Chapter Forty-Four:
Commune

Disclaimer: I do not own the series Pokémon. Like, at all. It and all its respectable characters are © to Game Freak and Satoshi Tajiri. However, all writing contents and semi-plots here are © to me; unless it is stated otherwise. All shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this chapter are all © to their respective owners, I do not own them.

Notes: Oh, my goodness, thank you to all the new readers who've watched and favourited this story! I'm so happy to see so many new names and I'm so grateful that you're here! I hope to continue to hold your interest in the future chapters to come, including today's!

On another note, this chapter took an unexpectedly emotional turn. I also probably shouldn't have listened to Daughter so much while writing it because it just threw fuel on the fire for everything.

Current Team: Keno the Swampert, Sela the Mightyena, Ambrose the Kirlia, Faye the Swellow, Nux the Gyarados, Gunner the Lairon

Badges Won: Stone Badge, Knuckle Badge, Dynamo Badge

Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow.
Don't walk behind me; I may not lead.
Just walk beside me, and be my friend.
- Albert Camus

"Did they say when she'd be ready?"

Shay heaved a sigh, her brows beetling together as she shook her head. Keno shuffled beside her and draped a large arm around her.

"She'll be okay. She's strong."

"Something or someone hurt Sela, and I wasn't there. What kind of trainer does that make me?"

Keno's broad hand gave her shoulder a squeeze, and she had to fight against the tightness of her throat with dry, painful swallows.

"I wasn't…there. For her, for Gunner…I couldn't—I-I couldn't help them, I couldn't get to them, I—"

"None of us could get to them. It's not your fault."

Shay's breath shuddered out of her, and she drew up her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as she stared at the wall of the Pokémon Center across from her. There was little chatter in the lobby, there were so few trainers and pokémon. The only things she could register around her was the soft, muffled volume of a television playing something inconsequential; the occasional ringing of the front desk; the scuffle of footsteps or pitter-patter of paws.

Time held no hold. It was both sluggish and rushed. Every once in a while, she'd check her x-transceiver, see that maybe only a few minutes had passed or even several hours. Her stomach twisted and grumbled in protest every so often. Shay ignored that, as well as the discomfort from sitting on the floor beside Keno. She was lulled by the ambient noise, her eyes eventually sliding closed from boredom and exhaustion.

She was leaning on Keno like a makeshift pillow, lightly dozing, when Sweet Pea and a nurse Shay hadn't met before came to her. Keno gently shook her, and Shay blinked tiredly between him and the approaching pair before pulling herself up to her feet, suddenly awake and alert.

"Is Sela and Gunner—"

"She's doing much better, sweetie, and so is Gunner. I know you were worried, and you've been so patient sitting out here." Sweet Pea interjected, her face creasing kindly at Shay. She motioned to the nurse, who took the cue and stepped forward.

"I'm sure you heard what Sweet Pea said…and that's the good news."

The hopeful lilt in Shay died, her stomach sinking along with it.

"And…and the bad news?"

"Sela…is the worst one off. She lost an eye from whatever scuffle she and Gunner had been in while inside of…of that…"

The nurse momentarily floundered, unable to describe what had happened earlier. What that…thing had been. Everyone in Shardust had likely seen the thing; how could they not have?

"Is she going to be all right?"

"Yes. Other than the torn shoulder, and the lost eye…she's otherwise fine. Her vitals are stable, and while there will be scarring, she'll still have use of her other eye, and she'll be able to be ambulatory."

That brought some amount of relief that lifted a bit of the weight that had been pressing on her. Shay swallowed and found her voice again.

"And Gunner?"

"Minor scrapes and dents. His armour held up, and the most damage that was done was superficial. It will buff right out after he sheds a few layers of his armour in time."

"Can I see them?"

From the crinkle-eyed smiles from both Sweet Pea and the nurse, it gave Shay hope.

"They're ready to go home with you. If you'll follow us."

Keno was right at her side, nudging her along. She reached up and patted his shoulder and the pair followed the two nurses. Into the back rooms of the Center they went, and a short hallway later, Sweet Pea was waving for Shay and Keno to follow into one of the rooms.

Sela was on a table, lying down. Gunner was pressed up against the table, heavy head lying atop his paws. Shay gawked at the sight of Gunner—no longer a tiny, stubby-legged Aron and was now a solidly imposing-looking Lairon. His form reminded her of ceratopsians. From the beaked mouth, frilled head, and jutting spinal protuberances—it was like she had a formidably sized and armoured dinosaur on her team. It made her nostalgic for Breela's tiny maniraptoran company.

Then her eyes alit on Sela. The Mightyena was still lying prone on the observation table, head turned away from the doorway. In between the rows of her slate-grey and coal-black fur, Shay could see jagged bits of raw, newly healed flesh—scarred now, along her backside and her right flank and shoulder. Sela's ears twitched and then swiveled towards Shay and Keno, but she didn't turn her head.

Gunner moved first, his eyes popping open. He tilted his head towards Shay and scrambled to his paws, eyes bright with delight.

"Shay!"

His shout caught Sela's attention and she lifted herself upwards and turned towards Shay. The woman froze at the sight of the ruin of the Mightyena's other half of her face. Shay recalled what she'd been told, but to see it for herself…

Something had clawed Sela deeply enough that she (as both Sweet Pea and the nurse had confirmed) clearly had lost the eye itself, rendering her permanently half-blind. A mass of fresh and slick shining scar tissue covered where her left eye once was, now sealed over by new stitches to help with the healing process. Jagged lines of the fresh scars trailed up in thinner ranks along her brow line and down along her cheek. Sela's one good eye glowered at Shay, bright and harsh, waiting intensely for Shay to speak.

Shay said nothing as she stumbled forward and wrapped her arms around the Mightyena, holding on tightly. She fought back a sob as she buried her face into Sela's scruffy neck.

"I'm…I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I wasn't there to keep you safe."

Sela locked herself into place in shock at her trainer's hoarse words. "It…that's not…that's not your job, it's mine to keep you safe," Sela said quietly, leaning against Shay's head with her own.

"Yes, it is! It's my job to keep you all safe! I'm the trainer!"

"We got lost and then that dome thing came down. We couldn't get out." Gunner piped up, and Shay broke her embrace with Sela to glance down at him. Shay rubbed away the tears that were streaking down her cheeks with the heels of her hands, trying to compose herself. Sela nudged her trainer in the shoulder, urging her forward. She shot a glance at the Mightyena, but dipped down to her knees and clasped the Lairon's head between her hands. She rubbed her thumbs along the ridge of his expanded jawline, smiling at him warmly.

"You evolved, Gunner—I'm so proud of you! Look at how big you are now!"

"I had to protect Sela…and we needed to get back to you." Gunner replied, leaning into Shay's touch.

That earned a chuckle from Shay, and she embraced the Lairon warmly, rubbing a hand across his crested skull before giving it a finalized pat. The warmth never left her words, her gestures. Keno let out a soft laugh from the doorway, quietly electing to give Shay this moment with the other two for the time being.

"You did good, buddy. You both made it back. I'm proud of you both." Shay shot a glance back at Sela, her smile broadening, eyes crinkling in relief. "And you both came home. That's all that matters."

OoOoOoOoOoO

"Well, hey now! The prodigal daughter returns! Got the rest of the team back together?"

Shay groaned at Tohru's light teasing, but she couldn't fight the faint smile that tugged her lips upwards.

"The officials found them and got them to the Pokémon Center in Shardust. So yeah—they're doing better. Relatively speaking, I mean."

A round of looks passed between Tohru, Abby, and Luke. Tohru cleared his throat and spoke up. "I…don't think we know what that means. Could you…elaborate?"

Shay's smile died and she cleared her throat.

"Sela…got into a pretty bad fight. She got hurt, bad enough that it's left some pretty massive scars, and she…she lost an eye."

Abby gasped, a hand flying to cover her mouth. Luke suddenly appeared ill, shaking his head in disbelief. Tohru's jaw was clenched, and he seemed to struggle to get his next words out.

"Arceus above. H-how did…?"

"Based on the descriptions she and Gunner gave me, they sounded like a Gastly and a Haunter."

"But…but how?" Abby squeaked, delicate brows drawing upward in concern and confusion. "I mean…we do have those pokémon here in Hoenn, but they're pretty much only found at Mount Pyre. Outside of trainer-registered ones, that is. How could they have…I mean, when that thing came down, it just…doesn't make sense. There aren't any Gastly or Haunter here."

Shay shook her head. None of them had been able to get any closer to the dome when it had appeared. Officials had been frighteningly quick in arriving on the scene and just as effective at keeping any nosy passersby from slipping past the cordon they had set up to get closer.

"I don't think Sela and Gunner were at Mount Pyre. I don't even think they were…here, in Hoenn. They described a place that had a lot of wide, open fields and maybe a little bit of forest. And looking over the maps, I tried to match it up with the geography here and…none of it does. Mount Chimney wasn't visible, and no other mountains were, for that matter. None that were close by, anyway and there was nothing that matched up, that is."

That further puzzled the other three, each exchanging an uneasy look with one another.

"That sounds…impossible." Abby said, her voice dropping nearly to a whisper.

"So does that dome-thing just appearing out of nowhere, and yet…" Shay responded, shrugging her shoulders. They seemed to concede to that. Tohru stepped closer and clapped Shay on the shoulder.

"We're just glad you got everyone back. We know you've been pretty stressed the last few days since they'd been missing."

She patted his hand and nodded. Instead of brooding, she returned a hesitant smile to the others. They didn't need to see her sweating. Right now, she had to keep taking care of business as usual.

Her chest constricted in painful, sharp intervals as a tightness pressed deep into her throat. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe, and beyond the white spots and blackness encroaching at the edges of her vision, all she could see was a leering face filled with bared teeth and hate-filled eyes staring back at her—

Shay jolted upright with a gasp, one hand rising to clutch at her throat, the other balled up into a fist, as if she were holding an imagined weapon. Air shuddered out of her, and greedily, she gulped it back down.

It took her several moments to feel and recognize the wetness staining her cheeks. It took her longer still to realize her face was damp with sweat and tears.

She startled when something suddenly pressed against her arm. It sent her scurrying away from the contact until her back slammed into the wall beside her rack. She was heaving now, could only hear the roar of her blood pounding away in her ears. She could barely see but the longer she stared, the more her eyes adjusted and recognized the shapes in the night-time gloom.

"Shay? Shay, it's just me."

"S-Sela? Oh, fuck. Fuck, I'm—I'm sorry. I'm…fuck, sorry."

Get it together. You're fine. You're fine. You have to be fine, you have to be fine—

Shay could almost feel the bruises on her neck. Swallowing was painful, like they were real and debilitating, but she somehow managed it.

"Sorry. I'm okay. Just…just a bad dream, is all. Go back to sleep, Sela."

Slowly, Shay returned to her rack, sliding back into her sleeping back. Sela huffed and hopped onto the rack beside her trainer. She flopped over with a huff.

"You're not fine. Talk."

"I'm fine, Sela. Really, it was just a bad dream. Please, just go back to—"

Sela popped upright and growled. Even in the dimness of her shelter, she could see the sudden glint of fangs in her face.

"I lost a damn eye, not my mind! Talk, or I'll wake that bratty little psychic andhave him talk foryou."

Sela glowered at Shay, and now that Shay's eyes had somewhat adjusted, she could make out more of the Mightyena. She lowered her face, unable to even glimpse at the scarred half of Sela's face. What she could make out of it in the gloom, that was.

"Sela…stand down right now or I'll return you to your pokéball."

The Mightyena seemed to take the order under serious consideration, leaning away from Shay. Even with that small amount of breathing room, she couldn't shake the tension away. The painful knots in her stomach, the pitted lumps at the base of her throat, the trembling in her hands—they still remained. So did the painful reminder of memories she thought she'd finally buried, once in for all.

Sela huffed and laid back down. The wooden branch slats groaned beneath her weight but held firm.

"You were crying for someone called Angel."

Shay flinched at the name.

"Sh-she…she was a dog I used to have, from a few years back. She…she's dead because of me. I couldn't protect her."

Her voice and her words didn't feel like her own. Slowly, Shay drew one leg up to her chest and the other shortly followed. She wrapped her arms around them and buried her face into her knees.

"She was trying to protect me, and I ran. She died because of me."

Sela's voice was calm, quiet. Patient, even. "What happened?"

Shay hesitated, as she tried to ignore the wrenching twists in her chest, at the tightening of her throat.

"I…I fell in with the wrong guy at one of the places I was stationed at. Typical bullshit." Shay lifted her head and rested her chin on her knees, closing her eyes. "I thought he was a good person. I really did. We wanted to live off base, so we did that. And…and at first, things were great. Then we got Angel."

Discretely, Shay wiped her face into the sleeve on her upper arm, then rested her head back on her knees, sniffling. "She didn't like him. But she loved me, so we kept her. German Shepherd, just like I always wanted. I should've seen things about him sooner, but I guess when you're wearing rose-coloured glasses, all the red flags look like all the other coloured flags. He was good at hiding himself, the real him, and…I just didn't see it. Or maybe I didn't want to see it. I don't even know anymore."

Shay shuddered, could feel the tears that had been welling up in her eyes finally break through, streaking down her cheeks in searing twin trails.

"When I finally did see him for what he was, he tried to hurt me. Tried to kill me, because he couldn't control me, and he couldn't hide himself anymore. That's when Angel stepped in. Sh-she was on him in an instant and it gave me a window to get out of there and I took it."

She sniffed, eyes squeezing shut, her jaw clenching at the memory. Even now, it wasn't clear how everything had happened. Who struck first. All she remembered was screaming at one another, hands flying in open-palmed hits and balled up fists, throwing things, and then suddenly there were hands on her neck followed swiftly by a furious dog slamming into the man holding her down.

"He shot her. He killed her, while I got away, when she tried to p-protect me and…and I couldn't…I didn't…I should've stayed to help her, but I—"

Warmth pressed against her, draping over her upright shoulder. Shay held back the sobs that threatened to break the levy. Her fingers dug into the meat of her arms as she tightened her hold on her legs.

"I didn't even know he'd shot her until after everything. I-I thought he kept his pistol on base, inside his unit's armoury like he was supposed to. Fucking stupid, I never should've believed him."

Sela rumbled back, a low and throat growl that reverberated through Shay.

"Was he your mate?"

"Boyfriend—ex-boyfriend now," she corrected in a whisper. "Different units. I thought it'd be less messy, but it turned out to be worse."

"What happened to him?"

"He got locked up in the brig. Won't be out anytime soon, last I heard, not after my testimony or the evidence stacked against him that was brought to light. And there was a lot of fucked up shit on his phone and computer."

Sela was quiet for some time, listening to Shay as she stifled her tears. Gently, she moved her head around to nose at Shay's cheek and gave it a plaintive lick. "Angel saved your life."

"She lost hers because of me. I left her behind, I couldn't help her like I should have—what kind of person does that make me?"

The Mightyena huffed loudly from her nostrils.

"Do you think you'd be alive if not for her sacrifice? She gave you the chance to live your life. So why are you wallowing in self-pity like this?"

Shay struggled to respond, words catching and dying in her throat. She had nothing.

"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. I wouldn't have made it this far in my life if I had stayed in those woods we met in. Maybe some other trainer would have scooped me up. Someone who didn't care as much as you. Someone who would have gotten me killed a lot sooner."

"Sela—"

"Don't. Don't deflect this time." Sela snapped, before her voice softened. "We've gotten this far thanks to you. And I know I can't speak for this…Angel dog you had…but she'd probably be happy you're still alive. We got this by working together and you can lean on us from time to time, okay? So, don't let that go to waste. And keep making use of that crazy "twenty seconds" thing you do."

"Twenty seconds of insane courage," Shay corrected with a sniffle and a smile. "It's from a movie where I'm from."

"Well…whatever it's from, it's working…so keep it up."

"…do you…want to watch it?"

Sela seemed to seriously consider Shay's peace offering.

"You're deflecting again…but maybe we need that for now."

Shay shifted beside the Mightyena and drew her arms to wrap around Sela, pulling her into a tight embrace. "Thank you. I needed that."

Sela graciously pretended to not notice her trainer burying her face into her scruff, stifling her quiet sobs until eventually, Shay was slumping against her, her breathing evening out. Sela waited for a while longer, and when she judged that her trainer had fallen asleep, laid her head down, giving the woman a soft lick on the forehead.

laying her head down. Movie night would have to wait for another time, it seemed.

That was fine with Sela. She didn't really care much for Shay's noisy moving pictures.

Additional Notes: I honestly try to live by the "twenty seconds of courage" ideal—even if it's only to adult on simple matters like phone calls, blech! I pump myself up with this philosophy as often as I can and it all stems from a Matt Damon movie called "We Bought a Zoo".