Once Is Enough

Part 13 (End)

"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.