Walking along the path as the light is starting to fall, I remembered something from my old life I was told years ago, back when I was kid.

“Hey Jace?” said a voice sitting next to me.

Looking over, I see a girl, but I don’t remember her enough to picture much other than our yellow and black school uniform or remember her name other than it started with an M.

“Yes.” I respond.

“What would you do if you knew by the next day, you weren’t going to be around. Like, you had all the money you could ever want but nothing you do could help you.”

I remember initially being confused before coming up with an answer. “I guess I would give the money to those around me. Maybe give some to those less fortunate. Oh, I would eat the largest chocolate bar ever!” I say in triumph. Which I recall making her smile. “What about you M*/13?”

She looks like she is about to burst into tears before responding. “I, I would use the money to, to help my mom ge, gget bett…” She didn’t finish before breaking out into full blown tears and hugging me crying about not wanting to lose her mom.

Hugging her back, I try to comfort her before she fell asleep and before long, I did too.

I already lost that chance of knowing beforehand when I would leave. Sighing, I keep walking along the road to find the siblings. They were nice people so maybe I can just go with them without going in one of those balls.

It wasn’t long before the sun dipped below the trees and after that, I heard the two trainers chatting with the sounds of setting up a small camp. I see the pair setting up their small tents which definitely didn’t fit in their bags and they weren’t carrying them. They had found a nice clearing next to the stream that follows the road.

I decide to sneak up on the pair so diming my markings, I walk through the grass to behind the girls tent and once I could without being seen, stood in between the two tents and showed my markings.

The boy was the first to notice. “Holy shit!” He yells in shock getting the sister’s attention which she grabs her pokeball only to see me sitting there. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“Shade!” The girl says coming over and hugging me. “You followed us.” She added clearly happy I found them.

“Yer, while giving me a heart attack.” The brother adds sarcastically. “Actually, while you’re here, can you play with Froakie and Fen?” He asked.

Nodding, both trainers release their two starters before setting up their small camp.

So why did you return? To make fun of us. The aggravated Froakie asks.

Do we get to fight you again? Fen happily asks. You’re fun to fight, unlike mr grumpy over here. She adds pointing to her fellow starter which made him turn around.

Neither actually, I just wanted to follow, see where those two go. But they did just ask me to play with you so I guess we can battle if ya want.

Fen is clearly happy about this so after checking we can’t set much on fire and agreeing to the rule that if she lands a good hit on me, she is the winner, she starts our battle with tackle which I sidestep before pushing her as to not hurt her. She retaliates with ember which I dodge before using double team to create 7 clones for this mock fight.

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Using tackle, she circled the group hitting me on the second try.

Ha ha, yes, I won. Fen says hopping up and down.

Yes you did, hey Froakie, want a turn? Same rules. I applaud and ask.

Your on. He says smiling.

He shoots bubble from where he is sitting which I side step. He comes in with pound which I dodge again and use double team to create the 7 copies. Alternating between pound and bubble, he manages to get 5 clones before landing a hit.

You went easy, that isn’t very fun. The water type says in a bored tone.

Well if I had gone all out, you would be unconscious and the fact your smiling proves you’re faking that tone.

After our fight, the girl calls out. “Fen, Froakie, Shade, come back. Camps set up.” While I’m not required to listen to them, let alone accept a new name, I still headed back as I chose to come back. And the new name isn’t terrible. It’s not like I can tell these two trainers my old name so I think I will accept Shade as my new name.

“Its good you three are getting along already but here is your pokemix.” The girl says holding two bowls of pellets that looks like the food they give to pokemon in the anime and hand them out to their fox and frog. “Here you go Shade.” The girl says while handing out a third bowl of the food. Smelling it, it did smell pretty good. It had quite a few different berries, fruits, and meat in it from what I could tell. Trying one of the little cylinder-shaped pellets, they actually tasted like various berries and fruits I’ve already found in the forest and plus more. The meat smell ended up tasting like cooked lamb. I just kept eating till the dish was empty. Who knew the pet food in this world would taste amazing. No wonder pokemon from the anime enjoyed it.

Looking at the pair of trainers, they were cooking sausages over a small fire while looking at a phone. Off in the tree line, there is a hoot hoot staring at us while several zubat fly across the night sky and a noctowl flying a bit oddly. This world is so different to mine but still has some things the same.

I suddenly heard my new name being called and turned to see the siblings sitting in front of me.

The boy starts the conversation. “So Shade, first up, my name is Oliver and that’s my twin Jennifer.” He says gesturing to his twin who continues. “Well, you made your opinion pretty clear back when we first tried with the pokeball so we figured we should at least figure out who is suppose to be your trainer.”

My confused stare was what had Jennifer continue trying to explain. “I know it sounds weird but hear me out. Wild pokemon following people is almost unheard of with it happening about to about 1 or 2 trainers in every couple hundred thousand across all the regions. That’s not including pokemon who follow their trainers after having their balls broken which happens far more often. The most notable being from about 15 years ago where two criminals had a talking meowth follow them around despite being wild. Uh, I don’t remember the rest.” She says looking at Oliver for answers. He continued the chat. “They were eventually caught and the meowth was captured and apparently employed as it could translate what pokemon were saying. Once word got out the meowth was wild, it was actually more or less hunted. So, to have no one attempt to catch you as unique variants are ridiculously rare, not to mention having three unique physical traits is unheard of, one of us needs to accept responsibility. And we thought you should choose who you want to be with.”

Sitting there, I thought to myself. That is a bit to unpack. First up, I’m at least 15 years after whenever the anime ends as that trio had to be Jesse, James and meowth. That’s if they ever let that show die. Next, that’s interesting pokemon can eventually trust their trainers enough to just follow them but I guess that makes sense. Finally. Jennifer is right though. A shiny pokemon at least in my previous knowledge is rare so that holds up. In addition to that, my eyes and I guess the scar are the additional traits so I am in terms of uniqueness, exceptionally rare. With that though, who should I choose?

I stood up and walked over to Jennifer and sat next to her. While Oliver looked disappointed, Jennifer started happily squealing and hugged me.

“HAHAHAHAHA, This is great, thank you Shade.” She happily blurts out. The rest of the afternoon and night passed quickly with Jen essentially just carrying me the whole time. Once Oliver noticed my tired look of being held, he told me with a smug look, “Well Shade, I’m disappointed you didn’t pick me, but you chose your fate tonight.”

“How is this bad, being hugged and loved by me is great.” She responds with Fen nodding in agreement.

I couldn’t even just use any of my moves to escape as I didn’t want to hurt her. Froakie and Fen were also laughing at my predicament, so I simply had to endure this. I chose this, so I better not back down and out. As much as I want to right now.