Cutlass lay in a makeshift bed of cut grass at the back of the otherwise empty sleeping quarters, her body wounded and her pride all but shattered. With her back and chest in their condition, it was all but impossible to find a comfortable resting position. At the very least, she'd found a smooth part of the cave wall to lean against for back support, and once she'd stopped coughing up blood the first night, Damascus had replaced her grass bed himself. As expected, the older sibling had been left up to the task of looking after his sister during her recovery. He volunteered for it immediately. Judging by the placement of the moon, her brother would be coming in soon to bring Cutlass her share of tonight's dinner, if there was any.

She'd sat there in place for the last two days and nights, left with nothing to do but watch the sun sink and eventually set in the late afternoon. Though she watched it ceaselessly, she didn't see it. She was far too preoccupied with her thoughts. She replayed the whole sparring match that led her to this state over and over in her mind. She'd gotten over losing the match, and found all the mistakes she made that caused her to lose it, all the times she'd left herself open, all the times she'd reacted just a tad too slow, all the times she could've struck just a little bit harder. She would make sure not to make those mistakes again. There was no problem there.

What concerned her was how upset she'd gotten over it.

In all actuality, her own anger may have been the main reason she lost in the first place. She felt ashamed for letting her temper get the better of her so easily. She'd even gone so far as to take it out on her own leader and father, and what good did that do but get her into even more trouble? She was beginning to understand why Damascus was always telling her to calm down, not let it get to her, ignore it. Even still, that didn't explain why he always made such a fuss over her all the time. That one, she would still have to figure out.

Now, knowing all that didn't necessarily make her much less mad.

Though she displayed little to no outer emotion, even with her whole face visible, inwardly she seethed. Losing in a practice match as badly as she did—right in front of Rapier, at that—was utterly humiliating. As much as she appreciated Damascus being there for her, his babying her never helped matters much, either, And now... now she was reduced to little more than a useless piece of dead weight. She hated being this helpless, unable to do nearly anything on her own. She loathed having to be taken care of, like a clueless, mewling little hatchling. She was more than this, Arceusdammit!

The Dark-type huffed and attempted to do something she hadn't for nearly three days. She tried to push herself up and stand without using the cave wall for support. The pain in her back, however, made it extremely difficult as she tried to straighten it, biting the inside of her lip...

“Cutlass, what are you doing?!!”

Damascus scurried over to her side and put the flat side of a blade against her back, frantically making sure he didn't drop the piece of cooked meat he'd skewered with the other blade. “You're supposed to be resting!” You can't get up until your back's better!” He tried to coax her into lying down again, only to have his arm swatted away.

“I'm so sick of just sitting here and not doing anything!” she nearly yelled at him, but thought better of it. She reluctantly complied when the shiny Pawniard tried to get her to sit again. He hooked his arm around hers and lowered her down into the grass with meticulous care, supporting her weight in the process.

“I know you hate it, Cutlass,” he sighed in frustration, seating himself beside her, “but it's for your own good.” He leaned forward and shook his head just enough for his helmet to slide off onto his lap, taking care that the axe-like steel on the front of it didn't nick his legs. He then held up one forearm to her, on which he had secured a chunk of cooked Braviary meat.

“Here, eat this.”

“Have you eaten yet?” the female Pawniard mumbled to her feet.

“That doesn't matter,” he purposefully skirted around giving her a direct answer. “You can't get better if you don't eat something, and there's no promise we'll have anything to eat tomorrow or the next day. Besides, you love Braviary. I hunted all afternoon to find this for you. I even got you the dark meat...”

She furrowed her brow at the food and shook her head as a thought crossed her mind. She then looked to his face, which held a hint of mild desperation. He looked almost as if he HAD to see her eat the bird, as if he himself wouldn't be okay if he wasn't reassured by it.

“Damascus...” she grimaced lightly, though her expression still remained mostly interrogative. It was like the look you would give your lifelong best friend if they ever said 'the voices told them to do it.'

“... Damascus, when was the last time you ate anything?”

“That's my problem, not yours,” he answered defensively. “Right now you need this a lot more than I do. You only ate a little bit last night, and you need more energy than that in your condition.”

“But aren't you leading the dawn patrol tomorrow?” she squinted at him.

“Cutlass, for Arceus's sake, will you just listen to me for once?!” he nearly wailed, but caught himself. Her eyes widened at him as he went on. “I hate seeing you this way, Cutlass. I come in here to see you five times a day and you just...” he shook his head at her minutely, almost unable to find the words to make her understand. “...You just have this empty, defeated look on your face, like a completely different Pokemon or something. You don't look the same anymore...” Damascus then presented the meal that was meant for him to her again. “I'd be willing to go hungry for a while if it meant I would have you back sooner.”

The younger Pawniard still held his gaze for a moment before doing anything else. She'd known how much her brother would fuss over her from the moment she hit that boulder, so this should have come as no surprise to her. She'd just made the observation that, as of late, it seemed as if he worried about her a lot more than what could be considered normal or even healthy. Briefly, she brought about the mental notion that there was something he knew that she didn't, something he was keeping from her. She dismissed the thought for later contemplation and did as he'd asked, stabbing the cooked avian with her right blade and taking it from his. To further ensure he would calm down, she immediately took sizable bites out of it.

Relieved, he licked his blade clean of any leftover residue or juices the meat may have left, not daring to speak another word for the mortal fear that she would suspect something. He regretted raising his voice at her the way he did, but she just drove him mad sometimes. Didn't she know how much she made him worry? Didn't she know how much joy she brought into his life? Didn't she know how much he cared about her? Didn't she know how much he wanted to see her smile again?

Didn't she know how much he loved her?

XXXXX

Dour gray clouds loomed overhead in the morning, dominating the skies and dampening the colors of anything beneath them. With them came the threat of a cold rain. The air lay still and thick with humidity, having no breeze to keep it moving. Not a sound was to be heard, no birds or other Pokemon. A light fog slightly obscured vision, but not close up. Cutlass could still see her father perfectly even though they stood at opposite ends of the sparring ground, and the rest of the pack had no difficulty watching from behind the trees off to the side. None of them dared to break the heavy silence that lay over the mountain, though Damascus silently prayed no more harm would come to his sister, especially now that she'd just finished recovering from her last battle. He would die if he had to see her hurt again!

“Today,” Rapier began, his booming voice only just barely muted by the humid air, “you will witness what takes place when a Pawniard defies their leader.” He spoke to his entire pack, though his piercing yellow eyes were locked with those of his daughter. “Should Cutlass win this battle, there will be no consequences but the scars she will gain in doing so. Should she lose, however...” he paused briefly to turn his head and let his glare sweep over the Pokemon he governed from the corner of his eye, “... then she is to be banished into exile for the rest of her days.”

A glint appeared in Cutlass's eyes at the word “exile,” though her helmet did well to mask it. Her father's eyes returned to hers, with more intensity than before.

“This is your last chance, Cutlass,” he gave her a final warning, inclining his head just so. “Are you absolutely certain you want to stand by this decision?”

Every eye in the pack went to the only female therein. Twelve pairs of eyes held expectant gazes, though the thirteenth displayed pleading desperation. The pair of icy blue eyes met her fiery yellow ones for a split moment before she spoke next.

“Even if I lose today...” she answered her father, trying to keep her voice from shaking with anticipation, “...I would rather spend the rest of my life in solitude than go on living the way I do.”

All eyes went back to Rapier, awaiting his answer. Damascus nearly had to strain to keep his breathing steady and regular. Distraught and on the verge of tears, he brought his blades to cover his eyes, hoping, yet doubting that by some miracle he wouldn't hear his father say what he knew he was about to.

“So be it.”

With blinding speed, the Bisharp raced right for Cutlass. She barely had enough notice to dodge it, leaping to the right. She tried to land a quick Brick Break, knowing it was the only move she could use that would do decent damage to him, but he easily countered the attack with his own. Both Pokemon took some damage as a result, but hers was a bit worse. Refusing to show even a trace of wincing from the pain, the Pawniard made a second attempt at landing the same attack in the split moment he was still turned in just such a way that he left himself open. The attack connected directly with Rapier's side, between his two outer ribs. She made sure to back off as a he grunted roughly from the impact.

She tried to land a Night Slash to his face while he was still recovering, but he dodged too quickly, jerking to the side. He avoided her X-Scissor the same way. Before she could make any other attempts, she was knocked back by a hearty Iron Head to the abdominal area. Her father's helmet didn't cut her, as her ribs prevented that possibility unless this was done at an absurd angle, but the force of the attack was enough to blow her back.

She landed on her feet, crouching, and used the reaction force of the landing to her advantage, dashing right back into Rapier in nearly the same moment she'd been hit. She feigned left, then veered off the the right at the last second, just as he was about to block her. This time, her X-Scissor hit its target dead-on. Regardless, this didn't do enough damage to make him falter, and let him get in another attack before she had the chance to put some distance between them again.

Cutlass never saw the Brick Break that hit her.

It came too fast and far too strong. The move hit her square in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. She stumbled back only a little, but that was the only opening Rapier needed to hit her again. Before she'd regained her footing, the Bisharp sent her crashing to the ground with a second Brick Break, this time to her chest.

No Pawniard could have possibly withstood that. She landed face-up in the dirt, biting her tongue to keep from crying out in agony. She panted and made an attempt to get back up, but her legs failed her. She hit the dirt again, this time face-down.

That was the last memory she would ever have of the fight: The taste of dirt.

XXXXX

The prior threat of the clouds overhead was carried out the following morning. It was a mild-medium rain, with unusually large drops. It was not dangerous, but it sucked the summer warmth out of anything it fell upon, penetrating the whole mountain with the cold. The cascading water also made a rather unpleasant noise as it hit the helmets of fourteen Steel-type Pokemon below.

The Pawniard formed two parallel lines, each individual only half a Braviary's wing apart from one another, creating the path that Cutlass was meant to walk through. Rapier stood at the first end of one line, beside his son. Every Pokemon present stared after Cutlass as she wordlessly made her way through the path her former packmates made. It was not a long distance to walk, no more than the length of two or three Sevipers' bodies, but it seemed to stretch in front of her endlessly. No one was permitted to speak, and so she could not be insulted or shunned verbally, but the judging glares burning on the back of her neck was more than enough to have the same effect. Finally, she left them behind, only looking back to cast her brother an apologizing look. He returned it.

“Should you ever return,” her father called, “You will be considered a trespasser, and dealt with as such.”

Damascus watched in painful silence as his only friend and sibling trudged away, still holding one arm to her stomach where she'd been hit. Soon, she disappeared behind curtains of water and fog.

Silently, Cutlass vowed never to let herself be humiliated this way again. She would fight all of her own battles, never again being bound to reliance upon a pack that insulted and rejected her. She would win her own victories, with no one else to impress or share in the glory but herself. She would take any losses gracefully, and improve whatever was wrong at her own pace, in her own way. She would hunt for her own meals, never again having to worry about whether there would be any left for herself after someone else leeched off of it.

And best of all, when she became even stronger than her father was, all the credit would go to her and her alone.
