playthough From Everland to Reborn ~ A fairytale themed run [Last defeated: Amaria]

[Candy]

13 minutes ago, Corso said:

By the way, if someone knows about good and/or complete walkthroughs, please let me know (I'm not looking for puzzle solutions, more for checklists and lists of sidequests and tips like "make sure to have a blue moon ice cream before leaving old Reborn")

There were some walkthroughs up to E18 iirc but Idt they'd be up-to-date for E19 (unless they have lightning fingers). I'll keep an eye out for that :p

 

14 minutes ago, Corso said:

So, who's Feather? [1]

It's Heather but Hardy is saying her name wrong lol

 

14 minutes ago, Corso said:

Also, I'm quite impressed by Vanilla's weakness. I have played the good route so I haven't witnessed Taka's death in first person, but I see this event has been a heavy character development moment.

Yep, the fact that Taka's death came this late in the game/story affected Vanini a lot cause she had been under the impression that her pokemon were getting stronger and she was getting stronger. It also doesn't help that this revealed that Lin is literally superhuman, and could appear at anytime. Ngl sounds like a horror story to me lol She prolly needs a boat load of therapy to deal with the traumas, emotional baggage, and Lin-induced anxiety, but Reborn's only psych department is corrupt 

[Candy]

From Everland to Reborn ~ Episode 91

I'm back at procrastiwriting, like usual uwu My advisor won't appreciate it... but I hope y'all do 

 

Pikachu and I checked the windows embedded on the ground. I suspected that I couldn’t see anything down there due to the sunlight reflecting off the glass, but the view from below would be pretty clear, so I took great care not to expose myself too much as I inspected them.

Pikachu seemed to notice something about the windows, but no matter how hard I tried to spot anything different from regular windows, I couldn’t see anything.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what is up with this glass. Perhaps you know the reason Hardy couldn’t destroy them, but I don’t think I’ll be able to figure it out.”

In any case, I considered that perhaps breaking or even melting the glass to enter would not be a good idea. Perhaps it would’ve been, had I wanted to make a dramatic entrance that attracted everyone’s attention, but in this case I much preferred to sneak in without alarming the enemy, especially Lin, if she was indeed down there.

“Alright. Let’s scratch the idea of entering through these windows off the list. Come, we’ll search the perimeter for a different entrance.”

 

As we walked around for about 15 minutes, the morning sun was covered by clouds and it started to snow lightly. We started to examine the forest, partly to find a hidden entrance, but also to avoid the snow under the canopy. Pikachu moved closer to my neck so that the heat from both of us could warm each other.

We hadn’t been in the forest for long, when we heard noises coming from a north-west direction. It didn’t sound like voices- rather they sounded like a mixture of animal sounds. I stopped moving, so that I could listen in without the sound of my footsteps getting in the way. That’s when I realized that the noise was getting louder.

“Pikachu, it’s coming this way. I don’t know what it is, but let’s take cover in case it’s bad news.”

We hid in a patch of shrubs close by, and waited to see what the source of the noise was. As it came closer, I discerned that the loudest noise was a buzzing noise… one which somehow felt familiar to me.

I didn’t need to think about it for too long: the source of the noise appeared from among the trees. It was an illumise, but not any illumise. It was Nilla, Shelly’s pokemon, being chased by a horde of wild pokemon.

“Nilla!” I shouted at her.

The poor thing, tired and injured, looked around when she heard me call her name. When she saw me, she cried and jumped on my chest. I wanted to comfort her, but I had to get out of the forest before the wild pokemon would start chasing us. I couldn’t really fight a herd of wild beasts with a pokemon clinging onto my chest and another on my neck, especially in a forest which didn’t have good visibility.

 

I ran in the direction from which I had come, and exited the forest to the area with the Devon house.

Once we were out of harm’s way, I entered the Devon building so that I could sit Nilla in a place that wasn’t covered in snow. As I tended to her wounds with potions, I asked her about Shelly.

“Is Shelly nearby? Is she underneath here, by any chance?” I asked her, while pointing down to the floor. 

The illumise was still a little confused and couldn’t understand my speech or gestures at first. Pikachu helped me by relaying the message in a language she could understand better.

Nilla buzzed loudly, and I was relieved. The tone of her buzzing was easily understood as an affirmative answer. I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders, knowing that I hadn’t just come here to deal with the sleeping signal, but was actually closer to liberating Shelly than I had anticipated.

I wished to know how Shelly was doing right now, or how Nilla had managed to escape and get lost in the forest. However, I didn’t trust I could interpret an answer even if I managed to ask those questions to Nilla. I guessed that, for better or for worse, I would find out in time anyway.

 

After the potions’ effect kicked in and Nilla’s wounds healed, we followed her to the hidden entrance to the Team Meteor base. It was located halfway down a cliffside. There were stairs leading to it, but they were constructed in such a way that they wouldn’t be easily seen under the snow. There was no handrail, so I had to be careful when going down.

The door was unfortunately only able to open from the inside, and I judged I couldn’t just kick it open because it was made of steel.

“What do we do now?” I thought aloud.

In the past, I had successfully broken a similar door by heating and cooling rapidly, just before smashing it as strongly as possible, back when Heather had been locked up by Blake. However, just seeing the frames and the hinges of the door, it was obvious to me that this door was way sturdier than the one on that small hut. There was also the matter of footing- given that this was a hidden entrance, or rather an emergency exit, it wasn’t made for multiple individuals to congregate in front of the door. I didn’t think there was enough space for Wolfie (lycanroc), Anna (K-ninetales) and Elsa (A-ninetales) to stand, and I worried they might fall over the cliff if we were careless.

I stood in front of the door, rethinking my options, but nothing really came to mind.

“Perhaps Hardy will reach this door and open it for us,” I joked dryly. “If he didn’t fall into a trap after all.”

Right as I said that, the door opened. I was caught so off-guard that I only had time to take a step back and enter my defensive stand, in case someone ambushed us. Yet, since no one came outside, I slowly walked around the opened door, to check who had opened it.

It wasn’t Hardy, but a pink dog-like pokemon. It took me a moment to recall where I had seen this kind of pokemon before, but the fact I was infiltrating a Team Meteor base made me recall battles against them, and by extension, I remembered that ZEL, or Zero now, had one of them called Espeon. I worried that this might be Zero’s pokemon and it might’ve opened the door for us to lead us into a trap.

But what else could I do? I had already tried not to fall into a trap by refusing to go with Hardy, and this was probably the only other exit available to us. 

The Espeon turned around and walked a few steps before looking up at us with its perpetual puppy eyes. For whatever reason, Nilla showed no hesitation to trust him and followed him right away.

“Let’s go. Uh… I hope it’s on our side. I hope I’m not making yet another mistake.”

 

We followed the Espeon as quietly as possible. The hallway from the entrance to the main area of operations was quite long and its narrowness somehow reminded me of the emergency exit that led to our base back in Everland’s Underworld. It made me a little uneasy, thinking that this path might also have an auto-destruction mechanism and could collapse on us at any moment. However, that didn’t happen and we made it to where we wanted to be.

I didn’t know I had expected something about the place, until I saw it. I guessed I would be in a place similar to Team Meteor’s Tanzan or Route 3 bases, given that the corridor had a similar vibe to those, but I was wrong. The place looked like a regular factory, and what it seemed to produce were glass windows. It appeared that any Team Meteor base labeled “Devon” is camouflaged not to look like a base.

The glass factory had the rows of windows that Hardy and I had seen from above ground. They were a major source of light, since the factory itself had very few lamps.

Espeon whined and brought my attention back to him. We continued following him, while being cautious not to be seen by the few grunts that walked around. In one corner, hidden by tall stacks of glass, Espeon stopped walking and waited for us to catch up. When we got close, we found that there was yet another pokemon there. It was a Glaceon.

Espeon and Glaceon… Now, that’s a confirmation that Zero is here somewhere. 

The Glaceon helped us walk over some parts where the steel grate broke off, apparently because of oxidation, by making some thick ice that could support my weight. The Espeon had a very good instinct? I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it seemed to know when we might bump into a grunt and helped us by deviating our path so we could avoid them.

The factory, as one can imagine, was very large, and since we had to walk instead of running, it felt like I was walking for ages. Even though it felt as though I had pretty much covered the whole area of the factory, I never found Hardy. I wasn’t sure where exactly the stairs he used were, and even if I knew, I couldn’t exactly run out of the path Espeon was choosing on my behalf. 

 

We walked on a raised walkway, which had several rooms one after the other. The rooms had doors with small windows on them, and on the wall outside there were signs that specified what rooms they were. There was nothing particularly suspicious, since most of these were offices and, even though the doors were all locked, I could still see tables and chairs through the windows. I guess something strange was the lack of people inside, despite the lights being on.

We did, eventually, find one room that caught our attention. Its door did not have a window like the others, and the sign on the wall was blank. Thinking that this could be the room they were keeping Shelly in, I tried opening the door. Though I expected to find the door locked like all the others, this was not the case. The door opened, and revealed the room’s interior to us.

The first thing I noticed was the three beds. All save for one had plastic covers closed over them. The second thing I noticed was that we were not the first ones to arrive.

Next to the third bed, which had the cover opened, was standing a Team Meteor grunt. He must have heard us come in, but he appeared unable to form a sentence. I recognized the grunt. It was Aster.

“Y- you. Why are you here?” he asked.

“What else could I be doing? Taking a tour of the glass factory?” I said sarcastically. “Your society has put an entire city to sleep, and also kidnapped our people. Obviously, I came to fix the problem.”

“You’re always like this. If only you had never been around, everything would’ve gone well. And Eclipse would still be here.”

I remembered that Sirius had burned Eclipse alive, just before running away with Aya.

As I could understand his frustration very well, I thought out my words carefully before speaking. I slowly approached the bed Aster was standing next to. I knew who I would find lying on it, but I wanted to make sure it was her.

“Eclipse was punished for rebelling,” I said. “Yet, even when she felt the pain, I don’t think she regretted trying to save her father. She used her brain in her last hour.”

I looked at Eclipse’s lifeless body. The sight threatened to remind me of other such bodies, and that made me sick. I diverted my gaze from her and onto him.

“It is time that you started using yours too.”

Aster grunted at me and stormed out of the room without looking back once. I wasn’t sure how he interpreted what I said, but now that he was gone, it was not something I needed to concern myself with anymore.

 

I closed the cover over Eclipse’s body, and focused my attention on the other two beds. 

One of them was labeled Lumina Seijaya and the other said Evelynn Seijaya. Those names would have meant nothing to me, had I not recently crossed paths with what I assumed were ZEL’s pokemon, and also witnessed Zero losing the personas of “Lumi” and “Eve” the last time I saw them. It was not hard to put two and two together and conclude that these beds contained those two’s bodies. 

Yet, when I opened the covers, I found that the supposed bodies had gone missing, and in their stead were two alive, sleeping children. I didn’t expect to find them here, but since I did, I rushed to wake them up.

“Anna. Anna, wake up,” I said, shaking her, but she was sleeping like a log.

Glaceon, though, knew the move Heal Bell, and that helped wake both Anna and Noel up.

“Huh? Is that you Vanilla? Long time no see,” Anna said when she saw me.

“Are you alright? Did Team Meteor do anything to you?”

“Nope. But it’s not time to wa-” Anna stopped there and widened her eyes. “Wait, what?”

“I heard you left the Belrose house on your own. Why did you-” 

I started lecturing them, but Anna cut me off.

“No. This wasn’t supposed to… it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“What are you saying?”

“The boy with the broken wing wasn’t supposed to-”

“Broken wing? What are you talking about? I’m not following.”

“No, I can fix it. We can still fix this,” she said, with a face that made me think she’d finally lost the last screw. “You just do your thing. Don’t worry about it! Just let us sleep. Good night.”

Anna then went back to sleep. I wanted to ask her some questions, because, frankly, I had not understood a word she said. However, I decided that she would probably answer me with more enigmatic words anyway, so it would be best to ask the questions to someone I could trust to speak sense.

“Noel. You can tell me why you’re here, can’t you? And what Anna just said now… do you understand what she meant?”

“I don’t know or understand much, either. Anna pulled me to come here with her, because, as she put it, ‘Nostra and Nomos said we had to come here’. In the end we always do what Nostra and Nomos say, because she gets mad if I tell her they’re just dolls.”

I felt angry hearing that this was the reason they fled safety on their own, especially since Hardy had implied that they disappeared right after Laura, and the others followed to leave Calcenon in the search for them. However, this was also the reason that made most sense, in a way, given Anna’s eccentricity.

“Okay, okay. Let’s save the long talk for later. Right now I’m looking for Shelly. Do you happen to know where she is?”

Noel knitted his eyebrows.

“She’s here too? I’m sorry, but I have no idea.”

“That’s fine,” I said quickly. “She’s here somewhere and I’ll find her. You two stay here, since somehow you’ve stayed safe for days by being here. I’ll come find you later and we’ll leave this place, whether Nostra and Nomos agree or not.”

Noel laid down and I closed the bed covers as they had been. Then I left with the 4 pokemon.

 

After spending some more time sneaking around the factory, we finally stopped in front of a suspicious room. I call it suspicious, because once we were in front of it, the two canine pokemon stood to each side of it, waiting for me to step in.

“Alright. If it’s a trap, then I guess that was the best I could do, and I’ll have to trust that Florinia will gather people to help us out.”

If it was the sort of trap that could kill me… well… I think I’ll just have to trust that there really is a random reason Lin doesn’t want to murder me yet, I thought, but that didn’t serve as comfort for me.

I took a few deep breaths, and held Nilla’s hand as we entered the room.

 

My first thought as I entered the room, and saw who was inside, was that I had fallen into the trap. However, that soon became a little unclear when one of the two enemies spoke.

“There! I saw them, just now. It was just a moment, but I saw them,” said Zero.

I figured he was talking about the two pokemon who guided me here, since they entered right behind me but rushed to an adjacent room.

“You two, stop being disobedient and come out. I’ve been looking for you everywhere, you know,” Zero continued. “Lumi, do you really think that’s going to work? Indeed, if beckoning them was all that was necessary, we would not be in this predicament. Oh… You’re right, of course… I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I never-”

“Stop talking. I don’t have time to hear you lamenting over losing your pokemon,” I said, cutting him short. “You’ve kidnapped people and I’ve come to retrieve them.”

“Vanilla. You’re here too. Have you come to ruin everything again?”

“I know you have Shelly. If you don’t return her right this moment, I’ll do just that. I’ll destroy everything, even that stupid machine you got there.”

I pointed at the PULSE Hypno.

“I hate your guts. You took them from me. Do you know how quiet it is without them? Do you?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“That’s enough, Zero,” said the other person in the room.

At first, I didn’t recognize them, given that I could barely see them because they were standing on a platform higher than me. But, the more he spoke with that air of superiority, the more I came to the realization that this person was Bennett, the son of the Ice Gym leader.

“I could commend you on finding a way to enter this place without falling into the trap I set for you, but I believe that is hardly necessary,” he said. “After all, that is as expected of you. You’ve never really known failure.”

I understood from that, that the stairs Hardy used had been, as I expected, a trap.

“What happened to Hardy?”

“He should be the least of your worries. He should be deeply asleep even now, since I used the most potent sleeping powder my pokemon could produce on him.”

“How cowardly. You used that strategy because you knew your pokemon wouldn’t stand a chance against Hardy’s rock types, am I wrong?”

“Of course. I’m an academic. I haven’t spent my entire life reading and studying to make a novice mistake like battling a rock type gym leader head on,” he said. “I’m not like you, Vanilla. I have known failure. That is why I learned to make smarter choices.”

His insinuation that I had not known failure really stepped on my nerves. What did he know about my struggles? Struggles that couldn’t ever compare to losing a puny pokemon battle or having a teenage heartbreak. However, I swallowed my words, because I didn’t need to give any explanations to this guy.

“As such,” Bennett continued. “I must start off by apologizing for my temperament when we last met, for that was beyond disgraceful… Back then, you joked that she wouldn’t regret making a fool out of me, unless I transformed into an entirely new person. Your words hurt me; however, I have since understood that you were correct. As you can see, I’m sure, I have taken the time to improve myself.”

Bennett briefly stopped reclining on the handrail and opened his arms widely. Although it somewhat pained me to admit it, he was right. There was hardly any resemblance to the creepy kid with messy hair and old-fashioned clothes in him. 

“And it’s not only my appearance that has changed. We have ample time. I’ll be sure to show you what a person that wasn’t born with as much privilege as you, could accomplish through hard work and discipline.”

 

He then signaled to Zero. This made Zero smirk at me and said, in a sarcastic tone, that it was my time to learn how it felt to have my friends be ripped away from me. The reason for this comment soon became obvious: they had Shelly and Cain under their control.

“Shelly! Cain!” I called them as soon as they entered the room. 

However, they did not respond. I ran over to see Shelly closely, but even when I put both of my hands on her shoulders, she did not react to anything. In fact, both of them looked even more stoic than Florinia did.

“What did you do to them?” I shouted at Zero.

“We’re using Hypno’s power to mind-control them,” he said. “Do you want a taste of it?”

As soon as he said this, Shelly brushed my hands off her and pushed me away.

“Yes. It was quite easy, too, to capture them,” said Bennett. “We only really had to capture this one. It was a matter of time before the other insects came looking for their friend, and then others came to find them.”

I couldn’t see who he had up there with him, but I assumed it must be Laura, since she was the first who disappeared.

“We waited, captured, and waited again. What a weak system the Gym leaders set up, that it was rendered useless against such a simple strategy.”

“And now we’ve lured you out as well,” Zero added. “And we’ll make you regret coming here.”

With that said, Zero instructed the PULSE to make the two mind-controlled kids send out their pokemon. 

“So it comes down to this. Had I been facing both in their real minds, I might’ve been in dire danger,” I snorted. “However, I won’t lose to you, Zero. You’re not even half the trainer each of those two are.”

 

 VANILLA RATES: REBORN CHARACTERS

Spoiler

• Zero (-1): 2/10 He's being annoying and deflecting his frustration to me
• Bennett (-1): 1/10 I used to dislike him for being a stalker and following Elias, but now he's added an extra reason to dislike him by working for Team Meteor and capturing my allies

 

Next episode: pain

 

QUICK LINK TO NEXT EPISODE

[SilverAngelus]

I like how you emphasize that it's Zero that Vanini is going to technically fight, not Shelly and Cain [in their right minds]. Makes sense storywise. Best of luck to you with the gauntlet fight!

 

I have a E19 character-related question for you

Spoiler

Would you include Ace in this story?

Also who's this advisor of yers

[Candy]

11 hours ago, SilverAngelus said:

I like how you emphasize that it's Zero that Vanini is going to technically fight, not Shelly and Cain [in their right minds]. Makes sense storywise. Best of luck to you with the gauntlet fight!

I like things making sense, it's just I sometimes fail at fulfilling my intentions xD

I cut the episode right there so I'd have time to give the gauntlet a gazillion tries haha

 

11 hours ago, SilverAngelus said:

I have a E19 character-related question for you

Spoiler

No, and neither will I reference anything that happened in the neo-E18 content (cause that'd break the continuity of my story, and besides I kinda altered a lot of the paleo-E18 content anyway). I think I have enough Team Meteor peeps that make short af appearances (like Simon or Aster). It'd have been cool if they'd been in the story from the beginning tho, since they'd be fun to develop over the story me thinks :p

 

11 hours ago, SilverAngelus said:

Also who's this advisor of yers

I'm a PhD candydate uwu

[Corso]

WOW My favorite character is finally back!!!

19 hours ago, Candy said:

You’ve never really known failure

 

19 hours ago, Candy said:

Of course. I’m an academic. I haven’t spent my entire life reading and studying to make a novice mistake like battling a rock type gym leader head on,” he said. “I’m not like you, Vanilla. I have known failure. That is why I learned to make smarter choices.

 

19 hours ago, Candy said:

I’ll be sure to show you what a person that wasn’t born with as much privilege as you, could accomplish through hard work and discipline

 

And some great quotes too! I should play reborn again asap

[Candy]

From Everland to Reborn ~ Episode 92

 

The fight was, in no sense of the word, even. I had to fight twice the number of pokemon as I had in my part, so there was no margin of error. I had to put into practice everything I had learned over the time I spent fighting trainers and Gym leaders into this one battle.

When Shelly’s Ribombee fainted, she said something for the first time since I found her here.

“Va… nilla. Ni… lla. Come… fight. Come.”

It appeared though, that the voice wasn’t emitted from Shelly’s will but from the puppeteering work of PULSE Hypno. Still, though, Nilla obeyed her trainer and joined the battling. However, she purposefully didn’t give her best and faked fainting after receiving just one hit from my pokemon. The battle was very heated, despite the trainers in front of me being nothing but shells of the trainers they actually were, which made me realize that my pokemon weren’t the only ones that had become stronger over the months.

Spoiler

 

 

The battle eventually ended with me as the victor. 

“How?” shouted Zero stomping in place. “I had 12 pokemon. How could I still lose?”

“You’re surprised? To me, it’s just as expected,” Bennett said.

“Now release Cain and Shelly from your damn machine, if you don’t want my pokemon to attack you directly,” I shouted at Zero.

“Zero. Let’s grant her half of her wish. Release the girl. Cain has opposed us more times than her,” Bennett said.

Zero seemed confused for a moment, before grinning mischievously.

“Ah, I see. Of course,” he said, and PULSE Hypno released Shelly from the hypnosis.

“Vanilla? Oh no,” she said when her mind was back in her head.

She ran over to where I stood, and stopped a couple of meters away from me.

“I’m so s-sorry, Vanilla. I wanted to save Anna and Noel, but it seems I only m-managed to make things worse,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I don’t know why I thought I could do something on my own.”

“I can’t judge you, if that is what you want me to do. I have acted rash many times, and gotten myself into terrible situations. Unfortunately, only hindsight is 20/20.”

Our conversation was cut short when Bennett opened his mouth again.

“Zero, is the PULSE ready to take a new mind? Do her, will you?” he said.

“Yessir.”

At that moment, I felt a jolt of electricity in my head, as if I had had a short circuit in my brain. Gradually, I lost sensation on my arms and legs, and this made me panic.

“Shelly, stand back. I don’t know what my arms and-”

Before I could finish my sentence, I lost even the sensation of my own thoughts.

 

The sound of an alarm woke me up. I sat on my bed, still half asleep, but not even bothering to cancel the noise. My head hurt a little. It was the sensation one gets when one sleeps too much.

I finally reached the alarm clock made of crystallized sugar and made it stop. 

As if on cue, a maid servant knocked on my door and entered.

“Good morning, your grace,” she said, and started taking out my school uniform from the closet.

Without thinking, or rather, from routine, I allowed her to help me change into the pristinely ironed clothes. She opened the door to the bathroom, which was connected to my room. After I was done with that, she sat me in front of a dresser to style my hair. The mirror reflected us both.

Why do I feel like something is off? I thought to myself, as I watched the woman carefully brush my long almost-white blonde hair and braid it. I have seen this image as many times as I have woken up. I was sure of that. But at the same time, I felt as though this had not taken place in a long time. How could I reconcile these two opposing feelings?

The woman finished the styling with hairspray and politely asked me to stand up. She took my schoolbag and we exited the room together.

We walked down the hallway but made a short stop at the terrace, where my grandmother was sitting alone and having breakfast.

“Good morning, Vanilla,” said my grandmother.

“Good morning,” I replied.

“Have fun in school.”

Then we continued walking to the foyer and then outside of the castle. The chauffeur was waiting for us in front of the entrance. He received the schoolbag from the maid and placed it in a compartment of the carriage. Then he opened the door for me and we were off to school.

 

“Hello, Vanilla,” Wolfie said when she saw me arrive at school. 

For some reason, I felt so uncommonly happy to see her that I almost cried.

“Hi, how are you?”

I received my bag from the chauffeur and walked with Wolfie to the school building.

“How was your weekend?” she asked me.

I tried to remember, but I couldn’t recall what happened even the day before.

“Oh yeah. We went bunny chasing on Saturday, didn’t we?” she said. “I almost forgot.”

Then I recalled that we had chased rabbits.

“That was a lot of fun, as always. I wish Candy had been here, since she was the fastest chaser and could’ve caught one of them for us,” I said.

“Ah, speaking of the devil, here she comes,” Wolfie said and waved in a specific direction.

I saw Candy coming our way, and I wondered why I had even thought that she wouldn’t be here.

“Hi~ How are you doing?”

“We were just talking about how you caught a bunny for us. It was mighty cute.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed petting the little one,” she said. “But hey let’s hurry. It’s almost time for homeroom.”

We ran inside the school, but parted ways since Candy was in a different class from ours. Wolfie and I stayed together and entered the classroom, where all the other students were already seated.

The teacher looked at us with displeasure, but said nothing. We quickly found open seats and sat down to hear the announcements for the day.

“Good morning,” said Aladdin, who was sitting in the chair next to the one I sat in.

For a brief moment, a strong emotion seemed to rush through my head, but I couldn’t explain why. Something like anger? No, perhaps disappointment? I wasn’t sure, but it was over before I could analyze it fully. I could also not recall why I had any reason to feel those things towards Aladdin either, so I dismissed its importance.

“Good morning,” I replied, trying not to smile too much.

 

Right after homeroom was over, we had class. I couldn’t be bothered to pay attention, so I spent my time practicing some pen tricks, which sometimes resulted in it rolling off my desk. On one such occasion, when I reached underneath my desk to get my pen, I felt dizzy for a bit and then heard the following: “Vanilla, wake up!” The voice sounded awfully familiar, but even when I looked around the classroom, I didn’t see anyone whose voice matched it.

“Did you hear something?” I whispered to Wolfie, who was busy taking notes.

“Hear what? Well, I’m listening to Mr. Appleby, unlike you.”

The voice hadn’t been Mr. Appleby’s. Since no one but me apparently heard it, I again had to dismiss it as something unimportant.

Class went on without any other strange thing happening.

***

 

I knew that no matter how much I called her, she wouldn’t respond. After all, I had experienced the PULSE’s hypnosis firsthand, and knew what it was like to be trapped in a comfortable dream. Even then, I couldn’t help myself from trying to pull her out of there.

“Vanilla, wake up! C-come back to us,” I shouted without avail.

“With Vanilla under our control, we won’t have anything getting in our way anymore,” Zero laughed.

I wanted to say something to him and Bennett, who was silently watching us, but what could I say? They wouldn’t stop what they were doing, just because I asked. And my pokemon were all fainted, except Nilla, and even she was quite tired.

Maybe if I force Vanilla to leave this place, we might get out of the signal’s reach, I thought.

Yet, when I tried to put that into action, Vanilla pulled away the arm that I had grabbed.

“Do you think we don’t know what you would try?” Zero said. “Of course, you might not know what I can do with the PULSE, since you never got to be the witness. Allow me to demonstrate.”

Vanilla twitched and started lunging towards me. She tried grabbing me, but when that failed, went in for the punch. That also failed, because her movements were slow enough for me to react to them.

“Stop making a fool of yourself with those embarrassing controlling skills. Instead of wasting time, how about we take what we are after,” said Bennett at last.

He sent out all of his 6 pokemon at once, and they targeted Vanilla’s bag and anyone that got in their way. That included Pikachu and me, who lacked combined strength to protect Vanilla’s belongings. It didn’t help that she opened the bag willingly, and stood quietly the rest of the time.

At last, the Volcarona took some bracelets from her bag, and she went flying back to her owner. Bennett called back the rest of his pokemon to their pokeballs.

Sapphire bracelets… Jewelry… That must be one of the keys.

 

Before I could say anything about that, though, something unexpected happened.

“You know what it’s time for~ Lights! Cameras! Aaaaand Drama!” said a voice I recognized from TV but hadn’t heard in person in a very long time.

Gossip Gardevoir entered the space we were in, and she wasn’t alone. Luna and Ms. Voclain, who was someone I had only seen in magazines when I was younger, were with her. There was one more person, who I assumed was Mr. Vanhanen, but I couldn’t be 100% sure because they were wearing a… black cat(?) mask that covered the entire top half of their head. 

“Bennett!” cried Ms. Voclain as soon as she entered.

“Mother? Why did you come here too?”

“For you, obv-” she stopped there for a second, and followed with: “Your hair. It looks… better.”

“I’m aware, Mother. Thank you. Now please go. I don’t wish for you to get dragged into this.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you went and joined a terrorist organization.”

“Firstly, they’re more of a religious organization,” he replied. “Secondly, I don’t approve of everything they do. I’m only doing a few jobs for them to pay my dues.”

“You’ll be paying your dues for a while longer when we’re out of here,” Ms. Voclain said, with blood rising to her face.

“I’m not coming home. I found what I want to do with my life. Do you understand? I am no longer a child you can boss around.”

“You may not be a child, but are your actions truly becoming of an adult?” Mr. Vanhanen asked.

“My actions? I’m-” Bennett stopped and placed a hand on his mouth to hide a snort. “I’m sorry. I cannot take you seriously with that ridiculous mask on. How can you preach to me what actions are becoming of an adult?”

I would’ve wanted to advocate on behalf of the gentleman who helped save me from El’s cult some time back, but I was honestly blanking on words to do so.

“Not all hats are created equal, but that doesn’t mean they deserve any less respect.”

“Mother, how do you manage to make every new boyfriend weirder than the last?”

“Don’t get the wrong idea here,” Ms. Voclain said, coloring a little.

“For real! You should already know that Master is vigorously taken,” added Gardevoir. “Besides, shouldn’t we be focusing on rescuing our friends and destroying that hideous machine over there?”

Gardevoir pointed at the PULSE. This sudden interjection made Bennett’s attention shift from his mother to Gardevoir.

“It’s been a while, Gardevoir.”

“Not long enough, if you ask me! I would’ve been happily satisfied with ‘forever’.”

“I don’t fault you for thinking that way, but please understand that I am no longer the same person you once knew,” he said. “I would much rather everyone forget what happened in the past, but I understand that won’t be an easy task. Some people build a reputation for years and lose it in a second when they act out of line; I started off acting out of line and for years.”

Bennett then hopped on his Volcarona and flew down to the same level we all were. He stood with his back towards Vanilla and I, so I couldn’t see his face.

“I believe that, before I do anything else, I should take a moment to offer my sincerest apologies to you, Luna,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?” Luna replied, surprised at being addressed so suddenly.

“My behavior to you was unacceptable. It pains me to remember what I did, so the memories for you must be indescribably bitter. I disrespected you by treating you as an object before a person. There is no excuse for this. And there is no room for such acts to be forgiven. I only wished you to know that I am aware of that now.”

Luna was silent, and didn’t look at Bennett but instead kept her gaze fixed at a point on the floor.

“However, today you have come as my enemy, to destroy the PULSE and take the prisoners I’ve captured over a long period of time. I can’t stand by and watch as that happens. Therefore, you must excuse me if I use all that is under my power to stop you.”

He then asked Zero whether the PULSE was working properly to engage Vanilla in battle. While they spoke, I quickly rushed to the others and quickly summarized to them that Vanilla was hypnotized.

“She is sort of trapped in a d-dream,” I explained. “The p-PULSE Hypno creates a rather, um, comfortable dream that looks, um, so much like reality. It’s so realistic, and at the same time idealistic, that, um, I think the mind doesn’t realize it has lost control of the real body to the PULSE.”

“I understand. So that means that in order to free Vanilla, we must defeat her in battle and then destroy the PULSE,” Luna said and I nodded. “In that case, let me be the first to fight her.”

“Zero, before you make her battle, I think it will be best to return that ghastly mouse into its pokeball and not use it to fight,” Bennett said. “That one saw what went down, and might dissuade the other pokemon from obeying orders.”

Zero agreed and made Vanilla grab Pikachu’s friend ball and return him to it. Poor Pikachu squealed unhappily, but there was little he could do to escape the pokeball’s laser.

“This will be interesting. They were clever in choosing Vanilla as their first line of defense, since she has bested us all one time or another,” Mr. Vanhanen pointed out. “However, a game’s outcome can never be securely predicted. A large enough group of Pawns could very well win against 1 Queen.”

Spoiler

Listen, I know Vanini is supposed to battle without Pikachu, but real Candy's battling skills ain't good enough to go through the gauntlet using just 5 pokemon 

 

“She’s tough, even with the handicap of only using 5 pokemon,” Luna said.

“Zero is the one controlling her, but it seems Vanilla’s pokemon have substantially grown in strength since we last met,” Mr. Vanhanen noted. “Even when he makes newbie mistakes and lacks coherent strategy, it seems their sheer power makes up for it.”

“With Vanilla on our side, we’re invincible,” Zero laughed.

“You’re too hasty to conclude that. I merely took on the task to soften Vanilla enough for my parents to overcome her,” Luna said. “We will triumph as a family.”

“Of course. Miss Voclain, may I have the honor of this battle?”

“The last time a man asked me that, he left the arena crying,” Ms. Voclain said and flipped her pin straight hair.

“That is a risk I am interested in taking right now.”

“Then, let’s hope you can satisfy.”

“Seriously, Mother? I’m going to be sick here,” Bennett said. “Zero, don't mind the battle. Put them to sleep.”

Mr. Vanhanen and Ms. Voclain stepped forward, but Zero didn’t seem inclined to put them to sleep at all. Bennett was surprised that his command had gone completely ignored, but with quick judgment, decided to heal both Vanilla’s and Cain’s pokemon to prepare them for a double battle. Thus the battle began as a 2-vs-2.

Spoiler

 

 

***

During the boring string of classes, I had another few lapses of feeling like something was amiss. It felt as though I was forgetting something important, but no matter how much I spent trying to remember, I just couldn’t.

“Tonight we are going to The Palace,” Candy told Wolfie and Aladdin when we met up after our last class. 

“Oh yeah. It’s already that time of the year, huh? The Queen’s birthday celebration?” Wolfie said.

Once a year, the Queen would open the doors to her palace to members of the aristocracy, to celebrate her birthday. It also served as an opportunity for the Council to present statistics such as population growth, crime rate, and unemployment rates, among other things. It was protocol, for everyone already knew what to expect from some of those statistics, but it served to give relief to the noble class, so that they could keep investing as much as they had been doing in the coming year.

“I think the food must be tasty, but I’m not fond of parties,” Aladdin commented.

“The food is lovely! And there’s dances and a lot of talking. But also boworing kind of talking, which I’m not a fan of either.”

“Candy, you never even listen to the boring talks. You’re always dozing off during presentations.”

My friends laughed and Candy scratched her head, smiling.

“I can’t help it. I do try to stay awake, I really do.”

“Then I guess you can convince me tonight.”

After that, we each went to our homes.

 

At night, the maid servant helped fix my hair into a bun, and to get me into an extra-formal version of our traditional bubblegum garment. I needed help because the dress was very puffy and weighed quite a bit by itself.

When she was done with the makeup, I looked at myself in the mirror. I always marveled at how different I looked with color on my eyelids, black eyelashes and rosy lips, though I couldn’t be bothered to paint my face very often. It was enough that there were a few occasions in the year to confirm that I could look less ghastly if I wanted to.

My father, Candy and her mother were waiting for me in the foyer. Candy was also wearing a bubblegum dress, but she had a large hat on, to represent the Hatter side of her family, which, due to not being an aristocratic family, could not attend the party. The two older adults were not wearing traditional garments, but just a normal suit and a shiny dress that wasn’t made of gum fiber.

“You look so pretty, Vanilla,” Candy said and held both of my hands.

“Let us take a picture before we go,” said my father, and cued a servant to come take it for us.

The four of us lined up and smiled.

“We all look lovely,” said Candy, looking at the picture we had taken.

“Now let us get going. The carriage awaits.”

 

The Palace is located about an hour from our residence. We passed a tunnel, which marked the limits of two Council member’s residences. There was some traffic, because there were quite a few aristocratic families in Everland and important guests from abroad, but only 4 roads that led to the Palace.

Once we left the tunnel, though, the brightness of the palace was almost blinding. Even though it was nighttime, it was almost as if the sun had never set upon it.

We got off the carriage and allowed servants to guide us to the venue. Some years the venue was a large hall inside the palace, and other years it was in the vast gardens. Given that the weather was nice tonight, the Queen must’ve thought that celebrating her birthday in the gardens would be most appropriate. There was a stage that had been assembled just for this night, and many round tables in front of it, where the guests could sit down and eat while the people talked on stage. One such table, on the very first row, was reserved for our family.

The party started right on time. While one of the Council members, who was the host for the night, thanked us for attending the party, servants went around with trays that had some drinks and appetizers. My father and Candy’s mother took a glass of Champagne, while I took a cup of juice and two little plates of appetizers. I regretted my choice, though, because I remembered too late that I was already of legal age to drink alcohol. Candy got a glass of cocktail and also two appetizers, and wasted no time in devouring one of them.

The host invited the other Council members to the stage, and began talking about the boring statistics. I looked at Candy, who was fast asleep. I didn’t sleep but kept myself busy by swirling the juice and thinking about why I was feeling like I didn’t really want to be here. The appetizers tasted nice, and so did the juice. We were seated in the front row. I looked at the other tables and saw a few familiar faces. Some people that showed up on TV sometimes or that visited my father from time to time. A few of their children went to my school, but I didn't know them personally. In other words, I didn't know anyone here well enough to find their presence particularly distasteful. So why was I dissatisfied?

As time passed, more appetizers came, then the main dish, which was a large steak of beef. Due to our geographical location, meat of large animals such as cows and any seafood, were considered a luxury that only the wealthy could afford, so it was custom among the upper classes to offer it to guests. However, I’m sure that only the Queen could do such an act of offering beef to the thousand that were gathered tonight.

We had just begun eating our steak, when the clock struck 12 and the Queen made an appearance at last.

***

 

“They’re too strong,” Mr. Vanhanen said when his last pokemon was defeated. “Can we really not do anything? Do we really not have an ace under the sleeve?”

“Father…” Luna said.

“Zero. What are you doing?” Bennett said. “Did you not hear me when I told you to put them to sleep? There was no need to battle them.”

“Err, this was done to test-”

“Don’t speak. I see you’ve just been enjoying puppeteering Vanilla around as you please. You’re acting based on your own feelings, instead of what is best for Team Meteor.”

“I… I just wanted to make sure Vanilla was under control,” Zero said, but his face seemed paler than usual.

“You wanted to feel that control. Perhaps because you’ve lacked autonomy over your own body for so long.”

Zero bit his lower lip and said nothing, so Bennett carried on talking.

“I read your file. You were just a grunt before joining with those girls, correct? It is no wonder that you personally resent Vanilla so much. Those two girls were the only thing that allowed you to stand out and be promoted to agent status, and now you’ve lost them because of her.”

Zero looked as if he would have rather cried, but was doing his best to hold himself together.

“As long as you don’t learn to suppress your emotions, you will keep being the incompetent grunt you still are.”

There was silence in the room after this. I think all the people on my side were stunned at the unprovoked talk that just happened, but something else happened to snap them back to the present: Vanilla groaned.

 

***

The second I saw her, though, my blood started boiling. Without even knowing what I was doing, I grabbed the steak knife and ran from my seat up to the stage. My ears heard unintelligible noises, probably from the commotion that my sudden action was causing. However, my eyes were set on the Queen and never let her go out of sight.

While the Council members retreated to safety, the Queen stood still, silently looking back at me. Even when I stabbed her in the chest, she did not utter a word.

The Queen crumbled to the floor and so did I, since I couldn’t support her weight. I stabbed her once more. Then one more time. 

***

 

“Vanilla. What is this? Her emotions are becoming chaotic. Why? She should be in the midst of a pleasant dream.”

“Control her. We can’t let her slip out of our hands,” Bennett shouted.

“This is perfect timing,” said Gardevoir. “I was waiting for an opening, and I think this will do.”

She moved across the room and stopped in front of Vanilla. Her back was now towards us, but since I wasn’t directly behind her, I could still see part of her face.

“I’m trying to show her another dream, but she’s resisting.”

“Let Cain go and concentrate on controlling Vanilla. Hurry!”

 

***

My shoulders started shaking and I heard a burst of laughter erupt from my mouth. 

“Finally. We are free,” I said, with so much elation as I had never felt in my life. “Your sacrifices weren’t in vain. I wasn’t chosen for nothing.”

***

 

“If they want to put Master to sleep, and toss him aside so that he never wakes up again,” Gardevoir said. “I’ll object. I won’t let that happen, at any cost!”

She lifted her arms and started making something between her hands. Something fussy and black in color. As she did, the Glass Factory started trembling a little. Anything that wasn’t well-secured started clattering.

“Gardevoir!” Bennett exclaimed, when he realized that she was starting something potentially more dire than losing control on Vanilla.

“Zero, forget Vanilla. Seize Gardevoir now. Now!”

“Too many commands at once... it's slowing the system...”

“This energy. It’s too much,” Ms. Voclain said, taking a few steps back.

“Gardevoir, please don’t hurt Vanilla and Cain,” I pleaded but I didn't think she registered what I said.

“I can set things right. This was my purpose all along,” she whispered to herself instead.

“Zero, hurry up!”

“On it!”

“... Whatever happens, please remember,” Gardevoir said, turning her head slightly to see her trainer. “I will always love you more than she, or anyone else, ever could.”

 

***

I laughed unstoppably for a little longer; however, when I saw the blood on my hands and my dress, I shrieked.

Who’s blood is this? 

 

Then, I found myself in an entirely different location. I was not in the Queen’s Palace. I was in the Glass Factory, watching a Gardevoir summon a dark orb between her hands. I saw that Shelly was diagonally behind her. We locked eyes.

 

But in the next moment, I was no longer in the Glass Factory either.

 

VANILLA RATES: REBORN CHARACTERS

Spoiler

• Zero (-1): 1/10 He put me to sleep cause he can't even beat me with twice the number of pokemon

 

ONE YEAR LATER... QUICK LINK TO NEXT EPISODE

[Corso]

13 hours ago, Candy said:

“I don’t fault you for thinking that way, but please understand that I am no longer the same person you once knew,” he said. “I would much rather everyone forget what happened in the past, but I understand that won’t be an easy task. Some people build a reputation for years and lose it in a second when they act out of line; I started off acting out of line and for years.”

Bennett is an absolute masterpiece in this episode!

And if what he says to Luna is canon, I'm starting to believe the game (or those who make it) want us to change our opinion of him. Maybe a little too evident, but I like it nonetheless.

Also the reversed music is lovely.

[Candy]

1 hour ago, Corso said:

Bennett is an absolute masterpiece in this episode!

And if what he says to Luna is canon, I'm starting to believe the game (or those who make it) want us to change our opinion of him. Maybe a little too evident, but I like it nonetheless.

Also the reversed music is lovely.

I'm always changing the dialogue a tad bit when I can make it more concise or add more flavor lol so much that I forget which lines were the original and which I added  I think what he says to Luna is almost untouched, though his reaction upon her deciding to battle MC is a tad bit different. I just checked and I think "Some people build a reputation for years and lose it in a second when they act out of line; I started off acting out of line and for years" was my addition. When I was writing that part, the whole Will Smith slapping Chris Rock thing happened, and kinda felt the fragility of reputation. I thought it sounded in-character for Bennett to say it.

I personally like characters that are flawed, but even more when those characters learn from their mistakes and grow into better versions of themselves. So I do like the development Bennett went through. I'm only disappointed that most of it was done off-screen 

[Aphelli]

I agree that Bennett’s dialog was really good – and your addition was excellent (though I’m not quite sure why he felt he had been acting out of line for years?).
 

It’s a shame I personally am not able to be glad about the difference – as Kant allegedly wrote, the good qualities of a criminal only serve to make him more detestable. 

Bennett in Subseven and Iolia was Wrong, of course, but this one knows that the course that he is supporting with all his talent and intelligence is still wrong and that will not change his course. So to me, the practical outcome of his development is to just make him more loathsome. 
 

(and reading yours, I can’t wait to write my own take on that scene – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves) 

Very good idea for the PULSE and the dream. I’ve been wondering how the person inside the body felt the control. 
 

I wonder how much foreshadowing you wrote in… For instance, Vanilla was called “Your Grace”, which is apparently the most honorific non-regal address (on Wikipedia at least), but I remember her being slightly more minor than that? There’s also the fact that Vanilla’s dream is supposed to be quite innocent and wholesome, with no trace of the Defiance – until it’s very suddenly not and present!Vanilla’s very… clear-cut feelings add themselves to the mix. 
 

Poor Shelly… she’s really the whole game (and this story’s) plaything. Is there one single situation with her where she doesn’t feel useless? 
 

In-game (at least E18 canon), the Void is supposed to be telling the truth – I wonder what Vanilla will see?  

[Candy]

21 minutes ago, Aphelli said:

I agree that Bennett’s dialog was really good – and your addition was excellent (though I’m not quite sure why he felt he had been acting out of line for years?).

No particular reason other than 1) Idk how long Luna spent with Bennett in the same house and 2) I think he'd also be ashamed of his past behavior as a whole, not just the instances related to Luna.

 

22 minutes ago, Aphelli said:

It’s a shame I personally am not able to be glad about the difference – as Kant allegedly wrote, the good qualities of a criminal only serve to make him more detestable. 

Bennett in Subseven and Iolia was Wrong, of course, but this one knows that the course that he is supporting with all his talent and intelligence is still wrong and that will not change his course. So to me, the practical outcome of his development is to just make him more loathsome. 

Idk to me, it made me like him more, but I'm also the type to not loathe criminals. In fact, I have sympathy for them, because they're only criminals because some peeps decided some behaviors were not in their best interest and forced a lot of peeps to follow their rules. For example, stealing is a crime only because the peeps who made the rules have things they don't want stolen; however, the peeps who would steal don't really have stuff they don't want stolen cause they don't have a lot of things, if that makes sense. I also have sympathy because had they been born in a different skin, say my skin, it'd have been easier for them not to be criminals.

But I think Vanini is of the same opinion as you. She doesn't like Archer, Aladdin and (until the Tourmaline arc) Taka because they're enemies that act "nice" sometimes. She prefers enemies like Jasmin or Lin who can be hated without exception.

 

27 minutes ago, Aphelli said:

I wonder how much foreshadowing you wrote in… For instance, Vanilla was called “Your Grace”, which is apparently the most honorific non-regal address (on Wikipedia at least), but I remember her being slightly more minor than that? There’s also the fact that Vanilla’s dream is supposed to be quite innocent and wholesome, with no trace of the Defiance – until it’s very suddenly not and present!Vanilla’s very… clear-cut feelings add themselves to the mix. 

I chose "Your Grace" because her family isn't related by blood to the royals, but they have quite a lot of political power.

The dream, as Shelly said, is supposed to be very comfortable, so she wouldn't dream of the chaotic days in the Defiance. She'd dream more of the time she lived in blissful ignorance, and enjoyed all the privileges that she was born with :p The problem is that a comfortable resolution for Vanini (aka killing the Queen = liberating the Underworld) would also trigger her PTSD (whenever she's seen her hands and clothes covered in blood, she has some panic attack).

 

45 minutes ago, Aphelli said:

Poor Shelly… she’s really the whole game (and this story’s) plaything. Is there one single situation with her where she doesn’t feel useless?

Prolly not in original Reborn pre-E19 haha I hope poor Shelly got a chance to shine in E19.

She had her moment of glory in the Ametrine arc in my story, but peeps don't change right away... though I think her making the resolution to look for the twins was, despite the outcome, a sign of bravery and confidence.

 

48 minutes ago, Aphelli said:

In-game (at least E18 canon), the Void is supposed to be telling the truth – I wonder what Vanilla will see?  

Idt my Void will be telling the truth, per say, because... I don't feel like it lolol It's dramathicc kinda, but also feels like crammed-in characterization that should've been part of the story or ignored all-together imo.

Since this playthrough focused on Vanini, Shelly and maybe Aladdin, and is told mostly from Vanini's POV, anyone else's stories, though interesting, wouldn't really fit in the overall narrative. Vanini isn't as haunted by Kiki's death as, perhaps, Ame thinks the MC would be, for example. And Vanini's reaction on seeing many of the characters' (the ones she doesn't have much emotional attachment to) pasts would be "That's rough, buddy", which isn't too interesting xD I do hope what I have in mind will flow somewhat naturally given the present chapter.

 

1 hour ago, Aphelli said:

(and reading yours, I can’t wait to write my own take on that scene – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves) 

It's the magic of fanfiction :) Different interpretations make the same-ish story enjoyable multiple times 

[Aphelli]

I went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out how to answer that one.

 

On 5/20/2022 at 12:10 AM, Candy said:

Prolly not in original Reborn pre-E19 haha I hope poor Shelly got a chance to shine in E19.

She had her moment of glory in the Ametrine arc in my story, but peeps don't change right away... though I think her making the resolution to look for the twins was, despite the outcome, a sign of bravery and confidence.

 

Noted. You're right on both counts, of course. In E18 there's also the Agate fight where Shelly gives her all...

Spoiler

and gets curb-stomped by Lin's overworld powers. 

 

Maybe in E19, who knows?

 

On 5/20/2022 at 12:10 AM, Candy said:

Idt my Void will be telling the truth, per say, because... I don't feel like it lolol It's dramathicc kinda, but also feels like crammed-in characterization that should've been part of the story or ignored all-together imo.

Since this playthrough focused on Vanini, Shelly and maybe Aladdin, and is told mostly from Vanini's POV, anyone else's stories, though interesting, wouldn't really fit in the overall narrative. Vanini isn't as haunted by Kiki's death as, perhaps, Ame thinks the MC would be, for example. And Vanini's reaction on seeing many of the characters' (the ones she doesn't have much emotional attachment to) pasts would be "That's rough, buddy", which isn't too interesting xD I do hope what I have in mind will flow somewhat naturally given the present chapter.

 

I understand, and somewhat agree. But the Void could also show other kinds of truth, maybe some of them more relevant to Vanilla... I'm looking forward to reading it! 

 

On 5/20/2022 at 12:10 AM, Candy said:

No particular reason other than 1) Idk how long Luna spent with Bennett in the same house and 2) I think he'd also be ashamed of his past behavior as a whole, not just the instances related to Luna.

 

But I'm not sure what he exactly has to apologize for (except for Luna and Subseven)? For being a stay-at-home slightly condescending bug-obsessed nerd with Paul Dirac's social skills?

 

On 5/20/2022 at 12:10 AM, Candy said:

Idk to me, it made me like him more, but I'm also the type to not loathe criminals. In fact, I have sympathy for them, because they're only criminals because some peeps decided some behaviors were not in their best interest and forced a lot of peeps to follow their rules. For example, stealing is a crime only because the peeps who made the rules have things they don't want stolen; however, the peeps who would steal don't really have stuff they don't want stolen cause they don't have a lot of things, if that makes sense. I also have sympathy because had they been born in a different skin, say my skin, it'd have been easier for them not to be criminals.

But I think Vanini is of the same opinion as you. She doesn't like Archer, Aladdin and (until the Tourmaline arc) Taka because they're enemies that act "nice" sometimes. She prefers enemies like Jasmin or Lin who can be hated without exception.

 

... That was the complicated part. 

 

I'm sorry if my quote was misleading. While my views on rules are very different from yours, I don't loathe criminals either. And I will happily concede that what we call moral principles are a lot easier to uphold when they do not result in the death (by inaction) of oneself, one's relatives, one's friends, or one's children. 

But look at the main example of this view in Western literature, Victor Hugo's Jean Valjean (Les Misérables). He ends up in a small town, a convict after the end of his extended sentence, and no one -- not an inn, not a house, not the jail, not even the dogs -- wants to give him shelter but a bishop. Well, the first thing he does is steal said bishop's silverware and escape in the night. Then extort a stupid (as in, pretty low) amount of money out of a child/teenager for no reason in particular. 

It's a lot easier to forgive rule-breakers when their action do not end up in the loss or destruction of what you value. 

 

But it's not really criminals I wanted to talk about. And unlike Vanilla, I have a lot more sympathy for Taka, Aladdin (Archer is slightly trickier) than Bennett, Blake, Sirius or Jasmine. 

Taka and Aladdin's issue is that they were forced into situations they find abhorrent, and they didn't have the spine to get out -- one way or another. But they're still trying to make things right, even if they're rather small things compared to the harm they've done (and go on doing for Taka). Taka helped them through the WTC, but before that he makes a few useful comments each time he's on screen. Aladdin's final heel-face turn did save Vanilla's life (if not everyone else's). 

Bennett at this point, on the other hand? He has no interest in "making things right" whatsoever apart from a few empty gestures towards Luna. He made a deal to get into the E4 and doesn't mind -- indeed, almost seems to relish -- the unsavory stuff he's expected to do in exchange. In Blake or Sirius's case, it's even more clear-cut, since how all the misery they spread helps them is beyond anyone's guess. 

I guess (since I started with Kant) I bring everything back to intention. Taka and Aladdin express genuinely good intentions, through even comparatively small actions. Blake and Sirius are remorseless murderers (Blake in spirit, perhaps, if not in deed) of countless innocents, and Bennett doesn't object either, he looks like he embraces it. 

 

 

(I suppose that it also doesn't help that I believe the PULSE Hypno to be a hideous abomination whose creators/users belong in the tenth circle of Hell).  

 

I just hope I'm not being too unclear. 

 

[Candy]

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

Spoiler

• Mysterious girl: 2/10 Annoying brat but at least she's just an illusion in my nightmare (but she gets a rating because we all know she'll return)

 

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

[Aphelli]

Wow, a new chapter! How delightful! 

I'm envious.

 

There is, of course, no reason why the pajama girl shouldn't be a figment of Vanilla's imagination, let alone make another appearance in the story.   

 

So, here, the Void is indeed something different... it seems to just reflect Vanilla's negative thoughts specifically -- Shelly's, on the other hand, do not seem incarnated. I'd guess that Lin is actually running the place and that's her fun. 

 

Cain and Gardevoir are nowhere to be seen, which isn't too surprising, but I worry about Shelly, since she doesn't have a way out.

 

I like the voice that you've given Shelly. Particularly the part where she compares Vanilla to Polaris...

 

[Candy]

Tyty for comments 

 

1 hour ago, Aphelli said:

So, here, the Void is indeed something different... it seems to just reflect Vanilla's negative thoughts specifically -- Shelly's, on the other hand, do not seem incarnated. I'd guess that Lin is actually running the place and that's her fun. 

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 

 

1 hour ago, Aphelli said:

Cain and Gardevoir are nowhere to be seen, which isn't too surprising, but I worry about Shelly, since she doesn't have a way out.

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 

 

1 hour ago, Aphelli said:

I like the voice that you've given Shelly. Particularly the part where she compares Vanilla to Polaris...

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?" 

[Corso]

 

Spoiler

From what I remember, there is no puzzle at all in this void, you just have to go forward and enjoy the dialogues.

The void in the postgame, when you meet Shiv, is the simple-solution puzzle

 

[Candy]

2 hours ago, Corso said:

puzzle

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

[Evi Crystal]

Ooooh, a new chapter at last!

 

It was short but it has some certain aspects reflecting Vanilla's thoughts and feelings more in the void. Pretty different from how the usual Void.

 

Also hey, we get to see the little gremlin at last. By the looks of it she seems to control

[Candy]

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

Spoiler

• Mysterious girl (-1): 1/10 Still annoying but I've proven her wrong about my puzzle-solving skills
• Shelly (+1): 11/10 Sure she reached full points already, but I think she came in clutch and deserves a point for it

 

QUICK LINK TO NEXT EPISODE

[Aphelli]

Yay, fEtR is back! 
 

I think you took great advantage of the color scheme, it makes it very easy to keep track of viewpoint changes! And hooray for Shelly, who is now primed to do great things!  
 

So Vanilla’s mother was humming while watering her plants… given just how infrequently she’s mentioned in the story (yet significant – although I’ve forgotten why I know this), I’d like to say this is a hint of some sort… but maybe it’s not! 
 

The queen is given a rather on-point role in the vision… but this makes me wonder (canon  spoilers!!) 

Spoiler

how much of Vanilla’s backstory is basically Lin’s creation. As far as we know, all of Everland could just be in Vanilla’s head and Aladdin/Jasmine/Candy could be made to corroborate it… the one flaw here is Archer, but even then it’s not like literal God couldn’t give him a few false memories… 

 

I am, however, a bit confused as to how the events played out. If Shelly has Vanilla’s body all this time, what happened to the small black hole? How does the PULSE act on Vanilla from a separate dimension? And if the trance is mental, then how is this grey-colored figment of Vanilla’s imagination able to break the fourth wall? 

[Candy]

1 hour ago, Aphelli said:

If Shelly has Vanilla’s body all this time, what happened to the small black hole?

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).

 

1 hour ago, Aphelli said:

How does the PULSE act on Vanilla from a separate dimension?

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).

 

1 hour ago, Aphelli said:

And if the trance is mental, then how is this grey-colored figment of Vanilla’s imagination able to break the fourth wall? 

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 🫠

[Aphelli]

22 hours ago, Candy said:

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.

 

Okay, that makes sense.

 

22 hours ago, Candy said:

I might’ve broken the fourth wall without meaning to cause I don’t recall writing that in

 

I think this was in the previous chapter, where, if I remember correctly, Lin has ideas about what’s a good character and what isn’t. 

 

22 hours ago, Candy said:

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 […] and that she has got supernatural powers that allow her to bend the laws of what is possible

 

Yes, I was talking about child Lin and her capabilities. I just didn’t want to name her first. 

 

22 hours ago, Candy said:

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.

 

I see… 

 

22 hours ago, Candy said:

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 🫠

Don’t sell yourself short, I think you did a pretty good job! 

and even if it hadn't been as good, then you would still have written it

[Candy]

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’.”

 

[Candy]

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

Spoiler

 

[Aphelli]

Yay, the fic goes on, and with a Shelly episode to boot!