Broken Souls

An Eye For An Eye, A Tooth For A Tooth

"You sure you want to do this?" Ten asks me. We're out on the road, again, close to where I summoned Ethan just last night. It's so late (or early, take your pick) that the moon is setting instead of rising, but I passed out just after dinner so all in all I think I'm still getting close to the appropriate amount of sleep.

Sleep schedules are for chumps anyways.

"Worried I'll find out about something?" I respond.

"I am. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know why I stayed when everyone else was erased from the timeline. I don't know why I remember when this whole world should know nothing about what happened before. Blast, Ashley, I'm likely just as much of an anomaly as you are." He inhales, raising his folded wings as he does so before slumping back down.

Anomaly.

It's strange, because for all I've been through, the term still catches me by surprise. Anomaly for what? This world? The multiverse I've supposedly failed to save multiple times? What is normal at this point, anyways?

"We're just going to stall on this as long as we can, aren't we?" Ten peeps.

"Yep." I say. "Alright. I'll get on it." I close my eyes.

Having my eyes shut has always been helpful when I want to flash, since it blocks out unhelpful external stimuli. Tonight, though, it just immerses me in a darker shade of black than the one outside. I can't see a thing in my mind's eye, likely because we're not in the midst of battle. I try to reach out for Ten's presence, and feel my hands grasp a golden thread with the same sensation as if I'd touched such an object in real life. However, strangely, it seems to be vibrating, like a violin string after being played. It's unclear if I'm just imagining the whole thing or not, but the sensation is too real to be anything else.

I grab hold and yank the bond backwards, pulling myself into Ten's consciousness, and I hear a shrill owl cry echoing in my head as we both scream in agony. I see a stream of memories in front of my eyes, all from his perspective, but despite being memories that feature me few of them are with Pokemon I remember. There's a Croconaw in one, a Flareon in another, and in one I have half a team of Ratattas and a Leafeon curled around my shoulders.

Who are you? Who are you really?

The tenth.

The distorted voice in our mind doesn't sound like him at all and all the memories begin to fade, replaced by a burning, blinding light. I don't know if my eyes are closed or not but the light is so piercing I doubt it matters. It's worse than looking straight into the sun- it's as if I've actually fallen into it. I feel my body- our feathers- my limbs- catching on fire, a blazing heat eating away at the very core of my being.

Unable to take the pain any longer, I pull back and find myself crumpled to the ground just a few feet away from Ten, who is bent over with his wings splayed out. His breath is raspy and he's trembling all over, shaking with the weight of what just happened.

"Oh Arceus. Oh Arceus." I whisper. Most of the pain has abated, but my left eye is still unable to focus. The afterimage of whatever I saw is burned into it and combined with the already poor night visibility I can't see a thing.

"Ashley, I... I'm so sorry..." Ten clucks.

I run towards the left side of the route, through a patch of trees and out to the water, where I crouch down at the edge and look at my reflection, panting from the effort. I run my hand down my face in shock as the girl staring back does the same.

"My eyes," I tell him. "This one's completely silver." I point to my left eye.

Ten swoops over. "What eye? It looks fine to me."