Archive of Our Own

~~~~~~

In the middle of the storm,

there’s no way to go but straight through the smoke.

~~~~~~

“I know you’re strong,” is the first thing Alain says. “Prove it.” 

The way Ayaka looks at him from across their makeshift battlefield seems to be saying, seriously? She tosses her hair over her shoulder, and the sun catches the edge of her Keystone earring. She smiles. 

“Somebody’s confident,” she says. 

He is. He is, because he can afford to be. Once, he had too much confidence - but instead of learning where to draw the line, Alain swore to make himself good enough so that there was no line to draw. He will get there. He knows he will get there, no matter how far he still has to go. 

“What’s your name?” she asks. 

They’re not on a name basis. Not yet. He knows nearly nothing about her, except for the Keystone set into an earring that hangs on her right ear, and the Pokeballs that line her waist. 

She’s also pretty - Alain doesn’t care. 

“Alain.” He says it anyway. “You?”

He learned he had to stop caring long ago.

“Ayaka.” She pulls out an Ultra Ball. “One on one, Mega Evolutions only. Correct?”

He nods and brushes his hand over Kuro’s Pokeball. It’s one of only two that he has - but he doesn’t ask for more. 

“This is my strongest one. Kila!” 

Kila is an Absol. Alain narrows his eyes. 

He’s never seen a Mega Absol before, let alone fought one. There’s something in its eyes that he doesn’t like - they’re thin and red, and stare at him with such intensity that it takes far more out of him than it should to not just back down . 

But Alain does not back down. If he did, he wouldn’t be here today. 

“And this one’s mine.” He presses the button on Kuro’s Pokeball, and lets the light explode.

Kuro is not like Kila. He will not stand still; he will not hold his head high and proud. Pride does not get them anywhere. Instead, he makes a different kind of impression from the very start, kinda like Alain tends to. 

Kuro roars and unfurls his wings with a burst of fire. His silver chestplate, slightly scratched, holds a Charizardite X. It catches the light, and seems to almost glow an electric, blazing blue. 

Something in Ayaka’s eyes changes. She looks at him like an equal, like a challenge. Like somebody whose strength really can match the words he’s said - and the promises that he’s made. 

It nearly makes Alain smile.

Maybe he deserves that kind of respect. Maybe he’s on his way to earning it. 

Because Alain will not take anything that he does not deserve. There are things he’s learned, things that have made him hurt and nearly made him shatter - but they’ve taught him that if he wants to be strong, he has to work for it, and he has to try. And he has to earn it, for himself. 

He takes nothing for granted. He cannot afford to. 

Ayaka smiles at him again. From anybody else, it might piss him off. Arceus knows he doesn’t have time to smile. 

But from her, Alain finds it does nothing but prove to him that he simply has to try. Nothing more. 

He’s starting to think she’s underestimating him. 

“First move is yours,” he says. He doesn’t need it. 

Ayaka shrugs. “If you say so. Kila, use Knock Off!” 

He supposes he really shouldn’t be surprised. Alain may not know much about Absol as a species, but he does know that Knock Off is mandatory for Dark types at a high competitive level. It’ll do nothing to Kuro’s Charizardite, but Kila has sharp claws that pose a type of danger that Alain would really not like to dance with. 

Absol leaps, claw outstretched. Its right one smokes black, surrounded by a crackle of dark lightning. 

Alain stands and waits. It’s fast - but not fast enough that he does not have time to think. Kuro opens one claw. 

“Dragon Claw!” he yells. 

Kuro lands an upwards blow, just as Kila’s claws nearly brush his jaw. The Absol goes flying backwards. Alain doesn’t even take a breath. 

“Use Flamethrower!” 

The Flamethrower hits. 

“Steel Wing!” 

“Kila, use Sucker Punch!”

Alain swears. He should have seen that coming. 

Kila leaps up from the ground and through the smoke from the Flamethrower. Kuro doesn’t have a chance to change his flight path before the Sucker Punch hits him right in the stomach. He hurdles backwards before balancing himself with his wings - they don’t shine with the metallic silver of a Steel Wing anymore. 

“Dragon Claw!” 

One Sucker Punch. That’s nothing. They can both fight harder. 

“Ice Beam!” 

But Ayaka counters - because Ayaka knows what the fuck she’s doing. That much is clear. Alain supposes that’s better for him in the long run. What good are the easy victories if you don’t learn a single thing?

Kuro spins to dodge the Ice Beam that hits a tree fifteen feet away. It freezes it from the trunk all the way up. The Charizard raises a shining green claw. 

“Knock Off!”

Kila slams a claw upwards in the exact same fashion Kuro did at the very start of their match. 

Alain swears, asking himself how he could be so stupid and so careless. He deserves that.

But it doesn't matter. Kuro has so much heart and the Charizard lets himself shoot upwards. He flips and dives back down again. He raises his second claw - and that one hits. 

Kila crumples to the ground as Kuro flies back to Alain’s side of the battlefield. Ayaka swears as her Absol climbs back to its feet with its teeth bared. It’s nowhere close to done yet. 

Then again, Alain’s barely even started.

“You’re not half bad.” Ayaka narrows her eyes - nobody’s smiling anymore. But she doesn’t look fazed.  

I’m winning, Alain wants to point out. He doesn’t. He raises his left wrist instead. His Keystone flashes.

“And you can do better than that.” 

He says it like it’s a challenge - try harder. And he says it like a challenge - make a spark, light a goddamn flame before he’s forced to suffocate that Absol of hers in the smoke of his and Kuro’s own. 

And all Ayaka does is watch him . She observes. It sends a chill down his spine and he tells himself he must be seeing things - but for a moment, looking into her eyes makes him feel like he’s falling, drowning - falling into the very depths of the ocean, where pressure forces him to break and where he can’t see a damned thing. 

He swallows. It doesn’t matter. They get into his head sometimes but that’s the price he pays. 

And when he looks at her, when he meets her eye and doesn’t let his azul betray a single thing other than courage - he calls it a challenge. 

Fight me, Ayaka.

And It is.

Fight me for fucking real.

“You’re right.” Her voice lowers. Her eyes, so dark - Alain wants to say they twinkle. Like a scatter of starlight before it’s gone, eclipsed by a shadow of the night. She tilts her head and lifts one hand to her earring. “I’ll give you my best” - her voice makes him go cold, so cold - “so give me yours.” 

But he betrays nothing but courage. Never an inkling of doubt. And like hell is Alain going to say no; like hell does he back down. Run away.

And he holds out his left wrist instead of replying. And he stares into her eyes, he stares at the Absol and he stares at the flare of Kuro’s amber wings. The tension, the pressure - he lets his heart begin to race. It’s the heat of a flame. It rises higher and higher. And it’s an ember on the edges of his field of vision, it’s not really there but say he pictures it, he pictures a spark into a flame into a blazing column of fire that makes the air burn-

Kuro is fire. They’re fire when they fight together. 

It burns. But he wishes it hurt more. He needs a goddamn trigger, he needs Ayaka to light a match. Set him on fire. 

But she makes him feel like he’s drowning, falling, he can’t fucking see. A sense of uneasiness and fear, fear more than anything else. Fear of the dark. But it does nothing to build the smoke when darkness and fire are different - so different. 

Alain needs the heat to rise and rise until the flames seem to flicker blue. Brilliant, electric blue. And Alain needs the smoke: He needs the smoke to make him suffocate . 

She can’t trigger it. They never can.

In the end, he falls to the last resort. But he always knows how to do it.

Fight, Viard. 

He wants to scream. He’ll make himself. 

Fucking fight.

Alain presses a finger to his Keystone. “Keystone, respond to my heart!” It tears at his throat, it burns -

“Beyond evolution!”

Everything burns.

He lets it.

“Mega Evolve!”  

--[--x--]--

A little girl - eleven, red hair and a small Chespin by her side - peeks her head through the bushes. Nobody knows why she’s there. Nobody knows what she’s running from. 

She watches, though. She watches with a mixture of fear and awe. 

She wants to be like that one day, she thinks. 

She wants to be as strong as the girl with the winged Absol. The boy with the black Charizard. 

She doesn’t know that she’s already halfway there. 

She doesn’t know the boy is more fucked up in the head than she’d ever be if she had simply continued on the path she was already on. She doesn’t know that by staying there, by watching and by following - that she’s changed the course of everything. She’s ruined them both. 

But in some ways, she saved them all.

Mairin Astiera is special. She doesn’t know that yet. 

She will. 

--[--x--]--

He did it the way he always does. He pulls the trigger on himself. 

Alain can’t stand himself, sometimes. But in the end, it works. Nothing else has ever worked.

He never thought this was the right way to do it - and when he first started out, he wanted to ask every trainer he came across. How did they make it work? How did the stones work, how did they react? Where does the power come from and how do they light a match so bright, so bright it makes it burn? 

He draws the power out from inside himself. It manifests in the form of pain and rage and a hatred for a figure or three long gone. He knew that was never right. 

But despite it all, he never asked. It never mattered that everything in him, every part of him - all it wanted to do was ask questions. He figured it out himself. In the end, it doesn’t really matter if he can’t let himself breathe. The strength is what matters - not the path it takes him to get here. 

He looks Ayaka in the eye. He doesn’t think he can look at the Absol - it’s death on a pair of faux angel wings, deep scarlet eyes like the blood of a scythe. A beast too furious that only his dragon may take down. 

Yet he shows no doubt. “Use Flamethrower!” he orders.

“Use Fire Blast!” Ayaka counters.

But the Base Power difference is made up for by Kuro’s STAB. The Flamethrower overpowers the Fire Blast - a slip-up on Ayaka’s part. The math is simple. Elementary.

135. 110.

He finds little comfort in numbers. Alain wasn’t bad at math - he was good at it, in fact. More than just good. But Augustine taught him that when it all comes down to it, numbers can’t determine shit. He can break past numerical barriers, the things they say are statistically impossible. He didn’t believe that for a while.

But he’s starting to, now.

“Kila! Use Sucker Punch!”

He tries not to get too confident. But Alain Viard’s done a lot of things he always thought were statistically impossible. 

“Dodge it! Use Steel Wing!” 

Kuro spins. He dodges Kila’s Sucker Punch. Then he flips down and hits a Steel Wing. 

Kila goes skidding backwards, and it leaves a whole trench in the battlefield. Ayaka’s eyes meet Alain’s - and she looks at him, not with the admiration Alain guiltily would have liked to see. 

That’s not admiration. That’s not fire. 

But something in her eyes looks so, so dark. If he was falling before, he’s now at the very bottom. Alain thinks that if he let himself, he could get lost in them. It could be dizzying and beautiful and maybe he’d feel better for a night - but it doesn’t matter. He can’t let it matter.

 “You’re strong.” That’s all Ayaka says. 

And maybe that gives Alain a shot of validation. Maybe it gives him a little more confidence in himself. 

“I know.” 

But he says nothing more, anyways. He smiles. “Use Flamethrower!” And he has absolutely no reason to ever let up. 

Kila has nowhere to run. The Flamethrower hits, and Alain thinks that it must hurt.

“Knock Off!” Ayaka keeps trying. Alain can commend her for that. 

“Dragon Claw!” 

And they trade blows - back and forth. He takes two steps forward, she forces him back. An Ice Beam comes too close for comfort and at one point, Kuro is tumbling out of the sky. But his scales burn upon touch and the ice melts away. He follows up with a Steel Wing. 

“Sucker Punch!”

“Another Dragon Claw!”

He knows that statistically, Ayaka has priority. Sucker Punch is meant to always hit first. And Alain can respect her, he knows he can. He does. 

At this point, he’s convinced it doesn’t even matter. The two attacks meet in the middle, and then both Kila and Kuro flip backwards. That’s what he wants to see.

Alain smiles. 

Checkmate.

“Use Blast Burn!”

He always finishes his battles with Blast Burn. Maybe he just likes the dramatics, but he justifies them with numerical logic. He sees an opportunity. He needs the Blast Burn’s Base Power to end it.

So he does it again. And again. And again.

He doesn’t use the attack often outside of situations like this. It’s too risky with the required recharge. 

But something lights in his eyes when Kuro slams a fist into the ground, when he sees the stones erupt out of the ground, accompanied with a blazing light and nearly insufferable heat. It reminds him that they are, together, strong.

He’s not used to feeling strong - he’s used to feeling useless. He’s trying to unlearn that. 

Shit like this makes him feel like he’s on his way. 

“Kila!”

Alain likes to win. He knows that, maybe it’s part of who he is. He needs this to keep going.

Kila doesn’t get back up. 

“Good battle,” Alain says. 

“Thanks.” Ayaka doesn’t smile at him, not like she did earlier. He deserves that. 

She crouches on the ground next to her Absol, who blinks up at her, back in its normal form. Alain can breathe now. Maybe some of the acid rising in his throat, his inability to breathe in the black smoke - wasn’t just because of him. It wasn’t just Kuro.

Arceus. He always forgets. Maybe he keeps winning, but he has to remember that all of his opponents go through the same hell he does. They’re stronger than the average trainer, and that’s an understatement. They, too, have more power than any one person ever should. 

It’s okay. They’re all a little fucked up already, aren’t they? The power is intoxicating. He needs it, now, to survive. 

It’s just not something he can let himself get drunk on. 

“Good job, Kuro,” he says.

Because you’re not him. 

So Alain keeps his head up. He keeps himself in check, he makes sure that he’s still the person his family - and by that, maybe that’s just Kuro and maybe that’s just Mizumi, in a way - needs him to be. He tells them they did well when they do well. Win or lose. 

Kuro changes back to his normal form, and Alain scratches the Charizard under its chin. He smiles. 

“Are you always like this?” But this time, Ayaka’s voice drops. She returns her Absol. “You know - battling trainers with Mega Evolutions like us.” 

Like us. 

And she looks at him with… not admiration, exactly. He’s not there yet. But it is most certainly not the same deep shadow as before - her words don’t have the same bite to them, and she doesn’t have the same sort of confidence. 

It’s a question. It’s an innocent question.

Alain always, always knows the answer.

“You could say that.” He pauses. “I want to be the strongest, along with Kuro.” I’ve spent too much of my life being weak. 

He doesn’t say that part. 

“My goal is to beat every Mega Evolution trainer in the region - out there, I know. But we’re getting there.” 

Ayaka watches him carefully. Maybe she thinks he’s insane, maybe she thinks he’s not somebody to be messed with. Maybe there’s a little bit of both. 

“And Diantha?”

They all laugh at him. Nobody asks him what comes next - and he’s never been asked about Diantha before. But he has an answer for that one too.

“The Champion, too.” Another slight smile. “I said all of them, didn’t I?”

Ayaka climbs to her feet, brushing herself off. She holds out her hand.

“Good luck then, Alain.”

He shakes her hand.

“Thank you.”

He likes her, he honestly does. She has potential. And he holds nothing against her. But he’s been on his own for so long now, and it keeps them all safer that way. He can’t afford to risk a damn thing like that anymore. 

But just for one moment, he’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. Alain flashes her a smile - a real one.

“Not that I need it.” 

She laughs, and it's a bright, twinkling laugh that could have captivated him if he’d wanted it to. 

Alain doesn’t let it. 

He drops her hand, and pushes his own back through his hair. He needs to cut it again. Didn’t he just get it cut? 

Kuro steps up next to him, and nudges Alain in the shoulder with his head. It’s a friendly gesture - the Charizard isn’t asking him for anything. He does this a lot. Alain grins every time though, without fail. 

“You did well, buddy,” he whispers. “I know.” 

“I’ll see you around, maybe?” Ayaka asks.

Alain turns away from Kuro and watches her for a moment. 

She smiles softly - so Alain pretends not to notice. He pretends not to notice any of it. 

“Sure,” he says. He shrugs, but he knows he doesn’t mean it. He’s moving around too much to actually mean it - some strange universal force would have to have struck if he dared run into the same person twice. 

He’s not going to lead her on. But he’s not rude enough to flat out say no. It’s not even that Alain would mind giving her a rematch - he thinks every battle is a chance to improve, grow, and get stronger. He just places higher value on challenging continually stronger opponents rather than the same ones he’s already beaten.

He waves her goodbye. He’s maybe a bit sad to see her go - he can actually stand her. But he knows he can’t spend any time with her without his head getting fucked up again.

For lunch, Alain has a sandwich he pulled together at the last Pokemon Center, and he tosses Kuro the crust because that’s always been his least favorite part. Kuro will eat literally anything. But then he lets the Charizard go hunt for whatever he wants, and trusts him to be back in a reasonable timespan. Alain sits down on a large boulder and hesitates with his hand on the second Pokeball that lines his waist - but then he stops. 

There’s a rustle in the bush ten feet away, and a squeal that sounds suspiciously like a small child, followed by a not-very-quiet shushing noise. 

Alain fights the urge to roll his eyes. But if there’s a small child watching him, he should call Kuro back and leave Mizumi for now - he’ll have her eat later. She’ll barely mind.

He waits for a moment and keeps eating his sandwich. The sky is clear today, it’s sunny and decently warm. Lysandre should have more directions for him within the next hour. He hates that he relies on Lysandre’s instructions so consistently, yet he supposes his boss has gotten him this far. It’s all worked out just fine. Alain doesn’t have constant access to whatever technology they need to track the Mega Energy, so he trades self-reliance for strength and opportunity, and it’s a fair trade. 

Alain whistles to call Kuro back. 

Another rustle coming from the exact same bush confirms Alain’s suspicion, and he sighs.

“I know you’re in there. You can say hi properly if you want.”

A small, red-haired girl - no more than thirteen, Alain would assume - pokes her head out of the bush. She has a Chespin on her shoulder and smiles sheepishly. 

“Sorry.” She takes a few not-so-cautious steps towards him. 

“What do you want?” He’s not upset, just curious. Cautiously curious.

Kuro comes out of the woods with a bit of blood lining his jaw. He stares at Alain and then at the little girl’s Chespin. 

She hesitates and grips the straps of her orange backpack a little bit tighter. “I saw your battle earlier - with the Absol, you know? I’ve never seen a black Charizard like that!” 

Her Chespin nods in agreement. 

Instinctively, Alain’s hand goes to his left wrist. The Keystone is cold under his palm.

“Is that some kind of new Pokemon? Or maybe it’s just a new form…” 

It’s like she’s thinking out loud. 

Alain looks at Kuro. “You don’t want a battle, do you?” he asks. 

“Oh, no-” She runs forward and then stumbles, barely catching herself. She waves her arms frantically. “Absolutely not! You see, Chespie and I are just starting out, we could never-”

Kuro lumbers over to stand next to Alain. The girl stares up at him - Kuro’s nearly seven feet tall. Alain realizes he probably looks intimidating, but he doesn’t pay it much mind. 

Yet she’s still grinning, and doesn’t really seem intimidated at all. “My name is Mairin,” she says cheerfully. “And this is Chespie, the best Pokemon in the entire Kalos Region!” 

“Che-Chespin!” Her Chespin matches her energy with a wave of its own. 

Kuro doesn’t look impressed. 

Mairin points to her Chespin. “You see, he’s my first Pokemon, and I got him from Professor Sycamore-”

Fucking hell. 

“-in Lumiose City!”

Alain grips his left wrist a little bit tighter. Kuro growls softly under his breath. It makes Alain feel a little warmer, a little more human, perhaps, inside. 

He realizes he’s hesitated a bit too long when Mairin pokes him in the shoulder. “Hello?”

“Nothing. Sorry.” The apology comes instinctively, and he immediately scolds himself for it. The girl is a literal child. He doesn’t need to apologize to her for something like this. But if she's bothered by it, Alain can’t tell. 

“What’s your name?” she asks.

Something real fucking close to what Alain knows is paranoia rushes through his head. He doesn’t give fake names, Alain isn’t all that uncommon, but it’s paranoia because he knows the girl has met Augustine and if so, if so-

Augustine never would have mentioned him. Never could have mentioned him.

Alain’s long gone now and it’s not just because he hasn’t walked back through Sycamore’s doors in six years. He thinks he’s a little bit gone in more ways than one.

“Alain.” He says it anyway. Paranoia, he tells himself. Paranoia.

But it wasn’t paranoia when you thought that she might die, because she did. It wasn’t paranoia when you lost her too. And it wasn’t paranoia when he came home and you realized that it was your fault too, everything was, and it certainly wasn’t paranoia when you realized you had to fucking run or else-

Alain suffocates on his own damned smoke. So he tells himself, again - again and again. 

Paranoia.

It’s just fucking paranoia, because Mairin would never know.

And Kuro nudges Alain in the shoulder. It grounds him. 

“This is Kuro,” he adds. He scratches his Charizard under the chin. Kuro growls quietly again and it’s not in pleasure, not because he particularly likes the pets - but to remind Alain to breathe sometimes.

Mairin grins. Alain tries to watch her and think about something other than what he could have, should have been. 

Right?

She looks curious. And she keeps looking at the Charizardite on Kuro’s chest. 

Alain hesitates, because Mega Evolution isn’t… a children’s game. It’s more than that; it’s too dangerous and it’s also so incredibly, incredibly underexplored. That’s why he’s even here in the first place. But she saw his battle with Ayaka, and when he was her age, all he would have had was a hundred questions running through his head. 

He was just a kid with too many loose ends left untied and a childhood cut too short. He was nothing but curious and half broken.

“It's called Mega Evolution,” he says finally. Because maybe he’s too worried that she’s just the same. “You've probably seen the Champion do it.”

“Well, I didn't get to watch Pokemon battles on TV much, so…” Mairin says, scratching the back of her head. “But come to think of it, her Gardevoir does look a little bit different! But your Charizard turned black-”

“Mega Evolution is almost like a temporary evolution - it only lasts for a little bit during a battle,” Alain tries to explain. “Kuro turns black because that's his Mega Evolved form - Ayaka's Absol gained wings when it mega evolved. All Mega Pokemon are a bit different. They can change types and abilities, too, but not always.” He's oversimplifying things a lot. But Mairin listens intently, and all Alain sees is himself when he'd first showed up on the Professor's doorstep. 

He hates it - he thinks it’s fucking with his head. 

It hurts. 

“Can Chespie mega evolve?” she asks excitedly. 

Alain hesitates. “I don’t know,” he says slowly. “It only happens with fully evolved Pokemon, and there’s no record of a Chesnaught ever mega evolving. But I certainly don’t know everything about Mega Evolution.”

He doesn’t know everything. Nobody does. Nobody did. 

Lysandre knows a lot, maybe even more than what he tells Alain. But he trusts Lysandre and if it’s information that needs to be kept safe, he understands that. 

He understands that, right?

Alain looks down at the Keystone on his wrist. It glistens in the sun.

Nobody knew everything about Mega Evolution. And that includes Augustine.

“Not only can Mega Evolved Pokemon revert back to their original forms, but they can only reach said form in the first place during battle. Why is that? An instinct, perhaps? It relates to the trainer, of course, and the stones. Yet how come a bond has been scientifically proven as necessary for a Pokemon to undergo mega evolution?” 

“Some Pokemon change types or abilities when they Mega Evolve. Have you considered that it might put a level of strain on the Pokemon and that’s why they only do it during battle and for a trainer they have a bond with?”

“That’s a good suggestion, Alain!”

He smiles. “You think so?”

Alain was thirteen. Augustine always praised him, told him he was bright and had good ideas. It took a while for Alain to even start agreeing with him because he’d been the one at fault for every mistake and every tragedy for the first eleven years of his life.

But that’s besides the point.

“What are you thinking about now?” Mairin waves a hand in front of Alain’s face. 

He looks down. “Just… remembering something.” His Holo Caster buzzes and nearly startles him. He reads the name on the screen - Lysandre - and maybe five years ago, he would have been worried. He would have flinched. 

Not anymore. He appreciates the direction. 

“I have to take this, give me a moment.”

He stands up and steps six feet away. It continues to buzz and Alain picks up.

“Viard,” Alain reports. He swallows. It doesn’t bother him anymore - it doesn’t.

“Your next destination is as follows.”

A map pops up with a set of coordinates and directions. The call ends abruptly after. 

Alain supposes he has his next location. It’s time to go.

He whistles to Kuro and doesn’t cast the little girl a second glance. 

They head south.

--[--x--]--

The girl follows him because she has a dozen more questions. It’s about his Charizard, horns twisted and blue and draconian. It’s about the Absol with the angel wings. 

It’s about their pair of iridescent stones and the Charizard’s silver chestplate and the fire, the power of that battle-ending Blast Burn. It’s about the strange voice from his Holo Caster and the constant look in his deep blue eyes that her preteen vocabulary can’t even begin to describe - drifting, maybe, is the best she can do. It’s like a ship from a fairytale, captainless and lost at sea. 

But soon enough, his battle and the fire and the power behind his black Charizard will become trivial. Her questions fade into nothingness, strings that escape her fingertips and spiral out of her control.

Mairin Astiera doesn’t know what’s to come. There was no way for her to know and it was never her fault. 

But the questions, a curve with a dot and the rise of her voice at the end of every sentence - she’s a child, inquisitive if nothing else. Yet the answers that’ll come are harsh and flat and cold, some of them merciless like a punch to the gut.

It’s not her fault. It’s really not and even he won’t hold it against her when, inevitably, her world comes crashing down. But she never should have wished to find out.

--[--x--]--

There’s an abandoned ruin in the depths of the forest. Alain enters with Kuro beside him, tail flame blazing - yet he still feels cold. Too cold.

Lysandre’s map directs him further and deeper. He’s nearly there when he reaches a wall - stone, littered with cracks ranging from two inches to four feet. Cautiously, he reaches out a hand. He barely touches it before it entirely crumbles in front of him. He jumps back, startled. Kuro growls.

But Lysandre’s right. He’s right again.

On a pedestal in the center of the room is a glowing stone. It’s yellow swirled with blue and red and Alain recognizes it immediately. Gyaradosite.

Lysandre has wanted it for years. Yet that’s it.

Alain doesn’t hesitate anymore. He takes it - he’s not losing this now. Kuro watches his back, but safety is one of the last things on Alain’s mind. The Keystone on Alain’s wrist pulses repeatedly, as does the Gyaradosite. It’s warm in his hands, almost burning. 

Finding a stone never gets old. Because when Alain takes it in his hands, it’s almost like a heat surges through his veins and it makes him feel…

Strong. And all he’s ever wanted, all he’s ever needed to be, is strong.

And it’s times like this that Alain once again thinks - maybe Mega Evolution isn’t his to control. Maybe humans shouldn’t be interfering in the first place. Maybe this type of power should not be… obtainable . That was always something Augustine had in the back of his mind.

But he clenches the Mega Stone even tighter. 

And he shuts it all down - every bit of hesitation, of caution, of fear - because Lysandre had said it was fine. Of course it was fine. It was fine as long as the stones fell into the right hands, as long as they were careful. They’re very careful. Alain is careful because once upon a time, he was sixteen years old and Lysandre told him that if Augustine knew, if Augustine got involved in this tightrope walk of a chess game - he would be in danger. 

And Alain knows Lysandre was right. He’s still right. 

Alain does things that nobody should do, has power that nobody should have and knows things that nobody should know. If Augustine knew the same, there’s no telling how many people would come hunt him down.

But Alain is strong enough to survive the fall. He won’t let the one person who cared about him like family take it for him.

The stone never loses its heat, its warmth - it never stops burning. He feels it from his fingertips all throughout his body, in his every vein. It’s like an electrical surge of power and strength. That’s the strength to survive, to protect. A set of silver, knightly armor. 

He does the right thing. He knows he does. 

And as he brushes over the stone’s surface, stares at the cerulean spiral at its center - he smiles, because he spent so many years cold and numb. But Alain thinks that right now, he dares to feel alive .

So he pockets the Gyaradosite, turning on his heel - and he leaves the remains of the ever crumbling ruin.

--[--x--]--

The girl finds an abandoned ruin hidden behind a canopy of trees. She thinks she sees a blue scarf disappear into the shadows, so she waits. 

He reappears not long after with his Charizard by his side. 

And Mairin Astiera follows him because she wants to know who the voice on his Holo Caster was, if she can mega evolve, how his Charizard turns black like that. She can’t help but be curious. On her shoulder, her Chespin perches with quiet, watchful, eyes. He, too, is best described as curious. 

Curiosity drives her journey, drove her to leave her home. Curiosity drives the Chespin to catch her, to hold her hand every time. To help her push on forwards because he won’t admit it, but he wants to see the world too. They want to see the world together. 

Curiosity is a magical, fickle thing. It’s a gift. 

And it’s a double edged sword that’s both their biggest strength and their downfall, both of them. One day, it’ll hurt and sting and bleed - they’ll both bleed a dark crimson red, through tears and a pain in the heart and a string left untied. But they chase their curiosity towards the sunrise, towards the future. 

It’ll hurt. But one day, Mairin will thank herself for taking the leap towards the sea and giving it all a chance. 

--[--x--]--

Alain turns the Gyaradosite over in his hands as he steps out into the forest again. It’s all too bright outside after being inside the ruins.

“Stop right there.”

He turns sharply.

A man in a red coat with a purple umbrella jumps down from a stair next to the stone structure. Alain wonders how he didn’t notice him when he entered the ruins. Did he wait for Alain to go in so he could confront him now?

Instinctively, Alain clenches the Gyaradosite tighter, and Kuro steps up next to him with a snarl. He unfurls his wings. 

“I have orders to bring that Mega Stone back with me,” the man says. 

Alain slips it into his pocket. “So do I,” he says coolly. Behind him, there’s a rustle in the trees. He turns and catches a flash of red hair and a green hat. 

He sighs. “Mairin, stop following me.” The branches stop rustling. But still, she’s really not good at staying quiet. He almost hesitates, and he knows maybe he’s not a good person, maybe he’s fucked up - but this is a child and he doesn’t want her to get hurt. “Stay back.”

“I’ll battle you for it,” the strange trainer says. “One on one.”

“And if I refuse?” Alain counters. He doesn’t think this is worth his time. But Kuro takes another step forward, and Alain’s Keystone pulses twice. 

The man doesn’t reply immediately. Instead, he tosses forth a Pokeball and releases a Garchomp with a Mega Stone hanging arounds its neck. 

Alain’s breath catches.

Well. He can’t possibly refuse now, can he?

He shifts his feet slightly to face the trainer directly. That’s enough of an answer for both of them. 

“I see you’re interested now. This will be a battle between two mega evolved Pokemon, won’t it?”

We’ll see if you even get that far, Alain wants to say. He doesn’t say it. 

“My name is Dragon Tamer Remo, and this is Garchoo!” The trainer strikes a pose with the Keystone outstretched on the tip of his purple umbrella. It glistens in the sun, and Alain reminds himself that it’s the only reason he’s even battling this ridiculous man. 

“My partner is a Dragon type as well,” Alain says.

Remo’s eyes widen. “Charizard’s not a Dragon type,” he laughs. “Fucking amateur.” He mutters the last part but Alain catches it. 

It doesn’t get to him. “We’ll see who the amateur is.” He smiles - smirks, maybe - and then stretches out his left wrist and presses one finger to the Keystone on top. 

For a moment, there’s nothing. But Alain is not holding back. 

Again. Fight, Viard, fight-

The light explodes. Alain, for a moment, can’t breathe-

“Kuro! Mega Evolve!” 

Kuro’s enveloped in light and then unfurls huge black wings. Alain doesn’t wait. 

“Use Dragon Claw!”

It ends up not being much of a fight. Alain wins in four moves.

--[--x--]--

Mairin Astiera is following him. 

You already know why she’s following him. She’s just curious, and she’s just intrigued. 

Maybe she also saw the way he treated his Charizard after that battle and maybe he’s scary sometimes, but he’s not…

A bad person.

Mairin follows him and maybe it’s dangerous, maybe he continues to turn her away. Maybe it’s too early to tell. 

But she wants to be strong like him one day. 

She thinks a lot of her problems would be solved if she was, simply, stronger. 

--[--x--]--

“Stop following me.”

She trips behind him and that’s why Alain, so often lost in his own thoughts, is reminded that he has had an eleven year old girl following him for the past ten minutes. 

She picks herself up and brushes herself off. “I can go wherever I want!” she replies indignantly. 

Alain stops and turns around to stare at her. Then he sighs, turns around, and keeps walking. He’ll call Lysandre once the girl leaves him alone - he has to report the Gyaradosite. It’ll only be a matter of time before she understands how far out of her league she is. 

“Hey, Alain-”

Hopefully.

She runs up next to him, and Alain fights the urge to snap at her. He can’t bring himself to and he isn’t sure why - but it’s like there’s a little inkling, a little something in the back of his throat that says he can’t. She doesn’t deserve that when she’s… done nothing wrong.

“-you know, you are kind of scary. But at the same time, you’re really nice to your Charizard! And you know a ton about Pokemon - don’t even get me started on the Mega Evolution thing! I’ve never even heard of it before!” 

He sighs. 

“Now, look. All of that makes me think you’re the kind of trainer I want to get to know.” She turns, faces forward, and walks enthusiastically. He easily keeps up with her with his longer stride. 

“Your point?” he deadpans.

She spins around. “Well, I want to use Mega Evolution too! I’ll catch all sorts of Pokemon and train super hard, and then I’ll beat you and your Charizard in a battle!” 

He almost laughs. 

She doesn’t understand. She’s too young for that. 

But being strong is more than catching Pokemon and training them well. Being strong means you have to cast everything aside; you turn your back on them because they’ll get in the way. They’ll hinder you and they’ll be in danger, and you know that you can’t have that. 

He doesn’t wish that upon her; he doesn’t dare wish it upon nobody but himself. 

She wants to be strong but doesn’t understand the sacrifices he’s made for this type of power. She might not understand for a long, long time. 

“I can’t wait,” he says flatly. It’s sarcastic, almost. Because he hopes that day never comes. 

“Don’t talk to me like that!” she says indignantly, crossing her arms. “Just you wait and see!”  

She’s determined. She’s overconfident. 

But she spies a Flabébé in a flower field ahead and she runs after it - and Alain doesn’t know how to shoot her down. 

“Chespie! Look!” 

They start launching attack after attack at it, all to no avail. They all miss. The Flabébé, a yellow flower variety, spins through the air gleefully.

“Come on, why can’t we land a single hit already!” Mairin whines. 

Alain is almost amused. She’s a long way from being able to use Mega Evolution. “Do you have any status moves?” he asks her. 

She looks over her shoulder. “Like, uh-”

“Chespin can learn Toxic, for example. It won’t do the same trick as Thunder Wave or Sleep Powder, but it’ll do well enough to help disorient the Flabébé.” 

Did Augustine ever start loading the starters up with TM moves? That was Sophie’s suggestion, years and years ago - Chespin gets Toxic that way. 

Shut up, brain, shut up-

“Oh! Yeah, Chespie has that - use Toxic!” 

The Toxic hits, so Alain supposes his own fucked up head doesn’t really matter. Now, the Flabébé can barely keep itself upright in the air. 

“Yay! Uh, quick, Chespie! Use Pin Missile!” 

She thinks quickly enough for the situation. The Pin Missile hits - then Mairin hesitates. 

“Try your Pokeball now,” he advises. He can’t remember the last time he caught a Pokemon himself - but he can tell that Flabébé is plenty weak now. They were never particularly difficult to catch at full health, anyways.

Mairin throws her Pokeball, and Alain thinks it’s a miracle it actually hits the Flabébé. But it absorbs it in a flash of light - that’ll do. It shakes three times before settling down. 

“Did it work?” Mairin runs excitedly up to the fallen Pokeball. “Alain! Alain, I think it worked!”

She’s… happy. Excited. Proud. 

It makes Alain’s heart hurt in a way that it should never. He shouldn’t be happy for her, really, she’s not much more than a stranger. But Alain swallows and brushes a hand over Kuro’s Pokeball, and it vibrates - she reminds him of somebody he wanted to forget. But he doesn’t think that type of forgetting is possible - it’s never going to be. 

Yet he’s happy. She smiles and it’s almost infectious. And it seems maybe she’s not really a stranger, in some ways.

“Let’s hurry and heal that poison,” he says. He just doesn’t say any of the things in his head because he… can’t. Alain can’t help but see things and he knows he fucked up the first time. He never protected her like he should have. 

He doesn’t want to make that mistake again. 

And Mairin just nods and picks up the Pokeball with a grin. She doesn’t stop smiling.

Alain knows that she’s young and innocent and has more life in her than he has for as long as he can remember - yet he thinks that’s precisely why he can’t let her follow him around like this anymore. She’s not meant to know, and he doesn’t want to ruin her. Because Mairin isn’t even thirteen and she can’t realize, she can’t see how fucked up all of this really is. Pokemon are anything you want them to be - your friends, your enemies. Your career or your passion or your killer. 

Alain thinks he’s losing himself to this, this little game - and he won’t let her end up the same way. 

She deserves better than that.

--[--x--]--

She names her newly caught Flabébé, creatively enough, Bébé. It matches Chespie’s name. She thinks that they’ll be the greatest team of three ever. 

He leaves her at the Pokemon Center, but she doesn’t notice. She just waits patiently for Bébé to be healed. He slinks out the door, fully intending to leave her behind. 

But she’s stubborn. Curious. 

So when she notices he’s gone, she asks Nurse Joy where she went. She follows him once more.

Mairin Astiera just wants a friend.

--[--x--]--

Alain leaves the Pokemon Center while Mairin’s new Flabébé is healing. Down the street is a restaurant - the one Siebold of the Elite Four owns. He wants to see if somehow, he can get a battle. He has strings he can pull, including - but not limited to - the Keystone on his wrist and his Lysandre Laboratories ID. 

He sits down in a corner by himself - it’s not overly busy at three pm in the middle of the week. 

“I’m looking for Siebold,” he says to the waiter who comes to check on him. He looks at him skeptically. 

“They all say that.”

Alain, to some extent, expected that. 

“Tell him-”

Tell him what? That you’re here on orders from Lysandre, who doesn’t even know that you’re off of his path? Who doesn’t even know that you found the Gyaradosite? Or tell him that you’re the Professor’s assistant, even though you’re not, and even though then it only takes one phone call for them to trace you back? Even though that might undo all of the work you’ve put in to keep him safe, to keep him unassociated with you and all of the shit that you do? 

None of it’s ideal. But Alain chose his loyalties long, long ago. He does so once again. 

He pulls out his Lysandre Laboratories ID card - and shows it to the waiter. “I’m on specific orders from Lysandre of Lysandre Laboratories. Siebold will… understand,” he says carefully. 

The waiter considers him for a moment. But Alain’s ID card refers to his position as classified, and that might be enough to tip him over the edge. Classified tends to not be a joke. 

He knows that the Lysandre excuse isn’t going to work on one of the Elite Four. But if Siebold’s anything like Alain, if he took anything like Alain’s path to the top - he’ll understand why Alain’s here regardless. So it just has to work this once - and with Siebold, Alain can pull other strings.

“He’ll be with you shortly,” the waiter says after further consideration.

Alain smiles. “I appreciate it,” he says. 

He sighs, stares at the stone on his wrist - and waits.

--[--x--]--

Mairin doesn’t really get what Alain’s problem is. He keeps turning her away like she’s a thorn in his side - and hey, maybe she is - but it’s not like he’s traveling with anybody else. She’s not interrupting anything. She just has questions and she just wants answers. He has them. She peaks her head into Siebold’s restaurant, having tripped only once on the way there - and she finds him in the corner, talking to - well, Siebold. So Mairin runs to join him.

She could have stopped. She really could have let him go on without her. 

But she can’t. Because it’s a pull and it’s a sense of correctness, a sense of belonging and a sense of intrigue. He leaves her behind but it never hurts as much as it should; she picks herself back up and runs again. After him. 

He pushes her away, but she thinks it really doesn’t matter.

And one day, she’ll find out that she was right. The pushing back didn’t matter, not at all. 

It was traveling together that did. It matters more than almost anything. 

Because Alain is broken. She doesn’t know that yet. But maybe with her, one day he’ll stand a chance at being whole again.

--[--x--]--

Alain tilts his Keystone towards Siebold and watches carefully to see his reaction. But his expression remains passive. 

“That… special, one could say, is not for the faint of heart,” Siebold warns.

Alain returns his gaze evenly. “I quite prefer it that way.” 

But he didn’t need to pull the Lysandre card. Alain was right - the Keystone by itself did it. Because there are maybe fifty trainers in the entire region in possession of one, and you don’t come across them every day, unless your boss is a billionaire with advanced technology who forwards you GPS directions. But that’s just Alain.

“Alain! You can’t just leave me behind!” Mairin runs up to the table and slams her hands down. He fights the urge to groan. 

“I never-”

“Who is this?” Siebold inquires politely. 

Mairin grins up at him. “I’m his travel buddy,” she says proudly. 

“For fuck’s sake, I never invited you along,” Alain mutters under his breath. 

“I suppose you will be joining us, then?” Siebold asks. 

Mairin nods enthusiastically and Alain sighs. He really can’t get rid of her, can he? But for now, it doesn’t matter all that much - he’s getting his battle.

They follow Siebold out to a private battlefield behind the restaurant and Alain moves to stand on one end. It’s been a while since he’s battled on a proper field. 

He calls out Kuro. Siebold, unsurprisingly, chooses his Blastoise. It wears a Mega Stone on its head. Type disadvantage, perhaps - he’s been thinking about getting Kuro some coverage for water types. 

“Not to be rude, but will you use a Charizard against my water type Blastoise?” Siebold asks. 

Alain looks across the battlefield and shrugs. “The type matchup shouldn’t matter if you plan to become the strongest.” He raises his left wrist. He’s not here to waste time trying to explain something that makes such little mathematical sense. 

He can do things that are statistically improbable. He knows that. He learned that.

Mizumi’s really his only other option, anyways. And you can’t fight water with water.

“Keystone, respond to my heart! Beyond evolution!”

Kuro roars. Alain watches Siebold - he’s cold. Passive. Waiting.

The power will come, Alain knows, he will force it to come whether Siebold triggers it or not-

Fucking fight, Viard. Fucking fight because you can’t be weak like that every again, never again-

You’re not like him. You’re stronger than that. 

“Mega Evolve!”

Fucking prove it. 

The light explodes. Kuro’s wings flare out larger. The fire is blue and suffocating. 

Alain should have known that the route to the top was never easy - he thought he knew. He knows. 

But Alain should have known that he still has a long way to go. And one of the Elite Four is very willing to show that to him.

--[--x--]--

Siebold doesn’t even Mega Evolve for the first half of their battle. Regardless, he still deftly and easily counters or dodges all of Alain’s attacks. Kuro takes at least one Hydro Pump and it hurts, it hurts both of them but it hurts Alain like a sucker punch to the gut that says he’s not good enough, still not good enough-

When Siebold finally does use his Key Stone, things only get worse. His Blastoise has the ability Mega Launcher, and that Dragon Pulse hurts like fucking hell. 

“Use Dragon Claw!” 

It doesn’t matter. Alain doesn’t run away anymore. He can’t.

“Dual Aura Spheres!” 

You both ran, and that’s why you lost her-

Siebold’s Blastoise is stacked with coverage moves boosted by Mega Launcher - Aura Sphere serves as a distraction in this case.

Shut the fuck up, brain, shut the fuck up!

Kuro spins and dodges. 

“Dragon Pulse!” 

Alain loses focus for half a second and Blastoise hits Kuro with a point blank, super-effective, Mega Launcher-boosted Dragon Pulse. That’s the second one of the battle.

Fucking hell-

“Kuro!” Alain yells. 

He only ever thinks about it when he panics - when he’s losing. 

“Hydro Pump!”

It makes everything worse. Shit, shit, shit- “Fly at it!” 

It’s almost desperate. He hates that.

Kuro shoots forwards underneath Blastoise’s Hydro Pump. 

“Dragon Claw!” 

He slams a glowing green claw across Blastoise’s head. Siebold doesn’t have time to react or counter. 

Alain looks across the battlefield and Siebold is nearly smiling. He hopes - desperately, for fuck’s sake - that it’s respect. 

“Dragon Pulse, once again!”

“Flamethrower!” Alain yells.

The two attacks meet in mid-air. Smoke explodes across the battlefield.

“Fly through it! Use Steel Wing!” 

He hits the Steel Wing. He’s not too far behind, maybe-

“Aura Sphere!”

But Siebold counters so fast. He gets back on his feet so, so fast. Alain doesn’t have time to breathe. 

He was too hopeful. 

Orders come out as panicked, almost. Panicked as Siebold gains more and more ground. 

“Flamethrower-”

“Hydro Pump!”

Kuro keeps fighting.

“Dragon Claw!”

Not strong enough, Alain-

“Dark Pulse!” 

But the Dark Pulse hits, and Alain wonders if they’d be better off giving up at this point. 

“Dragon Pulse!”

That’s the last one. He lets it hit because he doesn’t know how he can recover, how he can win this. He can’t.

Fucking prove it, he’d told himself. Prove it. 

He proved himself nothing. The only thing he proved is that he’s still not strong enough, of course he’s not - he has to train harder. Push harder. 

Fucking weak, Viard, weak-

He wants his head to shut up but it won’t. It never does. 

If you want to protect him, become the strongest. 

Lysandre knew what Alain had to become, what he had to do. Alain listened. And Lysandre helped him. But he’s not good enough.

But how does he protect when he can’t fight? When he can’t win? 

Why did he shut Mairin out? Why did he knock her down? Why did he cut Augustine off, why did he leave and never turn back? Why hasn’t he gone home?

Because he can’t. He never can until he is sure he’s strong enough to protect them. They never did anything wrong and Alain can’t let them suffer for him. And Lysandre is right so Alain has spent the past six years doing what he’s been told, working for Lysandre as a trade for strength but nothing more - and he can’t stop now. But losing hurts, fucking hurts-

It always does.

Kuro falls. And Alain knows that it was his own fault for not protecting his best friend, either. 

Because he could have trained harder, tried harder. He could have won this, maybe. He didn’t, because when is it ever enough? When does he ever do enough? 

He crouches at Kuro’s side, whispering to him. “It’s okay, you did your best. I know I’m not strong enough yet.” A pause. “And I’m sorry, buddy.”

He returns Kuro to his Pokeball.  

“You’ve impressed me,” Siebold says. He and his Blastoise cross the battlefield and Alain looks up at him, jaw tight. 

“I lost,” he says flatly. Isn’t all that matters at this point? It’s black and white; you’re either strong enough or you’re not and close doesn’t get you anything.

Siebold watches him carefully. “True,” he says. “But you came rather close for somebody at such a sharp disadvantage. Your moves were powerful and you think quickly on your feet. Your Charizard cares for you.” 

Alain wishes any of that helped. But a loss is a loss, he knows. It doesn’t matter if Siebold’s one of the Elite Four and whether or not he’s earned his respect. 

But he stands and thanks him for the battle. He leaves with his hand on Kuro’s Pokeball. 

Alain heads toward the Pokemon Center - and he can hear Mairin following him, but he doesn’t see why he should really care all that much anymore. She can do what she wants. He’ll get stronger with or without her around, but it’ll be up to her to defend herself - so he doesn’t care about her. He doesn’t plan on letting that change. 

He checks into the Pokemon Center and has Kuro healed. 

Alain hadn’t lost in at least six months. But it never stops hurting. 

--[--x--]--

He lets Mizumi out of her Pokeball for the first time all day. She stares - glares, more realistically - at him. Then she looks at Mairin. 

“You have a Greninja?” Mairin sputters. “Why didn’t I know this?”

“Because I met you six hours ago,” he deadpans. 

Because she hates everyone would be the more realistic response. Including me, and rightfully so.

“Her name is Mizumi.” He pauses. “I got both her and Kuro from Professor Sycamore.” 

“ Both of them?” Mairin asks. “I didn’t know you knew him!”

Alain almost laughs. He fucking knows him all right. He fucking knows him, he has since he was eleven and Augustine nearly raised him. So of course he knows him. 

“Yeah. A long time ago,” he says. It’s been six years. 

Nine since he hatched Kuro from an egg, named him after the black ashes that littered the ground. Seven since Augustine offered him Mizumi - seven since Alain tried to turn her down. 

“How come you got two?” Mairin whines. “I wish I had gotten two!”

Nine years ago, Alain told Augustine that he wanted a Greninja when he became a trainer. But then Kuro hatched and everything changed. 

He shrugs. 

But seven years ago, he wanted to leave to become a trainer and do fieldwork - and Augustine held true to his promise. He offered Alain a Froakie.

“I was-” Alain hesitates. 

He said no. He had Kuro and that was enough, wasn’t it?

“-I was his assistant for a while,” he finally says. 

But he took her. Augustine wanted him to and Alain wasn’t going to turn him down. 

“ What? ” Mairin’s jaw drops. “You never told me that!”

Obviously. 

“Why would his assistant go on a journey?”

Alain tightens his jaw. “Why does it matter?” 

Mairin, for the first time, hesitates. She looks down - she has enough common sense to drop the subject. “She looks like she hates you,” she comments instead, pointing at the Greninja.

“She does.”

Mizumi crosses her arms in cold silence. 

Because Alain knows he never treated her like he did Kuro. He still doesn’t even though he knows, he knows he should - but it was hard. Hard at the start when he just wanted to be alone with Kuro but he couldn’t because suddenly he was training another Pokemon he wasn’t prepared for. Hard when they didn’t click as a team right off the bat. Hard now, because he lost his chance at the start and their bond is too fragile, too broken to try and work with. But he can’t make excuses - not when he knows he fucked up and that the fact that she hates him is entirely his fault. She deserves better than him - but he can’t give it to her. 

So Mizumi gets by in battles on the basis of pure, numerical power. It’s never the same kind of bond or drive that he and Kuro have. Simply, she’s just strong - well trained with EVs invested in the correct stats, running all of the right coverage moves. But when Alain battles with her, he just feels cold and he knows that’s not right. And she can’t mega evolve - so she doesn’t stand a chance against trainers like Ayaka and Remo. 

“Why?” Mairin asks. She’s too inquisitive. She has too many questions. 

“That’s none of your concern,” Alain answers bluntly. 

But at one point, you had too many questions, yet-

Mizumi walks off into the forest. 

I know that, shut the fuck up, he snaps at himself.

“She’ll be back soon enough,” Alain says, following Mairin’s confused gaze. “She likes time by herself but she always comes back.” 

He looks at Mairin. She doesn’t look deterred in the slightest.

She’s not like you-

But he almost laughs. Because of course she’s almost like him. Of course she’s almost like he was when he was her age - just a bit louder and a bit more clumsy. But he asked so many questions. Augustine was willing to help him answer them all. He taught him how to answer them all.

He thinks that’s exactly what saved him.

“Wait up!” 

Ten minutes later, she runs up behind him. Lysandre has new instructions for him - he’ll meet somebody at the next town over to hand over the Gyaradosite. Mairin, on the other hand, refuses to leave him alone. She keeps tripping and her Chespin is the only thing stopping her from repeatedly falling over. 

“Don’t you know when to quit?” 

She crosses her arms and stomps one foot. “Won’t you listen to me? I’m going to learn how to mega evolve too!”

“ Pokemon mega evolve, not people,” he says pointedly. 

“I know that, but-”

He stares at her and her Chespin as she tells him about how she wants to find the stones necessary for Mega Evolution, how she’ll do that if she sticks with him - and so forth. He’s not really listening.

He can’t keep her safe. He knows that. He fights monsters, he grapples with power that shouldn’t belong to anybody in fear it’ll tip them too far over the edge. He pushes himself until he breaks and Mairin should never have to know how fucked up they all are. 

Let her dream. Never let her get there. 

But there’s the part of him that sees a sense of running in her eyes. In the way she follows him, follows him, follows him like she won’t let go. Like she didn’t have any direction before she met him.

If Alain is anything, Alain is not strong. He is not brave and he is not… good. Certainly not. 

But he’s lost . He’s nothing if not lost, wandering, looking for something to tie him down. He’s been like this since he was eleven and he never really fixed himself, did he? 

Mairin isn’t that - she won’t ground him in the slightest. He can tell already. 

But maybe she’s looking for the same thing he is. The last thing he wants is for her to end up the same kind of fucked up as he is, because he can’t protect her. He can’t protect everyone, he can’t protect anyone when he loses to Siebold like that. He knows that. 

Maybe she’d be better off on her own. Maybe she’d be better off with somebody who can take proper care of her, somebody who can watch her back and help her train and get stronger like she wants to be. 

But Alain turns around, shoves his hands into his pockets, and shrugs. He’s running out of heart to turn her down.

“Do whatever you want,” he says. 

The words feel weighted, heavy - it’s acceptance. The demon on his shoulder refers to it as defeat. 

But she’s eleven and curious; she wants to learn. 

He failed the first time, he let her go and now all he remembers is the eyes, the blue eyes.

And Mairin isn’t her, but isn’t it the same thing in the end? 

Now, he’s got a second chance and he’s this tempted to fucking lose it. 

He can’t lose it. 

Curious. Has too many damn questions. A little bit lost, if he’s got things right.

Mairin Astiera is eleven - she doesn’t deserve to be broken just yet. 

Alain just hopes that maybe he can save her. 

~~~~~~ Pokemon Files ~~~~~~

“Kuro” Charizard (M) @ Charizardite X

Ability: Blaze -> Tough Claws

EVs: 4 HP / 128 Atk / 128 SpA / 252 Spe

Brave Nature

- Dragon Claw

- Flamethrower

- Steel Wing

- Blast Burn

“Kila” Absol (F) @ Absolite 

Ability: Justified -> Magic Bounce

EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe

Hasty Nature

- Knock Off

- Sucker Punch

- Fire Blast

- Ice Beam

“Garchoo” Garchomp (M) @ Garchompite 

Ability: Sand Veil -> Sand Force

EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

Jolly Nature

- Dragon Rush 

- Earthquake

- Hone Claws

- Fire Fang

“Typhon” Blastoise (M) @ Blastoisinite

Ability: Torrent -> Mega Launcher

EVs: 240 HP / 252 SpA / 16 SpD

Modest Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Hydro Pump

- Aura Sphere

- Dragon Pulse

- Dark Pulse

~~~~~~