I knew he would be there, in the gym; if nothing else, it was some unseen force that told me so. I had to talk to him, about everything, about anything. It hadn't been since his father was killed that we'd actually just been able to...hang out, or at least do so without a black cloud of dark thoughts hanging over each of our minds deep down. It was a feeling I longed for, more than anything, especially right then. That audition had only exemplified how draining, how detrimental all the stress was, and I was just fed up with it. I wanted it all to end. It had to.

Little did I know, it was about to get a sun and moon's worth worse.

The evening's sky was painted red-orange, like the sun was bleeding in its setting, while the grass and palm trees wavered gently in mourning. To me it was calm, poetic, romantic. It lifted my spirits somewhat, made me forget about the disastrous audition, for lack of a better word. The sunset tinged everything with its warm glow, from the grass to the API's masterful architecture, to the wilderness that lay beyond it. And maybe, just maybe, it would touch and warm my heart as well.

Briskly I crossed the campus, until I reached the gym's door, pushed it open, and was immediately faced with a glaring contrast to the outdoors' beauty I'd witnessed split seconds before. The place was abnormally dark, and vacant; yet there was still no shortage of the usual sweaty musk that hung over it, to my dismay. Wandering further into the silence made nothing different, except my trepidation, that is. At first I supposed my feelings had just led me the wrong way, that the building had closed for the night, that there was nobody waiting for me like in some silly Fairy-tale. Thinking over it more, I laughed at the very prospect, and my own foolishness; then carrying myself more lightly, I turned to go back outside. I'd find him elsewhere, maybe in the wrestling ring, or even the common—

"Raagh!" A scream of a bark tore through the air, and my fantastical thoughts. Flipper suspended on the door, now having lost the strength to push it open, my heart fell into my tail and I went pale as the horrifying noise echoed off the gym's walls and into nothingness. Even through all the fear I could tell where it came from: the locker room for male Pokémon, used for storing belongings and showering during and after more physical classes, and for all I knew, hiding from Tapu Bulu when he went into one of his rages. It sat on the opposite side of the gym from where I was, doubly daunting from the darkness and triply so from the scream. Now under normal circumstances I wouldn't've thought twice before rushing out of the gym fast as Koko himself, but there was something about that blood-curdling cry, something that was oddly familiar, and something that made my heart sink even further. So, like any rational Pokémon, I took a deep breath in...and started pulling myself across the gym, right to what could've very well been my certain doom.

As I grew closer to the door, more than just my own dread became clear to me. I could make out voices soon enough, two of them; both with rising volume and aggression, both with absolute hatred towards each other. And the worst part was, it only took me a second to know exactly who they were coming from. Before a tear could do so much as form, though, my flipper met the wood of the locker room door, still warm as if it had been recently touched by another Pokémon's paw. All I had to do was push it open, and I'd be faced with the Pokémon to which the now shouting voices belonged. But...did I want to?

You have to, I told myself. You have to.

With a sigh I tensed up my muscles. I did have to, didn't I? Time itself was running out as I just sat there, putting Pokémon in danger, even...and not for another second would I let it go on, no matter who was involved and what they had done! So boldly I pushed the door aside, and what lay on the other side made my stomach turn to the point of nausea.

Doubled over in a crouch in the corner and clutching his chest, Midnight Lycanroc met my eyes with his own, more full of fear than I'd ever seen them, and didn't dare to let anything out his mouth besides the whimper that came with a pained grimace. Standing over him, back to me and hotly pacing the floor, was Incineroar. My entering the room hadn't fazed him, so now he unknowingly had two witnesses to his terrifying rage. And terrifying it was indeed.

"Y'know why, Lycanroc?" Incineroar's voice wasn't his own, wasn't what I had known it to be since I was a Popplio. It dripped with resentment, anger, pain. "Y'wanna know why I done this to you, you...you..."

"Y-You're a coward, y'know that?" Midnight wheezed. "You let your muscles do the talking 'cause you're too scared to let yourself out! You're pathetic! Weak!" He then went into a fit of coughing, but it didn't dampen his words.

Even with his back to me I sensed Incineroar twitch. "You hurt her! Smacked her eye then ran away, and if that ain't cowardice then the Reverse World'll take me. And I'd say I oughta get a bit of revenge for it!" He brought his right leg back all of a sudden, and I had to look away as it came forward and Midnight groaned with a new wave of pain. Confusion took control of my mind, confusion and disbelief. I had to do something, but at that moment, it felt like the only parts of me that could move were the tears.

But Incineroar wasn't done. Right as I gathered the courage to finally look up again, he grabbed the Wolf Pokémon by the fur on his chest, slammed him against the wall and brought him above his own head, paws trembling with rage but holding Midnight firm all the same. "Pokémon like you," he breathed in such a hate-filled and animalistic way it made my heart skip a beat out of horror. "You never faced pain, hunger, hardship, a day in your life. You've never had to think about each and every step you'd take in a day for fear that you'd get Pokémon killed. You think you can get away with anything! Well, tell me, Lycanroc...think you can get outta this?!" He snapped his mouth open wide then, fangs swiftly becoming cloaked in the flames of a Fire Fang. Midnight gulped between gasps of breath, eyes darting around madly. Even I knew he was in no position to counterattack; he was completely helpless against the Heel Pokémon's wrath.

No, he's not, a voice rang true in my thoughts through all the head-throbbing fear. At that same moment Midnight's eyes, chillingly deathly, came to rest back on me: his only hope. I inhaled.

"Incineroar!" My exclamation seemed to echo off the locker room's very walls, and carry each ember of my boyfriend's Fire Fang with it as it dissolved into a memory. Slowly releasing his grip on Midnight and letting the Wolf Pokémon slide to the floor, he turned to me with a shocked expression and slitted pupils. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but was cut off by his former prey, who rose and rushed out of the room faster than I thought he was capable of.

"If you tell Bulu I'll scorch your..." Incineroar shouted after him, only barely catching himself once he saw me heatedly glowering at him. At that, he sighed, and let his fiery belt burn a little less brightly in my presence. "Rina..."

I breathed, still getting my bearings of the sudden silence that had overtaken the locker room. "Don't...call me that." Even as I tried to remain stoic and cold my voice quavered. I couldn't let it. Not now, when it mattered most. "I trusted you, Incineroar. I had faith. So...why?"

"Why?" He bared his fangs hungrily as if remembering Midnight to be nothing more than his snack, his prey. "For justice! You think you don't need it, you think Lycanroc doesn't deserve it, but every Pokémon gets their comeuppance and believe me, I—"

"That's not how it works!" I retorted. Incineroar blinked. "The last thing a Pokémon with a mind would want—the last thing I would want—is for others to suffer, or become my enemies, even, for nothing!"

"But...he hurt you..."

"Does it look like I'm hurt?!" Wildly gesturing toward my face, no purple in sight, I felt pure anger rising within me. The feelings from the audition came back in full force, except now I was actually facing Incineroar rather than imagining him. This was real, though I had a bit of trouble convincing myself. "I'm not! I never was! This is exactly why I didn't want you to see me, not until it was gone, and now you've...ugh!" I turned and punched the wall, trying with all my strength to hold the tears of pain that followed. And all the while Incineroar just stood there, without any signs of regret or remorse. It shocked me, it sickened me...but I couldn't let him see that.

I breathed once, let the anger flow over and through me like water, let it settle, let it pass. Then, I continued calmly:

"You're a great Pokémon, Incineroar. You were my best and only friend for a time; you changed my life. I love you. But the longer you look to violence to settle things, the more you hurt living, feeling Pokémon, the more you see the fear in their eyes when you so much as glance at 'em—the less you'll notice it, the less you'll feel something...the less I'll want to keep this going."

Incineroar's stone face crumbled then, into one of utter disbelief. "You aren't sayin'..."

"Listen, something's been off lately. Since summer, even. Things haven't been the same between the two of us. I'm sure you've noticed it too, but..."

"Yeah," he said impatiently. "But what?"

"But I don't want things like this to keep happening!" I swallowed, blinking away tears. "It's like I can't trust you with anything anymore. It's like I don't even know you! ...Look, I can't begin to even imagine what you've been going through, and I'm not going to try. But if you've gotten to the point where you feel the need to harm Pokémon, to put their lives at risk, all because of me..." I looked him right in the eye, gulped, and let my next words out as they came to my mind: sudden, unplanned, and powerful. "I'd say we should have time away from each other."

Incineroar blinked slowly and looked at the ground, with more of an unreadable expression than the expected sorrow. Even still, it gave me a bit of hope that maybe he'd be understanding, accepting, ready. Maybe I'd see a glimpse of the Incineroar before all this, the lovable, goofy Incineroar fearsome only to his opponents in the wrestling ring. The Incineroar I could trust, the Incineroar I loved.

Instead he stood dangerously tall, his green eyes flashed, and he flared his nostrils. I still couldn't read him completely, but his actions made the shakiness and sweatiness of anxiety come tenfold. "Go, then," he growled darkly. "I understand your choice. I just thought...that you'd understand mine. Aren't we supposed to look out for each other, share each other's pain? That's what a relationship is supposed to be about, ain't it? Anything less, you're just cowardly."

"Incineroar, I..."

"Just go. I get it. I wouldn't wanna be around me either."

"But—"

"Go."

Other than his slightly working jaw, he made no movement. He was a wall: adamant, indomitable, emotionless...and I wasn't allowed in. And so I turned, leaving him behind like Midnight did as I passed through the door and into the dark gymnasium without a word. The windows above let only dull moonlight filter in. It was light from the same moon that he and I had sat under way too recently, poking fun at each other and planning our futures, yet it felt more like some cheap imitation now. My vision blurred with tears then, and I finally let them go. And go they did, from a few sniffles as I met the night's wind to a full-on sob when I entered the glass-walled common, crossed it and found the dormitories on the other side. Up the stairs to the females' floor, the tears didn't relent. Into the room I shared with Ribombee, school papers strewn about, the tears didn't relent. Onto my bed, the bottom bunk, the tears didn't relent. Above me the Bee Fly Pokémon feigned sleep, but I could sense that she was full aware of the mess that I was. She didn't begin to ask what was wrong with me, though. Arceus bless her soul.

Oh, why make such a scene? I demanded myself between heaves of breath and tears. You got what you wanted, right? You did the correct thing. You were strong. And hey, maybe he'll start getting better now, after hearing your words. Only thing to worry over now is...

What comes next?