Warmth. Confusion. Floating in a pool of liquid, too tightly constrained into a ball.

Voices. Can't tell what they're saying, but somehow they seem… malicious.

The previous sensation of security and love and affection that I'd been basking in was replaced by nothing if not cruel anticipation of something to take advantage of.

Where am I? I'm no longer where I was, but where was I to begin with? The voices grew clearer, sharper, piercing the veil of my ignorance. They were talking about me, about what I was to become. I felt a sudden surge of panic, a desperate need to move, to escape, to run, but there was nowhere to go.

I... died? That was the only conclusion my befuddled mind could arrive at as the voices grew clearer, their words cutting through the dense fog of my thoughts. They spoke of a 'greater purpose'.

The darkness was thick, was sticky, was all-encompassing and all-consuming. It wasn't cold, but warm and suffocating.

"-died for this. Hope it's worth it." A gruff voice echoed around me, jolting my senses.

"It's not about worth it or not, it's about what she-" A softer voice countered, becoming too dim for my straining ears to follow.

A scoff. "-what you will tell yourself when it dies? It's barely-" the gruffer one cut back in, and I could almost physically feel the flinch of the softer voice, as if it had been slapped.

"-right. But your-" my head pulsated with pain. The more I heard, the more my mind was straining to process. "-harm, will it?"

"That depends entirely on you. If-" the gruff voice made my head pulse harder. "-then it'll be on your head."

"...of course." Another pulse of pain. I needed out, I needed out, I needed OUTOUTOUTOUTOUTOUT-

I violently slammed my fist into the dark, and unexpectedly, with a pulse of pain, it cracked. Light seeped in through the fissure.

"...well. Let's see if there's still hope for it yet." the gruffer voice said, closer now, the words echoing through the light.

Is this an egg? Are those people out there?

The pain. It's getting so bad. I need help. Anyone, anyone at all. I try to scream, and fluid feels my lungs.

Mom?


"'m starting to pick up on a pattern." I mumble as I'm released from my Pokèball once more. My head is spinning a little, as it clears, the vision fading from my eyes, the details becoming fuzzier at the edges as reality starts to seep back in. I'm... not fine.

Is that my one true weakness? Sugar, spice and everything nice? I remember Sylveon's dex descriptions claiming that its ribbons are supposed to be soothing.

God, I feel like I've been run over by a steamroller.

"You alright there?" Cynthia asks, and I give a faint nod. "Good. Let's see if your strategy holds merit."

"Miss Cynthia, please send out your Pokèmon into the arena. You can't be that close to it." the referee calls.

"Don't worry, sir. Riolu won't be doing any more battling. Instead..." Cynthia rears back to throw her ball. "Roserade, battle dance!"

Roserade has a nervous energy about her, which is more than understandable. I'm pretty sure she's subtly trying to test out her body without making it look too obvious. I guess tripling in size and sprouting two new limbs is more than enough to give discomfort.

The ref is looking at us weirdly for a moment, before putting his hands in a T sign and rapidly approaching us. In the meantime, I take one look at the rest of the people in the arena and our opponent.

Everyone is confused. That includes Fantina, on the other side of the field and still nervously thumbing a Pokèball with a look of determination on her face. Her hair, instead of being in the X shape of a Drifblim like the games, cascades around her with blue highlighys, similarly to that of a Misdreavus.

Huh.

"Excuse me, miss, but you can't take out Pokèmon that you didn't register in the competition. You can either use your Gabite, your Riolu, or your Roselia." The stern looking boy stares flatly at us. Cynthia just smiled at him beatifically.

"I'm sure that this'll serve to explain everything." Cynthia already has her Pokedex out with a recording. As she hands it over to the bemused ref, his jaw slowly drops before he looks at Cynthia with a gobsmacked expression. "You…"

"Is everything alright, Kyle?" Zoey asks with her mic. "Will the contestant be choosing another Pokèmon, or is it a forfeit?"

It's not insane, to think it's a different Pokémon, or that Cynthia has gotten a gaggle of Budew's evolutionary line- after all, this is Floaroma. But instead..."This Roserade is the very same Budew that the contestant first entered the competition with!" he shouts back.

It has precisely the desired effect. The crowd roars in excitement at the idea that a Pokèmon could jump two evolutionary stages in one evening.

"Well, you really are not holding back at all, mon ami!" Fantina shouts back. "Let's see if the new power of your Pokèmon can triumph over me and my Pokèmon's bond! Go, Misdreavus!"


Cynthia, internally, is extremely worried. Her Riolu, strictly speaking, has yet to actually accept her as its trainer; if anything, though this is the best course of action, this almost seems to her like Riolu telling her "let me show you how it's done".

But she accepted, in the efforts of better understanding both Riolu and Bu-Roserade. She just prays that this doesn't end up embarrassing her.

Roserade, for her part, has been moving erratically, full of energy and nervousness alike. Albeit... not as much nervousness as one would have expected. While she seemed to be largely the same 'mon that she was as a Budew, evolving into Roselia seemed to have lit a fire in her, almost as though she's itching to figure out her potential.

Silently, Cynthia is as well. As she mentally runs through the list of the moves the Pokédex claimed Roserade to know, half of which she didn't even know existed, let alone how they worked, she frowns in contemplation.

She ought to get her Pokémon a better method of communication. And a proper explaination. Just how long had this Riolu battled under Team Might that he knew so much about it- enough to coach Roserade on battle strategy and move effect? And why didn't he evolve into Lucario yet, then?

As the ref is about to start the match, she runs the plan through her mind once more. Overwhelm them with sheer accumulated strength. A brutal strategy with little finesse, but given that Roserade didn't know its own body, perhaps for the best.

"Go!"

"Opening act, Roserade!" Her Pokémon trills in approval, and once again, it focuses its energy outwards, released towards the sky as the sunlight begins beating down on the arena. Moments after that, however, it's already moved onto its next move, Growth, much faster than it used to.

"Pas si vite! Misdreavus, Confusion!" As the floating, ghostly Pokémon approaches with a mischievous giggle, its eyes turn red. So it knows psychic type moves...

Cynthia watches impassively as Misdreavus interrupts Roserade's concentration with a harsh psychic blow that sends it tumbling down, and she does her best to gauge how much damage Roserade just took.

More than she'd like... but nowhere near enough to take her down. "Grassy Terrain, Roserade."

"Misdreavus draws the first blood, but Cynthia hardly bothers to pay attention to her opponent! What could she be setting up?!" The announcer calls, and Cynthia side eyes the point counter. She's taken a huge blow, with a little over a fourth already out for failing to put up a defense.

That's fine. Roserade picks itself back up from where it lie on the ground, and as she stands up, all of the dirt in the arena turns to grass, and its wounds slowly begin to recover.

"Mon ami, not going to take this battle seriously? Battle is a two partner dance." Fantina comments haughtily, and Cynthia raises an eyebrow. Which one of them was the one going for the gym circuit again? "Voyons comment perturber ces plans. Will'o wisp!" On her shoulder, Riolu tenses, and she nods.

Again, Misdreavus giggles, approaching as fire gathers in its mouth, and Roserade turns worriedly towards Cynthia, who simply shakes her head. "Take it. Ingrain!" She knew better than to think she could dodge easily such a move, especially when Roserade didn't know how to use half of her limbs, so she elected to not dodge at all.

"Once more Cynthia elects to ignore her opponent's attack in favor of boosting her Pokémon! Roserade must be brimming with power right now!"

"I do not know what your plan is, hon, but you won't see it through!" And if Cynthia knew how ghost types fought, after having run in with an entire den of them... "Finish the Roserade! Hex!"

"Counter now! Giga Drain!" Finally, Cynthia's patience paid off. As the Misdreavus lazily floated towards them, Roserade's gaze snapped up, one arm pointed and shouting a "Roooh!" as massive vines uprooted themselves from the earth where Roserade's Ingrain had taken hold to shoot at the Misdreavus.

"Dodge, ma belle! Don't let them touch you!" Fantina shouted, but it was far too late. Misdreavus screeched, a far cry from its earlier giggles, but with nowhere to go as vines surrounded it, they clamped down and dragged it to the ground.

A moment later, it wilted as the powerful draining move completely took away its ability to fight back. In moments, it lay on the ground, prone and knocked out, its colors fading slightly.

Stunned silence fills the arena. After a moment, the announcer calls. "Incredible! Fantina fails to punch through Cynthia and Roserade's preparations, and her Misdreavus goes down in one hit as the plan comes to fruition!"

She gives a sigh of relief, stepping down into the arena to congratulate both her Pokémon as well as Fantina. Riolu leaps down, staring at her with arms crossed and a slight frown, and she nods in thanks.

"Cynthia!" Fantina races forward, and the blonde winces in preparation for being reprimanded for the beat down. "That was, incredìble! I knew you could do it!"

"I'm sorry for going so hard on your Misdreavus... I wasn't sure if I could do it with the way Roserade has just evolved today."

"Pas de tout! I wouldn't have my rivals show me mercy, and neither shall you!" Fantina immediately rebuts, before her face dims in sheepishness. "Admittedly, I knew that it would be hard once I knew you had made it onto la stade de la bataille. But I regret nothing. This just means that I must improve that much more as a trainer... and you as well, as a contestant."

"Huh?"

"Oui! Your contest style is dominating and powerful, but the moves were a little basic, clearly the mark of a debutant, more showcasing off your Pokémon's battle moves in creative ways than making something truly special. For example, that terrain herbeux..."


I could see and feel people looking at Cynthia in admiration. It was one thing to evolve your Budew into a Roselia as part of your performance, and another entirely to immediately follow that up in the battle stage by evolving it immediately again into a Roserade. The fact, then, that one contest was all it took to secure the Grass type's position from weakest member of the party to strongest was not lost on either me or Gabite. Jumping from "awww cutesy wootsy baby" to "Proper, dignified lady" hopefully would give her some confidence. I know for a fact that I can't really do jack to her now; I'm not above realizing that a fully evolved Pokèmon that Cynthia trained is probably out of my league, and that's without Poison Point Grassy Terrain Giga Drain spam. At least, as soon as she gets her bearings together- right now, I could probably defeat her by pushing her over.

I also wondered what it meant for Gabite, to so suddenly have become the weak link of Cynthia's party. I didn't personally give a shit about Gabite, and even then I could tell that it was pretty inconsiderate to just artificially dethrone your main fighter after she'd already taken a nasty loss to yours truly. Unless Cynthia was trying to do exactly that? A sort of unspoken, "shape up or step down"? Oh well. Both the girls were conked out after their fights while I mostly played around with the Pachirisu, so I didn't have to deal with it now.

Entering the Pokècenter, we were both greeted by the Nurse Jenny. My brain still lurched whenever I spotted one of them, expecting a pink Joy and getting instead the blue-green hair that should belong on an officer. Seeing Officer Joys was even more jarring, but at least they weren't in charge of fixing up Pokémon, so I didn't have to see them as often. "Hello! Congratulations again for your victory at the contest. How are you feeling?"

As I hand the books to Cynthia and walk around the counter, ignoring whatever it is the two of them are saying, I finally spot the figure I was looking for. "Hey." I wave, getting the attention of the pink and cream assistant. "Oh, hullo there. Did you need anything?" Audino replies, smiling placidly at me. I wave her off as she starts giving me a once-over- my scars are cosmetic and hardly ever bleed, so I'm not a patient she needs to worry about.

"Just wanted to say thank you for assisting earlier." Though for some reason, I feel a spike of recognition run through her. And not the good kind. But we only interacted earlier, so why? It was like a delayed reaction of mistrust that was trying to surface but had no concrete foundation.

...maybe I'm still getting the heebie-jeebies from everyone looking at me earlier.

"I see. Don't worry; I was just doing my job, and you did good in notifying me as early as you did." She pat me on the shoulder. "Too often I get to see humans on the receiving end of Pokèmon moves, and things get nasty then... here, this is for a job well done." In what was perhaps a stereotypical fashion, she handed me a lollipop. I froze for a moment, remembering my... incident, at the Pokémon Center when I first woke up from the drug-induced haze. Audino still smiled, but that feeling of recognition seemed to crystallize into something more solid. For some reason, I suddenly felt in danger. "And this..." As I looked back up at Audino whose face was glowing pink, my eyes widened, and I barely had time to clench my muscles to try and endure.

So, here's the fun thing about physical psychic-type moves. They typically don't alter the physiology of the Pokèmon using them, I'd found out the hard way. Now, you would think that a pudgy-looking Pokèmon like Audino would have a soft face, even in the areas like, say, the forehead. You would, of course, be absolutely correct. As said soft, marshmallowey forehead connected with my own face, for the barest instant it was like being hit hard with a pillow.

Then came the psychic energy. Being wailed in the face with that much psychic energy as a fighting type was extremely unpleasant. My face took the brunt of it, but it rippled like a shockwave through my body, making me feel like my muscles were being torn through. It was like it benefitted off of the fact that I was so naturally muscular, making every tendon and sinew in my body feel like it was on the verge of snapping. The world swirled around me and I stumbled back, dropping to one knee as the pain and disorientation hit me in waves.

Fuck.

As I uncerimoniously slammed into the ground skidding back against the counter and into the wall, it was all I could do to stay conscious. My aura was flaring dangerously as it tried to keep me going, and I glared at the bastard. "...this, is for hurting me mum and putting her Jenny in the hospital." Audino finishes, the previously fury I was barely picking up on the fact she was feeling now rolling off in waves. "I thought you looked kinda familiar," she said, "but it wasn't until you talked to me that I knew it was you."

I can feel my nose broken, my head ringing like a bell, my muscles screaming. My instincts are screaming at me to counterattack, to get aggressive, to defend myself. And yet somehow, that one sentence stops me flat in my tracks, a wave of guilt taking all the wind out of my sails. And that spark of rage, that need to hate, to fight, to hurt? It refuses to flare up, even as I unconsciously feel myself trying to tap into it. Left with nothing but the sense that, though it wasn't one hundred percent my fault, it was still my doing, I grimaced, gripping the edge of the counter. "Shit."

"Audino/Riolu!" The nurse Jenny and Cynthia shout in surprise, with the nurse continuing. "Why would you attack that-" I raise a paw, before slowly shaking my head. God fucking damn it. Of course it couldn't not come back to bite me in the ass. I take deep breaths, limbs shaking. Audino doesn't really seem keen on fighting, but she's not looking like she's going to apologize either. And honestly? I can't blame her. "It's fine," I grunt out, "I had it coming."

"Yeah, 'un worry bout that, chief. He deserved it." The ringing subsides, and I realize that it wasn't my head, but the bell around my neck. humans stare at the two of us confused, but I just turn at Audino. "Look. I'm sorry about it. I wasn't..." licking my lips with the blood in my mouth, I realized that one of my canines was missing. Ow. "I'm not in a good place mentally, but I wasn't especially then. I'm trying to do better. I don't think I can do anything for your Jenny..." I trailed off, and Audino scoffed in return. "But I'm trying to do actual good. That's all I can do."

"Could have chosen that before you put the Eterna Center out of a nurse and her Pokémon," Audino's voice cut through the apology like a knife. "But, I guess that's the least I can expect from a thug like you. If you're really trying to do good, maybe you can start by not causing trouble in places where people are trying to heal others."

"I wasn't... well either," I replied bitterly. "Honestly, that was the first bit of clear thought I had in years. I was kept in a pen to fight, to survive, and to be put under so many drugs I couldn't even think straight. I don't expect you to forgive me, but... I'm trying to make up for it." I didn't dare to get up, not yet. The floor felt solid and secure, and the wall behind me was the only thing keeping me upright.

She glared at me for a while, silently judging me, before huffing. "Humans and Pokèmon live together for a reason. It's best for everybody." She stalked closer to me, making me tense up. "I don't want to see a brat like you sour the sacred relationship between them. When a Jenny becomes afraid of interacting with Pokèmon, that's a loss on everyone's part." She raised a hand, and I closed my eyes, bracing for the incoming blow.

After a moment, I could feel the pain in my muscles fade as a wave of energy rolled through me, and my muscles were being fixed. I dared to crack an eye open. In her bloodied hand, was the tooth I'd lost. "Let's hope this reminds you not bite the hand that feeds you. The red dome is a sanctuary, and the people who work here are not to be harmed. Understood?"

"...you were going to hit me again. You know I can feel your emotions, right?" I ask, my voice shaking slightly. Audino looks down at the tooth and then back at me, her grip loosening.

"If I hit everyone I intend to hit, I'd be out of a job," Audino replied with a huff. "And you'd be in a much worse state. Now come on. Unlike you, I've got things to do that aren't hitting other Pokémon for fun." She offered a paw to help me up. I huffed, feeling... well, not good about it, obviously. But I took the offered hand, grabbing my lost tooth as I did, and after a bit, turned to Cynthia who was staring openly at me. "Let's go." I huffed.

"I apologize for what happened, Miss." The Jenny bowed to us, but after a moment, Cynthia shrugged. "I... Audino's never acted like this before, and-"

"Your Pokèmon already healed the damage so... no issue, I guess. It's already telling that he didn't fight back. He tends to go rabid at the best of occasions, and I haven't had Riolu for long, but I get the feeling that whatever happened, he probably caused it some way or another." I sent her a nasty side glance, but she openly met my gaze. After a moment, I huffed. "Maybe they were testing out their moves or something."

Joy clearly looked uncertain, and given the tongue lashing Audino gave me- while the humans didn' understand the words, they certainly understood the tone- she was probably going to have a long conversation with her Audino. "It's fine," I murmur, trying to stand up with a bit of dignity, "Just... had a bit of a misunderstanding." The floor was cold against my paws, and I felt every bruise and cut Audino had left on my body, despite her healing.

And with that, we decided to stop making a commotion in the entrance, heading rather towards her room. Centers were kind of like... half hospital, half inn, though I'd gathered that the "inn" part was expensive as shit... unless you had some sponsor willing to shell out that part for you, which Cynthia apparently did. "You want to tell me what all that was about?" Cynthia asked as she fiddled with the card for the electronic lock.

No, I really fucking didn't. I considered for a moment how to best convey it. I did buy that dictionary... but after her earlier comments, I think something else is more effective. Turning to her fully, I straightened out my arm, placed the other in its crook, and bent it upwards in the language-transcending umbrella gesture. Cynthia raised an eyebrow. "I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but I'll assume it's an insult. Suit yourself." She sighed. "Let's just go to sleep. Tomorrow, we leave for Jubilife with Fantina." I made a face at that, pointing at the ribbon now displayed on her dress.

The girl blinked. "Sooner or later, I am going to find out just how deep your well of knowledge goes. But no, we are not participating in another contest, not yet. It just happens to be the fastest way to Canalave." With that she pulled out my Heal Ball, and I looked at her. "No buts. I let you out during the day, but I'm not having you bother me at night while I'm about to head off to sleep. Your Pokéball is more than comfy enough." And with one last glare at her, I'm turned to data and sucked into the red beam of the Pokèball.

Appearing in the digitalized clearing, I search once more for that angry spark. Tapping into the hazy memories of my life under Team Might, it's like I'm trying to push water through clogged pipes, and the pipes are me. I can feel it in my bones, the fairy's power acting as a slowly fading blockade on that hatred I tap into... one that the Audino's attack dislodged, but that is still stopping me from using those odd, unknown moves.

What is wrong with me?


I'm not super glad on how this chapter turned out, if only because last chapter's cliffhanger feels somewhat unfulfilled... and I 100% know why it needs to go unfulfilled, as per the current story beats, but I can't help but feel like I've messed up somewhere.

EDIT 24/09/2024: This chapter received edits and now I am significantly happier than I was with it prior.

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