Lost Hope

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14 energy

Leif had spent six days, as promised, in recovery. Team Sentima had decided on the outlaw mission that would allow them to fight, and to fight as much as possible. Leif had spent much of the walk to pricklemist in silence. He had given up on Sova. He had given up on a purpose. Whatever feelings he had left, excluding anger, he began to neglect. His body was still lithe after the recovery, but for such a short time he had gained an incredible amount of body mass from his starving form. His special band and red ribbon were tightly bracing his arms and fists, while his equipped defense scarf was loosely slung around his neck to be used as a tool when needed.

Despite the intensity he felt, his face bore little or no expression other than boredom or annoyance. "We're here." Leif factually announced as they arrived in pricklemist forest. He cared little for the prize or explorer points. He simply wanted funding for another meal, and a chance to fight. Ever since he teleported away, Leif had completely abandoned any sign of being so heavily determined to get Sova back, and treated the relationship as largely professional.

Leif had not known the exact range, so to be safe he teleported far away. Not quite as far as he could have, but just far enough where he could distinguish Sova as Sova. Being somewhat overkill, he realized he could not see the hail from this distance, and did not want to teleport too close, so he began walking back to Sova. He wasn't in a hurry, after all, he could see his friend. "See" his friend, anyways. There would be too many trees to see him with normal eyesight.

As the rustling sounds got louder and louder, Sova prepared to be attacked. To his surprise and dismay, flamethrowers were fired out of the cover of the trees from two separate directions, not directly at him, but just to the left and right of him so that he couldn't move to avoid them as they slowly closed in on him. He fired an Ice Beam in the direction one of the spouts of fire was originating from, stopping it, but not in time to avoid the other one enveloping him. He screamed in pain loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. His legs gave in and he collapsed to the ground, but the flames kept up for a few seconds longer before ceasing. He then heard a voice and footsteps approaching him. "Now let's see what kinda goodies he's got in that bag."

Though he was more focused on a different voice, one much more familiar to him. His own, echoing through his head. It was his voice but it for some reason sounded....different. Malevolent.

"What are you doing on the ground? Just gonna lay down and die? Heheh....Looks like you could use some help." The voice echoing through his head spoke. He began feeling hazy, as if he was about to pass out, but he felt his body get up. It was odd....as if he wasn't even in control.

"Hey, check this out. Guy's gettin' back up....Guess he wants some more." The charmeleon now only a few feet from him said.

(Saved the other enemy juuuuuuuust for Leif <3)

Leif heard Sova scream in pain, and suddenly, adrenaline raced through him. He was furious and protective, despite having snapped, something left from his previous care for Sova left him in a blind rage. His stored teleport energy was quickly released, taking him as high as he could go. He fell, his speed increasing before he teleported again, closer to Sova and again adding height, with the momentum from the previous fall. In increasingly rapid succession Leif began to streamline like a diver until he hit terminal velocity. He was moving too fast to be as accurate as he otherwise could, so he automatically decided to lock on to the biggest target. Finally on his last teleport, he appeared blazing, in front of the dinosaur, too fast for anyone react. Leif soared across the ground at incredible speeds, he twisted tor an Ice Punch, and the snap brought the speed of his fist to be blindingly fast, sending the much heavier dino rearing with a frost burn that could practically penetrate bone.

The Ramparos flew through a tree, while Leif's fist left contact just before then, fast enough to do optimal damage to the dino without getting hurt. Needless to say, the dino was not getting up any time soon, if ever. He huffed angrily, clenching his fist from the pain of the incredible impact. "Did I say you could hurt my partner?" He stood up, even his spine aching from the incredible recoil. His mind began to clear and the adrenaline with it, and he winced as it occurred to him the amount of damage this impact did. This was clearly something he would not be doing often.

Sova began walking towards the charmeleon, dragging his feet with each step. It was hard to tell if it was from the trancelike state he'd seemed to have fallen into, or the sheer amount of damage he'd taken. In reality; it was both. The charmeleon wasted no time in firing another flamethrower right into the zoned out glaceon's face. This time, however, the fire didn't seem to phase him. He had already lowered his temperature to levels so low that the fire was being extinguished before it could harm him. The torkoal attempted to join in and fired a flamethrower of its own, but to the same effect.

Sova ran through the flamethrower and froze his tail fur into spikes, spinning around so quickly the enemy couldn't even react and slamming his tail into the charmeleon's chest, knocking it to the ground. The torkoal stomped its' foot on the ground, creating a ring of fire around Sova. He darted out of the ring just in time to avoid the Inferno, then fired a Shadow Ball at the tortoise which stopped it from attacking again for just a moment....long enough for the glaceon to get into its' face and begin whacking away with his tail. The torkoal tried and tried to fight back, but was far too slow to hit the glaceon as he leaped around, pelting it with Shadow Balls and tail slaps. Finally, he spun and hit the enemy on the underside of its shell with his tail, lifting it into the air, and slammed the tail against its' head, knocking it to the ground, unconscious just as the LEIF BOMB fell on the nearby rampardos who was planning on helping.

He then turned his attention back to the charmeleon, who was still trying catch its breath and stand. He Quick Attacked into it, knocking it off its feet, and lifted himself into the air on his front paws before slamming his tail down on the charmeleon's head, shattering the ice off his tail and leaving the lizard unconscious with some serious gashes to think about. A disturbing smile crept onto the glaceon's face.

Leif was trying to watch the process, to make sure that Sova was fine, but as the adrenaline cleared the pain rapidly grew more intense. Though he had suffered little long term injury, the pressure on his bones caused his nerves to rapidly fire. Eventually the agony that flooded him nearly became too much for him to stay conscious. He tried to force himself up, watching Sova also breaker on the enemies. "G-got t-them..." his vision faded as he fell on the ground, just after watching the enemies be more than taken care of.

In his unconscious state, he entered a "dream" as a memory began to resurface. His brain, among the chaos, showed him a vision. A tododile and a ditto. Two family members. Isa and... he couldn't remember a name. Somehow, he knew that Isa was his brother, and the ditto, well, both a mother and father to them. After Leif had snapped and stopped caring, at a most ironic time, he knew his family. Some bit of his amnesiac fog had cleared.

Sova's twisted grin slowly faded and his eyes widened as he awoke from his trance, remembering nothing past feeling his body get up without his control. "W-wha....what happened!?" He yelled out in shock, looking around. All of the enemies were unconscious and seemed pretty severely battered. Even Leif was unconscious. Why was Sova the only one standing!? Had he hurt his friend? ....Friend? Did he consider Leif a friend? This was the first time he'd thought of the word "friend" in a while. What if he killed his friend??

He looked around frantically and backed away from the unconscious and possibly no longer living charmeleon. How could he not remember what happened!? "What ha-" He attempted to mutter between his panicked breaths, but was cut off by all of the pain from the battle suddenly rushing to him. His tail felt as if he'd slammed it into a rock....multiple times.... His body was covered in burns and he felt as if his energy had suddenly vanished as his adrenaline wore off. He felt gravity pull him down to the ground as his vision faded once more, this time to unconsciousness.

Leif awoke, disoriented. He took his blindfold off to check the sun for a vague idea of what time it was. It seemed dark... either they slept a whole day or about six to twelve hours had likely passed, he guessed.  He couldn't help but ponder what Sova had said earlier, completely denying the idea of going blind. He again tied the headband on. Not being able to tell light from dark could prove inconvenient. He sat down, still in significant pain. This was going to suck for a week. He chose to wait until Sova awoke so he could have more time to recover, and so he went to sleep. He dreamed of his time meeting Sova, his amnesia, and the memories he just regained. The majority of Leif that had already snapped would not have told Sova out of apathy, but some part of his remaining personality urged him to let his... Friend? Friend... Let his friend know that he got his memories back.

Sova woke up about an hour after Leif had first awoke, having had the best sleep he'd had in a long time. Probably because he was simply too spent to fight off sleep, his mind was probably too exhausted to even come up with any nightmares. "Uuuhg....five more minutes...." He muttered, closing his eyes again before remembering where he was and what had happened. Or at least what he could remember of what happened, which wasn't much.

He jumped to his feet and looked around. It definitely wasn't a dream. He darted over to the unconscious abra and pawed his neck checking for a pulse. "Whew....he's alive."

Leif opened his eyes. "H-huh?" He blinked, waking up, "So you're up now..." He was still half asleep, before remembering his "dream" and leaping to his feet, "Sova." He tried to find the right words. "Remember when we met back up in Grassveil six days ago? And how you asked about my amnesia? Well... I remember now. I remember who my family was, no, is. Yet, I don't really feel like I need to see them anymore, as ironic as it might sound." He stared blankly, "My father, he left me. He was an Alakazam. My mother, and the father of my brother, was a Ditto. My brother was a Tododile who taught me ice punch. Where we lived, we were ridiculed as being impure and wrong. We moved, until eventually I left home. I'm not sure what happened to my brother Isa. That's the gist of it, I suppose."

Sova listened patiently. "Jeez, that's rough....maybe you were better off NOT knowing." He said. What a sucky past. The glaceon was having a sucky pretend, but at least he'd had a nice past to think about. "Buut you don't have to worry about that aaaaaaaany more, because I'm here, and I'll kill anyone who makes fun of you." He said in a totally not creepy attempt to reassure his friend.

"So....since you're not running from me or attacking me, I assume I didn't knock you out...." He attempted to bring the topic to what had happened earlier.

"Not really. I mean, Isa and Ditto were fine. Isa's mom left before we really had a chance to know her, but she wasn't abusive like my dad. The only problem was the town we lived in, and I'm pretty sure they're still alive." Leif shrugged, "But I don't really feel a need to see them, so it doesn't really matter that I remember now." Leif chuckled at Sova's comment about not having to worry, "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

Suddenly his face contorted in embarrassment. "Yeah... about that... It wasn't you..." He sighed, "I heard you yell when you got hurt fighting... I... I... wanted to protect you...

"and...

"Well you see...

"I sort of...

"I ended up teleporting really high...

"Specifically... I did it over and over, I got going really fast, and then I smashed into the dinosaur... It was pretty stupid, I know... I don't think it's alive anymore... But Im probably going to be in pain for weeks..."

Sova tilted his head in confusion. "I don't even remember what happened.... But you clearly do, so mind filling me in? I got knocked out and you fought them, right?" He questioned. Hopefully he didn't have anything to do with this. But at the very least, he didn't attack his friend.

He wouldn't have even considered that maybe he had done anything violent if not for his odd memory of him getting up outside of his own conscious actions and him suddenly waking up over the charmelion. But these two things seemed like evidence enough to suspect so. Now he just needed to know what exactly happened.

Leif shrugged, glad he wasn't laughed at for his stupid stunt. "Oh... Well, you were fighting them when I passed out. Im not sure what happened. Last thing I remember clearly you were hurt, after that I was already passing out when you were fighting." Leif tilted his head, "why does it matter, anyways? I don't think I can recall a time you were reluctant to admit to fighting or the results of it."

Sova hesitated before speaking and stuttered, clearly nervous and worried. "I-I can't remember anything past getting hurt then getting back up....and I couldn't get up, I didn't have any energy to, i-it was like someone else was doing it for me....then nothing. I woke up standing near the charmeleon with everyone down but me, so I have no clue what the hell h-happened!" He grew increasingly more panicked as he heard himself talk and how crazy it sounded. How could he possibly expect Leif to believe him?

Leif obviously wasnt as concerned, it could even be derived from his facial expressions, "Well, I can assure you your body did everything here that wasn't involved with the Rampardos. Sometimes anger could cause one to black out. Or it really could be another consciousness taking over, since you said someone else was doing it for you." Leif lifted half of the headband to look at Sova with one eye, "I bet it's related to sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is tied to psychosis."