Title: Reflection, Deflection
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,287
Genre: Character Study, Drama, Angst, Romance
Fandom: Pokémon
Pairings: Lyra/Silver, one-sided Morty/Lyra
Warnings: PLOT SPOILERS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK: assault, broken!Lyra/Silver
Summary: Lyra should listen to her elders, but sometimes she has selective hearing.
Author's Note: For pokeprompts' Remix challenge; this is a remix of Manhattan Martini's fic Mirror Mirror, which you can read at batgrill . livejournal . com (slash) 818 . html. Remove the spaces and replace "(slash)" with a slash mark, obviously. Originally written 21 Feb 2011. Was trying to break through writer's block.

"Get out," he cries out, "Please, get out –" and [Morty] falls on all fours,
gasping to try and breathe, eyes spilling salt and water towards the floor.
Silver stares at him – "they were right; you really can see people's souls" –
and then he steps out of the gym.

-Mirror Mirror by Manhattan Martini

There was a boy Lyra had loved, once. He was all black and crimson, a heartbreak locked in a glass jar, and she knew he was trouble but she forgot, sometimes. Like when he reached up to push her away and his fingers flinched before they touched; like in the split second after she (always) defeated him, when his shoulders hunched and his gaze ducked down to his shoes.

It was hard not to fall in love with someone in moments like that, she told herself. It wasn't weakness; it wasn't foolish. It was wanting to shore up someone else's faltering steps with your own strength, and there was nothing wrong with that, at least on principle.

—

Lyra backtracked to Violet City for a few days after she defeated Morty. The cities were so similar, after all—old and full of secrets and she'd always been a willing and attentive pupil. She climbed Bellsprout Tower and listened to the monks tell her myth after myth.

Before they closed the tower for the night, they invited Lyra to the large pillar in the middle. Try to hold it still, they told her. Obediently, she wrapped her arms around it and struggled with all her strength. Her arms were frail and thin in the moonlight, almost ghostly. The warm wood bucked beneath her palms like a living thing, and she only lasted a few moments before she was thrown to the floor.

That is the way of things, they told her, helping her to her feet. Nature must take its course. You cannot change the inevitable.

But sometimes, Lyra had selective hearing.

—

The next day she returned to Ecruteak (she saw a familiar flash of red and black but she wasn't sure) and found Morty shuddering on the floor of his gym. She rushed to his side, pushed and coaxed him into a sitting position, and cradled his face in her hands until he lifted his streaming eyes to hers.

"That boy," he gasped, "I—I can't—"

As Lyra pulled him into a hug, she realized she hadn't been seeing things after all.

Morty stayed clinging to her, she thought, because she was there and she was solid and she was undeniably real, and there was nothing more to it than that. He was so much larger than her that hugging him felt like being covered in a warm, sweet-smelling blanket. His scarf fell to cover her eyes, and as his heartbeat slowed under her spread palms, her own heart began to race.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of him," she said. "I promise."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," he warned her, his voice rough with tears. But Lyra shook her head; she never lost. Not ever.

—

Whenever Lyra defeated him, she felt a flash of pride at the cracks that she revealed in his facade. "Silver," she would say then, "You don't have to do this. We can be—"

His eyes would startle up, furious. Before she could tell him that it wasn't pity, it was just—, he would disappear.

"—friends," Lyra finished quietly, alone.

—

When Silver saw her costume, the horror that rose in his expression made her realize that she had made a terrible mistake.

He lunged for her, teeth bared, hands reaching out to rip and tear, and although Lyra cried out and tried to push him away, she couldn't. Everything was dizzy and she couldn't see—she tried to pull away but there was nowhere to run, Silver's shouts ringing in her ears. His next swipe found purchase on her arm, his grip tightening until she screamed. Black and red scattered around them like rain, leaving her on her knees and shaking as he held the last tattered piece clutched in his fist, the R broken between his fingers.

Silver's chest heaved, all violence and raw power, but when he took in her tear-streaked face, the normal clothing that he'd revealed beneath the uniform, the way her knuckles clenched white on her upper arms, something dawned in his eyes. Something like realization, or maybe regret.

He turned and left her in the thick of the enemy, but she still felt safer than she had a moment ago when he had been there.

—

The next time she visited Morty, his eyes darkened.

"I told you," he said, "I tried to warn you."

Lyra shook her head furiously, twintails flying. "I'm not giving up," she said, lower lip trembling, hands balled into fists.

Morty closed the gym and took her to the burned tower. They sat amidst the ruins while he listened to her tell him everything he already knew, her voice splintering as it went over the roughest parts. When she used his scarf to wipe her face, his nose wrinkled, but he didn't say anything.

"Don't tell anyone," she sniffled, red-rimmed and miserable.

He kissed her on the forehead with a sigh. "Who would I tell?" Morty asked. Lyra mouthed the answer into his scarf so he wouldn't see.

—

The next time Lyra saw Silver, she couldn't breathe around the knot of terror in her throat. She said nothing, just released her pokémon onto the battlefield, but all she could see were his narrowed eyes, his predatory hands, the ruined cloth hanging ragged from her shoulders. Her battle commands, usually precise and rapid-fire, were slow and conflicting, and her pokémon fell like toy soldiers. Silver looked up, suspicious, and seemed to hesitate when he saw her pale face.

Only her typhlosion remained and he was nearly collapsing, torn between fury and fear. Lyra leaned against the wall and looked at her hands as she fumbled for the right words.

When Typhlosion fainted, her vision blurred. "I told you," Silver said, voice fading, "You're no match for me."

—

Morty's door opened moments before she could knock, revealing his knowing eyes and the cup of tea in his hand. On the table behind him, its companion sat quietly steaming.

He stayed up with her for hours. Sometimes Lyra said nothing; sometimes she couldn't stop herself from speaking. Morty listened and nodded until she fell asleep with her head pillowed on his lap.

In the morning, she woke to find herself safely cocooned in blankets and pillows. "Good morning," Morty said around another swallow of tea, not bothering to lift his eyes from the paper. The weird almost-normalcy of it made everything—Silver, the night before, her whole journey—seem like a dream.

He saw her off with another hug. When he tried to pull away, Lyra didn't let go. He resisted for a moment before he let her linger a little longer.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Morty's eyes were kind and sad, but not affectionate. "Take care of yourself," he told her.

—

Maybe she'd loved him once. Looking back on it now, she wanted to chalk it up to childish idealism, a romantic dream of saving a boy from darkness. Now she realized that she couldn't save him unless he wanted to be saved. All she could do was battle him and keep him at bay, minimize the damage until someone else could pull him out. Maybe someone older, someone who knew more.

There was a way to defeat this, Lyra knew. There was a way out for Silver, even if she didn't know how to find it.

She returned to fight him until again she was the victor and he was the one lifting his pokémon up out of the dirt. Her expression was firm as she turned away; beating him had never been a pleasure.

She felt his eyes on her back as, for the first time, she walked away first.