It would have been nice to join in at the skate park, but this is nice enough. A nice flat section of cleared forest next to a river with a small waterfall to sit under. There was even a small cave behind the falls! There was also several pokemon who wanted to play with me. By which I mean they would jump of the waterfall to try and land on me, but Double Team does a pretty good job of confusing them. But after the seventh attempt to hit me and as the sun started to set, I decided the cave looked quite nice. It is quite comfortable back here. A nice moss layer to lay on, a constant cool breeze to cool me down. What more could a person ask for?

Friends probably.

And food.

And let’s not continue down this thought process!

But thinking on it, why did my mind go into such negative thoughts so quickly? I’ve never had any problem with my situation before. What changed? Is it that I just haven’t put any thought into what the twins would think? I reckon that’s probably the reason. I’m going to have to tell them at some point. Or do I? I guess I could just go on living as is, why is it so hot in here now?

I look around but I don’t see any heat source, but the temperature is definitely rising. I tried to listen to my surroundings, but I couldn’t hear anything but the waterfall. My enhanced vision also couldn’t make much out through the falling dark water. I black out my rings and head towards the falls. As I reach the edge of the water, I can see a layer of ice had formed behind the falls, trying to trap me.

Oh no you don’t! I yell as I leap through the thin ice wall, shattering it as I dashed through. I land in the shallow pool at the base of the falls as the moon hung over the horizon with the sunset having passed. There is no one out here but I hear rustling in a nearby bush. I doubt whoever is doing this has better night vision than me, unless of course they are another primarily nocturnal pokemon. Going on this assumption, I turn to walk away from where I heard the rustling but create a Double Team clone in my place as I dart behind the bush with Extreme Speed. Standing behind the shifting bush, I notice whoever wants to play this ‘game’ clearly hasn’t realised that what they’re looking at isn’t me and I can see a spot I could stick my head into the bush without disturbing it. I slowly move forward and once I’m close enough to stick my head in, I swiftly do and activate Confuse Ray and light up all my rings, instantly disorientating the two pokemon, one pure white and the other red, as the stumble out the other side of the bush. I leap over the shrubbery and summon a copy using Puppeteer to grab the red pokemon while I grab the white one.

With both pokemon unable to escape, I see they are both vulpixes. I leap over the river holding the alolan vulpix by the back of its neck and set it down on the flat open grass to which my clone swiftly repeats. The disorientating effects wear off swiftly and the two pokemon quickly become aware of their situation, probably thinking there are two of me, one for each, so they stay put, obviously afraid.

Now then, care to say why you tried that stunt? I say sternly to the foxes. Both of them look sheepishly between each other before the ice type speaks up.

You were in our hiding place. The small white fox says. Her tone of voice that I heard sounded like she was a young girl. We thought you were trying to steal it so we thought if we made you uncomfortable, you would leave.

Please don’t hurt us. The other one responded. He definitely sounded like a he, probably sibblings. But an odd detail about him was what was around his front paw. A small white ribbon. Actually, they both had one, although the alolan vulpix’s was red. I could also hear footsteps coming from our camp and could see Jennifer making her way over to me.

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Do you two belong to a trainer? I ask the two, but they seem to freeze up at this. From that I could guess the answer, but I wanted them to say to know more. I keep my stance and blacked out all my rings once again, and lit up the brightness of my eyes. Bit dramatic but it worked.

Not anymore. The ice types quickly said, her body shaking all over. He didn’t think we had any value. And then he. He, he. She starts having tears well up in her eyes.

That honestly hurt to hear and made me remember how I found M*ll3 and the story she told me years after I found her. Damn, why can’t I remember her name still.

“Hey Shade, what ya doing?” I hear Jennifer say. At the sound of her voice, the two vulpixes make a run for it but I quickly stopped that by creating a bunch of clones, all with no rings and glowing eyes. The two stopped in the tracks.

Found these two. I respond.

“Come on Shade, don’t be so harsh.” She says as she reaches me and sees the two vulpixes and she notices the ribbons straight away. “So did these guys run away from their trainer?”

No, they were thrown away.

“That’s terrible.” She quietly says, looking at the pair before her. “Its okay little guys.” She consoles them while crouching down and slowly reaching to pat the white vulpix which caused the little fox to flinch. “And stop with the dramatics Shade.”

I disperse all the copies and return my eyes and rings to their normal brightness while Jennifer is gently patting the vulpix. The male vulpix is hesitant to approach, im guessing he is worried that something bad is about to happen.

Come on sis, remember what happened last time. He says fearfully. This causes the second vulpix to flinch again and back off from Jen’s hand. We have to keep running or he is going to find us.

You really think he is going to find us again? His sister responds.

What do you mean? I ask, but across the stream, I could hear footsteps rapidly approaching and I created a dozen or so blacked out clones using Double Team in order to conceal the two foxes. Moments later, a houndoom comes out of the treeline, swiftly followed by a man in a green shirt and shorts. The pokemon and the man look around before locking eyes on us.

“Hey, you across the stream, you wouldn’t have happened to seen two vulpixes!” He yells to us as his houndoom sniffs around, clearly following a scent. “They both have little scented ribbons on their front leg!”

So this is the guy that deserves to burn in hell.

“No I haven’t, have you tried contacting a ranger?” She asks, feigning ingnorance.

“No, don’t need to. Houndoom is tracking them, and we should find them soon.” My eyes widened at that but he probably couldn’t see them due to the darknes, but he definitely saw me due to my rings. “Say, is that a shiny umbreon?”

“Indeed she is, and I hope you find your missing pokemon.” She says turning around. I walk through my group of clones and using Puppeteer, create one to pick up on of the vulpixes while I grabbed the other. Luckily neither made a sound. Behind us, I could hear the houndoom moving through the stream, and I just hoped that jumping over the stream somewhat removed the scent. We reach our camp and Oliver is about to call out before Jennifer signals for him to stay quiet. We reach Jennifer’s tent, and we drop the two foxes into the tent before I swiftly remove the tags and create a blacked out clone to run off into the distance with the tags. I turn around to see the pair approaching before they pass our campsite after mentioning they must have gone past here before we found this spot.

Jennifer maintained the act the whole time, feigning ignorance, while I’m just internally panicking. Mostly because I have no idea how far that clone will run with those ribbons. Once he entered the treeline again, we started packing up swiftly, leaving Jennifer’s tent till last. Once everything was packed up, we open the tent to see the two vulpixes huddled together shaking.

Okay guys, im sorry if you’re worried right now but just trust me okay. I say to the pokemon in the tent, which caused them both to look at me. We sent that guy on a wild goose chase but he is going to come back if he realises he has been tricked and I don’t know how long that is going to take. So if you want to stay safe, at least for the moment, you have to come with us.

The two of them just kinda stare into space for a moment before they both stood and exited the tent so we could pack it up. With that we swiftly headed off under the cover of darkness as I hear an extremely faint howl.