"Traveling with Lyra has been rewarding and reassuring… and very entertaining." A Gallade reminisces on his life with his Trainer.


If a pokemon were to travel alone, it would be limited as to where it could go.

I felt myself dozing off as I waited patiently for my trainer to awake. It was early, I knew, but it was only habit that I wake up before the sun rises. She slept like a human child, lying on her stomach with her hands balled into fists under her chest. Her Mime Jr., a lazy pokemon who made a place for himself atop the girls head every day, was curled up beside her, snoring softly. On the other side of the long burned out fire from the night before, Togekiss was floating a good foot off of the ground, also asleep. He and I took turns watching everyone, defending them from wild pokemon and the like. Not everyone was as friendly as we were in our pre-evolved states.

Lyra had captured me just when I was a little Ralts, and the only attack I knew was growl. Patiently, she raised me, saying that one day I would be a powerful Gallade that would protect her from harm. Maybe she was kidding then, and maybe she wasn't. I, however, took what she said to heart. I hated to admit it, but the small twelve year old girl was a trouble magnet. If there was danger anywhere within a two mile radius of us, it would be sure to find her. So slowly but surely, I grew more and more powerful, until I finally evolved into a Kirlia. I remember Lyra was ecstatic.

"A Kirlia," she said, grinning as she took my hands and spun me around in a dance she made up all her own. "Now you're one step closer to becoming my poke-savior… my darling little Gallade!" She laughed and let me go, and we went to Hearthome City to celebrate my evolving. She went to a place called a Poffin House and made the most delicious treats for me that my mouth still waters when I think about them.

But traveling with a human, a pokemon would be able to travel farther afield to more distant cities and lands.

After that, Lyra doubled our training. She didn't believe in making her pokemon do all the work for her. "That's just laziness," she said. "If I want you to do something – you and Togekiss and Mime Jr. – it should be something that I can do, too." Her logic was all wrong, but her heart was in the right place. Everyday, the four of us trained; rock climbing, swimming, jogging… it was tough, yes, but we all persisted. And even though Lyra and I both knew that the only way I was going to become a Gallade was by something called a Dawn Stone (She'd read up about it one night in a book and spent a good six hours calling everyone she knew in every part of the region on where to get one with no luck), we kept training until I was able to defeat almost anyone who dared face us. Finally, we were ready.

But for what, we didn't know. Thanks to Weiss, we flew from the eternally cold Snopoint City back to her hometown of Twinleaf, where her mother was waiting with a very unique gift: a Dawn Stone. She never said where she got it from, only that it was mailed to her with out any return address. Lyra was simply euphoric. She rushed us all upstairs to her room and in that very hour, I was a Gallade.

At that moment, Lyra rolled over and faced Mime Jr., groaning softly as she smiled at the pink pokemon and nudged it awake. "Good morning, Dorian," she whispered into the pokemon's ear, and slowly it began to stir. Lyra then sat up and looked in my direction. "Oh, good morning, Marian. Did you get any sleep tonight?" she asked as she unzipped her sleeping bag and rekindled a small fire for breakfast in her t-shirt and shorts, while softly muttering how it would be so easier if she could catch a fire pokemon.

Traveling with Lyra has been rewarding and reassuring…

At last, our campsite was awake and eating breakfast. Lyra sat at a nearby picnic table with Mime Jr. and I while Weiss took to flying around and catching what food Dorian tossed into the sky. While I was eating, Lyra was busy studying a map, a frustrated crease forming on her forehead. Suddenly, she jumped up, a mixture of anger and surprise in her eyes.

"Oh man, guys, we were supposed to be going the exact opposite way that we're going now! I was holding the map upside-down!"

and very entertaining.


6 December 2007

8.55 pm