I awoke the next day, well rested. Unlike the night before, I had gotten a full night’s sleep mostly undisturbed. Sitting up in the bed, I soon realized that Mina was not lying next to me. The next thing I realized was the fact that I was missing my pants and if it wasn’t for my shirt, I would have been lying in bed stark naked. It wasn’t until I scratched my head for a few moments did I finally remember what had happened last night. I can’t believe I could have forgotten, Mina had given herself to me… in more ways than just her pokéball.

I got out of the bed, still feeling a bit groggy and I had to laugh at our experience as I noted the shed fur and dried wet spots on the sheets. ‘I’m gonna have to wash these myself.’ I thought while stepping closer to the closed bathroom door. I could hear frustrated grunts as well as running water on the other side as I put my head closer to the wooden panel and listened.

“Hey… Mina, are you alright in there?” I asked through the door. I heard Mina give out a surprised yip inside and a bit of shuffling as well as claws clicking along the thick plastic bath tub. Eventually she responded, “Uh, y-yea Luke, I’m fine… I just, hair and- uuuhhhg!” Suddenly I heard and felt a dull thump as well as a splash resound out of the room. I wanted to bust into the bathroom to see if she was alright, but her voice sounded again allowing me to enter in a calmer state.

“Luke, I lied, I’m not alright, I need help, please!” With that I carefully opened the door to view the scene inside. The floor was soaking wet and everything on the sink was strewn all over the place, the soap, our tooth brushes, those little hand towel things. The bathroom was a complete mess! I looked in the tub and saw Mina had filled it up in an attempt to take a bath. She had always soaked herself in soapy water as a Zorua, but now she was too big for a bath and the water was splashing out over the sides.

Mina lay in the over flowing tub with the shower head still running, looking up at me with a sorry expression. I could tell that all this was a huge accident. “I tried to take a bath, but the water went out of the tub!” she whined. “I tried to clean it up with some towels and then my hair knocked everything off of the sink. Then I was trying to drain the tub to take a shower like you do, and I slipped.”

Hearing her ridiculous story, I couldn’t help but crack up at her endeavor. My laughter filled the room earning a cherri berry blush from beneath her soaked fur. Mina pursed her lips and started to try to embarrass me, “Hey! You’re still half naked!” I continued to laugh, “I may be half naked, but at least I didn’t make a complete mess of the bathroom!” Seeing that her comment did nothing to me, Mina tried a different tactic. Drooping her ears, she went wide eyed as she looked up to me from the tub, a general Poochienna face.

“Lukey, please help me, I don’t know what to do…” For added effect, she stuck out her bottom lip ever so slightly. I slowly stopped laughing. For her… “Okay, Mina. I can help.” I said, coming closer to the tub. “First thing we need to do, is get rid of all this water.” I turned off the shower nozzle and unplugged the drain to let the water go. While that was going on, I turned to clean up all the water on the floor as well as fix up the sink area. I had just managed to get all of that taken care of when I could hear the last sounds of the water sucking in air as it went down the drain.

“Now, we stand up, close the curtain and turn the water back on.” Usually I would bather her in her Zorua form from outside of the bathtub in a pair of shorts, but seeing as how we had sex last night, I guessed it didn’t matter anymore. Mina stood up as I turned on the shower nozzle. I noticed that she still had in her hair tie and took it off for her. After placing it on the sink, I removed my shirt, pulled open the curtain and entered the shower with her. Seeing me enter the curtain, Mina gave a soft yip in surprise, as I said, never did this before. She must have had the same idea I had about the events we have already been through, and gave a welcoming smile as her bushy red hair started to fill with water again.

Now that she was wet, I could finally get a good look at Mina’s new form. She was very well toned for a contest battler. Her fur hid her muscles very well, and even though she wasn’t buff, I could tell that she had the strength to rip someone apart. To add to that power, she had four large red claws coming out of their respective finger nubs which were attached to a paw, and I was surprised to find that she also had thumbs! The thumbs also had claws on them, but they were much smaller. Each paw was connected to a thin, but muscular, arm that lead to her black chest fluff and into her small shoulders.

I was also surprised to find that she had breasts underneath her fluff. They weren’t very large, and I wouldn’t say they were ‘hanging’ but they definitely were there. I then took a look at her lower half. She seemed to have lost her tail during the evolution, but the amount of hair she had more than made up for it as it flowed behind her when she walked. She also had nice muscular legs, you could tell she ran a lot. Her legs led to her feet which were sectioned off like a canine’s would be, and on her feet were three clawed toes attached to each paw. I thought to myself for a minute, it sure was weird that she had three toes, but four fingers. I didn’t question it though, Mina was beautiful no matter what oddities she had.

Mina must have seen me gawking at her as the water ran over us both. Honestly it would be hard for her to NOT notice, as the shower was just barely big enough for us both. “Ahem.” She grabbed my attention snapping my eyed from her body. I could only look up at her and give a weak smile. I knew I would be in a little bit of trouble later, but for now, Mina just smiled back to me and turned around. “Could you get my back please?”

I looked to the bathtub floor and saw that the bottle of pokémon shampoo I had gotten for her a while back (Pecha berry blast) was still almost full as I picked it up and squirted a, rather larger than normal, glob in my hands. I could tell I would have to stock up on more bottles of this stuff because of Mina’s new body, with this washing, it was already half empty. Not wanting to concern myself with it, I happily went to work scrubbing Mina’s back and hair with the shampoo as she did her front. I slid my hands down her back and up again running my fingers through her fur. Getting to her shoulders, I noticed a lot of tension building in her muscles, to which I stared to gently massage.

Mina’s ears perked up, splashing a bit of water in my face as she felt my concentrated rubbing. “Ohhh, Luke, that’s great, don’t stop…” she moaned. I didn’t want to, I had no idea she was this tense! I had given Mina quite a few massages in the past, but she never had knots as big as these. I figured it was the result of her evolution.

“Mina, how come you didn’t tell me you were hurting this badly?” I asked with a concerned voice. The Zoroark caught on to my tone as she let her head hang down and gave a sigh. “I didn’t want to spoil the day.” I didn’t know what she meant by that, so I gave out a confused “huh?” while still stroking her shoulders.

“You worked hard all yesterday to give me the best birthday ever…” she began quietly. “I didn’t want to trouble you with my problems anymore.” Hearing this, I stopped rubbing and turned Mina to face me, and embraced her in a hug. She gave out a gasp as I drew her in with the water flowing between us.

“Oh honey, you need to stop worrying about how I feel. Just making you happy makes me happy.” Mina giggled and hugged me back. “Besides, it’s not like I would have beaten you with a stick if you had just asked.” Mina gave me a soft laugh at my sense of humor, then it seemed as though her seductiveness took hold of her personality again.

“You can beat me with your stick any time you want, Lukey.” Mina whispered into my ear as she gave me a lick on the cheek. I released my hug, turned her around and laid my chin on her shoulder as I began to stroke her sides. “Not so fast sweetie. We’d have another mess on our hands if I did that now wouldn’t we?” I falsely scolded her, trying to contain my laughing under my breath. “We might never get out of this shower…” Mina gave out a soft “Awww” as I turned down her offer.

It took half an hour but at last, we were both clean. After drying Mina off, I brushed out her hair and fur as well as refastening the tie my mother had given her. I donned a new outfit and stripped the bed of the dirty sheets while Mina began packing our various sundries, my clothes, and miscellaneous items. She was moving pretty fast, going about the room, making sure she got everything packed in my bag until she came upon her pokéball that lay on the night stand.

Mina gently picked up the ball and looked at it with wonder. Once I had gotten the sheets off the bed I remembered to get my soulstone from the nightstand drawer. After putting the glowing luminescent stone around my neck I looked to Mina who sat on the bed with her ball in her paws.

“Are you okay sweetie?” Mina broke her trance and looked to me and then back at the ball.

“Oh! Um, yea I’m okay. I just… I can’t believe how beautiful this thing is.” Mina trailed off in her distraction. The ball continued to glow red, green, and blue as she turned it in all different directions.

“Well, of course it is! I had to pay an arm and leg for it.” I jested. The comment made Mina look back up to me with a bit of fear, as if I actually had to give away some of my limbs for her ball. Seeing my smile though, she quickly caught on to the joke. “Hmmph… and people say my species are natural tricksters.” She retorted, eliciting a chuckle from me. I turned to the pile of dirty laundry I had set out and started to collect it up to take downstairs.

“Do you wanna help me with the laundry?” I asked, turning slightly. I didn’t get a response from Mina though. She just sat on the bed staring at her pokéball. I didn’t press the issue, she must have a lot on her mind, and I would bet she doesn’t need me to pry into her thoughts. I simply opened the door, looked back at her and with a faint smile said, “Okay honey, I’ll be back in a little while, don’t let the cleaning lady take our stuff, okay?” Mina sat on the bed and nodded while maintaining eye contact with the glowing sphere as I closed the door behind me taking the pile to the laundromat next door.

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(Mina)
Luke had left to do the laundry. I should’ve jumped off the bed and helped him when he asked if I wanted to help, but really… ‘Who wants to do laundry? Not me.’ I thought. As I heard the door click closed I looked to where Luke had left the room. I had gotten just about everything packed up and ready to go, with the exception of my ball. Now there was nothing to do, other than wait for Luke to return… Or should I call him my trainer? Master? No. He wouldn’t like that.

Besides, it was my wish to bind myself to him like this and there was something about this ball that seemed weird to me. When I got sucked inside of it, I had expected it to hurt, but I didn’t feel anything. Luke had once told me that he hated pokéballs because they force pokémon to feel things about the human that captures them; things that they wouldn’t have felt on their own, but my feelings for Luke haven’t changed. At least, I didn’t think they have. Ever since he slammed into my tree back in Anville town, I harbored an attraction to him.

I laid back on the bed; it was of course stripped of its sheets, but still pretty comfy. I brought the ball I held in my paws closer to my face. I can’t believe how beautiful this thing is; I’ve never seen anything like it! While it’s true that other trainers had painted pokéballs, none that I have seen came close to this one, firstly because none of them glow, and mine does. I had to think for a moment about what it was. I had seen things that glow in the dark, but this glows even in broad daylight! Being a pokémon though, I didn’t quite understand how paint worked and I no matter how much I thought on the subject, I couldn’t figure it out; so I just assumed it was magic or love… or something like that. Finally I gave up and brought the object into my chest fluff, crisscrossing my arms over it, and stared into the ceiling.

After what felt like hours of sitting in silence, I decided that now would be a good time to finish packing and close up the room. Luke had left me with both of the card keys he had gotten from nurse joy, so with a huff, I jumped off the bed and placed my ball in Luke’s backpack. Making sure I got everything, I slung the bag over my shoulder and grabbed the keys off of the nightstand. After turning off the light, I locked and closed the door behind me for the last time in this city.

I took a look at the plaque next to the door to remember the room number and once again, I rounded the bottom of the stairs in the pokémon center, but this time I didn’t have to avoid Nurse Joy. Instead I walked right up to her earning a soft smile from the woman as I laid Luke’s bag on the counter. “Hello dear, how can I help you?”

I started to speak my business, but then I realized that I had forgotten to go into human form because of my new height, and she wouldn’t be able to understand me. I then opted to simply put the keys on the counter. “Oh, I see, are you wanting to check out then?” the nurse responded, to which I just gave a grunt and nod. “Well I’m sorry, but I need your trainer to tell me the room number whenever they get the chance.”

I rolled my eyes at her unintentional insult and gestured for a pen and paper. Nurse Joy seemed confused for a moment, but then reached below and gave me what I asked for. I took the pen in my paw and wrote down the room number and Luke’s name even dotting the “i” with a heart as I narrowed my eyes at the nurse. “Oh! I see. Alright I guess that’s fine then. Tell Luke I said good luck on your travels.” She gave me a smile and waved as I left with Luke’s bag in hand.

By the time I met up with Luke, the laundry had all been done. We packed up what he had washed, save for the bed sheets which went back to the pokémon center, and began to set out on our journey to Opelucid City. We decided it would be best to head West through Mistralton City, as we have never actually been through Twist Mountain. I walked beside Luke as we traveled upstream paw in hand.

In all of our travels, I would usually sit on his shoulders while he hiked the trails, but because of my evolution, I knew that would have to end. Besides, Luke had enough weight on him without me on his back as well; as I understand, the bag he carried was a bit larger than normal. It was certainly larger than the bags we would take to school. On the day we set out, Luke had made sure to pack just about everything we would need in there; Sleeping bags, pots, clothes… you name it. Of course, things would break from time to time, but thanks to the contests, we always had money to replace them.

We occasionally noticed some of the fish jumping out of the water; the sudden cold splash from a Magicarp, or Finneon would send shivers up my spine, earning a soft chuckle from Luke who always seemed to come out dry. Each time, I would rub myself up against him to share the wetness. We would laugh and instead of pushing me away, like I expected, he hugged me back.

Traveling for a few hours now, the sun was starting to fall to the horizon, its magnificent orange glow lining the treetops. Luke and I paused to take in the scene. We had left the river and started to travel through the forest. That’s when we had decided to make camp in this little clearing. Luke went about setting up the small portable tent as I went to pick some berries. Eating meat at restaurants wasn’t a big deal for us, but doing it out here in the wild proved to be more of a challenge. Not that we couldn’t catch anything, but Luke felt bad about hunting for food. I can understand his problem; it really is hard to eat something you can talk to. Never the less, we had sort of made it a ritual to eat barriers on the road and meat in towns.

I had climbed up a smaller pecha tree and grabbed a nice plump one to go with the rest I held in my arms. ‘Being a Zoroark makes sooo much easier.” I thought as I jumped to the ground.

Suddenly I heard rustling in the bushes behind me and turned to find a human poking its head out of the bushes. I thought it would be Luke joining me in the berry picking after setting up the tent, but to my surprise, this was a stranger. He looked at me with an equal amount of surprise on his face as I had on mine. Obviously a trainer, I could see his pokéball belt was all but full with just one empty spot.

“Oh, Arceus! A Zoroark! That’ll make a great addition to my team!” The trainer exclaimed to himself, drawing out a ball from his belt and throwing it my way. In a flash of light, an Arcanine was released from the ball. The large dog gave out a proud roar before lowering itself into a fighting position. I simply stood there with a wide eyed look at the pokémon, blinked twice and bolted back to where I knew the clearing was.

“HEY! Get back here!” The trainer was hot on my heels though with his pokémon leading the way. Thinking quick, I turned around for a split second and pelted the human in the face with the juicy pecha berry I had just picked. He gave out a disgusted grunt, but it didn’t seem to slow him down any.

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(Luke)
Mina had gone to get us berries for dinner while I stayed at the camp site to set up our tent. This arrangement was sort of the norm, but that didn’t mean I liked it any better. I always worried about her being on her own even though I knew she could more than handle herself. It didn’t take me long to finish setting the tent up and Mina had yet to come back. I figured I might as well start a fire out of all the dead branches that lay about. I didn’t have time to even start working on it when I saw Mina burst into the clearing with her arms full of berries. She was panting hard and running towards me in a full sprint.

“GET DOWN!!” Mina yelled at me. The statement didn’t require any action on my part, as she tackled me to the ground, tossing the berries aside. Just then, a gigantic fire ball wizzed by our heads. To my relief, it didn’t hit the tent. An Arcanine and a teenage boy jumped out of the bushes a split second later. He saw Mina on top of me and drew out a pokéball.

“Oh no ya don’t,” He shouted towards us, “That Zoroark is mine!” With a grunt he threw the pokéball at mina. Now it was my turn, I pushed Mina off of me and in a fluid motion took my place on top of her, as I brought myself up to my knees. The ball made its way towards us in no time, and upon some kind of instinct, I raised my hand and caught the ball as it slammed into my palm.

I threw the bland standard pokéball to the side and shot an angry glare at the kid who threw it. “Are you some kind of moron!?” My anger started to boil. How dare he want to trap anything in one of those! The trainer looked towards me with a confused stare for a while until it finally hit him. Mina was already spoken for. With a defeated sigh, he withdrew the Arcanine and replaced one of the missing slots on his belt.

“I- I’m really sorry about that, I didn’t know that was your Zoroark.” The sentence didn’t help to quell my frustration any. I could tell just what kind of person he was just from the two minutes I’ve known of him. Besides his attitude; his beanie, slouchy stance, chained wallet, droopy eyes, and the way he carelessly returned his pokémon, clearly told me that he wasn’t the type of trainer I would get along with.

I sat down cross legged and helped Mina into a sitting position as well. I decided it might be better to cast my anger aside rather than to confront the arrogant young man. “This isn’t ‘my Zoroark.’ Her name is Mina, and she’s… someone really special to me.” Mina a yip in agreement and laid her paws in her lap as she leaned forward to the trainer.

“Okay dude, but I really am sorry about this, how bout I camp out with you guys tonight? I got burgers~~” He ended his request with a sing-songy tone as if enticing us with the promise of make-up food. He seemed to make Mina completely forget what had happened as she gave a smile and a nod, to which I could only go along with and utter an ‘alright’ through a sigh.

We all had collected a sizeable pile of dead branches and I started to attempt to light off part of it as I normally would when Mina and I would when we camped in the wilderness. However, the trainer, who had still not mentioned his name, had a better idea. Taking a ball off of his belt, he once again called out the Arcanine. “Use flame thrower on that pile Arcanine!” The pokémon gave out a howl and set the branches ablaze.

The kid gave the dog a pat on the head as he smiled. “Good job boy.” He then lifted up the ball to return the Arcanine. I abruptly stopped him, “DON’T!” The trainer looked to me with surprise painted on his face. “Don’t you dare put him back in there.” He then glanced at the ball for a second before putting it away and replying “O-okay…” The Arcanine also looked at me with a confused stare but then bowed his head and uttered a barely audible, ‘thank you.’ I could tell he wasn’t directly talking to me though, as I wouldn’t expect him to know I could understand him. I simply gave a slight smile and a nod to him.

We all sat around the fire exchanging adventures… well, just me and him. I didn’t want him to know my ability and Mina kept to my side and didn’t really converse with the Arcanine, save for an apology.

The trainer, whom I came to know as Caleb, had been traveling since he was twelve which was only three years ago. Like me, he was headed for Mistralton City, but he was in it for the gym badge whereas I was just passing through. Apparently his ambition was to take on the league and become the champion. He did have some humility though, because he mentioned that he was not anywhere near strong enough to defeat dragon master Iris.

Caleb did come through on his word as he brought out two burgers and a bag of pokémon food. I assumed he wanted to feed Mina that stuff as well, but I wouldn’t have it. I ended up sneaking her my burger when he wasn’t looking. I’d have to eat berries later. The Arcanine however, was out of luck, but he didn’t seem to mind eating out of a dish filled with the little pellets. I would have asked if his other pokémon would like something to eat, but I knew from school that pokémon in balls don’t get hungry unless they are out of the pokéballs and exercising, and something told me that the others in his team didn’t get out much.

After a few hours sitting around the fire, I saw Mina give out a yawn. Caleb didn’t have the luxuries of owning a tent, but he did set up a sleeping bag a few meters away from ours. The only thing keeping him at the fire was Mina and I. I could tell he was starting to fall asleep and I decided that it would be a good idea to go to bed as well. The Arcanine was already fast asleep a few feet away from Caleb.

“Well, it’s been great, but Mina and I are going to go to bed now. I guess you’ll stay until morning?” The trainer got up from the ground and stretched wide. “well, we’re both going to Mistralton right? I thought maybe I could tag along with you until we get there.”

‘Fantastic,’ I thought sarcastically, ‘now he’s going to follow me around for this whole trip.’ As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t just tell him to leave though. “yyyeeaaah… Alright, I guess we can go together.” I gave him the best fake smile I could manage. “See ya in the morning, man.” With that, I got up from the ground and opened the tent for Mina to go inside first. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Caleb giving me an awkward stare as Mina entered. Ignoring it, I gave him a nod as I entered and zipped up the doorway behind me.

“So… what do you think?” I whispered to Mina who was now sitting on top of our sleeping bag. Waiting for a response I picked up one of the pecha berries she had stashed in the corner and started to eat the juicy fruit.

“Caleb?” she asked, “I think he’s a jerk. That Arcanine doesn’t look happy at all and I can’t believe you said he could come with us!”Mina didn’t bother keeping her voice down knowing that the trainer couldn’t understand her anyway. “Sorry, but I can’t just be an ass hole to him. He probably doesn’t understand pokémon’s feelings. Maybe we can change that…” That got me thinking. Maybe I really could turn him around; he was only fifteen after all. “I have to talk to his pokémon though. Then we can decide what to do with him.”

Mina crossed her arms turned her head up and to the side giving out a ‘hmph’ “I say we wake up early and leave him.” She tried to think of the cruelest thing we could do to this kid, but I could hear a little bit of humor in her words which meant she wasn’t serious. “But… I guess we can do your thing.”

Mina and I stayed up for quite a bit longer waiting for Caleb to fall asleep. The sound of Criketunes’ chirping in the night made it so hard to not fall asleep ourselves. Cautiously, I unzipped the tent and poked my head out. The fire was gone now and with it, the cold of night had returned to the air. With Mina by my side, it didn’t bother me much, her fur acted like a thick blanket warming us both. Caleb however, was on his own huddled for warmth in his sleeping bag, his Arcanine several feet away from him. I was glad to see that he hadn’t returned him and opted to let him stay out of the ball, if only to make me happy.

Seeing the trainer was soundly snoring, Mina and I slowly and quietly exited the tent. The cold we grass on my bare feet sent shivers up my spine. Our first target was the Arcanine. As we drew near to him, I stepped on a dried leaf, sending the crackling sound out through the clearing. The Arcanine snapped up from his laying position to look in the direction of the sound. I instantly froze as his gaze met mine.

I lifted a finger to my lips in the universal ‘sshhhhhh’ sign. Mina then gestured for him to follow us into the forest so we could have a chat. The large dog gave out a sigh and lifted himself up and stretched out the tiredness. Mina led him behind our tent and into the dense forest. I took a look around for a moment and saw Caleb’s pokéball belt draped over his backpack, stocked with four other balls. Once the other two were out of sight, I made my way over to the kid’s bag and slowly lifted the belt to my chest. He didn’t even stir as I left with his pokémon to meet up with Mina and Arcanine.

As I entered the forest with the balls over my shoulder, I saw Mina and Arcanine waiting for me. The orange wolf saw me with his trainer’s other pokémon and started to growl at me. I guess he must have thought I was going to steal them. “Whoa, calm down buddy, I’m not going to run off with your friends.” My words calmed his growling. “We just want to talk to you guys.” This made the dog narrow his eyes and tilt his head to the side. Then I heard him speak for the first time.

“Talk?” he slowly questioned the word with disbelief in his voice. I gave him a smile, “That’s right… talk. We can start with names, mine is Luke, and this is Mina.” I gestured to the Zoroark who sat lovely on top of a fallen log.

“M-my… Name?” he stammered out in confusion. I could tell by the look in his dark grey eyes that he knew he had a name, but for some reason, he couldn’t quite remember it. “No one, has asked for my name, in a long time. I- I remember, before. When I was still a pup, before Caleb, I think, my name, it was… T- Terkin.” The name was quite a bit to get out of him. I could imagine three years being called by what you are instead of who you are, was enough to make anyone start to forget.

“Well Terkin, Mina and I want to talk to you and the others about Caleb.” This sent a bit of alarm through him. He didn’t look like he wanted to talk about his trainer. “It’s okay, I just want to get a little more perspective.” I laid the belt on the log next to Mina and we each pulled out two pokéballs. She knew how they worked by now, she did go to school with me for a year after all. Without any delay we brought out the ball’s contents.

A Pawniard, an Axew, an Emolga, and a Gallade. Each pokémon emerged from their balls ready for a fight, but then lowered their fists, blades, claws, and other appendages in confusion when they realized there was no opponent to fight. The tension wasn’t over yet, because like Terkin, they all thought they had been stolen. The pokémon started exchanging worried whines and grunts. Mina was the first to try to calm the group down.

“Everyone calm down, we are not taking you away from your trainer! Luke and I just want to talk with you.” Terkin gave a supporting grunt and the group seemed to get the message. I took a look over the pokémon lined up about the area. I decided to pick out the oldest looking one in the group. “Hey there.” The Gallade looked up from the ground to look me in the eye. He was a bit taller than I was so he was still looking down at me. He gave a grunt and pointed his thumb at his chest as if caught off guard I had called upon him.

“Yep, you. What’s your name?” The pokémon thought for a second but he soon remembered. “Caleb’s father… he named me Glade when I hatched during his years as a trainer.” Glade bowed his head to me.

“You, hatched with that kid’s dad?” I had to question this. Based on how Caleb was, it sounded good to hear that his father was a kinder person. “Yea…” he replied, “I never knew my real parents, but his father raised me like a son, and sent me with Caleb to protect him.” How sweet, I thought. “I’m sure you would be able to do that a lot better from outside that pokéball wouldn’t you?” Upon hearing my comment Glade hung his head and closed his red eyes.

“I remember walking beside the man on our journeys. Seeing the world, fighting at his side… it was great, and truthfully I do miss it.” The Gallade lowered his voice in shame. I didn’t mean to make him feel bad, but I guess it couldn’t be helped. “I’m sorry, Glade. Maybe when we’re done with him, Caleb will let you walk by him just like his father did.” Glade gave a slight smile through his pained look.

Mina had decided to start on the next pokémon, the Pawniard named Gyro. “So what do you think about Caleb?” Mina started to ask him rather bluntly. Her choice of words was well picked though, as the Gyro was the type of pokémon to not ‘beat around the bush’ as the saying goes.

“Caleb? He’s a good trainer, but I don’t really know him all that well. I fight for him; I win badges, that’s all.” I can tell Gyro didn’t have a very good relationship with the kid. Maybe he was afraid of him? Keeping the Pawniard in the ball was a sorry excuse for avoiding an accidental injury though. The Emolga was the next to speak her word. Her name was Kimi, and she didn’t seem to have any nice words for Caleb.

“I don’t like him! He’s not nice to me, and he only puts me into battle so he can heal Juko, or Arcanine!” She didn’t even know Terkin’s name? The Axew heard her comment and lit up, “I’m sorry! I try my best, but he doesn’t know how to play my type advantage! In the last battle I was in, he sent me up against a Glalie, I mean, C’mon! I can’t handle cold!

I had to break this up before it got out of hand. “Guys, quiet down! You all are talking about battles… don’t you ever do anything else?” Not a single one of them let out a sound. Mina spoke up to break the silence, “Oh… come on. Anything?” her voice broke into a pitch of desperation. “Nothing? Battling is the only thing you do?” Still no sound came from the group. They all just hung their heads down to the ground.

This was worse than I thought. It would have made me feel so much better if they got out to exercise, or even if Caleb had picked one at random and let them out for a day, but this was just heart breaking. “I have just one more thing to ask…” I said with a quiet voice, “does Caleb ever call you by your names?”

Once again, not a single pokémon spoke up. Just as I thought, this kid didn’t see pokémon as friends, or companions, or even partners. Pokémon to him, are tools to get what he wants. Tools that he would replace when broken, or wasn’t to his standards without a care. This thought saddened me to no end. How could someone think this way? How could he treat them like this? Words couldn’t describe the thoughts that raced through my mind. I had to do something… for them.