Formatting

Hello! If this is your first time reading this, this is PMD: All I Want Part 1: Self Esteem! All of the individual ‘Arcs’ of this story are (at least planned to be) readable as standalone stories, but are all part of a larger narrative. I’d recommend starting with Arc 1, but feel free to start reading a later part.

Arc 1, Chapter 1: Falling Down

by owryintheblindforest

“Hmmm…. This one…”

“The fires of resentment burn strong in him.”

“He hides it all away by habit, but the fire only burns brighter…”

“All he needs is a push…”

“Should he put his mind to it, his intelligence could bring us a bountiful harvest.”

“Cunning, yet trapped, his potential is…”

“Yes, This one… I shall make him the prophet of envy.”

BAN-BAN, BAN-BAN, BAN-BAN, BAN-BAN, BAN, BAN, BA-

A very tired Shinx groaned, slamming his paw down on the screen to turn off his alarm. “Another half-hour…”

Thirty minutes passed. BAN-BAN, BAN-BAN, BAN-BAN, BAN-BAN, BAN, BAN, BA-

Again, the Shinx turned off the alarm on his phone. Regrettably, the Shinx who set these alarms knew to always set at least three, so, thirty minutes later…

BAN-BAN, BAN-BAN, BAN-BAN, BAN-BAN, BAN, BAN, BA-

“Ahhhgg…” Amadeus rolled out of bed, turning off the alarm for one final time. Spice of Life was a great song, and a better alarm, judging by it’s effectiveness at actually getting his lazy behind out of bed. “Okay, time to get going…” He sluggishly grabbed his glasses off the desk by the side of his bed, and went over to brush his teeth in the bathroom. The apartment his Dad had loaned him to ‘learn independence’ was small, but really didn’t need to be very big all, and it served him well. Made getting the day started quicker, for one, since it was so small. Not to mention it let him hide his nerdier and/or weirder interests more easily. He looked himself in the bathroom mirror. He hated how tired he looked at the moment, in no small part due to the late meeting he’d sat in on, which meant Dad would give him an earful on the way to the school if he didn’t do something to look more presentable. His voice rang in his head. The Luxray-line firstborn son of our family must always look prepared! He’d say. Looking properly dashing could wait until he was dressed, though. For now, he settled for splashing water onto his face and drying it off after giving his teeth a good brushing. That, at least, cured his bedhead slightly. I’ll do the rest later.

He tided himself over by scrolling through the news while waiting for the minty taste to fade from his mouth. Once it did, which took about 3 minutes by the time on his phone, he fixed himself a modest breakfast of toast with some strawberry jam on it, and a bit of Leppa Juice.

…All right, it was a lot of Leppa Juice, but he had the money to spend on all of that Leppa Juice, since he really didn’t deviate from his diet at all. He gave his face another quick rinse, before putting on his usual suit that was slightly more comfortable than the rest, and properly giving his hair a comb. After deciding that he looked ‘good enough’, he strolled out of the bathroom again, and towards the door, where he was greeted by his elder sister.

“Seven thirty-five! Right on schedule. Arceus, you’re like clockwork,” The silver Eevee observed, somewhere between being impressed and condescending in the way only an older sibling could. The very casual clothing the Shiny complimented this sassy attitude. “Morning.”

“Good morning, Samantha…” Amadeus sighed. “You’re as energetic in the morning as ever.”

“I guess so, yeah.” Sam giggled to herself. “How was yesterday?”

“Dad did his CEO thing. I honestly have no idea how he expects me to do it…” He thought back to how he’d barely managed to put on a brave face, when so many expectant eyes were on him. “I had to fight out every word…”

“You’ll figure this out, Amadeus. I know it!”

“…Thanks. In any case, he wants me to come to some… presentation? Some engineer sponsored by the company wanted to show off his gadget, I think?”

“Oh, right! Dad told me, If you can believe that. It’s at the tech school I go to. I think the guy’s one of my professors, actually…”

“…Right, District Black Institute of Technology. That’s where it was.”

“Aren’t you going there in the fall, too?”

“Yeah?”

“Shouldn’t you try getting on their good side?”

“I’ll go there, graduate, and then take the obvious job lined up for me. I don’t think I need to stress about making connections, or whatever.”

Sam giggled. “If Dad heard that lax attitude coming out of your mouth, he’d kick your ass.”

“Uh, probably?”

Sam laughed even harder. “That wasn’t a question, Amadeus! Arceus…” She looked around the path they’d been walking down, as if trying to find a way to quell her own laughter. “Man, the observation deck looks great in this star system…”

It was perhaps pertinent to mention the megalopolis-sized vessel they were aboard. The Expedition IV, a ship they’d literally spent their lives on, was a storied spacecraft, perhaps most famous for being the first one of it’s size to be capable of achieving warp speeds, thanks to the gigantic rings built around it housing negative mass drives, which… evaded Amadeus’ understanding. Something about warping the space-time around them in such a way as to literally push the whole thing along, powered by a single powerful artifact? Sam would probably explain it to him properly if he asked, but he didn’t care to. More impressive, to Amadeus at least, was the fleet that constantly surrounded it. It was large enough to the point that the vessel could probably declare itself independent from it’s parent empire and be fine, but nobody wanted to rock the boat like that. Amadeus wasn’t about to raise the flag of rebellion, nor was he in any position to.

“You’re staring into space again. Literally.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty, I think.”

“Welp, let’s not dawdle. You and I both have places to be.”

“You two do indeed, don’t you?”

There he was, right on cue. Harry Luxray, their father and, most likely, the one who would be stealing him away from Sam, standing there in a suit that was perhaps specifically chosen to look imposing. “Well, Samuel?” Dad asked. “Are you going to run along, now?”

Samantha visibly flinched. “…Yes, father.” She ran off to get to DBIT without another word.

“Well, my other son,” Dad said, addressing Amadeus now. “Shall we head over to your high school?”

“…Yes, father.”

The walk to Amadeus’ private school was permeated by a stiff silence. Dad asked him a few questions, but since he’d literally seen last night, and Dad wasn’t about to let him stare idly at his phone out in public, there wasn’t much to start small talk with, so they walked quietly for the most part, aside from the odd greeting to passerby. Eventually, they reached the private school.

“Have a good day, son. I love you.”

“Yes, father.”

“Say it back, now.”

“…Love you too, Dad.”

The school day was, quite frankly, too boring to describe in detail. The only thing actually noteworthy about this place was the fact that the curriculum was specifically tailored toward preparing the students for business, anyway. The classes themselves were not inherently interesting. At the end of the last period, Amadeus sighed as he collapsed his tablet, which he used for note-taking, back into phone form for the final time. At least, probably. He might do some drawing before heading to bed tonight. I’ll probably have to crack out the drawing glasses again, if this headache is any indication… Amadeus strode out of the building after the announcements finished up, where Dad was waiting for him.

“How was your day?”

“Good.”

“Grades?”

“All good.”

“Just ‘good’?”

“It’s fine, Dad. Don’t worry about it.”

“Alright then. Come along, now, we’re off to that presentation I mentioned yesterday.”

“What did the guy make, anyway?” Finally, an excuse for small talk with Dad.

“’The guy’ is Niel Ampharos, excuse you.” Dad wasn’t about to let his manners slip even the slightest bit out in public, it seemed. “He is one of the finest engineers that we employed in the past, and in his new career as a scientist, this is likely the most he’ll ever achieve. He claims to have cracked time travel, the madman.”

“…I see.”

“You had better dignify him a little more in person. I doubt he’d made such a big deal out of this if he didn’t have the results to back up his boasting. He’s usually a careful man.”

“…I see.” Amadeus only half-cared, but the prospect of time travel was interesting, to say the least.

“Again, I remind you not to be so curt.”

“Yes, father.”

The walk to campus was a long one, which gave Amadeus an excuse to idly stare off into the distance towards their eventual destination. The Expedition IV was built in a roughly cylindrical structure, with the on-board gravity machine rooting them all to the ‘floor’, which was really just the entire inside surface of the ship. Every single building was built out from the ‘floor’, giving off a circular look to the skyline. There were massive gaps that were meant as windows, which took up some very large spaces, one of which was the one he’d seen earlier with Samantha. It was apparently built this way to assist in it’s initial takeoff as well as the drives pushing it along, with one end flat and the other somewhat pointed, but he could only imagine how it must’ve felt to be inside when that was happening. The thing wasn’t exactly built to land. If one wanted to do that, they’d have to board a shuttle to get to the surface of a planet, which Amadeus had done exactly once while it orbited some random strategic colony for a whole month. Not doing that again… He shuddered as he thought back to being barely able to last a day between the bumpy rides there and back and the gravity of the planet itself. Not to mention how dirty the thing was. He was still finding flecks of dirt from the place in his apartment months afterwards.

He gazed at DBIT from where he was standing. It was just far away enough from where they were standing that it looked like it was at a slight angle relative to them, but that really wasn’t too far from them. He’d made the walk there all the way from his apartment plenty of times, which was apparently just a little farther than the private school, so the walk wasn’t any big deal. Lest he complain about it and get an earful from Dad about showing weakness.

Getting closer, the campus was rather nice-looking. The buildings all had sleek, modern looks to them that made the whole place look, for lack of a better word, cool. At least in Amadeus’ opinion. Each one had it’s own special design flourish that made it pop. The arches on the building to their left, the grand observation deck on the building to their right…

“This place looks as nice as ever.”

“Oh, please, Amadeus,” Dad replied, quick to shoot him down. “This place is most definitely not good-looking. It’s trying much to hard.”

“I suppose so…”

“Come along now. No need to gawk at the overdesigned buildings they’ve got here.”

“Yes, father.”

They continued on their not-particularly-merry way, stopping only occasionally to say hello, until they finally reached their eventual destination. This particular building was built like a circle, which meant they’d have to take the stairs on their way up. It still looked cool, though. They very, very slowly made their way up the very top floor, where a grand lecture hall awaited them. It was big enough to host well over 400 students by itself, which made it perfect to hold a grand demonstration for a whole bunch of people. And Amadeus would have to awkwardly stand off to the side and do his best to not embarrass the guy actually doing the presenting. Calm down, Amadeus. You don’t have to say anything, just stand around looking pretty. How hard could that possibly be? Already, the Ampharos of the hour was busying himself setting up his device and preparing for the presentation up front on the stage, and a scant few people were already seated, waiting for the thing to begin. He looked around and saw Samantha sitting in the back, who saw also saw him and Dad and waved. Amadeus weakly waved back before heading to the front with Dad, who was already looking to strike up a conversation with Niel.

“Niel, my good man. How are you doing this lovely day?”

“Ah, Harry, is that you? Things are going great! You’re gonna love this…”

“I would, if I understood any of it.”

“Ha, you must have some understanding of quantum mechanics, no?”

“No, I am a humble business owner. I understand money and little else.” Dad said this with a strangely serious tone. “Please, enlighten me.”

“Ah, you see, ___ _ ___ quantum ____ ___ _ __ _ __ _ __________ _ ___ _ __ ___________ _ _ ____ eigenstate ___ ____ uncertainty __ _____ _ _____ __ ________ _ _ ____ time ____ ____ ___ __ _ _…”

Amadeus wasn’t exactly listening to all of this. The technical jargon quickly caused his eyes to glaze over and his ears to immediately tune out all of it. Instead, his attention drifted towards the device itself. It seemed to be active, with a glowing white plasma projected in what seemed to be an empty frame, one that while probably big enough to fit himself inside, was tiny compared to the device as a whole. The thing stretched along the entire length of the stage, and was mostly covered in huge metal pipes that Amadeus was alarmed even fit inside at all. The whole thing was massive. Perhaps a little too curious for his own good, he slowly drifted towards the plasma in the frame, which felt like it had a gentle breeze blowing into it. He got nearly an arm’s length away before he was aggressively yanked back by the scruff.

“Careful, now! That thing’s dangerous!”

“uhh…”

“I mean it, kid! Do you WANT your face torn off?”

“I, uhh…”

“Amadeus.” Amadeus jumped at his father’s voice. “Do not die like that, you hear me?” It sounded less like he was concerned and more like he was giving an order. Amadeus took in a deep breath.

“Yes, father.”

“Good. Now let’s patiently wait for the presentation to begin.”

Sitting through the presentation was honestly mind-numbing, likely induced by the overwhelming about of technobabble he was made to endure.

“___ __ _ ____ so we can ___ _ ___ _ __ ____ __________ _ _ ____ ___ wave ____ _ ____ __ …”

Still, Amadeus managed to keep a straight face throughout the whole thing. Which is to say, he looked the way he’d been taught to look out in public by his father. Thank Arceus I don’t have to say a word… The whole thing proceeded much more quickly than he thought it would. He didn’t pay attention himself, but he gathered from the reactions of the crowd that this was apparently impressive. Still, something about that frame seemed to call to him. He felt a strange urge to get closer. Eventually, Most of the audience cleared out, and Niel was inspecting the device, so Amadeus got close again. The plasma seemed almost pretty. He wanted to get closer.

And closer…

He was, perhaps, not in his right mind that day, as he felt a violent pulse ripple through his whole body as he touched the plasma, pulling his entire body in.

UINPICNA

(*$&*@Bnpn

@*N$MKLm[!

$((!#K}3)

!#)$(!I#

$(!J(#)I+#ENM
!#(J!E1

1!!!

AAAAAAA AAAA AAAAAAA AA

Not a great idea, in retrospect, but it would lead to his life becoming… interesting. Irreparably so. He was about to find out why.

Cold. Cold. Oh, Arceus, so cold. Everything was damp and cold, and Amadeus had a splitting headache. His eyes shot open. His suit was in tatters, his phone, smashed in the puddle of… was that dirt, but wet? Mud? Water was pouring from above . Rain? Is this what rain feels like? Fortunately, his glasses seemed less-than-destroyed, with only a lens missing and the other cracked, so that was something at least. He tried his best to stand on what could only be a distant planet somewhere.

“Guh!”

Pain shot through his body like a cannon the second he tried to move. He looked back at his body one more time. Is that… blood? He saw that the water was eerily dyed crimson. Crap, am I gonna get infected? Am I even gonna last that long? Without my phone, I can’t… No! Don’t even think about that yet! I need to focus on getting somewhere safer, if such a place even exists! No time to even think about being rescued! Against all odds, he managed to stand, even if it felt like it look every drop of strength he had. I should have a medical kit somewhere on me… He looked around and saw it, too, floating mostly destroyed in a mud puddle. He felt where the med-kit would’ve been on his person, and felt a bit of blood. Shit, I must’ve landed on something sharp… Luckily, the rest of the supplies he brought with him to school that day were safe and intact. At least, the bag they were in was. He didn’t dare reach inside to find out. Seeing no other option, he pressed onwards.

The trek through the rain was agonizing. If he wasn’t currently fearing for his life, he probably would’ve dropped from the exhaustion already. Every step sent a tiny jolt of pain through his body, and he was moving at a pretty quick pace. Every step, he felt his strength fading, but he kept going. Every step, he felt like he was going to die, but he kept going. Every step, rain pounded on his back, pushing him down with every drop, but he kept going. And every step, he lost a little more blood, and his wounds stung. Even so, he kept going. Eventually, his desperate struggle to keep going paid off, or at least, it looked that way at first.

He happened upon a cave. Any other day, he’d be terrified to go inside, but right now? It meant shelter from the rain, a chance to finally rest for a brief moment. He practically dashed inside without a second thought. Once he was far enough in that it seemed like he was out of the rain, he just fell over on the spot. After taking a moment, he sat back up, and took a deep breath. You’re not out of the woods yet, just stopping to dress your wounds… In truth, he had no idea how to do that, and was only intent on stopping the bleeding for now. He just… didn’t have the time to stop, he assumed. He opened up the other bag of school supplies, and dug through it. He rather haphazardly tore out anything that would feasibly be used to cover up the wound he had, and then looked himself over. A bunch of minor cuts and bruises, but a big cut right through his left side, where the med kit was. It didn’t feel too deep, though. He tore off his now-even-more-destroyed suit and tried his best to cover it up, but there was only so much he could do with his lack of experience and so-so supplies. Hopefully this’ll last me until I find someone who can help…

He attempted to exit the cave the way he came in, but… it was blocked off. What? It didn’t look like someone had moved a rock in the way or anything, it was just… closed off. “Okay.” Maybe there’s another way out. He kept on travelling deeper until he found… stairs? He descended them, and, suddenly, they weren’t there when he looked back. What the hell is going on? He kept walking, walking, walking, and found another set of stairs inexplicably there and not the second he descended them. In frustration, he tried calling out.

“What the hell is this? Anyone there? Hey! What’s the deal with this place?”

This proved to be a mistake, as someone rather rude nailed him in the back with a Mud Bomb. Amadeus, without a minute of traditional combat training to his name, was wildly unprepared to handle this. He slid quite a distance, and it hurt to a dizzying degree. In a panic, he forced his eyes open to look at his attacker. A Gastrodon, who looked like it had lost all sense in it’s eyes. It didn’t take Amadeus very long to realize that this was not, in fact, a prank, so he ran for his life away from the thing. He didn’t know that Gastrodon weren’t exactly very fast, and even as a weak Shinx with barely any stamina, he could easily outrun it, but even if he had known that, it likely wouldn’t have slowed him. He wasn’t exactly eager to do so when his mind was flooded with visions of death.

I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to die

Eventually, he saw a very literal light at the end of the tunnel. He ran out without thinking, and discovered that it wasn’t raining over here. Am I safe to slow down now? Is he still following me? His rational thinking somewhat restored by the fact that he no longer needed to shelter himself from the rain, he decided to look back for a moment. Seeing that he was not, in fact, being followed, he slowed his pace a little. And then the endorphins wore off, and the pain came roaring back, nearly collapsing him on the spot. He pushed himself to keep on going. Still, the exhaustion, and now, the hunger, was starting to get to him. Everything hurt, it all hurt so bad. But he had to keep going.

He had to.

Eventually, he found his way to a more open clearing. It was dotted by bushes at regular intervals, which were covered with what looked like some kind of berry. Not one he’d seen before, though. Maybe Samantha would know, she always knows about shit like this… It actually hurt to think about someone familiar at the moment, but he was running on fumes and the faint hope he might see his sister again was currently the best source of fuel he had. Looking to find another, he slowly walked up to a bush. The berries were small, round, and blue. Wondering if it might be safe enough to eat, since the hunger was really getting to him, he slowly reached out to one.

“HEY!”

He whipped around, and saw what looked like a very angry Fennekin.

“Asshole! I’m talkin’ to YOU! Don’t move, you damn thief!”

Amadeus froze up. What? Me? Stealing? These are clearly wild berries! I- he collapsed as his exhaustion finally caught up with him.

Amadeus woke up with a coughing fit that lasted quite a while. It was a surprisingly hard one, too.

“Gah…”

He hazily looked around. He seemed to be lying down in a sleeping bag in a room somewhere, but… where? There was a wet towel of all thing on his head in place of an ice pack or something similar. He looked around the room a little more closely. The floor was strangely soft, and it creaked a little when he rolled around on it. What kind of shoddy construction… he looked to his left, where there was… a window. And the star of this planet was out. Daytime… was it real? He tried to stand, and felt a sharp pain where he remembered a getting that nasty cut. Shit, that was definitely real… He tried to fight through the pain regardless to get a better look at the sky. Maybe there was a cruiser nearby.

…The sky was empty save for the clouds. Also… the house seemed to most definitely be very old. Amadeus then recalled something important, and also very frightening.

Oh Arceus, that Ampharos claimed he had cracked time travel. I’m in the past. I’m in the past, aren’t I? Oh, shit, what the hell have I gotten myself into…

The pain started to get a little to much, so he quickly tried to lie back down in the makeshift bed. It took a moment to find an angle that didn’t aggravate his wounds. Once he did, however, his first order of business was to look at what whoever had graciously given him this had done to his body. Upon first inspection, it looked like they’d settled for patching up the wounds. Maybe they gave me sitrus berry juice? That’s what it feels like it was… Maybe they called a proper doctor. He only hoped he hadn’t somehow been infected, lest he happen to be in a time period where modern medicine hadn’t been invented yet. Historically, disease was resilient to healing moves and the effects of berries. It took a genius experiencing blind luck to stumble upon the solution, he’d heard. Oh well. Time to sleep it off…

“He’s up!”

Amadeus heard a shout coming from the other room, followed by some movement, promptly destroying his plans to just sleep his injuries away. The door to the room he was in flew open, and in poured an Audino, a Delphox, and what appeared to be the same Fennekin that he’d passed out in front of. A family? Wait, crap, they’re gonna ask me questions, aren’t they? Uh, I can’t just say I’m from the future, can I? No, they’ll think I’m crazy… You know what? I’ll just say I don’t remember. That’ll work, right?

“Ah, Shinx?” The Audino asked him. “My name is Hirohito, I’m the town healer…” He gestured to the Delphox. “This is Haya, you’re in her house next to the farm right now…” Finally, he pointed to the Fennekin. “And this is Haruhi, Haya’s daughter. Now then, would you be so kind as to tell us your name?”

Amadeus paused for a bit to think. If I try to come up with a fake name to blend it, it’ll backfire if they think it sounds off. Might as well give them my actual name. “Amadeus.”

The Audino briefly whispered something to the Delphox. Gah, I don’t like the looks they’re giving me… “Now then, Amadeus,” The Audino started. “You were out for a few days, so we had time to piece together what seemed to happen, but can you tell us how much you remember?”

Clearly, if I’m going with amnesia, then anything about the future is a no-go, but I don’t see why I can’t say what happened after I first woke up… “Uh… let’s see… I woke up around a bunch of trees, and it was raining… I think I got hurt pretty bad and tried patching it up? I walked for a while… I wandered into a cave, where I got attacked… I ran out, and then I found some berry bushes, then passed out. Oh, and… Haruhi was there? That’s what you said her name was, right?”

“Yep, that’s me!” Haruhi beamed.

“Pipe down, you…” The Audino asked calmly. “That’s more or less what it looked like had happened judging by the how much blood we found in the nearby forest, but… anything before then?”

Amadeus clutched his head. In fairness, he was feeling a bit of a headache. “…I can’t remember anything before that, sorry.”

“…Nothing? Do you know where you came from, where you were headed?”

Amadeus shook his head, lying through his teeth. “…Nothing, sorry. I mean, I know of a few things I had on me, but…”

A whisper broke out between Hirohito and Haya, while Haruhi looked… excited? After talking for a while, they turned back to him. “Well, Amadeus. You had glasses when we found you, so we took the liberty of making a replacement. The lenses probably aren’t perfect, so we can make new ones later if you need them… If anything else needs replacing, be sure to let us know.” Hirohito handed him a new pair of glasses, which Amadeus put on immediately, realizing that the headache he had probably came from straining his eyes to see. They worked like a charm.

“These are perfect, actually. I think I’m fine now…” He instinctively tried to get up.

“Oh, now you don’t…” The Audino ran over and stopped him. “You’re still going to need a few days to recover. Honestly, it’s a miracle you’re alive. Arceus knows you should’ve gotten infected, and your wounds were almost perfectly placed to avoid your vital areas. It’s a miracle you even made it as far as you did, with those weak muscles… You barreled straight through a mystery dungeon known for ground types, you know that? Here, drink this.” Hirohito force-fed him what seemed like it was supposed to be medicine. The taste indicated it same some kind of berry mixture. “Please don’t push yourself. You need rest.”

“The bathroom’s in the room right next to you.” Haya added. “Let us know if you feel sick, okay? You really should have gotten infected somehow…” Bathroom? They have plumbing here? I guess that’s a plus…

Hirohito sighed. “Alright, with that, I’m off. To be clear, nothing strenuous until I clear you. Got it?”

“…Got it.”

Hirohito walked out of the room, and Haya followed. Amadeus heard a bit of chatter between them, but couldn’t make out much. He was about to try just going back to sleep before he noticed that Haruhi stayed behind.

“…Can I help you?” He asked.

“So… Mr. Thief. Amadeus is your name? Weird one, that name. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone with anything similar.”

“What about it?”

“It doesn’t sound like it’s from around here, that’s all.”

“Ah…” He paused. “…You’re still on the thief thing?”

“Y’know…” She started, seemingly ignoring him completely. “When we looked around to see where you’d come from, the blood trail just kinda stopped in the middle of the forest. I know I was raining there, but you’d think it wouldn’t start on a tree branch of all things. It looked like you just fell from the sky or something…”

I don’t like where this is going… “That’s weird, I guess…”

“Yeah, and you must’ve lost a lot of blood, too, because it stuck around, even with the rain. It’s a wonder how you made it in the first place, huh? Like fate was on your side…” She paused. “And at the tree where we found you, we found a bunch of glass and stuff? I thought that maybe it was part of your glasses, but it seemed too big for that. What was that?”

“It was medical supplies.” Technically the truth.

“…Funny-looking medical supplies, that.” Her tone was becoming increasingly accusatory. “But man, you don’t remember a thing? Not a one? Seriously?”

“Nope.”

She smiled, almost deviously. “Y’know, ‘mons don’t just forget every damned thing they know. Not unless something big happens…”

Crap, she’s figured out I’m lying, hasn’t she? What do I say? What’s she going to say? Dammit… “What are you getting at?”

“Amadeus Shinx,” She said triumphantly. “You are a Human, aren’t you?”

“What the fu-“

Shoutouts to Pazkallan for his awesome work on Amadeus’ character theme!

1 Comment