"And if you don't find what you've been looking for
You've gotta learn to forgive and forget
And if you can't get up off the cold hard floor
You've gotta learn to forgive and forget"
—"Forgive and Forget" from Another Light by Red Vox
"Taking forever?" Max asked. "I broke my ribs. The fact I could move within the week is a miracle." The two of them sat in the doctor's office, staring at each other in equal amounts of disbelief. It was a rather unremarkable place that Max was eerily familiar with. It was nearly identical to the room she'd been stuck in after she woke up.
"Hell, after—," Max suddenly realized that she probably couldn't explain the Eleos situation to Goon practically or emotionally, "—falling, I was still fine."
"Falling?" Goon asked, though didn't seem too interested. "Whatever, look. It's a broken bone. Yeah, they suck, but it should only be tender by now." Max's expression froze at the peak of disbelief after hearing 'a broken bone' said, somehow, dismissively. "What?"
"Don't… they take, like, months to heal?" Max asked.
"What?" Goon reiterated. Then, as if physically struck by realization, a light went off in his eyes. "No way, it took humans that long?" Max rushed to shush him with an urgent glance to the door, but she luckily didn't hear anyone on the other side. "Oh, you're still trying to keep that a secret?" Goon chuckled. "I thought I was the only one who wasn't supposed to know."
"What? No," Max said. She shook her head both to dissuade the notion and to slough off the confusion from having to explain keeping this secret. "If anyone finds out, they'll… uh." She blinked. She had a reason. She knew for absolute certain that, for some reason, she had to make sure as few people knew as possible. It was obvious—so obvious she'd never even thought twice about it. Maybe she'd never even thought once about it.
Perhaps she could've deferred to her fractured memory as an excuse, but Goon was already laughing. Her tail flicked a bit in some kind of agitation, but it bothered her surprisingly little. Maybe because it was hard to deny the humor in the situation.
"Well, damn," Goon chuckled. "Guess I'm not so special, after all." Max's ear perked up at that before she shrank away.
"Right, sorry," she mumbled. By some miracle, it had slipped her mind how poorly they'd gotten along. Up to this point, she'd felt pretty good hanging out with him, if a bit awkward. It was easy to forget how much she really owed him for this. Right, owing. "So, how much is this job gonna cost me?"
Goon gave her a blank stare. He didn't even humor the question with an answer, barely humoring it with a response aside from still silence. Staring at her got the point across.
"What?" Max asked. What Goon meant by this stare was so obvious that he thought he didn't even need to say it. Max, meanwhile, had to wrack her brain for even a suggestion of an answer. The best she could come up with, though, only shifted the obligation down the line. "Oh, did Neb pay you?" She scratched the back of her head and looked away. "How much? She shouldn't-"
"Max," Goon finally interrupted with a disbelieving shake of his head. "I'm not charging a friend for help to the hospital." He looked up at her with a bemused quirk of his brow. "What do you take me for?"
"F-free, fried—friend?" Max stuttered out. She could barely even get that through in pika-speech. The way Goon chuckled, though, he seemed to at least understand her confusion. There was no way that he still considered her a friend. No, actually, there was no way he ever had.
Right?
No, she couldn't even let herself entertain the possibility. "W-wait, but that means that," she started to explain until she heard herself and swore, "Kachu." This might be a lingering effect of her black out, but it felt more like simple surprise overwhelming her. "But," good, no pika-speak, "you're the highest ranking member. The team can't go on missions without you, right?"
"Well, we started restructuring, so they could," Goon said. He looked over the claws of the paw he had his chin on, seeming pleasantly bored. "But hey, the team'll be fine with a day off."
Goon was missing a critical element of this all, Max knew it. She didn't know what element he was missing, but he was missing it, dammit. "But the guild won't just let you go unpaid! They'll chase someone for-"
"I told them the client canceled on my arrival," Goon said. He seemed to revel in the increasing frenzy Max went into about this.
"Wh-so you're not even getting expedition points for this?" Max asked. This was getting more and more ridiculous; on that, both agreed, though for very different reasons. Doing this served no benefit to Goon. No money, no points, not even acclaim for the team. He didn't have a single reason to be doing this, yet here he was. He wasn't even staring resentfully at her for making him do this.
She tried to look him over, read the incoming punchline on his face, but she got nothing. If anything, it almost looked like the punchline had already passed right over her head. Goon had a paw over his mouth to stifle the laughter.
"What?" Goon chuckled. "Never heard of a favor before?"
A hint, that was good. It didn't help Max at all, but in theory, hints generally assisted in the solving of mysteries. She just needed to piece it all together, which sounded simple enough. A favor, then, Goon was doing a favor for her by helping her to her appointment. Except, that favor was already over. She was here. The escort mission was over. "But, then why stick around?" she asked.
Goon froze in his amusement with a slight flash of panic in his eyes. "Stay?" he asked. He forced out a laugh despite having to try so hard to hold it back moments ago. "Well, y'know." Turning to examine the very interesting paint on the blank wall to his left, he took to scratching nervously at the back of his head.
In some sense, Max realized that the power balance had shifted. It went from her flustered under his smugness to the both of them flustered. Maybe she could've taken advantage of this to take control, but she didn't quite manage it in time. It at least gave her time to shake out of the surprise, though. They'd been talking with ease up to this point. No need to be nervous.
"C'mon," Goon grumbled. His cheeks flushed under his fur as he glanced her way. "Don't make me say it."
"It?" Max asked. Goon gave her a quick glare that dissipated on contact. She wasn't kidding, like he'd expected. Of course, she'd had no idea what was going on at all here, not even at the most basic level. She was actually clueless.
Goon let out an unrestrained grumble, "All right, fine." He looked up to take a deep breath, then flushed it out through his nose as he dropped his head to look into her eyes. "I missed you."
Two knocks rapped on the door while Max's brain fried itself. "Pardon me," said a kind looking bibarel as she pushed the door open and came in. "My name's Dani." Her brown fur fluffed against itself as she raised her clipboard up to read it. "Max, right?"
Max couldn't exactly answer, yet. Sure, she and Goon were on all right terms now, but that was only after she'd returned. There was simply no way in heaven or hell that he could have possibly wanted to see her again. Even without concrete memories to pull from, she knew they'd never been what anyone would call friends. Well, except Goon, apparently, who had called her one minutes ago.
"Sir?" Dani asked.
"It's ma'am," Goon quickly corrected with a sneer. "And yes, she is Max." It was good that Max was so lost in her own confusion, or getting called sir would've bothered her a lot. Unfortunately, that also meant she wouldn't be able to appreciate Goon sticking up for her.
"She? Oh," Dani said, her ears flicking in embarrassment. "My—I'm so sorry." She glanced down at her clipboard again. "It simply, you see, well, doesn't have a space to note that here." The stupor started to lift from Max's head just a bit while Dani's eyes darted between the other two pokémon in the room, the clipboard, and the floor. "Please understand, I've just never had a patient like… this. It's nothing personal!"
Max blinked before narrowing her eyes in confusion while Dani went on. After, Goon said, "Then don't make it personal. Move on before I make you." That struck the fear of Arceus into Dani, and Goon took the moment as an opportunity to look Max's way and wink. Whatever that meant was completely lost on her, but she appreciated it nonetheless.
"R-right, well," Dani said. She dropped her bag on the counter opposite Max's bed while leaving her eyes buried in the board. "You're here for your stitches, yes?" She'd barely finished asking before she looked up and went on. "Well, let's see it, then." The clipboard clacked against the counter as she plopped it there to wash her paws. "I'll just take your bandages off and have a look, all right?"
"Sure?" Max said. Dani didn't acknowledge the response, having already turned to put her paws under the faucet. Max's face was so twisted in confusion that she only barely had both eyes open. She looked to Goon for help, but he only gave a baffled shrug.
"Wonderful, well, I'm sure you've taken good care of it!" Dani said. One paw grabbed the end of Max's tail while the other slipped behind it, out of sight. Her awareness let Max know Dani was concealing a pair of scissors before the cold steel had pressed between the bandages and her fur. Even still, she had to make a conscious effort not to rip her tail away.
The scissors sliced the bandages off in a neat line. "Great job sitting still, dear," Dani said, though Max had a feeling she didn't appreciate how difficult it had really been. After Dani let go of her tail's end to grab the bandages, Max yanked it back to hold in her arms.
"That's new," Goon mumbled, glancing at the end. Max almost growled at him for making things worse until realizing he meant the black fur. She still didn't understand the change, either.
Dani paid this all no mind, though, already off over to return the scissors to the counter, and the bandages to the trash. Again, Max looked to Goon for some kind of help, guidance, anything, but again, Goon only had his own bafflement on offer. Their time was up, too, since Dani was already on her way back. She quirked a brow at Max, saying, "I'll need to see that, y'know."
By some miracle, Max bit back a snarl. She'd rather hit the doctor with her tail than let her see it, but she didn't much have a choice. With great deliberation, she let it go and brought it closer to Dani.
Dani took great care to respect this reticence by grabbing it with both paws and yanking it over. "Let's see—hm," she mumbled, oblivious to Max's developing aneurysm. She looked it over with growing concern, shaking her head as she traced the length of the fur. Max hadn't even looked at it with the bandages on for this long. "Oh dear."
Dani glanced Max's way, then back at the tail, still shaking her head. "No, this won't do at all." She let go of Max's tail and left the bedside before getting smacked by it. "I'll be right back."
"You'll fucking what?" Max asked, the door closing behind Dani in the middle of her question. "What?"
"You wanna bounce?" Goon asked. It was a very tempting offer, even with how horribly leaving a hospital early had ended last time. "She has to be new or something." At least the behavior seemed bizarre to more than just her. "You all right?"
"For now," Max said. "After she gets back? Who knows." That got a chuckle from Goon. "What the hell did she forget?" She glanced at the bag still laying on the counter. Open. It was. It was open on the counter. That probably didn't matter, though, and it let Max see the contents. Tweezers and some even smaller scissors. This was just to remove the stitches. What else could she possibly need?
The harrowing answer came when, this time without knocking, Dani came right into the door with a… lampshade? Max tilted her head at the sight to try and figure out what it was, but only got a clue when Dani opened it up.
"Sorry," Dani said. "The area still hasn't healed, though, and it looks quite irritated." The puzzle pieces started to come together, but Max refused to believe that was actually what was happening. Even when Goon started muffling his own chuckles, she refused to accept it. "Since you've been scratching at them, you'll need to wear this until you heal." When Dani tried to wrap it around Max's head, it was undeniable.
"Absolutely fucking not!" Max barked, ripping the recovery cone out of Dani's paws and making Dani hop back with a shriek. "I haven't touch-"
Goon yanked her shoulder back and yelled, "Max!" It got her to stop yelling, but it didn't change her expression. She glared at Dani with a snarl, Dani only staring back with wide-eyed surprise. The doctor didn't seem scared, at least, though that might have only been thanks to Goon having a grip on Max.
That grip wouldn't stop her from calling a lightning bolt down on Dani or wanting to, but the illusion of safety was often just as powerful. "She'd rather not wear the cone,' Goon said. Max growled some snark under her breath when Goon leaned down to her ear. "We can't understand you." She growled out some more from frustration.
"W-well, we can't have her agitating it further," Dani said. "It'll never heal at this rate." She finally seemed to pull herself out of the surprise, and Max didn't like her expression when she did. A furrowed brow and a sneer, she looked at Max down the length of her nose.
A rumble started in Max's throat, but Goon quickly squeezed her shoulder. She looked up at him and, with a glance, could almost hear him telling her he had her back. "Okay, fine. I'll keep an eye on her. If she can't help herself, we'll use it," Goon said. Even this felt like ceding too much ground, but it seemed to appease Dani somewhat. "When should she come back?"
She might've gone off the attack, but Dani looked far from pleased. She took turns glaring at the two of them, most of her focus on Max, before grumbling, "So be it." Sparks of frustration crackled in the air as Max watched her walk away. Once Dani had her clipboard, she paused to look it over, then pointedly turned around.
The air around her seemed to shift. She wasn't glaring in anger anymore; she looked far more sinister. She had a forced professionalism that reminded Max of Olive. Dani, however, wasn't holding back laughter.
"Could you speak for me, Max?" Dani asked.
In an instant, Max knew the game. If she couldn't prove she could talk, Dani could probably mark her down as feral. Max had no idea what she could use that information to do, but she didn't want to find out. Seeing that smug assurance made it incredibly hard to calm down.
"Get out," Goon said, stepping between them. He barely had any height on her, but he used every inch. "I'm not letting you treat her like this." Dark energy flung off his claw as he stabbed it towards the door. "Go."
Dani left. Max flopped back onto her cot, grumbling, "What the fuck?"
"No idea," Goon said. "Ready to go?"
Max sighed, rubbing her eyes. "I guess," she mumbled. The sight of her tail made her slump over a bit more, stitches still in.
"Oh, looks like her equipment went missing," Goon hummed. Max glanced over to see him slipping the bag into Max's. He looked over to her with a disinterested shrug. "Hungry?"
"And if you can't find what you've been living for
You've gotta learn to forgive and forget"
"So what if I want more?" Max argued. They'd already finished their food when she started eyeing the front counter again. "I'm paying. I can order as much as I want to pay for." Letting her pay was the closest Goon was willing to come to letting her just pay him for the mission (her mind still couldn't process him wanting to do her a favor).
"Because you already ordered more than me," Goon said—which was only technically true. Sure, he'd only ordered one complete meal, but that was roughly equivalent to her four appetizers. "And you still ate off my plate." That one was more than just technically true. "And I don't want to have to carry you when you eat yourself sick." The case was, unfortunately for Max's desires, quite sound.
"Fine," Max grumbled. Despite the heated argumentation, though, they were both pretty close to smiles. It was all in good fun. Against all of Max's expectations, they'd had a really great time. Even despite as much as she'd eaten, her stomach growled.
"Ugh," she whined, slumping down onto the table. The chairs were a bit low for her to sit at, so she'd hopped right up onto the table. "God, even after all this time, it's still messing with my appetite."
Even though Goon was used to it, Max laying on the table made him roll his eyes a bit. "What, they not feed you at the hospital?" he asked.
Max pretended not to notice his glance to her (still relatively scrawny) midsection. "Well, they couldn't really feed me a lot," she mumbled, "but that's not really it." She rolled back up to sit, scratching at the back of her neck. "The, uh," she glanced around for anyone within earshot, "instincts thing." Goon reacted graciously little, nodding in acknowledgment. "Just makes me hungry when food's around."
"Yeah?" Goon asked. "Sure that's new? You always ate like a snorlax." Max glared at him, already able to envision that snarky smirk on his lips before she saw it. "I mean, you made up for it a little working out, at least." He shrugged, having achieved the glare he'd sought.
"Worked out?" Max asked. That didn't sound at all familiar, but it didn't feel particularly wrong, either.
Goon's eyes flicked to her in brief surprise. Somehow, he still seemed to forget how much she'd forgotten here and there. "Yeah, it was like, your thing," he explained. "Pretty sure you're the only pikachu on this continent that ever did strength training." He watched her as if expecting to see realization flash, but it never came.
"Strength training?" Max asked. She didn't even realize pikachu could strength train (though of course they could; they have muscles, after all). At least that explained why Mandy mentioning working out appealed to her so much. "Well, guess it's all gone, now," she said with a failed attempt at a forced chuckle.
"Well, your appetite's still the same," Goon chided, this time with a careful eye on Max's cheeks. He was pushing it, and he knew it. "But, y'know, it'll be a lot quicker to rebuild than to build."
"Maybe," Max said, keeping her glare on him for long enough to get the point across. After, she found herself nodding. "Yeah, the slow part's getting the form down. After that—oh." The knowledge came out like she'd said it hundreds of times before. "I guess I did." Despite the sense of familiarity, though, she still couldn't remember doing it, or any details of doing it.
Still, she gave a slight mournful glance to her arm's musculature. "I can't imagine I was particularly strong," she mumbled. Pikachu were known for their speed, so it felt odd that she'd focus on strength. Maybe she'd done it to lessen a shortcoming?
"I mean, you could outlift me," Goon said. Max narrowed her eyes in confusion and looked at him to confirm her suspicions. It had to be a joke, right? Why did he look genuine? He didn't even keep looking at her, clawing at the crook of his neck while he looked up in thought. "Certainly made you a heavy hitter." Finally, he snorted and looked down at her. "Which was great, since it kept you from knocking yourself out with Thunder every single fight."
"Goon, I, what?" Max stammered out. He'd joked, but not about the part of this that mattered. He'd said nothing to dismiss the most absurd part of this equation. "You're, like, eight times my size. You're kidding, right?"
Goon looked down at her with an amused stare and whispered, "If you'd talked to me this much before, I would've figured out you were a human within a day." Even though he kept his voice low for her sake, Max still gave a panicked look around. "How is 'new world, new rules,' still not in your head yet?"
"I don't know," Max grumbled, his bite hitting her a bit again. She was more used to it than she (figured she) used to be, but his needling was still too much for her sometimes. "It's tough." She shook her head to clear it of the imagined offense. The slight wasn't intentional. At least she could remember that. "I don't really know what comes from where.
She glanced around again, not seeing anyone nearby. "For a lot of the stuff I know, or think I do, I'm just not sure which me it comes from." She had shoddy memories of, what, three lives now? She glanced up in the hopes of getting any sympathy, and Goon gave her a nod of appreciation.
"Fuck, man," he said—quickly flinching. "Er, ah, ma'am?" His apologetic look made Max chuckle. She hadn't even noticed, but that hot fix was goofy. "Those sixteen months really scrambled your head, didn't they?" Max flicked her ear up in a momentary confusion before she realized he meant her stint in the Dungeons and nodded with a wince. What an oddly specific number to have ready on a whim.
"Well, yeah," Max said. She'd usually try to force a chuckle but didn't want to bother. "Some days, I'm surprised I can talk at all." In real time, she felt the mood plummeting. This topic didn't need lingering. She scrambled through her mind for a pivot when she remembered him mentioning how little they used to talk. "But, hey, it got you to hate me less, right?"
Goon's expression froze in disbelief, forcing Max to hear her stupid self. If the mood was dying before, she'd saved it with a shotgun blast between its eyes. It would have done less damage, in her estimate, to drop dead right in front of him.
"Yeah, guess so," Goon said. He gave a disinterested glance to his claws, then looked at her with a smirk. "A bit extreme, but I appreciate the dedication."
Max let herself breathe again. "Thank you," she squeaked. Goon nodded, pretending to understand. He seemed to be one of very few people that figured she knew she'd slipped, or didn't want to know.
"Although, y'know," Goon said. He glanced off with clear unease. The direction Max wasn't in infatuated him something fierce. "Look, I know it's a joke, but you know I never hated you, right?" He looked back to gauge her reaction; the sight of her confusion twisted his mouth down in guilt. "Fuck." His eyes flashed with a rage of an old scar, and he looked away again.
After receiving and recording it, Max had damn near memorized the message Mew had delivered for Ithos. Before she'd even tried to commit it to memory, though, a particular section had stuck out at her. She could practically recite it: 'It felt like he said it wasn't my fault because it was his.'
In Goon's mission to look anywhere else, he left himself vulnerable to a surprise assault. Max hurriedly snuck over to place a paw on his arm. The touch jolted him out of his introspection.
He looked at her with awfully red eyes, even for a zangoose. A bit of her own guilt stabbed into her stomach severe enough to remind her of Eleos, but she covered it with a smile. It wasn't a convincing smile, not by a long shot, but it worked. When she got around to thinking of what to say, though, she realized she couldn't keep it or eye contact up. Her touch dropped with her eyes.
"It… wasn't you, all right?" Max said. Goon flinched back enough that it registered in her peripheral vision. "I'm not making this up." She took a deep breath, keeping close reign on her words to make sure their meaning actually went through.
"I don't exactly remember the specifics," she said, "but I remember…." She could feel her speech starting to slip just thinking of her last conversation with Ithos. Closing her eyes, she looked up with a deep breath and forced her gaze to Goon's. "The last bit." He nodded; she was glad that got the point across. "It wasn't your fault." The surprise flashed in his eyes again, though he didn't flinch this time.
"I don't blame you," Max whimpered, cracks peppering her voice. She tried to force another smile, tears dripping down her cheeks to frame it. "Please don't blame yourself," she said with a shake of her head.
Goon stared down at her with a flat expression. Though he didn't show it, she could see the conflict bubbling beneath. He eventually looked down, mirroring her head shakes with his own. A soft smile tugged at his lips. "Yep," he chuckled. "You're still Max."
This time, Max flinched. Still who she was? She'd thought this helped, but maybe she was still just as bad. Her ears and tail dropped in shame, but Goon reached a claw down to guide her gaze back to his with her chin.
"That's a good thing, this time," Goon said. Max had a hard time believing it. "You're, y'know. Thoughtful. When you let yourself be." He looked like he was at a dentist rather than a restaurant. It made Max wonder if he'd ever complimented someone before. "I don't know how the hell you read my mind," he chuckled, "But you did always have a knack for noticing things."
He let go of her chin and turned to reach into his bag before he could see her ear flick up at that. Was her awareness not connected to her Dungeon Sickness after all?
Goon brought her back to Earth by holding a closed paw out to her. She held out her paws and caught a pair of badges. "He wanted you to have these," Goon explained. They had a familiar design with red gems embedded in the center. Their badges.
"I was there when it happened," Goon said. Max probably would've figured as much out on her own if she wasn't busy staring in disbelief, memories threatening to crawl out and clobber her head with an earth shattering ache. Even with that at the forefront, though, she could feel Goon fighting himself to go on. "Honestly, I haven't told anyone else because I doubt they'd believe me."
Max finally managed to pull her eyes off the badges. She couldn't trust her words, so she tried to answer with a nod. It got the point across enough for Goon to relax a bit.
"I told everyone he disappeared, and he did," he said, looking away again. The nod was nice reassurance, but he was still at war with formidable hesitation. "After that, though." He looked at her again, eyes almost pleading. In the plea for reassurance, he barely seemed to believe it himself. It was like he was begging her to believe him, so she nodded again.
"All right," Goon said. He ran his claws along the top of his head. The reassuring nod looked like it disappointed him. He probably didn't really want to talk about this at all. Max started to say he didn't have to when he said, "Mew took him."
Max froze in place. It clicked. The disbelief Goon expected didn't come. She couldn't pretend to doubt it for a second. It made perfect sense. The way he'd attacked her when they met, how he acted around her, and of course, how he got her message to Ithos in the first place. Why—but no, why didn't matter. Not with a who and what so close to her heart, to Goon's.
The only contact to her friend was the one who stole him. She'd thanked that monster for the message, too. It started to feel cold all around her, almost like she couldn't feel at all, but she managed to move her hindpaw before convincing herself she couldn't.
"Hey, snap out of it," Goon said, shaking her by the shoulder. He stared concern down on her, but she tried to be there for him. He clearly needed it more.
"How do you know?" Max asked.
"Well," Goon mumbled, looking off to the side, "I don't. Not for sure, not exactly." As he dug into the memory, his mouth fought to tug into a snarl. "But one moment, Ithos was there. He said some shit, there was a flash, and Mew took his place." His claws started digging into the table. "Then, the cat just flies off."
Max ran her paw down his arm while staring off in thought. She didn't know how, and she didn't know why, but she knew Goon was right. Because of that, she knew one thing for absolute certain.
Mew was going to pay.
"No," Goon said, flicking her nose.
"Kachu!" Max swore, stumbling back with her nose in her free paw. "What was that for?"
"I know that look," Goon said. His standard, bored expression had an undercurrent of incision, a look that could only come from knowing her for so long. Longer than she could remember. "You always have that look when you're about to do something unbelievably stupid." Max rolled her eyes and raised a paw to object—and Goon silenced her with a knowing glare. When she dropped her paw, he said, "Thought so."
Max grit her teeth, ready to bark back if it weren't for her frustration clawing at her instincts. Especially so soon after she'd nearly had another petrification scare. "I can't. Do nothing," she said with careful attention on every word.
"And I don't want you to," Goon said. Before she got any ideas, he jabbed a claw into her chest. "But don't do it alone." The tip of his claw sat right where Eleos had hit her, yet somehow, it didn't hurt. "Whatever the hell you were just planning, promise me you won't do it, all right?" She wanted to argue, but she bit her tongue. "Not alone."
Her paws shook in frustration. She could so, so easily end this herself. The solution was right in front of her, well within her grasp, but Goon wanted her to wait. She flicked some frustration out through her tail after her lips started pulling back into a snarl. "Fine," she grumbled. After all he'd done for her, all she'd done to him, he deserved some reassurance, some peace, and he seemed to take some in her response.
But how could she possibly do what he wanted?
"And if you can't let go of your dirty thought
You've gotta learn to forgive and forget
And if you can't get over your broken heart
You've gotta learn to forgive and forget"
Max knew Goon was right. No good could possibly come from trying to 'confront' Mew about this. If he'd even admit to it, there was next to no chance Max could convince him to give Ithos back—and she really didn't have enough luck left at her disposal to go pissing off the Mother of Creation. Last time she'd pissed Mew off, she'd barely been able to stay conscious the next day.
Her very bones, though, burned with anger. She couldn't let it go. No amount of breathing exercises could rid her of grief. It was unfortunately easy to whisper a prayer to Mew as she fell asleep. A simple, calm conversation couldn't hurt.
The sensations felt as bizarre and wrong as ever. Praying to a pokémon had as well, so it fit, though at least she didn't have to endure the sensory nightmare of her soul rocketing through physical space again. Like the last time, one moment she was falling asleep in hay, and she lay in a pulsating white and color void the next. They'd just have a calm, civil conversation, like adults.
"Max?" Mew asked. "What did you ne-" Max didn't waste a moment and leapt right for his throat. Lightning split the featureless void around them and crashed into both of them the second she made contact.
"You took him!" she screamed. One paw clenched tight around his throat while her other reeled back to slam into him as many times as she possibly could, flooding each blow with any electricity she could muster. She had some kind of physical body, but Mew hadn't brought her injuries over.
How kind of him.
The blast that launched her away didn't register until she'd slammed through and into a bubble. The burning sensation somehow registered as familiar. Overheat. It reminded her of Ithos. He must have used that on her in spars all the time. All her sensations lagged behind. So much rage filled her at once she was almost completely gone in less than a minute.
She hadn't even thought to try and fight her way out of the bubble before she felt her paws clawing at it. Every blow glanced uselessly off her new prison, but that didn't stop her. It was barely even her anymore. The sight of Mew, no matter how distant it felt, sent her into a blinding rage. She hadn't seen the rhythmic pulses until she suddenly felt drowsy.
"Max," Mew coughed, paw to his throat. "Why?!" His other paw went to check on all the many, many new bruises and scorch marks across his body. With every new one, he sent a hurt gaze her way along with the rhythmic pulses forcing her flailing to still.
"Why?!" Max barked back. She was too furious to actually fall asleep. All the hypnosis did was force her to scream instead of fight. "You took him from me!"
"Took him?" Mew asked. Good, he could understand her when she slipped. She certainly couldn't compose herself to stop at the moment. As he looked over more and more of the wounds he'd gained, he looked up at her with a familiar mix of frustration and hurt.
Max had seen it before, but she couldn't remember where. She was here to hurt him—hell, kill him, if she could—yet, that sight cut some regret into her. His paw started to glow as he waved away all the injuries she'd given him with ease. She should've been frustrated at losing her own progress, but she couldn't muster up that anger. It got a bit easier, though, when he spoke again.
"Took who?" Mew asked, biting back his own obvious frustration.
"Who?!" Max barked back. "Ithos!" Who else did he think?! She found out she was crying when she heard her voice crack, focus too sharp on mew. She saw his eyes flash at that name. Smoking gun. "Goon told me everything!"
Mew narrowed his eyes at her for a moment before shutting them and rubbing his paw down the bridge of her snout. "Took him?" he whispered. "I took him?" He dragged his paw down his face with his eyes closed, then held it out when he opened his eyes. He stared at his own paw with a long, intent examination that bled disgust. Suddenly, he grit his teeth and yanked it out of sight to glare at her. "You left him."
That sliced the sleep out of her. Rage tried to fill its place, but an icy sob quenched it. "I took him away from you?" Mew asked, almost whimpered. "You deserted him!" He glared at her, seeming intent to stare at her eyes. He was looking for something he couldn't seem to find while Max dug her claws into her pawpads.
"I was a day late!" Max tried to scream, but it came out in a whisper. "I could've—I tried!" She desperately needed some indignation to keep her going, but it didn't come.
Instead, it sounded like pleading, fading images of another life she could barely remember sucking the life out of her voice. Memories that couldn't have been cut her even deeper than the ones that weren't there.
"If you didn't—I could've at least told him," she whimpered. Biting her cheek didn't hold back her sobs. It just hurt. "I know I was wrong." It was hopeless. She threw herself into this despite what Goon said, and it was just as unbelievably stupid as he'd predicted. All she'd managed were a few pot shots before Mew launched her into a bubble-prison. He held all the cards. "I just wanted to tell him sorry."
She fell back into the hopelessness of it all. Worthless effort wasted on nothing because for a little while, for just a few moments, she had someone to blame other than herself. Her paws felt numb. She tried to feel for her scarf. It wasn't there. It wasn't Mew's fault. It was hers.
She couldn't move, couldn't breathe—but she didn't want to, didn't deserve to. Her lungs begged for air as she sank to the ground. The bubble bent against the ground until it popped. She was petrified on an ocean's floor. If the pressure didn't atomize her, she'd drown. At least either would be quick, nearly painless. Whatever place Mew took her would be her end.
Suddenly, a fuzzy paw was shaking her shoulder. "Max, Max!" Mew said. "C'mon, c'mon. You're there." Max wanted to face him, but stone couldn't move its—Mew flicked her nose.
"KAchu!" Max barked. Her paws went to clutch her nose on their own, proving they weren't stone. Despite the pain, she let out a breath of relief. She wasn't stone. The whole of her exertion all hit her at once, the tears coming quickly after. She shook her head, then heard Mew chuckle.
"Same as ever, huh?" Mew said. Max looked up to ask him precisely what the fuck he meant by that, but the way he looked into her eyes stopped her in her tracks. His deep, impossibly blue eyes, she'd seen them before. She'd stared at them for… far too long. As she stared, though, Mew started to look concerned and waved his paw in her face. "Max, you in there? Did you slip?"
"Not sure," Max mumbled, shaking her head out of it as she turned when her eyes flashed. "Oh. Guess not." Despite her deteriorating mental state, she actually clawed herself back.
"Great," Mew said. He pulled his paw away, leaving an absence that, for some reason, Max couldn't bear. "Then, you can tell me what the heck—" he cut himself off as he stepped back, and his eyes shot to her tail, "—happened to your tail?"
Max flinched. This was going to be… something to explain. Hopefully the Mother of Creation would know what trans meant, but that wasn't going to be the hard part.
She gave a furtive glance back to her tail, but it wasn't what she'd expected to see, either. She brought it forward as she turned to look at it with wide eyes. It didn't end in the bite mark or a blunt edge. It ended in two lumps on the end, that inexplicable patch of black that'd appeared highlighting an almost disgustingly perfect heart shape.
"Really?" Mew whined, shaking his head. Max didn't hear him. "How did I screw that up." His voice was background noise. She reached out to hold it. He finally got her attention when he started to say, "Sorry, I'll fix th-"
"DO NOT!" Max screeched. She leapt up to clutch her tail in defense against that monster that would take it from her, and her vision immediately started to fade out. Stars invaded her sight, but she held on long enough to see Mew staring at her with a baffled expression, arms up in surrender.
"Okay," Mew said. "You like it. That's fine." Threat gone, Max let herself flop back down to the ground. She really needed to get more rest, or, would that even matter in whatever dimension Mew brought her to? It didn't matter. With her prize safe in her arms, she stared at it with a soft, aching smile. Mew mumbled something about a bet, but she didn't care. Just like old… dreams or times, she still wasn't sure.
"Hey, you there?" Mew asked, shaking her again. Max jostled a bit and shot an accusatory glance up at him. He once again threw his paws up in surrender, this time with a cut of hurt in his eyes. "Look, I just." He glanced away to grit his teeth, then looked back at her with a weak smile. "I wanna know what's going on."
"Oh, right," Max mumbled. Everything about him, it was so familiar. If she didn't have a tail to stare at wistfully, she'd never be able to take her eyes off him. It was eating at her mind every time. "So, I guess it was a bit over a week ago, I started hormone replacement." She was shaking and bouncing just thinking about it. "So, well, I guess it's already changing—wait, but you didn't take my body, so I don't exactly—would anything really that early?"
Max stared up, expecting an answer while Mew blinked blank eyes at her. He was very clearly trying to come up with one, but it was taking some time to process. His eyes started drifting as he thought it through.
"Ooohhhh," Mew mumbled to himself. He shook his head with a quick wince before he glanced up at Max in a panic as if she'd just caught him in a lie. "Or, uh, sorry, congrats!" He threw out a quick thumbs up.
Max blinked. He was nervous. About what, she didn't know, but she also didn't particularly care about what. Again, what had her attention was everything about how the nervousness showed. She'd seen it before, and not in their last meeting. It was pounding at her heart to figure it out, but she didn't let herself linger on it.
"Thanks!" she said. She didn't need to put on a smile for the thanks, already grinning at her tail. She still kinda preferred the bite-mark at the end, but this was cathartic to see.
"This was just a week ago?" Mew asked. He'd floated just the slightest bit closer and started staring her up and down. Max shrank at the sudden change in gaze, for a moment wondering if he was checking her out, but his eyes were clinical. "I let your consciousness do most of the work. Kinda figured it'd just… make what it expected to see." He shook his head and let out a groan. "How the heck does all this work?"
Not the most comforting thing to hear from the one who kept teleporting her soul in and out of there.
Then, Mew was staring at her again. It wasn't quite clinical anymore, but Max couldn't read his intent at all. He didn't seem to know his intent, either. He looked around her with one brow raised in curious confusion, as if he was trying to figure out where he'd seen her before.
"I guess desire would come in," Mew mumbled to himself. Despite it being about Max, she could tell he didn't even know she was there at the moment. He was stuck in a thought, trying to figure it out like a cipher.
"So, what?" he said, starting to smirk as he looked up to her eyes. "Did you want to be a chubby pikachu when you were a human, too?"
Max whined and hid her face behind her tail so it absorbed the sparks bouncing down her cheeks. Unfortunately, it left plenty bouncing down anyway. It was too late to save her pride, given that Mew was already giggling at her, but she held onto what she could by flopping belly down and pressing her tail over her head. In that position, Mew's laughter suddenly reminded her of her proposal in the Voidlands.
When she peeked an eye out from under her tail, the memory grew even more solid. He had a paw over his mouth trying so desperately hard to hold his giggles back for her sake. The effort was entirely pointless, though, thanks to his laughing, deep blue eyes.
Mother of Creation. She could remember something about that swear. It was hitting between her eyes from within, but couldn't come out. His look earlier made a lot more sense now that she was giving it right back to him.
In that instant, their roles reversed. Max didn't know what she was looking for, but she knew that she'd seen it. For just a moment, it made sense. The sense was still there, but she couldn't tell what she'd made it of anymore. She was staring at his expression, trying to find it again. It had changed, now, but she could still see it.
It felt like centuries ago that she'd tried to kill him for taking Ithos from her. It felt wrong, all of a sudden. Not morally, she'd kill any god for the chance to see him again, but for a fleeting moment, she could almost see why that plan had been doomed from the start.
Mew hid a quiet desperation behind his nervous smile. He was looking back at her like he knew what she was looking for. Yet, he didn't seem to know if it was there, either.
The hope in his eyes lit up her mind for a moment. She'd seen that every day for years—she knew it, knew she'd fallen in love with those eyes—but when she tried to reach for the memory, it dissolved like sand in water.
"I…," Max started to say, but shook her head. It couldn't come to her. She felt the failure in her soul.
Mew's eyes dimmed. The air went cold. Disappointment precipitated onto her and dripped down her fur. It felt like she'd had one chance to say the right thing and missed it. Now, it was too late. "You really can't tell," Mew said. Max tried to beg for help, forgiveness, anything, but Mew waved his paw before she could, and the world went black.