Beta-read by drunkenturtles

Control. How much do you think you have? Whether it be control over your appetite, control over your temper or even control of your life itself as a whole; many people wish for it, whether they are aware of it or not. Giving in to whims every now and then isn't bad, I think. It helps us find some happiness in this depressing, cruel world.

But that's not what I meant. My question would be better phrased like this: How much control do others have over your life? You should never let other people take hold the reins of your life and direct it. After all, it is your life, not theirs. You're you, it's that simple. Don't let impressions others leave control how you live your life, for you will only find happiness if you achieve what they have if you live like that. On the contrary, if you live your own life, you can find happiness at every corner here and there.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

I gasped as my body seemed to have frozen up in the chilly night wind. In front of me stood a human male. An adolescent boy, to be specific. His dark hair was flowing in the wind, nigh invisible if not for the red highlights at the tips. His eyes shone with a bright amber color, making my father's face appear in my mind for a second. He, like me, had a surprised expression on his face too. Then, as if time unfroze, he fumbled at his belt and grabbed a ball.

I've seen those balls before. They are evil devices humans use to capture us. Us Pokémon have different views about them though, some say that it represents the bond between us and our human partners while others, like Cloud, simply call them 'evil devices that should never exist'. Nevertheless, I don't plan on being captured before I reach my goal of finding Burst and returning home with Cloud. My body unfroze and I jumped backwards as the ball landed on the ground where I was.

The human clicked his tongue. I narrowed my eyes and barked in return. It was then that I noticed that he held five more of those balls in both his hands. My eyes widened as he threw another one… And another one… And another one. Dodging those was easier said than done, it was as if the balls homed in on me the instant it was thrown. Dodging the fifth ball threw me off balance as it almost hit me and it was then that my hopes sunk. I knew I couldn't dodge the final ball if he threw it.

And throw it he did. I closed my eyes in preparation for being captured. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I wasn't captured; the ball hit me in the nose and, I kid you not, I saw stars. And they weren't the stars in the sky either. Jeez, what do they make those balls from, anyway? It felt like a solid metal sphere hit me in the head and I was stunned for a while.

"What?!" I heard the human exclaim. "Oh shit, that's Amber's ball!"

I did not care for him nor wonder who 'Amber' was. All I had on my mind was shake this concussion off and run. I managed to recover enough to not see doubles and started running down the hill back where I came from. Just as I thought I was home-free and was about to shout my brother's name, I felt something like a vacuum pull me back.

The next thing I knew, everything was dark. No, it wasn't like that time when I was knocked out. It was dark but I could see my body clear as day. It felt like I was floating in nothingness. If nowhere had a middle, then this was it. To make matters worse, I couldn't move either. While the space appeared to stretch to eternity, it was also confined into a tiny area and I couldn't even stretch my legs, let alone my body. If this was inside that ball, then I understand now why Cloud called it evil.

And so, that's how I was captured. I swear… I'm gonna kill them all once they let me out…

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

After some time passed, I felt the familiar 'sucking' feeling. You know, the vacuum-like thing. And just like that, I was outside again. I could feel my pupils contract as the bright sunlight burned my eyes, making my eyes squint instinctively. I swear it was the middle of the night when I was captured and not enough time was spent in that ball to make it morning. Did I fall asleep or something?

Before my full sight returned, I felt another sensation. This one was better. Hell, it felt like paradise. How do I describe it? It felt like a super fluffy feather duster was rubbing my cheeks and chin. Before I realized it, I was making some sort of noise between an affectionate growl, a whine and a purr (even though I'm not a feline).

"Look at how cute she is!" I heard a female voice exclaim from above me.

"You stole my Pokémon…" the male human voice from last night grumbled.

"Aw… is poor Altair salty? I still can't believe you wasted five balls and then threw Amber's ball at her."

"Hey, I panicked, all right?! It was my first time trying to capture a Pokémon!" My sight returned and I looked up above me. A beautiful human face looked back at me. It seemed like the fluffy sensation was from her rubbing my cheeks and chin with her soft hands.

"Hey there, you awake?" she asked me. I stared back in silence. Huh, I'll let you go since you are so talented with your hands. The male, Altair, however, I had a bit of beef with him. I looked at him and growled. "She doesn't seem to like you much. Wonder if it's because you basically socked her in the face with a ball," the girl said to him and his face turned slightly pink from what I guess would be embarrassment.

"Don't have to rub it in, Lucia." Hm… The girl's name was Lucia, huh? What a pretty name.

"Hey," she made me turn my attention back to her. "I'm Lucia. Now, what should we call you?"

Since I knew she couldn't understand me, I just tilted my head and prayed that I won't be stuck with a stupid name. Even the idea of being called something else other than what my parents gave me made me a bit uneasy.

"Mirage, 'cause you make illusions?" I shook my head.

"How about Darky?" Altair interjected. I turned to him and growled loudly, sending him a glare. Partly because I hate him and partly because of the retarded name he came up with.

"I think she wants you to stay out of this," Lucia deadpanned to him and I nodded. "Then, how about… Rin?" I shook my head again. "Hm… Umbra?" Another shake. "Eh… I think Umbra sounds cool. Oh well… How about Luna?"

My eyes widened and I nodded my head fervently. How did she manage to guess my real name?!

"Wow… seems like you really like that name. Okay then, from now on, I'll call you Luna!" I gave a happy bark in reply as my mood was lifted slightly. At least I wouldn't be stuck with an idiotic name like 'Darky'. Seriously, he must be mentally ill or something to think that I would like a name like that.

Then came the biggest concern that I somehow forgot: Cloud.

"Cloud! CLOUD! Where are you?!" I yelled into the forest. No reply. "CLOOOUUUD!"

"What's wrong, Luna? Are you hungry?" Lucia asked, concerned.

"Maybe she's homesick or something." I nodded at his suggestion.

"Hm… It's a bit too late to let her go now, I think. We've been walking the whole day and even I can't remember how to go back there."

All my hopes sunk. If they didn't know how to go back then I, who was stuck in that damned ball, wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of finding my way back to Cloud. All I could hope for is that Cloud would be smart and go back home. I would find my way back home, too, since it was quite near where I was captured, I think. That way, we could meet each other again. I slumped back down on Lucia's lap, totally drained.

"I'm sorry, Luna. I didn't know you had your family there…" she whispered to me. I shook my head in reply. She couldn't have known anyways; I was alone back on that hill. How stupid of me to go wandering in the night all by myself. "Here, you must be hungry."

In her hand were a few, quite large, brown pellets. I sniffed it curiously before trying one of them. Can't say much about it though, it was not as good as Chef Blair's food but I'd already figured that out given that, frankly, it looked disgusting. But to be honest, it wasn't too bad. I just hope that I'd get some variety in flavor if she intended to feed this stuff to me for the foreseeable future. Once I finished the food and jumped off her lap, she stood up and brushed her dress.

During the course of the day, I met the others in her travelling group including (the even more idiotic than Altair) Aarick and his Pokémon, Chomper. Amber was a Litten that had next to no emotions and relied heavily on sarcasm on her day-to-day basis. Lucia's other Pokémon, Fane, was a pretty cool guy. Kinda like Ren, actually, but I can't be too sure since it's been so long since I've seen that Shinx.

Once she fed me my evening meal though, she did something that I was appalled of: she tried to call me back into that ball.

"C'mon, Luna. Time for bed." She then held up my ball and pressed a button on it. A beam of red light shot out but I dodged it. "Hm?" she hummed in surprised and tried again. Of course, I dodged again and glared at her. "You don't like being in the ball?" I nodded my head furiously. "Weird, I thought all Pokémon would like to be in their ball." I shook my head. If she thought that then she was severely mistaken. In the end, she allowed me to stay outside the ball the whole time, saying that I could serve as a warning alarm or something during nighttime while they slept. Whatever works, I guess; at least I won't have to stay in there.

That night, all of us were out of our balls while the humans slept. I saw this as an opportunity and went over to the sleeping form of my master.

"Sorry. I like you and all but I can't stay here. I need to go back," I whispered before turning my back and walking away. However, to my surprise, I found that my limbs would not take me further than the edge of the camp. I could step back closer to the humans though, but not further away.

"That's not gonna work, Luna."

"Amber!" I looked back and saw her.

"Trust me, I've tried it before," she continued, "Once you're captured, you can't leave."

"What do you mean?"

"That damn ball's not just for caging you in when you're called in by it. It also makes you unable to escape its proximity. You can't go too far from your master unless they permit it."

"You've tried to escape before?"

"Oh, no. Life with my master's just so good that I don't care about my freedom or the family I've left behind at all," she sneered, rolling her eyes.

"Oh… Sorry."

"No need to be sorry, dear. It's just the consequence of being careless enough to be captured."

"I don't think they're too bad though. Lucia's especially nice and smart, except that one time when she thought I'm a girl," Fane suddenly appeared and gave his opinion.

"You only think that 'cause your master is not as stupid as mine," Amber replied. I left them as they got into yet another quarrel and went back to Lucia. Seeing as my first escape attempt failed, I guess I'll try again later. But I was exhausted from the day so I decided to follow my master and fall asleep next to her.

The next morning, after being hand-fed my breakfast, we set off walking again. I won't admit that I understand why we're just walking aimlessly but it got tiring fast. At one point, I ran and jumped onto Lucia's shoulder and sat there.

"Oh? Are you tired?" I nodded in reply before resuming my observation of the surroundings so that I won't miss any landmarks that may indicate where I am in relation to my home or just anywhere I know. This went on for a couple of days with me trying to escape many times but ultimately failing. I just couldn't get too far from her. Thankfully, or not, none of the humans suspected me of trying to escape and still cared for me.

To be honest, it wasn't all that bad. My master took care of me and I grew closer to Amber, Fane and Chomper.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

One day, we strayed off the path and into the forest just because we decided it was starting to get too boring, simply fighting other trainers and just walking. Even trainers were rare to come by. Anyways, yeah, we strayed off path with the guidance of my master, who was the most competent of the group of humans. I'll leave out all the boring parts like fighting caterpies (which I found out that Lucia was scared of) and running away from beedrills. I'll only tell you the interesting thing:

I found an arcanine.

"Hey, can we take a break yet?" Aarick asked.

"Now? We've only been walking for three hours," Lucia retorted. "What a wimp…"

"Hey! I heard that!"

The walk then progressed on in silence. That was, until my sensitive ears heard some Pokémon talking. What was weird was that it seemed to be talking to himself.

"No! Don't you get it? She said 'See you later!' That means that I left a good impression! … No, you're wrong, I definitely gave an okay impression. Yes, I admit that I stuttered a bit. A bit!"

And it went on like that. At one point, Lucia also heard it; of course, not what he was saying, but as him saying his species' name over and over again. She signaled for me to go forward and scout out the Pokémon as we've done many times before.

"It's an arcanine. Be extra careful, I want to capture him," she whispered to me. I crouched and slowly moved forth to investigate and soon stumbled upon said Pokémon, who was sitting down and looking a bit flustered as he continued the conversation by himself.

"Dee, do you think she'll show up? … But to her I'm still a stranger or something… No- I mean, we only had one conversation so far, in that restaurant! … Did I sound like a weirdo when I asked to meet her somewhere quiet when we've just met? … Ugh, I'm so nervous right now. Is it too soon to confess to her?"

I blinked rapidly. Was this dog crazy or something? Oh wait, maybe he's doing something like daddy did back then… telepathy, was it? That would explain it.

"Feint attack!" I heard my master call out. This call shocked the arcanine as he probably wasn't expecting any company. I obliged and walked up to the big dog.

"Who are- Oh shit!" he panicked as realization settled in and I tackled him hard, catching him off-guard. He was still stunned from the attack when a Pokéball flew and hit him. First time seeing a Pokémon being sucked into the ball made me stare at it (wondering how such a big guy got into that tiny ball) for a second before being thrown off balance as Lucia tackle-hugged me.

"We did it, Luna! We captured an arcanine!"

Suddenly, my sight turned white and my whole body went numb. No, I didn't get knocked out again... did I? I was in that state for what felt like hours but who knows? Maybe my sense of time was messed up just like my sense of touch (I couldn't feel anything at all, like I said).

Finally, the sensation disappeared and my sight returned. I could see everyone, and by that I meant the human trio, staring at me. I tried to walk towards them but suddenly fell down. What was this? I soon discovered that it wasn't my clumsiness that made me fell, but that my whole body structure had changed.

I was no longer a zorua.

{A/N} Ah… It's been a long time since I put an author's note at the end of a chapter. First of all, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter and story so far and will continue reading it (even though I doubt I can write fast enough for you to not forget about the whole story so far every time a new chapter is posted).

Anyways, the reason I am writing this a/n is that I have some bad news to announce. Firstly, it is that time of year again and I will be mainly focused on my revision for the upcoming exams so any update/writing I do will be erratic (as if it's not erratic enough already), if not non-existent. Hopefully I'll still find some time every now and then to open my Word document and start typing. The other thing is even worse for most of you, I am officially declaring one of the other story on this account, Path to Vengeance, as incomplete and dropped/cancelled. I am aware that most of you know that it hasn't been updated in forever and a lot of you are probably still waiting for it to be updated but the reason it hasn't is complicated and ties in with why I am dropping it. I will only say that it is because of the lack of planning and the lack of time that led to its state like this and hopefully you can understand it. Just know that I do so with regret but I cannot do anything more, it will fill me with more regret if I leave it as it is for longer, keeping your hopes up that one day it will be updated.