Thread: Where the Heart Is

First B/W story for me. Awesomeness. ^.^
Long intro is long. If I can actually edit stuff once the hype dies down, this might get bigger. XD


Target Pokemon: Sigilyph (Complex), Litwick (Hard), Litwick (Hard), Houndour (Medium)
Target Length: 80K –120K
Current Length: 94,987 (er, approximated. My word counter includes the tags for stuff like "[b]" and etc, but it should still be a bit OVER 90,000 without 'em. Cutting it a bit close, but... >.>

Anyhow:

Where the Heart Is

/*\

I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t know why. All that I knew was that I had been abandoned and was far from home, and there was no end in sight. I was alone.

My body was weary and my soul ached, and I longed to be where I belonged. I just didn’t know where I belonged any more, though. They had left me.

The rain poured down around me in oppressive sheets, cold and wet and never ending. It was just another reminder of exactly how hopeless my cause was.

My feet were weary, and my body was weak. My golden yellow eyes drooped as the night wore on. The fire on the top of my head flickered weakly in the rain, and I knew that it was going to die soon, with the rest of my soul. I had to keep fighting, though. I may have been weary, and I might have been exhausted, but he was still waiting for me somewhere, if I could just find him.

He had abandoned me, though. He had left me for this fate, and forced me into this cruel world.

All I knew was that I had been abandoned. I was going to find my way home, though. I had to. It was the only thing that I had left to do before I died. I wanted to find him and ask him what I had done wrong, what I had done to deserve such a terrible fate. I needed to ask him what I had done to earn such a wretched place in his heart.

I still didn’t know where I was going, but that was of no consequence. I was going to get there, wherever it was.

***

The funny thing about life was that it started out as perfect and steadily got worse and worse. My life was no different.

I had always belonged to the boy. I didn’t remember where he got me or how I had ended up in his care, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t care, honestly.

All I remembered was that I was absolutely and unequivocally happy whenever I was with him. He was my master and I was his friend, guardian of his soul.

It’s funny how that worked out, really.

Litwick.

That was who I was, in a single word. And yet, that wasn’t who I was at all. Litwick were notorious for leading people astray with their tantalizing lights, for luring them into the deepest corners of the darkness and then preying on their souls. They were creatures of death blessed with tiny figures and adorably faces, born and raised to kill.

That was who I was, in a single word. That was the role I had been given in life.

And yet the role that the boy had given me was much more important than that. I was his only friend, in the long and cold nights of the winter. He was a part of me, and I was just as much a part of him. That was how we worked, together. That was who we were, together.

I loved him, and he loved me.

But this wasn’t a story, written by some demented child. This wasn’t fiction. This was my life, my heart, my home. Just because I was special didn’t mean that I could be any different than the role that fate had forced upon me long ago. Just because I loved the boy didn’t mean I could miraculously hide who I was.

If only I had been able to. Life would have been so much easier. I wouldn’t be where I was at that moment, crying in terror as my life slowly unfurled.

But it didn’t work like that. So here I was, watching as everything shattered around me.

***

That was nearly a year down the path that I had yet to walk. But now, as I sat in the boy’s arms, carefree and innocent, I knew nothing about the horrors that awaited us both. All that I knew were days of love and laughter spent with him, of friendship and love and my own heart.

The boy was not rich, by any means. His father was dead and his mother struggled to support the two of them. They lived in a quiet cottage at the foot of a hill, long since beaten down by the winds that always raged around it. The floors were grimy and the building was sagging, but it was certainly more of a home than anywhere else could have been for me. I had grown up in the place along with the boy, even if his mother disapproved.

I didn’t care, though. The boy could be a prince for all I cared; it wouldn’t change how I saw him. Instead, though, he was as poor as the dirt around him. His clothes were ragged and worn through with age; there were more patches sewn into them than there was original fabric. His arms and legs were spindly pale things, products of nights going to bed hungry when there was truly nothing left. His face was grimy and his hands were perpetually dirty, but that didn’t change a thing.

His smile was toothy and crooked, but it was bright enough to light up the entire room without even trying. His brown eyes always sparkled with mirth, even during the hungriest of nights. Dark shocks of hair fell into his face, but they couldn’t hold back the pure and untapped happiness that always emanated from him. He was only nine years of age, but the joy he gave showed a level of pure and utter bliss that I had not thought possible in one so young. And it was contagious. No matter how awful the day was, I could never feel sad around him.

And people truly wondered why I loved him as my master.

“Hita!” he called. I glanced up, jolting out of my blissful daydreams. Hita was his special name for me. I don’t know why, but it made us seem like so much more than master and slave, even though that was what we truly were. I existed to protect him and his mother from the horrors of the night, now that their father was gone. I existed to keep them safe, and in return, the boy gave me all of the love and care that I could ever want. Ironic, then, that I protected them from demons when I was one myself.

“Hita!” the boy cried again. I perked up, my head looking around. The purple fire on the wick on my head flickered hopefully, and my yellow eyes glowed with joy. I could never be sad around him. I smiled, waving my white hands into the air. “Hey, Hita,” he whispered, picking me up and holding me in his arms.

I wished I could talk back to him to tell the boy how much I cared for him. But all I could do was beam lovingly up at him, my arms spread wide. I smiled. He squeezed me in his arms, giggling as he did so. “I love you, Hita,” he whispered quietly. It would be awkward, but this was almost a routine we had. He loved me, and I loved him back. Sure, it was a master and slave relationship… but it was one that I wouldn’t trade for anything, no matter what.

I couldn’t respond in words that he could understand. But I could do other things. I dimmed my fire so that it wouldn’t burn him, and then I nuzzled my head deeper into his arms, sighing in contentment. Life was good. Nothing could ruin our friendship.

Of course, this would be the part where I said something about foreshadowing, or a vague knot forming in the pit of my stomach, or the pair of eyes glimmering like coals that I could not see watching us in the shadows.

But that’s how stories work, not lives. As I sat in the boy’s arms, reveling in the setting sun and watching as the stars blinked into existence in the sky, I felt nothing but pure joy.

The night grew colder, but the fire on my head kept him warm. The fire in my soul was enough to warm my spirits through even the harshest of cold. Purple light flickered on the fading grass.

I never felt bliss when the boy wasn’t there. When he was gone, I spent my time guarding their house from the demons of the night, keeping them safe from whatever evil might befall them. Tricking myself into thinking that by saving them, I could atone for an entire race’s misdeeds. I would not allow myself a moment’s rest, would not give myself any respite. If I failed and the boy got hurt because of it, I would never be able to forgive myself.

But when the boy was around… things were different. He didn’t seem to care if I failed at my duties or not. He would always appear with bits of berries or treats for me and a smile on my face. Sometimes, I didn’t think he cared it demons overran his entire house and burned it to the ground, as long as I was there. He didn’t seem to care.

Unlike his mother, who flew into a frenzy every time she saw me resting in his arms. I didn’t blame her. I was supposed to protect them, after all. Whether or not I bonded with her child was minimal. I couldn’t be friends with them if they were dead. But there were some days when I just couldn’t take it. Supernatural though I may have been, I couldn’t stay up forever. Even demonic candles had to sleep, eventually.

Ironically, as I was thinking that, my eyes began to flicker. I couldn’t go to sleep now, in the boy’s arms. That would be bad. If demons came for him in the night, he wouldn’t be able to defend us, and I wouldn’t be able to defend him. I should stay awake, at least until we got back into the house.

I was so tired, though. The boy had been out all day, no doubt enjoying himself with humans his own age. I didn’t blame him. He was only nine, after all. But sometimes I wished that I could leave my duties and go with him. I wanted to do whatever he did, to play whatever he played, to be whoever he was.

But the joy on his face as he came home every day at sunset to see me perched on the gatepost of the rickety picket fence around the run-down house was enough to warm my heart and make me glad that I did what I did.

I let my eyes drift shut. It was only for a moment, after all. I was so tired. The day had been so long, so boring, so arduous. I hadn’t actually slept for a week. It was only for a moment. Sleep would be so soothing, in the boy’s arms. If anything ever did happen to us, he could wake me up in time for me to unleash my unholy flames on any who opposed us. I had done it a few times before, after all.

I sighed, relaxing in the boy’s arms. It was so nice, just to sit there. It’d be even nicer if I slept. He wrapped his arms tighter around me, and I nuzzled my way deeper into his arms. I wouldn’t trade this for anything.

It was only for a moment, right?

And so I slept, happy and content.

This was what it was like to be loved. This was what it was like to be home.

***

When I awoke, the first thing that I noticed was that I was no longer in the boy’s arms. The second thing that I noticed that I was on the ground on my back, my hands hopelessly thrashing in the air and a knotted feeling of apprehension in my stomach.

The third thing that I noticed was that a demon-dog was directly above me, baring its fangs next to my throat. They gleamed in the moonlight, but its eyes glimmered like coals. Crimson coals that wanted my blood.

I know that the demon-dog wasn’t actually called a demon-dog by humans. I wasn’t called a demon-slayer or a light-guardian, which was what I truly was, but I was called a Litwick. Funny names, the humans had.

The demon-dog above me was exactly what its name implied. It was a dog-like creature, with fur as dark as the night. It towered over me on four long and slender legs that ended in club-like paws, which ended in turn with silvery claws that looked sharp enough to cut through time itself. It had a triangle-tipped tail that flicked eagerly through the air as it glared haughtily down at me. It had a pair of scythe-shaped horns on its head, both of which gleamed white in the moonlight and were razor-sharp. And while I was only a foot tall, it reached nearly four feet, and its paws were nearly the size of my face.

Speaking of paws, it lifted its left one and slashed it through the air to my left. The air rippled for a moment, and then the razor sharp claws on its paw lengthened until they were even longer than before, and pulsing with purple-black energy from the shadows. Snarling, it placed the three glowing claws at my neck, placing just enough pressure on me to make me squirm but not enough to make me black out.

I was trapped, and the demons in the night had come for me.

And worst of all… the boy was no where in sight.

I large, thick, black boot entered the corner of my vision. I looked up, struggling to see past the demon-dog that was obscuring me vision.

“Stand down, Houndoom,” a gruff voice growled, obviously human. The demon-dog whimpered in response and withdrew its claws a bit. I noticed that the tips of its claws still reeked of the purple-black energy.

But the most chilling fact was that the demon-dog actually listened to the human. Demons knew no boundaries and did not back down to humans. That wasn’t how it was. The demons were either forced into submission by humans, or they attacked the humans and ripped their throats out. That was the way of the world. But the point was, no demons willingly obeyed humans. Some of them, such as myself, had grown to love them and served them of our own devices, but it’s usually not willing.

Well, I guess I’m just an outcast, then. Nothing new there.

But something had happened to the demon-dog. It served the human as willingly as I did, but it also tried to kill me. And what was worse… it had whimpered. Demons never whimpered, and demon-dogs certainly never did. They were known for their arrogant and defiant natures and their likelihood to tear out a human’s throat whenever it saw one.

Something wasn’t right. It took me a while to state the obvious, though.

“I said stand down!” the man snarled sharply. The demon-dog whimpered and took its paw off of my chest entirely, bowing its head. Its tail hung between its legs as it slunk backwards a few steps, leaving the oxygen free to flood into my lungs.

I gasped for breath, staring at the man for a moment, and then I flipped on to my legs. My feet dug into the hard packed ground as I stumbled forwards, trying to escape.

The man snorted in annoyance behind me, but I was too busy struggling towards the cover of the grass to really turn around.

“Pursuit,” he muttered to his demon-dog. It roared angrily, but I didn’t care. I was already at a head start, and no matter how fast it was, it couldn’t catch me in time. Things just didn’t work that way. I might be incredibly slow, but I could still escape.

I was still thinking that when the demon-dog rose out of the shadows in front of me, snarling. It slashed at me with a forepaw and sent me sprawling back to the ground. I shrieked in pain and skidded to a halt at the man’s feet.

I took a moment then to look up at my assailant. The man was exceptionally tall for a human, with a black coat extending from his shoulders to his calves, blending in with the black pants and black shoes that were like shadows in the ground. His face was harsh and angular, and there was always a frown on his face. His black eyes crackled hungrily with greed as he surveyed me, glaring down at me.

Essentially, he would fit under the stereotypical “evil guy”, if this was a story. Thank goodness it wasn’t.

“Well,” he smirked casually, nudging at me with his boot. I was too stunned to retaliate. “It looks like we have a fighter here. Houndoom, use Thunder Fang.”

There was a sharp intake of breath behind me, and I blearily recognized it as the boy’s. He was here? I pushed myself upright on my hands to see his petrified expression as I lay there in the dirt. Why wasn’t he helping me?

Oh. Right. I was his guardian from the demons. I guess no one had bothered to guard me.

The demon-dog roared, rearing back on its haunches. Its paws lashed through the night air as it opened its maw wide. Sparks of electricity crackled around its pearly white fangs fizzling yellow in the dark night. I could only cringe back and lie weakly on the ground, panting, as the demon-dog charged towards me. In an instant, it had wrapped its jaws around my neck, squeezing. I gagged as the oxygen rushed out of my lungs again, and I felt my vision flicker. Snarling, the demon-dog threw me to the ground, where I landed with a dull thud in the dirt. Sparks of electricity flickered around me, and I lay there, stunned. I wanted to move—I should have moved—but I was paralyzed by the shock of having thousands of volts of electricity jolted into my body in a single instant.

Behind me, the boy screamed, soundless. Then, he shrieked, “Hita!” I heard him stumbling towards me, sobbing, but I heard his mother’s voice as she wrapped her arms around him and dragged him backwards. “No!” he protested, in vain. “No!”

But no one came for me, least of all the boy.

I lay limply on the ground, cringing as the electricity still rocked my body, unable to do anything but gaze stupidly at the stars. The man’s hand came down around me, picking me up by the scruff of my neck that I hadn’t even known that I had had, and I felt myself being lifted limply into the air.

And yet, I still could not move.

I looked at the boy as I drifted through the air, stabs of pain rocketing up my neck as the man tightened his grip. The boy could only stare at me, and I met his gaze, lowering my head. It was only natural that I would fail when he needed me most. His mother stared at me, a look of something between sorrow and hate washing over her face. She wrapped her arms around the boy as he turned around and buried his face in her chest.

The man glared at the boy, smirking. “Think of this as your last warning,” he told the two of them. I wanted to do something, to make him burn for his insolence, to show the boy that I still could protect him, even if I had failed just this once. But I could not move.

I had tried to do good in the world, to be a better creature than the rest of my kind. I had failed, and now we would all pay. This was how it worked, apparently. No good deed went unpunished.

The man turned around, with me still dangling in his iron grasp.

I looked back at the boy, and he met my gaze. I lowered my head in defeat. I had failed him. My yellow eyes met his black ones, but for once, looking into them, I felt no joy.

I’m so sorry it had to end like this.

The man’s limping gait brought me to the back of a van parked near by. He roughly threw me into the back of it, and I rolled limply to a halt in the trunk area of his van. The rough metal tore at my skin, but I still could not move.

I lay on my side, gazing out of the hazy window glass to see the boy still staring at me, shaking his head in disbelief.

I had failed him.

“Hita!” he shrieked. The sound was like a death knell to my heart in the night. The van rumbled to life beneath me, shock waves emanating through the bed of the van and jolting me around. I lay limply on the ground, feeling the cold metal beneath my skin.

I had failed.

The van rumbled away, rocking on the rough gravel.

“Hita…” the boy whispered. I don’t know if it was really his voice, but it rang in my ears.

He had abandoned me, because I had failed him.

And then the van pulled away, dragging me away from the only place that I had ever called home.

I think I left a piece of my heart there with them.

***

The door of the van opened with a bang. I’m not sure how long we had been driving; I had lapsed in and out of sleep so often that I couldn’t even remember what time it was. Some time after the third day, I had found myself able to move my limbs again, the numbing electricity having finally fizzled out of my body.

The bright sunlight assaulted my eyes as the man stood in the doorway of the trunk, his outline blurred by the harsh light. I shrunk backwards, clinging to the metal wall of the trunk.

Then I remembered the fire. Metal. Fire. Metal. Fire.

The purple flame on my head flickered and then burned with more intensity as a plan slowly came to mind. I could torch him, probably catch his demon-dog by surprise, and burn down my hatred prison while I was at it.

The man smiled, or it looked like he did. I couldn’t tell. “The van is fire-proof, the glass if heat-resistant, and Sigilyph can always put you out with water if you get in the way. Don’t try anything.”

…Sigilyph? What was that?

As if in answer to my question, a massive creature hovered behind the man, blotting out the sun. I could barely see what it was, but seeing it didn’t make me any less afraid. Its circular body was striped green and white, but red and yellow wing-like protrusions flared out from its back, tipped with pale blue. Black tendrils of darkness fluttered from its midsection, and it glared at me with an emerald green eye.

He might call it a… whatever it was called, but to me, it looked like an angel from hell.

A demon-angel.

“Psychic,” the man growled. “Immobilize it.”

I didn’t even have time to ponder why the demon-angel had decided to take orders from a human before its green eye glowed blue. I flinched backwards in surprise, and I froze as the demon-angel wrapped tendrils of blue psychic energy around my body. They swirled rapidly around my body before tightening like a trio of nooses, pinning my arms to my sides.

“Now, take it out of the van so we can talk face to face.” The man’s voice was as cold as ice.

The demon-angel hovered backwards, dragging my limp body through the air. I blinked as it dragged me into the open, shuddering as the bright light intensified.

We were in a clearing, somewhere. The forest was omnipresent, but the trees did nothing to screen out the brilliant light. There was rough gravel on the ground, but my feet hovered uselessly four feet into the air, unable to do anything but squirm beneath the demon-angel’s psychic powers.

The demon-angel waited across from me, bobbing up and down. The man stood with his arms folded across his chest, waiting for me to gain my bearings. Beneath me, the man’s demon-dog snarled angrily at me, rearing back on its haunches and batting at me with its paws. I would have cringed back in fear, but couldn’t even move. I could only stare in fear, yellow eyes widening as blood rushed through my body.

“Down, Houndoom,” the man growled harshly. The demon-dog whimpered and slunk back to the man’s side, its triangle-tipped tail hanging limply between its spindly legs. It spared a moment to snarl angrily at me, and then it went quiet as the man began to talk.

“Litwick,” the man muttered, talking more to himself than anyone else. “It’s been a while since we last met.”

We? I haven’t ever seen this man in all of my existence. All that I remember is the boy.

“Well,” he continued, his voice growing colder, “you probably would not remember me. You have no reason to. But you and the rest of your kind have been haunting me since my birth.” He paused, his hands clenching into fists. “You were everywhere. Fire was everywhere. Chandelure and Houndoom and Sigilyph were my only defense, and even they weren’t enough.”

His voice grew cold. “Chandelure, I treasured like none other. I had been with her since she had been like you, a Litwick. We had grown together, we had been raised together, and we had loved each other like none other. She loved me, and I loved her back. She was my first Pokémon ever.”

His voice was filled with pain. I was so confused. Why had he dragged me hear, kidnapped me, threatened the boy, tried to kill me, and driven me halfway across the region… just to hear his past? Why did I care?

He was the villain, though. He wasn’t supposed to have feelings. “Then the rains came, followed by swarms of her own kind. They came like demons in the night, swarms of them. They hated us for hunting the demons, for trying to kill them and purge the world from their evil. We had done so much good, saved so many lives, through our actions. It was perfect. And then they came for us.”

I could have sworn that he was crying. It must have been a lie, though. He would have no reason to cry for her. But it looked like he was.

“She tried to fight them. She fought valiantly, slaying hordes of them. But still more came to take their place, and they had cast their horrifying shadows around us. We couldn’t escape, couldn’t run, couldn’t do anything but keep fighting and eventually die. And that’s exactly what they did. They took her out first, pinning her down. I don’t know what kind of cruel tricks they did to her in the darkness, but something inside of her snapped. Her screams were like none other, but there was nothing I could do the help her.”

The man’s voice had sunken so low that I could barely hear him any more. “And when they finally let her out, she was different. Broken. Snapped. And then she tried to kill me.” The man shuddered, and his voice shook violently. “There was fire. Lots of fire.” The dark clothes around his back moved as he shifted his weight, and I could see the mottled pink tissue of burns. That explained the limp.

“She attacked me,” he repeated. “Moshi, the guardian of my soul, my first Pokémon and my best companion, tried to kill me. And I couldn’t even explain why.” His voice was numb, and he paused. I knew the next part with a feeling of dread. “Houndoom intervened, against my orders. I didn’t want her to die, even if it meant my own death, but Houndoom couldn’t take it. He couldn’t bear to watch me suffer, and he attacked her himself, even though it killed him to do so. She was always much stronger than him, but he fought to save me.” The man’s voice trembled. “He won. She died. Moshi, friend of my heart had died, and our own hands. Nothing was ever the same after that.”

“I would have rather that she had lived and I had died. That was how much I loved her. That was how deep our bond ran. I didn’t want Houndoom to kill her. But he intervened, on my behalf, but not on my orders. That was all that he knew to do.” The man’s voice shook. “They Chandelure left after that, no doubt pleased with their work. But we had to live with the consequences of our actions after that.”

“Sigilyph joined us later. I don’t know why, but it felt different without her. I could never look at Houndoom the same way.” The demon-dog at his feet whimpered, nuzzling its head into his knees. He didn’t even look at it.

That explained why his Pokémon acted the way they did. They had followed him out of love at some point, and then everything had changed. But the instinct still remained.

I almost felt bad for him. I wanted to hate him. He had kidnapped me, attacked me, dragged me from the boy, who I loved… but it didn’t seem like I really could hate him. I glared defiantly at him, wanting to feel anger, but all I could feel was pity. He had lost it all.

His voice grew harsher. “I learned something that day.” He paused, glaring at me. “No good deed ever goes unpunished. We pay for all of the times that we try to do good. The world is filled with evil things, and we are all evil. Doing good doesn’t work for anyone. So I gave up on that, long ago.”

I watched as his face literally changed from pained to rage. It was scary how thin that line was. “And now we come to you, Litwick. You’re here so that we can start over. Your previous owners said that you were docile and tame, like Moshi. I can only hope that you live up to that expectation, because I am your master, now. You will obey me, and only me. You will forget your past and only think of your future, where you shall serve me like the slave that you are.”

I cowered down in fear, moving as best as I could in his demon-angel’s grip.

“Perhaps, one day, you will look to me as a friend,” the man continued. “I know that I will not. I learned the consequences of giving one’s heart to a Pokémon. You are beasts of burden, and nothing else. I will use you until I am done with you, and then you will die before you have the chance to kill me. That is how it will be.”

I whimpered and cringe back in fear.

“Do you accept these terms?” he asked, his voice as cold as ice.

I thought of what that entailed. The offer to forget my past and join the man. To forget the boy and the family and the love that we shared. What would really be worth that?

I would live, I suppose. The man could easily strike me down as I hovered there, as useful as the demon-fish that only know how to splash. I was hopeless. I could go with the man and perhaps save my own life.

But I loved the boy. That would never change. I would never abandon him, even if he abandoned me.

And as I hovered their, useless, I knew that I would take the time to escape. I would have to. I wanted to find the boy, to ask him why I was so useless to him and why he had left me for dead, abandoned. Why he had left me with the man.

I shook my head, struggling through the psychic barriers around me. I would never leave the boy.

“How sweet,” the man leered. “I knew a creature like you, once. She was as devoted to her master as you are now.” He paused, clenching his fists. “And do you know where she is now? Dead.”

I shudder.

“The boy doesn’t care for you. He left you here, with me. And now you shall pay for his insolence and your own, in the slowest way possible.” The man glared coolly at me, daring me to challenge him.

And I could only accept his challenge, with pride. I didn’t care that the boy had abandoned me. I was going to find him. The boy still had a piece of my heart, hopefully, and I knew that I had a piece of him.

The fire on my head flared to life, and the man stopped short on whatever snide remark he was going to make. Purple fire shot into the air in magnificent plumes, arcing and looping over themselves in midair as they plummeted towards the demon-angel. It shrieked in midair, still hovering, and it looked up in confusion, just in time for the purple, unholy flames to land on its face-eye-thing. Its shrieks intensified, and its eye stopped glowing. I found myself able to move again, and I fell with a rush to the ground. I stuck out my hands to catch myself, cringing as the gravel dug into my hands, but I hurriedly pushed myself upwards. There was no time for mourning my loss. I had to find my way home.

I snarled, flipping to my feet and glaring as the demon-dog rushed towards me. Behind me, the demon-angel had recovered and charged towards me, as well.

I looked up at the man to see his response. He glared down at me, his face hardening. “Kill her,” he snarled to his demons.

I had barely any time to respond. The demon-angel rushed in at my left, shrieking. Its wings trailed behind it, wisps of distortion. To my right, the demon-dog snarled and leapt towards me, its claws extending.

I turned around to face the demon-angel, exhaling a torrent of the glorious purple fire. It shrieked as the conflagration hit it head on and parted around it, sending tendrils of thick black smoke into the air.

And then there was searing pain in my back. I halfway turned around, cringing as my skin screamed in protest, to find the demon-dog digging its claws into the small of my back.

Oh, Arceus, the pain... it felt like my back was on fire, but not quite. Fire never burned me, really. I never felt its heat. But the demon-dog's claws were sharp and true, and I could feel blood seeping out of my back as it slashed its claws downwards, tearing open crimson gashes weeping bloody tears.

This had to end. Now.

I let the fire take control, thankful that the skies were clear. A tendril of indigo fire winked into existence around me, flaring larger and larger until it was big enough to wrap around my body. It spun faster and faster around me, blurring out the world until it was only a flash of purple, rapidly spinning. The fire whirled around me in a vortex, and I felt myself rising up in the air under the intensity of the flames.

It felt so good to finally make the demons burn, after so long.

I shrieked in anger, and wisps of fire shot out from the vortex around me on both sides, unfurling like petals of a lotus. A flaming, deadly lotus, purple on the outside and with an angry demon fighter on the inside. There was an explosion as both of the tendrils hit their targets, and a cloud of black smoke erupted on either side of me. I cringed backwards, but I made sure that the fire did not die. I could not let the fire die, or else I would perish with it.

The demon-dog skidded to a halt on its spindly legs, digging its paws into the ground and opening its maw at me. Behind me, the demon-angel flew through the air, smoking, until it managed to catch itself in midair and hover towards me, as well.

I knew then that I could not win this fight. Even if it had just been one of them, I would not have been able to win. But two fully trained and manifested demons was far too much for me. I couldn’t do it.

I had to run, or I would die.

I gathered all of the heat in around me, and all of the hate. The shadows rushed to my aid, swirling in a vortex beneath the blistering heat of the flaming conflagration. I gathered everything that I could inwards, and I added a flair of darkness to it, just to make sure.

Suddenly, all of the fire around me vanished, as did the shadows and the rushing wind. I sank to the ground, my eyes closed and my hands clasped together.

The demons sensed that this was their chance. They rushed towards me as one, a team, and leapt into the air. Well, the demon-angel kind of hovered into the air towards me, but that was beside the point. I was running out of time, and fast.

The demon-dog leered at me as its claws dug into the ground, certain that it could win.

And then I spread my hands apart, revealing the sphere of compressed energy that I had been hiding since the fire had faded. Darkness and fire and hatred rippled into it, and it forced its way out of my arms, rushing towards the demons with a hiss. It trailed across the ground, sending a spray of sand up in its wake.

The sand rose everywhere as the orb collided with the ground directly in front of the demons and then exploded. Tendrils of fire lashed everywhere, and I flew up into the air. Thick, hazy black smoke streamed forth in torrents, enveloping the clearing in a cloud of darkness.

This was my chance. I was in the air again, but this time, I was far from helpless.

I darted for cover into the bushes, running far and as fast as I could. The tendrils of fire bent to my will and landed beneath me, carrying me far and fast across the ground. The man and his demons were a long way off before the fire finally petered out beneath me with a wink of smoke and I slid to the ground, panting for breath.

I had managed to escape, but I didn’t know where I was.

A cobbled road lay next to me. I had made it out of the forest, at least. Grass grew in tufts around it, and I assumed that it must have been one of the routes that interlaced the world for those with money. I had never seen one before.

Dark clouds rumbled ominously over head, growling at me. Of course it had to rain.

I sighed. I would find my way home to the boy, though. Nothing would stop me.

Drops of rain began falling from the sky, hard and fast and wet like tears. I shielded the open flame on my head in vain, trying to keep it safe, but there was very little that I could actually do. I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know where the man had taken me. I was far from home. That was all I knew. There was no end in sight, and I was all alone.

My body was weary and my soul ached, and I longed to be where I belonged. I just didn’t know where I belonged any more, though. The boy had left me.

The rain poured down around me in oppressive sheets, cold and wet and never ending. It was just another reminder of exactly how hopeless my cause was.

My feet were weary, and my body was weak. My golden yellow eyes drooped as the night wore on. The fire on the top of my head flickered weakly in the rain, and I knew that it was going to die soon, with the rest of my soul. I had to keep fighting, though. I may have been weary, and I might have been exhausted, but he was still waiting for me somewhere, if I could just find him.

The boy had abandoned me, though. He had left me for this fate, and forced me into this cruel world. He had let the man take me away, because I had failed him.

All I knew was that I had been abandoned. I was going to find my way home, though. I had to. It was the only thing that I had left to do before I died. I wanted to find him and ask him what I had done wrong, what I had done to deserve such a terrible fate. I needed to ask him what I had done to earn such a wretched place in his heart.

I still didn’t know where I was going, but that was of no consequence. I was going to get there, wherever it was.

***

I followed that path for a mind-numbingly massive amount of time. The cobbles used to hurt my feet, but they eventually became so monotonous that I couldn’t even feel them through my blisters any more. I wasn’t built to travel long distances, but the boy was an even longer distance from home.

I lost count of how many suns and moons rose and set around me as I walked. It was too many to count, I think.

The sun was shining brightly, though, on the day that I met the girl.

“Hey!” a voice shouted. I spun around, mildly alarmed.

A girl stood in front of me. Her blonde hair hung down her back in a pair of ridiculous looking pony tails, and her blue eyes sparkled with joy as she stared at me. Blue jeans and a fading shirt, hat skewed to the side, backpack perched on shoulder—that settled it. She was one of those trainers that the boy always talked about on our nights together. She was young, I could tell, perhaps the boy’s age in terms of human years. The look she gave me, though, showed a level of greed that I had not thought possible in one so young.

I took a step back uneasily.

“A Litwick,” she whispered, staring at me some more. Her gaze was piercing. “You’re pretty rare in these parts, aren’t you?” she asked me, her voice softening. “I’ve never seen one over here before.”

A human. I whimpered and take another step back, this time turning to run to the cover of the ditch. I didn’t trust humans.

I turned around, and she must have seen that gashes on my back. I heard her sharp intake of breath, and I heard her step towards me. “You’re hurt,” she whispered. I saw pain flicker across her face. “Come on, we should take you somewhere where you can get better.”

My eyes widened in fear. It was a trap, like last time. I shook my head firmly. I was not going with her.

“Please?” she asked, her voice pleading. “You’re really hurt.”

I swayed with exhaustion, and my limbs trembled. But I was not letting her take me anywhere.

“You have to come with me,” she whispered. “You’re very gravely injured. If you stay now, you might get hurt.”

I almost sunk to the ground. But there was no way I was going with her.

“Here,” she whispered, rummaging around in the dark backpack on her shoulder. She reached into the depths and pulls out a strange sphere, roughly half the size of my body. It was red on the top and white on the bottom, and there was a strange white knob at the front. I vaguely recognized it from somewhere. “Come inside of this.”

Oh, no. No one was going to pull a trick like that on me again.

I frowned angrily at her, and the fire on my head roared to life in a blast of purple. I clenched my tiny hands into fists. She wasn’t going to trick me again. I swung out a stubby arm and punched the sphere out of her hand. She wasn’t expecting it, and the sphere flew out of her limp grasp, landing in the dirt. I growled at her. I wasn’t going to fall for that.

She winced back, cradling her injured hand. “What was that for?” she shrieked in shock, scurrying a few steps backwards.

I cringed back as well, in regret. The scars on my back twinged angrily, and I closed my eyes in pain.

“I’m sorry, then,” the girl whispered. She sounded genuinely remorseful. Her hand drifted to her hip, and she unhooked another red and white sphere from her belt, worn from age and love and use. “Houndour,” she whispered to the orb, holding close to her lips, “be careful with this one. We want to keep it safe, okay?”

I frowned again. I was not an it. I was a she, friend to the boy and guardian of his soul.

She tossed the ball into the air, and it exploded in a flash of white light. As I cringed backwards, shielding my eyes from the brilliant white light that emanated from her palm. The light faded, and I squinted at the girl’s feet. Somehow, without my noticing, another creature had appeared on the field before me.

It growled, black as night. Ivory fangs, sharp as blades, jutted down from its maw, contrasting with its midnight black fur. It was only about my size, but it snarled at me, snapping its jaws. Silver bands ran down its back, and its amber eyes glowed with a fire that rivaled even my own. It looked familiar, although I couldn’t place where it had come before.

Then it sat back on its haunches, threw its head into the air, and howled. The sound, even in the bright sunlight of the afternoon, was chilling to my soul.

I flinched back in horror, knowing that I recognized the demon-dog now. It was just like the ones that the man had used, but without the curved horns on their heads and slightly smaller. Perhaps these were siblings of some sort.

I was afraid. The girl had managed to find me, and now she was going to bring me back to him.

Well, then I wasn’t going down without a fight.

I glared at her demon-dog, and it met my gaze fearlessly. We stood there for a moment, staring at each other and sizing each other up. It was larger than I was, and more limber. Its coat was lustrous and its eyes were shimmering, and I knew that it had probably gotten a meal in the past three days, unlike myself.

I paused, pretending to shift my weight and look timid and unsure of myself. And then I attacked. I wasn’t going to waste any time. The jet of purple fire leapt out of my mouth before I was even aware of it. It rushed towards the demon-dog, crackling and hissing. Delicate purple tendrils of fire enveloped it in a fiery inferno, lashing at it and sinking their wispy claws into its fur. I closed my eyes, my body shaking from the exertion of my fire, but I did not dare cut off the stream of heat.

The canine roared in agony, throwing its nose to the sky and barking angrily. Its body glowed an ominous red and its inky black fur roiled with patches of steam. Its yowls of pain morphed louder and louder, from a whimper to a whisper. It rose in pain and anger and desperation. And finally, its cry grew louder and louder, until it was a battle cry.

The purple, ghostly fire vanished from around the demon-dog with a rush of wind. And it was entirely unscathed… and it looked even angrier than ever, if that was even possible. It seemed to glow with renewed strength, and the fire in its eyes glowed with even more rage. It snarled, digging its claws into the ground, and looked back at the girl for her command.

“Flamethrower, Houndour,” she whispered morosely. She looked at me, her blue eyes piercing. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. To me. “I am sorry it had to end like this.”

The demon-dog reared its head back, roaring to the skies. Its fur crackled with flaming purple sparks that looked like my own fire, and I knew then that I had walked into some sort of trap. I was afraid. The dog whipped its head forwards, its maw snapping open to expose a long pink tongue and rows and rows of serrated teeth. I flinched back as a torrent of fire rushed through its maw, red and orange at the core but tinged with my own shade of purple.

Somehow, the demon-dog was using my own attacks against me.

I barely had time to flinch until the pillar of fire lanced across the dusty ground and struck me head on. Red and orange and purple sparks raged around me, lancing at my skin and devouring me. I shrieked in agony. This could not be happening. The demon-dog was supposed to be on the ground, blistering in pain as my fire devoured it. Instead, I was the one shrieking and rolling the dirt as it torched me. The pain I felt was like no other, searing hot and icy cold at the same time as my soft skin started to blister. The conflagration was thick, and smoke whirled around me in a black haze. I whimpered in pain, but the demon-dog refused to back down.

“Stop it!” the girl shrieked. The demon-dog stepped backwards in confusion, its maw snapping shut as it turned its head to look at the girl. “It’s hurt,” she whispered, looking at the demon-dog and then to me. “Please, stop it. We don’t want to hurt it any more than it already is.”

I grit my teeth. They were going to have to hurt me a lot more than that if they want to take me back to that wretched man. The only question was how much of this torture I could actually take.

I snarled. I certainly wasn’t going to let its attack go unpunished.

I spread my hands apart, gathering forces from the shadows around me. The sun was harsh, and the shadows were harsher. They flew to my hands in globs of dark purple, coalescing above my outstretched palms in a sphere of darkness. Black and purple sparks arced across the shimmering surface of the sphere, hissing angrily as it grew in size and intensity. My arms buckled from trying to support the massive orb, and I knew in an instant that I could hold it no longer. With a moan, I thrust it out from my body, and it whizzed towards the demon-dog, kicking up clouds of dust as it rocketed across the dry clearing.

The demon-dog shied back, but the girl held her ground. “Dark Pulse,” she whispered.

The demon-dog nodded and took another step back to brace itself. Even as my sphere of darkness rocketed towards it, it refused to back down. It threw its head into the air, and rings of midnight blue energy formed around its snout. The rings interlocked and laced within one another, forming a hypnotizing matrix. As I watched, the rings suddenly expanded into a larger beam—one that was darting towards my own sphere of shadows.

There was a moment in silence as the two collided, and then there was chaos. The two opposing forces met with a bang and an explosion. Sparks of purple and black flew into the air, corroding the ground like acid. Tendrils of hellish fire erupted and a cloud of hazy black smoke formed. Torrents of wind lashed through the air, but I would not back down. I glared angrily at the cloud of smoke, waiting for the demon-dog to materialize from behind it.

Instead, I was met by a surge of purple and black rings, coalesced in a beam of midnight black darkness. I flinched back in horror, frantically trying to prepare the fire to counter it, but I was too late. The beam clipped me beneath my chin, and I went skidding backwards, cringing as the dark energy tore through my very essence.

This was too much.

I reared my head back, trying for a new approach this time. The green sphere of energy formed in my palms before I even knew what I was doing. I felt myself absorbing energy from the trees that watched over our battle, and I forced their untapped life force into a tiny sphere. It was almost revolting, what I was doing, forcing so much natural power into such a confined space, and the ball of energy threatened to explode in my hands. It fizzled with yellow and blue sparks, melding with the natural green hues of the plant life.

I shrieked in pain, feeling the fire from my head dim at the exertion from my attack. I forced the sphere of energy towards the demon-dog, and then sagged back, panting.

The girl didn’t even react this time. Her eyes widened in fear as she watched the sphere of green burst out of the hazy wall of smoke, and then their was a yowl of pain. I watched in mixed satisfaction as the demon-dog skidded to the ground, the sharp gravel tearing at its delicate fur.

It struggled to its feet, snarling. It wasn’t gifted with the harsh, cold manner with which I had been graced. It wasn’t used to taking hits and dishing them in returns. I felt bad for it, in a sense. It wasn’t used to this kind of hardship, being pitted against another and trying to fight for survival. I couldn’t help but pity it.

“Crunch,” the girl snarled, her face contorting in a frown as she saw her demon-dog fall. That was when I knew I was in trouble. The demon-dog leapt to its feet, roaring, and rushed towards me. Its dark paws sent clouds of dust flying into the air as it sprinted towards me.

I shirked back, but frowned. I closed my eyes, stretching out my hands to focus on the yowling canine that was racing towards me. I picked out its psychic signature from the dull monotones of the forest easily, sensing the vibrant activities in its mind. My palms glowed blue as I thrust them into the air.

There was a chilling moment of pause as the demon-dog continued rushing towards me, still yowling. And then the blue outline around my palms zigzagged towards the canine, enveloping it entirely. It rose into the air, struggling feebly under my grasp. I clenched my palms, and its struggling ceased. It looked at me helplessly, its eyes darting in fear but entirely unable to move.

I sighed with relief. Good. The blasted thing wouldn’t be trying to attack me any more. I sagged back weakly, glad for the momentary respite. Being sure to keep demon-dog suspended in midair, I formed a purplish-blue cloud of energy around my left fist, whirling it tantalizingly. It split into six different orbs, each winking in a hypnotic pattern and darting around my fist like tiny demon lights. The frequency of their flashes was uncontrollable, even to me, but I was careful not to look at any of them directly. Staring at them too long would mess up the way that I thought, and it could create false illusions of the world around me.

With this in mind, I directed my hand towards the suspended demon-dog, and the six orbs joyfully followed my direction. They launched themselves into the demon-dog’s forehead one by one, and I watched as its amber eyes slowly became unfocused.

I heard the girl mutter a curse under her breath. “This isn’t the time for that, Houndour!” she shouted to her Pokémon. It had stopped struggling under my telekinetic powers, which I hoped was a good sign. “Dark Pulse!”

I shrieked back in fear and prepared to immobilize it again, but it was unnecessary. The demon-dog teetered around in midair, not even trying to remove itself from my grasp. It batted itself in the face a few times with a paw like lead, but not once did I see a sign of the cursed rings that had caused me so much pain before.

I smiled, relieved that something had finally gone right for me, for once. Another six orbs formed around my body, orbiting with their pale light like a myriad of planets, but these were different. They glowed with the icy rage and power hidden within my soul, but they were not malevolent. Perhaps that was a reflection of who I truly was.

I didn’t think so, though, because I was merciless as I directed the new set of icy cold orbs towards the immobilized demon-dog. They shattered into smaller pieces and rained down around the canine like icy hail, pelting at its dark fur and causing it to yowl in pain.

The girl smiled, and I watched in dread as her eyes lit up. Perhaps it would be a good idea to immobilize her, too.

Too late.

“Faint Attack,” she whispered.

The demon-dog’s eyes snapped open, and it suddenly honed its sights on me, its focus renewed. Before my eyes, its paws elongated until they touched their shadows on the dirt, melding into the darkness and vanishing out of my grasp, sinking into the shadows of the ground. And then, it was gone.

My golden eyes darted around in fear as I searched for it. Where had it gone? Shadows were everywhere, but they suddenly weren’t so friendly any more. They roiled in the darkness, and I could hear the demon-dog’s breath in my ears with every passing instant.

It appeared behind me in a flash, rising up out of the shadows in the ground and leaping towards me, claws outstretched. I whimpered as it pounced on to my unprotected back, cloaked in tendrils of darkness, and I fell face first into the ground. I tried to roll over, but paws like darkness thudded into the ground on either side of my face.

The demon-dog towered impassively over me, growling and hissing. Its fangs were inches away from my throat, gleaming. The demon-dog panted, obviously angered that I had tried to attack it and take its life.

We shared a strange look, then. I was on the ground, helpless and pinned, and it stood towering above me, holding all of the power in the world. It wasn’t a mutual look, though. It was the look that prey gives predator when it knows that it is about to die and it has reached the end of the line. That was the look that I gave the demon-dog.

Crunch. That was the last command that the girl had given it that the demon-dog could remember and process, and that was the command that it was going to fulfill. Its mouth darted towards me, jaws outstretched, as it prepared to clamp down on my neck and end me as I lay there, dying. And still our gaze would not break.

This was the end.

“Stop!” the girl screamed.

The demon-dog tore its gaze from me to look guiltily at the girl.

“Stop,” she whispered, quietly. “We don’t want to hurt it, remember?” A second red and white sphere had appeared in her hand, shiny and new like the last one that she had tried to hit me with. But this time, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to escape.

I had been wrong. That hadn’t been the end. But this was. My hard earned freedom would last no longer.

The demon-dog took its paws off of my chest and slunk back to the girl, its tail low and its head bowed. She idly patted it on the head before honing her gaze towards me, her eyes sharpening. She raised her hand into the air, the sphere flashing red in the dying sunlight.

The girl lobbed the sphere at my head, and I barely had time to flinch back, exhausted as I was. It hit me head on, but compared to the attacks from that dark-fire dog… thing, this was nothing.

And then I took a moment to study the sphere. It was a perfect sphere, made of cool metal that was red on the upper half and white on the lower. I noticed something in the front. Hinges. That would explain why my arm was smarting where the ball had hit me.

And then those very hinges creaked up with a flash of red. I shrieked in pain as my body literally dissolved into shards of ruby red energy. I didn’t know where I was, and I felt like I was being torn into a thousand tiny pieces. The ball opened up on the line between the red and the white, and I felt the flashes of light that contained my essence move towards the center of the sphere, which I noticed was actually hollow.

The pain flickered out as I watched the lit of the sphere, suddenly giant, close down around me. I realized that I was trapped inside of the sphere. That made no sense. Moments ago, I was much larger than the tiny red and white sphere, which was only the size of the girl’s fist. And now I was trapped inside? How did that work?

Either the sphere was growing larger, or I was growing smaller. And as I peeked out of the glass, suddenly clear but tinted ruby red, to see the girl’s shoes the size of mountains in my eyes, I knew that I had gotten a lot smaller.

I noticed something, though. I was trapped inside. I’d said that several times, but the fact was only now sinking in, along with a growing sense if dread.

The sphere around me rocked gently, and I felt myself falling backwards into the darkness. My golden eyes drifted shut. It was warm and dark and safe in here. Maybe the girl would be a good owner. Maybe the boy had forgotten about me already. The ball rocked once.

No.

This was all wrong. This couldn’t be happening. The boy loved me. There had to be a reason why he had left me out of his heart. The sphere rocked twice.

I wasn’t going to let myself lose him again.

I could feel the walls around me almost relaxing as the hinges clicked shut as the walls rocked for a third time.

And then I screamed in defiance, my eyes snapping open as I threw my tiny white arms into the air in the darkness of the sphere, fire suddenly renewed and swirling around me in thick flashes of orange and red and blue, fueled by my rage and desperation. I shrieked, clenching my hands into tiny fists, and the fire burst out around me in a fiery vortex, singing my soft skin. But I did not flinch back. I would not allow myself to be forced into slavery any longer. I would not allow myself to be conquered.

The walls of the sphere around me cracked open as I burst out of it, cloaked in the maelstrom of fire. I felt myself growing back to my normal size as the walls of the sphere melted under the heat of the fire coming from my soul that I cannot control.

As the fire raged around me, I began to feel fear instead of defiance. I was surrounded by fire. It was an element that could not be controlled. It was so amazingly powerful and untamable, yet I was trying to use its powers for my own gain. I knew at that moment that if I let the fire out of control, we would all die.

I didn’t care.

The tendrils of fire arced out all around me, lashing out at the puny quadruped. It whimpered in pain as the fire bored down on its velvety black fur, but I would not hold back. I would not back down.

The girl’s eyes widened in shock as she watched me burst out of her prison, her mouth falling into a perfect “o” as I shrieked and sent another jet of crackling purple fire towards her precious dog. It yelped in pain, but she didn’t respond in her shock. The dog only stood there as it burned, the fire crackling around its body. The fire in its own heart would offer little protection from the unholy flames that I was wielding.

She hadn’t been expecting this. She had underestimated me, just like the others, and now I was going to make her pay the price.

“We’re trying to help you!” she shrieked, throwing her hands out in a futile attempt to get me to stop. “We don’t want to hurt you! You’re badly injured and Houndour and I know where you can get help!”

Her dog, lying on the ground, whimpering and feebly licking its singed fur, looked up at me with eyes that flickered like coals. It nodded its assent before yelping in pain and sinking to the ground, its eyes flicker shut.

I didn’t believe her. The man had said the exact same thing, and then I had awoken to find myself in a living hell. Humans were all the same. I couldn’t trust them. She was probably only plotting against me.

I roared in pain, my body cringing from all of the abuse it had suffered in the past weeks, but I would not back down. I launched another jet of hissing purple fire-- towards the girl, this time.

Her demon-dog’s eyes snapped open, as if it had finally processed what was happening. It roared in anger, flashing its pearly white fangs at me before leaping into the path of my fire. It yowled in pain as the fire tore at its fur again, but it would not back down. The conflagration parted around its puny body, but the girl was unscathed, her blue eyes wide in horror as she realized how much her Pokémon had done to save her life.

I should have felt some sense of victory as the demon-dog slumped to the ground, its body limp and smoking, but I only felt a hollow feeling of dread. The dog loved its master, and the girl loved her dog. I couldn’t help but wish that I could feel that love, as well.

The girl looked at me one last time, her pale hands curling into fists as she glared at me and then back at her unconscious demon-dog. “Fine,” she spat, her eyes showing only hatred for me. “Go off by yourself, friendless and alone and abandoned.”

She knelt to the ground, gently scooping up her dog in her arms. She cradled its limp body in her chest, burying her face in its midnight velvet fur. Her voice was shaking as she continued. “Go on,” she snarled. “Get yourself hurt. Die. See if we care.” She bit her lip, but her hands were clenched in fists.

“No good deed goes unpunished,” she murmured to me. I balked beneath her icy blue glare. And then she turned and stalked away, her footsteps not making a sound as she ran off through the path.

She was out of my sight in an instant, and out of my life. I had known all along that she didn’t care.

But there was a tiny tear, no more than a pinprick, a distortion in the world of reality, that fell to the ground long after her footsteps had faded into oblivion.

And then I wasn’t so sure any more.

***

I never wanted to see that place again. I hated it with every fiber in my being, and I never wanted to see that place or use my fire again. I had hurt the girl, I hate hurt her best friend, and I was alone again. Perhaps living with her wouldn’t be so bad.

And I still hurt. My body was weary, and I couldn’t help but think enviously of the mysterious “help” that the girl offered. Perhaps she could have taken the pain away if I hadn’t tried to kill her.

But I had to find the boy. My body might ache, but that pain would be nothing compared to the pain in my heart that I felt now.

I began to walk, ever so wearily. The crater in the ground, charred and smoking, would forever be a blemish in my life.

So when the clouds rumbled above me and the rain began to fall in thick sheets, I couldn’t help but feel overjoyed as the torrents bore down upon the smoking ground, washing away the charred grass and healing the earth. I didn’t even care as the rain fought with the flame on my head, hissing and sending up tufts of steam. It was a battle that I was going to lose, anyways. I was past caring for myself.

But I still couldn’t help but feel a pang of longing for the boy. I wondered if he was okay. I wondered if he had actually forgotten me.

I would never forget him, though. He was my master and I was his friend, and that was how it would always be, forever.

My hands curled into fists. I would not abandon him, even if he had abandoned me. I will find my way back to him.

The rain poured down around me, dark and cold and oppressive. But I would not back down from this fight. I had fought the girl and her cursed hound and won, and I would fight anything else that tried to keep me. I would tear them to pieces.

No matter how long it took me, and no matter the cost, I would find my way. I would find my way.

***

The rains were cold. Every day, I feared that my fire would be quenched. There was nothing more that I hated than the storm clouds that seemed to dog my every step.

The nights were dark. Purple light emanated from the flickering candle on my head, but it wasn’t enough to keep the demons that plagued my dreams at bay.

The days were long. I walked. I don’t even know how long, and I don’t even know why I had chosen the direction that I had. But something was egging me on. Something was pulling me onwards, through endless miles. I didn’t even know where I was any more. And yet, I still walked on. I wasn’t built for long distance travel. Heck, I wasn’t built for travel at all. I had short, stubby legs and a wick that threatened to burn out in the wind.

My pains were endless. I never say any humans up close after the girl. I was careful not to venture out of the forest again during the days, and I painstakingly hid my tracks during the night.

The winds were harsh. Every day, I was afraid that my candle would go out. My spirit was slowly flagging. I don’t know how many suns rose and fell across the sky. Gradually, the summer rains melded into autumn winds, harsh and unyielding. And gradually, the autumn winds froze into flurries snow.

My hopes were dwindling. I could only go on for so much longer before my spirit died with the rest of my body. I was a shadow, and nothing else. Alive for the world to see but so very dead inside.

I was never going to see the boy again.

It was funny. I used to think that it was the rain that would scare me the most. But it was the snow. The horrible, stupid snow that I could melt away with my fire in an instant, had I had the strength. The fire in my soul was enough to warm my spirits through even the harshest of cold… but this was more than that. I was supposed to be able to master the ice with my fire, but it was into the snow that I finally gave up and resigned myself to fate.

Finally, there came the day when I had walked and walked but could walk no longer. The shelter that the snowdrift provided was a welcome respite from so much wind.

And the darkness that death offered was a blessed respite from so much pain.

Death was nice. I was so familiar with pain, now. It was almost like I was home.

***

There were voices when I awoke. I was hopeful, because I recognized the female one.

And then I heard the growling, and I remembered where I was.

I opened my eyes blearily. This was so wrong. I was dead. It wasn’t supposed to be noisy here.

Bright white assaulted my eyes. I blinked a few times, groaning wearily as I struggled into consciousness. The voice was talking, and I was just beginning to make out the words that it was forming.

“A Litwick. You’re pretty rare in these parts, aren’t you?”

I was too shocked that I wasn’t dead to do anything but nod weakly. My focus adjusted, and I saw the face of the speaker for the first time.

Her blonde hair hung down her back in a single braid, and her blue eyes sparkled as she stared at me. She was a trainer. I knew that much. She looked young, too, but as if she had seen harder times. The look she gave me, though, showed a level of compassion that I had not thought possible in one so young.

It was the girl from before, and beside her was her demon-dog. It was different, though, larger and looking more like the ones that the man kept in huge packs.

But this one was gentle. She patted the creature on its head, idly scratching the midnight black fur between the two scythed horns. Its claws clicked the tiles of the floor. Crimson eyes roiled with a joy within that could not be quenched. Forked tail flicked through the air uneasily, but the gentleness in the expression was one that not even I could mistake for anger.

And apparently, it was her demon-dog. But evolved.

My eyes flashed with recognition.

She must have seen it in my eyes, too. She must have remembered who I was. How strange, really, that I could make such a large impact on her heart. “You were hurt,” she whispered. “We don’t know how long you were running for.” Her voice softened. “You’ve been on the roam for a very long time. Houndoom and I encountered you nearly ten months ago, and you don’t look like you’ve had a roof over your head since then.” I’m glad that she didn’t mention how I had tried to kill them both.

She was right, of course. I just hadn’t realized how long it had been.

She picked my up gently and wrapped her arms around me, careful to avoid the flickering flame on the top of my head. “You haven’t had a home for a while.”

I sagged limply into her arms, too weary to resist. If I closed my eyes and just felt her warm arms around me, I could almost pretend that I was with the boy and she wasn’t here.

The boy’s home was my home, though. That was where I had my heart. I couldn’t, wouldn’t stay with her.

I looked up at her and shook my head. I couldn’t let her take me away from him.

She obviously didn’t understand, though. But I found no greed in her voice as she pulled out yet another one of her cursed spheres. This one was green on the top, with a scattering of pale red dots across the front of it. But aside from that, it looked just like the rest.

“Litwick,” the girl whispered gently, “this is a Friend Ball. They’re unique to the area that we first met in, although now we’re far from there. My home. I got it from a very wise, old friend.” She paused, her voice tinged with pain. “He told me to save it for someone special. And I’ve decided that this special someone is going to be you.”

I shook my head, whimpering. I couldn’t let her take me away from anyone again. I loved the boy. Why couldn’t she see this?

She tapped the sphere to my forehead. It was ironic, really. The situations in which we had met were so different from last time. We were so much farther away from our last meeting spot, and we were safe here. She hadn’t tried to injure me and I hadn’t tried to kill her and her demon-dog. But the end result was still the same. I was going to lose the boy and my heart again, all because I was too powerless to resist.

There was a flash of golden light. This was the end. I had seen what being trapped in those spheres did to the other creatures that the man owned. Once they went in, they were unable to fulfill their own wills and desires, slaves and servants to his own whims.

I whimpered as the golden light filled my vision.

There was only a clatter as the ball fell out of the girl’s hand and onto the floor, shuddering.

I looked down at it in shock. Why was I the one on the outside, looking in?

The girl was just as shocked as I was. She looked at the hissing Friend Ball on the ground, her face furrowed in a frown. She looked at the ball, and then back at me. “You never… you never said that you had an owner already…” she murmured, her face paling. “I had no idea.”

So now she knew.

“How… how long has it been? Were you already owned when we saw you last time?” she asked huskily.

I nodded solemnly.

“Do you know where your owner is?”

I almost scoffed. Of course not. If I did, she wouldn’t have found me dying in a snow drift in the middle of a winter storm.

Instead, I meekly shook my head.

I saw the conflict rage in her eyes for the first time. “Oh.”

But I would not leave her. Not yet. But I could not stay. I was torn, between the promise of safety that making my home with her offered, and the promise of love that finding my way home to him meant.

And for once, she had nothing else to say.

But I stayed. I stayed for much too long, I think. Days passed. She gave me food and shelter and love, and I tried tentatively to return the favors. It was hard, though. I didn’t want to break her heart, to hurt her, but I didn’t want to love her, either. I was deathly afraid that if I began to love her like I had loved the boy, I would never be able to go back to him.

Or worse, if I began to love her like I had loved the boy, I would lose her as well.

But I had to find the boy. As the sun set on my tenth day there, I knew that I had to go, dread it though I might.

I hated leaving her. I felt safe around her, wrapped in her arms and sitting next to the not-so-demon-dog. But I had to leave. I had to find the boy.

I slipped out of her grasp as she lay sleeping in the night, hating myself for the heart that I was breaking. And as I slunk out of the window, pausing on the ledge and looking back at her serene figure, so beautiful in sleep, I prayed that she would one day find someone like me. Someone better than me, actually. I knew that she loved Litwick; she had found me across so many miles, but I couldn’t stay for her. I had to find the boy.

Farewell, my friend.

The dog in the corner stirred, pricking up his head. He fixed me with a stare, long and ever burning. He closed his eyes and whimpered, laying his head between his forepaws. His tail sank to the floor, wagging no more.

I am sorry it had to end like this.

His eyes would not leave me as I slipped out of the window and fled into the night. I hated the girl for making me feel that way.

But more than anything else, I hated myself.

***

And then I was back on the road again. Such simple words, easier said than done. Much easier said than done. I was alone and in the cold again, and I had thrown away the best hope to salvation that I had ever had, and I had left an amazing home.

And for what? The glimmer of hope that I would one day find him again? What good was it now, with the boy so far gone?

The stream whispered beside me, weaving through the rocks. The song of the owls rang through the air of the forest, but the only other sounds in the forest were the crunching of my feet on the gravel and the whisper of the wind in the trees.

It was so calm. I could almost find my home here, if I cold find my heart.

And then I was on the ground before I had even noticed that I had been hit.

I shrieked in pain and fear, turning around as the massive stone hit me for the second time head on at full force. I spluttered as a spray of sand filled my eyes and tore at my body, sending me sprawling backwards. I skidded across the rough ground, rolling to a halt as the gravel gouged into my skin. I winced, dragging myself to my feet and grateful that the barrage had stopped.

The moon cast a dull ring of light in the clearing around me, and I looked around to find my assailant. My gaze roved across the forest, trying to find the source of the hated stones. I glanced around in confusion.

I received another rock thrown in my face for the efforts. It tasted like the dirt and tears, and then I didn’t have so much time to focus on what it tasted like as I rolled backwards again. I shrieked, stumbling upright again.

The creature in front of me trilled angrily at me, glaring at me with a glowing green eye. Black wings trailed around it as it hovered in the air in front of me, crooning angrily. Massive yellow, red, and blue wings flared out behind its back as it glared at me, and its green body bobbed up and down in the air. Its majestically striped body hovered over me, easily twice as large as my entire essence.

It was an angel-demon.

This specimen didn’t look like a naturally aggressive creature, honestly. It looked like the kind of creature that would hide behind the shadows and shoot down whatever weak prey it needed from a distance.

So either I had intruded on its territory and frightened it into fighting, or I was considered weak prey.

I couldn’t spend time thinking about that, though, as the angel-demon’s eye glowed blue. Above it, the clouds rumbled ominously, gathering from no where to glare angrily at us in all of their stormy grey glory. The angel-demon frowned at me, if that was even possible, and shrieked angrily at me.

I didn’t want to fight it, really.

And frankly, I didn’t think that I could fight it. The girl might have tried to heal me, but I was still exhausted. I hadn’t had a home for months.

It started to rain.

All of a sudden, the peace and serenity that the river offered in death was looking very comforting.

The boy. My eyes snapped open. The boy. I had to find the boy. I wasn’t going to let anyone, anything, take him from me. That was not my fate.

I tried to light a fire, but there was nothing to burn. The grass was soaked, the forest was dripping, and even I was covered in water, as well. The rain poured down oppressively, in thick sheets. The flame on my head might still burn as bright as my spirit, but there was nothing else here to burn.

The angel-demon shrieked, and its eye glowed pink. A spiral of rainbow energy whirled out of its eye towards me, and I barely had the time to dive out of the way before it rent the air that I had been occupying. Behind me, a tree shuddered as the beam smashed into its core, devouring it and splitting it down the middle. I cringed backwards as the tree literally split down the middle into two pieces, with one falling on either side.

I couldn’t even let the angel-demon touch me, or I would probably die.

There were no shadows in the gentle light that the moon offered. There was no where from which I could draw my strength. How ironic. In a world surrounded by darkness, I found myself at my weakest.

The demon-angel trilled angrily. I backed up uneasily, feeling my back scrape against the freshly destroyed bark of a tree. I glanced back at it, shocked at how pale the white was in the darkness. I put up my hands in a futile gesture of peace, but that wouldn’t be enough.

The creature reared its head back, and the water leapt to fulfill its commands, somehow. Its eye glowed blue, and the water whirled upwards in a tight spiral as the demon-angel used its psychic powers to control the water around us.

Funny. I hadn’t thought that the stream was even capable of holding so much water. And I hadn’t thought that demon-angels could work like that. Perhaps I was dreaming. A nightmare.

And yet, the wave came crashing down around me, roaring in my ears and very much real. The creature threw its head forward, and the wave of water morphed into a stream in midair that morphed into a whirlpool, the likes of which I had never seen before. It glowed with blue energy and quickly forced me to the bottom of the vortex. I whimpered as water filled my vision, clogging my ears and trying to force its way down my throat.

Air. Blessed air. That was what I needed to keep my fire alive. But here, at the bottom of the vortex and all alone, there was none.

I was aware of the faint purple light glowing around my body as I tumbled through the bubbles and water of the tidal wave. The light intensified, shining brighter than the sober moon ahead.

And then there was fire.

I don’t know how it burned underwater, and I never once bothered myself to ask. The center of the colossal tidal wave, with my limp body still trapped in the vortex, glowed with a haunting purple light, pulsing. The pulses of light grew faster, intensifying as I felt the fire take control of me once more.

And with an immense explosion, like a star gone supernova, the whirlpool exploded in a flash of purple. Indigo fire arced out from my body, turning the waters around it into pale clouds of steam. The whirlpool, vanquished, released me to the ground with a shudder, and I landed weakly on the soaking wet ground.

Drops of water, the only remains of the massive whirlpool, landed in the grass all around me, as if reminders. I sank to my knees, whimpering. The amount of power that I had just used was enormous, and it had consumed nearly all of the will that I had had to stay alive. My breath came in short puffs, and the fire on my head flickered weakly.

And yet the creature would not back down. It hovered towards me, its green eye glowing angrily. It reared its head back, preparing to finish me off at close range with some attack that I could not destroy.

This was the end. I had tried to do good by finding the boy, and I had failed. No good deed went unpunished.

I lifted my hand up to eye level. Not to form an attack that I knew would never reach, but to wipe away the tear that was threatening to break out of my eye and slide to the ground. Tears made me weaker. I had to hold them back.

This was the end.

There was a brown blur. I looked back, confused. If I hadn’t known any better, I could have sworn that a rock had just…

There was another flash of brown, and the creature skidded back, nursing its injured fin. This time, I managed to see the third rock fly past me and hit the creature square in the forehead. It looked at me for a moment, trying to see if I was worth the pain and the fight, and then it turned around. Glaring at me one last time, it leapt into the river, where the icy currents grabbed it immediately. And then it was gone.

I sagged to the ground, alone again. I was weak and exhausted, and I knew that the fire on my head had only a few moments left of life. I lay limply in a puddle of water, dying and knowing that my spirit, so overwhelmingly powerful, had finally given up. Surrounded by rain and knowing that I had failed, yet again.

There was another flash, but I could have sworn that I recognized it. In fact, I did. It was a thing that I would never forget, not in a million years. But it couldn’t be… could it?

The second creature bent over me just as my vision began to flicker. Darkness was coming for me again.

I knew then that I had died.

Because before I blacked out, I couldn’t help but notice that it was the boy who picked me up out of the water.

***

My eyes flickered as I was jolted back into reality by gentle rocking. I wasn’t dead, though, as I spewed what felt like gallons of water from my lungs. I coughed feebly, feeling the flame on my head flicker back to life as I looked up.

Brown eyes that I knew all too well faced mine. I watched as he gently set the rock he was holding in his hand to the ground. He had been prepared to throw it, but he knew that it was safe. He broke into a toothy smile, one that I knew all too well.

I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t dead, but…

His voice was tentative when he asked, “Hita?” I flung my arms around his bony leg in response, feeling the warmth and remembering what it was like. This was love. This was where my heart belonged.

I wasn’t dead, but I had found the boy.

“You came back,” he whispered huskily, holding me in his arms. “You found me.” He hugged me close to his chest, the heat from his body warming my soul. All of a sudden, I forgot that I was wet and cold and lost. I was with the boy, and I had found him.

Or rather, he had found me.

It was with no regrets that I returned his embrace with my tiny arms.

It was just like old times.

“Come on, Hita,” he whispered to me. His voice cracked. “We’re almost home.” He had gotten a lot more mature since I had left, but I would never mistake him for anyone else. He was the boy, and I was his friend. That was how life was supposed to be.

I settled down in his arms, just like old times. Home. That was where we were going. Home. I’d almost forgotten what the meaning of that word was.

But in the darkness, the tiny lights from the cottage on the hillside reminded me what it was like to be loved. And what it was like to have a heart.

I looked back at the boy, numb from something that I knew wasn’t the cold of winter. Numb from something that wasn’t even bad. It was joy. I had found the boy. I had walked and walked for so long, and I had finally found him.

This wasn’t what I had expected, though. The boy had abandoned me, had he not? He had left me there with the man, and he had let me die alone.

And yet, he didn’t seem at all perturbed to see me again. I was missing something. I was missing something, and it was important.

The boy’s treads were long and silent. He squeezed me tightly in his arms, smiling, and we simply reveled in each other’s presence. Even though he could not understand me, we didn’t need words. We just needed to be together again. We crossed through the field of grass and had made it to the cottage at the hill just as the sun was peeking over the horizon.

I smiled as I saw the cottage. It was just as run down as I had remembered it to be, and maybe a bit worse for the wear. The stones drooped and the door was still crooked, but a tiny tendril of smoke peeked over the chimney. Hearth.

“We’re here, Hita,” the boy said. He held me closer. “I still… I can’t believe…” he paused, not saying anything. Finally, he settled with, “I’m so glad you came back.”

That I came back? I really, really must have been missing something. I had never left. I had been dragged away by the man in the night.

There were loud voices in the house as we drew closer. The boy’s hand froze on the door as he prepared to push it in. He paused for a moment, his face paling.

His fear was contagious. As he stood by the door, listening and trembling, I couldn’t help but feel afraid, too. I didn’t even know why.

“Where is it?” a gruff voice snarled. I flinched back and burrowed myself deeper into the boy’s arms. I knew that voice. It was the man. The horrible man with the pack of demon-dogs and the awful truck and the cage. The horrible man who had dragged me from my home. But what was the “it”?

The response was rapid, but the voice was thin and afraid and reedy. “I don’t know,” a woman sobbed. “Please, I don’t know!” I had only heard that voice a few times, but I knew that it was the boy’s mother. She was nice, I remembered. She hadn’t hated me. She had made me feel like I had a home.

The man’s voice dropped to a gruff whisper, so low that the boy and I had to strain to hear. All the same, I could only pick out a few words. “…good money… promise… rare Pokémon… Litwick.”

I flinched back in shock. Litwick. That was me, was it not?

On the contrary to them man’s controlled and threatening voice, the woman was hysterical. Her voice was borderline shrieking in terror, and her response was tinged with tears. “I don’t know where she is! I sold her to you over a year ago so that you wouldn’t take my son to repay our debt! I don’t know where she is anymore!” She broke down into tears.

Sold. I didn’t know what that meant.

I heard the boy’s sharp intake of breath above me, and I decided that “sold” wasn’t good. I hoped he still wanted me, even though they I was “sold”.

There was a soft growling sound, and I assumed it was one of the demon-dogs. The man paused for a moment, and the boy and I strained forwards. “Outside?” the man asked. “Are you sure?”

I realized what was happening a split second before the boy did. By the time the boy had figured out what was happening, it was too late. The door flew open with a jolt, sending a shower of wood splinters cascading to the ground as it crashed into the wall behind it.

The boy’s mother had aged while I was gone, I think. It was funny how she was the first thing I saw when I walked in the room. Her hair was grayed and her face was gaunt. She was sobbing, kneeling on the ground as the man’s demon-dog stood over her, snarling. Its triangular-tipped tail flicked through the air as it stared hungrily at her.

But it was the victorious look in the man’s eyes that I could not shake. The look of pure greed that he wore when he saw the boy and myself standing in the doorway was one that I had never seen before and never wanted to again.

But it was the look of evil as he smiled wickedly, turning back to the boy’s mother, that froze my heart.

“You didn’t know where it was, then?” he asked cynically. He received only stifled sobs in response.

I was not an it. I was a she, friend to the boy and guardian of his soul.

“I do not tolerate lying,” the man drawled, idly stroking the ashy black fur of his demon-dog. This one, unlike the girl’s, was most definitely worth of that title. He looked down at the beast beside him. There was no friendship in its crimson eyes. “Make the boy burn for his insolence.”

The boy cringed back, his brown eyes widening in fear.

No.

That wasn’t how it was going to be. I didn’t care that I had already almost died more than once that day. I didn’t care that the demon-dog outclassed me and could kill me in an instant. I didn’t care about anything.

All I knew was that that man would not lay a finger on the boy.

With a shriek of defiance, I leapt from the boy’s arms to the ground, catching myself on my hands and rolling forwards to face the demon-dog. I snarled at it, trying to be as menacing as I could, all the while keeping myself between it and the boy.

The man smiled as the boy stared back at him in shock. The man clenched his hands into fists, angered at my defiance but confident that he could best me.

Let him think that, then.

He wasn’t going to lay a finger on the boy.

“Sucker Punch,” the man growled to his demon-dog.

Shrieking, I charged forwards, my mouth filling with the unholy fire that would roast his demon-dog into oblivion and send it back to hell where it belonged. Purple sparks hissed around me, and I saw nothing else but the demon-dog.

“Hita, no!” the boy shrieked. “He’ll kill you for this!”

I didn’t care. He wasn’t going to hurt the boy.

“Hita!” the boy cried out, waving his arms. His mother had staggered to her feet and was desperately trying to hold him back, to keep him safe. He stumbled towards me, but he could never reach. “Hita…”

He put his hand down limply, tears streaming down his grimy face. “I’m so sorry it had to end like this.” He clenches his fists and glared at the demon-dog, daring it to attack me.

The man’s voice was frosty when he replied, “No, I’m sorry that you’re all going to pay.” He glared coolly at the boy.

And the boy met his gaze fearlessly. “I’ve been waiting to do this for such a long time,” he whispered, glancing at me before glaring back at the man. “Hita and I have been wanting to do this for such a long time,” he corrected.

“Shadow Ball!” the boy cried to me, his voice quivering. It was obvious that he hadn’t done any sort of batting before… but I trusted him. I raised my hands into the air, finding the shadows in the room and bringing them under my control.

The demon-dog sat back on its haunches, glaring haughtily at me. It bared its fangs, but then it yawned lazily, its barbed pink tongue flicking out of its mouth for a moment.

And then it was gone.

I pulled up short, looking around wildly. Where had it gone? My gaze darted around the room, from the boy who was as shocked as I was to his mother to the smug-looking man in front of me. I snarled at him, wanting him to command his demon-dog to show itself, when everything unfolded for me.

The demon-dog rose out of the shadows, its forepaw covered in a swirling, inky purple, dark energy. I had barely enough time to cringe back before it lunged at me and smashed its paw into my chest. I shrieked in pain as the dark energy tore through the very center of my being, ripping holes into my spirit.

The boy screamed.

Voices followed me as I plunged in and out of darkness, weaving through my mind. One of them was unmistakably the boy’s. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Hita.”

And the other one was the man’s, victorious and still emotionless at the same time. “Pathetic.”

There was a dizzying sense of vertigo as I tumbled through the air, unable to move or even think of a counter attack. I hit the wall behind me with a thud, and for once, the stone didn’t seem so welcoming any more. I slid limply to the ground, feeling my vision flicker. This wasn’t death, but it may as well have been.

I had tried to protect the boy from the man’s demon-dog.

I hadn’t even lasted thirty seconds.

I had tried to keep them safe. I had tried to return, to find him at home.

And instead, I was met by darkness. As my eyes slowly shut and my vision began to fail me like the rest of my body, I saw the man’s thick boots prowling towards me across the grimy floor. I wanted to get up. He was going to take me away from the boy, so soon after we had finally reunited. This couldn’t be happening.

But I couldn’t move. Darkness swept over my in great, sweeping clouds.

And as I saw the boy’s frightened face, I knew one thing. I had tried to save him and failed, and now the man was going to condemn us all for my insolence.

No good deed went unpunished.

***

I awoke surrounded by metal and facing the man.

And then he promptly threw me into the back of the cage of his truck.

I was too late, already. I had only been out for a few minutes, as well as I could judge, but I was too late. Arceus alone knew what the man had done while I was unconscious.

There was a bang as the doors slammed shut, and I started back into reality with a painful jolt.

As the doors of the truck slammed shut again, I threw myself against the cast iron barriers. It was no use. My body was too weak, and I was too insubstantial. I couldn’t do anything against it. All I could do was stare out of the window, my heart breaking, as the truck roared onwards, carrying me away from him again. I had lost him once; now I was going to lose him again. This was too much.

His expression was horror-struck as he stared at me. The rain poured down around him in torrents, soaking his threadbare clothes and turning his hair into a slick mass of black spikes. His eyes shimmered, and tears slid from his brown eyes as he stared at me, his hands still outstretched. I placed my own tiny white hands on the thick, bullet and fire-proof glass of the truck, as if that would make us come any closer.

Farewell, my friend.

His mother wrapped her arms around his emaciated body, shaking her head quietly. I could have sworn that she had tears in her eyes as well, but it must have only been the rain. She would have no reason to cry for me.

I’m so sorry it had to end like this.

Somehow, despite all that I had done, I was back here again. That girl had been right. No good deed ever went unpunished.

The truck drove onwards, and the boy’s figure shrunk into nothingness, ever so gently. I shrieked silently, beating my hands against the cold iron of the doors, throwing my body against the glass and mesh of the window.

The compartment slid open, revealing the man’s face again. He glared angrily at me, pulling a dark object from the depths of his coat. He pointed it at me, and I shrunk back in fear. I was afraid, again.

And most of all, I hated myself. I shouldn’t be backing down. I shouldn’t let that man win, just because he was bigger and I was not. I shouldn’t have let him force me into submission.

Yet I cowered into my corner, away from the window, and lost the chance to see the boy for what may be the last time. The man smiled in sick satisfaction. “None of that, now,” he growled, retreating. “I want a quiet trip this time, or else you’re going to get it.” He slammed the compartment shut, huffing as he turned away.

I’m not so sure what he intended for me to get, but I didn’t think it was good. I cowered into my corner some more, and the purple flame at the top of my head flickered weakly, like my soul. My golden yellow eyes drooped as the night wore on. The darkness was oppressing, but I knew that the boy was somewhere out there, waiting for me.

The rain poured down around me in oppressive sheets, cold and wet and never ending. It was just another reminder of exactly how hopeless my cause was.

The funny thing about life was that it started out as perfect and steadily got worse and worse. My life was no different.

I whimpered feebly, staring out of the thick and clouded glass of the window. For the first time, after all of those awful things had happened, I felt a tear burning at the corner of my eyes. And for the first time, I didn’t try to hold it back.

My cry grew louder and louder, from a whimper to a whisper. And as I felt my depression thicken and my resolve strengthen, it rose in pain and anger and desperation. And finally my cry grew louder and louder, until it was a battle cry.

I would be there for him. I would find my way.

If only I had been able to hide who and what I really was. Life would have been so much easier. I wouldn’t be where I was at that moment, crying in terror as my life slowly unfurled.

But it didn’t work like that. So here I was, watching as everything shattered around me.

The crystal tear slipped out of my glowing yellow eyes, falling to the cold steel of the truck’s floor—a tiny pinprick of distortion in a world of harsh reality. It shattered into a tiny cascade of sparkles, reflecting the dull red flash of the truck’s rear lights.

My case was hopeless. This was my reward for trying to do good.

No good deed went unpunished.

But as I watched the last pinpricks of light from his house vanish from my window, I felt my resolve strengthen.

I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t know why. But there was one good thing. All I knew was that I hadn’t been abandoned, and the boy still loved me dearly. And even though I was lost and far from home, there was always hope for me.

I paused to take a last covert glance at the sliding door of the truck, and I began to form my plan. I knew that he would have to take me out of my prison eventually. I knew what to do.

Now I knew where I was going. And now I knew why.

No matter how long it took me, and no matter the cost, I was going to find my way.

Home.

It’s where my heart was.

\*/

I'm not afraid. Bring it on. Claiming this.

Where's da heart.

At least this one didn't take as long as the last one. This one's like three times as long too. Go figure.

Intro: I liked and didn't like your intro at the same time. I did like how you put it in italics, sort of like others do with a prelude or a quote or lyrics in other pieces of work. It definitely emphasizes it and makes people pay attention or at least let them know its probably important. The imagery is great too, fitting by showing just how hopeless she thinks the situation is, like here:

The fire on the top of my head flickered weakly in the rain, and I knew that it was going to die soon, with the rest of my soul.

One thing about it that made it a little less effective was the overuse of 'though'. It may not have been that noticeable, but you used it in the same way every time, putting it at the end of a different statement. Most of the time it could've been left off and the sentence would still carry the same tone. Using 'though' once or twice only would've still conveyed the tone Litwick was using too. If you still want to use it, you could try switching up how you use it, like connecting two of the thoughts and using it to join them, for example, using these lines:

My body was weary and my soul ached, and I longed to be where I belonged. I just didn’t know where I belonged any more, though.

And making it something like:

My body was weary and my soul ached, and I longed to be where I belonged, though I just didn't know where that was anymore.

Or something like that. I do see the direction you're trying to go by using them, but I think it was just a tad overkill on it, making it a little awkward to read.

There was only one thing that I didn't really like about it. That was the fact that it was a copy and pasted section from the middle of the story. While that's okay, it just didn't feel right reading it a second time, since it was something I had already seen. I think either the intro or the part where it actually occurs in the story could be modified a bit, just so it doesn't say the exact same thing.

I do like it though, because it's like a snapshot of future events, and that worked with how you told the story. It was a little bit of a prelude, and it does draw people in, making them wonder how she ended up that way. I like it for that reason, so I'm going to say that it works. I guess just maybe watch exact wording and then which words you use next time.

Plot: Your plot was fairly simple in theory, but it was made more complex by the little details. The Plot was definitely more character based than anything, dependent on the choices they make in order to move the story along. Some of the bigger plot points were during character reflection also.

I think I appreciate this story more because of the way you chose to end it. You didn't end it with a happy scene, but it wasn't hopeless either. I think you went into a great theme with this, dragging the main character through horrible, unhappy times and then ending it not with perfection but with promise. It mimics real life that way. Just because you fight doesn't mean you will get everything you want, but it gives you a goal to work toward, and it keeps spirits up. I do like endings that are left sort of open so readers can make their own judgments, and this one does just that.

There is one thing that I wanted to point out/ask/wish you had done more for though. It was near the end, after the boy found Hita. I had a feeling that the bad man was at the house, but I can't really explain why. I think because you subtly hinted, but you didn't make it extremely obvious. I did like that. One thing I would've liked clarified though was if the Sigilyph at the end was the man's or not. It was never said, and I would assume it is, but Hita never comments on it. I'm also wondering if the boy knew the man was there. Things like this:

“Come on, Hita,” he whispered to me. His voice cracked.

-suggest that he did, even though Litwick commented on him maturing (though he's still pretty young). Then, on the flip side, this:

I heard the boy’s sharp intake of breath above me, and I decided that “sold” wasn’t good.

-suggests that he was surprised that the man was there. In addition to this, he paled as he heard the voices. I guess it doesn't matter too much, and part of the mystery is never knowing, but I think that might've been something Hita would've thought about, even if she would never believe the boy would bring her back just to sell her out.

I also like the turning point in the story, when Hita accepted the girl's help. You brought the story to an edge of all hopelessness, and then there was a small bit of light. Hita changed her opinion a bit, and that shifted how she acted for the rest of the story. In my opinion, it gave her strength. I really liked that. It showed maturity, because all humans weren't like how the Litwick thought.

The bad guy even had proper motivation. It was scary how much he is alike to the boy, at least in a way. There's room for development there still if you plan on making a connecting story or anything. I like how you left that option out there.

All in all, it was pretty awesome. I think I liked it more because it was mostly internal character development stuff instead of straightforward problem, goal, action. I like stories that make you think about life. This one does that.

Characters: I wanted to talk a little bit about your characters with Hita in mind particularly, since the story is based around her.

I'll come out and say it. I had no idea the Litwick was a girl until the guy had already captured her. I only found this out when he told his mon to attack her. The name Hita isn't really a clarifier, and since the story is from her point of view, it wasn't mentioned by her. You did describe the rest of her, so that was okay, but gender I had no idea on. It came as a bit of a shock, and then the perception of the story changed a bit. I had to go back a little and visualize different once I realized my assumption of male was wrong.

The character was very deep otherwise. I liked how you humanized her a bit, especially when she placed herself in that hero/guardian role. They're people too, and they're not invincible just because they have an important job. Like when Hita fell asleep when wrapped in the boy's arms while she was supposed to be guarding them. More than a week without sleep will do that to you. I think these types of things, though they're marked as mistakes in the story, let people relate to the characters more. They even have similar reactions to things at times. The best part though is that Hita learns to fight back from it, and that could possibly inspire that in someone else.

That's one of the reasons I can justify going for a double Litwick capture. Hita before her view on humans changed and then Hita after are a bit different. One who is hopeless and weak and one that fights. I definitely liked that change.

The rest of your characters played their parts just fine, considering none of them had names. That works though, because Hita is the one that has center stage, and since the plot revolves around her and what she thinks and does, names for the rest aren't necessary. They did serve as catalysts for Hita's actions, and that was their job. The bad guy gave her obstacles, the girl restored her hope, and the boy gave her a goal.

Detail/Description/Grammar: I'm lumping all of these together because I can. Not much to say here. Your descriptions and details are wonderful, per usual, like here, to name one of many:

And with an immense explosion, like a star gone supernova, the whirlpool exploded in a flash of purple. Indigo fire arced out from my body, turning the waters around it into pale clouds of steam.

It makes the battle easier to see in the mind. You have little trouble with describing.

There were a couple of typos though, more than I'm used to seeing from you. A lot of them were just wrong words, like cold instead of could, hate instead of had, etc. Be careful with those. I don't know if you went over this story a lot before posting, but make sure you do. Another look would catch most of those, either fresh or new eyes. I can't say if you're the type that likes to post as soon as they finish, but I know I had to untrain myself from doing that just because I'd find the work littered with typos a few days later XD.

Anther thing I'd like you to watch is your repeating words and phrases. I mentioned this about 'though' in the Intro section before. Another phrase you used pretty close together was here:

Brown eyes that I knew all too well faced mine. I watched as he gently set the rock he was holding in his hand to the ground. He had been prepared to throw it, but he knew that it was safe. He broke into a toothy smile, one that I knew all too well.

It happened with some words too, though I know it probably just slipped from your notice because you usually don't repeat. Just thought I'd point it out. It's simple enough to use like 'the woods' in place of 'forest', or something like that.

One thing I do want to say is that I love how you do your sections. The endings in particular. You have strong section ends, like defining sentences that both give a definite ending as well as a sort of lead-off into the next part because readers want to see what happens next. This is probably my favorite part of any story I read. Those last words are the things I remember the most from books/fics, whatever.

Length: Sigilyph, two Litwick, and a Houndour are Complex, two Hard, and Medium categories, giving you a range of 80-120k. I got 93,991 by my count, which is just shy under your estimated one with the tags. It's good to go regardless.

Reality/Miscellaneous: This is where I put odds and ends stuff that I don't want to fit elsewhere. There are only two things I really want to talk about.

One of them is the deal with the boy's mother. When Hita comes back to the house, she says she remembers the mother as nice, but in the beginning, you described the mother like this:

I had grown up in the place along with the boy, even if his mother disapproved.

and this:

Unlike his mother, who flew into a frenzy every time she saw me resting in his arms.

There's a little bit of a conflict here, since the two ideas are opposites. Either the mother was nice or she wasn't, unless everything Hita remembers is all warped and twisted because of her new way of thinking XD

The other thing that was kind of odd was that in the beginning, Hita was beaten fairly easily. She didn't have any power or was able to fight at all. Then, once she's beaten up a little and has even less energy, she's able to fight much better. I know she got paralyzed and taken by surprise the first time, but I just thought that seeing how she was guardian of the home, she would've put up a little more fight than she did. Granted, this could be part of her character development because she did mope around about how she failed, but it was just odd that a short time later, when first taken out of the van, she put up a huge fight. The same happened with the girl and in the woods, seemingly when she had no strength. Part of this could be due to desperation and having a goal, but it just didn't follow completely to me.

I guess long story short was that it was a little one-sided in the beginning, and then she seemed to get a ton of power from somewhere. It didn't really take away from the story at all, but it was something that piqued my interest as I read.

One last think I liked was your perception of being inside a Pokéball. Looking out from a glass window, being able to hear and stuff, makes perfect sense to me. I really liked that. Perhaps another fic idea? Spending ample amounts of time in the Pokéball...

Result:

This was a fun read. I really liked it. All areas were strong minus those few little things I mentioned. There were good themes and the main character showed a lot of development. It also ended on a strong note in both sections and the very end with a semi-open ending. Kudos.

Sigilyph: Captured
Litwick: Captured
Litwick: Captured
Houndour: Captured

Just keep in mind those things I talked about. Honestly, most of the issues can be caught with another glance over. I really liked the story. Have fun with the mons and be sure to ask me if anything was unclear ^^