Shadow's POV

My hand instantly was cloaked with a shadowy mist and my fingers sharpened into blades. I shot forward towards the buzzing combee who nimbly fluttered to the side, but just as fast I redirected the attack and leapt at the honey Pokémon. Before it could react I left a deep slash in his honey hide and he screamed with rage. He crashed to the ground from all the damage he received, on the verge of fainting.

With no emotion, I walked stiffly up to the combee. I moved my leafy black tail and threw it on him, than I pushed down with a small amount of pressure, but for him it was enough to make him silently scream. "Get lost, or you'll never hear the end of it," I hissed, moving my tail away. After a couple failed attempts, the combee weakly flew back into the air, and then after he cursed at me he struggled off into the forest. I was alone again.

An exasperated sigh escaped my lips as I trudged over to the nearby river. It was all getting too easy. After all the battles I did, the Pokémon of Eterna forest were never strong enough anymore. I could break one of them like the snap of a twig. The only thing the combee left from the battle was a small bite mark on my scaly tail and a glob of honey on my foot, not to mention being caked in dirt and grime. I glanced at the river to see my wavered reflection. My black leafy tail was covered in a few scars. My eyes were an icy blue, so cold that it was like they reflected the hatred and animosity in the world. My purple belly was smudged with dirt, and I noticed I had another bite mark from the combee's Bug Bite on my blackened arm, and I didn't even notice.

My form showed that I was a snivy. The leaf tail, the grass snake appearance, and the wide cunning eyes, there was no mistaking that I was a snivy. Except, I didn't necessarily have the normal colors of a snivy. The normal green scales a regular snivy had wasn't there, but instead replaced by a pure black color. The regular yellow and tan parts of the body were turned into a toxic purple. Regular amber eyes transformed into an icy blue. I may have had the form of a snivy, but my colors weren't even relatable to a normal one. I looked like a monster. Some of the forest residents said that I was a walking madness and I was a demon sent from giratina, but none of that was true, not like they believed me.

The past I had was full of despair. I was what people called a shiny Pokémon. My scales glimmered in a faint amount of light, and my colors were a bit different from a regular snivy. They didn't look like the scales I had now. They instead were a bright cheerful blue-green. My serperior parents despised me because of this however, and they never named me. And then I was caught in a trap by some sort of poacher, but before it came by some scientists wandered around and freed me, but they shipped me to the Sinnoh region and I was experimented on. A lab in Sandgem town had all these people who were researching the power of shiny Pokémon. They conducted experiments, ones to see if they could somehow extract my shiny blood, but they failed, and not only did they mutate my colors but they gave me the moves Shadow Claw and Cross Poison. I had no idea how or why they messed up so majorly, but all I remembered was after I escaped, I was considered a mutant and a monster by all wild Pokémon.

I slipped into the cold river, shuddering a bit at the temperature but quickly getting used to it. I started to clean the dirt from my skin and wash out the bites before an infection could've set in. Next I scratched off the honey from my purple foot, which took a bit of effort. Soon I was cleansed of any traces of the short battle, and so I padded out of the river.

Water dripped down my unnatural black scales as I walked along the edge of the river, heading upstream. While walking, I saw a small school of magikarp floating among the current. They flapped their fins, splashed water, jumped in the wind, and did anything else they could do while following the course of the current. They did anything that a normal magikarp could do. I wish I was normal.

Accidently my gaze stuck on my reflection in the water, staring at the identical, blurry copy of my unnatural self. I was no shiny snivy, but instead an abused, strange-looking mutant. The emotion in my icy eyes was only one of pure hatred. Before I felt my anger build, I looked away from my abnormal image. I was looked at as a freak, a monstrosity, a demonic snivy sent from hell.

Finally after I padded along the stream a bit longer, a figure formed in the distance. In the river was a bunch of logs, branches, and twigs that were placed together to form a den. To be exact it was an abandoned bibarel den, but it soon became my home. More of my disturbing grief-filled memories clouded my mind. After I escaped the lab, I lived in Eterna forest for six painful years, years that were filled with hatred and envy. Each horrible day I had held the thoughts of how much I hated the ones who made me like that. I remembered what happened, all that time back, all the pain and suffering as a child, and how I escaped from the pain only to have it continue…

Flashback

I still tried to recover from the incident that just took place. My heart was beating wildly against my chest. My scaly arms wouldn't stop trembling. The icy blue eyes of mine were wide in terror. I didn't know what attack I used, but it was something supernatural. It was something that my species probably wasn't able to do, but because of those cruel scientists, it was another burden for me to carry.

The move was like a wave of poison in the shape of an X. The recent memories continued to shoot around in my head and remind me of the window of opportunity I had. I blasted the wave of poison at the terrifying people, and they fell to the tile ground in excruciating pain. My instincts shouted at me to run, so I did. I jumped onto a counter and leapt out of a window and tumbled to the grassy world outside. I ran across the grass, I ran to a dirt road, and I ran out of town.

How could I use that attack, it was unnatural, it was crazy! It was some sort of phenomenon or realistic dream, it had to be! No, it wasn't, no matter how much I wanted it to be, because it was too real to be fake. Those needles and liquids… they made me shoot that attack of poison in the shape of a cross.

Shouts were audible in the distance, snapping me from my terrified thoughts. I didn't dare to look back, and so I let my tiny, sore feet continue to carry me into the grassy path that followed. Ahead there were several patches of rustling grass. Pokémon scurried silently and calmly, being concealed in the vegetation with ease. When I came to the vast line of grass, I skidded to the halt and froze, my scared thoughts stunning me for a second. I stared at the tufts of grass that was taller than me and did nothing else.

"I think its heading to Route 203!"

The voice was unmistakable for one of those devious scientists. The human's voice was enough to thaw me from my paralyzed state of fear. I knew I couldn't waste another second, so I dashed forward through the wild shaking grass. Blurs of green swerved around me while I heard surprised squeals from Pokémon; of course they would be freaked out…

I continued to run until I tumbled out of the patches of grass. I stood up and tried to run again but I tripped over my own feet, accidently smashing my head against a small boulder. My panic began to increase. I raised a leafy hand to the newfound bruise on my head, a throbbing pain slowly setting in, and I felt as if I was on the brink of fainting from exhaustion even though I didn't run that far. Quickly I forced myself back onto my purple feet. A cruel, frightening noise reached me, the crackling sound of electricity. I already knew what it was from, and it wasn't from a Pokémon like shinx, not in the slightest. The sound was from electric charged nets, ready for the catching, used by those scientists in extreme cases.

The voices of the scientists grew near. I turned around towards the voices with eyes like saucers. Standing in the grass with urgent expressions were three or four scientists, holding those pain-inducing nets. Those scientists were the same ones who made me turn into a black and purple monstrosity. The ones who gave me that mutant move of poison that they'd probably use for something extremely selfish. My thoughts filled with pain, anger, and panic was overwhelming. I couldn't go back, never, never…

When I tried to back away I tripped over my lagging tail. I tried scooting backwards as the fear consumed me, but my back bumped into a tree trunk. The gruesome scientists began to close in on their mutant snivy, the one that was cornered with no escape. My hope drained out of me like my blood in one of their needles. I couldn't get captured… no… no… no! Not again!

There was no use. There was nothing I could do to escape their horrifying wrath. My shoulders slumped and I whimpered in submission, just waiting for the pulsing pain of the electricity to consume me.

Then I heard something. It was a pulsing noise with a sort of chime in it. I peered at the scientists, but suddenly some kind of rainbow beam rocketed out of the shrubbery and collided with those evil humans. Surprised screams were hollered from them before they were cut off, and each of them was blasted into the vegetation that surrounded us. Was I hallucinating? I couldn't tell, but I was paralyzed by witnessing that explosive move. They were blown away like a bowling ball smashing into pins. They were sent unconscious into shrubs and other things that lined the route, and whatever that rainbow beam was, thinking of the power made me shiver.

Adding to the supernatural miracle, a sky blue tiger-like Pokémon majestically jumped into the clearing, out from within the foliage. It had two magnificent ribbons for tails that fluttered gently in the breeze. There were pure white splotches in the shape of diamonds along her beautiful blue fur, and a huge purple cape waved around along her back. The thing that stood out the most was the giant blue crest in the shape of a diamond on her head.

I was stunned. Every part of me trembled in panic and fear. The majestic beast towered over me, holding its head up in pride, but all she was doing was intimidating me. I stumbled to my feet and prepared to run off, because it was no hallucination. "It's okay, I won't hurt you," she tried to comfort. I tried to ignore her soft voice and started to clumsily dash off.

As I continued to run further down the path, with a single leap she jumped and blocked it from me. A frown made its way to her muzzle and worry dotted her eyes. "Come on, you can trust me."

There was no where I could go without her blocking the path. It was some sort of powerful Pokémon, it was definitely coming after me, and if it was evil or nice, I had no idea. I was heaving and gasping with how exhausted I was. There was no way I'd be able to run that long before I'd collapse, so I knew I had to listen to what the beast wanted to say. "W-Who are you…?" I managed to ask.

Her frown flipped into a small smile. She took a cautious step closer towards me. "I'm Rainbow, a suicune," she answered calmly. I just stood there, tensed, weak, vulnerable, the perfect image of a huge Pokémon's prey. She took another step forward and no matter how much I wanted to flee, I forced myself to stay put. 'Rainbow' continued to talk. "Are you alright?"

Shakily I nodded my head. She took another step closer.

"Good. Anyways, now that I have your trust, I must say that you are some Pokémon. What kind of Pokémon are you?" she gently asked. Her voice, it was so calming, the suicune wouldn't try to hurt me… could it?

I felt flustered. In my short life I rarely talked to a Pokémon, not to mention that I didn't really know what I was. The only things I've been called were 'that snivy' by my parents and 'Snivy Tester 1' at the lab. Considering that both had the word 'snivy' in it, I guessed that was what I was. "An s-snivy," I stammered out.

She tilted her head in confusion. "A snivy? You don't look like a snivy. The last time I saw one of your kinds, it looked nothing like you." Of course she never had seen one like me. I was a mutant and an outcast by now. So slowly I began to tell her about my horrifying experiences, occasionally stuttering, mostly talking about my life in the lab. How they tried to extract my shiny powers to experiment on, but they messed up and made me look distorted. Then they started to conduct random experiments on me and I gained two unnatural moves.

The conversation went on for a while, and we trailed off the topic of my life in the lab. I learned a few things about Rainbow, and found out that she was a legendary Pokémon, and she also explained to me what those were too. Apparently they were very rare and extraordinary Pokémon, and that description fitted with Rainbow perfectly. She said that few people saw a legendary in their life time, so I was supposed to be very lucky to meet her. She also explained that she didn't belong in the Sinnoh region, but she was visiting another legendary Pokémon named Mesprit because of some trouble going on near her cave. Rainbow's life seemed so exciting. She even revealed that the problem with Mesprit was solved and Rainbow was going to cross the ocean back to her region, but she heard screams from town, so she took a detour, found me, and she knew that saving me was the right thing to do.

We talked for a couple more minutes. Most of the talk was about Rainbow though. Then we stopped when Rainbow had a dumbfound look, and then she groaned. She realized it was one of the most stupid ideas ever to be chatting in the middle of a common route, right where Pokémon trainers always went through. She offered me to climb on her back, so after a bit of hesitation I stumbled onto her ravishing purple cape and got a firm grip on it.

Before I was fully braced for her to dash, she sprang into the vegetation with a giant solemn leap, and I nearly tumbled backwards off of her. I clenched my hands on her magnificent cape and held on tight while keeping my body pressed against her back. After several mad dashes and huge jumps that nearly shot me off the beast, she landed quite gracefully by an old spooky building. "That's the Old Chateau," she explained, and also said that it was haunted. I shivered at the thought.

She ran pass the haunted mansion and soon we were by a quiet river. She walked next to the stream a little ways before something came into sight. In the river there was a bunch of sticks and twigs bundled up together and there was a hole in it. It looked like some sort of house floating on water.

"Rainbow, what's that?"

"This is an abandoned bibarel den. It belonged to a bibarel family, but they moved out ages ago. So it just sat here in this river slowly wearing down by erosion," she replied. I was confused on whatever erosion was, but I let the thought slide. I carefully climbed off of her back and stood right next to her paw. Comparing our heights, I was as tall one of her paws.

I padded over to the log den and cautiously peered into the hole. Inside the twigs was a space between the wood like a room that was fairly big. I turned back to look at Rainbow.

"Anyways, I have to go… uh, what was your name again?" I refused to make eye contact and stared out into the distance at the question.

"I… I don't have a name. At home I was called 'that snivy', and I was stolen about a week after I hatched from my egg. In the lab, I was either called Snivy or snivy tester 1," I choked out, my voice hoarse.

"Well what about we give you a name?" Her voice was surprisingly calm and not at all fazed by part of my depressing past. I shrugged the surprise off and considered the idea about the name. I swerved my head around to look into her enchanting eyes. In her eyes it showed a glint of happiness.

I reluctantly nodded my head.

So with that we rolled around a few names. One was Toxic for my purple color. Another was Blade after a move called Leaf Blade. I refused both of them. Others were Ivy, Lily, and Dutch, but I thought Ivy was too common, Lily was too girly, and Dutch was too sophisticated. None of them seemed to fit me. Then she offered Frenzy, Rex, and Storm, but all three of those names didn't match my personality, and they all sounded too tough. The only one that sounded nice was one called Shadow, but even though I knew that was a common name, it also seemed to fit some sort of dark, dangerous, demon type Pokémon. I was the complete opposite, shy, scared, and nice. Finally after Rainbow said that I was way too picky, we settled with Snivy.

With that, Rainbow said that she really had to head back to her region. She sprang up into the air and within a second she disappeared into the surrounding forest. I sighed, now seeing I was alone, but ignored the thought and waltzed into the den. There was an old dusty straw bed made out of twigs, leaves, and hay inside, but that was all. Everything else was the old rickety wood and a lot of spare space. I collapsed on the straw bed once I realized how tired I was.

I curled up, and soon I dozed off into a deep, nightmare-filled slumber.

End of Flashback

Barely had I choked down a hiss at my horrible memories. That was the last time I saw Rainbow, and she never checked up on me ever since. I knew she was a legendary, but, at the time I just didn't understand that much. The next day I went to go find something to eat like berries, and then several terrible events came up.

The first thing that happened was that there was a huge obstacle in the middle of a path, a giant fallen log. I tried to jump over it, spinning around to help cover some distance, but I ended up with an injured, numb, broken tail stuck in a tree. A nasty starly shoved me out of the tree harshly, and then I fell onto a buneary. That was when the rude forest residents crossed the line.

When I was out of the tree, the starly dropped berries, and since they were dropped from a high elevation they stung badly when they splashed on me. That was what they attended to do; to hurt me. I got off the buneary as fast as I could and offered the most intact berry to apologize, but she rudely threw it on the ground, crushing and ruining it, and then insulted me. She insulted how I looked like a mutant, and no matter how much I tried to apologize, she interrupted me, making me frustrated. A crowd of Pokémon gathered around us. After more insulting I realized that I was a freak in all of their eyes. I was hated, despised, evil.

Something in me snapped at that point, and I used a Shadow Claw attack and sent her rocketing into a tree. She wasn't exactly strong if she could be hit that far, unless back in the lab they also increased my strength without me knowing. I left her in a shivering, fainted state. After that I became the evil loner of the woods in the Pokémon's eyes. I didn't care though, and why should've I cared? After a few days later I changed my name to Shadow; the name that suited me perfectly by that point.

I continued to stare at my log den in the water, the rickety pile of wood that still remained sturdy in the river current. I trudged up towards the only thing I had left in the world, but I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw someone by my den. With clenched fists I shot up towards my home and the figure grew closer and clearer; it was that rude buneary. My anger rocketed sky high at the sight of her.

She gasped when she saw me running towards her, my arms in a crossed position, ready to throw forward a Cross Poison attack. A pathetic squeal came from her mouth and she screamed out the word stop.

Skidding to a stop, I was just a couple yards away from her, but that didn't stop me from shooting a death glare at her. "Why are you here rabbit breath?" I hissed in aggravation.

The buneary was cowering, but she managed to keep herself from fleeing from my fury. She shakily tossed a basket in my direction, the fragile human object landing a couple feet away from me. I stared at it in surprise. It was just like any ordinary picnic basket; it had two lids and it was woven together with strips of wood. The only difference was that the handle bent so it didn't have the usual U shape.

My gaze shifted back to the rabbit Pokémon. She still looked uncertain and lacked confidence, but she managed to speak in a raspy voice. "Take t-this basket, and get out of our lives. Me and a few forest residents gathered some information, and found out that there is a place called W-White Forest in a different region. There are supposed to be several snivys and their evolutions there. To get to that region, you go to the city of stone and get on something called an 'airplane'."

She refused to stare at me and instead looked downcast. She looked as fragile as a leaf while saying those things. The buneary really changed ever since that day I moved into the forest, it was like I shattered her spirit, but it wasn't like I cared. The 'city of stone' was what we called Veilstone city. So I was supposed to get on something called an airplane over there, and then I travel to a different region with a place called White Forest. If there were other snivys there, then that meant that was the region I was born in, before I was cruelly snatched away and shipped to Sinnoh. A couple years ago, I learned that the region I came from was called Unova, so that was where we were heading.

I wouldn't allow my hostile posture to fade. My glare zeroed in on the brown bunny Pokémon. "How do you know this?" I sneered.

"Like I'd ever tell you," she snapped. I didn't let it faze me that she went from her scared state to an angered one. I prepared to power up my Shadow Claw to get a good hit in, but she predicted what I was doing, so faster than the flick of a tail she hopped into the shrubbery, nimbly disappearing into my surroundings.

Once she disappeared from sight I scoffed. I hated that buneary so much. However it was interesting that she'd give me a basket full of stuff for that trip she talked about. It was almost like a gift, and I was curious on what was inside, but all the stuff was supposed to help me on that journey, and it wasn't like I was being forced to go.

No, I was going. There was no way I was going to sit in that forest inhabited with weak discriminating Pokémon. There was no one there that I liked. Everyone stared at me like I was someone who escaped from the circus, and I was sick of each scornful and judging eye. Not only that, but I might not be considered a mutant in that White Forest. It actually sounded a bit nice, and if there were other snivys, then maybe I'd finally be accepted. It was settled, I was going, and I was going tomorrow. The sooner I left the better. Plus it was autumn and winter would soon come around, and it would be best if I made it to the city of stone before snowfall.

First things first, I had to check what was in the basket, and then I'd get rid of what I don't need and find out what I did need. I walked over to the basket and moved a hand forward to flip a lid open.

The basket twitched slightly, and my hand froze in place. The basket shook again, adding to my confusion. After standing there like an idiot the basket shuffled yet again. I managed to forget on how freaky it was that there was a basket moving around, took a few steps towards where the basket moved to, and flung both of the basket lids open. I peered inside to find the cause of the unnatural movement.

My icy blue eyes shot abnormally wide and a lightheaded feeling struck me. Lying in the basket, surrounded by shards of a cracked egg and other material, stained with berry juice and surrounded by crushed berries, was a baby snivy. And it looked exactly like me.

Okay, where did the buneary get this basket?!