And with this, all that I have written in the original versions should be caught up. I have split the previous three chapters into four chapters, as I have obviously expanded on each chapter and added in new things.

We will be entering the great unknown in the midst of this chapter people, so buckle up, and let's see how bad this ends up.

The Shy Hero:Kalos

Chapter Four

"Kie!"

"Finish it with a water gun!"

"Fro!"

Froakie pushed off the side of the tree he had been thrown into, launching himself up into the air. The pale water type took a deep breath before a powerful torrent of water erupted from his mouth. The water flew through the air, hitting the airborne Pidgey.

The bird pokemon gave a cry as it was sent spinning out of the air. It hit the ground violently, dropping what was in it's claws, and what they were fighting over. Froakie landed expertly before dashing forward, snagging his prize before retreating backwards, holding it in one hand, standing at the ready, as if daring the wild pokemon to try and take it.

The Pidgey pulled itself up and gave Froakie a dirty look before flapping it's wings and taking off, circling above Froakie twice before turning away.

"Pidgey, the tiny bird pokemon." A mechanical female voice spoke up from behind the Froakie, who seeing the retreating wild pokemon, turned turned his trainer, Calem.

The boy held out an extended mechanical object, his pokedex, pointing it upwards as it continued it's analysis of the Pidgey. "A common sight in forests and woods. It flaps its wings at ground level to kick up blinding sand."

The black haired boy snapped the pokedex closed before sliding it into his pocket. Froakie made his way to him, clambering up onto his shoulder easily, still clutching his prize; a blue gummi.

Calem gave an amused look at Froakie, who gazed at the treat in reverence. "Feel free, don't let me stop you." Froakie gave him a gratified look before digging in, taking a large bite off one end before making a sound of pleasure.

Not many people nowadays knew about gummi's. Unlike berries, they served no healing purpose, and had no other effects anyone knew of. Growth of them slowed heavily in the place of berries like sitrus, oran, pecha, rawst, and more. They had slowly grown less and less common, until now when they were a rarity.

However, what he knew was that they a sort of delicacy for pokemon, with different colors representing different flavors. Blue gummis, evidently being a water type's favorite.

Calem had spotted the gummi hanging from a small bush, hidden in the center of an oran bush he was digging through. There was one last gummi on it, and he had snagged it for Froakie. However, a Pidgey had dive bombed Froakie when Calem passed it along.

Calem had heard once, from someone called 'Mr. Pokemon', which he was sure was an alias, that gummi's actually held some sort of secret they didn't know about. Who knows? Maybe Elm.

And speaking of Elm, maybe it was time to give the professor a call. He hadn't seen any of the Enthusiasts since he left Aquacorde, traveling north to Santalune forest. Once he got there, he was sure to be in the clear.

The young trainer pulled out his phone. It was a newer version, one actually that a very select few had. Professor's and their chosen assistants. Elm had given it to him as a parting gift. He powered the phone on before going through it raising it to his ear, the phone already ringing. It only rung thrice before it was picked up, a energetic voice answering.

"Calem? That you? About time you called!"

"Yeah, it is. How are things back in Newbark?"

There was a rustle on the other side, along with a door closing. Elm probably moving into his office. "Slow, nothing new has come up with the research on Eevee's evolution chains. We tried taking some strands of Eevee DNA and manipulating it by introducing different elemental energies, but it only reacts on those we already know it does. Water, Fire, Electric, Dark, Psychic, Grass, and Ice. Everything else we do to try and create reactions ends in failure. And we still can't even get those energies to take root with the normal energy in the Eevee Genome." A groan came from Elm, causing Calem to chuckle slightly.

The young Professor had been trying to experiment with Eevee's evolution for a while now. More types of Eevee evolution were constantly being discovered, which led Elm to the belief that an Eevee could potentially evolve into any type. Elm had been hung on that thought for a while now.

Calem thought over the problem for a minute before replying, "You're trying to take out the normal energy and replace it with other types of energy, right?" Elm gave a grunt as an answer. "What if you took that normal energy and combined it with another energy outside of the Eevee genome, then implant the combined energy?" Calem sat there, waiting for Elm's response.

...and waited…

And wai- Calem tore the phone away from his ear as a loud scream came from it. Once Elm settled down, he tentatively moved the phone closer, the Professor already talking rapidly.

"-never tired that! How have we not tried that? Combine the energies outside the confines of the Eevee genome would allow for more space for the reactions between the energies, which we can condense down before implanting back into the genome!" Calem could hear Elm slam the phone down, a loud bang sounded, probably him throwing the door open, and now yelling at his assistant researchers distantly.

It took two minutes before Calem could hear Elm returning to the phone, seemingly more calm. His voice still held that childlike enthusiasm, "I have a team getting the experiment prepped and the lab equipped. We won't be able to know today, but soon we'll be able to start." Elm took a deep breath before continuing, "On a less stressful note, I heard from Sycamore you accepted his Pokedex job. Congrats!" It always amused Calem how fast the Professor could jump from topic to topic. Must of been due to how young he was.

Contrary to most major pokemon researchers, who were all at least in their fifties, Elm was in his late twenties only, yet was already a major impact among the world.

"Yeah, I did." Calem shot a look over his head before turning the phone to it's side and holding it away from him. He pressed a button and it slid apart similar to how the pokedex did, but on a much smaller scale. A moment later, the translucent blue screen blinks on, with a young man on the other side. Short brown hair, crooked glasses, a mess of a lab coat covered in coffee stains. Elm. Calem angled the phone so it showed Froakie on his shoulder. "Elm, this is my new partner, Froakie."

Elm marveled slightly, studying the Kalosian pokemon. Kalos was one of the regions Elm hadn't had the chance to study yet. "Fascinating…"

Calem cleared his throat, snapping the professor out of this trance. "I have a question for you. Have you ever heard of an ability called Protean?"

Elm shook his head, frowning slightly. "No. I'm assuming your Froakie has this ability?" Calem nodded and Elm crossed his arms at that. "Could be Froakie's hidden ability. Every pokemon species has something called a hidden ability, that very rarely shows itself in the species. Even more rare in the starter sets of each region."

"Could you do some searching into it for us?" Froakie croaked his agreement at Calem, "Knowing what it is could definitely help us out in the long run."

Elm nodded before looking away from the phone, muttering something before turning back. "Yeah, I can do that. Anything else? If not, I need to go make sure preparations are-"

"Actually, yes." Calem interrupted Elm, knowing the man could go on rants once he started on his research plans. Once he was sure he had the Professor's attention, he continued, "could you send me some of your blue gummi stock? Send it to Santalune City."

Elm blinked in surprise before agreeing. "I mean, sure? It's a side project of mine, an old one, but I have plenty. There should be some there in about a week." The mentioned project was what sort of effect gummi's had on pokemon long term. It was a side pet project for Elm, one he had abandoned a long time ago for larger goals, but he still had a large collection of the treats. "If that's all, I'll be going now. See you!"

Elm didn't even give Calem the chance to say anything before hanging up. Calem shook his head before sliding the phone back into it's smaller version and putting it back in his pocket.

"That went as well as expected." Froakie croaked his agreement before the two set of once more. Better get to Santalune Forest before anyone catches up.

It didn't take much longer to reach the edge of the forest, the dirt path they had been following gradually fading out into the dense brushery. There was someone sitting on a downed tree at the edge, swinging his legs. As the blue duo approached, he hopped off the log and walked to meet them.

"Hey!" The kid, as Calem could now tell, shouted at him. Simple t-shirt and shorts, nothing really spectacular about the kid other than how young he looked. If Calem had to guess, around twelve. "You're a trainer right? You up for a battle!"

Calem looked at the wide smile on the kids face, then Froakie. With a nod, Calem turned back to the kid, "Yeah, sure." Froakie gave a small cheer from his shoulder, causing him to sigh. Leave it to the pokemon to be excited for battle. The kid grinned widely, seeming to share Froakie's enthusiasm before back stepping lightly.

"The name's Joey! You?" Joey called out loudly.

"Calem." Said boy replied simply, Froakie already jumping out onto the open ground between the two trainers. Joey reached into his pocket, pulling out a small pokeball. With a click, he enlarged it before throwing it high.

"Go, Zigzagoon!" The pokeball burst open in the air, a wash of white light spilling out of it and flying towards the ground. Out of the light, a small, four legged pokemon emerged. The pokemon shook itself, the remaining light flying off as it shouted it's name into the air.

Calem already had his pokedex out, the device scanning Zigzagoon. WHile the device processed, he absent mindedly noticed Joey catching the pokeball, which had fallen back towards him.

"Zigzagoon. The Tiny Racoon pokemon." Calem's attention shot back to the pokedex screen, which now had an image of Zigzagoon on it, details about it's types, habitats, strengths and weaknesses filled the screen. The pokedex continued undisturbed, "It walks in a zigzag fashion. It is good at finding items in the grass and even in the ground."

Wait.. so it ran… in a perpetual zigzag way? That would be interesting to see.

Zigzagoon gave a short cry, and is if answering him, started racing forward, every other step changing direction so it really was moving in a 'zigzag' fashion'. Calem watched the pokemon. It wasn't very smooth with it's turns, but they were fast. "Froakie, evade!" The water type pokemon started to quickly back pedal away from the approaching racoon pokemon.

The Zigzagoon quickly caught up to Froakie, launching itself to the side of the frog pokemon. "Tackle attack!" Zigzagoon's trainer shouted, and said pokemon obeyed quickly. A small burst of white surrounded the pokemon as it launched itself at the pale blue pokemon.

Froakie managed to dodge, but the initial charge turned out to be a ruse- part of the Zigzagoon's movement pattern, as it simply touched the ground before launching again at Froakie, even faster than before. This attack landed, launching Froakie back and into the air. The frog pokemon managed to land on his legs, one hand one the ground in support.

"Water gun!" Froakie immediately expanded it's cheeks before launching a powerful torrent of water at the opposing pokemon, which only zig zagged away. "Again!" Once more, the water gun was easily avoided by the Zigzagoon. The racoon pokemon charged Froakie again, it's body tacking on a sheen of white again as Joey called out tackle again.

Calem bit his lower lip in frustration, watching how the Zigzagoon easily dodged any counter attack Froakie threw at it, landing another hit. Froakie stayed standing this time however, which gave it the opportunity to back step before launching another tackle, barely clipping Froakie's side.

There has to be something! The trainer's eyes shot around the area they were in, looking for anything that would give him the advantage when he came across a spot in the dirt. The small spot looked… wet, almost mud. A quick glance proved that, yes, there was a second on close to it. Two mud spots…

"Froakie!" Said pokemon shrugged off another tackle, looking back at his partner. "Jump!" Froakie, not questioning the decision, used it's powerful legs to jump high in the air, out f reach of the pesky Zigzagoon and it's tackle. "Now, continuous water gun! Don't let up!" Both pokemon, as well as Joey, looked at Calem in confusion. Froakie was the first to snap out of it, a powerful stream of water bursting from his mouth at the racoon pokemon.

The pokemon was able to come to it's senses and dodge out of the way in time, but it was forced into a perpetual zig zag to stay out of the water's reach. Calem watched as his plan unfolded and allowed a grin to split his face.

The barrage of water continued until Froakie landed on the ground, which is when Joey took his chance. The trainer threw an arm out dramatically, shouting "Tackle! One more time!" The little brown pokemon took off towards Froakie, but suddenly stopped, and fell into the ground. "What?"

Calem smirked as Joey finally surveyed the battlefield. Where they were battling was an all dirt road that led into Santalune forest. Water plus dirt equaled…. 'Mud." Joey came to the realization, opening his eyes wide in displief. Froakie's water gun had never been about hitting ZIgzagoon. Instead, he was ruining the even terrain, making it nearly impossible for the racoon pokemon to move erratically.

"Water gun! HEad on!" Froakie planted himself down, drawing in a deep breath before unleashing another torrent of water straight at the downed pokemon. The Zigzagoon had been running around crazily the whole battle. That must of taken a good amount of energy to do so. So if Calem was correct…

The water gun slammed into the struggling pokemon's face. The Zigzagoon was helplessly stuck in the mud and unable to get out in time. The blast pushed the pokemon back slowly, until finally throwing it clear of the mud. The racoon pokemon landed further back on the ground, down and out. Joey simply sighed, pulling out his pokeball and raising it up to recall Zigzagoon. The red beam of light sucked the pokemon back into the pokeball silently.

Calem started to move around the mud piles, Froakie meeting up with him and clambering up onto his shoulder. Joey approached the duo, shaking his head. "Never would've thought to look at the ground. That was some pretty good thinking there." Joey praised him, which Calem only responded with a shrug. "Well, either way that was a good fight. I'm heading back to Aquacorde, you two stay safe." The trainer reached an arm out to shake, which after a moment, Calem answered with his own hand. Joey turned back down the way Calem and Froakie came from and set off, whistling to himself as he went.

The blue duo watched him for a moment before turning to Santalune Forest. He pulled a berry out of his bag, handing it to his partner before setting off into the forest's reach, walking into the shadows.

Hopefully he doesn't get lost.

NEW POKEDEX ENTRIES

PIDGEY. The tiny bird pokemon. A common sight in forests and woods, It flaps its wings at ground level to kick up blinding sand.

ZIGZAGOON. The tiny racoon pokemon. It walks in a zigzag fashion. It is good at finding items in the grass, and even in the ground.