Always the Rebels

Akiko

"So if everybody knows about this shia'liin thing and what causes it and all that, how come there are always some wandering around the universe?"

Troy sighed. "To put it simply…not even all Eevees know about it, because frankly it almost never comes up. I mean, when you have as many evolutions as there are Pokemon types, the odds are fairly low that you'll hit the fatal combination. One would think so, anyway."

"Elaborate?"

"Well…you know how both my parents are Espeon, right? The truth is there's always some sort of subtle pressure going around the planet that says that a hybrid species must stay pure to its own and only pick one of those to marry. I think that technically, Mom and Dad both being Espeon is a fluke; you know, Sun-side wedding, both of them at an emotional high, and they evolve at the exact same time."

I couldn't help it: I giggled.

He grinned back at me. "Anyway, there's the pressure to inbreed-marry the species and there's the romantics…actually, I think the romantics are the main pressure to inbreed. As for the child's evolution side of it…" He stared off into space. "There's two ways it could happen. The first is horrid chance mixed with ignorance. The kid doesn't want to take the test, maybe because they're scared of it or maybe because they're just lazy, and he picks the absolute wrong thing to evolve into."

"That sounds like a nightmare come to life."

"Ah, those are all right. I actually met one once who had been like that – a Leafeon. He'd told me that he'd just been too scared to take the test, that he'd always had test anxiety, and that he'd been working on eradicating that ever since."

"So what's the second one?"

His eyes went dark. "Unfortunately…those are the vigilant parents who make sure the kid gets the test, find out what would be a problem evolution, and constantly tell the kid that they shouldn't pick that one…"

"Let me guess: and the kid turns out to be a rebel?"

"You got it. They evolve into the very thing their parents tell them not to out of spite. They're the ones who ultimately go criminal, using their out-of-control powers for evil. Leafeons run into a little trouble doing that, because for some reason their powers start flickering and fading when they're affected."

I tried to imagine any of the pictures I'd seen doing something criminal. There had been a lot of Eeveelutions there, some of which I'd never even seen. Still…I had the easiest time imagining the Jolteon, Vaporeon, Flareon or Espeon doing something like that.

"Obviously," Troy added, "I have never met one of those. I worry, though. I mean, about any of the eggs that my mom lays. Of all the Eeveelutions…there are none that are more dangerous than a shia'liin Espeon. The realm of the psyche is a very chancy thing, and for it to be out of control for a Psychic hybrid means…that they can read minds…and they can't turn it off."

"Whoa."

"More than that, they can manipulate nearly every other hybrid around them by their own emotions. Only ghosts and Dark-types are left unaffected, which is why those two bring affected Espeon to the Institute."

"The Institute?"

"It's a place where the shia'liin hybrids are kept so that their powers can't hurt anyone. Most of the lazy-wrong-choosers go there themselves, kind of like a pilgrimage. They can leave once in a while, though always with a guard, and they never bother once they pass, um…thirty-five?"

"What happens at age thirty-five?"

"I don't know. If there are pictures, they're kept classified." Then he cocked his ears at me; I'd learned from Kyerrsha that that move commonly meant an eyebrow cock. "Actually, shia'liin isn't just an Eevee-affliction."

"What?"

"Gloom and Wurmple sometimes get it, though neither calls it by that name. I don't know what their names for it are."

Multi-evolvers. "What about Tyrogue, Poliwhirl or Slowpoke?" Those were the Pokemon I could remember right off that evolved into multiple things.

"The King's Rock prevents any diseases from taking effect, similar to kya'liin."

"Wait, what?"

"Kya'liin? If you'd been paying more careful attention, you'd have noticed that's the word for 'shiny.'"

"Oh. Sorry, carry on. What about Tyrogue?"

"Near as I can figure, that one doesn't count because it's strictly male. And before you ask," he wiggled his ears at me, "I don't know if there's something similar for Nincada. Probably not, though; Shedinja leave for the Dark Side if they aren't already there upon appearing, and they certainly don't mate."

"Um." It was still a little strange how everyone here tends to talk about each other and themselves as if they were animals.

"The Shedinja are weird." He shuddered overdramatically. "And creepy, too."

"Hey, Troy!"

We both jumped nearly out of our fur and looked up.

Kyerrsha came spiraling down out of one of the trees with a grace that I felt fully justified in envying, followed by a purple cat-boy with yellow spots!

"So how'd you turn out in your test?" the cat-boy asked.

Troy grinned. "Clean bill of health, Chance!"

Kyerrsha pointed back and forth between me and the new cat. "Chance, Akiko; Akiko, Chance. He's a Purrloin."

He held out his hand. "Pleasure!"

I shook hands with him, noting something a little unusual. We may both have been cats, but while my three-fingered hands were still nearly as slender as my human hands had been, if not more so, his three digits – did all hybrids with paws have three fingers? Anyway, they were chunkier and seemed to be missing a joint.

He noticed the attention I was giving his hand and grinned. "I've heard about you – how you started out as a human. Go on, ask – I won't take it personally."

"Um…what's with your hands? They're not like Troy's or mine…"

"You mean shorter fingers? That's typical, actually. If you'd met a Meowth, you'd see that their hands are the same as mine."

"I…don't get it."

Suddenly, I felt a flex in the hand I was still holding, and Chance's fingers sleeked out like mine…with long claws forming the final joint! "Get it now?"

"Oh! Your claws are hidden!" I looked at my other hand and tried flexing my own hand. "How come I can't do that?"

"Skitty don't have claws." He shrugged. "I don't know why; I think you're probably the only official cat Pokemon that doesn't have claws. Everyone else does – Purrloin, Meowth, and Glameow."

Figures that he'd have the "official cats" memorized.

I tried to read his body language. Around the time Chance had said "Glameow," his ears and tail had reacted…a little oddly. His ears had twitched forwards and up, and his tail had straightened behind him as much as it could. If I had to guess…I smirked. Somebody has a crush on a Glameow. That figures.

"Something you've got to watch out for, now…" Chance lifted a cautionary finger, "is that most of the official cats have this, ah, opinion about Skitty or Delcatty. It's pretty evenly divided between those that do and those that don't. It's a little complicated when you're not in the system, so I'll try to explain things to you."

I nodded, wondering when he would get to the explaining part.

"Okay, it's like this. The official cats tend to divide themselves into two groups: the free-range and the Clans. Free-range – that's me, by the way – go to school with every other species there is, and they don't treat Skitty any differently. The Clans, now…those are the cats that pretty much stay within their own hierarchies, which can be anywhere from their own family species to every official cat there is, it depends on the leader. And those cats…look down on Skitty. I don't know if it's the lack of claws or the lack of power."

"Lack of power?" I hadn't decided if I was going to take offense.

"Well…you're pretty bad at energy tricks," by context I figured that was "Special Attack" and "Special Defense" lumped into one statement, "you're the slowest official cat, and you're only mediocre in attack strength. Come to think of it, about the only thing a Skitty's got going for it is the sheer number of hits it can take before it goes down."

"And does that change any when I evolve?" I could feel my temper slowly mounting.

"Ah…compared to same-stage…you'd end up the worst at sheer attack strength, and your ability to take hits winds up about even with Purugly…which makes you better than both of the others."

"Huh."

His ears dropped. "Hey, just don't take it out on me, okay? I don't share the viewpoint, I only see it and recognize the facts that are behind it."

I sighed. "Don't worry, I wasn't going to take it out on you. As long as I have my cunning, it won't matter how bad my stats are."

Troy suddenly tapped my shoulder. "Hey, um, Akiko? Have you actually tried to find out what your talent is?"

"Talent?" I did some quick tally in my mind and figured he meant "ability." "Uh…if you mean what I can do where Kyerrsha's got a chance to paralyze his foe on contact…no, I hadn't thought about it."

"Agh," Kyerrsha rolled his eyes. "I don't know if I should be hoping you've got Cute Charm or Normalize. Well, we'd better figure out which one you've got, because if it's Cute Charm…we don't want you caught off guard if it happens."

Right. Cute Charm has the same chance rating as Static, only working on males and instead of paralysis it's infatuation. Offhand, I couldn't remember what Normalize did. …Actually, I couldn't remember anything about Normalize beyond that Skitty and Delcatty were the only Pokemon to have that ability.

We went to…um…I still needed to get the names straight for these hybrid-only locations. It was probably something like a doctor's office, and a Kadabra set a small device on my forehead and tapped a couple of keys on his computer. "Let's see…" I saw my stats panning across the board, along with a list of the attacks I knew – depressingly short right now – and then it finally blinked up. "Ah! Normalize it is!"

"Oh." I tugged the device off my face and studied it. "By the way…what does Normalize do, anywho?"

"It's a peculiar talent, and even your own species has trouble determining the answer to that question. As near as any of us can figure, it treats every attack you know as if it was of your element, which means it stands a better chance of working against an opponent who has a resistance normally."

Okay…so that means if a Skitty with that ability used, say, Earthquake on a Ghost, it would work. That actually made sense. And I could certainly handle it better than the off chance of some guy trying to flirt with me in the middle of a battle.