51-59

Ash's face lit up with happiness when he saw us and he ran up to us and hugged us. I couldn't keep myself from flinching away from him, or trying to, since he already had his arms around me. I could hear him babbling away at me, but I wasn't listening, I needed to get away. I couldn't breathe and he wasn't letting go and he was so strong why was he so strong- Sis took control, doing her best to push down the rising panic, then we weren't there anymore, and we were a few meters to the left, behind Blaine, trying and failing to get my lungs back under control. Sis passed me the new inhaler the doctor had given me for situations such as this one, because apparently the old one wouldn't have been up to the task of keeping me from dying if I had an attack now.

"Azula!" / "'Zula!" / "Is she okay?!" / "What's wrong with her?"

"Keep back kids. Girl, how's your sister?"

"Ra-Ralts." Beloved Tiny Big Sis.

"Alright. Give her space, she just needs some air."

Fucking Inaridamned stupid fucking issues popping up at the worst of fucking times, fucking up things and ruining our fun. Sounds started filtering through the sound of rushing blood in my ears, at first distorted but slowly correcting themselves to normal. The darkness that had been creeping at the edges of my vision receded until I was just laying on the floor, staring at the inn's porch ceiling. Fucking hell. We were definitely going Jirachi hunting so we could Wish away our wounds. Hopefully it wouldn't hate us as much as Suicune had.

I sat up, and found the children all staring at me like they were afraid we would die any second now. Blaine only looked a little concerned but he was already a little used to the occasional fit of breathing difficulties, though admittedly not one as bad as this one. Ugh. Ash made to come up to us again, but this time we all knew what he intended, and we were not willing let him within two meters of us. So we looked at him, all of us. We didn't say anything, didn't growl, or make a noise. We didn't need to. We simply took an interest, aggressively. Few people could have withstood having the attentions of a Gengar in such a situation, much less two and three other eldritch abominations.

He froze where he stood, and Gary looked pretty pale himself, likely remembering the last time we'd stared him down. Brock looked wary, and Misty was downright scared. Could she sense our ghosts?

"Don't… do that again."

"W-What the fuck 'Zula?! What happened to you?" Gary had overcome his really quite reasonable fear when he heard my new voice. Fucking sigh. It was easier to be a bitch to him when he was being a brat instead of, you know, loving family. "Your voice! What- and your throat!"

"We had an… accident, and we got sick." We took a deep breath. "Our lungs don't work that well anymore."

"You have to go home, talk with gramps." Another flinch, which didn't go unnoticed. "Talk with your moms! They'll be so worried. I know competing in the Conference is important for you, but please, it's not that important."

Ouch. Way to shoot armor piercing responses at issues we already felt like utter cunts about. At least we had already done that, and in fact our current state had come about during our time with our family, so we didn't feel too bad. Still, not often that we got opportunities this good to stroke our egos. We breathed in deeply, trying to get as much oxygen as we could into our bloodstream.

"We've been staying at home for a few months now, nephew. We just… like visiting Blaine while we get… better. We're forbidden from… training unsupervised until the… pneumonia gets better." We saw both Ash and Gary's face twist in concern and confusion at our admission.

Wait for it...

"But if you've been at home for that long, it means you won't have enough time to complete your badges and register for the Conference!" Ash seemed heartbroken that we wouldn't participate. It was very difficult to keep a grin off our faces. "I… as long as you're okay, Azula, that's what matters, right?"

"Pika!" Aw, how sweet, kind of. Sure, he'd called us scary monsters, but at least the Vader syndrome seemed to be fully in effect, and he considered us to be on his side.

"There's always next year 'Zula, and that way you'll be better prepared."

"What are you two dorks talking… about?" It was surprisingly hard to not wheeze and cough every time we talked. We should check back with the doctor, it was getting worse.

"Uh, the Conference? You won't be able to participate without getting all your badges, and there's probably not enough time now." Now we let our grin show. Deep breaths.

"Please, we completed our badges and registered for the Conference months ago. It was super easy too. Old man... Blaine here was by far the hardest of them all. Your friends... should know all about it, really. Leader... Harrison, Leader Waterflower, I... hope your pokemon have fully recovered."

We saw the moment Brock made the connection of exactly who we were. We could feel the instant conflict in him over the utter bitch that was Pokemon Trainer Red and the girl Ash apparently gushed about and that Gary had described. Misty didn't catch on until Brock broke the stunned silence, speaking in a slightly chilly tone.

"Trainer Red. Yes, Onix is well. Congratulations on qualifying for the Conference. I was rather impressed despite myself. You broke all sorts of records for a starting trainer. Seventh to register, and fastest ever first time participant. I'm sorry to hear about your health problems."

"Wait, you're Trainer Red?!" Now Misty made the connection, and she was a tad incensed. "You're the reason my sisters are so scared of battling! You hurt our Seel really badly!"

"Yes. Unfortunate, but ultimately... a risk you accept... when you fight. Ours is a blood... sport, and we all accept the risks... we expose ourselves to... when we venture out to fight. What happened to your pokemon... really was unfortunate, but accidents happen, and it was hardly... that serious. We were there, we remember. I've had worse, I have… the scars."

"She's right." Brock's voice was quiet. "I've seen the video. The Elite Four have done much worse. It's rare, and rarer still on the lower tiers of battling, but it still happens, and there are few rules against it."

"Bah. Stop scaring the kids, brats. They have potential, but it won't go anywhere if they're too scared fight." We did feel a little bad about the feelings of inadequacy coursing through Ash and Gary though. "Now, Little Red here tells me you're here to challenge for my badge. You have two options: Fight one of my standard Gym teams, I'll give you my badge if you win, or fight one of my Champions with your whole team and impress me. If you manage the latter, I'll give you a badge when you lose. They haven't had a chance to exercise properly since those two fought them."

"Bullshit! 'Zula would never accept a badge if she lost!"

"That's right, she didn't lose. I faced her as an equal, and she won."

"What?"

They were serious about their aspirations, they knew what that meant, but they also had problems wrapping their head around the fact that someone they knew was nearing Champion levels. It was one thing to be good enough for the Conference, and another one entirely to be good enough to be Champion. The gap was significant, and we were younger than them.

"I'll fight your Champions!" Ah, trusty, reliable Ash. He wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was. Unfortunately for him, that was our role. "Pikachu and I will win too!"

"Well, damn. Now I can't back down. I'll fight your Champions too, old man."

"Hahahaha. That's what I wanted to hear, kids. You'll go far." He turned to us, and spoke. "You well enough to go into the arena and play emergency rescue?"

We snorted. Yeah. Like we were missing out on this.

"Of course."

52

Ash got to go first by virtue of being the first one to speak up. This time we got to stand on Blaine's side of the arena. We'd expected some sort of secret base, but it was just a straightforward corridor and a bit of a green room leading out to the platform where he'd stood during our fight. It was different than we'd remembered. Where before had stood a simple stone platform, now there was a high tech booth, with a console to manipulate the sound system to the challenger's booth and the arena. A quick check with our senses showed the protective glass, or whatever the transparent material was, was about thirty centimeters thick, and the platform itself had been heavily reinforced.

Holy shit. Old man had gone all out. Could this be the start of a big return for Gym Leader Blaine? He typed a few things into his console, and then the computerized voice we'd grown so used to when we challenged a gym announced the match.

"Pokemon Trainer Ketchum challenges Gym Leader Blaine for the Volcano Badge. This will be a one on six match with substitutions allowed." Screens lit up on the sides of the volcano's interior, showing their photos, a golden pokeball and five empty circles under Blaine's, and six pokeballs on Ash's side. "Please select your pokemon."

"Go, Charizard!" Blaine threw out his big mean fire dragon. The thing was as magnificent as we remembered, and its roar still shook loose stones around us.

"Go, Muk, Sludge Bomb!" Ash opened with a good choice. Muk was a tough pokemon, and if he managed to poison Charizard he might have a chance at winning. Might. It all depended on how strong his team was. Charizard countered by jumping back and taking to the air, then blasting the Muk with a stream of fire.

"Keep using Sludge Bomb!"

If Muk had been a bit faster on the attack, he might have managed to land a hit. As things stood, Charizard bombarded it with Fire Blasts until it started slowing down, before diving down in a ball of fire, crushing and burning it.

"Muk is unable to battle, please send out your next pokemon."

"Return. Go, Wartortle, Hydro Pump!" Ash's turtle pokemon was of a respectable size, but the torrent of water it spit out was very impressive. Charizard dodged, but Wartortle tracked him with its attack and drenched the pseudo dragon. It lasted for all of a second before Charizard countered with a Flamethrower that punched through the water in a cloud of vapor and knocked Wartortle to the edge of the arena. "Blizzard!"

An odd choice, but not a bad one. The mass of freezing air buffeted Charizard and caused it to crash back down into the arena, where the turtle pressed the advantage and launched another Hydro Pump. Then Charizard got really angry, rushing through the water until grabbed Wartortle by its shell and repeatedly slammed it into the ground, then threw it against the wall of the volcano. An effort of will grabbed it out of the air before it fell too long and deposited the unconscious turtle on the arena.

"Wartortle is unable battle, please send out your next pokemon."

"Go, Charizard, Take Down!" Ash's Charizard was still very young, and barely reached up to neck height on Blaine's, but we had vague memories of it eventually turning into an unstoppable engine of fuck your teams, capable of beating legendaries. For now, it'd have to satisfy itself with surviving Blaine's. Credit where it's due, however, it didn't even hesitate in charging a much bigger opponent. That's where the credit ended, because Blaine's Charizard grabbed it by the neck and its right side, then rotated and threw it at the wall. It hit with a meaty thud and fell for a couple seconds before spreading its wings and flying back up to the platform.

At which point it had to start dodging frantically to avoid a barrage of Fire Blasts. It managed, before dive bombing Blaine's Charizard and picking it up for a Seismic Toss. Surprisingly, it actually succeeded in lifting it up in the opening moves of the attack, right up until the bigger Charizard flexed its wings, grabbed Ash's Charizard, and reversed the hold. Blaine's fire dragon slammed Ash's into the platform with a thunderous crash. A roar shook the arena again, a clear display of dominance over the smaller dragon. Rivulets of blood trickled down the side of Blaine's Charizard's neck. A last ditch Crunch or Bite. Thing had spirit.

"Charizard in unable to battle, please send out your next pokemon."

"Go, Ivysaur, Leech Seed and be ready to dodge!"

The seeds dug into Charizard's skin and exploded into a frenzy of vines. Charizard simply flexed and snapped the majority and spat a Fire Blast at the plant pokemon, which it managed to mostly dodge, ending with scorches along its right side.

"Razor Leaves, target its wings!"

Well. That was positively ruthless! Ashy boy was learning! Charizard responded by tucking them close to its body and dodging like crazy and staying firmly on the ground.

"Use your Vine Whips to move around faster, Ivysaur!" Charizard didn't respond well to that, launching Flamethrowers all over, trying to hit the plant dinosaur.

Blaine spoke for the first time during the battle, keying his microphone.

"Overheat." And his Charizard exploded in an inferno of fire that filled the chamber and threw Ivysaur off the platform, cooking the ground under it until it was a molten dark red. The Ivysaur caught itself on the chains that suspended the platform near Ash's side. It hauled itself back up, spat a cloud of powder at Charizard from its bulb, and collapsed. Charizard sneezed.

"Ivysaur is unable to battle, please send out your next pokemon."

"Go, Pidgeot, Air Slash, keep moving!" The fuckhuge bird was blidningly fast, and was opening bleeding cuts all over Charizard's skin. "Hurricane!"

"Overheat."

"Fly out, then Sky Attack!" Pidgeot outflew the wall of fire that rushed out of the volcano's mouth and then came crashing back down like a fucking meteor into the Charizard. When the glare faded, it revealed Charizard with a broken and torn wing, as well as a deep wound in its side. The Pidgeot lay at its feet, out cold.

"Pidgeot is unable to battle, please send out your next pokemon."

"Go, Pikachu, win this! Thunder!"

The best contender for strongest Pikachu in the history of the species let loose an enormous bolt of lightning that crashed into Charizard like a fucking locomotive, and didn't stop. Charizard spat a Fire Blast through the lightning. It detonated right on Pikachu, ragdolling it through the air much like sis had, except with a lot more in the way of serious burns and not just the trauma from the shockwave. The electric mouse bounced off the glass protecting Ash's booth and landed back on the platform, surprisingly still conscious, if only long enough to launch another Thunder at Charizard before collapsing.

"Pikachu is unable to battle. Winner: Gym Leader Blaine."

Ash had come amazingly close to beating Blaine's challenge, especially with how woozy Charizard looked. A sentiment that was reinforced when the fire dragon tilted over and caught itself on its less injured side before being lit up by recall light. We floated Pikachu over to Ash, where he sprang into action along with Brock, applying Potions and Burn Heal. Our opinion of them rose even higher. They were very prepared. This Ash was going places, no way he was going to be the eternal loser we remembered from our memories. Well, unless Gary had improved even more than he had.

We took a step and we were in their booth, the smell of burned hair and flesh strong in the air. Bad burns, but nothing a couple hours in a Pokemon Center wouldn't cure.

"Well fought, Ash. We're… impressed. You did much… better than we expected. You're… further along than we remembered you'd… be at this point." Stealth mode disengaged, and fucking everyone jumped at the sound of our voice. We actually got a yelp from Misty.

"How did you get here so fast?!" We had found a noble pursuit to accompany Oak Baiting: Misty Trolling. A smug grin appeared on my face. There was really only only one answer we could give to such a question. Deep breaths.

"Fuck you, that's how." Her indignant squawk was a thing of beauty.

"But we lost, Azula, and Pikachu got hurt because we weren't good enough."

"Few in the continent could have… challenged that Charizard… with a full team. That you almost… won is a credit to your and… your pokemon's talents."

"You beat him!"

"We've been training… nearly since we were… born. Sis is older… than me."

"Wait, the jacket Ralts is ten years old? Shouldn't she have evolved at least once already?" Brock was, understandably, a tad puzzled and a little annoyed. Not often you get reminded about the dangers of assuming things twice by the same people over the same thing, months apart.

"Ralts."

"You want a better challenge." Now he was incredulous.

"She did beat my other Champion." Blaine walked into the booth, a Volcano Badge held in his right hand. "This is yours, Trainer Ketchum. You and your team earned it."

"I… Thank you, Leader Blaine. We'll beat you one day."

"Hahahaha. That's the spirit boy. Go get your team to the Pokemon Center. I have another match to fight." He left for his side of the platform with a spring in his step and a wolfish smile on his face, Ash and his party following him out. Getting back into battling was good for him.

"Ready for a taste… of the big leagues, nephew?" He gave us a look. It wasn't a very good look. He just didn't have enough intimidation factor yet. Maybe after puberty. Likely not until his twenties. "We think you got the tougher opponent. His… Magmortar is nasty. Almost… killed our Starmie."

"Gee, thanks 'Zula, that makes me feel so much better."

"You're welcome!" We answered as brightly as we could. He glowered at us. We smiled. He ignored us and slotted his pokedex into the console. Heh.

"Pokemon Trainer Blue challenges Gym Leader Blaine for the Volcano Badge. This will be a one on six match with substitutions allowed." The screens on the sides lit up again, Gary's photo appearing where Ash's had been. The golden pokeball of Blaine's last Champion lit up under his picture, and a full team under Gary's. "Please select your pokemon."

"Don't you worry little aunt," He gave us a confident grin, the legendary Oak charm positively radiating from him.

The future surged and we Saw him a little older, walking out into an arena, confident, ready to win. The crowds watching went wild. He stopped on his side of the field, a pokeball in hand. A voice announced "Pokemon Trainer Blue challenges Champion-"

"I got this."

53

"Go, Magmortar!"

"Go, Arcanine, Extremespeed!"

Gary's hound was a magnificent beast with thick shiny fur covering big muscles. It was fast, and barrelled into Magmortar like a wrecking ball, driving it back a couple steps before the Blast pokemon braced itself and stopped Arcanine. What followed next was a beatdown started by picking up the terribly mislabeled Legendary pokemon and slamming it back down against the arena floor a couple times before it managed to break free. Then taking a Mega Punch to the snout that landed it at the edge of the platform.

"Arcanine, Outrage."

A red glow surrounded Arcanine and it went wild, launching a Hyper Beam at Magmortar, following through with a Giga Impact that bowled it over and a Crunch that was barely blocked by a flame striped arm. We raised an eyebrow. That was something else. Two large attacks in a row without having to rest? Unfortunately, Magmortar used the opportunity to flip them and straddle Arcanine, before raining down punches upon it. Arcanine was still in the throes of its Outrage, and managed to dislodge Magmortar long enough to open up some distance for a second Giga Impact. Right into Magmortar's fist.

"Arcanine is unable to battle, please send out your next pokemon."

"Go, Umbreon. Chain Feint Attacks and Dark Pulses, whittle it down."

Gary was going for a similar strategy as we had, except he didn't have a type advantage like Namelass had had. It was fascinating to watch his pokemon slip out the smallest of shadows and harrassing Magmortar. The Moonlight pokemon was slippery and attacks were missing it by quite a bit. Near misses singed it or threw it off a little, but most often it was gone before Blaine's monster could capitalize and end the fight. It was quite amazing, but fucking hells, this was going to be a very long fight. Guess we had time to mess around with our phone. Hm. Idea. We woke Porygon up and set it to optimize the video compression algorithms. A slight effort of will Teleported the phone outside the booth, and sis erected a barrier to protect our AI and prototype.

Twelve minutes later, Umbreon was exhausted enough that it took a little too long to vanish into the shadows and ate a Fire Blast to the face. Then it was Magmortar's turn to smack the Moonlight pokemon around until it fell from the platform and we had to bring it back up to be recalled. Porygon had managed to improve video compression by about ten percent without a corresponding loss in quality during the fight too!

"Umbreon is unable to battle, please send out your next pokemon."

"Go Pidgeot, harass it from afar with Hurricanes and Air Slashes!"

Gary's Pidgeot was a little smaller than Ash's, but it was faster, and the volume of attacks it was sending at Magmortar was impressive. Unlike with Umbreon, the huge bird was an available target at all times however, and the Blast pokemon could fire three attacks at the same time. Two minutes later, it had caught fire from dodging a Flamethrower into the path of a Fire Blast. Gary recalled it with a curse and withdrew it from the match.

"Pidgeot is unable to battle, please send out your next pokemon."

"Go Ariados, Sludge Bomb!"

I froze before the spider even finished materializing, and when it did the world fell away. All I could see was a fucking spider the size of a fucking really big dog. My skin crawled looking at its jerky alien movements, and I felt the sounds it made to my very bones. I couldn't breathe. My lungs hurt and I couldn't seem to remember how to get them working again. I saw Gary's face, he looked worried and he was blocking the spider, but the spider was still there and now I couldn't see if it was coming at me and I-

"Alakazam is unable to battle, please send out your next pokemon."

Oh. Fucking spiders and fucking lungs. Maybe we should get an oxygen tank for situations like that one. I'd blanked out through two fights. We needed to do something about that. It was too big a weakness.

"Go Blastoise, Hydro Pump!

Gary's Blastoise was strong, and we had a feeling that given time it was going to turn into an equal to Blaine's Charizard at its prime. It barraged Magmortar with Hydro Pump after Hydro Pump, tanking the counter Fire Blasts and Flamethrowers with little trouble, before Tackling it and smashing against the wall of the Volcano. Blastoise then sprang from the wall back onto the platform. Magmortar fell down to the lava pool from where it let out an annoyed roar. After all, for all that the lava was really quite nice for it, it couldn't jump back onto the platform.

"Magmortar is unable to battle. Winner: Pokemon Trainer Blue."

"Fuck yes!" Gary punched the air and made to hugs us, only to run into a wall of force. "Aw, come on 'Zula!"

"Congrats, Gary. We're impressed. Come on, let's... meet the old man by the entrance."

Blaine gave Gary his badge, and sent us on our way to meet with Ash. We were leaning on Gary during the walk back. After all, why make a bigger effort than necessary on walking when we could just use our trusty nephew. We were halfway to the Pokemon Center when Gary spoke up.

"You okay, 'Zula? You worried us for a little bit there."

We cared for Gary, and we trusted him to a degree, but telling him something like that… No. We couldn't do that.

"We're fine. Just... a small issue."

"It was more than small-"

"Leave it." Bad enough my lungs were so fucked up there was no way to keep the issue secret.

"Okay. Thanks for getting me to fight Blaine. It was amazing. I can't imagine what the rest of his Champion team was like. Fuck, I wonder what your team's like! You beat one of his champions three on three."

"Both, three on three."

"You've got to show me your team now." We smirked. We had an idea. Deep breaths.

"Wait for the Conference like everyone else. Although, we would be… willing to fight you… and Ash someday. One pokemon each… against one of ours."

We almost felt bad for them. Almost.

"You're on."

We switched to sending thoughts at him. Talking was too hard. We had an idea. There was no reason not to Teleport everyone home, and we knew Father and Daisy missed Gary. Same for Dehlia and Ash. Yes, we'd do that. We were nearing the Pokemon Center when we heard something that had us all perking up.

"-urrender now or prepare to fight!"

"Meowth! That's right!"

Well. Entertainment. We remembered those three.

"Holy fuck 'Zula! What the hell?!"

Our power had slipped its leash for the first time in ages, and hoarfrost started forming around us. The temperature dropping drastically in an instant. We didn't quite feel it, cold as we always were, but our power could tell. That was new. Maybe we should curb the soul eating thing a little bit.

Hahaha.

"You never learn, do you?" Ashy boy was annoyed. "Look, I just got done fighting a really tough battle, so I'm not in the mood for your usual brand of annoyance. Leave us alone or I'll let Charizard have you."

"Too late~" Our power, totally unintentionally and not at all something we practiced, warped our already slightly creepy voice into something akin to Ozai's laughter, and fucking everyone within hearing froze. "Hello, Rockets."

We dove into their minds, but we already knew what we'd find. These three were not acceptable targets. Ty Lee and Mai rose from our shadow, looming behind us and eyeing the trio hungrily. They turned completely white upon seeing our ghosts. Delicious fear.

"Run, little insects, before we eat your souls."

The resulting ear piercing screams were extremely impressive, and they probably set some sort of speed record running the fuck away. We made sure to insert the knowledge that we'd be heading to Pallet Town in their minds though. Wouldn't want them to lose track of Ash. Right then, that's handled, time to get Zeus healed up. We turned our attention back to the people around us and found them freaked the fuck out.

"What? We don't like Rockets."

"I… Nevermind 'Zula," Gary shook his head. Let's just get to the Pokemon Center."

Hm. We should text Marina. She was on her way to challenge for her fourth badge, and since we'd already been to Ecruteak City we could meet up with her afterwards. We could even invite her to the Conference!

"Yeah, that silly smile on her face means she's off in her own world now. Daisy says there this girl in- ow! What the fuck 'Zula."

The psychic dope slap. A necessary tool for the noble art of Oak Baiting.

And no, we weren't blushing, no matter what anyone said about it!

54

AN:

Azuluna's Team:

Yue the A-Ninetales

Ozai the Gengar

Nameless the Starmie

Zeus the Blaziken

Sozin the Shellgon

Helpers:

Mai the Gengar

Ty Lee the Gengar

Conquest 3.7

Having the whole family back at the compound was comforting on a level we couldn't describe. We were a family in every meaning of the word, if perhaps a very weird example of one. Daisy had been fully forgiven by our mothers, and Dehlia and I were doing our best to cheer up father. We weren't doing too well on that front, but at least I was slowly getting over my stupid fear of him and sis was starting to hate him less, so progress.

We'd pondered how to fix the arachnophobia issue, and hadn't come up with a single way to actually fix the problem without the kind of psychic surgery that could cause problems. Who knew refusing to even consider to be within line of sight of the horrible monsters was counterproductive to getting over the fear? Ah well. At least we'd found a shortcut and set up a block to prevent my brain from messing with the rest of my body during a fear response. It majorly fucked up fight or flight, but hopefully future sight and combat precognition would be enough to compensate. At least this way I wouldn't completely black out from oxygen deprivation when I saw a spider pokemon.

We could feel the future pressing down on us on the day Marina was to challenge Morty. We Teleported near the Burned Tower, since it was one of the places least likely to get us spotted by someone, even if it was also one of the places most likely to get us another assassination attempt by a legendary pokemon. We would meet her at the Pokemon Center after she won her badge, on account of Morty hating our guts. We weren't waiting long before she walked into the lobby, and she looked even more amazing than we remembered. She'd had a bit of a growth spurt, and she was a little taller and a lot prettier. Next thing we knew we had tackle hugged her and we were all squealing and jumping around.

A small part of us pointed out that we were acting exactly like one of those super annoying girly girls we couldn't stand who screamed and giggled about everything for no reason at all. Well, not like we weren't huge hypocrites anyway. At least we had good reason to be so animated, especially when she showed us her Fog Badge. Then she saw my newest scar and we had to spend ten minutes calming her down. We'd told her that there'd been a small accident that had damaged my voice and lungs, but apparently she knew enough to know that a scar like that could have only come from something major. So in the interest of full disclosure we told her about the pneumonia, and we had to reassure her again that we were as well as we could be.

Eventually she healed her pokemon and we settled down to chat. She released a Misdreavous to fly around, and while it was initially skittish, it warmed up to us fairly quickly. The conversation eventually moved to one of her friends from New Bark, and somehow we ended up sitting in front of one of the video phones waiting for her friend Vincent to pick up the phone. What followed was… interesting. It was clear from the word go that the boy was a little creeped out by us, something that Marina did not seem to be picking up on. That was fine, we got to hug Marina. We also probably made it worse when we glared murderously at him after he tried to flirt with her and he turned into a pale stuttering mess. In our defense, she was way out of his league and she could do better. Like us! After all, we were Champions to be.

"Uh, um, Oh! Look what the Gengar dragged in!" Vincent said, looking to the side of the screen like whatever he was looking at would save him from us. We were a bit puzzled though, all three of our Gengars were in our shadow and had been all day. They couldn't have dragged anything in.

"What? Oh, Jimmy, hi!" That's what he'd meant. She'd stood up and dragged us with her to another boy. If memory served, this one was also one of her friends from New Bark. He was tanned, taller than us, and had the weirdest hairdo under his cap that we'd ever seen. He had a Typhlosion by his side and from looking at it, seemed to be well taken care of. "Oh wow, your Cyndaquil is already a Typhlosion! You two must be fighting so much!"

"Yeah, we challenge every trainer we meet!" He said, blushing, leaning back a bit and slipping his hands into his hoodie's pockets.

"Hello Typhlosion, you're so cute!" And holy fuck, that thing actually was cute as fuck when it was being all friendly and shit. She turned her attention back to Jimmy and pulles us forward a little, "This is Azula, I met her when Professor Elm gave me my Totodile, Wani-Wani! She was the first person I fought, and it ended in a draw! Can you imagine that for my first battle? We've been talking every day since then."

Bluuuush. Damnit, pale skin, why must you betray us so!

"We were talking with Vincent, they just met too. Anyhow, I'll call you later, okay Vince?"

"Wait, don't hang up!" We directed our attentions back at him. "Uh, nevermind! Talk to you later, bye!" And the line went dead. Good. Now it was just a matter of coming to an understanding with Jimmy. It was obvious he liked Marina, we could feel it, and she liked him back a little, though thankfully she liked us more. She would totally choose us, especially seeing as how we somehow ended in a field a little ways out from the Ecruteak City limits about to have a two vs. two fight against Jimmy. Note to selves: Marina could probably talk us into anything. Something about wanting to see us fight again, and wanting to see Jimmy in action too.

Now, what the fuck were we going to do? By this point the only member of our team that wasn't terribly overpowered was Sozin, and having a Shellgon fight was boring as fuck. There was a reason we were training him so hard. Well, okay, it was mostly to get ourselves an awesome dragon, but the point stood. If we were fighting, may as well go all out, yeah? Impress Marina and show dominance over Jimmy. Sis hopped out of our jacket and walked out in front of me, ready to smack a bitch.

Hehehe.

Hehehehe.

"Alright, go Beedril! Pin Missile!"

Sis raised a simple barrier to block the super effective barrage, and sent a weak Psychic downrange at the flying forest cancer. Wouldn't do to kill it by hitting it with too much force. It smashed against ground, rolled a few meters, and didn't stand back up. The looks of shock on their faces were delicious. Marina knew sis was strong, but it was something else entirely to be told and to see it for yourself, especially since she was still in her first stage.

"What was that?!" Marina and Jimmy exclaimed nearly simultaneously, then Marina continued. "How did you do that?"

"Funny thing, we've… never actually talked… much about our achievements, but it's… as good a time… as any: Would you like to… come watch us compete… in the Indigo Conference? We… registered a few months ago."

"How do you already have eight badges?"

"We're just that… awesome."

"Oh wow, now I really want to beat you, Little Red!" Jimmy was really excited now. He was a fighter. Yes, he was definitely much better than Vincent. Not as good as us, of course, but he would do in a pinch if something happened to us. "Go, Typhlosion, Flare Blitz!"

Fuck it, we actually liked him a little. We'd give him a good fight. Maybe this fight right here was the reason the future was being such a fucking cunt today and nothing more would happen.

Hahaha...

Sis raised a Protect and Typhlosion smacked right into it with a decent amount of force, before springing off it and sending a Flamethrower as sis over the edge of the barrier. She Teleported to the left, and sent a weak Psychic back at it, launching it into a tree. Typhlosion twisted in mid air and landed on the tree for all of an instant, before launching itself at sis in another Flare Blitz. Fuck, but this brought back memories of our snowy home and better times when I wasn't so fucking fucked up and everything was so much simpler. Times when I didn't wake up wanting to rob a pharmacy, when I didn't have to worry about a father I was terrified of, when our mothers didn't look at me with such pain and fear in their eyes, like I might break at any moment if they did or said the wrong thing, like-

I felt sis inside my head, blunting the edges of my emotions, pulling me up from another downward spiral. Fuck. That's it. We're going home, taking Marina with us, and we're having a goddamned girls' night in. We focused back on the battle, the last few moments rushing across our bond and I saw sis stop Typhlosion midair and then launching it against another tree, this time faster and with too much force for the fire ferret to react in time. It was still ready to go and keep fighting, but we were done. He would one day be a worthy opponent, maybe even a peer, but he wasn't there yet. Sis walked back to me, using our power to keep from slipping on the ice that had formed on the ground around me, and hopped into her spot in my jacket.

"I… Sorry. I don't feel well." And the feeling of the future pressing down was starting to become extremely uncomfortable. "Is it okay if we... finish the fight some other... time?"

"Yeah, sure. You going to be okay?"

"Yes. We'll be fine." We looked up and we saw storm clouds in the distance, moving far too quickly to be natural. We felt the future pushing us towards the storm and we couldn't help but feel like this was a terrible idea. Sigh. "Come, follow."

"What? Where?" We pointed towards the clouds, and Marina gaze followed. "Oh. What's that?"

"Destiny calling to us. We're… meant to be there."

55

Conquest 3.8

We could feel there was no need to hurry, and we walked until we started hearing the shockwaves of very powerful electric attacks, followed by deep roars. We cleared the tree line and walked out into a clearing. That was around the time I regretted paying attention to the future, heartless bitch that it was. A fucking Raikou was there, as were two Team Rocket fuckers, and two of their machines of the week, a weird two legged robot with tentacles ending in pincers, and a crystal held by some sort of device

Fucking damnit.

Raikou sent a Thunderbolt at the robot, but the attack somehow arced away from its target and struck the crystal. It absorbed the energy and spat it back at the legendary beast, forcing a pained roar from it. Marina and Jimmy sprang into action, releasing their pokemon against the Rockets. We went for a more direct route.

We allowed our power to spill out from the iron grip we usually held it in, and hoarfrost formed around us, fog condensing into being around our feet. We pulled at our power like we hadn't in a long time, and odd shadows started flickering around us in places there shouldn't be any shadows. We sent a lance of kinetic energy rocketing centers mass of the robot and it struck with an explosion of force, a shockwave hitting us a second later with enough strength to make our companions stumble. There was nothing left of the machine beyond scrap, and against all expectations the pilot had survived with minor injuries.

Good. We wanted some fast food.

"Attila! Are you alright?" Huh. They're the epitome of androgynous. Couldn't tell whether they were male or female.

"I've had worse, Hun. Go, Skarmory, slice those brats into ribbons."

"Steelix, crush them!"

Their pokemon materialized and wasted no time in trying to murder us, the tell tale glow of Steel Wing covering the Skarmory's wings. The Steelix launched itself at us, intent on crushing or eating us in a single bite. We raised a Protect and the steel snake smashed into it. It was fucking hilarious to watch to be honest, that thing was so much bigger than us and yet we'd stopped it cold. We let Zeus out, Ty Lee and Mai rising form our shadow. They'd be enough to deal with the trash. We grabbed Marina and Jimmy, took a step, then the pokemon were behind us and Raikou and the Rockets ahead of us.

We reached for our power again, ice and shadows forming around us, and struck at the crystal device with all our might. For a second it seemed like the crystal suffered no damage and absorbed all the energy from our attack, then a crack formed along its length. Well then. It seemed this was simply a matter of applying enough firepower. Five more Psychics later and it exploded in a rain of shrapnel and Raikou's next Thunderbolt didn't get redirected away from the Rockets.

We had to admit, we felt a little inadequate. Sure, we probably had a much larger body count, but we'd never killed someone in such a showy manner before. Seriously, they fucking exploded in a cloud of red mist. Fuck. Sis hopped out of her spot an instant before Raikou turned back to look at us in what seemed like a very threatening manner. Right, guess it didn't like us any better than Suicune. Okay, from what we felt, it only really disliked us a lot, instead of outright hating us like the water dog, but still, we probably wouldn't get out of fighting it. We could fucking feel the growl it was putting out. We were not in a state to put up against another legendary, even though it hadn't managed to get a cheap shot in like the water dog had.

"Why is it looking at us like that?" Jimmy spoke up with more than a little fucking absolute terror in his voice. Fair. He had just seen two people murdered in front of him.

"Stand back. It's… not after you." Our senses unfolded to their fullest, a torrent of information flowing into our minds, distributing the processing load of all the future possibilities we saw throughout our brains and those of our Gengars.

"We can't leave you to deal with it alone!" Marina was… unwell and seemed to be running purely on adrenaline and a stubborn refusal to abandon us. We definitely needed to take her home now. Our mothers could help her deal with what she'd just seen.

"It won't be the first time… we've dealt with one of the… legendary beast. Please keep back, we don't... know that we can keep you safe… if you don't."

Raikou attacked first, throwing a Thunder at us that made the Protect we raised feel like it was about to shatter until it let up. An effort of will had our team released from their balls and rushing in to engage the thunder dog. Then Ozai appeared right beside it, bit into its shoulder, and dug its claws into its leg. Perfect, crippled leg. Mean Looks finished the job of keeping it from escaping.

It was a deadly game. Deadlier than fighting Suicune had been.

One hit to us would kill us, one hit to our more vulnerable pokemon could kill them, and we had to make sure Jimmy and Marina were safe. All complicated by the fact that lightning was instantaneous and we had to predict attacks to block or dodge them. Especially now that Raikou knew our ghosts were there and it wouldn't be caught out by a surprise attack. We started building up a Psychic like the one that had broken Suicune, but Raikou seemed to be better at sensing energy, because it shifted its focus fully to us until we had to break off. It'd have to be a battle of attrition, and that wasn't a fight we were sure we could win as we were.

We needed to change the fight or we would lose someone. We're sorry Marina, for dragging you into the uglier side of the world, for having to do what we have to now. We felt her mind respond to us and we almost cried when all she cared about was that we came out of this safely. So be it. The pokemon we'd left fighting the trash joined in on the legendary fight. They must have dealt with the steel types already.

Psychic blades rained down on Raikou opening bloody wounds, our Gengars clawed at its eyes, Zeus, Yue, and Nameless hammered its crippled leg and shoulder. Despite all that, it pushed us back bit by bit, a migraine getting worse with every instant of the future we had to look over. Predictions causing actions causing more predictions causing more actions in a nearly endless feedback loop trying to keep us all alive and uninjured. What was a little bit more nervous system damage in the name of not dying?

We tried separating, Nameless, sis, and I each charging an attack of our own. It proved to be a mistake and I had to Teleport back to sis for defense. Right. It wanted sis and I specifically. We had a split second of warning before it turned back to Nameless. There was no time to block, no time to dodge. Our starfish let loose the Psychic it'd been charging just as Raikou committed to its own attack. The Thunderbolt was devastating, roasting Nameless' fleshy extremities and completely taking it out of the fight, cracks running through it's jewel. The thunder dog was sent flying by the Psychic, but it wouldn't be enough, it hadn't been a decisive hit, and we were down a pokemon.

We pulled Jimmy and Marina to us and recalled our team. We didn't need to win, we'd never needed to win. It'd been our pride that demanded we win. Now Nameless could be dead, and the rest of us were in more danger than before. We'd just needed a chance to retreat, and our starfish had bought it for us. We Teleported home, bringing everyone with us, our mothers would make sure everything was okay. They'd make everything okay.

"Azula?!"

We heard Mama's voice in the distance and relaxed. Everything was okay now. I could rest now.

56

Conquest 3.9

We were grounded. Kind of. By which we meant that our mothers had asked us very nicely not to leave their sight until we were less unhealthy or they'd be very hurt and disappointed in us. To be fair, they had good reason. This made two times we Teleported in while in trouble, except this time I'd been bleeding out my eyes and nose while in deadly respiratory distress. At least our mothers loved Marina, and Marina had taken well to their help in dealing with seeing two people explode. Jimmy was doing especially well, and he and Ash got along like they'd been friends for years. Fucking causality was fucking weird, seriously.

We'd gone out to have fun with our friend, had almost died again, and now Ash had a friendly rival that if what we were getting from our past life was right, he would have never met. Fucking destiny. It didn't help that everyone kept being crazy and teasing us and Marina about about our totally only friendship. Gary even had the balls to join in! Well, okay, he briefly had the balls to join in. Then we glared at him and they retreated so hard into him you could have mistaken them for his tonsils. That'd teach him to make comments that caused our mothers to take pictures of us while we were blushing.

They stayed for a week, and Mama extracted a promise from Marina and Jimmy to call once a week to make sure they were handling things okay. We Teleported them back to Ecruteak and Marina set off to get her next badge. She'd agree to watch us win the Indigo Conference as long as we agreed to watch her win the Silver Conference a few months later. Maybe we could speedrun the rest of the Johto Gyms and collect Giovanni's and Sabrina's, and surprise her by participating. Wait, would we even be allowed to participate? We'd be the Champion for both regions. Hm. Maybe we should actually look up what being Champion entailed…

Yeah, probably a good idea. We'd make a note of it.

Training took up all of our time. The Raikou had jogged my memories and a few incoming events had reminded us of the need to be ready. Mewtwo was coming, and he was much stronger than the legendary dogs. We needed our team to be ready to beat him. Fortunately our ghosts gave us a bit of an advantage, and we might have better results fighting him than Raikou. Psychic was much slower than fucking lightning attacks, and we'd managed to survive those well enough. Hopefully Nameless would recover fully, because we didn't have a suitable water type to replace it with. The Pallet Nurse Joy was optimistic, but the damage to the gem was extensive and repairing it was taking some time.

Maybe we should get an army of Alakazams to remodel Suicune's head? Yes, we'd have to get started on that for later, but that project wouldn't be ready in time for the Conference. Fuck. Fucking Raikou.

Ozai's creepy as fuck laughter drew our attention back to our pokemon, and we saw something we'd been waiting some time for. Fucking A, Sozin was finally evolving. The lightshow around our new murder dragon faded and the squat reptile let out a roar. Sniff. They grew up so fast. Testing time then. We felt Mama coming up to us, and she felt like she wanted to talk with us. Right, our ghosts would have to sub in. It was so fucking useful to be in so many places at the same time.

"Hey Pumpkins, can we talk?"

"Yeah?" Those were words we never wanted to hear. They usually preceded conversations about things we didn't want to talk about.

"I… okay, I'm just going to ask, because I don't know how to breach the subject. Did you do something to make the legendary beasts hate you enough to try to kill you on sight?"

Like this particular subject.

"Because it's enough of an open secret in the Champion circuit that while they're very defensive, they're not outright hostile, and that they're more likely to run away than fight… and well, two of them have already tried to kill you. I… we're worried."

We'd agonized over this, and we were beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, it had something to do, at least in part, with our love for souls. We'd checked, and there was something about us that really fucking freaked out a lot of pokemon on sight, sometimes they didn't even have to see us and they still freaked out over us. Then there were other times when the pokemon did not care one fucking bit we were there. It seemed to vary among individuals and from species to species, though enough exposure seemed to inure them to our presence. Problem was, the smartest pokemon, the ones who could communicate well enough to tell us, couldn't seem to feel it enough to tell us what it was. It was probably an instinct of some kind.

Observing ghost pokemon was very illuminating, with the weaker specimens being utterly terrified of us, but the stronger ones being almost attracted. At least the fact Ozai, and to a significantly lesser degree Mai and Ty Lee, simply scared everything helped us see it couldn't be just soul eating. Ugh. Why must everything be so fucking annoying.

"We don't know." Best part was that we really didn't, and Mama could tell we believed that.

"But you suspect." Damn those supernatural mother senses.

"Partly."

How to explain to your mother that you've become a soul eating eldritch abomination? We took a deep breath, the fading remnants of the pneumonia making my chest ache a little and we let go of our power. We could feel our heart rate going up at the prospect of our mothers rejecting us, all the while ice began to form around us and shadows flickered at the corner of our vision. She jumped at the sudden cold and the seemingly living shadows, growing concerned when she realized it was coming from us. Please don't hate us.

"When… When the Haunters hurt me, they… they hurt more than just my body. When we remember the pain… it's like it's happening all over again. We've seen our souls, we've seen quite a few souls, and mine still has bite marks on it. The wound's healed, but what they ate… it's never coming back, and it hurt so much when the bites were still healing. You know what came from that."

She was hugging us to her now, freezing cold and all, and we savored it as if it were the last time we'd ever get to do so. We were crying, we realized. Why?

"After we beat the Fuchsia Gym… one of the retainers there followed us back to our room at the Pokemon Center. We didn't go back right away, we celebrated a little, my powers were healthy, and my soul barely hurt anymore. We… fuck. We got dinner and, uh, illegally bought a bottle of wine. Kinda."

We could feel she clearly didn't approve of that, but she seemed to understand that we had more and worse to say, so she just hugged us tighter against her.

"We don't remember much of what happened, just flashes and impressions. She tried to drug us and we fought back. She'd have succeeded if not for our precognition. She was a Rocket spy, placed in the gym to scout out potential targets. She- We ate her. Her soul. We took everything of value until she was an empty husk. We think it's partly because of that, but we're sure it's not only because of it that they've tried to kill me."

"How many?"

And that was the make or break question, wasn't it? We took a deep breath and braces ourselves for whatever may come.

"Eleven personally, the Gengars have more."

"Why?" We hadn't expected that question, but it mattered to her, we could hear it in her voice, in her demeanor, could feel her mind needed an answer.

"They were scum, monsters of some kind or another, and they were Rockets."

She was disturbed, scared, and it hurt her so much to hear about what we'd done, but we could feel she still loved us, wasn't going to reject us. We cried on her until we fell asleep. She didn't hate us and she knew a little bit more about the monsters we'd become. Maybe things would be okay.

"Oh babies…"

I woke up in Mama's arms and sis in mine. We were warm, we were safe, and then the memories rushed in. We'd told Mama. She hugged us to her. She'd felt us wake up.

"If you could change what you did, would you?"

"No. They were monsters, one and all, killers, rapists, and kidnappers. Do we have the right to be their executioner? Probably not, but we can be, and if by stopping them we save one life, ours or someone else's, then so be it. If we profit immensely from doing so, then all the better."

"Is there evidence?" I felt her mind running through the situation, thinking about every possibility.

"No. I… We learned a lot from the ninja from Fuchsia." A knot of tension inside of her loosened, and I felt tears fall on the top of my head. "Please don't cry, it's not your fault."

"I wish you didn't have to go through what you have." She kissed the top of my head, "I'm not naive about the world we live in, I know that sometimes you have no other choice but to do something terrible to stop something worse. Champions have responsibilities to their region, and sometimes there's only one thing you can do… For all that Sinnoh is beautiful, it had its own problems, and it fell to me to solve them when no one else could. It's something you agree to when you become Champion if you want to stay Champion. It was hard at first, but… I had to make sure you two had a world to live in, and if I had to do despicable things to keep you safe and happy then there was really only one thing I could have done."

I was stunned. Mama had all but admitted she was a killer, that in addition to dealing with dangerous pokemon she was pretty much an assassin for the safety of the people living in Sinnoh, and most likely Kanto now too. The Champions were more than a symbol. They were protectors, troubleshooters in the most insincere sense of the word. That was… We'd have to think on whether we were willing to do the job. If the benefits of a target rich environment outweighed the responsibilities.

"We would all do anything for you, babies, anything. But… I need you to promise me, please promise me, that you won't let yourself become a monster. That you won't let yourself grow to like the things you're forced to do…" Fear coursed through her and her arms tightened around us. "I don't want to see you become a target for the others."

"We're already monsters, Mama, but I promise, we won't force you to have to choose. We'll behave."

57

Conquest 3.10

There was a change in dynamics after our confession. Mama took couple hours out of her day to tell us about her time as Champion, of the things she'd done, of the mistakes she'd made and the lives she'd saved and the ones she'd destroyed. She believed we'd make Champion, there was no doubt in her mind after she'd seen our team training, but she wanted us to know what we'd be walking into. We were curious how the Elite Four and previous Champion would handle things though. There was no precedent for a ten year old earning the right to be the League's leader and top wet works agent. Mama had set the previous record across all regions when she'd won her own title.

At least the upcoming release of Red Technology's Avatar all purpose device was coming up just in time to capitalize on the publicity from the Conference and my challenge to the Elite Four and the Champion. With our parents' help we were poised to corner the fucking market. Move over Silph, there's going to be a bigger fish. Our mothers had seen the genius in our idea to essentially build up an enormous spy network out of the devices with server farms of Porygons trawling through the data. After thoroughly black boxing the technology and software, of course. Honestly, that had taken more than the actual design and setup. Big Sister was coming to the pokeworld.

We'd set our mind to come up with upgrades, and we had a few that built on father's abomination to turn the disgusting things into something extremely useful. Forget high-end haptics, the Avatar-Psi was building up to be fucking next level. Well, as soon as I got over my fear of putting psionic technology anywhere on my person. We'd spent hours tinkering with the things to make sure they could never be turned against us. As things stood, we found a couple way to improve performance for our purposes and further decrease any ability to negatively impact me. There would be no fucking Sword Art Online bullshit happening here.

We built our ace in the hole into the chokers holding my Key Stone and Luna's Mega Stone, as well as the psionic control interface for the Avatar-P. It felt wrong to use it, even knowing that we'd made it, that it was safer than safe, when the last time I'd had devices stuck to my skin had led to a very close near death experience and left me mildly crippled. So it was with trepidation that we activated the Psionic Control and Amplification Interface Modules we'd placed over our cheekbones, and the Central Psionic Processing Unit in our chokers. Technology for the fucking win, we guessed. If pushing our combat precognition to its limits pushed my brain and nervous system to its own, then why not add more brain and nervous system to the equation?

The world expanded around us, the devices taking in he deluge of information my brain normally handled and processed it for ease of use. We'd been blind but now we could see. The infinity of futures was instantly sorted into the most useful ones, the extremes in sensory overload rendered down to a useful feed. Next stage would be to use the interface to optimize attacks into perfection. We had the power to spam our deadliest Psychics, but we didn't have the ability to shape them quickly enough.

They'd burn out fairly quickly, probably wouldn't last five minutes at full blast, but five minutes may be the difference between victory and death. In less high impact situations, they did the job of a heads up display and computer assisted aiming and predictive software unassisted by psionics. In a pinch, it could be combined with combat precognition to create something greater than the sum of its parts. Next time a legendary tried to kill us, we'd be ready. We should probably make extras though.

Mewtwo was too much of a danger, and we would take every advantage we could manage to ensure its threat was nullified, one way or another, and if things went the way we remembered, Mew would be there too. Every advantage we could scrape together, every dirty trick, every cheat, everything, we could be take and throw at Mewtwo. We'd driven to extinction the inhabitants of Cerulean Cave and left it a dead wasteland. Their souls going to feeding our army of Gengars and ourselves. We would drown the motherfucker in ghosts and eldritch abominations. We'd visit Mt. Silver next. The strongest psychics were coming, and we needed to be ready.

I was barely human anymore, we could feel it, but we could feel it most starkly every time we let our power loose. I was colder and colder, and the shadows that had started manifesting were becoming more pervasive. We could see into them, a void that brought to mind the unreality between souls and the place we traveled through when I teleported. My Teleports had steadily become more and more akin to what our ghosts did when they disappeared. It had become effortless, to a level we could likely finally use it in combat. Guess I'd never really come back from that first death, not fully. Maybe not at all depending on how the bond between us worked.

Ah well, that just meant we were even bigger eldritch abominations than we already believed ourselves to be. Nothing relevant had changed, really, and when we heard the news that Viridian Gym was reopening, we knew the time had come.

Giovanni Vittore would die.

We Teleported to Viridian first thing in the morning, ten minutes later we walked through the door to possibly one of the most dangerous fights we'd ever be in. The place was deserted, and we didn't see a single soul until we reached the arena. The bastard was there, smug and pleased as you like, not a wrinkle in his tailored suit.

"Here to challenge me, little girl? Aren't you a bit out of you league?"

"We certainly weren't when we dealt with your base in Celadon, or the takeover in Saffron, or when we put a knife in your side." And wasn't that just the perfect way to get him to go full on psycho?

"You! Mewtwo kill that whore!"

"What if Mewtwo doesn't want to kill us?"

"Mewtwo will do what I tell it to! I am its master!"

It was almost too easy, really. Hardest part was keeping Mewtwo from pasting Giovanni while it threw a hissy fit, which let us tell you, is really hard to do when you can't stop laughing at someone else's idiocy. Fucking prideful idiots. Mewtwo didn't even pay us a lick of attention after we hid the majority of our power.

By the time the cloned wonder ragequit the scene, everything was in ruins, but we had Giovanni, and we had fourteen Gengars in our shadow. We were sure at least one of them would manage to hollow out his body and ride him like a meat puppet with a poisonous gaseous center. The operation was akin to the breaking of Ozai, but this time we had to make sure to destroy the parts of the Rocket Boss we didn't want our Gengar to have. Like ambition, or wishes, desires, and dreams that didn't boil down to pleasing us and mindlessly obeying us. Really, it was going to be a shell of a man, dedicated to the greater glory of Red Azuluna. Learning how to permanently imprint psychic commands into things was a huge advantage, and one that was serving us well.

Crime couldn't be exterminated without impossible measures, so instead we were going to control it. We'd have a few more of our Gengars wear other Rockets in high places to make sure our grip on the organization was ironclad. Team Rocket got a bad end and they couldn't have deserved it more. We directed a thought at him, and he released a Rhyperior. We released Zeus. May as well observe formalities.

Fire burst around our fire rooster and it damn near flash stepped into a devastating kick to the Drill pokemon's left arm. The protective rock armor cracked, and the arm looked to have been rendered unusable. It wasn't without cost though, and the other arm sent Zeus smashing into the gym wall. He got up, and a Fire Blitz exploded into Rhyperior's chest with enough strength to return the favor, except in this instance the Drill pokemon went through the wall. It jumped from the other side, making another hole, and took a shattering kick to it's stomach on the way down, making a third hole in the wall. This time it didn't get up. Our first thrall threw an Earth Badge at us, and we gave it it's marching order.

"Well then Giovanni, keep us informed, will you? And make sure to freak out the idiot trio when they come in to report to you, yeah?"

"Yes Mistresses."

"Good boy."

We Teleported in during breakfast, the news about Viridian Gym's near destruction playing on the television screen. Judging by the looks we were getting from our mothers, we suspected they thought we had something to do with it. That was likely going to be an awkward conversation. What's the best way of saying you just expanded the number of bodies you permanently inhabit simultaneously to three? And that you're now de facto leader of the biggest criminal organization in the continent?

58

AN: Dubiously alive loli-meat is adorable at her crush.

Conquest 3.11

Apparently the questions about our recent criminal activities boiled down to "Why?" and the answer "Rocket Boss was there." was sufficient. Who knew this openness and honesty thing was so easy? Gary and Ash challenged for their Earth Badge a couple days later, and Gengar Vittore was satisfied with their performance, though we made sure not to look at the memories of the fights. We wanted some surprises, after all.

We meditated on the future, trying to make sense of what was coming and testing out the limits of our new devices. It came to us just as the amplifiers on my cheekbones burnt out, and the interior of the control interface around my neck melted, fortunately not as spectacularly as the first time. The whole thing with Mewtwo would happen after the Conference. The flashback inspired panic attack should have been something we expected, but it still caught us by surprise. We called Marina, Teleported to her by line of sight through the video phone, and spent a couple hours attached to her side with burnt pieces of tech attached to me.

We woke up warm, comfortable, and safe. It was perfect, and we couldn't help burrowing into the delicious comfy warmness at our side, arms tight around us pulling us deeper. We breathed in deeply, taking in a citrusy scent. A few tears slipped out. Right now, at this very moment, everything was right with the world.

"You girls are very huggable." Said Marina into the top of my head.

"You can hug us anytime you like. We're yours, completely." What. Mouth, what the fuck? Why would you say that without checking in with the brain, mouth?

"Are you now?" And her tone of voice had us burying our face in her chest and blushing so hard we probably glowed in the dark. She giggled, and kissed the top of our heads. "Come on, I have to win my Storm Badge today and that won't happen if you keep using me as a pillow. We can go to the beach to celebrate afterwards."

Truly a dilemma for the ages. To let go of Marina, or not to let go of Marina. We couldn't decide the correct course of action, so we defaulted to what we were already doing and hugged her more. She responded by getting up with us still attached to her, though there was a brief moment when we almost fell off due to lack of upper body strength. Our legs saved us and we were now firmly in place around her waist.

"You know, I think you might need to see a doctor. You're way too light."

"We're working on it, but we've had a lot of trouble putting on weight, especially after the morphine, and the lungs, and… okay so maybe we've been a bit rough on my body, but it's really hard to eat so much."

"Mhmm. You know, if you don't let go, I'm going to walk into the shower like this and turn on the water." We let go with a squeak, and then took the advantage by rushing the bathroom. First shower was ours. "Damnit Azula!"

We took care of our battered body in the shower. Downing whatever the hell the magic wonder pills that kept my lungs from turning completely into huge useless lumps of scar tissue. The hot water felt amazing against my cold skin, and we abused our psychic power to maintain steady contact with it all over our bodies while also keeping the shampoo from washing away from my hair. How the fuck did other people with long hair manage? Sure, I was probably on the extreme end of things since mine was reaching ankle length now, but we remembered it was just as difficult when it was waist length.

My hands ran down my body, memorizing the feel, committing to memory what I had, and what would likely change soon. I was ten. On the edge of truly starting to grow up. Soon changes would start happening, I would start growing, urges and needs and necessities would develop. My past life barely remembered those years, they were suppressed and damaged and we could barely get glimpses of memories from the time period. For all intents and purposes, she had little experience to offer us, to offer me. It was daunting, terrifying. We'd taken every step in this new life backed by the knowledge and experience of my predecessor, but now we were coming up against something with which she couldn't help us.

We floated clean clothing in through a crack in the door, drying ourselves with an application of our temperature control, and dressing while wondering what I'd look like in three years, in five, in ten. Could we See ahead? It was something that was going to happen, but if our instincts were right, and what our doctors and Lucky-tchii had told us was correct, then we had already altered the natural course of the future with regards to my physical appearance. Trying to see ahead for that purpose would likely end in pain and frustration. Should we even bother? What would be the point, really? It would happen, and short of some truly insane ideas that we were unwilling to even consider, it was something that we couldn't stop or change.

We walked out and Marina took her turn at the shower. Yes. There really was no point in worrying about my impending teenage years. I came from good stock, and it was likely impossible for me to end up being anything but perfection given a new form. Teenage Azuluna problems were for Teenage Azuluna to deal with, not us. Twenty minutes later we were walking out of the Pokemon Center. We cut quite the image, her blue to our red, her Little Miss to sis.

The Cianwood Gym was very similar to Fuschia's, though with less ninjas and more regular martial artists, and a more laid back fun atmosphere. It was really quite an improvement over the last few gyms we'd visited. The leader, Chuck, was the kind of enthusiastic that brought to mind half remembered memories of green jumpsuits and the springtime of youth, whatever that was. Before we knew it, we were having breakfast with him and his students at a long table. And no, we totally didn't eat a double portion because Marina practically force fed it to me. And we totally did not enjoy her feeding us. And we were totally not blushing, damnit.

Fuck everything. Our image was so totally ruined.

"You're cute when you pout."

We made a facial expression of petulant annoyance by pushing our lips forwards which was most definitely not a pout.

"Come on, dorks. I want to fight Leader Chuck so we can have a nice day out afterwards."

We followed Chuck to a dojo hall and one of his aides ran Marina's pokedex through a scanner, activating the arena's systems.

"Pokemon Trainer Ddraig challenges Gym Leader Chuck. This shall be a two pokemon match. Trainers, please send out your pokemon."

"Let's do this, Wani-Wani!" Her Totodile had grow up to be a mighty Feraligatr and had kept all the cutesy 'tude it'd had when small.

"Poliwrath!" Chuck's overgrown tadpole had muscle on top of muscle. It was ripped as fuck. "Body Slam!"

"Dodge and Slash!"

Poliwrath moved with speed and almost nailed Wani-Wani, but the Feraligatr slid to the side at the last second and ripped its claws through its back. The tadpole spun on a dime and landed a solid punch to Wani-Wani's jaw, knocking it down. Poliwrath followed through with another Body Slam, but Wani-Wani rolled out from under it and going for a Crunch. When its jaws actually closed on Poliwrath's arm, we knew it was all over but the crying, and Wani-Wani went into a death roll that resulted in a lot of snapping bones before Chuck recalled his pokemon.

"Poliwrath is unable to battle, please send out your next pokemon."

"Go, Machoke, Submission!"

The wrestler pokemon wasted no time in hitting Wani-Wani like a wrecking ball, and then they were both a blur of motion, one trying for another death roll and the other trying to manhandle a big reptile into submission. The fight ended with a double knockout, with Wani-Wani finally managing to properly start rotating, and one of the Machoke's massive fists hitting its head with the combined strength of it's muscles and the rotation of the roll.

"Both pokemon are unable to battle. Winner: Pokemon Trainer Ddraig."

Chuck was exuberant in defeat, and gave Marina her shiny new badge. She was at six out of eight. We couldn't wait to see her fight at the Silver Conference. After she healed her pokemon, we looked around for a nice beach and then spent a few hours playing around in the sand and water. We had a small dinner in the Pokemon Center, and crawled into the tiny twin bed together. Sleep was quick to come in Marina's arms.

We Teleported Marina back to Ecruteak, as it was the closest city to her next Gym that we'd been to. We had to go back home now, and Marina had to continue her journey. We didn't want to part ways. We hugged her in a moment that seemed eternal but was only a few minutes.

"I'll see you soon, 'Zula." She said into our hair, hugging us tighter.

It was now or never!

We lifted on the tips our toes and kissed her, our hands resting on the back of her head and neck. We tasted surprise and then affection as she melted into the kiss. So what if we were young, we had decades ahead of us. Eternity laid in that kiss, ahead of us and beyond, and we would never be able to drink our fill. We separated, the both of us blushing heavily, before we stole another kiss and faded away to our room in the compound.

We threw ourselves on our bed, squealing into our pillow and rolling around in our bed out of sheer unadulterated joy. We'd kissed Marina and she'd kissed us back! We continued to squee and roll around until Mom poked her head in without knocking, ostensibly to see what all the racket was all about, and witnessed us completely spazzing out over our first kiss. We stared at her, a brilliant blush on our faces, she stared back at us, a grin slowly building the longer she stared. We could practically feel her mom senses tingling. She wasn't going to let this pass, we could tell.