Chapter 1

The Smallest Light

There was nothing about early morning guard duty that Lightsoul ever enjoyed, he hated the cold misty air, not being able to leave until his relief arrived and worst of all the feeling of complete boredom. Being a Shinx was a nice thing, he could run really fast, was able to use electricity and most important of all he had a keen sense of smell that allowed Lightsoul to be a great hunter and tracker. When it came to guard duty the main task he had was to check anyone who entered and left the village. It had happened more than once that someone who wasn't supposed to be in the village had been caught trying to enter. It was the job of the front guard to inspect all incoming pokemon to smell if their scent matched the collective scent of the rest of their tribemates.

It was easy for someone like a ditto to copy looks but it was next to impossible to copy someone's scent. A basic but very important post to stand but one that Lightsoul could do without.

“About time Lightsoul.” Feathertail yawned as the Shinx approached, shaking the feline from his thoughts. “You bean head. Do you always have to take so long to get up in the morning?"

“You know how much I hate early morning duty. Birds get up early not lions.“ Lightsoul growled to the Mienshao as he took her position just outside of the entrance to their camp.

It was a bit cold and misty outside, this early spring morning; living out in the open plains of Ovall meant that most of the mornings were going to be misty and cold since there was barely any trees around to help insulate the warmth.

“If you want to earn more respect around here you need to start learning to do the little things better.”

Feathertail said with a bit of sympathy as she rubbed his back the way she knew that he enjoyed. Feathertail was his team lead and mentor, she was - like most fighting pokemon - tough and much disciplined. She expected the best out of everyone she worked closely with and sometimes she was a bit tougher than she needed to be on others, which could made it hard to see just how much Feathertail could care about someone.

"How can I learn to do the little things better when I am stuck having to do guard duty all the time?" Lightsoul asked as he allowed the weasel to continue comforting him, her arm sleeves wrapped around him and her hands rubbing up and down his body in a very soothing way. A little purr could be heard from the young lion as he couldn't help but enjoy himself.

“You can start by actually showing up on time." Feathertail firmly said before she lets go of him. "I will talk to Angelblade about taking you and Quickfang out tomorrow on a expedition. But you have to promise me that you will not fall asleep again on your watch. If you can do that for me I will try to make sure you stand less morning watches, ok?" Feathertail did not wait for a reply but instead walked back into the village for most likely a quick power nap before starting any task she had for the day.

“Why does she always want to treat me like some baby apprentice? I bet when she was first started Feathertail was a mess too.” Lightsoul muttered to himself as he sat down and wrapped his long star-tipped tail around his forepaws. He wanted badly to show his tribemates that he was just as good as any of them if not even better. His father was the second in charge of the tribe and he only had to answer to their leader Angelblade. Lightsoul often thought that he had to work twice as hard as an apprentice so he could show his tribemates that he did not have any special treatment. Blowing out a puff of air the shinx stared out into the fields of Thunderplains and let out a big sigh as he wished he was part of the morning hunting patrol instead of having to stand morning guard duty.

Lightsoul closed his eyes and pictured himself running though the wild open green plains, the soft fresh grass under his paws, the taller grass tickling his soft underbelly, the cool western breeze blowing from the mountains to the north. He could see the shadow of Tranquil Plateau in the horizon to the north, and across the foothills the lining of Unity Forest to the west. Stantlers, Deerlings and Tauros’ were grazing lazily along the hills and were dumb enough to sneak upon and, with a bit of electricity, to paralyze them, made an easy kill. His favorite line of bushes was the one near the foothills, as it was a popular spot for the wild pokemon, where they like thought they were concealed and could spot predators easily.

Lightsoul crawled under the bushes they were hiding into and prepared to kill his prey. Everything was perfect, his form was flawless, his tail flat on the ground, his paws tucked a bit under his body as the Shinx was preparing to leap and pounce, and most importantly he was down wind, which made it impossible for any of the wild pokemon to pick up his scent until it would have been too late.

“I’ve got you now…” Lightsould whispered under his breath as he was watching a Stantler grazing just in front of him. Sneaking, he moved forward, a plan forming in his mind, he was thinking of using Thunder-Wave to stun the larger pokemon and then try to go for the kill with Thunder Fang to the neck. Whatever Lightsoul was going to do he needed to make sure that it worked the first time or else he would have had an enraged Reindeer to fight with. The Shinx’s electricity began to crackle in tune with his very heartbeat as he felt in sync with his power. “I’ve got you now…” The Shinx wiggled his rear a bit as he prepared to pounce on his pray; there was nothing that could stop him.

“Light….!” A familiar voice cried from far away. Lightsoul tried to not pay it any attention, keeping his mind focused on taking down his prey as a Stantler wasn’t easy to kill even for a fully trained hunter. In his village it was said that those who were able to kill a Stantler were regarded as a great hunter and Lightsoul would enjoy nothing more than being considered a great to his peers.Taking a long breath the Shinx focused on making the perfect pounce, feeling the muscles in his legs shift slightly as he was moments from charging the reindeer…

“Lightsoul, WAKE UP!” The voice this time yelled right into his ears, causing the Shinx to lose his concentration and to leap up in the air, only to land face first on the ground some seconds after. Sunlight poured into his eyes as he opened them, blinding him for a few moments, while the smell of dust and dirt blew into his nose making him sneeze.

“Why am I not surprised to see you acting like a dumbass yet again?” The most angry hiss greeted the confused lion.

“Why did you have to wake me up?” Lightsoul whined while rubbing his eyes. He hadn’t even noticed at first that he had been day dreaming for such a long time and nearly had fallen asleep. Lightsoul had a bad habit of daydreaming on the job and it had nearly gotten him in trouble a few times, luckily for him so far it had just brought him a few nasty scoldings from his father and Feathertail. Angelblade sat in on the last scolding he had received and it was suggested that Lightsoul would be punished in front of the tribe should anything happen, what that punishment was no one knew but their leader and his father.

“Because you never seem to take anything you do seriously and one day you are going to get someone hurt or worse.” Springleaf snapped back with a sharp hiss, his tail slapped the ground to help prove how upset he was with his brother. Springleaf was Lightsoul’s brother, born at his same time; while they were not identical twins they were littermates, with Springleaf born just a few minutes before his brother. As such he acted like he was the older brother from time to time, much to Lightsoul’s annoyance. Unlike the Shinx Sprinlgeaf was training to be a healer and he took his responsibilities very seriously since he had the lives of his tribemates to think about. Lightsoul with his guard duty also had a very important job but it was one that he felt as though he didn’t choose and was instead thrown into.

“Why do you always have to act like you have a stick shoved up that tight little ass hole of yours?” Lightsoul stretched himself out as he shaked off the last of the feeling of sleep that had overtaken him from daydreaming. He wasn’t a lazy pokemon, just one who didn’t find guard duty to be that thrilling of a job and that hated to do it. He always hoped that if he did a terrible enough job at guard duty, his father would start to reassign him to his real passion, which was hunting and feeding his tribemates. Guard duty was a task that all young pokemon had to endure during the early days of their training but Lightsoul felt that his skills were better suited to hunting and tracking rather than standing around and staring out into the fields all day, even the border patrol was a better job than just standing still like this.

“Very mature.” The skitty retorted and sighed, “I know everyone is hard on you all the time Light, but… it is because we love you very much.” Their dad normally said the same thing from time to time. It sometimes seemed that Sprigleaf got less of their father’s tough nature, but Lightsoul knew that the Skitty just received his beatings in other ways because of the path he had choosen. Springleaf and Lightsoul both knew that the Skitty had a gift for treating others and remember long complex recipes and all of the ingredients that went into them. The tribe at any time could have up to three healers who all are tasked with treating their tribemates, they were given a special blessing that no one but healers knew about. Lightsoul knew a little bit about what his brother was going trhough and how this had created a slight wedge between them over the past few months since they took their first pledges and began their long roads to becoming full tribe members. “Light, I am going to stay with you until you are relieved of your duties.” Springleaf said with a much softer voice than before. He sat right next to the Shinx and crossed their tails together.

“Where did that come from?” The very confused Shinx asked.

“Because you are my brother, like it or not. We have to take care of one another…” Springleaf playfully swatted his brother’s butt with his tail. “I just worry about you sometimes and when I worry I sometimes lose my cool.”

“Sometimes?” Lightsoul got a playful hiss and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Keep on talking…” Springleaf giggled and jumped onto his brother’s back, taking him to the ground and began to playfully scratch Lightsoul’s head. “Who has a stick up his rear now?” Lightsoul chuckled as it was nice to see that his brother had a playful side, even if he most of the time just seemed to be such a tight ass. Maybe all the Skitty really needed was to find something to lubricate it up every once in a while.

The rest of the day went by without much hindrance as Lightsoul felt like the rest of the guard duty went by smoothly and without any problems. Springleaf had been a great help and was able to keep him focused on keeping watch instead of letting his attention drift off into fantasy land again. Afterwards Lightsoul had been tasked with completing chores around the village, such as replacing all of the bedding with fresh hay and dumping out the old bedding in the woods, restocking the tribe’s fresh water supplies by running down to the river that was over 100 yards away and filling up a few buckets of water and helping to fix up the medical hut by removing the fleas it with a mixture his brother had come up with that, no matter how much Lightsoul wanted to asked what was in it, the Skitty would not budge and just told him that it was best he didn’t know what was in it. To Lightsoul it smelled like Tauros bile mixed with some kind of herb and it made it very hard to breath for such a fine nose as he was. Once he had finished all of his chores for the day the Shinx was allowed to take the rest of the day off and use it as he saw fit.

“I am going to sleep so hard tonight.” The Shinx moaned as he had filled his empty stomach that evening with a juicy fat Rattata that had been caught that afternoon. He was going to catch up on his sleep that evening as the day after he was supposed to be rewarded by going on a expedition to the Emerald Coast borderline and investigating a strange claim that had been made that afternoon by a hunting party returning from that area. The hunters spread the voice they had smelled the coastal tribe’s scent on their side of the border and, if that was true, it could mean that their rivals were trying to take some of their land from them. Feathertail’s team along with possibly another group were supposed to head up to the border the next morning and check the truth behind that voice. This would be Lightsoul’s first expedition to that part of their territory over his two months of real training and he couldn’t be more excited.

“What are you moaning for?” Quickfang asked, the Poochyena pup rolling around in his own bed, right next to the lion’s one. Quickfang was Lightsoul’s teammate along with Feathertail, who was their leader and mentor. “You had an easy day. I actually had to go out and do battle training. Ohh, Feathertail knows how to work us really, really hard and she told me that we would have to do double the training since you weren’t going to be there for it.”

Lightsoul had a bit of a love hate relationship with Quickfang. On one hand he loved how Quickfang was a hard worker and how normally it wasn’t hard to talk him into doing what he wanted him to do, like give him his extra food or even sometimes take some of his chores. On the other side Quickfang had a very innocent like soul and he didn’t like to do things that he believed would make Feathertail mad at them, like sneaking out at night or trying out battle moves that Feathertail hadn’t taught them personally yet. The weasel was like a big sister to Quickfang; as such he always wanted to do things to make her proud of him.

“Oh, please, not now, Quickfang…” the Shinx groaned as he rolled onto his back and stretched his legs out before turning again to face the wolf pup. “It has been a long day for me too...”
“I know, but we haven’t talked all day and I have so much to say.” Quickfang pushed his bedding slightly closer to Lightsoul’s. “Can we please talk for a little bit? I really did miss you today.”

“This can’t wait until tomorrow?”

“Nope.” Quickfang gave Lightsoul a happy lick on his cheek after he laid down in his bed again beginning to talk about all of the training that he had done that day. Lightsoul only could yawn and nod from time to time as his friend went on about how he tried to practice keeping a good stance and using every part of his body as a weapon instead of just focusing on teeth and claws. It went on like this for a good hour and it didn’t end until it was dark outside and was becoming close to bed time for the younger Pokémon.

“…oh and…then I tried to pounce just like you would… all cute like. Oh, Light, is it time to go to bed?” the Poochyena giggled which made Lightsoul tilt his head a bit. He had been a bit in and out during their conversation, but the Shinx could have sworn he heard his friend say something about him. A long yawn from both of them made him quickly forget about his concerns.

“Yes… it has been time to go to bed for over an hour now.” He didn’t want to seem mean, but the Shinx really wanted to sleep. He noticed Quickfang’s ear droop a bit in response.

“I just wanted to talk to you.” The Poochyena turned over in his bed to face away from Lightsoul. “Good night.”

“Quick…” With a sigh he gets up pushed his bedding closer to the Poocheyna and petted his back. “You know I care about you.” He had to remind himself that Quickfang could be a bit sensitive sometimes. Giving the Poochyena a lick on his ear he finally got his friend to respond as the pooch nuzzled him and gave him back a lick to his nose.
“You are too easy sometimes Light.” Quickfang said with a giggle.

“Ya, ya.” Lightsoul responded with a smile and he laid down on his side to sleep. Just as the Shinx began to sleep he felt Quickfang snuggle up under him. “Only for tonight.”

“You said…arf…” Lightsoul let out a big yawn. “That last night… Quick…”

It always felt better to sleep with someone else and as much as the Shinx wanted to complain about the Poochyena sleeping with him it felt too good to have something soft and warm near him. Giving his friend a lick on top of his head again the Shinx finally was able to start his much longed sleep. The next day would have been quite challenging and they would have need all of the rest that they could get.