Chapter 1 'Zar'

How can I explain this? In a world where sudden tragedies are a part of everyday life? Should I speak with phrases of deeper meaning, of unexpected twist in the story, and of characters acting like heroes? But those types of characters are often mindless marionettes, simply pushed around; unconvincing and lifeless. I was never good at it, not that I really tried, but I guess that I am bored of it, of making things more important than they really are. I always focus too much on sharing important thoughts and lessons, trying to show more than I really understand, and hope that someone would find it made more sense than I did...

No, that's not the way it should be told, it should be more of "my tale", should be told as my story, but at the same time I don't want to reveal so much of my life. Perhaps it's possible though. Shown in the most attractive light I can give it but not flashy, a way which creates confusion but gives one answers; to let you truly feel it. To tell it as I would tell myself, or at least, I'll try.

But I'll start from the beginning...

In the wake of a brand new day, the sun rose, shining brightly and partially illuminating the skies with its magnificent rays. It bathed the ground with warmth, even as it still climbed into the sky, just under the horizon. The swirl of the clouds drifted lazily in the air above, completing their sluggish movements that represented a drifter in the sea's waves.

I was in the middle of a large clearing in the centre of a valley. It was one of the few quiet and peaceful places near home, which was filled with several eeveelution packs. The clearing was covered in tall grass, flowers, and other weeds; most of the plants weren't any taller than my wither.

I was lying flat on my belly in the grass sunbathing, soaking in the rays of the intense morning sun; bushes of every shape and size around me, some bearing plentiful fruits and berries, others with dark pointed leaves or wide ferns spread out. I always came here as soon as the sun began rising to start my work, which was lying here under the sun to bask in it, to be more specific.

Noon arrived sooner than I thought, quickly becoming the hottest part of the day. I felt as if the sun had pinned me to the ground; the leaves on my body were overwhelmed by the intense light. Like every other leafeon I, too, had a leaf-like tail, ears, a larger leaf curled from the top of my forehead and smaller ones hidden in between my fur. Each one was a bright green colour-however, there was a slight difference in that there was a bit of white colour at the bottom, having spread about to cover as much space as I was able to absorb in the sunlight.

The ground was moist; it likely rained last night. I was fine with that; I could easily absorb water from the soil through my paws. This, in turn, would give nutrients to my leaves. I enjoyed spending days like this when most of the days during this season were sunny.

Eventually, the sun was approaching its later stages of its journey to ascend the skies. It wasn't as hot as before anymore, which wasn't enough to adequately provide me the necessary warmth to counter the natural chill I felt from the ground. My job was to lie here, so I would, and I couldn't give up just because of the cold. Photosynthesis was a trying process, especially for specific types like myself; absorbing and gathering energy from the sun, water, minerals and carbon dioxide to make sugars, which was energizing for me. I would release some of this energy, emitting any excess quantities to my surroundings to help stimulate growth and production of nearby plants. Oxygen is also a byproduct of this process, which is also helpful for other living creatures.

Just as the orange oval of the sun was completely covered by the horizon and the night has started, I stood up. I stretched my legs, my back, moved my head left and right, then I made few circles in the air with my leaf on my forehead and tail as I stayed in one position really long, when I was done, I started a walk to my den nearby to sleep. Even if my activity wasn't very showy, I felt tired, there were differences between sunbathing for chilling out and sunbathing for work. If I was about to relax in the sun I would just lie somewhere and allowed my body absorb sun's energy on its own. When I was working, I was forcing myself to make this process much faster and now I felt its effect. My leaves were hurting, I thought that today I even exaggerated them since they seemed to be a little burned and dry, easy to crack and break. When I was about to exit the clearing I meet three umbreons entering the field who, seeing me, greeted me with nods and I answered in the same way. If there would be more leafeon in the pack I probably would also have some smaller group with whom I may share my job, but there was just me.

Just one more day and I would get some free time to do other things than work, like repair some of my social life, no one could stand the sun on the clearing too long. Well, maybe some flareon would be able, but I didn't know any with whom I would like to spend some my time. I was getting up before any other in my pack and was back after everyone returned to the dens at the end of the day.

Soon I saw the large field filled with short grass and many dug holes in the ground. Here was the centre of the pack, usually full of life, crowds of talking eeveelutions doing their tasks to keep the pack going. Each hole was an entrance to the underground home of each family of eeveelutions, young eevees were living with their parents until they evolved. Evolution was a sign that you are ready to live your own, it didn't work with everyone since there were eevees older than me just as eeveelutions much younger than me, but that was the long tradition of the pack. Nearly a year after my early evolution, I stayed secluded, my den on the edge of the field. Empty, as I hadn't found a mate just yet, and I probably won't find one anytime soon.

I hoped this night would be silent and peaceful, the last one was anything but: one of my neighbours, a young pair of glaceon and sylveon decided that they need to make their den bigger as they were expecting pups from their eggs soon. The head of the family started digging, but by mistake, he entered a den of second, old and grumpy neighbour. There was no end of loud debating whose fault it was even if it was obvious from the start. It ended only thanks to the pack leader who was strong, proud, and very annoying to me, flareon. He found a free den for the grumpy neighbour close to the stream, which he immediately accepted, since he was a vaporeon, and then gave water-type's den to the pair. Happy ending, but it was so late in the night that I had problems waking up in the morning to not be late to my job on clearing, the pack leader could be helpful, but could also be harsh.

My den was small, just enough to comfortably sleep inside, not being afraid of the rain. The typical den was much bigger than mine, having rooms to stock some food, maybe a water hole and some space for other useful eeveelutions families things, but being leafeon, I didn't need to eat, didn't mind having to walk a little to the river for water, and I was the only occupant, so I hadn't any reasons to have more than just one small room, anyway I was spending only the nights here. The interior was very simple: a few paces from the entrance was a place where I sleep, covered in dry straw, and that is all. Inside it was humid so I hoped that it would heal my leaves before morning. Just after a moment when I laid down on my (surprisingly more comfortable than normal) bed, I was asleep.

The dream was, as always, the same. It was so repetitive that I even felt bored just from being inside the dream. Being in the woods not so far away from the pack I was staying as brightly-brown slim but taller than average eevee. It was late at night, the full moon was barely visible through thick swath of clouds. After having fun with my best friend, I got lost, maybe I wasn't as afraid in this age, I felt as if the world belonged to me and there was no place I couldn't go, but I was a bit worried as I couldn't find a way back home. My friend was always better at hiding and older than me by three winters so I got used to it that I was losing in every possible game with him, but it never was making me nervous, but today he lost me very easily and completely.

On that day, he was already evolved and, as everyone who had a tendency to stay out too long at night and being good at hiding, he evolved into umbreon, blast him for that.

Why was I even trying to play hide and seek with a dark type at night?

We knew each other for quite a long time, we met because our parents were friends, later it even appeared that we are somehow related, five or six generations earlier.

I was walking for a long time. Just ahead, the forest overgrowth was mostly leafy and leaves were moist, covered in dew. I felt my legs tired, my head falling and my back hurting. Long walks never were my thing, but sprinting wasn't either. Close before the dawn, my way crossed wide in every direction with extremely thick bushes with long and narrow leaves, they were reminding me about spiky thorns and, for an unknown reason, I had a feeling that all of them were aimed directly at me. It wasn't easy to say what was their colour was since it was dark and in darkness, everything seemed to be dark, grey or even darker, but as an eevee, I started going through them without much effort. When I walked out of the opposite side of the bushes the environment around me started to look familiar, very familiar, just smaller than I had remembered. With another step forward I fell flat on my face and I fell from much higher than usual. It took me a moment to notice my new plant features, I wasn't eevee any longer but leafeon. I wasn't any longer or taller than average, but my slenderity stuck with me and created the impression of espeon's body shape with additions.

When this dream appeared the first, second and even third time, I thought that it was something good, a moment of my own happiness, a good memory that I knowingly or unknowingly wanted to see again, but as I dreamed about it, again and again, it started to worry me. Maybe there was something that I needed to see in it but I was missing every time?

I thought that it was something with my head, some illness or injury - maybe those bushes had some weird effect? That was possible too; I couldn't remember where that place was anymore. I had never found those bushes again, no matter how long I had searched for them.

When I returned, no one believed that it was me, even my own parents didn't recognise me. No one had ever seen a leafeon, and I had a feeling that they didn't understand every word I was saying. Luckily, there was one elderly vaporeon who explained to the other pokémon as well as to me what leafeon was. When I proved that I really was myself my parents were very sorry that they didn't recognise me. I was mad at them for it until I saw my own reflection. Because then, even I didn't recognise myself. I guess that seeing so many umbreons, espeons or other eeveelutions taught me to recognise them, but when I saw a completely new creature... well I needed to get used to it, but I didn't regret anything that happened.

Some of other pack members were saying that I just didn't want to tell where these bushes were because I wanted to be 'original' and the 'only one', but they quickly shut up when it appeared that my form was, frankly, useless. And no one really wanted to become 'like' me. Maybe I was weak just because I hadn't anyone who could be my teacher; a newly evolved eevee usually had an older teacher and in a few days could learn what they could do. But not me, I was still discovering my powers, very slowly, almost without any progress.

That was bad too, soon it would be a year since I'd evolved and I felt as if I was even weaker than before. And on the day of my birth; since evolution was considered as the second day of birth, I needed to show what I was capable of. I had hoped that some of the elders would be ill or at least feel ill so I could heal them, since healing was something that I learned. I also knew how to put someone to sleep by scattering some stinking dust thing from my leaves. Others said that it smelled nice, however to me, it was like smelling grass; young and wet, fresh with morning dew. All I had to show was being able to heal some small wounds (which didn't even hurt too much) and put others to sleep. I could ask someone to cut my tail and show how it slowly grew back, but I doubted that someone would want to watch that. There was still a chance that no one would examine me since there was no other leafeon so no one known what I should know. I still had a few weeks to find something more interesting to show off, but for now, it was looking bad.

I noticed that I wasn't even asleep anymore, I was just staring at the wall of my den, thinking.

I sighed. Another sleepless night lay ahead.

Do others think this much before they sleep too? Creating scenarios that didn't have a chance to happen, thinking about the meaning of life or reminiscing of what somebody said or did long ago. Maybe no one would notice if I took a nap in the clearing again. I really didn't feel responsible for my 'job' anyways.

In the morning, before everyone woke up, I went to the clearing, meeting again the same group of umbreons who were now returning to their dens. They smiled and said 'hello' and I answered in the same way. We had met like that every morning and afternoon since I evolved; every generation used to group up with themselves, so every day seemed to have a meaning, a connection. Even a single moon's difference in age was enough for us to group others as old, young or our own peers. These groups could become a whole world for us and so we were, the bunch of eevees. It was a time when a single lock of fur could make someone original and different. It was until maturity had come and painted everything grey. An irony of evolution: the point where everyone would start his own independent life made us even more similar to each other, then it pushed us into the ocean we once had been looking at from the beach, an ocean of exhaustion and worries, filling all time we once had with duties and things we just must do, leaving only moments to lift our heads above the water for a short breath and wave to the others who lifted their head before we return into covering our eyes and mouth, surrounding us in our ocean of everyday life. But even now, we were separate. Evolution had pushed us apart, and there was nothing you could do about it.

I knew what job they had, they were gathering fruits from clearing which I was stimulating by lying there, umbreons weren't usually used to it, they were for hunting, not gathering fruits. This was more of a punishment for the umbreons than a real activity but there was a reason why it needed to be umbreon or eventually sylveon. They were good to work at night when I was asleep. Everyone in the pack thought that I was extremely sensitive to plants because I am part plant, and there was some truth in that since I felt sad when I saw someone damaging nature, but it wasn't that powerful a feeling to force me to do anything.

Before evolution I was never very sensitive about plant life around me; even now I was repeating that I didn't care, but as I saw someone purposely stepping on or destroying some of nature I felt something that I wasn't sure what to name. It was similar to anger but mixed with sadness and a willingness to repair the destroyed thing. I was explaining this to myself as 'type'. The same thing that caused vaporeons to like water, espeons to be so arrogant or umbreons to insult or bite someone without any reason. My friend was umbreon and he told me that there was a great desire to do something that felt 'bad' and it was better to do it than wait until the desire grew into something that he might really regret. Umbreons were usually dealing with their darker feelings between each other since only they were active during the night and the rest were sleeping away in their dens.

I entered the clearing and went to my favourite spot in the centre. I walked a few circles in the place where I wanted to rest and I lied down. And just like the day before, I spread my leaves above me as much as I could. But I wasn't trying to make the stimulating process faster, I guess you could say I was just 'eating'. Not having 'normal' food has its advantages, it didn't need to be chased and I could have it while I was doing something completely different, and it was also unlimited. Maybe the clouds could block a bit of sunlight but nonetheless, I could take as much as I needed. Sometimes I would remember how things taste when I was an eevee, but these days I couldn't imagine myself 'eating' something different than the sun's rays, absorbing soil from the ground and sipping some water from time to time, I still could do it but it wasn't the same pleasure as it once was. The only effect of my diet was my sometimes smaller or larger leaves depending on how much of the sun's energy I absorbed.

But I would lie if I said that I was living only on photosynthesis, sometimes I needed to take something 'normal', even against myself, it was the kind of hunger which I wasn't able to ignore. Maybe the sun wasn't giving me everything that I needed.

My job could look important and worthwhile but honestly, it was completely unnecessary. No one really liked to eat plants; some of the fruits from here were occasionally sweet, but after I tried them once, my stomach ended up rolling for days. And the leaves were bitter and tasted gross.

Still, I was just doing that so no one could say that I wasn't doing anything when others had their tasks to do. That was our leader's idea; make everyone work somewhere in the pack. He was a little obsessed with his power as a ruler and was irritated when he saw other eeveelutions lazing about. After all, there was always much to be done around here.

While I was lying in the meadow I could see through the tall grass; some patrolling flareons were coming over. I could hear their harsh breaths from afar; the bright colours of their coats warmed your body just by looking at them, always sending excess heat out into the air. However, they looked like they were enjoying the heat, passing time with a discussion and looking around almost arrogantly. They would warm the rest of the pack during winter or melt some ice if it was needed, but there were only sunny days right now and they needed to play the guardian role. To be honest, it was very rare that they needed to really guard our pack from something anyways.

I couldn't hear their steps any longer, they had gone out of my hearing range. I was able to catch from afar a splash of the water though: probably some vaporeons who tried to catch fish or eevee who tried to learn how to swim.

Just another day here, in real eeveelutions utopia.

I saw that the clearing was entered by an older looking sylveon, keeping his feelers close by him. Near him, a vaporeon was set in a strange pose, like he was frozen but there was no ice.

Why this sylveon was chosen to keep other eeveelutions in good health always amazed me, since every time he had to heal someone he would come to me to ask for help. But he promised me that if I helped him, someday he would tell me what his feelers were made of. I personally thought that it was some kind of flesh and muscle, as it couldn't be any thin membrane like vaporeon's fins as it could move much more than fins.

"Hello, I..." he started. As always he was trying to involve me in conversation, trying to not let me think that he came here only for my, honestly, absolutely free help and I usually used that to pass some time. Paralysed pokemon couldn't hurry us as they were, well... paralysed. But we quickly ran out of the topics we talked about since neither he nor I were very interesting pokemon with lives full of stories and now he was only repeating himself.

"Yes yes, paralysis isn't it? Let me guess, another jolteon tried to 'help' with fishing? I'm surprised that you brought just the one then," I cut him off by examining the vaporeon.

"Actually, no. He fought with a jolteon. I'm not sure what the whole purpose of their altercation was because he didn't say anything," Sylveon said with his deep, monotone voice. Fights weren't very popular in our pack's everyday life. Training and sparring to improve oneself was fine. But jolteon never fought with vaporeon as the former had an advantage over the latter, as obvious as it was. Therefore, the winners would have been decided before the fight even began. It was also risky and dangerous to the vaporeon to engage in any bouts with the electric types.

I knew from first-hand experience how type disadvantages can hurt. Extinguishing burning leaves was very difficult to do on your own, and they grew back slower than usual after an afflicted injury. One time when I was walking along, I was unluckily in the line of "fire" when a nearby Flareon had sneezed, due to an illness he had, which set my tail aflame. We never fought one another, but the experience had been excruciatingly painful nonetheless.

"Okay leave him here for a while, he'll be fine," I answered, standing up from my spot to suggest he should put the vaporeon down in the grass, I didn't want him to put him on some of the more touchy plants as he had more than once in the past.

"Take care," he shouted, walking back in the direction he came from and happy that he just left his problem behind, I escorted him with my sight. When he disappeared between the bushes I sighed and turned to the vaporeon lying on the ground (not by choice) to meet his blank stare as he was looking straight at me.

"What? I don't need to like everyone here," I answered to his gaze which didn't change a bit. Feeling uncomfortable I walked around him avoiding his stare. I never actually 'learned' any healing abilities, it was more like 'discovering', in that I just knew them. It came to me on the day of evolution naturally and I didn't even need to put too much of my focus into using them, it seemed that healing paralysis was somehow connected to my natural aroma. Soon the vaporeon snapped out of its position and laid flat on the grass in a far more comfortable position than before. Being paralysed, he wasn't moving, but staying like that was far from 'resting'.

"Ouch," he sighed as he stretched, still lying. "Thanks."

"Was it really worth a fight with an electric type?" I asked him as I noticed he was looking better than before.

"It wasn't me who started it," the vaporeon defended himself as he stood up and looked at me curiously. His continued gaze on me made me feel uncomfortable again. Feeling perturbed, I thought to voice my concerns aloud.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just I've never seen a leafeon before, I only heard that there was one in the pack," he answered sheepishly. "You were speaking weirdly."

"Like what?" I asked, but I already knew that there was something with me since evolution.

"I don't know. Different, it is hard to understand you. Just like, well, not an eeveelution," he judged and stood up. He was a little taller than me, but vaporeons were usually bigger than others from the pack. Still, he looked like he could be at least two years older than me, even though I knew he evolved only last spring.

"Uhh okay. I guess that you have a lot to do of... whatever you were doing before" I said quietly. There was no chance that our almighty flareon leader missed giving someone without anything to do yet another job.

"Right, I forgot, see you later," he said and in hurry followed sylveon's steps out of my clearing. I actually doubted that we would meet again; the 'pack' was, in reality, many connected groups of other smaller packs. I was living in the 'Middle' one, where east and west of our small world meet each other. Every smaller pack had its own leader, but above them, all was the one most important leader. The small groups hadn't many differences between each other, some of them, for example, had more vaporeons if it was close to the water. The furthest group was high in the mountains. The mountain was visible from the 'middle' and to get there you'd need to walk for two days. That group was considered 'traditional' since it only contained glaceons who left their dens only during the winter. Glaceons could live in a hot place like this clearing, but they didn't like it and it always took some effort for them to cool themselves down.

For the rest of the day nothing which could be considered as unusual happened; I napped a few times and walked around the clearing when I became bored of lying in the grass. Today I was just waiting for nightfall, tomorrow I had a free day, so today I planned to spend an evening with some friends. As my days usually passed by fast, today felt like the longest day in my life. I always felt like that when I was waiting for something.

But it finally it came, evening. I walked out of the clearing and as usual, I headed to the centre where there were numerous dens. Today I was earlier than usual, so I had to face the crowds of eeveelutions walking here on the invisible pathways of the dens. It was an instinct everyone in the pack had, knowing the routes between the many underground cave entrances. It wasn't possible to see what every pokemon was doing here in this mix of colours, but one thing was certain, it was really loud here. The buzzing of multiple conversations, yells, someone counting, yet another was singing and there were even lighting, flames and torrents of water flying in the sky; after all, presenting your abilities was a way to find a possible mate.

Another 'peaceful' day in the 'Middle'. I started making my way through the crowds, and while most pokemon ignored me, I got few stares from passing pack members; it wasn't possible to walk through this crowd unnoticed. I was answering with an artificial smile even if I didn't like being observed, I don't think anyone ever did. Some of them were just looking at me curiously as if they were seeing me for the first time in their lives, others looked at if they knew me but couldn't remember why, I probably healed them in the past. Others were looking at me with disgust, pointing at the leaves growing on my body. But that wasn't anything wrong with that at all, differences between eeveelutions were quite typical. Usually for espeons it was weird that jolteons had no tail; however for jolteons it was weird to have a long tail like a vaporeon had, so I could understand that the leaves on my body could look bad in someone's opinion.

Finally, I arrived on the opposite side of the centre, here there were far less 'eons'. I already could see my destination: a long lagoon created by the narrow but fast flowing stream of water. There were also some smooth, flat rocks sticking out of the grass; perfect to lay on during a sunny day.

It was a place of meetings and rest. At the beach, I didn't have to deal with crowds like in the centre, but there also wasn't a quiet, peaceful space. When I walked on the beach of the lagoon, I turned in the opposite direction of the stream flow's direction. Soon I arrived at a fallen tree full of cracks and holes, leaves lost from the long, tangled and naked branches spread in the water. I laid in the shadow of the forest's wall near the fallen tree. I liked staying in the sun, but I already could see that my leaves had had enough of the bright rays. They had become hard and dry. Even if they weren't sensitive enough to feel their pain, if someone touched them I didn't want to see them crack.

I saw that the sky had turned partly cloudy but they weren't dark and heavy clouds which could bring a storm. They were like white and light puffs or foam in the ocean of bright blue.

"You are late," said a grumpy, harsh voice behind me. As I turned my head I saw a midnight black umbreon exiting one of the biggest holes in the fallen tree. He was tall and sinewy, with unnaturally coloured shining rings on his body. I hadn't had any problems with recognising one umbreon from another but this one was very easy to recognise because of his blue rings and yellow eyes.

"Hey, how long were you in that hole?" I greeted him.

"Eh, I hoped that you would, at last, be surprised, Leaf," he said in much nicer tone now. Leaf wasn't my real name but because of being only one leafeon I got a lot of nicknames like leaf or flower and many other plant related titles.

"Did you ever find anyone who you could scare, Serge?" I asked.

"You would be surprised how many... but say, what were you doing last time, I heard that Sogot found you something interesting to do," he buttonholed me.

"Yes, he finally found something. That isn't much to talk about, my job is pretty simple. I'm just gathering sunlight and giving it to the environment. Sometimes Cyrus brings someone to heal, and that is all it is, from morning to night," I explained.

"Cyrus? Is he that sylveon?" he asked and I nodded. He continued, "Soon it will be a full year since you evolved, how do you feel about that form? I remember that you had different plans."

"It's fine, most days are okay, but if there isn't much sun then I get hungry at night. Technically, I could eat food, but with these teeth, it's not easy. Winter is also hard to survive through, this fur," I pointed at myself "doesn't completely warm me, I am freezing during cold nights even in the season of the sun."

"Yes I remember, you were glued to almost every flareon in your reach then," laughed Serge, reminding me.

"It doesn't produce any heat!" I said a little irritated. "It's more like a decoration, it's even preventing me from overheating so I can be in the sun much longer. Yours is the opposite. I'm almost jealous."

"Okay okay, calm down. I was kidding," Serge said nudging me.

"Liss won't come today?" I asked as some time passed and I still didn't see the female glaceon who was usually following us.

"No, don't you remember that glaceons spend the summer in the mountains? All of them," he reminded me. "But there are also advantages of it, we can look at 'whatever' we want," smiled the blue-ringed umbreon as he ran his vision across the lagoon.

"Wait until I repeat this to her," I answered also laughing. But it was true, from here we had a view of the almost whole lagoon, including the group of swimming females.

"Don't you even dare," he almost growled at me, again changing his tone to harsh and cold. It always amazed me how fast his expression could change from friendly to almost feral. I wasn't afraid of him but this always made me feel twitchy; my ears stood up, ready for anything.

"Okay, I won't," I breathed and it seemed that my answer pleased him since he returned to his friendly statement. I waited for him to continue, but for a second my thoughts drifted away. What if his sudden changes of mood were caused by his dark-type nature? He probably just woke up and didn't have time to defuse himself on someone or something. It wouldn't be the first time when I would have to face it, but now I wasn't in a mood for his bites or insults.

"So, which do you prefer now? Still jolteons?" asked Serge, quieting my worry and nodding his head to a female group's way, which, unfortunately, wasn't paying any attention to us. I actually never preferred jolteons but it was quite a rare eeveelution and Serge wasn't friends with any so he couldn't shame me on my choice. Just imagining if I said that I, for example, prefer umbreons. Serge knows a lot of them; one maybe two nights later and there wouldn't be an umbreon alive who didn't hear about it. He could be silent with my secrets since he was my best friend, but not this kind of secret.

"For now yes, but I've never seen a female leafeon, so you know, it can change," I replied. Water and electricity weren't a good combination, so there were no jolteons close to the river.

"Anyone 'special' on your mind?" Serge asked me suggestively.

"No, and you?" I returned his question.

"You may say that I have even more than that on my mind," he praised.

"No kidding, who is that 'unlucky' one?" I had a feeling that he asked me about my preferences only to have a chance to boast himself. It wasn't the first time when he asked me about it.

"Oh, you know her pretty well, you even mentioned her today."

"Really, you and Liss!? You two were always first to fight each other from the... well, as long I can remember," I said reminiscent, and he laughed. "But wait, if this is middle of the summer and glaecons are far away..."

"Yes, it was at the beginning of the winter; you were too busy trying to survive the weather and didn't notice anything," he cut me off.

"Sorry, but I could die if I hadn't been 'busy with that'," my irritation rose, yes I was taking the winter very bad but it didn't have to be mentioned over and over again.

"You don't need to yell Zar," spoke a new soft female voice. Hearing my name I turned my head to left and saw a graceful and slender espeon walking to us. She was another friend, maybe not as much as Serge, because we didn't know each other that long, but long enough to know not to be misled by her lavender coat's extremely attractive appearance. Hidden under that eye-catching look was her sharp and intelligent character. She was one of the youngest evolved eevee in the history of the pack; she evolved before her second winter when normally, first evolutions would happen when eevees had been through six or seven winters. I heard some rumours that her parent was feeding her with man-made food. It is said that pokemon raised by humans were growing faster, bigger and lived longer. Our flareon leader was an example of that.

Wild pokemon usually nurtured hatred toward domestic pokemon but this flareon fought for respect and a position for himself. The way to become the supreme pack's leader was brutal, he needed to fight and finally kill the earlier leader to take his place. It was supposed to prove his determination and strength, later he needed to find the power to make others follow him, but there was still a risk that the rest of the pack would just tear his body apart if they decide that pack can't achieve anything positive with him as a leader. I hadn't lived long enough to know who was the earlier leader since he died long before my birth.

...but why had thinking of Cera, that espeon, make me wonder about it?

Anyway, even if she was tall, she wasn't tall enough to say that she was using any stimulants or human's things, just natural items. How could she even get these things in the wilderness? But her living age, that was hard to tell. Evolution was considered as being born again because there were so many things changing. Not only appearance but also character, sometimes too much would change to even say that it was still the same pokemon. But previous experiences and memories didn't disappear. Everyone lived a similar length of their lives around here, so if she had a shorter life as an eevee then me, she would then have a longer life as an espeon then I had as a leafeon. In the end we would still have lived to a similar age, considering 'first' birth.

"Hello Cera, how are you?" I greeted her. I knew that she was talented in using her psychic abilities and could read what I had in mind, but she didn't use this advantage; she believed that the mind was private space.

"I am fine, I just woke up," she answered shortly and layed down to my left, on the opposite side than was Serge. I guessed that because of their type difference they didn't like each other too much, but also because she never was very social; it was actually rare that she would meet with anyone. But I needed to admit that lately, her behaviour was slowly changing.

"Funny, since I also just woke up," Serge commented smiling.

"How surprising," she answered to umbreon. "I was sleeping only because of the result of Sogot's request, he asked, no... required from me to use my psychic and learn what everyone is thinking! He didn't know about something called other pokemon's privacy which I am trying to respect. As much as I can obviously." she spoke very angrily, her tail waving furiously. Even the red gem on her forehead started to glow. "So maybe I should start with you two, what are you currently thinking?"

"Uh, I thought that he wanted you to do it by psychic," I said unsurely.

"That fucking human's pariah wanted that, but I don't want to do it!" she growled. She was one, if not greater adversary to the domestic raised pokemon, maybe it was caused by rumours about her fast evolution? "Imagine if every espeon was reading the mind of everyone around, you wouldn't have any secrets or thoughts like the ones Serge has at this moment, but I don't even need to use psychic to know what he is thinking." That made Serge look in another direction, which was once again towards the group of swimming pokemon.

"You don't need to worry, he is with Liss now," I felt weirdly speaking about my friend in the third person when he was just next to me. "But yes I would be upset if someone could know what I'm thinking in my head."

I didn't have much to hide, but more than once thought about myself as mentally unstable; not because of things what I was doing but thinking.

There weren't many espeon in the pack, which was dominated mainly by flareons, vaporeons and umbreons, but they were always giving off a feeling of worry. Cera, even as one of the youngest espeon, plus her years as an eevee, was one of most powerful psychic types in the pack and could quite easily do things like taking control of someone's mind and make them sing or jump, making objects fly, or even learn what someone was thinking currently, yesterday or even last winter. She presented it during her ability presentation which I had a chance to see, vaporeon, who she asked to be an object of her presentation, didn't even know that anything like this had happened.

If elements were allowed in the fight with the leader than she could probably even win, but it wasn't; the rules stated that it had to be fangs versus fangs so advantages or disadvantages of the type weren't that important.

But even possessing such great psychic power, she stayed 'normal'. She wasn't showing off what she could do, her presentation was the only time when she'd showed some of her potential. That again made me wonder what I could show at my presentation. I didn't need to make anything close to her psychic abilities or destructive dark power which Serge showed at his exam.

Maybe this trick with my cut tail won't be that bad?

"Anyway, I came here to relax, not whine to you two about my problems," she said now much calmer and softer. "Zar, could you use the same thing you use to heal paralysis?"

"I really wish I could but I recently overexposed my leaves in the sun and now they are very dry. I can't do anything," I explained, showing that they were really dry and brittle. Seeing that, she grimaced and turned her head to the water and her eyes glowed. After a moment from the river floated to us, a bubble of clear water.

"It does not work that way. Drinking water is helpful but I am not thirsty, they just need a while to rest," I said, guessing that she wanted me to drink.

"Shh, I planned something different," she said. Now the bubble of water was floating straight above me and slowly fell down. But surprisingly, my leaves absorbed all of it, becoming heavier and darker.

"What have you done?" I asked, concern lacing my voice. My leaves weren't dry any longer, but also it wasn't their natural state to have so much water in them.

"I just 'convinced' your leaves to absorb this water, now can you use them?" she spoke nicely.

"Yes I can," I confirmed. I could just imagine how much dew would cover me in the morning, I just hoped that I wouldn't change my den into a swamp.

"So what you were doing today?" Cera asked after the air was filled with the odour of grass, which visibly calmed her down. I actually couldn't understand how they could enjoy it, it was the air... exhaled from my body with a grass aroma.

"I woke up, ate something and came here. That's all," answered Serge.

"What were you eating?" I asked curiously but I could already guess that it was some meat.

"These new water pokemon which appeared lately in the river, they look almost like magikarp," he explained. "If I had to comment about them, I'd say they're heaven in the mouth, hell in the ass. So I'm not sure if I liked them or regret eating them."

"You could save us from your comment," Cera grunted with distaste as she rolled onto her side.

Serge was always quite direct when it came to a conversation with him, but I liked him for it. I could always depend on that he would be honest with me, with everyone, even if it would be just his dark typing kicking in.

So there I was, a weakling with two powerful pokemon as friends, once equal to them, or at least to Serge before he evolved; now I couldn't even get close to their possibilities. I felt lucky that I managed to get along with them in our younger years, who knows if they would even notice me if I would try to meet them now. They were actually the only pokemon in the pack whose help I could always depend on since my parents weren't living in the 'Middle' or any other part of the utopia. They decided that they had the world to see and they went to do it, another reason could be that they didn't want to agree to the new leader's rules and just when they weren't responsible for me they became 'free'. I sometimes felt sad about it...

My thoughts were disturbed by loud snoring, but it was the snoring of many mouths, echoing and coming from many directions. As I looked around I saw that Cera and Serge were deep in sleep.

"How you can sleep again, you just woke up!" I snarled but then I notice that my friends weren't the only one asleep but every eeveelution in my view range was lying unconscious. It took me a moment to understand what just happened; I still was exhaling my odour by instinct, not even thinking about it, and I changed it from healing to sedative effect.

I stood up and ran to the centre of the pack which I was passing through earlier, checking how far it went. It wasn't windy today but I wasn't sure how long I had done it. That was when I saw what really worried me, because I found out that everyone here was asleep as well.

"Oh fuck," I cursed and gulped. Putting pokemon to sleep during their rest time wasn't a really bad thing but putting the whole pack to sleep would cause me some repercussions, I just hoped that Sogot would be in good mood and go easy on me.

But to make things worse I saw the unnaturally big flareon lying just like the others on the ground, his size and muscular body didn't leave any doubts who it was.

"I am doomed."