A shy tiny little bug pokemon stood still, hidden in a rotten tree trunk looking at me with its round and shiny eyes, and carefully watching every movement I made.
I grabbed my pokedex and pointed it at the little fellow.
"Paras, the Mushroom Pokémon. As its body grows large, oriental mushrooms called tochukaso start sprouting out of its back."
The little pokemon slowly stepped out of its hiding, revealing the two small young mushrooms on its back. I took advantage of this moment to call out my jigglypuff to fight him. The poor thing looked so weak, shy and defenseless that I didn't want to be too rough with it, so I simply put it to sleep and without further attacking it, I threw a pokeball at it.
1, 2, 3 wobbles and it was caught - quite an easy catch to be honest.
Over time we learned to know and love each other, he was a really sweet little buddy.
He was kind and caring, but also very shy. He hated all forms of violence so I didn't make him fight. He'd cry when I was sad and smile when I was happy; I had never seen such a gentle and emotionnal pokemon.
One day I brought home a leaf stone I had bought at the Celadon Department Store earlier that morning and offered it to paras, thinking he could be thrilled by the idea of evolving.
...but instead, he started freaking out the second he saw the stone.
I did not understand his reaction... while it is true that many pokemons do not want to evolve, they usually make their trainer understand without making such a fuss about it!
Feeling bad, I quickly put the stone away, apologizing. I sat next to my little paras who quickly climbed on my lap, violently shaking and visibly dead scared. I patted him until he fell asleep.
From that day on, everytime he even heard the word "evolution", he'd become very nervous for a good while, so I avoided the subject whenever he was around.
I still wanted him to become stronger so he could overcome his fears and weaknesses. If he could at least be able to defend himself, that'd have been a great thing, for I knew he wasn't a born fighter and casual pokemon battles were -and had always been- completely out of the question. I only cared about his safety.
I tried to teach him how to defend himself, but he always was too scared to try hitting somebody else, even a training doll. I wanted him to practice his cuts on a wooden board, his spores on my jigglypuff -mind you, jigglypuff consented to help me train paras, so this was not against his will at all-,... but everytime he tried, only a weak failing attempt at attacking was made and he'd start looking down in guilt and shame as if he felt it was wrong.
Weeks, then months went by with barely any progress made. I had begun worrying even more about him after he was attacked by a wild beedrill in our backyard. Had I not been there to intervene, he'd have been a goner for sure. I had come to a point where I believed the only solution for him was to evolve, even if that meant against his will, sadly. I though it was for the best; that evolving him would help him not only become physically stronger but give him more confidence. To avoid stressing him, I hid the leaf stone in his favourite toy to make sure he'd come in contact with it, besides, once he'd have evolved, he'd realise it was not that bad after all, and that he had no reason to be so scared...
...or so I thought.
Paras woke up that morning and ate the berries I gave him for breakfast as usual. I watched as he ran to and picked up his toy, awaiting a beautiful evolution...
...but instead witnessed the worst horror show of the pokemon world.
Paras froze in place, his face overcome by a pure dreadful expression. His bug body was not altered in the slightest throughout the process, except for a light shell discoloration and his eyes gradually change into a pure and eerie blind white as the mushrooms on his back began to grow to outrageous proportions.
At that point I tried to stop his evolution, but it was too late...
The mushroom kept growing more and more, ripping the top of his body open and slowly paralyzing his movements, its roots and spores eating up the host's body and hijacking his brain. The mushroom stopped growing when there was nothing else to feed off in paras' body, and by this time, it was at least 4 times bigger than the empty shell it parasited. The last manifestation I witnessed from the dear little paras I had known and loved was a teardrop from his right eye before being left with an empty, nearly dead zombie shell controlled into a unnaturally violent behaviour by an oversized parasitic mushroom...
I cried both of sadness and in disbelief of what I had seen, feeling guilty of not listening to my paras' will, and being a monster for allowing such a thing to happen to him.
Then the pokedex's words came back to my mind.
"Paras, the MUSHROOM pokemon..."