"Okay," I breathed heavily, a hot sweat clinging to my skin in the nippy morning air. "Feel a bit better?" I spoke to myself, pushing up from the bar. I paced back and forth around the field, feeling the sun rise higher into the sky. I continued to rumble about my words while racing my fingers through my hair compulsively.

"It's okay, Leaf. Just one pokemon right? Saves Blue and Red--- and the other people," a smile twitched at the edge of my mouth before falling down. "That's the good idea right? I mean, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... So of course it's the better idea! Why do I feel so bad about it then? I mean, Mew is irreplaceable. But I was going to hack it out anyways. But Mewtwo is going to kill it. Torture it. But what is the hacking out like?"

I let out a low exasperated sigh, my pace quickening. My steps crackling against the grass was the only sound along with the thrashing waves just a couple feet away (I'm too occupied to really count it), my voice that bounced over the open area reflected back to me once hitting a tree or something. "I mean, how do I know Mewtwo will keep his end of the bargain? I can't. But, neither can he," I breathed the final sentence before holding myself back from banging my head against the railing, "Ah! I don't know what's right anymore!"

"Would you please stop screaming?"

Like on cue, I released a small shriek and flipped around in an expecting way. I thought it was Mewtwo. Even though the voice was someone's I could never forget.

"Didn't I just tell you to stop screaming?" the ginger snarled. Though his offensive expression melted away into the dispersing night when he saw the panic that overcame me. "You alright?"

I crossed both my arms, my right fingers tapping my left elbow like I was playing a piano, "Yeah, fine. Why are you here? Are you stalking me or something? I mean, everywhere I go, you manage to show up. Well, not everywhere. But a lot of the time!" I began to interrogate with a hysteria like a blanket over my shoulders. Taking a deep breath to calm myself I said, "How much did you hear...?"

Blue stared at me unbelieving before he spoke. "I heard a person scream. I came up here listening to you rant: 'I don't know what's right anymore!' And I'm not stalking you. I was visiting Selphy's grandparents with her. Her home is on Crono Island, so we decided to stay here for the night."

"This late at night? Little dirty arrogant guy, aren't you?" I broke with a disgusted tone to change the subject. "You know what, I really just don't want to know. Just leave me alone."

The teen rubbed the back of his neck, "Selphy and I were just watching movies---"

"I told you, I don't care. Now go away..." I muttered, turning my back to the former champion, my hands still shaking.

There was a stillness spinning around the two of us until the moment Blue instituted a question, "Why are you so mad at me? What did I do?"

"Nothing!" I shouted, "Now go."

"This really doesn't seem like nothing," Blue grunted with irritation. "Is it Selphy? Are you jealous? Was Selphy right?"

A cold blade was sliced though my heart, triggering an acidic burning in my stomach. "Me? Jealous? You must be kidding. No, I'm not. I am so elated that two arrogant pompouses found their soul mates."

"Sounds like you're jealous," his voice rolled on with a dash of, was it, amusement? Yes. His tone was dark, yet a light amusement was thrown into the mix of what his voice was.

Both my fists clenched into tight balls, my knuckles becoming a pasty white I as I held back the urge to scream, to shout, to punch Blue in the nose. I was jealous. I admit it now. But back then, I was furious too. "I said that's not it!" I crowed, spinning on my heel to snap up the trainer by the collar of his shirt. Though he was taller than me, so I yanked the teenager down to my eye level. I could feel the rufescent blaze from ear to ear. "Red was my friend! And now he hates me! I know I betrayed him and you don't think I regretted that? You told him who I was! You told him he shouldn't be friends with the likes of me. What is that supposed to mean?"

"I'm only looking out for him. I don't want him to get hurt."

"And being the one who banished him to Mt. Silver, that doesn't hurt him at all," I spat sarcastically, my grip threading away from Blue's soot-hued shirt.

The spiky-haired boy stepped back, "I only banished him because of your hacking."

"Like I knew about your screwed-up game monarchy that's ruled by the champion! I didn't even know this world existed!"

"You still hacked! Where does that get you? Where does changing another's life help you in any way? How does the shortcut feel? That restart button? Why did you do any of it?" The volume of Blue's voice escalated to rebound against the ocean, our argument starting to wake up some people and pokemon indefinitely.

I stomped my foot against the ground and bellowed out with no thought, "Because that's what I wanted in my life!" my eyes widened like a puddle in a rainstorm. Blue's jaw hung ajar as his eyebrows moved to look at me with a discomposure. My words obviously what he hadn't expected, "Arceus damn it! Just leave me alone!"

Both my hands sunk up into my scalp, my thumb pads cradling my forehead as Blue took a step closer to me. "What. What do you mean, in your life?"

I retracted back like a Rattata skittering away from a Fearow. "It's none of your business. It's my life. Nothing I should share with you."

The trainer grabbed one of my wrists and forcefully dragged it down to my side, "Hey, yeah it is. I'm your friend! Look me in the eye."

Yeah, right! And you're Red's friend too! And keep the two of us apart by treating me like trash around him! Hypocrite!

My eyes dreadfully slowed to stare into Blue's mesmerizing caramel ones. "You have no right to say that," I hissed lowly. "Now, like I have said before, just leave me alone," each time I said that phrase, the pain of saying it just grew less.

Just keep pushing away. You won't have to feel anything anymore. No more confusion. I told myself as I held the stare, my lips curling into a feral growl. Blue's hand on my wrist crunched further, my blood pricking to reach my fingertips.

Our fixed glares held like the opposite poles of magnets.

That's when it happened.

The trainer grabbed my chin with his open hand and jerked my entire head forward, smashing his face against mine. His lip like butter melting onto mine, our noses fitting into one another awkwardly. It was a bit--- harsh but I would be a liar if I said I hated it.

Actually I quite liked it.

Then I had to yell at myself that the only reason I had any attraction to liking this action was because Adrenaline, Dopamine, Oxytocin and Serotonin were all being released in my brain. Basically, it was a drug like effect. This would happen every time someone kissed another, it was nothing special. But my heart fluttered like it was.

Then, like a Pidgey being shot out of the sky, my heart plummeted.

My one good hand pressed into Blue's chest and shoved him away. His fingers that caressed my jaw sunk in their nails and were dragged across my face as he was torn away by, well, me. My mouth still prickled with heat as I shaped them to say, "What in Acreus' name was that?" Anger, betrayal, sadness, happiness, excitement and confusion is not a fun mix. I will say that now.

"A kiss." Blue said simply.

"And why did you kiss me?" I shouted, spit flying out into the air.

He shrugged, "To calm you down." He obviously had.

I gritted my teeth, "Well scientifically, that isn't accurate! It is supposed to excite people and have them more--- fiery!" Then, I remembered Selphy. "You're the player! You have a girlfriend! You don't think this might hurt her?"

"She doesn't have to know."

I flailed both my arms around as I unlatched Pidgeot's pokeball, "Arceus! You are a-- a dirty man whore!" I can't believe I like you!  I should have known you were like this!"

Sending out my flying type from his capsule, I leapt on to take off.

To run.

Again.

I was scared to fly in the sky, but terrified to stay in this place. I was already confused with the whole Mew-Mewtwo thing. Now Red hates me. Now Blue hates me. Running is all I can do.

My pokemon already was used to this and just took off into the morning skies with no direction needed yet, a couple feathers coming loose to fall to the ground as he soared away from the Cape, "I'm an idiot, Pidgeot..." I mewed, wrapping my arms further. "My best friend hates me and now the guy I like I just called a bunch of horrible things..." I buried my face away, I want to just crawl in a hole and die...

We flew in circles for a while above the region, watching the sun ease its way to center sky. My mind whispering into sleep of nightmares. Mewtwo stood against me, laughing cruelly. Mew looking at me with sapphire eyes brimming with a fractured trust. Red and Blue on the ground unmoving. A storm racing around. A tower lacing high into the sky, rows graves primed in vision from each window out. A voice whispering in my ears, "You know. You know. You know. The last. The last. The last."

"I'm Sorry."

The next thing I knew, a beak was rubbing against my skull through my hat. My eyes flickered open quickly to find Pidgeot had landed. The surrounding crest of copper mountains brewed over the town of a ghostly silence. Three ranch houses sat close-knit to one another with no movement within. The pokemon center and Pokemart a dead quiet, no lights to be seen.

Finally, built into the Rock Tunnel mountain, was the spiraling tower from my dreams. It was surrounded in a gaseous haze yet beckoned me to enter.

I turned to face my Pidgeot, "Did I tell us to come here?"

The tawny feathered pokemon nodded before returning himself.

Facing back to the Pokemon tower, I let out a shaking sigh, "Well, never hurts to try..." With those words, I took the first stride towards the truth I had been blinded from.