(A/N: I'm starting to wonder if there's anyone but bots on this site to be honest. I'd appreciate any sort of input here. It's really depressing to write and get radio silence for this long. I guess there's a decent chance no one but bots actually make it this far.)
"L, for all the love in your eye
O, for all those sighs in the night"
—"Love Me Forever" from Indigo Meadow by The Black Angels
You will know it all soon.
Max was pretty certain he was about to get jumped. It wasn't really the kind of thing Oshton would do, but he'd certainly earned an out of character moment from her, hadn't he? He'd been far, far less than cooperative with her requests after 'the fire incident,' and that had only worsened as the apocalypse drew closer. He knew he didn't have another choice, but he also knew how much that upset her.
Yet, Oshton only smiled as she dragged Max along by the paw.
"Don't you have some party to prepare for?" Max asked. He did his best to act like he had no idea what the party could've been to ignore the gaping hole he felt when Ithos told him about it.
"I do," Oshton said, somewhat of a song in her voice. She seemed oddly chipper. It was mischievous, too, though Max couldn't read any malice into her eyes. It was incredibly strange. She was very clearly excited, but that probably had more to do with the party Max had just mentioned. That in particular seemed to have made her a good bit more chipper.
"But don't worry." She looked back at Max with an almost predatory joy. "I've already got everything I need for Girl's Night."
Max held onto his confusion for just long enough to hide the wince until she looked away. The team, despite the ongoing Armageddon, had expanded to the point that there were finally a comparable number of girls and… others. Max preferred to think of himself as somewhere in between.
If only because it was better than thinking of himself as a guy.
Of course, he'd never told anyone else that, and he wouldn't expect anyone to respect as much. He was agonizingly masculine, so he tried to just suffer his silence. It gave him some internal comfort, at least.
Still, it hurt worse than any of his careless, pointless injuries to hear of Oshton's plans to get all the girls together for team bonding in the form of a slumber party. He supported it, of course he did. Girls probably needed their time away from guys just like he needed his time away from anyone who wasn't some fucked up freak like him.
So, y'know. Everyone.
"Look, Oshton," Max grumbled. He finally showed resistance and pulled against her. Now that he'd trained to the point of being capable of lifting three of himself (in addition to the forty-five pound bar), he had no trouble holding her back. Yet, she still tugged a few times before acquiescing. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Oshton asked. She turned to face him, but tugged him a bit out of the way of the main street. It was calm for Lively Town, but that meant it was hopelessly busy. "Why?"
"You know," Max grumbled, glancing to the pokémon running about. Something about the place made him sick, but he could never tell why. Every brick just felt too perfect and pristine. Beautiful, even though this entire place was at least a thousand years old. Reluctantly, he brought his eyes back to the other thing unsettling him at the moment. "Everything." He prepared himself for a lecture.
He didn't get one.
Oshton laid a flipper on his shoulder, then tugged him into a hug. It still weirded him out that she was fine with hugging him so much. It weirded him out more that he didn't mind. He even liked it. Hopefully that didn't make him some kind of predator.
"I get it," she said, patting him on the back.
"Should you?" Max asked as she pulled away. Sparks bounced down his cheeks as he avoided her gaze to glance around, glad no one was looking. He shuffled a bit away, then leaned against the nearest wall. Standing always got to him before it got to other people. "All I've done so far is disappoint."
"You haven't disappointed me," Oshton tried to reassure. Max retaliated with a roll of his eyes that landed on her as he crossed his arms. Yet, she didn't step down, either, crossing her flippers in response. "What happened to 'old habits are hard to break'?" Max narrowed his eyes further at her for that, wondering why she'd bother bringing up his obviously terrible past excuses.
"Well, you see," Max said. "It was obviously wrong."
"I know," Oshton said with a smirk. Max snapped his mouth open before snapping it back shut and looking away. She had her point to make. Might as well just let her make it. "But I think I know what you were really getting at." Before she could go on, Max slapped a paw to his face.
"Please stop with that!" Max said. He dragged his paw down his face as he shook his head. "What I was getting at," he threw his paws up parallel to each other and glared at her, "was exactly what I said."
"Max, I know that," Oshton said.
"Then stop reading into what I say!" Max shouted. The moment he heard himself, he reined himself back with a grumble. He hadn't realized he was this worked up. His emotions came out of nowhere for him constantly. He couldn't feel them at all until they blew up all at once. "Every time you talk about 'what I was really getting at', you just ignore what I literally and specifically said."
"I," Oshton started to object, getting a glare from Max. He expected her to double down and tell him why he was wrong. Instead, she looked away and acquiesced. "I'm sorry."
Max blinked. He hadn't really expected her to agree with him. He was used to being more of an asshole when speaking his mind.
"I'm not trying to ignore what you're saying," Oshton said. She took a breath and offered an apologetic smile that meant a lot more to Max than he'd expected it to. He lowered his glare. "I just feel like there's more to it than we talk about." She tentatively stepped forward to grab Max's paw, and he let her take it in her flipper. It was strange feeling the shared anatomy of a completely different limb.
"It hasn't been fair to you," Oshton said. She took a labored breath and looked away. "I haven't been." As much as Max wanted to object, the hurt in her avoidant eyes didn't let him. Before it could go too far, though, she looked back up to him with a smile.
"So, I wanted to try something." Her smile grew into a grin, growing back that taste of mischief she'd had earlier. "C'mon!" Oshton started tugging him again.
Max was too shocked by the change in tone to resist at first. When he recovered enough to think it through, he didn't pull back. He followed along behind without any idea where she was leading him, yet still certain he was headed in the right direction. He trusted her, even when he couldn't know why.
When she dragged him up to some random house, though, he certainly had his doubts.
"All right," Oshton sang as she rapped on the door thrice quick, twice hard, and once nearly too silent to make it through. As she did, she turned back to wink at Max, letting go of his paw. "Be right back."
The door opened, and she disappeared into it before he could even glance inside. Even despite that odd assurance he'd had mere moments ago, he started to wonder if Oshton really was pulling one over on him. Whose turn was it in the prank war, again? No, this seemed far too sincere to be involved in that. Though, if he was wrong, maybe he was too sincere to continue his service in the bloody conflict.
Right as Max started shifting from paw to paw to keep the blood circulating, the door cracked open. This time, it was just enough to let Oshton's flipper out to beckon him closer. Any doubt in his mind as to the point of this faded. He'd come this far, though, so he may as well face the music.
It better be funny, though.
Max shrugged his shoulders and headed for the door. Oshton had left it ajar. After a moment's consideration, he took a breath and reached for the knob.
A vine came to intercept his paw before he made contact. The door swung open just in time for the vine to yank him forward, his tail hopelessly insufficient for keeping him upright. He squeaked embarrassingly high as he rolled across the ground, and once again when a set of paws and another set of flippers helped the vine to yank him back up from the ground.
"Finally!" a familiar voice hissed in his ear. He could feel the pungent heat from the set of paws on his right side and recognized it instantly as Sally's. Looking over to see the salandit grinning down at him was a formality. "Look who finally decided to show up! What took you so long?"
"Give her a break," Ruby sang from ahead of Max, vine retreating back to the cherubi. "She didn't know she was supposed to hurry, did she?"
Max didn't bother trying to wrestle out of their grasp, letting them bask in whatever victory they'd earned while they discussed logistics. Yet, despite ostensibly talking about Oshton, they were staring at Max, waiting for an answer. Maybe they were just waiting for him to admit defeat (though he didn't mind Sally's lingering touch at all, so maybe he didn't need to admit it quite so soon).
"All right," Max sighed, throwing his paws up in surrender. Whatever this was, he needed to get this over with. If he let himself linger, he'd get stuck thinking about what they planned to do after whatever this was. "What'd she not know she had to hurry for?" He side-eyed Oshton, but she just giggled.
"Didn't Ithos tell you about it?" Ruby asked. She seemed a bit disappointed as her lip pursed up in thought. "He always tells you everything."
"But has that ever meant she listened to him?" Sally asked. Max's ear flicked up a bit, heart skipping a beat. That time, they couldn't have been referring to Oshton. Sally even put an odd bit of emphasis on the pronoun.
His cheeks started to spark, Oshton not minding the few that sprinkled over her flipper. The only shakes that came were from giggling. Max looked at her with a bit of trepidatious hope.
Hope that Oshton was eager to confirm.
"Yep!" Oshton cheered. She let go of him to throw her flippers up in the air. "Welcome to Girl's Night!"
Sally's paw left his shoulder for an instant, and the next instant had a party horn assaulting his cheek from above. Max yelped and hopped away, slapping at the offended fur after. It had his heart racing as fast as it could, yet he refused to let his hopes rise. He knew better.
"All right," Max said. He forced a chuckle out after and let his emotions numb themselves. They always did that so quickly, so helpfully when he needed them. "I get it." He rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Very funny."
As he headed to leave, Sally's arm intercepted him. She was the tallest of the group, yet she eagerly bent down to get up close and personal to him. "What's so funny?" she asked, as if the smirk on her lips didn't answer her own question. She wrapped around him with a wink, which felt flirtatious, but everything Sally did always did, so Max wasn't sure what to make of it. "It's merely a formal invitation."
Max bent down to leap to the side, out of her coil. After a few skittering steps on all fours, he hopped back upright. All fours had been feeling a bit more natural, lately.
"Can we skip to the punchline already?" Max barked, a bit more venom in his voice than he wanted. In an instant, it was gone, and the tears that he had yet to cry returned to the back of his throat to ache. It was too quick to stop if he wanted to. Luckily, he never did.
"It's not a joke," Ruby said. She smiled as she bobbled over to Max, resting a leaf on her shoulder. Max didn't know what to feel if it wasn't a joke. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to."
The more Ruby spoke, the less certain Max was in himself. The overgrown cherry's smile was too earnest for Max to bite back at, no matter how much he wanted to. He had to grit his teeth to keep himself from falling for whatever they planned, at least that's what she told herself. Really, she was too fearful to admit what she wanted. It was too easy to hide from her heart, so she'd done it for so long.
"We'd really like you to, though," Ruby finished. Max realized she'd only paused for a second. His mind was racing too fast to keep track of. It was a cacophony of arguments running parallel in his head, endless jabbering telling him what he already knew he wanted.
Yet, he knew he couldn't take it.
"I-I appreciate it," Max said. He smiled, a pristine raising of his lips to his cheeks that he'd practiced well. "Just." He dropped his head down to scratch at the back of his neck, trying to find a reason to leave.
She didn't want to leave. She wanted to stay. She knew this was right, felt her heart swelling up like nothing else ever had.
Some good things are too painful to take.
"You girls have fun," he whispered to keep his voice from cracking. He had to manually move each muscle and turn as he retreated, every impulse fighting against his control. It felt like he barely had control of his body at all, as if he was fighting to keep a handle on it. The movements felt like hers, but she couldn't tell why the resistant felt like both herself and someone else.
Next thing she knew, a flipper was on her shoulder. Oshton was in front of her. She'd turned around. Oshton said something, but she could never remember what.
Not for a while, at least.
"Me, every time you made me cry
See, I told you doll I would not lie"
Max was quickly starting to regret all the heart and soul she'd poured into Cori's training. They seemed to have missed the memo that it was, under most circumstances, rude to attack the person who taught you how to fight. Then again, perhaps it was her duty to have instilled that in her pupil.
"Kapi!" Max shouted after them again, gritting her teeth at the slip. If it was just a chase, she had more than enough speed on her side to make quick work of them. Unfortunately, it was an asymmetric battle of push and pull.
Max didn't want to hurt them, but Cori seemed eager to retaliate. Every time she caught up to them, she could see the frustration building in their eyes. Though she saw it, she hardly recognized it. Her heart sank too severely every time to notice any sight but the encroaching black that seemed eager to take them over. The fury was hard to read when the eyes seemed to be changing completely with each new glance.
Something was wrong. They looked less and less like her friend.
"Cori!" Max shouted as she rounded the next corner. It was a farce, though, since she could feel the totodile waiting right next to the entrance for her. She hopped in the air as they leapt to tackle her and take them from above. Her arms wrapped around theirs before coming back to brace her paws against the back of their head.
It wasn't exactly a perfect hold with her stubby arms, but it was close enough. As far as she knew, they had no way of attacking this close behind them. She was, relatively speaking, safe.
This would prove less than true.
They whipped their head around to glare malice into her eyes with their left eye. Max was just glad to see them still lucid. "Enjoying yourself?" they hissed. Good, it was still English.
"Much as I can, at least," Max said. She gripped them tighter as they tried to thrash her off. "Never was a wrangler, m'self." She winked at them, which only infuriated them further. "Always preferred Levi's." She could feel herself groaning at that joke, which was good since Cori didn't have the context necessary to hate the pun.
There was some hope yet, however, when Cori slapped a paw to the top of their snout. Unfortunately, it seemed unrelated to her pun. "It's been nice," they lied.
An instant later, they threw themself forward. It didn't knock Max off, but it was enough to fling her lower half up just enough that their force could hit twice as hard when their tail smacked into her. The impact was of hard steel—Iron Tail—and hit her right where the sun didn't shine.
"Ka," Max hissed out. For the second time that day, she painfully wished she could've retained her plumbing from the second go 'round. Unfortunately, she wasn't so lucky.
She couldn't hold on as they thrashed her off and ran. It was going to be far too little, far too late, but she ripped the first oran she could get a hold of out of her bag and scarfed it down. Already, she felt her stomach turn as the pain ebbed out from down below to ache every inch of every muscle and fiber of fur. Sadly, she didn't have time to wait for the pain to subside.
"Iron Tail?" Max hissed. Her legs shook even on all fours. "When 'n the hell?" She couldn't remember them using it before. They just knew it now.
Just like Ice Fang.
Max swung the bag up onto her back and got back to running after them. It hadn't worked so far, but she needed it to. She knew chasing after her only made things worse, but she was a lost cause already. She couldn't bear to think the same of Cori.
As she dashed through the clearing, she could already see the threshold of another floor in the next room. It was dangerous to just jump through, but she didn't have time. She had to save them.
Without another thought, she jumped through the threshold. Her mind twisted in on itself just like it had before, and she stumbled, suddenly struggling to remember how to dash around on all fours. It only got worse when an icy jaw encircled her neck and threw her into the ground.
Max groaned in pain. She must've hit her head. She could barely remember how she'd gotten there. She could remember the broad strokes. The specifics, however, were harder to pin down.
Like why her groin hurt worse than a broken leg.
Luckily, Cori was eager to remind her what the hell was going on. They snatched her up by the scruff of her neck and stared more malice into her eyes. She'd never seen a look anything like this from them. Their eyes—it was barely their eyes anymore. At first, it looked like instincts, but there was some other kind of black taking them over.
"Do you have any idea how badly it hurts?" Cori asked. They shifted their other paw up to her throat and held her by that instead. Max knew how they'd gotten here, but she could barely remember getting there. "Being so goddamn pathetic?"
Max yanked her paw back and smashed it into their nose. Despite failing to draw out a move, it was enough to get them to stumble back and let her go.
"You're not pathetic!" Max shouted, clutching her throat.
Cori glared up at her with narrowed eyes. They didn't even see a point in dignifying that with a response. "Every time I look at you, it burns," they growled. Their voice distorted, crackling like the charge building in their paws. It felt like another voice taking them over. Their movements, fast and disjointed, looked as uncontrollable as the electricity that had begun to engulf them. "Because you're nothing."
It was Max's turn to narrow her eyes. Hers was of boredom, however. "Really?" she asked.
"Yeah," Cori said. The more they looked at her, the stronger the electricity coursing over their scales became. "But even then, you're still everything I'll never be." Their eyes flicked to her tail. It felt like a stretch, but Max got an idea.
"Cori, it's fine," Max said. She forced herself up, ignoring the stars that filled her vision. "I'm just older than you! I've had more time to figure stuff out."
"Don't give me that!" Cori barked back. Their body rebelled against them, even as they stood still. "Hope, stop it!" They clinched their claws tight into the palms of their paws. Max could remember Codi's paws dripping in some abandoned house, in the dorm with her and Ithos. "I don't care if I might learn everything you have and more." They flicked their claws open. Max was relieved to see sparks instead of blood.
What. What?! Cori was sparking? How?!
"I'm not gonna fail my way into getting there," they said. Their voice cracked again, rebelling against them still, but in a different way. Their paw came up for them to glare down at. They seemed surprised to see it move. "Do you have any idea what it's like?" They watched it twitch with terrified disinterest.
"Having someone else move your body?"
Max's heart sank. She knew exactly what that felt like. With a painful turn of terror in her gut, she knew exactly what they were feeling. It was just like Dungeon Sickness. Yet, even deeper, she felt some other memory begging her to relate to the moment.
"Your body," Cori whispered. "Your life." They looked up at her. For a moment, it looked like Cori's eyes staring into hers again. "Does it ever feel like someone else's?"
"I think so," Max said. She kept her voice low, trying not to scare them off while simultaneously trying to find what memory they were tickling at. Most importantly, she wanted to listen to them. She wanted to know what they felt. "It sounds familiar. Tell me about it." For a moment, there was hope in Cori's eyes.
Then, they darkened once again.
"Why fucking bother?" Cori asked. They sneered at her in rage. "So you can be right again?" They shot a water gun her way that she batted away with an Iron Tail with less than half a thought. The second after, they were right on top of her.
Oh yeah. She'd taught them that.
Whoops.
Max whipped the same Iron Tail into their chest and kept their attack from landing. As they tumbled away, Cori laughed. "There it is," they wheezed.
"You love to hurt, don't you?"
Max blacked out in an instant.
"Why? Cuz your heart beats with mine
Can you hear them move?
They are in time
See, it's very hard to deny"
Max rubbed her… his eyes as… he woke up. His mind was a haze. He knew what happened last night. Probably. He knew something happened last night. He was there for it, but he must've been too tired to really remember the specifics. What he could put together, though, sank his stomach into the Earth when he realized it.
Oshton had talked him into staying for Girls' Night.
"Shit!" Max hissed. He bolted up in his bundle of blankets and realized he needed to quiet himself a moment too late. Luckily, with a quick scanning of the area, he didn't see Oshton or Ruby rousing from their slumber.
Max hurried up and out of the sheets, feeling some strange tugging at his tail as he did. He yanked it out of the sheets last and felt a fountain of sparks bounce down his cheeks.
A tail sleeve. His tail sleeve. He had on a tail sleeve.
Max yanked it off, realizing only a moment too late that it was tied on, rather than elastic keeping it attached. It wasn't even just a normal tail sleeve, either, no. They'd convinced him to put on one with the black triangle on the end. It must've been from one of his Libré costumes… none of which he brought here with him.
He needed to start wearing a disguise to Sylveon's.
Max bit down his grumbles for the sake of stealth and ignored the ache from the yank in his tail as he untied the knot, finally taking it off for real this time. He walked out as stealthily as he could without dropping to all fours so he could carry his viciously incriminating contraband with him. Why would he have ever let himself do this?
Well, it was the happiest night of her life so far. That was a pretty good reason.
Max shook his head as he snuck out the bedroom door. It must've been one hell of a night if he couldn't remember most of it. All that came to mind was a warm, cozy feeling of belonging in his chest.
Which could mean nothing.
Whatever. It was fine. Girls had gay best friends all the time. Sure, he was the definition of a disaster bisexual, but straight people tended not to really get that whole thing. The girls probably just didn't see him as a threat the way they would a straight guy. At least, they probably saw him as less of one.
It broke his heart to think in those terms. He couldn't let himself think of why.
Then, when he had just about tip-toed his way through the living room to the front door, he heard victory hiss out of his grasp. "Well, well, well, someone's up early" Sally whispered. Max winced. "Leaving so soon?"
"I guess," Max mumbled. He considered throwing the door open and bolting out, but he knew for a fact that Sally wouldn't let him get away with that. Instead, he reluctantly turned to face her, cheeks sparking at the mere thought of what was to come. His tail flicked behind his head on instinct, and he wished he could do the same with the sleeve in his paws. "Thanks. I had a good time with y'all."
"We had a good time, too, y'know," Sally said. Despite the giddy mischief behind her eyes, this might have been the most serious he'd ever seen Sally. The coffee maker gurgled, and she went over to pull its completed jug and pour.
Sally held it out to Max in offer, and he had to admit it smelled tempting. Its aroma was a dark earth with the sickening aroma of chocolate and raspberry, a mix so complex and heinous he felt compelled by nature's antithesis to try it. On their own, the flavors sounded amazing. Together, it didn't smell at all like coffee should, and that made him desperate to know what it could taste like.
"Sure," Max sighed, acquiescing to his inner creature. It meant he'd committed to staying stuck there, though, which was unfortunate. He made his way over to the table and hopped up to the tallest chair.
How was he shorter than a glorified cherry?
"Thanks," he said. He glanced around for somewhere to put the tail sleeve while he waited. It felt too vulgar to leave on the table.
"You could always put it back on," Sally said. She smirked at him as she slid the cup of piping hot coffee right over to him. He flinched, but it stopped right where it needed to. "No one ever has faith in an ex-barista." Max rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out at her, and she returned the same. Max glanced into the mug. "Four sugars and a bit of cream. Just like you like it."
"Oh?" Max asked. That wasn't anything like he liked his coffee (black), but he went along with it. Maybe it was a fat joke he'd missed. "Who told you that?"
Sally chuckled and raised a brow. "You did," she said. "Last night."
"Oh, right," Max said. Sparks bounced down his cheeks and into the mug. He'd had no memory of this conversation until she mentioned it. Now, he could just about remember most of it. They'd been talking about coffee, preferences, and Max had even mentioned her idea of a blend.
This one. Sally made the blend from Max's suggestion. Right, because Sally had mentioned she had all the ingredients for it, so they'd try it in the morning.
Max dropped the tail sleeve on the table to bury his face in his paws. "My memory is so fucked," he grumbled. Smelling the coffee again, he could tell that the smell was familiar from… somewhere. It was vague in the way only his human memories ever were.
All his memories were vague, but the human ones were a particular flavor of it.
Sally pulled her seat up alongside him and sat down. Max shifted a bit, already terrified where this was going to go. He could tell they'd connected last night since he didn't feel the need to scoot away. That terrified him.
"It's all right," Sally said. She reached an arm up to rest over his back. Max flinched, but appreciated the touch. Just like Oshton, now Sally was willing to touch him in a way people usually weren't. "All we did was have some fun last night. It doesn't have to be anything other than a good time with friends."
Max bit his lip to fight a chuckle. It was exactly the words he needed to hear, but the reassurance's particularly vague wording was perfect for misinterpretation. Once he saw Sally's grin, though, he realized it was intentional.
Guilt relieved, Max shared in her quick chuckle and felt a bit of the weight fall away. Sally knew just how to make him laugh.
"You know, you can always stick around," Sally offered. Max felt his heart wrench with an objection he couldn't form or voice. "The other girls are way too chaste. I need another slut to relate to."
Max was glad he'd put off trying the coffee. The surprise didn't last, though, his ears immediately flopping down when he realized what 'other girls' implied. It was fun. He'd had a good time playing along. He just couldn't bring himself to let the memories surface. Even the slightest consideration needed only a glance into the reflection in his coffee to dissuade him.
"I can't," Max mumbled. He could barely glance at the tail sleeve, but it was enough to get the point across. "I had a lot of fun, but y'know." He smiled at her with a shrug. "I've had plenty of fun before, too." He flicked a paw to the tail sleeve without looking at it. "Didn't need it then to have a good time."
"You're literally a completely different person right now," Sally said. Max blinked. He couldn't even disagree, but he'd never had someone come right out and say it.
"H-huh?" Max asked. He knew he'd been significantly more outgoing, but it was an early morning.
"Yeah," Sally said. She leaned in a bit closer as she pulled the coffee to her snout. "It's not just letting loose. Last night, you were loose. You weren't taking a minute for every word like you are now. You felt natural. Comfortable." She took a sip of the coffee and bobbed it around her tongue in consideration. "It feels like you're closing me out."
"I'm not," Max said. He brought his paw to his eyes and tried to rub them out of sleep—right, the coffee. "It's just not that simple."
"How complicated can it be?" Sally asked.
Max looked away as he took his first sip of the coffee. He'd always gotten along better with girls, so he wasn't surprised he'd click with them all so well. "It's not like I needed to be a girl to be friends with y'all," Max said. He shrugged, and stared down into his coffee. "It's not like a tail sleeve magically makes me a girl."
"Maybe not," Sally said. She smirked down at Max as she pulled the mouse a bit tighter. "But maybe it let you be what you want to be." It was so tempting to agree—so tempting to believe it was possible.
But wanting to be a girl didn't make him one. It just made him a freak.
"I can't!" Max hissed. He blinked when he realized he was glaring at her. "Sorry." He looked away, trying to calm himself down. Sally returned her arm to his back. His mind floated around, lingering on the idea of letting himself be what he wanted to be.
All his life, he'd wanted to be a pikachu. He finally had it. It was who he was in a way that he could never have achieved in another world. Electricity running through him felt more natural than the blood in his veins.
He didn't know how it would feel to be a girl. He didn't know if anything could even change, too terrified to look into if this world had transition as an option. Part of him was afraid it wouldn't, but he was more terrified what it would mean if it did. It felt like giving something up in a way he couldn't ever put into words. He couldn't ever make sense of his feelings. It felt like a cacophony of conflicting voices.
Well, his head always did. It just made it that much harder to decide on things.
"I know I don't feel like a guy," Max mumbled. He took another drink of his coffee. Admittedly, it was a good blend. "I just." He shook his head and looked away as he set the coffee down. Even considering the alternative ripped his heart from his chest.
It hurt. It hurt too much to even consider. He couldn't bring himself to remember last night at all.
"Too much," Max whimpered. He shook his head and started to hop off his chair, coffee not even half-finished. "It's just too much for me." Sally didn't chase after him as he fled.
Did he want her to?
"Don't—I can't talk about this again," Max said. He felt himself growing numb as he approached the door, tears dripping back down his throat. Paw on the doorknob, he looked up with pleading eyes at Sally. "I can't let this leave last night. Can you tell Oshton and Ruby that?"
"All right," Sally said. She smiled, but there was still more in her eyes. "One condition." She turned halfway around and pulled the tail sleeve Max had left behind into her position.
"Promise you'll let me see 'Heart Tail' again," Sally said, holding the sleeve up as high as she could (higher than he could ever reach without climbing her). Max winced. He was at the door. Using her height like that was just rubbing in that he was much, much shorter than her. Sally was still smiling. "She makes a hell of a cup of coffee."
Max knew he wasn't getting that tail sleeve back then. It was a bargaining chip. Collateral on the loan. Maybe it was for the best, though. No point in entertaining a fantasy he couldn't ever live.
"Promise," Max said. He shut the door behind him.
Sally never did return that tail sleeve.
"L, for all that love in your eyes
Me, for all those times
You've made me cry
Yeah, love me forever"
Max was a fucking idiot. She also had no idea what happened. Luckily, she had the unshakable certainty that it was entirely her fault. It had felt like blacking out, but she knew it wasn't. She could hear her own voice, and it was speaking English.
"You get a head start. If you really want to do it?"
She winced just thinking of it. Remembering minutes ago felt like razor blades running along her skin. It was sticking her paw into a jar of broken glass with knives lining the mouth.
Was it even her?
Max shoved that thought as deep as she could manage. She couldn't entertain it for a second. No, she didn't want it to be her, but she couldn't deny responsibility for her own actions like that. Whatever she'd done, it was done by her own paws. Whatever she'd said, it had come from her mouth. It was her.
And she was so, so terrible for doing it.
Max didn't know where she was running. She just needed to run. She'd been running when she came to. She knew Cori was deeper.
Why could she see them engulfed in tendrils as they fell into the earth?
It couldn't have been the tendrils, though. They left her exhausted, almost too exhausted to move. She was tired, but it wasn't that bone-aching exhaustion that the tendrils gave her. She just felt like she'd been running. Given the fact she actively was running, that checked out.
Already, she saw a shimmer of distortion in the distance. She was at least relieved that this Dungeon was so straightforward. It meant that maybe they weren't throwing children into a meat grinder.
Or, at least it was a forgiving meat grinder.
It was certainly light on ferals. It seemed mostly to have berries, orbs, and resources the deeper she went. It felt less like going into a Dungeon and more like a mine. Digging deeper and deeper to lower and lower floors brought more and more resources. It was pretty much a Dungeon, but something about it felt like a world with different logic than she was used to. Then again, all Dungeons felt like that.
Max took a moment in front of the entrance to brace herself. She felt so scattered by everything in the past however many minutes or hour-halves it had been. She couldn't let the next floor scramble her again.
With another breath, she hopped through the threshold. It took root and wriggled around in her brain, but she kept the reins well in her paws. She had a mission to complete, and she wasn't about to let any obstacle get in her way.
She had to fix what she'd broken.
Four pings rang out from her badge, and her ears shot up. Cori's badge was on this floor! She immediately dropped back down to all fours and got running. If only that badge would tell her how close they were. Her heart ached as she ran. She just needed to get to them in time. She hoped they'd forgive her.
She burst out into the first clearing with her eyes shooting around for any sign of them. She didn't see any flashes of blue besides orans scattering the floor. It wasn't until the second pass that she saw their bag.
Their bag. Her breath hitched. Had they dropped it on purpose, or….
Max shook her head and ran over to it. Once she approached, she could instantly tell that there had been a fight. It was covered in scorch marks, but not the kind fire would leave. She'd caused enough of the same to recognize what burns from electricity looked like. She wished she'd actually looked into the pokémon native to this Dungeon to figure out what they'd have fought.
It didn't matter too much, though. Any electricity was a bad sign for a water type. Add the discarded bag, and Max didn't know if worse signs existed.
Then, she found the worse sign. Their badge wasn't on their bag. They always left it pinned on the front even though Max specifically told them to stop doing that because it was going to fall off—and look what the fuck happened!—but she bit her tongue. It meant the pings still might not be a false positive.
Max flicked her bag off and got it strapped onto Cori's. Why they had such a backpack, she wouldn't ever know. It was the same composite abomination they'd tried to bring on their first mission.
Their first mission.
Max threw their bag on her back before she could whimper. That was their first mission and they were going to have so many more after it. Just like they'd had plenty between it and this little expedition. They were going to be fine, or she was going to kill God and make them be fine.
Running with their bag as well made her glad she'd started back at the gym. She could feel the extra weight, but it wasn't debilitating. It almost made her envious, since she could run on all fours a lot easier with it.
The next clearing wasn't far off, though, and her awareness already told her it wasn't empty. It wasn't focused enough to tell her what was inside, but hopefully it was Cori, or if it wasn't, then it wasn't hostile. Sure, Cori might be hostile, but at this point she was ready to knock them straight out and drag them back home herself if absolutely necessary. Hell, maybe even if it wasn't.
When she bound through the clearing, she got less than half an answer. She didn't see any strikes of blue in the room. The first glint of color that caught her eye was a shine of silver in the grass that pierced her heart.
Their badge.
It was only after she froze in terror that she saw the shock of yellow in her peripheral vision. She spun around to face them and they… were sleeping. She tilted her head at the odd sight. Who the hell slept in a Dungeon? She wasn't sure she'd ever seen a feral do that.
Then, it clicked. She'd seen shock marks on Cori's bag. It had to have been a fight.
Max ran right over to the other pikachu, trying to ignore the fluttering excitement in her chest. Despite being one for as many years as she had been, it was still somehow a joyous occasion every time she saw another one in real life. It was like seeing her favorite character from a show, except her favorite character was a species that she shared with another normal person.
She was very normal about pikachu.
Max laid a paw on their back and started gently shaking them to try and wake them up. She had an emergency reviver on her person, but she didn't exactly want to use that on a stranger who may or may not have tried to beat the shit out of her friend.
The gentle shakes were going nowhere. Max decided to get drastic and rolled them over onto their back. The tail they'd been sleeping on flopped out and she took a glance.
"Huh," Max hummed. "Another point for non-standard tails." The pikachu had a steep triangle cleft at the center-end of their tail.
Max tried not to think about it too much and started shaking them significantly more vigorously. "C'mon, wake up," she grumbled. They started to groan and rouse, but they seemed far too low on energy to do much. With a breath Max decided she may as well try a classic. It'd always worked on her kids, at least. Nestling her cheek against theirs, she shot a light bolt right into their reserves.
Pikachu yelped in surprise and leapt up and away from Max. A shock loosed itself from them as they did. With nothing else nearby, it connected with Max and shot right through her.
Max blinked. That was the charge. She'd felt that charge. It felt… where had she felt it from before?
Pikachu stumbled up to their hindpaws as they landed, rubbing their cheek as their eyes shot up to Max. "Max?! WHY?!" Pikachu yelled—they recognized her? At least it might make it easier to confront them about this.
"Because I want to know what happened to my friend," Max said. The instant she did, she saw guilt cut into Pikachu's eyes. Their eyes fell as they stared at the grass to avoid her gaze, all the confession Max needed. They clearly already knew what she was talking about, but she slid the backpack off and showed the scorch marks anyway.
"Sorry," Pikachu said. Max snapped her mouth shut, having to hold off on interrogation. That apology sounded familiar. Well, the pikachu recognized her, didn't they? Max could certainly find herself spending more time with them. Despite the opposite configuration, they lacked the natural gifts she was hoping hormone replacement would get her.
"I don't know what happened," Pikachu said. They shook their head slowly side to side. "I-I." They looked down at their own paws as the guilt consumed them and froze at the sight. Their eyes shot wide open as if they'd just stared at them for the first time.
Pikachu blinked. They stared down at their paws with complete bewilderment in their eyes. They knew exactly what they were seeing, but had absolutely no idea why they possibly would.
"Max?" Pikachu asked. They seemed a bit taken aback by their voice, now, too. "Why are my paws yellow?"
"What?" Max asked. That was a ridiculous question to hear from a pikachu. They had yellow paws because their fur was yellow. Pikachu were yellow. Did they wear gloves? She wanted to believe that their bewilderment was absurd. Unfortunately, she had a similar dawning horror boiling in her stomach. The more they spoke, the more she recognized their voice.
It wasn't a distant memory.
"I-I," Pikachu stuttered. They shook their head and fell back, the backward force sending them right to the ground. Their eyes shot open in panic, then pain as their tail failed to hold them up, as if they'd been expecting a much thicker fixture behind them.
Without another thought, Max ran over and lent a paw to help them up. She pulled them by the paw, and they looked horrified as she did. Max quietly noticed that their fur was a shade darker, a hue closer to orange.
A shiny. How strangely rare. It was unnatural odds, wasn't it?
"Indigo Meadow," Pikachu whispered as Max steadied them. There was no way that name was public. "O-one of the floors. The last one before you found me. It was like Thunderwave Cave."
The more they spoke, the more obvious the conclusion became. It was a complete impossibility, yet it was sitting right in front of her. They looked over at her chest, then up, as if they weren't used to having to look up to see her when sitting down, even when she was standing. They were used to being taller. Much taller.
Max helped them out by holding their paw as she sat in front of them. For as hard as it was for her to believe, she wasn't the one it was happening to. Yet, it looked familiar.
After all, she'd woken up to find herself suddenly a pikachu, too.
"Weird, huh?" Max asked. Pikachu vacantly nodded as they glanced down at their body. The lighter patch on their belly was a darker shade from hers, too. They stared down and between themself and Max a few times as if to compare, which made Max wish she'd brought a shawl to hide in.
Particularly when they started looking lower than the belly between Max and Pikachu's most notable difference. Sure, Max was more than happy to have her old equipment back, but that didn't mean she wanted people staring at it, well. Not in this context. Her tail came to cover her lower half, and Pikachu's eyes shot away. Max was more than a little frustrated their embarrassment didn't cause sparks.
"Sorry," Pikachu said. It was impossible to deny at this point. Max had heard that apology in that tone more than she'd heard herself breathe.
"It's all right," Max said. She nestled up to their side and wrapped an arm around them. The fight and chase that had brought them there was a distant memory to both, only the pain of the blows there to remind them. Neither seemed interested in heeding the call.
Yet, even still, there was the hint of doubt in the back of her mind. Max just had to confirm. It couldn't be anything else, but she couldn't doubt her ability to completely misinterpret everything. Ithos had taught her that much.
"Just to confirm one thing," Max said.
"Yeah?" Pikachu said. The look in their eyes made it obvious they knew what she was about to ask, and equally obvious they were struggling to believe it themself.
No easy way to beat around this bush. "Cori?" Max asked. Pikachu took in a deep sigh.
"Yeah," Cori said. They looked down at their paws again as if waiting for them to give a different answer that never came. "Somehow. I." They failed to blink the sight before them into making sense, so they instead looked over at Max. "What happened?"
"Well, I've barely got any idea," Max said. "But apparently, Dungeons have been getting weirder." She looked them over to accentuate her point. "And some people have some… reactions to them."
"Oh," Cori said. They continued to stare down at their paws, and Max started feeling a bit less conflicted about looking them over now that she knew that they knew each other. She did sort of hate them for skipping a few steps in transition, but she'd get over it. Probably.
She was still further along, so there.
"You know my 'Awareness'?" Max asked. Cori nodded, flinching as they felt ears bobbing on their head for what must've been the first time. "Yeah, that's mine." Why did they get the cool one? "It's sort of like—"
"I have a Stand?" Cori asked. Max slapped her paw to her face. Why. Why did every totodile she knew have to like that stupid fucking manga?
Why did she have to like it?
"I guess," Max groaned. She shook her head, trying to accept some levity as the world fell apart around them. "Just the ability, though." She shrugged and threw her arm over their back. "No alter-ego over your shoulder." Cori stiffened under her touch.
"Right, yeah," Cori said. They chuckled and looked over, a paw going to their throat. "It's all… different." Max nodded. She knew the feeling.
Before this, their similarities amused her. Every self-esteem issue, uncertainty and unwillingness of accepted love sounded like someone rephrasing her words and saying them back to her. She'd shared in every pain they felt, so it was almost comical that they'd go through the difficulties of waking up as a pikachu just like she had, too.
"Max?" Cori asked. The fog of bewilderment settled into the back of their eyes. They weren't at all used to their new situation, but their mind had moved on to another torment. "What happened?" Max could tell from their tone they didn't mean 'what made me like this?'
"A taste of my own medicine," Max said. It was a joke that only she got, but maybe they'd understand. Sure enough, they almost tried to chuckle.
"I, that, but I mean," Cori whispered. Speaking on its own took all of their faculties as their throat throbbed with every word. They whimpered and shook their head. "I. I'm sorry." Their voice trembled with every breath as if each one was a word they couldn't say. "Am." They looked down at their paws again. "A-am I real?"
Max took their left paw in hers, right arm still wrapped around their back. "Focus on this," she said. They probably needed to get out of the Dungeon. "Feel my paw touching yours." Cori nodded. "You're here."
It was Dungeon sickness. It was just Dungeon sickness. She knew how to deal with that.
Cori looked down at their paw. It had to still be beyond horrifying to see paws that weren't theirs, yet the grounding still seemed to help. Maybe the seeing the sensation that ran over the new topography helped make the new input a bit more concrete. They trembled with each breath, yet grew more certain.
"Thank you," Cori said. Max nodded, but kept their paw in hers. Their thoughts rolled around in their mind as they tried to make sense of what simply didn't have any sense to make. "I. I can't remember what I did."
They weren't speaking feral.
Max's ear flicked up at the thought. Part of her wondered if they were looking for an excuse or an out, but a deeper part of her was making sense of something. Some information she couldn't remember learning was lingering in the back of her mind, and she was starting to be glad she spent all that time studying what the fuck could be wrong with her back then.
That theory had been wrong, though. Whatever it was, she couldn't remember, but she remembered deciding against this one. She wouldn't even bother bringing it up.
"Did it feel like you?" Max asked despite not wanting to. She heard her own voice saying it. Cori's eyes started to blank, so she squeezed their paw to pull them back. They would say it did feel like them, and she'd wave away this crazy idea.
They shook their head. Max paused and gave them some time to accept the answer they'd given. It didn't necessarily mean anything, though. That kind of thing happened to anyone if they got too emotional. Dungeon Sickness still made more sense. "Do you ever suddenly realize that you're somewhere that you already were? Like you just got there?"
"Yeah," Cori mumbled. They must've felt the sinking frustration in Max's gut. Something about this making sense to them bugged her.
She felt genuine trying to unpack this conclusion, but she couldn't help feeling her own resistance in the back of her head. She knew for a fact it was a real condition, but she had a persistent thought in the back of her head telling her it was just an excuse. Some part of every bit of sense it made for them had her questioning… something. She couldn't even tell where the conflict came from.
Why did she want to doubt her friend so badly?
It was too much. It was ridiculous. She was wasting their time, and her emotional energy bringing it up. She wouldn't say another word on the topic.
"Do you ever feel like you've got multiple personalities?" Max asked. Sure, it was an outdated name, but it was more intuitive for the current purpose. She expected Cori to shrug off the idea, not even giving it any thought.
They weren't crazy. She couldn't just convince her best friend that they were crazy. That'd be beyond awful.
Their eyes flashed with recognition. "Yeah," Cori said. They looked hopefully up at Max, eyes begging for an answer she didn't want to give. "Can that happen?" Even with a completely new face, Max could read their expression like it hadn't changed at all. It was hope. It was every inexplicable part of their life finally making sense.
It couldn't be. Why would this be what made sense of it? Surely it didn't have to be.
"Remember how I know a lot about psychology?" Max asked.It wouldn't be that. She needed to drop this. Why was her voice going on without her? Cori nodded. "Well. You ever heard of Dissociative Identity Disorder?"
She decided not to consider why she could remember it by name as they shook their head. After all, psychology had always been a special interest of hers. It only made sense she'd know plenty of them by name. She had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of personality, mental, and emotional disorders, so this would be no different.
"When a kid's hurt," Max started. "It can be too much for one person to handle." Pokémon developed faster than humans. Max could only imagine the horrific trauma that had to have happened in such quick succession to cause this split before a pokémon's brain had solidified.
Except, she didn't have to imagine it. Cori had told her plenty. In fact, when they did, it almost seemed like they were telling her someone else's memories.
It fucking can't be this.
"So, the brain splits the load." Max could feel her own sense of touch destabilizing as she struggled to keep her mind on what it didn't want to see. She ran her paw over Cori's. Luckily, they needed the grounding just as much as she did (even if they needed it for a different reason). Cori seemed to return to the current moment in time with her. "Someone else in there?"
Cori brought their paws to their face. Max let her left paw fall down their arm, then brought it back up to pet as they did. "I-I'm sorry," Cori said. Their head shook slowly, side to side. "I-I'm so sorry."
Max gently hugged them from the side. "It's all right, darlin'," she said. It felt so nice to feel their fur against hers.
Cori looked over at her in disbelief. Electricity of too low a charge to bother either of them arced and traced between the two. Max found her tail naturally pulling over to theirs like a moth to a flame. "How?" Cori asked. "Everything I said," that wasn't them, "everything I am." They shook their head as their voice cracked, tears streaming down their face. "How? How can you say that?"
Max waited to give her answer. She already had one, but it wasn't what they needed yet. First, she kept silent and pulled them into her embrace as they fell into sobs. She dragged her claws through their fur, gently scratching a mix of spots she knew they liked, and ones she knew were amazing from experience.
Cori resisted at first. They seemed to struggle for it, struggle to make sense of why she was there. Yet, her warm embrace melted away their inhibitions, and they melted into her arms.
Max pressed her cheek against theirs. The foreign (to them) gesture translated itself as it coursed through their new biology. A previous pain gained new context as the show of love she'd always meant it to be. She'd done the same, unable to help herself before, and they finally got the true intent intuitively.
She listened to their cries as she thought over her words, giving both equal weight. Each had its own message to share, and she had to treat both with equal consideration. She held them tighter through each sob, and stayed firm with every light touch.
Still, it was too much for Cori. Of course it would be. It'd be too much for anyone. "How?" they repeated, voice too strained for more than a whisper.
Max pulled their head into the crook of her shoulder. It was easier than she expected, and she realized they were still barely taller than her. That wasn't important, but it did give her a chuckle. Even face to face, belly to belly, their tails were entangled off to the side. Cori had adapted to the gesture instinctively.
"You're everything to me," Max said. It wasn't hard to think of what to say; these words came to mind each time she looked into their eyes. It didn't matter that their eyes had changed; she loved them all the same. She thought back to that night in the board game café. "You're there when no one else can be." She remembered their first time at Thro-Yo. "You're joy in ways I've never seen before."
Their days, weeks, months together as near strangers. "You were kind to me with resources you didn't have. You cared when no one else would. Could." The day they met, she already felt closer to them than she'd felt with anyone. She knew them better than she'd known anyone. "You knew me before I knew myself."
Even right next to their ear, she struggled to muster up the willpower to keep her voice going. It was a strength she'd let atrophy, even during her time with Neb. "You showed me what it was like to be worth it."
Max started to pull away. They resisted until she pressed her cheek against theirs; a promise to return. Even still, they were reluctant to let her go. So was she.
Her eyes locked with theirs. They'd been in this pose before. They'd already done this before, hadn't they? She couldn't help a mischievous smirk, even as tears streaked down her face. "You taught me how to care again," she said. Her lips drifted closer to theirs. "You reminded me," a spark arced between her cheek and theirs, and then each other's lips, "what it was like to love." Her eyes wouldn't leave theirs. Their eyes wouldn't leave hers.
Their lips met. For lips they'd never used before, Cori had some getting used to ahead of them.
Max was eager to show them the ropes.