Oh, geez, another fic set in the ANI realm! Well, better posting this one late than never, I guess. Okay, here's the deal. Hoenn Chronicles had it's one-year anniversary a while back, and Rizu decided to just let everyone forget it. I didn't feel like forgetting it and wrote this instead. And then when Buwaro posted his Anomaly anniversary piece, Worlds Apart, he suggested I put this up, too. Just for the brain meltdown value.

See, it's my belief that every character has one or two mental 'triggers' that can pull them out of their shell, no matter how closed off they might be from the rest of the world. No matter how outrageous or violent or manic or even just antisocial a character may be, there will always be something that draws them out and lets the world see them for who they really are.

I really, really love pulling those triggers.

Under the right circumstances, the cold-hearted can warm up. Under the right circumstances, the violent can become docile. Under the right circumstances, the raging drunk down the lane can become a sensitive, wise creature. Are you starting to see where this is going? That's what I challenged myself to do with this story... take two of Rizu's most outrageous characters and find the trigger. Find the trigger, pull it back as far as it would go, and watch the shot fire. That's what I wanted to do.

That and the temptation of writing something cute with Jack and Kirlia was just too great...

And, seeing as my own personal trigger is the rain... well... here we have it. One look at two characters that are too big to be contained in their own story.

So let's go!

"Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day." Perched on one of two windowsills, the Treecko stared outside at the sheet of gray beyond with an expression of only half-awareness. His eyes were vacant and glazed, and for once there wasn't any alcohol involved- just boredom. And oh, he was bored, frightfully so, with nothing to do but watch the rain. It wasn't even a good rain today, not a thunderstorm or a maelstrom of hail, just this slow, steady, annoyingly dull drizzle. Hell, he could have been out playing in it if his trainer hadn't caught a cold. Of all the silly things for the human to do, getting a cold when it was barely wet outside... with a nearly imperceptible sigh, the Treecko opened his mouth and began to sing again. "Rain, rain, go away-"

"Will you cut that out already, Jack? It's gotten very old, very fast!"

The Treecko cut short, glancing across at the other window. Of course rainy days would make him pissy, everything else seemed to. "You know, Girlia, if you're that bored you could always try singing along. I bet you got a really pretty voi-" The grass type trailed to a halt as his body was forcibly lifted from the windowsill and hurled across the room, slamming off of the wall and bouncing slightly on the carpet. Ow. Jack closed his eyes, bracing himself to be thrown again, but the psychic grip never came. Frowning, the Treecko opened his eyes just as the temperamental Kirlia sighed and looked back out the window. "What's eating you?"

The psychic sighed again almost imperceptibly. "Do you think Alexa will be okay?"

Jack blinked, blinked again, and went to climb up next to the Kirlia. "Is that why you've been so quiet all day?" It figured that the psychic type would worry himself over their trainer. Kirlia always seemed so desperate to please her. Honestly, Jack didn't get it. What was the point of making someone happy if you forgot to settle down, relax, and enjoy some Oran berries?

To Jack's surprise, the effeminate psy didn't even try to knock him off of the ledge. Kirlia just sighed yet again, nodding gently. "She... she's going to be okay, right?"

Honestly, he looked so pathetic that the grass-type couldn't even bring himself to tease properly. Settling onto the windowsill across from Kirlia, Jack did his best to smile consolingly. It made his face feel funny... "She'll be fine. Humans get sick all the time. They're smart enough to get better, even if they can't do much else."

The psychic didn't seem consoled. "My brother got sick once. It started with just a little fever, but then it got worse and worse. If my mother hadn't known so much about berries and herbs, he probably would have died."

Jack raised an eyebrow. That brought back memories. "That kind of happened to my cousin once. He got really sick and started puking. I thought he wasn't going to make it, but it turns out he'd just eaten some bad berries. Had me scared, though. I think his mom just hoped she could be rid of him..." Kirlia turned to stare at Jack, stunned disbelief evident in his wide red eyes. The Treecko grinned. "Shame you can't meet my cousin. He's a neat guy. Of course, you'd probably hate him."

"Why do you say that?" The Kirlia's tone was wary, and Jack couldn't help but grin even wider.

"Well, he's a drunken degenerate, doesn't care what gender his conquests are, he's loud, he's rambunctious, he has the worst plans ever and they somehow always work..." Jack stared out the window, watching a human run for cover from the rain. "But there's also a really decent guy in him, deep down... you just gotta dig pretty far to find him. Fervo bailed me out of trouble time and time again, even if it meant taking the rap himself. He taught me everything he knew, even if it was just how to sit back and have a laugh at something."

"You sound like you miss him," Kirlia mumbled.

"He was my best friend," Jack answered quietly. "We did everything together, we were just that inseparable. We were cousins, but we were closer than most brothers..." The Treecko sat back. "I'm not sure what happened to him, after I got caught. I like to think he would have come after me, if only because I'm sure he'd have a lot of adventures along the way. The little community we grew up in was always far too small for Fervo."

Across from him, Kirlia shifted. "I never knew..."

Jack blinked. "Knew what?"

"Knew that you had family, someone you cared about." The psychic was speaking so softly Jack could barely hear him. "You've always acted like you're in it for you and you alone. I never figured you for the brotherly type."

The Treecko shrugged. "There's something hidden in all of us. You've just got to dig to find it sometimes, like with my cousin. He was always so troublesome, and then he'd just... do something for someone, and they'd never see it coming. You'd always see the same look in their eyes when they thanked him..." He grinned at the memory. "And then he'd usually go do something hideously stupid before he got a reputation as a good guy. Man, I miss him..." He looked over at the psychic slyly. "Probably a lot like you miss your brother, huh?"

Kirlia blinked. "My brother?"

"Yeah, what was he like? I'm the one who's been doing all the talking here, how come you can't tell me about your family a little bit?"

"Well..." There was an obvious hesitation before Kirlia spoke again. "My brother... he was very quiet around other Pokémon, but he always had the brightest smiles for me. He was usually sick when we were little, and I heard an old owl tell my mother that it wasn't uncommon with twins born in the wild that one should be a little sicklier and a little smaller than the other. Mama just told her not to speak like that, but I always tried to look after him after that... although..." the psychic smiled sheepishly. "Usually we'd end up having to save each other. I think the worst of it was the time he decided he wanted to climb this tree. It could be done if you used the tree next to it that the storm had ripped up, it made a nice ramp... but once he got up there he got scared and got stuck. So I went up after him..." The Kirlia winced. "And I got completely stuck myself. It was nightfall before they found us. That wasn't a fun day."

"Sounds like your brother was a bit of an adventurer," Jack noted. The psychic nodded.

"He loved being told stories of the world outside of our territory. He always said he wanted to get better and go see everything, all the world had to offer. And then he would smile at me and say, 'And I'll tell you all about it before anyone else!'"

"So you should feel proud of him," Jack said before the prissy psychic could turn on the waterworks, "I bet he's happy now. Humans have a knack for making things better, so the next time you see him, he probably will tell you all about what he's done. You should be happy that he got his wish, not moping around worrying about everything under the sun. Well," he motioned to the rain outside, "under the rainclouds for us, but you get the idea."

Kirlia stared over at Jack with wide eyes for several moments until his face broke into one of the sweetest smiles the Treecko had ever seen. "You're right," the effeminate psychic said, "He's probably really happy now, and if Mama could make him better in the wild then I bet Alexa will be just fine, too, because humans do have good medicines, don't they?"

"Sure do," Jack nodded. "And you know, I bet she'll be extra happy to see one of your pretty little smiles, eh, Girlia?" The psychic's eyes widened. "Especially if you-"

And there it was, the psychic pull, and Jack felt himself flying upwards into the ceiling as the Pokémon below him started shrieking. "Don't call me Girlia! I can't believe you, Jack, just when you were starting to seem okay! I take back anything nice I was about to say about you!" Jack grunted, grinning even as he felt himself bounce off a wall. Fervo's rule number three- never build a reputation as a decent, caring guy. One of his favorites, personally, out of all the 'rule threes' they had.

It was a shame they'd never learned to count past three...