Mina and I awoke early the next morning. As usual, we didn’t even bother with setting out the other sleeping bag; we simply wedged ourselves into the one. Her larger form made it a bit more cramped, but I found that it was more comfortable than previous camping experiences. Despite our little adventure the night before, we had managed to get a good night’s rest. I had made sure to return all of the pokémon back in their balls, despite how much I didn’t want to, and put the belt back over Caleb’s backpack. Terkin went back to his spot and peacefully fell asleep on the cool grass. The night before, I had vowed to change Caleb’s view on how to properly take care of his pokémon, and I knew I had my work cut out for me.

I was surprised to find that the kid was still snoring away in his sleeping bag on the other side of what was our campfire. Mina and I didn’t usually eat breakfast on the road, but since we had company, I figured we could spare the left over berries Mina had picked yesterday. I used the rest of the timber that we didn’t burn last night to roast the plump fruits to perfection. The aroma of roasted pecha berries wafted itself over Caleb and the Arcanine whom, upon smelling it, decided now would be a good time to get up.

I made sure Mina and Terkin were the first to enjoy the breakfast, leaving mine and Caleb’s for last. I wasn’t trying to teach the trainer anything yet; it’s just how I operate. Mina always comes first. Before I allowed Caleb and myself to take any however, I noticed we had plenty to feed his team, but we would have to go without. I saw this as my first chance to edge in some humility.

“Hey Caleb,” I uttered after serving Terkin, “why don’t you let your other pokémon out? I’m sure they’d love to have some of this.” I’m not really sure if he did it to satisfy me, or if he genuinely wanted share breakfast with his pokémon, but in any case, he grabbed the balls off of his belt and released them all. Upon seeing his pokémon, I pretended to be surprised, if only to not let on our conversation the previous night.

Just as I had predicted, after he let his pokémon eat, there were no more berries left for us. Caleb predictably got depressed as he watched his team consume the berries, occasionally giving out pained grunts accompanied by stomach growling. I feigned to notice the berries were gone and semi-sarcastically suggested an alternative. “Oh no, all the berries are gone! Oh well, no big deal. You have that Pokémon food right?” The words seemed to go through his mind for a second before he simply nodded his head, not sure where I was going with this. “Well, why don’t we try some of that?”

“You’re joking… right? I’m not going to eat pokémon food! I’d rather starve!” I half expected to hear him say this. Even less of what I expected, was for Mina to catch on to our problem and sneak away to find more berries, but I guess it worked out for the better. She returned just after I suggested eating the pokémon food with half an armful of assorted berries. Some pecha, some cheri, even a rawst berry or two.

“Oh, thank you so much honey! You didn’t have to do that.” I said in a thankful tone as she plopped the pile into the skillet. Mina gave me a smile as she said it was no problem. To Caleb, it would just be yips. I smiled and pat her on the head, trying to display a normal ‘trainer pokémon’ relationship. It confused her for a little bit, but she soon caught on to what I was getting at.

I turned to Caleb who was staring intently at the berries Mina had put into the skillet. “Arceus, I love her, always looking out for me… and look at that! She brought enough for you too!” The kid took a moment to look up from the skillet. “Yea, you sure trained that Zoroark good…” I decided to ignore his grammatical error and go straight for the point of this entire endeavor.

“Pfsh…” I blew off his comment, “that’s not training, that’s friendship… I’m sure any one of your pokémon would do the same for you.” Of course I knew they wouldn’t, but I wanted to see his reaction. He just gave a slight smile as he looked over at his team. “Yea… I don’t know. I’ve never really been in that situation before.”

We finished breakfast and packed up the tent and sleeping bags. I made sure Caleb kept his team out of their balls as we continued once again on our journey. Once on the road again, Mina decided to hang back with the pokémon, allowing Caleb and I to have a chat between ourselves.

“You know, nothing makes me happier than to see Mina’s smiling face every morni-” I was starting to go on my soft speech about friendship, but the trainer cut me off mid sentence. “Hey, do you ever put her in her ball?” Oh boy, now I can start real talk.

“Of course not! Why would I do that?” Caleb seemed to be a little taken back by my answer. He had his own reasons that I didn’t really account for. “Well, she is way stronger than you isn’t she? Doesn’t it bother you that if you make her mad one day, you might end up dead?” I tried to think around what he might have meant by this comment. Was it serious? I never thought of that being an actual thing that could happen.

“No. That thought has literally never crossed my mind, Caleb.” I actually started to chuckle near the end of that statement. “Besides, if she wants to kill me, then it would mean I did something so terrible, that I would deserve it. Being her friend means I would never hurt her that way, so I don’t have to worry about it.” He gave a soft ‘hmm’ at my words. I could only guess that they were starting to sink in.

I looked back at the pokémon playing amongst themselves. Mina had taken to swinging from the branches like a Mankey with Gyro coming up behind her, trying to knock her off by cutting off the smaller branches. Kimi glided around hanging from trunk to trunk being chased by Juko who despite being an Axew, had a knack for climbing trees. Glade and Terkin walked side by side simply talking to each other about the tastes of different types of berries. I smiled and looked back to my front just in time to step over a rather large rock.

“Do you want to see it?” I asked, intentionally luring the trainer into a state of curiosity. Caleb looked up from the leaf stridden ground and gave out a ‘hmm?’ “Mina’s ball I mean. She does have one even though she’s never in it.” I began digging through my backpack for the sphere. If it were used more often, I might keep it on a belt, but it’s more of a keepsake than an actual tool, even if it did function. Caleb insisted that it was fine, saying that he knew she was already captured, but that’s not what I wanted to get at with this.

I pulled the ball out and it began lighting up the shady underside of the trees with its glow. I had to smile to myself as I saw Caleb’s jaw drop. All of his pokéballs were just regular red and white spheres, compared to Mina’s ball; they looked quite crappy in comparison. “How does it glow like that?” he asked in wonder. I gave a soft laugh and replied, “It’s a secret.” I was reminded of my soulstone with its stifled glowing beneath my thick black t-shirt.

“Yep, it was a birthday present to her, before this, she was a little Zorua. I’d like to think that it let her evolve.” Of course I knew it let her evolve, but I didn’t want to let on more than I thought I should. Caleb shook his head away from the ball’s glow as a thought appeared in his mind.

“Wait… Luke and Zorua? THE Luke and Zorua!? Holy Miltank, you’re a contest battler! I’ve seen you on TV!” I put the ball back in the bag and slung it over my shoulders once again. He caught on to who we were. Truthfully, I was surprised he didn’t figure it out sooner. I did mention to him last night that Mina and I were on our way to a contest in Opelucid.

“Ha ha… yep, that’s me. Heh.” I always got embarrassed whenever someone recognizes me from tellevission. Thankfully, it didn’t happen all the time. “I saw your match in Driftveil City! That last match versus the previous home champion was amazing!” This kid was making me blush slightly, but I was also a bit peeved that he wasn’t giving the credit to the one who deserved it.

“Well, I just spectate really; Mina does all the work so it’s her win, not mine.” I said as I rubbed the back of my head. Then he said something I really didn’t expect. “I want to battle you.” This made me stop walking. Caleb noticed my stance and stopped as well. I wore a stern look on my face, giving some thought to what my answer would be.

“I actually don’t like to battle, Caleb… I think that forcing pokémon to fight, is wrong. The only reason that I participate in contests, is because Mina enjoys it.” The trainer tilted his head at my response. Knowing I had to choose my next words carefully, I slowly continued my reply, “If Mina wants to have a match with your team, I won’t stop her, but you’ll have to talk it over with her, not me.”

The two of us stood in silence for a few seconds, the only sounds coming from the pokémon playing a few yards behind us. Apparently, some of the local wildlife had joined in on the fun as well. My answer must have been sufficiently poetic as well as informative, as Caleb simply put his hands behind his head as we started to walk again.

“Alright, I’ll ask her before we camp again and… I guess I’ll talk it over with my team as well.” I liked hearing that. Maybe I was making some progress in turning his view around.

We continued traveling along this northwestward path for a long time. Cutting through the forest was always our choice for getting around. There were fewer trainers than along the road, but meeting Caleb had proved that other people must have the same idea.

After several hours of trudging through the forest, we had finally come upon the river that had circled back around the landscape to us. Our destination would be several miles on land across the other side of the river. Mina and I knew this as our ‘half way’ point. This was the spot we decided would be a good place to camp out again, but we had reached it sooner than I expected. The sun was still a few hours from sitting on the horizon.

I placed my bag on the ground in front of me as the others came up from behind. Caleb and his team didn’t know what I was doing, but I would assume Mina would know that it was time for a little swim. As if to confirm my suspicion, she gave out a squeal and jumped straight into the slowly flowing water. Over half of the trainer’s pokémon were no good with water, and as much as I didn’t want to, I had to let him return them all into their balls.

I had donned a pair of swimming trunks to save my jeans from getting wet. I was able to cross the river with my bag in the air, remaining quite dry as the water only came up to my chest. Caleb however, was less prepared. He didn’t pack any shorts, and instead opted to go across in his jeans. I can understand how he could be self conscious about being in his underwear; I felt the same at that age…

Once we were on the other side, I was pleased to find that he had released his pokémon again. Mina stayed in the water just a few feet of the shore and was joined by Glade and myself once I had placed my bag by a tree on the shore.

“How are you guys doing?” I asked. The water was a bit cold and I started to shiver once again. “Luke! I have been having sooo much fun!” Mina shouted out her yips of joy. The Gallade gave me a smile and nod as he started to speak as well “I agree, today has been the best time we have all had in a long while. Thank you for talking to Caleb” I looked to the corner of my eye and noticed the kid watching us. Turning back to Mina and Glade I kept up my normal trainer façade. “Ha ha! That’s great guys, I’m glad you two are getting along!” I rubbed Mina’s shoulder, which caused her to shiver as well.

“Also, Caleb wants to ask you if you would like to battle with him and his team.” I saw her give me a questioning glance. “I told him that he would have to ask you…” Mina gave out an ‘oooohhh’ at my explanation. “Okay, I get it. I’ll go talk to him now.” She started to swim towards where the trainer was sitting on the shoreline with Terkin, Gyro, Juko and Kimi. I stopped her and she gave out a small yip in surprise.

“How… are you going to talk to him?” I asked with a whisper. The question made her blink a few times before she responded. “I guess I can’t just transform into a human and do it that way, can I?” I chuckled at her comment. “Nope, being normal is hard isn’t it?” Mina sighed as I continued. “I have a pen and paper in my bag if you need it. I’m sure plenty of pokémon can write, so it won’t give him too much to go on.” She gave a grunt and a nod before wading away through the water.

I stayed behind with Glade as I watched Mina reach dry land. He stood just a little bit behind me in the water. “She can write?” he asked, disbelief in his voice. I turned to look to him over my shoulder. “Heh, yea… funny and long story.”

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(Mina)
When Luke had told me about how Caleb wanted to battle with me, I was really nervous. This would be the first battle I would have in this form, and even though I was used to the height and motor skills from walking around like a human from time to time, I still never battled like this before. Luke wouldn’t like it, but I was going to accept Caleb’s challenge.

After leaving the water, I shook myself dry the best I could. Arceus knows wet fur is too revealing, and the way that Gallade acted around me in the water, made me just a bit uncomfortable. I couldn’t call him out on it, or be mean, he was just so sweet and I didn’t really think he meant anything by it.

Approaching Caleb, I gave out a cough to let him know I was here. The trainer looked up from the dirt, along with Terkin who lazily lay off to the side of him. “Oh. Hey. Luke wanted me to ‘talk’ with you… heh, isn’t that ridiculous?” the trainer gave out in a slightly annoyed tone. Regrettably, my instincts forced me to copy his emotions. Caleb could tell he was already off on the wrong foot.

“Uh- I-I’m… sorry.” he sounded like he struggled with the apology. “L-Luke said that, that I had to ask you to battle.” There was just something about the way he was asking that made it sound… not sincere. This was harder than I thought. Without being able to respond to his words, I found that it was nearly impossible to talk to this kid. With that thought, I held up one of my finger claws as to say ‘give me a moment’. Caleb only gave me a weird look.

I didn’t think I would need the pen and paper but I couldn’t take not being able to talk to him. Once I had gotten the materials I came back to his spot and sat down in front of the boy and he immediately donned a confused look as I started scribbling on the pad.

-I know Luke told you. He told me you were supposed to ask me.-

“You can write!?” he shouted. It was clearly audible throughout the forest. Even Luke could hear it in the middle of the river. He soon spoke up as well, yelling across the expanse. “It’s a long story! Just go with it!” Caleb shook his head a few times.

“Okay. So you can write, which means that you can talk to people?”

-Is that surprising to you?-

“I just, never thought about it before.”

-You might want to start thinking about it from now on. Anyway, you wanted to battle with me?-

“Uh- yea! I saw the contest matches on TV and I’m a big fan of Lu- I mean… you guys!” he was trying so hard to give me the right words now that he knew I could write. I kind of liked it. It’s the sort of sick twisted sense of pleasure that almost scared me, but it just felt sooo good. I had to turn it away from me though, so I figured this would be a wonderful opportunity to get him to think of his pokémon the same way he thought of me now.

-Did you ask any of your friends if they want to battle me?-

He froze after reading my note. I could tell he wasn’t expecting for me to ask him that. After being with the group for most if not all day, I could tell he may have asked Luke, but he didn’t once give a thought to how his own pokémon would feel. As if to correct this action, he quickly Turned to Terkin. “Hey, Arcanine, do you want to battle with Luke and his Zoroark?”

At first the large dog only yawned as he looked up, clearly taken back that his master would even consider asking him. After a few seconds and questioning glances between Caleb and me, he regained his composure and agreed. “O-Of course.” He stammered. To which I relayed the message to Caleb.

-OK, I’ll battle with Terkin. It’ll be fun!-

Of course Caleb didn’t know who I was talking about until I gave out a sigh and pointed a claw in the Arcnine’s direction.

“Oh, I didn’t know he had a name. Apart from Glade, I didn’t think any of my pokémon had names…” the boy stated in a monotone voice. I had to admit, with the exception of a few understandably misplaced words, this kid didn’t seem all that bad. Luke and I have met some truly despicable humans on our journey and Caleb isn’t quite as mean as they are. Maybe he wasn’t bad. Maybe he was just ignorant.

After our short conversation, Luke and Glade had come out of the water with smiles on their wet faces. Apparently they had gotten into a splash fight during our talk. “So, who won?” I asked. Glade was the one who responded in the place of Luke.

“I won of course.” He said laughing. I put my paws to my mouth to stifle back a laugh myself. Luke couldn’t contain himself as he soon burst out with, “Nu-uh! I won!” The response got a smile from Caleb, but not much else. I guess even he could understand what we were talking about.

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(Luke)
Mina had decided to go ahead and accept Caleb’s challenge. I knew she would. I can’t say it didn’t bother me though, but I wasn’t about to stop her from doing what she wants.

About five minutes after Glade and I had gotten out of the water, I was already re-dressed and ready to battle. We stood alongside the river facing our opponent, Caleb and his battle partner, Terkin. The fish in the background as well as the rushing water are the only things to break the silence. Caleb’s other pokémon sat on the sidelines.

Mina looked back to me, gave a snicker and a “thumbs up” signaling her readiness. I could only smile back and sigh. Terkin and Caleb were obviously ready to go as well as I heard him call out to the Canine “Alright Arcan- I mean… uh, Terkin! Let’s do it!” eliciting a loud bark from the dog.

My ears lit up and a wide smile crept across my face when I heard Caleb say Terkin’s name instead of just ‘Arcanine’. However, the pleasantries were over as Caleb and Terkin decided to make the first move.

“Terkin! Charge and use flame thrower!” In an instant, the orange canine leapt into action running towards Mina with flames trailing out of his maw. The ground shook with each step he took towards us. My beautiful Zoroark had it all under control though, as she simply stared the beast down waiting for what was to come. She didn’t have to wait long though, for as soon as Terkin was about ten feet away, his trainer called for him to fire.

A massive trail of flames jetted from the Arcanine’s muzzle spurting out blue then gradating to orange then deep red. As if she saw it coming, Mina gracefully spun to her left completely evading the flames. Terkin’s momentum kept him moving the rest of the distance and Mina ended up right next to him with a shadow ball charged in her paw.

“Hoooaaaa!!” Mina screamed as she thrust her palm into the Arcanine’s side. He was blasted back a few feet but the attack didn’t seem to hurt him much. Before long, Terkin was back on his feet. “Ha! That was great Mina; knocked the wind out of me.” he coughed out.

“Ok, use fire fang!” Caleb called to his pokémon. I tried to think of a counter, but Mina was already on it. The two pokémon rushed towards each other with bullet like speed. The Zoroark charged a shadow claw; her normally red blades shone dark purple as the wispy energy streamed through the air in a brilliant trail. The sight almost looked as though we were once again in a contest as Mina’s attention was drawn more towards attack beauty than attack power. That is not to say that the move wasn’t strong; quite the contrary in fact.

The two pokémon finally met and Terkin clamped his flaming maw down on one of Mina’s arms. She shrieked in pain but held fast lifting the canine onto his hind legs. “MINA!” I shouted as I heard her cry. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, not even the last thing I wanted was for my dear Zoroark to be hurt! This was what she wanted however, as I saw a sly smile creep across Mina’s furry face and I noticed in her other paw, was the shadow claw.

Terkin still didn’t want to let Mina go, being completely oblivious to what was about to happen. It wasn’t until Caleb commanded him from across the field, did he finally seem to notice. “Arcanine! Let go!!”, but it was too late. Before the Arcanine had the chance to react, Mina had slashed his midsection with her shadow claw. The attack ripped off the dog’s orange fur in four deep gashes. The red marks appeared on his belly being the after math. Frankly I was surprised the attack didn’t do more damage; it looked really brutal.

The Arcanine came to his senses once again and leapt backwards away from Mina giving out a slight pained whine as his paws thudded on the ground. “Taking the hit to land a powerful attack… that’s a great strategy,” the kid complimented Mina. At least I hope he did, I hadn’t done anything since this battle started. “but this is it! Terkin, use fireblast!”

In an instant, a massive ball of fire manifested its self in front of Terkin’s muzzle. He snarled and the flames encircled him, draining the residual energy from the air. The large dog took a wide stance as if to hold back the recoil from the attack, and without anymore hesitation, he fired it. The events that followed happened all too quickly.

My mind raced as I saw the fireball grow to ten times its original size. Its target was Mina. I had to get out of the way as well, or I could be blown away by the attack. “MINA! MOVE!” I screamed at her, but it was no use, she was frozen. The fireball continued to grow until it was even larger than I was. It scorched the ground as it hurtled towards my beloved.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, a bright flash of light occurred and a man… at least, I thought it was a man, rushed in front of me and grabbed Mina before the fireblast had hit her. He pinned her to a tree just outside of our battle field. Everything was going in slow motion. My mind raced a million miles per hour. ‘Who was this person? What was he doing here? What was that light? How can he move so fast?’

My attention was on them. Mina against the tree, the man pinning her in the air against it with one arm. The other arm reached into a bag and pulled out a ball. It was a strange looking thing; all grey with weird bumps all over it.

My attention was then immediately pulled to in front of me as I had forgotten about the giant fire attack which was now twice my size and only three feet away from me. I couldn’t run, I wasn’t nearly fast enough. I didn’t have time to react in a competent way, the only thing I could do was to throw my hands out in front of me. Was this it? Am I to die here amongst a battle that was supposed to be friendly? And what about Mina? What is that guy doing to her?? I closed my eyes, only hoping I could survive this.

I could feel the heat of the ball of flames brush against my hands. I didn’t feel pain… only heat. It was hot, but not burning. I thought for sure I would be dead by now. The world stopped being in slow motion as I slowly opened my eyes to reveal the impossible. I was holding back the attack. My palms were giving off a blue glow as the soulstone under my dark shirt made itself shine even brighter than the fire was. The intensity of the light increased and I started to shake with excitement.

A voice made itself apparent within my mind. It wasn’t my own. This voice was strong, proud, bold, and aged. “Just a little longer. You can do it Luke… Focus!” Heading the voice, I once again closed my eyes and calmed down giving out an exhale. The fireblast didn’t last much longer; it eventually broke apart and dissipated leaving behind nothing but scorch marks in the ground, and heat in the air.

I looked down to my palms once again and slowly the glowing receded into nothingness. My soulstone stopped glowing and the voice once again spoke to me. “Very good. You have done well.” Everything returned to what it was before. The soulstone returned to its natural glow, and my hands were no longer glowing.

Still a bit shocked at what had just happened, it took me several moments to realize what was going on with that man and Mina. I jumped into action as I ran to where he held her, Caleb, Terkin, Glade, and the rest of his team, already being on top of them trying to get the stranger to release his grip on Mina. As I had seen before, he had that strange ball out and held it in front of his captive.

I had made it to them and tried my best to pull him down, knock him over, but he seemed just like a statue. Immovable. The ball opened up and started to shine indicating its purpose to suck Mina inside. “Let her go! She’s already mine!” I struggled to yell as I continued pushing and pulling.

Just then, another flash of light came from behind us but this time a pokémon came out of it. It was all a blur of movement. The creature, which was not much bigger than Mina was as a Zorua, flew by me with such speed I could swear it left a sonic boom. It grabbed the man by his stark white hair and yanked him backwards with one arm. Mina fell to the ground, released from his grip, gasping for air, but not conscious for long as she fainted in my arms.

Dropping to my knees, I wrapped my arms around my love and held her head to my chest and was relieved to feel her breath on my neck. Caleb and I quickly looked over to the scene that was taking place in the river now. The man had long white hair and was dressed in all black. He wore a head band with a metal plate on it, and his nose, mouth and chin were covered by a mask leaving only his pale green eyes to give him any kind of facial features. He drew out a short katana and proceeded to slash at the pokémon who threw him into the river.

I could see the pokémon as well, although not too clearly as it was moving like a lightning bolt; very random very fast. It looked like a Celebi, only it had a weird color pattern. Celebi are normally all green, but this one had hues of blue and teal and I could see it had red eyes. The pokémon swiftly dodged the sword slashes which left shimmering after images through the air. It was almost like it could see exactly where they were coming from before the man even swung his sword. The fight was awkward enough, but even more surprising is that the human was literally standing on top of the water as he was slashing through the air.

The Celebi was still untouched as I heard his voice ring out in a distorted tone. The echo of his speech came before he actually vocalized anything, introducing themselves in a spooky foreshadow as to what he was to say next. “Heh… You’ll have to be faster than that to touch me!” I looked to Caleb and he stared back at me with his jaw dropped.

“That thing just spoke!” he loudly whispered to me. It seemed that Caleb could understand it too. I wasn’t surprised though, Celebi are grass psychic pokémon meaning that they have the ability to use telepathy. I looked back to the fight just in time to see the Celebi grab the man by the hair once again. With a spin and an ‘echo proceeding’ grunt, the man was heaved back onto dry land a few yards away from us.

With blinding speed the Celebi flew in a zigzag pattern directly up to the man, stopping just a couple feet from him in a dead stop. The masked man drew his sword once more and slashed at the pokémon, only this time, the Celebi didn’t move. He just looked at the man with a jovial smile across his face. The blade came to a halt just inches away from the Celebi. Try as hard as he might, the man just couldn’t get the sword to proceed any further. The weapon was wrapped in grass and tied to the ground. As were the man’s feet and arms.

“D- DAMN YOU!” he screamed in anguish, clearly defeated. The Celebi held out his finger and waived it in front of the human’s face. “Tsk- tsk- tsk… such bad language Cilan. There are children present! Mind your manners, hee hee.” The pokémon laughed before flicking the man backward to lie on the ground.

“Wait… Cilan? From the Striaton gym!?” Caleb questioned. Come to think of it, I remember meeting the Striaton gym leaders once; they were nice people, and a bit awkward and clumsy. There is no way this guy could be one of the three leaders!

“Fuck you, Crystal! You can follow us all you want, but you know as well as we do; we’ve already won!” Cilan gave out a last insult before being silenced by grass wrapping around his body. “Not yet you haven’t… not while I’m here.” Crystal murmured to himself barely audible, his voice turning to normal sounding. Then for the first time the Celebi turned towards us and with a smile, started to greet us as well.

“Hey there, Luke! Don’t worry about this, I got it covered.” His cheery tone only confused me that much further. I didn’t know who this pokémon was. Certainly this was our first time meeting, yet he knew my name? I could only guess the Celebi caught on to my confusion as he quickly put a hand to his mouth. “Oh, crap! We haven’t met yet have we?” I shook my head slack jawed. Caleb’s expression was more of terror than confusion. After seeing the raw power this pokémon held, any sane person would be scared out of their wits.

“Okay. Um… Do me a favor then ‘kay? Just forget that I was ever here.” He suggested his idea out of desperation more than requesting. As soon as he finished his sentence, the pokémon hunched over in the air and coughed into his hand. Hard, wet coughs. He looked at his hand, and I could see specks of blood staining his tiny teal fingers.

“Oh no… I can’t be here. Look, I know you have tons of questions, but trust me… you will get answers, and hopefully, everything will work out.” I didn’t have any time to respond to his statement as he quickly grabbed the man wrapped in grass and violently disappeared with a piercing crack noise.

I took a breath for the first time in what felt like several hours I slumped back against the tree Mina was previously pinned against. My beloved Zoroark laid against me, knocked out cold. The events that had just transpired were apparently very taxing and I started panting. Caleb’s pokémon were all frozen to their spots. I guess even they needed some time to process what had just happened.

We stayed in that spot, sitting in silence until the sun went down behind the trees. We had all agreed not to talk about it, as that would only obscure things even more. We had no answers, only questions.

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I had laid Mina down on a sleeping bag to rest while I went through the chore of setting up our tent. I had sent Caleb out to collect berries with his pokémon. Being dark out made it harder for me to set the shelter up and I nearly gave it up, but I did manage to get it together in a ‘good enough’ sort of way. Once I had finished I put Mina in and covered her up nice and snug in the sleeping bag.

We found that Terkin was fine after the battle. Other than some missing fur, he was relatively uninjured; which was great as I never wanted anyone to get hurt too badly during that battle. I was relieved to find that Caleb or any of the other pokémon had noticed my endeavors with the fireblast. I still didn’t know what it was; all I knew is that for some reason, I felt stronger.

Caleb and his team had picked plenty of berries for the night, as well as some for tomorrow morning. They had eagerly dropped the berries at my feet as we sat around the fire wanting me to cook them up tomorrow. The smiling faces of Juko and Kimi was enough to lift my spirits even if it was just a small amount. I knew Mina would be fine, but that didn’t stop me from worrying, or wondering what that man had wanted with her.

Later that night, I lay in the tent next to Mina. For the first time in years, the extra sleeping bag I carried around was being used. Whenever she woke up, I didn’t want her to flip out and attack me, so I took my spot on the other side of the tent. Laying in the dark with nothing but the soulstone to light up the tent, I held my hands in front of me staring at my palms. There weren’t even any burn marks on them. Even though it happened so fast, yet so slow, I could remember exactly what had happened. I held back an attack from a pokémon. Not just any attack, the second strongest fire move there is.

I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on making my palms light up again, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t even get a shimmer. Out of all the things that had happened today, this seemed like the weirdest. What was it? Did Arceus save me? I continued to struggle to make something happen for a while, but eventually gave up. It just wasn’t happening.