Covalence: Chapter 4

There hadn’t been much of an interview. Someone named Moe grilled Lyte about his previous bar job over a call and that was it. They didn’t seem picky, but given the short notice, Lyte thought it seemed genuine enough. Somehow he felt less nervous about this than about the date. Maybe because it was just a job, or because it was happening so fast he didn’t have a chance to really get anxious about it. Probably both.

So late Sunday afternoon, less than 24 hours later, Lyte got on the tram and headed back down to Old Town. It was only after he got there, standing in front of an unmarked warehouse door deep in the derelict corpse of the industrial district, that he really felt nervous.

The pikachu stared up at the massive door, unease gnawing at the pit of his belly. It was at least seven feet tall and entirely metal, flecked with rust where the paint had chipped off. The footpaw-pedal was as big as he was and looked like more of a joke than something he could actually use; it was probably so heavy he couldn’t open it on his own. Not unless the hinges are slicker than a goodra’s ass, Lyte thought. Maybe this was a bad idea. Before his paws got any colder, figuratively or otherwise, Lyte scrounged up all his courage and texted the number like he’d been instructed.

He slipped his conn orb and his paws back into his pockets and shivered. The warmth of the afternoon was fading, but that wasn’t it. It was the last moments before he was really committed. Lyte couldn’t tell if he was actually picking up bad vibes or if his anxious brain was lying to him; either way he didn’t like it. He could still run away—

Clunk. Not anymore. Now unlocked, the door swung inward slowly and ponderously, revealing an extra big cacturne who lumbered into the doorway, nearly filling it. He looked confusedly at the empty space above Lyte’s head, then glanced side to side, the points of his hat-like head topper sweeping through the air.

The little pikachu waved up at the spiky-skinned cactus. “Down here! I’m Lyte!” He hazarded a guess. “Are you Moe?”

The cacturne looked down, yellow eyes focusing on Lyte. “Mr. Moe to you,” he said, in a dry, hollow voice, his spiky mouth hardly moving. His brows lowered in resigned disappointment. “You’re even tinier than you said,” he grumbled. “Well, c’mon. Long as you can work a till and pull a pint there’s some use for you.”

Lyte put on his best customer service smile. “I won’t let you down, Mr. Moe, sir!”

“Better not.” The hulking grass-type turned away and waved one hand for Lyte to follow.

Lyte’s smile felt even more fake than usual. He dropped it, let out a nervous chuckle, and scampered in after him. The door shut behind him with a great clomp of finality.

Mr. Moe gave him a whirlwind tour. The warehouse had been converted into an unsanctioned arena, the caged ring itself the centerpiece of the front section. Lyte knew these sorts of places existed, but he’d never been to one before. Partly out of a fear of getting stepped on, and partly because everyone said the fights were more brutal here and he was a self-admitted wimp. Maybe it wasn’t so bad, but the sight of the chain-link cage did not inspire much confidence. He squinted up past the cage at the high bay lights, bright and cold. There was a truss rigged to the ceiling with spotlights for the ring itself, along with some cloth baffles hung in an haphazard attempt to improve the horrible acoustics of a giant empty metal box.

Around the ring, simple bench stands had been wheeled in on three sides. The stands on the fourth side were higher up and notably nicer: they actually had seats. Behind the nicer stands, a partition ran across the warehouse to block off the back of house. Up against it were the other essentials: the betting window and the bar. Wood veneer and antique lighting valiantly attempted to give the bar area a classier look; it wasn’t working. Lyte suspected the mismatched sconces had been scavenged from abandoned buildings nearby. Or the trash.

The bar actually had a second floor, a mezzanine platform that connected to the VIP stands. It was decorated in a similarly (if not more) tacky way, and the stairs up were roped off by stanchions and signs that declared it exclusive and special. Reserved for those too classy to brush shoulders with the riffraff down below, Lyte thought. The city in microcosm.

The cacturne pushed past the ropes and led him up the stairs, trunk-like legs clomping; Lyte had to jump up each one. When they got to the top, the pikachu was panting and trying to hide it. He’d already had to scamper to keep up with Moe’s waddling stride, and the stairs nearly winded him. Fortunately, this was where the tour stopped, and the cacturne either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “You’ll be filling in up here,” he said. “It’s less rowdy. Brook will train you when she gets here. She’s your boss.”

With that, Lyte was left alone. He climbed up onto the counter behind the bar and looked around, at the taps, spirits, the empty stands he could see across the warehouse… it was a lot to take in. This seemed a huge production for something that was dubiously legal at best. Of course, it was also Halcyon Falls, so the cops probably didn’t care. Or were already paid off.

He shook his head. How the fuck is Moe—Mr. Moe—oo… Weft’s oom… one of Weft’s friends? Followers? The pikachu pulled his orb out of his coat.

Brook, an azumarill, showed up a quarter hour later. She took one look at Lyte and immediately delegated him every menial task the pikachu was physically capable of doing. That and an admonishment of “don’t piss anyone off” was the extent of Lyte’s training. He didn’t really mind. Cleaning the counters and washing glasses was far from the worst he could be doing, and it was honestly easier than serving drinks, which he had to do whenever Brook was busy with other customers. His size was a real inconvenience there.

His first night went pretty well, all things considered. He learned where things went, picked up on the vibes, and he got to watch some battles when he had downtime. The pikachu couldn’t see the actual ring from most of the bar, but neither could the patrons, so there was a screen set up showing the view from a closed-circuit camera. The quality was pretty bad, and he mostly had to focus elsewhere, but some of the time he was getting paid to watch battles and that was pretty good in his book. Even if they were a bit rough for his taste (as expected).

He also learned that, apparently, the VIP bar was the one the competitors could access. This seemed odd to Lyte—Why would any of these snooty types want to be around the ones actually getting their paws dirty?—until he saw how wild the crowd could get. Cheering, screaming, throwing stuff; his feelings about the caged ring and walkway had 180’d after seeing enough cans bonk off of it. It wasn’t to keep the fighters in, it was to keep shit out. Well, probably both. Honestly, I’m surprised this isn’t more of a shitshow with everyone drunk off their ass and also gambling.

It wasn’t a job he’d be particularly proud of. But money is money…

---

The second night, Lyte was barely early. He scampered up the stairs, shoved his connection orb and coat under the bar, and started prepping the bar before the place opened. He stifled a yawn; he was already feeling the lack of sleep. He was going to need to start taking naps before coming over or he wouldn’t make it through the week.

The competitor roster was different tonight; he only recognized some of the stage names from last night. Lyte wondered how effective stage names actually were at hiding their identities. It wasn’t like they could hide their species when they fought. But maybe that didn’t really matter; some of the names, like “Thwompert”, didn’t do that either.

Mostly, the battlers didn’t visit the bar until after they were done for the evening, with Thwompert a notable exception. The swampert kept showing up and demanding more, just like he had the previous night. Lyte had figured out he was something like the reigning champion of the place, which apparently paid for a lot of drinks.

It was the middle of the evening when Lyte glanced at the fight onscreen and started so much he nearly flung his glass across the bar. (He only dumped the water all over the floor instead.) He would’ve rubbed his eyes if his paws weren’t full: there was no mistaking the yellow and black striped cat in the ring, even on the blurry CCTV screen. Not unless there was a second zeraora prizefighter in the city.

Zinnia? Here? What’s she doing in a place like this? Lyte wondered while he mopped up the spill. He supposed he could ask himself the same question.

Knowing Zinnia was here completely shot his focus for the rest of the evening. He kept his ears perked to listen and kept sneaking glances the screen to see if she was on; when she was, he spent so much time with his eyes glued to it that he caught a scolding from Brook.

Zinnia—or “ZK”, as he learned from the announcements—made short and efficient work of several challengers over the next couple hours. She used her claws way more here, keeping the medics flush with work. Her last fight of the evening was similarly one-sided, but this time she got demolished by the swampert. Lyte had seen enough of her fights that he was pretty sure she’d barely tried. Just enough effort so it didn’t look like she conceded on the spot. Conserving charge in a bad matchup, he suspected.

Even after that, Lyte was still restless, wondering if she’d visit the bar or just leave. Does she drink? He actually had no idea. Instead of checking the screen, he kept glancing at the stairs. It was affecting his performance, but he couldn’t help it.

When he finally saw Zinnia on the stairs he nearly squealed with excitement. She slowly made her way up, bruised and less muddy, though more damp, which if anything made her look more disheveled than before. Are there showers crammed back there somewhere?

The zeraora padded up and barely gave him a glance. She just leaned on the bar and stared off into space. “Mojito,” she said. Her ears were angled slightly out, her scarf-like tail drooping and limp. Her whole posture radiated tiredness.

“Sure thing, one mojito,” he said. That was simple enough he could make it himself. The pikachu scampered off to grab the ingredients. I don’t think she recognized me…

While he was muddling the mint leaves, he shuffled back over towards her. “So, Zi—uh, ZK,” Lyte said, correcting himself away from her actual name. “Come here often?” He felt a cheesy grin spreading over his face and didn’t even bother trying to stop it.

“Huh?” She gave him a confused look, then did a double take. “Wh—Lyte?!” Zinnia blinked and squinted, like she didn’t believe what she was seeing. Her ears perked up. “What are you doing here? How long have you—you work here?”

“Hey, I asked first,” Lyte said. “I’m filling in this week. I didn’t expect to see you here either!”

“Huh.” The zeraora stared, her yellow and blue eyes locked on him. “I… fight here pretty often.”

“Seems pretty rough. Is this where you hurt your ear?” He looked at her left ear, its fur yellow on the outside and a fluffy black on the inside. The new second notch cut into the upper helix, exposing light pink scar tissue.

Zinnia grimaced. “Yeah.”

Lyte busied himself putting the finishing touches on her mojito (ice, soda water, straw). He reached up to place it on the bar. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

He glanced around to see if he was needed elsewhere; free, at least for a moment longer. Lyte looked back up to Zinnia. “Why do you fight here? I mean, in addition to the, uh, legal—I mean—”

She waved a big paw while she finished her sip. “Same reason you’re here: the money. The local league doesn’t pay enough to get by on unless you’re a big shot. Basically everyone in it is working other jobs on the side or doing fights in places like this.”

“Really? Wow. I had no idea it was that bad.”

“It’s not great.”

Lyte busied himself tending to other patrons and scurrying away some empty glasses. He waved to Zinnia as he passed her. “You normally hang out here after your fights?”

The zeraora shrugged. “Sometimes. If I need a treat.” She sipped her drink. “If you keep working here, I’ll hang out more often.” She reached out towards Lyte and put her paw on the bar.

Lyte’s heart fluttered. “Second night on the job and I’m already improving customer retention,” he joked, reaching over to put one paw on one of her digits.

The entire platform quivered. Zinnia glanced over her shoulder and made a face. “Ugh. Here comes the ‘champ’,” she grumbled.

Lyte followed her gaze to see the hulking swampert from earlier squeezing his way up the stairs. He’d visited several times tonight, but it still boggled Lyte’s mind to see him fit.

“Watch out,” Zinnia said. “He’s the reason your job had an opening.”

The pikachu blinked. Shit. I didn’t think to ask about the last guy. “Wait, what—”

“Outta the way,” boomed a deep, resonant voice. “Scram.” Thwompert muscled his way to the bar, shoving three other pokémon aside to make room for himself. His looming presence brought a hush to the bar; nobody wanted to attract his attention. Oblivious to the strange tableau, he ogled Zinnia for what felt like ages. She snatched her paw back, but not before he saw it, his gaze sweeping over the bar to Lyte, orange eyes staring at the pikachu like he was only just now registering his existence. Like he was seeing him for the first time as another pokémon and not a faceless dispenser of alcohol.

Lyte swallowed. Fixed by that beady stare, he very much would have preferred to remain unpersoned.

Thwompert looked between the two of them, the gears in his head turning so slowly Lyte expected smoke to start pouring from his ear-holes any second. Eventually something clicked and a leering smile spread across the swampert’s face, over two feet wide. It was probably meant to be charming. “Hey kitty,” he slurred. “This guy botherin’ you?”

“No,” Zinnia said. Her whiskers twitched. “He’s serving me drinks.” She’d never seemed very friendly to Lyte, but one look at her and he realized he’d never seen her unfriendly before. Not like now; she’d undergone a complete transformation in the few seconds he’d looked away. Her ears had twisted to show the backs, her claws were out, her face cold and closed off, fangs slightly bared. Every inch of her radiated “touch me and die”.

“Oh yeah.” The swampert slapped his webbed flipper-paw on the bar, rattling all the glasses. “Another whiskey!” He slapped his other paw on Zinnia’s back, nearly knocking her into the bar. She stiffened and stifled an angry mrowr, glaring daggers at him; alas, they bounced harmlessly off his blubber. “And another one of those for the lovely lady here.”

The zeraora straightened herself and extricated her scarf-tail from under the swampert’s paw. “Very kind of you,” she said, “but I’m all right.” Lyte had no idea how she managed to keep the venom out of her voice; she looked like she was praying for him to drop dead on the spot.

“Make it anyway!” Thwompert ordered. “I’ll drink it if she doesn’t.”

Lyte hesitated—the swampert was already visibly inebriated—but nodded anyway. Not pissing this guy off seemed like priority number one. “Of course, sir,” he said, and scurried away to get a class.

Thwompert’s voice followed Lyte, booming through the entire bar. “Must suck,” he continued, back on his original tack as though he hadn’t heard Zinnia disagree. “Probably get people hitting on you all the time with a bod like that. An’ most of ‘em ain’t worth the time of day.”

Lyte glanced back at them while he made the drinks. He couldn’t hear what Zinnia was saying, but she looked like she was giving the smallest, least interested responses possible. Why is she even still here? he wondered. Does she need an excuse to leave? Maybe he could help!

The other conversations were picking back up around him, but he still heard bits of Thwompert’s rumbling voice. “The nerve of that rat,” the swampert was saying, gesturing at Lyte from across the bar. Zinnia looked at him; he recognized the look on her face from the park. Concern.

Lyte felt a chill. He realized he had it backwards: she wasn’t the one who needed help, he was. Is she staying to distract him from me? Because he thinks I’m competing with him? That sounded incredibly stupid, so it was entirely plausible it was what Thwompert was thinking. Lyte worked as quick as he could to make the second mojito; it was only when he was carrying the drinks back that he realized he should have been stalling for time, not hurrying back.

When he returned, Zinnia looked positively murderous. She no longer wanted Thwompert to drop dead; she wanted to kill him herself. “Neat whiskey and mojito,” Lyte heard himself saying, setting the drinks on the bar.

The swampert grabbed the whiskey, oblivious. “She’s way outta your league, rat.” He drank it in a single gulp and slammed the empty glass down. “Gimme another one.”

What is even the point of getting whiskey if you’re just going to do that? Lyte wondered. “Yes, of course,” he said, bristling under his polite facade. He felt that, actually, he should stop serving Thwompert—who was clearly drunk—but Zinnia’s warning made him wary. There was no way the swampert would take getting cut off well. An even more drunk swampert seemed bad too, but at least it’d be a roll of the dice. Or maybe I’m just fucked. Lyte sighed as he poured water glasses for the two of them. Maybe he could slow things down without Thwompert noticing.

He set them on the bar. Thwompert took one look at the glass and fixed Lyte with a nasty glare. “The fuck is this, rat?” he demanded, gesturing to the water. “Where’s the whiskey?”

Arceus fucking judge it all, Lyte thought. “I’m getting it!” he squeaked. “I just got you some water, too—”

“I’m made of this shit, rat. Are y’ saying I can’t hold my liquor? Lissen here.” The swampert stabbed a big flipper-finger at the pikachu. “I’m ground-type. This shit’s nothin’ to me.”

Zinnia cut in. “Thanks for the water,” she said, taking a sip with deliberate slowness. “Don’t give the bartender shit. He’s just doing his job.”

“No the fuck he isn’t,” Thwompert said. “He ain’t tending no bars. Where’s my whiskey?”

Internally, Lyte was panicking. What do I do? His first instinct was retreating into corpo-speak and giving some apologetic answer about how his paws were tied. (“I’m sorry, sir; our policies forbid me from serving belligerent patrons—”) Nah. He threw that idea in the trash. There was no way it’d work. He tried a different tack instead. “Look, man,” he said, trying to give the swampert some Real Talk. “I don’t want you feeling like crap in the morning, y’know?”

“How I feel in the morning’s my problem,” the swampert snapped. “Not yours.”

“It’s my problem if you cause issues in my bar.”

Thwompert stared at him, brain cells bouncing around in his head until they finally rubbed together. He laughed. “I forgot you’re new here,” Thwompert said. “I think there’s been some mis-understandin’.” He pronounced it carefully, making sure not to slur the syllables together. He pointed at a poster stuck to a nearby wall. “Whose name is on that? Y’ can read, yeah?”

Lyte looked. The poster listed the current champion and the pot for defeating them. He didn’t even need to read the name. “…yours,” he said.

“That’s right. That means I’m king. That means I get what I want, and if I don’t, then you’ll have your fucking problem.”

The pikachu felt rooted to the spot. He desperately looked around for the other bartender, but she seemed to have made herself scarce somehow.

“You must be dense or something.” The swampert leaned on the bar, making the wood creak. “Lemme show you something about how the world works, little guy. I’m the strongest one here. And that means I can do whatever I want.” He reached out and draped an arm around Zinnia, pulling the zeraora against his side. She tensed, sparks crackling harmlessly from her fur to the swampert’s thick blue skin.

Lyte jumped up onto the bar without thinking. “Let go of her,” he said, paws clenched. To his shock, Zinnia winced. What? What was I supposed to do? Should I just’ve… let him do that? Fuck, maybe; it’s not like I can do anything…

“Ooh, so brave,” Thwompert said. “Whaddya gonna do about it, pipsqueak? She’s ten—a hundr—a zillion times stronger than you and she knows she can’t do shit to me.” He guffawed. “Besides. She’s not gonna fuck you. Like you’d even be able to do anything with a prick like that. Right?” He squeezed Zinnia’s ass.

The big cat grimaced; she had moved on from imagining murder and was now entertaining vivisection. Her brows furrowed as she tried to think of what to say that wouldn’t just make things worse. “Of course not,” she said, after a moment. “Not gonna fuck you, either. I already have a partner.”

Lyte flinched. She made that up, right? Right?

Thwompert was not dissuaded. “Eh, he won’t mind sharing.”

“Let go or I’ll have Moe turn you into a vegetable garden.”

The swampert snorted. “Aw, gonna run to daddy Moe? He won’t do shit. I make him a lot more money than do you, kitty.”

Lyte opened his mouth and shut it. He closed his eyes. Deescalate the situation. Easy. Don’t piss anyone off, not any more than you have already. The pikachu tried to formulate a carefully crafted response. I should find Brook and swap with her. She must know how to handle this guy.

“Where did he find a runt like this anyway?” Thwompert continued. “Look at him dragging those cheris around on the bar. Disgusting.”

“Bigger balls than you,” Lyte snapped, gesturing to the smooth empty space between the swampert’s legs. Mid-gesture, he froze in horror. Whatthefuck why did I say that oh fuck oh fuck—!

Thwompert narrowed his eyes and would have grit his teeth, if he had any. “They’re internal, dumbass.”

The situation might still have been salvageable, had Zinnia not snorted with laughter despite everything.

“Oh, that’s funny? You think that’s funny?” The swampert forced out an incredibly unsettling and awkward laugh. “Funny joke!” He moved faster than Lyte thought possible. Three smooth and clammy fingers wrapped around the pikachu, gripping Lyte hard enough to force a pathetic wheeze from his lungs. “I’ll show you funny.”

Adrenaline spiked Lyte’s heartrate. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Zinnia opening her mouth to shout, both of them standing up. Thwompert winding up.

Then he was flying, head over heels, the world a dizzying blur, blood rushing to his head and feet at the same time. He didn’t even feel the impact with the wall’s wood facade. The world went from slow to fast all at once, everything going at triple speed. Like a lag spike, Lyte’s brain helpfully supplied, the wood paneling splitting, splintering, and collapsing to the floor with him in a blur. Then his sight went all funny.

He blinked rapidly. Something big, black, yellow and blurry was above him, surrounded by all sorts of colors that hadn’t been there a moment ago. What the fuck? he thought. Did I black out? He tried to move, wiggling one limb at a time. Everything hurt when he moved it, which was a good indicator he was still alive. Yep, still had his arms. Ow. Left footpaw, check. Right leg—Lyte felt something so far beyond pain it was indescribable. He Experienced a Sensation, a wave of nausea rolling through him. Hmm. That’s probably bad. As long as he held still, it didn’t happen, which was fine. He could lie here for the rest of time. That sounded good.

Another eternity later—probably a couple seconds, his sense of time was royally fucked—the shapes swam back into focus above him. He was surrounded by a crowd of pokémon, with Zinnia standing right over him, crouched in a defensive stance. It was a view he would have appreciated more if his vision weren’t spinning. “You leave him the fuck alone,” Zinnia was snarling, her claws out and sparking.

“Or else what, kitty?” The swampert took one lumbering step closer, then another. His wide feet slapped against the mezzanine floor with enough force to make it shake, and each shake made Lyte feel queasy. “Are you gonna stop me?”

“I will rip out your dick and feed it to you through a straw.”

This actually gave the swampert pause for a moment. But only for a moment. His bravado ran too deep too be truly shaken. “You’ve never beaten me,” he said, “and you never will.”

He took another step, but froze when someone yelled from the bar. “HEY!” Brook shouted, looking as angry as an egg-shaped creature could be. “No fighting outside the ring! Cut this shit out or I’ll get Moe to ban both your asses.”

Thwompert bristled at the interruption, but her invocation of Moe’s name took the wind from his sails. The azumarill’s threat commanded some sort of begrudging respect that Zinnia’s had not. “Fine,” he grumbled, then lifted one arm to point at Zinnia. “We’ll take it to the ring. I’ll let you fight me,” the swampert said. “Another chance to dethrone the king. But when I win”—he smirked—“you and I are going on a lovely date together, and I’ll show you what a real man can do.” He snickered. “Don’t worry. I’ll go easy on you. Wouldn’t want to go out with damaged goods.”

“Deal,” Zinnia said, without hesitation. “And when I win, you get out and never come back. And go fuck yourself, too.”

“Oh, kitty. I won’t need to.”

---

As soon as Zinnia scooped him up, Lyte was reminded that he could, in fact, feel pain. To his displeasure, he stayed fully conscious while she made her way down the stairs and through the crowd below, drifting in and out of awareness of the outside world. At some point he noticed the crowd was gone, the warehouse around him unfamiliar. They were behind the partition, in the section he hadn’t seen.

A bit later, they stopped moving, and there was a gardevoir peering down at him. Zinnia seemed to be arguing with him.

“Our medical resources are only for actual combatants,” he said. “You know that.”

“Marcus! He fucking works here,” the zeraora said. “Fix him!”

The gardevoir, Marcus, gave Zinnia a dubious stare. He looked down at Lyte and plucked a splinter of wood paneling from the pikachu’s fur. “Probably not after that, he doesn’t.”

“If you don’t, I’ll…”

“Are you going to threaten me, ZK?” The gardevoir crossed his arms and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Please consider your next words very carefully.”

The zeraora tensed, then sagged. ”…No.”

“Good. I have final say on who we do or don’t treat, and fortunately for him, I do like you.” Marcus stepped forward, holding a delicate green hand over Lyte. Pink energy limned his three digits, a similar glow sweeping over the pikachu’s body and focusing on his leg. The gardevoir frowned. “There’s multiple fractures and tears,” he said. “This is far beyond our capabilities here.” He hmphed to himself. “Hey, pikachu.”

“Lyte,” Zinnia supplied.

“Hey, Lyte. Can you hear me? Look at my hand.”

Lyte grunted, looking up at the green hand above him. The gardevoir moved it around in an arc, back across, then briefly flashed him with pink. Lyte squinted into the light, following it with his eyes.

“On the bright side, he doesn’t appear to be concussed,” Marcus said. “Probably due to his size.”

“You have to do something,” Zinnia protested. “Won’t healing him help?”

The gardevoir looked at her without moving his head. “No. It will just make his leg iamatotic.” Seeing Zinnia’s blank stare, he sighed. “Without proper treatment—setting the bones, et cetera—he’ll heal wrong. Like wrong shape, won’t work. They’ll have to break it again, or worse, to heal it properly.” He looked back down at Lyte. “The best we can do here is immobilize the limb and treat the pain until he gets proper attention. Is anyone here with him?”

The zeraora hesitated before nodding. “Me.”

The gardevoir raised his eyebrows again, then shrugged. “Take him to a proper specialist tomorrow. Also, set him down here.” He indicated something Lyte couldn’t see. The pikachu felt himself set down on some flat surface. He looked up at the gardevoir, whose green bangs were cropped short. Marcus was frowning again. “Only 3 pounds… dosing him will be tricky.” He rummaged through some drawer. “Do we even have splints this small? Ah, this will do.”

He held up one hand, wrapping Lyte’s leg in psychic force. The pikachu still hadn’t seen his own injury, and was unknowingly happier for it; seeing the new and exciting bends in his footpaw and leg would not have improved his mood. He didn’t see what Marcus did, either, because he blanked out until the gardevoir was done.

Looking down at him, Marcus seemed satisfied. “That should keep it from getting worse for a bit. We can do a bit better, too.” he said. “Krista!”

A glaceon poked her head up from behind a cabinet. “Yes?”

“Splint the patient’s leg,” the gardevoir instructed.

Krista trotted around the cabinet and reared up onto her hinds, carefully supporting herself above Lyte without jostling him at all. ”…Did you treat him on the scale?” she asked. He big rhombic ears swiveled.

“He’d been moved too much already. Just freeze him, please. I mean, splint. Full cryo is not required.”

“Right, right. Hold still, please.” The glaceon took a deep breath, the blue flaps hanging from her forehead crest slightly lifting under their own power. She exhaled slowly, frost crystallizing on Lyte’s fur. It wrapped around his leg and the splint, thickening into a solid layer of ice. “That should last the night.”

It felt cold at first, but the sensation weirdly faded. Lyte didn’t think he was numb; he could still feel his leg, the ice just wasn’t… cold. “Why… it’s not cold?” he asked.

“That’s normal,” Krista said, peering down at him with big blue eyes. “I locked down temperature exchange at the interface; heat isn’t going in or out. Keeps it from melting. Should last you overnight at least.”

“It’s common field first aid,” Zinnia added, clearly speaking from experience.

“Oh.” Lyte winced. His leg felt… better, maybe, if he were being exceedingly generous. “So. About those painkillers…?”

---

Zinnia was hustling somewhere again. She’d insisted on taking him with her instead of leaving him with the medics; Lyte didn’t know why, but he was of no mind to complain. He leaned into her fuzzy black belly fur and closed his eyes. The painkillers were working; he felt like he was on a cloud.

He was rudely pulled away from Zinnia’s tummy and set down. Lyte opened his eyes, regretted it, and squinted into the harsh light tubes overhead. He turned to his side and saw himself in a dirty mirror above a sink. Seeing his right leg for the first time, it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared, not that he could see much underneath the ice and the black fabric of the splint.

Zinnia wasn’t looking at him; she was staring herself in the face, paws splayed on either side of him. Like she was psyching herself up. “That fucker. I’m going to put him in the fucking dirt.” Her claws scraped against the countertop.

Lyte cringed at the sound. “Hey, Zinnia,” he said, looking up at her reflection. “Uh… Have you beat him before?”

She glanced down at him, also in the mirror. ”…No.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Kind of. But I need your help.”

“Oh, sure,” Lyte said, the painkillers smoothing all the rough edges off his thoughts. “You can have some charge. Will it be enough?” He hummed to himself. “How long until the fight?”

The zeraora shook her head. “Do you trust me?”

“Huh? Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“And you want to kick his ass?”

“Absolutely.”

“Mm.” Zinnia bit her lip, and her whiskers twitched. “Good.” She hesitated, then gently scooped Lyte up in her paws, holding under his forelegs.

The pikachu’s world spun a little as he was lifted, the painkillers swaddling his mind making him dizzy. They worked, though; it didn’t hurt. Level with her face, he gave her a dopey smile, unsure why he was up here. “Nice weather up here,” he joked. Perfect height for a kiss. Wait. That dredged up another thought, which flowed directly to his mouth before he could stop it. “Hey. Do you really have another partner?”

“What?” The feline blinked a couple times in confusion at the non-sequitur. Lyte looked back and forth between her yellow eye and her blue one. “What are you—Oh! Lyte, I just made that up.”

The pikachu smiled. “Oh, okay. That’s what I thought. Did you make up the other part, too?”

“Is that what really what you’re worried about?” She let out a single hmph of laughter. “Don’t be. I like you a lot.” The big cat leaned in and planted a kiss on his forehead, whiskers brushing against his ears and leaving them tingly.

Lyte giggled, his cheeks feeling hot. “I like you a lot too!”

Zinnia just held him in front of herself. She bit her lip; she seemed to be hesitating, like she’d lost her nerve. For what, Lyte had no idea. Maybe we’ll kiss with tongue, he thought, dreamily.

The zeraora opened her mouth and for a moment, he thought he was right. But she kept opening it, wider than he’d ever seen, four prominent fangs framing her pink tongue. The pikachu had a second to stare, agog, before she lifted him and lowered her mouth over his head. Her fangs dragged against his back and belly, hard and slick and oddly blunt. Her other teeth pressed against his sides, her rough tongue wriggling under him as she pushed him deeper. Up ahead was slick pink darkness, flexing, rippling. Alive.

The reality of the situation caught up to him. Panic spiked through the warm chemical blanket. “Wait! Zinnia!” Not like this!

His face squished against the back of her mouth. He felt her try to swallow, but she nearly gagged on him, throat convulsing and rejecting him. Lyte tried to struggle. His good leg wiggled in the air, and his paws gripped at her lips. He felt her teeth under his arms and tried not to think about what would happen if she bit down. He was terrified, and the worst part was that his dick was twitching into her rough tongue anyway. It was different in his fantasies, but the warmth and slickness was better than he could have imagined.

Cool air rushed past his face as the zeraora took a deep breath through her nose. Everything leaned forward and down as she tipped her head back. “Zinnia! Don’t—mmmph!” His words were stifled as she pushed on him and tried to swallow again. This time her throat opened before him, allowing him to slip into the tight, muscular tunnel.

Hot, slimy flesh hugged around his whole head, folding his ears back against his skull. All other sounds cut out; his whole world was the squelch of her throat and the pounding of her heartbeat. Strong ripples squeezed around him, pushing inexorably downward, deeper into her body. Lyte felt the rest of himself slide into her throat inch by inch, powerless to stop her or even slow himself down. He felt her tongue press against his paws—against one of his paws—as they slid into her mouth. The pikachu whimpered, gripped so tight he couldn’t even move, let alone struggle. If he could, he’d probably be thrusting into her slippery throat flesh.

Zinnia leaned forward and put both paws on the counter to support herself. She swallowed repeatedly, neck bulging with the little pikachu’s body. In the mirror, she saw his footpaws in the back of her mouth. Her tongue lifted with her swallow, and when it lowered they were gone. Just his zigzag tail still poked into her mouth, and inch by inch, zig by zag, her peristalsis claimed that too. As soon as it slipped into her throat she gasped for breath, panting in front of the mirror. Lyte made a hefty bulge in her neck, sinking slowly deeper. After a few breaths, Zinnia took another gulp, forcing the pikachu-lump down another inch. Another swallow squeezed it into her chest, where she could feel the tightness slowly descending through her body, her swallows ushering it along.

Wet, slimy esophageal folds comprised Lyte’s entire world. He’d long since shut his eyes, unable to even squirm in the grip of the zeraora’s gullet. He felt her heartbeat, pounding right next to him. For a moment, it sounded so close, then it slid away, further above him with every rippling squeeze. The whoosh of her lungs were like bellows, her panting loud in his ears. And always he sank deeper, deeper, toward the stomach he’d been so eager to cuddle only a couple days ago. The one he’d been nuzzling only a couple minutes ago. She wouldn’t hurt me, right? Right?

His nose poked at a fleshy ring before the next ripple pushed it through into open space. Lyte took one breath—the scent of mint, lime, and rum assaulted his nose—before an extra forceful gulp forced the rest of him through. The pikachu slid into a wrinkled, cramped, and slimy sack, the back of his head splashing into a shallow watery pool at the bottom of the curved chamber. He struggled, pressing his paws into the walls. With some effort he forced the slippery flesh away from his face enough to speak. “Zinnia!” he shouted. “Let me—”

He didn’t even finish his shout before her muscles clenched around him, paws slipping off the wall as it contracted against his face and muffled him. The pikachu got a mouthful of bitter slime, the mint not helping its flavor at all; he kept his mouth shut after that. Ripples ran through the whole stomach, kneading at him from every direction. They were strong, overpowering his efforts to push against them. Lyte lost track of up and down as he was churned around, soaked in what remained of the mojito he’d made her. The slimy walls seemed intent on spinning him around, grinding his head against every inch of wrinkled, stretchy flesh. His dick, too, fully out now, squeezed between the outside of his belly and the inside of hers.

“It’s okay,” Zinnia said, he thought. Maybe he imagined it. He barely heard it, her voice muffled and reverberated by her own body and drowned out by the squelches of her active stomach.

Lyte took gasping breaths when he could. After what felt like forever, the movements slowed, the chamber relaxing a little. The pikachu found himself on his back, his face in open air. He panted for breath in the hot, humid stomach. Lyte wiped the slime from his eyes and squinted into the darkness. He felt around with his paws; slimy, folded flesh all around him. No, wait, some of it was smooth and firm instead of squishy. He shifted his paw back. A glimmer ran through the smooth flesh, revealing a blue band that ran around the otherwise light pink and wrinkled chamber. Thick strands of slime hung between him and the walls.

“Please,” the pikachu panted. He felt her stomach still gently churning at him, rocking him side to side with muscular contractions seemingly at random. His cheek squished against the wall, a spark momentarily illuminating the stomach all around him. It soaked into the blue band, which glowed softly. Just like her paws. His head was spinning. He couldn’t make sense of any of it. She wouldn’t have stood up for him, wouldn’t have argued with that gardevoir, wouldn’t have kissed him if she didn’t care for him… right?

Lyte slumped into the stomach folds and reached one paw between his legs. He didn’t know, and right now, he didn’t, couldn’t care. She’s, what, a zillion times stronger than me? I guess she can just do whatever she wants. His shaft throbbed at his touch, his paw sliding over it with ease, already well-lubricated with throat and stomach slime. He was already so close; he would have been ashamed, but he was too woozy and too aroused to even care. The pikachu pressed his face into the relaxed wall and moaned into Zinnia’s warm flesh, his slick fapping still not as loud as her heartbeat. He imagined she loved him, wanted him, needed him…

Trying to edge himself was pointless; he hit his peak in only a few seconds. His cheeks sparked, leaping to her flesh and making the band glow. Her stomach walls clamped down around him, squeezing both his cheeks against the band on either side. Electricity crackled as the blue flesh made contact, muscles holding it firmly in place against him. The connection felt better than ever before, washing any and all thoughts from his mind. Lyte’s eyes widened and he shuddered, his pleasure redoubling, splattering his seed all over himself and the wrinkly walls cradling him. It was like the moment the lightning struck, except this time he was at the center of the storm, deep in her core. He felt every inch of her organic circuits stretching out from his cheeks. She did need him. The pikachu shuddered one final time, then went limp, letting the zeraora’s belly hug him close and show its love. The band’s glow brightened to brilliant cyan, shining even through his eyelids, and he was falling, falling…

---

Zinnia was still panting for breath, looking at herself in the bathroom mirror. The past minute had been all squirming and unsettling clenching from her belly, but she’d trusted it to do its thing. Hearing Lyte’s muffled pleading had felt horrible—one of his noises sounded almost like a moan, but she chalked that up to wishful thinking—but he seemed to have figured it out, or at least calmed down; the squirming had stopped. She felt Lyte tucked away in her gut, body following its natural curve. She could feel his heartbeat, thumping deep inside her.

And she could feel his charge pulsing along with it. It felt incredible. It felt so right. Her blue chest patch glowed, thrumming with power. As she soaked in Lyte’s charge, the glow spread to her whiskers, horn and paws.

“Sorry for scaring you,” she said, looking at the vague swell in her gut. She rubbed it with a paw, feeling the firmness of the pikachu hidden below layers of fur, flesh, and muscle. “Didn’t have time to explain. Didn’t… know how to explain.”

Her ears perked. She heard Lyte, muffled by all of her in the way.

“It’s… it’s okay,” he said, sounding positively blissful. “Use me…”

“Yeesh, how much painkiller did they give you?” Zinnia chuckled. She stretched, leaning back, squishing Lyte within her and making the lump of his presence even more obvious. When she relaxed back forward, she felt a tightness in her belly. Not where Lyte was (although her stomach was tensing around him too), but in the rest. She watched in the mirror as the swell he made slowly faded into her body, involuntary clench after involuntary clench. It didn’t disappear so much as distribute, her other organs shifting to make room for her full stomach, just like they had when she practiced before. His weight didn’t go anywhere, still right there in her core. Right where he belongs.

The zeraora blinked, then shook her head violently as though to dislodge the thought. No. I’m not like that. As soon as I win, I’m getting him out.

The announcer’s voice crackled over the speakers, distant and distorted. It brought her back, reminded her why she she was here. Reminded her she was mad. Not about what the swampert had done to her; she’d known what she was doing. About what he’d done to Lyte. About her own idiocy. It was all her fault; touching paws like that… what was the point? She was so stupid. If Thwompert hadn’t seen that, Lyte would’ve stayed below his notice forever.

Zinnia stepped back from the mirror and checked herself over. Everything looked good, or as good as she could make it. I’m really doing this… “Try to be quiet,” she told her stomach. “I’ll let you out as soon as I can.”

“Okay,” came the tiny, muffled voice from her gut. Lyte wiggled against the hug of her muscles. Zinnia felt her stomach shift around him, reacting to his movements. It strove to make him comfortable, whether he realized it or not.

With her pikachu hidden away, Zinnia strode out back into the warehouse proper, the roar of the crowd and the announcer washing over her like a wave.

“An extra match just for you freaks and fanatics,” the announcer was saying. “ZK vs. your reigning champ! Love him, hate him, he wins all the same! But this time she’s pissed! The claws are out! Will it make a difference? Bets close in 2 minutes!”

Yeah I am. And yeah it will. Zinnia bared her claws. Sparks arced between them, the air ionizing and breaking down, electrons ripped from their bonds.

Most days felt like a blur to her. She fought, slept, ate, trained, fought again… Time passed like a dream. She’d blink and a week would go by. Months. But this was different. She felt something. Felt like she’d woken from a daze.

Zinnia would have said she was angry all the time. At the league, at the city, at her mother, at the world, everything. But now she realized that wasn’t true. She was frustrated, at most. Resentful. But not angry, not like this, not like she was now. Zinnia was furious. She’d never felt anything so intensely before. Like she’d been living life behind a veil and it had been ripped away. The way the world looked crystal clear when she came inside after a storm and retracted her third eyelids. (Distantly, she observed that some of this was probably the alcohol, but she didn’t care.)

She’d never considered beating Thwompert was ever a possibility. It’s not like she needed to beat him. She was scraping by all right. Keeping her head afloat. Surviving. There was no way she had enough charge to beat him and defend the title afterward. But that wasn’t the point now.

More current raced through her superconductive circuits, circling endlessly in her pawpads. The zeraora reveled in the feeling of more, her gut rippling around the hidden pikachu, coaxing out his charge. She felt its thrum on an intuitive level. It was like the moment when she was struck by lightning, the only time she truly felt alive, except it kept going and going.

The point now was vengeance. To send Thwompert a message in the only language he understood: power and violence. He’d hurt someone she loved and now she was going to hurt him. To smash his head against that ground he loved so much and grind it into the dirt.

Zinnia blinked, realizing she stood in front of her side of the ring. She’d strode up on autopilot. She looked through the chain link gate: Thwompert was already inside, grandstanding as usual, raising his arms to make the crowd roar. The zeraora took deep breaths, forcing her breathing to slow. There was a tightness in her chest; she struggled to fully inhale, unable to breathe as deep as normal. It worried her for a moment, before she realized why: she had a pikachu in the way. The thought made her lips twitch in a faint smile.

The announcer read her name, jolting her back to the present. She tuned out the rest of the spiel by now; all that mattered was it was her turn to walk in. Zinnia lifted the latch on the gate and stepped inside, into the spotlights, the crowd roaring all around her. She didn’t care about them. She only had eyes for her opponent. Her anger had cooled, but seeing the swampert across from her applied a bellows to it. The flames had died out, but the coals were still searing hot.

“It seems a shame to end the fight right away,” Thwompert said. “Last time, you didn’t even land a single hit. Kinda makes me feel sorry for you.” He raised one arm, paw outstretched, and beckoned her. “Poor kitty. I’ll give you one for free.”

Zinnia bared her fangs and hissed. “I don’t need your ‘charity’.”

“I insist!” He straightened up, abandoning his natural hunched posture to stand much taller and spread his arms wide.

Stupid drunk asshole. Static fuzzed at the edge of her mind. She felt Lyte’s heart pounding within her, the little mouse’s heart beating twice as fast and syncing up every other beat. The zeraora crouched, waiting for the bell.

It rang.

Zinnia moved like lightning itself. No holding back this time; her electrically boosted muscles crossed the ring in only two bounds. She planted her forepaws into the earth and swung her flexible body underneath herself, delivering all the momentum of her dash into a two-footed kick straight ahead. Right into the smooth skin between the swampert’s legs, which he’d so kindly exposed to her.

His groan of pain was music to her ears. Thwompert swiped for her, but his webbed paws found only air; she’d already pushed off him, flipping back to land on her feet. She felt Lyte shifting around inside her, his weight pressing against one side of her belly, then the other as her momentum shifted. As she stood back up, she felt her stomach clench tight around him and not let go. It felt… right.

Across from her, the swampert clutched at his crotch. Zinnia allowed herself a smirk. “What do you know?” she said. “They really are internal.”

---

Inside the zeraora it was chaos, her movements tossing Lyte around wildly. He’d thought he barely had room to move, but it turned out an inch of space (and the natural give of her fleshy confines) was more than enough to get shaken like a martini. Going upside down—he was pretty sure he’d been upside down—was worse, but it had been brief. I actually wish it were even tighter in here, he thought, cheeks sparking.

To his surprise, the stomach complied, clamping down on him in a full-body hug. Wrinkled walls pressed against him from all sides, ensconcing his arms and legs in folds of slimy flesh. And his head. The stomach lining covered his face, smothering him. The pikachu tried to struggle, but his arms and legs were held tight. He could move them around, but not bring them upward in the slightest. Too tight! Not the face! The flesh around him shifted again, loosening to reform the air pocket around his head. Is it really responding to me? That has to be my imagination. He didn’t care how it happened, he was just glad it had. Lyte took a deep breath of relief; never had hot and humid air been so refreshing. He didn’t even mind the scent anymore, of stale mojito mixed with salty pikachu seed and bitter gutslime. If anything he was just glad she hadn’t eaten anything else beforehand.

More muffled voices from outside pulled his attention away. He had only the barest idea of what was going on; he was pretty sure Zinnia had hit Thwompert in the nuts somehow (fuck yeah) and that was it.

“Fucking bitch,” Thwompert said, his deep voice audibly pained even through the layers of flesh and muscle separating Lyte from the outside world. “You’ll pay for that…”

Oh yeah, she totally hit him in the nuts. That rules. The pikachu cheered for Zinnia in his head, obeying her wishes to keep quiet. He offered more charge to her, her body drinking it right from his cheeks. His heart was pounding, adrenaline powering his thoughts through the painkillers gumming them up.

Zinnia moved and Lyte lost all track of what was going on again. This time, her stomach held him firmly in place, barely moving as she darted this way and that in her acrobatics. He distantly heard the rumble and splashing of the swampert’s attacks, so much quieter than the zeraora’s panting breath and quick heartbeat. It was oddly intimate—maybe it’s not odd at all—the way her sounds were closest to him. It was the reverse of watching a battle on a stream, where the sounds of the attacks came through loud and you almost never heard the combatants themselves outside a stray yell or shout.

Then her body jolted, changing direction all of a sudden. He heard Zinnia gasp, then grunt when it happened again a moment later, with a little bounce this time. Her belly cushioned Lyte, but he knew she wasn’t so lucky. Those attacks weren’t distant, they were very real. She must have been hit out of the air, Lyte figured, then bounced off the ground. The world spun around him as she rolled out of the way of something and bounced back to her paws.

He felt Zinnia lunge, then lunge again. Lyte couldn’t track her movement; she stopped and changed direction so many times, he had no idea how she did it. Is this what it feels like… for her? he wondered. Distantly, he heard Thwompert grunting in pain. Whatever she was doing, it was working—

A crushing pressure slammed into him, squishing him against the back wall of the zeraora’s gut. That side didn’t stretch; it felt too solid. Her spine’s on that side… do her ribs go down that far? Or, are they vertebra on that side? These were the important thoughts that flashed through Lyte’s mind in the split second before Zinnia’s stomach relaxed, allowing the pressure to shunt him off to one side. Lyte gasped as he was separated from her, cheek connection broken. Her flesh collapsed to squish him into a little pocket for a moment, her rugae stretched and flattened smooth, before she was sent flying and everything was tumbling around him.

Without his cheeks touching her, it was dark again, the stomach hot and oppressive and tight. He missed it, he needed her, he was worried about her. Her gut clenched back around him and he panicked for a moment, before he realized it was trying to line him up again. It hugged him tight midflight, keeping him secure even when Zinnia crashed and rolled across the ground. Rippling clenches adjusted his position, coming once a second, their wet squishy sounds drowning out even Zinnia’s ragged breathing. As soon as he felt the touch of the band, Lyte squirmed to push himself against it, plugging himself back into place. The blue glow returned, her stomach squelching itself back into place around him. Right where I belong, Lyte thought. Wait, what?

He reached out to feel her charge again. This time it was much more active; she was really drawing on her reserves. Lyte enthusiastically offered his, her body taking everything he offered and then squeezing him for more. The pikachu gasped, shuddering as she drew on him. For you… anything, he thought.

Gravity shoved him against the floor of her stomach as she jumped, the hugging folds keeping him in place. He never felt her fall. She’s flying, he realized, as he heard a tremendous rumble from below. Distant, muffled sounds all blended together. The roar of the crowd, the ecstatic voice of the announcer… He didn’t care about them. All of Lyte’s focus was on the zeraora, nuzzling into her walls and listening to her heartbeat. He felt static at the edge of his thoughts, buzzing in his cheeks. He relaxed and pushed into it…

---

Zinnia hovered in the air up by the roof of the cage. It rattled against its supports, the induced current providing some of the magnetic field she was using to support herself. The ground below was broken and uneven, torn to pieces by the swampert’s earthquake.

Thwompert was staring up at her, eyes bugging and jaw dropped like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “What the… Get down here!” he shouted, slamming his paws onto the ground.

Pillars of hardened earth rose to intercept her, but they were far too slow. Zinnia swerved and wove around them, shifting her paws to magnetically push herself off the cage. Static fuzzed at the edge of her mind again, but this time it resolved into something, a thought from Lyte. It wasn’t words, not exactly. It wasn’t electrical pidgin either. It was something less, something lower, something primal. If she had to put it into words, the closest would be “get his ass”.

A smirking grin creased one edge of Zinnia’s muzzle. I fucking will, she thought back, feeling her stomach clench around the pikachu in a full-body squeeze. She had no idea how well Lyte understood her, but from the way his charge surged into her circuits… she figured it was well enough.

Below, Thwompert had reared back. He slammed his flipper-paws down again, bracing himself as he disgorged a massive stream of water from his mouth with enough force it pushed him back, digits gouging tracks in the dirt. It tore through the air, much faster than the pillars, aimed right for her.

Zinnia held up her paw. Air and water ionized under her command, a thin streamer leaping from the swampert to her in the blink of an eye, reaching out to touch her pawpad for one transient moment.

A moment was more than enough. A bolt illuminated the room in stark white for a fraction of a millisecond, leaping down the core of the swampert’s hydro pump, through him and into the ground. The central water column vaporized in the arc flash, expanding a thousandfold and showering the entire warehouse with the rest of the attack. The zeraora stayed dry, droplets crackling and popping into steam whenever they landed on her fur.

The swampert shuddered, his body crackling with electricity. That he was standing at all was a testament to his strength and typing, but he sure wasn’t happy. “That actually fuckin’ hurt,” he said, panting. Bloody, raking clawmarks covered him from her earlier attacks; they were mostly surface level, but they stung real bad.

“Not as much as this will,” Zinnia snarled. “If you’re lucky, you’ll die.” The zeraora funneled everything she could into her paws. Everything she had at the ready, and as much as she could pull from her deeper stores and from Lyte. There were limits to how fast she could draw on her stores, but with a pikachu crackling in her gut, she could surpass those too.

She’d already used way too much charge, but she didn’t care. She’d crammed more power into the last bolt alone than she tried to use for an entire day of fights. Between the flight and everything else, she’d already blown a week’s worth of charge, and even though not all of it had been hers, some of her upcoming fights were already fucked, so why stop now? If there was any fight she could not, would not lose, it was this one.

The zeraora gripped the air and rent it asunder, forcing so much energy into it it became something else entirely. Fresh-forged plasma wreathed her paws, seething and glowing past orange and white all the way to blue-hot. The blood on her claws sizzled and smoked, its metallic scent briefly wafting past her nose before it burnt away completely.

She could normally never resort to this. She could never go all out; it simply used too much power. She’d be exhausted for a month. With Lyte… …well, she’d still be exhausted for weeks. But for Lyte, she could do anything. Pay any price to obliterate that swampert. Zinnia glared down at Thwompert; inside those beady orange eyes, for the first time, she saw fear. Good. She raised her paws, the electrical thrum pitching up and up—

Pain stabbed through the back of her mind. She felt Lyte shuddering within her, felt him whimper under the strain. The zeraora froze. What the fuck am I doing? Zinnia thought. In her haste to exact retribution for hurting Lyte, she’d done the very same thing. She felt his thought-voice in her head, but he wasn’t pleading for her to stop; all she felt was adoration. If she wanted it, he’d gladly give her everything. Little guy is delirious from those painkillers… Wait. Something horrible occurred to her. For the pain to reach him through that… how far past his limits had she already pushed him?

Zinnia felt sick. The weight of the pikachu in her belly was like a solid mass of anxiety. She didn’t know how he was doing, and she couldn’t check, hovering in the air surrounded by a hundred spectators. Lyte! Lyte, are you okay? she pleaded in her thoughts, hoping he could hear her.

She was so caught up in her thoughts, she almost didn’t see the rock flying right for her. The zeraora twisted away but it still gouged her in the leg, the sharp stone slicing a gash in her black fur. Pain—her own, this time—snapped her back to the present. All she had to do was win. Then she could get out of here and check on Lyte. His charge still coursed through her body. She couldn’t give it back; the least she could do was not let it go to waste.

Zinnia raised her plasma-wrapped paws and dove. Thwompert barely lurched back, lifting his arms to pull a thick levee of earth up in front of him. Zinnia slammed into the ruined ground like a meteor, throwing up a shower of dirt over Thwompert and his makeshift shield wall.

He panted, peeking at her over his wall. “Ha! You mis—”

A searing blue glow surged from the cracked ground under him an instant before it exploded. Charged plasma erupted with enough strength to launch the swampert into the air, blasting him with incredible force. Droplets of vitrified earth landed across the arena, hissing and steaming.

He slammed into the cage, which barely held against his weight, and slumped to the ground, bloody and burned. Zinnia was on him in a flash, claws on his neck. “Yield,” she demanded, She squeezed her claws. Blood trickled out around them. “I’m sure there’s something important under this blubber. How deep shall I search?”

Bruised and battered, Thwompert tensed to fling her off, but his muscles betrayed him, spasming with latent charge. Zinnia dug her claws in deeper. “More?”

He refused to yield. It was unclear if he physically could tap out at the moment, but the hatred in his eyes said to her that he wasn’t even trying.

Dumbass. Wouldn’t it be an ironic end if the ref were too afraid of him to stop me? Zinnia flexed her claws, but before she had to rip a chunk out of his neck, the bell rang. TKO.

She was almost disappointed.

---

The next few minutes were a blur. The crowd exploded with noise, cheering blending with yelling blending with distress from those whose safe bet had failed. Zinnia had to suffer through the victory ritual before she was let out; she didn’t care much for adulation at the best of times, and now it felt like it dragged on forever. The ref raised her paw, the announcer’s voice boomed over the warehouse, the crowd chanted her name… that last one was new.

Even so, her participation was mechanical. Her attention was elsewhere. Lyte had gone limp inside her several minutes ago, right after she stopped drawing on him. She could feel his heartbeat, and it felt steady, but she didn’t really know. Then he vibrated. Worry seized at her, her imagination running wild until it happened again and she realized he was snoring. Zinnia sighed with some relief.

Finally she got to leave the cage. Zinnia strode past the swampert, laid out on a table with several medics fussing over him. Even if they hadn’t called the fight, he probably would have passed out before he actually died… oh well. She pushed past the one waiting for her and tried to head right for the lockers to get her things, only for Marcus to appear right in front of her. She stopped just short of bowling the gardevoir over. He’d intercepted her so quickly it was like he’d teleported. Maybe he had; she certainly wasn’t paying attention.

“I’m fine,” Zinnia said, trying to wave the gardevoir away.

“No you aren’t,” Marcus said, having none of it. He pointed at her left leg. “You are literally tracking blood where you walk.”

Zinnia looked down. The rock had hit her halfway between ankle and paw, and below the gash her foot fur was soaked with blood. She glanced back at the trail of bloody left pawprints behind her. ”…So I am,” she admitted. It hurt, but the pain seemed unimportant.

He waved one hand, wrapping a chair in a pink glow and pulling it over behind her. “Sit,” he commanded.

She sat. One simply did not argue with the medics. Marcus had a finite supply of patience, and Zinnia was pretty sure she’d already exhausted it for the rest of the year.

The gardevoir knelt in front of her. He took her leg in his hands, gently lifting it, and inspected her wound. “What’s the rush?” he asked, as he worked. “You seem like you’re in a hurry.”

Shit. Can he like… feel Lyte? Can he tell if I lie? Zinnia fought down her panic and tried to steady herself. “I’m here later than I’d like,” she said, opting for partial truths. “I’m ready to go home and pass out.”

“Understandable. I’ll be quick. Congratulations, by the way.”

“Huh?”

Marcus glanced up at her and raised his eyebrows. “You won. You’re the champ now. Are you feeling all right?”

Oh, right. That part still didn’t feel real to her; it was so far outside the scope of things she cared about at the moment. “Oh. Uh, yeah. Sorry, I’m worried about my friend.” The one currently snoring in my stomach, she thought, unbidden. Fuck. Please don’t be able to read minds. If you can, Marcus you’re really nice and I appreciate you a lot please be cool?

“Of course. Hold still; this will itch.” He held his hand over her, focusing a heal pulse over the wound. Warmth blossomed in her foot, followed by painful tingles, then an itching sensation so intense it even overwrote the pain. Zinnia winced and dug her claws into the chair, fighting to hold still. “This… sucks,” she grunted. It was so much worse than healing usually was.

Marcus pulled his hand away after far less time than usual, under a minute. “Well, yes. That’s the price for quick healing.” The gash was gone, replaced with a thin line of fresh-knit pink skin. He reached for a roll of gauze.

“Fuck,” Zinnia said, repeatedly sheathing and unsheathing her claws. “You could’ve been a little slower about it!”

“You wanted quick.”

“I didn’t say anything about that! That was all you!”

“Oh. My mistake.” He had an annoyingly playful smugness to his voice. Zinnia really wanted to deck him, and also knew that that idea would have to remain a dream forever. While she imagined it, the medic finished wrapping her leg in gauze. “It’s not as healed as it looks. Do not touch it,” he said. “I mean it. Do not put those claws of yours anywhere near it. Bite your paw if you have to.”

“Okay, okay,” Zinnia said. “I know. It’s not my first time.”

The gardevoir just stared at her. His eyes demanded more respect than any opponent she’d faced.

Zinnia squirmed, feeling like she was pinned to the chair. Which she wasn’t, because he could do that too, “Uh. I mean, thank you very much, doctor.”

“Better.”

“Dick,” Zinnia muttered.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” He scrubbed some blood off her footpaw with a rag—just enough so she wasn’t tracking it around—then nodded and gestured for her to stand. “One more thing, then I’ll let you go.”

Zinnia stood. “What—ack!” Her breath caught as Marcus stepped close and pressed his hand to her chest, green fingers resting on the smooth patch of blue skin nestled just below the start of her yellow fur. He channeled another pulse of healing energy into her, gentler and less focused this time. Zinnia felt its warmth spread through her, gathering wherever she’d been scuffed and bruised. It especially gathered in her gut, where Thwompert had punched her across the ring. It felt good; despite her impatience, she sighed in relief. Then Lyte shifted in his sleep, squishing her stomach walls around. Her anxiety spiked. Was that visible? Did he see it?

If it was, Marcus didn’t seem to notice. He lowered his hand. “Okay,” he said, stepping out of the way. “Go get your friend and go home.”

She nodded vigorously. “Thank you! I will. Thanks so much okay seeya!” Zinnia slipped past him and walked off as fast as she could without actually running. She fervently thanked the Three that he hadn’t asked where Lyte was.

---

Zinnia dodged everyone and everything else she could to get home quicker. Prize money? She could get it later. She managed to get home without further incident, but even with her rush, by the time she got up the stairs and into her apartment, exhaustion was already hitting her hard. Normally she would flop right into bed, but tonight she couldn’t. She had something more important to tend to.

She slung her bag onto a chair, tossed her coat on top of it, and staggered towards the bathroom, the only other room in her apartment. She pawed the switch, the overhead light flickering to life with a faint buzz.

The zeraora stared at herself in the dirty mirror, flecked with spots of toothpaste and dust. Her fur was a mess and tiredness was written all over her face, but that wasn’t where she was looking. She had eyes only for her belly. It seemed flat, her lower belly sporting a hint of abs under the short black fur. You really can’t see him, she thought, amazed again, even though she had just relied on that in front of a hundred spectators. Zinnia could tell that her whole abdomen was slightly swollen, but only because she knew. …now, how do I get him out?

Zinnia leaned over her sink and tried to bring him up. She’d practiced this before, but her body was refusing to cooperate. He was bigger than anything she’d practiced with, and paradoxically, it felt like her concern for Lyte made it harder to let go of him. She wanted to see him, but her body thought he felt fine right where he was. The zeraora coughed, trying to flex muscles that refused to flex.

It didn’t help that she was so, so tired. Not just physically, but electrically; she’d blown a whole month of charge on that stunt. She was going to get her ass handed to her in her upcoming battles, for sure. She’d have to keep Lyte for a week or more to dig herself out of this hole, and obviously she couldn’t do that.

A dark thought flit through Zinnia’s head. Or… could she? Nobody would know. The fight club ‘mon wouldn’t talk. She could keep him forever—

The tempting, cloying thought triggered such revulsion she retched on the spot. Zinnia doubled over as her sore inner muscles clenched, gripping at her sink for support. She hurked, spitting slime into the sink. A tightness slid up inside her chest, one lurching clench at a time. It emerged into her neck, bulge rising up her throat. With another body-shaking ripple, Zinnia spat Lyte out into her paws, covered in clear slime. She panted for breath, that same slime dripping from her jaws. Her belly took a bit to settle down. It felt empty now, hollow, her midsection looking slightly sunken.

Cradled in her paws was the pikachu that had made it all possible. He was still asleep, breathing softly, chest rising and falling. The ice cast on his leg had somehow endured the heat of her gut (upon reflection, this wasn’t surprising; she’d had them before and they were shockingly durable). She just watched him sleep. Zinnia wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting to see, but as far as she could tell he looked fine, and that filled her with relief. “Sorry I hurt you,” she whispered. “I… I went too far.” And now I’ve sort of kidnapped him. I hope he doesn’t mind. I mean, he’ll need help with his leg anyway…

Lyte curled up a little tighter and shivered.

Despite her tiredness, the zeraora was galvanized to action. Of course he was cold. He was soaked, and until moments ago he was tucked into the warmth of her gut. Zinnia ran the water until it steamed, then soaked a towel and gave Lyte a makeshift scrub-bath. She tried to be gentle, not wanting to wake him; somehow, he slept through the whole thing.

She wrapped him in a fresh towel and carried him out. She didn’t know where to put him. Not my bed. Too risky. Fuck, I didn’t think this through. She set him down on the box that served as her bedside table. The zeraora shuffled over to the window and opened it a couple inches, shuddering at the cold of night outside. It’ll have to do.

She turned around and flopped onto her mattress, wrapping herself up in the strewn mess of blankets. Only then did everything that had happened finally start to sink in. She’d beaten Thwompert, she’d eaten Lyte… This is going to make things very good or very bad. Maybe both, she thought, before sleep caught up with her.