AN: Hello!

So you probably noticed the new cover. I'm not gonna lie I'm proud of my work. What that pokéball is is explained in this chapter.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Pokémon isn't mine. Never was, never will be.

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Caleb was humming to himself as he made his way to his uncle's study. The albino boy was finally going to get his starter, though he will not start his journey yet. He will be twelve in a week and that's when his mother allowed him to start. He knocked on the door and heard a muffled 'come in'. He did so and made a beeline to one of the armchairs. His uncle seemed to be in the middle of a videocall and gave him a small smile from the top of the computer screen. Mini gave him a wave of his paw as a greeting and then he felt something munch on his pants. A look down confirmed it was Tapish. He picked up the trapinch and gave him a huge smile and a rub. Oddly, Alice was nowhere to be seen.

"Yes you can update anything that has electricity running through it, but I don't want electronic gates or anything that would short-circuit or overload our generators." Xavier sounded amused yet was stern to whoever he was talking to.

"Don't worry, I got it. Also, can I tinker with your website? It's hideous, to be honest." A male voice said back. Xavier huffed.

"Sure, why not? How long can you stay here?"

"I don't have to challenge the first of the Elite 4 before a month's time, but I don't think I'll stay for that long. We'll see. If I get bored, I'll head back here."

"I though you gave up on challenging the E4."

"I did. That was then, this is now, and I'm bored. Again." Xavier chuckled.

It seemed they were getting an interesting guest right as he was heading out for his journey. His uncle must have noticed his downcast expression as the next thing he said was adressed to him.

"Volkner will come to help me out with the jolteon case two days before your birthday, so you'll get to meet him, don't worry."

Wait, Volkner? The electric type master, engineering genius Volkner?! The therapist laughed at his nephew's star struck expression and smirked at the screen.

"You seem to have a fan, Volkner." He singsonged. Said gym leader must have made a face as Xavier laughed again. Caleb could feel the blush on his cheeks glowing. "Well, I have to give my nephew his long avaited starter. Give me a call when you're in Kalos and I'll have someone pick you up in Lumiose City." They exchanged goodbyes and Xavier hefted up a suitcase on top of the desk.

"Here you go." He said as he opened the suitcase. A single pokéball was inside. It wasn't red and white as he had expected, nor did it match any other pokéball design he knew of. It was personalised.

His mother and uncle had apprenticed under a pokéball maker and had access to the paint's formula. His mother had made her own paints and Xavier had personalised every pokéball Axelle, Ann and he owned. For example, Raza's pokéball was a light green instead of red and had dark green and golden swirls mimicking the serperior's pattern. Tyler's (his mother's typhlosion) pokéball was dark blue with a spiky flame design on the front. This pokéball was blue instead of red and had a black spot on top surrounded by a black ring with three spikes pointing to the button.

A shinx? A water type? A dark type? Caleb couldn't guess the pokémon so he reverently took the device and released the creature inside. In a flash of light his first companion appeared. A blue and black furred bipedal canine now stood in front of him and looked at him with piercing red eyes.

"A riolu?" That wasn't what he had expected.

"Mmhm. I thought it would balance you team as I'm going to give you Abyss after you win your first badge. Also, you aunt managed to breed blaze kick into his move pool."

Abyss was Xavier's absol's son. Axelle had bred the fairy type move play rough into the line as a pet project. But as much as Caleb loved Abyss, the pokémon had already been trained by Xavier and would not obey a newbie trainer.

Caleb looked uncertainly at the riolu and the aura pokemon was giving him an unimpressed look. Was he really a newborn? He sure didn't act like one.

"I will give you a deino egg only when your riolu evolves, as proof of your ability to form strong bonds with your pokemon regardless of your type preferences." Xavier looked knowingly at him. Yes, he had wanted a dark type as a starter, or a fire type would have been fine, but a fighting type... "If you thought I would make your journey easy for you, it means you didn't know me well enough. But I'm sure by the time you reach the sixth badge, you'll be glad to have fighting/steel type coverage in your team of dark and fire types." He idly added.

Caleb sighed. A riolu wasn't bad at all. He just wasn't one of his favourite pokémon and to his opinion wasn't living up to the hype. He was expecting a sneasel, or an eevee or something. Oh well, at least he had an awesome move from the start.

"I'll do my best. Da- Uncle" He muttered. Ignoring the freudian slip, he looked at the riolu and said. "Do you want to go outside, or maybe to my room?"

The riolu nodded twice and made his way to the door. Caleb followed, opened the door and they stepped out of the study.

Xavier watched the child he had raised as his own son go prepare for his coming of age journey with his new companion. He had a good reason to give him a riolu. He himself had been to Rota to try to get one, while on his journey. He was even introduced to a female lucario with an egg waiting for a worthy trainer. But she had refused him. The only consolation he got was that Ann asked for a riolu as well and was given the egg. On a few conditions of course. One of which was to breed egg moves into four riolu and send three back to Rota. How they knew the egg would hatch into a female riolu he had no idea. Anyway, the fourth riolu was now Caleb's. The child didn't know how rare a Rota riolu was. They had something special in their breed. A better affinity to aura for example. They could use that to communicate with any creature with aura, though it would be one way if the other party didn't have the ability to manipulate aura as well, which Caleb did not. But Caleb could speak and be understood so that wasn't an issue. Xavier wanted his nephew to be able to communicate with his pokémon without having to deal with psychic types freaking out when they would be transferred here. He had made Caleb promise that he would only catch one psychic type for the time being to see how they reacted to Xavier first.

Xavier remembered when he was seventeen, the first time he had held him, a week before the preliminaries of the IL Tournament...

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He was so small, so frail. Some white hair made up a soft duvet atop his head. This brand new life was in his arms, sleeping soundly, unaware of the world around him. That innocence seemed to make him glow under the moon's light and for a moment Xavier was reminded of how Mini's fur would shine and sparkle when the light hit it just right. He took a deep breath. There was no way he could hate such an innocent and precious life. He would curse the baby's progenitor all the way to the distortion world, but never this child, his nephew. And it just now set in, he was an uncle. And Ann was a mother. Damn, he didn't feel like an adult, let alone a parental figure. But he had to be. Thankfully, their parents were willing to look after the baby while they would compete in the tournament. If not for them, he would be panicking right about now. He didn't know the first thing about raising a child. A sleepy mumble made him look at his twin. Ann was currently sleeping in the bed recovering from a long childbirth. He was sitting next to her with the precious bundle in his arms, in the quiet of the hospital. Their parents were on their way, but until then it was only him and the yet unnamed baby.

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A few days later, Volkner was looking through the manor's blueprints and playing around the website from a laptop while scratching Mini and Maxi just the right way to turn them into a purring balls of green, red and cream fluff. Caleb hadn't known minuns and plusles could purr. He was pretty sure they couldn't. He tore his eyes away from the somewhat disturbing sight and looked at the two jolteons and the raichu having a conversation. The smaller jolteon who was listening to his bigger counterpart was 'Eon' and the other two pokémon were Volkner's. The gym leader's other pokémon were currently roaming the gardens together with his mother, Alice and Riolu. Caleb had been surprised to see an ambipom and an octillery in the gym leader's team of all things. His mother, uncle and Volkner had just smirked at his expression as if they were sharing some private joke.

"This place needs a name." The blond trainer said abruptly.

"The manor?" Asked Axelle.

"Yes. I'll just do my own thing if you don't have any ideas."

"Um, how does 'sanctuary' sound?" He proposed hesitantly. The three of them turned to him and gave thoughtful frowns.

"Isn't the name already taken?" Ah. His uncle made a good point.

"It wouldn't matter." Volkner just waved his concerns away.

"Well I don't have any suggestions. Zave?" his aunt asked and her husband just shrugged.

"Very well then. It's done!" That got him three incredulous looks. He hadn't been on the computer for more than twenty minutes!

That is when Alice came bouncing in followed by her aunt and his starter. The four year old jumped next to their guest and began to poke him and the laptop's keyboard randomly and Volkner bore it with an amused smile and seemingly unlimited patience. Riolu surprised him by sitting on his lap. The past few days, they had gotten to know each other better, though neither of them was delighted by the situation.

His mother went to sit next to her twin on the couch and put her head on his shoulder.

"Were we like that I wonder, when we were her age? I remember you being a quiet child."

"We first met when we were seven, Ann. And I only remember being a crybaby." She chuckled. "And you were a chatterbox. You barely stopped talking to breath." She rolled her eyes and huffed.

"She didn't take after you then," she said looking at Alice. Xavier's expression became weird for a second.

"About that..." He trailed off, as if gathering his thoughts. Volkner glanced around then closed the laptop and was about to rise when Xavier gestured for him to stay. "You'll hear about it anyway if you still keep an ear on the 'group' chats."

"I'm the administrator of the entire thing, of course I keep an eye on what's going on in there." He sounded mildly offended. Xavier gave him a smile and spoke.

"Ary had trouble teleporting Alice, a few days ago." The silence was thick. Everyone here (except perhaps Alice herself) knew what that meant. Speaking of which, the four year old was looking around trying to grasp the subject of the tension.

"Well, there is no helping it." Axelle said with finality. "It doesn't matter. We already take the car or fly everywhere. This won't change anything." As the tension slowly dissipated, Xavier stood up and looked at Volkner.

"Should we take care of Eon now or do you want to play around the manor?"

"Eon." Volkner answered without hesitation. And the two of them made their way to the backyard with their pokémon running ahead or trailing behind them.

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"I think we should have a pokémon battle. What better way to show off what an electric type can do than with a battle?" Volkner proposed.

They were currently in the near empty warehouse where Eon and Xavier first met. The two jolteons, raichu and minun sitting and waiting to see what their trainers/therapist would do.

"No. Eon's dislike of electricity could come from a battle against an electric type as an eevee. Let me talk to him first before we make another mistake." Volkner glared at him.

"I'm not saying we should pit Eon against my pokémon, I'm saying we have a battle with your main team against my main team." Eon said something and both Xavier's poketch and Volkner's tablette beeped.

They used black sticks that let out electic discharges and that often made us paralyzed.

They both winced and looked away, feeling somewhat meek and ashamed. Xavier went for the small talk strategy to dissipate the awkwardness and looked at the gym leader.

"So, is it a porygon or a rotom?" Volkner glanced back at him.

"In the tablette? A rotom."

"You and Ann both." he muttered.

"Of course! Rotom is the best. Great type coverage and really entertaining to have around."

"PolyZ isn't much into battling but you can't find better assistant, hacker, and translator."

They stared at each other for a few seconds before they suddenly burst out laughing. The pokémon blinked at each other and shrugged. If they had made up, the how wasn't important. Humans were weird anyway.

"So, Eon. What do you want to try? We could start with a numbing thunderwave like we talked about last time." Xavier asked after sitting on the ground. Volkner followed suite and added his own idea.

"We could also teach you how to recharge other electric types. Playing support, if you will." Eon thought it over and mumbled something.

Recharging others sounds less dangerous.

Volkner grinned smugly and Xavier rolled his eyes at him.

"You're such a child."

"Hush. I'm having fun."

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AN: If you want me to draw you a personalised pokéball, I can. Just PM me or leave a review with the pokémon you want it for. I think I'll open a deviant art account during the weekend for convenience's sake.