I had always known that I was gay. I had been openly gay when I was human, and I was still gay when I became a pokemon; however, since love and sex weren't exactly the first things on my mind after my transformation, I never really felt the need to tell anyone about it. Ever since my return after having supposedly gone back to the human world following Team Sureshot's daring confrontation of Rayquaza at Sky Tower, everyone, my partner, Bullet, especially, had been questioning me as to why I hadn't gone back to being a human. I always responded with the same teasing response of "you would miss me too much if I was gone" or "what, you want to get rid of me that much?" I couldn't ever bring myself to tell them the real reason why. As my spirit was floating away into space, all my memories of being a human came back to me in a sudden revelation, like I awaking from a dream. Where I was going, there was no one waiting for me.

After I had come out to my parents about being gay, they had responded by immediately disowning me and kicking my ass out onto the streets. None of my other relatives were willing to acknowledge my existence either. I had hung around my old home for about a week after being kicked out, still expecting that my parents would eventually get over the shock and come looking for me. However, that didn't happen. What did happen, though, was that I sat and watched as they systematically threw out every photo of me, every award I had ever won, and every single one of my possessions that I had been unable to grab as I was ushered out the front door. I wasn't just dead to them, because that would mean that they had still previously had a gay son. No, I had never existed at all. After witnessing this, I gave up on the people that used to be my family.

I dropped out of school too, since I no longer had the time to waste my time with such fruitless endeavors in a harsh, cruel world. I had no friends to turn to either. None of my former classmates understood me. They all referred to me as the little, gay bitch. My jokes were never funny, and my good-natured taunts were responded to as if I had just killed somebody's dog… with a baseball bat… in front of their four-year-old little brother and sister. I had been left with no one, to starve and freeze to death on the streets. When I had first met Gardevoir, I was sure I must have been dead, and she was an angel come to take me away. When I heard she was looking for a hero, I thought she must have been insane. She appears out of the blue in front of a half-dead mess laying in the gutter, and she declares him to be the long sought after savior of her home world? If you ask me, my skepticism was quiet the natural response, but honestly, she was desperately, and what did either of us have to lose?

So no, there wasn't anybody worth mentioning for me to go back to, and as I looked back towards the world that I was drifting steadily away from, I thought back on all the things that I was leaving behind. My home in Team Sureshot's base that always smelled of the roses that grew outside, the daily exchange of witty banter with the folks in Pokemon Square, the appreciative smiles of the pokemon we helped on a daily basis, and my dear friends and teammates all flooded my mind, but none more so than my closest partner. Bullet, with his big nose, stubby legs, hunched back, squinty eyes, and greasy green fur. He really was something. If he had been human and in high school, he would have been a social pariah with coke bottle glasses that tripped over his own two feet and got stuffed in his own locker by the football team… and everybody else. Yes, that cyndaquil really was a piece of work. He was overly excitable, a truly naïve fool, with an innocent mind, and a heart that was more loyal and kind than any other. Who would have ever thought that a too-cool-for-school scumbag like me would end up having someone like him for a best friend?

It was an easy choice to make. I wasn't about to leave my true life behind in order to go back a world of loneliness in pain, especially knowing that I wouldn't be the only one to suffer if I did. So I returned home, to my real home, and my clumsy fool of a best friend who practically rolled out to hug me as I walked back into the life that I never wanted to leave again. I was a human no more. From that point on, I was B.B., a secretly gay treeko with a complicated past and an attitude as tall as Sky Tower. I would be able to keep having the life that I had had up until then with Bullet and the other members of Team Sureshot. Nothing else mattered, or so I thought.

Several months passed after that and the continued natural disasters created in the aftermath of the falling star kept all us rescuers busy with business as usual. The days proceeded like clockwork until one day when Luminous Cave suddenly opened up on the stone island in the center of Wiscash's Pond. The evolution buzz quickly spread around town and amongst the ranks of rescue teams, and of course, Bullet and I wanted in on the action too. We were two of the first to plunge into the inky blackness of the cave in search of adventure and new power that awaited us.

As team leader, I went first, after Bullet's insistence. I evolved into Grovyle, and was quite pleased with my new looks, which I admired in the reflective surface of the pond. My skin had darkened to a less intense shade of green; my eyes had narrowed, giving me a more mature-looking gaze; and my limbs had become exponentially stronger, my arms slim and quick, and my legs thick with new muscle. Bullet greeted me with a smile, and then proceeded to blush and tell how cool I looked. I grinned, enjoying his praise, and ushered him forward, telling him that it was his turn to enter the cave and evolve. Bullet then nodded, took a deep breath, and marched into the cave with his head held high.

I waited for what felt like forever for Bullet to come out of the cave; I sat lounging at the water's edge, toying absently with the grass. When, finally, I heard footsteps coming from the cave entrance, I sprang up to see Bullet in his new form. Bullet stepped out into the sunlight, stood up onto two legs, gestured to himself, and asked how he looked. To say that I was stunned would be a massive understatement, I'm sure that my heart completely stopped beating for a good minute!

Bullet as a quilava was absolutely breathtaking! His substantial nose had shrunk back into a gracefully curved muzzle. His tiny limbs had lengthened and grown muscular, but still appeared smooth and lean. His curved form had stretched out and become agile and flexible. His greasy, coarse fur was now shiny and soft-looking. But most impressive of all were his eyes! Those eyes, that were so squinty that you couldn't even tell what color they were, were now wide open, ruby red pools that burned with emotion. The fire that blazed forth from his head and tail couldn't hold a candle to the fire that raged in those brilliant orbs!

I coughed and fought to regain my composure and hide my blushing. I told him that he looked good, and he smiled a huge smile and giggled in happiness. Damn that was cute! I quickly started walking off in the direction of Pokemon Square, saying that we should present our new forms to our other friends and then call it a day, after so much excitement. Bullet agreed and then took off running on his strong new legs, with me following behind him, easily keeping pace with my much longer strides.

As I was strolling through the square behind Bullet, I continuously found my gaze drifting downwards to admire the gentle slope of his back that extended to his perfectly shaped ass… WHAT? As soon as I could do so without making it clear to Bullet that something wasn't right, I excused myself and rushed home to hide myself and wallow in my shame.

I had always loved Bullet's heart, but I had also always thought that he was safe to be just friends with, due to his physical awkwardness. Well, that was out the window, now. Bullet was as unbelievably beautiful on the outside as he was on the inside, and his heart seemed even more angelic now that it was reflected so clearly in his eyes. It was official. I was head-over-heels in love with my best friend, and he didn't even know that I was gay. There was no way that me telling him now could possibly work out in my favor, so I would just have to keep it a secret from him and take it to my grave with me. We were going to be best friends forever, and that was just the way that things had to be.