The sensation of a small head that rested underneath my chin, perfectly tucked into my neck, roused me from my hunger-induced, fragile slumber. Light breaths expanding and collapsing from the puny body I clung gently to. The boat I had once been slept on was being tossed slowly by the tied pulling me further into consciousness. It wasn't hard to find myself in an upright position on the crowded deck of slumbering refugees. Each of them backed into one another like logs with barely any area to breath. But they seemed to fit, most being bone-thin.

Where I rested had been up against the boat's railing on the bow, a faded blanket tossed behind my back, swathing over my arms to kiss my fingertips. Enveloped in my arms was young little Eos (previously known as Copycat). In her arms was a small doll of a Clefairy, its right arm and leg stitched up with dark cross work. The corner of my lip twitched to hint at a smirk as I looked down at the girl's face. She was so calm, forgetting the chaotic world around her.

Two feelings encased me as I saw her. The first wishing to be blind to the destruction. The other feeling only pity for the oblivious child, as she will be frustrated often if she kept thinking the way she did.

I let out a sigh, reminding myself she was just a child. If she were older, then it would have been more of a problem. My eyes motioned up, tugging my head lazily with them. Uncountable flecks of starlight doused the sky, nearly drowning the inky backdrop. The crystal night so clear I could make out the gash of the Milky Way Galaxy tearing across the sky, putting where ever the moon was to shame in its illumination.

Lucidly, my arm slothfully moved up towards the sky, the illumination of the night glowing through the slits of my parted fingers, darkening my hand to my ocular sight. I hesitated in a short breath, admiring the stars beauty, my heart asking to take one right from the sky and slip it into my bag. As my fingers closed into a fist, I felt nothing in my hand but skin brushing skin.

I was a tad disheartened as I pulled my hand back down. I felt as if nothing was grabbed, but really I did catch elements and molecules that drifted though the crisp air. Nitrogen, Oxygen, a smidge Carbon Dioxide, Neon, a fraction of hydrogen, bits of Krypton, snubs of Hydrogen, possibly an infinitesimal of Xenon, and of course- water vapors. But, those somethings were not enough to satisfy me.

Eos was not stirred by my motion, though a half-slumbering boy whose head had been sunk on my shoulder was disturbed. On instinct, my head jerked around to see the raven-haired boy scrunch his eyes together, mumbling out grunts. With the hand I reached for the sky with, I brushed his locks from his pale face, quietly hushing. Both his and my souls unwound and fell at ease. I watched his pained face turn softer. Softer than the silent child I would see, softer than feather landing on your skin. More peaceful than a pale gardenia flower at the crack of dawn. My palm stayed serenely brushing about Red's hair for a few seconds before I sharply drew it away. The tips of my ears heating up mildly before I wrapped myself back around Eos.

My eyelids closed like slow drawn curtains and my mind dissolving into a drowse. The last thing picking though my vision was a head far across the ship, unmistakable to my heart even as the Ginger laid asleep far away.

My last thoughts of the time pulling at my lips.

Blue?

He--- Red.

I have to warn Red...

About...

...Blue.

The next time that my eyes would flutter open, a searing white light would cascade into my awareness, yanking me into the world where refugees scrambled about in the day. Many were gathering up their few belongings as others scavenged for scraps of food. The ocean more alive than it was at night, waves leaping higher into the air and roll off of the Ferry's hull.

I was alone.

No child swept in my arms or friend leaning on me.

Still remembering Eos's disappearance only two days before, my throat closed up at the thought of something happening to her. What if she wandered into the mechanic rooms of the ship? Or someone took her and is hurting her where I can't see? What if she thought she could fly and leapt right off?

"I see land!" a child's voice cried. On an impulse, my neck craned around to see just another average girl with dark brown hair and big brown eyes. Not Eos, I knew immediately. My feet moving on their own as my head swung around in all directions for the unique child. Also Red, but I didn't need to worry about him as much as Eos. That's what I mused before recalling my sights from last night came tumbling back into my mind.

And worry came faster as I dashed about the ferry's deck, squishing between the eager passengers, their words whispering in my ears as I tried to find the voices of my friends.

"There is this rumor about Fortune Island?"

"The storms?"

"Look, mommy! I see a cave!"

"Yeah, they say that it is on a repeat loop."

"Oh, and look beside that cave honey, a day care."

"There isn't much on this island is there?"

"The glitch got there?"

"Do you think I can put my pokemon in the Day care?"

"Can I catch a Sneavil in the cold caves?"

"It's just a rumor though. Nothing has been confirmed."

"Oh my Arceus, Rain. It's Sneasel in the Icefall caves. And yeah, probably."

"No, but it is a nice place to settle I think."

"Of course you can put your pokemon in the Day Care!"

"Yay! Who knew that you would know so much, Aster!"

"I heard one of the Elite Four was born here."

So many voices, my mind processing them through analysis after analysis. My eyes dashing about, becoming clouded with the invisible lines of measurements, labeling features on people, seeing who they were at single glance. A burning pain shot though my head, but I refused to scream. It wasn't the first I have had this feeling. I took a deep breath as I continued to run, returning my surroundings to white noise. My eyes shut, only giving darkness to me as I moved recklessly though the swarm who motioned off the deck and down to land.

It wasn't the first time something like that had happened. It happened often when I was younger. I believed I had grown out of it and been able to block out everything. Ah--- maybe some explanation is in order. A genius is basically born a genius. And as a genius, people say they see more than what most do. We see the exact measurements as we stare at something, we can figure out the composition of an item by looking or feeling or just tasting it. We find the connections that almost no one else can see. You know those homicidal maniacs you watch about on TV who take an entire room and turn it into a web of how they execute plans and piece every single detail together with a bunch of red string? That is a red flag that the person is a genius. And obsessed.

For me, seeing everything at once was extremely painful that my mind burned. I would almost be incapable of moving. So I learned to focus solely on what I have to. In this case, my mind had to chisel down to Red and Eos.

Once my eyes flickered open again, all I saw was a black silk shirt encroaching before collision. I was tossed right onto my butt, hearing the other person exclaim out in pain, "Hey, watch where you're going--- Leaf?"

The coarse but familiar voice snapped my head up, caramel eyes meeting caramel in an almost fascination, "Blue," I said bluntly, swimming my eyes from him to the crowd with even more panic. Quickly, the locked onto Red in the distance. Eos on his shoulders, though she slouched over his skull, completely asleep. The trainer sent a nod to me and continued moving with the other refugees down to the ground.

"What are you doing here?" he inquired with is dark eyebrows scrunching closer to one another, a gentle tint of rose glazing his cheeks as his ginger spikes fell flat into his face.

I let out a light sigh, half relieved Red is out of dodge. My lips slowly parting to retort back to Blue, words though starting to fumble before making it past my tongue as I recalled our last encounter. My heart starting to click faster and faster, "What do you think? That glitch is basically eating everything up," Sarcasm pulling at my next phrase, "thanks for telling me about that by the way and not letting me find out on my own." He shot me a look, as if that was my fault. Which the glitch was, but he keeping it from me was not. "And I thought Mew might have fled somewhere here in the Sevii Islands. Now, I could ask you the same thing, why are you here?"

The former champion shrugged, pointing his nose up and away from me with an arrogant smirk cracking his mouth apart. "Visiting a friend."

"I swear to Arceus, if it is one of your fans---"

"It's not," He cut off sharply, "I'm not that low."

"Really?" I vocalized with a heavy disbelief.

His nostrils flared up as they would when he would grow frustrated or angered. "Really."

"After what happened last time we met---"

"That was different."

"Really?" I repeated, adding irritation to my tone, the heart beat which I begged to swallow just increasing.

His eyes flickered with different emotions which melted into each other in their hypnotic way, "Forget it," he hissed quickly. "I am here to meet up with Lorelei Kanna, one of the elite four members. This is her home town. She called me up to take care of an emergency in Icefall Cave."

The people around us were almost completely filtered out, leaving Blue and I to rise from the wooden paneling. We both moved in the same direction, each foot moved at different paces as we exchanged words. "Why didn't she contact me? I am champion after all."

"Well, you returned the position to me when you went to go face Red, to get his pokemon. Which you failed at. And get his bag away since it has hacked items in it. Which you also failed at. And capture Mew. Which, I can see that mission is going so well."

"Still. Our battle proved I was stronger, so I could still be of assistance," I answered, feeling a tension in my shoulders as each of my faults was thrown back into my face.

His voice turned dark, almost a whisper as the sound of his words punched me in the stomach, "You have done enough."

My nose crinkled in anger, my fists clenched, "Hey---"

"Don't deny it, Leaf," Blue coughed as the two of us both stepped onto the Island, a clear sun beating down on the roofs covering each of the five constructed small homes before glowing against the chamoisee shaded rocks that sprouted around the North-Eastern area of the island, "It all started because of you."

"Why do you keep bringing this up? First, you hated my guts. Then we were friends. Then you hated my guts again. Then it got all complicated in my head that I didn't understand what was going on! So what is going on?"

Blue began to break away from me, heading towards a stone stair way close to the mountain-side. People clustered to fill the space between us, "For a genius, you just won't get it."

Everything froze within me. As the world spun as if a blur, Blue being the only clear image, my entire body held each cell just stopped moving and my lungs refused to circulate the oxygen.

Get what?

Get what?

It continued as so until a hand snapped back on my shoulder, the world suddenly returning to its flowing manor. My body surged forward like I was about to trip while air expanded in my chest. My heart resuming to beat into my ears as I spun back without falling. Red waited with a patient expression. A young child limp and hanging with her nose buried into the nest of Red's hair. A single arm hung over his shoulder, still somehow clutching a used-to-be pink Clefairy (now it was more of a dirt encrusted azalea).

I twitched him a look of reassurance, "I'm going after Blue."

A flash of emotion crossed though Red's stone expression for a split second before nodding. He gave a minor thumbs up and a shuttering smile pulling across his face. He spoke no words but I could hear his voice in my head, "Good luck. I support you."

Maybe I was just so used to understanding Red's expressions. I knew what he was saying and knew his voice.

I couldn't help but give a light hearted laugh, "Not like that, Red. Blue got a message from Elite Four member Lorelei about something going on here. I want to make sure everything is alright."

Red shot me the: "I'm coming with you." face.

"You can't."

The trainer sighed with a confused expression.

"Because. You need to search for Eos's parents and keep an eye out for Mew," I explained as the sun passed over our heads with each second, people senselessly moving about us. "I'll be going into Icefall cave, we won't be able to contact each other---" I recalled something. My laptop which weighed down my bag. Well, it wasn't my laptop. But a replacement one. Only difference is that it doesn't have my computer software programs.

So I fumbled though my bag, though the max potions, pokeballs and everything before fishing out my silver cased laptop which gleamed blindingly in the radiating tropical sun. I drew it open swiftly and smashed my index finger into the power button, the screen brightening the already radiant day. It didn't take more than a minute to open up my email.

"If you find anything, go to the Pokemon Center and shoot me an email from there. I'll keep this with me the entire time and check it frequently." The trainer gave an obedient blink as I continued, scribbling down my email on a scrap sheet before handing it to him, "Here's my email, keep me posted on anything that could happen."

So with that I dove though the people and pokemon, jumping back and forth towards a line of lime-peel pine trees. They bordered the same grey-stone steps Blue had fled down earlier. My laptop was folded under my arm, the power light glowing in and out as a way of yelling, "I am alive," as I continued down the path hidden to most eyes of the people. A narrow-ish space between tree-line and rock wall lined with evergreen grass blades which have been uncut for weeks. Light puddles from a recent downpour filled deep clots of earth here and there as I approached a hollowed out entry way. An icy wind wafting from the entrance glazed with a silk-like frost on its rim.

Upon setting foot into the first antechamber, a glistening world coated in thick ice spilled over all the walls. Just feet away from me was an unstill pond rippling out in small waves. What caused the waves was a thundering waterfall, layering off water like the skins of an onion, fizzling in a white foam into the frosty air surrounding. I took a standing on a rectangle of land. The only way to continue was to surf across the glacier chilled water.

I rolled out Vaporeon's pokeball from my bag and sent him out, still keeping my laptop pinned to my side with my elbow. Releasing the rubbery-skinned from his pokeball, he turns to me with his usual smirk, "We are going to surf across this to get to that other entryway," I affirmed, motioning to the other cave hole just a few surfs away.

Vaporeon nodded before skipping towards the water, his tail twitching with confidence. It all drained away as he sunk a single blue paw into the water, chills running up his entire body before he came trotting back to me. The water-type uncharacteristically began to curl up close to me and let out short mews of discomfort.

"Come on. It's only a short surf. Right after you go right back into your pokemon." I tried to tell, but Vaporeon wouldn't hear of it. Shaking his head violently. "Oh? Is the water too much for the Great Vaporeon? I'm sorry. Maybe I'll get Pidgeot to lift me over."

Vapreon nodded with a pearly grin before pressing his little muzzle against the center of his pokeball, a red illumination swallowing him back into where he usually resides. I released a small growl that vibrated in my throat. I was forced to fish out Pidgeot's pokeball. I released the jovial pokemon whose tawny feathers fluffed up around his neck and chest. The avian's beak burying into its down as the cold sunk in. His onyx eyes glimmered as Pidgeot stared at me, releasing a cute coo of greeting.

I coolly brushed my hand over the pokemon, ruffling his contour feathers that covered his head. "Hey, bud," I smiled, never feeling any sense of confusion or heartache when around the free-spirit. "I need you to fly me over to that other passage opening across the water."

Pidgeot nodded his head, letting his wing closest to me lower as a step up. Once I was aboard, it only took a wing beat or two to soar across. My fingers wrapped up in the smooth feathers, my muscles untended and unwound. Too much.

Splash.

Compared to the waterfall, it wasn't too loud. But to me, it echoed in my head like church bells on a wedding. A space now open between my elbow and side. I screeched, not knowing what else to do as my vision dove down into the arctic pool.

A laptop sinking further and further to the bottom, small little snaps of electricity simmering up to the water's surface. I had barely noticed when it left my grasp. Once Pidgeot had taken his landing across the shore, I was scrambling off to the ledge, scraping my knees as I fell. My fingernails dug deep into the crackling earth line between me and the water.

I just watched it sink helplessly.

I don't know why. I rarely ever used that laptop Blue gave me. But my heart felt like it just lost something that held it together. The other pieces scrambling to sew back to something close to whole.

"Hey, person! Are you alright?" a former champion's voice from down the corridor cried. I wanted to let tears fall. But they didn't. I wanted to turn my head around to see him. But I couldn't. I wanted to scream again. But I wouldn't.

I promised to stay strong. I couldn't let small things tear me apart.

"Leaf?"

"...Yeah," I finally cracked. "Sorry that I followed you. I just. Wanted to help."

"Geez, you can be such a pain sometimes!"

I chose not to respond. No, I chose to weave the right words to say next. I just wasn't fast enough.

A hand sunk onto the back of my blue sweater vest in a comforting presence, "Why'd ya' scream?"

My arms trembled faintly as my mouth struggled to create words again, "The laptop. I dropped it. In the. Water."

The silence between us killed me each second it dragged on. My hand moving on its own to recall Pidgeot. I had to keep moving, so I stood back to my feet and brushed off my skirt, "You really want to help?" Blue asked in a hesitant way to change from our old topic.

I nodded. He and I wandered our way down the next area, rarely exchanging conversation on the way. For the beginning anyways. But, I felt like trying to fill this canyon between Blue and I. So, blunt and to the point, "Hey---"

"Why aren't you wearing the jacket?"

I looked up to the Ginger whose gaze stared off with a slight fog to them. "Ah," I mused under my breath which puffed out into heated water partials in the air. I unzipped my bag and pulled out the black coat from it, its white hood folded forward. Carefully I handed it back to him, "I don't need it anymore."

"It is freezing in here, how can you not be cold?" Blue retorted, rubbing his bare arms to create friction. His dark eyebrows were furrowed together with crossed emotions while the tip of his nose turned into a cherry.

I gave a shrug, "I never said I wasn't. But I just don't need it anymore. You need it more, it seems."

His russet pools seemed saddened as he looked down at it.

"Don't think of it as me returning a gift," I hushed, "Think of it like exchanging the warmth it once gave me. It kept me warm on Mt. Silver. Now it's the jacket's turn to keep you warm."

Blue muttered incoherent grumbles yet still took the jacket and tugged it over his shoulders. A quiet air didn't last much longer until he spoke again, "I'm planning to step down. Officially."

"Huh?"

"From the champion position. I wanted to settle down more. Not be in charge."

"Ah."

"So. I am going to be a Gym Leader. Since Geovanni is," the boy's voice hitched as his eyes I remembered getting lost in suddenly became distant, "no longer available to be a gym leader. Since it was revealed he was the mastermind of Team Rocket. So, I am going to be replacing him."

"I see."

"... Selphy didn't like the news."

"Why?"

"I really didn't know," he replied with a snapping in his voice. "Maybe she didn't want to be stuck in that town. Or she liked being pampered and gloating to be the girlfriend of the champion."

I snorted my nose in amusement once, "I should have warned you. I mean, she seemed like that girl the entire time. But you seemed to like her."

His voice lost volume as his sentences drifted, "Not really. I liked," uncertainty beginning to delay his train of thought. "Someone else. But I believed I couldn't like them, so I pushed my feelings onto another."

"Well that's not healthy. Or natural."

"I know that!"

"You seem to know everything."

"So do you," Blue countered hastily, leaving the time it would take to answer sinking in onto our shoulders, "Do you at least like this jacket?"

I shot him a crooked look, "Yeah. I mean, who doesn't like a warm coat?"

He cracked an arrogant smirk, "True. I think--- I'll wear this more often. Yeah. Whenever I'm working at the gym I will wear it."

I giggled quietly at how he spoke his thoughts, much different from Red. "Alright, weirdo."

"What?" he grew defensive, but still his every cocky face.

"You're always speaking your mind. Not that it's bad. Just a little weird. Whether it is an over -confident statement, instructions on what you are about to do. I mean, like with Daisy and the Town Maps back at the beginning of the actual game. Or the occasional indirect advice. It's almost too easy to see how you feel. At least, back when I played the game." I began to ponder, "It's a bit more difficult now."

He didn't respond for the greatest while. I should have asked what was going on with Lorelei here in Icefall cave, but once more, I was beaten to the punch for speaking.

A soft muttering hissing from beside me.

"What?"

"N-Nothing."

"You said something."

Blue's eyes held with mine for a minute. He straightened up, puffing out his chest dominantly as his cheeks were crimson like a setting sun, "Leaf."

"What," I said dryly, trying not to laugh at this sudden change.

"I really hated you when we first met."

"I might have noticed."

"Well, you were responsible for hacking our game and causing The Glitch---"

"I get it," I stressed, "I screwed up. You've made that clear, many, many times. Along with everyone else in this world."

His throat cleared, his pacing stopped in one place, "But over time... I no longer saw you as a pesky girl. You were just a scared kid going through a lot. Once I saw the human in you, my hatred started to crumble."

My voice didn't say a thing. But I felt a connection to his words, reminding me of how I once portrayed of this world. That's when it slowly sunk into me like a knife. We were all just scared kids at the time, we didn't know what to do. We were all lost and terrified of what would happen next.

Each one of us, was just a kid.

"Heh. That hatred crumbled so much, it turned into something else. Something I didn't understand. I was unable to know what to do or what it was... When I finally talked to my older sister, she wouldn't stop laughing at me."

I held back a burning grin, imagining Blue talk to Daisy about his feelings. He was just as scared.

His breath stopped, his hand snatching my fingers carefully. The warmth of his skin crawling across mine, spreading around radiantly and patiently. "I realized what it was. I've spent so much time, watching you grow. Grow stronger, nurture bonds with your pokemon, your old wounds heal, I watched you be, well, human. You are a genius, but you seemed isolated. Now, you are different. I've seen it all. Every rage you spat to me, every smile you made, every awkward laugh you utter. The way your eyes narrow and turn glazed when you are thinking deeply. I realized, each good and bad point was what made you Leaf. I learned I loved them all."

His grip tightened to the point my bones were smashing into one another. To the point it was painful. But the words: "that hurts" wouldn't come.

"I love you."

Three words I know have been said too much by humanity still stopped my blood from flowing. Three cliché words stopped my heart for just a second. Blue's expectant russet eyes stealing away my soul as his face inched closer. The teenager tenderly pressed his forehead into mine, a thermal heated aura radiating from him felt as if it was about to melt me. Our awkward noses starting to slide together like puzzle pieces which didn't fit. Our hot breaths mixing with each other's, our breaths kissing one another's noses.

My heart fluttered in an uneasy way, crawling up my throat with its odd powers. It was as if a Pidgey was fighting it get out. But something was different. I couldn't place it but,

Something just felt off as the skin of his lips grazed my upper lip with a gentle touch.