28-35

The next morning I awoke feeling like I had a spiritual hangover and indigestion. Weird as it was to even think, my soul felt bloated. Guess there's consequences to massacring a whole bunch of people and eating their souls. Ah well, we'd use the morning to find a jeweler. Maybe it was silly, but it felt like Pewter was a perfect place to find one. I wasn't sure if it was some psychic sense telling me this, or a forgotten memory pushing forward, whatever it was, we got ready and went out.

The city's downtown was really quite homey, with lots of mom and pop's shops. We found a jeweler nestled in between a grocer and a smithy. A short conversation later and the old woman that ran the place agreed to set the stones on choker mounts for a very reasonable price. We now had two hours to kill until we could come back. Touristy stuff then. I really didn't feel like doing fucking anything. Yesterday's bloodlust and high had faded and now the cold was getting to me again. I still wasn't going to recall Mai and Ty Lee though, I liked knowing I had two soul eating abominations ready to defend me at a moment's notice, right in my shadow.

I was sweaty, agitated, cold, fucking anxious as fuck because fuck me I made the news in a very obvious way, my whole body ached, and I had a runny nose. Ugh. Today was shaping up to be a chore of a day. Maybe some food would help. We'd test the Staryu, well, Luna would, she felt much better. Yeah, fuck touristy stuff, food and rest. Once back at the Pokemon Center I had delicious food to nom on while doing Pokemon Trainer administrative work. Seriously, who'd have thought that was a thing? I had my Gengars stricken from my combat roster and set as helper pokemon. Hopefully no one would bother asking how something like a Gengar could be a helper pokemon.

A quick look around had me doing something I should have done a week ago when I first had a moment after Lavender, and flagged the Killer Haunter as an extremely dangerous pokemon, not to be released under any circumstances. Wouldn't want father getting eaten if I sent it to his ranch temporarily and he set it loose to study or just to let it get some air. Hm. I had a good name for it too. Ozai the Gengar would be a nice name, even if for now it was just Ozai the Haunter.

I couldn't register the pokemon I'd looted from the Rockets all in one go without making it very obvious I'd been at the site of a massacre to anyone who cared to look, so those stayed in the bag for now. Not like I had plans to train them any time soon. The Larvitar and Dratini were very slow growers, and I had zero fucking clue how to go about evolving a Porygon into one of the useful stages. Same for the Sneasel. Besides, if I wanted another heavy hitter I was better of looking for one of the Kanto or Johto starters and evolving those. They were naturally fast growers with strong bulky final stages. Or get one of my Snorlaxes. Snorlaxii? Eh, didn't matter.

Why did I have two Rattata?

They were nearly worthless pokemon on any level of the fighting circuit and- oh, right. The pot. A quick switch around and I had one eat a little bit of pot raw, and the other one eat a chunk I'd flash heated while In a bubble of psychic energy. I'd check on them in an hour or so to see how they were reacting. Luna came back from outside where she'd been putting my Staryu army through its paces, and handed me a single ball, sending the rest of them back to father's ranch. Perfect. She sent me memories of the Staryu in my hand being head and shoulders above the rest, with an ungodly amount of stamina. Definitely perfect. A quick command had it transferred to a Premier Ball. Only best balls for my best pokemon.

Everything ached, still. Maybe taking one of the pills wouldn't be too bad? I knew I was probably overdoing it with them, but fuck it. I reached out, pulled one out of my bag, and swallowed it. A few minutes later and everything was wonderful and warm, sort of, and fuzzy again. A nasty suspicion was worming its way through my mind, but I was going to use me some industrial strength denial until I couldn't anymore.

The Rattata looked to be in good health, but the one that ate the flash heated pot looked stoned as fuck, so success. We had us some marijuana for later. I recalled the rats and sent them of to father's ranch. Least I could do for using them as test subjects was give them a life of luxury. Hm. I labeled them as "In need of observation", just in case time showed negative side effects. I doubted it, my future sight gave me the feeling things were golden on this front, but better safe than sorry. Father's aides would keep an eye on them.

A little while later saw us picking up our new chokers. We couldn't work on Mega Evolution until Luna evolved, but that was fine. I was pretty sure we'd be able to manage it with little effort. Now that I wasn't hungover from a wild drunken night and after some time to think on the matter, I realized I'd perhaps overreacted. Yes, our mothers were unlikely to take kindly to us getting smashed out of our minds, or some of our other activities, but they were unlikely to find out for some time. The Poke World I lived in wasn't quite at the same level of the information age my past life's world had been.

The internet wasn't an all-encompassing thing yet, there wasn't a centralized video site or search engine like Youtube or Google, smart devices were practically non-existent, with my pokedex being one of the first of the kind. Even then, the pokedex was far from what I knew would come in the future. Videos didn't go viral yet in this day and age. In my old life that clip would have circulated the globe in hours, in this one it would take months. Though I knew it would, I'd seen it, it was the kind of video that made someone internet famous, so it wasn't getting dropped anytime soon, but chances were our family wouldn't find out until much later.

Thought for later, I didn't need to register the Porygon to indoctrinate it to follow my every command and use it as my personal artificial intelligence for literally any purpose that was even a little related to electronics. It was actually better if I didn't register it, that way there was no record of me having it and thus no suspicion could be cast upon me in matter of electronic crime. Yup, I was going to have to get me some black market conversion kits for the Porygon's pokeball, and some of the others too actually, deniable assets were always useful. Maybe even Ty Lee and Mai.

There was no rush right now though. Rushing would lead to making crazy decisions. More crazy decisions. Like slaughtering a Rocket base and eating the souls of everyone inside. At least we'd had the presence of mind to wipe all evidence of our being there once we were done. I had this feeling I had impulse control issues, and while Luna sometimes kept me from acting on some impulses she was perfectly happy to go along with others. Ah well, I think I'll take a breather to do a training montage from hell to bring Ozai and my still nameless Staryu up to par with Yue, as well as finishing Yue's training and evolving her. I was months ahead of the curve, already at five badges and not even a full month into my pokemon journey. I'd lost perspective. I'd really lost perspective. Fucking no one could match my pace and here I was worrying about not going fast enough.

Right then, new goal: Train Staryu to be able to single handedly take on Blaine, then once we have Ozai trained up swing by Sabrina's to get the Marsh Badge. Then more training until Giovanni gets back to doing his job as a Gym Leader. Or training and swing by Johto for someone's badge. Maybe Ghost dude or Dragon lady. Their Gyms seemed like the most interesting ones. With how much training time we were going to get before the conference we might be able to roll the whole of my competition, the Elite Four, and the Champion. I might go legendary hunting and stroll by letting everyone think it's the toughest and then when someone finally takes it down, boom Luna fucking stomps everything and everyone.

Yeah, I might just do that. Lose with one pokemon to give the competition false hope.

Thinking on it, I wasn't sure there was ever going to be an esports boom in this world. Pokebattling was so easy to get into, such a big enormous facet of everyday life, that I just couldn't see esports taking off that way they had in my first life. Shame, there was something about esports that really drew me in. Ah well, I guess we'd just have to make do by smashing faces the old fashioned way.

Well then, plans were made, I had delicious fuzzy feelings in me, time was on our side, and I got work done. I was taking the rest of today off in my delicious Pokemon Center provided bed, just luxuriating in feeling deliciousness. Yup. I drifted off to sleep some hours later, thinking of the future, pointedly ignoring all of the glaring issues currently up with me, and enjoyed feeling Luna curled up next to me.

29

The breaking of Ozai was an interesting event. Mostly because of how epic it must have looked from the outside. I mean, two Gengars holding down a Haunter a little bigger than them, and two psychics just pouring mojo into it. I felt like I was in a horror movie doing an exorcism or something. It was great. Mostly it was just hardcoding the imperative to protect us and follow our every command, rewriting its mind into loyalty and devotion. It was surprisingly hard work, slow going too. No wonder it's not really done, most of the time it wouldn't be worth the effort, and in those cases the individual was exceptional enough to be worth it, it'd be harder to manage, since, you know, exceptional.

It'd take most of a day, and we were going to do check ups every now and then to make sure it was holding, but in the end we had a completely loyal monster Haunter. This thing would plow through fucking anything in its path once evolved and trained. I couldn't fucking wait. Heh, Agatha was going to be fun to fight. We'd have a Gengar-off.

I needed a training spot for while I got my team in order for Blaine and Sabrina, and let's be honest, Pewter wasn't good enough for that. Maybe I could camp out at Victory Road? Or Cerulean Cave. Hm. We'd check out the cave first, since it was closer to civilization and all. We got our stuff together and checked out of the Pokemon Center. All aboard the Teleport Express. Then we were waiting for Mai and Tai Lee to find the cave while having a delicious dinner at a restaurant that sold Italian food. Seriously, the pokeworld was fucking weird. Ty Lee found the cave while Luna and I shared a dessert of ice cream over a hot brownie. Fucking delicious. We paid and Teleported to our Gengar once we were out of sight.

I could Feel the strong pokemon inside the cave. Yes. This would do nicely. We memorized the area and went to the Pokemon Center. I was tired, breaking Ozai had been hard, and- and- fuck it, and withdrawal was reaching its nasty tendrils into me again. Fucking hell, I was a fucking idiot. Now I needed to figure out how to fix this fucking problem. Maybe I could ignore it and hunt for Celebi then go back in time and stop it all from happening?

Luna looked at me like I was being an idiot. More of an idiot. Yeah, didn't think so. Now that I had fully accepted the situation and she had fully understood it, she wasn't pleased with me. Great thing about phenomenal cosmic power, it made fully understanding a situation and all of its nuances extremely easy and fast. Bad thing, there was no going into denial about what she was feeling about things. Ugh, why? Denial was so much easier.

Fine. We'd look up how to deal with this too. I had a vague memory of reading something like this, involving restraints and a lot of violence. Fuck. Damn it all. I held out for as long as I could, before the the pain and nausea got so bad I gave in. Fuck. Just as well the fucking pills were so good, otherwise I may have gone on a roaring rampage of rage instead of sleeping. I should have known better, my past life had lived something like this, and yet here I was, fooled twice. I went to sleep angry, and nightmares beset me from the very start.

A sea of faces, of people I'd killed, asking why, the scent of blood, Giovanni victorious, a scarred arm filled with track marks. I woke up, heart racing, drenched in sweat. Fucking nightmares. I checked the time, nearly six in the morning, fucking ugh, may as well get on with things. I got ready for the day and went out to the cafeteria for breakfast. At least Luna would wake up to delicious noms, then we would start our training montage from hell. I could hardly wait. We'd finally evolve Yue, let Ozai feast in the cave, train and evolve Staryu, and take the time to train my own body to integrate the fighting skills we'd taken from the ninja. Maybe finally figure out lightning, and then integrate it and fire into the fighting style. We'd get around to fixing other issues later. For now we'd do the things we knew how to do, and did so very well.

See? I'd graduated from denial to procrastination. Progress!

We parked our collective assess in Cerulean for the better part of a month. By the end, Ozai was an even bigger monster than he already was and evolved into a Gengar by eating a sizeable portion of the population of the cave, and yes, the conditioning was holding, it was actually getting stronger the more souls he ate, which was great. I likened it to the extra growth bearing down on the conditioning and entrenching it solidly at his core. Lucky me. We trained Staryu, now a Starmie until they could play energy attack bullet hell spam with Luna and I and mostly keep up for a bit. Yue mastered the highest levels of ice kitsune illusory ninja bullshit and started haunting the cave when we were there, and the Pokemon Center when we weren't. She really took to fucking with people for funsies, we were so proud.

My own progress was sufficient. I was now somewhat proficient in a very acrobatic and showy martial arts, the name of which I didn't know, that I needed to heavily augment with psionics to actually be able to fully perform. Turns out I am weak and unathletic as fuck. I mean sure, I've only been training for a month, but the future didn't look promising, which meant a lot more coming from me than from most people. Still, all put together it made for a nice upgrade in my combat capabilities, especially when I mixed in fire and lightning. I was still figuring out how to toughen myself up to being capable of tanking serious hits, but I was pretty sure I was making progress on that front. Soon I wouldn't need to be careful anymore. Soon I would be able to not care what people thought or who saw what. I was reaching the threshold where the Rockets would stop being a danger.

We started working on the Porygon too, but honestly, there wasn't much to do beyond communicating it was free from the Rockets and then it was more than happy to stay with me. I got it working on familiarizing itself with my pokedex and the computers at the Pokemon Center, but I had a feeling we were going to have to do some real work to get it ready for cybercrime. We'd have to look around for someone with experience on the matter, or learn, or eat someone who knew. Eh, something for later.

I was running out of pills, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do about that. I was a little anxious about it. I could get more without much issue, but I was hesitant. It felt like I'd be crossing a line now that I was aware what was going on. I had enough for a month, maybe. Perhaps blitzing the remaining available Gyms here in Kanto, making a run at a couple of the Johto Gyms, and then detoxing afterwards? I had no illusions that I was better on the pills than off them, but I wasn't sure how long it'd take to recover from this particular bit of my own idiocy. I needed to be ready for the Conference, come what may. I still needed to complete my championship team too. Damn it all, so many things to do, with all the time in the world, and yet I was on a deadline.

Fucking ugh.

Whatever. It was time to go, there wasn't much left to do at the cave without a full team that didn't have terrible diminishing returns. Right then, let's go wreck some faces. I felt destiny pushing me towards Blaine first, and I had no real objections to that, so we were going to pop down to Pallet, visit our mothers, hide all of the things that need hiding from them, fucking hell that list was long, visit father, and take a boat down to Cinnabar Island.

Being honest, I was a little nervous about this plan of action, for so many reasons, but I missed my mothers so much. I'd just have to be very careful. I fixed my senses on my second home, for Snowpoint would forever be my first, twisted reality until we weren't in Cerulean anymore and we were in Pallet Town, in front of the main entrance to father's compound. I felt the moment Gardemom realized we were there, love, affection, and joy pouring down on us from within. Mama and Mom were beside her, then all three of them were in front of us, two of them looking extremely surprised and with forks in their hands. Seems I'd arrived to breakfast. Lucky me. They didn't stay surprised for long and then I was having the stuffing hugged out of me.

"Hi moms." I squeaked out a greeting, the first words I'd said to them for months, and thought that maybe I should have remembered to call home sometime during the last couple months. This was also around the time I realized that I hadn't touched anyone that wasn't Luna in a long time and holy fuck but being hugged felt great. My mothers were so warm, burning with so much energy and destiny, it should have hurt, but they were my mothers and they couldn't hurt me anymore than I could hurt them.

30

Our reunion was perhaps overly emotional. Okay so not really overly, since I hadn't called home for ages and essentially disappeared off the face of the earth. They had only the records from my trainer ID allowing them to have an idea of where I was, but I figure it probably ran long when father came out looking for them and found us still indulging in hugs. Then Dehlia followed, and then Daisy. Wow, okay, almost the whole family was here. I had such a weird family.

"Oh 'Zula," Twitch. I don't think I'd ever manage to not have a slight identity crisis every time I had a slight switch in the routine of what I was called. I also couldn't help the slight wince upon feeling the emotions of everyone around me when they saw me twitch. Great. Now they'd get ideas about my mental health and stability again. "You're so cold love, did you just come from Snowpoint?"

"Oh, um no. I'm not sure what to say about that, I don't feel colder than usual." Let's just not mention that my usual has become extremely cold since Lavender, and colder still since three Gengars started living in my shadow.

"You're so pale and thin too, have you been eating enough?" Mama was in full worrier mode, leaning down and holding me by the shoulders. There would be no stopping her now. I wish there were, my right shoulder was still a little sore from the fucking Haunter lick there, and the scars on my left arm hurt when pressure was put on them. So her holding me like that? Bit uncomfortable.

"Yes Mama, I've been eating. I just haven't spent much time out in the sun, and I've been exercising a lot." Why was acting normal so hard? Not squirming in her grasp was getting harder by the second. At least withdrawal wasn't due to really set in for a few hours yet. Fuck. Why had I come so early in the day? They'd expect me to stay the night at least. This may have been a mistake, and yet, feeling the warmth of my mother's hands on me, the mere memory of the hug we'd gotten when we got here… I don't think I could bring myself to regret coming. Fuck. I was so fucking fucked.

"Have you had breakfast yet? We were just about to start when this one," She gestured to Gardemom, "Teleported us out here."

"I could eat."

More hugs were had when Dehlia, Daisy, and father got their turn at greeting me, and we chatted on our way to the kitchen. Father felt strange, like he was trying to keep his emotions in check, and I really didn't know what to make of that. He spoke and his question gave me an idea of what may be up with him.

"So, Azula," Twitch. "You captured fourteen Haunters and kept three of them for your team, you even labeled one of them as dangerous. What's the story behind that?"

Fuck. Poker face, don't fail me now.

"We heard about a Haunter swarm around the area and well, we wanted a Gengar for our team. We found it and captured the whole group. Nothing too special about it. The dangerous one was kind of crazy and ate anything it could find. Honestly, capturing it was a public service, that thing was a killer."

I could feel the concern from everyone when I said that. Kind of killed the mood. Mom chimed in, trying to recover the situation, "But you're okay, right, baby?"

"Of course, I'm okay, nothing I couldn't handle."

"Hm. Yes, of course." Father was looking at me and I had a feeling I'd made a wrong move somewhere. I was just glad no one was paying attention to his weird behavior. Yay for being the center of attention. "You've evolved two of the Haunters since, as well as the dangerous one. You've made some interesting roster moves, are you sure you should be using such a dangerous pokemon in your main team?"

"Well, to be honest, I took Mai and Ty Lee, those were my first Gengars, off of my combat roster and and switched them to helper pokemon so I could have them as bodyguards. They live in my shadow now." That got me raised eyebrows. "What? Mama was worried about people kidnapping me, let's see someone try it now that I have two very loyal, very deadly bodyguards that are always with me."

"That's why you're so cold!" Retired though she may be, but Mama was still the youngest Champion of Sinnoh and was as knowledgeable about pokemon as one might expect of someone like that. "And you've gotten used to that?"

"Don't worry Mama, it's fine. Honestly, I feel much better knowing they're there." Side glances everywhere. So I'm paranoid and my whole family can tell, what else is new? Bah. "Anyhow, Ozai, that's the third one, we had the other two hold him down while we remodeled his head. The rewiring is now pretty much completely set in stone."

Father continued to be all weird and enigmatic, but he seemed to be satisfied for now. I had a feeling I was screwed regardless. Fuck. Damn you phenomenal cosmic powers, why must you insist on making denial so difficult? That's pretty much how breakfast passed. With everyone but father asking about what I'd been up to, and I couldn't help strutting a bit and showing off the fact I was already at five badges. What? Our ego has needs, okay? Luna and I can only stroke it so much on our own and we'd spent the last month in a cave.

We adjourned from the kitchen to the living room when we were done eating, and apparently today was already going to be a no work gets done day because Daisy was visiting, us dropping by just added to it. I was crazy. I should have made excuses, should have tried to get away before symptoms started showing, but I couldn't tear myself away from my family. Not from any of our mothers, not from father, not from Dehlia, not even from Daisy who despite being absent from Pallet for most of the time we were here, had wormed herself into our hearts by virtue of being so fucking nice and sweet. Damn it all.

I didn't even notice the withdrawal crawling in until I reached for the cup of tea Dehlia had given us and it shook in my hands. My whole fucking body went cold when I realized what was happening. Fuck. Fucking fuck. I'd gotten so involved in relishing my family that I'd forgotten. If I was shaking, I was likely already paler than usual, sweating, had a runny nose, and watery eyes. Fuck. Emergency evac required. Be cool, just get up, hit the bathroom or the kitchen and take a pill there before someone notices how fucked up I am. How more fucked up than usual I am.

I made my excuses and headed for the kitchen, because that's where my damned bag was, seriously, "I forgot something in my bag, I'll be right back." Was the lamest, most suspicious exit ever, and now I needed an excuse for why and what I needed from my bag. Fuck me. I grabbed the bottle and shook out a pill before downing it dry.

"What are you doing?"

And just like that I was fairly certain I now knew what it felt like to have a fucking heart attack coupled with utter dread and terror. Daisy had followed behind me. She'd seen me, she knew. How the fuck was I going to deal with this? I liked Daisy, I couldn't just- just fuck with her head, not like I could do it without being super fucking obvious since Gardemom was super fucking close.

"D-Daisy, uh, what- um, just…" I could tell her the truth, or a very modified version of the truth. Right. Luna could help me sell this, make sure my reactions were just right. Not that I'd need much help, I was all out of chill at the moment. Well, in for a penny. I slumped a little. My right hand traced the scars hiding under my jacket's left sleeve. "I- I got hurt pretty bad not long ago. Still taking stuff from then."

"How long have you been taking those?" There was an edge to the question, like she already knew the answer. She'd noticed, somehow, had seen what was happening and correctly deduced the situation. Damned Oak genius genes.

"Too long."

"You need to stop."

"I know. I'm just getting some stuff in order before doing so." Awkward moment is awkward. "Don't tell anyone, please? They'd just worry, and Mama… I'll be okay, yeah? I have a plan in place. Luna and my Gengars will help."

She looked conflicted, and heartbroken, and so many other things I couldn't quite grasp through her psychic defenses. Finally, she settled on acceptance, and took a pokeball from a pocket, releasing a Chancey between us.

"Alright. I'll keep quiet for now, but I want you to call me regularly. You have my number. If you don't, I'll tell grandfather." She turned to her Chansey, "Lucky-tchi, I want you to go with Azula, okay? She's sick, so I need you to take care of her and make sure she's healthy, please?"

"Chansey!" Tender ball of love and affection that she was, Lucky-tchi went straight to checking up on me. "Chansey, chansey!"

"I don't need to eat more."

"And you'll do what she says, or else."

"But I suppose I don't really need an excuse to eat more…" I did not like being pushed around, but if there was anyone I was willing to forgive it from, especially after she was extending me so much trust, it was Daisy. "Thank you."

I couldn't help a squeak when she power walked over to me and gave me a tight hug. There was a story here, a reason for acting as she was. I wasn't sure I ever wanted to know, it felt like it could only be a sad story. Still, I hugged her back.

31

I wasn't sure why Daisy was running interference for me, but I was grateful. She was doing her best to keep our mothers from focusing too hard on me, something a tad necessary because our already inadequate social skills were even less useful while high on painkillers. Pretty sure they all noticed something was different, but Daisy was doing an excellent job of keeping the center of attention, so I might manage to skate by on my, uh, issues, for now. I needed to get her something really nice. Like, really, really nice.

Still, I managed to keep enjoying the company of my family, listening to Daisy talk about her forays into the wide fields of Pokemon research, to our mothers talk about what they'd been up to, and to father comment when asked to. We had lunch, and I had to make an effort, helped by Luna and Daisy pushing me, to eat everything in my plate. It seemed I may have actually not been eating well during the past month and a half. Somehow we hadn't even noticed I stopped eating as much. Damn it all.

Guess Lucky-tchi had it right. Ugh. I felt like I was going to burst, I couldn't imagine eating so much two or three times a day. At least now I had an excuse to nap and sleep off the majority of the pill's effects. I curled up against Mama in one of the living room couches and before long I fell asleep. I could feel Mama's presence beside me, blunting the worst of the nightmares, keeping the truly bad ones at bay, soothing the rest of them until they weren't as bad as they usually were. It was the best sleep I'd had in weeks. I woke up when the nightmares spiked, heart racing, and found that Mama wasn't next to me anymore, but I did have a pile of blankets on top of me now. I smiled. It wouldn't help the cold at all, Mama herself helped so much more, but the thought behind it was nice.

I crawled out from under the blankets and saw Daisy reading on one of the couches. She noticed my wakefulness and directed a smile my way.

"Where's everyone?" Luna wasn't with me, which just felt so weird. I could feel her a little bit in the distance, heading our way at a sedate pace that picked up when she felt my mind wake up.

"They went to get some take out for dinner. No one felt like cooking."

We waited a few minutes and then Luna skipped into the room and jumped up to sit on me. Much better. My arms wrapped around her and hugged her to me. Information passed between us at a blistering speed. Our parents had noticed my nightmares, but Luna had kept them from waking me, feeling they weren't as bad as the usually were and correctly assuming I'd rather some light nightmares in exchange for rest, than being woken up. Well, fuck. Father had continued to feel suspicious of us, but in general I'd slept through a very nice homey atmosphere where everyone enjoyed each other's presence. Good. Our mothers deserved to be happy.

Dinner was a quiet affair, though we did talk about my encounter with Gary in Vermillion, even if there wasn't much to it when I took out all the parts that had anything to do with the Haunter swarm incident. Eventually we made our excuses and went to our room. We were leaving for Cinnabar right after breakfast, and eating so much food for dinner made me sleepy. I was about to turn in, though Luna wanted to stay up for a little longer watching TV, when there was a knock at our door. Odd.

"Yeah?"

"Azula, may I come in?" Father was at our door. Well, guess we were about to find out what his weird behavior was all about. An effort of will had the door opening, and father took that as invitation and walked in, closing the door behind him. His gaze went directly to my right shoulder, then to my left arm, and I swear I could see him go grayer in that very instant. Shit. I wasn't wearing my jacket, and my pjs were strappy. My scars and the half faded lick marks were on full display. He barely made it to my bed before falling to his knees and grabbed my arm. "So it was you. I'd hoped… but really, who else could it have been? When the Haunters came in I was a bit worried, but then I heard the news and with you in the area… How many redheads with red eyes could there be in the world, much less in one place?"

I winced. Father was distraught, heartbroken, terrified, so many things. This was why I'd hoped they'd never find out. It hurt to see father like this, and I could only imagine how learning of my injuries would affect our mothers. I think I would rather rip out my own soul than ever expose them to even a fraction of this pain. Also his grip was kind of strong and right over a few of the scars, so that hurt.

"I didn't want you to worry, to feel like this. There wasn't anything left to be done, and we survived."

"How?" He was desperate for reassurance, even knowing I was sitting before him alive and relatively well.

"Fuck you, that's how." It slipped out. I couldn't help it, I really couldn't. I felt a little bad, but the bloom of incredulity from him was gratifying. He couldn't worry too much if he was busy being angry at me. Excellent. Ish. Kinda. Better than nothing, at least. "Does it matter? I'm here, that's what should matter."

His grip got tighter, and fucking oww that was going to leave a bruise. I must have made a face because he let go like he'd been burned, but still I rubbed the area to try and get the feeling out.

"I'm sorry." And now he's back to feeling bad. Damn it.

"It's fine. Kinda. Just forget about everything. It doesn't change anything, especially now that I have three Gengars protecting me at all times."

"How can I let you go back out knowing you came this close to dying?" He'd grabbed me again, this time by the shoulders. What is it with people grabbing me? Is it because I'm small? Fucking ugh. "I couldn't live with myself if I let you go back and something more happened to you."

And there was the other reason my mothers would never find out about this, regardless of what we needed to do to keep them in the dark. We would break their heart so badly, so very badly. We couldn't allow that, couldn't let anyone force us to do that, even if it meant breaking my father's heart instead.

I was so cold, the bites were hurting again, and I couldn't stop the sudden explosion of memories and nightmares that flooded my mind. I could feel Luna trying to bleed off the emotions, push down the memories, dispel the nightmares, but there was no point. We'd avoided looking at our damaged soul, but we knew what we'd find if we did, injuries like mine… They weren't meant to be survived.

"Let us?" We could take a guess at what our face looked like, our voice was flat, cold, contemptuous. "There is nothing you could do to stop us from doing as we wished, if we didn't wish to be stopped. You could try, and you would fail."

"I could pull your credentials, get your accounts frozen." He was desperate, grasping at any measure of control he could reach, but it would avail him nothing.

"And we would still leave. All you'd manage is to mildly inconvenience us and earn our enmity. I am Red Azula, little details will not be enough to keep us from our goals."

"I could tell your mothers." His voice was weak, and I knew that in his mind he had already given up. There were tears in his eyes already, and he only knew of the Haunter attack. I could only imagine how he'd react if he ever found out about the rest.

"I have never known you to be a cruel man, father, you know they could not stop me any more than you could, that I would still leave, and in the end all you'd have accomplished is to cause them unnecessary suffering."

"You aren't well Azula." Twitch. "You just need to get better, then you could continue your journey."

"I was well enough to leave the first time. I am well enough to leave again."

"Okay." Our hearts clenched at the pain in his voice, of how much it'd cost him to say that one word, but we had won, and tomorrow we would leave to continue our challenge. He left, slumped, a man defeated, broken. Hopefully one day he would forgive us. I got under the covers, and Luna moved close, stroking my hair. More nightmares. Hopefully we'd manage to fix that one day.

32

Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully. We hoped for so much. We had an idea for getting to Cinnabar faster than a boat would get us there, which would leave us with more time to get our last two badges, which we'd have to do in Johto, because Giovanni's Gym would still be closed at this time of year, and the future was very firmly saying to not go to Saffron yet. This left us in a bit of a time crunch if we wanted to get our last two badges before detoxing. Thus the need for a new absolutely crazy idea. I couldn't fly at speed with just telekinesis quite yet, but both Luna and I could levitate my body indefinitely, then all I needed to do was add thrust.

I had to admit, I had a bit of one of my unhinged cackles when we first came up with the idea. It would be grand. We got up for breakfast and enjoyed a few last couple of hours with our mothers. Father was still reeling from last night, probably hadn't slept much if the bags under his eyes were anything to go by, but he still walked up to us and hugged us tight for a long time. A couple tears slipped out between us, him probably from having his heart ripped out, and us from ripping it out.

"I'm sorry." I said into his shirt. "I'm so sorry, but we have to do this."

He just hugged us harder to him and I felt him shudder against me.

"I love you Azula. Please be careful."

He left for his lab, we Saw him drink himself unconscious before afternoon, over and over, day after day, and we felt like the horrible bitches we were. Fuck. Fucking fuck. But... we didn't need to let that happen, did we? With our new idea we had enough extra time to try and mitigate the damage from what we'd done and still make the deadline. Thanks future sight. Right then, best moment to intervene… Ah, yes, excellent. I waited a few minutes, idly eating a slice of buttered toast, before following after my father. We got there just in time to watch him down a shot of some amber liquor and pour himself another.

We sat down beside him and watched him just about jump out of his seat. Ninja soul snacks came with stealth mode and we fucking loved it. A glass floated its way over from the table where he kept them, and the bottle poured some of the liquor into it, before floating it way over to us. We added a gesture to the whole thing purely for effect. Showmanship was important here. Luna took a sip, and I downed the rest, coughing a little as it burned its way down my throat. Right, this body wasn't used to drinking hard liquor. I'd forgotten. Still, fucking delicious whisky, like, really good whisky. Damn.

Father had watched the whole thing happen with the most incredulous look on his face, practically screaming the feeling as well.

"We're so drinking together when I'm old enough."

Say what you will about us, but we had a talent for fucking with people's heads without even using psychic powers. Father was befuddled. Then again he probably thought I was just crazy. He was probably right. Okay, so he was totally right, but he didn't have look so concerned or make what he thought of my mental health so obvious.

"Still, you should probably not be doing this. We Saw where you were headed with this if we didn't intervene, we didn't like it, and we're sure neither you or our family would like it any better. So this is us trying to avert some of the consequences of last night. Don't go down this path, father, it doesn't end well."

I hugged him and he returned it.

"Why?" We gave him a look like we thought he was the biggest idiot ever.

"Why wouldn't we? You're my father, and despite whatever else we may do, we care about you."

We left him in his lab, thinking heavy thought, and had a late breakfast with our mothers, before heading out. We dropped by Dehlia's restaurant to ask her to keep an eye on father, just in case. Not stacking the deck is for losers, after all. We told her about catching him drinking and said that maybe he needed someone to drag his worries out of him. Hopefully things would turn out fine. I couldn't seem to See what was going to come from this. Who'd have thought that messing with the future made it hard to see what would come from your actions? Ah well, the die is cast, not much I could do about it anymore.

We reached the beach and found it empty. That was good, no one to see us do what we were about to. Luna reached out with her power, taking us high up in the sky, and we beheld a breathtaking view. Eternity lay ahead of us, and beyond. I gathered power, shaping it, trying to be as efficient as possible, to produce as much thrust as possible with the least energy wasted, and then, once I had the balance set in my mind, I pointed my arms back, mimicking the Azula I saw in a TV show a lifetime ago. I leant forward, azure flames bursting from my closed fists, then were were rocketing forward, faster and faster, until we had to spare some thought and power to create a shield in front of us to protect us from friction and anything we might run into.

We felt alive. The cold dropped away, the clumsiness, the fear, the memories, the nightmares, the pain, it all fell away in the face of the joy of flying. More power saw our speed increase even more. Islands popped into view and fell away in the blink of an eye, we felt the city a minute or so before it popped into view, and stopped feeding as much power into the flames. We still overshot Cinnabar by a bit, but it was short enough that we could get to the island with just telekinesis and maybe not attract so much attention.

We let our senses and Gengars out, looking for a spot to land where no one was watching. We found one and used Mai as a homing beacon to teleport there. Now all that was left was to find the Gym and wait for Blaine to come. A two day boat trip in one hour or so. We needed to clock our speed, because that was ridiculous. A couple questions here and there and we were walking towards the volcano in the distance. Apparently it was hard to miss Blaine's inn since it was the only thing in the general area. We got there and found the old man dressed in a hippy costume for some reason. People were fucking weird.

"Ah! A pretty young lady comes to my inn-"

"No, I come to your Gym, for your badge, but this seemed faster than waiting for you to show up over there."

"Ah. I'm curious how you found out about me." He took off the wig and glasses he was wearing, and damn, dude looked old as hell without the wig. I simply raised an eyebrow at him. "But I sense you're not going to tell me."

"You sense right. Shall we? We're in a hurry, you see, need to get to Johto for our last two badges after we win yours." He was amused by my confidence, but we could feel it wasn't malicious or anything like that, he felt invigorated at seeing the energy and enthusiasm of youth. It actually made us kind of like him quite a bit. Dude, like Surge, was just a genuinely good guy with his eyes to the future.

"Nicely done, little lady. It's not often you hear of a trainer as young as you with a single badge, much less five. Very well, we shall do battle! Follow me."

We were excited. Blaine was one of the first truly strong Gym Leaders, Giovanni and Sabrina were the only two others. Maybe Koga could have been, but Koga hadn't been there. Luna could stromp her way through anything he sent out, but Starmie, we still needed to find a name for it, and Ozai would have a good fight ahead of them.

We arrived at the entrance to his volcano arena, and we separated so he could enter from the other side. A short walk later and we were standing in the kind of sweltering heat that can only be achieved by molten fucking lava at the bottom of the arena. It was magnificent. Yes. This was the kind of fight we lived for. Blaine entered from his side, and Ozai extended my shadow until he could rise from the floor of the arena.

He was a sight to behold. The average Gengar was taller than me, standing at a modest 4'11", Mai and Ty Lee stood at a very tall 5'7" and 5'9". Ozai was gigantic. We hadn't measured him, we hadn't measured the other two either, but they were the same height as Mom and Mama, but I was pretty sure he was around over seven feet tall and as horrifying as you'd expect from a Gengar that had evolved from the kind of Haunter he'd been. Fucker looked like he'd walked straight out of a Lovecraft book. Hands with claws that looked like they would have belonged more on a Sandslash or Weavile, faces coming in and out of focus in swirls of gas on the surface of his body, teeth like needles and sharp as hell, and just generally disturbing shapes that looked like they were trying to burst out of his body. We were so proud of him.

We could see Blaine's what the utter fuck look clearly from where we were standing. Ghosts were rare enough, so it was probably not often that he even saw a Gengar, much less the abomination of nature that was mine. Then he smiled, and it was the smile of a hungry wolf about to have the meal of his life. He put away the pokeball he'd been holding and took out a different one from compartment in the wall beside him. Good. Yes.

"We'll do a three pokemon battle, since I saw you only carry four with you."

"Go, Charizard." Out of the pokeball came a true dragon. Oh, sure, it didn't have the actual typing unless it Mega Evolved, but oh, it was taller than Ozai and riddled with battle scars. Just like Ozai was the pinnacle of of his species, this Charizard was likely the strongest in the whole region, maybe the whole continent. Yes. It roared, and the volume shook loose stone from the walls. Ozai laughed and it was a thing of nightmares, a chorus of different voices causing a discordant, hair raising cacophony. We couldn't help the unhinged cackling. This would be a fight to remember.

We didn't even need to give out orders. These were monster made for battle. They knew what to do. Ozai blurred forward, taking a swipe at the Charizard, who ducked under the swing and spat a ball of fire into my ghost's face. Ozai disappeared and reappeared behind the Charizard, slamming a shadow ball in between its wings, or trying to. The flame pokemon spun around at a speed that shouldn't have been possible for his size and caught the ball of negative energy with his hands. It was a testament to his might that he managed it, given that the ball still pushed him backwards a couple steps, before he threw it to the side where it detonated against the wall.

Ozai was momentarily surprised, long enough that the Charizard managed to land a Fire Blast in his face. When the explosion of fire subsided, Charizard was alone on the field, before Ozai rose up behind him and launched a Psychic at the Charizard. He tried to dodge but wasn't fast enough, the Psychic detonated with a blast reminiscent of our naval artillery strike Psychics, crushing it's right wing and dragging a roar of pain from the dragon. A reflexive sweep of his tail launched Ozai away, giving Charizard breathing room to recover and turn to face my ghost, spitting another Fire Blast in the act of turning. Ozai wasn't there anymore, and the Fire Blast was heading straight at us.

Ugh. How did people who weren't us avoid dying on accident from stray attacks in pokemon battles? We pumped as much power as we could into a shield covering us, enough that it actually bled into the visible spectrum from how quickly we formed it. The Fire Blast hit with decent strength, but failed to penetrate. We barely missed a couple seconds of the fight, and yet when we could see again and weren't focused on not burning to death horribly, Ozai had taken a bite out of the Charizard at the shoulder, but Charizard had somehow managed to set him on fire.

How even? Didn't matter, we supposed, but let us say, being on fire only made the fucking thing even more disturbing, both in appearance and the sheer amount of what the fuck from his screams of pain. A command had Ozai disappear for a few seconds and reappear, the fire out without oxygen to burn wherever it was my ghosts went when they did ghost bullshit, but he was starting to look worse for wear.

We ordered Ozai to harry the Charizard's wounded side and to go for the eyes. It was a nasty tactic that most avoided despite the fact that it was healable if attended to in a timely manner. Mostly because it still took a couple days to heal even with the medical technology of this world, days during which the pokemon had to be taken out of combat rosters while it healed. Ozai appeared upside down right in front of Charizard, slashing for its eyes, missing one of them when it janked its head back. Perfect. It was now blind in one eye.

The fight didn't last long after that. A disadvantage that big against a pokemon as nasty as a Gengar? Ozai kept popping up in it's blind side and landing pretty solid hits, while the Charizard couldn't retaliate effectively. We'd figured this fight would end with a bang, given the quality of monsters were using, but in retrospect it made more sense that they were capable tanking hit after hit from attacks that would devastate lesser pokemon. In the end, Blaine recalled his Charizard.

"Hahahaha. I haven't had a fight like that in ages. Excellent, excellent. You're going places, Little Red." He pulled a second pokeball from somewhere on his person, instead of the other pokeball in the wall compartment. "Go, Ninetales. Flamethrower!"

The Ninetales was too fast for Ozai's size, and the Charizard had done too much damage. He went down under a barrage of Flamethrower after managing to land a glancing blow on the Ninetales with a Shadow Ball. That was fine, Ozai had done his job. We weren't sure Starmie could have handled that Charizard, and we were so not okay with not fighting that thing. That had been Champion level, old and powerful, experienced. A peak monster at the peak of its power and experience. A perfect experience for the Champions To Be to face. We were dying to see what the last pokeball was.

33

Ninetales do not do well against strong psychics. See, Ninetales are fragile and not spectacularly strong or fast. They are very much setup pokemon, requiring time to build up their illusory and status effect bullshit while attacking from concealment and through illusions. So when you put a pokemon like that, using illusions not aimed specifically at powerful psychics who don't need their eyes to see you? Yeah, doesn't work. Like, at all. That Ninetales would have needed to be the god of all Ninetales to snare Starmie, Luna, and I in an illusion at the same time. It was far from that.

Oh sure, Starmie couldn't see past the illusions being thrown at it, but then we simply slaved it's senses to ours and Starmie didn't need to see past the illusions to aim, it just used our sense of where the Ninetales was and blind fired. I still had no fucking clue where the water for water attacks came from though, but sure, whatever. Two Hydro Pumps later and Blaine was recalling the horribly outmatched kitsune.

That's when he went for the second pokeball in the little wall compartment. We could feel our heartbeat speed up, hell we could almost hear the classic pokemon battle theme from my past life. Yes. This was what we lived for. The thrill of battle. Full on mind meld ready. We were going to need every edge we could eke out.

"Go, Magmortar! Fire Blast!"

It was another magnificent beast of a pokemon, six feet tall and massive. Yes, Blaine definitely deserved to be a Gym Leader. Luna hopped out from my jacket, positioning herself to my right. For this fight we would need every advantage, so we would have a second point of view from a different vantage point, even if the difference from mine was minute. All three of our brains would need as much sensory information as we could manage to acquire. I let the future flow into our mind fully, Luna and Starmie helping process the data into something useful.

The Magmortar spit out an enormous Fire Blast, but Starmie had already moved. It spit out a Hydro Pump and when the Magmortar dodged, it was into the path of the attack. It hammered her back a step, before it spit out a plume of lava through the torrent of water. It caused an explosion of steam, which was to my advantage, if the damned thing couldn't see it couldn't aim, but the solidified spike of lava ripped off a chunk of flesh from one of Starmie's points. It was already moving, spinning above the arena while regenerating the damage. We'd chosen this Starmie not because it was stupidly powerful, though it was powerful. No, we'd chosen it because it had staying power, and having a chunk ripped off? Didn't even slow it down. Bit of a double edged sword though, feeling that happen when mind linked? Not fun.

This was going to be a long one.

Hydro Pump after Hydro Pump rained down on the Magmortar, and it alternated between spitting Lava Plumes and Fire Blasts at Starmie. It was barely keeping ahead of the attacks, turning on a dime, predicting dodges and attack trajectories, and yet it was still getting burns and pieces ripped off in exchange for trading damage. We'd wear the fucker down if we had to fight for an hour. At some point the damned thing started flinging Psychics interspersed between the lava and fire, and the hits started piling up faster. So we did the same. After all, what's the point of training for bullet hell spam if you don't make use of it?

Fucking fight looked like the sickest goddamned fucking rave ever. Then we took it to the next level and added Dazzling Gleams and Thunderbolts into the mix, because fuck it, why not throw everything at the wall and see what sticks? Maybe the Magmortar would get paralysed and we'd have the advantage. Starmie, the one pokemon rave. Quantity had a quality all its own. Twenty five minutes later and I couldn't believe the Magmortar was still going strong. What the utter fuck did Blaine feed that thing?

We noticed the beginning of the end when Starmie's gem flickered, Blaine must have noticed as well, because from one moment to the next he'd whistled and the Magmortar switched from defense to offense in an instant. Then there was a huge fucking mountain of burning muscle flying through the air and tackling Starmie out of the air and into the arena floor. Credit where it's due, the fucking star kept shooting right up until we recalled it and the Magmortar punched a hole through the spot it'd been.

Hahahahahaha. We couldn't believe it. We were down to Luna, completely at a disadvantage, and yet we couldn't stop laughing. My sister Teleported onto the field, letting loose the deadliest Psychic we'd ever crafted and raising a Protect to block the opening Lava Plume. This was the Psychic we hadn't dared use against our mothers, hadn't needed to use against anyone else. This wasn't the shaped shield breaking Psychic that'd let us land our first hit against Gardemom. This wasn't the pinpoint bone shattering Psychic that'd broken Flint's Infernape. This wasn't the charged Psychic that'd done serious internal damage to our Snorlaxes. This Psychic concentrated all the considerable energy of the attack into an ultra thin plane. It'd be more accurate to call them psychic blades than blows.

It hit with a spray of boiling blood as it opened a cut along Magmortar's chest, and then the battle was on. Bone breaking Psychics, bladed Psychics, the original, we fired them all. It was our move, and we were the masters. Luna was faster than Starmie, and she was giving the Magmortar a death of a thousand cuts. Thing wouldn't stop though, and she didn't slow down either. She even managed to tag Luna with a Psychic, but Luna was an old hand at getting hit by those and she was firmly back on the arena floor nearly in the same instant she was hit. Gardemom hit harder than that, bitch.

We started to see victory when the Magmortar switched to raising Protects to block attacks instead of full on tanking them like before. It almost cost us the fight. We got ahead of ourselves. We went too aggressive too early, and a Fire Blast detonated close enough to rag doll Luna through the air, stunned from the concussive force and heat of the blast. It threw her on an arc that would have landed her in the lava beneath the arena if she hadn't regained focus fast enough to Teleport back and resume our attack runs. We were cold, for a single frozen instant we'd known true fear. For a single moment we understood our father. Then the moment passed. We had no use for fear, no use for doubt, no use for regret. We would fight, and we would win, simple as that, it was the truth of our selves, carved into our very souls.

The Psychics went out faster, stronger, and more focused now. Galvanized by our mistake. We would not lose. The cuts were deeper, bones were finally breaking, and a final Psychic slammed the Magmortar out of the arena and bounced it off the volcano wall. Blaine recalled it before it fell into the lava, mostly because the fall was pretty large and even if Magmortar in general thought lava was really quite nice to lay on, the fall would probably hurt it further than it already was. We were breathing hard, and I had a migraine the likes I hadn't felt since waking up after getting mauled by Haunters.

It might have been a toss up as to which one of us was in worse shape. We were pretty sure we'd come close to giving me an aneurysm from abusing precognition and future sight so much and for so long. Brains weren't meant to handle that much information. Huh, I had a nosebleed. And my eyes were bloodshot and bleeding. Clearly we needed to step up my endurance training.

We'd won though.

Haha.

Hahahahahaha.

Hahahahahahahahaha

We'd faced two Champion pokemon and won. I couldn't really hear Blaine over the sound of rushing blood in my ears and unhinged laughter, but Luna could. He was amazed, thoroughly pleased and impressed, and then terribly worried when he noticed all the blood and my apparent unresponsiveness, and, you know, the crazy laughter. Then Luna was by my side, bleeding off the excess power still burning through my mind. She gave me a pill and a half, and then released Starmie to wash away the blood. By the time Blaine made it to us I was much more presentable, though Luna said I still looked terrible. The price of ambition, paid in blood, this time with our own.

Our path was going to end up permanently stained red from so much blood. Fitting, we supposed.

34

Blaine was initially frantic, but we managed to calm him down. Our social skills may be nonexistent, but we were pretty good at manipulating people into agreeing with us. In the end he gave us our Volcano Badge, and then we walked back to his inn, where he logged the battle manually into the League network. We couldn't help grinning at seeing the Champion designation on the Charizard and Magmortar we'd beaten. Our records would be unsealed for the Conference, and we couldn't help but wonder what people would think when they saw that.

We left shortly afterwards, though not before Blaine extracted a promise from us to come back one day and have a rematch. Fucking definitely. Ozai and Starmie could always benefit from more experience fighting at the Champion level. We could have stayed and explored Cinnabar, but honestly, I felt like my brain was ready to leak out through my ears, and the extra dose of painkillers Luna had given me felt absolutely delicious. We'd worked hard, hadn't we? We'd surpassed all of our limits, beaten two monsters that likely could take on legendaries and win, we could take a little break to enjoy the fuzzy warmth and euphoria of the pills and sleep a whole fucking day.

Luna Teleported us directly to our room. She helped me undress and put on my sleepwear, because standing and hand-eye coordination was hard, and then we fell into bed. We don't know how long we spent there, just enjoying the feelings inside of me, but eventually we drifted off to sleep.

An unknown amount of time later I felt someone shaking me. Ow. Why was I awake? Why couldn't I just keep sleeping and not feel so utterly and completely terrible? Fucking everything hurt, especially my head, and my stomach felt like it was going to rebel any second now. And of course, I was fucking freezing. I groaned. Where was Luna? Ah. Kitchen, food, waiting. Well then, that's why I loved my sister. Apparently I'd slept a whole day again.

"You look terrible, Azula" Daisy. She was sitting at the head of my bed near my head. Well, better than one of our mothers. I needed to get long sleeved sleepwear for home. Hiding the scars was too hard with what I had on right now. "And you didn't call, though from what Luna said, you were too busy being asleep, so I'll let it pass. Where's Lucky-tchii?"

Speaking was too hard, so I use my phenomenal cosmic powers to tell my niece her Chancey was in my jacket.

"Cute. Where's your jacket?"

Fucked if I knew, ask Luna, she was the one who undressed me. I barely remembered what the fuck happened after Luna rang out Blaine's Magmortar in a shower of blood accompanied by a symphony of snapping bones.

"Really? What the hell did you do? No, you know what, I'll wait until you're better. It feels so weird when you push information into my head."

Suit yourself then.

"Stop that."

Oak baiting, truly a noble calling. Laughter, or at least amusement, was definitely the best medicine. I was shivering, which was weird, a symptom that hadn't happened before. Maybe because this was the longest I'd gone without a pill? Yeah, probably.

"You're such a brat Azula." She was stroking my hair now, and I couldn't help leaning into her touch. We needed to capture a cutesy huggable pokemon so we wouldn't be so touch starved all the time. "You have a fever. As soon as Luna gets back Lucky-tchii is checking you over."

That was fine. I scooted up to her and cuddled up. I needed a soul near me right the fuck now. Well, a soul that didn't suck up heat like my Gengars did.

"So clingy too."

Clingy, am I? That sounded like a challenge. Next thing she knew I was sitting on her lap and the blankets had wrapped themselves around us. Ow. My everything. Worth it though. The sheer incredulity radiating from Daisy was delicious, and I'd have paid a lot of money to have had a camera pointed at her when I did it.

"Really? Really? Brat." She still hugged me to her though. Acting all indignant and stuff, hah, she was a total softie. I took some time to draw information from Luna about what had happened while I was asleep. She'd woken up about twelve hours after we'd gotten home, very early in the morning, and tidied up the room. She'd ordered two more jackets from the seamstress we used here in Pallet, because getting the bloodstains out of the one we'd worn to fight Blaine would be too much of a pain, and we hadn't replaced the one the Haunters had destroyed.

Then she'd met Daisy in the kitchen when she'd gone to get breakfast and my niece had taken it upon herself to look after my sleeping body. Huh. What about our mothers? Really Luna? Just came back to our room and watched TV all day? Ah. Didn't want them finding us when we were so obviously hurt and my scars were on show. Right. Of course. That's why you're the less mentally questionable one of the two us Small Big Sis

No wonder Daisy hadn't freaked out about bloodstained clothes though, admittedly I hadn't even thought about it until Luna had commented on it, but it was a good move. A spare thought went to grabbing Lucky-tchii's pokeball from where Luna had shoved the jacket under the bed, and dropped it beside us.

"That Lucky-tchii's?"

I nodded against her chest. She disentangled an arm from the mess of blankets around us and let out her pink blob of love and huggableness. Seriously, Chancey were great pokemon.

"Chancey!"

Nuhuh. You don't get to admonish me for not letting you give me a check up while I was asleep. I literally couldn't have done anything about it.

"Chancey!"

Yes, I did eat more. No, I haven't eaten recently. Luna's on her way with food.

"Chancey!"

I am so not letting go of Daisy or coming out from this blanket tangle until there's something for me to drink.

"Chancey!"

And then I had an exasperated blob of pink all over Daisy and I, checking my temperature, looking into my eyes, ears, up my nose, poking my cheek, and seriously what the fuck could she learn from poking my cheek? She checked my heartbeat and then listened to my breathing. No, seriously, Chancey were amazing pokemon, because then she declared that I was going through a nasty opiate withdrawal, fever included, and that I needed to eat and drink plenty of water. I was also to not use my phenomenal cosmic powers seriously for at least a couple of days or the migraine would continue. Apparently, we'd strained my brain and nervous system. Not too surprising, to be honest.

Well then, we'd just walk to Viridian and then do our impression of a rocket from there to New Bark Town, and then up to Blackthorn City. Yue would have so much fun wrecking some dragons with ice and fairy kitsune bullshit. Then we'd swing by Ecruteak City and hopefully ghost dude Gym Leader would have something fun for Ozai to fight against. First we had to talk to father though, I wanted a Torchic and a Bagon, and we had rare pokemon to trade for them, or money to buy them. Hopefully he would know where to go, or be capable of facilitating their acquisition directly.

Luna walked in, followed by a plate of floating sandwiches and four mugs of hot chocolate. She uncoiled the tangle of blankets, jumped up to sit on my lap, had one of the mugs follow her and then recoiled the blankets around us. Perfection. Marry me.

I got Looks from Daisy and Lucky-tchii. What?

I floated one of the mugs up to my lips and drank the glorious ambrosia that was chocolate. I cleared my throat and finally deigned to speak. It was a little scratchy, but that was fine, more chocolate would clear that right up.

"Thank you Daisy, and you too Lucky-tchii. You've trusted us so much, helped so much."

She hugged us harder for a bit.

"Love you too, brats. Kinda weird to see you back so quickly. What happened? Did you decide you needed more training time or something?"

Hah. I suppose it made sense from her point of view. The boats to Cinnabar took around a week to make a round trip, and then at least one day to challenge for the badge, plus whatever extra time we stayed there. A reasonable assumption to make when talking to anyone who wasn't us. We couldn't help the smug grin that spread across our faces. We reached for the badge case in our bag, floating it our way and opening to display my six badges, the Volcano Badge proudly on display after the Rainbow Badge.

"How the hell did you manage that? I know you've never been to Cinnabar, so you couldn't have teleported, and I know you two crazies, you'd never take a shortcut you couldn't do on your own… What did you do?"

"That's a secret. Suffice to say we got to Cinnabar about an hour after we left Pallet and then once we found Leader Blaine we had the best battle of our lives. We fought Blaine's Champion Charizard and Magmortar. It was perfection in battle form."

She looked like she had a headache now. Poor thing. She reached out of the blanket tangle took her floating mug of chocolate, and drank half the cup in a single pull.

"You must have either really impressed him or really pissed him off to have a Gym Leader like Blaine fight with one of his remaining Champions, much less both of them. I guess you must have either done both or just really impressed him if he gave you the badge after beating you."

"Beating us…?" What the fuck even gave her the impression we'd ever take a badge we didn't win in combat? Our utter bafflement and anger must have shown, because she quickly tried to explain herself.

"I mean, obviously you must have done something pretty big to get him to pull out the big guns, and there's no shame in losing to Champion pokemon, I mean, they're Champions! So it's okay to lose, and obviously if you got him to pull out Champions then I'm thinking you automatically qualify for a badge even if you lose. I know some Gym Leaders give out badges for far, far less."

"We didn't lose. We beat Blaine. Ozai took out his Charizard, Starmie took out one of his Ninetales and wore down his Magmortar a little, then Luna finished her off."

"What?"

We didn't get what was so hard to understand. Obviously Champion pokemon were more than exceptional, but she knew we were even further than that. We were the Champions To Be, Red Azula and Luna. Of course we'd won.

"But how? I know you're strong 'Zula, but, what?" Wait...

"Oh. You've never seen us fight Mama and Gardemom, have you? And no one besides Blaine has seen Ozai, or seen Starmie in action. Or Yue, though of course Yue would be completely wrong for Blaine's Gym."

"What does that matter?"

"Because if you had, you wouldn't be so surprised we'd won."

She still looked pretty sceptical. Fine then, we'd show her Ozai. We disentangled from the blankets and floated for the door. We'd show her. Us, lose. Hah. We had a destiny, losing before then was not something we would allow.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To the Pokemon Center. Ozai got knocked around pretty bad in the fight so we need to get him healed before we can show you."

"The hell you are. You're not going going anywhere without eating."

I was afraid this would happen. I wasn't sure I could keep the sandwiches down if I ate them. I wasn't sure I could keep down a single bite. I hated it. So much. I was furious now, ready to go out and destroy anything in my path. I couldn't stand these fucking feelings. I was either always high or always in pain, always nauseous, always fucking bruised fucking everywhere because the pills made me even clumsier than the damned Haunter mauling had already made me.

"Azula!"

Ah. Luna sent me a memory of everything in the room shaking when rage caused my power to slip its leash. Well, that's embarrassing. Fuck it all, she already knows, she's already seen me take one. What difference does it make if she's here to see me take one again, now?

"I'm sorry Daisy."

"Sorry for what…"

I gestured towards my bag, mostly so my hand would be be ready to catch the pill, and a slight exertion of will later had one flying out and landing in my palm. I swallowed it and washed it down with hot chocolate. The bundle of feelings coming from Daisy when she saw this was… complex. Exceedingly so. So much pain and worry. She hated herself for not doing more, for not telling my mothers, or father, for not trying to stop me herself, but she was terrified out of her mind that if she pushed something bad would happen. Well. What a way to make me eat my thoughts. That's the difference it'd make if she saw me take one again, now.

Fuck. I was on roll with this hurting my family thing. At least this time I hadn't meant to do it on purpose. Didn't make it better, but at least I felt like less of a cunt about it than when we broke father's heart. What to do? Reassurance? Yes, yes, that was probably the best move.

We walked back to her, and I saw her eyes focus on my scarred left arm, and then the bruises and fuck. Now she looked like she was about to faint. We cupped her face with our hands, looking her in the eyes. We needed her to know how serious we were.

"We can feel what you feel, Daisy. You don't need to be so scared. We don't know what happened, but we can imagine, and we promise you I will quit. I hate it more than anything else I've ever hated in either life, so believe us when we say we have no intentions to go on any longer than necessary. We have the tools and the will we need to make it happen, all that's left is for the time to be right."

We hugged, and we're pretty sure she cried a little, but eventually the atmosphere relaxed. As soon as the nausea subsided, I ate two of the sandwiches at Lucky-tchii's urging. Then we put on a long sleeved shirt, changed into a skirt, and pulled Daisy to her feet, whereupon we browbeat her into coming with us to the Pokemon Center. We could have healed our pokemon with father's facilities, but we'd rather have an expert looking over our pokemon and Luna's body. We'd show her exactly why Blaine had faced us as equals, and why he'd lost. Well, part of it anyway. We didn't think there was anything we could do to show her exactly how ridiculously overpowered we were short of going all out against Gardemom.

The walk was short, and the Nurse Joy at the Center had our pokemon fully healed after ten minutes and gave Luna a clean bill of health. We Teleported back home to one of the open areas where father kept pokemon when out of their balls. We palmed Ozai's pokeball.

"Inside this lies the reason Blaine took us seriously. The reason he sent out one of his Champions as a test, to see if he'd found an opponent worthy of such a challenge. He did, he'd found us, after all."

"Come on Azula, it's a Gengar. I mean, yeah, Gengars are rare, and strong, but one isn't going to draw out a Champion pokemon on its own."

We didn't answer, it'd be easier to let our abomination against nature speak for himself, so we let him out, and then there was a 'miniature' eldritch abomination towering before us, laughing away with his fucked up laugh. Aw, my monster was still giddy about the fight. So cute. He sank down into my shadow, where he belonged. Ah, much better. Yes, the cold was worse and that was terrible, but I'd missed my third bodyguard.

"See why now?" We turned to Daisy and found her completely and utterly paralyzed with terror. "Daisy?"

She didn't respond. We shook her a little, she still didn't respond. Fuck, we'd broken our niece. Well, my unliving crime against nature had, but details. Heh. Well, now. If this was how the average trainer responded to meeting Ozai, the Conference was going to be a fucking walk in park. More of a fucking walk in the park.

35

We got Daisy to her room so she could have a bit of a lay down while processing the sheer fucked upness of Ozai. Our mothers and father were pleasantly surprised to see us back home so quickly, but unlike Daisy, they knew our prowess, and were merely curious about how we'd managed to get there and back so quickly. Father was awkward around us. We'd been… horrible to him. Perhaps even ruined our relationship with him, especially if he ever learned, well, any one of our other secrets. Since they probably all lent credence to his arguments. Although we had a feeling the opiate dependence would be the worst received, which said something given that we could legitimately say we had perpetrated massacres, plural.

We were also going to completely ignore the possibility of our mothers ever finding out any of them, because we really didn't want to consider the possibility. We didn't want our mothers to ever suffer even a fraction of the pain father had. Not from finding out, and not from what had to happen if they tried to stop us before we'd fulfilled our destiny.

Hm. Maybe Team Rocket really was Necessary Collateral Damage. Shower thoughts were funny like that.

The water was deliciously hot, and it created the weirdest dichotomy within me. We felt the delicious heat of the water warming our bodies, and yet I felt the horrible cold of the Haunter licks deep within me, coming from somewhere far deeper than my body. One day we would look at my soul again, and we would find out what the cause was. We had our suspicions, but we couldn't bring ourselves to look. Not yet. We finished our shower, and got dressed, using one of our older jackets while we waited for our new ones to be finished. It was a little small, but it'd do for now. Luna had put in a rush order and the new ones would be ready later today. Time to find father.

He was in his primary lab, stood over a small silver rectangle and two small square devices on a tray. And he was drinking. We were not pleased.

"You really shouldn't be drinking."

We'd timed our comment for maximum effect. That is to say, we'd waited until he was taking a sip and he turned into a coughing sputtering mess. Good. He answered after a minute or two of coughing.

"Damnit Azula, stop doing that." He took a couple seconds to breathe and clear his throat. "And for your information, daughter, I'm celebrating a breakthrough in a project I've working on for the last year and a half. I felt like a couple drinks would be acceptable."

"Oh. Well, as long as you don't overdo it. We worry about you."

"You have a funny way of showing it." Ouch. Yeah, he was still upset about the other night. We'd have to work pretty hard to make it up to him. Hopefully he wasn't about to blow us off. "What do you want Azula?"

Cold.

"Okay. Fine. We wish to acquire two pokemon. We have a number of pokemon we'd be willing to trade in exchange. Purchasing them would also be acceptable. A Torchic and a Bagon."

"The Torchic should be easy enough, they're expensive, but you should have more than enough money to outright buy one off of Hoenn's starter program with your savings alone, and after beating six Gyms? The Bagon is problematic, but if you somehow have a Dratini I don't know about, it could be arranged fairly quickly through Lance's inter-region dragon research initiative."

"Order the Torchic and if possible reserve a Bagon. We can get the Dratini." More like we needed to finally get around to using Porygon to reset the ownership tags on the Game Corner pokeballs we'd looted from the Rockets. Thankfully, father had the equipment we'd need, and Porygon would let us bypass pesky things like security protocols and built in security locks. Normally we'd have to physically modify the pokeball to even manage, and we'd been more than ready to do that, but we'd forgotten father had access to a lot of shiny toys that would make this much easier. "We'll be back soon."

We walked to our room. This would be an interesting operation. The security in the laboratories that had the requisite machines was insane, especially since Mom had taken over as head of security. She'd even gone so far as to try to psychic proof the whole thing. She'd done an excellent job, honestly, and most psychic who tried to get it would end up caught in short order. Good thing we weren't most psychics, and good thing Mom had never managed to successfully keep either of us out, much less both of us working together. Add in ninja bullshit, AI bullshit, and ghost bullshit? Oh yeah. We could do this.

We turned our senses and found Processing Lab 3, the one we remembered had the least security and was least used. A combination of older equipment and being farthest from the compound's entrance. Cameras were identified, sensors tagged, and we were ready to disable all alarms at a moment's notice. We released Porygon and ordered it into the pokedex and from there into the internal network. A few less sensors to worry about this way.

Father really shouldn't have whitelisted our pokedex throughout the whole network the way he had. It was a security risk. Though we were supposed to be above reproach and not capable of doing or knowing half the shit we did. So it'd probably been a reasonable move, questionable mental health notwithstanding. Well, time to abuse those permissions by having Porygon spoof its way into places it shouldn't be. Communicating telepathically with a pokemon that was fully virtual was weird as fuck. Camera feeds were looped, all alarms were now rerouted to Porygon and ready to be intercepted. Sensor logs were ready to be wiped as well.

We Teleported in, and went directly to the the processing mainframe, placing one of the Dratini balls into the a slot in the machine. Porygon went right to resetting the ownership records and wiping all trainer data from the ball. Ten minutes later it was ready, and we put in the Larvitar ball, then Porygon's, Sneasel's and finally the second Dratini. A whole hour spent on this. Larvitar's ball had been a fucking mess that had taken nearly twenty minutes to clear. We really didn't want to know where the fuck it'd come from or how the Rockets had gotten it.

We wiped our fingerprints and Teleported out back to our rooms. Porygon cleared everything and extracted out to our pokedex and then to its ball. Mission fucking accomplished. We really felt like ninjas now. That was awesome. Maybe after becoming Champions we could pick up a hobby in corporate espionage or something. Then we Teleported to Vermillion and made sure our presence was logged at the Pokemon Center. We wasted an hour and Teleported back home, directly to father's primary lab, where he once again jumped at our sudden appearance.

"Father, a Dratini, as requested." I tossed him the pokeball underhand, and old as he was he still caught it no problem. He put it into a slot next to him. "How long will it take to have the pokemon transferred here?"

"Early tomorrow morning. By the time the orders go through the cross-region transfer network will be down for the night. Insert your pokedex there to authorize the funds for the Torchic and the transfer for the Dratini."

"Sure." The pokedex went in, beeped, and slid back out. Father looked at a screen next to him and hit a few keys.

"It's done. Come here before you leave tomorrow to pick them up."

We understood his brusqueness, but it still hurt to be treated that way. We left and walked to pick up our jackets, then came back to enjoy a family dinner. Okay, to enjoy our mothers, Daisy, and Dehlia's presence, while father was just sort of there. We went to sleep and and the next morning picked up the last two members of our Championship team. Our last two Gyms awaited us, then we'd register for the Conference and we'd start detoxing once we had all our ducks in a row. There was a feeling in the air. The future was starting to press down upon us again.

Something big was coming.