"...are you sure about this?"

"Kyu!"

"Really? It's only the first day. We can find another one, you know..." Hobbes turned to me, his torn disguise flopping cutely to the side, but I could feel his glare from the eyes hidden underneath. I raised my hands defensively. "I'm not questioning you. It's just..." I gestured to the ditto. "...he doesn't seem like the sharpest tool in the shed. Ya know?"

The last was said at a whisper to avoid insulting our potential new teammate, but it likely wasn't necessary. The opposing ditto seemed more than just a little occupied in its attempts to transform into a mimikyu.

So far, it was...less than successful.

I knew transform was a difficult move to master. I had a decent amount of experience with training Hobbes to use mimic, which was already extremely complicated -- yet was supposedly an order of magnitude easier than transform. Instead of copying just a single move, transform copied everything about the opponent: their appearance, their types, their moves, their stats -- everything except HP. I expected it would take a LOT of practice before Hobbes could successfully use transform in a battle after we found a ditto to fuse with.

So it wasn't unexpected that ditto might not have perfectly mastered transform. But with it being the wild pokemon's only move, I expected at least a little more mastery than what it was currently displaying.

The amorphous purple blob had been attempting to transform into mimikyu from the moment Hobbes had found it. Yet even in the three minutes since then, it was only partially successful. The ditto seemed confused as to the difference between Hobbes' disguise and his actual body -- it'd managed to match Hobbes' stitched-together covering, but its trademark eyes and dopey smile were located on top of the disguise, rather than underneath. As it was, I doubted the ditto would be able to use mimikyu's signature ability, disguise, or even any of his other moves.

As Hobbes and I watched the ditto attempt to master the transformation, the edges of its disguise turned purple before elongating into dark tentacles, attempting to mimic the way it had seen Hobbes move across the ground. But with its weight poorly distributed over its transformed body, it overbalanced and faceplanted into the dirt.

My hand similarly planted itself into the middle of my face.

Rather than try and right itself with its flailing dark tentacles, the entirety of the upside-down ditto turned momentarily purple before it reformed in the correct orientation, smiling face facing Hobbes before it tried to charge forward in what have, generously, been considered a shadow sneak.

Before it once again face-planted in the dirt.

Even Hobbes looked less sure of himself than he had a few seconds earlier. But after a moment, he nodded and let out a determined "kyu!"

I shrugged. "If you're sure..." I pointed at the opposing 'mimikyu'. "Hobbes...shadow sneak."

As expected, the transformation wasn't perfect enough to include Hobbes' disguise ability, but it was apparently good enough to change the ditto's type to include ghost. After the single super-effective rake of Hobbes' claws across the dittos body, the ditto fell backward with a cry of pain, dazed.

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I didn't hesitate. Grabbing one of my few empty pokeballs, I tossed it toward the downed ditto. Once it got within a foot of the pokemon, the ball froze in mid-air and opened, red light arcing from the ball to envelop the wild pokemon. Then, a moment later, there was only the pokeball, resting softly on the ground with the center dot lit up red.

Once, twice, and then three times the ball shook on the ground as the ditto fought against its capture. But it wasn't powerful enough to escape, not after Hobbes' attack, and the button dimmed to its normal white, signifying dittos capture.

"Nice!" I called reaching down and giving one of Hobbes' shadow tentacles a high-five in celebration. It perhaps wasn't exactly the type of pokemon I'd been expecting to catch, but this ditto was my second official pokemon ever, and the first I'd caught in the 'traditional' manner. Regardless of the quality of the captured ditto, it was a reason to celebrate.

Normally, this was the time I'd rush to a nearby pokemon center to heal up and get my new pokemon tested. Pokemon centers had scanners that were free to use for trainers to use on newly captured pokemon that would tell them their types, abilities, and learned moves. Alternatively, if I'd been one of the pokemon professors' sponsored trainers, I could have used a pokedex to accomplish the same thing.

But I didn't have a pokedex, and Merraga didn't have its own pokemon center. There was a small clinic where I could get my pokemon treated if I was in dire need, but it lacked any of the technologies and higher-quality treatment that pokemon centers in larger cities provided to trainers. A potion applied in the field would do just about as much as what the clinic could do.

So that's what I did. After walking over and picking up the pokeball from the ground, I pressed the button in the middle to release the newly captured ditto in a flash of red light. It was still injured from Hobbes' attack, but it had returned to its normal ditto form after being captured, and it blinked its two dot eyes up at me in confusion.

"Hey, buddy," I said, crouching down next to my new pokemon. "How you doing?"

The proprietary technology of pokeballs and how exactly they worked were closely held secrets, but the effects were well-known. As long as the captured pokemon wasn't too strong, it wouldn't be able to attack their new trainer -- and I was confident this ditto didn't fall into the 'too strong' category.

Regardless, Hobbes stayed close by my side, ready to jump to my defense if he was needed, but he didn't seem too worried either -- more curious about his new teammate than worried.

"Ditto!" the ditto cried before shaking its head, its purple body morphing as it half-transformed into...something. Was that me? Its body was vaguely humanoid, but it was much smaller than my size, and I certainly didn't think I was that ugly. At the very least, my face wasn't anywhere close to that droopy.

"Why don't you go back to your normal form, and I can get you healed up," I said as I pulled out a potion from my backpack, screwing on the spray nozzle to the top of the container. Ditto didn't change until Hobbes spoke up with several cries of 'mi', a short conversation transpiring between my two pokemon before the ditto shrunk back down into its normal six-inch-tall blob shape.

There were no signs of any wounds on ditto's body, but that didn't stop me from spraying it liberally with my potion. I wanted my new pokemon to be in a good mood for what I said next.

"So, ditto...I'm Marcus, and this is Hobbes, my best friend. We're on our pokemon journey right now -- traveling around the region, battling trainers and gyms, and building a team of friends." I wasn't sure how much of what I was saying was getting through. Pokemon, even wild pokemon, had an intrinsic understanding of human communication, regardless of the language spoken, but that didn't necessarily translate to an understanding of what was being said. 'Pokemon journey' had a ton of connotations that I doubted ditto fully understood -- but the pokemon stared at me with a surprising amount of intensity, so I continued. "We're trying to become as strong as we can, to be the best team we can possibly be. I don't know exactly where this journey will eventually take us, but if we want to go far, power is essential. And you are a part of that -- I want you to be a part of our team."

I took a deep breath, glancing at Hobbes, who responded with a resolute nod and a quiet 'kyu'.

"I want you to fuse with Hobbes."