The sounds of night were replaced by the chirps of morning as the moon set and the sun rose. The rings around my body had not changed colour though. Which is somewhat concerning. But the effect of making me more energetic, feel stronger, and a clearer mind still were present. Sitting back in the tree’s branches, a weedle pops down in front of me, looks me dead in the eyes, before falling onto the ground and leaving.

Wait. I say suddenly alert. Are there beedrill around? I start looking all around the branches, but I don’t see any other sign of pokemon excluding a second weedle climbing higher into the branches.

After ensuring I don’t see any beedrill, I poke my head back out of the leaves and I can see Oliver wearing a forest cammo long sleve shirt and beige cargo pants leaving his tent, followed by Froakie and Aron. It wasn’t long till Jennifer in the same pants and a red shirt, Hoot, and Fen left their tents to go through the morning routine. They chatted till the finished before returning their other pokemon and sat down.

I guess they’re ready.

Hoping down to the ground, I walk over to the twins which both wave at me. Once I reach them, the twins are hesitant, but Jennifer asks the question after a few moments of silence.

“Will you join us Shade?”

I had all night to decide and I finally had my choice. Activating Iron Claw once again as the ground was still too hard for me simply to draw in, I wrote:

*I took some time to decide, but I choose to join you*

Both trainers visibly got excited as Jennifer lunged and picked me and hugging me.

“THANK YOU SHADE!” She says in tears of joy as Oliver pats with me with a massive grin. Was a bit hard to appreciate as Jennifer was squeezing the air out of my lungs but I didn’t try to run.

When it came to it, I just wanted another chance to be with someone. Not because I’m told, or forced to do it, or even have it taken away. This is in the end, what won over my back and forth auguring that I spent half the night arguing. After a minute of hugging, Jennifer placed me on the ground, allowing me to breath, and Oliver spoke.

“So, why are your rings a different colour?” He asks crouching down and holding my ear so he can look at the silvery blue ring.

*The full moon* is what I wrote into the ground.

“Yeah, but the moon is gone.” Jennifer says after reading it whilst she grabs out her pokedex. She spends a moment looking at it before speaking again, likely reading the screen. “Umbreon’s have the ability to absorb moonlight in order to increase their effectiveness at night which includes an increase in stamina which is why they are able to stay active for days at a time.” She pauses for a moment. “Hu, it says that during full and new moons, they are greatly benefited for a day or two with the longest recorded power increase being 5 days.”

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I mean, I should know this, but good to know. I say which neither trainer luckily can understand. So possibly, I could be stronger for 5 days straight. The tint of silver to my rings is quite nice though. I wonder if it will still be a silver tint during a new moon. It would make sense but at the same time, there isn’t any light. But then what colour would it be? Maybe a dark grey? Questions for another time. The next question though was something to think about though as Oliver brought it up.

“So Shade, if you come with us, we are back to step one in terms of you being targeted by other people. Like that guy in the previous city. So, we are going have to figure out something out about that, again.” He says rubbing the back of his neck, ruining the moment. But as much as I hate to admit it, he is right. This was one of the things I kept thinking about while deciding. It was one of the main negatives, along with a pokeball. Fuck those things.

“Well, we still have a days walk ahead of us till we reach Lumiose city, hopefully.” Jen optimistically suggests.

“Considering we were stuck in the hole for hours, I doubt it.” Oliver adds.

It was then I noticed something glinting in the grass 20 or so meters from our current position. I walk over drawing the twins attention and once I reach it, I discover a faded pokeball partially burried. The primary colour was likely black with orange highlights along with an indented marking in the top in the shape of a feather, I think. It appears to have been broken and left here years ago so the shape is worn. There is a large crack running across the top and then angling towards the side.

“What’s this?” Oliver says crouching down and pulling it out of the dirt. It was open when it was buried so it is half full of dirt with no pokemon remaining inside. “An old pokeball. Let’s see what you housed.” He grins grabbing his pokedex and tipping the dirt out of the ball. He holds it to the back of the Kalos design pokedex and a light flashes before the pokedex extends.

A female voice rings out from the dex and an image of a weavile appears on the screen. “Pokemon contained, weavile, the sharp claw pokemon. Current status, empty, damaged. Trainer, no previous registered trainer. Pokeball type, 076-F.”

“So I guess the previous owner lost their weavile. It probably either left its ball or due to damage, the pokemon was released.” Oliver concluded. It didn’t make sense how he got to that conclusion but there is probably some common knowledge there I don’t know about. He places the ball into his backpack before he starts heading towards the next city, followed by me and Jennifer. I didn’t walk long as I’m grabbed and lifted into the air and look to see Jennifer happily holding me. I struggle for a bit and once I confirm she isn’t letting go, I just go limp and hang there.

Well, I guess I’m practising Puppeteer for a while. I say summoning the clone and having it walk beside me on the ground. Jennifer walks round to the other side of the clone and looking at me with a smile.

What are you doing?

She precedes to pick up the clone, and hug it in her other arm like another teddy bear! And because I have limited control other it, it just kept walking.

Hey!

Oliver turns around and is thrown back for a second seeing his sister having two of me, one in each arm.

“She used that Double Team trick where the copy moves differently from her so hey, why not have two Shades?” She happily said with an innocent look on her face. Oliver responds with his own smile before turning around and continuing to walk. Glaring at Jennifer, I delete the copy before creating another to which she moves and picks it up again.

“If you want to practise that move, you’re going to need to use a second one.” She says with a knowing smirk. “Cause this one is mine.”

I struggle to get out of her grip but as normal, my own strength isn’t enough to escape her iron grip, so I relent and start practising with two copies. It aint going to be fun.