Casting one look guiltily along it towards where my trainer was probably going out of his mind with worry — or annoyance if he thought I’d just run off for some reason — I mentally went over the best way to get safely to the pokecenter in Rustboro, followed by how to get out again without my trainer, or without getting re-adopted. I’d never heard of such a thing happening other than, well, those Team Rocket clowns stole pokeballs if they wanted tame Pokémon, and mine was back with Ed. They might still try to capture me though. A vague feeling of unease nagged at the back of my mind — maybe they had some way to do that? — but I shut it down. If I didn’t get myself some first aid I was going to get sicker and sicker, and that meant braving the pokecenter. There would probably be a chansey; if whichever of Nurse Joy’s sisters that worked there didn’t understand me, her chansey assistant would.

As I walked, it grew brighter. I played my interaction with Mama over and over in my head. She’d known, somehow, that something wasn’t right. And that stuck with me. What did it mean? Obviously I was not her kit, but I also was, wasn’t I? Lost in thought, I stumbled, yelping as I pulled already sprained joints and muscles.

“You’re not looking so hot there, killer,” Gastly said mockingly, flying around my stumbling body.

“I think I might have sprained something bad back there,” I said, paws trembling with each step. It’d been hard going through the jungle, I hadn’t realized how hard until presented with what should’ve been an easy path and was still having trouble. That was actually enough of a distraction for me to fall to my side, whimpering.

Gastly watched for a few moments, hovering pensively above me. “If you expect sympathy, I’m all out,” he said. He sounded like a he, at least. I wasn't sure it mattered or applied for ghosts.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, sniffling quietly in shame. “I was hungry. I was angry. I wasn’t… I wasn’t thinking straight. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I don’t think I can go much further today.”

I started looking around for somewhere to make camp, when there came a sudden rustling behind me, further down the path. I spun, my injuries forgotten and a snarl on my muzzle, as some poochyena deposited themselves in front of me.

“You’re not going to go much further ever again,” one of them growled. She licked her lips, she was large, a totem.

“You’d be surprised how a brief rest can summon back the body’s energy,” I growled low, backing away, summoning strength I didn't have. “I’ll just be going now, that’s if you’d like to keep your face attached to your body.”

“Brave words for a snack like you. Don’t think you can run,” the leader said again, gesturing with her head as, with another clatter and snapping of branches, another group of poochyena emerged behind me further up the road.

“You’re going to get your revenge sooner than either of us expected,” I muttered to the gastly, “unless you want to help.”

“It’s no use begging, Actually… please do beg. It won’t help, but I’ll enjoy it,” the largest poochyena spoke again.

“I’ll beg forgiveness from the forest for spilling your blood,” I growled, with much more bravado than I actually felt. It made the poochyena leader pause for a second, then she threw back her muzzle and barked out in laughter.

“Oh that’s a good one! That’s fantastic. Now, prepare to die.”

“Oh I’m going to die… just not today!” I leaped forwards, teeth bared as I went for her throat... and then I jinked sideways and headed into the forest. Instantly, the poochyena pack was after me. I felt a stinging pain in my tail and I twisted my haunches — Yelp! — throwing whatever weight had become attached into a tree. I pounced on the next grey-and-black shape I saw, snapping and snarling as I fastened my teeth around the poochyena’s neck. I flung it sideways, using the throw to heave myself in another direction. A powerful bite fastened itself around one hind paw and another heavy shape slammed into my sides. The breath whooshed from my lungs as I was tackled and slammed into the ground. We both rolled, and with a flurry of claws I managed to struggle free of the melee, not that that lasted for long. I gave as good as I got, tearing at an eye here, mauling haunches there, but it was a losing battle seeing as there was only one of me and several of them.

“Help!” I cried to anybody who would listen, sobbing, yapping and snarling as I ripped at bellies and tore at necks. “Please help!”

“Cry all you like, snack, your blood will warm the ground and your meat our bellies soon enough!”

I screamed out in visceral pain as the leader poochyena’s claw tore open my stomach.

“Groudon’s pendulous balls… fine! I’ll help!” The gastly’s tongue appeared before the ball of gas did, slurping its way right up the back of the poochyena. She went rigid. I scrambled to all fours, dragging myself along as swiftly as I could, as the poochyena leader threw herself off my body in shock at being licked by a ghost.

“You little shit!” she cried, and swiped at me with her claws.

I cried out in pain again, screaming, as fire lanced through my side. I impacted a tree and saw stars. I struggled to rise, but in vain, falling back down.

“And now, we feast.”

There was pain, a flash of light, and darkness.

Gina was skipping along a few feet ahead of her twin sister Mia, enjoying the morning. Classes were out at their local Pokémon school so they’d both decided to take part in their second most favourite pastime, which was searching for berries along Route 104. Gina was being a Good Girl. She kept an eye out for wild ‘mon, even though most of them were her friends, and she kept an eye out for her sister since Mama always said she was the bigger — just by a minute or so, but it still counted! — of the two. That’s why she was the first to hear the ruckus from just off the trail. She rushed over, and saw a terrible sight.

“Lotad, go! Watergun! Mia! Mimi! Come quick!” She dropped the few berries she had collected — those she hadn’t eaten — by the side of the trail, and ran forwards towards what turned out to be an eevee! She threw her pokeball without a second thought, calling to her friend and her sister.

“What is it, Gigi?” Mimi asked, panting breathlessly as she ran, quickly catching up to her sister.

“It’s an eevee! She’s hurt! She’s fighting a poochyena pack!”

“Seedot! Go! Get those naughty ‘yeenas! Rollout!” Rollout was both unexpected and effective against the poochyena, their bodies sent flying with a cacophony of yelps and barks. Mimi followed it up with effective secondary attacks. “Mega drain those puppies! Give them some payback!”

Gina too was efficient and ruthless with her Lotad, calling upon nature’s power to serve some justice for the poor eevee. Picking up a hefty log, the girl ran, brandishing it, and swung, impacting the poochyena that was tearing into the eevee, sending it flying. “Watergun! Get out of here poochyena! And don’t you come back!”

Breathing heavily, the two girls came together as they made sure the clearing was safe. Kneeling down on their heels to examine the small, helpless shape, they both gasped in shock at the injuries, the amount of blood.

Watching carefully, Gigi held her breath for a moment, before letting it out in a long relieved sigh. “She’s alive, we’ve got to help her!”

“Do you think we should move her? I don’t have any pokeballs, do you?” Mia searched her pockets, coming up empty.

“Uh uh, but I can carry her.” Gigi shook her head, “Lotad’s tired from earlier and seedot’s too small! Come on, let’s go Eevee!”

I came to as rhythmic spikes of pain wracked my body. I was being carried. I wasn’t dead, which was… good, I guessed. Blearily looking at the tiny human carrying me — I swear, I was almost as big as she was — I started to laugh, I’d been saved from certain death by two little girls and the clothing strips they’d torn to make into bandages. Barely. Then I stopped laughing, it hurt too much. My head was spinning and the world was slowly growing darker. The gastly floating behind the two girls was quiet for a moment, then it seemed to slump, somehow. I wasn’t sure how a ball of gas could slump, but it did.

“You were just being a Pokémon. I don’t understand you; why did you even care?” it asked of me, quietly. The girls either ignored it, or didn’t hear it. I could have been hearing it’s voice in my head again, I didn’t know. After a few more moments of collecting my breath, I chuckled.

“You act like your coming back was my fault.” Silence. “Entei’s dangling nutsack! It was?” I croaked out.

“And now I’m stuck here, with you,” the gas-ball hissed, angrily, eyes flashing.

“You’ll have to explain that to me some time,” I snarked. Then I coughed. “But later. I’m busy dying.” I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them again, the sun was lower and the trees looked different. The blood matting my fur had dried in patchy, tangled blobs, the makeshift bandages had done what work they could. “Hey, tell me your name for when I join you in death and we both have to haunt these woods.”

The ball turned towards me, as if it had been snoozing, or thinking. “Name? I… I don’t have one. I never had a trainer, never had a legend, I was just a magikarp!”

“Then I’ll call you… Guy. Guy the Gastly. Guy, do you… do you think I’ll become a ghost?”

“Only if I’m really, really unlucky.”

“I’d like,” I panted, closing my eyes again, as the woods finally gave way to suburbia, “I’d like to think that… you really are.”

Beep… beep… beep.

“[Oowww… what happened to ‘ding ding dingle ding’?]” I complained, voice hoarse.

“She’s awake!” cried an excited young girl’s voice.

“Careful,” interjected an older female’s voice. “She’s still very weak. I’ve had to use every trick, potion and stat booster I know of to stabilize her, but I think she’s on the mend. Without her pokeball, we had to do this the hard way. Those poochyena really did a number on her.”

“[Nurse Joy, you’ve… not changed your hair at all,]” I mumbled.

“[Let me guess, Lux, you met her sister?]” a pokemon asked, her voice sweet and light.

I peered over — painfully and carefully — at the chansey manning several big, clunky looking machines that had apparently been keeping me alive. I’d never seen I.V. drips nor stitches and bandages needed on a Pokémon before either. I must have really been hurt. I wondered if I’d have scars, or if I’d be missing fur. I nodded, gently.

“[I think I met your sister too,]” I replied. “[Who’re the kids?]” I nodded — ow! — to the two girls fawning over me.

“You can make it Lux!”

“I’m glad I found you! I’m sorry I can’t keep you! Maybe you can come visit when you’re better?”

“[Mimi,]” replied the chansey, pointing to the first, “[And Gigi, your rescuers.]”

I closed my eyes again. “[Tell them… tell them thank you.]”

“[They know, but I’ll tell them anyway!]” Chansey’s tinkling laughter was the last I heard before sleep — proper, restorative sleep — took me.

“Lux! Don’t… don’t run off. Muk’s muck, what in Giratina’s name are we going to have to do with that eevee?” Becca complained, as the dratted eevee's tail disappeared into the undergrowth.

“Tully! Can you follow her?” Ed called to his taillow. Tully tweeted loudly an affirmative and flew off, but came back a few minutes later and landed on his trainer’s shoulder, shaking his head. Ed reached up and patted him. “It’s okay. We’ll just have to track her if she’s not back by morning. No use racing after her now, she’s too fast and this is her home territory.”

“Makes sense, Ed, this was right near where we caught her. Hopefully she’s not gone far. She’s a kit, how far could a kit like that get on her own?”

Ed didn’t sleep well that night, he was too concerned over his missing, incident-prone partner to get more than a half hour or so at a time. By morning, he was a wreck, with huge bags under his eyes and barely half coherent. It took a good, hot cup of chesto-persim berry tea to let him even be able to properly dress himself.

“Come on Ed, if you don’t pack up we can’t get a move on. She’s not back yet, but if we can’t make a proper go of it, we might as well not bother!”

“But Becca, she—!”

“But Becca nothing! She comes from here, Ed, you know that. You caught her here, wild. She knows how to survive here, better than you do!”

Ed slumped, sniffling and wiping his face on his hands and arms. “I suppose. I just… the thought of her alone, lost, out here. There could be anything here! Who knows what she was running from, what if whatever it is is also still out here?”

“In these woods? Can’t be anything more troublesome than a pack of poochyena, or some particularly angry pidgeys.”

“You laugh,” said Ed, without a trace of humour as he took down the tent, “but pidgeys get very territorial.”

Clearing up, once the tea had taken effect, proceeded smartly. In a very short space of time, packs were shouldered and various Pokémon were sent out scouting, Tully with orders to be careful, and Sissy to stay hidden.

“Ma-mawile wile!” Sissy said, emerging from some bushes, calling to her trainer.

“Lux went this way? You’re sure?” Becca called out, putting a hand on Ed’s shoulder to stop him.

“Mawile.”

“Okay then. It feels like we’ve been walking in circles, but I guess you know best. We’re really in the middle of nowhere, I don’t even have any signal on my phone!” Becca took her phone out, it was a sturdy, older model that was very reliable most places, but far enough out into the wilds it was little more than a fancy paperweight. She held it up anyway, hoping to get a connection. Maybe if she could afford a newer version, or get a rotom, then she’d never be without coverage.

“Tully,” Ed called, “can you see any sign of her?”

“Tai-tai!”

“Keep looking, if Sissy says she’s been this way, maybe we’ll be lucky and find her before dark.”

They weren’t that lucky, but considering what could happen to a pair of young children on a mountain out in the wilds, they were lucky enough.

“[Lux definitely came this way,]” Sissy said, pointing into the cave. Her large, backwards-facing jaws opened momentarily, a red tongue licking her second pair of lips hungrily.

“[Careful,]” Tully said, landing on a branch and hopping closer to the trunk of the tree, “[If whatever else is in there isn’t friendly, then a full meal of Lux soup followed by Lux on the side garnished with extra Lux is gonna make it a problem for us to deal with.]”

“[I expect we can—]”

“Who goes there? Do you come again to taunt me with my pain?”

The Pokémon outside the cave looked at each other. Bart rolled up into a ball.

“Did… did you just hear that?” Ed asked, sharing a glance with Becca. He blew into his hands and stamped his feet.

“I… I did, but I also didn’t. Umm, hello?”

Both children were taken aback as an espeon padded out of the darkened cave. It fixed them with a glare and growled low, its tails flicking angrily side to side.

“I told you interlopers that you were not welcome on my… wait, humans? You smell of my kit. Did you capture her?”

“Do you… umm… you are speaking, right?” Ed stammered as he looked down at the Pokémon before him, her eyes glowing.

“Considerably better than you whelps are. My patience runs thin, child, did you capture my kit?”

“I, er, think so? She ran across my campsite a few days ago, and I… caught her. I-in a pokeball.”

“That is generally how one captures Pokémon. Well, now that your guilt has been established, you can give her back!”

Ed and Becca looked at each other. Not only was this Pokémon talking, but it was demanding the return of the one thing they couldn’t give it.

“Well? Give her back, or I will make you give her back!”

“We, er, thought you’d already seen her. Sissy says she came here,” said Becca, pointing to the mawhile, who shrunk back from the angry glare sent her way.

“[It’s true. An eevee kit ran through our campsite. The two humans chased her and the boy caught her, but… something was wrong with the ball. She was sick, we went to the pokecenter with her.]” Sissy explained.

“Is this true?” the espeon said.

“Uh, we don’t… speak Pokémon,” explained Becca, pointing from her mawile to herself and back, as the former chattered away in poke-spead. “N-normally, at least. I mean, I can understand you but that’s…” Becca pointed to the side of her head. The espeon visibly sighed.

“Your pets say you caught my daughter in a monster ball, but there was a problem with it?”

“I did! In this!” Ed swung his pack off his back and threw sundries out of it until he came up with an odd pink and purple ball. “B-but it was… it’s broken, or something.”

“I smell my kit! Release her at once!”

“It’s empty.” Ed threw the ball. It landed, popped open… and nothing emerged. It also failed to fly back to its owner’s hand. The espeon approached it, sniffing it experimentally. Her eyes continued to glow as she appraised it.

“You… speak the truth. My daughter was here. I smell her, you… and other humans, the ones who have been stirring up the peace of this mountain, the peace I sought to raise my daughter in. The peace and contentment that was shattered when she was ripped from me.”

“So you believe us? Please believe us, we never meant any harm to your… daughter. She was just—”

“You are humans. It is what you do. You enslave our kind for your own amusement.”

“I don’t!” Ed complained.

“I would never!” retorted Becca. “I love my Pokémon! Like they were… like they are my family!”

The espeon sighed again, turning around and entering the cave. “I have had this same debate before, many times.”

“[Obviously not with Pokémon! I’m not her slave! In many ways she is mine! She feeds me, trains me, heals me, tends to me!]” Sissy said, slamming her little fist on her chest.

“Silence, weak little pet.”

“[I’ll show you weak! I’ll—]”

“Sissy! Please don’t! An-and you! Miss espeon, please don’t fight with my Pokémon. We’ve travelled all day to find our… your kit. Please, if you know where she is, just—”

“You travel in search of my child? Does she mean that much to you that you would brave the wilds for her?”

“Please tell me, is she… is she in there? Is she safe at least?”

“Idiot child, if I knew where she was, I would never have allowed you to find my cave. Now come, shelter from the night, and tell me more about this… pokecenter. About this ball. And I will tell you of what troubles my lands.”

Ed sniffed, wiping his tears away with the back of his hand. “I just… I’m worried about her. She ran off and we’ve been tracking her all day and still don’t know where she is. She came here, but-”

“She… left.”

“[Yeah, I’ve picked up her scent. It’s old, she wasn’t here long. Why wouldn’t she—]”

“[Because,]” growed the espeon aloud, sideways glancing at the humans suspiciously, “[she was not my child. She wore her skin, but she was not my child. That is why you will stay, and your humans will tell me of their encountering her.]”

The fire crackled merrily in the depths of the cave. With the right dry wood and some creative applications of psychic powers, the smoke was kept to a minimum. It became warm, and both humans and Pokémon were able to relax. Food was made and shared, and talk was had.

“I was so worried about Lux when we went to the pokecenter, I thought she was going to die, but Nurse Joy and her rotom fixed it! She… I don’t know what they did, but Lux went in one ball, and came out in another! This one.” Ed produced Lux’s ball, throwing it out in front of him. It, too, popped open to reveal nothing, though after a few seconds it snapped shut and returned to his hand. Shadows danced on the walls as he contemplated it. “She’s too far away to Return at the moment. I think there’s a move that can do such things, but… she ran away, looking for you, I guess. We have to find her, she has to be safe!”

The espeon sniffed at the luxury ball, tails swishing curiously. “This smells of her, and you… and other humans, but not the troublemakers. You are telling the truth.”

“Of course we are!” Becca huffed. “Your kit is a pain in the tail, but Ed would do anything for her. And I’d do anything to help Ed.”

“The young, or the male of any age, normally are more difficult.”

“Hey!”

“But in all seriousness, your Pokémon came to me last night. She wore the skin of my daughter, but she was not my daughter. I believe… I believe something happened with that ball. I charge you now, humans, with two things.”

“Why do you think—” Becca began, but Ed hushed her.

“Tell us, ma’am. If it helps to find your kit, Lux, th-then we’ll do anything.”

“I fear your influence may be… too strong, for her to return to me fully. We shall see, when you find her, if she is any more my kit, or has become yours. But you must find her! The real her! Find her, deliver her from danger, heal her, and bring her back to me. Or… or if she is no longer of this world, then bring what you can.” There was silence for a moment as the espeon closed her eyes, choking back tears. Then she opened them again, and anger burned hotly. “But first, you will help get those troublemakers off my mountain!”