Azrael sat by the bedside and stared into the blank, pale face of his beloved. She was alive, for her chest rose and fell easily and rhythmically, but she was unresponsive, and had been ever since Giovanni had attacked her. At least, Azrael thought, she was permitting him to touch her, to hold her hand, but there was cold satisfaction there.

He had been here for almost a week now, watching her. After the storm had passed and the medical help summoned from the mainland, she had been fixed up with a supply of nutrients to stop her starving, but already she looked thinner then he remembered. He kissed her on the muzzle, sorrowful that she showed no reaction. Even revulsion would have been welcomed at this time.

But nothing.

She lay as if dead.

There was a motion at the door and James staggered in, clad in a dressing gown and bringing a tray laden with food. He placed it on the bedside table and stared at Azrael. Azrael knew he appeared to have aged several years in the last few days – a year for every day that Brooke had been comatose. His face was gaunt too, he had barely eaten at all.

"I persuaded the nurse to let me take over," James offered by way of clearing the silence. "I wanted to thank you."

"For what?"

"Well not to say thank you, but more to say I was sorry. I'm sorry I doubted your intent."

Azrael snorted, and made no reply.

"They found his body," James continued, "Cassandra told me yesterday. Giovanni's I mean. It washed up on shore. He is very, very dead."

The Assassin stared at the still form of Brooke. The death of Giovanni gave him no satisfaction – he would have liked to choke the man's life from him with his own hands.

"And, well, Lilith, the one who brought those horrible blighters here is apparently keen to talk to me, although she won't visit me until I'm well…" He looked puzzled for a moment, "although I feel well enough now. And, Cat misses you, she's been pacing the hallways of the dormitory all day apparently. And they've fixed the university."

Azrael merely stared at him, as though he himself were comatose.

"Okay, fine," James muttered, "don't accept my apology then. I guess I'll be going then." He turned to leave.

"I'm sorry too," Azrael whispered. "Sorry it had to be this way. Thank you."

James smiled at him, and departed the room.

She was trapped in her own mind, he knew it, somehow the attack had sealed her in, but how was he to get her out? He had tried talking to her, pleading with her, even telling her he loved her (which seemed a foolproof way in the movies), but wherever she was, she was certainly not listening. He would fade out with her, the two of them dead together.

Maybe then he would find peace.

The door sung open again and he looked up to see who had disturbed his thoughts. That twisted, yet beautiful Dragonaire-Zubat girl, and someone else…

"Get her out of here!" He growled.

For once in her life, Mystik reacted, jumping and cowering behind Lilith. Lilith glared at him.

"What is she doing here? She is a traitor!" Or was he the Traitor, he who could not bring himself to kill her.

"She is my offspring," Lilith snapped, "and we have come here to help you, haven't we Mystik?"

Mystik stared up at her mother, and blinked, just once. She nodded her head ever so slightly.

"Have you come to slay me?" Azrael asked, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Do not be ridiculous. I know you cared for Mystik, saving her even though she had been programmed to destroy, something which I assure you has now been removed. And I know your pain. I think we can help you, and her."

"How? How can anyone help her?"

"She is lost in her mind – it is a confusing place, you must go out there and lead her back here."

"Oh, be serious."

Lilith looked hurt. "I assure you, I am never anything but, you must go in there and help her, but I warn you, a person's mind is a confusing place, and one can easily get lost, which is why you need Mystik here."

"How can an autistic child possibly help me?"

The Dragonair morph hugged her daughter. "You might be surprised," she replied, "at how much an autistic child can do. Mystik has wandered for years in her own mind, she can easily navigate that of another."

Azrael stared at his sleeping beauty. "I shall do whatever you require," he whispered. "Help me."

Lilith reached out and placed her hands around his. She brought their closed hands together and placed them on Brooke's heaving chest. Mystik stood beside them, bringing her hands apart in a glowing purple arc that soon enshrouded them. Then she clapped, and the purple ball grew smaller and smaller, and Azrael felt himself falling into infinity…

He was standing in a field, with no recollection of landing in it, merely standing there. A small flickering purple shape darted around him, flittering on tiny wings. He put out a hand palm upwards, and it landed in it, standing still long enough for him to see it. It was a tiny, winged, purple Mystik.

Now he took a look at the landscape. It appeared, at present, to be rolling hills, a beautiful faerie-tale countryside. Beneath his feet sprang soft, lush grass. Not far away a golden path wound snake-like across a small bridge and into the foothills. Smoke rose in a plume on the horizon.

It was the colours that were most surprising though – the grass was a vibrant green, unlike any natural grass Azrael had ever seen, and the sky was a delicate blue, in which well-defined clouds floated. There was a gap of white between the hills and the sky. It all looked most familiar to the morph, and then he realised why.

Like a child's painting…

Now, he noticed, the smoke did not flow upwards and disperse like normal smoke, but it spiralled back in on itself. A Nidoran looked up from the grass, but it looked little like any wiry and lean Nidoran the Umbreon-morph had ever seen. It was fluffy, with lustrous fur and huge, bright eyes. Standing on its hindlegs, it wrinkled its nose at him cutely, and then it spoke.

"I'm late," it said, glancing at a pocket watch, "I'm late for a very important date!" And then it scampered away.

Azrael stared at the Mystik-pixie. She flittered a little, fluttering into the air, and pointed after the Nidoran. Having no better instruction to follow, Azrael followed, and stepped out onto the footbridge…

Suddenly he no longer stood on a footbridge, but instead in the middle of a ricketting rope bridge, spanning a deep canyon. So deep, in fact, that he could see nothing below but thick clouds, which reflecting a rainbow hue of colours. The Nidoran, sitting on a plank some distance from him, suddenly sprang into the air, unfurling long elegant wings and it was a Nidoran no more, but instead a large bird with a powerful curved neck and long bill. Its wings thrashed and a strange whistling sound emitting from them. The boards began shaking, and the ones nearest the bird's feet suddenly split open, spilling forth flowers and shoots laden with perfectly formed leaves. Grasping tightly on the rope supports, Azrael tried to step back as vines started to climb up his legs, twisting around them, pulling him downwards. Suddenly his hands were clinging to nothingness and he was falling, falling, into a rainbow hue of colours, that spun and danced around his head like animated beings.

And then he was sitting in a large puddle. Beside him sat the Nidoran, but now it was a Nidoran no longer, but a small Eevee, with the same overly cutesy features. It looked as an Eevee might look perceived through a Brooke filter. As, indeed, it was.

"You arrived," it said, "I knew you would."

"Who are you? Where's Brooke?" It took great effort to speak – his voice sounded like it was miles away.

The Eevee inclined its head, indicating a narrow burbling creek. "I like the pretty sounds," it said, "like a thousand suns laughing in joy at the world." And then it scampered away, although it did not move its legs.

Azrael opened his palm, and the Mystik-Pixie landed on it.

"Which way?" He asked.

"Follow," the Nyura replied in a strange voice both in his head and somewhere else. Sighing, Azrael clambered out of the puddle, noticing that he was dry now, and the puddle had evaporated to nothingness, and picked his way across the bright green grass, stepping amongst delicate golden flowers. Thistledown floated in the air about him, borne by the breeze so that it looked like so much snow.

The brook seemed to get further and further away. For every step he took towards it, it seemed to be a further two from him. The thistledown increased in volume, and then the Eevee was beside him again, and this time it was laughing.

"The rainbow, the rainbow." It giggled maniacally. And he reached out his hands now unable to see the brook for the thistledown, unable to hear anything but the Eevee's giggling, and the thistledown was snow, thick and cold and chilling.

Wrapping his arms close about his body, he stared upwards, where above the falling snow a beautiful arch, a spectrum of colours, rose.

"Chase the rainbow Azrael," said a voice, and it sounded like Brooke, but Brooke was not here, the Eevee was not here.

There was nothing here but he, the cold and the little purple pixie that danced about his head. Glancing downwards he saw the snow at his feet was golden. He followed it. Suddenly instead of snow, he was walking through leaves, beautiful fallen leaves. A Vaporeon materialised before him, flicking leaves at him with her tail.

And he remembered the games they used to play. Before. Before the Change, before the horror.

Before.

When the leaves tumbled around him they were red, and dripping, and blood drops, and Brooke lay before him, fully morphic, spread-eagled. There was blood between her legs, on her flat stomach, her small but wonderfully formed breasts.

And then she was not there at all, and there was nothing but the imprint in the leaves. Like a snow angel.

Crouching down beside it, Azrael placed his hands against it, as though demanding there be something there, warmth, or life perhaps.

A laughing voice. "Can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"

Mystik cowered against his throat, shaking, her little pixie wings fluttering against his chest.

And then a darkness sprang before him. The big bad wolf returned home, only it wasn't a wolf, but another beast. A great black beast with eyes that burned like twilight and a golden brand upon its forehead. It opened its mouth and out flowed darkness, and the leaves fell apart, to become skeletal. The plants wilted and died, the flowers turned brown and dropped their petals.

Azrael felt a great cold growing in his heart.

"I'm scared," Mystik whispered. "I'm scared."

"Don't be scared," said the black beast, "I'm just your grandmother."

A hood appeared on its head, and a shawl about its shoulder, and then it was no longer a monster but a dried husk of a carcass.

The wind tore the clothing away, and blew the husk to pieces.

"That was me," Azrael whispered. "Me?!"

"You are her greatest fear," Mystik replied.

"But I love her. I loved her and I still do. Can't she understand that?"

"One cannot understand what one fears."

"Why are you so enigmatic all of a sudden?" Azrael snapped in anger. "Give me a break here, why don't you?"

Mystik pressed herself against his chest and he knew it had not been her speaking, but Lilith, speaking through her. The child was too frightened to react and speak.

The path rolled out before him, golden amongst the fallen leaves, now skeletal. He stepped onto it, and walked along it, amongst the bare trees.

And then they were not bare trees anymore, but great, bizarre shapes. He recognised some of them immediately. A syringe, thrust into the ground, beside it a long sharp blade buried deep – a scalpel. He walked through a forest of discarded, gigantic medical paraphenalia and then something caught the corner of his eye. A flickering.

A frightened face, white and thin, with wide dark eyes. Wild matted hair framed her face, and her body was naked, thin, covered in long bloody scars. She stared at him, wild eyed and terrified.

Azrael crouched down, opening her arms to the frightened child. "Come to me," he whispered. Although he knew not why.

She took a tentative step forward and he saw the horrible condition she was in – her body bruised and battered, scarred and marred. So this, then, was Brooke's inner child?

Except that he knew it was not. He knew it was something more, something much less terrifying. It was the girl. The one whom had become a part of Brooke. She reached forth and took his hand. And then she lunged.

Her teeth had become great feline fangs, and her face was twisted into a hideous snarl. Mystik zipped out from under Azrael's shirt and into her face, suddenly shining brighter then anything Azrael had ever seen before. His eyes burned.

The girl fell back, and disappeared into darkness.

"Someone doesn't want me here," Azrael muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Thanks Mystik."

The tiny little Mystik wrapped her arms around his finger and hugged it.

"Of course she will resist your presence here," the mental voice that was Mystik but was not, replied, "you did try to claim her life. Do you think she is that forgiving?"

It was true, of course, Azrael sighed. He loved her beyond anything, beyond even this wretched excuse for a life. But how could he make her see?

How could he make her forgive him?

He stepped back along the path and found himself at the bottom of a staircase. It rose upwards, and upwards eternally.

It was golden. He stepped onto it. At the top a small, cartoonish Vaporeon stared down at him.

"So that's the way you want to play," it said. "You can't catch me. I'm faster then thee."

Azrael ran up the steps, knowing that he should catch her. That he had to see her, hold her. The stairs slid away beneath him, and he fell. He had only gone up two steps, but he fell, and fell and fell, into a pool of frothing water.

It refracted all the colours of the rainbow.

And he was drowning. Again. Mystik flitted around his head, issuing calls of alarm, only her voice was too high to be heard. He flailed madly, but went under. And then found he could breath.

It was a strange feeling, breathing water, and Mystik, now no longer a pixie, but a tiny mermaid, swam along beside him. The waters were still every colour of the rainbow, but there was a village down here. A perfect, fairytale village.

He pushed himself towards it and found he could move with ease. Something flickered in his peripheral and he glanced up, spying a glimpse of a long, serpentine tail topped with spikes, and then it was gone.

Brooke was still tormenting him with her presence.

Bubbles started to float towards him, but he nimbly dodged them, swimming into the village. Only to find that it was empty.

In the first house he investigate was a table set for three, with three bowls, filled with a strange, sticky mixture. Some odd compulsion led him to sit upon one of the stools, only to have it break away beneath him, shattering into a thousand rose petals.

"Whose been sitting in my chair?" Came a weird and spectral voice.

Feeling oddly embarrassed, Azrael stepped away, and suddenly the petals started to animate, and merge together. They formed the shape of a bear, which clawed blindly at him. He dodged the blow nimbly and slammed into its belly, instantly the petals sprayed apart, twisting and turning in a demented tornado of pink. Azrael flung up his arms to protect himself from the multitudes, which seemed to have developed razor shape edges and cut through his clothing and fur. He felt no pain, even as the blood began to stain his fur and trickle to the ground, forming a puddle, an immense puddle.

Azrael knew a lot about death, and knew that noone, noone, could lose that much blood whilst being conscious. But logic did not apply here. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it reversed, the blood dripping upwards from the puddle, and back into him, until the floor was dry and his body unscathed.

He stepped out of the cottage, which was now a cave, a deep dark tunnel, through which a bloody stream trickled and drained. He followed it, following the flickering purple light of the now winged Mystik, who flitted along like a firefly.

And then he stood upon a beach. A beach with golden sands and littered with the broken bones of baby dolls. Across the glistening waters, a rainbow teetered on the horizon.

A singsong voice reached his ears, "she sells seashells on the seashore!" A little chibi Brooke stood there, her head and hands ill-proportioned and child-like.

"Brooke," he whispered, reaching for her.

"Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?" She crooned and suddenly was Brooke no more, but instead a great Umbreon-morph, that grew and grew. Long fangs dripped red, which fell to the ground and shattered, like glass rubies. Its hands terminated in wickedly long claws and about its shoulders, like grotesque wings or great shadows, flapped an enormous black cloak. A cloak big enough to encompass the world. It slashed at the assassin with these distorted hands, and he jumped back as they drew across his skin, leaving a trail of blood welling on his chest.

So, he could be hurt here, as the burning pain indicated.

Mystik yelped, and hid beneath his tattered cloak, which had plainly seen better days.

In a flash, Azrael's knife found its way into his hand. Long, curved blade shining with a realness beyond this place. As he brandished it, however, he suddenly realised, that like a common Farfetch'd, he was wielding a leek.

The monster Umbreon swung its cloak about, engulfing him in black, in night.

He was falling, falling through stars. There was a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. Spreading his arms, he found himself beginning to float. When he flapped them, experimentally, he began to rise, slowly, but surely. Suddenly, he was flying at the speed of light, the stars passing by in a silver-white blur, and forming images against the darkness.

An Umbreon and a Vaporeon played together, wrestling in the water. Droplets fell about their gaiety, flying off their fur in a beautiful array of colours. Cinematographers would be proud. The moonlight danced on the waters, beautiful beyond measure.

He flew past this in an eye blink and now the two were curled up together, the Vaporeon with her tail lovingly curled about him. Again, it was gone before he could see it, before he could reach out and grab it.

Another image – a Vaporeon, sobbing, and as he passed her by, she became slowly morphic and her lips formed words that although he could not hear anything, and could not lip read, he knew immediately what she was saying.

"I will never love again."

And then he fell, plummeting downwards, so quickly that as he grasped at the stars streaking past him he could feel the stickiness of their light. His heart felt as if it were tearing in twain – so fill of longing and sorrow, and desperate love was it. The blood on his chest, caused by the "wolf's" killing claws, flowed into the shape of a love heart. And then he hit the frothing waters with a mighty "SPLASH!!"

Mystik, encased in a bubble, began floating away from him. Lunging, he grabbed at her, his fingers closing about its oily wetness. There was a sensation of dragging and suddenly he was inside the bubble. Mystik seemed to have grown – either that or he had shrunk. Beneath them the broiling waters frothed and spat.

And then the bubble hit the rainbow, and shattered. Azrael grabbed at Mystik as they started to slide away. His flailing missed and she slid downwards, towards the foaming waters. Something shrieked, a truly blood-curdling sound that set one's teeth on edge, and the water was filled with twisting, turning fins, attached to long fishy bodies. A mouth filled with fangs lunged at the Nyura just as she touched the water, closing about her at the same instant that Azrael landed on its head, jamming his leek into its eye. It shrieked again, and flailed, sending him tumbling forward, grabbing Mystik on the way. He found his leek had become a knife once more, and jammed it into the surface of the rainbow, which was soft and pliant, almost like rubber. Using the knife and his claws, he slowly began ascending, Mystik clinging to his shoulders. Once his aching body reached the upper curve, going was much easier, and then he saw the end of it. It terminated in a cloud, upon which sat a bizarre castle, composed entirely of sweets. With fudge bricks, licorice trimmings, and jelly animals set into its face, it was easily the most frightening thing he had encountered. Mystik, although shy, could not resist attempting to remove a jelly gargoyle, only to have it hiss at her, flapping its brightly coloured wings. She shrieked and jumped away.

Just as Azrael approached the Tim-Tam doorstop, something lunged at him. It was a beautiful silver-white beast, looking something like a cross between a horse and a goat, and protruding from its forehead was a lengthy spiral of gold. This horn it pushed against his chest.

"Whose a-knocking at my front door?" The castle said, opening eyes rimmed in M&Ms.

"Just me," Azrael replied, as the unicorn thrust its horn through his belly.

The pain was intense, almost blinding, and the fact that when it pulled back, drawing its beautiful weapon from the gaping hole in his stomach, worms and maggots fell instead of blood, added to his nausea at the occasion. He stared in disbelief as he bled insect larvae, lifting up his hands on which slugs and worms crawled.

"Am I really that bad inside?" He asked.

"You are worse." The castle replied.

"The unicorn is a symbol of purity, of innocence," Mystik said, then, "can I have some candy?"

"Would you like a sweetie little girl?" The Unicorn asked, wiping its soiled horn against the grass, which wilted and died at the touch of Azrael's impurities.

"Please," Azrael begged, "I must see Brooke!"

The castle chuckled, and the unicorn joined in. "Oh what a wonderful morning," it sang, "oh what a wonderful day."

"She wants to let you in, you know," it replied, "but she's scared."

"And you're scared!"

"We're all scared!"

More laughter.

"Please," said Mystik, "let Mr Azrael in, he's come such a long way and through the most horrid torture."

"Riddle me this, riddle me that," the castle said, and abruptly the Unicorn became a Sphinx.

"What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three in the evening?" The Sphinx asked.

"Too easy!" The castle chortled. "Try another one. Ask the one about the ring!"

"You brick head!" The Sphinx growled. "You told him the answer!"

"It's a person," replied Azrael, who had heard it already, "a human being."

But the Sphinx was not listening, it was attacking the face of the castle. Suddenly Mystik was opening the drawbridge, and dragging him inside.

"Now look what you've done…" The castle said behind them. "Birdbrain."

They ran up a staircase, and up it, and then up it further some more. Suddenly they were running upside down, then on a vertical angle and then there were rooms everywhere. Some were empty, some filled with nothing but dust and cobwebs and giant spiders, others contained even stranger.

A music room – piano shattered, battered form of a violin lying on the floor, forlorn. A garden, containing huge and vibrant plants, one of which appeared to be wearing a bowtie.

A Vaporeon and Umbreon, both morphic and naked, writhing together in ecstastic agony. Azrael quickly looked away. There were some parts of someone's mind that should not be touched.

"She has feelings for you still," Mystik said, "but she's hides them away in hidden rooms, hidden places. You have now reached the inner sanctum of her mind."

Here the walls dripped blood, there gold, and here, trickling down the stairs, tears.

Sensing he was close, Azrael ran through the double doors and stared in awe at the room before him.

Brooke must have viewed Labyrinth at some point in the past, because this looked almost exactly like that. There were stairs everywhere, some upside down, some inside out, at every conceivable angle and every discernible plane. Except, that in the middle of it, framed by staircases, was a great pit.

And from this shone the Rainbow.

It certainly deserved the capital R, as it was easily the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It glowed in its translucency, its aura extending beyond its borders.

And on the rainbow, sat Brooke.

She had never looked lovelier, in Azrael's rather clouded eyes. Her silver-white hair cascaded about her shoulders, framing her heart shaped face with sapphire almond-shaped eyes, and her delicate nose. Her legs were drawn against her chest, and she hugged them furiously. And she was crying.

Her tears fell like rain, a rain that seared his skin, and seared his heart. He wanted to reach out to her, to touch her, to run his hands across her teal skin.

But he could not. He glanced at his guide, but Mystik was gone. He was alone in the inner sanctum. Feeling so heavy in heart, such a desperate, sad longing, he ran down the stairs that appeared to led to her, only to find himself upside down, even further away. And so it continued, nowhere he ran could get him close to her. And her tears, her tears continued to fall, hot against his skin, burning against his heart.

He found tears springing to his own eyes.

"I love you Brooke," he sobbed, but she did not look up, was as unresponsive as she had been in the real world. Somehow he found his way to above her. "I bleed for you, Brooke," he continued, rising his arms, down which blood, warm heart's blood, trickled, joining the rain to descend on her, staining her hair.

And then he jumped.

For a moment he was falling through infinity, then suddenly he was standing on the rainbow beside her. She stared at him blankly.

"Brooke," he said, reaching out his hands to her. "I love you and I want to help you."

She stood up and her eyes burned with rage, the mere sight of such anger made his heart bleed even further, staining his fur.

"I hate you." She said. And slapped him.

The sting hurt more then the sharpest claws, the quickest teeth. He fell back, his hands going to his cheek where the slightest pink marred his skin beneath the black fur. "I love you," he whispered. And then fell backwards.

And she spat on him, as he fell, into the dark pit from which the rainbow arced.

The saliva hit him over the heart, digging deep into his flesh with steel claws like those of a vicious beetle. He clawed at his chest, trying to free it, free the vice from his heart, but he could not.

He had not the will. He loved her. She hated him. With good reason, admittedly, he had tried to kill her, but still, that was before. Before he had known who she was.

And what of the others, the ones he had killed? They flashed before his eyes now. All of them. Lurching towards him like zombies, the Meowth prostitute, the Farfetch'd who had been driven so far past the brink that it had practically killed himself, the Venomoth beggar, the Squirtle nomad, the Kabuto hobo… All of them came towards him.

"You killed us, we did not really want to die, we wanted to live, but you killed us."

And he screamed, his voice echoing off the sides of the pit he had fallen into. It echoed, and echoed, and drove into his head like a sledgehammer.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, burying his face in the dirt. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" He repeated this mantra as though it were all that held him with reality.

And, in truth, he was sorry. He had not realised then what live meant. Had not realised what death meant. Although he feared death himself, he had thought they would welcome it – had not seen how even the poorest beggar, the most desperate whore, could want to cling to life, to survive. There was beauty everywhere, even in the lost forest of needles, the bottom of a bottle of cheap liquor. Something tickled his palm, and he opened it. A black rose nestled in the palm of his hand. The thorns had pricked into his palm, drawing scarlet droplets.

"I cannot bring you back," he replied, "but I swear on my own life, my own blood, that I shall never kill again, that I will seek only to restore what is right with the world."

"Your redemption has begun." Came a voice, although Mystik was nowhere in sight.

"And I shall remember you all, and have you live on in my memories." And they came towards him now, the zombies of those he had slain, coming towards him in the dark pit, and he opened his arms to them, welcoming them, and one by one, they entered him, the spectral spirits.

Every entry made him jerk like a puppet, and sent pain stabbing through his senses. But then they were all gone from this reality, from any reality but his own. And he knew them, knew their names, their hopes, their dreams, all they had striven for. Given there was little enough of that – many of them had been lost ones, drug addicts and starving, but there was life within the darkest rose. Such was his curse, to bear the burden of life's cut short, dream's shattered, at his hands.

And in death he had given them tenderness. They could not forget that. And then the last figure, the last zombie came into view.

It was Brooke.

He crossed his arms to her. "You are not dead," he said.

"You slayed me as surely as you slayed them," she replied. "I am dead inside because of you."

"No," he said, "you are dead inside because of Giovanni, and he is now dead outside."

"Oh?" She answered. "So you seek to drag me back?"

He reached out his hands, taking her small delicate ones in his large ones. "I ask you not for your love, Brooke, not even for your friendship, all I ask, Brooke, is that you live. That you restore yourself to you humble shell for me. That alone will be enough."

"Then," she said, "you really do not ask enough."

He bowed his head. "I ask only what you think is right."

And suddenly Mystik zipped around them, a pixie again. Her wings blurred violet. "Can we go home yet?" She whined.

Azrael stared at Brooke. She stared back, blinking. "I will not go alone," he said. "If you do not come with me, I will wander your mind until I die. Come back, and I will slay myself if that is your desire."

The Vaporeon stared at Mystik, puzzled. She plainly knew not what to do.

"If not for me," he said, "then think of the sunsets, the rainbow, and not your fake rainbow either! Think of water fights and Cassandra and Buttons and dreams. And ice cream and candy and soda." He paused. "Think of hugs, and kisses, and friendship and stars."

Brooke nodded, just once. "I still hate you," she said, but without real conviction.

"So we can go home?" Mystik asked again.

They both nodded.

And Mystik exploded in a beam of bright, vivid purple light. Suddenly Brooke and Azrael were clinging to a rope, a violet rope that was not real yet was more real then anything else they had seen. Colours, a bright spectrum of them, flashed past and suddenly Azrael was being blinded by light.

"Is everything alright?" Came a voice that seemed to surround him, but his brain eventually pinpointed it to Lilith, who was staring at him over Brooke.

"I don't know," he forced the words out. "Is she?"

Lilith stood up and leaned over Brooke, touching her on the cheek. "Child," she said softly, "it is time to awake."

And Brooke opened her eyes. "Bright," she whispered, "I saw lots of pretty lights and dancing shapes and it was all like real weird and everything, but then…' her brow furrowed and she focused on Azrael for the first time.

Azrael leaned over her and kissed her on her forehead. "Thank you Brooke," he said, "I shall leave you now, to recover." And he stood up, departing the room for the first time in days. His head felt light and hunger gnawed at his belly. He almost made it to the door when he heard a faint voice.

"Wait," Brooke whispered, and smiled at him, "come back soon and dance with me!"

And only then did he allow himself to smile.

Outside in the hallway were two students talking. One of them, an Eevee-morph, was wearing an orderly's outfit, the other one, a Nidoran girl was in common street clothes. He inclined his head at the Eevee, "tell the Doctor that Brooke has awakened."

The kid grinned. "She has?" He said happily, "that's the best news I've had all day. I'll be back in a minute Manami." And darted off, leaving the girl looking flustered.

She turned to him, "you look hungry, sir," she said politely, "perhaps you should get some lunch."

"I was just thinking that myself," he replied. Suddenly the doors swung open behind him and someone barrelled into his leg. Manami laughed.

Azrael turned and suddenly Mystik threw her arms around him. "Can I have lunch too?" She said, grinning.

He stared at her and the young Nido for a moment, then scooped down and picked her up. "Sure kiddo."

For the first time in years, in his life since the Change, Azrael finally felt complete, whole. When he returned, he would tentatively ask Brooke if she would let him court her. He would not rush her. Her scars were deep, but still, the signs were there, she still cared for him. She had let him in, after all. Had even shown him the way, until the end.

He could wait. He could wait forever.

Carrying Mystik against his hip, he waved to Manami and strode towards the cafeteria. Perhaps he would buy Brooke some fudge. Since she seemed so fond of it.

The End

So what happened next, you may ask? Do Brooke and Azrael rediscover love? How does James react upon meeting Lilith? Will Cassandra ever chose to evolve? And the answer to all of these lies in your imagination, in your heart. For although these characters, and their tales, are mine, they live on in your heads, as more then just figments of my imagination. So what happens next? Well, you decide, but for me, these chronicles have reached their end. Thank you for reading them. I certainly enjoyed telling them.

Kataryna Delilah Lemusu