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Past Imperfect - PW-R-004

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Past Imperfect


Probably in part because of what happened with Surtur, but definitely because of things I wouldn't learn until later, Mom still refused to let me go on a journey as a Pokémon trainer. I wasn't thrilled about it, but I made the best of it, focusing on school and building a relationship with the one Pokémon I had. It helped a bit that Cass opted to retire from active journeying after finishing up the Hoenn League the next year. Granted, I still had her achievements to match, but I felt a little easier knowing that she wanted to try for contests rather than gyms.

As time went on, however, the chances of me getting out there seemed to dwindle more and more. But I held onto hope for a long time that Dad would be able to change Mom's mind. And then, it happened…


-

"Cass, come on. If you're going to do contests, then do them and get on with it."

Cass shook her head at her younger sister's suggestion. "It's not that simple, Alex. I mean, contests aren't the same as normal battles; there's a different style, different rules, different everything. And as much as I love my team, none of them are really geared towards contest battling, while Rose and Ariel are the only ones I'd even consider for a contest."

"Still, you have the chance to go out and do them, and you aren't going to learn about them just by sitting around and doing nothing!" Alex slumped in her seat. "I mean, if I had the chance, I know I'd be out there doing something on a journey instead of sitting around here at home. Helping out at Dad's lab is nice and all, but I want to be out there and doing things instead of just sitting around here."

Cass smiled encouragingly at her sibling as she wrapped an arm around her and hugged her. "You'll get your chance, sis. Just wait."

The younger sibling huffed, not at all optimistic. "Well, I'd still like to know why I can't do it. I mean, Mom not wanting me hurt doesn't hold much water with you going out there. Besides, I can take care of myself, and it's not like I'll get sick out there or something."

"Yeah, you do have a gift for not getting sick." Fleeting memories of when she was young reminded Cass of her brief period with the chicken pox, and how Alex apparently avoided the virus despite her lack of quarantine.

Alex's tone turned even more downcast. "Besides, the sooner I get away from everyone in school, the better."   

"Let me guess, that Isabelle girl again?" At her sibling's lack of response, Cass hugged her closer. "I wish I could do something about that, Alex, I really do."

"Then tell me why I've barely grown an inch in two years, why I'm flat as a board, and why I haven't had any periods. It's like puberty's just left me behind or something." She turned to her sister. "I mean, I know I shouldn't worry about this, but you and Mom and so many women on Dad's side of the family are all tall and everything. Did all that orange soda I drank stunt my growth or kill my pituitary gland or something?"

Cass honestly didn't have an answer for her sister. By some miracle of genetics, she'd turned out to be taller than their mother and attractive enough to turn heads wherever she went, aided mostly by her being close to six feet in height. Alex, meanwhile, was stuck at around five-foot-two, and the various troubles that her sister had avoided had managed to find their way to her, complete with the apparently prerequisite bullies in the form of one Isabelle Morgan. "I wish I knew."

"And I wish I knew why no one was making a big deal out of it."

A shrug. "Beth did say she was a late bloomer." Opting to change the subject, she noted, "Anyway, don't worry about it. It's almost Christmas; that's a plus, right?"

Alex smiled, brightened by that pleasant fact. "Yeah." She looked towards the front door and added, "Which reminds me, where's Dad? He's usually home before Mom, and she's been back for hours. I'm starting to think I'll need to make dinner tonight."

"Well, then it's a good thing the extended family wasn't able to make it this year. The way you all eat, I might not be able to get anything down." At her sister's arched eyebrow, she added, "What? You're all big eaters!"

The younger sibling laughed. "Yeah, that's true." She jumped off the couch and gestured her sibling onwards. "Come on, let's get cooking before Mom orders takeout."

-

The loud beep of her alarm clock awoke Alex the next morning, and she immediately sat up. A quick glance down at the small basket near her computer desk showed that Surtur was awake as well, shaking himself down and smoothing out his feathers. "Merry Christmas, Surtur."

"<Yes, Merry Christmas.>" While their relationship had improved somewhat, the Torchic hadn't quite warmed to her as much as she'd liked. ""

"Well, you just don't know how to have fun." She took a second to put out some food for him before putting on her slippers and bathrobe and making her way downstairs, eager for presents and breakfast.

Those thoughts left her mind immediately after she descended the stairs and caught sight of her mother and sister at the door with Lilycove's resident Officer Jenny and a pair of uniformed cops. Helen immediately turned to her, that usual air of strength seemingly gone and left at a loss for words. "Alex…"

"Mom, where's Dad?"

-

The end of the winter break hadn't been nearly enough time for Alex to get over what had happened. She expected that everyone in school knew what happened, or at least that the teachers did. She doubted that any of the student body did, or that they'd care. Her father was dead, gone forever. She wouldn't see him again, wouldn't cook meals with him again, wouldn't be able to visit his lab and talk with him again…he was just not there anymore. It was bad enough when her great grandfather had passed, but he was old, and old things dying was a natural thing, but her dad wasn't even forty yet, and he was dead because someone just up and shot him. How could this happen? Why did this happen? As she slumped into her seat at her chair for the first class of the day, she had a hard time thinking that it could get any worse.

"Hello Flatsters."

Why did she think that? Of course it could get worse. Her face slammed hard into the desk as she imagined the single worst thing that she dealt with in school sauntering up. Taller than Alex by only a few inches, with long blonde hair and a decent enough figure for a girl in her early teens, Isabelle Morgan was the Queen Bee of their class. She was just as wealthy, but far prettier and, as a result, far more popular.

With absolute glee in her voice, Isabelle grinned as she approached Alex in her current posture. "Oh, someone looks sleepy. Don't want to be…"

Alex immediately sat up, trying her best not to acknowledge the bully beside her in the process. It never worked, of course; ignoring her just prompted more goading, responding either even more goading or punishment from the teacher. A part of her wanted to beat the crap out of the girl, but she knew that wouldn't do anything beyond get her in even more trouble.

"Well, wide awake then. I heard something interesting happened over the break, something about a man dying named Lyle Masters." A small laugh. "Who's dumb enough to name their kid 'Lyle'? He probably just killed himself about having such a stupid name."

Alex closed her eyes, already feeling the tears start to well up. It was a fact that her father had been murdered. People believed to be connected to Team Aqua were confirmed to be involved. And he wouldn't take his own life – her father wasn't a coward. But if she spoke up, then…

"Oh, wait, that's your father's name! Alex Flatster's father offed himself!"

…then that would happen.

"I bet it was because he was so embarrassed to have such a stupid, ugly little skank for a daughter! I bet he's burning in Hell right now for it, and someday, you're going to…!"

Alex immediately shot up from her chair; everyone had their breaking point, and she had reached hers. "My father didn't take his own life! He wouldn't do that!"

"Alexandria!" It was then that Alex noticed that everyone in the class, previously caught up in assorted discussions, had turned their attention onto her. As had the teacher, who was now looking upon her with an expression that was both shocked and very cross and advancing on her with each step. "Raising your voice like that is against the rules! You're coming with me to the principal's office, now!"

Fully aware that she'd gotten herself into more trouble if only by defending herself, Alex tried her best to hold back her tears, even as she made her way towards the classroom door.

-

"Well, well, well, what have we here? Another troublemaker?"

Alex's teacher rarely noticed Isabelle's actions; a part of her wondered if she even cared. The principal, however, couldn't have cared less if he tried. Edwin Colbin was a man more interested in handing out punishments than he was in finding guilty parties, more concerned with making himself look good than actually doing good. At the slightest excuse, he would mete out the harshest of punishments, not because he wanted to maintain discipline, but because he knew he could and he'd get away with it. And he did it all with a smarmy grin. It didn't matter to him that the girl in front of him was doing everything in her power to not bawl her eyes out; that just gave him another excuse.

"Well, let's see. You're not only someone who raises their voice in class, but you're a crybaby as well." Thumbing through the school handbook and reveling in his authority, Colbin grinned and continued, "What's the punishment for disrupting class, I wonder? Oh, it's detention! But that's far too light a punishment for you, little missy! You need proper discipline! A suspension should – !"

The door to his office swung open with enough force to rattle everything on his wall. "Principal Colbin." Alex paused in her bawling just long enough to look up and see her mother standing in the doorway, glaring daggers at her principal. "Why is my daughter in your office?"

The smug expression never left his face. "She yelled at another student in class, and…"

"And did you ask why?"

"It's not my place to ask…"

"Of course it's your place – you're the Arceus-damned principal!" Hearing her mother curse like that momentarily shook Alex out of her sobs, and quickly prompted Colbin to drop the smug expression. It came as a relief when Helen turned to her, the icy glare replaced by a face of pure motherly love, then sat down beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Alex, what happened? Why did you yell at this other student?"

A sniff, and she answered. "She said Daddy killed himself. She said…he did it because of his first name and…to get away from me."

Colbin gave an unimpressed grunt and rolled his eyes. "Just like a child, lying…"

He was promptly silenced by Helen turning her homicidal gaze back upon him. "My daughter has no reason to lie to me, and I have every reason to wonder why you don't have this second child being punished as well." She turned back to Alex and, her voice now far more soothing, she asked, "Who is this second child, Alex?"

"Isabelle. *sniff* Isabelle Morgan."

Knowing from experience that her daughter wasn't one to simply fly off the handle, she prodded further. "And is this the first time that she's bullied you like this?"

"Oh, as if you can believe…"

"Out." Rage clear in her eyes and not even caring that it was his office, Helen looked as if she would set the man on fire just by sheer hate alone. "NOW." Her gaze remained on the principal as he all but leapt out of his seat and left, closing the door behind him. She then turned back to her daughter and asked, "Is it?" At Alex shaking her head, she hugged her daughter closer and asked, "Why didn't you tell me about this sooner? I could have done something about it."

"I told Cass."

"And her not telling me about it is something she and I will discuss later, but that doesn't answer my question." Already beginning to guess at what happened, she guessed. "It's got something to do with me not letting you go on a journey, doesn't it?"

Wiping tears from her eyes, Alex pleaded for what felt like the millionth time, "You let Cass go. You didn't let me go."

"And you think that was because I love her more than you?"

Alex was already starting to feel guilty over feeling that way, even as she listed the reasons she thought she was right. "She was born first. She's the pretty one. You had her with your first husband."

"But none of that means that I don't love you any less than her." Hugging her daughter tight, Helen began to kick herself over letting her daughter feel that way, and found herself thinking that she needed to come clean with her daughter, if only a little. "I kept you home because I was scared that something would happen to you, Alex. When you were a baby, barely a year old, something bad happened to you, and we almost lost you. That's why I didn't let you go; I was afraid that if I did, something would happen and…well, I'd lose you. And I didn't want to lose anyone else I loved before their time, not after Cass's father was killed."

"Then why did Cass go? Why was she safe while I wasn't?"

A sad sigh. "It's a long story, and I promise, you'll learn one day. Just know that it would've been much easier if your father was still alive." She gently stroked her daughter's head before continuing, "Which gets me back to all of this. You know that your father didn't kill himself, and so does the rest of the world. You don't need to defend him, and if this Isabelle girl wants to make your life miserable over it, then she's not worth thinking about. You're my daughter, and you're far stronger and better than she could ever hope to be. You'd never mock a person about their parent's death, for one thing."

"No. You raised me better than that."

"I'd hope so. Now, if this continues after today, you tell me. Right now, I'll do what I can to end it, but if that doesn't work, I will make it end. I promise. But you need to control yourself. Can you do that?"

The last of her tears being wiped away, Alex promised, "Yes Mom."

"Good girl." She got up, her daughter doing the same, then opened the door to the office, the principal standing outside. "Mr. Colbin. I'm told that my daughter is being bullied. If I find out that this continues, and you do nothing about it, you will find yourself being contacted by my lawyers." Just as he was about to make a remark, she added, "And please remember that I make more money in an hour sitting on my ass than you'll ever see in your lifetime." Holding her daughter close, she then asked, "Now, if you don't have anything else to do, my daughter has classes she needs to get back to."

-

My mother made the same threat to the teacher, and did the same to Isabelle. The cynic in me thinks that they all thought she was bluffing – she wasn't, of course, but they never got a chance to find out, as it was my last year at that particular school and nothing happened further concerning my father's passing. And while I felt far more secure after learning those tidbits from my mother, I still wondered why someone would want to hurt me as a baby. A few months later, only a week shy of my fourteenth birthday, I found out.

-

Alex had always been a heavy sleeper. Part of it was an active lifestyle; she was always up and around and moving about, so she rarely had a chance to get energy pent up inside her. Part of it was diet; unlike many other kids her age, her consumption of caffeine was tightly regulated to the point of nonexistence. Regardless, she tended to get a proper night's sleep every night, and it was joked that until she was ready to wake up, it would take nothing short of a seismic event to jolt her from her slumber. Such things weren't uncommon in Hoenn, but they'd yet to experience one which could do the job.

A pained moan escaped Alex's lips, her fingers twitching and finally clenching tight onto her sheets. Not quite awake, she tore the sheets off her, feeling constricted beneath them. The constricted feeling continued, however, leaving her to feel increasingly fitful in her sleep. An observer would think that she was having some sort of seizure. The more religious would think she was being possessed. Neither would be correct, but both would have trouble hearing the straining and tearing of fabric over her pained moans.

Whatever was causing them passed, however, and Alex's slumber returned to a peaceful one until she was finally roused from her slumber by her alarm clock. She groggily sat up and turned off her alarm, then climbed out of bed. "Morning, Surtur. I…"

It took a second or so before she felt loose scraps of fabric slip down her arms and legs, torn off from her formerly loose shirt and pajama pants. Milliseconds later, she realized that the room suddenly seemed smaller, only to realize that it was the other way around. She looked down at her feet, only to find the most obviously physical thing one could expect to find on a woman immediately in her vision, and in ample supply. She then looked at her mirror, and her eyes went wide in shock and terror.

And then she screamed.

Surtur immediately sprang up from his bed, hopping about and anticipating a fight, pausing only to look up at his trainer before boggling at the sight before him. The girl looked like Alex, but she was too tall, and since when did Alex have large bumps on her chest?

That question was quickly put aside as Helen and Cass both rushed into the room, still in their nightclothes. While Cass could only stare in shock at the screaming mess that was her younger sister, their mother simply strode up to Alex and took hold of her by the shoulders. "Alex!" Her daughter now shaken out of her screaming fit, she looked up into her now taller daughter's eyes and ordered. "Deep breaths, calm down." Her child instantly obeyed, and she sighed in relief. "That's better."

No longer screaming but still freaked out about what was going on, Alex nonetheless tried to keep herself calm. "Mom, what…what the hell has happened to me?! I…I woke up and I'm taller and I've got breasts and Cass is freaked out by how big they are and – holy crap, how did I know that?!"

"There's an explanation for all of this, I promise." Her eyes still locked upon her daughters', Helen assured her, "Akima and your grandmother are on their way. When they get here, the three of us will explain everything. Right now you need to get some breakfast into you." A loud gurgling noise from Alex's stomach confirmed her statement. "First though, wash up and get dressed."

Alex looked at her mother in shock. "In what?! My clothes won't fit!"

A small smile, and Helen called to her elder daughter. "Cass? There's a big bag of clothes in my closet just beside the door. Stop staring at your sister and go and fetch them for her."

Now out of her surprised stupor, Cass shook her head. "Right, sorry."

Cass now out of the way, Helen noted, "I just hope they fit. We had your grandmother's measurements at your age to go on, but still, that's a pretty wild guess." Anticipating her daughter's next question, she said, "Explanations later dear. Shower and wash now, food afterwards."

-

Despite being calmed down by her mother and getting some food into her system, Alex was nonetheless freaked out by her situation. It didn't help much that, while close, her new clothes didn't quite fit right, especially the shoes. A trip to the Lilycove Department Store would no doubt be in order, and she wasn't looking forward to that much. Whatever explanation she had coming, she hoped it was a good one.

It had taken a while, but her grandmother and great aunt had arrived and, with tea poured out between them, the family was gathered. "First of all, it's probably obvious by now that we saw this coming. You aren't the first person in this family that's gone through a growth spurt like this, and you won't be the last."

Alex's eyes widened. "It's happened before?"

Beth nodded. "Happened to me right around the age that you are now, same as you. And the same thing happened to my siblings, your father, my mother and her brother, and her mother before her." A nod of the head, and she added, "Happened to Akima too."

"But that doesn't make any sense." Cass's gaze went from her sister to her adoptive grandmother. "People aren't like Pokémon, we don't just spontaneously undergo a massive physical metamorphosis. Puberty takes years, and it's a gradual process."

"With your species, yes." Before another question could be asked, Akima looked to Alex and went straight to the point. "Eighty-three years ago, an extraterrestrial craft crash-landed on Earth in the vicinity of Viridian City in Kanto. Its lone occupant was a young woman named Marina Vonamor, from a planet called Extaxia. Thanks to consuming some alcohol and a marvelous stroke of coincidence right out of 'Star Trek', she ended up pregnant by a local, Bruce Richards. Growth spurts like the one you went through are common with us."

"Us?" Disbelief was as clear as a bell on Alex's face. "You're saying that…that you're an alien?!"

A nod. "Correct."

"And that I'm an alien?!"

"No. You're merely descended from one."

"Marina was my grandmother, Alex. Your great-great-grandmother."

Alex shook her head in disbelief. "But that doesn't make any sense. How did she…?"

Akima quickly explained. "We've had the means for interstellar travel since around the time humanity went through the Industrial Revolution."

"But interbreeding…!"

"As I said, coincidence. I've no idea how it happened, but I'm not complaining about it, and neither should you. Now, are you going to ask about your sudden ability to read people's minds, or are you going to let us explain that?"

Alex's mouth snapped shut, while Beth elaborated, "One out of every two hundred Extaxians possesses some telepathic talent, all of it genetic. Akima has it, and so did Marina, and she passed the genes down to the rest of us. We aren't at the level of say, Sabrina, but we can get by easy enough."

"Okay, hold on a second." Cass looked at the two. "My little sister is descended from aliens. Fine, whatever. She's got psychic powers; that part's a lot easier to swallow than the rest, so no big. But she's, what, a fourth generation hybrid? Wouldn't that have caused the alien DNA to degrade over time?"

"If things had gone normally, yes, it would have. But outside circumstances interfered."

"Wait, normally?" Her freak out subsiding and her natural curiosity growing, Alex leaned forward and asked, "What happened to cause things to not go normally?"

"You were kidnapped." Heads turned to Helen as she explained, "When you were barely a year old, you were kidnapped by a man named Jackson Canmore. He tried to kill you, but…"

"Wait, tried?" Alex turned back to her older relatives and asked, "How do you fail to kill a baby? It's not exactly something that you just up and decide to do on the spur of the moment!"

"You know the teleportation system that's used to move a Poké Ball from one place to another? There was another system like it made, only to a larger scale. It was still in the early development stages when you were little, and Canmore wanted to use it to try and kill you." Beth leaned forward and elaborated. "The way it was thought to work was that save for specifically made items, a given object is simply copied at the opposite end while the original is destroyed. Canmore wanted to use the prototype to literally take you apart atom by atom. Fortunately for us, the system's developer had made two prototypes."

"So, I was recreated in the second one? Safe and whole? Doesn't that mean that the 'original' me is dead, and I'm some kind of clone?"

"We aren't sure, then or now." A comforting smile appeared on Beth's face. "But I picked you up out of that pod and cradled you in my arms, and saw you smile, and I knew that you were still my little baby granddaughter, and not a damn thing would tell me otherwise."

"Wait, you're still not sure?" Cass leaned forward and asked, "I've seen teleport pads in operation in Saffron City, and no one went on about anything like that. Either Alex just got beamed somewhere, or she got copied, there's no middle ground."

"The teleportation system wasn't programmed to adjust to someone with her genetic chemistry, for all of the factors that it had been programmed for." Akima looked to Alex and explained, "You came out with the same consciousness that you had when you went in, and most psychologists would say that you had a generally healthy and normal childhood. As far as we know, your mind and soul are intact. Biologically however, you went in with your Extaxian traits at a readily-defined minimum, but you came out with the alien slowly shifting into the human. Now you're more of a chimera; it's hard to tell based on DNA tests where one ends and the other begins."

"So psychologically, I was me, but physically, I'd been changed." Alex slumped back. "And the alien DNA, me being a chimera thing, is why I'm the ultimate late bloomer?"

"Odds are if you'd never gone through, whatever growth spurt you had would've been far less dramatic. And even then, you're still growing – proper nutrition, and you can still get a couple more inches in height in the next few years."

"Among other things?" A small glance at her chest, and Alex groaned. "I don't mind being tall, but I could've done without the bustline." Slowly coming to accept what she was being told, she then asked, "Let me guess, Canmore knew about my heritage?"

"His father shot me on my wedding night. I pushed him off the balcony of a really tall building. And they knew about us before then. Apparently, he and several others were afraid of the classic scenario – alien invasion, alien infiltration, turning humanity into them and so on. Totally baseless, obviously."

"Aside from the obvious fact that, including you, there have been exactly four Extaxians on Earth for longer than forty-eight hours, we wouldn't bother with such stupidity if we wanted to conquer the planet. And we don't need to, either."

"But you don't mind the idea of crossbreeding and such."

Akima smirked. "Well, take a look at an Extaxian man after thirty, and you'll see why. That's one advantage of hybridization; for the most part, hybrids get the better traits of both races. Aside from telepathy being more common, Extaxians are built for a different environment than Earth – our immune systems are such that, assuming proper diet and exercise, we can hold off just about every bacterium and virus known to man save the odd ones that are easy enough to avoid. We can still be poisoned, but it has to be a really strong one given our metabolism; we tear through nutrients like a sniper's bullet through thin paper. Aside from that, we're built for slightly higher gravities; in proper physical shape, we're more than a match for the best trained of Olympic athletes, but there is one significant downside. We tend to die around the age of seventy."

Alex arched an eyebrow. "That's a downside? I thought seventy was a good run."

"It is, but there are humans who live past a hundred, and when you pass sixty, it's a little easier to sense the Reaper at your back. Besides that, human beings tend to have far more variable psychic abilities, and aren't limited to pure telepathy. Hybrids, especially second-generation ones, seem to get the better balance, but how you turn out thanks to Canmore's actions is still debatable. You may end up living past seventy, you may not."

"Especially if Canmore's still out there." At the surprised look from her mother, Alex explained, "Educated guess. You keeping me in my home town makes a lot more sense if someone out there wants me dead than otherwise."

Helen managed a relieved smile, glad that her daughter had figured it out on her own. "I couldn't protect you the first time. I needed to do everything I could to make sure there wasn't a second."

Alex smiled. She'd woken up that morning, and her entire world had been ripped apart, probably just as badly as when her father had died. Now, however, so much more had made sense than before, and it was a comfort. But one obvious question remained. "What happened to him?"

"It's a little hard to prove attempted murder when it came to experimental technology, so the best we could get was a kidnapping charge. He got ten years jail time, thanks mostly to good lawyers and friends in the right places." Beth's tone turned grim. "He's out now, or will be soon, and measures taken afterwards won't stop him for long."

Akima took on a bitter, disappointed look. "I personally would have preferred that he end up dead, but clearly that didn't happen. Something about not wanting to continue the cycle of revenge and letting the justice system handle it. Some justice."

"So Alex is still a target?" Heads turned to Cass as she continued, "She's stuck, hiding in fear for the rest of her life because some bastard monster's convinced that she has to die? My little sister is being threatened by some old psycho with a grudge?! Please tell me there's something we can do about it!"

"For now, no, aside from wait for him to die."

"That's it?" Heads now turned to Alex, the fear and confusion in her face now gone. "My options are either die or hide in fear? Screw that." She turned to her mother. "Mom, you've protected me. You've done what any good mother would do. But this Canmore guy tried to kill me when I was a baby, and last I checked, there wasn't anything much more evil than killing defenseless toddlers. He's gonna keep coming until either I'm dead or he is, and I don't like the idea of dying or faking my death. I won't live in the shadows if I can help it; I want my normal life, and I won't live in fear of some coward."

All were silent after Alex's declaration, until a tiny chirp sounded. "<Do you mean that?>" Heads turned to Surtur, his eyes fixed upon his trainer. "<Do you really mean all of what you just said?>"

A nod. "I do."

Surtur immediately jumped up onto the couch Alex was sitting upon and proudly declared. "<Then someone had better make sure you live to see tomorrow.>"

A laugh. "Damn right." She turned and said, "Mom, I know the risks now. I can't hide forever."

Helen managed a reluctant smile. "You need to face them." She shook her head and turned to her mother-in-law. "You were right."

"Well, being stubborn is a trait in this family." Beth turned to Alex and noted, "However, you may not be ready yet."

Alex arched her eyebrow and crossed her arms. "I've got black belts in two martial arts."

"Judo and aikido are defensive styles." Akima looked to her and said, "You need something offensive; I'd have said Krav Maga before, but Jeet Kun Do seems far more appropriate now given you've hit your growth spurt. And you need training in the use of real weapons; swords, staves, knifes, and so on."

"Guns?"

A laugh. "Please. A gun is a coward's weapon and limited, effective though it may be. Proper training, and you can get far more creative than a simple gunslinger." A grin. "And I can give it to you."

-

"Needless to say, I was a very good student."

"<Wait, hold on a second!>" Snapdragon looked at her trainer in disbelief. "<You expect me to believe all that craziness?>"

Surtur rolled his eyes at that comment. "<In case you had not noticed, we've experienced quite a bit of craziness. Hired assassins, nefarious organizations, mad Aura Guardians, and so forth.>"

The Vibrava buzzed her wings, remembering all too well some of the incidents with those in all three categories. "<Yeah, well, this is the first I've heard of this Canmore guy. What happened to him?>"

"I killed him." The words weren't spoken with much emotion, no pride or sadness or anything positive or negative, but Alex nonetheless said them. "It's taken everything I've got to not hate myself for doing it, too. He may have wanted me dead, fine, but I wish to Arceus or whoever the hell is listening that I wasn't the one to kill him, and I am not about to take another life if I can help it."

"<But you weren't afraid to get into a fight either.>" An amused chuckle was in the Blaziken's tone as he added, "<Certainly solved some of your problems.>"

"This is true." Taking in all of her Pokémon, she continued, "My growth spurt hit about a week before my fourteenth birthday. I was on break, so I had plenty of time to start on my training and diet regimen, not to mention replace all my old clothes. When class finally got back in session, however, not much had changed. Instead of Isabelle mocking me for being short and without much of a figure, she started accusing me of plastic surgery. I ignored it and told my mother. Lawyers were involved, but cases were dismissed – the judges had little interest in all of it. Needless to say, my family's lack of faith in the justice system is becoming more and more understandable." She shook her head. "Still, grand scheme of things, it was minor. Someone wants to be a sadistic little bitch, fine, that's their problem; it'll probably bite her in the ass eventually, assuming it hasn't already happened, and it'll be her own fault." Getting to her feet, she added, "Anyway, I think I've had more than enough time thinking about where I got started. If I don't get back on my feet and on the road, I'm going to be going on about this forever. I think it's long past time that we picked up where we left off."

"<Finally.>" The rest of the team looking glad to get moving, Surtur asked, "<So, mainland or elsewhere?>"

"Mainland first." Alex turned her gaze towards the southwest. "Lavaridge and Petalburg are calling, and I've got gaps in my badge cases that I want to fill before I head elsewhere. Besides, I missed them the first time, so why not?"
And the next PW!R entry. I expect I'm going to get a lot of complaints about this, but we're already talking about a universe where cute little critters run around throwing out attacks that could devastate a small suburb (and where one of those critters is confirmed to be of extraterrestrial origin), so yeah, deal with it.

Anyway, I'm beginning to run out of these. A couple more next week, but after that, I'll be out, and this will update with the regular postings. Heaven help me.

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kaisai134's avatar
Wow... I can't wait to read more of this! What a dark start to her past! She and my girl Ichika could have an interesting talk over a cup of tea. ;)