Work Text:
Vanessa tapped her finger on the arm of the chair as she tightened her tail around her waist and organized her thoughts. She was on the verge of a conversation of utmost importance, and her mind was racing. Dylan was in the kitchen, preparing a drink for the guest while Valerie was out finishing errands. Her husband Alex didn’t come with her, as he was busier looking for a job for himself; it sucked that the one he landed after resigning from her company had, once again, undervalued his skills to the point that they didn’t keep him for long. They had no idea how much they were losing; she had high standards, and when he got hired at her company, he hit the ground running so hard that he’d impressed her at work before she had a personal interest in him.
Bigger loss for them than for him.
“Here, Vanessa, sorry for the wait,” Dylan said, arriving in the living room with a glass of lemonade in hand. “hope you don’t mind using sweetener instead of sugar.”
“Pfffft. I’ve run by black coffee for three days straight once. Sugar? Doesn’t matter anymore,” she replied, extending her arm and taking a drink. “But thanks, anyway.”
Dylan chuckled awkwardly, then sat across from her. The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable; not hostile, just... uncertain. Ever since she arrived, the Espeon had said she needed to talk to both of them. That was it, no further details, and small talk was not Vanessa’s strong suit.
“You’re really not going to say what this conversation is about?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? If it’s something important, then it would be good for me to know beforehand.”
“Oh, it’s important alright, but it’s too much to handle alone,” she replied, letting out a short, dry laugh. “Besides, it has to do with both of you, so it’s good that you both know at the same time.”
“But... eh... uh... yeah, I guess it makes sense.” he replied.
Vanessa glanced around the room briefly. There was a bookshelf full of photos of them together, before and after their wedding. That might help lighten the mood.
“So, how long have you guys been together again?”
“Married? About... 8 months, but we've known each other at a swimming club, when we were kids, with one lengthy break interspersed,” he replied, crossing his feet. “If you can forgive the potential TMI, we’re pretty much ready to work on adding a plus-one to this home, actually,” he said with a proud smile.
“Fu, fufufufufuh! The childhood friends who committed for a lifetime and now want to be Mommy and Daddy, that’s pretty lucky! If it helps balance the TMI, there’s a race in the family to see who’s going to join Fuyu as the next mom,” she winked, “me included!” which got a nod and a thumbs-up from Dylan. It was slightly unbelievable that they had been together one way or another for most of their lives and acted like newlyweds. She wondered if she would reach that level too with her “Rookie.” “And how did your paths cross again?”
“Well, I joined a lifeguard team because I wanted something with action,” Dylan replied. “Imagine my surprise when I found out Val was on the same team as me!”
“Well, I can certainly imagine that. And if I'm not mistaken, you two even went to the same academy, didn't you?”
“Oh yes, we even studied together at Uva Academy,” he explained. “The difference between her in lifeguarding and when she studied with me was as clear as night and day. She was still the girl I knew, but at the same time, she was a whole new woman.”
“It seems like you... couldn’t keep up with this change in her, could you?”
“Yes...” he replied with a sigh, getting a little saddened. “Valerie had to leave the academy after an accident, never saw or heard from her again after that; until the lifeguards, that is.”
“... Accident? What accident?” the Espeon asked, as if she didn’t already know the answer herself. Mandy.
“I don’t know. In fact, I never knew,” he replied with a shrug. “It all happened so quickly... I never got a chance to understand what did, or didn't, happened.”
“And you didn’t ask Val when you met her again?”
“I did thought about it,” he replied, “but I was so happy to see her again, that I let it slide,” then he pulled a picture of the two of them at the beach together off the end table, “and after we got married, knowing or not knowing has simply become... irrelevant to me.”
“Hmm, I see...” Vanessa replied, thinking immediately afterward, I didn’t plan on him not knowing, the poor guy is certainly going to be shocked by what he'll hear... well, get ready to remember...
They both remained silent for several minutes as Vanessa sipped her lemonade, the atmosphere in the room lightening (except in Vanessa’s head). Then, there was the sound of the doorknob turning.
“Dyyyl! I'm b- oh!” Valerie made a little announcement, until she saw Vanessa in the armchair. “Cousin V! What a surprise! How are ya?” she greeted, hugging her once she was on her feet.
“Heh, hi, Val, just decided to pay a visit,” she replied, blushing slightly, still not fully used to this level of casual affection. “How have your days been?”
“One wonder after another!” the Vaporeon replied, wagging her tail. “Winter’s Eve’s coming up, Sharon is seeming more relaxed, and best of all, Dylan and I are planning a trip to Alola!”
Vanessa offered a smile as she sat back down. “Wow... sounds like you’ve got your hands full.”
“Of that, you can be sure,” Val replied, staying on her feet for now. “But tell me, isn’t today your normal workday? Why are you here at this time?”
“I negotiated an extra day off,” Vanny explained. “I’ll have to work overtime tomorrow, but nothing I’m not used to.”
“Ugh, living in this competitive world doesn’t stop for anyone,” Dylan commented, resting his elbow on the arm of the sofa, his fist under his chin. “Don’t know if I could last long in that kind of environment.”
“It can’t be more peaceful than being alert on a beach all time, knowing that, in any second, someone’s life could depend on you.”
“Yeah, it’s nerve-wracking at first,” Val explained, “but luckily, accidents rarely happen, and you become less tense; it’s no excuse to relax, though.”
“... Was that a dig at me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about~”
“Well, like a famous Hitmonlee once said,” he held up a finger like a mentor passing on a lesson to a student, “‘Don’t be tense, be ready.’”
They both laughed a little, and Vanessa couldn’t help but chuckle along. It was nice to see such a happy and relaxed couple, even though where she worked, family tensions over work were not uncommon.
And she almost fell into the same spiral, if it weren’t for Alex...
“Ah! While you’re here, you never did get back to me, how was your honeymoon with Alex, huh?” Valerie asked, bringing her face closer slightly. “He seems like a wonderful guy.”
“Oh, the honeymoon was great! Sinnoh is lovely in the summer. Glad we went in the middle of summer, though; I’m not a snow lover, the few times I’ve seen snow make me glad we live here. And Alex? Heh, he surely is,” Vanessa replied with another short, dry laugh, looking away momentarily. “Yes, a little oblivious and naive for my taste, but oh, so kind-hearted, devoted, helpful and...”
Then she stopped in her tracks, realizing what she was doing. She was losing sight of why she had gone there in the first place.
“... ‘And...’ and what?” Val asked with a hand gesture for her to continue, wondering at the sudden pause.
“No... no, no, no.” the Espeon spoke, more to herself than to them, “I’m getting off topic.” Then she straightened up, in the position she usually did when she was in a meeting. “I didn’t come to just chat with you, as much as I wanted this to be the case,” she said, her tone more serious. “I came because there’s something you both need to know.”
The couple looked at each other across a shelf, then Valerie settled down on the sofa with Dylan. “Okay... what is it about?” Dylan asked.
“It's about someone you both know,” she replied, before sighing a little. Now is not the time to hesitate. “Mandy.”
Their expressions almost instantly darkened. Mandy, that shiny Kirlia they met at the Uva Academy, the bitch that separate them and made them lose contact in the past. It was clear they weren’t slightly happy to hear that name again, especially Valerie.
“... What about her?” Valerie asked before Dylan could. “How do you even know about her?”
“She’s in prison now.”
A heavy silence fell over the room. The room filled with cheery colors seemed to lose its color for a moment as they both looked at each other again. “She was... arrested?” Valerie went on.
"For what?" Dylan finished, equally in disbelief.
“... Ugh, what I wouldn’t give for a mild way to say it...” Vanessa said quietly, before taking a deep breath and looking at them again. “In short, sextortion and... attempted murder, against... me and Alex.”
The silence seemed to reach the depths of the sea now. They already knew she was horrible person, but this seemed too much, even for her. Whether Dylan’s eyes or Valerie’s mouth was open wider, it was hard to say.
“She... what?” Dylan asked, in an higher state of disbelief of what he heard, like his wife was at his side.
“When did this happen?!”
Vanessa moved her fingers and rolled her eyes, as if counting. “... It must be 9 months ago by now, if I’m not mistaken. She was just sentenced a month ago. I was waiting for the sentencing so that I could fully put it behind me and focus on what I was going to tell you.”
No one said anything else, what was there to say? There was a possibility it was a lie, or a really bad joke. But it was Vanessa who was saying it, a person who doesn’t usually joke around on duty; and this was way too serious to be a bad joke.
“... Arceus...” Valerie finally said. “I already knew that bitch was worthless, but this?... fuck...”
“What did she do to you guys?” Dylan asked, trying in vain to feel comfortable.
“Based on what Alex told me that day, Mandy had secretly made a video of Alex and I... uh... ‘having a fun time together' in a supply closet...” Vanessa explained, her ears drooping from feeling ashamed of herself, “and she used it to try to blackmail Alex into sleeping with her and breaking up our relationship.”
“Wait...” Valerie reached out, then pointed at Vanny. “You... fucked... Alex... during work hours?”
“...... Yeeeeaaah... completely my fault.” Vanessa’s ears went from drooped to folded back, her tail curling tight around her waist. “Definitively not my finest moment. First time, never again.”
“Haha! Haa, um... wow!” Valerie remarked, still looking uncomfortable but trying to ease this heavy conversation. “Miss Shoulder-to-the-Grindstone, Ol’ Work-Herself-to-Death Vanessa... had sex on the job, at the job. Damn, Vanny, did Alex know you had it in ya, ‘cause I sure didn’t!”
“Look, Val, with all due respect, we’re not in a position to judge your cousin on this matter,” Dylan commented, laughing softly. “We almost went the same way that time, remember.”
“Yeah, but Sharon interrupted us right when things were about to get good!” the Vaporeon responded, sounding more frustrated by this than embarrassed. “I mean, yeah, I understand why she did it and I give her every reason, but still.”
“Anyway!” Vanessa exclaimed, demanding attention back to the main issue. “Luckily, Alex managed to turn things around and trap her in a no-win situation by tricking her into confessing on video and resigning. If she leaked the video, she would be fired and arrested.”
“Wow, this is what I call courage, and this to save your relationship? It just makes me like him more and more!” Valerie commented.
“Well, we covered the sextortion part,” Dylan said. “What about the attempted murder part?”
“It happened the very next morning after Alex told me about it,” Vanessa replied, feeling the memories come flooding back like a meteor shower. “We were strolling through Koko Park that afternoon, and our conversation was already setting the tone for a wedding,” then her expression darkened, “but then... she attacked us by surprise with Psyshock, and she was Mega Evolved.”
“Wait, she ambushed you Mega Evolved?!” Valerie exclaimed in shock. “Dylan, you dated Mandy for a while, did she always have a Gardevoirite?! Or did you give one to her?!” She turned to Dylan, her voice thin now.
“Wh- no!” Dylan replied, looking as lost as she was. “... Well, at least, I’ve never seen her with one, and I didn’t give her anything!”
“Well, I don’t know if it was divine intervention, or the alignment of the stars, or something like that, but Alex noticed the attack in time and shielded me with his body.” The Espeon’s ears stood up again, remembering him groaning in pain in her arms. “At that moment, I just felt something break inside me, and before I knew it, I was standing in front of him, with Mandy just nearby.”
They both remained silent, just letting her continue.
“So, I managed to manifest my psychic powers in the form of a sword, we can say it was my Psycho Cut form,” she continued. “By the way, it was at that moment that my gem broke, as you may have already seen,” she finished, pointing at the gem on her forehead.
“Well, I did wonder why your gem was cracked at the wedding, but it wasn’t on our last Autumn’s Eve party,” Valerie commented quietly, then shook her head. “But please continue.”
“I’ll speed this up a bit, she caught me by surprise by summoning a Reflect as I was about to attack her and trapped me in some kind of Psychic hand,” she continued, “but Alex somehow managed to get up and distract her long enough for me to get to my feet.”
“... I... see...” Valerie commented, her voice a little faint and her body trembling a little at the words “Psychic hand.”
“Huh? Val, honey, is everything okay?” Dylan asked.
Valerie’s tail flicked erratically, her pupils slightly dilated. “Ah! Yes, yes, it is...” she said too fast. “Just got a little... cold, yeah, that’s it. It’s a scary thought.”
Vanessa knew she was lying, she knew the reason for her fear, and she would bring it up... at the right time.
“She tried to slow me down with Icy Wind, but failed,” Vanessa continued. “Then she tried to stop my attack with Reflect again, but I managed to pierce it through.”
When she finished that sentence, she remembered the days before her evolution, when she took fencing lessons with that Professor Aegislash; what was his name again? Lancelot? Who would have thought, all those fencing lessons really came in handy when I needed them.
“So what?!” Dylan was faster this time. “You cut her?”
“Not her, but I broke her Gardevoirite, which turned her back to normal,” she explained. “After that, Alex came back with the police, and they took her away.”
The silence felt lighter, knowing that, in a way, the ending was happy.
“... Well, she got what she deserved for what she did to Dylan and you!” Val huffed, standing up, getting ready to leave on a high note. “I hope she has fun rotting in jail for the rest of her life. I hope she never sees sunlight again.”
“Valerie,” Vanessa said in a serious and slightly intimidating tone, “come back here, now... please.”
Taken by surprise, the Vaporeon obeyed and returned to where she was, while Dylan didn’t move.
“There’s... one more thing that happened, and it’s why you’re the first family members I’m talking about this with,” Vanessa revealed. “It happened before the police arrived, but after I broke the Mega Stone. Remember I said I didn’t cut her?”
They both nodded.
“Well, that’s true, relax; but it was a close call.” Time for the biggest revelation, the one she specifically wanted to talk only to them about. “You know how they say that when you’re close to death, you see your life flash by in the blink of an eye?”
Again, they nodded.
“Well, Mandy had that moment, and i know that because in an act of hatred, I was about to kill her right there,” the Espeon revealed, placing her fingers on her forehead. “Now, I don’t know if it’s because we’re both Psychic types or if it was some desperate manifestation of her powers, but Mandy managed to make me... how do I put it... ‘get inside her head.’ Apparently, it’s called ‘mindlinking,’ and it’s something only experienced telepaths can do.”
The couple was left speechless. The amount of information being said was hard to believe, especially the part where Vanessa, a Pokémon so serious, but who wouldn’t hurt a Cutiefly, actually considered killing someone.
Okay, now I understand what she meant by “it’s too much to handle alone,” Dylan thought.
“I saw her past, with you guys,” Vanny said, looking a little sad. “From what I managed to see, you all were very close.”
They were both silent for a while, until Valerie sighed. “Yeah... I’m not going to lie, she seemed really happy with... literally anything we did together,” she said.
“I remember there were mornings where we’d be going out to head to class and she, bright as the sunrise, would already be right outside one of our dorms waiting for us,” Dylan added.
“Yeah, it was like she had never felt anything like this before,” Valerie finished.
Well, it was something like that, Vanessa thought, before continuing. “From what I saw, Mandy was also the first one to ask Dylan out.”
“Yep, she did...” he replied, “and when I accepted, she looked like it was the best day of her life.”
“Well, who cares? She had a precious diamond in her hands, and she threw it away,” Valerie interjected with a scowl. “No one told her to leave you, or cheat on you, or whatever she did to you!”
“And that’s... exactly where you’re wrong,” Vanny replied. “In the scene I saw, you and Mandy were talking about something. I assume it was funny, because she was laughing.”
“Uh... yeah, she and I would get coffee together from time to time after class,” Dylan explained. “What about it?”
“Well, that day, she found out that ‘They’ had found her.”
“‘They?’” they both spoke in near unison. Then Val continued, “Who's ‘They?’”
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen them, nor seen anything resembling a name. She never called them anything but ‘Them’ and she never talked about them in court. Even in her own memories, she couldn’t visualize them as anything but shadowy creatures, I don’t know if they were humans or Pokémon or both. So, for simplicity’s sake, I’ll call them ‘the league,’” Vanessa explained. “But to understand what comes next, I’ll have to rewind the events.”
The couple sat up straight on the couch, trying to be ready for anything.
“The very first scene I saw when I got in that ‘place’ was Mandy in a rather dirty alley,” Vanessa started. “She looked like she was... 6 or 8 years old, guessing low, and what happened before that is totally unknown to me. But I assume she was alone on the streets.”
Silence.
“That’s when one of them first found her, and ‘adopted’ her,” she continued. “She lived in this ‘league’ for Arceus knows how many years, constantly trained and deprived of ‘distracting’ things, if you know what I mean, and I could see a number on her clothes, maybe an identification, it was... 4096.”
More heavy silence, though this time it broke with Dylan blinking and then tapping Valerie’s arm. “Hey, remember that time at the store?” he asked, getting a pause and then a shake of the head from his wife. “Y’know, when she had that little freakout?”
“... Sssort of?” Valerie said back unconvincingly.
“And she would’ve knocked that display over if-”
“Oh yeah!” Seeing Vanessa looking at them for an answer, she said, “Right after we met her, less than a week after, we went to the store on the way back from school. I was off with her while Dylan was buying his stuff, and we got there right as the total payment was on the screen and the computer voice was reading it out loud.”
He nodded. “Take a guess what the total just happened to be.”
When Vanessa nodded back understandingly, Valerie continued, “And Mandy had this look on her face like she’d seen a ghost, and before I could say anything, she was stepping backwards and backed into some display the store had set up.”
“And when I heard Valerie asking, ‘Mandy, what’s wrong?’ I looked back to see her stopping Mandy from knocking over a table stacked with jelly jars,” Dylan said.
Valerie nodded. “She didn’t want to talk about it, and we let it go ‘cause we were still in the ‘make the new girl feel welcome’ phase. She never explained it, but it didn’t really happen again, so we kinda...” she shrugged, “whatever’d it away.”
“But we get it now.” He cleared his throat and waved for Vanessa to continue. “Sorry. Go on.”
“It was during this period that she... also had her first kill ever, and I could see how happy ‘They’ were with her ‘development,’ except Mandy herself.” Vanessa didn’t stop. “But it was at some point, years after that, that she did something and just... ran away. Broke free, ripped the clothes she had on, and ran away.”
“... Wait, pause,” Dylan said, then fell silent for a moment before he tried to put this together. “She ran away? With no identity, no social skills, no home, not even clothes on her back, and worst-case scenario, no family either.” As he listed Mandy’s have-nots, he leaned forward, his voice grew more disbelieving. “She was literally naked and alone in the world? How did she survive this long?!”
“I... don’t know. What I’m telling you today is as much as I know about it,” Vanny replied, pretending she wasn’t shocked by this information too; she hadn’t had to think about it much until then. “I just know that after that, she was in an alley similar to the first one, now older, still bloody and injured from her escape.”
Dylan remained silent, returning to his original position. Valerie simply couldn’t find the words to describe what she was thinking.
“And it was during this period that she met someone, someone you may know,” the Espeon continued. “It was Mr. Clavell, if I’m not mistaken, that’s his name.”
“Wait, Clavell?” Valerie finally asked. “Like, the Director Clavell, from the Uva and Naranja Academy?”
“And so it seems,” Dylan replied. “So, is it fair to me to assume that was when she was enrolled in the academy?”
“Not only that,” Vanessa commented. “Shortly after that, I saw you both meeting her, much younger, and in that moment, the monochromatic world I was seeing became colorful. After that, well, I think you both already know.”
A bittersweet taste hung in the air. Mandy went from “murderous bitch” to “poor traumatized girl who spent most of her life as the property of some very evil people,” in a way, in a matter of minutes of conversation.
“... Right, but apparently, this ‘league’ found her again, while she was dating me,” Dylan deduced.
“Yes, and the next thing I saw, one of them was talking to her... not entirely alone.”
“... ‘Not entirely alone’? What does that mean?” Dylan asked.
“Because right after, I saw Valerie going after her,” she said, gesturing to Val.
Valerie felt her muscles tense and her breath catch. She knew exactly what was coming, and she wasn’t ready for it. “Uh, Vanny, I think we’ve had en-”
“Now, I don’t know what was going through her head at that moment, but shortly after... Mandy attacked Valerie, with those Psychic hands I mentioned before.”
Silence possessed the room like a ghost.
“And... the next thing I knew, Val was walking away, suitcase and all, Dylan was trying to call her, and Mandy... just had her head down.”
“... Wait...” Dylan spoke quietly, connecting the dots before turning to Valerie and sharply raising his voice, “SO THAT’S IT?! THAT WAS THE ‘ACCIDENT?!’ WHY DID YOU NEVER TELL ME?!”
“I-I-I WAS SCARED, OKAY?!” Val yelled back. “It was all out of nowhere, and she was still there! Just thinking about it made my throat catch!”
“You really couldn’t do it?! You couldn’t send me a message or something or, in any way, tell me, your old friend, who I now know you loved as more than a friend even then,” he moved his hand as if writing something, “‘Dylan, you’ve gotta listen to me! Mandy’s gone crazy! She did this, this and that to me! I don’t know what we’re gonna do and I don’t care, you’ve gotta get away from her before you’re next!’”
“She didn’t just hurt me!” Valerie cried, putting her hands on her head. “When I was too scared of her to resist, she got in my head! Literally, she read my mind! She found things out about me, things I didn’t want anyone to know!” She shivered, her fingers almost digging into her skull, “And you have no idea what she said she’d do to me... to you if I ever told anyone it was her...”
The two remained silent, and Vanessa didn’t dare intervene. This was the first time she’d seen someone from her family fight like this. Besides, this was making her remember Alex’s revelation of why he had suddenly grown quiet and distant from her, when he told her Mandy was reading his mind to keep him under control. She had no experience dealing with a threat that left her unsafe everywhere, even in her own thoughts, but she read volumes from seeing what it did to him.
“... Please, Vanessa,” Dylan said with a sigh, still a little irritated, “tell us it’s over.”
“I wish I could, but no,” she replied. “There’s still what she did to you.”
The couple turned back to her, no longer knowing what else could come out of this conversation.
“After that, I saw her pulling away from you, leaving you in the dark, that sort of thing,” she continued, flattening her ears, “and shortly after, she was with another one, one of ‘Them,’ to be precise.”
“So that was it...” Dylan said, more to himself than to her, “and here I was thinking I’d messed up somewhere...”
“WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! There’s something very wrong here!” Valerie exclaimed, waving her arms. “Why didn’t she ever tell us anything?! We were her best friends, I even tried to understand, but I was attacked. I don’t understand her decision.”
“Simple, but at the same time, not,” Vanessa explained, feeling a sudden difficulty in continuing. “You were her best friends, and precisely because of that... you were used as leverage.”
The disgruntled silence turned to surprise. So, they were being used, but not by Mandy?
“... What?” Valerie asked.
“That day, when Mandy realized the league found her, one of the members showed a cell phone with information on it. And it had the image of the two of you on it,” the Espeon spoke, her voice growing faint. “Now, I couldn’t hear any of those visions, but if I had to deduce, I think it was something like, ‘If you don’t come with us, that’s fine. Your friends can take your place.’”
Silence.
“And... finding herself in that situation, she must have decided that she couldn’t save herself, but she could save you, so to ensure they wouldn’t come after you, she had to cut off any ties she had with any of you,” she added, “and it was because of that that she did what she did to you...”
“After that... what happened?”
“After she broke up with Dylan, she went back to the league, where she got her Mega Stone,” Vanny replied. “After that, I don’t know. I left that place shortly after that, and that’s when the police arrived.”
“So... she attacked me, and broke up with Dylan, to protect us?” Valerie questioned, still in disbelief. “Look, I’m really sorry if I sound like a bitch right now, but that’s the worst way to protect someone you care about I’ve ever seen!”
“Val, as much as I don’t like her either, I can’t deny that she at least tried,” Dyl replied.
“There are dozens of better ways to solve this, but she HAD to choose the worst one!"
“Tell us which ones, then, that also get you, and keep you, out of danger,” Vanessa intercepted. “Look, I don’t want to be Giratina’s advocate here, but even I recognize that this was an act of love.”
“... ‘Love?’” Valerie laughed softly, as if it were a bad joke that she found funny. “Please, tell me where there was ‘love’ in all this mess. If she loved us sooo much, why not tell us our lives are in danger? Huh? Or, no, better question,” she started raising her voice, “come find us again and tell us the truth herself instead of making us hear it from her ALMOST-MURDER VICTIM?!”
“I don’t know,” Vanny replied, feeling her tail tighten around her waist. “I only know what she did to me and Alex, which was horrible. That was something she did to you, and I only witnessed it superficially, I can’t comment. Mandy got asked about her past after her arrest, and she never said anything about it, not even in her own defense. I can...” she paused for a second at remembering Mandy begging to be killed after the mindlink ended, not sure how to phrase this next part, “... I know she wasn’t showing me that on purpose, she lost control of her telepathy when she thought she was going to die. No one knows why she kept it to herself.”
That was what her mouth said, but in the depths of her mind, she couldn’t deny the similarity of her act to what Alex did, who was her victim. Both were blackmailed, using their intimate relationship as leverage, and to succeed, they had to sacrifice their own stability to save their loved ones, no matter the risk to themselves, even if it meant never seeing them again.
The difference... is that only one of them had a happy outcome.
The room fell silent again. Everything that needed to be said was said; all that was left was for Vanny to finish her lemonade and then get on with her day.
But then...
“... Maybe sending that message was a mistake...” Valerie whispered, almost inaudibly.
But thanks to the silence, and Vanessa’s slightly sharper hearing, she managed to hear enough to look over when Valerie spoke, and she read enough of her lips and heard enough of her words to put it together. This puzzled Vanessa; she didn’t see any messages in Mandy’s memories. “What message, Val?”
“What?” she froze, as if caught red-handed.
“You said something about some message, I assume to Mandy.”
“I... didn’t...”
“But you still had her contact information when we were dating,” Dylan revealed. “I caught a glimpse of it on your phone at the time.”
Val wanted to question him about when he found out about this, but now wasn’t the time, the spotlight was on her now.
Vanessa looked back and forth between them, raising an eyebrow and making herself stay calm despite having a bad feeling about this. “You’ve been in contact with Mandy?”
“No!” Valerie said immediately. Seeing Vanessa’s intense amethyst eyes staring into hers, a stare that said she knew Valerie was hiding something, made her add, “Not... exactly, unless a one-off message counts.”
Vanessa opened her mouth, then her words caught as something else came to mind instead. “Valerie. I just remembered something important. There’s been... so much going on with courts and the wedding and work and everything that I’ve had a lot of details to divide my focus on, and I can multitask like you wouldn’t believe but I can’t focus on every detail in the world.” She folded her hands and leaned forward. “But when Alex told me about Mandy’s blackmail threat, he couldn’t remember exactly what she said, but he said she was going after someone else through me because we were connected somehow.”
The fins on Valerie’s head pulled against her skull in a show of fear, which only confirmed Vanessa’s suspicions about what she was about to hear.
“All I cared about was that she was a danger to me and my family and that I had to keep her away from you, but... Cousin V,” Vanessa began, “when did you send the message?”
“I...” Valerie trailed off, then took a deep breath. “When Dylan and I had our first night together... I... took a selfie of us. Dylan didn’t know about it because he was asleep, by the way you look cute sleeping, y-”
“Val, not now, please,” Dylan replied, his arm pulling away.
“Oh... o-okay...” the Vaporeon replied in a low, weak voice, almost inaudibly.
“And then?”
“Then... I... sent the picture, and... a few more messages, to Mandy,” she replied, her tail twitching, “and after that, she replied to me... and then, after having my fun-slash-revenge, I...”
“‘Fun-slash-revenge’?” Vanessa echoed sharply, making Valerie flinch. “Val,” Vanessa said, her voice cold as metal, “what messages are y- actually, better idea, show us.”
“I... can’t...”
“You. Can’t. Because...?”
“... After having my fun, I... deleted the contact and blocked the number,” Valerie admitted.
“Valerie, cousin... what messages... did you... send?”
If Vanessa’s aura could be visualized, it would be a wall of weapons, both bladed and firearms, pointed directly at the Vaporeon. Regardless of whether she lied or told the truth, there would be consequences.
So, she took a deep breath and went ahead; she still remembered clearly the messages, it was a truly proud moment for her, heavy emphasis on 'was.'
“‘Hey, long time no talk, slut,’” she began, “‘I heard about what happened between you two. Don’t worry though, I’ll be sure to keep him good company.’”
Silence.
“So, I sent the picture, and ended with, ‘He looks cute when he sleeps, don’t you think? Talk to you never, bitch.’ That was... that...”
The heavy silence returned. No, not heavy, something different.
Bittercold hollow.
“... She had answered, hadn’t she?” Vanessa asked, with a voice sharper than any knife, disbelieving what she had just heard. “What did she say?”
“She... just called me a bitch back,” she replied, “and after that, I think I chuckled briefly, or not-so-briefly, and then... I deleted the contact.”
More bittercold hollow.
That was it, clear as day. Mandy, even in her current state, even after everything she’d done up until that point, still cared, at least enough not to harm the family of her once-best friend and Ex-boyfriend.
Whatever “They” did to her and used her for, their ownership of her ended with her as the last one standing among corpses everywhere and more blood-stained than her former captors. Whatever goodness might have still been in Mandy’s heart, which for all Vanessa knew wasn’t as erased as Mandy herself thought, was gone and left hollowness in its wake, even if the last act of the Mandy who Dylan and Valerie knew was to not just save herself but save her loved ones by killing everyone who’d threatened them. A course of action Vanessa now understood whether she wanted to or not.
But that was the last straw, the last spark of any goodness that still existed in her, and what was left in its place? tons of tons of ashes, which culminated and created a monster that Vanessa and Alex met.
First, Mandy’s inner flower had died. Then its dead remains didn’t wither away to nothing; they went up in flames.
“ ... Holy, fucking, Arceus...” Vanessa breathed.
Dylan, likewise, was looking at his wife in shock, like he couldn’t believe the woman he knew so well could do such a thing.
“Look, I was hurt okay? and I was holding a grudge!” Valerie tried to speak, her voice cracking as her tail hid between her legs like a frightened child. “I never knew any of this until now! I only thought about making her feel the same pain she caused in-”
“And YOU thought, the best way to do this, was to rub it in her face, that you had everything she DREAMED of one day having, and SACRIFICED for your sake?!” Vanessa exclaimed, with that knife-sharp voice cutting into the Vaporeon.
“H-Hey, HEY! Wait a minute!” Valerie said back. “I get to talk in my defense! I get to tell things from my point of view, too! You saw her memories, Vanessa, you saw how close we were! Then, one day, it’s like she turns into a completely different person!”
Vanessa was grateful for those meditation exercises she’d started doing after awakening her psychic powers: Steadying her breathing and being mindful of staying in control were why she hadn’t silenced her cousin again.
“She doesn’t come to class, she stops answering our calls and texts, she won’t come to see us when we go to talk to her, no one knows where she is... and then a couple days later, when I finally do see her at the academy again, ‘stressed’ doesn’t begin to describe her. She’s looking around like she’s being followed, she barely talks, her eyes are bloodshot like she’s been crying, she’s got bags under her eyes like she hasn’t slept much if at all. Forget making me worry, it was scary.” Valerie shook her head and threw up her hands in an “I don’t know” gesture. “Anyone, let alone her best friend, could see something was seriously wrong. But all I could wonder is, what could possibly have gone so wrong in so little time? And, more importantly, why wouldn’t she tell us, her friend and her boyfriend?”
Vanessa gave her a curt nod as Dylan watched intently. Again, it didn’t justify what Valerie had done, but nothing Valerie had said was unreasonable.
“Then... I finally get her to talk to me alone...” she trailed off before taking a few breaths through clenched teeth and being unable to meet Vanessa’s gaze anymore, “and she did that to me.” The Vaporeon suddenly looked back at Vanessa with a look of fear. “Vanessa, are you reading my mind?!”
“No.”
“You’re lucky I love you enough to believe you, but have you ever had your mind violated?”
“No, I haven’t,” she answered, feeling just enough empathy from the question to add, “but Mandy was reading Alex’s when she was trying to sextort him.”
“Then ask Alex what it’s like, and Mandy was just some evil stranger to him. To me, even though I don’t think she ever had any friends besides me and Dylan, she was the girl who once told me, ‘Valerie, no matter what, I’m never letting you be lonely. I’ll always be your best friend,’ after she and Dylan started dating and I was worried I’d be phased out.” She swallowed heavily. “Think about how that felt for me when she betrayed me.”
Again, that persistent voice of empathy compelled Vanessa to nod back and let her continue. In only a short time, Alex was in as bad, if not worse, shape as Vanessa was when they’d first met, and seeing her own personal sun suddenly go dark and cold had led to her own regression back to a baggy-eyed smoking burnout. If Valerie had a similar experience but never got answers until today...
“Anyway, I lost both of my friends that day, Mandy from turning into someone I was terrified of and Dylan from having to stay quiet, so I just... gave up and left,” she rubbed her eyes, “and rebuilt myself as someone I’d rather be. But I kept all that in my heart, including,” she nodded towards Dylan, “that my love for Dylan really would never be returned.” She sighed. “Until, like Jirachi had granted my wish, I got a second chance, and he came back.”
Dylan took over the questioning for a second, “So, when we went out for food after my first week and I told you about what happened with me and Mandy, you took it to heart a lot more than I thought?”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Valerie growled.
“I understand now why you hated her so much... I still don’t understand why you never told me even after we were married,” he added pointedly, getting a flinch from Valerie but she didn’t back down, “but we’ll talk about it later. But still, when we were... getting intimate too, that whole time, were you scheming to get back at her?” Forget “pointedly,” if Vanessa’s voice cut like a knife, his stabbed like one.
“WH- NO!” she insisted. “She was the last thing I wanted to think about now that I had you back, let alone as more than just a friend! Like hell I was wasting it from letting her get to me again when she wasn’t even there!” She took another hissing breath. “But when you told me about her, that grudge I still had against her, it flared up like... a hot coal in my heart. It wasn’t enough that she’d betrayed me and destroyed my friendships.” She raised her hand and clenched it into a fist. “Now she did worse than that and betrayed someone I love?! Someone who loved her and I thought she once loved?!” Then her tail curled so tightly that it almost twisted into a fist-like shape.
For hopefully the last time this conversation, Vanessa had to stay focused on her goal while not letting empathy dull her edge. She didn’t have to fight Mandy to know what she’d do if her loved ones were hurt or threatened: Anything she’d have to.
Valerie relaxed enough to continue, “Then, when I knew I was right that Dylan and I had a future together, I sent that message.” She looked between the disapproving stares of her husband and cousin with a scowl back. “From what she’d done to me and him, why would I think she had any empathy to care? Whatever she was like once, that Mandy was gone and all that was left was a violent, manipulative monster.”
The fur on Vanessa’s back and shoulders rose under her shirt at that last word and from Valerie saying the old Mandy was gone. You have no idea how much Mandy agrees with you. But I don’t.
“And that’s that. I didn’t send that message out of spite, I sent it out of justice and revenge.” She shrugged and shook her head. “Would I have done it if I’d known she’d have gone this far? What the hell do you think, Vanessa? But I never thought Mandy was also such a coward that she wouldn’t face me a second time.”
“What she did to me in the park,” Vanessa said firmly, “wasn’t a school scuffle where she was trying to hurt and scare me. She wanted me dead, and take my word for it, I don’t know how much she was holding back on you then, but she can fight now.”
Valerie huffed, “Hmph. So can I. That day she attacked me taught me a few lessons, and one of them was that I wasn’t going to be a shy, helpless schoolgirl anymore. I’d take her on; spar with me sometime and see for yourself. And it looks like I even got the first shot on her: I hurt the traitor like she’d hurt us.”
“Except she didn’t betray you, did she?” she asked.
“... Well, no, I know that now, but-”
“And if you’re so much more confident in yourself now but still thought of her as a monster,” her fur rose a little more at saying the word that she’d really come to hate, “you had the means to reach out to her and settle it yourself instead of taking potshots right at her heart, and I have no idea why you still had her info but...” her ears stood up in agitation, “fuck, Val, we’ll never know how this would have gone either but you could have settled both your grudges if you’d just bothered to try.”
Valerie shrunk back a little but still tried to keep a brave face, despite having nothing to say.
“Instead, you did that, and look what happened when you threw a rock at the monster and weren’t there to face her. Way to be brave, Valerie.” Now it was her tail’s turn to tense up so much that it was like a too-tight belt around her waist. “You couldn’t hurt her worse than her own life had already did, but you still dragged her down that much more and she took it out on the world. I can’t believe I’m actually on her side in this but... tch, fuck it.”
“I was angry too, okay?!” Valerie’s voice cracked. “If I’d known all this, I never would have sent that! I... I just wanted to get to her...”
“And that’s exactly what you got!” Vanessa snapped, her eyes glowing blue slightly before returning to normal. “But instead of hurting just one person, which would have been bad enough, you hurt three! Mandy, who needs no introduction; Alex, who had nothing to do with any of this and still fought for me; and ME! Who almost killed her, and if I had, the truth of what she’d done for you would have died with her and it would be a mistake I could never take back!”
“But... I...”
“Don’t you DARE still want to play the victim here!” Vanessa interrupted. “You had time AND the means before this moment to talk to her, even if it was just a short message, and settle this problem of yours once and for all. But no, you actively chose to stay silent, stewing in your disdain, and the moment you decided to break the ice, you do THIS!”
Valerie fell silent, without any response to this. Naturally.
“You know, I think I finally understand her plan with all of this: She didn’t go after Dylan’s family, because he wasn't her goal. She went after YOURS, solely to get to YOU, and coincidentally, I and, by extension, Alex were the... easiest... targets...” she trailed off, her gaze drifting aside as her brow furrowed.
“... What?”
“Valerie, I need to know when you sent that message,” Vanessa said.
“I deleted them, I don’t-”
“Then take your best guess and make it count!” she snapped.
“It was... around the Hearts Day Festival, so about... 10 months ago,” Valerie replied.
After some quick adding up of dates in her head, Vanessa’s eyes widened a bit before she nodded. “That’s it.”
“What’s it?!” Valerie demanded.
“She was only at my company for a couple of weeks before all that happened. Which would line up well with when she applied for the job and needed the time to get through a background check.” She took a deep breath. “After she got the text, she looked for your relatives, she found where I work and that we were hiring, she either made up an identity or already had one made up, and she... rrrgh...” the Espeon half-groaned, half-growled, “I thought she went after you through me because she hated that I was bossing her around, and that’s still true, but it wasn’t a coincidence she worked there... she got the job in the first place to stalk me because of you.”
That took some more of the fight out of Valerie, who shrunk more at that reasoning. “You... you still can’t blame me for that...” she tried to insist, “and how do you know?”
“I don’t. I can’t ask her anymore. But things add up,” she glared back at Valerie, “don’t they?”
“Ngh,” the Vaporeon grunted nervously.
“And I guess that’s all there is to it. That’s what it snowballed into, Valerie. As much evil as Mandy did by her own hand, you had a role in it that nobody ask you, or made you play, and if Alex and I hadn’t stopped her,” she gave a small nod towards Dylan, “then if Dylan wouldn’t have said goodbye to you, you might have said goodbye to him.”
Moisture glistened in Valerie’s eyes at that. “Never say that again,” she warned, or pleaded, or both.
“I have to say it, Valerie. I stared that, the thing that would break me forever, losing someone I love, in the face 9 months ago. So did Alex. That’s how bad it got for us, and that’s how bad it could have gotten for you and Dylan,” Vanessa answered, as calm but cold as the grave.
“But... Dylan’s part of the family now...”
“Really? Hah!” It was Vanessa’s turn to laugh at a bad joke. “Then please, Look at your husband, in the eye, and ask him, right here, right now, if you’ve done right by your family. Ask him if you used him... like a weapon... which is how Mandy saw Alex.”
And, still trembling, she did just that. Or at least, she tried. Dylan’s eyes seemed devoid of any feeling as he looked to the ground. She opened her mouth to say something. Dylan shook his head slightly at her. In the end, nothing came out.
That silence said more than any scream in a cave ever could.
Valerie’s mouth remained open for a beat longer, a breath held too long, a word that never found its shape. But Dylan’s slight shake of the head was final. Not angry. Not dramatic. Just... done.
And that was worse.
She finally looked away, her gaze dropping to the floor as her tail wrapped tightly around her leg: Defensive, scared, cornered.
Vanessa took a slow, heavy breath. For a moment, she looked like her old self, the same one who had closed her heart to handle the grind that never stops, the version who only relaxed after a Rookie appeared in her life.
“Well, you wanted Mandy to feel the same way you felt in the past, didn’t you?” the Espeon commented when there was no answer. “Then congratulations, you did it, and you even exceeded expectations by making her feel worse. I hope you’re proud.” And then she gulped down the rest of her lemonade and stood, placing the empty glass on the table. It seemed like some kind of divine comedy: She had come to shed a burden from the past, and found another just as heavy, if not somewhat heavier. “I don’t know how Alex is going to take this, but I’ll do you one favor and talk to him myself first. At least we have something to do, to not have to think about this conversation for a time. But you do.”
So, without waiting for an answer, she headed for the door. She’d already had enough unwanted discoveries for one day. And to think that she’d be working overtime for it.
But just as she was about to turn the doorknob, she felt something speak in her head, a voice that, even after everything, didn’t want things to end like this.
The voice of compassion.
Come on now... this atmosphere is simply repulsive. Even after all this, they’re still family. She’s still your cousin.
Family, how ironic, it’s thanks to one part of her family that this happened. How fragile family was.
Still, leaving things as they are won’t fix anything. You don’t have to forgive her, but you won’t be much different from her if you leave without saying anything.
... Damn compassion... always appearing when no one asks for it, but when it should.
And the worst part? Nothing she said was a lie.
And you are so... so done with grudges ruining everything. You stopped being responsible for Mandy when the police showed up, but you still pointed her to the path of self-improvement instead of self-destruction because you believed she could do it. If she comes out of this with something better than when she went in, however long it takes, they can too. You can end it better than this.
“... Tch, fine...” she sighed softly, opening the door. “Listen, I just came to share the events and discoveries, and that’s exactly what I did.”
Silence.
“At no point did I forgive Mandy for what she did, but I asked her to at least change as a person, for her own good,” Vanny continued. “To you, Val, I hope you do the same: Reflect on where you went wrong and change for the better.”
Even though she was paralyzed with shame, the Vaporeon managed to glance at her cousin.
“And to you, Dylan,” she continued, “it must be a lot to take in. I hope you get the best out of all of this.”
He remained silent, but did the same as his wife, albeit very surreptitiously.
“But if, even then, nothing changes,” she warned, “then don’t even talk to me, or Alex, again.”
No answer, it wasn’t necessary. She left the directions; it was up to them to follow.
“Have a good day,” she ended, before closing the door.
Arriving at her apartment, Vanessa felt drained of strength, emotions, willpower, everything.
All she wanted now was a long, hot bath, the ambient sounds of rain and thunder (which for some reason, she found relaxing) and, at least, 10 hours of sleep. Work tomorrow would not be forgiving.
“Oh, hi, Vanny!” Alex said from their desk computer, seeing his wife walking through the door. “How did it go with your cousin?”
Oh right, him...
“Erm... could have been better...” she replied, throwing her outerwear on the sofa. “Find anything?”
“Not yet... but I won’t stop anytime soon!” he replied in an excited tone.
For some reason, he was shirtless, leaving his scar from the battle in the park clearly visible.
This scar... that could have been avoided by so little...
“I’m going to take a bath and go to bed, if you don’t mind,” she replied, walking down the hall. “If you need or do anything for dinner, let me know.”
“Going to sleep so early? That’s not like you,” he replied, turning to her. “Did something happen?”
“... Yes, but things happen every day, some are just more tiring than others,” she replied, stretching. “Nothing I’m not already used to.”
His smile faded and he leaned in with a raised eyebrow. “What happened, Vanny?”
“More than I came prepared for.” He kept his questioning and concerned gaze on her, and she sighed. Big rule of their relationship that they’d set after the Mandy incident: No more pushing each other away when they had problems to talk about, and they’d always set a time of no more than a day later to air things out even if they only needed someone to listen. “Tomorrow night. It’s going to be rough tomorrow, talking about it will help me forget work.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“... Sure, if you say so,” he replied, turning to the computer again. “Don’t oversleep, so you don’t stay up all night tomorrow.”
“Heh, as if a nap could affect me.” She smiled, if a sliver of emotion did come out after all.
And with that, she went to the bathroom.
What happened after that was irrelevant to her.
Because the seeds of change had already been planted. Now it was time to wait and see what would blossom.