The day after, Melissa brought Topa to her classes, leaving me alone in the gigantic house. I didn't want to be alone and decided to roam the second floor looking for some human to notice my presence, carefully avoiding the left wing as Topa told me to. I was still thinking about what I said to her the day before. I missed my family a lot, and I had the sad feeling that I would never get to see them anymore and would live the rest of my life as a vulpix. I felt miserable, wandering aimlessly in the vast corridors, walking slowly, ears and tails down. Agnes was kind enough to carry me downstairs from my room, thinking I wasn't able to take the stairs because of my wound, and I was stuck on the first floor.

At least I didn't have nothing to do. Hoping the day would feel shorter, I went into the pokemon training room to practice firebreathing. It took me some time to remember how I did it, but once I successfully threw a small flame before me, I had no trouble repeating the action. I kept breathing small flames, my muzzle almost closed, as it felt easier for me - not much harder than just blowing a candle. However, my flames were weak and vanished quickly. Remembering what Topa said, I tried opening my muzzle, but all I could do was cough without producing any fire. The more I tried, the harder I coughed.

"Ruby?" a voice asked through the door.

I jolted, turning around. The door soon opened, revealing Rakuen wearing her usual maid outfit. She had a broom in her hand and was obviously busy cleaning the floor.

"I heard coughing. Are you alright?"

She started a movement to come to me, but refrained and didn't move from the door. I felt a bit relieved that she remembered that I wasn't comfortable around her, but at the same time, I felt guilty for not letting her touch me. Imagining myself in her position, I would probably have been very upset if a vulpix didn't let me touch it, especially if it was to be the new family pet. In spite of that, I decided to stay where I was.

"Well, now that I'm here, can I come and sweep the mats?" Rakuen asked with a shy tone.

I nodded and threw a joyful "sure". Although I wasn't too happy having her around breaking into my practising, I had no right to stop her from doing her job.

She entered the room with her broom, walking against the wall to show that she did not mean to disrupt me, and started brooming the room, starting from the back wall and progressively going back to the entrance. I stayed in the middle, staring at her while she was working. She didn't seem to mind it and was whistling quietly to amuse herself. As she reached me, I didn't move until she poked me with her broom. I jumped out of the way, which seemed to amuse her, and she resumed her work. The stick she was holding and moving felt strangely attractive, and I ended up following it slowly, crawling as a predator crawls upon its prey, waiting for its chance. The moment the broom stopped, I jumped in the air and landed front paws first on it, then tried to dig around it, biting the broom sometimes to try to get hold of it. Rakuen patiently waited until I gave up to continue, but had to deal with me attempting to steal the broom from her. She evaded my attacks skillfully, gracefully dancing, her long skirt flying around her legs in a charming movement. After a few minutes, I realized that I was actually having fun, and abandoned all my carefulness and reluctance to pour myself fully into the improvised game. Unfortunately, the game eventually came to an end as Rakuen reached the door. She picked up the mix of ashes and fur that she gathered and threw it in a big black plastic bag, then turned back to me. Smiling happily, she bent forward and gave me the broomstick, but as she was stretching a hand forward to pet me, I grabbed my trophy and ran back to the centre of the room, watching her carefully as she left, disappointed but smiling, and closed the door behind her. I let go of the stick, laid besides it, and started chewing on it. I was the victor for the day.

When Topa came back in the evening, she immediately came in the pokemon sports room, only to find me asleep by the broom I had victoriously stolen. She softly woke me up, saying she was back and asking how my day had been.

"Pretty long," I said, yawning and sitting down. "I practised firebreathing most of it, but that wasn't very fun."

"Where did you get this?" Topa asked, staring at the broom.

"I took it from the maid," I said, inflating my chest proudly. "The one assigned to me... Rakuen."

"Did you steal it?"

"I won it!" I replied.

"Won?"

"I..."

Only then did it strike me. I felt extremely embarrassed by the game I had played with the maid almost without realizing it. There was nothing human in that - nothing at all. I had completely given in to my instincts and the playful, fully animal fox that was now a part of me had easily overcome the careful, fully human part. Thinking back about it, I did remember having a lot of fun, and that memory made me ashamed of how I behaved. Topa, however, seemed not to see it the same way.

"You played with the maid, did you not?"

I turned my head away, heavily embarrassed.

"That is fantastic!" Topa said, obviously excited.

"Huh?"

"I remember you expressing doubts about accepting yourself as a vulpix, but it looks to me like you are not having as many problems as you thought. This is great news! If you can naturally act like a vulpix would, you will not have to worry about anyone finding out!"

I blushed, although it was hard to spot on my orange fur. I wasn't happy with this new development. I didn't want to be a fox, and I apparently was already fully indulging in fox-like behaviours.

"I don't want to be a fox," I said after a few minutes of silence.

Topa's face turned from joyful to puzzled then to sad from puzzled in less than a second.

"I am not sure what to say," she admitted. "I can see that being a vulpix does not make you happy, but..."

"It can't be helped, I know," I finished, sighing.

There was another pause.

"Why did it happen to me?" I complained.

"Pardon?"

"Why did I turn into a vulpix? Why me? What did I do to deserve this?"

I was about ready to cry. There was another long silence. Topa was staring into the void, seeming deep in her thoughts. Wondering what she was thinking about, I remained immobile until she eventually looked at me. She looked a bit angry, at least annoyed.

"Why do you think of it as a punishment?" Topa asked.

"Huh?"

"The way you complain sounds like you consider turning into a vulpix to be a punishment," she explained.

"I..."

I couldn't disagree with it, but I felt ashamed of feeling that way. As a human, I was probably convinced that animals were indeed inferior, although I claimed not to think it, and now that I was an animal, I realized how stupid the idea was.

"I won't ever see my family again, or my friends or my pets. I can't do what I liked to do anymore. Everything I had is... it's gone. I..."

"This is not about what you have lost," Topa interrupted me.

She sounded rather angry. Intimidated, I flattened my ears and laid on the floor, not quite ready to be lectured, but certainly about to be.

"It might take time for you to accept it, but you have a family here," Topa said. "You will have new hobbies and new things you like, but you have yet to discover them. How long have you been a vulpix for?"

"Nine days," I answered, whispering.

"You will recover those things. There is something about being a fox that you do not like. As if it were... A punishment."

I stayed silent, trying to find the words to explain myself. Although Topa seemed angry, there was something in her eyes that looked sad. I wasn't sure if she herself was sad or if she was sad for me. Were pokemon capable of empathy?

"Can I be honest?" I asked.

"Please be. Thinking of your transformation as a punishment is hurting you. You need to part from that."

"Well... Humans think animals are inferior," I said bluntly.

"You told me," Topa said. "Is that why you think of... all this as a bad thing?"

"I guess? I'm not sure, it's... I feel so embarrassed by everything I do. When I played with Rakuen... I didn't realize I was being... a normal vulpix, I guess? It didn't feel special to me. I... I even had fun. Now that I think back about it, it's... it's degrading."

"Degrading," Topa repeated.

There was another silence. For my relief, Topa didn't seem angry anymore, but looked sad.

"You keep thinking of yourself as a human," she said. "You should not. You no longer are human, you are a vulpix and what you did is perfectly normal. If anything, you should be proud to have been able to act naturally. You are adapting to your new body and that means a lot."

"I never wanted this body. I don't want to adapt to it."

"You are thinking of this as a punishment again. Why not think of it as a reward?"

"How can it be a reward? I... It basically started my life all over."

"Should you not be thankful for that? Is that not something you have wished before? Everyone wishes they could start over, and you get a chance to. How can you not think of this as something incredible?"

I was astonished. How did she...

"How do you even know that?" I asked. "That's... that's psychology. That's even close to philosophy."

"Well, there are a few things about humans that I understand, and one of them is that they always seem to create purely imaginary problems for themselves. Melissa once told me she wishes she could start over and be born in a family that isn't this rich because she feels like no one likes her because she has money and they are all jealous of it. I have seen her interact with other humans and it does not seem to me like anyone hates her. She has a lot of friends and I could tell that they like her. I do not understand why she thinks otherwise, but she does and it hurts her. You are doing the same thing. Instead of looking at facts, you are imagining that turning into a vulpix is something that happened because of something you did and take it as a punishment. Even then, you could also take it as a reward but chose to take it as a punishment because you consider animals to be inferior, and turning into one is, as you said, degrading, and probably because it fits whatever negative image of yourself you currently have."

That was rather impressive. I didn't expect a simple fox to think this deeply and understand at least parts of how the human mind worked. Once again, I felt like I was facing another human, but for the first time since I had met her, I had the disturbing feeling she was more intelligent than me.

Topa understood that she hit the nail on the head and smiled. She petted me.

"Let us try to think of it as something positive, okay? You get a chance to restart your life, so if there is anything you have done before that you wish you had not, you have a chance not repeat the mistake! You even have a chance to live a whole life while retaining the experiences of a past one!"

"I never wanted to restart my life," I said, pouting. "I was pretty happy with what I had."

"Have you ever made mistakes you wish you could repair?"

"Well, yeah, but..."

"You get a chance not to repeat them, then! Why are you looking at everything so negatively? You need to smile more. Come on, smile, smile, smile!"

She bent playfully, her tails happy wagging in a hypnotizing movement behind her, but I was not willing to play. She quickly understood that and simply laid down, disappointed.

"You need to smile more," she said. "You are too depressed. Again, stop thinking of your transformation as a punishment. You are living something no one has ever lived before you, in both of our worlds - you turned into an animal. This is a unique experience."

"I never asked for it."

"Things happen without anyone asking for them. This is how the world works. Stop worrying about the whys. No one can answer the questions you asked earlier, so why ask them? Simply live your life and do not ask questions that admit no answer, or you will be miserable pursuing things that do not exist. Worry about things that can be solved, like tonight's dinner!"

I couldn't help but smile. I was fairly hungry, and Topa's endless optimism was taking a toll of my depressed mood.

"Okay," I conceded, standing up. "I'll try."

The day after was a Wednesday, if my count was not wrong. This time, Topa was left at home with me, and we spent the day in the practice room again. Topa seemed to be very happy with my progress, although I hadn't practised much, but kept saying I needed to open my muzzle wider.

"You are swallowing most of your flames", she explained. "You need to be able to breathe fire with your muzzle open if you want to be able to learn Ember."

"It's too hard," I complained.

"That is why you have to practise!"

I sulked. I was aware of it, but all I wanted was to be able to breathe fire properly and not have to go through the hours of coughing I was likely to need. I wanted to be able to use my powers there and then and not have to wait, but unfortunately for me, I was going to have to.

"If it is any motivation, I will teach you Ember once you can breathe fire properly," Topa said, poking me with her muzzle to get me back to practising.

Compared to breathing fire, using a pokemon power seemed like nothing. I was however still looking forward to pokemon battles, as much as they scared me.

"Wait," I said, realizing something. "For battles, are we using real powers? Isn't that dangerous? Do pokemon..."

"Of course not!" Topa replied. "Do you remember what I explained? You have two kinds of powers. Fire and unfire. The auras. Remember?"

As hard as I tried, I couldn't remember what all that was about. After admitting it to Topa, she seemed a bit disappointed, but promised to explain it to me again. I was suddenly interested - very interested - in what exactly those powers were and how they worked, but I needed to breathe fire properly first.

"So... What do I need to do to learn Ember?"

"First, learn to breathe fire with your muzzle open. That way, you will be able to reach the full power of your fire - it will be useful for future moves and might serve you in a real fight."

"Real fight? I thought pokemon only thought with the moves."

"Well, generally, yes, but... Real fights happen as well. Sometimes, pokemon fight with the will to kill their opponent, and then it is not a sport anymore..."

"All is well in love and war, heh?"

"Pardon?"

"It's a proverb. Or... a saying. I'm not sure what the difference is. It basically means that for love and war you can do anything to achieve victory and are not bound by the rules of fair play."

"Well... Let us hope you never get in such a fight, alright?"

"Yeah."

I spent the rest of the day practising firebreathing under Topa's careful eye. She sometimes stopped me to give me advice on what to do or what I was doing wrong, and by the end of my training session, I was able to breathe more powerful fire, but the ninetales didn't seem to be satisfied yet. Too tired, I gave up for the day, and Topa agreed that it was time to rest. Dinner was about to be served, so I went back to the lounge to wait there. Rakuen was in there, together with an old man I didn't recognize. He smelt of importance and authority and instantly scared me. Judging by his uniform, he was one of the butlers, and judging by Rakuen's red face and repeated apologizing, I could only assume the man was her superior, probably the chief of all the maids and butlers, and she was being lectured. When she was certain the man left, she sighed, visibly disappointed.

"Hey Ruby," she said.

She crouched, waiting to see if I would come to her or not. Disappointed I wouldn't, she stood back up.

"I forgot to come pick up the broom you took. I got lectured because of it..."

She looked immensely sad, as if being lectured was the worst thing to ever happen to her. In an effort to comfort her, I ran to the practice room and brought the broom back. After putting it on the floor in front of me, I pushed it with my muzzle towards her, and she picked it up without trying to touch me.

"You chewed on it," she said as if to lecture me, although she sounded more amused than angry. "I hope I won't get in trouble for that too."

I laid my ears, conscious that she had got in trouble because of me and feeling partly responsible. In an effort to show her my sympathy, I slowly crawled towards her. She stretched a hand. I took time to sniff it again, trying to get used to her odour to be able to recognize it. She still smelled nice, and had a weirdly friendly and somewhat naive odour. Maybe I could trust her?

"Ruby?" a voice asked.

Startled, I jumped in place, then ran back under the table, protected from this new intruder. I quicky recognized the new odour, however, and happily ran to Agnes as she stepped into the room.

"Hello," she said, petting me as I was pushing my head against her knees to ask to be petted. "Hello Rakuen!"

"Hello Agnes," she replied, standing up then bowing down.

I could feel in the way she answered that she was sad that Agnes interrupted our bonding moment.

"I'm sorry," Agnes said. "I interrupted you... Looks like Ruby's willing to trust you, though, right?"

This sounded less than a question and more than an order to me. Unhappy, my tails stopped waggling and spread out horizontally behind me as I laid my ears and stepped back a few steps. After a few moments of hesitation, I looked at Agnes who was staring at me. She looked somewhat angry, at least very stern, as if to silently order me to trust the maid. I stepped a few more steps back, looked at the maid who was silently standing up not far from me, obviously unhappy with how things had turned out. I could feel my tails touching the floor and my ears laid back, and after a few seconds of hesitation, I tensed up, shouted "sorry", and ran away from the room.

"I'm not sure she's ready to let you touch her yet," I heard Agnes say as I was going to the practice room to hide.

Agnes didn't seem to be angry at me for disobeying when she came to tell me dinner was served. I expected to be punished, but she just petted me and repeated that I could trust the maids. She obviously didn't want to force me to interact with them, but did want me to at least let them touch me. It would obviously be needed for them to wash or groom me. There was something about Rakuen's odour that I liked, although I wasn't capable of explaining why. Unlike the other maids I came across, she was friendly and seemed to actually care about me. Maybe I should actually give her a chance...

"You definitely should," Topa said when I consulted her about the matter. "She does seem to like you a lot. I do not understand why you insist on staying away from everyone."

"They scare me," I replied. "I'm not ready to interact with humans. I don't want them to find out."

"I think we have already discussed that," Topa replied, referring to our earlier conversation. "The odds they find out are very low, especially considering you are already naturally behaving normally for a vulpix."

"I know..." I sighed.

I was a bit tired of Topa repeating that. Although she was probably right, I wasn't sure I actually wanted to behave like an animal. Thinking about what I saw my cats and dogs do made me embarrassed. I knew I was no longer human and I was unhappy with it. Yet... There was something about being a little fox that was enjoyable. Although I was still wounded, I unexplainably loved the feeling of having tails. On top of that, I wasn't just a fox - I was a pokemon and there was still much for me to discover and learn about. I was most looking forward to battles, and I was fairly angry at Topa despite understanding her careful attitude. I could feel that there was a part of me that was much more impatient and careless than I normally would be, and I was scared it would eventually take over and I'd become... just a fox.

"You focus too much on the negative," Topa said once we were on our respective beds. "You are always thinking that you do not want to be a vulpix, or that humans might find out your secret, but that just brings you down."

"You're repeating yourself," I replied, rather annoyed. "You're always saying I should be happy to be a vulpix and all, but you don't understand my situation."

"I probably never will, but I want to help you, and seeing you depressed all the time is not something I enjoy. I do not know what it would take to make you happy, but I want to try, and the way I see it, I need to make you comfortable with your current life. You cannot hate your life and be happy."

"I don't hate my life, I'm just... All this is beyond me. I'm... I turned into a vulpix and I have no idea how, why or even when. I just... went to bed, and poof! I'm a vulpix. Hell, I was even dead when I woke up. I'm just... Out of control. It's depressing. When I was human, I had some power over my life. I could make choices, but now... I can't even choose what I'm going to eat. It's like the most basic freedom has been taken from me."

Topa remained silent for several minutes. After a long wait, she eventually said:

"I think you are wrong."

"Huh?"

"Rather... I think you are lying to yourself. Freedom... That is a purely human concept. No one is ever really free. We are all bound by obligations. When you were human, you had to go to school, had laws to obey... Even your own conscience took away your so-called freedom. I have heard about freedom of speech and similar human ideals, but they are... delusions. Your own body restricts your freedom to what it is capable of doing. Your own mind limits your freedom to what it can think. Why are humans trying to live by ideals that lie to them? Animals are a lot happier than humans because they do not bother with all those problems. Pets or not, dogs and cats are happy. As long as they have food and a safe place to sleep, they are happy. What more do you need in life but food and shelter?"

"So... You consider humans are not animals?"

"Well... I am not sure how they define the word 'animal', but in essence, indeed. They parted from us a long time ago when they decided to create all those problems for themselves. You are an animal now, try thinking like one? You have food, you have a shelter, you even have a family to love you and play with you. That is more than most animals have, and yet, you are not happy. Why?"

I blushed and looked away. Once again, I had the disturbing feeling that Topa was actually more intelligent than me. She seemed to have much deeper thinking about things I never even thought about. To every question I had she could give an elaborated answer, and to every answer I have she could raise questions. I felt powerfully outsmarted and that made me extremely uneasy.

"Do pokemon often think about those things?" I asked.

"Pardon?"

"You... You can give complex answers to every metaphysical, psychological or philosophical question I have. It's... It's impressive but out of character for... for a fox, I mean... I see a fox but I feel like I'm talking with a person. It's unsettling."

"Well... Most pokemon are capable of this, but I assume most do not bother. I have been in a human family all my life, so I was probably contaminated by the way they think... I honestly find all those questions interesting. It might be unusual for a pokemon, but I like thinking about them."

Everything suddenly made sense to me, but the realization was shocking.

"Topa?" I asked, unsure of how exactly to word my question.

"Yes?"

"I have a weird question."

"Sure. I will do my best to answer."

"Are you, er... Have you..."

I sighed and decided to simply ask as directly as I could.

"Topa... Are you a human too?"