"Mi..."

"Don't worry, you'll get it fixed back up in a jiffy once we're home," I said, attempting to comfort my morose pokemon. "And it doesn't even look that bad! Unless I'm looking at you from really close up, I can't even tell."

This perked Hobbes up slightly, but he refused to be completely comforted. Which I expected -- not panicking and rushing home to fix his cloth immediately was already a huge step forward for him compared to how he was when I met him three years earlier.

After the quick battle, we'd resumed our walk along the trail forty-six pokedollars richer, and Hobbes was ecstatic after his easy victory over the rattatey. The kid had been surprisingly gracious in defeat, though that might have just been from the shock of seeing what a properly trained pokemon could do, and he handed over the money without comment after returning his fainted pokemon to its pokeball. Hobbes' excitement, however, only lasted until he discovered the small tear near the hem of his cloth covering.

Annoyingly, it hadn't even come from his opponent. While Hobbes' body, like most other ghost pokemon, was immune to normal type attacks like quick attack, his cloth covering was corporeal and had no such immunity. But even with that, he'd been quick enough to avoid the damage that the rattatey was attempting to inflict -- only to tear the cloth himself in his speed while using the mimicked quick attack.

Mimic was an interesting move. It allowed the user to copy a move used by the opponent but was almost always weaker than the original. After all, Hobbes wouldn't be able to perform a hyper beam for the first time of equal strength to a gyarados who'd been practicing the move for years. While pretty much any move could be mimicked after a single use, it could only be mimicked competently if the pokemon had seen the move used many times before, and preferably had practiced it many times as well. And quick attack was an extremely common move that Hobbes and I had seen lot in our battles around town, and that, combined with Hobbes' strength from our years of training together, resulted in a mimicked quick attack that was much stronger and faster than the one rattatey was attempting to use.

That didn't mean it was perfect, though. The normal typing of the move contrasted with Hobbes' ghost typing, making it harder for him to mimic than moves of other types. And, in his attempted mimicry, he'd accidentally torn the hem of his costume.

"Sorry, buddy. I wish I could've just had you use astonish or shadow sneak, but rattatey's normal type. He would've been immune," I explained to my partner.

"Mii mi..." Hobbes replied, not blaming me but also not comforted by the explanation. I attempted to share my knowledge of the mechanics of pokemon battles with Hobbes whenever I could. Many trainers viewed their pokemon, especially battling pokemon, as nothing more than their slaves or puppets, with themselves as the true masters. They trained their pokemon's bodies, but often neglected their pokemons' minds, thinking that since they were the ones calling the shots in battles there was no need for their pokemon to know any of the theory behind it.

I firmly disagreed with this stance, believing that the less Hobbes was forced to rely on me in a battle, the better off he'd be. So I always tried to explain the moves I chose and the reasons why after battles -- although this time was more out of a desire to distract him than it was to educate.

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But Hobbes refused to be distracted. He wouldn't be until he could fix his costume back to perfect condition and there wasn't the slightest chance of someone accidentally seeing what was underneath -- his true form.

Eventually, our walk took us to a more populated section of the trail, with trainers battling or loitering as they waited for their next battle. Many of those who weren't occupied waved to me as I passed, which I returned in kind. On many days in the past I had been one of them, a youngster with his first pokemon battling any and all takers, which was the reason Hobbes was stronger than my opponent had expected. But today, I had other things on my mind, and I walked past the trainers with nothing more than a wave and a quick greeting.

Until finally, the trail transitioned from dirt to more carefully maintained roads as we entered Lavender town: my home.

"Mom! Dad! I'm home!" I called as I barged into my house, Hobbes slipping through the door behind me and rushing down the hallway towards the room we shared, eager to start mending. I heard the muffled voice of my mom calling a greeting, but it was overshadowed by a much louder flapping of wings.

"Gloo! Gloo!" Kisses called as he flew into the room, instantly zeroing in on Hobbes and his slightly damaged rag. Before Hobbes could escape, the much larger gloobat tackled him to the ground and started drooling all over Hobbes' costume.

"Mii! Kyu..." Hobbes complained as Kisses examined him for any further damage, but I could tell that he wasn't truly distressed. Kisses was the only one Hobbes fully trusted to be so close and fidget with his cloth covering, more than even myself, and I could tell his complaints were just him belly-aching without any real heat.

Eventually, Kisses finished his examination of Hobbes, and having pronounced him in satisfactory condition, turned his attention to me.

"Ew! Kisses! Get off! Get off!" I yelled fruitlessly at the fusion of gloom and crobat as his slobber dripped down my face. Normally extremely poisonous, Kisses had been a 'pet' pokemon for long enough that he'd learned to control it so that it was just disgusting rather than deadly. Regardless, we were always careful to keep an antidote around in case of any missteps, though there hadn't been one in years.

Kisses had been one of my mom's pokemon from her own journey over twenty years earlier, and the only one she still kept. Zubat had been her starter, caught in the nearby rock tunnel and later fused with an oddish she'd caught before her first badge. With Kisses as the anchor of her team, she'd managed to clear four badges after he'd evolved twice into the fusion of gloom and golbat, an impressive feat by anyone's assessment.

His third evolution to a gloom-crobat fusion didn't come until later, after a few years of being a pet pokemon, but despite the power increase his days of battling were long over. He spent more time nowadays sleeping, fussing over me and Hobbes, and relaxing with some of the neighbors' pet pokemon than training.

Truthfully, though I'd never say so out loud, Kisses' appearance was nothing short of hideous, his mismatched form a stark reminder that not all fusions resulted in net positives in every area. But despite his ugliness, I wouldn't change him for the world.

I'd only awoken in this world three years ago, in the body of a twelve-year-old boy in Lavender town without a pokemon to his name, but I had all the memories and emotions of my body's previous occupant. Many times I wasn't sure where the me from my old life ended and the Marcus of this life began, and after three years it was no longer a concern. I had no idea how or why I'd been transported into this world, and frankly, I didn't much care. This was my life now, and I was intent on living it to the fullest.

And a major part of this life had always been Kisses. He'd always been there, from my very earliest 'Marcus' memories, hovering over my parents' shoulders as they looked down in my crib like an extremely ugly guard dog. He was my sibling, cool uncle, pet, and nanny all rolled into one, and I'd miss him almost as much as my parents when I left.

Because that was the reason I'd been traveling, the reason I wasn't filling the role of 'youngster' waiting on the road for passing trainers to challenge: tomorrow Hobbes and I started our pokemon journey.