“Where is it?” I mumbled to myself, panting heavily. “I know it’s here somewhere!” I paused for a moment, gasping for breath. “Gotta find it, get back, before it gets dark! Tall grass… wild pokemon… not good.” I was bent over double, clutching my knees like my life depended on it. By the flashes of light in my eyes and the roaring in my ears, it probably did. I’d been running myself ragged looking for my quarry all over the mountain.

Straightening up once the worst of the dry heaving was over, I once more pelted through the trees under the rapidly darkening skies, lunging left and right every so often as I ducked and weaved my way through the undergrowth. I wasn’t so far off Route 104, but I may as well have been in the middle of nowhere. Even when only this far into the tall grass, civilization was little more than a distant memory. It wasn’t at all surprising that I finally tripped, only in how long it took before I did. An errant root, a handy divot, that was all it took. My feet fell out from under me and I went flying into the bushes.

I flew head over heels, scraping my arms and legs raw and landing awkwardly on my elbow and chest, winded. I saw stars as my head hit either the ground or a tree, even money which.

Breathing forcefully, whooping through the pain, I sat up onto my knees from where I’d face-planted into the dirt and dusted myself off, swearing. “Damn it, that hurts! Shit. Which way… there! Still got a chance before—“ I clamped down on that thought as I cast my gaze about. “Ah doesn’t matter, I doubt there’s anybody else around here for mi—“

“Vee!”

“Oof!”

A shape, small and fluffy, thwapped into my face just as I got myself up onto all fours to stand. It wrapped around my mouth and nose and covered my eyes. I stumbled back into the bushes, propelled up and over by the impact, shoved backwards. I flailed my arms like windmills as I again landed on my butt. “Hey! Who turned out the lig—“

Whack!

Something else hit me in the side of the head, painfully. Something decidedly not fluffy; It felt like metal and plastic, and for the third or fourth time that day I ate dirt. I must have hit my head properly this time, because I didn’t feel the ground come up to meet me.

When consciousness returned, everything was dark, and full of softness. And did I mention dark? After a few moments of complete silence, a voice spoke, gentle and female yet lifeless, obviously artificial.

“Err-Error id-identifying Ma-Mass Energy Sig-Sig-Signature, attempting emer-emergency conn-connection to pokenetwork… connection successful. Compute engines online.

Beginning compensatory offload of anomalous compute trajectory.

Offload sequence initiated.

Multiple anomalies detected; scanning, rectifying… partial rectification successful.

Corruption of Mass Energy Signature detected. Attempting to revert and release.

Release failure. Sequence abort failure. Capture sequence initiated.

Acquiring genetic lock… partial lock acquired. Filtering extraneous genetic code.

Acquiring mental model lock… partial lock acquired. Re-indexing in progress.

Please relax, capture in progress… three… two… one.”

Ding!

“Hello?” I asked, as consciousness wheedled it’s way back in. My voice didn’t echo, as if I were stuck in the world’s comfiest, darkest closet. Straining my ears, I thought I heard an unintelligible small voice, quite high-pitched compared to my own, maybe a girl’s or a boy’s, I wasn’t sure. It sounded… scared? Worried? Excited? I struggled to make out words, and failed.

“Beginning virtual environment gen-generation… error computing preferences.

Cross substitution in progress.

Please remain calm, you are safe.”

I didn’t feel like being calm, but I didn’t think myself in trouble. Oh, how wrong I was.

“Hello?” I tried again, peering through the most absolute dark I had ever experienced. I struggled to get up, falling to all fours – not that I could see or even properly feel my body. It was like moving through treacle, like I was being held in place by the softest, most comfortable full-body sock. It didn’t hurt though, and thankfully the world around me was coming back into focus. Slowly, but surely, darkness gave way to dawn.

“I must have really hit my head. Hello? What do you mean ‘beginning virtual environment generation’?”

Moments later, I found out. A mish-mash of different biomes – for lack of a better word given ‘environment’ – lit up before me, soft golden light filtering down from some nebulous source far up above and out of site. There was a pretty standard human bed, with a bedside unit and a lamp but cut off after two walls, both of which rose into darkness with a hint of ceiling. There was a small glade, ringed with tall trees similarly disappearing into a canopy that wasn’t quite there, and last but not least a bath-like pond – an onsen – fed by a stream of pure water. It gently steamed off to one side of a field-slash-meadow which seemed larger and larger the more I tried to see the far edge of it. I shook my head and decided to stop looking before my brain melted.

I headed towards the onsen. I wasn’t sure that I wanted a bath, but a drink of water from the stream – my nose told me it was cool and pure, not like the mineral-rich waters of the onsen – would definitely not go amiss. I’d had quite a day. I’d been thrown head over heels, had sprained my tailbone, busted open my leg, been hit with something fluffy and then beaned by something decidedly not. I could do with dunking my head in some water for a pick-me-up.

Oddly enough, my attention caught as I passed it, the bath appeared to be occupied. There was an eevee in it, under the water.

“What are you doing in there, eevee?” I asked, flicking my tail with mirth and dipping my paws into the pool to bat at the silly creature. Its reflection dispersed in ripples of soft light, and in mounting horror and confusion I realised there was no eevee in the onsen. There was nobody else here at all, wherever ‘here’ was. There was just me. I was the eevee.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” I screamed, turning and running. There was nowhere to run to, but I ran there anyway. The world seemed to stretch, and with a sudden and – I swore – audible pop, I was free. I tumbled out into the real world.

Trees loomed out of the darkness, normal trees with tops that ended where I could see them, their colours slightly… off. Eyes of various pokemon watched from the undergrowth, interested and curious, perhaps hungry, but wary.

”[It’s okay, Eevee! I caught you, I’m your new trainer, calm–]” there was a looming figure before me, two of them actually, one a boy and one a girl, neither of them looked that much above ten. The boy was dressed in jeans, the girl a rather out-of-place dress that was never-the-less made of something similarly tough and weather-resistant. How I could see all this when the childrens’ torch was several feet behind them and pointing in absolutely the wrong direction I wasn’t sure, but I could. The images were crystal clear, if subdued in muted tones that made colouration unclear.

“Calm down?” I shouted “Calm down? I’m not… I… “ I paused, shook my muzzle as with a weird dissonance I heard my true voice – “Vee! Vee! Ee-ee-vee-vee-ee!” – and what I was really saying. “No, no, no… I’m not! It can’t be!”

But it was.

“What have you done?” I shouted up at the two, “I was just running through the forest and I ran into a tree and… and…” I shook my muzzle again. I’d been running through the dark forest, separated from Mama by a poochyena pack and… no! No! I’d been running through the forest looking for the… the… what? I was a human, wasn’t I? This morning in the cave… no! This morning in the hideout! No! This… this… this…

“What have you… what am I? Who am I? Why–” The world spun. I tasted copper as the world faded in and out. A kaleidoscope of images assaulted my brain, each one bringing with them a meteor of pain and blood. I swallowed my tongue, began choking for breath, muscles cramping. The world was going dark. Arceus he—!

“She’s seizing! What’s wrong?”

“It was that damn ball! Break it!”

“No! What if she’s… what if it… I’m going to put her in it, and then I’m going to run back to petalburg! It’s not too far! Eevee! Retu—”

A flash of red light. Motion. Darkness.

Ding-ding-dingle-ding!

Nurse Joy looked up as the doors to the pokecenter were thrown open and two exhausted, dirty, sweaty and frantic children threw themselves in, disturbing the peace of the midnight shift.

“You gotta—”

“Help it’s Eevee—”

“Something’s wrong—”

“Bleeding, seizure—”

“I think she’s gonna die!”

In moments, Joy went from angered at the commotion, causing sharp looks all around from the few late-night patrons, to highly concerned. She stood up. “Chansey? Fetch the trauma unit, immediately! Children, let me see your eevee’s ball, and I’ll need your names and—”

“Rebecca! Becca!” The girl had dark blue hair, korviknight blue, and her similarly blue eyes were wet with tears.

“Edgar! Call me Ed! I caught an Eevee up Route—” The boy had more sandy coloured hair, his red-brown eyes too were bloodshot.

“He found a weird ball—”

“Didn’t—”

Joy clapped her hands once, decisively, a stern look on her face. “Shush! One at a time. Ed, is that the ball?” she asked, pointing.

Ed nodded, tears staining his freckled face which slathered with cuts and abrasions, his hair mussed and full of branches. The nurse studied it as she took it from him; the colouration was strange, not something she’d ever seen before. Purple and an off pink instead of the usual red and white, and the designs were… strange. It must have been a custom job, it looked expensive, but other than that it didn’t appear vastly different to a normal ball.

“Alright, tell me what happened. You found a strange pokeball? That’s usually fine, they’re quite hardy, it doesn’t look broken,” Joy studied the ball in her hand intently, it was scuffed, but few were the balls that didn’t look similarly battered if they were owned by any trainer worth their mettle. “It must be some sort of custom model. You used it on an eevee, you say?”

“I-I did! I spotted her running through the forest, she ran right past our camp! I-I-I found that ball earlier today, and it looked fine, I… it maybe sounded off when it captured her? I don’t know! I never thought it would capture her, it was a lucky throw! We didn’t even battle! Tully was – Tully’s my Taillow – sleeping a-and I-I didn’t w-want to wake him and—”

“Okay, shh, it’s okay. Look, Chansey’s here and… oh, oh that’s not…” For a moment, Joy’s face fell as she analysed the initial readouts from the remote sensors, then she realised where she was, before forcing a placid look and a smile on her face. “Okay, we can deal with this. Where did you say you found this ball?”

“I-in the forest, it was j-just lying there! I didn’t—”

“On what Route, honey? Were there any others? Because if there were, then to be,” she paused, her mouth making a small moue of distress, “then to be safe, we should take them all in if they look like this one. There is something wrong with… I think there may be something wrong with the ball. The data on your eevee is corrupted; by all rights, I should.. I should,” Joy closed her eyes, squeezing them tight. “I should Format the ball.”

“NO!”

The shout from both children was loud enough to startle all the onlookers in the pokecenter’s main room into silence, many of them already trying their best to appear as if they weren’t listening just as hard as they could to the situation unfolding.

“O-kay.” Joy stood straight, sweeping her gaze across all the onlookers. She took a deep breath. “Ladies and gentlemen, I need… I need two pokeballs. Empty. Now.”

Two were swiftly found from trainers – many were offered, no trainer wanted to see a ball Formatted – and Joy very carefully looked around the room. “I am, officially, formatting this eevee’s ball. You’ll forgive me if I turn off all surveillance during this personal and trying time. Rolly, you’d better be awake, I need you.!” Joy called out, loudly, through a door to a back room, as she held it open. She turned back to the pink egg-pokemon who was quivering with distress, “Chansey, you stay out here. Trainers, with me.”

“Bu-bu-but y-you can’t! You can’t! I just caught her!”

“Ed,” interrupted Becca.

“She’s… she didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Ed!” Becca tried again, grabbing her friend by the shoulder.

“She, she, she–” Ed raised his thin, reedy voice in a hoarse cry as his eyes screwed up and hot tears ran down his cheeks, staining them red.

“EDGAR! Shut up and get in!” Becca shook the boy. Rebecca shoved the bawling boy in through the door, and then closed it behind them as she turned to look at the inside of the back room of the pokemon clinic.

The back room of the Pokecenter was no less cheery than the front, if a lot more technical and less visitor friendly. There were no pamphlets and old magazines of Max Trainer here, instead various large machines stood against the walls; amongst them were complicated-looking diagnostic stations with assorted readouts, bottles of oxygen, canisters of glowing plasma and other exotic materials, and another ubiquitous PC, similar to what stood in the lobby of most every pokecenter. This one was obviously older, and for some reason sporting what looked like hands and a spike on the case. It sat in a corner with a multi-ball Restoration Station next to it, flanked by rows of cabinets and drawers each with complicated looking medical devices arranged on them, all labelled with codes and other information.

“Rolly! You’re up,” called Nurse Joy, bringing Rebecca back to the present. Joy put one of the empty balls she’d been gifted into one side of a Transfer Station and the eevee’s ball into the other.

Becca blinked as a buzzing ball of light sprung out of the old computer – the single spike and oddly projecting face and the colouration disappearing from the case as it did so – and floated into the first ball. The ball grew a spike and a face. And turned a more orange colour than before.

“Rotom, rotom!”

Becca had heard of Rotoms, but had yet to see one in person. Until now.

“Okay, you got this, partner? I want you to pop in there and patch Eevee’s code, you think you can do that? I’ll take care of the ball out here, alright?”

“Rotom!”

To Rebecca’s further shock, the ball grew a… a hand, paw, claw… thing, and saluted.

“Disabling safeties… disabling lockout… activating manually inputted test sequence. Here we go! Three… two… one… now!” Nurse Joy’s fingers flew over the keyboard in a complicated dance, and ended with a triumphant stab of the Enter key. There was a flash of light as the machine lit up, and moments later both balls rocked once, twice, thrice… and were still. From the first ball, the Rotom’s features were gone.

“N-nurse? Wh-what… what are you–?” Ed rubbed his face, fists screwed up as he fought to clear the waterworks.

“Rotom’s a genius, Ed. He’s part electric, part ghost, part… part I don’t know what, but one thing he can do is talk to machines in a way almost nothing else can. I don’t have a porygon I can rely on to not jabber, but I do have Rolly. And right now, he’s up in the machine… here, see?” Nurse Joy pointed to a screen, where a storm of text was scrolling past at breakneck speed, some characters glowing as they stuck and shifted, morphing from one character set to another. “Rebecca, dear, hand me that last ball… thank you! Out with the old, in with the new!” She flipped open the little perspex door after jiggling the lock with her ID card, and then in a single, smooth motion replaced the pink-and-purple ball with the final donated one.

“Is that.. Is that safe?” Rebecca asked, face taut as she read the twin ‘DANGER - DO NOT OPEN WHILST MACHINE IS IN OPERATION’ signs.

“No, not at all. Never, ever, under any circumstances do what I’m doing. You can cause an unscheduled Format, and then your pokemon will be gone, forever. But in this case, it’s all that’s between Eevee and destruction,” said Joy, face fixed on the code where she was watching the progress, unblinking.

There was a buzzer, and a flash of light.

“Rotom!”

Rebecca looked down at the first ball, it had grown a spike and a face again. “W-wait, wasn’t he supposed to end up there?” she asked, pointing from the first ball to the second.

“Oh, no, no, the transfer was cancelled, you see? That ball was empty, so Rotom came back with it. Eevee, on the other hand, is right here.” Nurse Joy plucked out the new ball for their hapless pokemon – it was black and shiny, pristine, banded in red and gold. “And if I have these readings correct, she’s doing just fine. Let me run her through a standard healing cycle, and you can have her back.”

The nurse took the ball in her hand, deposited it in the restoration machine in the corner, which had six divots arranged in a semi-circle around a larger central core. It lit up and played a familiar jingle, the eevee’s stats appearing in glowing holographic letters above their heads.

“I see she’s unnamed… what do you want to call her?”

Ed could only look down at the expensive, premium pokeball in front of him. He swallowed. “Th-that’s… L-lux…” The idea of owning a luxury ball, when barely the week prior he’d never even owned a normal one was too much.

“Lux? That’s a wonderful name! I have her registered… now. And, of course, today’s sad task.”

Solemnly, Joy took the weird ball and put it in the same machine she’d run the luxury ball through a moment before, handing the latter to a still shell-shocked Ed, but this time the light was different and the jingle was absent, with only a soft, single bell, sonorous and echoing. The words ‘FORMAT COMPLETE - LOCKOUT ENGAGED’ appeared as white text on a black background in the air above their heads.

“I never, ever want to see that ball again. I regret to inform you that any occupant of that ball has been lost to Formatting. For as much as the creator wishes, may Arceus see to its soul.”

Ed gulped, looking down at the fateful ball that Joy held out for him.

“It’s been locked. It will never function again. Whatever was wrong with it, never bring it back. Do you hear me? You begged me for the ball and I relented, despite the fact that I should destroy it for safety reasons, and you left. You had, however, another pokemon which I just happened to fix up for you as a favour during this trying time. Alright?”

“I… huh? I…?” Ed magikarp’d helplessly.

Rebecca grabbed Ed’s shoulders and steered him towards the door. “We get it, Joy. Thank you, thank you so very much.”

“And take this ball too, this one is functioning perfectly. You wouldn’t want to forget your pokemon, even if you didn’t trade it, would you?” Nurse Joy winked.

“N-no, no, I wouldn’t.”

Joy watched them sympathetically as they walked out of the pokecenter. “Hey, if you think your little guys need some time to decompress, there’s always the park, plenty of other ‘mon to play around with! Just follow the signs!”

“Thanks!” called Rebecca, dragging the still shell-shocked Ed out of the pokecenter into the cool night air. Nurse Joy followed them, as did Chansey.

“Just one last word of advice, Trainers?”

“Yes?”

“Tomorrow. Find somewhere safe and calm to sleep for the night, there are plenty of places for trainers. Let your pokemon and especially Lux rest tonight. Head for the park when you wake up.”

Pop!

I appeared in a flash of white, woken from dreams deep as the void. The world came into focus – Daylight. Wind. Trees. Bushes. Skies. Flame. Scales. Teeth.

“Aargh!”

“Hello, little one.”

Lots of teeth. Lots and lots of teeth. Big ones. “Aaaarrrggh!”

“Loud, isn’t she?” asked another voice. More teeth. Greenish blue skin. A mouth that could swallow me whole – either me – sideways.

“AAAA–”

“Please.” Very, very gently, massively oversized black, scale-covered claws fastened around my muzzle. “You are very loud, and I am trying to relax. Now, little Eevee, when I remove my claws, you won’t scream, will you?”

I shook my head, or tried to.

“Good. You’re a good girl, very clever. New capture, am I right?”

I nodded. Or again, I tried to.

“Okay. My trainer is right over there, you see the young human boy with no shirt and barely any pants on?” I moved my eyes, nothing else had much motion. “He would be very, very upset with me if I ate you. They would put me in a teeny, tiny ball forever and ever, and since neither of us want that to happen, you have absolutely nothing to worry about from me. Alright?”

I nodded, and as the claws around my muzzle lessened, I found I could, this time, nod. “Aah?” I asked, experimentally.

“No, no ‘aah’. Besides, your fur would stick in my teeth and it would take forever to get the stringy bits out. my trainer named me Axel. This is Barney,” Axel pointed his oversized claws at the venusaur taking the sun next to him. “He also won’t eat you. Did yours give you a name yet?”

“Uuuuh… uh-uh.” It was hard to keep the shaking out of my voice, or out of my body. “I don’t think so? I don’t know?”

”[Look at you!]” the female human I recognized from… the night before? said as she approached us, her words indistinct, but the meaning relatively clear. “[Such a pretty girl, aren’t you, Lux? Feeling better now?]”

“Capture confusion,” rumbled Barney, with a knowing nod, as the two deciphered my owner’s friend’s words.

“They call you ‘Lux’, little one. I predict a bright future for you,” the charizard said in a deep bass voice, without a hint of sarcasm.

“Ah, to be a starter again,” chuckled Barney, the venusaur’s booming laughter equally deep. “I remember how hard it was for me to get used to the idea of my trainer. I spent the first few weeks Growling and Tackling her. I used to tie her up with Vine Whip because I was so afraid of her! But she was patient with me, so patient. She was so big at the time, and now she’s so tiny!”

“I was… I was not so lucky,” said Axel, clearly speaking for my sake rather than for Barney’s. “I had to go through several owners before I got one that wanted me for myself, rather than for the colour of my scales.” Axel turned, pointing a claw roughly at his side, where a series of glittering scars traced up and down his body.

”[Have you found some friends? Handsome fellows they are! May I approach you, Charizard? Venusaur?]”

“Hrm, this one is polite, is this your trainer?” the Charizard asked, leaning forwards and presenting his oversized blunt muzzle for eye-ridge scritchings.

“Y-you’re shiny,” I stated, eyeing the black charizard as his Venusaur friend chuckled, continuing to laze in the sun.

“Astute little Eevee, aren’t you? If this is your trainer, she has a good heart.”

“Sh-she’s not,” I mumbled. “None of them are!” Trainers scared me, Mama had always told me to be wary of them because they would snatch me up and steal me away.

”[Oh Lux, I was so worried about you!]” cried the boy, as he ran in, sweeping me up off the grass and whirling around, his back to the two other much larger pokemon.

“A brave trainer indeed to face two such as we, you’ll do well little Lux.”

Ed took the luxury ball from his pocket, already pre-expanded from its handy travel size, and pressed the release button. He threw it high, “Come on Lux, come out! Please be okay!”

He watched with unblinking eyes as the Eevee he’d managed to snag, despite everything saying it should never have worked, reformed in front of him in a flash of white light. He caught the ball as it rebounded to his hand before he shrunk it and stuck it in his pocket.

“Vee-veeeeee!”

“Zard, zard…”

Ed watched as the pokemon chattered amongst themselves. He was a bit worried at first for his new charge, but things seemed, after a brief interaction, to continue in a friendly fashion. He watched as the humongous charizard idly put a claw out around Lux’s muzzle to stop her from keening quite as loud as she had.

“Ve- mrphl.”

“Char-chari-za-zard.”

“V-vee?”

“Zard.”

“Saur-saur, venu-saur–”

He blotted all his worries out as he watched the little eevee he’d caught start to come alive, to play as she should. She looked… actually she looked very healthy. A bit disoriented, but otherwise fine. When Lux started barking again at the massive pokemon in front of her, he launched to the rescue before she nipped them and he had to go back to the pokecenter. He buried his face in her mane, aware he’d been talking to her but not really aware of what he’d been saying. It’d been platitudes, but heartfelt. She smelled like herbs and spices, like sunshine and meadows and his heart ached when he thought about how ill she’d been.

“Oh put her down Ed,” chuckled Becca as she turned to make googly eyes at the venusaur as if he – or she, Ed wasn’t sure – was the smallest little green bean in the world. “She’s not made of glass. She needs to have a bit of a run around, shake out those muscles. She won’t run away from her trainer, will you, little darling Lux?”

Lux growled and snapped at the finger that reached out to pet her. Rebecca snatched it back, raised one eyebrow, and then stepped back before taking off her backpack.

“And that is something we are absolutely not going to have at all, is it? Ed, put. Her. Down.”

“Vee?”

“‘Vee’ is right,” Rebecca said as she straightened up with an object shaped somewhat like a squirtle from her trainer’s pack. “This worked on my little monsters – not that I needed it more than once or twice – and it’ll certainly work on you. Bad Eevee! We do not bite trainers!”

“Vee?”

Squirt.

“Vee! Eevee! EEVEE!” Lux snapped her teeth again. Rebecca pulled her finger back on the trigger and the squirtle bottle sprayed a jet of water, just once. “Eievui!” the ‘little darling’ wailed, curling up and rolling over and over with her paws on her muzzle.

“B-Becca, d-do you–” Ed held his breath.

“Unless you want her to grow up to be a spoiled little monster, yes, you do. But! And this is very important! Never use this in anger, and never threaten with it. Use it, or don’t, but only to admonish, never to punish. Now, you take it, and put it in your backpack. Let her see you do it, and then pull out a pokesnack. Lux, if you’re quite finished?”

There was a rumbly, growly noise. The Eevee’s ears drooped. “E-eevee,” she said, softly.

“See, she’s just cranky. Now, praise her, quickly Ed. Hold it out – mind your fingers – and let her… see! She’s a sweetheart. Just needed a firm hand.”

Ed’s eyes lit up as the hungry little kit daintily bit the slightly squashed pokesnack bar from his fingers, licking them clean.

“Do… do you have another?” I asked, voice shaking with innocence and hope. I sat back on my haunches, looked up at Ed as he basked in my cuteness and… I felt a kind of energy flow through my very being, empowered by the thought of never, ever having another pokesnack again. Such a great sadness that it poured from the depths of my very being, out through my eyes as they lasered into him. I submerged him in a wave of cuteness and sadness as I did my best to express how much I really, really wanted – and deserved – more snacks. He immediately dug into his back and pulled out two more fruity, berry-laden bars of goodness prepared to unwrap and feed them to me.

I snatched them both and ran.

Axel and Barney looked at each other, shaking their heads.

“Arceus’ teeth, he’s not gonna make it, is he?” chuckled the dragon.

“Baby-Doll eyes? That might even have been a Cute!” the massive floral pokemon said, astonished. “No, no, he’s totally the one getting trained. Those moves don’t even work like that!”

“Maybe they do on humans?”

“Humans are weird. I don’t really know why–”

Sniggering to myself as I scampered through the poke-playground, I dived into a bush and left everyone behind. Pausing in the shade and relative silence, I finally took stock of things. Sniffing experimentally, I found some Sitrus and Lum berries which I hastily pulled from their branches with my teeth to drop on the floor next to my other loot. Smacking my chops loudly as I feasted, I devoured the pokesnacks and berries, thought I did bury the biodegradable wrappers. Almost immediately, I started to feel a little bit better. I was a long way from Mama but… I paused, brain rebooting. I… something was… no, I was wrong.

“I’m a pokemon,” I said, slowly. “I am a pokemon, but I was a human. But I remember being a pokemon.” I examined my memories experimentally, like one would feel around a sore tooth with their tongue, and realised there were holes, holes of eevee memories filled by a human’s. And holes of human memories filled by an eevee’s. My memories of the last two days? Mostly Eevee’s. Prior to that? To be honest, mostly human; I’d been alive as a human a lot longer than I’d been alive as an eevee, but on the other hand, my eevee memories were much brighter and my human memories were like that… that Kalosian cheese with holes in it, foggy and incomplete. On balance, I’m not sure which were more powerful, more prominent.

“What’s my name?” I asked myself. Such a simple question. Thinking on it, an echo of an echo bounced through my head, but try as I might, I could never hear the actual words. The berries and the snack bars suddenly tasted like ash. I didn’t know who I was.

”[Lux! Lux! Where did you go?]”

I perked up an ear, then lowered them both. That was Rebecca, Most Evil Girl, Bringer of the Squirtle Bottle. Confuser of Sexes. I hunkered down. That was another thing; why did she – why did they – keep saying I was a girl? I was a boy, wasn’t I? I tried to get a look at my hind-quarters, but was roused from this by another voice.

”[Lu-ux!]”

That, on the other paw, was Ed, Giver of Treats, led astray by Most Evil. What to do, what to do?

”[She can’t have gone far. Lu-ux!]” Becca tried again.

”[Maybe I should give her another treat?]”

Well, obviously personal dilemmas could wait if snacks were on the line.

”[No, you should not, she’ll get fat.]”

You take away the snacks? You leave Eevee hungry, starving? Prison for you. Prison for one thousand years!

”[What if we stopped for a picnic proper? She won’t have gone far. I’ve got some jelly donuts and some healthier poke-food.]” Ed pulled out two fat white triangles, one of which he handed to Most Evil. Making my mind up – treacherous stomach – I emerged from the bushes and sauntered over to the pair as they sat on a handy bench. I hopped up next to Best Child, tail wagging.

”[There you are, Lux! Look, some poke-food for… oh, umm, umm, that’s… that was mine. I was going to share some with you and Tully, but…]”

“Ish tashty, ver’ tashty,'' I mumbled to him around the savoury rice-filled treat as I bit into it from where he’d placed it on the bench, on a handy square of paper. “You can has the poke-food, ish pr’ty good… mmrph… pr’ty g’d too.” I dug into the small bowl of poke-food as he put it down on the bench, leaving him one of the small, round fingers of goodness. Then I pointed to it with a paw. “If you don’t want…? Okay, waste not want not.”

I bent my head and scarfed up the last poke-food piece, smacking and chewing it loudly. I swallowed. “Thirsty now!” I put my tongue out, breathing at Best Child. “See how thirsty I am?”

Most Evil shook her head as Ed got up to fill the food bowl with water. “[You,]” she said to me, glaring, “[are going to grow up to be a complete monster.]”

I sat down on my haunches and licked a paw, glancing at her dismissively. As if she was that much better a trainer than Best Child; she had what, a year on Best Child at most? Now I looked at them, I could see that Rebecca was not quite a head taller, but she carried herself differently than Ed. She was older, but also It was obvious that she was some sort of… Poison-Psychic Type Human compared to Ed’s Normal Type, it made Most Evil smarter than was good for her as it twisted her to think of such baleful objects as The Squirtle Bottle. I shuddered, the world growing colder for a moment, as if the sun had darkened. Then Best Child returned with a bowl of cool, clear, fresh water and I eagerly bent to drink it.

”[Eew! Lux! You’re such a mucky pup!]” Best Child leaned away as I drank. His fault for getting in the way, it’s not like I know how this tongue thing really wo– I coughed and sputtered as my brain betrayed me. I’d stopped thinking like an eevee for a brief moment, had inhaled as if I’d been drinking a soda from a straw and the rest was history. Coughing, wheezing and spluttering history.

”[And that,]” said Most Evil with a smirk, “[is karma. Time for some proper relaxation now we’re all back together. Come on out Sissy, Bart and Shadow.]”

There was a series of loud pops and flashes of light, and a whole host of new pokemon appeared, a mawile, a sandshrew and an electrike.

”[Tully! Come out and meet your little sister!]” Ed threw another pokeball, and a taillow popped out.

”[And Chompy, you too! We need somebody to keep them both in line. In fact, all of you come on out!]”

My gaze focused on the mawile, her fearsome backwards-pointing jaw-hair opening and closing as she stretched.

“You’re Sissy?” I asked. “Not Chompy?”

“You bet your tail-fluff I am, sister.”

“Then who’s Chompy?” I asked, tilting my head to one side and ignoring the ‘sister’ remark.

“Oh you’re gonna find out.” Sissy started preening her fur, a smirk on both her mouths.

“If I were you, I’d be on my best behaviour, Chompy can be a bit… oh g-goodness,” Bart mumbled, looking down at his paws. “New pokemon.” He curled up in a ball, the sandshrew rocking back and forth slightly.

“I’ve got him,” said Shadow, the electrike hopping up onto two legs to roll the comatose ‘shrew away into a corner. “He gets a bit… nervous around new people. He’ll warm up to you. Totally awesome in battle, but socially? Eh.” The electrike waggled a paw, a very human gesture.

“Little sister, huh? Well if you’re the little sister, that means I’m in charge!” bragged the tiny taillow, puffing out its red and white chest feathers.

“If you think–” I began, as the last of the red balls of light solidified into a large, black and yellow serpent, with purple highlights and a vicious looking red blade on its tail.

“Hss…” Chompy’s tongue flicked in and out experimentally. “Breakfassst?”

“It-it-it’s a bit l-late for breakfast,” I said, turning to the final pokemon of Most Evil’s little team, hunching down and trying to make myself look invisible.

“Oh, jussst a sssnack then… I’ll need sssomething more filling later.”

“Aieeeee!”

“You know,” said Sissy to Chompy, watching as I disappeared into the bushes, “between the four of us, you’d really think Mistress would be more wary of me and you, but for some reason, I can get away with murder and it’s Shadow who gets the Squirtle.”

“Sssuch isss life. Who’sss the new girl?” The serpent ‘mon coiled up in an extended shrug and then pointed her tail-blade towards where I sheltered beneath the sitrus berries.

“A real trouble maker, that’s who. She’s gonna give Tully and run for the money for class clown.”

This was too many pokemon, so I decided to take a bit of a break from them all and took off to explore the park. Running through the undergrowth, this brought back memories. Why, it was almost as if yesterday I’d been doing much the same, I thought to myself wryly. The only thing missing now is–

thwack!

Yep, there it was.

I tumbled into the darkness of a pokeball, and with a sigh waited for the news.

“Apologies, you are already captured. Releasing.”

Pop!

“I’m at a park, what kind of dummy–” thwack! “Oh, that kind of dummy.”

“Apologies, you are already captured. Releasing.”

Pop!

”[Why won’t you–]”

Thwack!

“Apologies, you are already captured. Releasing.”

Pop! Thwack!

“Apologies, you are already captured. Releasing.”

Pop!

“Pokeballs don’t work that way, you blithering tauros’ backside! Stop bloody well throwing pokeballs at me! See how much you like it!” I grabbed one of the balls in my muzzle, spun around three, four, five times and lobbed it back at the idiot trainer. It beaned him right in the head.

“And this is my training fee,” I snorted at him, turning to pick up one of the many, many pokeballs that had been launched in my direction. I turned back when I heard the distinct pop and whoosh of a rematerialization. “And you can just take your fat, ugly mug and piss right off back into… your… ball. Er… hi, I’m Lux and I’m very, very small.” I dropped my 'fee' all over the floor.

“What did you say?” The quite frankly gigantic steel-coloured monstrosity before me asked, breath like a forge as it bent its snakelike body down to peer at me.

“I, ah, I said, ah, th-that y-you should g-go b-back into your b-ball.”

“Oh there are several things wrong with that. Firstly, you threw a pokeball at my trainer.”

“I’m, ah, very, very sorry about-“

“Don’t be. Too much. He’s an idiot.”

“Goo-“

“He’s my idiot though. Which brings me to point number two.” The steelix reared up, growling, suddenly looking a lot more menacing. I swear the temperature dropped a few degrees. “I believe you told me to, and I quote, ‘get my fat, ugly mug and piss right off’. Them’s fighting words, mutt, and I’m more than happy… to oblige!” Crunch!

“Is it… any use… if I say… sorry!?” I yelled, already running and juking from side to side with Agile movements, bone-shattering Crunches snapping where I’d been barely moments before.

“Get back here you little shit! I’m going to rip you in half!” the steelix roared.

“Hey we’re in the park! We’re not supposed to try to kill each other!”

“That’s not what’s happening!” the steelix roared again, slamming into the ground in Frustration. “I’m trying to kill you! And you’re being very lucky with not getting killed! Stop it so I can finish the job!”

“Hey, mon, that’s like… totally not cool, chill!” called a rather surprisingly laid-back voice from off to one side. The sunlight, which had already been intense, seemed to redouble, and I swore an almost palpable pillar of pure sunlight concentrated into some sort of semi-solid Solar Beam and descended upon us. I leaped clear, just feeling the warmth singe my fur a little, but for the brilliantly metallic steelix it seemed to cause a great deal of pain. He – or she, I hadn’t really had time to check the creature out, and wasn’t sure I’d know which it was even if I did – roared, a shocker I know but this time it was in clear agony, and he began to thrash about wildly.

“Woah! Woah! Calm down, bro, this is not a good look for you. Even worse than normal!” I shouted as I dodged heaving sod and rocks, “no need to cause an Earthquake with your tantrum!”

“Come over here and say that to my face!” the steelix shouted.

“I would but I don’t know which end I should head for!” I taunted.

“Why you–!” the steelix Slammed Heavily into the ground as I once again juked to the side.

“No picking on the little dude, dude,” said the same sunflower-creature as before.

“Yeah!” I agreed.

“Even if she is a major putz to the max.”

“Hey!”

A stream of green bullets sped through the air, exploding violently against the huge metallic monster who, predictably, roared in pain. I dashed in Swiftly and Bit down just as hard as I could – ouch! My teeth! – before being hit by a new stream of green bullets.

“Quit it! Hit the stupid metal snake! Not me!” I shouted, taking a deep breath and… something shot through me, electrifying my entire body, and in a full-on heave, a stream of glowing green seed-like bullets shot towards the sunflower who’d been helping me.

“Not cool, mon! “

“Sorry! Saving it for the oversized wrench!” I bounced off the metal lug, leaped with Agility through the tail-slams of the steelix and landed near to the sunflora.

“I am not an oversized wrench! I’m going to enjoy mashing your little body into paste! And you! Stop helping him!” The snake lunged across the clearing at the talking sunflower creature, which… somehow moved in a blurring motion that left dozens of after-images scattered all across the battlefield.

“That’s a neat trick! Let me have a go!” I shouted, and… I felt myself blur as I zipped hither and yon around the snake.

“There’s no way you can know Double Team! Stand still so – ARGH! – I can mash your stupid furry hide into a rug!” roared the steelix as it was pelted with seeds and furious claw-swipes from multiple angles.

“I don’t know Bullet Seed either, but that hasn’t stopped me! Together, dude, hit it!”

Twin streams of glowing, bright green seeds lasered across the devastated clearing, exploding against the steelix. It writhed in agony as it went down. And predictably, I was just a little bit too slow to avoid its manic thrashing.

Snake tail, meet eevee body. Cliff, meet head. Gravity, welcome back. Hello darkness, my old friend.

The sun was setting by the time we all made our way back to the pokecenter. Well, I wasn’t making my own way, I was being carried. Being somewhat dazed, bruised, cut and dirty will do that for an eevee. Remind me never to pick a fight with a steelix by commenting on the size of its butt ever again. On the other paw, I managed to beat it. Somehow. There was that sunflora pokemon that got involved and then we both suddenly shot seeds at it and… it was no use. I’d have to give what actually happened another think when my head stopped pounding.

“Hello and welcome to the-“ Nurse Joy paused, then. “I know I said ‘welcome, come again’, but I did think you’d wait at least a few days before returning. I see Lux is looking a bit under the weather, she’s been battling already, huh? Did you win?”

“I don’t know, Ma’am, it was kind of… in the park. After she ran off with my snacks. And ate my jelly donuts. And picked on a steelix.”

“Precocious little thing, isn’t she?” Joy chuckled ruefully. “Alright, back in the ball with her, and I’ll give her a checkup.”

“Lux! Return!”

The pink-haired nurse and her ever-present chansey wandered off into the back room once more with Lux in her ball, leaving the kids to relax – this time – in the pokecenter’s emergency trainer room. After a few moments of silence, Becca took a deep breath.

“You know, I think it’s time I blew this town and moved on.”

“B-but-“ stammered Ed. Becca looked at him and rolled her eyes.

“With you, dummy. If you want. I mean, you don’t hafta… you dummy.”

Ed smiled at the suddenly flustered trainer sitting next to him. “Th-that’s good, I’d like to come with. Looks like this town’s not quite as safe as we thought it would be, anyway.” He pointed to the WANTED posters on the wall of the pokecenter.

Becca snorted dismissively. “Who, them? Team Rocket’s just a bunch of nobodies. We could take ‘em. At least the lower-level grunts.” She got up from the bench and ripped a poster from the wall, waving it at her fellow trainer. “This one’s not even got a mugshot. More of a Not Wanted, am I right?” They both laughed, but read through the description anyway.

“It says they’ve been hanging out in some of the sketchier sections of the Petalburg docks, so I guess I know which way not to head out of town,” grumbled Ed. “I was hoping for a cruise, but I guess we can do that later.”

“More walking. Get used to it, kid, such is the life of a pokemon trainer. Let’s stock up on supplies and sundries, then hit the trail. Again. And this time, let’s wait to have the balls we find analysed to make sure they’re working first.”

“I’d ask how many times pokeballs are found in the tall grass, but I think I already know. A lot.”

Ding-ding-dingle-ding!

”[Here you are, she’s all better now.]”

I peered out at the humans from on the bed in my ‘virtual environment’, although it felt very real to me. I was curled up at one end, nose on tail. With a mental flick, I switched the temporal ratio in the opposite direction to what would normally be desired and the outside world slowed to a crawl. Ed’s outstretched hand immediately paused, almost completely. I couldn’t drive it that high, of course, but near enough. I watched for a few moments, contemplating, before I leaped off of the bed and headed to the baths. Turning around and around, I tried to get my hind quarters set just so and… Arceus’ teeth! I was a girl!

I peered balefully at a small, very private part of my body, then shook myself, feeling weird. What was worse was that I didn’t really know why it felt weird, I just knew that it did. After all, I’d hatched with it. I just hadn’t been born with it. It’s not like it mattered; I wasn’t going to be, uh, needing to worry about it for a while at least. And didn’t that prospect fill me with delight. I shuddered again. Mama had not yet given me the talk about the Combees and the Pidgeys, and my human mother had… huh, that was… that was weird. I reached up a paw, and brushed my muzzle. Could eevees get hay fever from their virtual environments having too many flowers? Enough of this. With a mental flick, time resumed its normal course, and Ed summoned me from my musings.

“Vee! Eevee!”

“Well hello to you again little miss. She looks very healthy. Especially for a pokemon that decided to pick on a steelix many times her size. Once more, I have to say, thank you for visiting, come again and welcome back, but please try to keep the emergency visits to a minimum. Now I heard talk of continuing your pokemon journeys – are all your other pokemon healthy? Don’t want to give them a little checkup?”

“No thanks, we’re good!” chirped Becca.

“No, Thank you, Nurse Joy.”

“Off you go then, say hello to my sisters when you see them!”

“Bye!”

“So long!”

Nurse Joy sat back down in her chair and breathed a sigh of relief. “Frankly, with those Team Rocket troublemakers in town, I’m glad the kids are gone. They’d probably have done something stupid like tried to confront them.” A few moments later, she glanced at Chansey. “I totally jinxed it, didn’t I?”