Love does not exist in one form, it exists in infinitely many forms. Not all are positive and not all are negative. Some are shades of gray and others seem like radically forms of the emotion. It is the type of love we are shown that define our idea of the emotion and it is that same definition that drives who we are and how we 'love' others.

Author's note: A quick insight into N's character and how I think he might have grown up and how he changed through the story. Spoilers for Black and White. The main character is referred to only as "the Trainer".

No one told him how much love hurt. No one told him how much he'd have to go through to protect the ones he cared about. No one told him how to love his Pokemon. No one told him that his love for them wasn't the one he should be showing them. No one told him that his love was right even if he was told it was wrong. No one told him; no one cared enough, and that was where the mistake began.

Pokemon were his friends, they still are. They were there for him when no other human would give him the time of day. So what if he was a crown prince? He didn't know enough to be regarded with any sort of decent respect. After all, he was only a child and children were important enough only when they were useful to them and their plans. For now, he was a nuisance. And so he took refuge in the Pokemon he had, the ones he considered his friends.

Day after day, week after week, year after year, they would be by his side. They were his companions when no one else chose to be, his pillars when his world was crumbling down around him. For most of his life they were there, keeping his sanity in check when it threatened to leave him at a moment's notice. Life was not good to N, what with all the training and the expectations being placed on him. His only chance of escape, of even hoping to be normal, was when he retreated to his 'toy room' and to his friends.

And then, one day, everything changed.

He was let out into the world to fulfill his destiny, to help his father and to help himself. N was let out to become who he wanted: to be the person that would separate Pokémon and humans forever. Sure, he loved them- Zoroark was his closest and best friend out of all the Pokémon he owned. But that wouldn't stop Pokémon from being hurt by others, from being used as tools by all the others in the world. N felt like he was the only to truly understand them- him and Team Plasma and when he set out into the world, he was ready. For what? Well, to make right what he saw wrong in the world with the help of Zekrom.

So he began his journey with the ideas his dad had set into his mind long ago. And he began to doubt himself. It was always that little feeling in the back of his mind, appearing only after he fought a certain Trainer. The first time they met was outside Karakusa Town, where he lost against the Trainer. He didn't' pay it any attention, just continued on to find and fulfill his self-appointed destiny. The second time they battled was outside Shippou City and again, he lost. But that shouldn't have happened: after all, wasn't he, N, the one who was fighting for the rights of Pokémon? For their happiness?

Then, why did the Pokémon with the Trainer he kept losing to look so happy to be with them? Did they love their Trainer, N wondered. For his father has always shown him Pokémon that had been mistreated and abused by their Trainers. So, N decided, that the Trainer he lost to was a fluke and that the Pokémon under their ownership were blinded and had no idea the true natures of all humans.

Until Raimon City. For the third time they met and instead of battling right away, the two took a ride in Raimon City's Ferris Wheel. Under the expansive and beautiful view the ride provided them did N spill his history: how he grew up and why he's on this journey. Why his team changes each time they encounter each other (keeping the Pokémon would make them tools for N and that is the furthest thing he wants; Zoroark is the exception- he is his friend and is staying at the castle). The Trainer doesn't understand and he can see that he is loathed by them for being the head of Plasma.

And they battle once more, and N loses again, a shock to him. They part ways, the dynamic of their pseudo-friendship having shifted momentously. Twice more do they meet: once outside Electric Cave and finally, in his own castle, after he has captured Zekrom and the Trainer Reshiram. Their final battle he loses and he can't fathom this: what has he done wrong?

Then the answer is brought into light: he has trusted the wrong person, the wrong philosophy, lived the wrong life. And it's all because of his father, the person who he thought was the guiding light for him, but has been, in reality, the darkness ensnaring him. And suddenly, the thought in the back of his mind, always there but never really there, comes into full blossom: Pokémon and people can co-exist if in the hands of the right person. That's why this Trainer has always managed to beat him because their Pokémon trust them.

N silently cheers on the Trainer as they fight his father. Reeling from his epiphany, N only watches as his father is dragged away from the castle and the Trainer is congratulated by various friends and the Champion. There is nothing left for N here and he morosely approaches the hole in the castle made by Zekrom, releasing the aforementioned black Legendary, all set to let it go when the Trainer calls him back.

They talk for what N knows is the last time in the Isshu Region, but what he hopes won't be the final time ever. He has learned a lot from this Trainer and now, he's ready to go off on his own for real, to learn and develop his own philosophy for Pokémon. Because he thought the way he lived meant he loved Pokémon more than anything, and he's pretty sure that that's true still, but not convinced in it anymore. There are different kinds of love, he understands, and his is just one of them. So he'd decided to leave and rediscover everything and it's all thanks to this Trainer.

So N gives them a smile, feeling it reach his emerald eyes for the first time in a long time. He owes so much to this Trainer but now is not the time to properly thank them. So he says one thing to them:

"Goodbye."

Disclaimer: Pokemon does not belong to me.

Review?

-nell