"Sometimes it Hurts"

A/N: This is a one shot occurring during the same time period as the early chapters of Gift of the Protector: "Pristine Embrace". The full story can be accessed through my profile page.

All was silent. The night's cool air breathed down the canopy of mist covered trees. The entire world was still, and yet something moved ever quicker through the picturesque scene.

It was my heart. My body had taken me here, but I was not exactly sure where here was. Along the dimly lit scene, flecks of crisp moonshine glossed in and out of the leafy palms delivering an atmospheric sensation—the broad plants appeared to be glowing starlight. Their flowers were closed due to the cold cloudless night; however, their bud's exteriors shone in marvelous colors of scarlet and azure.

Were I not in a state of panic, the scene would have been tantalizing to me. It was so extraordinary. It couldn't be real. None of it could be possible. I wouldn't allow for the appetizing tendrils to take hold of me again. I looked left and right along the woodland path, finding the forest gradually encroaching upon my position. It had a life of its own; each of the plants brought a new angle to the world. The luscious vase-structured closed flowers fit perfectly upon their stalk's ambitious posture and pronounced to this baleful world their undeniable concealed beauty. I was terrified of the splendor.

The allure had worn off. The love for this place was no more. It simply could not be any more. That feeling of instinctual desire disappeared when the sun had set earlier. When brilliant light left this world and veiling lids sealed the door back, everything became as it always had been.

This bizarre actualization of my experiences proved frightening, I could not escape reality quick enough. Given the chance, I would leave this wonderfully crafted place just to once more be found in the envelope of ignorance. Knowledge had been my own undoing. Knowledge had brought me here, and knowledge persisted in her steady approach deeper into my life.

I knew fear well. Almost too well. But my fears had always derived from something extraneous or supernatural. Something that did not make sense gave me justification to panic. Perhaps a dark corridor leading to unfamiliar annexes or a shrill noise in the deep night. That's what scared me. Even the prospect of being alone could be frightening since it promised uncertainty. But not this time. The supernatural had been gently replaced with a real component of my life. It was a part of life that I was not able to be dismiss, a section of personal essence which had taken far too long to tap into, and even longer to acknowledge. Its broiling blood demanded to be released, expelled from the prison of containment like a feral animal. Once free, I knew its methods would be as empty as the wind's.

And yet what I sought to control and cultivate was nothing more than internal desire. Desire pulled me, hanging me like a puppet over provoking coals. Manically, I repelled their obsessive charm. Conflicted, I fought with myself. I destroyed pieces of myself.

It all began with the lust of power. To become drunk off the very substance that breaks men, that was supremacy. Its sickening magnetism, my deplorable fascination, allowed for insobriety. Ruthless self-sustaining indiscriminateness paved its deadly path. Such a marvelous gift would realign the minds of many, and turn the hearts of even more. And by some sadistic twist of fate, it had to be placed into the hands of a god-awful man.

My pace slowed. I bent down, and placed my hands against my knees to catch my breath. Where was I? What was I doing?

Taking a few more quick breaths, I looked up at the stars. My bangs, wet with sweat covered my view. Too exhausted to even raise a hand, I bent my head back down and exhaled. I spat on the dark earth below me. The liquid pellet whizzed past my red horn. I could not see below there, the moonlit sky infiltrated just up until the base of the wooded canopy. As I looked down at the glossy garnet sheen, my fright grew. It was still here after all. It was still me.

I knew what adulterated power meant. I did not know why, nor did I know how, but for once, I knew what was to happen. For it had happened before, and when it did it was completely impossible to control. My own desperate prayer to escape from it served to do little more than fuel its erupting strength. It meant the destruction of one's self, so concentrated was its command that without a pure outlet, it could only mean devastation for all involved. It was a river of change, capable of demolishing all barricades standing against it, even the ones I set up to inhibit it. With or without consequence, my story would end with death. Everyone's would.

A wise man once told me, "We are determined to create a world of our own so that we may survive the one we are in." He may have not said it like that, but it didn't make too much of a difference, the meaning was the same. That's what I believed in. That's what I wanted to believe in. Unfortunately, circumstances rarely have us choosing our gifts and even more rarely do they confer upon us the chance to alter our weaknesses. I wondered about the validity of the latter half of that statement. Could I possibly move past the fear? Quickly I vanquished the misleading notion. There would be no escaping weakness I had failed to overcome in the past. Such weakness made me. It defined me in every sense of the word.

I stepped on a few branches below my feet. Their audible snaps made me flinch and my neck muscles grew tense. Although I had made quite a racket dashing to this point where I now stood, by engaging in a brief lull I'd grown accustomed to the periodic silence shattered by my tremulous breaths. Maybe she'd give up. Maybe she would allow for me to move on. That is what I wanted wasn't it? That was why I was running?

I could not flee from myself despite my best efforts, but I could escape from her. I had to. She was beyond anything I could comprehend. And that lack of comprehension proved dangerous when complied with emotional stress. Even with all the feelings urging me on, hell even with all the experiences I had with her, I would never be adequate enough to fill that void.

If I could, this body would be far behind me. I would leave her and myself too. What did I even have left of myself? There were only fragments. Filler had been feed to me through her, my life would never be completely my own. I could not be whole. Completion was out of the question and so was her sister equilibrium. Mentally and physically, I was trapped in a life I never earned.

Sensing a wintry chill, I picked up my pace. The night wind may have shifted directions, because I now felt it opposing my flight. I thought I heard something else in the forest, but my mind persuaded me not to look back. I couldn't look back, doing so would jeopardize everything.

Things had to be this way, the sooner she understood the better. I had tried to be reasonable. I had plagued myself trying to make things work. There was simply no foreseeable way out of whatever had begun to happen between us besides escaping the situation entirely. That is why I had gone away. That is what brought me here to this moment.

Feeling the wet leaves as I parted a pathway through the thicket, my hands began to shake involuntarily. "Shit," I swore. It was always like this when I became sentimental. I gripped onto a nearby trunk to steady myself. The feeling would pass. It had to. I told myself that I was leaving over and over in my mind. If I did not get away, then nothing was for sure. By going through with this, I knew I would not have to confront her again. After all I had done to harm her innocent life, it was the least I could do in repentance. Still, any atonement sure as hell didn't make me a saint. I was doing this for me as well. I couldn't be around her. Whatever it was between us could not be explained.

Rubbing the crusty bark with my smooth hands, I dried my moist palms. Too often was I put in circumstances beyond my control. Now I was taking that authority back. My authority. The same authority stripped from me about two years ago. I was too young to face my challenges. They had been doled out to me unfairly. Another chill spread throughout my body, making me feel empty inside. I gripped my forearms over my upper abdomen longing to feel warmth.

I noticed some warmth as it returned to me, but not to the same degree I had recently acclimated to over the past few days. Though I could generate some form of heat, it was rare that it did not result in fever or worse. That was never the case when I was with her. Together, the connection provided a tide of tepid comfort. To be apart meant many consequences, but I was ready for it. Being apart from her was what I had always known. At least there would be no more uncertainty, no more angst. My own ambitions could not be restrained by anything else I tried. Yet sometimes my personal ego refused to back down and this discomforting, nagging annoyance I quietly felt, I began recognize it like a second skin.

The darkness grew as I pressed forward, slowly and carefully. Biting down on my teeth, I squinted in headache pain originating behind my eyes. Still trembling, I clamped my jaw down tighter, hoping to divert the sensation elsewhere. It didn't seem to work. Seldom did anything involving my body. My mind had to be the one to overcome the internal commotion. This physical body was powerless in too many ways. I was helplessly trapped within it.

Hearing running water, I froze mid-step while widening my eyes. Ahead of me was a small stream. The crystal water cascaded down different levels of stones as it descended into a pool anything but stagnant. A beautiful sight to be sure, but once again anxiety dispelled the charm of aesthetics.

I kept walking, skirting around the water's perimeter. It was probably cold. Light from the moon made it dazzle my eyes. The clearing was far enough away, and I had grown tired. Fatigued, I sat down on the water's edge. My rear against the damp soil made me shudder, the coolness infiltrated straight through my narrow pants. "Just a short break," I muttered arching my hands back behind me to regain some composure. These breaks were necessary to prevent full out collapse. As much as I hated their stringent mandates, the bountiful restfulness derived nearly always made them a minor inconvenience to my journey. At least I knew why the weariness existed. It sucked to know. Consequences like these made me wish for a time machine to undo everything.

Personally, I'm not one to believe in myths or fate. "Shit happens," my friend Bryce from the Pokemon Academy used to tell me. Come to think of it, he would tell everyone that, but he was my only friend back then so that made it special to me. Beautifully eloquent phrase, it captures all of humanity's struggles, tribulations, and atrocities into a few syllables. My mind likes things like that. Science, reason, and rationality are my friends. My mind enjoys symmetry and tidiness. The less complex, the better. Thorny situations aren't my specialty. And by that I also mean life isn't my specialty. Especially my rather intricate life.

The pool's water soothingly lapped against the mossy elevated plateau I sat upon. I decided to remove my Alterieno designer boots, their thick hide would be fine in the water, but I was curious to see how the water felt against my skin. I wasn't going to be going anywhere fast until stabilizing recovery ended anyway. Taking them off and revealing my pale feet, I gingerly placed a toe into the clear water. It was cool to the touch, yet felt surprisingly pure. I was astounded at just how good my senses had become over time. It's funny how sometimes you become used to a feeling that was at one point foreign. We adapt fast, I thought. Who was we though? There was only me.

Lowering my right foot completely into the stream, I made a soft groan as the taut muscles in my lower back relaxed. Some peace at last. Even with heightened senses, there was something distinctively mortal about cool water. The way it seamlessly felt around you. The way your body tried to warm it, but was always a slave to its temperature. The way it made you feel how it was.

Maybe I was reading too much into it. I'm sure that awhile ago I would never had thought about such a brainless action so much. "Stupid. You're being stupid. It's just a stream of water. Nothing more." I whispered to myself aloud, twisting my back to pull at the aforementioned soreness in my back.

I heard a snap behind me, and nearly leapt into the air. My brain, traveling in a myriad of directions before now, tightened to complete focus as my eyes scanned the area where I heard the unexpected sound. Nothing. "Jeez give me a break," I said in order to further shatter the silence with my voice. It was just a noise. This was a forest after all. Pokemon lived here. Not humans. This was their home. I wasn't meant to live here.

Foreign thoughts entertained me once more as the stream recaptured my interest. I placed a narrow hand into the water, unsure of what I was even doing. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't even know where to go. Only a few leagues away from her and I was lost. What a failure. I pulled at my hair anxiously with my other hand.

Trapped in the wilderness, my only chance of survival was to keep moving. But my body demanded rest, as it frequently would. The toll of this existence seemed to outweigh every advantage. Partially because my advantages were always short-circuited by my own inability to wield them. And then there was her, the principal tax of all my insecurity.

I thought about how I had just gone off. It seemed cold, callous even. Didn't I have emotion? How could I have simply abandoned her? But I knew damn well why. It wasn't working. No foreseeable future with her left us both happy. I couldn't read the future or anything, but I knew what made sense. She'd survive just fine on her own. I on the other hand, well let's say that remained to be seen.

But empathy conquered these rationalized thoughts as I reflected upon who I had forsaken. Her eyes seemed to follow my thoughts. I couldn't escape those eyes in my mind. Shrugging, I placidly sat in overwrought solipsism.

My own eyes, filled with determination, looked over at my hand, partially embedded in the water. It looked familiar. As I removed it, I saw my hand's reflection beckon. It called out to me. That hand was empty. Just like mine. They longed for each other. I playfully rotated my wrist, and the reflection did the same, although slower. I followed the forearm of my reflection. The slender contour of the arm sloped up to a shallow shoulder. From there, an arched neck, visibly contemplating by craning in the way that it did. The face I wore showed similar state of confusion. My eyes, with their bright green irises were illuminated faintly by the softest rings of light in my limbic rings. I thought about the pain I underwent to gain such a physical trait. I didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve it.

By this time, I must have been completely hunched over the water. How I kept my balance was beyond me. It didn't matter; I keenly observed, fascinated by my reflection. The soft ripples from mildly flowing water distorted the image in front of me. With a deep breath, I bent over closer to the morphing image. My body seemed to be altering in this brook. I couldn't tell anymore since the biggest headache was actually looking down at myself. I'd much rather imagine how I looked.

I closed my eyes tightly. Counting to three slowly, I felt another nagging itch in my brain. Curiously, I opened my eyes gazing into the stream's rendition of them once more. Their reflection had changed completely. Their irises were now cherry red, a nebula of beautifully warm colors. The thin halo of luminescence was gone, leaving only an immaculately white sclera. I squinted slightly, and the reflection followed suit. My eyes would never be that warm a hue, there was only one that I knew with such a tone. She was the one I had tried to escape.

Now I found myself looking at her through my own reflection. It couldn't be. I left her. "I…I…" was the only thing I could say under such rapturous conditions. To my alarm, it too tried to vocalize words with its effeminately small mouth.

"This isn't happening!" But I could not take my eyes off the image. It was a splitting replica of her, and yet it was me!

I looked down at my hand, eager to bring it back up to my face to rub my eyes and clear the overly creative picture from my mind. Yet I saw her hand reaching out to me. Or was it my hand reaching out to her? The line of the water surface made it impossible to tell. My sight forcefully blended, melding together at every point in silken fibers, and soon I was seeing one image reaching out to me.

Frantically, I used my mind to pull back my arm. It cramped up. Nerves jolted as I desperately tugged. What I was bringing back senses could not tell me. In this state, everything had become indeterminate. The world began to rapidly turn as I lost focus. Was I hallucinating again? She couldn't have been in the stream.

With a mighty heave, I fell backwards. When my head hit the ground behind me, the spinning suddenly stopped. For a few seconds I sat perfectly still, too anxious to budge a single muscle. Then I felt an overwhelming need to breathe. Coughing, I spat up liquid. With water spewing out of my mouth like a fountain, I sucked in sweet oxygen with my curled nose. Gasping and panting, I vigorously continued hacking up swallowed water.

My lungs, relinquished from their fetters, continued to express their distress through sporadic breaths. My heartbeat soon joined their crazed acoustics. There was now flaming pain in my chest. My eyes, equally drenched, blinked rapidly to clear themselves of the excess liquid. Uncontrollable body spasms were next if this remained out of my control for much longer.

"Holy…*COUGH* holy…shit." I almost died. "God…damn." Did I just try and kill myself? What was going on? I didn't remember falling into the water. Did I fall in? Was I pulled in by her? Was I drug down by my desire for her?

My face's side tapped the earth with an involuntary shake. Some dirt brushed against my ear. "I need to get out of here," I said to no one. My knees down were still in the water and I dared not look back at the injurious reflection. I took one of my hands and wiped my eyes, padding them to avoid stinging caused by rubbing. The other hand I used to clean dirt out of my ear's cartilage edge.

Shivering, I wrapped both hands below my right knee and pulled it out of the water. Feeling solid ground beneath me felt assuring. Using this foot for leverage, I pushed off and stood up. Half in the water and half out, I swiftly turned round to leave.

"All done with your little bath?"

I fell backwards in a state of complete panic. Falling back first into the stream, I made a splash louder and more volatile than expected. Flailing, I floated up to the surface in a startle that would not leave me.

"Shit…Sana…I—" my mouth wanted to say, but I only could vocalize some of the syllables as my arms and legs floundered in the surprisingly deep water in search for footing.

"Shh…" I heard her say. "You don't want to make too much noise remember?"

True, but my whole reason for stealth was to escape from her. Splashing and thrashing, I finally touched the bottom with my feet, and found the pool was about neck deep. "I…"

But she interjected, "Oh you must have a lot to say. How about we talk? Would you like for me to help you up?"

"I'm okay. You just startled me that's all," I adamantly said. Lying was my only option. What other choice did I have?

"Oooh," she replied. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

"It's fine. Don't worry about it." Maybe a little bit of ignorance would get me out of this one.

"I was just worried about you," she said curling her hair about one of her fingers. "You simply up and left in the middle of the night."

"I…" It was true. I had. "I had to go…" How was she aware? Did she watch me sleep or something?

"To the bathroom?" She asked snidely, while tugging on the strand of hairs beneath her ear. "This is awfully far away for that, veh Feyera."

I padded my eyelids with a wet hand. I hated when she called me that. Veh Feyera, just who the hell would say something like that? I didn't want to be a part of her world. I should not have been a part of her world. "Yeah…umm…no…for a walk. I had to go for a walk."

She smiled. I normally liked it when she did that. Now however there was a discernible level of deviousness in her grin. "I would have gone with you if you asked me to."

"Um, I needed to go alone."

"Alone? You needed to be alone?"

"Yes." Hopefully she would be forgiving of my indecency. "I didn't mean to…" Wait, what was I saying? This is what I wanted, I wanted to escape. I had a mission to do exactly what I did. Why couldn't I attest to it? Was I scared of what she might do?

"All alone?" she rephrased, slower this time.

I wadded over towards the rim of the stream. I took care to make my exit away from where she stood. "Yes. I guess. I wanted to be alone. We're separate beings. There's nothing conjoining us at the hip. What's the big deal?"

I soon realized that my nonchalant approach would not bode well for me. "Oh, it's not a big deal. Of course not. Not a big deal at all." Her tone definitely suggested otherwise. I didn't need any special emotion reading powers to pick up on things this blatantly obvious.

I placed my elbow on the shore and tried to pull my thin frame out of the water's clutch. "Okay, then. Let's move past this."

"Wait."

I paused, unsure of what she was telling me to wait for. "Sana?" I asked, anxious to get out.

"Do you feel that?"

I looked around. Other than the cold water overloading my sensory system, I felt nothing. "N—no." My jaw had begun to shake causing my pearly teeth to clatter recklessly within my mouth.

She then pranced over to where I was, her extensive stride carrying her further and faster than I thought possible. From this angle, her legs appeared even longer. I guess her gown concealed them. "You don't?" she asked more playfully this time.

Frustrated, I clutched a clump of weeds and tugged my body halfway out of the water. "No, I'm a little busy freezing my ass off in this frickin' stream, dammit!"

I wish I could take it back. The cold made me snap, much to her delight. It was exactly what she wanted me to do. "Oh do you feel cold, veh Feyera?" she asked kneeling down to my level.

"F—freezing," I said.

"Feel it?" Her repeated answers irked me.

"Yes I feel it like I would feel anything, Sana."

"Are you fond of feeling?"

"No. Of course not." The last thing I needed to do was admit that she did make me feel different. Sensations such as cold water against my skin could not compare to what we had done in the past. I'm sure she knew though. I fed back emotion to her instinctively. That was the nature of my predicament. My curse.

"Are you sure?" she asked, embaying me with her long emphasis on the last syllable.

Straight-faced, I sealed the deal. "I don't need to lie to you."

At this she beamed. "Well I'm glad I can trust you so much."

There was nothing I could say to that. I had nearly gotten completely out and she still squatted in front of me, intently watching me scramble. I gave her nothing to trust. She should have known that from day one. I wasn't the best of characters. So said both of my track records. Unfortunately, the worse one always managed to drown out the other through entangled memory fold. My synthesized memory fold. "Care to give me a hand?" I politely asked, even though I was already practically out.

"Of course!" she happily responded. Her giddiness made me apprehensive. As her hand reached out to mine, she suddenly pulled it back. "Oh. I nearly forgot."

Growling, I bent my leg over the lip of land and managed to stagger, rolling onto the ground next to her. "What?" I asked irritated. Did she want to get back at me? Would she try and get back at me? She must have known my original intentions by now.

"You wanted to be alone right?" she said to me winking a heavy-lidded eye.

"Yeah, before. But now," where was I going with this? I paused, unsure of how to phrase my next move. I felt as if I were locked in a check, fretting over the next move like it would be my last. Deep down, I feared her. I feared what she did to me. I had every reason to fear her. She was foreign to me. For everything we had in common was stolen from her.

Amiably, she acknowledged my quiet thoughts, "Ah, so now you don't want to be all alone? That's cute. What made you change your mind?"

Soaked and in the grovel of earth next to her I replied plainly, "It was just a phase. Sana, all of this…" I began to trail off as she looked around and seemed to become occupied with the environment around us.

"Just a phase? This?" she nodded down at herself. Too few a number of Pokemon captivated me as much as her. The alluring draw went beyond anything known to me when concerning Pokemon. It was borderline manic lust. What I coveted, who I coveted had been terribly skewed. Pragmatic wisdom told me it was wrong. This was a sin. My sin.

Sweat mixing with the damp water on my forehead caused me to rub my brow before it fell to my eyes. I gazed at her determined to say no, yet I wanted to say yes. The good is not doing what you want to do, but doing what you ought to do. The right thing to do is hardly ever what you want to do. Struggling for words, my lips parted and I uttered with determination, "All of this Sana, what we have between us…it has to end. It needs to stop."

"Do you know why it has to end?" she effortlessly responded, releasing her hair from the grasp of her hand.

"Huh?" Why? There was no why. It just was this way. I couldn't take it. What she did to me was unnatural. Our whole relationship was contingent upon so many misdeeds never to be forgotten by the dial of time. Snafued up stuff really.

"It's a simple question Mister Feyera," she lightheartedly said via telepathy. "I'm not looking for one of your long-winded academic dissertations. Those days are LONG over for you. Just tell me why you feel this way."

Dissertations? Sure, I was detailed but now she was definitely patronizing me. Not in the cute way either. She was hitting where it hurt. Her knowledge of my psyche involved knowing just how little I understood consequences and how vehemently I opposed being bound to them. She knew where I'd come from and my greatest fear was not being able to go back. I had made that obvious to her. If my constant pleading for a way out didn't provide sound evidence, then my behavior certainly did.

Sitting up, I showed that I was marginally above her height. Not that it mattered in this situation, but making a physical presence would be my first order of business in getting out of the foxhole. If we stood up, maybe I was a little taller. Then again, both of us weren't especially tall, we were at best marginally below what is considered to be tall. "Sana, I just feel like we cannot do this anymore." The sooner the connection was severed the better. I knew that was how I had felt when I left her earlier.

Determined to keep a jovial expression, she tilted her head and closed her smile while excitedly raising her ruby eyes. "You 'just feel'? That's liable language coming from you."

"So what?" I responded, tightening my grip on the small stalk of reeds between us. "I'm able to say things like that now that I'm…"

At this she burst out laughing, "Ha ha! Christian…Edge…veh Feyera…what are you exactly?"

"Nothing. I'm nothing except Christian Feyera." I sneered. I didn't know. I couldn't know. I was some sick amalgamation never worthy of the second chance I'd been given. It was repulsive to even consider anything else.

"Wrong, wrong, wrong," she scolded, waving her pointer finger through the midnight air. "Think about it."

"I'm not giving you the answer you want to hear because it isn't true, Sanaria thas Ashiel," I said raising my voice. I figured calling her by her full name would carry with it some weight. Lord knew I could use a few pounds of influence on my side.

However, my momentary victory seemed to backfire completely, she brought her face close to my own and whispered, "The answer is not what you'd think you'd like, but it's the answer that will give you what you'd like."

I backed off, not knowing where this could be going. Trapped with the clear stream by my side, I had nowhere to really go except closer to the rock formation pouring water down behind me. I backed up until the wide splashing became barely palpable. "What do you mean by that?"

"Christian veh Feyera…why are you playing dumb with me." Sana rocked her head in a zigzag and tapped her finger against her gown's material. "Do you think you can get away with that?"

"Playing dumb with you?" I'd been doing exactly that. Took her long enough to catch on. Though she may have just relished in the slow unearthing of truth-bearing revelation.

"Or is this just your way of coping with everything? I've had far too many days to learn ways of coping. All of them follow a similar pattern. Denial is always the first option. Even children can do that."

"I'm not a child, Sana," I said.

"We'll see about that."

She had no right to threaten me. "Tell me what you mean."

"Do you know what children like to do? They love to play little games. It's always fun," she merrily said, probably speaking fondly of her earlier evolution. "Do you like to play games with me?"

"I'm not playing any games," but a part of me became intrigued by the verbal dance we'd begun. And another part of me became intrigued by the way she was sinuously approaching me on all fours. I struggled to control both, nevertheless their converging paths proved intractable.

"Sure you like to play games. You run all the way out here without even telling me why you're gone. After the things you and I have done to each other…" Sana paused, catching her breath. "…for each other."

"Eh…what?" But I knew what she was talking about right away. Knowing it made me feel vile. Remembering it made me feel unbelievable.

"Your memory might be fractured, but I'm sure you would remember things like THAT," she insisted with glossy eyes.

I contemplated. Some separation from her was necessary; I needed to think things over. She seemed keen on letting me do that for the time being, reaching only up to about an arm's length away from my outstretched leg. Did I give in or continue to resist? What was I resisting? Who was I resisting? More importantly who was I restraining, myself? What part of myself? Defiantly, I pulled back further, covering my face with the soggy sleeve of my gray collared shirt. Its baggy wetness, now somewhat transparent, revealed my lanky arms. Seeing the repercussions of the Operation brought it all much closer to me.

Speaking with sincerity, I gave her the last thing she'd ever wish to hear, "Sana…That part of me…has to die."

Before I had even finished my thought, I felt pummeled with an array of volatile emotions. Ranging from shadowy angst to emblazed persistence, I faced them all. Harsh magenta, piercing chartreuse, and dark slateblue clouded my sight. She gave off a huge volume of telepathically charged thoughts and feelings characterized by colorful energy. That's what it was like to see emotion. That's what it was like to be a Gardevoir. Bludgeoned by their extra physical force, I hit the ground. I could not confront them, let alone remain in such proximity to the surge of "instancing".

Slammed to the ground, I could only look up and see the silvery moonlight pervading through the trees. Clouding the view was a visible thick mist of running emotional discharge. I heard the water splashing behind me. She appeared in my sight seconds later. Her head hung above the moon, her rounded hairstyle mirroring it perfectly.

"How dare you!" she exclaimed. "Who the hell do you think you are? Someone who has no ties to the lives he's stolen? Hearts he's broken?"

I tried to budge, but there were weights pressing down upon my small frame. My legs kicked for a few seconds in a separate fit of their own. Her eyes, now drenched in a deluge of scarlet, turned to stare them down. To my horror, they stiffened, as did my arms. Sensation puttered out. My extremities had been chained to something cutting off the nerve receptors. I strained my neck to see what was holding my arms down, but it appeared to be nothing at all. Frozen and frightened, I glanced at my chest. There it was. That awful firebrick horn. She whipped her glare back towards my face, but stopped three-quarters of the way there. Joining me, she too stared at my center.

Following a brief lull, Sana then looked back into my eyes, the tender manifold of emotions she so often displayed were ripped away and replaced by a single emotion: fury. Malicious fury.

So ripe was her rage that even my significantly weakened latent psyonics could recognize it like a superfluous display of fireworks. Crimson heat oozed off her radiating body in warm frequencies dousing the once cool setting. I felt my face flush as if I were near a fugacious flame pit. The heat pulsated in waves, growing hotter as she tightened her gaze.

"Sana, you need to stop! Stop the instancing!" I bellowed at her stern face. But it was little use. She may have been in a state of emotional meltdown. Those were never pretty, especially for her species. I've had more than my prescribed dose of "Radical Instancing" in the past. Not strictly given or received either.

Like a statue, she continued to coldly examine my eyes. No more sympathy existed. What could I do? Wishing for a chance to rid myself of the sensation, I tried to use even a hint of psyonic energy, to ward off whatever emotion possessed her. I thought pleasant feelings. To impart them onto her may divert her violent wrath. I felt the clutch of employed power take command of my mentality, feeling airy despite being compressed by the weight of her emotional energy wave. It was a familiar feeling, but stretched out.

As my vision became blanketed in a translucent scarlet, she smiled. She didn't need to see the crimson aura that was broadcasted outside my eye sockets every time my psyonics activated. Visuals were nothing to her, she knew the moment when I tapped into anything originating from her kind. Sana let out another labored sigh and brought her body closer to me, closing the distance with her knees still on the ground.

Exasperated, she spoke at last. "Well aren't you special?" My heart sank as she bowed her head down to my own. She wore a pleasant expression amid the turmoil. I shuddered as her face approached mine, dividing distance over and over exponentially. I panicked, taking my eyes off her own and whirling around her beautiful face's contour. Her mouth opened ajar. What was she going to try and do to me? Kiss me? I could not respond. She dramatically descended, her eyes filled with a voracity I had not known she was capable of. As her face brushed my own, she paused. I was unable to budge. If I could, my decision would have been made for me. And more importantly it would have been made by me. I knew what I wanted out of this moment.

Her exhale put me in a trance as her scarlet eyes hovered mere hairs above my own. A plushy soft sensation took me by surprise as the auras surrounded our eyes blended together. She took it upon herself to part both our bangs and conquer my entire sight with her eyes. Lost in eternity, my own questionable desires encroached. They took only seconds to verify with my body, which was already all too keen on reacting. She may have been smiling, but there was no way for me to tell. Her eyes seemed to enter my own as the final distance was traversed. Softly pecking my lips, everything became light and spacious. I no longer felt trapped in any way. I felt completely here in this moment. It had to last. Nudging my face with a less than delicate prod inwards, I reciprocated, giving a substantial return. I wanted more. I needed more. As the frolicking behavior continued, I felt her pull away. She did so with minor difficulty, I gasped as she backed up, taking with her the crimson aura once shielding my eyes.

I continued to pull in air, and my mouth hung open in utter rapture. "Haaa…haaa…shit…haaaa…haaa," I could not take it; the feeling was far too much.

Everything had begun to look more distorted, and without the usual red tint adopted during psyonic use, I knew that it had been superseded by whatever she had done. She panted and held her chest tightly with both her hands.

"What was…? What have I done?" I blinked, looking up at her face. Her eyes were totally obscured by the thick aura of red once belonging to her and me. My attempt served to fuel the maddening growth of energy before me. But it was beautiful to behold.

A few seconds passed. She sighed, stretching back and away from me. "Delightful." Sana's pleased facial expression matched the carefree body language perfectly. I felt a hole inside of me. Perhaps from where she had been? Or was it more sinister than that?

Feeling mildly vulnerable I asked, "What did you take?" Sana could have taken me if she'd wanted to.

"Nothing you'll miss for the time being," she said holding a hand over her mouth to conceal a wide grin. "It's all a process you see. The entire universe parallels our own inhalations and exhalations." She continued to struggle for breath, "Life is respiration."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I fought to employ psyonics but nothing came to me. "Where did they go?" Again I tried, this time focusing on frustration as the derivative for emotional power. No dice. "Shit."

Chuckling at my strained face, her expression grew evermore pleased. "I told you already, they'll come back, and when they do…"

"You can take them away?" That was brilliant. Maybe that was the trick to returning back to normal. I gleefully imagined reverting back to an older lifestyle. But the thought seemed less appealing now that I had a succulent taste of the way things could be.

The Gardevoir nodded her head in quick agreement, her eyes still aglow in radiant crimson. Was it my psyonic aura? Had she absorbed it somehow? "Oh I wouldn't call it 'taking away', Christian veh Feyera. Think about it like an investment with a high return. A really high return. Such a high return that I can barely wait to see your response. But…well, you'll be much better off if you know to expect it. He he…if I neglected to tell you to anticipate it, then the sheer surprise might just break you."

My jaw dropped down. "You can't be serious? That's nothing to laugh about. Be honest with me," I demanded, still paralyzed on the ground near her. I had never had anything like this happen before. Why would I have? I was just a guy snared within some messed up circumstances.

"I am being honest with you." Finishing her stretch, she looked back down at me, "Just like you are always honest with me. I'm really glad we can trust one another like this. I'll tell you the truth and never just what you would like to hear."

Hearing her spew the lies I'd given her made me shudder. Anxiously I replied, "You wouldn't put me in danger. You know what I have at stake. You wouldn't want to lose you know…"

"Oh but that's why I am doing this to you, Christian. I know EXACTLY what you have at stake. I know your limitations. Specifically, I know your crystal's limits. I've known those limits much longer than you have," she said growing mildly shaky in phrasing the last few words. What had she done?

"I can't understand any of this." The initial charm of reverting back had worn off. Helplessness terrified me. "What the hell did you do to me? Where are my psyonics? Tell me! Tell me right now, Sanaria!"

"You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain." Sana relaxed her posture further by leaning back on her hands. Her head then motioned to my chest, "It's all right there. Inside you, a part of you. Aren't you excited?"

Blushing from the mention of the unusual anatomy present on my core, I looked down at my upper body. The Psychic shackles on my body had been loosened and I regained slight mobility in my extremities. Yet the torso I gazed at with a wire thin garnet horn protruding skywards remained inert. Sana might know everything about Gardevoir horns, but she knew nothing of my mind's fragility. She already botched that up for me two years ago before I knew her. Her head nodded lazily as the aura encapsulating her eyes waned ever so slightly.

My pulse started to elevate inexplicably. I still could not move. "Sana?"

She seemed to pretend to not notice, although I detected the aura fading from her eyes. Something was happening. I didn't know what the hell she'd done. She wouldn't be straight with me. She was leaving me out to dry. I had no chance in knowing how this worked.

"SANA!" I called out. "Dammit! Answer me!"

"What is it?" she asked more mischievously than irritated. "Didn't you want to be alone here?"

I had it. Enough was enough. She gave me no chance to explain to her the reason for why I had left. She didn't understand; I had to leave her behind. Now she was vengeful and planning God knows what for me. "Quit being such a bitch!"

She looked at me with scorn, but such an expression vanished almost instantly. "Are you sure that you're not the one being a bitch? Specifically my bitch?"

I recoiled in surprise, who the hell did she think she was? "I've had it! It's over, no more. Stop this before something bad happens. It's over! It's all over between the two of us." My tone was uneven but firm. Whatever was happening made my speech more jagged. That feeling inside me began to throb. I felt dizzy again.

"Feyera, Feyera," Sana gave an exaggerated smile, audibly humming my surname name as she did so "…All of this is happening because something bad already happened between us. You cannot change the past. But the future, that remains to be seen."

"I cannot be with you! It's time to move on! Don't you get it? Or is all that balled up green hair clogging up your brain cavity? Be rational! Use your head to think! This will never work!" I shouted, my own temper nearing its tipping point. I remembered we had a connection capable of imparting emotion back and forth. Perhaps her recent tantrum aggravated me.

"You know what's here, and you want to feel it. Maybe if you were just a bit more…"

"No I don't! I wanted to feel you against me because you're what I've lusted." It was true. I was a guy, I had little control over things like that. Lust was normal. I had done it in the past. I just never had it happen before with…someone like her.

"You call this lust?" Sana rubbed her forearms with her hands, hugging herself.

"Yes it's lust. You're…" I was going to say something along the lines of gorgeous, but I knew better. "You're making yourself available."

"Hah hah! Available?" her laugh made me force a smile. What a stupid word.

She was, and she knew it. The way she acted around me said it all. "Yes, I know how you feel about me."

"Te he," she chuckled at my inflatable ego. "And how do you feel about me? Isn't it the same?"

Maybe it was the same. I didn't know. There would be no way to know for sure. I didn't want to know for sure. I struggled to lift my head off the ground and she quickly placed her hand over my forehead to press down. "Hey, let me get up." It was doubtful that I could break out of this.

But she insisted, "Not until I get some answers from you."

I felt my brow wrinkle under her palm. "Just because something FEELS right doesn't mean that it IS right…if that were the case then you could justify anything you wanted to using such terrible…"

"Whatever gave you that idea? That's preposterous logic."

Hearing her say logic made me cringe. Did she even know the meaning of the word? Her emotions controlled her. They were strong enough to drive me. "Isn't what we're doing wrong?"

"Love is wrong?"

"Not all love. I'm talking about our…lo…affection," I said choking.

"What if our love is the only love in the world?" she dreamily asked.

"Don't be ridiculous. That's not answering the question, Sanaria."

"Aw…but anything I say you'll use to extrapolate ridiculous conclusions. You would take this once instance and say that it could justify atrocious things to take place in the world. We're doing something unconventional, yes, but that doesn't pave anyone's path but our own," Sana said softly. "Besides, you…you're already anything but conventional, veh Feyera."

I knew it was true. "If I refuse, then it cannot happen…that would be…"

Sensing extreme distress she intervened, "I won't make you do anything, but how you feel about something like this is genuine. Not even I can 'Radically Force Instance' love. Something so powerful has to be real. You have to make it real."

"There you go again with your emotions. We can't be in love. You're a Pokemon, I'm a…" I looked at myself and imagined seeing myself in my sharpest formalwear, "I'm a human."

Sana stopped reclining and eagerly looked at me, specifically my torso. "Are you sure you are?"

"Course I am. I have all my human memories other than the ones you took away."

"And memories constitute what someone is?"

Still feeling ill, I persisted in our conversation. "They define us. You were wrong to take them away from me."

"But you weren't wrong to take away everything you took from me?"

"That's different."

"I'm failing to see how Christian. I saved you. You broke me."

"You're taking advantage of the situation. I shouldn't be here right now. Not in this state." Amused, she let me continue. I was harmless in this state and she knew it. At worse, I could make her feel bad with my words. "The sooner you come to terms with the fact that I'm not who you want me to be the better. We'll both be better off that way. We can't…you know…have this relationship." My awkward rendition made the point obvious; a serious relationship required more than what was deemed acceptable by our respective societies. "I'll go on trying to rectify my atrocious crimes by doing good with psyonics and Pokemon and you go on doing whatever you did for the past two years."

Slightly dazed by either my off-color comment or something else unperceivable, she nodded and replied lethargically, "What if I told you that for two years I waited to be reunited with Seph?"

I didn't believe it. No way she was that desperate. "He's gone Sana. What more does it take to prove it? I'm not him. I'll never be him!"

"You do like to play both sides don't you?" she asked, fingering my scalp. I could only sigh slightly as she ran her hand along my hairline.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You use his powers and try to glorify your own life without ever giving credit to what you are deep down inside."

"That's because deep down inside I'm Christian Feyera," I said as I felt a virile lurch in my chest. I peered down at the shard there and noticed it glowing softly as it did infrequently. Were my psyonics coming back? What was happening?

At this, Sana shook her head paying no heed to what I had said. "Feel it?" she asked me.

I did. Something from within made me uneasily hot. "No," I denied. She raised her hand from my head and fever began to overtake me.

Sana stroked her pastel green hair and made a dissatisfied face. "Are you sure?"

Again, I went to say no and even shake my head in addition to get the point across, but a frightfully constrictive numbness embraced my body. The immaterial grip posed me in an alarming posture. My back arched, making for a visible gap between it and the ground. My shirt dangled below my back's bow as I continued to lay by the stream's edge.

Strangely, despite the tightness, I could breathe fine. "Yes," I said as I gasped for some air, expecting it to be difficult. The air tasted sweet, like April lilies. My eyes darted around to see if anything else had changed, but my all my perceptions were instantly drawn to Sana's figure in a burst of internal rewiring. The attraction was always there, just suppressed by my own dread.

As she peered down at me, I could not help but feel dreadfully spellbound. Whatever it was I was awestruck. Was it her body, her aroma, her eyes? I couldn't even pinpoint it, everything about her seemed magnificent in the moment. Her very essence rivaled anything I had ever seen before. Drowning in desire, I awaited her to do something. Anything.

She reached towards my collapsed frame and placed her hand above my heart. I felt it tingle with anticipation. "It's a fine gift isn't it?" she asked in a soft voice that countered everything this scene seemed to represent to me. "Things like this…are lovely aren't they?"

"No!" I shouted. I didn't even know what I meant, it was just me being instinctually defiant. I had to stop her though before she did anything one of us might regret.

Hearing this, she bent against me, and dug both her knees into my side. I groaned in discomfort. Sana bent her knees and pushed their caps under my back's hollow arch. Her pure gown, worn shorter in these tropics, brushed over my body as wind began to pick up from behind her. I shook in panic. Not from the saturated clothes I wore, but from the licentious thought of her trying to somehow possess me. This whole situation was getting out of hand too fast. Her desires, once docile, were beginning to infiltrate my own. As they did so, I felt myself weaken.

"Fascinating, right?" she asked in a devilish tone. "It's almost like a part of you wants to be with me."

Sana bent down placing her head against my heart. Finding myself completely liberated at this point, I flexed my arms and repositioned my shoulders. I noticed I wasn't trying to hold her off as much. Endearingly, I let her slip beyond my mind's rails. Her mind's power was far greater than my own. The influence my brain had over me was slowly aligning with her own mind. Against my will at first, but swiftly ousted was the trepidation as I began to realize just how much I wanted this to happen all along. This connection, although initially seeming to be a delirious fantasy, became closer and closer to authenticity as time stretched and space thinned.

She hadn't been controlling me. The restraints on my body were long gone. Rather, she seemed to be picking up the acute desires embedded in my consciousness and assembling a tapestry of wholesomeness. She wove the textiles of our minds together seamlessly, connecting passion to reality.

Her head then rocked against my chest shard, and a flood of yearning overcame me. I wanted to be with her in this moment. The way she brought significance to the smallest things made me crave to taste the more devious aspects of our unity.

"Sana, I haven't been running from you…I've been running from us," I admitted. Tiredly, I closed my eyes. My arguments were not going to be inhibiting her. The best I could hope for was for them to explain my panic-driven actions.

She twitched, and then placed her hands on either side of my core. Pushing off, she brought herself up exposing her striking rail figure. "You've been running from yourself."

I fully opened my eyes; upset at how she sat up suddenly, pulling away from me, "Sanaria…" I affectionately said to her distraught face. I felt empty.

Her arms pushed down more forcefully upon my chest. It was as if she were trying to keep me away. Her eyes were no longer coated in any scarlet; they were completely vulnerable to me. A thin mist of tears coated their cherry wine color. "Things like this." She gasped in exacerbation, "Things we had, Seph. Things we shared…"

She sat up straighter, gripping the wet fabric covering my chest. Her gown billowed slightly and swept over my collapsed figure, covering my legs with its satin wholeness. I wasn't him though. "This wasn't mine to take." I said nearly mutely, "None of it was."

She continued to stare beyond me, peering past the stream behind me. What was she looking at? I wanted to sit up and look at it with her, yet the energy to do so was not there. My head began spinning again and I thought about how to find her comforting gaze once more. Why did I want it so desperately? What would it bring me that I could not find elsewhere? Why her? Why was she so special to me? There was nothing I could do to change the way I felt about her right now. I considered what she was doing, making herself vulnerable and then retreating. Had I caused that? Could I get her back? How would she ever trust me when I couldn't trust myself?

"Sometimes it hurts to have it torn away from you."

I couldn't take it any longer. Knowing I had to have her back, I defied every rational intention adopted prior to this moment. In an act of blind emotion, I used my arms to split between her supporting arms.

She yelped in surprise and fell towards me slightly, but I was quicker to rise up to where she was. Sitting up, I made precious contact with her lips. Greedily, I kissed deeper into her mouth and she returned the favor. My hands felt her backline, the silken fabric of her gown enticed. How I longed to inveigle below the surface of her gown. But this kiss sufficed for now. As she brushed and stroked through my thick hair with her hands, she pulled on my lips gently with her petite mouth.

My shoulders bent back slightly as she pushed into me. I repositioned so that our bodies faced each other, remaining locked in the ineffable endearment of our kiss.

Sanaria's thin horn graced against my own. Gently sliding to the right, the collective warmth of both our hearts radiated below our tender fondling, filling the world with sun-kissed heat. My shard felt enveloped in the best of ways, sheltered snugly between one of her small breasts and emotional core dividing them. It was unlike anything I ever felt. Unlike anything I could ever feel from anything…anyone else. I needed this. I needed to be here forever.

Before long, my right hand cupped her shoulder from behind and I insistently ran my other hand through her hair. It was so smooth and delicate, angelic even. I touched the area behind her ear causing her to coo softly. My insatiable desire continued to swell, and I lost track of how long we remained in this state of bliss. The only way to tell time was by her body's motions. But even then everything was blurring together. She went from caressing my head, to tightly surrounding me with her embrace—pulling me closer to where I wanted to be—with her body.

Our long kiss broke and I opened my eyes. Equitably amazed, we remained in a petrifaction of sorts. Stroking her back, I realized that this was what I had always feared. She placed her forehead against mine and nervously fluttered her long lashes. First, she looked into my eyes, and then downwards at the union of our hearts. I, following her gaze also peered down. Seeing what I felt made my eyes dilate nearly as much as hers; I could feel their bright expansion as those welcome kaleidoscope colors surrounded my visual field.

The longer we starred at one another, the greater a heat I felt. My eyelids opened wide and I noticed that both my arms were wrapped tightly around her as she rested comfortably against my chest—our unification. Shocked, I released her, removing my arms from her gently curved back.

Her head turned on a slant and she looked me dead in the eyes with unparalleled allure. "What? This is what you've been running from isn't it? Why do you like it all of a sudden?"

Like wasn't a strong enough word to describe it. I tried to think whether or not people even had a satisfactory word to describe what I felt. The tables had turned. I wasn't able to tell for sure, but I knew that what had just happened between us was irreversible. "I…how is all of this possible? How can we…?"

"Has something changed inside you? Have you remembered anything at all?"

My mind wanted to say no, but my heart said yes. Slowly, I nodded my head. It was too immaculate to deny.

I closed my eyes and I heard her sigh. "I'm glad…what you remember is us."

I felt her hold my body nearly as gently as she had previously held me in her kiss. This immeasurable moment had redefined me. There was no comparison. It had reshaped what I thought possible, altering more than my perception. It had changed my life.

Reciprocating, I hugged her, at peace with the world. A soft flutter of our hearts mirrored the stream beside us.

Never had I been so sure of one thing. I knew beyond all doubt that no matter how many struggles, how much pain, or what type of cruel intolerance faced: we were together. For in this state, I was certain that together, like this, we would overcome all of our challenges. The utopian embrace we shared was our own. It belonged to us and us alone.

Our embrace would not be broken.