An Eye For An Eye, A Tooth For A Tooth

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"You sure you want to do this?" Ten asks me. We're out on the road, again, close to where I summoned Ethan just last night. It's so late (or early, take your pick) that the moon is setting instead of rising, but I passed out just after dinner so all in all I think I'm still getting close to the appropriate amount of sleep.

Sleep schedules are for chumps anyways.

"Worried I'll find out about something?" I respond.

"I am. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know why I stayed when everyone else was erased from the timeline. I don't know why I remember when this whole world should know nothing about what happened before. Blast, Ashley, I'm likely just as much of an anomaly as you are." He inhales, raising his folded wings as he does so before slumping back down.

Anomaly.

It's strange, because for all I've been through, the term still catches me by surprise. Anomaly for what? This world? The multiverse I've supposedly failed to save multiple times? What is normal at this point, anyways?

"We're just going to stall on this as long as we can, aren't we?" Ten peeps.

"Yep." I say. "Alright. I'll get on it." I close my eyes.

Having my eyes shut has always been helpful when I want to flash, since it blocks out unhelpful external stimuli. Tonight, though, it just immerses me in a darker shade of black than the one outside. I can't see a thing in my mind's eye, likely because we're not in the midst of battle. I try to reach out for Ten's presence, and feel my hands grasp a golden thread with the same sensation as if I'd touched such an object in real life. However, strangely, it seems to be vibrating, like a violin string after being played. It's unclear if I'm just imagining the whole thing or not, but the sensation is too real to be anything else.

I grab hold and yank the bond backwards, pulling myself into Ten's consciousness, and I hear a shrill owl cry echoing in my head as we both scream in agony. I see a stream of memories in front of my eyes, all from his perspective, but despite being memories that feature me few of them are with Pokemon I remember. There's a Croconaw in one, a Flareon in another, and in one I have half a team of Ratattas and a Leafeon curled around my shoulders.

Who are you? Who are you really?

The tenth.

The distorted voice in our mind doesn't sound like him at all and all the memories begin to fade, replaced by a burning, blinding light. I don't know if my eyes are closed or not but the light is so piercing I doubt it matters. It's worse than looking straight into the sun- it's as if I've actually fallen into it. I feel my body- our feathers- my limbs- catching on fire, a blazing heat eating away at the very core of my being.

Unable to take the pain any longer, I pull back and find myself crumpled to the ground just a few feet away from Ten, who is bent over with his wings splayed out. His breath is raspy and he's trembling all over, shaking with the weight of what just happened.

"Oh Arceus. Oh Arceus." I whisper. Most of the pain has abated, but my left eye is still unable to focus. The afterimage of whatever I saw is burned into it and combined with the already poor night visibility I can't see a thing.

"Ashley, I... I'm so sorry..." Ten clucks.

I run towards the left side of the route, through a patch of trees and out to the water, where I crouch down at the edge and look at my reflection, panting from the effort. I run my hand down my face in shock as the girl staring back does the same.

"My eyes," I tell him. "This one's completely silver." I point to my left eye.

Ten swoops over. "What eye? It looks fine to me."

"That was you," I tell him, a thousand puzzle pieces clicking together at once. "You've been here before. On other timelines, I guess. Other versions of me who failed..."

"I swear I didn't know before- I would have told you-" Ten pleads.

"I know." In spite of the incredulousness of the situation, I can't help myself. I start laughing and can't stop, tears leaking from both eyes until everything runs together into a blur of color and light. "What's wrong with us?"

"What do you mean, what's wrong with you?"

I almost fall right into the water in shock, but manage to stop myself at the last moment. I revolve from the water and look straight up into Reginae's frowning face. Minerva and Fang emerge from by his sides, and even Pisces is out of her Poke Ball. I squint with confusion, realizing that Reginae has a huge lump against his neck.

Confused, I reach for my bag and find it's gone. "Reginae." I say, finally recognizing what the 'lump' is. "Did you steal my bag?"

"Not my fault. You forgot this," he tells me. "Had Fang not realized that he could turn doorknobs with Psychic and had I not been up in the wake of my most recent nightmare, you would be stuck outside in the cold. You're welcome."

Minerva adds gleefully, "He made the cutest baying noise when he woke up. Did you know that a panicking Meganium sounds more like a Vulpix pup than anything threatening? It was kind of a lame nightmare, too. How are you still afraid of Sabrina when any of us could rummage through your brain like a flower patch any time of day?"

"For the record, if I could choose anyone to not have a psychic connection with, it would be you, because you're the worst. Potentially Ethan, seeing as his calls for help traumatized me as a child, but I think you might trump even that at this point."

"Okay, okay, I think I've heard enough." I tell them, waving the squabbling duo down. I look across the concerned team, and sigh. "Everyone's up, huh?"

"I guess the owl isn't the only nocturnal one on this team." Fang says. "Hey-o."

"I don't think I'm going back to sleep." I tell the team. "Ideas?"

"We could do some night training. Maybe Kanto Pokemon, the strong ones anyways... only come out at night?" Fang suggests.

"Sounds good to me. You guys go for it." I say, still too woozy to focus on anything properly. Fang, Minerva, and Pisces slink off, but Reginae stays behind, kicking the earth with his foot.

"Um. Ashley?" Reginae asks.

"Is there a problem? Something wrong with my eyes?" I ask.

"No, your eyes are fine." Reginae says. "Kind of a weird question."

"She's worried because when she flashed and- heck, I can't see anything past that. What were you and Ten doing, putting your head against the Pokegear screen?"

"Yes," I tell them.

"Stuck one eye in a flashlight." Ten confirms.
"Riiiiight. I was just going to say that I uh- I didn't mean to insult Ethan back there."

"I... didn't think you were."

"Okay. Whatever you were going to work out, I hope it turns out alright." Reginae tells me, then walks back after the others, looking back only once with those huge, concerned puppy eyes. I have no idea what I did to deserve him.

"So," I whisper to Ten. "You've been here before."

"I don't know." he says. "This is new to me too. Whatever you just did, it opened something up. I've been having memories that aren't mine, bits of suppressed dreams, and my powers have been malfunctioning."

"Now we know part of the reason. Still, why?"

"Ho-oh." Ten says, abashedly. "That's the only Pokemon I know with that kind of power. A fiery bird with the ability to bring back Pokemon from the dead? I must've... struck some deal. From what I can tell, I remember a little more every time, but usually I don't make it far enough to... to... blast, I am a useless guardian. I spend ten lives trying to protect you and I never even make it more than a few gyms."

I want to scream but I just throw my arms around him, holding him tight as I can. "No. You're not useless. You're never going to be useless."

He's tense for a few seconds before he relaxes in my grip, spreading out his own wings to hold me best he can. "A-Ashley. Thank you." He sighs. "I don't remember enough to talk about it in depth right now, but I'll work on it. Can you put me back in the Poke Ball? I want to rest. For real."

I have so many questions, so much more I want to say, but the strain from our earlier bond burns in both our minds and I can feel him just seconds from giving out. Interrogating him any further would be cruel. I can give this a few hours.

Anyhow, I do have one other teammate I want to talk to. Ten's not the only one with flashing problems.

I approach Pisces, who is sitting alone off to the side, with false bravado, hoping that she can't see the stained lines running down my cheeks in the moonlight or tell just from my countenance that things are completely off the wall right now. I lean against her midsection and ask, "Just going to sit over here looking stoic, then?"

"None of this rabble is worth fighting."

"Uh huh."

"I'd also prefer not to kill anyone tonight."

"That would be a plus. It would be nice if you were capable of exhibiting some restraint, too, but I wouldn't want to ask too much."

Her nostrils flare and she grits her teeth. "Do you need something?"

"I've wanted to talk to you for a while." I admit, "It's a little harder, since you're always in your Poke Ball outside of battling on travelling with the group..."

She bares her fangs as she twists around to bring her head down to my level. "... and you're afraid of me. It's understandable."

"No," I say, more confident than I expected coming into this. "No, I don't think I am anymore."

If she could raise an eyebrow, she would. I sense her curiosity, even her concern, but she draws her head closer than me. "Large words from a small human."

"Yes, but I'm not prey and you know that. I remember what you told me while ago. At the time, it was advice I needed to take. I was worried about leading a team. I was worried about hurting anyone again. I was worried about my ability to control my own Pokemon or even my own powers. Now? I might not be perfect, Pisces, but I'm working on it. I'm trying my best to change and get better but you still haven't given me a smidge of respect."

Pisces's frills flare out in anger. Between the innate fear that comes from a massive dragon snake sticking its fangs in your face and how tired I am at this point, I almost break down, but I hold her gaze.

"I'm not an extra tank of gas to tap into and burn when you need to turn up the power a little higher. We can get stronger, and we will, but I want to do it together. We're a team for a reason." I continue. "Please."

"Audacious," she mutters, breath rising into curls of purple smoke. "As you wish."

I sigh a breath of relief and she twitches, nudging me off her side, and floats off into the moonlight to track down the others. I catch a glint of furious gold in her eyes as she looks back, her sharp eyes so different from Reginae's round, sympathetic ones, but I have full confidence that I've gotten through to her in some capacity.

Now, all I need to do is wrangle my Pokemon, start going to sleep at a reasonable hour, and save the world from Red while juicing as much information out of the legendaries as possible.

Easy peasy.

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