Candy

144

EU

Pretty cool art haha xP

I just kinda wanted to summarize the Vanilla Rates: Reborn Characters (and non-Reborn Characters) in one succinct meme:

From Everland to Reborn ~ Episode 95 Ya just hate me lol y'all have the right to But, on the bright side, I think it's a wholesome chapter? I had no idea how long I’d been asleep, but when I woke up, I found that Shelly was sleeping too, but still sitting like she had been when I fell asleep. When I pushed my upper body off the floor, my movement inevitably woke her up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” I said. “But I couldn’t lie here while you slept in an uncomfortable position for my sake. Go ahead and lie down for a bit. You must be exhausted too.” “No. I’m, um, fine. The nap was just what I needed to recover. T-to be honest, my tiredness was more of an, um, emotional one rather than physical.” She smiled a little and I was glad to see that she had at least enough energy to smile again. Pikachu squeaked next to me and hopped in a circle. “You too, Pikachu. If you want to take a nap, you’re welcome to use my lap.” Pikachu refused the offer, but climbed up my arm to sit on my shoulder like always. “Ha, this is truly yourself. Your imitation could never compare.” “Imitation?” Shelly asked. I told her about the nightmare that the damaged PULSE Hypno had trapped me in, and the many illusions it created to try- and miserably fail at- tricking me into believing I wasn’t dreaming. “You too appeared in that dream,” I said. “Unfortunately, when it came to the people, the illusions the PULSE created were rather distasteful. Pikachu was just a docile version of himself, but the people were outright hostile.” “What did I do in that, um, illusion?” “It was more what you said. You asked me what I was still doing here, in the void, and whether I was waiting for someone to save me.” “Oh, I’m s-sorry you had to hear that w-when you were distressed.” I shook my head. “I felt as though the PULSE read through my hidden fears, picked them out and magnified them to deliver as much emotional pain as it could,” I explained, though it made me feel embarrassed to admit these feelings. “It is true that I worry that… well… never mind.” I looked away, as I couldn’t find the words to describe what I wanted to say. It was difficult to describe why I feared depending on someone else to save me, when I knew I had been saved time and time again. But it was still a fear that I was aware existed within the deepest part of my consciousness, along with the other fears that the PULSE exploited for its advantage. Those were all fears I didn’t want to face, let alone talk about openly to anyone. Shelly must’ve understood my meaning, despite my lack of eloquence, for she refrained from questioning me further. Instead, she met me with empathy. “I understand, b-because I also have that fear,” she said. “It wasn’t a fear I’d always had, because I knew I was c-clumsy and untalented, so I had no expectations of myself. My b-brother was always the one getting attention because he was, um, yes, truly gifted. So it never even occur to me that, um, I’d ever be in the ‘rescuing’ side. And if I was r-rescued, or not, it didn’t m-matter… really, because I d-didn’t see myself as being worth saving.” “But when I met you, and you m-made me question what kind of, uh, role I wanted to play for my friend- now friends in plural- I b-began to wish to be someone brave, reliable, strong, um, someone like you. I really wanted to protect what is precious to me. At first, it was j-just a feeling… I didn’t truly expect to become actually useful. But I tried to b-believe, because, well, they say ‘fake it till you make it’ for a reason, right? And honestly, well, I started to see p-progress. I started to feel more, um, useful overtime.” I didn’t interject as Shelly carried on talking. This was, perhaps, the most I had heard her speak in succession, and it felt as though she was pouring out all the thoughts she had bottled up over the months we’d known each other. “That culminated when you, um, entrusted me to go after Blake in Ametrine. I worried I’d, um, mess up and Blake would get away. B-but you said, ‘if you believe in me, believe in yourself, because I believe in you’. You have no idea how much those words meant to me. It gave me the courage to go face him. And when I won that battle, I never felt more r-rewarded. It f-felt as though I’d been born for that moment. “But ever since then, I haven’t b-been of much use. I lied about being b-busy in Calcenon… the truth is, um, the PULSE Clawitzer attacks are covered by Heather and Saphira, uh, Charlotte is back on Gym duty, um, Florinia has been d-devising a method to locate the, um, sleep signal… or a weak spot in Team Meteor’s Labradorra barrier, um, oh, Hardy and Cain had been helping the c-citizens of Calcenon that lost heat or, um, had their homes impacted by the PULSE’s attacks. I couldn’t help Florinia because, um, well, I’m not intelligent enough, and Hardy and Cain told me to, well, stay home because they, um, frequently, uh, encountered ‘sights unfit for children to see’. So I’ve just b-been sitting idly with the twins, s-supposedly watching over them. And even that I couldn’t do well, b-because they sneaked out and, um, I got caught by Bennett before I could find them. “I knew I should’ve asked Hardy or Cain or anyone else to h-help me look for the t-twins, but I didn’t want to be, um, judged for not doing the one s-simple task I was given. But when I was caught, um, my fear of not only failing at r-rescuing the twins, but also causing more t-trouble for the people who’d have to, um, come r-rescue us was the biggest in my mind. Because that would mean that, well, I was wrong to believe in myself, and, um, I really was dead weight to my friends.” By the time Shelly had let all of this out, her sleeves were too wet to absorb any more of her tears, and though I had cut out a clean piece of bubblegum cloth from my dress for her, the material wasn’t known for its absorption potential. “... The time apart from you showed me that it had never really been me who became useful, but that you had the talent to help anyone, even useless people like me, be somewhat useful by your leadership.” “That is not true,” I finally said, in perhaps a louder voice than I should’ve, but I was desperate to counter that. “I have no such talent. That is a conclusion you’ve reached to make sense of what happened, but it’s just so outrageously false.” Shelly was, as expected, startled by my tone of voice and immediately began backtracking on her statements. “I’m sorry. I don’t know w-why I said so much. One thing led t-to another thing that reminded me of another thing… A lot of that was unnecessary r-rambling anyway.” “No, you are not wrong for having talked. In fact, I’m grateful to you for confiding your feelings in me.” A few more drops of tears fell from her large eyes, so I tore another piece of bubblegum and wiped them off. “Listen. First of all, your worth isn’t defined by how useful you are to other people. You are a hardworking, kind girl who truly wants to do right in the world, and we lo- uh, that is why we are friends and-ah we all care about you. Very much. “Shhh shhh don’t cry. Second, nobody is, ah,” I paused for a moment, realizing how ironic the words I was about to say would sound. “Yes, nobody is perfect. That might be rich coming from me, since I also often forget it when I try to answer to everyone’s expectations. But time and time again, I’ve felt how powerless I am. I try to be patient. I try to believe that I am becoming stronger and that at the end, I will be able to save everyone. But it is hard to remain confident when the price of being wrong is the death of many people.” Shelly clenched both her fists, which wrinkled her skirt. “I so desperately want to be someone you can count on. I wish I could say, ‘you don’t need to shoulder so much, because I am with you’,” she said. “You already can. My Pokémon team covers my front, but there is nobody else that I would entrust my back to,” I said. Right then, I saw Luna walking this way, so I judged our conversation would have to end here. I stood up and extended a hand to Shelly. “Don’t let a few valleys along the way stop you from seeing your story through. Look behind you and remember how far you’ve already climbed.” She took my hand. “As they say in Everland, ‘character development isn’t built in a day’.”

When Gardevoir yeeted the PULSE, Vanilla and Cain to the black hole, Vanilla was just getting out of the PULSE’s grasp; however, the PULSE renewed the grasp on her in the black hole. So the black hole in the plane of reality contains: Vanilla (and Pikachu), Cain, the PULSE and Gardevoir, out of which Cain and Vanilla are unconscious and mentally tied to the PULSE. All of what happens in Vanilla’s POV is in her dream/nightmare, created by the PULSE. As she says, though, the quality of the dream isn’t elaborate compared to when it tricked Vanilla to forget her life in the Reborn region and believe herself to have been in Everland all along. This time, the dream takes place in the same void as the real-life black hole, which is why Vanilla and Shelly appeared to be in the same location but having slightly different experiences (no illusions in Shelly’s POV). The PULSE is acting on Vanini in the same dimension in the black hole, which results in her being unconscious when Shelly finds her. Shelly might also end up in the same fate if she gets too close to the PULSE, which is why she can’t get close enough to battle it (if she could, that’d have released Vanini from her nightmare). I might’ve broken the fourth wall without meaning to cause I don’t recall writing that in If it’s about child Lin appearing in her dream, it’s on child Lin’s will, like she’s actively adding an avatar of herself in the dream. It was my mediocre effort to include the implication that child Lin is playing with us (when she says things like “are you enjoying this?” Or “who do you think made it so you could come this far” even though she isn’t present) and that she has got supernatural powers that allow her to bend the laws of what is possible And if it’s about her seeing Shelly and Pikachu a few times while dreaming, it’s the same reason as when she broke free of the PULSE’s hypnosis for a minute in the glass factory: the PULSE can’t keep up with emotions that are too strong, so it was struggling to keep Vanilla asleep (just like you might wake up, too, from a dream if something terrible happens in it). Hope that makes sense. TBH struggled on how to show the mechanism of the two planes of reality that were happening here, without outright telling that Vanini is being force-fed a dream that looks like reality with extra steps As for mom, yeah Vanilla doesn’t often think about her, because, tl;dr, Vanilla is somewhat concerned about what might’ve happened to her after she left Everland (as written in the chapter right before Luna gym battle) but also, she’s not the most attached to her mom, because she has rarely been a “mom” to Vanini (as written in the dedicated side story about her mom). There’s a couple of meanings to her appearing in Vanilla’s dream, one of which would be a spoiler for something so down the line that, by the time I get there, I’ll have forgotten I wrote this scene The other is that I think of Vanini’s mom as a symbol for innocence (she rarely speaks, but when she does, it’s with child-like wonder) and nurture (she tends to her plants everyday, so much so that Vanini can’t recall her without remembering her love of plants… side note, I think Vanini would’ve liked if she’d been as interested in her daughter as much as she was about her plants). So, when the Queen kills her and many others by shutting her book, it’s just my attempt to show the level of “bad” the Queen is in Vanilla’s head. Sorry for the rambling lol it was definitely one of the chapters that gave me the most emotional damage writing cause it’s too ambitious for my writing skills

From Everland to Reborn ~ Episode 94 Forgib the lack of images. I didn't have quite a writer's block, but a writer's constipation and I need to p00p this chapter so I can relieve the mental tension I had perhaps spent about 15 minutes walking in the bright path that illuminated the otherwise dark surroundings, when I heard the first sound since arriving. At first, I thought I might have imagined it, but then, it happened again… and again… in short intervals. I stopped walking and focused my hearing. It was a very gradual change, almost imperceptible, but I thought the sound was getting louder. It was a high-pitch noise, but I was located too far from it to distinguish whether it was a person screaming, a machine screeching, or something entirely different. I feared what I might find, but I forced myself to walk, with quick steps, towards its source. As the volume of the sound increased, the high-pitch sound appeared more and more like that of a deflating balloon or a dog toy getting crushed. “But… it also sounds somewhat f-familiar… and sad.” Just as I figured out who was making the sounds, however, that pokemon’s white cloak became visible among the darkness. “Pikachu!” I ran towards Pikachu when he emerged from the darkness, but he was not alone: Vanilla was lying immediately behind him. When I saw her, with her white skin almost glowing from reflecting the light of the glittery path, I held my breath. I squatted close to Vanilla’s head and, with shaking hands, gently lifted it up. My whole body relaxed when the air leaving her nostrils tickled my fingers.. “Vanilla, wake up. It’s me, Shelly,” I said and patted her cheek a few times, but she would not respond. I gazed at her face for a little bit, examining the defined shape of her nose and her eyelashes that were difficult to see under the dim light. I chastised myself for admiring her beauty at a time like this, but there was a split second in my mind where wondered whether I’d be allowed to give her just a tiny kiss on her forehead. Yet, when I took a glimpse at Pikachu’s questioning stance, the thought vanished and I focused on the problem at hand. “I’m so glad to have found you, b-but unfortunately… I don’t know the exit to this p-place either,” I told Pikachu. “Um, I know. Let’s find Luna. She came here too, and I think she might, um, know better about places like these.” I felt bad about dragging Vanilla along, so I convinced Pikachu to help me lift her up so that I could carry her on my back. She wasn’t that much larger than me, but I wasn’t used to carrying someone that was as heavy as me. Seeing that I was struggling to walk with her on my back, Pikachu used his long arms to carry some of her weight, and that made it significantly easier for us to move a little faster than at slugma pace. *** If this was a puzzle, like the brat from earlier said, it definitely didn’t look like one. For starters, I couldn’t even figure out what else I could do, other than walking on this infinite road, and occasionally interacting with whatever of the illusions were thrown at me. There was no cause and effect, which I assumed puzzles needed to have. Whether I stopped walking and began running, or whether I tried to have a conversation with the illusions or kept completely silent, nothing really changed. She had also mocked me for not being able to figure out the puzzle, but I wholeheartedly disagreed. “I think I’ve done pretty well, given I at least figured out I’m trapped in a dream state,” I thought aloud. “I can recall a few instances where I had been at a complete loss of what was happening; the latest of those instances, of course, was when I was hypnotized to believe myself to be in Everland.” Not to mention the switcheroo that occurred in Tourmaline Desert, or the string of 1v1 fights we were forced to do in the fake Devon Corp… and the list continues. The Reborn region is filled to the brim with mysteries and supernatural occurrences, perhaps even more than Everland is, and that is saying something. Among the things I was still uncertain about was the whereabouts of my real body. I wondered if it was still at the Glass Workstation, or whether Shelly or someone else had managed to get us all out of there. I felt inadequate, given that I had come to stop the sleeping signal, and later had tried to rescue Shelly, but because of PULSE Hypno’s power, I completely failed at both missions. When my mind slipped back then, Cain was still hypnotized and I had no idea of Hardy’s whereabouts… I guess one could say I also failed them, though they failed their individual objectives first. So much effort put into things, only to get failure after failure. But this wasn’t the first time I felt inadequate, and I assumed that, unfortunately, this wouldn’t be the last. “That is, if my end isn’t met in this void,” I muttered. I was meeting illusions less and less often, so much so that I wondered if this nightmare was running out of ideas to torment me. I had already seen the worst, and besides, it is difficult to get a reaction from a person who understands that what they’re experiencing is nothing but a fantasy. Yet, at one point not long after I had been thinking of these things, an illusion materialized that made me instinctively frown. Though her back was turned towards me, it was not difficult for me to guess the identity of that lady. For starters, I knew very few people with curly hair that made their head look massive, like this lady’s did. She was looking down at a large book, not paying one bit of attention to me even when I stood at arm length from her. In my previous dream, the mere sight of her made me want to strangle the living daylights out of her, but with my current state of mind, I could afford to look down on the book that she was holding. The sight made me audibly gasp. On the edge of the book, there was a tiny Candy sitting down. She moved her dangling legs back and forth as she began to hum a tune. It was a tune that I knew well, because I sometimes heard my mother hum it while tending to her plants. “A sweet doll,” the Queen of Everland said. “Eh?” I retorted, because I hadn’t expected her to speak. The Queen was silent, so I looked back down at the book. Surprisingly, more and more tiny people materialized in the pages. They looked like mushrooms growing at an accelerated speed, until the whole open book was covered in them. I could discern a few familiar faces, like those of my parents, a few classmates, and people from the Underworld. From a quick look, however, I didn’t find Aladdin or Jasmin, even though there were two people I expected to see here the most. I was held hostage in a nightmare, so why not add them to the creepy collection of little people? “Sweet puppets,” the Queen said. “But fragile… so fragile. Such are they, who are slaves to me.” Then, in one quick motion, she slammed the book shut. There was a mental pause in me when I saw Candy’s tiny legs hanging lifelessly from between the pages. A lot of dark liquid that had nowhere to go seeped into the pages, and the rest poured down to the floor, splattering both of my and the Queen’s shoes. I had been so taken aback, that I didn’t even notice that my face had also been splashed by the blood until I felt the warm liquid running down from my forehead to one of my eyes. That feeling was enough to jolt me out of the trance I was in, and I screamed and tried to take the book from her. She, of course, kept moving it out of my reach, though I couldn’t quite see how, because it seemed like she could move it from one corner to the other instantly. “You will pay for everything, witch,” I shouted. “I will make you pay. I will!” The blood rose to my head and that made my vision short-circuit. I felt like this had happened before, but this time, the effect lasted long enough for me to really capture the moment. The image of the Queen in front of me was superimposed with the image of Shelly and Pikachu turning their heads towards me. *** We had just found the source that I assumed was keeping Vanilla asleep, and were contemplating how to get close to it, when our attention was caught by Vanilla suddenly moaning as if she were in pain. We turned our heads and saw that her eyes were half open. “Vanilla, you’re awake?” I grabbed her shoulders and shook them twice. However, she didn’t seem to be fully with us yet. *** I was suddenly holding a knife so tightly that my hand felt numb. My leg muscles tensed up, in preparation for a dash, but when the moment came for me to step forward, I froze. In one last second of clarity, I remembered the distress I felt when I had stabbed her in my previous dream. “What are you waiting for?” I heard King’s voice whispering in my ear. “Are you hesitating to kill her? Our archnemesis and the source of all our suffering?” Hesitating? Me? Hesitating, when all I have gone through since leaving Everland was to become stronger and overthrow the Queen on my return? I couldn’t believe that was what I was doing, but it was also true that my legs wouldn’t budge. “If you will not do it, you are of no use to the Defiance.” The knife almost slipped from my hand, but I grabbed it again. No… I will do it, my own voice rang in my ears even though I didn’t open my mouth. My legs were freed from the freeze and I charged towards the lady holding the book. It was so exact a picture of my previous dream, that I almost hallucinated that I was on a stage and being watched by hundreds of people. When I saw the knife piercing the chest of that woman, somehow the person at the other end of the knife and my own arm morphed into different entities. One second, I thought I saw my knife turn into a gunball, which barrel was pressed against Wolfie’s chest. At the next, my arm turned into one blue blade, about to pierce through Pikachu’s neck. Then, Pikachu was replaced by Kiki. After that, my arm was neither an arm nor a blade, but a dragon’s head with its mouth gaping open to welcome another head, whose silver hair and gaping eyes left an impression. At last, my arm became encased in metallic armor, and the Aegislash I held pierced through Taka’s chest. The overwhelming confusion made my vision short-circuit again, and I woke up gasping for air in a different dimension. *** Not long after Vanilla appeared to go back to sleep, she woke up again, this time with a louder shout and with her eyes more open than before. “Vanilla, here, here, you’re safe,” I said, but to no avail. She wouldn’t stop moaning unintelligible things with as panicked expression as I ever saw on her. It pained me to see her like this, but I thought that if there was any chance that she was conscious, I should relay an important message to her. “L-listen. You’re still under the c-control of PULSE-Hypno. We want to try to stop it, but i-it’s gone haywire, and-” I tried my best to speak clearly and quickly, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to communicate the whole message to her. Her eyes closed again and her noises subsided, indicating that she was back in the grasp of PULSE-Hypno. “I wanted to tell her that, um, we can’t g-get close to the PULSE, because, um, it’ll only put us to sleep as well,” I told Pikachu. All we can do is wait for an opportunity to get close to it. Could it possibly run out of energy or something? *** When I returned to my senses again, I was lying face-first on the starry floor. Pikachu was standing close to my head, but not really doing much besides that. Now that I had pieced things together, I thought that it was no wonder this Pikachu appeared unusually sedated: friendly, but not quite lively. This must be the version of my pokemon that PULSE-Hypno could pull from my subconscious so that I wouldn’t suspect I was yet again trapped in a dream. The same could perhaps be said for every illusion I met in this void. The PULSE must not have strength enough to create an elaborate dream like the one I had about Everland, I thought. Creating a replica of its surroundings- that is, a starry path in a void- and then sprinkling some caricatures based on my memory must be the best it can do. Now that I fully comprehended what was happening, I could finally think of a way to solve the problem. “Shouldn’t you admit defeat already?” I sat up and looked behind me to find the brat from earlier, the one that mocked my inability to solve the puzzle. I’d have normally wanted to drive her away, but I was in a mood to entertain her for a little while, since I had pretty much figured out the problem. “Why should I?” I said and stood up so that I wouldn’t be looked down on. “Well, for starters, you’re stuck in here. You’ve been going in circles like an insane person. And you still have no idea how to get out of here. What, are you planning to stay in here for the rest of your life?” I took a couple of steps back. “Do you think I’ve been going in circles?” “Absolutely! Did you know that doing the same thing over and over and expecting something to change is the very definition of insanity?” I guess that means I should try something different, to be justified in expecting a change. I took a couple of steps back again. “It’s been unbearably boring to watch,” she said. “But, you know, if you admitted defeat, I could help you out of here, and we play something more fun.” “Even if you got me out of here, I wouldn’t want to play games with you. So you waste your time with me.” The brat grinned but didn’t make a reply. “Besides, it’s dumb to expect me to admit defeat,” I said, and took the last two backsteps. “Because I never do!” I was at the edge of the illuminated path, so when I took a jump backwards, I fell into the abyss. There was nothing to fear, because I knew I was not really falling off to my death. I knew very well that my body was static and that Shelly and Pikachu were taking good care of it. I just had to try something different, like the child said, and this was the only thing I could come up with. *** Even though we were sitting far enough from the PULSE to avoid getting in that dangerous zone where it could reach us to lull us to sleep, we were close enough to hear the shriek-like noises that it suddenly started making. At around the same time, Vanilla also started grunting and trembling. I assumed that it meant she was fighting to wake up like in the previous iterations, but it really worried me that she might be having a stroke or seizure. “Vanilla, Vanilla, wake up. P-please be okay.” I lifted her head and placed it on my lap. Her hair was damp with sweat and her face was all wrinkled like she was having a nightmare. I stroked her head, not knowing if that would help her out. *** I wasn’t sure I was actually falling, as my surroundings were all colored in the same shade of black. I had never been in a place where I could see or feel absolutely nothing, and, quite frankly, it was not a sensation I would like to experience ever again after this. Yet, because there was nothing that could possibly distract me, I focused all my mind into repeating the following in as loud a volume as I could project: “I will wake up. I will open my eyes and see Shelly and Pikachu there.” For a while, that was all there was to it, but then, I began feeling a painful sensation all over my body. At first, it felt dull, but it gradually became unbearable because it felt as if my skin was being ripped from my muscles and bones. In such circumstance, I could no longer focus on my mantra, and all I could do was scream to ease the pain. Perhaps this was the PULSE’s way to tell me to stop and go back to the dream sequence it’d trapped me in. However, I really couldn’t give up. No amount of pain could make me give up on my mission to return to the real world. *** The machine made whirring sounds that seemed to increase volume every second, but then it suddenly switched off, finally returning us to the pin-drop silence of the void. *** When I woke up, my vision was unfocused as if I had a very high fever. I closed my eyes because my lack of focus made me dizzy. I felt my damp dress, which had apparently done its best to absorb all my sweat, was clinging to my torso as if it were made of thin plastic. I opened my eyes again, and I thought I could make out Shelly’s face in the dim lighting. So, naturally, I called her name. Instead of a verbal response, I was welcomed by tears that fell on top of my cheek. I thought it weird that tears were falling on me, when I thought I was standing in front of her. With improving eyesight and spatial coordination, I soon realized that I was actually lying down on Shelly’s lap, and that her tears were just following the laws of gravity to fall on me. “Don’t cry. I’m now freed from the PULSE’s hypnosis.” I tried to prop myself up, but, despite spending all this time most likely lying down, I found out that my muscles were so exhausted I could not move any part of my body, except maybe my fingers. That meant I couldn’t even stretch an arm upward to wipe Shelly’s tears. “I’m sorry that things have turned out like this,” I said. “I came to save you, but in the end, you saved me instead.” “Don’t say that. I… I couldn’t do anything to h-help. I saw how you suffered, and… and all I did was watch.” “That’s not true. You told me about PULSE-Hypno… It helped me confirm what was happening. I also wouldn’t have had the courage to, ugh,” I paused because I tried to move my head but my neck muscles stung. “The courage to make a dive into the abyss, had I not known you were guarding my real body.” I wasn’t sure she understood what I was saying, but Shelly still smiled weakly and wiped her tears. “I was worried that, um, I hadn’t been able to c-communicate enough to you… but I’m relieved that I could be of, um, some use,” she said and stroked my head. “Please don’t push yourself. I saw how, uh, tense your b-body was this whole time. Please rest up.” I kind of hesitated to go to sleep, because I had theoretically been sleeping for hours already, but to tell the truth, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. Shelly’s invitation to rest broke the last bit of will I had to stay awake, and I soon found myself fast asleep. *** I was glad to see her fall asleep, this time with a peaceful expression and relaxed muscles. After all the stress I felt until just minutes ago, I really felt like falling asleep myself. However, I stayed awake, because I wanted to cherish this moment of tranquility, a little snippet of what our lives could’ve looked like had we not met under the threat of impending terrorist attacks. Perhaps I could’ve found myself sitting on a grassy field, feeling the winds that smelled like spring in every part of my body except for where the head of my beloved rested. Or maybe, we could’ve found ourselves on a sandy beach at night, looking at the stars scattered in the sky instead of sitting on them like we were doing right now. But most importantly, we’d have not a single thought of fear, sadness, or insecurity. Those were happy thoughts I rarely had time to ruminate on, and perhaps were selfish to even have, given that everyone was fighting so hard to retain authority over our region. “But if I could be selfish, j-just for a little bit… I wish you’d let me tag along in your journey, um, like I used to,” I whispered. “I know I was the one that r-refused to... It was just b-because I thought I’d make things awkward… but I so, so miss you.” I looked at Vanilla’s sleeping face and passed my fingers through her long, smooth hair, which faint golden color merged with the sparkles of the starry floor. “Is feeling lonely like this, um, an inconvenience to you? I wonder…” Dizzy with all those changes in perspective? Donut sue a Candy owo Also, the meta reason why there's no PULSE-Hypno battle is that I lost the recording of it AND a save file that can take me to before I fought it It really do be like that sometimes... VANILLA RATES: REBORN CHARACTERS QUICK LINK TO NEXT EPISODE

I think you can take them from either the Reborn or Rejuv's Graphics folder, as long as you credit them. You might want to avoid using Rejuv shinies because they're one-of-a-kind made by members in this community (the proper thing would be to credit them all but that might get long). Hope this helps!

Oh sorry for the confusion, I meant the "puzzle" aspect I added to my version of the Void. Which I haven't written in fully yet It's the answer to how Vanilla can meet up with Shelly, Ig

Tyty for comments Those are very good observations. In fact, there are a few discrepancies between what Vanilla is seeing and what she should've seen instead based on the previous episode as well, but I just put them in as Easter eggs or for people to think I'd forgotten what I wrote in the previous chapter lol The latter is a fair guess because I did have to read the previous chapter, and thought about re-reading the entire thing, but gave up at around chapter 12 cause I'm just not a reader man and Idt this story has that much re-reading value, personally Funnily enough, the reason I hit writer's block in this chapter is that the solution to the Void's puzzle is pretty simple, but I couldn't imagine that Vanilla would be able to solve it on her own. I tried adding Cain and Gardevoir to give her clues, but in the end, I scrapped it cause it still felt unnatural lmao So not yet sure if they'll make an appearance in this version of the Void I began writing "A star that leads the way so that we won’t mistake our path" and then I was like, "wait a minute, that's just Polaris". And Aladdin used to call Vanilla "Polaris" when they were a couple, so I was like "brooo did I just stumble upon a self-reference?"

From Everland to Reborn ~ Episode 93 A new episode... in this forgotten fic? It's more common than u think owo If you think it will have high af quality because I had a year to think about it, think twice before being disappointed I was standing on a path made of… brilliant dots. It looked like the Milky Way or a streak of glitter on a black canvas. Beyond the edges of the path, though, there was no canvas, but just cold, dark, emptiness. What could that emptiness mean? Of course, I wasn’t curious or reckless enough to experiment with it. I was still confused about everything that had happened to me in the last hour. I had gone through a lot of bizarre experiences ever since I had arrived in the Reborn region- or perhaps even before that as well- but it was the first time that I had had my mind tampered with. The PULSE Hypno certainly did a number on me. I felt as though my ability to distinguish between what was real and what was fabricated was untrustworthy. For all I knew, I could be trapped in a dream even now. “And it really would seem like it, too, because how could this dark space exist in reality?” I thought aloud. “Yet, I was also one to think that the Everland simulation was real, so who am I to judge?” Being alone in a place like this was not comfortable, to say the least. So I checked my belongings, which had been transported to this place with me, so that I could release Pikachu from his pokeball. As I verified my bag, I was surprised to find that everything was there just as I had left it. I’d expected that once Team Meteor took control of my mind, they would lose no time in stealing the Sapphire bracelets, but alas, they were there. My pokemon, though, were not in the best shape after fighting Cain and Shelly, so I healed them up and released Pikachu. He was happy to see me conscious and well, but perhaps less animated than I’d have expected, considering he saw PULSE Hypno taking control of me. “I would ask you if something was the matter, but to be honest, that’s a moot question. Everything is the matter. We’ve got to find a way out of this place.” I began walking on the starry path. While I did, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu. How many times, since arriving in the Reborn region, had I wandered, seemingly aimlessly, like this? I had navigated a few forests, some tunnels as dark as this place, mountainous terrains, a desert, and, most recently, I’d trod through the snow. But in all of those instances, I had known that one step forward was guaranteed to take me one step closer to either the place I wanted to reach or the person I wanted to find. To walk truly aimlessly like this, was nightmarish. I didn’t know if I was walking towards the exit, how far I currently was from it, or whether there was an exit to begin with. The only consolation was that I wasn’t alone in this space, for I had Pikachu and the rest of my team with me. Still, I kept going because, if I stopped walking, that really would be the end. There was nothing else I could do. I hoped, I wished, I prayed, that I would be able to survive this new problem, just like I had the one before this, and the one before that. For once, though, I couldn’t place blame on myself for getting myself into this predicament. When I came into the Glass Factory, I couldn’t have possibly foreseen that I would end up in a surreal space like this, could I? “Or could I have, since I knew I was looking for a sleeping signal, and that as long as I was human, I could be its target? Ack. Who cares who’s to blame?” I said, throwing my arms into the air. Pikachu was startled by my sudden movement but held onto my neck so that he wouldn’t be flung off my shoulder. “Sorry. I’m feeling grumpier than usual,” I stroked his disguise’s head. “Actually, you should be the one complaining. You don’t have anything to do with the whole Team Meteor business, but you got involved just because you were with me. I’m sorry.” From then on, we walked in relative silence until we were eventually met with a change of scenery. *** The impact was such that it caused everyone to be knocked over. Some dust rose, so we covered our noses and mouths until it settled. When it settled enough to let us see the aftermath of Gardevoir’s attack, we found a… a hole? But not just a hole. The interior was dark, as if the hole had a depth of a mile or ten miles or even more. I couldn’t be certain that it even had an ‘end’. “What is this? What did Gardevoir do?” said Ms. Voclain, brushing her hair with a hand. I looked around. Vanilla, Cain, and the PULSE were gone. “D-did she? Is she really… gone?” I said, and my nose started to clog up. Right before Gardevoir discharged whatever move created the hole in front of us, I locked eyes with Vanilla. I was sure she had regained consciousness at that moment, because her face wasn’t as emotionless as it had been all the while she was being mind-controlled. I feared that might’ve been the last time I would ever see her. “Gardevoir created a small black hole,” Luna said. “She sent the PULSE into a separate dimension, but she also sent Vanilla and Cain with it, since they were standing too close to it.” Luna stood up and approached the edge of the hole. “Luna, dear, don’t get too close. You might fall into it if you aren’t careful,” said Radomus. “That is what I intend to do, father.” “I beg your pardon?” “Yes. For Darkness is my old friend, and it is calling me to join it. I shall accept my calling and snatch from it the star that must continue bestowing its light out here, where dark times loom over us.” “What does that mean? What do you mean?” asked Ms. Voclain, but to no avail. Instead of replying, Luna stepped into the hole and disappeared from our sight. “I… I must go. I can’t just stay h-here, crying… maybe I can f-find Vanilla and Cain in there… somewhere,” I said to myself, but I couldn’t help my body from shaking. Luna was perhaps a friend of the darkness, but I was not. Yet, if my friends needed help, I wanted to be one to offer a hand, no matter the circumstance… though perhaps, that was easier said than done. “Don’t do something reckless,” said Ms. Voclain, who understood from my earlier mumbling that I planned on jumping in following Luna. She held onto my arm with a lot of strength. “I have to. Vanilla and Cain helped me many times, um, in the past. They’re precious to me, so… so… I have to go.” Yet, Ms. Voclain wouldn’t let go. “Let her go, Miss Voclain,” said Mr. Vanhanen, after a long pause. “But,” she said but seemed to be at a loss for words. “One must always be aware of which hat fits the time and place. Choose the wrong hat, and there will only be a life full of regret waiting,” he said. “I believe our dear friend here has found her hat. Perhaps we should also look for ours, even if such a hat is the one we must throw away.” I wasn’t sure I understood the meaning of what he said, but, whether from relating to what he said or being puzzled by trying to decode the message, Ms. Voclain’s grip on my arm gradually softened until her hand was no longer on me. “I guess I’ll observe from a one-way mirror, as I always have.” “Thank you,” I said, and before my determination could waver, I stepped into the darkness. *** Time must have passed, for sure, but I couldn’t really tell how much. I felt like I had walked for a long time, but somehow I wasn’t tired. I was neither hungry nor thirsty, which I would’ve expected to be, had I been here as long as I thought. Yet, whether a lot of time had passed, or none at all, it couldn’t possibly affect me until I was out of this gloomy labyrinth. I was so getting used to my surroundings that when something out of the ordinary appeared in the distance, I couldn’t tell if I was actually seeing it or just imagining it into existence. I squinted my eyes, but the contrast between the starry path’s light and the pitch-black darkness that otherwise surrounded me, made me unable to ascertain what I was seeing. As I approached the unknown entity, it became clear I hadn’t hallucinated. There was a person there, and when I picked up my pace, I could soon make out who the person was. It was Wolfie. Seeing her quite literally made my head spasm, as though it had received an electric shock. For a split second, I thought I saw an image of… Pikachu? But I couldn’t be sure as the shock happened really quickly, and it, along with the sharp pain, was gone when I blinked. Wolfie was still there, looking at me but not saying anything. I remembered seeing her in the dream that PULSE Hypno had trapped me in. In retrospect, I understood why I had felt such a relief when I’d seen her at school. Under the context of reality, she could never stand before me, like she did back then, or like she was doing right now. This must be a dream too, then, I thought. Unless I was seeing a ghost? Perhaps that question could be answered if I had the guts to speak to her, but I couldn’t help hesitating. Now, fully aware of her death and of what she had written in the last entry of her diary, I was sure whatever she would say to me couldn’t possibly be pleasant. “Wolfie… I… It’s me, Vanilla,” I said since I didn’t know how to strike up a conversation with her. “Vanilla. Vanilla. That’s the name of my misfortune,” she said, with a monotonous voice. “I died because I looked for you… To stop you from coming to our base. Had I just hidden when Aladdin set me free… If only.” My chest sank when she articulated the first sentence, and it sank further and further with every subsequent word. “I dreamed of seeing my family again. I wanted to have my own family, grow old… I wanted to live in the post-revolution world that I was helping create. None of those things will be possible for me anymore.” “I’m sorry. I really am. Your absence has been felt so much. I’m trying my best to get stronger so that I can at least fulfill our common goal.” “I overestimated your value,” she said, ignoring everything I’d said. “King misjudged us. I would’ve done a better job in your stead.” After saying all the words that were handpicked to deal me the most damage, her eyes, which had been fixed on my face so far, unfocused, and she would’ve fallen to the ground had I not extended my arms to hold her. Yet, it wasn’t her I held, but her. “Long live Queen Eterna.” The cursed words rang in my ears, and for a moment all I could see was red. The red streaks on Wolfie’s mouth, the red stains that covered both of my palms, which had been touching her back… the red puddle that formed beneath the both of us, growing to infinity. Then, in an instant, I snapped back. There was no red, no Wolfie, even. It was just me and Pikachu and the path of stars. “A dream? An illusion? Am I seeing things?” I felt my head revolving around in circles. In the beginning, I had been aware that the Wolfie I saw wasn’t real, but somehow the experience that ensued felt like so exact a copy of what I had experienced when she died, that I almost forgot it was a mere fabrication. “The real Wolfie wouldn’t say those things, would she? I couldn’t save her, but she would be happy that I was carrying on with our goal to save the people of the Underworld, wouldn’t she?” I thought aloud to fill my ears with some sound- as Pikachu was unusually silent- but there was nobody in this void who could provide me with the reassurance that I craved. *** Luna had spoken about a star that needed to keep shining, but the place I arrived at had plenty of them extended in a straight line to the horizon. But, if I wasn’t mistaken, Luna’s had to have been a figure of speech. I believed she was referring to Vanilla… and, really, what an accurate descriptor did she choose! A star that brings us hope. A star that leads the way so that we won’t mistake our path, just like Polaris. That is the kind of symbol that Vanilla had become to the Reborn region… and to me. “To have her exiled to this void… to t-think that the short exchange of words we had in the Glass Factory might be our last… it’s unbearable.” The individual dots of light that composed the starry path began to merge into a fuzz, as my eyesight was clouded with tears. “No no. This is no time for crying. I… I have to find Luna, and I might miss her if my eyes aren’t clear.” I closed my eyes tightly and wiped the excess tears. I took a deep breath to calm myself. I’ll walk this unending road for eternity if that’s what it takes to find her. I’m sure that is what Vanilla would do if she were in my shoes. While my heart was set on finding Luna, I couldn’t help but feel inadequate, selfish, and even ungrateful, when I reminded myself that Cain had also been sent to this place. I had known him for as long as I had known Vanilla, and he had always been supportive and kind to me- surpassing Vanilla, perhaps, when it came to kindness. It was not difficult to guess that he must’ve come to the Glass Factory searching for me, as he had still been with the others when I left Calcenon in an attempt to search for Anna and Noel. Yet, my worries were all so occupied with Vanilla, that I felt like such a hypocrite when I tried to convince myself that I was looking for both equally. I had made so many friends in recent times, but this was just proof that I was a terrible friend and, in fact, didn’t deserve any of them. My thoughts were engaged in thinking of Vanilla and regretting my lack of thought towards Cain, as I walked this seemingly unending path. Even when my legs started hurting, I kept on walking, but when they became so heavy that I had to practically drag them on the floor, my left leg refused to move on one occasion and made me trip onto the ground. Minutes later, I would lift myself off the floor and keep on walking. I lost count of how many iterations of this process I went through before anything changed in my surroundings. Sometimes, my mind would provide me with new unhelpful thoughts to set me back. How I longed that I wasn’t here all by myself! If Heather or Charlotte were here, I was sure this search wouldn’t have been half so painful. They would’ve definitely encouraged me with words that I might or might not have deserved, and told me to stand up and keep going. Now, I had to do all that on my own. *** Wolfie wasn’t the only illusion I met in this void. I met Candy, Taka, Aladdin, Archer, and even Jasmin and Lin. Everyone, save for Taka, was still alive and well as far as I knew. Because of that, I eventually came to the conclusion that, yes, this was a dream. Or rather, a nightmare would be a better descriptor, as all of those illusions had nothing but reproaches, manipulations, and other unkind words to direct me. But that was the extent of my findings; I still couldn’t figure out a way to wake up from the nightmare. After some time, I met yet another illusion. Honestly, I’d have expected that I would eventually learn not to care about whatever they had to say, once I figured out they were all fake people. Unfortunately, though, something must’ve been wrong with me, because I couldn’t help taking what they said at face value, and every time I met another illusion, it took all my might not to run back the way I had come from. I dragged my feet to where the illusion was standing. As I got closer, I realized that it was Shelly this time, and I braced myself. When she refused to join Candy and me in returning to Reborn City, I knew that she must harbor some level of resentment towards me, even if she had refuted it when I asked. Even if the real Shelly couldn’t confess it, her nightmarish illusion would definitely not shy away from doing it in her stead. “Uh, why are you still here?” she asked. “I’m looking for an exit, but this path of glitter doesn’t seem to have an end.” “Are you w-waiting for someone to save you?” “To save me?” I repeated, surprised that the conversation wasn’t going the way I’d expected. “No. I don’t need saving. I do the saving, and I will save myself.” “That’s right,” Shelly said but with a different voice, one that I didn’t recognize. She smiled unnaturally for a moment. Then, in an act that was worthy of being called nightmare fuel, she appeared to melt away, revealing someone else in her stead. The new girl was a little taller than Shelly, making her just as tall as me. She had dark hair that completely blended in with our pitch-black surroundings, and gray clothes that looked like pajamas. I couldn’t focus on her facial features too much, as we were in a place too dimly lit to make them out. Though she was a stranger to me, the way she grinned suggested to me the possibility that the lack of recognition on my side wasn’t necessarily reciprocated. “What a lame story it would be if the prince on a white horse was the one in distress. And then was rescued by the damsel,” she said, in a sarcastic tone. “Don’t you agree? You, an Everish noble, must know a lot about such things.” “Who the f*ck are you?” “But you’re such a lame character yourself, I doubt you could save yourself, let alone the damsel,” she said. “Look at you, getting trapped in a puzzle this easy. But I guess you’ll figure it out anyway, or get out of solving it one way or another. After all, you’re the wannabe prince that falls into every trap and escapes unscathed because of… plot? Boring. Lame. A story with you as the protagonist would never sell.” This illusion doesn’t seem to be programmed to hurt me as much as the others were, I thought. But it sure ramped up the levels of annoying off the charts. I wished I could just grab her by the shirt and fling her off the starry road, but I had already tried that with Jasmin, several times, and every time she had just respawned. Therefore, I had to keep talking to this little brat until she decided to disappear. “Again, who are you?” “What an NPC question. Figure it out, Ms. Doesn’t-need-saving,” she snorted, and ran into the darkness until she was swallowed by it. “Annoying brat! I hope that kid is just an illusion created from this place. I would hate it if they existed in real life.” I thought aloud. VANILLA RATES: REBORN CHARACTERS RIP to everyone who likes the Void part of the game, cause I obviously didn't follow the script at all lol If it wasn't clear from this episode, hopefully I'll make it clear in the next why this Void makes sense in my head lolol QUICK LINK TO NEXT EPISODE

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