Yes! I beat AI Turo. The time machine should shut down now. Wait. Paradise Protection Protocol? No!

"Locking all Pokeballs not registered to Turo's ID."

"What do we do?"

"Miraidon! He's registered to Turo!"

Nemona's right. I send out Miraidon. But I forgot. He's terrified of Koraidon and refuses to fight him. He immediately returns to his Pokeball.

"No!"

"We're gonna die!"

Maybe not. I really don't want to, but I don't really have a choice.

"I'm sorry, guys. You'll probably hate me after this, but at least you'll be alive."

"Wait. What are you gonna do?"

"Damien?"

I release my illusion that I spent so much time perfecting and return to my true form. I send out a battle cry as I prepare for battle.

"Damien? What?"

"You're a Pokémon?"

Arven looks shattered. It makes sense. Humans refuse to differentiate between Pokemon who are just animals, like Axew or Pawmi, and the Pokemon who are actually sentient, like me. To him, I'm just an animal. A pet, at best. And he just found out his boyfriend is one. But I don't have time to think about that. I need to focus on Koraidon. Nothing else can matter right now.

I double team, over and over until there's ten of me. Koraidon charges at one at random and shatters it. I fire a Shadow Ball, and my illusions copy me. This is how I fight, and I'm good at it. I slowly whittle his health down with Shadow Balls, creating more copies, moving around until he can't tell which is which, until I finally go in with a Shadow Claw.

Koraidon lies before me, defeated.

AI Turo seems back to himself, but I know how quickly that can change. He explains how he's linked to the system, and his plan to go into the future. As much as I don't want Arven to lose his dad, again, this is the only way I see this working. After he's gone, I return to my human form.

"Arven? Are you ok?"

He laughs bitterly.

"Am I ok? I found out that my dad died, the robot version of him left, and on top of all that, my boyfriend is a fucking Pokémon! Of course I'm not ok."

"I'm sorry for lying to you. To all of you. But to be fair, according to humans, "Pokemon" and "Sentient being" seem to be mutually exclusive concepts. I wanted to battle, humanely, with Pokemon who either aren't sentient or want to, and I wanted to experience being human in general. I wouldn't have been allowed to do any of that in my true form."

They're silent for a while, digesting that. Eventually, Penny is the one who speaks up first.

"I guess i get that. To be treated like an animal by the most advanced species simply because they don't understand you must be insanely difficult. Wait, my Pokémon aren't sentient, are they?"

"No. Most Pokemon aren't, including the Eevee line. Generally, the sentient ones are humanoid for some reason. Like me, or Gardevoir, or Machamp."

"Ok. Good."

"I need you guys to understand, though. If anyone finds out I'm a Zoroark, my options become limited to flee to the wild or let one of you catch me. I can't really stop you from telling anyone, but please don't."

"I won't."

"Me either."

"Arven?"

He stays silent for an uncomfortable amount of time.

"I won't tell anyone. But I think we should take some time apart. I need time to digest, and honestly I don't know how I feel about being in an interspecies relationship, even if you are sentient."

"Okay."

Honestly, this was the best case scenario. I was expecting them to hate me, or for Nemona to try to catch me. Arven might've broke up with me, and I don't know how he's going to react once he has time to digest, but at least I have Nemona and Penny. But that said, I still feel my heart break at his words. At least we're all still alive, I guess.