered back towards the wall behind, the threshold dissipating as he went past it. Shaking his head, he whimpered as he ran into the wall behind.

"Max?" Oshton asked, carefully approaching from the side. He turned to see her looking for something in his eyes. She stared into them for a while, barely able to make out anything. If she could see the light, it was dim in the face of black voids. Finally, she nodded. It was there. He was still there. "What's wrong?"

"Pi chu pi chuu," Max whimpered, shaking his head. Oshton turned to the tunnel in front of them—plenty able to hear the rampaging garchomp the room away—it was only one room away, now.

In no time at all, it smashed through the opposite wall and flew mere feet behind Oshton before smacking her across the room. Right in front of Max, it turned to screech at Oshton as she smashed into the wall. Max watched in horror as it snarled down at him before stomping over to Oshton sliding down to the ground. Was she…

Oshton caught herself before she hit the ground, which only seemed to anger the garchomp further. It screeched at her again before reeling back to leap forward. Oshton could barely hold herself up on one knee, but she didn't reach for her badge. All she did was prepare to leap out of the way of the attack.

Before it could launch itself, Max threw himself at it with all his might. Instincts rebelled against him, screaming that he run for his life, but he needed to protect Oshton. He leapt up and smashed his tail into its head, sending it flying to the side. It smashed its wings into the wall and turned back to face him with red pinpricks of rage in its eyes.

The force of his attack had only moved it. The garchomp didn't even look stunned. A thunderbolt crashed out of Max independent of his will and glanced harmlessly into the ground type. Even as Oshton started spouting a hydro pump into it, the garchomp kept its rage squarely on Max.

In an instant, it was on top of him, slashing its fins into Max, smashing him hard enough that he bounced off the ground for its next strike to smash him across the room. By some miracle, its attack didn't reek of the earth or disrupt his charge. It wasn't a ground attack, but he still heard a vicious snap as his chest crashed into the wall. It hurt to breathe deeply. He broke a rib.

A bright flash engulfed the garchomp, followed by another, another, more and more. He turned to see explosion after explosion consume it as Oshton ran to his side, chucking an entire arsenal of blast seeds into their attacker.

"Take this!" she screamed, tossing another seed to Max. What he remembered of his life flashed before his eyes until the seed cracked open on his nose and let him breathe again. Oshton turned to see if he was still alive and snatched her badge off her bag in the same motion. "We're leaving." She smacked the button into a scallop while chucking the last of her seeds with the other paw.

In no condition to object, Max reached up to grab her. The aftershocks of the explosions and the pain rang so loudly in her ears that she couldn't hear the silence. That must have been enough to stop the mother. At least she'd be more docile when she woke up. He turned to see a hole where the garchomp had been.

His heart stopped beating. The badge flashed a second time. The ground right beneath Oshton rattled. Max tried to yell at her, but only meaningless babble came out. When Oshton turned to see what he was screaming about, the garchomp ripped out of the ground beneath her, sending Max flying. A white light engulfed the room as Max crashed into the wall. He looked up. They were both gone. He was alone.

Panic had long since set in—now, it just had a new source. His heart pounded directly into his rib—still at least fractured even after the Reviver Seed. Max almost wished it had been a blast seed. That would've knocked him out at least.

He couldn't take his eyes off the empty air that Oshton left behind. The garchomp was probably beating her to a pulp now, and he could only sit deep in a Dungeon while his mind decayed. Again. It hadn't been thirty minutes since he promised that he'd never let it happen again, and yet, here he was. He wanted to blame luck as if he wasn't the one who threw his badge away. Just to be a hero.

His paws hopped up on their own, the throbbing pain in his chest blurring his consciousness to nothing but panic demanding he run. If he could just get out of the Dungeon before he blacked out, maybe he had a chance—but that was too much to keep in his mind already.

Run—he needed to run. It was the only demand that survived as the pain and terror flooded his mind. He needed something—anything—for relief while he tore himself to pieces. Everything he'd done wrong—he was too weak, he was too slow, he was too stupid—ran in parallel with the panic demanding he run, run, run run run run run run run run run run run run run run run run runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun.

The terror, the pain, his vision all slowly became distant. Even knowing it was his instincts taking over, he couldn't resist. He didn't have the willpower or the energy. He didn't have anything but the need to run, and he'd already forgotten what he was running from. What else would he forget?

Behind, it was right behind him. Breathing down his neck, matching his every step—the faster he ran, the faster it followed, even slowing when he did. A monster playing with him like the prey he was. He ran as fast as his paws could carry him, and it effortlessly matched his speed. It pulled him deeper into himself as he felt everything but the all consuming dread fade away. So close behind—so close behind.

The threshold escaped his notice until he'd thrown himself through it. The shift tore his insides out. He felt his mind lurch as his stomach vacated its contents, but his paws didn't stop running.

He couldn't. He needed to run. Even the stench of nausea faded in mere seconds. He had to run. It was right behind him. Even as his paws stung, as his muscles ached, as his lungs burned, as his balance failed, he had to run from the beast bearing down on him. The monster that had followed him all his life, tormented him since the day he woke up in this world, tore his heart out to sew it into a body that he despised—and it was coming to do it all again.

Run. He needed to run. Even when his paw caught on a jagged rock, he ran. Even as a loose rock tore his ankle into the wrong direction, he ran. What chased him had no pity for injury. It followed effortlessly behind as fatigue took over, waiting to pounce.

He ambled through another threshold, and his legs fell out from under him. He couldn't run anymore. He had no chance. He was doomed. It was all his fault. He had no choice but to fight. Once it finally bore down on him, he turned to catch it, throwing all of his weight into wrestling it to the ground. He tore his teeth, claws into it and felt it rip into him just the same.

Each tooth he dug into it dug into him as well, each claw, each growl, each whimper, each scream. The agony ripped into him as the beast tore him apart, but instincts weren't taking over anymore. He couldn't take control back, but they'd stopped stealing more of the little he had.

He'd made it out.

With renewed vigor, he bit and clawed with all of his strength, but the same attacked him with the same vigor. He bit harder than his jaw could take until he heard a snap. He tried to tear the chunk he had out, but it was still attached. More shaking, more biting—finally, it ripped free of him. He was free. He crunched it to pieces and swallowed what he could.

He was bleeding. A lot. It soaked his entire chest, his tail, his mouth, his eyes—but the latter didn't matter. He couldn't see, anyway. Only an all encompassing black filled his vision. But he'd made it out. He was safe. He was alone. He was alive.

"I know, I know, I said that I'd desist
All right, I promise, no more after this
Not to be what I was like
Not to soar across the sky"


Gender Issues: Max is going to be dealing with a lot of dysphoria in this chapter. It's very much the focus here. Please be in a good place mentally before reading this if you deal with this. It's based on my own experience, and I've been told that I underestimate how much things can hurt when I do that. I promise, however, that there is a happy ending coming. I hope that helps, and I hope that you can see the hope in the darkness I'm trying to do.

Violence: Max will get hurt pretty bad in a fight. If bones breaking is too much for you, start to skim once the garchomp comes in. After that, there's a lot of mentioning of ripping and tearing into Max and her doing the same to what's attacking.