Looking away from the unconscious crab, I turned my attention to the conflict again.

  The battle seemed to be over, with The 24 Cws being the clear winners. Reinforcements from The Red Tide had arrived at some point, and their contribution seemed to have been enough to tip the bance in favor of the Corphish, fainting all the invading Krabbys.

  Just as I nded the final blow on the stupid Kingler, Mr. Krabs had rushed out with Pale Feathers to check on Pincitas, which, in fact, had lost a cw. I wasn't sure if lost limbs could be regenerated in this magical world, but I could only pray to Arceus that it would be so… or find a way to do it on my own, of course.

  Not wanting to cause any more damage, I dispelled my Sandstorm and nearly teleported to where my best avian friend was lying.

  A light rain began to fall as my storm subsided, a rain full of life that promised to heal this whole mess… A clearly unnatural rain, infused with an intention that angered me for a few moments, but that I let pass for now to prioritize checking on Cap, who was still conscious despite his terrible condition.

  I didn't know how someone as agile as him had received such a slow blow like that, but a rge cut ran diagonally across his entire torso, probably caused by Kingler's Guillotine. His protective yer of aura had taken the brunt of the blow, though I could tell it hadn't been enough to stop the ‘one-hit KO’ move entirely, as the seagull looked like he was about to die.

  "You've been beaten pretty bad, haven't you, Captain?" I said as softly as I could, stopping the flow of aura in my voice and starting to think about what I could do to heal a wound like that.

  “What can I say? I'm not what I once... cough!” he began to reply in his usual pyful tone, stopping halfway with a bloody cough.

  “Don't talk now, you idiot!” I yelled at him, panicking a little. “Don't worry, I'll find a way to cure you. I promise.”

  Not wanting to waste time, but not knowing what I could really do to help, I resorted to the usual thing: experiment.

  The healing rain along with his Rain Dish ability working overtime seemed to be enough to keep Cap stable, at least for a little more time. Time in which I hoped to find something that could heal his wound.

  Channeling Shore Up in my hand, I used everything I had learned so far about the moves to discompose the ‘core principles’ of which it was formed, seeking to do something like reverse engineering, but I wasn’t able to find what I wanted. Frustrated, I unleashed a small Giga Drain without targeting anyone to see if that would help, hoping that the familiarity I had with the move would allow me to isote what I wanted, and surprisingly it worked.

  I had it.

  That pure concept of healing was at my disposal, I just needed to shape it.

  Excited, I imbued that concept in Psychic-type energy, releasing it in a Heal Pulse directed toward my dying friend. The efficiency of the move was terrible, it barely even worked, but that didn't matter to me. Turning on my extrasensory sense for a few moments, my joy only increased when I saw his aura increasing, repairing his protective yer at breakneck speeds.

  For a moment I thought I had made it, but there was a problem… Neither the rain composed of countless Life Dew nor my new move were doing anything to close his wound, they were only replenishing his energy.

  Frowning, I thought a little harder. I was sure that his body would use that energy to heal naturally, but it might not be enough. I needed…

  “Sandy…” my friend murmured, cutting off my thoughts as he continued to slowly bleed out. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep…”

  “Who do you think I am? I would never do that,” I said half-jokingly, trying to lighten the mood as I racked my non-existent brain for answers.

  "How did Kingler end up?" he asked, smiling, his eyes slightly gssy. "You didn't kill him, did you?"

  “Of course not… For now,” I pyed along, boosting my Heal Pulse while trying to isote the concept of ‘regeneration’ in Shore Up without success. “??I didn’t want to steal your kill, after all.”

  “I'm afraid I didn't get that joke... Cough!”

  “I think you'd better stop talking,” I murmured, trying to convey calm.

  “Sandy… You don't have to try so hard, I'm aware that my time has come…” said the fool, ignoring my words like the scoundrel he was. “On this isnd abandoned by Arceus, there are no Pokemon Centers that can treat a wound like this… It's a shame… I really wanted to take one st voyage with you before this, but I guess one doesn't choose the moment of one's dea—”

  “?Calte!” I interrupted the delirious bird with a shout, losing my temper. “Stop waving fgs! You’re not going to die today, you piece of shit! I won’t allow you!”

  That seemed to do the trick, as the bird closed his beak and finally let me think. Wanting to make the most of every second, I used Calm Mind at the maximum power I could, causing time to slow down.

  My idea to look for the ‘regeneration factor’ in Shore Up was a good one, since it had to be somewhere, but I didn't have the necessary experience using the move to discover it under those circumstances. Trying to learn another move didn't seem like a good idea either, not with a chronometer tied in my neck, and it could be just as useful as Heal Pulse was right then.

  Sharpening my mind with Psychic-type energy, I thought of every little thing I was capable of… And, as if I had rolled a natural 20, I had one of my ideas. Without a doubt, the riskiest one so far.

  “Hey, Cap. Think fast. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you trust me?” I asked, fshing the widest, scariest smile I could muster.

  “11,” he said without hesitation, unfazed, returning my smile. “Although it would be 12 if you'd stop grinning like an idiot and do whatever the hell popped into that sandy-head.”

  Without bothering to even answer, I turned on my extrasensory sense again, but wanting to look inside myself this time.

  I've done that a few times before. More than once I had been curious about how my sand body worked after all, although my success in answering my own questions was almost nil. The only thing I had been able to make clear from those short glimpses was that, without the existence of aura, it would take me less than half a second to die again, since my body functioned almost 100% with that magical energy.

  I could try to take advantage of the increase in my ‘mental power’ that evolution had granted me to finish investigating what allowed my body to do that, reverse engineer it and try to do the same with Cap… although it would take too long to do so and my idea was much simpler.

  Well, simple was perhaps not the correct term, but it would definitely be faster, and that was the only thing that mattered to me.

  Going deeper, lower than I had ever dared to descend, I reached the limits of what I could only interpret as my soul, surrounded by a pink mist product of my Calm Mind. It was difficult to describe, but if I had to give it a shape, I would say it was a triangur room, with its ‘walls’ composed of my emotions, my will and my mind.

  The first two looked like a harmonious river and a pte of tempered steel, respectively. Raging waves might rock the serene waters of my temperament, heavy blows could intimidate me and make me doubt, but they would prevail and recover, growing bigger and stronger with experience, as they always had.

  The st one, on the other hand, I wasn't so sure about. To put it bluntly, the ‘wall of my mind’ was bright and blinding, showing my brilliant wit, but the part that corresponded to my memory was a complete mess, a disaster far greater than I feared.

  Fragments of memories from my past life were floating everywhere, as if someone had thrown a stone at a stained gss and the rger pieces had formed a new mirror. The gaps left by those smaller shards were being filled by the experiences I was having in this new life, preventing older memories from fitting into the crystal.

  Looking at myself in the cracked gss, I wasn't sure what I saw in the reflection. Was she a bored and tired office girl, or was she a jolly Pokemon trying to imitate a human being? A bit of both, perhaps?

  A bit of both, surely.

  I wasn't entirely clear about it, I didn't know where one began and the other ended, but I could leave this for ter.

  This shit would require the help of a therapist; I wasn't arrogant enough to think I could fix this on my own. I didn't have the necessary tools, touching something could only make it worse, and that wasn't even the reason I had descended into the depths of my soul.

  Looking away from the pane, determined to deal with that another time, I turned my attention to the center of the triangur room.

  My soul itself was also what I had been referring to until then as my ‘aura well’, being filled with this magical life energy. Most of it floated free through the ever-expanding space, completely at the mercy of my will, my emotions, or my knowledge, but a small portion swirled in the middle, forming something without form.

  Pure energy roared in that abstract mass, a typeless aura, identical to the one that had enveloped me a few moments ago. That energy was my potential, the potential to evolve.

  The potential to change.

  Seeing the vast amount I still had left, I could bet almost anything that if I got strong enough, I would be able to evolve once more. I could almost hear it, the Will of the World whispering promises of power and glory. The potential to almost reach Divinity, the chance to evolve into a pseudo-legendary Pokemon…

  It was a shame I had other pns.

  Reaching out to the amorphous mass of undefined potential, I tore off a rge chunk of what was rightfully mine and returned to the ‘surface’. Time didn't seem to have passed at all, not even a second, but I knew that my little journey to the center of my soul had happened, since in my right hand I still held that dazzling piece of pure energy, irradiating typless aura.

  “Sandy, is that what I think it is?” the seagull asked incredulously, staring at my hand with wide eyes.

  “Yup, it is,” I simply said.

  I had no time to waste. With each passing second, the undefined energy became more and more defined, losing its potential, so I had to act quickly.

  Not knowing exactly how to proceed, but trusting my instincts, I refined the piece of raw energy with my knowledge, my emotion and my will, forming a kind of sphere that I stuck into Cap's chest as if it were a damn Rasengan. The Will of the World seemed to want to oppose me at first, finding what I was doing ‘unnatural’, but seemed to change its mind when it read my intentions, supporting me as best it could the rest of the way.

  I'd almost say it was proud of me, for some reason.

  The potential contained in my sphere acted quickly, resonating and mixing with the one that Cap had been accumuting for years by not allowing himself to evolve. Shaped by our combined wills, sharing a single brain cell once again, the tent potential was consolidated, granting the Wingull a new form more in line with his desires.

  Surrounded by a shell of that white light that I was starting to get used to, Cap changed, leaving behind the Water-type that had accompanied him his entire life and repcing it with the Ghost-type. His silhouette grew a little, without losing an ounce of his characteristic agility, and something like ectopsm oozed from the wound on his torso, enveloping his figure in that ghostly substance and sealing the cut.

  When the light faded, Cap had turned into a completely new Pokemon, and he instantly passed out. That worried me a little, but I soon realized that it was normal. I am convinced that the only thing that had kept him conscious until then was pure stubbornness, that intrinsic desire to look Death in the eye, and at the moment he knew that his life was no longer in danger, he finally allowed himself to rest.

  I envied him a little, as I wanted to colpse right there too. That day had been a real roller coaster, the only thing I wanted to do now that everything had been resolved was to succumb to Cresselia's sweet embrace, replenishing my more than exhausted mental power with a well-deserved beautiful dreams.

  Unfortunately, there was one st thing I needed to do before I could sleep.

  Sitting on the sand of the beach, I crossed my legs and gred with fair wrath at a nearby palm tree. With that alone, the presence I had been feeling since I defeated Kingler manifested before my burning eyes. The air surrounding the base of that tree I had never paid attention to rippled for a few moments, revealing a small Zorua, the Hisuian variant, who seemed absolutely terrified of me, but also curious and expectant.

  At his side was an imposing Gardevoir, the target of my outrage, looking me deeply concerned and remorseful.

  “You finally show your face, Hada negligente. Are you tired of watching the show while eating popcorn and decided to join the party in the end?”

  Hey, Lichant here. I've edited a couple of things that I wasn't quite sure about. No need to re-read the chapter or anything, though I should probably polish things up a bit more before posting...

  Anyway, that's all.