A year and a half later, Angel lay awake, alone in his bedroom on the third floor of Jenny's new mansion. He'd been tossing and turning in his bed for half an hour now, unable to get back to sleep. The moon had been an obnoxious contender at bedtime every night since they'd arrived two weeks ago, glaring in his eyes through the window to the right of the bed. He groaned and rolled over to face the door yet again, but it didn't matter too much. The whole room was glowing blue.

It would have been nice to just get up and close the curtains, except for reasons unimaginable they had metal stitched in along the length of the bottom hem, and they'd bang around against the wall all night if you tried to close them without also closing the pane. But closing the pane would make things even worse, as it was nearing the middle of spring, and the cool breeze was the only remaining relief from the mounting heat of the season. Essentially, he was totally stuck and just had to deal with it. Fuck it. Maybe he should just move rooms now that Jenny had left, even if it was the one she chose for them.

Random chunks of time passed by. The Audino rolled from one side to the other and back again, itching in frustration. The itches that really bothered him were always just a bit too high on his back to reach. He knew he would reach and reach and still not get them, getting no relief, only more frustration keeping him from falling back asleep. Acceding to his body's limitations, he pulled the pink microfiber sheets that used to belong to his trainer over his head and held them to his face. At least Jenny's scent had hung around for a while, unlike her.

It wasn't long before he felt himself waking back up anyway, rapidly. Being under the covers blocked all the air, and he couldn't even breathe much less get comfortable, trapped in a hot pocket of his own design. He popped his head out with a gasp and tried flinging the covers off completely, but they were caught under his back. He'd been pulling them back and forth as he rolled and had knotted them up around his body, tight enough that he was just stuck in them now. Even after kicking and struggling to free himself with grunts of effort, only his feet came free. Frowning with a moan of desperate annoyance, he wriggled back into his pillow to try to cut his losses until a bang from downstairs made his eyes fly open, dashing his last hopes.

"No... why...?" he whined, sitting up to the extent the clinging covers would allow. He rubbed his eyes until they were no longer totally glued shut, but it didn't make much difference in the tired haze clouding his vision. Slumping forward, he stared to his left at his unfamiliar, blank bedroom wall and heavy, paneled door. One minute changed to the next on the red face of Jenny's digital alarm clock on the nightstand while he sat in limbo, listening to his own uneven breathing in the silence. At last, a cold gust of wind blew in, and he shivered with a small smile of relief, no longer overheating. Only, it was instantly followed by the firm patter of a sudden rain.

"Perfect," he mumbled to himself, kicking the Forinan finger trap stubbornly down his body little by little until he could make it loosen, "now I have to close the damn window. I'm not going to get any good luck for the rest of the night, am I?" He tossed the covers in a puddle on the hardwood floor and rolled out of the right side of his bed like a lump. Stumbling to the rear corner of the room, he propped himself up with his paws on the windowsill and just stood there, savoring the small relief of the cold droplets splattering on them while neglecting to actually close the pane.

The moon slipped in and out from under quick-moving, dark stormclouds, passing waves of shadow and eerie light over the land. Rolling hills stretched out for miles until they met up with cliffs that took a sudden drop to the seashore of southwestern Galar. He stood looking out on the myserterious, wide, lonely world and just drew his breath, trying not to wonder what things had come to and what he was doing here. Suddenly he tightened up on reflex as the banging he'd thought he'd heard from downstairs repeated itself at his door. The several decisive, staccato knocks echoed between his ears, and his head instantly started to throb.

"Damn it," he moaned to himself, holding his temples, "it's the middle of the fucking night. Maybe they'll go away if I just ignore it." So he did. He stood glaring out the window for he didn't know how long, meeting the gaze of his lunar nemesis with bleary eyes. He just stood there and nothing else, anxiety rising while he waited for the sounds of disgruntled footsteps leaving him alone. Yeah, that wasn't going to work. Whoever it was wasn't giving up, and a thousand voices in his head rose out of the abyss to remind him what an ass he was being to them.

"Aren't you going to answer the door? Don't you want to know who it is?"

"What are you doing, you jerk? You're a lazy coward!"

He heard himself start panting. Sometimes his thoughts affected him much more than he wished they would.

"You don't have time to deal with this shit! It's already way after midnight. The sun will be up in a couple hours, and you'll never get enough sleep for work tomorrow then!"

"Forget about sleep and just find out who it is!"

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. Again with the knocking! He whipped his head around over his left shoulder and stared angrily at the uncaring door before screwing his face up and slamming the windowpane down as loud as he could in protest. He winced, having made the throbbing in the forefront of his skull ten times worse. It had still been a little satisfying, though.

KNOCK KNOCK!

"Damn it!" he squealed. "Hold on, would you?!" His voice was too high pitched and immature to really be intimidating, and he got an amused snort through the door in return. His frown deepened. Sometimes it seemed like there was no one on the team who would take him seriously at all, no matter the situation! He closed his eyes and tried to collect himself. He knew he wouldn't be getting any relief for his head, and now his belly ached too. He had to stop making things worse.

Finally, a cold, female voice pierced the solid oak door. "I'm coming in."

Angel's eyes flew open to their fullest. He recognized that voice, the harshest voice.

"It's been five minutes now! It's cold out here! I know you're in there. I heard you complaining."

"Doe- doe- don't come in yet!" he yelped, reaching his left paw down and grabbing at the handle of his top dresser drawer. He couldn't be seen like he was. He got the drawer open and clamored for his Mega Stone, eyes locked on the doorknob as it began to rattle fiercely. Fortunately, it only clicked and didn't turn all the way around.

His posture deflated with relief while a grin spread into his cheeks. "Oh yeah, I locked it."

The voice came back all quiet, defeated if not a little offended. "Come on, Angel. I just wanted to see if-"

"One second!" he blared, grin spreading. He was damn well going to take his time now. He reached into the back of his drawer and calmly retrieved his ribbons first. Watching himself in the standing mirror to the left of his dresser, he reached back to begin tying the first of his two pink bows around his tail.

"You don't have to do all that shit right now!" the voice screeched through the door, as if its owner had x-ray vision. "I don't care if you're a normal, pink little boy! No one cares at all, Angel! Just open the door! The floor's like ice!"

Angel glanced at the Audinite choker he only took off at night gleaming from the back of his dresser drawer and flushed with indignity. "Would you shut up?!" he yelled back. "You're going to wake up the entire house!"

...silence.

"You still there?"

...more silence.

Angel's shoulders and belly clenched in on themselves. "Gah! Alright! I'm hurrying!" He closed his drawer and rushed to the door with the half-tied ribbon trailing off his tail, fiddled with the lock with his right paw while gripping the knob in his left, and threw himself forward the instant the bolt clicked. The door swung open, twice as fast as he'd expected.

"No!" The weight of the door pulled him out of the room across the waxed pine floor. He grabbed onto the knob with both paws and leaned back, trying to stop it, but it wasn't very effective. "Fuck! Fuck!" he screeched, attempting to dig in with his heels, and stopped it with half an inch to spare. "Damn door!" He'd already put a significant crack in the paneling left of the frame. He didn't need to make it worse.

He looked around the very still hallway. Turned out he didn't need to rush after all. There was no one out there anymore. No one stood between him and the shadowy alcove across the hall. Only a few bands of moonlight ran across the square-and-diamond patterns in the floor. There was no one to his left or to his right. No one else's bedroom door was open, either along the row on his side of the hall or the other. He hung his head and sniffled. Now that he was fully awake, he realized how much he really had wanted to talk to Anna again, even if she was angry. The voices in his head immediately rose up to torment him again, sensing he'd been left alone.

"You wanted to see her, so why the hell did you make her wait?! Stupid! Stupid!"

"You passed up a once-in-a-lifetime chance at reconciliation so you could try to put your bows on? You magnificent idiot. She said she didn't care."

Angel wanted to try to follow her, but he couldn't make his body move. He stayed frozen with fear, anxiety, and shame, looking down at his little, pink body shivering in the moonlight. It just looked disgusting without his Mega Stone! Fat, vulnerable, and ugly!

"Come on, Angel. You're really going to do nothing now? What, you're going to go back into your room and try to sleep after that? Yeah right. You'll just be tormented wondering what could have been. Inaction is its own decision."

That voice, he agreed with. He nodded, sniffing the tears back into his face, turned right, and after a few false starts ran after her toward the stairwell with his fists clenched. The floor of the old mansion creaked with each step, but really, all the voices had been right. He had to go after her.

"You don't really care whom you wake up as long as you get to see her again, do you?"

He made it to the top of the wide south stairwell, which comprised two flights divided by a turnabout landing and a single round window on the house's west wall. The stairs were completely in the dark apart from that single beam of moonlight cutting the landing in half, fading in and out as clouds passed over and flickering in the rain.

Determined, Angel grabbed the railing in his right paw and galloped down the first flight of stairs. He'd almost reached the bottom when he tripped over something soft, smooth, and freakishly warm taking up the whole bottom stair. His left foot came down hard on the mezzanine landing, where he wobbled and didn't quite manage to grab the Zacian ornament on the banister stand. His foot slipped out from under him, and he fell on his right hip and ass cheek, thudding and smashing his shoulder into the wall. "Ow... ow...!" he whined, holding his twisted left ankle.

"Oh, crap! Angel!" It was the tremulous whisper of a low yet feminine voice coming from the stairs now at his left. "Are you okay?"

"Anna!" Angel gasped, gaze darting around the shadows on the stairs. "...that you?"

A pair of deep, red eyes blinked and slowly nodded at him from out of the darkness. "Yeah. Hi."

The sound of her voice washed his pain away, and the world came back into focus. His shoulders dropped, relief evident in his every word. "You're here! You didn't go back to bed!"

The shadowy outline of a fit, female Mawile slid off the bottom step and sat next to him against the wall facing the moonbeam. "No, I didn't. Now let me see that ankle."

"No!" Angel cried, pulling it away from her. "I don't want to!"

"Why not?!" She tightened up and tried for it again but suddenly stopped her arm mid reach. "...That's fair," she said after a second, gritting her teeth, "but at least tell me you're okay."

Angel caught her look of frustration but didn't let on. "I'm okay," he sighed, with a more depressed tone this time. He really liked Anna, just, did she have to be so angry and forward, constantly? It had always made her tough to be around.

"It doesn't hurt?" Anna persisted.

"It's beginning to now since you keep talking about it," Angel snapped snottily.

Anna frowned, hesitated, and didn't say anything else, just withdrew her arm the rest of the way. She just brought her knees to her chest and curled up next to him, her right side almost touching his left. "I'm sorry for tripping you. I was sitting on the stairs in the dark. It was really stupid. I shouldn't have been there."

"So what were you even doing?"

"Nothing. ...thinking about how you couldn't even open the door for me without preparing yourself."

Angel frowned too, ankle throbbing. "So you refuse to talk to me for over a year, and then you blame me for tripping over your big head?"

"I didn't! I just apologized!"

"...and guilted me for not answering the door! You're making it sound like it was my fault I tripped too!"

"Talk about not listening! That's not what I said, and you barely even heard my apology anyway! We wouldn't even be in this situation if you'd stopped being an asshole for two seconds and actually answered your door when I knocked."

Yup. That was Anna. She hadn't changed a bit. They had already gone right back to the same old style of argument, where she would turn everything back on him and insist she wasn't. "So why were you at my door?" Angel prodded, miffed.

Anna buried her face in her knees, muffling the shame in her voice. "I was trying to check on you."

"Ugh." Angel hated how she always acted so coy. It made him have to pry the information out of her. "Why were you doing that?"

"My room's right below yours," she stated.

"Yeah, I know."

"Were you having your nightmare again?" Anna asked, tone oddly tender out of nowhere. "I heard you moaning."

He stared at her. "You know about my dream?"

"Well you're not very good at keeping it a secret," she smirked.

"What do you mean by that? Did Pancake tell you? 'Cause I asked him in confi-"

"Nevermind," she insisted. "Just tell me if you-"

"-yeah. I had the damn dream again," Angel admitted.

"Nightmare," she corrected him. "I thought you might have. I was coming to check on you. Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?"

"How do you know about my dream?" Angel insisted, avoiding her questions.

Anna grabbed her knees and muffled her frustrated scream in them. "Holy shit!" She gasped, lowering her voice to an angry whisper. "It doesn't matter, Angel! I'm trying to show concern for you. Can't you just answer the question? Do you always have to be this way? I can't believe you. You are the most bullheaded, conceited-"

"Same to you!" Angel cut her off, not terribly wanting to hear the end of that list.

"Just... fuck, at least let me help you back to your room," Anna resigned, voice calming a little. "You hurt your ankle."

She stood up immediately, without giving him the chance to refuse, and positioned herself in front of him in the moonbeam, lighting up her body and giving herself a long shadow across the floor of the landing. She wore a flat expression, reaching her hands out for his paws. Angel took her hands but saw no reason to stand. She was in the perfect position for him already.

She was no more than half his height, and they met eye to eye with him sitting and her standing. Her head, egg shaped and large compared to the rest of her, rested on a thin neck and petite, smoothly curved shoulders. Her chest was little, and her tummy area was flat. Her legs, pleated at the bottoms, normally made it look like she was wearing a long skirt starting at her waist. She always stood with her legs pressed together if she could help it, hiding her crotch between her wide thighs. At this moment, however, she'd taken a firm stance with her conical legs spread, leaning back to try to help him up. Licking his lips, he opted to nab that rare look at her lower half, continuing to take advantage of her kindness. Maybe he'd be able to make out the details for once in his life, as long as she stayed still.

Her thighs were much broader than her tummy was, fatter and probably softer too. Her snatch made a curvy tuck in between them, covered in short, cottony fur of the same beige color, and pulled back toward her butt, looking small and taut like it would resist and bounce back into his palm if he were to press on it. The tiny, pink bump of her clit hood stuck down out of her fur a bit, crowning her pussy, and her two little lips stuck together just behind that. Because she was leaning back, the smooth curves of her perky butt cheeks were visible from the underside too, firmed and clenched as she tried to lift. Definitely a nicer view than he used to get when she high kicked him to the face during training.

"Mmm..." Angel moaned, pulling his right paw out of her grip and running his fingers down through the soft fur of her warm belly, "very nice."

"Angel!" Anna jumped back, throwing his other paw down. She stood up straight with her legs pressed together and spun around, out of range.

"Damn, nice ass too," Angel salivated.

Anna's big mouth, the one sprouting out of the top of her head, dropped down behind her and stared Angel down, growling through an evil grin. "Well I was trying to help," she snapped, "but I can kick your ass if you'd rather."

"Anna..." Angel whined, twisting away from her appendage, "p- please let me touch it? ...just once! You never even let me have sex with you when we were dating."

She stomped her right foot on the ground, clenching her fists. "And this is exactly why! We were going to date for a week as a test, and instead it lasted five hours because you couldn't control yourself! Sex was all you ever thought about. Clearly it still is! We barely even know each other anymore anyway. You need to learn how to show other monsters respect."

Angel couldn't respond, too busy trying to scoot up the wall away from the sharp set of teeth inching closer to his face. Anna sighed and pulled it away at the last second before it snapped at him, wrapping it around her right side to pet it instead. "I can't believe you're scared of me," she finished. "We're on the same team."

"I'm only scared of your big mouth," Angel admitted under his breath, relaxing back down the wall.

"That's the same thing you said when we broke up too," Anna said quietly, voice wavering. After a brief hesitation, she turned back around and stared straight in his eyes. "Do you really have to be such an ass? I worked up my courage to do this. I'm a lot better at talking to other monsters now. Don't you see I came up trying to make friends again?"

"No!" Angel yelped. "I came after you for this? So you could intimidate me like usual?! You give me this cold stare whenever we walk by each other even when we aren't talking!"

She stared him down for a good ten seconds longer before what he said really sunk in. She almost started to look hurt, glancing down for a moment at the floor as she clenched her teeth. She turned and took a step away after that, shaking in frustration, before groaning and sitting back down in front of him in the beam of moonlight, crossing her legs and covering her lap with her mandible. "...Fine. I won't be so scary anymore. Just tell me the truth. Why do you keep trying to do things to us at dinner?"

Angel blushed, hard. "What do you mea-"

"Don't pretend. You've got all the girls talking about you lately, not in a good way. Holly said you tried to sit next to her at dinner last night when she told you not to, and you kept following her and doing it anyway and were trying to brush up against her."

"Yeah, that happened..."

"Yeah, it did, and when that didn't work out for you, Fruit Punch said you didn't even ask before you just grabbed her and reached under her tail tonight, when you were trying to flirt with everybody."

Angel closed his mouth again and covered his face with his chest tuft to hide his blush, even though that probably made his embarrassment more noticeable in the low light.

"You were doing okay for such a long time," Anna went on. "Now you're suddenly back to groping again. What happened? You can't honestly think that's how you're going to get a girlfriend."

"It always worked with-" Angel stopped himself short.

"Oh, I see," she said flatly. "Is that how it worked with Jenn."

Angel clamped his mouth shut and said nothing.

"You don't have to do that," Anna frowned. "It's not some big secret anymore. Everybody knows about Jenn and you just like everybody knows about the 'chu under your bed."

Angel looked up at her indignantly, blush shining through his cream-colored fur. "Well! There's nothing wrong with me getting off, is there?"

"No, there's nothing wrong with you or anybody getting off," Anna frowned. "That's not what this is about. You've totally sidetracked me from-"

"I'm sorry!" Angel whined. "Just please stop being so angry with me!"

Anna lay her head on top of her second mouth, holding it in her lap. "Fine. The dream has to do with Jenn leaving too?" Anna asked, trying to let him talk about what he wanted.

Angel didn't take it that way. He huffed, hating how she kept prying until she got what she wanted. "Yes, it's about Jenny leaving," he conceded.

"I didn't hear about it from Pancake directly," Anna reassured him. "I know because of Gertrude, and before you say anything, she knew because he asked her for her advice on helping you. You look up to Pancake, but he doesn't always know what to do either."

"...Fine, I'll tell you about the damn dream," Angel sighed.

"I'm ready," she said, raising her head to pay attention to him.

Angel raised his head too, looking her small body over in the moonlight even though her naughty bits were covered over this time. She was just so beautiful. Her shape and size were beautiful. He'd always thought so. Why was that the part that was so hard to tell her? Why was it easy to invade her space with a grope but hard to say that one simple thing?

Anna waited, both of her faces in a strange mix of emotionally charged expressions Angel couldn't penetrate. "I'm ready," she said again. "Quit delaying."

"Alright!" Angel said. "Alright. Everything's in black and white, and there's never any sound except for the wind."

"Yeah, and?"

"It's last week, the morning that she's going to leave, and we're all standing right where we were, in front of the mansion on the path to town."

Anna nodded.

"I'm standing there, and all you guys are standing in a crescent behind me. Jenny's kneeling and holding me with her chin on my left shoulder. Her hair keeps whipping in my face. It's not even brown anymore, but it still smells nice, like my blankets.

"I know she's crying even though I can't hear her, and there are tears running down her cheeks when I back up to look at her face, so I look away again, over her shoulder at where the path goes down over the hill. Soon she's going to cross that line, and I'm never going to see her again.

"You know she's coming back when she's-" Anna interrupted.

"It's my dream, and it feels like I'm never gonna see her again!" Angel interrupted back. "She's gone for a long time, anyway."

"Sorry..." Anna said.

"She... squeezes me around my shoulders like she doesn't want to let go, but I'm convinced she does, and that makes my stomach feel like it's rotting out from the inside. She kisses me on the cheek, and I try to stop time so I don't have to feel what comes after that.

"She's told me over and over, for years, that she's never going to go anywhere without me, but she stands up and turns away anyway, in the end. She betrays me, leaves without me to be part of a bigger, better world. She doesn't need me anymore."

"She does need you, Angel!" Anna interrupted again, persisting this time. "She didn't want to go only a week after finally getting here, she told all of us! She can't help it if she suddenly had to go meet another client."

"Then she should have taken me with her, or all of us like last time or the time before! Besides, how much longer is she going to keep doing this? She has plenty of money. I know she does. I thought she hated money anyway, yet now she's going to make more of it? Sure. She just doesn't need us anymore, that's all. She's happy she gets to leave. She's walking away, light and relieved. She's already disappearing down the hill. Her hair is swishing across her back like it used to when we were free, and the sun is shining in it. She's so damn beautiful. I try not to blink so I won't miss the last moment I get to see her.

"She's about to trade away everything we've built together for another empty dream, and for the first time ever, I want to just ignore everything she said and disobey her. I try to get up and run after her, but I trip and fall on my face. I can't lift my boots more than an inch off the ground, like I'm running through molasses, and she's long since out of sight. I'm panicking. I turn around to ask you guys for help, but you're all staring at me with cold, sad eyes.

"I'm begging you, 'maybe we can still catch up to her if we run!' but no sound is coming out, and everyone just starts walking away. I just cover up my eyes and hope this isn't real. There's nothing good left for me if I open them. There's only going to be a big, empty field in front of some big, empty house where we don't belong."

"Angel..."

"Everything's back in color when I open them again, but it's almost nighttime, and I'm old after waiting for her for years. The trees are throwing long shadows across the grass, and they're gnarled, crawling up the front of the house as the sun sets. My own shadow reaches ten feet in front of me. I feel like it's pulling me toward the house.

"The house gets closer with every step, but I don't feel like I'm the one doing the walking. My body is moving without me, and it just gets closer. The wind starts blowing really loud, but it doesn't push me back, and ivy starts growing out of the cracks in the stone. It spreads until it covers up the whole wall and gets long enough to reach the ground from the top. It feels like it's going to reach out and grab me, but I keep getting closer, and I can't run away.

"That's when I get so scared I have to wake up." Abruptly finishing his tale, Angel stood up in the dark next to the stunned Mawile. "Now I'm going back to bed," he said, turning away before Anna could make out the expression on his face. He leaned against the banister, attempting to limp back up the stairs despite his throbbing right hip and left ankle.

"...No you don't," Anna said, reaching up at the last second and grabbing the ribbon trailing from his tail.

Angel hopped back down to the landing on his right foot as she pulled on him. He turned back around, opening his mouth to complain, but only a gasp came out when he saw the way she was looking up at him from out of the moonlight. She looked nervous, but her eyes had also gone wide with compassion. After a moment, Angel sat down on the bottom stair, and she climbed up to sit next to him, this time pressing her right side into his left on purpose. He shuddered so hard he lost the faculty of speech.

"I understand how you feel," she said, offering her hand, upturned palm resting just off the edge of the snout on her lap. "I miss her too, but it's not like we can really know what happens in the Human world, not really. I'm sure she must have had a very good reason to leave us all behind, you know, aside from Regality. Besides, she set us up to take care of the place, didn't she? And she said she'd... be back..."

She paused, not getting any response, and hesitated, reconsidering her words. "...I don't like how you've been acting, Angel, but at least I think I can understand where it's coming from now. Does moving make you nervous? We had just moved apartments when we tried dating too..."

...still no response. Angel was too busy staring at her and shoving his body securely against hers. He was so happy she couldn't see his erection in the dark.

"...Well..." Anna hung her head, blushing just a little. "I want to at least hold your paw for a while until you calm down. May I hold your paw?"

Wow. That was the first time she'd ever actually been nice to him. He looked down in her lap and realized the queasy feeling he'd always gotten from her second jaw suddenly wasn't there anymore. It didn't feel like it was always on the verge of biting him now that he knew Anna had the capacity to be tender after all.

He nodded a little, taking her paw and squeezing it, and they sat for a long time in the dark, listening to the rain patter the tower roof. They just stayed still, resting against one another and breathing together until they settled. Their breathing synched, and their legs touched. She didn't try to get away from him even once, and she let their sides keep touching the whole time. Neither of them wanted to risk ruining the moment by saying anything, but likely it was exactly because it felt like the chance might never come again that they made it last so long.

Finally, though, after probably twenty minutes, she stood up facing him and yawned. "No more groping without asking, okay? You have to promise me."

"I promise," Angel said, nodding. "I don't want to make anyone feel bad. I'll learn better."

"Good. Then I'll talk to Fruit Punch and Holly about it. ...Thanks for finally opening up to me. I hope we can be friends."

"Okay."

"Okay. That's really good, Angel."

He nodded, and she reached out to pet his head but gave a little smile and pulled her paw back at the last second. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Anna."

Her big mouth was the last thing he saw as she disappeared down the stairs to the second floor. He stood back up, feeling ten pounds lighter, and didn't even mind his swollen hip ached from sitting on the hard wood that whole time. He didn't understand why she'd asked to sit with him after calling him out like that, but he wasn't going to complain. He'd been brave enough to follow her, and it had paid off. He climbed the stairs back to the third floor, alone but satisfied, and found his way back to his room with a rare sense of calm.

He pulled the door shut with a smile behind him and didn't even bother locking it. The moon was still there, but the room was chilly now. He crossed to the window and closed the curtains, finally bathing the room in the darkness of night, and breathed another sigh of relief, eyelids already starting to droop. He leaned down, retrieved the covers from the floor, returned them to his bed, and crawled back under. His tired eyes glued themselves shut the moment his head hit the pillows.

Maybe if he tried being brave more often, more good things would happen to him. "That's the one nice thing," Angel muttered to himself, in the middle of drifting off to sleep. "As long as you're alive, you've always got another day. If you failed, you can try again. If you succeeded, you can build on it. Just make things a little better each day." Barely finishing the last thought, he fell into a dreamless sleep and didn't wake up until late the next morning.


Angel woke to the sound of birds chirping, opened his eyes, and excitedly jumped out of bed. He'd gotten at least six hours of good sleep and ended up with lots of energy. He pulled his bright curtains open and looked out over the land, the town to the left, the bands of forest to the right, the rolling hills that suddenly dropped to the sea. What had seemed spooky and sad last night was happy and beautiful today. He leaned down and retrieved his accessories from his drawer. Time to stop being a weakling.

He first picked up his Audinite band and stepped to the left to watch himself dress in the mirror. The bells hanging on both sides of the Stone jingled together happily as he fastened it tight and secure around its neck. The familiar little winds swished around his feet, and he transformed in a swirl and flash of light. No more naked, pink Audino. He was the cool Mega in the white jacket again. It was the best feeling in the world. If only it was physically possible to fall asleep with it on too.

He grinned at his image, and his image grinned back at him. Lit through the window to his right, he wrapped one of the ribbons around his neck, over the band, and tied it off into a bow in front. The other ribbon wasn't in the drawer, and he panicked for a second until he almost tripped over it. "Oh yeah." He blushed a little as he leaned forward and reached back to tie it around his tail, watching himself finish dressing up like Jenny always used to like.

He turned his butt to the mirror and looked over his shoulder, watching himself shake his jelly. He blushed, imagining her petting him and calling him pretty like she did some mornings, just to make him feel special. Then he blushed a little harder. The tail bow was kind of making him smile for a second reason now too. It was how Anna had kept him from running off too early last night. He didn't really get how it had happened, but he'd finally gotten to cuddle with her. Maybe things were changing for the better now that they were here, like Jenny had been saying the first week.

All smiles, he walked over and retrieved his items from the stand by the door, his small notepad with the pencil tied onto it and his ring of keys. Good! He felt confident. Time to kick some butt. Angel got to be taskmaster of all he surveyed from morning till early evening six days a week, and everyone had to listen to his decisions and do what he said. He loved the job Jenny had given him.

He remembered every word of her instructions. "Angel's going to be going through the manor house and across the grounds twice a day. His job is to make sure everyone else is doing their job, so you all have to respect him, understand?" She had made sure to add that last part. Angel grew a little grin and shivered with pride, locking the door to his room behind him. She'd trusted him with so much. There were exactly seventy-two pokémon on the team, but Jennifer had taken Regality with her on her trip. That left Angel overseeing seventy monsters.

He'd start each day by checking the work roster posted outside the kitchen to see what everyone would be up to and where he'd need to go. The kitchen also had breakfast, making it the natural first stop. Checking the main house, where most of the monsters worked, always seemed like it would take ages but didn't in practice. There were almost a hundred conventional rooms spread over three floors plus tower, attic, loft, and cellar spaces, but he only really needed to check the rooms being worked on at the time.

In addition, work had thus far been concentrated on parts of the house that needed immediate attention, so if twenty monsters were needed to do handiwork and cleaning on the second floor, that was only really one extended stop for him. It had only been taking an hour or so each time to do a round of the main house, and most of that was spent seeking out and accounting for lone wolves.

The outdoors took much longer even though there were fewer monsters to find, one and a half to two hours each time, solely because of the walking distance between the different areas. The courtyard, guardhouse, and sparring grounds were all pretty much right out back, where he'd check on the groundskeepers and guard, but the old orchard and greenhouse went past the northwest curve in the road. The farmhouse and crop fields were all the way out in the other direction, with the grove, pastures, and stables in between.

All in all, he could do his job in six to eight hours, allowing time for lunch in between his two rounds, but he usually took his time and didn't rush. He enjoyed seeing first hand what everyone was up to, enjoyed having an excuse to talk with them, and sometimes even enjoyed the fringe benefit of complaining at them until they fixed things to his specifications.

Angel galloped down the two flights of stairs near his bedroom, bouncing all the way, and turned left to take the main hall across the house from the south to the north end of the first floor. He began to sniff halfway down the hall, ears wiggling, and embarrassed himself increasing his pace to a jog. That was a cake baking, he was pretty sure! Breakfast was always so great now, especially the pastries. Pancake and Custard had gotten into baking at Violetta's house just last year, but they'd showed their capacity as professionals since they'd been here. They'd been churning out yummy things practically since the moment they arrived, using the food that Jenny had trucked in for them until they could get things running.

Deciding to save the duty board for after he'd investigated cake, he pushed open the side door to the kitchen and strode in with his usual decisive swagger. The oven that came into view was in fact lit up with the warm, orange glow of four rounds baking. "Damn, how does it smell so good in-" He stopped short, eyes narrowing and grin growing as the door swung closed behind him. Angel pulled out his pad and noted the citation. It was naughty making dessert before breakfast.

To the right of the oven, Custard the Slurpuff was bent over a sink of soapy water, pretending to wash a metal mixing bowl with globs of batter stuck to it. Pancake the Alolan Raichu stood behind him on the same step stool with his paws on his shoulders, humping him and moaning softly in his ear. Custard was pushing back, lifting his white-frilled, yellow apron with a cute, rounded erection that kept stiffening and making thick spurts of creamy pre up the doors of the under-sink cabinets.

Tied with with a white band around his waist, Pancake's matching apron sat draped over the top of his much longer, more massive cock. He shoved and rotated his hips, pushing up between the middle of Custard's puffy, exposed butt cheeks to poke his hole like a watermelon slice dipping into a bowl of stiff whipped cream. His thin tail held up the rear of his apron, exposing his own butt, which had clearly seen its share of action too. His wide, pink asshole clenched while his tail pulled and strained in time with his thrusts.

Angel couldn't see their expressions from the rear, but he could see Pancake had the cherry pom on Custard's head stuck in his mouth for suckling. The dessert dog probably tasted super sweet and yummy like his name. He giggled too sometimes in a sugary voice, raising up his smoosh to lengthen his partner's stroke. His cheeks smacked together every time Pancake began to pull back, leaving trails of pre down the crack.

Angel heard himself start to pant, going into tunnel-vision mode. He might not be allowed to grope, but he could definitely watch. He slurped his drool back up and slipped his paws down his belly, shivering as he sprung a powerful erection out of the furry folds of his sheath. He hadn't gotten off since yesterday morning, so his pink poker stood up like it meant it. It had a smooth, rounded tip and a uniform shape like Custard's but longer, the same thickness down the whole of its five inches. His eyelids drooped with pleasure as his paws encountered his cock, which bounced eagerly up into his palms.

He trembled with sensitivity, cock repeatedly stiffening and swinging a lengthening rope of pre. He began to thrust into his paws, slicking them down with his goo. His nuts swung forward between his legs, and his taint and asshole kept clenching hard. Yes, yes, this was good. Pancake whispered something in Custard's ear. Look at how in love they were. Angel stood glued to the spot, panting loudly and humping his paws. His balls clenched desperately, needing release. Whoa, look at Custard's cute little nuts. Holy fuck, look at the size of Pancake's, though! The rest of the world faded away along with all of his inhibitions. There was nothing more important than getting off to this right now. Angel heard himself let out a long, obvious moan, but he didn't care if they knew! He kept going, getting very close already.

He watched Pancake climb down off the stepstool, drawing out a thick rope of pre between his tip and his partner's tight butt crack. He could just see Custard's little, pink pucker now, squished and squeezing between his jiggling cheeks. Angel gave a high-pitched whine and airy gasp. "Hnnng! Nyaah!" Pancake began to turn around, looking stern. Angel knew he was getting his cover blown, but there was no point running. He had to finish before there was nothing left to look at!

Pancake began to approached, monster cock lifting up the front of his sissy apron and bouncing with each step. It was as easily big as his forearm. He could have gotten so deep in his mate's creamy, little ass, yet his attention was fixed on Angel's equipment now instead. Something about that felt so good. Angel felt his knees go weak and a hot tingle shoot down his spine. The hot rush of seed he longed for shot up into his organ.

"Hngohhh yeah..." he moaned at Pancake, cock rising up and sticking out from his grip. He jammed his hips forward, cock slipping erratically between his paws, eyes locked on the Raichu's massive six inches. Angel clenched his teeth, bracing himself against the pressure of his impending ejaculation. His crotch tightened up, his legs wobbled, and he froze with bent legs. His vision blurred, his eyelids closed halfway, and the room went quiet.

"......"

"Waaaaah!" He sprayed a giant rope of seed out in a splatty arc up the middle of Pancake's apron. "Waah-waaaaah!" Angel creamed line after line on Pancake's apron while the Raichu stared him down and the Slurpuff advertised his big butt, still bent over the sink. "Oohwaa-whaa! Whaa! Waah!" Angel shivered, cum shooting off his tip all over the floor now. He shivered all over, cock jerking up hard several more times. The last spurts forced their way out, swinging down into the puddle. "Audee-nohhhh..."

Pancake carefully untied his apron, avoiding the cum, pulled it off over his head, and began bunching it up, very unamused. Custard stood back up straight with a very discontented sigh, letting his own apron fall back around his waist, and returned to sponging the remaining ropes of batter out of the mixing bowl into the dirty, cool water. Pancake's cock drooped too, beginning to recede into his sheath. Fun play time was over, and reality began to sink back in.

"Alola, Angel," he said through clenched teeth. "What can I do for you?"

Angel's grin dropped right off his face. "...What?" he snipped defensively, as if he could just pretend all that hadn't happened.

Pancake closed his eyes for several seconds and tried to keep a hold of himself. It didn't work. He utterly failed and lost his cool. "I can't believe you!" he yelled. "You claim to not be interested in guys, even, yet..." He gestured wildly at the floor with both paws. "...this!"

Angel looked hurt. "I'm interested! I just don't want to do them myself!"

Pancake's eyes went wide in rage. "What?! What does that even mean?!" He bunched his apron up in his paws and threw it into Angel's mess on the floor.

Angel's eyes opened wide. "I-!"

"Nope! Not this time. I'm not treating you like some younger brother who needs advice anymore. You're a bastard, Angel!" Pancake yelled, approaching with a deadly look on his face. "If you'd walked in without knowing and apologized or even just backed out without saying anything, that would have been fine. We're in the middle of the kitchen. It's to be expected. But instead, you chose to fuck everything up for us, didn't you?!"

"No, I-!" Angel stammered, backing up against the door.

"You didn't even ask us if you could watch, did you?! You're a coward too, and now we have to clean up your unsanitary mess instead of our own! I have to wash your cum off my apron before I can do the cake now! It's just selfish! Why don't you ever think about what you're doing before you make these stupid decisions?! Check us off your fucking list and just get out!"

Angel's shoulders hunched. His forced, nervous frown betrayed the guilt he felt underneath despite his outer attempt at righteous indignation. There were a few seconds of awkward silence while tears welled in his eyes. "...Nobody ever lets me have any fun!" he screamed.

"Get out!" Pancake screamed back.

Angel turned around and ran, slamming the door behind him, and stood panting against the other side of the door for the next minute or so. That really could not have gone worse. He'd never seen Pancake like that. He clenched his fists by his sides, listening to Pancake and Custard yelling back and forth behind him. He couldn't risk going back in there, not even to apologize, so he started slowly walking down the north hallway away from the scene he'd ruined.

Intense sunlight streamed through the box windows on either side of the double doors that lead to the sparring grounds at the end of the hall. It was still morning, then, since they faced east. He started walking down toward the doors, still shaking. Maybe he'd go sit under the windows. The sun was warm and would provide some comfort for his nerves. He made it halfway before the doors started to open. Fuck, what now? Really not wanting anyone else to see him in his current state, he ducked under the archway next to him into the enclosed north stairwell as a pair of tough male voices and their pawsteps made their way down the hall.

"...don't usually meet anybody, do we? Not like anybody's going to want to steal a few seedlings out of the greenhouse."

Angel peered out around the corner. It was Fussy the Mightyena and Ribbon the Sylveon of the day guard, panting with their tongues hanging out. They'd probably just come back from their first patrol of the morning. They kept glancing at each other and smiling as they trotted toward the kitchen.

"...for now, anyway," Ribbon nodded, "but we've got to plan our patrol routes right. When summer comes and the ground's tilled, those seedlings get planted outside. We don't know what the wild population looks like around here, either."

"Aw, but you're always so serious," Fussy pouted.

"Take your job seriously, and it will bring its own rewards," Ribbon countered.

As they came closer, Angel could see the corners of their mouths were actually curled into sly grins rather than smiles. He could also see their proud erections whacking their taut bellies with every step. Angel blushed with rage, also drooling out of the corners of his mouth. "Fucking, how is it that everyone's so buddy buddy with each other around here except for me?" Angel whispered to himself, glaring.

Their cocks were thick and powerful with unusually obvious firmness due to the bones inside. Ribbon's light pink shaft was very straight with an even, tubular length, long enough it almost reached his chest. Fussy's shaft was shorter but bigger around with a bulge along the bottom halfway up. His knot was intimidating, gorgeous, and large, mostly round with only slight lunes bulging out on each side. Ribbon's knot was wider and flatter, making a nice contrast with its two distinct orbs sticking out the sides. Angel gulped and just barely pulled his head back into the stairwell before Ribbon looked up and saw him.

Fussy huffed. "I'm just not used to the hills, that's all. I'm really needing this break, you know?"

"Yeah, I am too," Ribbon admitted with a smirk, falling behind in order to ogle Fussy's bouncing nuts and sniff-lick with his muzzle pushed under the Mightyena's raised tail. "Bet you can go a couple rounds today, can't you?" he snickered, stating rather than asking.

"Heh. You wanna come along for the ride, Angel?" Fussy teased, suddenly peering around the column at the Audino.

Angel froze up, fur standing on end. "Wha- Wha?!" he stammered. "I wasn't watching!"

"Yeah, right," Ribbon snorted, coming up and standing by Fussy in the stairwell. "You weren't peeking at all," he chuckled, nodding down at the pink tip crowning the Mega Audino's engorged sheath.

Angel's face flushed completely red.

"It's a real offer like it usually is," Ribbon assured him.

"No, thank you!" Angel squealed. "I'm not into that stuff!"

"Oh, really?" Fussy licked his lips, approaching the Audino while lowering his head. "Smells to me like you're plenty into it," he teased, touching his muzzle to Angel's nuts.

Angel pushed Fussy's muzzle away and hid his face in his paws. "No! Don't make me!"

Fussy stood straight and backed up with an expression on his face somewhere between amusement and concern. "Geez, we're not gonna make you. Settle down."

"Come on," Ribbon said, pulling his friend's tail with his teeth. "He's not comfortable. Leave him alone."

"Right," Fussy said. "See you around, Angel."

Both of them turned and walked away, tails raised like normal. Angel lowered his paws over his ruby red cheeks so he could stare at the canines' rears as they lifted their hind legs in stride. Their loose, pink assholes kept squishing in on themselves, buried in the dips where their tails met their rears. Did he want to do them, or didn't he? He bit his lower lip behind his paws as he watched them disappear around the corner before leaning back and sliding down the wall behind him.

"I wish they wouldn't tease so bad!" Angel sniffled into his paws, muffling his whisper so nobody would hear. "I wish everybody didn't hate me! Can't they just leave me alone?!"

His fantasies were just that, fantasies. He'd happily escape into them every time something went wrong or he just felt awkward and didn't know what to do, but they would always end sooner or later and plop him right back in the real world, surrounded by his problems. He kept doing it over and over without knowing the way out, and he was feeling increasingly trapped by them this week.

"Don't worry," a Salandit chittered.

The fur stood up all over Angel's scalp and ears for the second time in five minutes as the warm and smooth lizard's tail slithered around his left ankle, reminding him it still felt weird after last night.

The Salandit snickered, scampering out in front of him. "That's how it's like for me too. Love the male form but just can't get down with the culture."

Angel dropped his paws into his lap, seeing what it was. "Yeah? What do you know?" he frowned.

"I'm a Salandit," the Salandit said. "We get to mate our queen one month out of the year. What do you think we do for sex the other eleven?"

"I suppose you have a point," Angel said, crossing his arms. "I did wonder."

"Yeah. There are a few that don't, but most do. Point is, I get you. It's confusing when you don't have a choice."

"Hey!" Angel gasped.

"No, no," the Salandit smiled, "I didn't mean it like that. You're way too sensitive."

Angel shot him a big glare.

"Anyway," he grinned, "our queen has some business she would like to discuss with you."

"Gertrude?" Angel looked up, literally salivating out of the corners of his mouth. "I'll be right up!"

"Heh," the Salandit grinned. "Good luck. You might want to make it with a girl before you try with a real woman."

Angel kept his arms crossed while the Salandit climbed up on his leg.

"Might also want to take this off," he grinned, touching Angel's Audinite with his right forefoot, "so you don't choke on the Scent, ya Fairy."

"Get off me," Angel snipped, picking the Salandit up off him and throwing him into the center of the floor.

Maintaining his grin, the Salandit turned tail and began scuffling away but stopped after a few paces and looked back over his left shoulder.

"Oh, and I'll be reporting you for what you were doing with Custard and Pancake. Saw the whole thing. You're doing a great job convincing everybody you're not gay, by the way."

"Shut! Up!" Angel lunged for the lizard, filled with rage, but outright missed and just ended up lying face down on the floor while the Salandit scampered away. "Ah..." he sighed, visibly deflating on the exhale, "appropriate. Today's gonna be a great day."