Kapitel 82: 10-19

I hadn't actually ranted out loud, thank fuck, but what followed was… Awkward.

You'd think it was because of normal stuff like an estranged father/daughter reunion where both parties are awkward and trying to reach out to each other and so on and so forth. No, apparently unhinged laughter followed by an intense scrutinizing glare isn't appropriate behavior, apparently. Bah. The Cradle Robber was easily mid forties, and Mama was twenty five. I was eight. The math did not put him in a good place.

But at least I wasn't losing it so bad the insides of my head were becoming the outsides yet. Completely. Upon consideration it could be that while I hadn't said anything out loud some of the meaning had leached out. Luna had dropped the field when The Cradle Robber was introduced, but Gardemom had sensed the shitstorm coming and put it back up focused on me before I could do things. So I gave it fifty fifty odds on that one. Luna was then told to calm me down, or so I assumed given that she tugged me back to looking away from everyone else and started doing mindfuckery to me. I let her, mostly, because I'd long come to accept that she was the less… mentally questionable one of the both us.

"Is… Is the Ralts doing what I think she is?" I heard The Cradle Robber's voice faintly in the background and Luna had to do extra work.

Then there was just indistinct whispering.

Luna did good work in rearranging my insides, she couldn't actually get rid of any of the outstanding issues at hand, but she was good and pushing them down temporarily so things could be civil was acceptable for now. She would help me work through them later, when there was time, less cradle robbing triggers, and less people in general. Luna put the finishing touches on her work, pulling up some emotions and pushing down others until I was actually looking forward to the evening.

At some point Luna must have given the all clear because I was no longer under a psionic suppression field, Mama and The Cradle Robber were sitting at the table, and Gardemom and Ashely were bringing out dinner. I chose to ignore the tense, if we're being charitable with adjectives, atmosphere and turned towards The Cra- a feeling of things being rearranged- my father with a smile on my face. It must have been a very good smile because he had a strong reaction to it.

Poor Luna was working so hard. I should get her something nice. She tried very hard, and I tried very hard, but in the end there was only one way things could go until I had an explanation.

"How?" The bleedthrough of meaning made sure nothing more need be said to get my point across.

A complex pattern of emotions rippled through everyone, understanding, relief, concern, gratitude, affection, amusement- lots of more concern and a strong desire to start talking.

"It's a bit of an embarrassing story honey, are you sure you want to- Okay then, so after beating Samuel here at the Lily of the Valley conference finals nine years ago all of the trainers who were still hanging around and old enough threw the customary post-conference bash."

She looked really embarrassed now, and really didn't want to continue, but she soldiered on.

"Technically I wasn't old enough to be included in it, but I mean, I was the Conference champion and had already thrown down my challenge to the Elite Four and the Champion during my victory speech. Of course no one said anything when I walked in. Samuel was drunk already, because apparently he was always a big fan of the victory parties and wanted to enjoy every second of it."

Gardemom and Ashely finished bringing out dishes and took their seats at the table, and Mama got even more embarrassed, a blush creeping up her neck to her cheeks.

"And Samuel, he- he was really quite attractive back then." I felt The C- my father's indignation at the qualifier of back then. "And he was such a masterful trainer and already pretty famous in the Championship circuit, so- so we started drinking and talking about the fight and I kept getting him more drinks and he kept getting me more drinks, and, uh, well." She descended into an embarrassed puddle of embarrassment that threatened to set fire to the table with the strength of her blush.

The- My father was more amused than embarrassed, mostly at how flustered Mama was getting, but I was beginning to get the picture of what happened. It actually was pretty funny. I felt Luna sigh in relief against me at not having to try as hard to hold my mind and instabilities in place.

"And well, the morning after was, well, and since it'd already happened once and we're pretty convincing, things happened more, kept happening really, until after we smoked the Elite Four and stomped the Champion, then he ran out of excuses to not go back home and take care of his own affairs and then I found out I was pregnant and stepped down as Champion to raise you, uh, yeah. Lost touch, told him about you a few years down the line when I realized I-"

"Ahem." Ashely didn't actually cough to interrupt Mama, she literally said the word.

"When Ashely realized I had forgotten to tell him and told me I probably should get on that, since you know, he's your dad."

I see now where I got so many of my traits from.

"So yes, uh, that's the story."

I had to admit, I really couldn't blame T- my father at all on this one, or anyone really. Just irresponsible drinking, my favorite kind in my past life. Or was it that the blame lay on both of them? Didn't really matter, I guess. The victimless crimes that followed, plural intended given that she was pretty clear the affair didn't stop at the one time and she was the initiator, were a bit harder to get past, but I knew just how convincing Mama and Gardemom could be. There's only so much willpower in a person, and the two of them were prime willpower demolishers.

"Um, so yes, meet your daughter."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Azula. You're as bright as your mothers described." Unsaid went the "And utterly terrifying."

"It's a-" I froze.

Wait.

What?

What the fuck?

Azula?

…

But I was Red. I knew it in my very soul in a way that was utterly undeniable. Luna knew it, could tell it wasn't just me imagining things and having delusions of grandeur. There was a big fuckoff sign written into the very fabric of my being that said so. Gardemom could see it too, though she hadn't ever gone close enough to see what it was, only that something was there.

"I- What?"

Red wasn't my name? Luna was with me on the what the fuck train on this one.

Had we… Just never noticed? Ignored less direct uses and substituted Red in automatically whenever we heard my name? Had all the mind fuckery done something somehow? Could it possibly be that my mothers had never actually called me by my proper name and just gone with pet names all of my life?

"Honies…?" Mama's voice was next to us. She sounded worried. "Is something wrong?"

"Uh. I, uh." It would be fair to say that Luna and I were having a blue screen moment.

We felt Gardemom's mind brush carefully against ours, unsure of what she would find and what kind of response she would get, but really, there were more important things than privacy right now, not that there was usually much of it anyway, like not being called Red and having a completely different name and having fucking never noticed.

Gardemom's wariness and caution went from that to complete disbelief in an instant once she grasped the issue currently looping through our minds, and I think that for the first time in her life she was speechless. Thoughtless? No, wrong connotation. She was something.

We continued not understanding not being named Red until a shout caught my attention.

"What the hell do you mean she didn't know her own name until just now?!"

My father looked angry, I wonder why.

"What?!" That was really loud. "You mean to tell me her psychic power essentially brainwashed her into believing her name was Red?"

"I don't care if it's more complicated than that! She didn't know her own name! What the hell kind of household are you running Asami?!"

Asami?

Asami.

Huh.

Okay.

I laughed. It was even a genuine laugh and not one of the crazier kinds that were more my speed. It silenced the room. Asami. Last name better fucking not be Sato because I think I might just go on a roaring rampage of fuck this shit and devastate the wildlife. Still, I guess I was learning how to use Flamethrower, and the turn it blue. Had to study up on the science of the coloration of flames. Oh, and Thunderbolt too, blue as well. It was destiny really, no mistake had been made, not really, just a tad slow on realizing my full Legend and Destiny. I mean, a psychic Red was clearly too much, I could have wrecked the curve without phenomenal cosmic power, it was unnecessary to that legend. No obviously the psychic power was for the other legend I was meant to create in this world.

No wonder we were so good at temperature control with our psychic powers. It was destiny. We reheated the food with a brief application of will, served us some of Ashely's delicious creamy bacon pasta, two of the fried breaded chicken breasts (or whatever the pokemon equivalent it was that had been used), mashed potatoes, a bunch of asparagus spears, and finished with some lemonade. All without moving from my seat or raising my arms from the table. Then Luna and I both proceeded to eat delicious food without using anything but our minds and mouths. I could See the future in light of all of this already, and it was glorious.

Yes, all was right with the world.

Garde turned most of her attention away from her daughters when she felt them finally fall fully asleep. She turned her power to making sure they stayed asleep for the night, before giving the rest of the people at the table the all clear.

"Garde will make sure they stay asleep."

"More abuse of psychic abilities," said Samuel Oak, tone belligerent. "It's not like that's proven to be a terrible idea already."

"Fuck you Oak, we all know that it's been fully disproved. I keep up on the latest discoveries and studies in Psionic research. For obvious reasons."

"Not when we're talking about the kinds of things I saw happen in front of me just a few hours ago!"

"All of it was only when done badly. When performed by highly skilled and experienced psychics, willingly, and well documented, it was proven to be completely safe."

"I'm not sure anyone here qualifies for any of that anymore!"

A feeling of indignation swept through the room, matched in the faces of the two human women.

"You know Garde was fully qualified by the time we became Champions, and she's kept up her qualifications."

"Obviously someone at the certification office was giving preferential treatment to the youngest ever Champion and her partner, because our daughter is insane in a way that could have only happened because of psychic surgery!"

"Enough." Ashely Jenny was worried sick about her daughter, and the shouting match wasn't getting anything done. "Passing blame and shouting aspersions isn't helping anything. Our daughter is unwell in ways none of us could have ever imagined. I don't know about Asami, but I know I called her by her name when our relationship first started."

"You obviously can't have, or she would have known her name isn't Red." Samuel Oak was still well past angry and somewhere in the orbit of furious.

"I did, Oak, in fact, I'm pretty sure there's video evidence from that one time we tried force her to make friends." Ashely couldn't help the shudder that passed through her at the memory. "She always sort of froze when I did it, but I always thought it was just her not liking her name, so I switched to a pet name. It stopped happening, so I left it at that. Could it be her mind was literally freezing to cope with the identity issues?"

Garde sent out a pulse of agreement, followed by knowledge and understanding about a pair of peculiarities she'd observed in her younger daughter's being since conception, but had never taken a close look at until now.

"What?"

"Obviously, you must have somehow left it there at some point."

Denial spread through the room. Understanding of the true nature and age of the oddities. Their existence was an impossibility, and no psychic could ever hope to try and do what had, apparently, naturally occurred in their younger daughter, and to a lesser degree, their oldest.

"They were there from the moment you noticed she existed? In the womb?"

Before there was even a mind.

"I will assume your competence and ability for now, because I know you, or thought I did, remember what you're capable of, and because anything else is useless at the moment, but I will get Alakazam here to take a look."

Anger, understanding, worry, grief, self-loathing.

"Hey, none of that. You know Azula and Luna, the moment they could they closed their minds so tight not even stray thoughts leaked out. We published a paper on synergistic innate and cross mind mental defenses and the superior results the method produced based on the way they did it. Independent psychic pairs later confirmed our findings, if perhaps to a lesser degree than what those two managed. You couldn't have known something was wrong without mindraping them open or mindraping them when already extremely mentally compromised."

"That was you?" Both Samuel Oak and Ashely Jenny were a smidge surprised, doubly so after they spoke at the same time. Asami wasn't surprised, it'd been a paradigm shift breakthrough in Psionic defense for those skilled enough to manage even a part of it. It'd caused a stir in the law enforcement community when psychic criminals became even harder to crack than they'd already been. Everyone else had been interested in general because the psychics wouldn't stop very loudly raving about it.

"Yeah. I'm not a full on psychic like she is, but I have enough of it that with Garde's help I can get a taste of the world. The only reason she's managed to get in at all is because pretty much her whole world shifted under her, rearranged it in a way that she found pleasing, and kept being distracted enough for Garde to keep her defenses down."

"Back on topic," Ashely said.

"Err, yes. Well, after everything that happened they were surprised enough, and Azula satisfied enough with, well, everything, that they let their guard down. I was piggybacking off Garde, and we only got a glimpse, but guys, it's big. If you want to get confirmation from your Alakazam you better do it now while their defenses are still down, otherwise you're not going to get anything out of them"

"Damnit. It's too late to manage that. Transfer services are down across regions this late." Oak seemed to deflate on himself, before rallying. "Fine. What did you see?"

A brief exchange between Asami and Garde had the former taking the lead. "I don't know how, but there's something in her that was there from the very start that, well, put plainly, says "Red". A central part of her being is some sort of psychic structure or organ that says so." She shook her head in amazement. "It's unlike anything we've ever seen or heard about. If she hadn't been psychic it would have driven her to being a person known as Red, regardless of anything else. Most likely she'd have taken it on as a nickname. A lot of her personality seems to have developed from it and the other thing as the cores."

"You saw her this morning, I know you saw what she's like when she's fighting. It comes from there, apparently. We have for as long as Garde can keep them asleep to get to the bottom of this, after that the only thing we can do is ask them to let us see inside of them, and I don't know how that would go."

"Why?"

"Because, as you so tactfully put it, our daughter is insane. I'd normally disagree on principle, but it's hard to do when she's a paranoid psychic with issues of megalomania, self identity, and delusions of grandeur, except of course, that I'm not sure they're delusions when she and Luna are one of the strongest one on one battlers in the damned region already, and there's zero indication of her slowing down anytime soon. Did I mention paranoid? Luna would maybe let us, because she has less issues, but Azula? I can't picture a situation in which she'd let us in her mind outside of a medical emergency."

"But why does she have so many issues then? She's eight and unless you've somehow forgotten to mention a series of traumatic events, identity issues aside, she should be more stable than this."

The uncomfortable grimace from Asami and Ashely, as well as the feelings of discomfort radiating from Garde, did not give Samuel Oak hope that his day would get better.

"For some time now we've had this feeling that she knows more than she should, you know, beyond what should be possible with a gift as strong as hers. She was too… much. Of everything. By the time she was five she was behaving like a miniature adult with occasional bouts of childlike behavior thrown in."

Ashely took over, "About three years ago she went out early in the morning and forgot to leave a note. Asami was beside herself because she disappeared for hours without a trace, called the police, it's actually how we met. We're actually not sure that she didn't do it the way she did on purpose to get us to meet."

She shook her head. "That doesn't really matter in the end, what matters is that she went to the local school and essentially mind controlled her way through people there into testing out of school, bypassing every rule and regulation in place to get her way, and leaving behind some teachers with lasting psychic directives with regards to the way they taught their classes, all of this without realizing she'd done it."

Asami took over at this point, "That's when we started seriously training them. No, shut up," she bit out when Oak started to protest, "We know she's not a pokemon Samuel, but what would you have us do? Her gift was out of control and the only people safe from it at the time were Garde and I."

She took a deep breath. "So we started training her from there, as well as restricting her to the house unless Garde could be there to keep her from doing things without realizing it. I'm honestly surprised it only took a year to get her to fully seize control of her power, but she's always been good at impressing us. That's when they fully closed their minds. We kept an eye on her for a few months just in case she slipped up, but she never did. She took very well to Ashely too which was good. We didn't even have to make an effort to keep her from influencing her."

"Anyhow, I contacted the school and she passed the tests they gave her fairly as far as we could tell, so I let that stand since she was kind of a danger to others at the time, and well, perfect scores on everything but History? The papers she gave me were a clue, I suppose. Pokemon Trainer Red was filed under the name, everything else was official. Didn't give it a second thought."

"Yes, no point in wasting her time if she could do that at age five. Can't even blame you about not making a bigger deal about the name at the time, since she was five. That kind of thing is to be expected." Oak said.

"I digress though. We didn't know what to make of it, but the way she handled herself and understood things and the purpose behind them was too smooth. Too easy. The way she was very familiar with some things and completely clueless about others, it was puzzling. We've bounced theories pretty much since we noticed. Garde and Ashley had the right of it, it seems. A past life she nearly fully remembers."

Ashley was startled at that. "Well, fuck. What do we know?"

"It's hard to decipher, the memories don't seem to translate well, though from how integrated they are to the rest of her, and how so much of her personality developed from it, obviously she's managed nearly full access to them over time. No idea for how long. What little Garde can make sense of them, it was fairly normal life at first, followed by living in a pretty nasty situation, then plagued by worsening mental issues, pre existing as well as caused by her living conditions, that went untreated for too long. There's more, but it seems fairly disconnected from her and even more indistinct than the rest."

"Shit."

"How did she die?" Ashely's voice trembled as she asked the question.

"She doesn't remember, thank fuck." The relief in Asami's voice was as palpable as the actual feelings of relief coming from Garde.

"Well, fuck." Samuel Oak could not say this complete fucking clusterfuck was anyone's fault but circumstance. If she'd been less powerful a psychic or less skilled the problems could have been addressed before they'd gotten as bad as they had, and wasn't that a quality problem to be complaining about? Oh no, my daughter is an extremely powerful psychic, woe is me. "What do we do?"

"The only people I trust her with are all in this room."

"Agreed. She's too much of a target. Daughter of two Champions and powerful in her own right. So many people would love to get their hands on her. I'll begin work on psychology degrees, if people ask I'm doing comparative analysis on human and pokemon psychology. It'll cut into what little free time I have but this is too important. I'll take time away from my other projects if necessary. I suggest doing the same, that way we'll have as many hands on deck as we possibly can."

"You'll be of limited help so far away. Perhaps a move?"

"I have ample space in my facilities in Pallet, and my laboratories are state of the art, we could use them if we ever needed to conduct tests on her, or if the worst case scenario were to happen, treat her. I hope we never have to, but the option will be open that way."

"I think that may be for the best," Ashely said.

"We'll coach it as a chance to get to know you better."

"Then it's decided, we'll begin preparations as soon as possible."

I awoke completely refreshed after last night's debacle. All the bullshit from the future, literally fuckmothering Samuel Oak, an identity crisis, none of it mattered, because I was going to learn to shoot blue fire and lightning. I couldn't help giggling. The irony that I, Red, of all people was going to be flinging around blue fire and lightning, was really quite pleasing.

It'd take effort, mostly to get the color right, but I was sure a little application of Science! knowhow to Phenomenal Cosmic Power could easily get me to where I wanted to go. So, library trip. Chemistry and… I really had no fucking clue what I'd need to study to learn how to throw around lighting beyond somewhere around the vast field that was physics. I mean, chemistry is also huge, but I had more or less an idea of where to look. After all, burning stuff and how things burned was an important part of the field.

After a delicious breakfast of reheated leftovers, I left a note telling my still sleeping mothers we were going to the library and we'd be back for lunch. A bit of a walk later I found out something of a snag to my plans. Libraries don't open at eight in the morning. Fuck. Fuck it, we'll do it live. I half remember something about how things were done in the show and I had psychic powers, I'm sure I could manage. Luna was already casting about for suitable places where we wouldn't have to worry too much about stray fires. Perhaps the clearing Mama preferred for the more all out battles? And besides, not like there wasn't enough snow everywhere to smother a fire if we really needed to.

I picked Luna up, and with the clearing firmly in mind twisted the fabric of reality into us being there and not here. Luna insisted that's not how Teleport worked, but it was the only way I'd ever managed the technique. It wasn't quite as smooth as the real thing, and I couldn't play Teleport spam like she could, but it worked well enough, even if the colors were interestingly indescribable and I was pretty sure we didn't exist for an instant when I did it.

We'd seen fire pokemon use fire moves, but for most of them there was at least some sort of biological aspect to it either initiate it or enhance it. Still, the way they manipulated the energy of some of the more powerful moves was a good way to start puzzling out how to do pokemon magic instead of actually brute forcing the moves through science. The hardest part was likely going to be to tint the fire blue after I figured out how to make it. Figuring out lightning was going to be much harder though, they did whatever they did too quickly to really grasp in the instant we had to sense it.

So I grasped at my power, bringing it to the surface. I formed a ball of energy in front of me, probably a good starting point for other moves. Twisting the energy into something that felt more like what fire moves felt like was difficult. It fought me every step of the way, like trying to fit a round peg through square hole. Still, like almost any problem it could be easily solved by applying more force, so I devoted more of my mind to it. It was still not working, so I tried harder. And harder. I felt it the moment the ball turned into fire, fucking somehow. I also felt when my mind caught up with me about how much it didn't appreciate how hard I tried.

I woke up to Luna stroking my hair and a truly epic migraine. Also a lot of annoyance and worry from her, but well, wasn't the first time, probably wouldn't be the last. She sent me the information on everything that'd happened from her perspective, and saw through her memory as the ball of energy turned into a ball of fire, sensed how it was that the energy shifted. It would help for the next attempt. Next week. When I didn't feel like my brain was ready to pour out of my ears.

I sat up, and the world spun. Right. Home time, food, and then sleep.

"Luna."

"Ralts."

And we were home,

We arrived to something.

I wasn't sure what.

Our parents were all at the kitchen table, talking, all very serious like, and stopped the moment we entered the kitchen. They all turned to us, and I couldn't help the feeling that something momentous was about to happen. Again.

"Azula-"

I couldn't help the twitch. Intellectually I knew that was my name. Intellectually I knew that I'd probably heard it before more than once and just… blocked it, I guess. But I couldn't not hear it any longer, not after last night. Whatever had been causing that effect had malfunctioned long enough to break completely, and yet I couldn't help the clash of identity that it brought up when Mama called me it. It felt like my mind was fighting itself. I was Red. I was also Azula. They weren't mutually exclusive, the original Red likely had taken on the name as a nickname, but I'd only ever known myself as Red in this life. Fucking hell. At least I already had experience reconciling with a second identity.

Well, third, in this case, but I'm sure it translated well enough.

Probably didn't help I was essentially being called blue whenever she did it. I mean, I knew she wasn't, because as far as I knew Spanish didn't exist in the pokeworld, but I'd been fluent in my past life, probably still was, and I knew that the name had been made up specifically to suit the character's blue firebending abilities. I was Red, not Blue damnit. I was also Azula. Ugh.

I stumbled, but recovered and took my usual seat at the table, Luna hopping up onto my lap. Judging by the following uncomfortable silence and concerned grimaces in everyone's faces, my little mental short circuit had been pretty obvious. Lovely. Wonder if anyone was going to address that particular neon orange elephant.

"Azula-" Twitch. "We were discussing something pretty important. We all want you to be able to get to know your father, but his work keeps him very busy in Kanto, so we thought that maybe we could move there to be closer, since there's nothing really tying us down here in Sinnoh."

Oh. I'd been wondering how Luna and I would get to Kanto from here to do the whole wreck the League thing. I'd been thinking I was going to have to stow away on a ship or something. Huh. This was really quite convenient. It would give me two or so years to get used to the region before setting out on my trainer journey, allow me full access to my father's ranch and laboratories, and of course, guarantee me a pokedex. It'd also let me find out what pokeworld I was in. Let's just hope it's not even worse of a mishmash than my existence already made it.

I would miss Snowpoint deeply, it was a true winter wonderland, but destiny and power awaited. I could always come back when I became The Champion. As in, when I wrecked all the region's Leagues. Yes, that sounded appealing. I could even vacation here when I was in between regions.

"Will you sell the house?"

My question was not the reaction they were expecting. I knew this because they went from anxious and worried to completely surprised. They must have been expecting me to take it badly and not want to leave. My initial reaction to my father probably didn't help and they probably thought I wanted nothing to do with him.

"No Azula-" Twitch. She had to be doing it on purpose. "I hadn't intended to. I'll be hiring a service to take care of it for us so we can come back to it later if we want to."

"Good. Mom?" I didn't ask a full question, simply let meaning leach out with the question I directed at Ashley. It was high time. The mode of address caught her off guard, but I swear I got a sunburn from the radiant smile she gave me.

"I'll file for full medical retirement and take over as chief of security at Samuel's since he tells me he's been having issues handling it on his own."

"Good. When do we move then?"

"We have to take care of some things before we can, but in a couple of months at most."

"Good. Now, let's eat please. I'm starving.

The move to Kanto was a simple affair. Mama packed up some things, stored some others, and closed down the house. For all that she assured me that she was perfectly fine with moving to a different region, I knew a part of of her was terribly sad about leaving the beautiful snowy land of Sinnoh. I felt the same, but the League needed its new Champion. That and they were all oddly insistent on the move, so I wasn't going to say anything about it.

Mom, as was now Ashely's permanent name, got everything arranged with the Snowpoint City PD pretty quickly and left a broken hearted quartermaster about how there would no longer be a surplus of well trained standard issue pokemon for the force. I am become budget wrecker, destroyer of police financial stability. Still, with Ashely in charge, I had a feeling any attempt by Team Rocket to assault the Oak Compound, or really anywhere in Pallet, would go… badly.

Regardless, we got to Kanto with alacrity, and I found my greatest joy in life: Messing with Gary Oak. The little shit was so easy to rile up. Upstaging him was remarkably easy, and with Luna by my side, something that on its own riled him up even more because he didn't have a partner, it was hard to keep from going too far. Fine line from a little fucking around and bullying, wouldn't want to cross it. It actually seemed to do him good to be honest, within weeks he wasn't as unbearably arrogant, and he started hitting the books pretty damned hard to surpass me.

We were somehow a good influence, what the fuck. Shame it was all for nothing.

Regardless, my hopes that this universe wasn't a nasty hodgepodge of mix and matched bullshit were for naught, because Ash existed, and Gary upon witnessing people call me Red, never in front of my parents and usually more like Little Red, had decided to take upon the name of Blue, because I was his ultimate rival. Or something. Fucking universe, ugh. No, seriously, it was a fucking pain, because it left open so many fucking different ways for things to go to hell, and I don't know about the rest of the world, but I kinda liked my life and my mothers, even my cradle robbing father. And yes, Oak and Dehlia were boning, to the complete surprise of fucking no one. Good fucking grief but my family was, uh, interesting.

Ash I left alone, mostly in the hopes that my non-interference would let him develop as he needed to be the hero of the world I didn't want to be. As things stood I had a Feeling I was going to have to deal with the fucking Rockets eventually, because Ash never really did, and holy shit these guys were offensive on a level I hadn't thought possible. I had zero illusions that I wouldn't draw their attention, all that was left was to see how hard they wanted me and Luna, because I intended to make them pay in blood for anything they tried. Also important were my nuclear deterrent parents, so things were iffy on that front. Hm. Rocket Boss Red? Rocket Boss Azula? I'd have to think on that one.

I just hoped that if things turned polyamorous on this thing it happened after I left on my journey. I didn't want to be around to sense an orgy between my mothers, father, and Ash's mother. This was without even taking into account the possibility that Dehlia's Mr. Mime could be a factor in things. Oh my fucking god. Arceus? This swearing in vain upon a deity thing was annoying when multiversal things had to be taken into account. I was half tempted to start swearing to Inari Okami, the deity my past life had preferred. Maybe I could start a new religion? That cult leader thing always seemed like great fun, lots of profits, minions, really seemed like a great Idea.

"Father, could I ask something of you?"

Samuel Oak was more than happy for have an extremely powerful psychic to study, and I was more than willing to be bribed into letting myself be studied. I could feel him wince all the way from the console from which he was controlling the machine currently scanning my brain. I was not cheap to bribe, and he was under no illusions that I would let him continue studying me if he didn't acquiesce to my whims

"I can't promise anything, but I can try."

"I know I already have a starter, but it is tradition to receive a pokemon when one starts their journey." Oh, such delicious instant regret. He knew he had to comply and he was probably fearing I was about to ask for something ridiculous like a Bagon or a Larvitar. In a way, I was, thought I felt like my request was more… reasonable. "I have heard that in Alola there are Vulpix that are Ice types, a subspecies of the wider line. Perhaps, if it's not too much trouble, you could obtain one such specimen for me."

I was so mean, Luna too, enjoying my father's suffering.

"I… yes, of course. Acquiring such a pokemon should be doable."

"Good. Thank you father, Vulpix and Ninetales are such beautiful creatures, with their ice cousins particularly so. Or so I've heard. I would love to have one such pokemon in my team, a female if possible."

I had a feeling my father knew I was squeezing him for all he was worth, but it was hard to resist not doing so, and really, I had no reason not to. He was getting very valuable data the he'd likely use to invent some crazy way to counter psychic powers in rogue psions, least I could do for being a traitor to my kind and type is get all the bribery I could out of it. I had to make sure I developed something outside pure psychic powers though, or things rooted in the usage of, just in case that actually happened.

Could never be too careful. My abilities with fire were steadily growing and I was pretty sure I wouldn't need my psychic powers to make use of them soon. Now, where could I learn Northern Style Kung Fu so I could Azula properly? Turns out blue fire is as easy as being awesome like me, I guess. Once I managed to start flinging around fire reliably, it started slowly tinting bluer and bluer on it's own the more practice I got.

"Alright Azula, you can get up now."

The machine I was in was some sort of super advanced MRI machine. Then again it could just be a simple MRI machine and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Oh well. I sat up, my hair dragging over the edge of the machine's bed. I was going for knee length, and it was already mid thigh. My glorious hair would soon achieve its final form. Best part was, the upkeep was significantly reduced thanks to liberal applications of phenomenal cosmic power.

Our mothers continued to train us, and our powers continued to grow day by day as the time I could finally take the Special Exemption Early Start Trainer License exams drew closer. Technically I would become a trainer at age nine, but there were some rules being bent and bribery being exploited. Still, I was close enough to the cutoff that I wasn't losing any sleep over it and I'd be damned Gary got ahead of me a single day.

Soon we would pass the test and I would start my conquest.

"I've managed to find the Vulpix you asked for Azula." Small twitch. "If you pass your test she'll be registered to you and Luna, and you'll officially be trainers."

"Now listen carefully 'Zula," father was very serious all of a sudden, "I… worry that with all of the things happening right now, and this Team Rocket thing gaining strength, you'll be endangered by having us as your parents. You'd be seen as a target to be used to gain leverage over us, if not a target to be exploited in your own right given your abilities."

A constant fear of mine, and one of the reasons Luna and I trained as hard as we did. If the Rockets, or anyone, ever managed to overpower me, I would take them down with me in a blaze of gory. Kill as many of them as I could, incinerate their very souls in a conflagration that would remind the world why they should never mess with psychics.

"So I'm going to do something with regards to your and Gary's trainer ids. All data relating to you and him will be classified at the highest level, with only the Elite Four and their direct deputies being capable of accessing it. It'll keep you from being tracked, and even for those with enough access they'll still have trouble finding you specifically. Of the two of you, you're the one I worry about the least. You're strong, smart, and sensible, with a good head on you. Use… You'll be Pokemon Trainer Red, use the name. I know we've tried hard to separate you from it, but it's time to face reality. You're as much Red as you're Azula. At least this way the second identity will be one you're used to."

"Please be careful."

"I will."

I had, as expected wrecked the tests. So had Gary, who had realized he was older than me and attempted to use that to annoy me. He was bitterly disappointed by my complete lack of care and then instantly regretted it because I was still his aunt, vindictive, and had phenomenal cosmic power which I could show off with Luna. Ash also passed, somehow, apparently. Originally things had gone very differently the night before the new Pallet trainers went to get their pokemon, but in this world what happened was that there was a very large celebratory family dinner.

There might have been alcohol. Apparently my parents and Dehlia were still party beasts and barely needed an excuse. The jokes being tossed around by the drunk adults were eye racy as fuck, and while they were flying right over Ash and Gary's head, Luna and I got them no problem. I had a feeling that, uh, things might happen that I didn't want to know about after the party wound down, regardless of whatever way such things ended up being arranged.

When it started looking like our mothers might not bother retiring from the dinner table before they got started we made a strategic retreat and brough Ash and Gary with us. I might have taken all of the water with me. They all deserved a good hangover. Gary, Luna, and I had our own rooms in the compound, but we had to get Ash to one of the guest rooms. I wonder if he'd somehow still get a Pikachu. Harder to oversleep and be late when you overslept at the place you were supposed to go to.

Sleep came to us easily, and we drifted off to each other's breathing.

When we awoke it was early, like we always did. I'd assumed that I would have to wake up my father to get the whole thing started on time, but apparently the man was diligent enough that even the raging hangover I could sense from him couldn't keep him from doing his job. Good of him, I was impressed.

"Azula." He was doing his job, but he was still in the classic hungover pose cradling is head, and the he sounded pretty miserable. "I'm so proud of you."

I could feel the emotion in his voice, the fierce pride of a father for his daughter accomplishing something great. I'm not going to lie I was a little choked up. It's hard to be stoic in the face of such raw honesty. "Your mothers should be here any minute and we can start the ceremony."

He pulled a Premier Ball from a drawer in his desk and set it before him. We were excited, anticipation building higher and higher. Finally, the time to go out and conquer was upon us, and the Vulpix in that ball would be the first step in our path.

Our mothers entered the room in similar states of hangover, but they were so proud of us. Scared, excited, sad, it was such a powerful cocktail of emotions. There were hugs and tears and everything, but the show had to go on.

"Azula Sato" Fucking twitch. I'd done my best to not learn my last name, because I really didn't want to know, but fuck me I guess. Fucking outside context references. I was pretty sure there was a legendary or mythical pokemon fucking with my life, had to be, for so much bullshit to pile on. One day I was going to find out who or what and kick their fucking ass, then catch them for being needlessly annoying smartasses. "You've passed all the requisite tests with outstanding scores. I present you with this pokedex, it's capable of acting as your Trainer ID, and well, as extorted, six more Premier Balls."

"Thank you father." Nope, no smugness about that. Not my fault the other two didn't know how or couldn't work him to get extra shinies out of him. I hugged him, then my mothers, and walked out to start a legend.

We were getting to know our new A-Vulpix as we walked towards Viridian City. I knew that if I hanged around there was a chance of seeing a Ho-Oh, but well, if I were anyone one else, and didn't know exactly where to go to meet a bunch of other legendaries, I may have actually cared enough to stay and try to watch. I wasn't. So I only stopped long enough to let Vulpix have a few battles here and there against wild pokemon. We were still trying to think what to call her, but being honest we were coming up short.

She was a lovely pokemon though. Extremely affectionate, very sweet. We were in love. She was a good battler too, with good instincts, and we were already working hard to forge a psychic bond with her to make battling more efficient. We bumped into a trainer when we got to the outskirts of the City, and I let Vulpix have some fun with the horribly type matched battle against a Caterpie and a Pidgey. Can you say Powder Snow? At least she didn't know some of the more powerful Ice type moves yet, or it would have been even nastier.

I had zero fucking plans to stay in Viridian a second longer than I absolutely needed. Fucking Rocket HQ was right here, and I didn't know what the timeline was for the idiot Rocket Trio to hit the Pokemon Center. I had no desire to be anywhere near that. So I passed by a store, bought a few potions and pokeballs, thank you for the free Premier Ball with my purchase of ten regular balls, Ms Store Clerk, antidotes, and went straight through to Viridian Forest. I'll be back for you in a few months Giovanni, don't expect there to be a Gym left standing afterwards.

Now the big question was, did I help out the kids and make sure the forest was safer for them or just pass by? That beedrill hive from the anime was a fucking danger, but if I tried to, uh, remove it, I'd probably start a forest fire. Decisions, decisions. In the end, I couldn't be sure my mere existence wasn't enough to change things so that my annoying nephew and stepbrother in all but name ended up as meter tall waspbee pincushions. I wasn't a fucking hero, but this was too dangerous and really, how could pass up the chance to indulge in some pyromania.

I opened my senses to their fullest, Luna helping to sort out the enormous influx of information so I didn't get a horrible migraine instantaneously, and cast about for an enormous hive. It didn't take long. I was halfway there when I was beset by the most ridiculously dressed dork yet. I mean, I know I'm not really in a position to cast stones about outfits, but mine was at least cool, and when I grew up, fucking hot. The dork in samurai getup was just no. I was tempted to shatter the actual real sword because the dude couldn't be responsible enough to have it if he was jumping out at people with it but I figured if he was a danger he'd have been arrested already.

"I am Samurai, and every year I battle the new trainers from Pallet. You're the fastest one so far Little Red!" He said this while pointing his sword at me.

"Put that thing away before I break it and shove the pieces up your ass so hard they come out your mouth." What can I say, I still didn't like having a sword pointed at me. "Now put up or fuck off."

Judging by the way his face went white I can pull off intimidating pretty well. Good. He looked like he was having second thoughts. Not as good, but oh well.

"W-Well, fine, go Pinsir, assume battle mode!" Dork.

Oh, I knew the perfect name for Vulpix.

"Yue?"

She considered it for a second before nodding and stepping forward.

"A white Vulpix? I've never heard of anything like that!"

"That's fine. Powder Snow." And my little fluffy ball of ice and fairy bullshit blew out a stream of snow at the Pinsir.

"But Vulpix are fire types!"

"Keep it up. Maybe we'll get a Pinsir snowpokemon."

Samurai was so blown away by the ice Vulpix we did actually end up with a frozen Pinsir statue. Seriously? No wonder this kid loses to the Pallet trainers every year.

"Return Pinsir! Go Caterpie, Tackle!"

Yue dodged the tackle, without having to be told, which was great because it meant she was learning.

"Tackle back." I mean, why not, the super ultra minor leagues were about the only place Yue would ever get to actually use Tackle. She hit the green worm full body and sent it rolling for a couple meters. It got back up and started glowing. A mental nudge kept her from continuing to attack while the Caterpie was evolving, and before long a Metapod stood in its place.

"Aha! Now that my Caterpie has evolved into Metapod it shall beat your ice Vulpix!"

I couldn't help it. I really couldn't.

"Uhuh. Powder snow. Make me another statue please, Yue."

The Metapod froze even faster than the Pinsir, since it wasn't moving at all.

"But how?!" Seriously? "Come back Metapod! You've defeated me with such ease Little Red, you must be a truly talented trainer!" Well, he wasn't wrong. I was hella amazing.

"Thanks. When a Pallet trainer called Gary or Blue passes by, tell him his aunt said hi. From Pewter." The fine art of Oak Baiting, truly a noble calling.

I recalled Yue, left Samurai, and kept going towards where I felt the Beedrill hive. Couldn't have her out in case I needed to make an emergency escape. Night was falling, so the chances of catching the whole swarm sleeping on the fuckhuge tree ahead were pretty good. Aces. I closed my eyes in concentration. Not like I needed my eyes to aim anyway. Or aim at all really, given the size of the hive. It was a huge shame about the tree. It hurt to burn something that big and old, but family was more important. Also, fire.

I gathered as much power as I could, until it was leaking from my metaphorical psychic grip, I suspected my eyes were glowing beneath my lids, and sparks jumping from the tiniest movements. Right then. Deep breath in, arms thrust forwards, palms roughly projecting the cone I wanted, exhale, and then the world was blue fire. I aimed for the top of the tree, letting the fire wash over it for a few seconds, had to make sure the Beedrill sleeping there burned first, then swept the fire down the trunk, cooking the Kakuna attached to it. I didn't let up until I couldn't feel a single one of them left, and then the fire that was left lost its azure hue without my power feeding into it.

I barely caught myself on the way down. Managing to fall to hands and knees, breath ragged and barely keeping from passing out. Luna did her best, channeling as much of her own energy through our bond towards me. After a few minutes I managed stand back up. That had been the biggest act of power I'd ever attempted, and I couldn't wait for the next opportunity. Such a rush, even if the aftermath was unpleasant. A quick check of my poketch showed Pewter City to my north, with the main road leading to it a little to my west. Excellent. We could make a little more progress before sleeping.

I found a nice clearing a couple hours later and after quick check with my powers, felt no nearby pokemon. I let Yue out of her ball, and curled up to sleep in my sleeping bag cuddling the both of them.

I awoke achy. I missed my delicious bed. We could teleport back and forth from my furthest progress to home, but that wasn't how you did the pokemon journey thing. It felt utterly wrong to even consider. Yue was frolicking around the clearing and Luna was being lazy and refusing to get up. That was fine. I picked her up in my arms and deposited her inside my zipped up jacket, rolled my thin sleeping bag and put it in my messenger bag. Now, food. Judging by the Yue's stained muzzle, she'd eaten something already, but I offered her some travel food anyway. She refused, so I munched on my nutrient bar while walking towards Pewter. Eventually Luna woke up and partook of noms as well, but declined on walking, the lazy bitch.

I was on my way out of the Viridian Forest, going as fast as I could manage without running, when I spotted what would likely be the greatest ever reward to likely come out of my Kanto trip outside of Luna achieving Gardevoir status. It was an innocuous weed for anyone who didn't know what it was, with green leaves in a fan pattern extending longer towards the middle with a rippled texture, flowers covered in a sheen of pearly white that upon closer inspection turned out to be thousands upon thousands of white small hairs.

Holy fuck, if only I was ten or so years older. I needed a plant pokemon with either plant tending abilities or the ability to absorb the properties of other plants. And seeds, lots of seeds. Well, that and testing. Couldn't be sure that just because it looked exactly like pot that it was pot or worse actually pot that had somehow developed toxic properties due to random chance. If memory served, I needed mammals to test the plant. Right, Rattata capturing time.

Two rats later and a messenger bag hopefully full of a deliciously smelling not toxic pot plant I was back on my way to the Pewter Pokemon Center. Now if only I knew how to dry and cure the plant. Mother was a successful pokemon trainer in her day, maybe she could put me in contact with some plant gym leaders or trainers who may know something. Oh, maybe Brock would know, the guy was a Badass Jack of All Trades, Master of Quite a Few.

The stay at the Pokemon Center was short, consisting only of having Luna, Yue, and the rats checked out and a night to sleep through in an actual bed. Tomorrow I would get my first badge and I could go on to Cerulean City and smash their face in as well. I was in some weird mishmash of the anime and games so there was a chance I'd encounter a Charmander and a bunch of Squirtles and I did need to expand my team. Decisions.

A short walk later and I found myself facing Brock across a rocky battling field. I was actually impressed by how not fake the field looked, even the lighting was perfect and made it look like we were actually standing on a craggy mountainous field and not the inside of a building. Best part however were Brock's feelings. I half remembered him being rather contemptuous of Ash when they faced off, something about not being prepared enough or some such. I could feel his contempt without even trying, and I suppose that were I anyone else he had some grounds for it since I was a rookie trainer who couldn't have spent a second more than the bare minimum getting to his Gym from Pallet given how quickly I'd made it here and the lack of Pokemon other than Luna and Yue.

He couldn't know I was perhaps the strongest human psychic on the planet, with perhaps exactly one peer in that regard in the form of Sabrina, and that Luna was older than me, if only by months. From what I'd read most starters were, while not newborns, very young as a way of ensuring they'd bond with their trainers and while bred for fastest maximum growth it would take a few weeks for an experienced trainer to get them up to standards for even the lowest tier team of a Gym, much less the average new trainer.

"Gym Leader Brock, I challenge you for the Boulder Badge."

"You broke the record for getting here from Pallet by over a week." He said, cold, angry even. I opened my senses a bit, trying to feel the nuances behind the feelings and saw dozens upon dozens of new unprepared trainers come up to him, full of arrogance or naivete thinking they could take on a Gym Leader right out of the starting line. The adequate response should have been to be humble, to not antagonize him, but I was arrogant, I was not some no name trainer kid. No, in the end I wouldn't be humble, couldn't be humble, and I would crush him just as easily as I had all the trainers on the way up to here.

"It was hardly difficult getting here, it's practically a straight line from Pallet. An idiot could have gotten here almost as quickly as I did." His anger exploded from a light simmering thing to a burning thing that was seriously scary. He loved pokemon, his dream of being a breeder was testament to that, to have to hurt so many pokemon from inexperienced trainers burned him, and to see me be so blase about things, to think that I could walk up to him without spending time to train up for the fight, it made him furious.

"It wasn't a compliment. Those other trainers who took their time and spent it training with their pokemon, preparing for the first difficult battle they'd face in their career. You instead came here directly, with a new pokemon and zero experience in battling. I'll give you a chance to back down and take the time to properly prepare for this battle. Otherwise, place your trainer ID into the pedestal rising to your right and be ready to learn the cost of your arrogance."

I slid my pokedex into the slot, my name and information flashed across a screen next to the slot before a "Authenticated" superimposed itself over it. A screen flashed to life behind Brock and myself, our pictures facing off. There was no backing down, we would fight and I would win, there was no other option.

"The battle for the Boulder Badge between Gym Leader Brock and Pokemon Trainer Red begins now. Ready your pokemon, no substitutions allowed, two pokemon per participant maximum." Said a computerized female voice. I swear I could hear the thematic battle theme start up in the background.

"Luna."

"Go Onix."

Luna walked up to the field and Onix materialized on Brock's side.

"Commence battling." Said the computer again.

"Onix, Iron Tail."

I was surprised, if only briefly, at Brock's aggressiveness and at the horrifyingly effective choice of attack to use against Luna. It was, nevertheless, laughably slow and easy to evade. I didn't even have to tell Luna to Teleport away from Onix, and I hadn't even given the order to blast back when a Psychic went flying down range at blinding speeds. Half strength, it seemed. Luna wasn't being serious. Onix was not so easily capable of dodging as Luna, both by virtue of not being able to Teleport and by being a fuck huge rock snake the size of some houses. It hit like a wrecking ball and laid out Onix over the raised section to the back of the arena, the head almost hitting the back wall behind and to Brock's right. The attempt to get back up was admirable, but it collapsed back down to the floor before it could finish lifting its body back up.

Well, good thing it was only half strength. I didn't want to make Brock's life any harder than it already was by wrecking his Gym via rock snake through the structure.

"Onix is unable to battle. Please send out your next pokemon."

He was rattled, to see his strongest pokemon so easily defeated, swatted down like a fly, it must have been unprecedented, or at least when done so by a new trainer and an unevolved starter. I could feel victory within my grasp. I mean, not that it had even been in doubt, but still. He recalled Onix and palmed a pokeball containing what I assumed to be his Geodude.

"Go Geodude! Rock throw!"

A flare of psychic energy enveloped the rocks and sent them back at Geodude, grazing the pokemon.

"Luna." And she ended the fight. She grasped Geodude and repeatedly slammed him into the ground before launching it out of the battlefield.

"Geodude is unable to battle. Winner: Pokemon Trainer Red!" A compartment on the pillar opened with a Boulder Badge inside.

"It was a pleasure Brock."

I grabbed my badge and Pokedex, and with a slight effort I reached out to my room in the Pokemon Center and twisted, then we weren't at the Gym anymore. Two years teleporting and fuck me if the in between wasn't still fucking weird as fuck.

Maybe Nurse Joy knew how to dry and cure plants? She probably used plants with medicinal properties all the time, she had to know. I didn't think Brock would be in the mood to help.

As it turns out Nurse Joy had a machine she let me borrow that somehow or other did the drying and curing in the space of an hour. No clue how it worked since it was a literal black box, but the end result looked and smelled just about right so it went into a waterproof jar in my messenger back. Now I just needed to arrange a way of testing it on the rattata I'd captured.

I set out for Cerulean late in the morning. Nearly noon really. For all that I had the energy of childhood behind me, there were few forces in this life or the previous one capable of making me be productive in the mornings when I didn't have to after an accomplishment. Given that I blew through the first Gym in record time, I had no need to hurry and thus no need to be industrious.

I checked my poketch map to see about doing the whole Mt. Moon thing, which I wasn't very happy about. Currently my map said I had to go into the tunnel in front of me, so I imagine this was the entrance to the aforementioned Mt. Moon.

The tunnel was surprisingly well lit and labeled, which is quite nice because I had zero desire to waste time wandering around. At first I encountered some trainers hanging around in some of the more cavernous (hah!) chambers near the entrance. They were faffing about training and catching pokemon. A few challenged me to battle, but after they saw the first one get smashed by Luna the number dropped. Yue got some good training, and grew strong enough to upgrade from Powder Snow to Icy Wind.

Normally I wouldn't hesitate to wipe the floor with everyone in sight with just one pokemon, numbers advantage or no numbers advantage, but I didn't fancy traveling with a worn out pokemon in a cave full of wild pokemon even if I was as strong as she was when it came to punching people with my mind. One can never be sure when bullshit is just around the corner.

The battles were simple affairs, one had a sandshrew that was surprisingly fast and the second a rather unremarkable Zubat. I'm pretty sure Sandshrew guy knew I was toying with him, he gave this look that just screamed "Damn you, you suck but there's nothing I can do." and told me he'd see me at the Conference. Zubat dude was a lost cause and I'm pretty sure that he was convinced he had me on the ropes for half the battle before a "lucky shot" knocked down his flying cave cancer. Yes, I didn't like dealing with zubats, yes I left flocks and flocks of possibly dead zubats all over the cave floor whenever they strayed too close to me. I was not going to get pokemon rabies or some other such disease because I got bitten by flying cave cancer. The other fights were even less worth commenting on, and ended with icy statues.

It wasn't until I got to the later levels of the cave system that I realized that yes, bullshit was waiting for me, as evidenced by two Rocket grunts being cunts and threatening to steal Luna from me. These mooks were head and shoulders above the people I'd fought against so far, or at least their pokemon were, but well, that wasn't saying much. Also I wasn't an idiot kid like Ash had originally been and had no compunctions against cheating with my own phenomenal cosmic power against criminals threatening to kidnap my sister in all but blood. Also, and this was important, these guys were definitely mooks. They'd have needed a few more of them at the same time to be a legitimate threat, and worst to worst, I could do my Charizard X impersonation and flood the tunnels ahead of me.

Also, type matchups. Hilarious. Yue and Luna stood before a pair Koffings, an Ekans, and a Raticate. The living pollution factories squished against the cave wall somewhere far back from twin Psychics, courtesy of Luna and I, and Yue faced off against the Raticate. The Ekans though, that one got closer than I'd have preferred. It struck with a speed I wasn't expecting and I barely got out of the way before I got a bite to the face. Luna turned around to deal with it, which ended similarly to how the Koffings had, and I punched the Rockets in the mind hard enough to knock them unconscious.

Yue had dealt with the Raticate on her own, but it seemed like it had gotten a good bite in before going down and she was bleeding and limping a little. I recalled her, after doing my best to treat the leg, and turned my attention to the monumental problem that presented itself before me.

As I stood over the unconscious bodies of the embodiment of what's wrong in the pokeworld, I realized that unless I wanted to end up like Ash with Rockets chasing me around trying to take my super rare shiny pokemon, and myself, because I had felt the sudden spike of greed at realizing they'd stumbled onto a psychic kid with a very rare psychic pokemon when I blasted one of the Koffings. Oh sure, they'd gotten beaten, but the information alone would see them well rewarded. That had been what was going through their minds when I smacked them. I needed to do something to keep word from getting out. They needed to get it right only once, I needed to get it right all the time. The odds were on their side and I couldn't bear the thought of losing Luna.

I felt my left hand close around the handle of the knife I kept at the small of my back. I'd done my research when I was preparing to leave on my journey. The Rockets were scum, utterly and unequivocally. They stole, they kidnapped, they intimidated, and those they couldn't intimidate they either hurt until they broke or they killed when it was easier or expedient. Two less of them would be no great loss to the world. Fucking up their brain was too dangerous. It wasn't my specialty, and I couldn't be sure that I'd be clean enough for someone not to notice the mindfuckery. They presumably had access to older more experienced psychic pokemon, possibly even Sabrina. Who knew how good they'd be at retrieving memories I didn't want them to even after I tried to destroy them? I couldn't risk it.

I had to do it. It was my only choice, really.

The knife slid out with a whisper of steel against nylon, the blade a smooth matte black. I let my mind expand, feeling out for people, trying to make sure no one would be there to witness what I was about to do. I lifted both of them with an effort of will, moving them into a recessed alcove out of the way of the route to Cerulean City. I angled the first one of them so the artery was facing away from me and put the knife to his neck.

My hand was shaking.

I saw in my mind an image of Luna being taken from me by faceless Rocket grunts, of me being taken, Sabrina destroying the person that I am and turning me into a mindless slave, used and abused by Giovanni. A puppet, a tool, a toy. I saw Luna exploited even worse. I saw the both of us obediently on our knees before Giovanni, ready to please him at any moment. I couldn't allow it. I wouldn't allow it. It would happen if I let these grunts go back to their leaders with knowledge of me this early on, even if they didn't know they knew it. I needed time to grow stronger, to armor myself in psychic might and a team of monsters capable of taking on Champions and come out ready for more. What were two lives for Luna's and my own? Hell, what were the lives of the entire Rocket organization against even just one of ours?

I didn't even notice as the knife cut through his neck, barely felt the hot splash of blood over my hand. I don't remember killing the second one either. I rinsed off the blood on my hand and the knife with water from my canteen and walked away, Luna in my jacket hugging me as best she could, sending soothing feelings through our bond. My head hurt.

I felt the next Rocket with my open senses before she saw me and a blast of psychic power scrambled her mind into unconsciousness. This repeated itself until I saw the outside world once again. I left five Rockets drooling on the cave floor by the time I made it out. They were probably vegetables now, but they hadn't seen me, and no one would be able to connect me to them. The sun was dipping down in the sky and if the map was right I still had a few hours of walking before reaching the pokemon center.

The hours passed by in a blur, not quite registering beyond what the changes of sunlight did to the road ahead of me. The sky was so very red, the clouds were so very red too. A bloody sky fitting of what I'd done. It seemed to go on forever, hours and hours of red skies but from one moment to the next it was dark and I was looking at the friendly face of Nurse Joy.

"Hello dear, do your pokemon need healing?"

Perhaps I was overreacting, but it felt wrong to talk to someone after having done what I had. There she stood, hands clean of the blood of others, a paragon of goodness, of hope, of healing, and life. How could I stand before her after killing two people even if in my eyes they were perfectly acceptable targets?

"Are you okay?"

I'd been staring. Awkward.

"I… I don't think so. Need healing, I mean. Well, Luna doesn't but I'd still feel better if you could give her a quick checkup. Yue had a run in with a..." Not a Raticate. Anything else similar enough to distance her wound from the fight she'd incurred it in. "uh, there was this super baby Onix, but we left it alone after we got away."

"Of course, step onto the diagnostics plate over here, and place your other pokemon's ball over here." She said, pointing to a square device mounted on her side of the counter, a slot for a pokeball next to it. Luna seemed reluctant to let go of me, but a mental nudge convinced her to go. I wanted to make sure she was fine. She had to be fine. I had to be sure she was fine. I placed Yue's ball on the slot, and she teleported to the plate, but I could feel her worry at leaving my side.

Nurse Joy typed away at her terminal and the plate glowed a little before falling silent again. She tapped some more and grabbed a printout from somewhere under the counter I couldn't see. She read through it, taking note of some detail or another before turning her attention back to me.

"Good news, this little lady is in perfect health. Better than perfect even, she seems to be long overdue to evolve so be prepared for it happening soon." She'd been overdue to evolve for years now, but she seemed to like being a Ralts for now, so I doubted it.

That was unexpected, but expected. I knew Luna had surpassed the point of evolving some time ago and simply refused to do so, but I didn't know scans could show this. Maybe she was waiting for a worthy opponent, I know I would. What better test than that taken with a handicap, until you could no longer hold onto the handicap and were forced to drop it and go all out?

I'd long ago accepted this and was more than okay with it. She'd evolve whenever she wanted to.

Nurse Joy keyed my pokedex to one of the bedrooms at the center and it wasn't long before the door closed behind me. The room was dark, with no windows to let in ambient light. That was fine. I stumbled my way to the bed, falling onto it the moment I felt my legs bump the edge. Sleep. Sleep would make everything better.

But sleep wouldn't come.

I kept seeing their faces, kept replaying the moment I slit their throats, the hot blood on my hands, the feeling of their lives burning out and vanishing altogether from this world. Over, and over, and over again. I curled up against Luna, feeling her soothing presence seep into me. Eventually I drifted off.

I woke up feeling like I only slept a couple hours. Which was a distinct possibility, but I had no success in falling back asleep. A glance at my Poketch showed me 7:17 AM, way too damned early. Hopefully the gym opens early and I can just get my day started with a sound smashing of water pokemon.

Morning routine later and I was sitting down at the center's cafeteria with some surprisingly delicious bacon and sausages. There was also some scrambled eggs on the plate but really who cares about those when there's bacon and sausages? I wonder… A quick look around spotted some muffins and grated cheese. I was having me a breakfast sandwich. Or three. That's how, after asking Nurse Joy for directions, I found myself walking to the Cerulean Gym sipping from my canteen and eating a sandwich. After all, what was the point of portable foods when you didn't utilize them to full advantage?

The gym was a gaudy thing, a domed affair with yellow and pink stripes down the dome and columns supporting decorative waves along the lower portion. All of it topped off by a ginormous Dewgong on the front. Really not very impressive. Doubly so because I wasn't expecting much given that Misty was still at least over a week away from reaching Cerulean and the other Waterflower siblings were… unimpressive.

So when I stood across from Daisy Waterflower and she sent out a Seel, I was already expecting a lot less than what had come out of my match with Brock. I had vague memories of them simply giving away badges, but clearly I must have been misremembering. I was glad for that, I'm not sure how I would have felt about a handout. I sent out Luna and she teleported on top of one of the platforms floating in the pool that was the battlefield.

"Seel, water gun!"

It surfaced and spit out a pressurized jet of water at Luna, much stronger than I'd expected, forcing Luna to teleport away to another platform. She countered with a quick blast of kinetic energy, a Psychic in essence. The Seel dove back into the water, managing to shed a portion of the blast into the water around it, creating a geyser of spray, but I saw its trajectory change from forward and down to backwards and down. Hit to the lower back most likely.

"Oh no Seel! Don't give up, Ice Beam!"

'Protect,' I told Luna through our bond. She raised her arms, for all appearances miming an invisible wall, and then the beam of elemental power slammed into a pane of energy. Again, I felt more power behind the attack than I'd expected, throwing out any ideas that the first attack might have been a fluke.

"Keep at it Seel, we can break through!"

Not bloody likely, more powerful than expected it may have been, but that was still a Protect from Luna. Gardemom couldn't break Luna's protect without really throwing her weight around, a strong Ice Beam was not going to be enough by far, and I could feel Luna had enough energy to hold the barrier for some time still. Still, credit where it's due, I could see a mushroom of ice growing outwards from the impact point, frost growing on the platform and freezing the water around it.

I could use that, just had to wait for the right moment.

Eventually the beam started to peter out, until it faltered for a second, and that's when Luna struck. She'd gathered her power slowly, taking care to keep the Protect stable, preparing a second much stronger blast of kinetic energy. She shaped the blast, a ring the size of the ice flower that had formed in front of her barrier, angled down towards the Seel. It was a magnificent sight, and I'm told it's made it into several highlight reels, from pokeschools to news reports. A superb example of utilizing your opponent's strengths against them, and a sobering reminder that ours was a blood sport. The ice flower exploded into sharp knives ice, propelled at speeds more commonly seen in bullets than shards of ice.

I was honestly surprised at the Seel's toughness, taking many hits like those and still trying to fight, but I have to admit, I may have gone overboard if the pieces of ice sticking out of it and the blood running down turning the water around it red were any indication.

"Seel! No! Return!"

The sight of the seal pokemon bleeding out and Daisy Waterflower's cry of terror and despair were my first exposure to the rawer side of pokebattling. Even Flint's Infernape had been a clean fight. Still, you'd think it wouldn't get to me after k- after, but it was a reminder that for all that a part of me still remembered the games and cartoons this was neither. This wasn't a flock of Zubats I could swat down with little thought to the implications. This was real life now. I wasn't Ash Ketchum traveling the pokeworld having wacky adventures and facing zero real consequences. I was Red. I was the would be Champion. The living legend yet to be who dethroned Blue just after he finished the climb himself. Well, in another life, in another time. No fucking way was my nephew beating me to anything. Just going to ignore how disturbingly well it would correlate to the life of my namesake if he did, and the circumstances that could lead to it. You better not fuck with me on this, destiny.

But then, I suppose I really shouldn't have been surprised this way, not after the tunnel. I was pretty sure the Koffings and Ekans were stains on a cave wall, and-

The battle pretty much ended there, with Daisy running off to get her pokemon to Nurse Joy. Someone who must have been a Gym aide gave me the badge after registering my pokedex into a terminal in a room connected to the pool. This was it for easy fights. Surge was next, and he was a strong fighter, a war vet, somehow, l couldn't handle him carelessly, because even if the power disparity offered me every advantage, he'd have the experienced to capitalize on a mistake. I walked out of the Cerulean Gym with Luna on my shoulders and blood on my mind.

I suppose ambition has a price, and I had a feeling we weren't done paying.

Well, bring it you fuckers, I'll make every single thing that gets in my way bleed and suffer. I was Red and I had a destiny to fulfill, and I was also Azula and that meant things about making things happen.

Walking my way to Vermillion was a Thing. I knew of only two viable routes to the port city that didn't take me through Saffron City, and both were rather circuitous. The first would involve double backing to Pewter and taking the Diglett Cave, coming out at the other end right next to my target. The second would involve the Rock Tunnel down to Lavender Town, down routes 12 and 11 until finally arriving at Vermillion from the same direction as the other route.

I settled for the Rock Tunnel. I wanted a Gengar, and there were few places better than Lavender for getting started on adding one of those to my team. I walked my way through Route 9, a pretty picturesque place full of drops and cliffs. It looked like a place plenty of hikers would visit. I met a girl, older than me by the looks of it, called Alicia who challenged me to a battle. I was happy to oblige her four vs my two since this wasn't the cramped confines of Mt. Moon, and I had this feeling I wouldn't encounter any Rocket scum during this leg of my journey.

"Go Oddish!"

She did this cute throw, spinning on her right foot, while unclipping her pokeball with her left hand, throwing it out at the end of her spin. I asked her how long she'd been practicing that.

"All month!"

I should probably practice something like that, if perhaps less cutesy and more badass. A mental nudge had Luna teleport down from her seat on my shoulders, standing across from our opponents. Alicia opened the fight with a command for Acid, her walking plant spitting a glob of dark liquid at Luna, prompting a Teleport to the side, followed by a quick Psychic. A bunch of the energy behind it bled off into visible light, casting a purple glow that let the Oddish jump out of the way.

That just wouldn't do.

A second Psychic, this one more focused and barely visible rocketed down and smacked the Oddish past its trainer. The Bellsprout that followed, the second Oddish, and the second Bellsprout she sent out had similar fates. Honestly, it kinda felt like I was cheating. By the time I'd made my way through to the Pokemon Center before the Rock Tunnel, not once having had a hit land on Luna after battling seven more trainers, I was a bit saddened. Fighting with Yue was a bit more challenging, but she'd been training with Luna often, and well, that was a fast track to power. Yes, yes, I was doing the going out and conquering thing quite well, and while not quite the lamentations of the men and women of the enemies driven before me, my match record and wallet were looking pretty good, but there was no challenge to it, no excitement. I should let Yue get more of the fights, I guess. And get more pokemon to train up.

Bah.

I'd just have to smack my way to the Conference and maybe there I'd face a worthy opponent.

It was night by the time I went into the Rock Tunnel, having stopped at the Center to refresh Luna, when I realized a small flaw in my travel plan. The tunnel wasn't lighted and going more than a dozen meters into it dropped you into total darkness. This was not ideal. I let my psychic senses slip a little from my grasp, sensing the world around me, the Zubats in their nooks and crannies, the Geodudes sleeping in piles that looked like they were part of the cave, and at the very edge, farther into the cave system, a blob of malice and hunger unlike anything I'd ever felt before. Not quite in the here and now. It was as beautiful as it was horrifying.

I had to know what that was.

So I followed the tunnel, navigating with my mind, passing wild pokemon when I could, blasting them with psychic power when they dared stand before me, senses unerringly trained on the aberration further in. I started feeling a new pokemon at the edges, similar, but lacking the... evil of the one ahead. We got closer and closer and I could tell the moment it noticed our presence. It turned, facing us, a manic energy to its actions, the hunger I'd felt earlier spiking at the prospect of two more meals. This was something else.

"HaUNteEEr." Its voice was a macabre mishmash of many different voices, children, men, women, other pokemon. It dragged shivers down my spine and felt like nails dragging across a chalkboard inside my head. I could feel Luna trembling beside me, disturbed by the miasma of negativity rolling off of the very wrong Haunter before us.

It lunged, hands extended, mouth wide open and filled with entirely too many long and pointy teeth. I threw myself to the left, barely catching Luna when the sudden motion threw her off my shoulder. I threw a hurried blast of psychic energy after it, clipping it but failing to do much damage. It let out a pained screech that reverberated through the tunnel, wincing from the sheer piercing volume this close up.

It whirled around, raising its hands and collecting a ball of negativity between them. Shadow Ball, probably. I closed my eyes, prodding Luna to do the same and to then let loose a Dazzling Gleam. The first one she'd ever done in battle given our propensity for pure psychic attacks. The world went white even through my eyelids, and the screech of agony from the Haunter felt like it would rupture our eardrums. I was glad Yue was in her ball. This was too dangerous for her.

We kept up the assault, flinging psychic attack after psychic attack. It actually managed to dodge most of them, but a few kept slipping through, tearing ragged holes into its gaseous body. Getting angrier and angrier after every hit until it let out a roar and just disappeared, one moment there and the next gone. It would have killed me if I hadn't had my psychic perceptions open. I saw and felt it appear behind me an instant before it actually did, saw as it launched itself at my back and sank its teeth into me, felt the agony as its teeth tore into more than mere flesh, tearing at my very mind and soul, Luna letting out a heart rending cry.

Then it appeared behind and I barely got out of the way, slamming against the wall to my right in an effort to dodge. Luna shot a Psychic at its back, and this time it seemed to finally take it down, leaving a vague gaseous blob on the rocky floor. I was so not letting a pokemon that strong go uncaught, on that basis alone I would have caught this Haunter. The fact that it seemed to come straight out of a grimdark pokemon world and was the murderous monster such a world would produce just made it all the more pressing. Few people could survive an attack by that thing on an open field, much less in a cave environment.

So I threw a Premier Ball at it, because if ever there was a pokemon that shouted for a special pokeball it was this thing. Perhaps I could practice mind fuckery on it? It's not like I could make it worse, and success would mean control over a monster of a ghost pokemon. The ball landed in the amorphous cloud the pokemon had turned into after the last attack, hit the floor and then opened, sucking the cloud of gas in from the inside. It actually looked pretty cool in the dim glow of the purple psychic light emanating from my hands and eyes. It shook once before sealing and confirming my third capture, first one that I wanted to put in my team.

I needed to stop getting in trouble in caves, I really did. I couldn't throw fire around in a cave, and I was starting to miss it.

I picked up the ball and clipped it to the inside of my jacket. That was when I noticed the extra company headed my way. By which I mean the dozen or so other Haunters slowly closing in on me. This was not ideal. They didn't feel outright evil like the one I'd caught, but I was pretty sure I didn't want to be surrounded by ghost pokemon that liked to lick away your life force until you died.

The option of running was taken out of my hands when one of them popped out from a wall and rushed me. It was slower than the other one by a fair margin and got a Psychic to the face, turning it into an amorphous blob of gas while still a couple of feet away from me. More popped out and then it was all Psychics and dodging for a while. It was the last two that got to me.

Luna was blasting one of the last four Haunters on the field, and the other three rushed me at the same time, one of them getting a blast to the face and dropping unconscious, I dodged another one, but the third clamped down on my left arm with teeth significantly less savage than the ones in my new Haunter's mouth. It hurt, but it wasn't only the pain of the teeth sunk into my arm, no I could feel as this thing worried at my very self, perhaps my very soul. Then it started licking and everything went utterly cold. A chunk of the psychic energy I'd gathered for the fight washed away and into the Haunter, causing the glow around me to visibly dim. The Haunter I'd initially managed to dodge turned around and bit around my shoulder, failing to penetrate through the jacket, but nevertheless biting into my soul and licking another chunk of energy away.

Luna let out furious screech, blasting the tunnel with a Dazzling Gleam that put all her previous attacks to shame. The Haunters on me screamed in agony as they were blown away by the powerful fey light, and I screamed in agony from the psychic wounds, the bleeding bite on my arm, and my fried retinas. I felt more than saw the follow up Psychics she sent at them, taking them out of the fight.

I couldn't feel a single living (or unliving) being within the range of my psychic senses, likely having been driven away by the violent energies used during the swarm attack and the previous fight. I let myself collapse to the floor, back to a wall. Perhaps taking this route hadn't been the best of ideas. Haunter licks were supposed to be lethal, and I hadn't studied the subject nearly enough to know whether that was simply a myth. I'd taken two bites, and two licks. Everything hurt, and everything was so cold I couldn't stop shivering. I needed to bandage my arm and get out the other side and to Lavender. If anyone knew how to deal with wounds inflicted by ghosts it was the people of the town renowned for an abundance of ghosts.

This I did know how to do. Our mothers had insisted we learn first aid, and so we'd taken a few classes at the clinic in Pallet. Luna was by my side and rummaging through the messenger bag until she surfaced with the first aid kit. I peeled up the torn sleeve of my jacket, feeling as bits of cloth dragged their way out of the bite. I could only imagine something like that would hurt a lot under any other circumstances. As things stood everything felt mind numbingly cold, except for the bite, which burned like it was on fire. For all that the bite was pretty much along the length of my whole arm. Damned genes. As far as painful things were concerned, bits of torn cloth didn't really register when everything else was so much worse.

Fuck me, I had to wonder about the mortality rate for new trainers, especially the really young ones like myself. I can't imagine the average kid could survive a swarm like that or patch themselves up in the aftermath. I was pretty sure I was on the clock as it was, what with the licks and the sourceless rending pain that I was pretty sure was my soul screaming in agony about the bites taken out of it.

With my dominant arm a bloody mess, my right arm not working correctly at the shoulder, and everything else feeling too numb to really help, Luna ended up patching up my arm pretty much by herself through liberal use of telekinesis. When all was said and done, I stood, if shakily, surrounded by fourteen blobs of Haunter gas, and shivering like it was winter and I was wearing summer wear, and you know, not psychic. Now, what possible use would I have for fourteen Haunters? I was so going to evolve me a Gengar. Or three. Besides, this probably counted as a public service what with how violent they'd been.

I dipped my right hand into the pokeball section of my bag, the whole arm twitching painfully without my input. My aim would suck, but then they weren't moving and I had phenomenal cosmic powers. I threw the balls, guided by my powers, feeling spikes of agony every time I used them, and Luna brought back the first three, after that I simply let the rest of them be automatically transported to father's ranch.

"Ralts," came Luna's voice, tinged with fear and worry. "Ralts, ralts!"

"Yes, we're leaving now, don't worry love. I'll be fine. Come on, climb up."

"Ralts!"

"You're not that heavy sis, but fine if you want to walk I'm not going to force the issue."

We set out, Luna leading this time, since my considerably diminished psychic senses weren't up to the task, guiding us through the Rock Tunnel. After around twenty minutes of walking a voice rang out from the darkness.

"Halt, trainer! I challenge you to a battle. Anyone who can navigate these places in the darkness must be mighty indeed!"

"I'm afraid I'm a tad pressed for time at the moment mister," I was dismayed at how weak my voice sounded, and at how much the shivering was affecting it, and the slurring. I couldn't feel how badly off I was over the cold, but if I was having trouble speaking things had to be pretty bad indeed. "I don't feel like stopping for a battle would be smart."

"What would be more- Mew's balls girl, what happened to you?!"

I felt as he ran up to me, felt as he knelt before me, presumably to get a better look at my condition, felt as he inspected my bandaged arm. I even felt the heat of his headlamp as it shone over me. I did not, however, see a thing. I felt something twist up inside me, fear that Luna might have, in saving my life, blinded me. I knew flash blindness was a thing, but if it was permanent I would have to make sure she never realized what had happened. Somehow. I didn't have high hopes I'd manage that.

"Haunter swarm. Couple bites, couple licks, I should probably get to Lavender soon."

That's when he went from scared and worried to "I'm afraid this girl is going to keel over any second now" scared. He moved, doing something I couldn't distinguish, and then he was bundling me up in a blanket before picking me up, telling Luna to get on, and booking it down the tunnel much faster than I could have managed at my best. This was fine too I suppose. I let go of the tight control I had over my senses, the world's details falling away until all I could perceive were Luna and the man carrying me, my mind slipping away from the here and now and casting about for the futures I always pushed away.

I saw the man taking me to a, no, the only, clinic in Lavender Town, getting me admitted, and hanging around until someone told him I wasn't going to make it and later breaking down crying over a bottle of whiskey. I saw as the on duty nurse set about trying save me after I slipped into unconsciousness and lost the hold over my powers that let me continue on after taking lethal spiritual wounds. I saw as the light inside of me faded and burnt out, I saw my dream unfulfilled, the Indigo Conference a disappointing sham, Lance undefeated, Blue's ambitions and rivalry broken, Ash's innocence dead. I saw my death leaving Mama and Gardemom, and Mom without their daughter, leaving father without his extortion loving princess, but most importantly, leaving sis alone in a strange town, in an often cruel world, I saw time pass and I saw her wither and die without her other half, without me.

That could never be allowed to happen.

And so instead of relaxing and trying to conserve my energy, instead of trusting that everything would be alright and letting go for a bit so I could rest, I pulled at every last scrap of power I could manage. I focused my senses to their fullest, straining to see what it was that had been damaged. It couldn't be a physical problem, technology was such in the pokemon world that if it was of the material it was likely curable, and so my death despite reaching medical attention meant it wasn't a material problem.

So I looked, burning through everything I had in an attempt to fix whatever was wrong. I saw it as I was running out of time, it was a structure of radiant light, beautiful and so very complex, extending from some indescribable realm into the physical, into me. As I beheld the structure I saw imperfections, two big tears where parts had been ripped off, slowly, glacially knitting back together into wholeness, and at the junction that connected it to me, a single, flawed point. The rest of the structure was fluid, full of energy, alive in such a raw manner that it represented the very concept of life itself, but the connector point was cold, sluggish, as if it was dying. I watched as it lost more and more energy, getting colder, deader, and understood. This was the the draining effect of a Haunter's lick.

Slowly, surely, the point connecting my body and soul would die and snap and then they wouldn't be connected anymore. I beheld the deadened connection, saw as life and energy tried to flow into my body and bottlenecked there, letting only a trickle through, and despaired. I didn't have enough strength left to try to revive the connection. I felt like I was tapping into the very last reserves of life, burning myself out just for a second longer of observation. I had discovered how to save myself, and in doing so lost the ability to even attempt to do so.

The world away from the beautiful structure began to fade, sound, sight, smell, everything, until all that was left the tiny life above my body, crying in distress as she felt her lifelong companion fade away from her senses. I couldn't give up. I couldn't leave her alone in this cruel world. That final second stretched on, seemingly eternal as I cast about trying to find a solution to death. What possible chance did I have of finding an answer? I was ten, a particularly well lived ten, seasoned with the life experiences of a past life, and with a particularly strong psionic gift, but still ten. Even my past life had only managed late twenties before dying.

I looked, trying to find the point where my last life had been severed, curious and perhaps trying to make one second stretch into two eternities. I saw then a small divide, a point where a much larger structure had merged with a much smaller one, only to have the much more malleable smaller structure adapt and integrate the two into one. It was utterly fascinating, and up until the malleability sank in, utterly useless. When it did though, that was when I took whatever remained of that last second and threw it at the structure, WILLING it to flow, to move, to reach around the connecting point and into the world, anchoring my soul to my body below and past the dying point, bypassing it entirely.

For a second, it felt like the connection didn't take, the world beyond the structure fading entirely, all the life previously trying to flow out stagnating, before a spark of life traveled from the world to the structure, shocking the whole system into motion and solidifying the connection. Luna. My beautiful Luna, I would recognize her life anywhere. As my awareness drifted back into my body, I couldn't help thinking that I looked dead, that I felt mostly dead, and that slowly but surely life was flowing back into me, my still body starting to shiver again. The last thing I saw before giving into unconsciousness was the man carrying me hugging me closer to himself, tears running down his cheeks, and Luna breaking down in tears of joy hugging me for all her tiny body was worth.

Thank you Big Small Sis, I wasn't ready to be done yet. We're not done yet. This was just a little bit more blood paid at the altar of ambition, a little bit more blood spilled on the road to power. At this rate everything was going to be stained a bloody red.

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