The Unyielding Façade

Part 20 - If Everything can be Restarted

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Pokémon mentioned below nor the items (Pokeball, Pokegear, Xtransceiver) as they belong to Nintendo and Gamefreak.

Damn, I better to get out of here first! I thought and gritted my teeth, but which way?

I ran towards the broken window where the three legendary Pokémon escaped from, however, to my surprise, what awaits me in front of the frames with glass shards poking out, was a cliff - a very sheer one. Below, the blue and white lines of the ocean raced and crashed onto the cliff walls.

What...? I thought, oh, right! This building sits on a cliff overlooking the ocean! Ugh, if only I have Swanna with me, I can just fly out... no, come on - think of something!

Maybe this means I'm at the furthest back of the building. So, how do I get to the entrance? Let's just try anyway!

I kept running through the hallways. Suddenly I came across a spacious room, still surrounded by metal walls, but with an opening to another hallway right across. To my surprise, a figure popped out from the other side. A young woman with wavy light blue ponytail, wearing a double-bust coat over her dress. Her pair of deep blue eyes quickly caught my gaze.

"Azul? What are you doing here?" I asked and ran over to her.

But the young woman just threw her face and walked faster towards the opposite direction.

"Wait!" I called out and ran after her.

However, the young woman did not spare me a glance and kept going, as she avoided one tile after another. I followed her closely behind to make sure I didn't set any of the trap tiles.

"Azul-" I called out, "are you alright?"

"...do I look alright to you? You're saying that after all you've done?" she said.

"I shouldn't, should I?" I asked, "then, what do you want me to do?"

The young woman kept quiet as she watched her step. Seconds passed, the rumbling noise filled the gaps of our conversation.

"...look, Valen," she said and glanced behind her shoulder, "there's nothing you can do. The damage is done - and I wasn't just talking about what you did. It is what it is - this is what everything has came to now,"

I stopped and watched as she hung her head and rubbed her eyes. Right at that moment, my heart beat faster and guilt started to flock into my head, accumulating in the front part of my head.

"Things just changed and I couldn't understand what was happening, that's all. It's not the end of the world. I thought I'll finally be able to go home but it wasn't what I expected," she said as she wiped off a bead of tear from her eyes, "but of course, everyone's going through some shit all this time I was gone, everyone had stuffs they had to deal with... there are things important for you guys too... a lot of things..." 

"Y-yeah, yeah..." I said. 

"Well then, I'm sorry for trying to do the same - fighting for things that matters to me! For being a selfish bastard who asks for some support!" she snapped and looked straight at me, "I'm sorry for hoping things will go back to normal, for being an insecure, jealous plain Jane next to you. But most of all I'm feeling sorry for myself hanging onto and begging for empathy from just the worst people!"

"That's..." I said, "I'm sorry..."

"It wasn't you. Everything was..." her voice started trembling, "the kidnapping incident, going back, patching things up with him, drifting away from you and everyone else... how did that all happen?"