"The sun was shining across the field
Burning bright with all his might
In the shadows lingering the Moon was looking so sadly"
—"The Day" from Indigo Meadow by The Black Angels
And what is gone always finds its way to return.
It was a special kind of torment, living so close to fantasy. Max knew little about his past life, but he knew from feeling alone how perfect all this was. He'd felt so close to right the very second he'd fallen into this world as a pikachu. It felt like finally having a part of himself that had been wrong for so long put right. It was a fantasy he'd indulged only in the nicest of dreams.
Yet, his problems with self-image had followed him still. He still couldn't look in a mirror for too long without feeling sick. Even if he knew he would've seen the face staring back as cute before, he could only see a visage too slightly wrong to diagnose.
Ithos was a similar element to this pain. Max didn't know what he expected, but if this was supposed to be a fantasy, it wasn't ridiculous to imagine the charmander would feel the same way.
It wasn't a fantasy.
Ithos was still the closest friend he knew he'd ever had. It meant a lot to Max, how deeply Ithos seemed to care for him. He barely knew why the charmander tolerated him at all, but he was glad he did. Ithos was the only person he'd known to actually bother being patient with him. He even tried his best to care about Max's obsessions with music. They'd had so many wonderful times together.
It broke Max's heart.
The closer they got, the more it hurt, the more Max could feel the true distance between them. In every glance they shared, in every touch he felt, word exchanged, Max felt what wasn't there more strongly than what was. He wanted something more, but it was something Ithos couldn't give him.
Why did he have to fall in love with a straight guy?
If it was just a crush, maybe Max could suffer it silently. In all honesty, he might suffer anything in silence were it for Ithos' sake. As dramatic as it sounded, it was how he felt in times of weakness.
Yet, there was still something else. That distance between them was the same Max felt between everyone else. He felt lost in a sister minor while the world around him sang the brother major. Max could follow his melody and harmony along just enough to get by, but his resolution, his end never came. His rest, his place was a temporary glimpse into an alternative before the world settled back into what wasn't him.
That was the best he could do to explain it, too. He just couldn't make any sense of it. He'd always had trouble with social connection, but he'd never gotten close enough to someone to feel what was wrong. Now, he was close enough to feel the wrongness, but not with any ability to find a diagnosis.
He just knew that it was wrong.
He was trapped.
A whimper came before he could stifle it, and he yanked his paw to the Harmony Scarf. How long had it been since that day? Still, his mind tormented him, reminding him how it felt to lose his life.
Then again, maybe he'd already lost it. It was all he could do to hold on, and it wasn't ever enough. He just had to keep pushing, keep watching Ithos face the world's end with a smile. It was supernatural how that charmander seemed to see the hope in even the worst of situations.
It was sickening.
Even on the worst of days, Ithos seemed to smile a bit brighter when he looked at Max. He really did care about Max, even if it wasn't to the level Max wanted, needed, and Max cared about him right back. It was the first time he'd had a friend seem willing to prioritize him alongside older friends, giving him just as much care and attention. Maybe he knew Max didn't have anywhere else to go.
It never felt like pity, though. It felt sincere. Max never felt like a charity case, even though that's definitively what he was.
Ithos cared so much, and it was all in exactly the way that hurt the most.
Max shuffled a bit closer to the fire. The night had gotten colder, and the wood itself had burned down. At least Ithos made building a fire easy (even if Max would prefer he offer warmth a touch more directly). They hadn't collected enough firewood, though, so Max didn't have more to add to the fire.
It was about as warm as it was going to get. Max tried to distract himself by staring up into the sky. If what he'd heard was true, it was the same sky he'd known before. How much changed in millennia? Had he known this would happen, he would've spent more time studying the stars. Perhaps he would've known enough to find exactly how far he was from the time he knew.
How long ago had everyone he'd ever met died?
The constellations weren't quite right, but he'd never memorized their location in the sky anyway. He only knew that the Big Dipper pointed to the… almost North Star. Thanks to electricity, he always knew where North was, so he knew that Polaris, while close, wasn't right.
If only that actually helped his sense of direction even a little bit.
That sight was almost hard to acknowledge. He could recognize the Big Dipper. He could find Polaris. Enough time had passed since he'd last seen the sky that their place in the universe had forever changed.
Why, then, did it all feel the same?
The closer he came to success, the more failure he felt. The closer to anyone he grew, the lonelier he felt. Every step in the right direction felt so essentially wrong that he didn't even know how to tell when he was making a mistake until someone looked at him wrong, because doing what was right always felt just as horrible as everything else. Every inch towards the perfect life just left him feeling more broken.
Oshton was his closest friend aside from Ithos. She might've even been closer in a lot of ways. Talking to her didn't hurt like it did talking to other people. Intimate wasn't exactly right. It felt closer, less guarded.
That should've made him happy, but it left him feeling rotten inside. It was just like that stupid tail-sleeve he tried on. It felt good to see in the mirror, but that joy felt like a sweetened poison that turned her insides out. She wanted to look good wearing it, but it hurt too much to see. It was too wrong. It wasn't how he'd ever seen himself, and knowing that hurt more than words could say.
Max brought his arm up to dab at his eyes. He took deep breaths to keep himself quiet. He was pretty sure he'd only let the one whimper slip, so Ithos should've still slept soundly beside him. Just in case, he glanced over and saw matted grass where Ithos had laid moments ago. A paw rested on his opposite shoulder.
"Something wrong?" Ithos asked. Max cringed. It was a pointless question since Ithos wasn't going to take no for an answer after catching the mouse crying.
"I don't know," Max said. Ithos gave him a knowing smirk, seeming to think Max meant he didn't know if anything was wrong despite the tears trailing down his cheeks. Max's ears fell as Ithos sat down next to him. For a guy, Ithos was oddly emotionally available.
Goon was like talking to a spike trap.
"Don't know what's wrong?" Ithos asked, surprising Max a bit. Right, he was a bit better at figuring out what Max meant than other people. Max nodded. Ithos kept a paw on his shoulder.
The scales on his fur were warm; the warm scales burnt his skin like acid.
"It's just never enough," Max said. He pulled his paw up to look over, trying to figure out what was wrong with the image. "It's never right. It always feels like something's off. Even when I'm happy, it feels like I'm not happy right." He hated being vague about this. It always gave Ithos the same impression of the same problem that Max knew wasn't right.
"Well, I don't think anyone would ever get used to being a completely different species," Ithos said. Max frowned and looked away.
"I. I like it, though," Max mumbled, barely a whisper. Sparks bounced down his cheeks even trying to admit that. He didn't know if he'd ever be able to admit to even Oshton that he'd always wanted to be a pikachu as a human.
"It's still hard to adjust to," Ithos said. Max looked up at the stars before staring pleadingly at Ithos. He was so smart. Why did he have to be such an idiot? "I mean it." Ithos chuckled, giving Max's shoulder an emphatic shake. "Even having a dream come true changes your life, y'know? When everything feels right, it's a lot easier to tell when something's wrong."
"Yeah," Max said. He knew Ithos was right—the lizard always was. Surprisingly insightful, too, considering the subject matter, as Max was pretty sure no one other than past humans or a ditto had never experienced a species change. It just infuriated Max.
He didn't want Ithos to be right. He didn't want this to be about his species. It wasn't about species. He didn't regret this change in the slightest. Ceding any ground felt like giving up any chance at figuring out what was wrong. He liked being a pikachu—loved it! He wanted to enjoy the feeling of fur along his paws, but he just wished it was a little bit softer. He loved having a tail, but he wished he could bear looking at it.
"Thanks," Max said. It didn't come with the slightest change in tone. He hadn't had the slightest change in feeling. He didn't even know what he was feeling. He felt the weight in his chest, but not any burn or sting that could tell him what it meant. He felt the presence of emotion, but none of the actual feelings.
He just hurt.
Ithos' paw was still there. Pokémon were a lot more willing to just… touch each other than Max remembered from humans. He mostly liked it, though sometimes the thought of anyone touching him made him want to scream.
Now was one of those times. The reasoning was a bit different, though. The touch was nice.
What the touch wasn't hurt.
"Ithos," Max said, name leaving his mouth before he breathed in to say it. Ithos rubbed his shoulder in response. He was still paying attention, even if his eyes were elsewhere. Max preferred he looked away.
"Is it because I'm…," he struggled to say it aloud. He hated even acknowledging he used to be a human. He never felt like he really was one, even if he could remember seeing skin on hands. "If we make it to the end of all of this. Fulfill the prophecy thing." He still couldn't believe the prophecy was in the Voidlands.
His throat started closing up. He didn't have a chance holding back the feeling, but the tears didn't seem to know how to come. The build up knotted behind his eyes and left him ready to burst.
"Max, I didn't decide to be your friend because you're supposed to save the world," Ithos chuckled. Max let out a sigh of relief, if only because it meant he didn't have to force out the words. It helped that he'd already asked this question before. "Ever since we met, I don't know." He looked Max over with a curious brow. "You ever get this feeling you belong?" Max whimpered.
Yes.
"I just liked spending time with you," he went on. For a moment, Max struggled to keep it together before a creeping numbness turned his stomach over. His head started filling with white noise. "It always felt easier talking to you than most people. I always felt like you cared and… kinda always cared back."
Max felt a twinge of hope. That feeling. He knew how all that felt. It was exactly how Max felt about him. He wanted to give it a chance, but he strangled the joy away before it could come.
Oh, for gods' sakes.
"No rain or storm could keep them from love, no
No rain or storm could keep them from love, hey"
It had been a few days of getting everything in order. After the nightmare of day one, the rest hadn't been so bad. Max had blown off enough steam at the gym that she didn't feel like she'd need to blow up anytime soon, and she also had a new move to get more comfortable using.
Now, they sat in precarity that Max had thought she'd left behind in the age of humans. She still struggled to readjust to food and shelter costing money. For as much as it had shocked her to learn they didn't, it was even harder to adjust to the cost existing elsewhere in the world. The people she spoke to here weren't any different from those she knew in old continents.
Yet, they sat in boiling water and discussed the water's temperature like the weather.
"I know," Max said, keeping her eyes off Cori. She didn't know how to face them. It wasn't remotely what she'd expected from this, either, but she was taking it better than Cori. "We've just got to make it work."
Cori stared off at nothing. They nodded at her words, half paying attention at best. Max could feel their fear in their body, less than a foot away. She wanted to know what worried them, what had them trapped staring at nothing, but she couldn't know until they told her. Asking didn't seem to make it to their ears when she did. They didn't even say they didn't want to talk about it, just ignored the question.
"How?" Cori asked. Max almost sighed in relief. Luckily, she was still too worried about them for that.
"I don't know," Max said with an apologetic smile. She knew it wasn't the answer they wanted, but she could only ever give the one she had. "It's not like there's no hope, though. We've got a job, some kind of stability. We're-"
"No," Cori said, shaking their head. "I mean." They looked frustrated and away for a moment before looking back at her with a confused glare. "How are you okay with this?"
"Huh?" Max asked, though Cori didn't seem to hear her.
"This sucks," Cori went on. "Everything sucks." They threw their paws around to gesture to the shitty, two bedroom hovel the Rescue Society "provided" them (reserved for them to pay rent on). It wasn't hard to see evidence of poor upkeep. It wasn't as bad as her first house with Ithos, but… it was close. "We don't even know what we're here to do." Their eyes fell back on Max with an even harsher glare.
"And you're just… fine," they said. Their voice dripped with disdain equally apparent in their expression, but it wasn't aimed at Max. She could see it hitting the intended target, even if she still got some crossfire. They shook their head and looked forward again. "How?"
The small bout of rage faded in the air as quickly as it had come. It left behind a rare silence that didn't hurt to hear. As Max gave it due time, she shuffled over to place a paw on Cori's back.
"I'm not," Max said. Cori shot her a suspicious glare, so she apologetically smiled. "I mean it." She shrugged a bit and looked off at the same nothing Cori stared at. "I don't think this could be going worse than it is right now." Her eyes traced the cracks in the wooden wall as she spoke. "It definitely isn't any kind of promotion I was expecting." Maybe a demotion as a form of punishment.
Her gaze fell down to the scarf that never left her neck. "I just don't see a point in anything else," she said. The bracelet on her left tapped against her wrist as she ran her paw down Cori's back. They'd seemed more receptive to pets recently.
"I've given up before," she said. It was an odd admission to feel nothing from. On some level, she knew that she only felt none of it because feeling any of it wouldn't let her go on.
Still, it worked.
"I know what it feels like for an end to come." Her paw ran down the tail of her scarf, though petrification had little to do with the shivers currently going down her spine. "To wait for it." Turning to stone might've been easier, in hindsight. "Just giving up, fading to nothing, yeah. It's familiar." At least a stone statue doesn't need to sit and feel itself rot to nothing.
The more her paw dragged down Cori's scales, the more she felt static accumulating. Right, the air was drier here, wasn't it? "After a while, I just couldn't anymore." She looked over to see the bracelet on her wrist. Would it have helped her?
"It wasn't some realization or anything, either." Other than the realization her chosen method wasn't too effective. "I just went to sleep one night and realized that I was going to wake up in the morning." Despite her best efforts. She couldn't even remember what she'd tried anymore. "And that I wouldn't stop waking up any time soon." And it hurt worse than any of the pain that brought her there in the first place.
Despite that, she smiled over at Cori, not even sure if they were listening. "I wish I had a better inspiration for you, to be honest," she chuckled. "This was before, uh, y'know," She flicked her head back at her tail, "I knew things could get better." Cori nodded. So, they were listening, good.
"Honestly, I didn't think it ever would." She shrugged. "But giving up wasn't making life easier, and death wasn't just gonna come and get me." Much to her dismay, at the time. "So, I woke up. I got out of bed."
Max paused a moment to think. She still didn't know what got her to get up out of bed that day. She was miserable, felt awful, felt like she couldn't have moved the muscles if she tried. Just like every day before it, getting up felt impossible. She laid there in agony like any other day.
Then, she was up, eating breakfast.
"Since then, I don't know," Max said. She still had no good reason to keep going, at least not one universal. "I didn't know how to stop anymore. Every wall since then, I just hit, get knocked out, then wake up the next day." It wasn't inspiring. She didn't even know if it was healthy, but it was what she'd lived through. "Because there's always gonna be another day. There's always gonna be another night.
Without noticing, her paw entwined with theirs. "Let's see if the stars look the same. Together."
Cori didn't respond at first. They seemed to just sit and wait for the moment to pass. Max could see their breath in every inhale, exhale, the cycle of it repeating at a steady pace that grew stilted when Cori noticed the same. After the moment passed, another came to take its place.
"It's not all bad, though," Max said. Her paw felt comfortable in Cori's, so she left it there. She looked down at the bit of pudge she'd gained back from that Dungeon, sparks bouncing down her cheeks. "I'm starting to feel better. Hopeful." Her right paw drifted to her side, squeezing what new had come and wondering if it felt any different. She hoped it did. "It seems like tomorrows can finally be better."
She smiled down at herself. It was a quiet, happy moment. Even as unhappy with her body as she still was, she could almost remember how it felt all those years ago. Would it really ever feel the same again?
Then, one of her sparks of embarrassment connected with Cori's paw and coursed through Max's arm like lightning.
Max shrieked in surprise and pain, yanking her paw out of Cori's. She leapt away from them, and then they did the same. "Fuck!" she screamed. She tried shaking the shock out of her paw, but it only flung more residual electricity away. The charge—that charge, it must've been the static. It didn't even feel like hers.
"Sorry!" Cori squeaked, throwing a paw to their mouth. Max shook her head, rolling her eyes while she tried to shake the pain out. Of course they'd blame themself for this. "I didn't mean to—didn't—what happened?!"
Max threw her less injured paw against her forehead for a mighty slap. With it firmly smacked against herself, she dragged it down the length of their face, the sheer absurdity their worry bringing a chuckle to her lips. It almost made it easier to admit the embarrassing fact of the matter. "I shocked myself," she said, cheeks sparking some more. Again, it only almost made it easier to admit the fact.
"Oh, really?" Cori asked. Max chuckled a bit more while they let out a sigh of relief. "Okay, good. It felt like I did something."
Max raised an ear at the wording before immediately dismissing it with another shake of her head. "Cori, I could trip over my own paws, and you'd feel like you did something," she said. Cori moved to object, but she was already chuckling.
It was her own sparks. Why didn't it feel like her charge?
"Uh, Max?" Cori asked. Max shook herself out of her thought before they caught her thinking. Luckily, they were looking at her body instead of her face. Right before she could let out a breath, though, she realized that they were looking at her body. Their discerning gaze felt like knives on her skin. "Did you get… bigger?"
"K-ka?" Max asked. Plenty more sparks suddenly bounced down her cheeks, yet none of them hurt nearly so bad. "Pi? Pika? Chu, k-" She caught Cori chuckling before she heard herself slipping.
Cori yelped as she lobbed a warning shot between her and them, but that only evolved their chuckles into laughter. Max didn't exactly mind, though. She didn't know if she could ever mind hearing their laughter. It was always its own joy to hear.
Still, she couldn't let them get away with this.
"I don't know, Cori," Max hummed as she approached. She silenced their laughter by putting a firm paw to their shoulder, glaring at them with a half-lidded gaze and a grin. This always did wonders on Codi, so maybe it'd work on her thousand-years lost twin. She gently traced her claws over Cori's shoulder, teasing their neck before tracing the outside of their jugular down the center of their chest.
"M-Max?" Cori asked. They tried to put out a nervous chuckle. It sounded more like a mouse's squeak.
She would know.
"Sorry," Max said, bringing her eyes up to theirs. Her claws traced the base of their chest to drag down the curve of their belly. They really were just like Codi—well, just like her before Max got her to take hormones. "You just seem a bit bigger," she squeezed their love handle, "yourself." Maybe they'd be more comfortable with their body fat distribution.
They looked down at her with conflict that turned to pain as they glanced down where her paw was. Max's heart skipped a beat as she watched the same hurt come that she'd seen in Codi. She panicked and switched her paw over to snatch theirs up.
"It's cute," she said with a wink. She yanked them into a hug and threw her arms around them. It was the least she could do after specifically grabbing the masculine part of their chub.
It was funny. She'd always assumed Cori had their gender stuff figured out already. It might not have been so simple as she'd thought. After all, they really hadn't had much time to be on their own. They'd have a lot of new thoughts and feelings to get through, and she'd be right there with them.
Still, between Eleos, Codi, and now Cori, maybe time simply fated her to be a lesbian. She didn't mind.
Ithos would be a good beard if he wasn't so fruity.
"Um. M-Max?" Cori asked. Max blinked. Right. She'd been hugging them the whole time she thought of this. "A-aren't you and Eleos still a thing?"
"Sorry, I guess I," Max started to say as she pulled away. As she did, however, she glanced up at them in confusion. "Well, yeah, but that's fine?" Cori stared at her. She stared at them. "I can have feelings for both of you." Cori's cheeks burned a deep indigo all of a sudden, and Max realized that her confession had been accidental (even if she'd thought she was making it obvious).
They really were just like Codi, huh?
"Oh, well, right," Cori said. They turned to clear their throat, making it even more obvious that their cheeks had grown an even darker blue. "Just, uh, well. I. Usually humans only have the one, well." The dark blue started testing the outer limits of their cheeks. "In, uh. Stories."
"Good thing I'm not one," Max hissed with more bite than she expected. She turned to the side in thought. Them calling her a human bothered her more than she'd expected. "Huh."
Right, well, she already knew she'd always wanted to be a pikachu. It made sense, if she thought about it.
She just tended not to think about it.
More worryingly, though, she realized something much more immediately relevant. In all her partnerships, she'd been approaching them with the assumption that everyone was on the same page as her. She'd never been interested in exclusivity to the point that she'd never even thought to ask if Eleos, Ithos, or Codi had been.
Oh. Ithos, he. The wedding. He was absolutely under the assumption she was exclusive, wasn't he? Max grit her teeth.
At least he wasn't a problem anymore.
"So the Moon, across the field
She told the Sun, 'You'd better run, run, run
You'd better run
You'd better run"
Max felt his lips pressed against a beak. His paw nestled in the crook of a warm scaled neck, holding it gently in place as he found himself sharing the kiss of his dreams. Eyes closed, he felt a tender hesitation, yet surprising willingness he'd never dreamed of in his deepest of hopes. Unable to resist, he let his eyes open.
Ithos' eyes were wide open in horrified, awkward surprise. His cheeks were hot enough to burn Max's through the air between them.
Ithos wasn't enjoying this, but didn't know how to disengage.
"I'm so sorry!" Max shouted, throwing himself back. He threw a paw to his lips, already disgusted at how nice the residual warmth felt. He. He didn't even remember doing that. He wanted to, all his life, he'd wanted to. "I, I don't know what came over me!"
"Max, wait," Ithos said, but it fell on deaf ears. Max was too horrified to listen. How? How could he do that? Why? "Max!" Max shook his head, unable to keep himself from fleeing from his violating sin. It burned—like fire, he could feel the mistake licking at his back. His closest friend. He'd violated his closest friend. "MAX THE FIRE!"
That unlocked something in Max's head in the same moment that his hindpaw stepped on a hot coal. He yanked it up, and his tail flicked to the side to fix his balance, smacking into a burning log as it did. The course correction was too little, too late, and he spun around to flop face first into the fire.
F ucking idiot.
"Then the night became as bright
Because the Moon gave her light
When the stars go join their friend
Then the day came to an end"
"Well, y'know, when in Rome," Max said, realizing too late she was using an idiom that Cori wouldn't know that also referenced a city that they wouldn't know. For as much experience as she had keeping this secret, she sure couldn't. It didn't help that she was already guarding her true intentions.
"Can't we just do missions while we roam?" Cori asked. Max shrugged, glad they didn't notice their aural typo. Of course, how could they? "Why are we doing retrieval?"
"Just to see if it's worth it, y'know?" Max said, which was about three-thirteenths short of half true. She needed to see if the world was really so cruel as to have kids put their lives on the line just to survive. It seemed impossibly awful, but she was starting to doubt her calibration on this world's morality. Hell, after seeing Fara's reign, she'd already learned Pokémon had all the same capacities for cruelty.
As familiar as the Mist Continent felt, though, this didn't feel the same. It wasn't paranoia and hatred that filled the air. Instead, she could constantly smell a quiet desperation wherever she went.
Its stench was somehow so, so much worse.
Cori didn't seem convinced, yet they didn't press her on it. They seemed to get that she wasn't telling them the truth, yet showed no interest in asking her what she actually meant. Usually so curious, she was surprised to see them so disinterested.
They still had some time before they made it to Inflora Forest. Maybe she could ask them about it.
"Oh, we're here," Cori said.
Whelp.
Once Max was out of her thoughts, it was hard to believe she hadn't noticed it earlier. The place had tons of warnings posted all around the entrance. That made enough sense, at least, if Dungeons were so much more dangerous around here than she was used to. After a second glance, however, it made a little bit more sense than she wished it had.
They weren't warnings. They were ads.
Max went to the nearest sign adjusted to her height. It reported the very wonderful opportunity that diving into a Dungeon is for anyone interested. It was not just a chance to make a living, but to prove your mettle. In fact, it seemed to think that getting to Dungeon dive was its own privilege.
"All right," Max said. She took a half step back, readying her fist. She needed to practice anyway.
After a moment's pause, crimson lightning coursed through her fist. She fought the instinct to throw it long enough to let the charge build until she could feel that prod from the back of her mind. "Max?" Cori asked.
Max threw her fist into the sign with a crackling boom of crimson lightning. The wood shattered on impact, leaving crimson lightning coursing down the poles on either side. Barely splinters remained of it, and Max wasn't sure if she even wanted to leave that much behind. She didn't want to leave any of these untouched, but she didn't know if she had the energy to punch out every single one.
"Why," Cori asked, staring in gentle, bored befuddlement, "did you do that?" They glanced over at her, not seeming to understand she was staring her own confusion back at them. "What did that accomplish."
"Sent a message," Max mumbled. Really, it just made her feel better, but that wasn't important. Luckily, Cori seemed just as disinterested as earlier—okay something was up with them. They weren't like this. They were very, very upset about something. Still, she acted like she wasn't aware of the obvious while she led them deeper towards the entrance, swallowing her disgust at the other advertisements.
Max still had some hope in the place, though. It was marked as a low level Dungeon. Maybe only the relatively safe ones were open to the public. She'd know once she stepped through if it was all right.
The instant her paw touched the shimmer of the threshold, she felt her head starting to spin. It only got worse when she actually stepped through, her thoughts jumbling themselves around and around while her stomach did the same. Already, she had trouble telling what her movements were versus what her body's were.
"Got-damn," Max mumbled. She shook her head a bit, but that didn't seem to make it any better. She barely felt like she was in control, feeling more like she'd just woken up from a nap. "Well, Inflora ain't gentle, is she?" She looked up at Cori with a shrug while they looked at her with a raised brow.
"Uh, Max?" Cori asked. They looked her over a moment before shaking their head. "Never mind."
"Y'sure?" Max asked, reading their uncertainty with the ease of a billboard. There was clearly something on their mind, but if it wasn't something they wanted to share, she didn't need to pry too much. While she awaited their response, she took a quick glance around their new surroundings. The whole place was a deep, vibrant green that was uncannily pretty. It almost reeked of life.
"Lotus?" she hummed, but shook her head. It wasn't that same sickly sweet from that one Dungeon. It had been so long, she couldn't even remember the name of it. Before she could think of it, she saw Cori wandering deeper.
"Hold up, darlin'," Max called. Cori's head jerked back to stare at her in confusion.
"'Darlin''?" Cori asked. They waited for Max to catch up behind them, raising a brow at her all the while. Max couldn't help giggling as they watched her, opting to show off just a little bit as she could in her approach.
Or, right, she didn't have quite as much to show off anymore. She glanced down at her body, more caught off guard than usual at the sight of it. She was still so used to how she looked during her time with Ithos, it was hard to believe this was her again. The hardest to believe, though, was how scrawny she'd gotten. Indigo Meadow had helped some, but not nearly enough.
That's all right, though. She'd just have to feed herself generously for a while.
"Y'all right?" she asked as she arrived next to Cori. She couldn't help chuckling at the look on her face. "C'mon, you can't still be surprised at me calling you that, are you, sweetcheeks?" Just to drive the point home, she kissed the air between them before turning her attention back to the Dungeon.
"More just, uh," Cori looked her over, seeming more confused the more she talked. Hearing them talk, too, Max was a bit surprised herself. They sounded a lot colder than usual. She started to worry.
"What's wrong?" Max asked, voice bleeding care. She shuffled a bit closer and ran her paw down Cori's shoulder. That hidden heartbreak was too familiar for Max to ignore. She'd seen it too much before to let it go ever again. "C'mon, Codi, you can tell me anything."
"Codi?" Cori asked. Max winced, throwing a paw over her mouth. Right, Cori. How'd she let herself slip on that of all things?
"Cori, sorry," Max chuckled. She shook her head and looked up with apologetic eyes, jabbing a thumb back towards the entrance. "Head's still scrambled from entering." Which was more true than she knew. For the time being, though, it served its purpose of giving her a convenient excuse to give to the very clearly still upset Cori. She looked at them and squeezed their shoulder a bit more emphatically. "What's wrong?"
"You?" Cori said. It was Max's turn to look at them in confusion. Cori shook their head at her a bit more aggressively than she'd expect and pulled a bit away. "You're acting… weird."
Max blinked. "Same could be said to you, darlin'," she said, her paw falling gently back to her side. She didn't know that she'd ever seen them quite so cold at all, much less to her. Their posture, usually turned a bit towards her any time they'd talked, was facing straight in front of them.
"Hold that thought," Max said, ear flicking up. She heard something before she noticed, though she couldn't hear her instincts much more than usual. She snapped her paw and held up a fist, then pointed in the direction of the noise. Sure, Cori wasn't familiar with these paw signs like Codi would be, but they were self-explanatory enough, right? They seemed to be, since Cori followed right along behind her.
Max kept an eye out, but mostly as a formality. She was used enough to listening to her awareness that she could rely on it already. As long as she didn't let her instincts take control, she should be fine.
The clearing gave way to a path not quite tight enough to be a corridor. Around the corner, she could feel a couple pokémon. After a second's focus, she could tell they were both foongus. That'd be a problem for Cori, but she could just use Focus Punch and Flying Press.
Snapping twice, she turned halfway around to face them. She pointed at them, pulled her paw into a fist, then held up two nubbins before pointing to herself and immediately flicking out one. It was half a fib, but that was fine.
Cori glared at her with open mouthed confusion. Right, they didn't know what she was doing. After a moment's thought, she leaned in and whispered, "Two grass. I got it." Cori nodded, and Max realized she was right next to their cheek. She took the opportunity to kiss it as she retreated and chuckled at their squeak of surprise… odd, did they used to squeak like that?
With a shrug, she turned and sneaked deeper into the path. They were right outside the entrance, almost like they were ready to jump her. She must not have been quiet enough in her approach. Oh well, she'd have to get used to it.
Not like she was getting any lighter on those paws.
Without a second thought, she had a crimson charge readied as it coursed through her. She approached quiet for a few more steps before cutting her losses and dropping to all fours to sprint in.
Max hopped up to kick off a tree near the exit to bound over the poison cloud they had waiting for her. She used the height to her advantage as she threw herself down, slamming right on top of the foongus to the right. The flying aura fell away as she guided her descent, leaving her with mostly fighting lightning crackling through the poor plant and into the floor below.
Ooh, Fighting Lightning. She should use that name for something.
Before she could consider her career as Libré's understudy, however, she had to kick off Foongus one before its friend could hit her with a barrage of leaves. Instead, the swirl of slicing plantlife smacked into its friend, weakening it further.
"Oof, tough-luck, buddy," Max chuckled. Before it had a chance to retort, she started pulling what remained of the fighting aura into a fist. She still had plenty, but it took a bit of time.
While the second foongus prepared another attack, a set of icy jaws came to snap around it. Cori had leapt into action without her go ahead, but it probably wouldn't end too poorly for them. They ripped the foongus around in the air as the chill ate through the fungal plant at horrifying speed. As its friend turned to help, Max smacked her fist into it.
The attack landed with a crackling boom, and the illusion dissipated as it flew through the air. Cori took the opportunity to toss their little, freezing victim into the ground below and shot it away with a light Water Gun. Max followed it up with a quick Thunder Shock.
Neither attack was very effective, but they were still enough to finish the job. Max glanced around the room as the illusions dissipated, but didn't see anyone. With a smile, she approached Cori.
"Since when'd you learn an ice move?" Max asked. She couldn't tell what it could possibly be named.
"When the hell did you learn Flying Press and Focus Punch?" Cori asked right back. They seemed far too befuddled for her to pat them on the back like she'd planned, so she pulled her paw back in retreat. "How? How did you learn Flying Press?" Right, that wasn't supposed to be one she could learn, was it? She tried to think of some fib to get out of it real quick. "The only pikachu that's ever learned that is Libré."
Max winced. That whole nightmare of a realization was still, well, a nightmare. She still doubted it had any validity, though maybe it'd be a good out for her. "Well, y'know," she said with a shrug, nodding back to her tail. "Maybe we're related." Her stomach dropped out from under her.
Were they?
Then, when she glanced back to hide her expression, her stomach dropped a bit again. For the first time since returning, she was disappointed to see the heart gone. She… missed it.
Weird, usually she preferred the torn tail. Well, feelings were never particularly concrete. After all, she hadn't been too keen on looking below her waist, either. Sometimes she was glad to be back, but other times, she missed that old body of hers, even 'down below'.
Though not having to worry about eggs was certainly a plus.
More pressing, however, was Cori. Silly Cori, for some reason, was staring at her with their head tilted. They had hunched over a bit more than usual, too. The look in their eyes was clinical, but Max could feel the frustration behind their neck. They were in some kind of deep thought that she could almost recognized, but still looked within the bounds of the normal.
To top it all off, they were staring at her waist. As much as Max used to love Codi's infatuation with her waist, that was a different time. More importantly, the different body made the context different.
"Could y'look somewhere else, sweetheart?" Max asked. She smiled nervously and waved to get their attention.
"Huh?" Cori said, blinking out of their thoughts. Their eyes rose to meet Max's before they immediately looked away, cheeks a blazing indigo. "S-sorry." Max shrugged and looked away from them for a moment, but her eyes quickly redirected downwards.
She traced a paw down her side. Surprisingly, there actually was some amount of a noticeable difference. Transition as a human took months for anything to even start happening. As a pokémon, though, she just needed to gain some weight and it was already moving to the right places (because gaining weight solved every problem, didn't it?). Hell, even weight gain was faster as a pokémon.
Max nodded at her own conclusion and looked back up at the Dungeon around her. Pokémon must have been much quicker to adapt, then. That was a relief, at least. She would've died if she had to wait all that time for transition again.
Again?
Of course it was again, though. She knew she'd been a woman as a human, even if it wasn't quite right in that species. This wasn't new knowledge to her.
"Odd place, ain't it?" Max asked, bobbing her head to the Dungeon around them. It looked pretty straightforward as far as Dungeons were concerned. Too straightforward. It didn't have the right angled paths of a thousand years ago, but they were definitely angles instead of curves.
"Aren't all Dungeons odd?" Cori asked. Their eyes betrayed their thoughts as they looked around, though. They knew it was off, even if they didn't have the experience to know what was off.
"Might 's well see," Max said. While they glanced to the Dungeon around them, Max covertly shuffled on closer to sling an arm around the back of their neck. They let out an adorable little squeal and jumped when she did, so she soothed them by taking a claw to the same spot that always soothed them, that soothed Codi: that little transition between their neck and their left shoulder.
"M-Maaaa," Cori cooed. They practically shut down at the touch, which was a bit stronger a reaction than usual. Max just used it to her advantage to draw them closer. "C-can—ca… kaaaaa."
Max's ear flicked up. She recognized that shift in their voice. It sounded familiar; it sounded wrong.
It had to be her imagination, though. That, or they picked up the habit from her. They tended to sort of borrow her mannerisms here and there, so they probably just thought it was cute. It probably wasn't even conscious. Also, if she didn't worry about it, Max could continue to coax them into her arms.
"Aww, who's a good girl," Max cooed. She winced a bit at the old habit, but Cori seemed only eager to go along with it. Their squeaks had quieted down, but they didn't start protesting either. When Max started tilting their head up, she realized why.
They were looking at her body again. As much as she wanted to be flattered, she knew what desire looked like in their eyes. It wasn't that. It was something else. It was hungry, almost hateful, somehow.
"Cori?" Max asked. They stayed where they were, not seeming to notice her at all. She gently tapped at their shoulder. "Cori?" Still, they gave no response whatsoever. Despite being mere inches from them, Max couldn't bring herself to look into their eyes. She grabbed them by the shoulders and yanked them out of their own thoughts. "Cori!"
Cori yelped, a familiar, bizarre charge crackling into the space between them and shooting through Max. The force of the attack was enough to get her to let go, let them jump away. It was weak, but it hurt enough to get the message across.
There was no denying it anymore. Cori didn't even notice. That charge was theirs.
Looking in their eyes, they weren't the only one who'd had the same realization. They glared at her with that same, self-immolating desire with a fresh new coat of horror in their eyes.
Their eyes. Max couldn't look away from them, now. They weren't Cori's eyes anymore.
They hadn't darkened to taint, though. They'd shifted. The way their brow furrowed looking Max over again wasn't anything similar to what she'd seen from the totodile in Indigo Meadow. There was intent in their glare that a feral pokémon wouldn't have. She hadn't seen that look from Cori before. She hadn't even seen it from Codi. It was more than anger. It was hatred.
Even still, there was fear in their hatred.
"Look," Max said. She kept her tone even as she extended a paw in surrender. "I don't know what's going on, but we'll figure it out, all right, Cori?" Cori's eye twitched in frustration. "Sweethe-"
"Stop calling me that," Cori hissed. They glared deeper.
"All right," Max said, twisting her mouth down in thought. They hadn't been upset by the nickname before. They hadn't been a lot of things before, though. "I won't call you that. Sorry." Cori nodded along with her, and they seemed to have come to some sort of agreement. Why did it feel like meeting them again?
Cori looked down at their paws. That vicious fear from earlier froze them in place. They moved their paws slowly as they looked them over, the same paws Max had seen on them since they met, as if looking at them the first time.
"They… move," Cori mumbled. Max started to close the distance between them, but Cori shot their glare back up to her. They looked more terrified every second. "Do you feel it?" Max blinked. Something was wrong in the air around them, and it seemed to worsen every second. Somehow, she knew that wasn't what they meant. "It." They looked down at their own paws again. "Burns."
Max's eyes shot open as she watched an arc of electricity bridge the gap between their thumb and their palm. "Oh, electricity!" she said, pointing to the offending paw. "Right, 'course! It's-"
"Simple?" Cori asked with more bite than they'd ever tried in a fight. "Obvious?" Their eyes turned to ice as they looked back up to cut into Max. "Like how obvious it is you put on an accent ever since walking into this Dungeon?"
"What?" Max asked. She hadn't noticed any change. She shook her head and waved the distraction away with her paw. "L-look, that ain't important."
"No," Cori said. "It's not." Well. At least they agreed.
"Good," Max said. She dug into her bag and snatched out a cheri. When she started to close the distance between them with it, a warning shock broke between the two of them. It wouldn't have done much to a chu, but it got the point across. "Here." She bent down to roll the cheri over to them.
When it reached the totodile, they crushed it beneath their paw. Max's face dropped. "Well, what'd that accomplish?" she grumbled.
"Hurt you," Cori said. Max's ear flicked up. That was a familiar reason. "So you can drop the act." So did that. It seemed the electricity wasn't the only trait they'd absorbed from her in their time together. "Or maybe I just want to."
"You don't want that," Max sighed. Hearing her own words spat back at her hurt, but she had to take the horrible reasoning seriously. She had to swallow her feelings to help Cori.
"You don't know that!" Cori screamed back. Max flinched, their anger flying back up all of a sudden. "You don't know anything!" That wasn't strictly untrue, but it wasn't exactly helpful at the moment either. "Everything you say is fucking wrong, a fucking lie, or fucking both!" Max grit her teeth. It was just like she feared. They'd realized exactly what she'd dragged them into.
Their eyes narrowed to slits, a sneer cracking their lips. Their mouth bent in odd directions as they snarled at her. "Do it," they hissed. Their face twitched uncannily, unnaturally as they stomped forward, but Max could only keep her eyes on theirs. It was subtle, but it was undeniable.
They'd darkened.
"Hate me," Cori said. The moment the words left their lips, ice engulfed their teeth. Max had just enough time to recoil away, but not enough to yank her arm out of their range.
On instinct, she shot a load of electricity she had on reserve into them. It didn't seem to affect them at all like it used to, and they dug their freezing bite into her further. She screeched in pain, and they took the chance to rip her into the air by the arm and threw her against the nearest tree. Ice shattered off her body on impact.
The moment she started to get up, they were already slipping out of sight. For an instant, she could see Ithos laying on the ground the instant before she ran away. She grit her teeth at the pain as she dropped to all fours and sprinted after them. Cori wouldn't make the same mistake.
She wouldn't let them.