Autumn was a young Shuckle under the care of her trainer Kyle. Kyle was never a huge collector of Pokemon, though he had several which he trained and cared for, all of whom were much stronger than Autumn, more experienced.

But for some reason Kyle had special feelings for Autumn, not that she was loved any more than the others, but Kyle could tell that she was somehow special and different.

While he adventured about the region with the rest of the team challenging other trainers Autumn was kept at home and trained in different ways than the rest.

Though Kyle didn't want to admit it, he and his team were rising stars on the training scene. They had already bested several gym leaders and had made it undefeated through several tournaments.

Kyle's Zubat, Midnight, could with ease take down a Golbat twice her size. Avis the Pidgey was also an unexpected match for most evolved members of her species. Kyle also raised a Quilava named Quake, who proclaimed himself boss of the team under Kyle, as well as a Butterfree named Morning who was generally regarded as the weakest one, though she frequently proved otherwise the stigma had stuck until Autumn came on to the scene not too long ago. Perhaps considered third in command alongside Quake was a very energetic Furret girl named Nessisha, who was the "cute" member of the team, and also usually the one with the highest Experience Quotient on any given week.

Now Autumn was the weak one, and Quake was always the first to remind her. As hard as she tried nothing ever seemed to be enough. Nothing, ever. As much special attention as Kyle gave her she never seemed capable of becoming as vital a fighter as the rest of the team, and her willingness to please Kyle just never seemed enough.

Kyle never pushed Autumn to become a fighter, it seemed outside her nature. Kyle saw Autumn as a good, intelligent companion. That was enough for him, but Autumn felt that her gentleness was her shortcoming, her flaw, something to be ashamed of. The constant tormenting she was subjected to by Quake didn't help her self esteem one bit.

"Hey Autumn, your shell is so soft you'd get bit in half by a Numel!" He would jeer whenever Autumn would be out in the backyard having a friendly sparring match with Morning or Nessisha, which would usually cause her to loose her concentration and loose.

Autumn would also strike up challenges against any small wild Pokemon which would wander through the backyard, and more often than not end up losing. When the latter outcome occurred, Quake always seemed on hand to "comfort and motivate" her.

"Why you think Kyle should bring you out training when you cant keep from getting beat up in your own backyard, huh? If you were born in the wild you would have been an Arcanine's breakfast the day you hatched." Quake usually would then talk the gullible young Shuckle into "sparring" with him, which pretty much involved him spitting fireballs at her until she came close to fainting and had to use up all the berries she was storing in her shell.

This in turn hindered her ability to make any juice for Kyle as she had been forced to use the berries to heal herself, and her inability to provide juice for Kyle further harmed her self confidence.

None of the other Pokemon treated her as badly as Quake, though Nessisha wasn't exactly ready to give her a shoulder to cry on as she was Quake's mate and was not ready to open up to somebody whom he obviously didn't like. Avis was not particularly social or qualified to deal with emotionally damaged younglings, and her only real source of comfort was Midnight.

Midnight was Autumn's hero, and emulated her in every way possible. She even once spent a day with her eyes shut to try to understand Autumn's nonexistent view of things, though this didn't work out well as the young Shuckle was naturally lacking in echolocation instincts.

On breezy, easy summer evenings Autumn could often be found under a tree in the backyard listening to the stories Midnight would tell about beating up Pokemon many times her own size, and her "good old days" feasting on the blood of Flaffy herds in the fall months out on the countryside.

With encouragement from Midnight she went out with Kyle to train, she was beaten quite often, and her ever depleting supply of berries often hardly lasted her to the next available Pokemon Center, but she hardly cared. Despite the promise of unconditional friendship Autumn felt that her trainer's love was unwarranted until she could prove herself in combat.

She learned several moves during this period including Wrap, which hardly seemed to phase most of the opponents she faced, Safeguard, which as far as Autumn could tell did absolutely nothing of any use to her, and she also was quite adept in Defense Curl, a technique which Autumn abhorred as she was tired of hiding in her shell from her opponents and also thanks to teasing from Quake was afraid that if she hid in her shell too often that her shell would shatter into a thousand pieces and then she would be no of use to anybody.

She was also determined to make juice for Kyle, something which she felt responsible for and had failed to achieve. Her will to produce juice was so strong that during one of her unwilling "sparring sessions" with Quake she refused to use the berries stored in her shell which were close to becoming juice.

This stubbornness resulted in her being knocked out, which dispute her ability to frequently loose battles never happened that often due to Kyle's close monitoring and care of his partners.

Kyle was none too pleased when he found her laying on the back porch unconscious, rightfully suspecting Quake, he yelled him down and put him in his Pokeball (something he rarely did) and rushed Autumn over to the nearest Pokemon Center.

The evening found Autumn sitting under the tree as usual, alone, as Midnight was still asleep inside the house. Her injuries were relatively minor, her neck was still a bit stiff, but her will was harmed deeply. She felt like a failure, like her own breathing was a waste of air.

Autumn was so depressed, she walked out onto the road and committed suicide by running out in front of an eighteen wheeler on the freeway. Autumn survived long enough to realize that her organs were spread across five lanes, giving Shuckle juice a whole new meaning. She was buried beside the old tree and her ghost can be seen by crying on every July 14th.

Kyle got pissed off and shot Quake in the head for causing Autumn to kill herself. Then Nessisha drank a mixture of Drain-O and Clorox bleach because she wanted to be with her boyfriend again. Kyle was brought in on charges of shooting a pokemon in the head and was sentenced to nineteen years in prison and had his belongings and house confiscated. The remaining pokemon were seized by the state and sold to chemical plants that tested on Pokemon, and died during horrific experiments. Six months later, Kyle escaped prison and was involved in a high speed hostage car chase during his getaway.

The car chase ended with him hitting a school bus filled with third graders which exploded, Kyle survived the explosion, but was gunned down by police. The hostage also was killed. Autumn's spirit continues to scare children to this day.

The moral of this story is that if you make fun of people, you'll get shot in the head, and everyone that you ever cared about will die too, along with over forty unrelated school children and an unarmed hostage.

END.