Why are we Even Here.

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Mercury the Fennekin dragged her friend Kye around a smoky haze of apparent toxins, following the directions that a shady Nidorino had given them earlier. She looked around at everything around them, though the misty fumes made it hard to see everything clearly. Regardless, Mercury bounced around energetically.

All the mist was AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZZZIIINNNGGG, and it was blowingerestering Mercury's tiny, broken mind.

"Wow Kye, look at all the mist around here!!!" Mercury exclaimed, bringing him closer and closer to the Gulch. It had taken them most of the morning to get here, and it was now around noon for them. "It's amazing, isn't it?! Have you ever seen anything like it?!?!" the odd Fennekin gushed. She was extremely happy, to be there, especially being there with her new, besterest best friend.

(Mercury - 3 Energy)

With the sweet embrace of the ground caressing him into sleep, Velikye almost wanted to submit to the desire. After all, he'd surely be fine if he just slept. But, even in his hazy mental state, he still retained the understanding that he needed to remain conscious as he was in a very dangerous place. Luckily, Mercury was there to make certain that he couldn't sleep even if he wanted to. With his luck, she would probably make sure he never slept again after this. As if resting wasn't already off the table when he was around her before... But this thought didn't bother him nearly as much as his companion's total obliviousness to what he'd just said to her. Had she not heard? It was probably hard to understand him over the blaring sound of her own voice, he figured.

The eevee listened idly as their escort tried to explain what he'd wanted. At least someone was paying attention. For a moment, he had hope that perhaps Mercury would now understand to just wish him back to health. Then, the fenniken leaned in close to him and began to gently scream in his ear about giving him an idea. This marvel of a thought that she felt would help him? Advice on washing himself... Very weird advice. Did he even have "whiter fur?" His fur was more of a silvery... gray kind of color, or at least he thought so. He supposed he would probably eventually have to explain that his fur wasn't white, but the more prominent concern was Mercury's all-encompassing lack of understanding.

Finally, Mercury understood what she had to do... Not really. She'd had to be tricked into wishing, which was kind of sad, but if it got the job done, then Kye had no complaints. Slowly, he began to feel the energy, first in the air then in his own body. The soothing influence took a moment to take effect, but once it did, his headache disappeared nigh-instantaneously. Rejuvenation rushed through his body and restored his lost energy, and he could finally open his eyes and see clearly again. The haze had lifted, and now, he knew exactly what he needed to do. First, he took a deep breath of fresh air now that he could enjoy it... and immediately regretted it with a cough as he was reminded that the air was, in fact, not fresh. After that bad idea, he decided it was about time to get up off the filthy ground and stop holding the others up.

With a somewhat-dull expression on his face, as if to show how unamused he was, Velikye stared at the fenniken for a moment. Then, without even the slightest bit of filter, he spoke: "You're such an airhead."
He was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing. While he didn't intend for it to be hurtful, he also wasn't finished yet, so perhaps the good intentions behind the statement were unclear. His demeanor completely changed as he sighed and nuzzled up to his friend for just a moment. "Never change," he spoke with a giggle before beginning to walk onward toward the guide.
Sure, Mercury was a total idiot, but she was the nicest, most fun idiot this eevee had ever met. Even if her lack of critical thinking ability annoyed him at times, he still couldn't think of anyone he would have preferred as a friend.

When Kye woke up, Mercury couldn't help but let out a gasp of pure astonishment. "Kye....." she exclaimed breathlessly, "you heard me! I figured you would though, the ground is a terrible place to sleep. Especially in a place full of grodie fumes." As he stared at him, for a moment Mercury stared back as if she were actually fully self-aware. Exactly what else were you expecting? her stare said, with just a hint of a smile. When he nuzzled her though, all of that went away again and she giggled too. "You don't have to worry about, I'm a Fennekin not a ditto!" She couldn't believe he thought she could change, though it was flattering. She hoped she could be impressive enough with her other talents that it wouldn't matter that she couldn't transform like a ditto could!

As he started to walk away, Mercury smiled and cheerily called out, "Hey Kye! Don't do that!" She said nothing else.

In the moment directly after that, a Nidoqueen reared up behind their big friendly bug boy friend and swung her giant, meaty arms right into the right side of his buggy noggin. She superman'ed that ho. Crank that soldja boi. His giant body left an after image he was rocketed into the wall so quickly. He wasn't even awake when his poor princely face was buried two inches deep into the rock wall beside him. Couldn't taste the minerals as he drooped down the rock (admittedly a little comically) and collapsed under the weight of his unconscious frog friend.

It's a home run, ladies and gentlemen.

Mercury stood there, still smiling like a dumb idiot. The look in her eyes, however, was decidedly not the look of a dumb idiot. There were indescribable feelings there. The kind that don't want to be superman'ed like that ho. In that moment, Mercury finally, finally experienced a ghost of something other than pure joy and amusement that wasn't caused by a tragedy with Kye.

"Hey Kyyyyyeeeee.....~ That's not normal, is it?~" She called in a sing-song voice that held an incalculable amount of tense undertones. The Nidoqueen slowly looked over at them. "I have a new game!" She looked at him, and then looked at a trail of rocks going up the side of the cliff, leading further up the gulch wall. "It's called this friend needs anger management!!!" She screamed as she started pushing him towards the rocks. "This is how it works!!! If we don't get punched into the rocks we WIN!!!!!"

When told to stop, Velikye stopped. Or at least, he assumed that was what the words "Don't do that" were supposed to mean; but regardless, they served to halt his progress. He glanced back to see what Mercury wanted and why she had decided to tell him to stop in such an odd manner; and he did get an answer, but not from her. It was only when the sounds of violence and danger drew his attention back away from his fluffy friend that he realized what it was she wanted. There was a large, blue creature fighting with the duo's guide, if it could even be called a fight. In an instant, the nidoqueen demonstrated her power by absolutely demolishing the opposition, leaving a very useless guide who was unconscious at best. She was clearly aggressive, and even more clearly strong, far too much so for a weak little eevee to do anything to. Kye would have thought that perhaps Mercury could do something, but aside from not being all that much stronger than himself, she would be at a disadvantage against this foe. He took a step back in absentminded fear as he stared at the nidoqueen, his body momentarily freezing up under the pressure.

Then came Mercury's voice once more, this time questioning if this was "normal." She was wording everything so oddly; the situation wasn't abnormal so much as dangerous, but he got the feeling she was registering that. Perhaps the looming danger was the reason for the fennekin's strange behavior; maybe she knew they were both in danger and just didn't know how to mentally process such a thing. Either way, they seemed to be on the same page in regards to this situation and how not good it was, which became further evident from Mercury's reaction when the nidoqueen's attention redirected to them. In truth, Kye found himself further unnerved by the mere act of meeting the thing's gaze, but it seemed to be hitting Mercury far harder. She actually appeared to be registering the danger of the situation, which was a shock since she didn't seem aware of risks and threats most of the time. Alas, congratulating her on this monumental achievement would have to wait until they were both out of the way of harm.

Upon being pressed toward the path his friend had chosen, Velikye bolted for the rocks; not that he needed to be told to run, but knowing Mercury was on-board helped. "Come on then!!" he shouted, wanting her to know that she didn't have to stay behind on his account. He was perfectly capable of running away from something without having to have someone telling him to do so and looking out for him. He wasn't exactly complaining about Mercury putting his safety over her own, but he didn't see how her sticking around to make sure he knew how to run and in what direction would help anything. Running away from things was pretty much the one thing he was good at; he didn't need any help with this of all things. In hindsight, that was a depressing fact, but it was not without its merits, especially in situations such as this. Sometimes, being a coward and being good at it wasn't such a bad thing; such a trait could preserve one's own life. For instance, in the event of being attacked by an angry nidoqueen, the ability to run away was starting to seem pretty useful.

And run he did, straight toward the rocky trail up the cliffside and up onto the poor excuse for a path. Without a moment's hesitation, he hopped up off the ground and made his way to the rugged terrain that would... hopefully carry him upward and away from the imminent danger. He wasn't sure if these rocks would be able to hold him, but he figured it had a higher chance of success than the alternative of sticking around with the nidoqueen. He stopped momentarily, but not due to any fear of the path giving out under him; actually, it was due to concern for Mercury. He wanted to make sure she was heeding her own advice and fleeing, though he wasn't sure what he would be able to do even if that turned out not to be the case.

Oh, Mercury was more than at Kye's heels. She was so at his heels that when he stopped she did a front flip over his back and landed on her back with a loud "guh," quickly followed by her scrambling to her feet and dancing around on all her tiny paws. She was all in a tizzy, her thoughts raced like bees, bouncing up and down and all around and in and out of her head. It had been fun climbing.... but they only had time for what they needed to do right now. They could try climbing in the grey rock houses later. Smaller pebbles around her seemed to shake and vibrate with her same anxious energy, but Mercury didn't notice. She looked at Kye with urgency and worry. "What, what is it Kye? Do you need something? Do you need a snack? I sure could use a snack, my legs hurt- but do we have time for a snack??? Did we win the game????"

BOOM.

The ground shook beneath their paws and rocks began to topple down and off the pile they were on as they were rattled out of place by the sudden shockwave. Mercury slooooooowly turned her head to see that the Nidoqueen was below them, standing just before a brand-new rift in the ground where a Skuntank was now laying, buried in cooling masses of dirt that had just been forced up onto it. Mercury's jaw dropped.

"Hey, no fair!! HACKS!!! That stuff puts out fire," she screamed, clearly irked that the giant brute had broken whatever rule Mercury thought was in place. Still, she wouldn't let the cheater deter them. She and Kye were better than that, and they were going to win. They had to win. the prize was going back to her den with her new friend; maybe they could play some gentler games and she could show him all the cool things her home! She wanted that now, that was all she wanted. This adventure was taking too long, it was getting in the way of them doing more fun things, and she was desperate just to get to a place where Kye didn't have to be scared and act weird. She turned to start running with all of this in mind, only to suddenly be slammed from the side and knocked over by something... round. She grunted in surprise both as she was hit and as she hit the ground. She tried to get up and see what had hit her, but not before another body landed on her stomach and knocked the wind out of her.

"Stay down!!!" a scratchy voice hissed.

"Just get the bag!! There's too much heat!!!" another demanded in a frenzy.

"Nobody said you could play!" Mercury protested as she coughed the air back into her lungs, flailing her legs around and squirming under the tiny bug legs that were pinning her down. The Venipede struggled against her as well, trying to get her to stay still enough for his companion to get her bag off her body. The stress pooled in her mind; visions and blotches of colors dancing around in her vision. She could feel the air vibrating around her, as it was mad too. It was like it had been before, a force growing in the back of her mind as her heart beat faster and her blood throbbed angrily in her veins. She groaned through her teeth as the pressure grew, starting to give her a headache. Pockets of psychic energy began to form in the air around her, flashing the colors of her duress in staggered palpitations. She wanted this bug off.

"Don't stand on me, stupid jerk!!!" Mercury yelled, a guttural cry dripping with her anxiety. The psychic blobs converged on the bug in the blink of an eye, exploding with physical force. The penetrating pressure knocked the bug out immediately, and sent his body and the remaining force flying into the rocks above. His body, buried under the rocks that became dislodged from the impact, created a useful way to continue onward.

Mercury was now finally able to adjust herself. She tried to do so in a panic, but almost immediately the strap from her bag caught her throat. The other Venipede, seeing this, twisted the bag and started to pull harder from behind her in the hopes of suffocating her. Panic filled Merc's chest once again as she realized she could no longer breathe. The air in her throat made gurgling sounds as it tried in vain to push past the strap. Her mouth hung agape as she flailed and flailed around like she had to throw the other bug off, but this time her struggle was making the strap tighten painfully around her neck. Undeterred and motivated by her will to win, she weakly flailed her paw at the strap until she caught it and managed to shove her paw underneath. Then she got the other one under. She used both her paws to pull against the Venipede, finally putting some breathing space between the strap and her throat.

"K-ye!!!!!" she screamed as she gasped for air. She looked over and saw the blue behemoth, who had taken notice of the struggle and was lumbering her way. "Kye, you gotta- caahck." In this moment of distraction, one of her paws slipped from the strap and it snapped back against her neck, the Venipede now pulling with more urgency. With this new urgancy though, Mercury could feel his grip slipping by the way he had to continually re-adjust. She wiggled her free paw around until she regained leverage, and then gave the bag a good, hard yank when she felt the Venipede re-adjusting again. It was enough to free her back from the Venipede's mouth, and Mercury wasted no time in weakly but quickly getting back on her feet and regaining control. She looked at the blue behemoth again as it began to try scaling the rocks. She looked behind her, and she could see the Venipede scuttling towards her.

This was a bad situation. If they kept on like this, they'd loose.

"Kye!!" she screamed again as she kicked the Venipede's face away with her hind leg. "Kye, you have to go on!!! You have to go, otherwise we won't win!!" The Venipede spun around while she was calling to him, jabbing one of it's stingers in her stomach. She squealed in pain; this was a really annoying time for a play fight. "I'll keep distracting! I'll take another way around!!! ....You have to win! You have to!!!!"

Velikye was about as unprepared for Mercury to be right behind him when he stopped as she was; and having the fennekin's form thrown over him was enough to knock him down as well. He scrambled back to his paws, fortunately unscathed from the little fall, but the group fleeing exercise was put on hold as the nidoqueen assaulted what seemed to be some random passerby; violently and loudly, at that. Despite the protest of his instincts, Kye turned around to look instead of just fleeing. There, he saw the large creature hovering over a skuntank, which he felt was weird since he hadn't noticed anyone else in the area. Granted, he wasn't exactly looking for random strangers to pay attention to at the moment. He couldn't help but stare down at the nidoqueen and wonder if he should have felt bad for her victim. He didn't like just watching some stranger get hurt and letting it happen, but there was no way he was going to go try to help. He may have felt the slightest bit of shame at his own cowardice, but his desire to survive was far greater.

What finally snapped him back to focus was actually Mercury... sort of. The variety of sounds emanating from her direction drew his attention to her just in time for him to see two venipede attacking her. It was pretty easy to gather from their words that they were thieves trying to mug her, and apparently pretty sneaky ones at that; he had failed to notice their approach and wasn't sure where they had come from. The poor, naive fennekin barely seemed to understand what was happening; that she was being attacked by criminals; real criminals. Kye knew he was supposed to help, because she was his friend and she didn't deserve what was happening to her, but he... didn't. He didn't even try. He just stood there watching, unmoving as if he genuinely just wanted to watch the scene play out. He didn't, but he was too scared to help Mercury despite how kind she had been to him. In truth, he barely knew her, and he wasn't willing to risk his life for anyone, let alone someone he'd only known for a week or two. He was a coward and he knew that, but he still felt guilty about it.

He watched one of the venipede begin choking his supposed friend, and he could see that it was working; she was struggling to breathe and probably in pain. He felt an impulse to rush to her aid, yet he remained in place. He wanted to run, but his body was refusing to let him, as if it knew that was wrong. He couldn't flee and he wouldn't help, which left him frozen in place, doing nothing to protect Mercury nor himself. He tried to rationalize fleeing in his mind, thinking about how the airhead probably would have met the shady guy telling her to go to this horrible place regardless, and how she probably would have gotten into this exact same situation regardless. All things considered, the presence of the eevee to guide her away from stupid decisions and help her not die in general had probably gotten her further than she would have managed on her own. He had done his part, and Mercury had still managed to get herself in a situation that was almost certainly going to result in her death. He didn't want to join her.

Through the asphyxiation, he could hear the shallow and strained voice of the fennekin calling out to him. He assumed she was calling for his help, for him to save her, but he would do no such thing. He could not bring himself to help even if he wanted to, and truthfully, he didn't want to. Putting his life on the line for someone else's was not something he was a fan of. He absentmindedly stepped away from the scene as if to show his refusal toward what he assumed was a call for help. He didn't want to abandon Mercury, but really, what choice did he have? Stay and die to show his support for her? He was already stumbling away and turning to run before Mercury had even freed herself. He had already decided to leave her and save his own skin. He couldn't exactly say he didn't care about the pleads for his help, but it wasn't anywhere near enough to get him to stay. Despite this, he was finding it difficult to motivate himself to run; he knew it was time-sensitive and the nidoqueen would probably stamp out any chance of escape if he didn't go while Mercury served as a distraction, but he still found it difficult to move.

Kye turned around once more in his own hesitance, this time to see Mercury freeing herself from the chokehold of the bug trying to strangle her. The eevee turned and bolted, now able to find solace in the possibility that maybe the sweet little idiot would survive. Deep down, he knew this was naive, but it was something he could use to help motivate him to just leave. He could feel something wet on his face which it took him a moment to realize the source of. He was crying? Over someone who may as well have been a stranger and probably would have just weighed him down anyway? It wasn't his job to babysit some barely-developed child and risk his own life for hers. It wasn't his duty to die for someone else, especially when they were just going to go and die too regardless of what he did. Still, he found himself stopping again if only for a moment; this time however, he did not turn around. He refused to give so much as a glance back to see how the victim was faring, though he did take a look down at the nidoqueen to remind himself that he needed to look out for his own safety.

Then he heard Mercury's voice once more, this time telling him to run. She was actively encouraging him to flee and leave her behind. Did she even know what she was truly telling him to do; that she was asking him to leave her to die? Did she understand the weight of the situation and the danger she was in? Kye barely even thought about it before his body started moving, scaling the rocky terrain in the opposite direction of everything. It didn't matter if she understood or not; Mercury had accepted her fate and told him to run. Still, despite this, his heart was torn at the prospect of his actions. Please, he thought to himself as a lightheaded feeling overcame him. Please don't die, the wish reverberated throughout his mind. I'm sorry... Please live, he practically begged. He had no one and nothing in his life. Mercury was the only thing he could even come close to calling a friend and now he was leaving her. He wanted that to remain true, but he couldn't bring himself to put his own safety at risk for hers. He was practically begging the world to just give him this one thing, even though he had done nothing to earn it.

A faint glow emanated from his body for just a moment as he fled. He didn't ask for things often, let alone things he knew no one could give him. He knew it wasn't his place, but sometimes he just couldn't help it. And in this case, he knew his wish had some weight to it. Maybe it would matter.

Please let her live...

One more wish; one he knew he didn't deserve to have granted.

Mercury saw Kye running and felt a renewed burst of energy deep within her. She knew he had understood the importance of winning, of getting away. And with two of them, they could get things done twice as quickly!! She had hope now, hope that they could get though this situation and finally get home!

She whipped around and spewed a mouthful of hot embers on the Venipede, which easily deterred him from his rollout move and sent him packing with a harsh burn. Watching him run gave her some feeling of accomplishment; clearly she had won this little encounter. She allowed herself just a moment to bask in this victory before her head was back in the game. The little fox then turned and dashed to get behind a rock before the big angry anger friend saw her and came to force-feed her fuzzy face big rocks!!!

She felt powerful, warm, like she had just eaten a whoooooole forest of sticks, but she also felt... something not warm. Something not happy. Something... Mercury couldn't put her paw on it, but it made her feel worried for Kye. She looked up the rocks from her hiding space, but she couldn't catch a glimpse of him. She just got the feeling.... like he was acting droopy. She had to catch up to him!! She had to figure out what was the matter!!! She.... she wanted to give him a hug. She kind of wanted a hug herself, to be honest. Something to reassure her that she was going to be okay, that they were going to be okay. It didn't take long for things to get lonely without Kye around. It was like when she had been alone... only she hadn't realized that anything had even been missing until Kye had been there!!!! Mercury didn't want to go back to not having Kye. Man, now she was feeling droopy too.... but it wouldn't be much longer that she had to feel droopy. It was really time to go home, anyways. There's no better place to not feel droopy than at home.

Mercury was snapped out of her thoughts by the sensation of a looming figure over her and her rock.






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The titanic creature lifted Mercury off the ground as if she were a feather, small and insignificant against a mountain of muscle and poison. The giant angry friend turned Mercury around and suddenly Mercury was staring her giant mug dead in the eyes. Mercury was almost certainly a loser at this point, but... maybe not....? She hadn't been buried in a pile of rocks at least.

The Nidoqueen sighed in slight relief as she finally felt her grip close around the tiny vulpine child. They had run so fast, and had been so hard to catch... She wondered what foolish parents had let such young children wander so far into such a dangerous place. The carelessness boggled her mind.

"Who are you?" The creature asked in a deep, gruff voice. With every passing second, Mercury felt a little less nervous around this friend. She was big..... and punchy, but she hadn't punched Mercury when she caught her. Maybe... she was just a good sport? Maybe she had just been getting the interrupters out of the way? Whatever the reason,

"Uhm... My name's Mercury.... friend?"

"Mmmm," the Nidoqueen grunted,  You're too young to play here. You need to grow more before you come wandering in a place like this." Mercury would never know it, but the Nidoqueen was looking at her with melancholy eyes. The eyes of one who had lost someone dear to them, perhaps. A childless mother, one who was all too familiar with the area and the consequences of visiting it. The way she held Mercury was tight, but still ginger. She felt a pang of regret flash through her heart as she looked down at the small form in her hand, perhaps reminiscing on a past life that she could no longer return to. Mercury of course had no idea about any of this, but she did find that big maybe-not-so-angry friend was strangely... soothing to her. It was cathartic in a way that Mercury would never understand like this, the feeling of a motherless child and a childless mother healing each other. "It's time for you to go home. Back where you came from; you and your friend." She lifted Mercury to her shoulder and set her there, finally providing the tiny fox with the sanctuary she needed to finally rest.

But how could Mercury rest?!??! She was so TALL now on top of this friend!! She looked around in awe at how much she could see. If loosing was this amazing, Mercury wouldn't mind doing it more often every now and again! Maybe. Probably not. But it was cool while it lasted!!

"Wow, it sucks that we lost but I can see everything here! Although I guess I haven't been punched into any rocks yet so I guess we haven't lost yet!!" Mercury exclaimed.

The creature stopped climbing the rocks a second to give her a strange look. "You think you're playing a a game? This isn't a place for kids or games."

"Well that explains why it's so hard to play anything here!!"

The Nidoqueen snorted. "Do your parents let you do things like this often?"

Mercury's tail wagged. "My parents will let me do anything because they're not here!!! They're SLEEPING, far away!! They're sleeping A LOT!!!"

The Fennekin's answer deeply disturbed the Nidoqueen. She chose not to pursue the topic further to avoid upsetting the child, but she still felt as though she had to say something to correct the Fennekin's confused thinking. "Even if they're far away, I don't think they would want you running and playing in dangerous places like this," she responded.

"Huh, why?"

"Because they wouldn't want you to get hurt. They would want you to stay safe."

The sentiment was mostly lost on the Fennekin. "Okay...." she said in her confusion, although the Nidoqueen mistakenly took this for acceptance. Surely Kye could explain it to her more when they caught up....

"Kye!!!!" Mercury yelled in a panic as she suddenly caught a glimpse of the very mon she had been thinking about. Far in front of her, she could see Kye, surrounded by two big double balls and then two smaller balls, all giving him smiles that Mercury couldn't believe were actually smiles. They were more like..... sludge. Gross and slimy sludge that had no business being around her good friend Kye. She started to get anxious again, her paws tapping on big friendly not angry friend's shoulder nervously. They were so far away... and big friend wasn't getting there very quickly. Her nerves began to build up around her, in the air more glowing orbs began to form....

"This is why you don't split up in a place like this..." the Nidoqueen huffed to no one in particular as she redoubled her efforts to get up the rocks.

Ahead, a small group of mobsters held Kye under their beady stares. Their smirks were predatory and disgusting, the type you would never stop to associate with. With four of them blocking every direction of escape however, Kye didn't have much of a choice.

"Those Venipede are useless," the largest Weezing huffed. "They'd never finish the hit if it weren't for us." He inspected Kye with a piercing glare, leaving nothing unexposed in his inspection of the small fluff. "You're pretty worthless on your own, aren't you? Literally. All your possessions, your power, everything you got's with the girly. You ain't even got the sense to stick with what you do got!!" he chortled. "Yeah, in this territory that's about equivalent to a big fat diddly dang 0. At least it would be, if you didn't have that special sort of shine to your fur." He got closer to Kye and his sneer grew wider. "The way I see it, you got two worths now: if that girl somehow survives, you make a pretty good bartering chip before we figure out how much that fur of yours is worth exactly.  If she gets got, well, it's just the fur. We'll go clean up what's left of her and then we'll be on our way to a.... friend of mine. He'll be able to tell you exactly what scraps ya had left." One of the Koffings watched over the cliff to see what was becoming of Mercury.

"Oh god, it's got her. I can't watch this," the Koffing groaned, turning away and moving back to the group.

"Yer a fucking pansy and you always have been. I should make you watch," the large Weezing huffed.

Fleeing from the things that were targeting his "friend" was easy, but his own guilt was a different story. Kye was upset; he would have been wracked just from having to leave someone to their own demise like that, but the fact that it was someone he knew and who had been so kind to him... He was coward, but not unfeeling. He felt as if he didn't even have the right to feel guilt for his own actions; after all, it wasn't like he was doing anything to right what he had wronged. It was his own choice to leave and abandon someone in need, and he should have been able to take responsibility for that. If he wanted to survive with the hand life had dealt him, he would need to learn to cope with whatever he had to do to accomplish that. It wasn't right of him to want both guaranteed survival and happiness, and it was just flat-out stupid to expect both. He had learned already that he needed to prioritize himself in a world that would do him no favors. Feeling regret for that was stupid and wasn't helping anyone, let alone himself.

His heart sank when he spotted a figure ahead and realized his efforts had been for naught. As he grew closer, he could see the thing blocking his path was a weezing, and one with a very eerie grin directed at him. His stride slowed to a halt; tail and ears drooped in fear. After what he had just done, sacrificing Mercury to save himself, he was done for anyway. With some desperate hope still lingering in him, he turned tail to flee; a second weezing stamped out his dwindling hope by cutting him off from behind. Before he knew it, he was surrounded on all sides by big balls of ick; and he knew it was over. He was completely and utterly disheartened. Perhaps he deserved this. He hung his head toward the ground and awaited whatever was to become of him, but to his surprise, one of the clearly hostile creatures opposing him... spoke. He was expecting to simply be attacked, maybe killed on the spot, but instead they were speaking to him. Suddenly, he had hope again, albeit not much.

The first thing he noted was that these things were with the venepede who had attacked Mercury. By the word "hit," he assumed it wasn't just about robbing her; killing the victims seemed to be a part of the plan here. This suspicion seemed to be confirmed when one of the weezing spoke of taking his fur. The thought sent shivers down his spine, primarily because he was pretty sure they wouldn't be satisfied with just shaving him. Despite this, he was glad; they were talking, which meant he could try to talk his way out of this. He wasn't quite ready to die and become someone's scarf. "My fur's dyed. Sorry to disappoint, but you're right; I'm literally worthless," he spoke with sudden clarity and confidence that betrayed his fear. It was still very clear that he was scared, but he was suppressing the panic that came with it. Fighting was far from a skill of his, but talking was a different story entirely. He wasn't a fan of socializing, but he knew how to talk when he needed to. His hope was rekindled and he now believed he stood a chance of surviving. All he had to do was convince them he wasn't worth killing.

Unfortunately, it seemed the glorified volleyballs were smarter than they appeared. "We'll see," came the short response that told him all he needed to know.

They weren't going to let him go just because he claimed his fur was dyed; they would take him with them to wherever they planned to do the deed, then they would take their time figuring out if his words were true. Then... he could only assume they would kill him either way. But he was undeterred; they had been given the thought that perhaps his fur didn't hold the worth they thought it did, and he could work with that. "My fur's worthless, but I have things. I don't have anything with me specifically so I don't get mugged, but that clearly didn't work, so I guess I just lose my stuff either way!" he huffed in faux agitation, wanting to make it appear as if he were genuinely upset at the idea of having his nonexistent belongings stolen. He had nothing, but they didn't know that. He could still save himself if he could just string them along.

"Kid, you don't have anything worth more than what you're wearing," the weezing responded yet again, continuing to be an immobile obstacle to his deceit. It still seemed to believe he wasn't dyed; granted, it was right, but he had to find a way to make it think otherwise.

All the eevee knew was that this group was out for money; they had targeted Mercury and himself to rob them, and now they wanted his fur since they believed they had nothing else to steal off him. They would probably have wanted his coat regardless, but if he could just convince them that maybe they wouldn't get anything for it, and maybe they could get something by letting him live if only a bit longer, then he could give himself some time to think of a way out of his situation. "I have money; more than you'd ever get for me, I guarantee. You could choose not to believe me, but then you won't get anything when you find out I'm telling the truth. Or you could let me take you where I stashed my stuff, then you know you'll get something out of it!" he spoke quickly, but not frantically. He was keeping himself calm so it looked like he wasn't just blabbing out everything he could think of to save himself.

Still, he felt he needed more. "Just please, let me live. That's all, and I'll give you everything I have," he pleaded. In truth, he didn't expect them to willingly spare him even if they actually agreed to; he just wanted to make it look like he believed they might. He needed them to think he was just someone at the end of his rope willing to give up everything he owned to save himself. He was, but the issue was that he didn't actually have anything to give. Fortunately, the group seemed to be considering his words; none of them had immediately responded by shooting him down, which was about the closest thing to a good sign he could ask for. If they still refused to budge, he was prepared to run. If that failed, he would fight even if there was no hope of him winning. Even if it made the inevitable demise harder on him, he would do everything to live until then.

...Then he heard Mercury's voice calling out to him. She was alive? He had heard one of the koffing say something about how the nidoking had gotten to her, which had been pushed to the back of his mind, but it certainly seemed like a fair assumption that that would have been the end of Mercury. If she was still alive, then...

Maybe there was some real hope that he would be saved. Kye knew he deserved what he was getting, but that didn't mean he was going to just take it; it didn't mean he couldn't hope.

The cavalry's a'comin, Kye baby.

From out of the rocks not too far away crawled another nidoqueen, supposedly looking for where it's counterpart had gotten off to. This one was noticeably older, a mother's mother perhaps. She emerged from a cave den high in the rocks, one clearly set out of the way. It was not easily detectable, but it everything below it was. The elder nidoqueen could see for miles, easily catching a visual of her daughter...

...chasing some kids around. Sigh. That girl had always had some problems. She hadn't been right in the head since the day she was hatched, but she was only a little slow. She had made good progress... but even now it seemed her daughter still hadn't learned to stay out of trouble. She understood why her daughter did this though. She knew the couldn't help it; it was the guilt and the frustration that ate at her with every passing day that encouraged her to get involved like this. It was a compulsion, maybe an atonement for her. No matter how many times the elder had tried to convince her that it was just her head, the daughter still persisted. The mother couldn't help but feel that she was failing her daughter.

That would be a thought for later mulling. For now, the elder lit up a pipe and began to lumber down to where her daughter was causing a scene once again. She actively avoided having the thought of "I'm too old for this shit" creep into her mind. It was cliche, not to mention she had it at least three times a week.

Down below, the arrival of Mercury and her companion was definitely a head-turner, throwing the gang surrounding Kye off their game for just a moment. They clearly hadn't been fully expecting this alternative, although they clearly weren't surprised enough to surrender anything either. Their arrangement did shift a bit out of caution though; the two weezing moving up to the front while the koffing held the back. There was a moment of unspoken silence (a miracle with Mercury present) where all sides stared at each other with unspoken meanings behind their eyes. Mercury looked at no one but Kye, the Nidoqueen glared accusingly at the mob, and the mob glared back, challenging anyone to do something. The slimeball weezing in particular kept looking at the nidoqueen, sizing her up with the same invasive glare that he had used on Velikeye. Suddenly, he grinned.

"Hey, isn't this fitting," he chortled with venom in his voice, all of his tensions suddenly melting away. "It's the mentally challenged dinosaur. Oh wait, is that too many big words for you?" he sneered. "I should have known it was you. Stupid attracts stupid."

The Nidoqueen suddenly cut him off. "He's just a kid. Let him go."

"Game's over, we can stop now!!! We should all go home, friends!" Mercury added in, hopping down and taking a few futile steps to try and get at Kye. She didn't make it very far before the weezing stopped her, though she was only paying the minimum amount of attention to him. "It's still on, I'm just pretending," she mouthed at Kye.

"There's no fuckin game and ain't nothing fuckin over, you brain-dead infant. Nobody here's your friend. No. Body. Not us, not that big dolt behind you, and not this guy. You hear me? You're roadkill. Fuckin understand already." The weezing seemed fed up, hostility spilling over into the gulch air in the form of verbal abuse. "Even if this guy had enough of a spine to be friends with you, he wouldn't want to. You're a hassle. I'm getting a headache just talking to you. But this guy, he's too busy bein smart and sacrificing your fuzzball ass. I'll bet you'll barter for him anyways, if I even want your money. Numbskull." the weezing spat at her.

Mercury.... didn't understand this. She didn't understand the words, granted, but even moreso she didn't understand the tone. The way he looked directly at her and said these things like a wild animal, she just couldn't handle it. She stared at him, but no words came out. She felt so, so uncomfortable. Nothing felt like a game here. Nothing felt even remotely close to happy. For another sobering second, Mercury flashed into the reality that she currently inhabited. The rocks were empty where they had held adventure. She looked at Kye's face. Nothing. She looked at the big pokemon. Nothing. A shiver ran down her spine. She came to the conclusion that she didn't recognize this place at all. What was that guy saying? Why was it making the world so distant? She had to figure something out, she had to find something. But there was nothing that the ball of gas had said that made any sense to Mercury. Niether did her reactions. Suddenly, she was on the outside. She had no reaction, no feelings, no words, watching somebody who looked like her in a completely foreign world. Through all of this, Mercury stared into his face, speechless and frozen in place.

He could hardly believe there were pokemon this stupid in the world. He really had to try to not just take his frustrations out on her right there, on someone who was probably too stupid to realize they were even getting used. It would have been a nice, easy break from this wrench that was now thrown into everything. He distracted himself by focusing harder on the nidoqueen, still sneering like a mad man. "This is ridiculous. I can't believe you're both too slow to realize you're in no position to be making demands. As far as I remember, there's four of us here producing way more than an eevee's lungful of air, and he ain't that far away." He clearly wasn't done, getting some kind of kick out of this. "What makes you think he's safer with you anyways? Heard you lost a tyke or two to some cliffs you were too slow to pay attention to. Someone dangerous like you doesn't deserve more kids; you already failed your own. Get it through your thick head!!!"

The nidoqueen was completely taken aback. She recoiled back from his harsh treatment, but it wasn't like she wasn't used to it. Still... something about the way he talked struck her. She was sick of feeling worthless. Even now, with her massive form and all her strength, she felt. so. worthless. Nothing she did was good enough. She balled up her massive paws into fists and they shook with her disgrace. She just wanted to be better. She had tried so hard for them... but even that she couldn't keep up with.

The others around the weezing were starting to look uncomfortable. They whispered things like, "C'mon, it's not worth it," and "We're wasting time here. We could have been there and back by now," and, "That little bag isn't worth bartering for, let's just go..." but the weezing glared at them all, threatening them too. He was going to make these 2 bit idiots understand.

"You finally understand, pea brain?" the weezing spat.

"HOW ABOUT YOU SHUT UP," the nidoqueen roared back. The loud noise was enough to catch Mercury's attention, even through her spiral. She looked up at the big creature, who's face boasted something Mercury had seen before. Something she had seen in her papa's face.

Fear. Mania.

Determination?

Mercury didn't recognize them as what they were, but she knew the feelings they made her feel. Those made sense to her. Okay, that made sense. There was something. She could vaguely start to feel her head pounding. Was her face... damp? Why were her eyes so warm and throbby?

"You don't know anything. You don't know anything!" The nidoqueen continued behind Mercury. "You take and you take and you live for yourself! You don't mean anything to anyone. You couldn't possibly; you'd rather take advantage of another life for your own gain. How could you understand what it's like? You couldn't know what it's like to try so hard, only to have it ripped away!!"

"......how bout you say that again to my face," the weezing challenged.

"How about none of you say anything," the nidoqueen mother said upon her arrival. NOW the koffing and weezing were backing up.

Mercury looked all around, but the only thing she could really make out that was familiar was the big creature and Kye's face, and even that was far away. What did that guy mean? Kye didn't want to be her friend? The phrase meant nothing in Mercury's mind. He... he didn't have to be her best friend anymore, maybe she could just help him. But he didn't act like he didn't want to be her friend? So what did that mean then? Friends don't have to be best friends, and nice people make good friends. Working together made things easier... So why didn't Kye want to be at least kind of her friend? Kye didn't want to be her friend..... because he was afraid? What was he afraid of? Why did he have to be so far away? She wished he was closer. She wished he would help her understand again, but she didn't want him to be afraid. If he was afraid, she would just be his friend. He didn't have to be her friend.

She decided she had to tell him this. With the koffings and the weezings distracted, she walked up to him easily.

"Kye...." her voice came out painful and scratchy. When had it gotten so painful to talk? Things still felt hazy; Mercury herself was feeling woozy. It wasn't important now, though. She had to tell Kye. "Kye, I'm sorry I didn't see you were scared. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry," she rasped. "It's all so confusing, Kye... it's hard for me to understand. But I..... I don't want to be a bad friend to you. Friends are supposed to understand each other and be able to help. Since I don't understand.... and since you're scared, you don't have to be my friend anymore, if that's helpful. I can just be your friend." She hung her head, "Just... if you can, please don't stop being around? I'll miss you if you go."

Kye didn't get an answer, but he wasn't necessarily disappointed by this development; for better or worse, Mercury happened to show up before the gang could do anything.  The eevee felt hopeful for a moment, relieved at the sight of his friend who had apparently tamed the nidoqueen.  He didn't know how or why and he wasn't interested in questioning it; he was just happy to see there was a chance of being rescued.  At first it seemed both of his wishes had been granted, and over time that assumption wasn't really changing.  However, he began to feel terrible all the same.  The group threatening to probably kill him were being about as cruel as one could expect, but the more they spoke with the nidoqueen... and with Mercury... the more Kye started to realize about himself.  He had abandoned Mercury and fled for his own life, they said; because he didn't care about her and wasn't her friend, they said.  At first, he had been staring hopefully at Mercury, trying to keep his attention on her and not the villains surrounding him, but as the conversation progressed around him...

The silvery eevee's gaze fell to the ground as he hung his head in shame.  Heartless villains who would skin someone and sell their fur for no reason... were complimenting him.  The weezing said all these cruel things about him, yet agreed with his choices, even going so far as to compliment him.  He had the approval of a presumed serial killer.  His body shuddered and recoiled into itself at the thought, making him look much smaller than he was.  His ears drooped and tail lay flat on the ground, though this betrayed his true feelings.  He wasn't so upset over the looming threat on his life; that still terrified him, but it hadn't exactly gotten scarier since a minute prior.  He was more mad than anything else, and at himself in specific.  Was he truly so corrupt that such black-hearts would approve of him?  Of course, he had gotten his fair share of insults out of this encounter as well, but those were expected; those made sense.  Besides, he wasn't too bothered at the prospect of someone else insulting him.

What really hurt was that every single word said about him was true.  He was a coward; that much was obvious and really didn't hurt his feelings all that much.  But it was also true that he had willingly abandoned Mercury, even before she had told him to.  He didn't know her well, but she had done nothing to deserve that.  Worse yet, he knew that in the same exact situation, he would do it again; something the group of criminals seemed to be aware of as well.  In hindsight he didn't consider Mercury to be much of a friend and was just using her for entertainment... to make him happy.  He had been insensitive to her feelings and well-being in regards to everything, and worse yet, he seemed to be leading her on to think that he truly cared about her.  She was nice to him and, in hindsight, that was the only reason he had stuck around her thus far; he had gone out of his way to be nice to her, but still, that was all he had done.  And now, she had gone and dragged him into trouble.  He was already swimming in a mixture of anger toward himself and toward the fennekin, tuning out pretty much the entire conversation at that point, but then she just had to go and start talking again...

She was sorry...  Velikye's eyes darted up to meet her in a glare, but they widened at what he saw.  Simply put, she was crying.  For a moment, his look of hate faltered in shock, the feelings being directed inward once more in his ever-present state of guilt.  However, as the fennekin continued to speak, his emotional disarray... changed.  His glare returned and intensified, this time properly portraying what he felt.  He had many reasons to be mad; Mercury had gotten him into this situation and was too stupid to understand that; she couldn't even understand the danger they were in because of her; she thought he was afraid of her of all things; and... the weezing who seemed to be in charge was interested in him.  To some extent, this weezing had complemented him, so it wasn't a far cry to think that perhaps if he did enough to appeal to what the big ugly ball of toxins liked about him... maybe he would be spared.  He was more than willing to do what he was about to do for his own life, but this was far from his only reason.

"You..." he spoke in a barely-audible and strained tone.  He was still absolutely terrified, and with the added anger on top of it, he was visibly shaking.  Despite his feelings, he still lacked the nerve for confrontation, but that was beginning to change.  "You think I'm afraid... of you?" he continued, this time more audibly as the slightest bit of conviction made itself present in him.  Then, his voice snapped into a shout, "I'm afraid of THEM, you idiot!!"  He barely took the time to breathe before continuing, "They want to kill me; to SKIN me!!"  The integrity of his voice was devolving into a strained, scratchy scream, showing how he was abusing his vocal cords.  A strange feeling welled up inside him; fear, but not the same as before.  It was a certain brand of stress that he hadn't felt since...  "I DON'T WANT TO DIE, BUT YOU MADE THIS HAPPEN!!"  Familiar thoughts of gore flashed through his mind, fueling his tantrum.  At this point there was very little thought behind his speech, and it was continuing to diminish.

"You just had to be so nice and so hard to say no to and just drag me to some deathtrap!" his voice shook and wavered, tears welling up in his eyes.  He didn't trust a handicapped nidoqueen and her friend or mom or whatever to save him; even if they could fight the gang, they wouldn't be able to get to him in time to guarantee his safety.  They were just provoking the things that wanted him dead, doing nothing to help him in the process.  He was saving himself.  It was so hard to stare at Mercury's sad face and yell at her, but a part of him truly wanted to; she deserved to know the consequences her own stupidity could have on others, if she was even capable of comprehending it.  "I'm not afraid of you.  I just hate you," his voice suddenly sounded tired, lacking the confidence and energy it had held just moments prior.  His thoughts kept going back to the sight of his parents, fear and anxiety overwhelming the anger that served as his primary motivation.  Suddenly, everything seemed to be spinning, the world growing blurry around him.  He stumbled; he seemed to be standing, which he assumed he must have done absently at some point during his... he had no idea what to call it.

Maybe if he could be the villain in the eyes of the villains, they would accept him rather than kill him.  He finally gave in and allowed his mind to cling to the thought it so desperately pulled him toward.  His look of anger had turned to that of a sad, scared child, which was exactly what he was.  Dreadful images painted his consciousness, dragging him away from reality.  He couldn't decide whether it was a relief or perhaps a punishment for his attack on Mercury.  The realization of how he had just wronged her suddenly hit him, serving only to further cripple his mental state.  He was drawn away from his consciousness and allowed to see Mercury once more, albeit through blurry eyes filled with tears.  The sight of the fennekin's form foregrounded a different memory in his mind: he had risked his own safety to help her during her earlier... episode... and after all that, what was it he had said?  Never change?  Here he stood, raving at her about how horrible she was just for being herself, and yet just minutes prior he was telling her never to change.

He wanted her to be who she was only when it suited him.  He wanted to yell at her about his problems because he knew there would be no consequence.  His words may have held some honesty, but he was really just blaming some poor kid who'd done nothing but treat him kindly for his own life.  He tried to deny how miserable he was on a daily basis, and now he had something to let all that misery out on.  He knew he was pathetic, but just how true that was had been out of the scope of his understanding... until now.  This may very well have been the last thing he would do, and he had chosen to take his problems out on someone else in his final moments.  That was how he wanted to be remembered?

Velikye tried to turn away from Mercury.  The very act of looking at her was paining him.  He spun his body to the left, his sight carrying along with the rest of him... and then black.  The eevee's turning motion abruptly shifted and his body fell limply to the ground.

Everybody just kind of silently watched the eevee as he toddled before falling over. The koffing didn't even move to stop him, nor did the weezing. They just watched. There really wasn't much else to do, he kind of just... exploded and then keeled over. It was... something.

"That was... somethin'," the weezing grunted.

"Oh you're one ta talk," the older nidoqueen grunted back.

Mercury's nose began to bleed.

...

There was silence for a bit before the confrontation continued. "As I was saying..." the weezing continued, clearly having lost his place. The elder nidoqueen tapped her foot in a very "oh, this oughta be good" way. The weezing was still blank for a second, as if not sure where to go with any of this.

It took the younger nidoqueen no time at all to charge blindly in, taking advantage of his pause. She hurled her entire body weight on top of him. This action sparked a frenzy of a brawl, with even the elder nidoqueen cursing and jumping in.

Mercury just looked down at her friend Kye while the discourse continued around her. She didn't even really want to win that game anymore. She didn't really want to do anything, really. The empty feeling persisted inside her head. She could still feel that gross, wet feeling sliding down her face (now from both her eyes and her nose), but her throat didn't burn anymore at least. Still, it was gross and she felt gross and it just wasn't worth it to play anymore. She was just in the way. The only thing she could think to do was drag the sleeping Kye away, to somewhere behind some rocks while no one was paying attention to them (seeing as the koffing had all jumped to defend their boss on instinct.) She found a place where she thought he wouldn't be disturbed, and then she looked at him a little more. He had fallen just like her parents had, and now he was asleep just like them. She wished he hadn't had to fall asleep mad at her. What could she do to apologize now? How do you apologize to sleepy people again? She couldn't bury him in rocks... But she could build that thing that people built on top of the ground out of rocks. She'd just have to build it on him instead. She began gathering little pebbles and building the tiny little monument.

As Mercury built, she thought more. She felt like she should finish the game, but she didn't want to. There were other friends to do it. She felt like she should say something to Kye, but she didn't want to. Moving him was enough. Maybe even too much. He would likely wake up and be mad at her again, because what she had done was apparently also wrong. Everything she had done was wrong, from what she could tell. Maybe even talking to Kye was wrong. If she wanted to be his friend, maybe she shouldn't have talked to him at all. It had worked with anyone else, so why didn't she do that with him? No matter how she thought about it, the same conclusions always struck her. How was she supposed to win? How was she supposed to do anything if everything she did was wrong? What was the right way to play? She sniffed up a little of the gross liquid in her nose, but it rolled right back out. Friends were the only way to win, poppa had said so. Hundreds and thousands and millions of times he had said she wouldn't get anywhere unless she had friends, and she had made Kye not want to be her friend. All of this continued compounding on this blank, icky feeling in her head, mind, and stomach.

Though the feeling was empty, it was so heavy that Mercury felt like she couldn't move against it. She had to lay down under it, she wasn't strong enough to stay up despite it. She had never felt like this before. People had run away from her plenty of times. People had said mean things to her all the time, said things she didn't like to hear, but it hadn't mattered. It was different now because Kye had liked her, and now he didn't. And now everything was terrible. Even after her parents went to the murdock things hadn't been this terrible. At that point though, she had been able to make friends. She was able to win. Now she just... wasn't. Her parents had never "h'd" her, either. Poppa had told her never to use that word, or she'd be sorry. He was right. She was sorry. Kye had used it but she was sorry because she had been the reason he'd used it in the first place.

As she started to crumple under the feeling, however, her eyes caught Kye's form again. She found she couldn't look away; something was bothering her even through this unfriendly fog in her inside place. She looked at him, sprawled out haphazardly, limp like a dolly in the position she had pushed him over in. She wished he would move.... that's not a comforable way to sleep, Kye.

"....as not a..... omfo.... ay t....."

Poppa...

"......that's not a comfortable way to sleep, Mercury." Suddenly Mercury could see her poppa in her head again,  like when he wasn't asleep. "That's bad for your body. You'll wake up with a sore everything, and not to mention you'll get sick from the cold ground..... Come on munchkin, lie on my back. .....Don't worry, you'll keep me from getting sick. And I'll keep you from getting sore."

"ok poppa." Mercury muttered, a fresh feeling of warm wetness plaguing her face. She didn't know why, but she also wasn't giving it much thought in the first place. Somehow, she instinctively knew she couldn't stop it. She waddled over to Kye, still half-crouched under the fog that was even unhappier than the purple one. She started to nose at him (completely unaware that her nose had been gushing blood), letting loose a sob or two when she struggled to even get him to move just a little bit. It was had, she was heavy, he was heavy. he would wake up sore if she didn't, though, and that was bad. She was too exhausted to think how he might be mad, how he might wake up and want nothing to do with her. She just didn't want him to wake up sore.

"...C'mon, Kye..... the ground is bad for you," she whimpered to no one, her voice wavering. She tried to avoid disturbing her apology, but eventually she just let the pebbles fall around them so that she could move him. Only a few remained, but she figured it would be enough to get the point across. After several moments of sputtering and straining against him frustratedly, she finally got him into a good sleep position. He was more of a pile of sand than he was a Kye. Mercury promptly burrowed herself underneath him, and then allowed herself to melt into a motionless blob. Things felt... less terrifying now, with him curled up on top of her, away from the cold and the rocks. She couldn't describe it to herself, but it helped her find the slightest bit of peace.

Merc began to notice a pattern as he brain started to fizzle out, and her thoughts were just buzzing around dully. Her parents, now Kye... all the most important people in her life were also the ones that fell asleep. And they fell asleep because she was there, because she couldn't win. She was making them tired. The little fox couldn't get past this revelation once she had made it. She was too tired to do anything but accept it really; now she knew how everyone else felt. She resolved to just lay there and fall asleep like the rest of them. That thought gave her a little comfort at least. If she was asleep, she didn't have to win or lose. She didn't have to do anything.

Meanwhile, it turns out two nidoqueen can actually handle themselves against three koffings and a weezing pretty well with or without an under-leveled fennekin. It definitely helped that the four attackers had not much in the way of advantages while the nidoqueens had basically everything. It was kind of pathetic, really, and the weezing could tell he and his allies looked that way. He looked over to where the eevee had been, and he thought on the predicament they were in. Was it really worth one kid's worth of potentially worthless fur? Was it worth chucking his own cousins, the ones he had to provide for in the first place, at danger for that? He wouldn't have questioned it if they stood to gain something, but in the face of two angry dinosaurs that was highly unlikely. His mind fell back to the kid. He kind of couldn't stand stooping to the brat's level on top of it. Survival of the fittest and all that junk, but even the fittest work better in a group.

(That, and he wasn't exactly the fittest on his own.)

The weezing pulled back. "Alright, alright, lay off. Come on, this is worthless," he griped. The koffing hesitated for a second, but gratefully drew back the next. "Hell, we can get a kid's worth of pelt in three days just by pawning ribbons. He's not worth nothin' till he's bigger." He shot a glare at the dinosaurs. "You lot had best let us go. I won't hesitate to blow everyone off this cliff if I gotta."

"Just get outta my sight," the elder nidoqueen huffed, and with that the grimy criminals fucked right off.

The younger nidoqueen started to look for the children. "Hey... are you alright?" she asked when she finally found them.

The ground hit hard, but the eevee didn't feel it.  It was a lapse in consciousness that caused him to fall in the first place, so of course, he was numbed to the stimuli that came with collapsing.  He was cut off from his emotions as well, for which he would have been grateful if he had the consciousness required to do so.  For someone so obsessed with survival, fainting under stress really wasn't a very good tactic, but this wasn't normal for him.  Actually, he was normally quite good at avoiding stressful situations... and situations in general.  Avoiding danger and fear was his life, and he'd gotten good at it.  Unfortunately, he had been dragged out of his comfort zone in too many ways to count, and it was all thanks to a certain fennekin.  It had been fun at first, but for Velikye, all good things came to an end eventually.  He claimed to have blamed Mercury for the situation, but really, he blamed himself for willingly going along with her and thinking he could have a friend.  He had forgotten that having a useless "friend" was nothing but a hazard.

But in the confines of his own mind, he didn't have to think about such stressful things.  For someone so weighed down by bad memories and emotion, he was a peaceful sleeper.  Almost immediately he drifted into a dream, one of his home when he could still call it that.  It was a dream of his parents, and of him, curled up next to them with a warm blanket.  Yes, he dreamed of sleeping, and no, it wasn't a nightmare even in spite of the context surrounding it.  It was peaceful, happy, and this was how most of his dreams went since losing his life.  He still had a bit of that happiness in the back of his mind, waiting for him every time he was taken in by the bliss of sleep.  There was no twist where it turned into a nightmare in the end with him reliving the event that ruined him.  There was no sadness in these dreams, nothing that could hurt or upset him.  It was just him alone in his own mind, back with his parents, in his home, feeling loved and... warm.  It wasn't real, but he still felt so very warm, bundled up next to them under a thick blanket.

In this moment, it seemed to be all that mattered, as if the world meant nothing; he didn't know how he'd gotten here, and he didn't care.  The warmth spread through him and filled him with a sense of contentment... happiness.  And then it was ripped away.

"Are you alright?"

Was he?  Who was asking?  His tired eyes fluttered open and he was reminded of reality and how distinctly separate it was from his dreams.  He had these dreams often, and never could they be described as scary or nightmarish in nature, and yet despite this... he wished they would stop.  His mind eternally reminded him of what he had lost and how he could never have it back.  It was cruel, and every time he slipped away from the bliss, it did nothing but remind him of how awful his waking life truly was.  He wished for nightmares, for his psyche to be filled with haunting images of his past, for that would have been preferable in every way.  He wanted something bad to happen in the dreams so he didn't have to wake up every day wishing he could just go back to them forever.  He wanted them to be tainted because no nightmare could live up to the torment that these little reminders of his past happiness brought him.  It was nearly every day, too; every time he closed his eyes and fell asleep, his mind played this game with him.

Despite this, for some reason, he woke up feeling just the slightest bit less miserable than usual.  For a moment, he almost felt like he was still in the dream, like some part of it was actually real.  He was still... warm.  He could feel a furry mass under him, and he was just so warm; it felt almost exactly like it had in his dream.  He looked down to see a familiar fennekin laying with him, just as fast asleep as he had been mere moments ago.  She was very warm.  He was a little hazy on the details of why she was cuddled up against him, but it was hard to complain.  Actually, he felt happy; for the first time in a long time, he woke up to something pleasant and the dreams didn't seem quite as terrible.  He didn't know why, exactly, but seeing Mercury there just made things seem a whole lot better.  Waking up with someone next to him made it seem as if he could have the type of life he had been robbed of; namely, a happy one.  He had grown used to waking up alone, going about his day alone, then falling asleep alone, and he had eventually come to accept it as his reality.

Slowly, his gaze drifted up toward the nidoqueen standing over him, and everything came into focus.  He remembered the danger, but he could see from the nidoqueen's demeanor that it had been sorted out.  What couldn't possibly have been dealt with yet, however, was his own behavior and how it must have affected Mercury.  It was still fuzzy, but he remembered everything he had said... and a part of him still stood by it.  Not the decision, of course, since he now saw that he had picked the wrong side to try and appeal to, but the sentiment...  He still agreed with the idea behind his words, which conflicted with the pleasant feeling he had just woken up to.  He wanted to live more than to be "good," and yet, not feeling lonely for the first time in so long almost seemed worth risking himself for.  More than anything, though, he felt guilty that he had said such things and Mercury was still here, laying next to him like he was her best friend.  Didn't she have anyone else to go to who would treat her better than this?  From his position, it seemed like pretty much anyone would have been a better option for a friend than him, and yet this fennekin was still with him, even after he had clearly stated that he hated her.  She barely knew him and had no obligation to stay with him, and there was no way she had seen any redeeming qualities in him since there were none, yet... here she was.

The silvery eevee inhaled, then exhaled in a sigh.  "Yeah."  His tone was unenthusiastic and not at all reassuring, making it obvious that he was far from alright, but putting the effort toward acting fine just seemed like too much work.  "M-" he hesitated, looking back down at the fennekin, "Mercury?"  This time around, as he stared at her, he caught a glimpse of himself as well.  He had some odd marks streaking across his fur, like someone had dyed him red during his time asleep... or tried to, at any rate.  Was he bleeding?  It didn't feel like it, but it certainly looked like it, like someone had smeared blood on his fur in random places.  He then noticed Mercury's nose was bleeding as well, and immediately, he was overcome with a sense of worry.  "Mercury, are you-" he started up, intent on rousing her to make sure she wasn't hurt.  Then, given a moment to think on it, he realized two things.

First: it was a nosebleed, and while it looked like quite the nosebleed, it wasn't exactly as dangerous as a puncture wound.

Second: he now knew why his fur was smeared with blood.

There was a momentary silence from Velikye as he stared at the fennekin under him, then at his fur, then back to her nose.

"EW!"

He flailed and threw himself off of Mercury in recoil.

The dream Mercury was having was not too unlike Velikye's dream. It was happy and warm... although for it to be warm for a Fennekin, it certainly wouldn't only be mildly tolerable for everyone else. She looked around in wonder at the place that looked like her home behind the waterfall, only it wasn't behind a waterfall! It was resting in sparkles, lots and lots of sparkles!!! Mercury ran up to the sparkles and ran her paws through them, discovering that they WEREN'T sparkles!! They were tiny jewels!! Tiny flecks of gem that shimmered as far as the eye could see. It was beautiful! When she kicked them up with her paws, they fluttered and shimmered in the wind blowing through like fishy scales! Mercury leaned down and sniffed the gems, but they really didn't smell like anything....... Could... could she eat them?

Mercury looked around, but she didn't ssee anyone so... she licked some of the gems up. She.... couldn't taste anything. So she licked some more up. And then she licked some more up, and more and more and more until she was consuming mouthfuls upon mouthfuls of the little gems. They didn't taste like anything, but they had kind of a fuzzy crunchy feeling in her mouth, like she could almost feel the crunchies, but not quite. Overall though, this place was MAGICAL. Was this.... was this the murdock? Had she made it to the murdock that Kye was talking about, the murdock that people went to when they fell asleep forever??? WOW! This place wasn't so bad!!! She wondered if he was around here. She had soooooo many questions-!

Then she remembered: he h'd her now... he probably wouldn't want to see her right away. But.... she really wanted to see him....! Maybe she'd just look for him, just to see if he was okay. Yeah! She started running through the little jewels, calling Kye's name all the while. It was strange though, she could barely hear her own voice, despite how quiet it was. There was barely and sound, besides the wind. Still, she ran and called his name. Eventually the came to a big platform, like a table made of stone! It was the only place she could keep going in this direction, and it was pretty high up.... Maybe she could see Kye from up there!!! So, she went up.

But she didn't see Kye. She saw a much larger figure, far far in the distance.


Mercury stopped to stare at the stranger. They were.... tall, though they looked small. If it weren't for the nearby pillar Mercury might have thought they were even smaller than her! The more she stared at the figure, the more it started to look familiar. It was almost... almost like her momma? Was it? Wasn't it? She couldn't see well enough to tell. She could feel the little gems whipping past her eyes in the wind. She began to bark at the figure; calling for them to come closer to the edge. They didn't respond, they just kept.... standing there. Was not-little big friend stuck somewhere? ....Grrrrr, if only she could see just a little better!! The image was curling at the edges and the horizon, the colors were blending an bending and it was just impossible to pick apart! Mercury stared a little harder, got a little closer to the edge, squinted her eyes juuust a little more... she could almost....

And then, the figure blew away with the sand. It surprised Mercury so much that she lost her balance on the big stone table. She yelped and toppled over herself, falling down towards the piles of tiny gems below......

"EW!"

"Snoork."

Mercury woke up with a start, interrupting a plethora of sleep barking and sleep-leg-waggling. She looked around, dazed and confused. Where was she, back in this place? She got up and padded about the rocks. Where was the murdock? Where were all the tiny little gems? She started to feel sadness well up inside her. She hadn't stayed asleep with Kye, with her momma and her poppa....

The sound made Mercury's ears prick up. She whirled her head around. Kye wasn't asleep, either!!! She stared at him, processing it all. "Kye..... you're awake?" she asked, although she was hesitant to ask it. He looked like he was freaking out about something. "Are you okay Kye? What is it....?" she asked cautiously. She didn't really want to even know if he was going to talk to her or not, but... She was soooo curious. There was something on his fur... Before he had a chance to react, she had stepped right up and started to sniff it. Immediately, she felt a tickle.

"..."

"........"

"he-CHOO!!!" she squeaked.

Suddenly, there was a myriad of color on the ground in front of Mercury, and she was lucid enough to process it this time. "aaa... AAAAAAHHH!!! OH NO, OH NO, THERE'S RED WATER IN MY NOSE!!! THERE'S RED WATER IN ME, I'M GOING TO DIE!!!!" She started blowing her nose over and over and over to try and get the red water out. It wouldn't stop. Mercury cried and scooted herself back away from it, trying in vain to get away from what was in her nose. Her heart pounded at she had a genuine terror over the oncoming end of her life.

Even the nidoqueen couldn't comprehend this. She just watched the little fox in shock for a bit, unable to even think. What.... was..... wrong? It was..... just a nosebleed. She walked over and picked the crying, sniveling, squeaking Fox up. She then wiped the Fox's nose.

"It's just a nose bleed," the dinosaur-esque pokemon said.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH" was Mercury's response as she kept scooting backwards and fell onto her but. "NO, NO!!! I DON'T WANT TO FALL ASLEEP FOREVER! I CHANGED MY MIND! I CHANGED MY MIND!!!!" She was crying again at this point, meaning there were tears streaming down her face and her nose was running; so now it looked like there was even more blood.

"You... you're fine..."the Nidoqueen said louder, still not understanding what was wrong with the little fox. Mercury did not stop panicking. "STOP CRYING YOU'RE FINE!!!" she yelled, hoping to finally be heard over the squeals and wails of Mercury's absolute terror. It only served to scare the little fox more. Merc hunkered down and put her paws on her head, trying to hide from the scary reality of what wasn't actually happening.

At first, Velikye tried struggled helplessly with his fur, wiping his front paws against the blood stains in an attempt to get them to go away. "Ew, ew, ew," he muttered through his trial, unable to keep his composure after having woken up to himself being covered in nose blood. He didn't like blood in the first place, and while it was less stressful to have it be coming from a simple nosebleed, it was still unpleasant in its own way. It was disgusting and he wanted it off of him, but unfortunately, his vain attempts to rid himself of the red streaks over his fur did very little. On the bright side, it was already dry enough that he wasn't smearing it around even more, so he wasn't making it even worse on himself. Still, it was icky and he could want nothing more than a bath in this moment, to be out of this place and somewhere with a proper water source where he could clean himself. He was baffled at why Mercury had decided to wipe her bleeding nose all over him, and if he didn't already know that she was a hapless idiot with good intentions, he may have assumed he had just been used as a snot rag.

Given a moment, he calmed down enough to notice his fennekin companion's regained consciousness. He didn't pay much attention to her words at first since he didn't really care what she had to say; she was probably just planning on babbling about some nonsense like usual. That seemed to be her thing, and while it was a bit endearing at times, he wasn't in the mood. He was currently just trying not to be mad at her for what she had done to his fur. Well, at least now no one would want to skin him for a while, until he managed to get himself cleaned up... Was that why she had done it? Such a complex and coherent decision seemed odd for Mercury, but perhaps she had had a moment of clarity and decided to dirty her friend's fur so no one would want to take it from him. The eevee doubted it and dismissed the possibility rather easily, but the brief thought of Mercury doing something for him as a friend reminded him that he had said... a lot of things. He was beginning to regret saying many of those things. He wanted to agree with himself and stand by what he had said, but this fennekin was still sticking with him even after that, which made it hard to find any conviction or justification.

He had been so mean and hateful just for the sake of it, yet he wasn't alone despite his behavior. He stared deeply into his tarnished fur, then his gaze fell to the ground in front of him, all in an effort to avoid having to look at Mercury... or anyone. He hadn't been paying attention to whatever she was saying, so when she suddenly let loose a loud sneeze, he jumped, his head snapping up just in time to catch the onset of a bout of lunacy from his friend. Friend? Was she? Whatever she was, he couldn't help but feel something under the confusion at the sight of her spazzing out over a simple nosebleed. He felt... bad... He felt bad because she felt bad in specific. He knew she was overreacting and probably wasn't in any actual danger, but the sight of Mercury so scared just did something. Kye was hesitant to help since he figured he'd already done enough damage for one day and didn't have any business intervening. Besides, the nidoqueen seemed to understand just as well as he did, and it seemed more her place to intervene than his.

But Mercury wouldn't listen. In her raving, she said something about... not wanting to fall asleep... forever? It took a moment, but when Velikye realized what she was talking about, he jumped up to do what the dumb dinosaur clearly couldn't. "Mercury!" he spoke up to get the fennekin's attention as he rushed over to her. He had no idea what to say or why he was even trying in the first place, but someone needed to do something, and clearly, he was the only one who wasn't too incompetent to calm a scared child down; ironic since he was one. "Mercury, it's okay!" he continued in a softer tone once he was close enough to be heard through the fennekin's... whatever this was. He didn't know what else to say or do, even once he was right in front of the quivering ball of fur, but he was fortunate enough that some subconscious force or instinct took over for him. "It's a nosebleed. It's just blood; it's in everyone," he explained with minimal conscious thought on his part, as if comforting this random girl was second nature to him.

It was difficult for him to think about anything but making Mercury feel better. He had grown so used to seeing her smile that the lack of it made him feel bad in a way he didn't even know he still could. He needed to prove to this psychotic mess that she was just bleeding a little and it was perfectly normal. He needed to prove that everyone bled every once in a while, but...

...He looked down at his paws in front of him.

He sat down and lifted his left leg, looking for a good spot that didn't already have nose blood on it. He opened his mouth and moved his left leg up to his face, but hesitated, flinching at the mere thought. Then he suddenly snapped his jaws shut on his wrist, biting down as hard as he could and as fast as he could. His eyes clamped shut from the sudden pain; he was a wuss who could barely handle a scrape without crying, so this was... bad. He couldn't keep his grip long before releasing his paw with a pathetic little whine, but Mercury was still his center of attention. He laid down in front of her, teary-eyed, and lifted his paw to show her the small bite wound. He struggled to smile through the lingering pain, to make it look like he was okay. It was an obviously forced expression, but he was hoping Mercury wouldn't be able to notice. "S-see? It's just blood..."

Merc took a second out of her intense panic attack to look at Kye's paw as he held it up to her. Then she looked up at him.:

It was kind of hard to tell since Kye had already been thoroughly doused with the red blood water, but she trusted that the growing stain on his paw meant that the red water wouldn't make her fall asleep. Yet. She still squirmed and whimpered in discomfort at the gooey feeling of liquid on her face, but she feel silent enough otherwise. She shook and breathed the fading shock waves of the panic out heavily. It was just Kye's red blood stuff, so it was okay. It wasn't killing him, but at the same time she clenched a little bit. She remembered now, after all this, where she had seen Kye's red blood stuff before. She remembered in fuzzy blurs that it had been all over her mama while she had been laying in the forest sleepily. She wondered if this was how it had felt for mama, to be this tired and this gross, covered by some weird stuff that was already evaporating from the heat of her fur and leaving it in matted clumps. She didn't care if it was "just blood." It was gross and sticky and it should really just stay inside her body instead of coming out and making everything so scary and sticky. It had already turned Kye's paw a deep crimson. A few stray, fat tears rolled out of her eyes when she thought about Kye laying there like her mama had been, all red and too tired to move.

"No..." She rasped feebly, moving instinctively to lick his wounded paw. She didn't think about the action, she just didn't want him to make the blood things happen anymore. It was too much. Her instinctive response left her without much more of a reaction as she paused to ponder what she had just done. She couldn't think of anything else to do but scooch back and get some air. "....No more blood stuff. Don't do the blood thing." She murmured, her eyes dropping from his face to the ground and glancing around listlessly. She wasn't really even sure what she was asking for with the words; she just knew that she didn't want Kye to hurt himself to make it happen. But maybe he didn't care about that. Maybe he didn't care what she thought. She wasn't his friend. Still, she hoped he wouldn't hurt himself anymore.

The Nidoqueen was mostly just there for all this. She was relieved that the Eevee had gotten the Fennekin to stop crying, but she wasn't sure what had been so wrong that nothing that she had done had worked. The Eevee's display seemed to, however, and the crying finally stopped. Crying spooked her, and when she couldn't make it stop it made her even more anxious. Her first instinct was always to remove the thing that was making trouble, or just prove that there was nothing wrong. She couldn't fully understand why those things didn't always work; she just knew that there was something else there that made people upset and she couldn't do anything about it. It was excruciating. She was thankful to the Eevee for fixing whatever the problem was. It meant there really wasn't much she could do herself, though. She couldn't exactly fix the problem of the Fennekin not knowing what blood was. She stood off to the side and awkwardly waited for a point when she knew what to do.

...Mercury wasn't sure what she should do now, either. She was more or less unaware of the big dinosaur monster standing there awkwardly. Her concern at the moment was how to start approaching Kye again. It was weird, just sitting here and not doing anything. She felt like she should be doing something. The moment felt empty, in a bad way. Not empty like laying quietly in a blanket. Empty like waiting for a present, only not at all good like getting a present. She winced anxiously every time her eyes landed on Kye, feeling nervous about doing it every time she did. She could tell he was tired in the way that a friend looked when they weren't happy. She had every inclination to make that not a thing, but everything she thought to do just didn't feel right. She didn't want to risk upsetting Kye further. She wanted to know what was happening, though. Was he still upset? Did he still want to go home? Maybe he was uncomfortable because she licked his paw. It had been kind of out out of nowhere. She could maybe start with that? It wouldn't be too weird if she talked about that. He was probably wondering why she had done it, anyways.

"...That was a little weird," she admitted apologetically. She watched him, waiting for more words. The stillness was still there, making her shift uncomfortably. "Are you okay?" she added quickly, just to be sure.

Did it help? Velikye didn't know; he wasn't very keen on social cues and couldn't read subtle changes in others for the life of him. He certainly hoped he'd done something to ease Mercury's mind, for he hated to think that mauling his paw had been a pointless decision. He waited for some kind of response or reaction to tell him if he had been successful, but the first thing he got was a simple "no." He was just about to open his mouth and question what that was supposed to mean when the fennekin did something unexpected and decided to lick his wound. He shivered and had to force himself not to recoil from the twinge of Mercury's decision to touch his self-inflicted bite. This didn't really answer much, but fortunately, she proceeded to give him a little more to work off of. She was still Mercury, unfortunately, so her words were a puzzle to decipher, but she was at least more calm. She seemed worried in her own delusional way; she might not have fully grasped what things like injuries and blood were, but she at least seemed to understand that being hurt was bad. Still, this was far from life-threatening, even if it hurt. A lot.

Mercury wasn't the only one who didn't know what to do after this awkward gesture; Kye was having a hard time just keeping his composure, let alone trying to do something he wasn't good at in the first place and lead a conversation. It made him feel uncomfortable, but he couldn't quite figure out why. The situation just felt... familiar, or at least, the part with him getting licked did. He wasn't left alone with his thoughts for too dreadfully long before Mercury did what she did best and started talking again, but he was now thankful for her voice filling the void. It was odd how his attention seemed drawn to her at all times, even to the point of almost making him forget the nidoqueen. However, her words this time around were different in a way that was immediately apparent: they were sane. Perhaps calling the fennekin insane was a bit of a stretch, but she was certainly naive if not blatantly delusional. It was a surprise to see her not only understand that she had done something "weird," but to continue on to recognize that someone was hurt.

This level of lucidity was a shock to Kye, melting the faux smile off his face. Rather than pain, his expression turned to simple surprise as he stared back at Mercury, idling at the display of sanity. His slightly widened eyes and open mouth probably made the sense of awe clear, but the look on his face shifted again, this time to something more relaxed and neutral... and then another smile. This one was real. His paw definitely still hurt, but for some reason, he no longer needed to force himself to look alright. "I'm fine." It took him a moment to realize he wasn't, and a frown came over him. The pain was now in his mind and in his heart. Hurting her for even the slightest chance of saving himself had been an easy decision to make. In hindsight, it probably wouldn't have helped anyway, but that wasn't the part he cared about. His own incompetence only further proved how pathetic and desperate he had been, and how willing he was to put himself before anyone else. He knew what Mercury's gesture of deciding to lick his wound reminded of, and it made his selfishness all the more difficult to accept.

It was something his mother used to do. This wasn't exactly an odd or unique thing, but it still reminded him of his parents, which then reminded him of how Mercury didn't deserve what he'd tried to do to her. She was an idiot who clearly had no idea how the world worked, and she may have been deluded beyond repair, but she was still kind. "I'm still your friend," he continued, but this wasn't what he wanted to say. He doubted Mercury would understand what he wanted to say. He wanted to confess it, but it seemed selfish to confuse and worry her just to take a weight off himself. Besides, if she couldn't understand what he had done so wrong, he wouldn't feel any better either way.

What he wanted to say was so simple: he still wanted to be friends with her, but the same shouldn't have been true vice versa. He didn't deserve friends, or at least, not a friend like this. Mercury shouldn't have wanted to be his friend, but he knew she still did and would continue to. She deserved better, but if she wanted him so bad, the least he could do to make up for his actions was to grant her wish and stay with her.

"Let's go home."



...She did have a home, right?