Lights were coloring the sky from the ground. First the skyscrapers, then the lights of the buildings. Then the black lampposts on the streets.
Underneath the forest of lights was the pokemon of the kingdom of Valor. The streets thrived with chatter and activity during the night. Street performers, cell phones, and some stores were all out in full swing on that evening.
If that pokemon weren't noisy, they were at least jolly or relaxed all the time without fail. One Furret stood out while blending in, sporting a brown cloak with a hood to cover herself from head to toe, not including her long tail, and holding her hazel eyes low to avoid eye contact.
Abigail wasn't happy or "chill" all of the time. Even when using a little light sarcasm, she paused entire rooms, so she tried not to say much anymore around here. It sucked, but she planned to go back to where she came from soon enough.
That night, the Furret was just making a delivery for her boss at the restaurant, getting paid overtime. Her foster mother didn't live in the direction of all this chaos, but she was willing to make the trip and enjoy the air.
The concrete apartment building blended in perfectly in the maze of the city. The rang the right doorbell, and the expected Bunnelby answered the door, pushing it open from the inside. After getting a food delivery with a decently large bag, the Bunnelby didn't even utter a word before he closed the door as soon as he took it.
Abigai sighed to herself, but then felt a little happiness that her day was over. She could sleep in that night, and had the day completely to herself to have some alone time.
Walking was a strenuous activity, even for a thin Furret. Pokemon were constantly distracted and crowding different random areas but her least favorite to deal with was pokemon walking slowly like walls. They didn't even talk about anything interesting.
Luckily, she had a lower count of those obstacles until the streets started to get wider and the buildings further apart. There were fewer lights coming from the inside of concrete buildings, and no skyscrapers to set the sky on fire.
She familiar feeling washed over her when she was out of sight of any pokemon. The Furret's passive expression became a light smile as she continued, until she heard something.
The shout was small, but something about if put her off. There was always random shouts of joy or anger in the city, but it chilled her enough to make her turn down the street coming up to her right to check.
There weren't any pokemon on the street, but she heard some movement up ahead. It was between two small buildings, in an alley. The Furret approached it quietly and peered down in low the the ground.
There was a pokemon backed against the brick wall at the end of the alley by a male Weavile and Charizard. It was hard to tell what was going on, but the Furret decided to step up.
"Hey!" Abigail shouted, "what's going on in there?"
The Weavile turned around quickly, and quickly dipped under the Charizard's wing. Furret caught a glimpse of a Charmeleon in the light of the Charizard's flame on his tail, sitting against the wall with a bag that was spilling different things.
"Don't move a muscle," Weavile said, "What are you doin? You a Nightlight?"
Nightlights didn't usually police this area, but they clearly didn't want her to be one of them. That meant something illegal, and it was already obviously robbery.
Their body language told it all to Abigail. It had been a while, but her memories of her training came swimming back to her. Even their postures were bad.
She had to take another action than pure aggression to get the Charmeleon out of danger.
"Whatever you want, I'll give it to you. Just let him go."
"He has something one-of-a-kind," Weavile explained, "Can't be copied. You did your good deed for the day, but nothin's helpin this lil thief."
"Only one out of two parties here looks like a thief," Abigail said, "so why don't we all call some authorities and just have this sorted out lawfully?"
Furret made eye contact with the Charmeleon. He stood up slowly against the wall.
"It's alright, get out of here," Charmeleon said, "I'm good."
Abigail made note of something that had fallen out of the Charmeleon's bag. It was a phone lying face down, but it had an emblem of two white wings with hands on the back of it. The symbol of the Nightlight Association, and the law's enforcers.
They were the authorities. There was no guarantee if the Charmeleon was just sketchy or not, and he had something to him that just couldn't make her feel sorry for him. Abigail was bored of this type of thing happening. The crimes on the news just annoyed her, and those two pokemon didn't look like they were just stealing to survive.
It had been a few months, but an excuse to fight could be fun.
"Stand down," Furret said, "Or else."
The Weavile focused cold energy in his claws and used it for the move Icy Wind. Furret simply swiped it aside with her tail and move forward extremely slowly.
Both Weavile and Charizard were staring dead on at her with their full focus. The wall of the building behind the Charmeleon would be short enough for her to scale quickly, so she immediately had a strategy.
The Furret darted forward and circled around the confused Weavile after feinting a straightforward punch. She brushed his face with her tail to confuse him further, and darted towards the Charizard just behind him.
Furret bounced off of the walls twice and went in an arc above the Charizard's head. The Charmeleon had barely gathered his bag together when the Furret wrapped her tail around him and the bag twice over.
She didn't hesitate to scaled the short concrete wall with her claws, carrrying her own weight and the Chrarmeleon's only with her arms.
"Hey!" Weavile shouted.
The Furret continued to run after jumping down to the other street. The Charmeleon gave light protests about the cloak getting in his eyes, but mostly just warned about the Weavile and Charizard following her.
Abigail was moving towards the direction of the city, surprised she could still move so fast. According to the Charmeleon, the Weavile was on the Charizard's back. The Furret could tell that from their shadow, but they were gaining.
Not long after the chase started, the Furret took a turn onto a street with more pokemon on it. Although it wasn't extremely active, lampposts and stores combined their light over both of them, and pokemon were walking around at a casual pace.
The Charizard's shadow finally glided over them. With the timing, the Furret had to pause her run at a quieter intersection of brick streets. The Charizard slammed down onto the ground sending dust into the air.
Surprised pokemon gave out varying shouts at the aggression. Abigail was decently surprised by their public aggression. There were a lot of reasons they could do this, but nothing good.
The Weavile hopped off of the Charizard's back and walked forward slightly. Other pokemon were either leaving or grabbing different devices to record from far in the sidelines.
"Your turn," Weavile said, "Stand down."
"Show me your Nightlight badges first," Furret replied.
"Tough."
More pokemon started to join the Weavile's side from different directions. A Honchkrow and Skarmory came from the air. An Alakazam teleported to the scene and brought a Simisear with him. A Hitmonlee, Houndoom, and Breloom joined from behind on the ground.
"Just get yourself out of here," Charmeleon said.
"No thanks."
The Furret unwrapped her tail and set the Charmeleon down. She stared back at the mob of pokemon with a blank expression.
"Why are you bothering with all of this stuff?" Abigail asked. "You make me tired of it just looking at you. Just go home and get better lives."
"Funny, we were thinking the same thing," Weavile said. "Beat it, kid."
"If you insist, good sir." Abigail smiled lightly.
The Alakazam teleported behind Furret, but the Charmeleon immediately bit his arm. Furret focused ahead on the Houndoom and Simisear both walking forward and using flamethrower at the same time.
Furret focused energy in her hands and fired a Water Pulse. The power of the move easily went through the flames and landed on the Houndoom. She had already closed the gap between herself and the Simisear when he turned back to her.
The Furret ducked under the Simisear's sloppy punch he threw out of surprise. She ducked under it and jabbed him straight in the chest making him keel over. Furret grabbed his arm, and threw him over her shoulder onto the ground.
The Houndoom leaped for the Furret from behind, but she could hear is every move on the ground. He jumped at her with an open mouth with fire smoking out, but she turned around slugging him in the face.
Before the Simisear could recover, she wrapped her tail around his body and spun to fling him back at the Alakazam. The Charmeleon was released from his psychic power and fell back to the ground from where he was floating.
The Weavile still hadn't moved, but the Charizard tensed his legs. The Honchkrow and Skarmory joined at his, but soon flew upwards in a spiral.
The Skarmory and Honchkrow both spiraled down using Brave Bird with different timings. The Charzard leaped into the with fire in his mouth right after them.
The Skarmory came blazing first. Furret ran straight towards at him. On her last bound she swiveled to the side and grabbed one of its sharp wings, swung it around her and then grabbed the other.
She used the Skarmory's head as a battering ram straight into the Honchkrow's chest from under him. Black feathers scattered into the night sky, and caught fire from the encroaching Charizard.
Furret jumped straight at the Charizard's maw, staying low to the ground. She threw a punch straight into his mouth, and grabbed the ground with her other arm's claws.
Her punch completely stopped the Charizard's flames. Furret pulled down hard with her arm in the ground, and shouted with effort slam the Charizard's head into the ground over his head with her arm in his mouth. The cheap, brown hood from her cloak came off from being upside down.
Cracks in the ground were left from the loud impact. She pulled her arms up and shook the dirt and drool off of them while looking dead on at the Weavile. Furret watched to close some of the distance calmly.
The Charmeleon's alerted voice rang out behind her. "Hey, catch!"
Abigail looked back only long enough to see the Alakazam on the ground and the metal bat gently tossed towards her. She caught it by the handle and twirled it lightly to know its weight.
The Weavile was finally irritated enough to attack himself. His Ice Shard was simple for the Furret to simply wack away with her bat.
When he got close the Weavile gave surprisingly well trained swipes at her with his claws. Furret deflected all of his jabs with her bat, and then used it to catch as swipe from his right arm.
With his arm far away from his body, the Weavile followed the immediate instinct to take another swing with his left. The Furret backed away slightly while pushing his right arm to make him to turn around.
The Furret used the bat and hit the back of Weavile's knees. He used his arms to keep him from falling flat the floor.
Furret wound back and did a swing over her shoulder straight at the Weavile's forehead. Holding back, the impact wasn't loud, but was enough to make onlookers cringe. Just a few seconds after, the Skarmory and Honchkrow fell to the ground like paper airplanes and stayed there.
Abigail wasn't affected that much by the sight of the knocked out or pained pokemon. The Charmeleon had a face of relief, while the onlookers were all nervously glued to where they were standing.
The Furret looked around, and none of the pokemon on the ground were moving anytime soon. The Charmeleon came up to her, and she handed him the bat upside down with one arm while putting her hood back up.
"Wow, you Nightlights need to take it easier on these guys next time," Abigail smiled.
Charmeleon looked at her and back at the pokemon repeatedly while she was turning around and walking away. Furret continued forward and went down the first small street to her right, with no one having the strong desire to follow her.
As Abigail continued down the strange route she was taking, a decently bright light flashed over her eyes. She managed to catch a look at a something like a meteor burning through the sky , a white streak leaving a smoky trail. She hadn't heard anything about something like this before tonight, but it passed very quickly. She continued on her way home, putting the sight into her memory.
The home was a small, two-story wooden building. Abigail lived alone with the Bellossom, Helen, who had taken her in a year earlier. She only had to stay another year until she was eighteen, so she could possibly have a small place to herself.
Her rectangular room had a circular window with white curtains, and a plain bed with a single white blanket on the right wall coming worn cloak was on a hanger by her door. Under the circular window, there was a white, slight raised bath surrounded by decorative leaves along with some things she had bought for her fur sitting on the rim.
The Furret slid under the covers of her bed and laid on her side and quickly fell asleep. She woke up again feeling strange in the middle of the night. She was being prodded slightly by a Bellossom at her bedside.
"Hey?" Abigail voiced, "What is it?"
"They announced the Royal Parade just now!" Bellossom exclaimed in a quiet voice. "Sorry, I just had to tell you."
"Really?" Abigail asked
Even far out in the mountains, every pokemon knew about the tradition the continent's kingdoms shared. Abigail was told by her mother from a very young age what it was.
In order to bring the country's leaders down to earth and to become good leaders, they were raised and lived as normal pokemon until a certain age. After the war between Valor and the neighboring Verity some one-hundred and fifty years ago, they discovered that the most evil leaders were out of touch with reality and created the tradition, and included the northern kingdom of Maroon.
The Royal Parade revealed their identities to the public as princes and princesses. It was announced midnight of their birthday, and held the following day. It was always a complete blindside for how many royals it was for and what their genders were until it was announced.
"What did they say?" Abigail asked, "Like, the details."
"Three princes, one from each. It's a first," Helen said. "We've got to get you ready."
It suddenly clicked in Abigail's head. Teenagers went out on hordes looking their best to try an impress them.
"Wait, really? You want me to try that?" Abigail asked. "I'm not sure that's a great idea."
"I didn't even get to do this, you're not just saying no," Bellossom sassed. "If you live at least a little, you do this. Get up, we're starting now."
The Furret sighed and sat up rubbing her eyes while the Bellossom hurriedly went to the first floor making noise. She definitely wasn't sleeping anytime soon.