Avian slowly regained his numb feeling. He felt that there were stray leaves, twigs, and dirt dousing him as he lie on the ground of his cave. Too puzzled to figure why, the Pokemon instead sat up and let them tumble off his stomach and head.

The thunderstorm had died down, and only a shower of rain accompanied the dark unwelcoming sky. The wind gave him chills, but he felt as if those chills were being caused by something else. Like there was something important he was missing. He thought...

...Ow... My body's... Aching so much... He stared down at his paws blankly, fatigued from the pain. Why is it so hard to move...? He decided to ask.

"Zoar, what hap--"

His eyes widened in revelation.

"...Zoar!"

The memories came flashing through his head at once; they ambushed him into panic.

No... No no no no!

Avian shot himself up, despite the minor paralysis effects. Shear worry and horror were the only factors aiding him now. He hastily rushed out the entrance to the rocky crevice and into the falling rain. He didn't care about his fur getting soaked like he should have, he didn't care about anything at all:

Zoar was in danger.

The Riolu ran and ran, calling out his name into the night pleadingly. He didn't even reconsider the fact that Zoar's pack might have still been on the move. He blocked the idea that they would charge at him, even decreeing the possibility that he would be eaten on the spot. It all seemed so reminiscent, which frightened Avian. Exceedingly.

"Zoar?! ZOAR! Are you there?!"  he called desperately. Before he knew it, tears began to form in the corners of his eyes.  "S-say something! You're scaring me...!" He couldn't have fought them on his own, could he?! he thought.

His question was soon answered.

Avian's eyes were met with about four other Luxrays sprawled among the battleground. Dried blood tarnished them and the areas they occupied, and he couldn't have felt more mortified in his life, even more so than the day he lost his parents. Avian didn't think to examine them, hurrying onward until his foot kicked something lying in front of him. When he glanced down, he immediately gasped, covering his vision and recoiling instantly.

The child compelled himself to look again, sliding his paw away from his face shakily.

The body of a muscular Luxray lay limp on the damp earth. He knew it wasn't Zoar's, for his eye had a distinguishable scar along with other lacerations that looked like they were fresh. His gaze was lifeless, dead, and Avian had to turn away again. It was somehow different than the other bodies. This one seemed have suffered more damage, like it was the primary target.

He gulped.

Those Pokemon... They must have been the ones who raised Zoar... He deeply pondered for a moment, recalling what his friend had said about them.

"My pack is actually very ruthless. Their purpose is to survive, yes, but they do it... Mercilessly,

When any of them came across a prey, they would hunt it immediately without even thinking twice. Then others began to hunt, more and more like this."

His mind began to imagine these cadavers, once alive, killing and killing those poor Pokemon. He imagined how appalling it must have been for their families when they never arrived home.

It made him feel sick to his stomach, scrambling his thoughts for a moment.

He urged himself to continuing walking...

Until...

"It started to become some kind of a game for them, to see who can bring back the most food in the most savage of ways. And that method... Soon became the only way to raise in the ranks of the pack.

Avian stopped suddenly, as did his world.

Power. It was all that mattered, the top priority."

His amber eyes became dead wide.

He felt his heart lurch as he settled on the sight.

As he remembered his next words.

"At this point... If I were to even to pick a fight with any of them...

...I probably wouldn't come out alive..."

"ZOAR!"

Avian rushed over to the Pokemon as he lay on his side. Gashes, open bite wounds, and claw marks covered his once beautiful black and blue fur that he took care of so well with dark red matts that dripped off his figure. His eyes were closed, his chest barely circulating with oxygen. One of his legs was entirely mangled with fang punctures and hardening mud, and the ground they rested upon was puddled with his blood, which Avian became soaked in when he touched his still body.

"Oh no...! Zoar, NO!" he cried, shaking him. "Wh-what happened to you...?! Did they do this to you?!"

Zoar struggled to open his eyes, now dull and cloudy. When he tried to look at the pup, who was begging for him to at least show he was alive, he saw that his vision was blurred, Avian's face almost blocked from his sight.

How he longed to see it again. So much, that he never wished for anything else as much as he did now.

"...Ave..." he rasped. Avian hastily looked at him, a drop a relief brushing his heart.

"Oh, Zoar...!" The Riolu hugged himself to his neck, feeling the touch of his body once again. It was colder than usual, but he tried his best to warm it up again with his. "Wh... What... Why did you fight them on your own?!" he whimpered with his cracking voice. "You knew this would happen...! Why didn't you let me help you?!"

Zoar breathed shallowly. "...I'm sorry... Kit..." He trembled weakly. "...You'll understand one day..." Avian shook his head recklessly.

"No! I want to understand now, Zoar! I'm not a little kid! You know that!" His grip tightened around the Luxray. "I...I'm...! I'm not...!" Warm droplets fell from his eyes, and he hiccuped the shakiness from his throat.

The wounded Zoar could only watch Avian break down beside him as he lay limp there in his arms. The feeling was indescribable; never did he imagine this happening. It was almost so unbearable, he wanted it to ebb away from existence into a some sort of a paradise. But he knew Avian wanted it to too. Avian... His pride and joy.

"Do you... Want to know something, Ave...?" he muttered. He felt the Riolu nod between his mat tremulously. Zoar wheezed softly. There was so much he wanted to say! But...

"I always dreamt that I would see the day you would glow that shining blue...

...That I would... Watch you grow into that... Strong... Resilient form..."

No... Stop it...! Avian trembled, grieving even more.

"The light would die down... And you would run into my grasp..." He let out a husky chuckle.

"But... You would be so much bigger...!"

Avian shut his eyes forcefully.

"Zoar...! Stop...! Stop it...!" he wailed.

"...I wouldn't be able to hold you in my paws anymore... And you wouldn't be able to ride my back like we used to when you were tired from training all day..." Zoar's voice quieted, and he began to cry.

"...And... I wouldn't be able to wrap myself around you when we go to sleep... And protect you from the monsters..."

"PLEASE! JUST STOP!" Avian bawled miserably. Zoar cut off his words instantly at his plea, he couldn't say anything more after all. His convulsing lungs pained him just a bit, and he needed to rest them.

Avian hugged him even tighter. "You are going do all that! We're going home! T-together...!" The Riolu shuddered uncontrollably, never wanting to let go of Zoar's presence. He held on as if a wild tornado was trying to rip him apart from his grasp, but something deep down was aware that it wouldn't help at all. "You just... You just have to get up...! That's it! Please, please get up!"

Zoar summoned the strength to lift his uninsured paw onto Avian's back one more time. He pet it with the gentleness of a summer breeze trying to soothe the swaying green grass that sprouted tall from the ground. He let out a sigh.

"...I can't, Ave," he replied. Avian shook his head, choking on his tears.

"You didn't even try... Y-you dummy...!" he hiccuped. Zoar smiled sadly.

"Ave... You've got to remember something..." he whispered faintly. "...Friendship... Life... Everything eventually ends one day. It's part of how the world works, and how one... Truly evolves.

It's hard... I know... But...

It's the moments the we'd shared up until this point... That you must cherish in your memories from now on."

Avian's tears were mixed with the rain dappling his cheeks. He couldn't even tell the difference anymore. What was the difference? he had thought. Both were pouring down from miserable eyes, hitting the earth with sorrow and washing away the sadness that forebode the land with corpses.

"Z... Zoar... No...!" he whimpered. "First my parents...! A-and now... Y-you...?!" Avian collapsed into a fit of endless crying, he felt his heart being agonizingly torn in two. "Please...! I can't do it again! Don't make me live through that again...!" Zoar let out a melancholic breath.

"I'm sorry..." he apologized, soon beaming with weak radiance. "I wish... It could have been different, too... But... I'm happy..." He let his eyes wander into the illusion of water droplets patting beside him. They started to become dull rings to his ears that were soon muted in the darkness that befell him. It scared him to say the least, but he was now far too tired to care now, and he allowed his eyelids shut.

"...I love you, kit. Thank you for making me smile again..."

Avian grit his teeth, and nuzzled into the Luxray's pelt.

"I love you too, Zoar...! Please...! Don't leave me alone!"

Zoar smiled contently.

"Oh, Ave...

...You won't be...

"...I... Pro... mise..."

The child's heart began to beat tremendously fast at the sudden trailing stillness.

"...Zoar?" he muttered.

Only his silence responded his call.

"Zoar...?!"

The child hastily pulled back from his embrace to look over his body once more.

Zoar was still, and his face looked unsettlingly undisturbed. He realized that his chest wasn't rising, nor falling anymore, which sent him into a panic.

"No...! No no NO NO! ZOAR, WAKE UP!"

His paws tried hopelessly to shake him back to consciousness. He hoped, even for just a second, he would open his eyes again to look at him once more. Just once.

He wished, with all his being and willpower that it was all just a terrible nightmare. That he would wake up, any second now, right beside Zoar:

Talking, smiling... Alive.

But no matter what, it never came. And he felt it never would.

"ZOAR!!!"

Everything went absolutely blank in Avian's mind.

It was faint, but he could recall how his fear and sadness built up inside of him as he ran for his life so long ago.

However, this time...

All of that fear he once battled was replaced with pure blazing rage.

If I had just dodged that attack...

If I  had only showed him that I was strong enough...

...If we never had crossed paths on that day...!

Zoar... He would still...!

Letting out a powerful scream, Avian's knees stayed planted onto the ground, his body starting to glow with an overwhelming power. The aura around him began to morph to his body and slowly shift it into a lager and more muscular form that towered in front of his mentor.

Spikes grew from his arms and chest, and his figure lengthened along with his ears and tail that seemed to stretch into the sky. Another pair of aura sensors formed next to his original ones, sending them waving in the wind from the intense overflow of energy.

He couldn't bare it.

He couldn't take it any longer.

That feeling that was bundled up inside of him for all this time...

...It was finally being unleashed.

Never again did he want to see it,

Never again did he want to feel it,

And never again would he ever allow it happen.

No...

Once was enough.