Emily sat at her desk frowning while Sasha paced nervously back and forth scratching at the large welts that had begun to form on her forearm. What went wrong? Emily wondered going over the list of ingredients. Three Persim berries, two Oran berries, one Luppa berry. It didn't make any sense.
"Emily! Make this stop or I swear!" Sasha moaned as she tore at her skin.
"Don't worry I can make something real quick to make it stop." Emily said jumping up to harvest a couple plants until she realised she was out of Oran berries. "Sasha...I can't make anything to help. I need Oran berries and I'm out."
"Ugh! This is the last time I let you test products on me!" The brunette yelled before opening Emily's bedroom door and slamming it shut behind her. Emily stood silently for a moment sighing before plopping down in her bed. What's wrong with me, she wondered as she stared up at her ceiling. She was moody, tired and just couldn't concentrate on anything lately. Normally she could whip up two new successful recipes a month, but lately it seemed like everything she created was a horrible failure.
"Oh yeah, it's almost May." Emily mumbled to herself as she rolled over onto her side and held her pillow to her chest.
"What's wrong, mom?" Namine asked hopping up onto the bed. "You've been really down lately."
"It's nothing." Emily mumbled as she reached out her hand to pet her Eevee who snuggled up against the young woman's side. Soon another small four legged creature hopped up onto the bed to join them. "Hey, Roxas." Emily said holding out her palm to beckon the two year old male Eevee closer.
"What in the world is all over your face?" Namine said with a sigh as she approached her son and began licking his face clean. "Sometimes I wonder why I ever let you out of your Pokeball." Namine said.
"Mooom." Roxas whined as he grimaced at the feeling of his mother's tongue working its way through the fur on his face. "I'm just going to get dirty again."
"You wouldn't get so dirty in the first place if you'd just stop playing under the bed." Namine chastised holding her son down with her paw so she could finish his bath.
"But i'm bored!" Roxas complained. "I want to go outside!"
"So you can get beat up again by those Beedrills; I don't think so." Namine said.
"I almost had him." Roxas mumbled underneath his breath.
"You weren't even close." Namine laughed. "You would have been Spearow food if I hadn't come saved you. You're lucky I'm so strong."
"You're only a level 30; You're not that strong." Roxas said. "Once I'm a Flareon i'll be even stronger than you."
"Keep dreaming, kiddo. A funny looking rock isn't going to make you stronger, it's only going to change your appearance."
"It did you." Roxas grumbled. "Do that thing where you evolve."
"You've seen it a hundred times already!" Namine mumbled as she laid down next to Emily.
"Please." Roxas begged wagging his tail. "I want to see my future self."
"Emily, put him back in his pokeball. My son thinks I'm a circus act. Why doesn't he bother his father; he can turn into any Pokemon at will." Namine said before yawning.
"All Ditto's can transform; You're one of a kind." Emily said listening to the two of them banter.
"All right all right." Namine said before slowly standing up. "What will it be?"
"Jolteon!" Roxas said happily bouncing up and down on the bed as the mother Eevee's necklace glew purple and she herself began glowing a bright white as her form grew several times larger until the once small Eevee took up half the bed. Once the glowing faded there in Namine's place stood a yellow, spiky furred Jolteon. "Now a Flareon!" Roxas cheered as the Jolteon once again began glowing and shifting until a red and white furred pokemon stood in it's place. Emily watched with a small smile as she watched Namine change form after form for her son.
"Sorry, kiddo, time's up." Namine panted after 20 minutes when she suddenly changed back into her original Eevee form and the rock around her neck ceased to glow.
As soon as Roxas was born, Namine's stance on fighting had changed 180 degrees. She had wanted to become stronger in order to protect him so while Emily searched for plants and berries in the forest, Namine fought with every stray rodent and bug that came within eyesight until she had gotten comfortable enough to take on trainers. She started with a few Bug Catchers as both Emily and Namine slowly built up their confidence together.
One particular day about a year ago while they were coming out of the forest an Ace Trainer appeared and began striking up a conversation. Emily wasn't particularly in the mood to talk with him and tried to move past, but he wasn't about to let her go and demanded a battle with her Eevee sensing an easy victory. Emily shrugged and thought why not, but frowned when Ace Trainer released a Farrow. This was way out of their league she thought as she tried her best to direct her Eevee out of harms way. Emily watched anxiously as the battle progressed. At the rate this was going Namine wasn't going to last much longer she thought.
"If only I had an electric type." Emily had muttered. "Too bad Namine can't use any kind of electric type attacks."
Suddenly the stone on Namine's neck began to glow as she began evolving. "Namine..." Emily said shocked as her Eevee evolved into a Jolteon mid battle. What just happened? Both Emily and Ace Trainer stood staring mouth agape, even the Farrow had swooped down to get a view of its new opponent. In the chaos of the situation Emily saw her chance. She only had one shot if she wanted this to work and it was a gamble if Namine even knew this move. "Thundershock!" Emily yelled as bolts of lightening began chasing after the large bird until it encompassed the enemy and the bird fell paralyzed to the ground. "Bite!" Emily commanded as the Jolteon bared its fangs and lunged at the paralyzed bird as she sunk her teeth into its flesh causing the opponent to faint.
"Tastes like chicken." Namine said trotting over to her master victoriously as Emily threw her arms around Namine. As the two walked back together Emily's eyes bulged as Namine began glowing once again and started...shrinking?! Within 30 seconds Namine was back into her Eevee form. "What just happened?" Namine asked sounding a little disappointed as she realized she was no longer the pokemon she had once dreamed of becoming.
"I have no idea." Emily said looking just as confused as Namine. She tried researching it on the internet, but couldn't come up with a single case of an Eevee evolving without a stone or even any pokemon evolving for a short period of time and then reverting. "It must have something to do with that stone around your neck." Emily said as Namine agreed.
"You think it's like the first time? When we merged." Emily nodded in agreement and soon they began experimenting with it. In no time at all the two discovered they could use it to transform Namine into any of the eeveelutions at will for a short period of time before she would revert back to her original form. As a result Namine's experience level soared since she would always have the type advantage as long as they could defeat her opponent in less than 20 minutes. The two quickly grew bored as the newness of battling wore off. Emily didn't need to keep at it for the prize money since Anna had basically left her a limitless credit card that didn't need to be payed back and Namine only desired to be at a high enough level to keep her son safe. The two agreed to quit while they were ahead as to not attract attention to themselves before rumors began to spread.
Emily was quickly snapped from her trance of memories and brought back to reality when she began hearing knocking on her door. She got up and answered it while preparing to apologize to Sasha and beg for her forgiveness. She was immediately alarmed when she opened the door a crack to not find Sasha, but Nurse Joy. Uh-oh, Emily thought as she opened the door a little wider to see Nurse Joy smiling suspiciously figuring Sasha had ratted her out about her failed experiments in order to get proper treatment for her skin lesions.
"May I come in?" Nurse Joy asked as Emily stepped back to let the woman in before closing the door behind her. This couldn't be good. "I just wanted to come check up on you." Nurse Joy said sensing the girls uneasiness.
"Oh, umm, I'm okay." Emily said sitting down on her bed as her aunt took a seat across from her in the desk chair. It still feels weird to refer to her as my aunt she thought while wondering what she had really come to see her about.
"I wanted to talk to you about your plant experiments." Nurse Joy said after a moment of silence. Crap. She's not going to punish me with diapers is she? Emily thought fearing the worst. "How would you feel about getting officially funded by a company?" Wait, what? She had to have miss heard that. Clearly Nurse Joy had come to tell her to knock it off, not offer her a sponsorship, right?"
"What?" Emily asked confused.
"A company wants to sponsor and fund your research." Nurse Joy repeated with nervous smile.
"What? Really?" Emily asked as her eyes lit up with excitement. "Wait...I know that look. What's the catch?"
"N-no catch." Nurse Joy said smiling. "I just got off the phone with Anna and she wants to meet with you on Saturday to discuss arrangements. WHAT? Anna!? Wants to meet with me… about my research…
"No." Emily said shaking her head. "Tell her I'm not interested."
"Emily, just go and hear her out. You two haven't spoken since she left." Nurse Joy said biting her lip.
"And whose fault was that." Emily said bitterly. "Why now after two years?"
"Well you know Silph Co's been in a financial crisis ever since and it sounds like they are trying to come up with new ideas to draw people in."
"So what, she's only reaching out to me now after all this time because she wants something?" Emily said feeling the lump beginning to form in her throat. "She's just going to use me and toss me aside."
"This is a good opportunity for you. Don't let a personal grudge get in the way of moving forward with your products. Silph Co's the biggest name around, now's your chance to show everyone what you can do. Maybe you two can even work things out, she is your sister after all-"
"She's not my sister." Emily said staring down at the floor. "I don't want to work things out with her, I don't want to meet with her, and I don't want to talk to her!" Emily said.
"Fuck." Emily said quietly as she held tightly onto her backpack as her legs jiggled with nerves as she stood outside Silph Co HQ the following Saturday morning. "You can do this." Emily mumbled to herself as she tried her best to calm her breathing down. "It's just a business meeting. Who says I'm even meeting with her. I'm probably just going to be pitching an idea to a worker who will reject it right then and there and that will be the end of it. Emily bounced for a moment in place before making her way inside the large fancy building. She felt self conscious as she walked inside in her flower printed sundress with her backpack hanging off one shoulder. She could feel everyone's eyes on her as she took in the many suited and professional looking workers.
"I got this." She whispered to herself again as she walked up to the secretary station.
"Can I help you?" The blond woman asked putting her hand over the mouthpiece of her headset after Emily awkwardly stood in place for five minutes waiting for her to say something.
"Umm, I'm here to see Anna." Emily mumbled.
"Anna?" The lady behind the desk repeated motioning with her hand that she needed more than a first name.
"Silph." Emily squeaked as the blond woman raised her eyebrows.
"And do you have an appointment to see Miss Silph?" The secretary asked doubtfully.
"I'm not sure, she said to meet her here on Saturday, but didn't say what time." Emily answered as she felt her heart racing in her chest.
"Name?"
"Emily Ketchum."
"I don't see anything in the computer under that name." The secretary said sounding annoyed with the current situation.
"But she said to meet her."
"Look, I don't know if you were one of her little friends in the past. " The secretary said massaging her temples. "But If you want to see Miss Silph you need to make an appointment. She is a very busy person and does not take walk-ins." She said turning back to her work.
"But I'm her sister." Emily mumbled barely above a whisper.
"You think that's funny? Miss Silph lost her family eight years ago. Who do you think you are to come in here and-"
"Is there a problem?" The two women heard as Emily saw the color drain out of the secretary's face.
"N-no, ma'am, I was just telling this person that if she wants to meet with you she needs an appointment." The secretary said quickly.
"She doesn't need an appointment." The voice said as Emily slowly turned to face the girl she hadn't seen or heard from in two years. "Hello, Emily." Anna said.