Story Notes:
<p><img src="http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/3345/image006d.gif" alt="" /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family:'Freestyle Script';font-size:large;"> What separates sanity from delusion? <br /> <br /> Must the unknown always be met with confusion? <br /> <br /> For only if you are unable to show result <br /> <br /> Can it truly be referred to as the occult <br /> <br /> </span> - Zerobi (Excerpt from notes found at Cerulean Cave) <br /> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family:'Book Antiqua';font-size:large;"> Our species is beyond understanding! <br /> <br /> There is nothing we cannot conquer! <br /> <br /> The elements shall bow before us! <br /> <br /> Even among our own, we shall be the greatest! <br /></span></p>
Author's Chapter Notes:
Some will tell you that this whole incident began with Zerobi. Some will say that it started with Astrid. For me, it started with fire.
Eve's Story
--------------------
I'm Eve, an Eevee who was named by her unimaginative father. My father was a Houndoom and my mother was a Leafeon. They both fell in love when they were captured by the same trainer, and got quite a reputation after participating in a fight against the Elite Four.
Apparently their trainer died from a disease after attempting to scale a tall mountain, and so on his deathbed he released them and they had me.
I loved my mother very much. She was soft, gentle, loving, everything you could ever want in a mother. We lived in a forest when I was young, when an accident happened that set our burrow ablaze. My father was away, so my mother had to carry me out through the flames. Since I was a Normal type I was able to escape with some minor burns, but mother was a Grass type.
She caught on fire.
As soon as we had escaped the forest, I remember being dropped and seeing my mother covered in fire and screaming. It was corroding her flesh into a blackish hue. She was rolling around on the ground to try to extinguish the fire, but it wouldn't stop. I shouted for help and ran away, trying to find some water, but to no avail. No matter how far I went, I could detect the faint smell of mother somewhere within the thick smoke.
When I came back, she was dead. The mother that had once birthed me, cradled me and loved me like no one else was now no more than a clump of coal. I ran up to her body and cried, and when father came back he cried too, and when all our friends heard of what had happened they cried as well.
Father and I moved into the city after that. I was... Not very stable the years following mother's death, but my father was very protective of me. I love him, too. However, the incident had left me with a heavy scar that not even he could defend me from - A fear of fire.
One might say that a fear of fire is more healthy than destructive. Try saying that after almost freezing to death on a cold winter night, or running away from any Fire Pokemon in the vicinity. No matter what kind of fire it was, I could always see mother writhing among the flames and smell her scent in the smoke. I hated it. I HATE fire!
Father stopped using his Fire moves after the accident. He always said that he was also a Dark type and that he wouldn't need it, but I think he was just worried about me.
As an Eevee, you never really know what is going to happen. Normally you have a trainer who decides what you should evolve into, but for the rest of us it's nerve wrecking. You have to choose between widely different forms to spend the rest of your life as! If you take your time evolving, you become either an Umbreon or Espeon. If you happen to stumble upon the Moss or Ice Rock, you'll become a Leafeon or Glaceon. The easiest way of evolving seems to be getting a hold of one of the elemental stones, so that you can become a Vaporeon, Jolteon or... Or... Flareon...
The thought of one day transforming into a Flareon made me sick to my stomach. With my hate of fire, becoming fire incarnate!? I'd die! No, I had made my decision early - I was going to be a Vaporeon. Extinguisher of flames! Friend of the Grass-types! The distraught of Ground-types! Nothing could fit me any better, I would never have to fear fire again!
The problem is that there were no Waterstones. Not for me, anyway. Apparently these stones are excavated from deep underground, and then shipped to the tall building in Celadon where they are sold at a high price. First of all, no human would ever sell anything to a Pokemon, especially not a wild one like me. Second of all, even if I slaved away in an exploration team for years I wouldn't earn any human currency, which is what I need.
So the only option for me would be to get myself caught by a human, and have him evolve me. This is a horrible idea. I don't want a trainer! I don't want to fight for a living! And what if he decides not to evolve me, or turn me into a Flareon!? I'd die!
I had no plan. Very little hope. I just went to the school for Pokemon in Celadon City every day, fighting with my fear of fire and avoiding evolutionary items whenever I could.
Then, on... Oh, sometime in the year 2006, summer I think, something happened that would change my life forever. It... Was so innocent. To think that it would one day become something so unearthly and so frightening.
I met Zerobi, the future leader of Evolution's Gate.
Zerobi was a Sneasel in my class. Very elegant and intelligent, but also very dark. She was really into the occult, spouting her mouth about reality-devouring creatures called MissingNo or Mew, Mewtwo and Mewthree.
Although she was very strange in this regard, her looks and natural charms earned her a lot of friends, and she was the talk of all the boys. She would always be reading these "occult magazines", which is probably where she got all her weird ideas from.
I was surprisingly popular in school. While I tended to shy away and avoid large crowds, everyone said it was just cute and wanted to spend time with me anyway. It didn't take long for my fear of fire and plight in evolution to become well known facts in the classroom. And just after that...
"Hey Eve, wanna join me for lunch?" Zerobi said one day after class, with a broad smile on her face.
"I... Uh..." I stammered, never having really talked to her before.
"Come on, I'll share some of my Leppa Cake with you!" she beamed, then moved closer and started to whisper, "Nothin' but small berries!"
"Sure... Why not?" I said, I really didn't have any reason not to go with her.
Although looking back, this might have been the worst mistake of my life. But how could I have known? How could anyone have known!? She was just another girl at our school, how would we have known that she was in fact a vicious, bloodthirsty demon!?
Fine, never mind, I'll continue with the story.
We sat down by the river flowing by Bill's House. Zerobi fumbled about with something in her bag, which looked rather difficult on account of her gloves. Being a Pokemon with sharp claws was already tough whenever you weren't fighting, but the claws of Sneasel are so absurdly sharp that they need wear specially designed gloves at all time as to not hurt those around them.
"You know, the guy that lived here, Bill..." she stared as she pulled out a Leppa Cake and handed it to me, "They say he did some weird experiments in there. Turned people into Pokemon."
"Oh?" I said, not surprised at the subject, "So it's like that movie, Explorers of Time?"
"No, no, that was the other way around" Zero said and laughed, "Haven't you seen the sequel?"
"Oh..." I whispered, not really glad to have the big plot twist spoiled for me, "No, not really."
"Oh! Crap! Did I spoil it for you?" Zerobi exclaimed in shock, "I thought for sure you had seen it! I remember the first day you came to school, hugging that Wigglytuff doll so tight... You were so cute!" I felt a bit embarrassed, remembering how scared I was when I first came here. I sighed and then started eating the Leppa Cake.
We sat there for a while, talking about anything and everything around us. School, our classmates and the people of Cerulean City. Zerobi had many odd thoughts about everyday objects and people. She said that the gym leader Misty had once been on an amazing journey with gym leader Brock and was actually a lot more powerful than she appeared to be. She was really an open person, and even though her ideas were weird they were entertaining to listen to.
"I'd better go home now, or my father will be worried about me" I said after a while, and got up to leave.
"Ah yeah, I heard about your dad" Zerobi said with a low voice, "And about... You."
"About me?" I said, and had a feeling about what she was talking about, "You mean how I love Leppa Cakes?"
"Huh? No. Really?" she said in surprise, but quickly got her serious demeanor back, "Just luck, I guess... No, about you wanting to evolve into a Vaporeon. I can help you with that, you know."
This caught me completely off guard. Many had talked to me about my dreams, but actually suggesting fulfilling them?
"WHAT!? REALLY!?" I shouted in a painfully embarrassing moment, "Ah, sorry, but, you have a, you know, Waterstone?" If anyone could their claws on such a rare artifact, it's Zerobi!
"Nope" she responded, and I sunk. "But there is another way. I have something even better!"
She started digging around in her bag again, and pulled out one of her occult magazines. I was disappointed, but easy come, easy go. At least it would be fun to see what her big plan was.
"See, here, page 13..." she said while flipping through the magazine with unexpected skill considering her normally clumpy claws, "There!" She pointed to an article named 'Eeveelutions - Still Evolving!' with dark, crooked letters. Here's what the article said:
Eeveelutions - Still Evolving!
70 years ago, the only Eeveelutions that existed were Flareon, Vaporeon and Jolteon. By infusing them with the power of the elemental stones, they represented the elements of Fire, Water and Electricity.
However, since then there have been several different Eeveelutions popping up in many new elements, such as Psychic, Dark, Grass and Ice. The evolution methods for these types vary in method, but all stem from the same source - Being infused with the element of their respective Eeveelution.
Although 30 years have passed since the last new Eeveelution (Leafeon) was discovered, scientists believe that the Pokemon known as Eevee can evolve into a Pokemon of any element, given the right stimulation. What kind of stimulation? No one knows. Perhaps if you let your Eevee friend spend a little extra time with some Ghost or Bug Pokemon, you will be the first to discover an entirely new species of Pokemon!
"Hold on, just a minute" the green snake Pokemon in front of me said, "How would you remember something like that in such detail?" His eyes were half closed, but I could tell that they were scanning my every detail with precision as I told the story, looking for signs of dishonesty.
"I cut out that part of the magazine later" I responded, "And read it every day before going to sleep."
"Do you still have it in your possession?" the snake Pokemon said, looking only slightly less bored now than when he had first entered my cell.
"No, I don't know..." I answered truthfully, "Maybe, who knows if it survived the last day over there? I'll get to it later, can you please let me finish my story so I can go home?"
"Yeah, sure" he said and leaned back, "You want a bowl of water or something?"
"No, I'm fine... I've had enough of water" I said before continuing the story.
"So..." I said after finishing reading the article, "What does this have to do with me?"
"You're and Eevee!" Zerobi said happily, "According to this article, you can be anything you want!"
"Yes, but I don't want to become a Ghost-Eevee or Bug-Eevee!" I said with a hint of irritation in my voice, "I want to be a Vaporeon!"
"Don't you get it?" she responded and stood up hastily, "If there are Eevee that can evolve just by being near the elements, who says you can't be infused with water and evolve without a Waterstone?"
"That's... No, that's just" I started saying, but didn't really know what to say, "That's a bit farfetched, isn't it?"
"So is Farfetche'd, that doesn't mean people haven't fetched it!" she responded quickly, obviously having used this retort before.
"Listen, I appreciate the help and all" I said as I got up, "But I'm not going to spend the next month swimming around in water, hoping to evolve. We've got a test on Friday, don't we?" Zerobi looked very disappointed when she picked up her bag.
"OK, fine, I'm not going to force you..." she said, "... Wanna study together tomorrow? I've got a secret for dealing with Rock-types, it's all in their special defense..."
We chatted as we walked home, and I got chastised by my father for staying out so late. I didn't mind.
It was the beginning of a new friendship.
And although we didn't know it, it was also the beginning of Evolution's Gate.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I'm Eve, an Eevee who was named by her unimaginative father. My father was a Houndoom and my mother was a Leafeon. They both fell in love when they were captured by the same trainer, and got quite a reputation after participating in a fight against the Elite Four.
Apparently their trainer died from a disease after attempting to scale a tall mountain, and so on his deathbed he released them and they had me.
I loved my mother very much. She was soft, gentle, loving, everything you could ever want in a mother. We lived in a forest when I was young, when an accident happened that set our burrow ablaze. My father was away, so my mother had to carry me out through the flames. Since I was a Normal type I was able to escape with some minor burns, but mother was a Grass type.
She caught on fire.
As soon as we had escaped the forest, I remember being dropped and seeing my mother covered in fire and screaming. It was corroding her flesh into a blackish hue. She was rolling around on the ground to try to extinguish the fire, but it wouldn't stop. I shouted for help and ran away, trying to find some water, but to no avail. No matter how far I went, I could detect the faint smell of mother somewhere within the thick smoke.
When I came back, she was dead. The mother that had once birthed me, cradled me and loved me like no one else was now no more than a clump of coal. I ran up to her body and cried, and when father came back he cried too, and when all our friends heard of what had happened they cried as well.
Father and I moved into the city after that. I was... Not very stable the years following mother's death, but my father was very protective of me. I love him, too. However, the incident had left me with a heavy scar that not even he could defend me from - A fear of fire.
One might say that a fear of fire is more healthy than destructive. Try saying that after almost freezing to death on a cold winter night, or running away from any Fire Pokemon in the vicinity. No matter what kind of fire it was, I could always see mother writhing among the flames and smell her scent in the smoke. I hated it. I HATE fire!
Father stopped using his Fire moves after the accident. He always said that he was also a Dark type and that he wouldn't need it, but I think he was just worried about me.
As an Eevee, you never really know what is going to happen. Normally you have a trainer who decides what you should evolve into, but for the rest of us it's nerve wrecking. You have to choose between widely different forms to spend the rest of your life as! If you take your time evolving, you become either an Umbreon or Espeon. If you happen to stumble upon the Moss or Ice Rock, you'll become a Leafeon or Glaceon. The easiest way of evolving seems to be getting a hold of one of the elemental stones, so that you can become a Vaporeon, Jolteon or... Or... Flareon...
The thought of one day transforming into a Flareon made me sick to my stomach. With my hate of fire, becoming fire incarnate!? I'd die! No, I had made my decision early - I was going to be a Vaporeon. Extinguisher of flames! Friend of the Grass-types! The distraught of Ground-types! Nothing could fit me any better, I would never have to fear fire again!
The problem is that there were no Waterstones. Not for me, anyway. Apparently these stones are excavated from deep underground, and then shipped to the tall building in Celadon where they are sold at a high price. First of all, no human would ever sell anything to a Pokemon, especially not a wild one like me. Second of all, even if I slaved away in an exploration team for years I wouldn't earn any human currency, which is what I need.
So the only option for me would be to get myself caught by a human, and have him evolve me. This is a horrible idea. I don't want a trainer! I don't want to fight for a living! And what if he decides not to evolve me, or turn me into a Flareon!? I'd die!
I had no plan. Very little hope. I just went to the school for Pokemon in Celadon City every day, fighting with my fear of fire and avoiding evolutionary items whenever I could.
Then, on... Oh, sometime in the year 2006, summer I think, something happened that would change my life forever. It... Was so innocent. To think that it would one day become something so unearthly and so frightening.
I met Zerobi, the future leader of Evolution's Gate.
Zerobi was a Sneasel in my class. Very elegant and intelligent, but also very dark. She was really into the occult, spouting her mouth about reality-devouring creatures called MissingNo or Mew, Mewtwo and Mewthree.
Although she was very strange in this regard, her looks and natural charms earned her a lot of friends, and she was the talk of all the boys. She would always be reading these "occult magazines", which is probably where she got all her weird ideas from.
I was surprisingly popular in school. While I tended to shy away and avoid large crowds, everyone said it was just cute and wanted to spend time with me anyway. It didn't take long for my fear of fire and plight in evolution to become well known facts in the classroom. And just after that...
"Hey Eve, wanna join me for lunch?" Zerobi said one day after class, with a broad smile on her face.
"I... Uh..." I stammered, never having really talked to her before.
"Come on, I'll share some of my Leppa Cake with you!" she beamed, then moved closer and started to whisper, "Nothin' but small berries!"
"Sure... Why not?" I said, I really didn't have any reason not to go with her.
Although looking back, this might have been the worst mistake of my life. But how could I have known? How could anyone have known!? She was just another girl at our school, how would we have known that she was in fact a vicious, bloodthirsty demon!?
Fine, never mind, I'll continue with the story.
We sat down by the river flowing by Bill's House. Zerobi fumbled about with something in her bag, which looked rather difficult on account of her gloves. Being a Pokemon with sharp claws was already tough whenever you weren't fighting, but the claws of Sneasel are so absurdly sharp that they need wear specially designed gloves at all time as to not hurt those around them.
"You know, the guy that lived here, Bill..." she stared as she pulled out a Leppa Cake and handed it to me, "They say he did some weird experiments in there. Turned people into Pokemon."
"Oh?" I said, not surprised at the subject, "So it's like that movie, Explorers of Time?"
"No, no, that was the other way around" Zero said and laughed, "Haven't you seen the sequel?"
"Oh..." I whispered, not really glad to have the big plot twist spoiled for me, "No, not really."
"Oh! Crap! Did I spoil it for you?" Zerobi exclaimed in shock, "I thought for sure you had seen it! I remember the first day you came to school, hugging that Wigglytuff doll so tight... You were so cute!" I felt a bit embarrassed, remembering how scared I was when I first came here. I sighed and then started eating the Leppa Cake.
We sat there for a while, talking about anything and everything around us. School, our classmates and the people of Cerulean City. Zerobi had many odd thoughts about everyday objects and people. She said that the gym leader Misty had once been on an amazing journey with gym leader Brock and was actually a lot more powerful than she appeared to be. She was really an open person, and even though her ideas were weird they were entertaining to listen to.
"I'd better go home now, or my father will be worried about me" I said after a while, and got up to leave.
"Ah yeah, I heard about your dad" Zerobi said with a low voice, "And about... You."
"About me?" I said, and had a feeling about what she was talking about, "You mean how I love Leppa Cakes?"
"Huh? No. Really?" she said in surprise, but quickly got her serious demeanor back, "Just luck, I guess... No, about you wanting to evolve into a Vaporeon. I can help you with that, you know."
This caught me completely off guard. Many had talked to me about my dreams, but actually suggesting fulfilling them?
"WHAT!? REALLY!?" I shouted in a painfully embarrassing moment, "Ah, sorry, but, you have a, you know, Waterstone?" If anyone could their claws on such a rare artifact, it's Zerobi!
"Nope" she responded, and I sunk. "But there is another way. I have something even better!"
She started digging around in her bag again, and pulled out one of her occult magazines. I was disappointed, but easy come, easy go. At least it would be fun to see what her big plan was.
"See, here, page 13..." she said while flipping through the magazine with unexpected skill considering her normally clumpy claws, "There!" She pointed to an article named 'Eeveelutions - Still Evolving!' with dark, crooked letters. Here's what the article said:
70 years ago, the only Eeveelutions that existed were Flareon, Vaporeon and Jolteon. By infusing them with the power of the elemental stones, they represented the elements of Fire, Water and Electricity.
However, since then there have been several different Eeveelutions popping up in many new elements, such as Psychic, Dark, Grass and Ice. The evolution methods for these types vary in method, but all stem from the same source - Being infused with the element of their respective Eeveelution.
Although 30 years have passed since the last new Eeveelution (Leafeon) was discovered, scientists believe that the Pokemon known as Eevee can evolve into a Pokemon of any element, given the right stimulation. What kind of stimulation? No one knows. Perhaps if you let your Eevee friend spend a little extra time with some Ghost or Bug Pokemon, you will be the first to discover an entirely new species of Pokemon!
"Hold on, just a minute" the green snake Pokemon in front of me said, "How would you remember something like that in such detail?" His eyes were half closed, but I could tell that they were scanning my every detail with precision as I told the story, looking for signs of dishonesty.
"I cut out that part of the magazine later" I responded, "And read it every day before going to sleep."
"Do you still have it in your possession?" the snake Pokemon said, looking only slightly less bored now than when he had first entered my cell.
"No, I don't know..." I answered truthfully, "Maybe, who knows if it survived the last day over there? I'll get to it later, can you please let me finish my story so I can go home?"
"Yeah, sure" he said and leaned back, "You want a bowl of water or something?"
"No, I'm fine... I've had enough of water" I said before continuing the story.
"So..." I said after finishing reading the article, "What does this have to do with me?"
"You're and Eevee!" Zerobi said happily, "According to this article, you can be anything you want!"
"Yes, but I don't want to become a Ghost-Eevee or Bug-Eevee!" I said with a hint of irritation in my voice, "I want to be a Vaporeon!"
"Don't you get it?" she responded and stood up hastily, "If there are Eevee that can evolve just by being near the elements, who says you can't be infused with water and evolve without a Waterstone?"
"That's... No, that's just" I started saying, but didn't really know what to say, "That's a bit farfetched, isn't it?"
"So is Farfetche'd, that doesn't mean people haven't fetched it!" she responded quickly, obviously having used this retort before.
"Listen, I appreciate the help and all" I said as I got up, "But I'm not going to spend the next month swimming around in water, hoping to evolve. We've got a test on Friday, don't we?" Zerobi looked very disappointed when she picked up her bag.
"OK, fine, I'm not going to force you..." she said, "... Wanna study together tomorrow? I've got a secret for dealing with Rock-types, it's all in their special defense..."
We chatted as we walked home, and I got chastised by my father for staying out so late. I didn't mind.
It was the beginning of a new friendship.
And although we didn't know it, it was also the beginning of Evolution's Gate.
- - - - - - - - - - -