Deep breath. Hold it for a beat. Feel the sparks in his chest building into fire. Didn't even have to worry about holding back, now they were training by the river so there was less risk of anything catching. Surely this time, after trying for days straight, it would work. But the embers caught in his throat when he exhaled, and the only thing that came out of Blue's mouth was a pathetic hacking cough and a whole lot of smoke. Nothing, in other words. Always fucki
ng n
othing.
"Maybe we call it here?" Leaf suggested. Something in her smile looked kinda strained. "It's been a busy couple days, yeah? It's okay to take it easy." She dropped the however-many-th calm mind she'd been holding onto, just in case swinub flew and he actually managed something for once. She might as well not have bothered.
"No," he said anyway. "I'm not going anywhere until I get it." He had to be close by now.
Had to.
"I thought you just wanted to try battling for fun." Woulda been great if she made any effort at all to sound less like she
pitied him. "You don't seem like you're having fun."
Blue rolled his eyes. "I also got no plans to get ripped in half by another murderbeast high on magic trauma juice. Seems like that's gonna require being halfway functional as a pokémon, so." He didn't quite look her in the face; it'd been easier not to lately. "Better pissed off and not made of tissue paper than dead."
For once Leaf actually had the decency to look ashamed, her head hanging instead of up in the goddamn clouds. "Look, I... I know I screwed up. I said I'd keep you out of it, and I didn't. The Wayfarers could've waited for me to drop you off somewhere else, and I should've done that. But I meant it when I said you didn't have to deal with any of this! I'm plenty strong enough to handle it and keep you safe, and I will! Promise."
'I'm strong enough,' she said.
You're not, she didn't say.
"
So?" Blue sighed, almost managing to ignore the voice in his head. He had to sit down for a sec to try and clear the damn smoke in his lungs. "You said it yourself. The turbogoth dream demon said it. It's just gonna get worse. The crown weasel guy's trying to take over the universe. The star guy's slow-motion exploding reality. Neither of those sounds like something that'll just conveniently skip over
me."
"It won't matter if the Wayfarers just stop all that from happening, though!" She said it with that trademark blind Linden optimism, but this time something hitched in his chest, and it sure wasn't embers.
"And what if you can't? Do
not say 'we will'," he barked, cutting her off. "Don't try to handwave this. You don't
know you can just rock up and crush two legendary pokémon with superpowers legendary pokémon wish they had. I'm not waiting to find out whether or not I get lucky." He laughed, hoarse and hollow. "You seen how everything's gone for me so far? I have. I ain't stupid enough to take those odds."
"It
will be fine," she hissed, stamping the earth for emphasis. She moved so she could stare him down, no matter how bad he wanted to turn away. (Still looking
down at him.) "I know we can do this. I know the Forlasans can do this. If you just stay out of the way this time—"
Blue looked her dead in the eye at that one. "Stay out of the way?" he snapped. "Like I just skipped out right in front of a berserk charizard for fun? Like I'm here at all because I volunteered, instead of you and that nutjob zoroark dr
agging m
e here?" His face burned with anger. "Can't have 'em both, Linden. Pick one."
Leaf didn't flinch, mostly. She did cough as the smoke started to curl around her nose. "You know I didn't mean for you to get summoned, but it is what it is and we just have to deal with it. I thought you didn't want anything to do with any Wayfarer stuff. I'm trying to give you that, and it's not my fault if you're not taking it!" Then she mumbled something, more like she was talking to herself than to him, but for once it was useful to have dog ears that picked it up
loud and
clear. "Woulda gone a hell of a lot
easier if I hadn't had to chase after you anyway."
"
I was trying to help someone!" Blue shouted. His fur started to smolder. "That's what you're here for, isn't it? You just want to
help people, don't you? Nosy fuckin' goody two-shoes wants to feel
big and
save the day again. But all
I do is drag you down every time, don't
I? Silph, here, wherever. Even when
I don't want to
be here, even when
I actually
give enough of a shit to put
my neck on the line,
I'm just getting in
your way,
I'm still the one who gets
my ass kicked for the
trouble. Meanwhile
you and everyone else just keep skippin' along like
I'm the idiot for thinking that all this is
completely insane."
Leaf shuddered visibly, like it'd suddenly gotten colder, even though all Blue could feel was the humiliation boiling under his skin. "H-hey, take it easy. I think you're getting—"
"
Don't fucking tell me to take it easy!" The smoke around them flickered like black flames. Blue didn't care. He could see just fine, breathe just fine now he was finally getting all this weight off his chest. "Ever since
I landed in this
literal puppy-kicking universe I've been everybody's
punching bag. I haven't even done anything
wrong this time!
I deserve
better than this.
I am better than this, Linden.
You fucking know I am. You're not
better than me just because
you chose to come play hero in some world that's got
fuck-all to do with you while
I got
forced to. But if this is how it's gonna be,
then fuck it."
He pushed forward, felt the grin pulling across his muzzle as she staggered back toward the water's edge. "
I'm not gonna be weak, or a liability, or some pathetic little asshole you think you need to babysit. I'm not gonna let you act like I'm wrong just because I don't like playing along with this mass superhero delusion you're all under. I want some fucking respect. From you, from these other Wayfarer snobs, from those pricks at the Coven or whatever. It's someone else's turn to be the punching bag, and I'm gonna take a big ol' fuckin' swing."
Leaf shrank under his gaze, eyes wide. No big intimidating horse
looming over him, no
high-and-mighty attitude. Little lights sparked around her horn, but they were fitful,
not enough. God he was
fucking tired of being small,
feeling small. But it sure as hell didn't feel like she was bigger than him
now.
"Blue, stop!" she choked out. "You're letting the shadows get to you! Please, we can talk about this—"
The temperature on the riverbank plummeted as the smoke sucked the warmth out of the air, out of Leaf. Blue wasn't cold, though. Finally,
finally there was
fire, sparks flaring in his chest and rolling out like a wildfire tearing through the woods. Then everything snapped from black to red as flames rushed in behind the smoke, a whole wave crashing into Leaf. She cried out in pain, and it sounded so
good because she wasn't fucking
invincible, was she,
she wasn't fucking better than him.
Blue used Umbral Envy! Blue used Burning Jealousy!
For a second, the roaring of the flames and the blood in his ears were the only sounds. (The only things that
mattered.) Leaf shouted something, maybe, from far away. (Because he'd
forced her away, because he was stronger, because
he was in control.)
"
Fine!
Fine! You
want
respect? This is how pokémon show respect."
A flash cut through the haze, like lightning, even brighter then the lurid red flames filling Blue's vision. Something smashed into him and threw him clear into the air, up and out of the fire and then down heavily onto the bank. The impact that juddered through him was almost enough to shut out the searing, electric pain radiating from his chest. Almost.
He blinked away the afterimages burned into his eyes, squinted through the last of the smoke rising off him. A shape moved toward him, blurry but with light flickering around its head; the light winked out as Leaf came into focus. She was still coughing a little, and wincing like she was trying to ignore the huge, angry burn across the side of her neck. She was standing, though. More than he could say for himself.
"
...C-can't... can't have fuckin' any
thing, can
I."
She didn't acknowledge it, not at first. (Maybe she couldn't hear him with his face pressed into the mud.) She just got closer and hunkered down next to him in what was left of the shrubs. "Just take a couple deep breaths for me, okay?"
"
Gosh, I'd
love to," he croaked. Not a lot of air left to work with after taking an entire unicorn to the chest. "
Wish I... wish I hadn't
been
run over by the magnet train and left
twitching on the
third r-r
ail." He stared at the fading wisps of steam over the water instead of looking at her. Breathing normally was a little less effort now, at least. Easier to do that than anything else at the moment.
"You went off the deep end. Needed to snap you out of it quick. I panicked a little, and... radiance seemed like the fastest answer. Sorry."
"M
m. Yeah." He could still feel the crackling of the light where she'd hit him. Still stung like hell. Maybe that was good, because that made it hard to spare the brainpower on staying worked up. "Sorry."
They were quiet for a minute or two before Leaf finally spoke up again. "That was really good, though!" she said. "The moves, I mean. Gotta get a handle on the shadow one so you don't go off the rails again. But I told you you'd get stronger, didn't I?"
"All that effort trying to figure out flamethrower." Every time he'd tried he'd felt so hot all over. He'd figured he was just ashamed or frustrated, but. (Maybe it was both.) "Shoulda been trying for a heat wave instead, heh."
(A little magic space birdie in his head attempted to whisper a helpful correction, but shhh, it'd be great to not feel like a complete heel for just one minute, let him have this. Definitely a heat wave.)
"It
is weird," Leaf admitted, after more awkward silence. "All of this. Guess I am kinda used to it. Or maybe it's just gotten a lot weirder a lot faster lately. We got the kiddie pool, just talking pokémon and somebody in trouble; not
that big a deal, compared to this. You got dumped into the middle of the magic trauma revolution ocean."
"With an anchor around my neck."
She kinda rolled her eyes, but didn't actually seem annoyed. "It's not like it isn't weird when I do think about it, it's just... what's the point of thinking about it, I guess? I'm here either way, and it's happening either way. Makes more sense to stay focused on what we're doing than to worry about how it's different or dangerous or scary or whatever. But... I do get how it's not easy for you to ignore everything. Maybe it's too easy for me to ignore that you
can't ignore it.
"Well, I'm sorry." Leaf stopped staring downriver and looked right at him. "You're right, and I'm—well, I'm not
wrong, I really think we can do this, and I really think we're all tough enough to be fine, including you. Maybe you'll even actually believe me now! No random ol' pokémon running around here could've tanked a whole Stormlance." She grinned at him before standing up. "But you've had a really shitty time so far even with that, and I'm sorry for brushing that off."
"Tanked" seemed awful generous there, but he'd take it. He was
absolutely going to take 'you were right'. He'd have to remember to really savor that one later, once he felt less like a crash of rhyhorn had used him as a trampoline. For the time being all Blue could manage was a sigh.
"I don't want to be here," he said. "I don't want to be some super pokémon. This has nothing to do with me and I like what I got back home just fine. But you, everyone else, you're all a bunch of badasses just laughing off a whole tsunami of bullshit while all I can do is get pulled under. I know you're not trying to make me feel like shit; you're trying to help. You are helping. But I hate feeling like I'm drowning. I hate... having to watch other people drown."
He paused, shook his head when thinking of Lillian and Gladius just made him more tired. The soreness and the electric pain were letting up now, at least. "If I'm stuck here, I want some goddamn control over what happens to me. I'm sick of sitting back and getting trampled all day. And if... if the Rat in the Hat or whoever's the one pulling all these strings, then I wanna see the look on his face when I line up a good swing at
his punching bag." Leaf snorted, and so did he, a little. "Guess I won't get that by takin' it out on my friends, will I."
Blue stood up. Tried to, anyway. "Up" was a little further from the ground than it had been this morning; his body was heavier and took more effort to lift. Huh. And here he'd thought being able to look Leaf in the eye was just the shadow power trip bullshit talking.
"How'd this happen without a fire st— y'know what, no, never mind." He shook his head. "Not gonna ask. Probably won't like the answer. Doesn't really matter, does it."
"Congrats, anyway!" Leaf smiled. A little psychic nudge took the weight off just long enough for him to find his balance. "You look pretty cool."
"
Extremely cool, excuse you," he scoffed, too mock-offended to be embarrassed that his tail was wagging. Arcanine was just great by definition; didn't need to see his new reflection to know that.
...his new reflection still would've been neat to see anyway—just to prove his obvious point—but the vertigo hadn't quite let up when he tried moving closer to the river to check, and he swayed a little. "Oof. I, uh. Don't suppose there's any shot of one last ride back to the Haus?"
Any idiot could tell he was joking; he was at least as big as her now, after all. They'd just have to stumble back together, slow and steady and him hopefully not tripping over his own paws. But Leaf brushed him off with an airy toss of her head. "I could still carry you," she said, infuriatingly confident. "Buuuut you said no more babysitting, and you want to keep training, so—" And then the rest of what she said was lost to the wind as she took off toward Frontier Town at a gallop. God damn it.
"You just ran me over, you asshole! That's not fair! Slow down!"
"You don't wanna get trampled? Then you better give those legs a workout so you can do the trampling!" she called over her shoulder. "C'mon, you're a big dog now, let's go for a walk!"
"That ain't
walking, Linden!" He tripped over his own paws, because of course he did, but he hauled himself back up out of the mud to chase after her anyway.
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