"Baby I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you"
"Hallelujah" from Various Positions by Leonard Cohen
Max froze to the grass beneath her hindpaws, forepaw clutching the Harmony Scarf enough to hear its threads snapping. Ithos and Ash hadn't noticed her yet, still walking over to the petrified remains of Jirachi. The empty air they left behind wrapped like tendrils around her mouth, throat, making it impossible to scream, breathe.
"Jirachi?" Ash asked. He leaned over to tap at her face. "Who leaves a statue in a Dungeon?" Max wanted to tell him It's because it wasn't a statue, but she couldn't. She could only watch Ithos kneel to trace a claw down the ribbons hanging from her.
"It's really good, too," Ithos mumbled. He brought his paw back to rub at his chin. "Is Revelation Mountain's Lotus sculpture?"
If only it was that simple. Max prayed that it was. This was the first Dungeon that felt like the ones she remembered, with every feral exclusively interested in what blood tasted like. All three of them had taken a good beating (Ash especially) and ate through all but five of their orans. It'd be nice if they could avoid any more fights by carrying around picks and chisels, but Max couldn't entertain the fantasy.
"Could be," Ash said, starting to smirk. "How do you feel about granite, Max?" He turned to flash his smirk while Ithos glared at him in her honor, but Ash's expression quickly changed to concern. "Max?" Max shivered, stepping back with a whimper.
"Max!" Ithos shouted. He dashed over to her side in an instant, kneeling to hold her in his arms. "Max, it's okay." She wanted to hold his arms in hers, but she couldn't bring herself to move. "What's wrong?" Just like she couldn't speak, she couldn't take her eyes off Jirachi. Ithos followed her gaze with a raised brow. "Oh, right! Hey, don't worry." His eyes flashed with recognition and he held her tighter.
"It's not that, okay?" Ithos cooed. After they'd started dating, Max had spilled more and more about what she shouldn't have. The first to come was her nightmares. He knew about them, but she never told him they were memories. "That's just a statue, and those are just nightmares."
Ash waved his paw in front of her eyes, and her gaze didn't move at all. "Is she in there?" he asked, looking to Ithos.
"Yeah," Ithos said, not taking his eyes off hers. "It's not instincts. She's just really scared."
"Somethin' about this mountain, man," Ash said, shaking his head. "She's been on edge the whole time." Ithos nodded and Max shivered in agreement. The whole trek to this point, she'd felt a deep memory clawing out. Most memories returned passively, almost on accident, but those were mundane. Not all memories came quietly.
She'd gone into the Dungeons for a reason. Even if she knew she'd have failed, she still would have gladly taken the loss of some memories, memories she wanted to lose. Memories she'd been repressing long, long before she'd ever considered running away. Shadows that haunted her every decision, every step, on the outskirts of every tortuous thought.
The worst of them all had Ithos by her side.
"Max, hey, look at me," Ithos whispered. He coaxed her face away from the sight slowly, but firmly. He quickly nodded at Ash and got him to stand between her and the statue. Even blocking the sight, she could see it, but it made it easier to let Ithos turn her head. "Hey, it's all right."
Even as he turned her head, her eyes tracked Jirachi behind Ash until they couldn't anymore. Her eyes shot forward to see Ithos' smile weary with worry. Looking into his eyes, she wondered if he could see hers anymore. Be it the inky black of a feral or the dull gray of stone, she quivered in his arms the longer he looked, his own eyes echoing into the yawning abyss of her worst nightmare.
Of her lost memories, some had scarred over. She could only feel them if she ran her paws over the marred flesh. Once they started climbing this mountain, she started falling into a chasm of raw flesh. This was no scar; it was a wound that never closed, and she was drowning in the blood pooling in the basin.
Drowning, she couldn't breathe. She lost herself between needing to fill her lungs and preserving what little air she had. Her paws grew numb as her stone flesh sank deeper, calcifying her lungs before they could let out her last gasp.
In it all, she felt scales. Warm scales wrapped around her, leaning against her head and holding her tight. She'd let go, but someone else had a hold of her. Lips met hers and breathed life into her lungs again. Warmth blossomed out from her chest, and she could feel Ithos' touch all around her. She could feel the wind in her fur, the rise and fall of his breath and her own panicked gasp.
Max wrapped her arms around him and collapsed in his hold. Her breath fluttered through ragged sobs when he held her tighter. He cooed in her ear meaningless drivel suggesting it was okay that she couldn't dare believe, but she couldn't resist it, either. His hold, touch felt secure, too safe to deny. She needed it.
"Sorry," Max blubbered. She tried to push out of his hold before it was too late, before she fell for it, but he held tight. His paw came to rub down the back of her head.
"It's all right," Ithos said. "I've got you." Against her better judgment, she could feel herself melting in his hold again. She let out a slight whimper when one of his paws pulled away, but she could feel it grazing her fur all the way in its path to her arm. He pulled her arm out and adjusted to a side-hug so he could hold her paw out in front of them.
"Here," he whispered. He squeezed the pad of her paw, and she felt it. "See? Still flesh and blood." He pulled her cheek against his, a meaningless gesture to a charmander except that it showed his love to a pikachu. Max felt her heartbeat stabilize, and she finally managed a full breath.
Ash's paw pat her shoulder, but her eyes stayed on the paw Ithos held. "You all right?" Ash asked. She wasn't, but she nodded on impulse. "Moltres' Crow, Max, what in Arceus' Legends happened to you?"
"She hasn't even told me that one," Ithos chuckled. He pulled her in tighter the instant she started shivering again. "I think you need some rest, here." He tugged her bag around to her lap, then readjusted her scarf to undo the jostling. "Where's your badge?"
"No!" Max shouted. She ripped herself out of his arms and started backing away. Ithos and Ash both threw their arms up, sharing baffled glances while staring at her in concern. "I'm not—we have to stay together!" It couldn't happen again. The first thing she did was get rid of Nuzleaf. He couldn't hurt them this time, yet in her jostling, she felt the bracelet Grovyle gave her clack against itself.
Time was in flux, and even Grovyle didn't know what would happen. Even now, she was terrified it could happen again. She wanted to put her faith in Ithos, but for the first time, what Grovyle said stuck. Was this how Ithos failed?
"Max, c'mon," Ash said. He tentatively stepped over to her, keeping his paws in the air. "You're way too rattled right now."
"I'm fine," Max growled. Ash all but rolled his eyes, and Ithos looked just as unconvinced. She took a breath and brought a paw up to her scarf. Right, the Harmony Scarves. They still had them. "It was just a little scare. I'-"
"Little?" Ash asked. Again, Ithos' expression shared the same sentiment.
"Okay," Max said. She brought her free paw up to rub at her eyes. "Fine, big scare." She pulled her eyes up to theirs, making sure they didn't wander over to Jirachi. "This is the toughest Dungeon we've faced so far, and Jirachi set me off." A familiar shell formed as she started to believe her own justification. "I got overwhelmed, but I'm all right now."
"Bro," Ash scoffed, but Ithos held him back with a paw.
His eyes were trained on Max's. He nodded to some silent message Max didn't mean to send. With just that glance, he could tell she wouldn't change her mind. After a year and a half together, he'd learned to tell when she'd made up her mind and doubly so when she wouldn't tell him more.
"All right, Max," Ithos said. He gave a reluctant nod without a smile to hide his frustration. "We'll trust you." Ash balked at him, and Ithos shrugged with a shake of his head. He might capitulate to her secrets more, but they still frustrated him. Seeing him share in that frustration with Ash made Max second guess herself. "Come on. Let's go." He extended his paw for her to take.
Max nodded and walked over, eyes tracing the ground in the opposite direction of Jirachi. When his paw held hers, she felt a stark distance that contact couldn't contravene. After that night in the bar, her own duplicity cut Max deeper every day they were together.
There was so much to say that she could never share. She hid half herself behind a lie, so she could only love with half a heart. He gave her everything, and she gave him scraps. Even the secrets she'd let slip didn't hold a candle to the original sin of their relationship. She couldn't love him, not really. It was just a long, drawn out game of chess that ended with him thinking he loved her.
"Sorry," Max whispered.
Ithos squeezed her paw, smiling after a prolonged sigh. "I know you can't tell me everything," he said. "I don't get it, but for some reason, there's a lot I just can't know." He glanced forward to Ash taking point and slowed their pace a scosche. "I've come to terms with that much."
"Ithos, come on," Max whimpered. "I know that's a lie. I can tell you're upset." She looked up with pleading eyes, but his stayed forward.
"Because this is something else," Ithos said. Max tilted her head, and he turned down to meet her eyes. "I can still feel your paw shaking." With a little jolt, Max realized he was right. "You wouldn't let yourself look at Jirachi while we left." Max shivered at the mention of them again, and he let her know he saw it with a stare. "I want to love you—I do."
He stopped and knelt to face her, pulling her other paw into his. "So please," he whispered, a quaver breaking his voice. "You don't have to tell me what hurts, but don't lie. I don't need to know why you're crying to hold you in my arms while you do." A lone tear sizzled off the bridge of his nose.
"I," Max started to say, but her voice caught in her throat. A crack in that wall between them started to form, what she'd always wanted. It should've been a relief. Why did it terrify her? Her grip started to falter, and Ithos held her tighter.
"It's always in your eyes," Ithos said. Even in a whisper, his voice cracked. "More and more, your smiles are just to hide from me." He gazed into her eyes, and she flinched. "What are you afraid I'll see?" So long ago, Max could still remember the inky black in her eyes Eleos showed her in sculpture, but Ithos had already seen it. He already knew. He'd held her tight every time until she came back to herself without fail.
Her heart trembled the deeper he looked. She could feel him digging past her walls, and she wanted him to pull through, but she already felt herself trying to close up again. His voice, thousands of years removed from then, echoed in her ears: "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Please," Ithos begged. She flinched at his voice, still stuck in the memory. It took her a second to process what he'd actually asked. "Can you let me in?" His face shifted from what she saw to what she remembered. The last time he'd ever looked at her, would ever look at her, would be that betrayal. That's how it was destined to end.
Her grip wouldn't loosen anymore. She held tighter. With every glimpse into the past, she saw his soft desperation in the now. Her past that was their future was thousands of years away; ever since she landed again, she'd never been able to drag herself away from him.
"I," Max whimpered again. She clenched her eyes shut, sending a stream of tears down her cheeks. "I just don't know how." Her heart ached in the moment. Holding his paws was too distant. He was further away than he'd ever been. "Please," she whimpered and threw herself around him. "Please help me." Again, she felt her heart closing off, so she squeezed him tighter.
Ithos squeezed her back. He started to whisper something into her ear when a crash followed by a scream ripped through the Dungeon.
"Ash!" Ithos shouted directly into Max's ear. He hopped out of her embrace to frantically look around. "Where'd he-" His eyes shot open. They'd been too busy to notice he wandered off without them. This was supposed to be a quick chat.
"Max, you ru-" he saw her holding her ear with a paw, fresh tears still on her cheeks. "Are—I, do you need-" He ran back over to tug her into a quick embrace. "Sorry!"
Max couldn't help a sad chuckle. Ithos was tearing himself to pieces trying to care about both of them. Luckily, she was already well versed in how to stop tears. "It's okay," Max said. "I'm-" Ithos interrupted her with a vice grip on her shoulder and a glare. Her plaster smile cracked; she took a breath to wash it away. "Not great, but I'll manage for now."
Ithos eyed her for a second when Ash screamed again. "Works for now," he mumbled with a shrug. "We're coming!" He broke out into a sprint. Max hung back to snap the bag's extra buckle around her midsection so she could run on all fours (while also keeping a watchful eye on her boyfriend's backside while he ran).
Nice and secure, she darted off after Ithos. Despite the temporary hang up, she caught up and passed him in half the time of his head start. They needed to find Ash, and they needed to find him quick. Luckily, the path didn't have any crossroads—which is why he never turned to check which way they should go. Of course. A twinge of guilt for causing all of this urged her paws to run faster.
After a third turn since she lost Ithos behind her, she saw Ash standing a yard in front of her, staring at a clearing. "ASH!" she screamed, skidding to slow in vain before slamming into his back. They both tumbled out of the path and into the clearing, and Max started to regret yelling, making it even harder to escape notice.
Of course, Ash had already done as much damage and likely more with his ongoing screams. Max had to wrestle him to the ground and physically shut his maw. Once she'd muzzled him to muffles, she jerked her head up and started looking around.
Three Legendary Birds stood in the center, encased in stone just like Jirachi. Articuno and Moltres flanked (for some reason) Ho-Oh, forming a triangle. Zapdos was nowhere to be seen, but all three had craters underneath them. Based on their poses, they'd all been mid flight. Max clutched her scarf while scanning the sky.
"Ash, Max!" Ithos shouted as he bolted over to the two of them. He saw the statues before he needed to ask what happened and quickly came to Max's side (after helping Ash up). Max clutched onto him tight but kept one paw on her scarf. He whispered comforts in her ear while eyeing Ash curiously. "Ash, what gives?" Ash jerked his head to look over to them. "Jirachi didn't scare you."
"M-Moltres!" Ash stammered. He jammed his paw towards said statue with tremors of terror. "S-Sh-She wasn't—I saw Her!" Ithos squinted at him; Max's eyes shot wide open. "Th-the air! She was flying, I saw it!" Ithos started putting the pieces together and gave Max a worried glance. "Some attack hit Her!"
"All right," Ithos said. He nodded along with one brow raised. "But, like. Why'd you scream? Did she almost hit you?" Ash jerked his head around to stare in open mouthed confusion. "What?"
"Dude!" Ash shouted, jabbing a paw towards Moltres again. "It's Moltres!" He waited for recognition to come to Ithos' eyes, but it didn't. "Dude! Is your tail flame still even there?" Ithos flicked it forward to give it a half-hearted glance to confirm it was. "What Legendary do you think fuels your flame?!"
"Oh, that?" Ithos asked. The final piece plopped into place and made him wince. "Look, I was raised by a nuzleaf, and I'm not about to worship Zarude."
Ash looked back with a blank stare before rubbing his eyes. It at least explained why Ithos tended to swear to Mew instead of Moltres. Max might've considered as much if she didn't have her eyes stuck on the three Legendary Birds in her out of focus vision. If it weren't for Ithos, she wouldn't still be standing. Even with him, she relied on his weight more and more with every second.
Ash had seen Moltres petrify. It was happening again. Her ears rang in terror. A screech joined the chorus, and Ithos yanked her back.
They smacked into the ground at the same time that two talons ripped through the dirt they'd stood on. Talons as long as Max was tall led to a crackling yellow plumage with shocks of black behind it. Seeing her circle in the sky for another pass shook Max out of her trance and she got up with Ithos' help. She nodded at him in thanks, then looked around for Ash to see him in roughly the same place.
Zapdos dove right for Max and Ithos with lightning crackling in her wings and rage blazing in her eyes. They dove in opposite directions, and Zapdos tore her talons into the earth to land a yard from where they'd stood.
"Get out!" Zapdos screeched. She stood in her own thunderstorm while Max cowered further away. Zapdos wasn't attacking, but Max couldn't take her eyes off her massive claws.
"Wait!" Ithos shouted. He threw his paws in the air while Zapdos glared at him so violently that lightning struck between them. Ithos flinched, but stood his ground. "We're here to help!" He reached into his bag and yanked out his badge to show her. "W-" Lightning engulfed him, shocking Max out of her terror.
"YOU?!" Zapdos screamed. She pounced on Ithos, wrapping her talons around his chest with a claw to his throat. "A soldier of that thing, and you dare say you're here to help?" Ithos tried to pry the claw away from his throat, so she slammed him into the ground, smashing his arms back down. "I won't let your ranks touch a single other soul." She stabbed her beak towards his chest.
A heart-shaped iron tail smacked it off course with a resounding crack. When Max landed, she spun around to slice her tail into the leg holding Ithos down. The smack resounded just as loud, but Zapdos only hissed in pain. It weakened her hold enough that the blazing ball of hedgehog smacked her into stumbling off.
Without even asking if he was okay, Max shoved an oran into Ithos' mouth. He didn't so much as wiggle in complaint, so she figured it was the right call. She wished she could help him more, but she could already hear the tides turning against Ash.
Max kissed Ithos and dashed over to help. Ash got Zapdos to retreat back to the air, but she was already diving for another hit. So much lightning cloaked her as she dove that the sky around her looked dark. Ash scrambled to get up, but he was still dazed from his own attack. His own fur had singes and chunks that had lightly charred. Max grit her teeth in frustration and ran faster.
"ASH!" was her only warning as she slammed into Ash, knocking him out of the way. With him rolling through the grass, she looked up to see a retina searing bolt of light smash through her. Without any time to prepare, it ravaged her own charge and overloaded her reserves in an instant.
Max let out a scream while it seared her but kept her eyes locked on Zapdos. The bird hadn't stopped her descent; she had her talons open and ready to snatch up her victim. Max leapt out of the way at the last second to slam another iron tail into the same leg she'd hit before. Zapdos barely winced at the blow and swiped at Max with her other claws.
A plume of flame engulfed Zapdos from the left while Max stumbled back, clutching the deepest gash through her chest. "Max!" Ash shouted, dashing in from the right to help her steady. "What are you doing?!"
"Fighting!" Max snapped back. "What does it look like?!" Ithos shot another plume of flame while Zapdos retreated, then ran over to Max. He tried to ask if she was okay, but Ash was still yelling at her.
"Shock her!" Ash shouted.
"Shock?! Zapdos?" Max asked, jaw agape. "You want me to shock Zapdos? Really?" Ithos and Ash both squinted at her in bafflement while exchanging glances, but she couldn't figure out what their issue was. Instead, she decided to explain her issue. "She's an electric type!"
"So you use iron tail?" Ash screamed. Ithos shoved a paw in front of his mouth and turned to Max.
"Honey," Ithos said, glancing up to check. For some reason, Zapdos was staying high in the air for now. "Electricity also resists steel." Max's indignation evaporated. "And Zapdos is half flying, too." Max slapped a paw to her face. Ithos started continuing to explain, so she slapped her other paw over his mouth to muzzle him.
"I get it," Max grumbled, sliding her paw down her face. At this point, she amazed herself with how terrible she was with typing. She'd complain that it never even made sense, but Zapdos screeching in tune with an explosion of lightning shocked her out of frustration.
Dark, billowing clouds started to invade the blue sky before their very eyes. Max felt her tail raise while static permeated the air around them and made all of her fur stand on end. In concert with the ongoing daze from Zapdos' invading charge, it made her start to feel just a bit woozy. Her cheeks got to work reorienting her charge.
While clouds were still closing in on the last of the visible sky, massive globs of raindrops hammered into the ground. It made it even easier for her to sense and control the electricity around her, but the real point of this was obvious. Ash and Ithos hissed in unison as the rain battered them.
"Frick," Ithos hissed. Max caught him turning to look at his tail flame even though he knew better but didn't bring it up. She had more important things to focus on, like this being the closest this Ithos had ever come to swearing.
Oh, and the massive charge still accumulating around them. What started as the basic beginnings of a thunderstorm had worsened drastically in mere seconds. She put her paw over her eyes to look up. Zapdos was right above them. Booming crackles of lightning arced around and between her wings. Max started to yell at them to run, but stopped herself.
If they ran, Zapdos would just go for Ithos or Ash. Hitting all three of them was too good an opportunity to pass up, even for a legendary. Instead, Max started pulling the charge together around her.
"Max, no," Ithos said. Max narrowed her eyes at him and saw him doing the same. "I don't know what you're planning, but I know that face." The charge around them was doubling every second, and Max had all of her focus pulling as much of it in as she could. "Max, we need to play it safe!"
"Too late," Max said. The charge around them was already too great. It started arcing between her and the ground, and she could feel the clouds pulling it higher. "Piiiiiii," she started to growl, circuits of electricity snapping ceaselessly around her in constant crackles and pops. "Kaaaa…." Bolt after bolt of lightning coursed into Zapdos as the bird incorporated more into her charge.
Ash and Ithos backed away as the same started happening to Max. Her breath threatened to go ragged while she focused, this charge far stronger than any she'd pulled for quite a while. She hadn't even used Thunder for a while since she had better luck with physical attacks like Wild Charge.
It was too late to reconsider, and she didn't need to have as strong a charge as Zapdos to pull a charge off course. Small pilot zaps snapped between the earth and the sky, and she forced her muscles to relax. Trying to absorb this charge would kill her, so she needed to stay relaxed to conduct it. She let out a roaring "CHU!" in unison with an ear shattering lightning strike that outshone the brightest day before plunging the Dungeon back into blind darkness.
Even passing through her, the amperage ripped through her organic circuitry. Every blood vessel burned as it inevitably burst through the rest of her body. The world around her reeked of ozone and burnt fur while Zapdos screeched in the sky. The lightning hit her at least as much, but Max couldn't tell for sure.
So much of the charge ripped through her, still. Every inch of her fur stood on end along with her ears and tail while the surrounding static forced every part of her as far away from itself as possible. It wouldn't all go into the ground.
Her tail flicked behind her, and she sent another calling charge up. It shot through the sky and right into Zapdos, alleviating enough of the charge that Max could almost hold herself together when it crashed down again. Her heart still raced with the impossibly high paced volts shooting through her system, but her cheeks had started reincorporating what they could.
She looked up to see Zapdos plummeting. It almost gave her hope until Zapdos jerked herself out of the dive and flapped her wings to stop her descent. Seeing it, though, Max felt a bit silly for thinking she'd be able to take out Zapdos with one shot.
She shook the last of the excess charge out of her fur (with a lot of rain) and glanced between Ash and Ithos with a nod. Ithos gave her a bit of a glare, so she shrugged and said, "Can't argue with results."
"Just eat an oran," Ithos said with a roll of his eyes. Despite the act, Max could see the faint suggestion of a smirk at the edge of his lips. He was probably just mad she was right, so she tugged an oran out of her bag with a grin and chomped into it as she looked up.
Having retaken control of the fall, Zapdos started diving even faster. Her eyes burned with rage aimed exclusively at Max. It was almost as much of an honor as it was viscerally terrifying. Max choked down the rest of the oran and started preparing what charge she could. It still hurt to hold any charge at all, and her paw unconsciously went to the gash Zapdos already gave her.
Lightning still arced through Zapdos' wings as she dove. If she was quick, Max might be able to hit her with another bolt with little need for aim; electricity is drawn to itself. Even starting to try, though, set her nerves on fire. She prepared to jump out of Zapdos' range at the last second.
Mere yards above, Zapdos banked to the right with enough wind force to send Max tumbling across the grass. She recovered after two rolls and whipped her head to the side to follow Zapdos' path.
Zapdos had left another gaping scar through the earth leading to Ash. Max barely saw the dark bundle flailing in Zapdos' talons when the Legendary Bird screeched, calling down another lightning strike. Ash's limbs shot out as the electricity coursed through them both, Zapdos forcing all of the charge through Ash. When the strike faded, he started wriggling with less strength. Alive, but weak.
Max dashed over, but Zapdos shot back up with Ash in tow. "ASH!" she screamed after him. Ithos ran up behind her to watch in horror with her as Zapdos flew higher and higher before chucking Ash into the air. Max felt her stomach drop out from under her as Zapdos turned to face them again.
There was nothing they could do. Zapdos wasn't even going to let them try. She could recuperate in the air while they watched their friend plummet to his death. Ash barely looked like a speck in the sky. Max almost swore she could see him put a dent in the clouds at the very peak of his flight before falling. Even if he used his badge, that wouldn't stop the momentum. Every second he fell made his badge less useful.
"Oh, Mother Mew," Ithos growled. It didn't quite sound like anger, though, and Max turned to see him exasperatedly shaking his head. "That idiot." After he spat out the words, he started to chuckle. Max stared at him with mouth agape, but he just nodded up to the sky.
Max looked, but it was the same situation. Zapdos stared down at them from way beyond their range while Ash plummeted above. Right above—and he wasn't plummeting either. He had some slight control on his fall, and he was adjusting course on the way down. He was heading straight for Zapdos. Max got a good bit of hydration staring up with her mouth wide open in the waning thunderstorm.
"And I told him Aerial Ace was worthless," Ithos chuckled.
"How can he even learn that?" Max asked. Zapdos wasn't even looking. With amazement, Max watched as Ash slammed into her left wing from above. The crack that rang when it bent the wrong way made Max wince, which turned out to be a blessing when Zapdos let out a blood curdling scream.
They both started to plummet. After the first spiral, a huge swell of flame burst from Zapdos' broken wing and made her fling Ash back into the sky. Right at the arc of his trajectory, the speck of a fire-mouse blipped out of the Dungeon with a flash.
"Why," Ithos grumbled with a grin. Max stared up at him with a grin of her own while Ithos shook his head. "Why did I have to get two of the most reckless pokémon on the planet to join my team?" His chest seemed to swell with pride as they both watched Zapdos plummeting. "You two are such idiots." Her nerves still burning from her own stunt, Max couldn't disagree.
As she fell, though, Zapdos started arcing with electricity again. It shot through her with greater and greater frequency, the air around no doubt bringing an utter storm of static. Max brought her tail forward to ready for whatever Zapdos had planned.
The last raindrop hit the earth when Zapdos called down another bolt of lightning within a yard of the ground, halting her momentum to give her a graceful landing. Before Max could blink, Zapdos shot across the ground and slammed her into the grass with a talon. Zapdos slid on top of Max with all of her weight, leaving a pikachu-sized ditch in her wake as she used Max to brake.
Max was too dazed to do anything but look up and watch Zapdos crane her neck to the sky in preparation for an attack. All of a sudden, a violent scarlet beam shot right into her. Her eyes went wide as stone covered her form, freezing her face in a look of terror.
Max felt her heart stop. She frantically tried to rip herself out from under Zapdos before the stone hit her, but a slight shift brought enough pain in her chest to make her see stars. In a daze, she recognized it as another broken rib. At least this one was on the other side. Even half-conscious, the sight of feathers turning to stone filled her with dread. Before she knew it, Zapdos was stone.
And Max was stuck beneath her.
If it wasn't for the fresh agony resounding in her chest, Max would've no doubt felt her paws numbing already. The constant pain in the right side of her chest made it easy to tell she still had flesh. Despite the pain, she still tried to bring her paws up to push Zapdos off. She got her right up, but her left was pinned.
"Max!" Ithos shouted. Max heard him running over, but couldn't take her eyes off the statue holding her down. Not that she would've been able to see him, anyway, with a mix of tears and pain turning her vision to a formless fuzz. Her heart raced in her chest as she tried to get a grip on the talon to push it up while it dug into her. Ithos' steps suddenly stopped a few yards short of her. "D-Dad?!"
Max's eyes shot open. She started to shake. She could barely move at all. It was happening again.
"Get back!" Nuzleaf shouted. He was closer than Ithos. "Look! Look at all the danger she's put you in!" Max trembled as she turned her head. "Zapdos would have killed all of you if we didn't stop her!" He went over to put a hand on Ithos' shoulder, but Ithos smacked it away. Nuzleaf's expression darkened. Ithos ran towards Max, but Nuzleaf blocked his path. "I won't let her take you from me. Not again."
The arm he'd used to stop Ithos started to char. In an instant, the both of them burst into an explosion of flame that sent Nuzleaf flying and left Ithos gasping. Ithos ran for her until a torrent of water engulfed him and sent him flying away.
Max turned to see where the attack had come from: Fara looked over to her with a sinister smirk. "I love reunions, don't you?" she asked. Her grin started to test the limits of her mouth. At the very edges of her lips, violet oozed through her fur. She brought up a paw to dab it away and look at it. "Oh, deary me. It seems I'm getting excited."
Fara looked back at Max with naked glee, saying, "Oh, there it is!" She stared into Max's eyes; Max could feel the world around her growing distant. "That terror, show it to me." She started to walk over while Max shook her head with growing desperation. "Fighting until the very last!"
Fara's eyes dimmed to orbs of crimson and purple malice. The skin of her disguise was growing thin, but it probably didn't matter to her anymore. If she was still trying to keep her true form a secret, she wouldn't have used Hydro Pump to get rid of Ithos.
"Oh, where's your heart?" Fara asked. "What happened?" She made it over to kneel down to Max, baring her teeth to Max's throat. Max couldn't move, couldn't think, could only shriek in terror and pain while she uselessly clawed at the talons holding her down. Every writhe brought a bang of agony to her chest, but she couldn't stop. She had to escape. The only feeling she made out was terror.
Fara hopped up and jabbed her paw to the side, snatching Ithos up by the neck mid-leap. "Perfect! You should see this, too!" Fara cheered. Ithos tore his claws into her paw in rage, leaving dark streaks of that black ooze, but Fara's grip didn't falter.
Max saw him standing, petrifying beside her again. The memory clawed its way to her mind, ripping its way into her awareness more viscerally than her broken rib. Even as the stone covered his scales, he'd had a look of certainty, of strength that gave her just enough hope to make it through.
In this adventure, she'd had to fill every role he'd filled for her. She'd taught him to fight, encouraged him, helped him build to his strength, find his own worth, done everything she could to do for him what he'd done for her. Now was her chance to give him strength at their darkest moment, and she could feel the terror ripping control from her paws and letting the instincts take over. She couldn't do it.
Grovyle's words echoed in her mind, and she realized how wrong he'd been. This wasn't when Ithos failed; this was when she failed him.
Max threw her paw against the stone, writhing her pinned arm as best she could in a desperate attempt to escape. Her extremities started to lose feeling. She couldn't clinch her paws. She couldn't feel them. Tears blinded her while a look of terror engulfed her face.
"Disappointing," Fara hummed over her. "You really did seem to be a strong soul to crush the weak with." Max looked up to see Ithos staring down at her in terror and rage. "Not that I could have really allied with a human, anyway." Max tried to take control for one last second, give one last look of hope, defiance, anything. Her heart stopped as stone took it over.
"Alas, I suppose you're just another weak rat to crush," Fara said.
Max shook her head as the stone covered her neck. She stared up at Ithos in quiet desperation and tried to say, "I'm sorry," but she could only mouth the words. Her vocal cords had petrified. Less than a second later, her head turned to stone, and her world went black.
"And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah"
Max sat in the grim ash around her, clutching her tail with tears in her eyes. As they streamed down her cheeks, she couldn't manage so much as a whimper. Her paw went to clutch at a scarf. She winced when it felt nothing. Again. She reached for the bracelet to the same result. Again. The ground pulsed with dark crimson beneath while the sky howled in streaks of all consuming black.
Again.
It was only a matter of time until Ithos would be there, too. Time moved slow in there, so Max could be waiting hours for minutes to pass. Maybe Fara would torture her intentionally, waiting a few hours before sending an unconscious Ithos to their shared demise.
"Well, Eleos," Max whimpered. "I guess you were right." She held a paw out to feel the familiar dust of the ground. "You're how I reach my end."
She was glad her chest was healed in this liminal space. It hurt less to sob. Despair buried her face into her tail—that stupid tail she'd always wanted. The perfect little heart at its end, somehow, made her believe she'd have a chance at happiness. If she had to see her end, she could've accepted it, but it wasn't just her end. She didn't just die. She was bringing Ithos to his demise, too.
If only she hadn't fled into the Dungeons, she'd be able to remember how they'd escaped the first time. All this time, she'd thought it had been the Harmony Scarves, but they didn't stop it. They didn't even slow the process or follow them into the Voidlands.
Her ear flicked up at a light thud to her left, and Max lost the last bit of hope she had. It wouldn't just be her, but of course it wouldn't be. This was the Ithos that failed, after all.
Max dabbed her tears away and took a deep breath. She'd been through this before. She didn't need the help as much as Ithos would. She stood up and went over to his unconscious body. Bending down, she tugged him up into her arms and sat back. He let out a few groans as she did, already starting to wake up. Max smiled for him; he opened his eyes.
"M-Max?!" Ithos said. He jerked up a bit in her arms to look around but calmed when she held him tighter. Sitting up on his own let him better look around to the desolate landscape around them. Swaths of indigo ate into the sky's sheer darkness with violet linings. "Where are we?"
"The Voidlands," Max said. She probably shouldn't have known the answer, but she didn't have it in her to lie anymore. "Where the souls Dark Matter absorbs go." She wanted to put on a veil of hope for him, but her voice came out flat.
"W-what?" Ithos asked. He shimmied in her hold to sit alongside her instead of in her lap. "Dark Matter?"
"Fara," Max said. Without him in her arms, she started to collapse before catching herself. With a deep breath, she straightened her back and forced some semblance of a smile. "We're not dead, though." Ithos let out a sigh hearing that, one paw going to his heart. Max ran her paw down his back with stiff, practiced pats.
Ithos turned to eye her closely. Max redoubled her efforts to look all right and felt him see right through her. "Max, are you all right?" he asked. Max flinched but didn't drop the act. "You looked terrified a second ago." She started to brush him off with some half-baked excuse when he grabbed her shoulder, staring into her eyes. "Max, c'mon. I can tell something's wrong."
Max deflated a bit but made sure her smile stayed up, saying, "Well, yeah." She forced a chuckle as smooth as shattered glass as she looked away. "But it's not the end!" She looked over, her ears flopping up excitedly with a second's lag. "There's a way out." That she couldn't remember.
"There is?" Ithos mumbled. He glanced around before shaking his head and looking back at her. She forced her smile a bit wider, but only spread it even more thin. Ithos' worry started to fade as his brow furrowed in frustration. Max felt her heart shattering. "Max, come on." Her lungs struggled to pull breath in, remembering the last time she'd heard this tone from him. "We just talked about this."
"I-I know," Max whimpered. She barely kept a smile on, but she couldn't force any cheer into her voice. She needed to be there for him. She needed to help him here, comfort him, and she couldn't get over her own fear enough to be there for him. "Sure, I'm scared, but…." She couldn't find an end to that sentence.
"You said there's a way out," Ithos confirmed, nodding to himself. He raised a brow in thought; Max felt the seconds counting down. "The nightmares." She watched the recognition building in his eyes with growing terror. "You've done this before, haven't you?"
Max froze. Even if she hadn't promised to tell him when he guessed right, she couldn't have hidden her reaction. He'd figured it out, and her little fantasy was ending. Her smile finally fell. She looked at the ground with a redundant nod, paws clenching in fear. The sound of his voice yelling in desperate anger echoed from her past. She squeezed her eyes shut and saw the hurt in his glare.
"How much?" Ithos asked. It wasn't an enraged shout, but it didn't need to be. Max's memories played in unison with the moment. She could barely tell where she was.
This was it. This was the secret she'd tried so hard to keep from him, that she could never tell him. She'd kept it all this time to take advantage of him, be exactly who he wanted all for her own gain. Everything from their friendship, the team, to their first kiss had all been a trick. She didn't have the energy to keep it up anymore.
"You," Max whimpered. She fell back with her tail in her arms. "It changed—so much changed, but it was still you." She shook her head, the guilt she'd hid from him finally eating its way to the surface. "I thought it could be different. I tried to make it different." Her eyes opened to see the desiccated ground below. All this time spent twisting him to her will, and she didn't even have the decency to save them.
"I used you," she said. "I was so obsessed with making you like me that I didn't do anything to help." Her voice felt hollow. She'd recited this script in her nightmares many times before. Still, she started to wince while she forced the last part out. "You only love me because I tricked you."
The air shifted to a dark silence. Without the slightest draft to give the smallest sound, Max could feel the silence fill her ears like cotton. Every second they'd spent together, every moment, every smile, every kiss played in her mind and cut at her heart. She'd spent so long telling herself it was real, and now, reality came to taint it all. She felt like an idiot for letting herself believe it, but the fire was too warm to care about the person she used as kindling.
Now, that person would see her for what she was.
"Huh," Ithos hummed. Max blinked. That didn't exactly sound like the righteous judgment she was waiting for. "That explains how you kept ordering my food for me."
"Ithos," Max growled, looking up to glare at him. The sight of him smiling caught her off guard enough to harden her glare. "I really don't think you're taking this seriously." His expression remained unchanged. "I tricked you!"
"Max," Ithos chuckled. He sat down next to her, moving to wrap an arm around her, but she jerked away. "Look, I get how it looks." Max's glare struggled to stay up against growing befuddlement. "I mean, yeah. This whole plan was kind of evil. On paper. Sure, you used knowledge you shouldn't have had for your own gains.
"It's just, well, how should I put this?" He looked away to scratch at the back of his head. After some thought, he looked back with a nervous smile. "You… kinda sucked at it."
Max's mouth fell open, desperate for a rebuttal, but none came. Even when Ithos started to laugh at her, she didn't have the slightest retort. She was expecting hatred, insults, not light ribbing. The problem should have been that she manipulated him, yet he was eager to instead focus on critiquing how effective she was at it. "Well I got you to like me, didn't I?" she growled.
"Well, yeah," Ithos chuckled. "By being a friend." He looked at her, head tilted with that same smile and shrugged. He'd seemed to calm down with his laughs until his eyes shot open and they came bursting out again. "Wait—did you," he lost his speech in a fit of laughs, "Kiss, you-"
He tried so desperately to force his thoughts out, but the laughter wouldn't abate. He had to force it out, word by word, syllable by syllable, to say, "You thought you could get me to want to kiss you in less than a day?"
For the first time in a while, Max slapped the backside of her paw across his arm. His paw shot up to rub the spot she'd hit while her cheeks sparked up a storm. The humiliation of that little stunt returned in full force on the moment's notice. She started to flop down and hide underneath her tail when Ithos snatched her up into a hug, making her squeak, "PI chu!" in surprise.
Max wanted to shove herself away from him. Instead, her arms went right around his chest, resting on the soft slope that shifted the bottom of his rib cage to his belly. All this time spent terrified of this secret coming out, yet within minutes, he was laughing about it. She shook her head in disbelief, and he squeezed her tighter.
"I don't get it," she whispered. She'd hoped he wouldn't hear her over his own laughter, but he started to stifle himself and looked down at her. The back of her throat started to ache, and his warmth started to burn. "Why?" She could barely process what happened, his reaction, any of it. He squeezed her tighter and pulled a light sob out. "It was all a lie. Why don't you hate me?"
Ithos didn't answer immediately. He held her exactly tight enough while administering light back rubs to coax out the tears she needed to cry, letting her question hang in the air. She'd prepared for him to yell at her, to hate her, but here he was. Still hugging her despite it all, in the Voidlands of all places.
"Was it a lie when we fixed up that house together?" Ithos asked. "Were you lying when you told me that pre-nailing boards had to be the stupidest thing you've ever heard of anyone doing?" He squeezed her tighter, and she could feel the chuckle in his chest. "When you couldn't sleep without me there?" His cheek pressed against her forehead. Max tried to shrink away, instead shrinking deeper into his embrace.
"All this time," Ithos said, a quaver starting in his voice. "I've been so worried about you." Another sob forced its way out of Max. "You always look so far away, even when we're right next to each other. It felt like you were waiting to run.
Max's breath hitched, and he ran his paw down her back to soothe her. He had no idea how right he was. "It hurt," he said. "Wanting to be there for you, wanting to help you, but knowing that you're always holding me at an arm's length." Without thinking, she squeezed him tighter. "To know, all this time, that's it? That's all?" He chuckled, shaking his head. "I feel like I should be more frustrated than I am.
"Tell me," he said. He pulled away and looked down. Max tried to look away but found her eyes drawn to his. "Were you really afraid I'd hate you if I found out?" He let the question hang for a second before continuing, "Or that I'd still love you, anyway?"
Max shook her head, eyes stuck staring at his. She searched desperately for some hidden anger to prove her right, but it wasn't there. This complete lack of a response made the guilt even worse. He really couldn't see what she—
Ithos gently slapped her cheek and said, "Stop it." When she jerked away and glared at him, he let out a chuckle. "You were trying to twist it in your head, weren't you?" He stared down at her with his typical, infuriating, knowing smile. She grit her teeth, emboldening him to smile wider. "Yeah, thought so."
"How?" Max grumbled. She leaned forward while her head shook to rest it against his chest. "How do you still know me better than I know you?"
"Well, your memory problems, or—uh," Ithos started before cutting himself off. "I guess that wasn't exactly true, was it?"
"No," Max said, instantly shaking her head. "Or, it wasn't a lie." Her cheeks sparked at the slip, but Ithos didn't so much as poke her for it. Thinking about all those moments she threw away, she had to hold him tighter. "That's why I was so excited to see you." Her voice started to shake, stabilizing when he held her tighter. "After losing all that time together, finally getting-" Ithos was stifling laughter.
"Really?" Max whimpered. She shoved him off her and got up to cross her arms. In less than a second, the empty air around her started tormenting her, but she forced herself to endure (which became easier when Ithos let out his chuckles).
"N-no, sorry!" Ithos said, though his smile wasn't particularly apologetic. "It's just, Max." He earned a few more seconds of life by stifling his chuckles behind his paw. "What advantage did you even have when we met, then?" Max's glare froze. She suddenly felt hollow, only staying in her current position because she couldn't move. "At that point, isn't it just meeting someone new?"
Max's face fell blank. He was wrong, critically, she knew, but she didn't have the energy to rebut it. Even if it wasn't as even as he seemed to think it was, she started feeling like an idiot for building it up in her mind this much for so long. In her confusion, Ithos snuck up to wrap an arm around her from the side.
He looked down with a familiar, amused grin with that slightest bit of frustration she'd known so well for so long. It made her feel awful and perfect at the same time. The gentle, firm touch of his arm let her know that, even as he put some of his weight on her, she could collapse into his hold at a moment's notice. She could hear what he was about to say before his lips moved: "Mother of Creation. I hate you, y'know that?"
"Marry me," Max whispered. Ithos froze in place, and she threw her paws over her mouth. Muzzling herself, though, unfortunately left her cheeks free to spark up a storm. If the kiss had been off putting, this was an act of terror.
"What was that?" Ithos breathlessly asked. Max yanked her tail in front of her face. When he tried to pull her closer, she flopped to the ground and hid underneath it. Her cheeks still sparked her own personal thunderstorm while her ears burned so hot that they rang. When Ithos started chuckling, she genuinely thought she'd combust.
"Maaax?" Ithos sang with a lilt. He knelt down to prod at her shoulder, so she tried using her tail to force her skull beneath the earth. "I thought I heard you say something." He flopped down with a thump, resting his elbow on her back. "Now, maaaaaybe I misheard you." She was going to kill him. She was going to end his life for this. "But it sounded like you just asked me to marry you."
"PiKA!" Max shouted, hopping up to shove him off her. He tumbled backwards, clutching his belly while rolling around in laughter. She threw her paws up in frustration and started walking away.
"W-wait!" Ithos giggled. Max stopped, but didn't bother turning around. "Don't I get to answer?" At that, she couldn't help but turn to glare at him. Instead of a smirk, though, she saw a soft, warm smile that evaporated her glare. He pushed himself up while the full weight of her own question started hitting her.
"Max," he whispered as he sauntered over. When he held out his left paw, her right raised what felt like of its own accord. He gently held it up while cupping his other paw over it. "Ever since we met, you've brought me the happiest days of my life." The proposal suddenly felt real. She'd really said it, and he was really responding to it. Despite her better sense, her heart beat out of her chest with hope.
"No one's ever been as nice, sweet, funny, and amazing as you." Her paw trembled in his, and he quelled her fear with a single stroke down her arm. "Being on a Team with you has been a dream come true." She expected some joking caveat to lighten the mood given the current circumstances, but it never came.
Was this happening? Was it really happening? She couldn't let herself believe it, but she couldn't stop herself either. It hadn't been nearly enough time, it was far too soon, but she didn't even know how long they had.
He knelt, still holding her paw. Her eyes went wide, mouth opening in a breathless interruption that never came. "Ever since we started dating, growing closer," he gently pulled her paw closer to his heart; she shuffled closer to him. "It's been wonderful. I knew I loved you before that night, but you never stopped giving me reasons."
"I-Ithos, you can't-" Max started to squeak, but he interrupted her with a finger to her lips.
"Max," Ithos said. Max felt the world collapsing around her. Everything she knew fell apart in a whirlwind of trepidation and hope while she held onto every syllable of his every word. "I love you." His eyes swallowed her whole. She couldn't see anything beyond his endless blue. "So," just then, the slightest crack of a smirk broke through his expression, "maybe after we get out of here, okay?"
Max tackled him with his neck in her paws. She didn't squeeze, no point in strangling him too much, but the imminent threat was enough to get the point across. When he started howling with laughter, though, it was a bit hard not to. At least her mind melting rage kept her from acknowledging what she couldn't under any circumstances think about.
That wasn't a no.