Covalence: Chapter 7

AN: Thanks Isha for helping preread and edit this chapter too!

Zinnia was not a morning kitty. Her first instinct whenever she woke up was to roll over and go back to sleep, and today was no exception: the zeraora squinted blearily at the merciless light of dawn, shivered at the lingering cold of night, and rolled herself right off the sofa bed.

“Cats always land on their feet” did not apply to five-foot bipedal felines who were still three-fourths asleep. Zinnia hit the floor with all the grace of a bagon trying to fly, breaking her fall with her face and chest. Pain dragged her to groaning, grumbling wakefulness, where she found herself half on the bed and half off, her cheek and whiskers smushed against the dusty wood floor and her legs held back by a tangle of blankets.

It really wasn’t that bad. She would have been happy to go back to sleep right there if it weren’t so cold and drafty. Instead, with a near-constant groan rumbling in her throat, the zeraora drew herself together. She pulled her legs (blankets and all) the rest of the way off the fold-out bed and set about extricating herself. Her brain finally got its act together enough to produce her first coherent thoughts of the day: some real winners like Why is it so early and Why is it so cold and Who ripped gashes in these sheets?

She held the sheet up in her paw, squinting at four yellow-furred digits through four matching slashes. It was a real mystery, inscrutable in her sleepy daze. Zinnia tossed it aside, rolled onto her footpaws, and concussed herself.

Well, tried to. She did her best to stand, but unlike the rest of her, her reflexes weren’t sleep-impaired. As soon as her ears brushed the ceiling, her spine threw a full body interrupt and forced the zeraora to flinch away and topple to the side. She sprawled back onto the sofa bed, staring up at the blurry ceiling only a couple feet away and blinking until it came into focus. Right. Lyte’s apartment. Can’t stand up here.

The spike of adrenaline burned away the fog of sleep, along with Zinnia’s hopes of getting more of it. She propped herself up against the couch back and looked around with new awareness (resenting every second of it), spotting more gashes in the bottom sheet that matched the shredded blankets. Did I do that? she wondered, rhetorically; she held out her paw, unsheathing her claws just in case the slices that lined up perfectly with her digits somehow didn’t match.

Nope, definitely her. Fuck.

And over there by the door was the window she’d left open, ensuring she froze her ass off all night instead of getting good sleep. Nice job. Wasn’t even any point, since we—

All of last night rushed back through her head in a blur. Lyte had discovered her secret, the stupid secret she shouldn’t have kept. (How was I supposed to tell him? Zinnia pleaded with herself, to no avail.) Then he’d come out and talked to her, and she’d agreed to—agreed to—

The zeraora didn’t want to look at her herself. Maybe if she never looked, it could remain a bad dream forever. It was a stupid thought, one she entertained for several shameful seconds before it repulsed her enough to learn the truth. She turned her gaze to her lower belly, at the sleek black fur that almost hid the shapes of her muscles, extending down to the tufts of yellow poking up from around her hips.

It was flat.

Somehow this was worse than if there had still been a prominent pika-bulge. He got out? And I slept through it? Zinnia felt no relief; dread gripped her even tighter. Where is he? Is he okay? Did he run? “Lyte?” she called. “Are you still here?”

She gripped at the couch, hefted herself up to a sitting position, and immediately got the answer. The zeraora was finally awake enough to pay attention to her own body for the first time that morning: as she curled in the process of sitting up, some of her didn’t. Some of her was rigid, stiff, staying in place as the rest of her bent and squished around it. She knew it was Lyte right away; she felt him like a brick in her gut, a solid mass of ‘chu in her lower belly.

Zinnia froze partway up and stared at herself again, at the fur of her midsection, its sheen revealing the slight curves of her abs. Looking closer, it was different than usual, her whole belly slightly swollen. I should’ve known. There was no pikachu-bulge because it had been distributed across her whole gut, her other organs shifted and squished to make room for him, nestled in her core. It was exactly what had happened when he was in her stomach; she remembered the tightness of breath, how he’d been tucked in and compressed her lungs.

She sat all the way up, folding her legs out to the sides. It was an odd sensation, having him within her. It didn’t feel like much of anything, but at the same time it felt oddly reassuring. The zeraora didn’t really feel him, she felt the pressure he caused. It was more like she wasn’t feeling something: a lack of feeling empty. It was… satisfying. She liked it.

Then Lyte moved and that collapsed like a house of cards. She felt him all right, felt his paw brush at her inner walls, stretching her womb on one side as it hugged even closer on the others. What was she thinking? She couldn’t—wouldn’t—keep him there. She had to get him out.

“Lyte?” she asked. “Can you hear me?”

If he could, he gave no sign.

Her breathing quickened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—I never meant—” Zinnia tried to keep calm. “Don’t panic, I’m going to get you out.” She tried to figure out what muscles to flex, clenching and relaxing everything she could think of. The zeraora wiggled her ears, tensed her middle, sheathed and unsheathed her claws, even nearly pissed his sofa bed. Nothing worked.

“Come on,” she pleaded, throat rumbling with a growl of frustration. She brought her paw to her belly and shoved, pressing down on the firmness that was the pikachu within her, trying to force him out that way. All she got was a deeply muffled groan that made her freeze. What if I’m hurting him? “Sorry! Sorry. Are you okay?”

There was still no reply, but she kept her paw there, just holding it lightly to herself. She could feel him moving against it, rocking back and forth. Struggling, she imagined, helpless against the oppressive grip her body had on him. It’s probably awful, tight and dark and wet and hot. “I’ll get you out as soon as I can.”

He seemed completely deaf to her. If only there were some other way she could—wait, there is! Their electrical connection. She’d felt him through that before, his feelings, the shapes of his thoughts. Zinnia closed her eyes and reached out to him, through the parts of her superconductive circuits that she’d only just learned were there the night before. They felt conspicuously closed off, but unlike the physical muscles of her nethers, these ones responded just fine when she willed them open. So at least she had that. Static fuzzed at the border of her mind, her cyan chest patch flickering with light as she established contact. Please work, please work, she chanted in her head, only vaguely knowing what she was doing.

The static resolved itself. Zinnia realized two things: one, Lyte wasn’t struggling; two, she had fucked up. The pikachu she’d just made mind-to-mind contact with had been marinating in her psychoactive allomones all night and was currently the horniest creature on the planet. She recoiled from him, mentally slamming the doors shut behind her and severing the connection, but it was too late. Even that brief moment had been like staring directly at the sun, leaving pulsing afterimages of pure love and lust all over her thoughts. His feelings had flooded her circuits, submerging her in an overwhelming tide of arousal and adoration.

Zinnia would have been reassured that he was okay if she still had the capacity for thoughts about anything other than pleasure. She slumped back against the couch, heart pounding, her whole body suddenly hot despite the breeze from the open window. Why was she so worried? How could this be bad if it felt so good? All her concerns seemed so small and unimportant, fading away as she reached one paw between her legs, where she burned with need. She barely teased herself, her spade already swollen and slick, demanding she slip her digits inside to stroke and squeeze and wriggle. How could she refuse?

The zeraora brought her other paw to her lower belly, rubbing in circles over the firmness and pressure of Lyte within. It was frustratingly flat; how was she supposed to grip at her pikachu, to feel him when he was so well hidden? She had to settle for kneading at him, ears perked to catch every muffled moan and squeak.

His movements were frenetic, thrusting into the cushy wall of her womb. She felt each one now, her sensitivity heightened, and she especially felt when he shuddered and spasmed, pleasure and charge surging through her circuits before he went still. Zinnia redirected the charge right to her paw, mashing the glowing pad into her cookie and giving herself a zap in just the right spot. She shuddered too, mewling, muscles clamping down and hugging her ‘chu in just the way she’d failed to earlier. Not to push him out, though; her muscles liked him exactly where he was.

She panted for breath and went limp for half a minute. Then the movement within her began again, the heat spread through her body, and the whole process repeated, again and again. Sometimes she got a whole minute to rest instead of half, sometimes even less; eventually it all blurred together.

---

A loud beeping rudely dragged Zinnia from her horny stupor, waking her for the second time that morning. She was sprawled on the bed, her paws and his sheets soaked in secretions so strong they were internationally regulated. Slowly she sat up, rubbed her face, and regretted it immediately. Where her paw fur wasn’t slick it was stiff or gummy, leaving her feeling dirtier than before. The overwhelming arousal had passed, but her mouth was parched, she felt the beginnings of a headache, and that obnoxious beeping was not helping.

The zeraora groaned and looked around, trying to figure out where it was coming from. High pitched noises were hard to pinpoint even with ears like hers, but the beeping thing was also buzzing and after a couple seconds she zeroed in on the raincoat hanging by the door, its yellow fluorescent even in the indirect sunlight. Urgh. That must be Lyte’s alarm.

She rolled out of bed in a more gainly fashion this time, alighting on all four paws. The pikachu’s weight shifted within her, but he was held snug and couldn’t have been more than three or four pounds anyway. At least the feeling didn’t come with a wave of arousal this time. Maybe it only felt good good if she were already in the mood. Zinnia tried not to think about it.

She picked her way across Lyte’s apartment, choosing her step-spots carefully. It was true the zeraora ran on all fours, but walking on all fours was still a bit awkward; her arms weren’t that long. Her tail helped her balance, arching from just below her shoulders all the way down past her hindpaws. As if being unable to stand weren’t bad enough, with her tail constantly pressed against the ceiling and her paws on the floor, the zeraora filled the entire vertical space of Lyte’s apartment, making it feel much more claustrophobic. She tried not to think about that either.

After nearly losing a battle with Lyte’s coat—it was lucky it lost round one, because round two would have featured claws—Zinnia retrieved his conn orb and dropped to a crouch to fumble with it. She squinted at the tiny thing, struggling to control it with her massive mitts. The sogginess wasn’t helping. Dismiss. Dismiss. Fucking work, you thrice-judged thing! Snooze?! That last attempt worked, the alarm shutting off. Silence had never felt so blissful.

Except she still had to actually turn it off, or it’d just go off again in five or ten minutes or whatever. Zinnia sighed and held the orb closer, trying to figure out how to get to the alarms. The UI looked so fancy, everything bouncing and squishing and moving so fluidly compared to hers; it felt completely unfamiliar, and didn’t help her find the alarms at all.

After a minute of trying, a cold breeze ruffled Zinnia’s fur, especially chilly on the damp fur and skin she was so kindly exposing with her squat. The zeraora growled in frustration and nearly windmill spiked Lyte’s conn orb at the floor. (Only nearly, which was good because she would have smashed her paw on the ceiling in the attempt.) Instead she controlled herself, mostly. The window made an apartment-rattling clunk when she shut it, but nothing broke.

Zinnia headed back to the sofa bed to keeping trying somewhere more comfortable. The zeraora considered walking back three-legged, rejected it immediately, and held Lyte’s conn orb with her mouth instead. She came to regret that too: as she neared the sofa bed, it buzzed, the vibrations rattling through her teeth and jaws and into her head in a uniquely unpleasant experience that almost put a zeraora-shaped hole in the ceiling.

She flopped back onto the bed and spat the orb out in disgust. Some notification, a message from some Jodi person; wait, did that say Zinnia? She tried to wipe the orb clean and opened the notifications in the process—oh, there was the alarm! She lined up her paw to hit “Dismiss” and missed, opening the conversation instead. Ugh. The zeraora tried again, then yet again; third time was the charm. The alarm was finally defeated, fading away to leave her on the message she’d opened.

Zinnia read it twice to confirm she wasn't in it before she noticed it wasn't from "Jodi" and was timestamped last night. This wasn't the one Lyte had just gotten. She pulled up his notifications again, hesitated—*I'm snooping... but it's about me, so it's okay, right?*—and opened Jodi's messages from this morning. *Maybe if it's about me I extra shouldn't read it,* she thought, reading it. The zeraora slumped across the sofa bed, her mood sent into a meteoric dive. She regretted everything. Reading the text, staying over, hatching, everything. *That's not true,* she pleaded. *I'm not like that. I'm not like my mom.* But the fact was, Lyte was stuck inside her and she couldn't get him out, so what did it matter if she didn't "mean" or "want" to do it? *Jodi's right. I am a monster.*

The pikachu felt like lead in her belly, a constant reminder how horrible she was. It’s not fair. I didn’t know this would happen! She squinted at Jodi’s contact photo, a smiling rodent with a white-furred face, round black ears and bright yellow cheek spots. The emolga blurred despite her blinking, colors running into a watery smear. She’s cute. She’d be much better for Lyte than I would. But I went and fucked everything up because I don’t know anything about my stupid species. Arceus judge me, even Jodi probably knows more about me than I do.

Zinnia rolled over and slumped, draped atop the pull-out bed, upper body hanging off one side and legs hanging off the other. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but she didn’t deserve comfort right now anyway. She stared up at the ceiling while her thoughts spun around inside her head, chasing themselves in circles. Tears stained her black cheek fur even darker.

A thought took root. What if Jodi did know more about zeraora than she did? What if she’d read something useful about what was happening right now? Zinnia sniffled and rolled back over, possessed by a strange conviction. There was such a low chance this would work. Jodi clearly hated her and would hate her even more when she found out what happened. But there was a chance it would help Lyte, so she had to do it. She couldn’t imagine not doing it. She held up his orb and fumbled through typing a reply.

Zinnia set Lyte’s conn orb aside and rummaged in her bag for hers. It felt so much better to have her own bigger orb in her paws, even if it was old and slow at the best of times. She pulled up her messages and then realized she’d done this backwards. Today was not her day.

Her orb buzzed.

Zinnia gulped. At least one of them was on top of things. Maybe too much so. Well, she'd better make it count. When Jodi replied, Zinnia could practically hear the sigh. The zeraora winced. Not for the first time, she wished things had happened differently; this was just another entry in a long list of ways her upbringing had failed her. She started typing another message, then waffled. It felt silly to vent about her family to this emolga she barely knew, but it seemed oddly topical. Zinnia sighed with relief. At least that was something; at least she had someone to talk to about this, even if Jodi still didn't like her. Was there anyone else? Maybe that braixen? *Three, I keep forgetting her name. I'm so bad at this.* Lyte's other friend had said Lyte could call him... maybe she could...?

Yeah, no, that sounded horrible.

Zinnia rolled over and got properly onto the couch bed now that she was done making herself suffer for no reason. She squirmed back, grabbing some pillows to lean on while she waited, hoping Jodi got back to her soon. Her paw drifted to her tummy, stroking over where she felt Lyte inside herself. He seemed calmer now, holding still, nestling into her cradling womb.

Then he started humping again.

Never mind. She sighed, feeling his little rhythmic motions underneath her paw. At least he’s having a good time, I guess. I don’t think I could handle it if he were freaking out.

The zeraora leaned back, staring at the plain white ceiling barely a foot and a half away. What was she even going to do today, after she got Lyte out? Besides the obvious—helping Lyte clean up, cleaning herself up—she had no idea. She had a bunch of fights tonight, and probably most nights now; it was going to be rough. Zinnia knew she was getting ahead of herself, but she’d always sucked at waiting.

Maybe I can go home and nap before then. I can’t believe Lyte wakes up so early. And Jodi, too. Is she already at work? What does she even do?

Her pointed ears shot up at the buzz of her orb.

Zinnia read it, then read it again. The insults hardly fazed her; she had more pressing concerns. Zinnia didn't care about insults, but her resentment flared at the demand to abandon Lyte. *That's up to him, not you, bitch* she started typing, lips curling into a fang-baring snarl. Her anger cooled as she tapped in the letters, until she deleted it and started again. Her fury came right back. *Fuck you. Fuck you fuckyoufuckyou—* She reached for the block button and hesitated. Enough for her anger to subside, just a little. Zinnia dropped her conn orb on the bed, where it rolled up against her and clacked against Lyte's. It buzzed right away, then buzzed again; she snatched it up and silenced it without reading either of the notifications.

The zeraora slumped, cycling between rage and misery and general frustration. She prayed to the Original One, for Xᴇᴍ to judge her and vaporize her where she lay. That sounded cool. Or maybe Lyte would figure it out in the next few minutes; that’d be great too.

He didn’t, of course. And Zinnia couldn’t lie there forever; for one, she was hungry. Once she gave up on Lyte (and on being smote to smithereens), she rolled out of bed, eyeing the little kitchen next to Lyte’s bedroom door. It was barely big enough to graduate from “kitchenette”—for the intended residents, not for her—but her place didn’t even have one of those. (Well, it did, but everything broke ages ago and the landlord had never fixed them. Not like she used it anyway.)

She opened his fridge and peered over the door. He did have most of a half-gallon of egg, but Zinnia tried to imagine cooking while crammed into the space designed for pokémon as tall as her knee and abandoned the idea. Plus she hadn’t cooked in like… well, she didn’t want to figure out how long exactly, but it was definitely too long.

Maybe she could get delivery. Her wallet wouldn’t appreciate it, but she did have to eat. Except she didn’t actually know his address or what instructions to give with the locked main door and whatnot.

That meant she’d have to leave the apartment, and that meant she needed to shower so she wasn’t a menace to any electric-types she ran into, and in order to do that she also had to leave the apartment? She stared across the room at the keys by the door, the ones Lyte had pointed out to her. It was that or crawl through his bedroom and contort into a tiny shower. She eyed his bedroom door, next to her. Not a chance.

The zeraora navigated her way to the front door and let herself out, praying she encountered nobody at all and especially not another electric-type. She tried (unsuccessfully) to convince herself that just because her fur felt stiff and crusty didn’t mean it looked that way. Outside, she stood up a little straighter and shivered on the shaded balcony walkway.

The big bathrooms were right where Lyte had said, down at the end of the hall and to the right. She had to go down some stairs to reach them; they were shared with the first floor so the ceiling was actually tall enough to fit someone her size. The air inside was humid, the sound of a shower echoing off the tiled walls. Whoever was in it was the first other pokémon she’d encountered today, and she couldn’t even see them, which was just fine by her.

Zinnia took a stall for herself and hit the only button there, not even flinching at the initial sputtering blast of cold water. It wasn’t a very good shower, but she was used to that. Like the ones at Moe’s warehouse arena, it was functional and that’s what counted. Unlike those, the water here actually warmed up, so that was something.

The zeraora turned in place before ducking into the spray, thoroughly soaking herself and wetting down her fur. It clung close to her, revealing what was actually there under the yellow fluff: her wide shoulders, the muscles of her thighs narrowing towards her knees, how her head was smaller and more streamlined with her cheeks and ears sogged. Her black fur was short to begin with, but it lost all its volume, draped smoothly over her toned and faintly swollen midsection.

She held a paw to herself, rubbing in circles over where she felt the pikachu’s weight and solidity. Experimentally, she tried to suck in her gut and felt hardly any change; she simply couldn’t. Or rather, she already had, as part of her body adjusting overnight to accommodate him. Zinnia let out the breath as a sigh and shook her head. It felt so weird showering, doing something so normal and routine while Lyte was ensconced within her. It felt weird because it didn’t feel weird, because it felt so natural. She could get used to this and that scared her. Zinnia held onto the fear, hugging it close. The fear is why I’m different, she told herself. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.

What she didn’t have was soap. The zeraora sighed again when she realized and set about scrubbing herself with just her paws, doing her best to get them and her inner thighs clean. It’d have to do; Zinnia resolved not to get too close to any electric-types today, especially not the cute small ones. Fulgo-whatsits.

She also didn’t have a towel, but that was less of an issue. Zinnia shook herself (she hadn’t thought about Lyte, but he was cradled tight enough he didn’t slide around at all) and padded back to the pikachu’s apartment, fur sizzling and crackling with steam. It made her extra disheveled, but that was so far down her list of priorities it didn’t matter at all.

She grabbed her bag and Lyte’s keys. After a moment’s hesitation, she took his orb with her too. In case he needed it. No, because he will need it, she corrected herself.

---

The first thing Zinnia did after leaving was get breakfast, a hot egg-filled wrap, simple and high in protein. Her appetite disappeared after the first bite; it felt heavy inside her, like it was weighing on Lyte, despite all the other bits of guts she knew were between them. She waved off concern from the vendor (“No, it’s great, really, thank you”) and forced herself to finish it. Zinnia knew she was hungry and she’d need the energy; before the end she got more used to the feeling, her appetite returning.

She meandered towards home, trying to walk to keep her mind off things. It didn’t work; she felt stuffed, which made it impossible not to think about the pikachu mostly responsible. Zinnia wondered if he was hungry; she hoped not, because she couldn’t do anything about it if he were. He stayed still most of the time, sometimes rolling or adjusting himself like he was snuggling into bed. For a few minutes, he woke and behaved much as before, grinding and thrusting into her swaddling flesh. The zeraora kept her head down and kept walking; it was impossible to keep eye contact with anyone while she could feel Lyte going to town in her womb. She could faintly hear his squeaks and desperately hoped that nobody else could.

He was back asleep again when she stopped off at her usual gym. Exercise was great for getting one’s mind off things; it was her usual go-to, how she kept herself sane despite everything. It was ritual, routine, mentally calming. Not this time; she didn’t even make it through her warm-ups. The first squat felt weird from the start, her tensed muscles squishing around Lyte. When he squirmed, that was enough for her to abandon the rest.

Zinnia nearly went right home after that, but talked herself into doing some light cardio instead, avoiding anything remotely near her abdominals. She was glad she did; it felt good to tire herself, to work out her anxiety.

---

When she got home, she was ready for that nap. The zeraora shut the window she’d left open and sprawled on her bed, wrapping herself up in her familiar covers, comforting in both name and function. “Any time now, Lyte,” she said, patting her tummy. She’d been worried he would push himself out while she was out, but he hadn’t; now she was home and had nowhere else to be for hours. Plenty of time for him to figure it out before she had to leave for the evening’s fights.

The pikachu didn’t reply, of course. She wasn’t expecting him to at this point.

Zinnia pulled her orb out of her bag to charge it while she napped; her heart sank when she saw how many messages she’d gotten. That’s right, I left it on silent all morning…

She sighed and started checking them. Jodi had sent a bunch, with longer and longer gaps in between:

Zinnia squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't know how to feel about Jodi; mostly she felt various kinds of bad. She definitely didn't want to deal with this apology thing right now. She swiped over to her other messages, these ones from... Weft? *Oh, the braixen! That's her name. I knew that.* The zeraora's ears drooped. *Everything's such a mess because of me. What do I tell her?* Weft got back to her right away.

Fuck, what do I even tell her? Her nerves overflowed into her tail, lashing behind her.

Hopefully Lyte would be out soon and then he could spend the evening with Weft. It was probably best to hand him off anyway, given everything she'd learned about herself. Zinnia wasn't sure what state he would be in—she didn't like the idea of Weft seeing a scent-addled Lyte—but the braixen would find out from him eventually, so it didn't really matter. At least that's what she tried to convince herself.

She reached over, set her orb on its charger, and rolled onto her back. Belatedly she thought about Lyte, about how it must feel when she rolled over, but the pikachu in her womb seemed unperturbed by the shifting direction of gravity. He was still resting, asleep as far as she could tell. A good idea, she thought, remembering her plan to nap.

Napping was easier said than done; the upcoming evening fights occupied her mind and refused to leave. After pulling out all the stops to beat the swampert, the zeraora was low on charge. It wasn’t a question of if she’d lose, it was a question of when, and with how little she had left, the answer could very well be tonight.

The thing was, she had the perfect source right there, snoring inside her. She didn’t want to—she’d done enough to him, hadn’t she?—but unlike being trapped in her womb, which neither of them had wanted, Lyte had offered his charge to her. And he was right; they both needed the money bad. Okay, Zinnia thought at him, draping a paw over her lower belly. But only so I can pay for your treatment. I’m only doing it for you.

Almost as though he heard her, the pikachu shifted inside her, stretching out his good leg against her snug walls. She felt it against her paw, very faintly, before her muscles squished him back into a compact fetal curl. Safe, protected, all mine… The zeraora shook those thoughts out of her head, replacing them with his friends: the braixen, the emolga, whoever Alexei was. So many people care about him, not just me. This is for them too.

Zinnia cautiously reached out to Lyte, stopped, and drew back. She didn’t want to connect with him, not like this morning. She just needed his charge. Was that different? Zinnia wasn’t sure, but she was going to try. She tried to remember how it felt to draw on him on Monday; if she could just do that again, she might be able to get enough charge not to make a total fool of herself tonight.

The zeraora focused on the soft patter of his heartbeat, much quicker than her own. His charge pulsed in time with it, waiting in his cheeks, waiting for her to draw on it. She just needed to figure out how—

Some set of muscles contracted under her paw, squishing Lyte’s cheeks against the conductive band lining her womb. Electricity flooded her superconductive circuits, her pawpads and whiskers glowing cyan from within. It felt deeply satisfying, slaking some need she’d grown used to ignoring, like a gulp of water after a long drought. After the initial pulse, it faded to a steady trickle, the glow retreating from her extremities until only her chest patch remained lit, a soft and soothing electric blue.

Zinnia shivered, then relaxed, snuggled into her blankets. If this were wrong, maybe she didn’t want to be right. It was too pleasant to entertain thoughts otherwise. He offered this, she repeated to herself, in her head; aloud, she mumbled a “thank you”. The zeraora closed her eyes and settled in, finally able to nap.

---

She stayed home as long as she could—longer, really—but Lyte remained steadfastly inside her. With great reluctance, Zinnia grabbed her shoulder bag and headed for the tram. Like leaving his apartment, leaving hers felt like admitting defeat somehow, consigning him to hours more of being trapped within her. Or, if Jodi’s right, he’ll just squeeze himself out at the worst possible time…

It was looking increasingly likely, but she’d just have to cross that bridge when she came to it. Burn it, more like, if it happens during a fight and everyone sees. A small consolation was that she still got to draw on him, the blue skin of her zigzag-shaped chest patch still gently glowing as she took her seat.

Zinnia was staring out the window when her conn orb started blowing up with notifications. She dug it out, only to find it was Lyte’s orb, not hers; the zeraora shrugged and checked it anyway. She’d long since made peace with snooping on him, at least for today, when it seemed unavoidable.

Most of the messages were from some chat she didn’t recognize.

Zinnia had no idea what any of this meant, but apparently Lyte was important enough to it that his absence threatened to cancel it. That made it yet another thing she’d fucked up for him. Put it on the pile with the rest. She glanced over his other messages, from names she recognized (Jodi, Alexei, and Weft) and names she didn’t, and sighed.

The braixen’s last message (only a few minutes old) was “hey my mon u still nappin?”, which made Zinnia feel especially guilty. She hated feeling like this, like she was lying to his friends. You did lie to his friend, her brain pointed out. Even if only by omission. The zeraora twisted her mouth and pulled out her own orb to come clean. Clean-er, anyway.

She saw Weft typing and cringed. *Oh, this is going to be bad...* Zinnia couldn't keep up. Her head was spinning. Was this how her opponents felt when she outmaneuvered them? *Oh fuck.* She'd totally forgotten he'd invited her to that. Well, she wanted to go, *if* Lyte still wanted anything to do with her after he got out, and that was a pretty big if. There was no way she was telling Weft about that, though, so... That would be really nice. Zinnia hoped she'd be able to go. It felt like a fantasy, but it was a nice one, one that kept her going through the rest of the trip.

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The warehouse looked the same as ever. Gritty, run down, years of accumulated dust and grime piled in the corners. It was nobody’s first choice of destination; everyone there would rather be somewhere else, and in that Zinnia felt a familiar kinship.

It felt different, though. She first noticed it in the way the other fighters looked at her. They used to ignore her, just the way she liked it, letting her fade into the background. Now they were greeting her, giving her a nod of the head, a “‘sup champ?”, offering a paw held high. Trying to get on her good side. Zinnia hated it, her frown deepening each time. She didn’t have any good sides.

The ring was different too. It used to be she could just do her thing, do her job, get paid, leave. Now that she was champion, the announcer spent way more time hyping her up to the crowd. The first time it happened, Zinnia was over it halfway through, but it kept happening every single time she walked on. She knew she was supposed to raise her paws or do a cool pose or something and she really could not give less of a shit about it.

A couple fights in, her lackluster crowd work got her a bizarre pep talk from Moe, who assumed she didn’t know how to do it and not that she didn’t care. He explained it to her like she was a kitten, gesticulating with his spiny arms, that her job wasn’t just to fight, it was to entertain, and by “entertain” he meant “get people to spend money”.

The zeraora dutifully nodded at all the right parts until he nodded and walked away. She’d never wanted to be famous. She’d really picked the wrong line of work, she was realizing.

But whatever. If waving her arms around a little meant the cacturne left her alone, then she’d wave her fucking arms around a little bit. It was mechanical, but it got roars and cheers. Moe didn’t bother her again, so apparently it was good enough.

All that aside, when she actually got to fight it felt as good as it always had. It occupied all her attention, leaving no room for extraneous worries. After doing basically nothing all day, she could finally do something useful and get Lyte some money. Even his weight and the sensation of him shifting when she ducked or wove weren’t distracting; they were just reminders of what she was fighting for.

The fights themselves were cakewalks. She’d been worried about them for nothing. Of course Moe didn’t want her to lose right away. He wanted to hype people up for her, get them invested, then set her up for failure later when her payouts got bigger.

Cakewalk didn’t mean free, though. The fluffy orange critter she was fighting slipped a punch past her guard and slammed his cream-furred fist into her gut. (It was all the pawmot could reach, standing only three feet to her five.) Zinnia stumbled back, ceding space to deny a followup as she got her paws back up.

He didn’t bother trying to zap her; both of them were functionally untouchable by the other’s electric attacks. This was a contest of strength, and while the pawmot’s fluff hid a surprising amount of muscle, the zeraora was faster and her arms were twice as long as his. Zinnia halted his advance with one arm, his punch falling short. Hers went right for his head.

Then Lyte moved and something inside her shifted with him, turning her legs to jelly and her punch into a gentle shove. She pushed her paw against the pawmot’s face and sent him stumbling back, using the rest of her strength just to stay standing. Time stretched out interminably; any moment now, he’d counterattack, and she’d be helpless.

He didn’t. The big fluffy orange creamsicle of a rodent looked dazed, staring off into space with eyes unfocused and cheek spots sparking. It only lasted a second before he shook himself, focusing back on Zinnia like nothing had happened.

She’d never been more thankful for not having soap. It was a small boon, though; the zeraora had a better grip on herself now, enough to not be defenseless, but whatever was happening hadn’t stopped. Her inner muscles moved on their own, responding to a will not her own. Contracting.

Oh no. Not now. Please.