I was still sleepy as Sly fished me out from under the overhang, near the engine, where I’d made myself a comfy nest out of some rope, some netting and a large wooden crate. I’d more or less passed out once I’d used Rayquaza’s move — I had no idea what it was, but it was now lurking somewhere in the back of my mind giving my core furtive glances like it was not sure if it should make itself at home or disappear into the aether — from the sheer drain of whatever-it-was.

As Benny or Hill had said, it may have affected the weather, but it wasn’t Sunny Day. And ‘a mutual friend’? That could be… anymon. I had my suspicions, but who it was would remain to be seen. The why, though, that worried me.

Still, it hadn’t really worried me enough to stop me from making myself the comfiest little abandoned hobo eevee nest ever. I was kind of sorry to see it go.

“[Good morning sleepy head!]” said Sly. I reached out a paw and put it resolutely on his face to silence him as I yawned and stretched in his arms, then I pulled down the zipper to his jacket with one beanie-feetsie-claw and wormed my way inside it. “[Oof! Hey! What are you… Lux, you can’t… you’re sleeping, aren’t you?]”

“Pprrrrt,” I complained to him from inside his jacket, where I was once again warm.

“[Well alright, I’ll let you snooze a little since you must have had quite the hard night last night. Briney tells me there was a storm? No sign of it this morning.]”

“Mrpl,” I agreed, stretching again and wriggling. My tail brushed back and forth over the ranger’s face, so he spat out stray fluff, coughing.

“[I guess I deserved that. We didn’t have much choice though, whatever the heck went into that pot of chilli, the results were… hey, where did it go, anyway?]”

“Chrrp.”

“[It can’t have just… whatever.” Sly eventually gave up looking for it with a sigh. “Come on, fluff, we’re here! Briney says this stop is… well it’s some sort of secret hideaway, we’re here — I’m here, I think — for a special meeting.]”

I felt Sly’s body swaying and heard his footsteps as he strode around the ship, probably carefully heading for the gangplank. He stopped and turned, and there was a loud creak as he opened the door below. “[Come on guys, up and at ‘em, all ashore who’s going ashore!]” he called, loudly. Then I heard the door crash closed as he wandered away, and the world tilted slightly.

“[Welcome,]” said a new, loud voice, “[to Faraway Island.]”

I poked my head out of Sly’s jacket a minute or two later as the ranger almost dropped me out of the bottom of my clothing-hammock as he jumped down the last few feet to shore.

“[Lux? What are you doing in there?]” asked Worst Trainer, betrayer of Eevees. I sniffed my nose dismissively at Ed, then scrabbled around to Sly’s back — to a chorus of complaints — before dropping down to the beach to saunter off and explore yet another beachy-fishy-sandy diversion, purposely digging in my claws just a little and mussing up Sly’s t-shirt as I went. He deserved it too, even if I’d been more betrayed by another, he’d helped.

“[Oh Lux, don’t be like that! We couldn’t let you inside, you… you were riper than a Muk in sh… hi, uh, sir! Wait, did you say ‘Faraway Island’?]”

I wandered away to let the humans have their weird standing around and talking boringness, shivering as I felt Guy slip into my shadow for an easier ride-along. I had places to go and pokemon to meet, so having him there would be useful for when we needed to prank them. Plus I gathered he was sleepy and didn’t feel like walking. That’d be a neat trick I’d have to try some time. Tully swooped overhead to lead the way.

“Come one li’l sis, let’s stretch our wings!” he cried, oblivious to how I didn’t have wings to stretch. Still, it was the thought that counted.

First I had to teach the sea a lesson, as it had rolled over my paws and made my fur wet whilst I was checking out a cool rock half buried in the sand. It had been an unexpected blast of cold, so I barked at it and Crunched the waves, before informing the local Krabby population that, as I was now here, I was undoubtedly the best candidate to be their new leader and would be honoured to take up the position of president for life, or until the boat left. Unfortunately the ignorant populace had elected a tyrant overlord Kingler instead and rejected my peaceful, meritocratic overtures, so after practising Steel Head a few times — once Sissy came to my rescue — the somewhat expanded rescue team headed inland to see what we could see.

“You know, one of these days you’re going to get something bitten off and chewed, sister,” said Sissy as we forged through the tall grass.

“Shouldn’t that be ‘bite off more than I can chew’?” I asked. The steel and fairy type shook her head.

“I know what I said and I meant it. Honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into you.” Sissy rolled her eyes at me, but the swagger in her step told me she’d enjoyed teaching that Kingler who was boss. And it was her.

“Well I know my best, most amazing sister’s got my back,” I said, nudging her happily as we ducked under a fallen berry tree and made a slight turn to walk along the edge of a forest. In reply, Sissy hit me with a Fairy Wind, sending me flying forwards into sunlight. The world tumbled for a moment until, with the breath knocked out of me for a moment, I found myself looking up into the blue, blue sky. Chompy peered down at me.

“Sssso what am I, Chopped Liver?”

I could hear the well-placed capital letters.

“Uh, you’re also my best, most amazing sister!” I gave the seviper a beatific smile. “And so is Barb!” I hastened to add, in case the nidoran was anywhere close. I’d seen her and Ziggy head in the opposite direction, but you never knew. Shadow and Bart had decided to practise doing Sandslashy things back at the beach, so it was just me, Guy and Lucky, with Tully along for the ride since he’d decided to take advantage of the sea breeze and good weather to get some flying practice in.

“Hmm. Acceptable sssave.” The serpent vanished after Sissy. I breathed out happily, looking up at a couple of cottonee floating by, until a large, blue scaly form leaned over and blocked out the view.

“Need a paw, Princess?” Lucky asked, bending down and rolling me right-side-up.

“Nah, but thanks,” I said, brushing my tail against his muzzle as I stretched and checked my paws, wandering after the mawile and seviper. I peered back after a few seconds as he hadn’t moved. Boys. “Come on, silly,” I called back, wondering what sort of secret power I'd found this time to paralyse the big lug. I ran back and lowered my head, butting him in the side to get him to move. It wasn’t super effective, but he started walking, stiffly.

“S-so,” Lucky asked, scratching at the spikes on the top of his head, “where are we going?” He seemed a lot more nervous than usual, I reckoned. Probably just being so far from home.

“I dunno, somewhere fun,” Tully replied as he landed on my back and attempted to make himself comfortable. I could carry his weight with ease, but he was a little big, so he hopped off and perched on Lucky’s spines, the croconaw swaying as they found their joint balance.

Giggling at the pair, I almost tripped over something at my feet. I peered down to sniff at a diglett until it disappeared beneath the ground. I put an ear to the hole, then listened quietly for a few moments until I had the creature’s cowardly retreat dead to rights. Scampering around a tree, I unearthed my prey, along with the dugtrio the original diglett had run off crying to. With the earth shaking in a worrying manner, I retreated, clambering up onto Lucky’s head to escape the dugtrio’s wrath, shooing off Tully as I did so. He circled, complaining and launching boombursts at the often aerial dugtrio. Lucky finally stomped a large hind claw on the meanie and it disappeared off into the forest, chastising the diglett that burrowed beside it for causing trouble, and threatening to bury us under a tonne of rock and earth if I came back again. I stuck a tongue out, then peered down at Lucky’s face as I perched, stretched along his back.

“Got any ideas?” I asked.

“Uhhh…” I could see his brain locking up from here.

“For where to go? Anywhere special?”

“We’re on some sort of far-away island, right?” the water pokemon eventually asked, tilting his head to one side.

“Uh huh,” I replied, falling off his slick scales to peer up into his huge jaw from the ground.

“Well, I know we’re not humans who can do that whole pokeball thing, but I bet there are some pokemon we’ve never met before here! So we can’t catch ‘em at all, but we can… see them?”

“Hmm, you mean we should be pokemon hunters for the day?” I snaked my tongue out and licked my nose thoughtfully. “A competition!” I said, suddenly.

“What?”

“Well, what if we count all the types of pokemon we’ve seen? I mean I’ve seen, uh, krabby! And kingler, oh and diglet and—”

“Well I’m claiming the dugtrio,” Lucky harrumphed, crossing his paws across his chest.

“What? No, I saw them first!”

“Yeah, but I scared them off, Missy. And I called it. Besides, you’re already bea-beating me, if you’re counting all the pokemon you’ve seen before we started the competition.”

“Oh brother,” muttered Tully with a snort, circling the pair of us.

“Fine, but then I’m counting Sissy.” I fluffed my tail at him, then turned my head back and stuck my tongue out.

“Chompy!” he replied, as if it were the noise made after being double slapped.

“That’s not fair!” I pouted.

“Is so. A-and I see a caterpie! So there!” Lucky pointed one of his paws to a tree, where indeed there was a caterpie climbing up the trunk. It turned to look at us with a withering look, then squidgily crawled its way around the other side in case either of us were snackish.

“Huh. Well I saw some cottonee! They were floating by after Sissy decided to play rough.”

“That was Fairy Wind,” the croconaw interjected, grinning.

I huffed. “You know what I mean!” I swatted him with his tail as he playfully dodged, chuckling to himself. “So, uh, that makes it… umm. One, two… uhhh four…” I looked down at my paws, squinting in concentration.

“Do you… not know how to count? It’s one, two, three! Then four and five!”

I pouted harder. “S’not my fault my paws have the wrong number of… beanie bits on them. Toes?”

Lucky narrowed his eyes at me, almost falling as Tully landed on him once more.

“I’ll keep score,” the swellow chirped, pecking my head before I could object. “That way I can stay out of your silly game for when something inevitably goes horribly wrong.”

“Fine, I don’t know bigger numbers than five anyway,” I huffed. “I used to be able to count, I know I could,” I mumbled angrily under my breath. I felt Guy gently pat my shadow-self.

“Well that’s four-three to you. But I also saw some butterfree, so we’re even,” stated Lucky. Tully warbled agreement.

“Well have I told you about the combees and the pidgeys?”

Lucky froze again, huge jaw open, one eye twitching. I pointed. “F-fine,” he said.

“Just never tell anyone you taught Lucky about the combees and the pidgeys,” Tully mumbled under his breath as he knocked his closed talons on the croconaw’s head until the big jaw pokemon snapped out of it.

“Wassat?” I asked my adoptive older brother, peering up from where I was already stalking through the tall grass looking for the kricketune or possibly kricketot I could hear singing somewhere. Tully waved me off. I shrugged. “So, I got lots and you gots… uh… less?”

“Something like that.” Lucky rolled his eyes as he spat a jet of water at a weedle that tried to shoot a poison-laden sting at him. “One more for me!”

I was more focused on stalking through the undergrowth, until I suddenly ran face first into a cold, wet nose. I shook my head, snorting.

“Hi!” said the owner of the nose. I backed up. Fur, floof, nose, eyes, jaunty ears, little beanie toes…

“You’re an eevee!” I said. “Except, you’re… weird-coloured?”

“Lux! That’s not nice!” gasped Tully with a squawk. “I’m sorry, she’s kind of, of…” he tailed off, one wing stretched out and kind of trying to signal something.

“Weird is good,” I protested. “Weird is good!” I repeated, turning back to the new eevee, who giggled.

“I’m shiny!” the newcomer said, leaping out from the tall grass to show off his fluffy tail and shiny coat and the thick ruff around his neck. “That means I’m special.”

“More special than me?” I asked, aghast. I was just… ordinary brown and cream coloured. The interloper was a kind of light gold. It couldn’t be possible could it?

“I don’t know anybody could be more special than you,” said Lucky, softly.

“Oh boy,” grumbled Tully, rolling his eyes. “You’re both certainly special.”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, I mean, not everybody used to be a… mmm, no, I won’t tell you. It’s a secret! Anyway, what’re you doing here?” I fluffed myself up, flaring my tail so Shiny knew how important I was.

The shiny eevee giggled. “I live here! What are you doing here?”

“Oh.” I deflated. “I dunno, our humans brought us here! We’re exploring. We’re having a contest, which I’m winning! I saw an eevee!”

“But you are an eevee,” Lucky protested, gesticulating with his arms.

“But he’s shiny!” I turned back to the other eevee and leaned in, conspiratorially. “We’re having a contest to see who can see the most new pokemon first!”

“Ooh, that sounds like fun! I’m shiny, but I’m not Shiny. But I guess you can call me Shiny. You’re Lux! I know that cos he said you was! But I don’t know who he is.”

“I’m Lucky,” said Lucky.

“To meet me? Yeah, you are!” Shiny agreed.

“Hey! That’s my line!”

Tully closed his eyes. He must have been tired from the trip, still. “Now there’s two of them, Arceus give me strength,” he muttered. “Anyway,” he fluttered closer, landing and hopping, as he spoke to Shiny, “we’re exploring whilst our humans have their boring human talk thing. Two of our friends went that way,” he pointed after Chompy and Sissy, who’d disappeared into the undergrowth, “so I think we should stick at least kind of close to them”.

Lucky turned his head around, sniffing the air thoughtfully. “There’s another lot of our friends elsewhere on the island, they won’t get in trouble, will they?”

Shiny shook his head. “Nah, there’s nobody on this island more dangerous’n me, so all the pokemon will behave if I tell ‘em to. I can show them to you, if you want?”

“Well that’s not worrying,” mumbled Tully, eyeing up the stranger thoughtfully.

“Whaaaat?” I asked, padding closer, “you can show us all sorts of different pokemon?”

“Oh yeah, there’s all sorts of pokemon here, some nobody’s ever seen before! Except, you know, for the pokemon that live where they live of course. And the people who live where they live. But they don’t count. And I can show them all to you!”

I shared a look with Lucky, whose massive jaw was split in a huge grin. “Let’s do it!”

“It’s gonna be one of those days,” said Tully, as he once more took up station on Lucky’s back. “Well, lead on my fluff!”

“Faraway Island?” murmured Becca, sharing a look with Ed, whose head had snapped around off of his retreating eevee’s tail at the mention of the island’s name. “That’s, like… that’s not supposed to exist. This place can’t be that place, it’s just a… a story!”

“You could’ve ditched the sprogs in Dewford,” said the large be-hatted man, crossing his arms and scowling at Sly.

“Sprogs?” Ed exclaimed, scowling.

“I’m almost as old as—” Becca began, raising one finger animatedly.

“What you two ankle-biters are, is in a lot of trouble,” retorted the man. He turned to Sly and fixed the younger ranger with a glare. “Now, I’m not here to f… catch spinaraks,” he said, looking back at the two trainers for a moment, before fixing his gaze back on Sly, “so if you tell me those two rattata bags are ridgy-didge then I’ll not raboot on more about ‘em.”

“They’re good,” said Sly. “Got a good head on both their shoulders, except where it comes to that kid’s eevee, she’s a pain in the tail,” he chuckled.

“Eevees can be quite the yakkle when they want to be,” said the large man. He took a deep breath, stared at Sly for a moment longer, then strode over to Ed and Becca and held out his huge, heavily calloused hand. “Name’s Ollie. ‘M a ranger, like the galah over there.” He stuck a thumb out at Sly.

“Hi, er, Ollie,” said Ed, as first he and then Becca shook hands with the man. The shake was almost a Play Rough that had the boy massaging his palm. “So, Faraway Island?”

“Yeah, though don’t be a drongo and spread it about, alright? If I have to visit all the way back over here from—”

“You’re Orrestralian, right?”

Ollie grinned, chuffing happily to himself. “Fair dinkum, not that hard to tell is it? Look, me and Sly here, we’ve gotta have a bit of a chinwag, alright? Then I’ll lay it out for yous.”

Ed and Becca shared a glance again, then both turned back to the man.

“We know we’re in kind of a lot of trouble, but that’s why we’re here. I don’t think being kept in the dark would be doing us a favour, I don’t think it generally does anyone a favour,” Becca reasoned.

“Yeah, Becca’s right. We’re… alright, we’re young, but we’re not stupid. Or we try not to be.”

“Speak for yourself,” mumbled Becca. Ed shot her a glare until she grinned at him. “We know Sly’s a ranger, and it’s really obvious you are too, but we trust him. I think you should, too.”

After a few moments of silence, the man grinned, showing surprisingly white teeth under his weathered skin. “I’m no Bagon,” he said slowly, “so let’s get down to it.”

“Oooh! Oooh! Another one for me!” I murkrowed. “That’s gotta be a lapras!”

We’d trekked through tall grass, taken a shadow-dappled trip through part of a forest, taken a short trip through a miniature desert, and now were nearing a pool. The crystal clear waters shone in the sun, inviting us closer. Shiny had run off into the undergrowth to scare up some more pokemon, apparently successfully, although I couldn’t see where he’d run off to. Again. Eager to score another point, I was sure the shape half-hidden by the blinding sun was a lapras. It was so obvious; the spiky shell, the flippers, the head… I could only see the outline but it wasn’t hard to say “who’s that pokemon?”. If anybody made a game of that, I’d win! And we had!

“Can’t be,” objected Lucky, as we neared the pond. The lapras disappeared beneath the water, the croconaw obviously having scared it with his… boy cooties, or something. “This far inland? They’re sea-dwelling pokemon. I’m a water-pokemon myself, I know these things.”

“He’s got a point,” approved Tully.

“But,” I counter-objected, “what if there was some sort of deep, underwater channel leading to the ocean, where such a powerful, underwater-capable creature could frolic and play without being seen?”

Lucky nodded slowly, “could be, then there could be a beast like that hiding beneath the waters.” He smacked his lips. “No, though, it’s fresh water. I know what it was!”

“What?” I asked.

“Yeah, what?” I heard a small voice echo.

“Gotta be a gyarados, they evolve from magikarp!”

There was a sudden roar, and a huge, red gyarados emerged from the water.

“Hmm, I’m not sure,” I countered. “There could’ve been a lapras too.”

The gyarados sank into the water slightly, sceptically, but re-emerged when Lucky shook his head. “Nah, willing to stake my points on it. Fresh water, magikarp, gyarados.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Could be a lapras in disguise,” I said. The gigantic water-dragon looked from me to the croconaw slowly. Tully met the creatures gaze, head tilted in confusion.

“It’d have to be a good disguise,” Lucky said, thoughtfully. The red gyarados nodded, slowly.

“Well, lapras are known for being docile and helpful. Gyarados are well-known for being really angry a lot of the time, which is not surprising given what happens to most magikarp. Sorry Guy!”

I felt Guy's silent grumbling, but it was without too much ire. Hands had done wonders for his temperament. The gyarados looked from Lucky back to me, to and fro several times, his huge maw open questioningly.

“That’s true,” said Lucky, thoughtfully. So the gyarados roared angrily and splashed his fins around, whilst the three of us ran for our lives — Tully flew for his, of course — leaving the pool behind.

One mad dash to safety later and all of us were wheezing, hiding at the edge of the forest, just inside the treeline.

“That was too close!” I said. “I think we should hunt for something safer. Like… uh…”

“Tauros?” offered Lucky.

“Yeah!” I said, just as a tauros ran across the field in front of us. “Funny though, that was just the one tauros. Shouldn’t there be, like, more?”

Another tauros went past in the opposite direction.

“A lot more, I’d say,” agreed Tully, from up on his branch. A whole host of tauros thundered past in the direction of the first.

“You know,” asked Lucky, “I wonder where that second one was going, all by itself?”

“OH COME ON! Make your minds up!” shouted a squeaky little voice, which was quickly followed by an “eep!” and there was a flash of light.

“I saw mew first!” I said, at exactly the same time as the croconaw. I heard a soft ‘paff’ as Tully swatted himself in the beak with a wing.

“What?” asked the squeaky little voice, and a pair of small, perky little ears peered up above the tall grass, swiftly followed by the rest of the pokemon they were attached to as the small creature floated up into the air. “How’d you know it was me?”

“Pretty easy,” I said, preening.

“Yeah, I recognised the fact we were only ever seeing one pokemon at once ages ago,” said Lucky.

“...I was gonna say I saw your tail,” I mumbled. “But I totally realised there was only one pokemon at a time too!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Not!”

“Too!”

Mew giggled. “You’re funny! I like you! Come on, let me show you around then! As myself!”

“Wait,” I said, “where’s…” Lucky leaned closer, cupping a paw around my ear. “...your home?” I finished. “And what did you mean you’re the most dangerous pokemon here?”

“Now you wonder about that?” Tully asked, exasperated.

Mew blinked, warping into a ball of light and reappearing as Shiny the eevee. “Well, I know every pokemon move ever! Even some that don’t even exist yet! I can be every pokemon that ever existed. Or will exist. I think.”

“Cool!” I said, “can teach me some extra special moves?”

“Hmm, I dunno, you’re an eevee, you can’t do every move…”

“I haven’t found one I can’t do yet!” I said.

“Oh no,” said Tully, “Oh please don’t—”

“That’s great! Let’s go practice all the moves! I’m sure you can learn a few good ones!”

“I need an adult,” said Tully plaintively, looking skywards and wincing as Shiny showed me how to explode rocks into flaming balls of flying lava. “I really sometimes wish I’d stayed with my flock.”

Aww, he was homesick. Poor thing.