A/N

Alright people, let's get right into this one. I dedicate this chapter to the 500 and 600 follower celebration. Huzzah. You people are all insane, I swear.

I also dedicate it to my college being over for the next few months. The creative juices may now flow through this story. Oh yeah, enjoy the new cover art I commissioned for the story. Accompanied with a free 5.5k words of story.

Enjoy it if you want.

"You mean I get to fight and stab people? Sign me up!" the Sneasel in front of us states happily. A bit… too happily actually. Slightly disturbing but probably for the best.

"You seem really excited about the stabbing prospect," I comment dryly, stuffing my hands in my pockets.

"And you seem to be able to understand me unreasonably well, considering I'm a Pokemon and you aren't," she replies accusingly, putting her hands on her hips. "You shouldn't throw stones, Mr. Glass House of weirdness ."

"That'd be fair to say, if I was actually a human. Which… I'm not," I say blandly, automatically calming down Alonso over the implied insult.

"You're not a human?" she stares blankly, looking me up and down. I can see the eyebrow raise implied, even with the lack of them. I move my Pokedex from my coat pocket and into my satchel, closing it with a satisfying snap.

With a slight shrug, I shoo Alonso off of my shoulder and change into Zorua form. I sit down on the snow covered ground and yawn. I don't think she noticed that I'm slightly to the side from where I was before.

Well, not me exactly. Just an illusion that mirrors everything I do. Sadly I can almost never get this to work properly with the invisibility thing, but I can right now. Uniform backgrounds, like snow for example, make it really easy to do the invisibility thing and mask the light shimmering that my movements make.

"Nope. Not that most of the humans know that~" I explain with a smug tone of voice, scratching my head with one leg. I swear, that spot always itches in this form no matter what.

"Oh. So you aren't human. Why is a Pokemon acting as a Trainer?" Sneasel inquires as she looks down at my copy.

"Because, I think it's fun. Also because I can prank the hell out of everyone by doing a grand reveal of the fact in front of everyone," I answer.

"Why don't you want to fight?" Sneasel says accusingly, as if it was a grand insult that I wouldn't.

"Hmm? Who says anything about me not fighting? Maybe not in the majority of the Gym Circuit, but last I checked I can thrash the living hell out of Team Rocket. That's who you would be stabbing by the way," I claim offhandedly, smiling as the interested gleam re-enters her eyes.

"Hmm… well how about this. Fight me here and now to prove you aren't all talk. I refuse to follow someone who is weak, and you don't even have the excuse of humans that they can't directly fight!" She says, lunging at me. Alonso immediately interjects with a baleful glare and a glowing pair of wings, forcing her to abandon her assault.

"You know, you could at least wait for me to accept the challenge to attack. That way Alonso here won't rush to my defense," I admonish her, raising an unimpressed eyebrow as I motion Alonso away with a smirk.

"Shut up and fight me!" Sneasel yells out, lunging at me again. She pounces forward, one arm raised back and claw changing to a silver glow. Like a blade, her claw reaches my smirking form and cleaves into it… and through it with no resistance.

Not expecting the complete lack of resistance, Sneasel unbalances herself with an overswing and ends up planting directly into the snow.

The image she slashed through quickly shimmers and disappears, and I'm revealed in the exact spot my human form was standing at before. I throw away my satchel that was on the ground next to me, and smirk. Oh well, time to taunt her while preparing a Counter.

"Did you really think I'd just stand there? And let you hit me?" I ask rhetorically, giving her one of my smuggest grins. She growls furiously, scrambling back to her feet as her claws scrape against the stone underneath the snow.

"Coward! Fight me!" she screams out, making another wild swing at me as a part of her blitzing charge. And I do mean a full on Blitz, because holy shit she's fast.

Blinking in surprise at how quickly she closed the distance, I almost forgot to unleash my Counter as her claws slam into my gut like a goddamn freight train. Luckily, I still do, but it's more on instinct than a calculated hit at the point.

I was launched away due to my small size and weight, but Sneasel was absolutely laid onto her back from the Counter. I also painted the snow a nice red color, considering that claw just bit directly through my fur and skin.

Stumbling to my feet with a slight shudder, I groan as I can barely feel my back legs right now. Gut hits certainly aren't fun, I can tell you that much for sure.

I take a deep breath in, and a small ball of blackness forms near my mouth. I quickly blast off a staccato of Dark Pulses, not using the whole charge at once and instead cutting it into quarters.

A good thing I didn't, too, because Sneasel sprung to her feet and dodged the first blast as it carves a trench into the snow and stone underneath. The second clipped her due to surprise but didn't do a significant chunk of damage. The third hits her full on, throwing her back into the ground and making the fourth shoot high and mulch some more of the stone behind her.

I take a few deep breaths, as I'm still not fully accustomed to that damn move, and prepare another Counter in case I get blitzed harder than France again.

When Sneasel didn't get up, instead opting to stir on the ground until she faced me, I slightly relaxed my guard and turned back into my human form.

"So, enough proof for you that I'm not weak?" I ask rhetorically as I dust off my completely clean jacket. Considering she's laying on the ground and I'm not, I think the answer is clear.

"Like I said, where do I sign up?" She says with a small smirk of her own. I shake my head lightly, walking over to my satchel and ignoring the shakiness of my legs.

Seriously, she hit way harder than I expected. I feel sorry for whoever gets clipped by those claws in the future. I completely ignore the slight red stain showing on my clothes by now, considering all I have to do is flicker my illusion and everything is clean again.

I still think that's the most important use of my powers I've found out by the way, it works absolute wonders. I wonder what else I can abuse with that? I mean, the blood doesn't disappear and it just sort of… sloshes to the ground when the coat it was attached to is suddenly inexistent.

"-does he always do that?" A voice snaps me from my thoughts, before another joins in.

"Just ignore it when the Don does that. He gets caught up in his thoughts a lot."

"I'm standing right here you know?" I chime in, raising an eyebrow.

"You've been staring at your bag like it will unlock the secrets of the universe for over a minute," Sneasel says blankly, acting like she wasn't literally smashed into the ground by me a minute ago. I ignore the fact that I'm still slowly bleeding through my shirt, not that I feel any pain.

"Lies and slander, now here you go," I toss her a Pokeball with a slight grumble. It lands directly in front of her, since I'm not about to beat someone up and then induct them into my team by force.

From what I've seen, everyone is weirdly okay with this, but honestly I'm not all about that considering I'm actually capable of holding a conversation with Pokemon unlike basically every other trainer so I can go for a more civilized approach.

Consisting of offering the opportunity to get into lots of fights and stab things that I don't like. I never said I was a master of diplomacy. Just good at manipulation when I put the effort into it. Mostly I just default to being a sarcastic asshole.

And since Sneasel just reached forward and touched the ball, getting captured with only a couple wiggles, that actually worked. I honestly expected to just get turned away after I used the stabbing line, but it seems I managed to find a rather bloodthirsty Pokemon.

On further consideration, my other team member so far is a member of an avian mafia who casually threatened to kill people and I personally plan on killing a startlingly large number of Team Rocket members. Sneasel may fit in more than I initially thought. Hopefully I can find some less violent team members to balance us all out. Considering everything on my list…

I guess I just have to hope that if we get an Umbreon it will balance us all out. I'm not holding out on that, but a man can dream.

I walk over to the freshly caught Sneasel and pick up the Pokeball, tossing it in the air and catching it a few times before turning to Alonso. "So… any idea why she suddenly wanted to stab me after already agreeing to join our team?"

"I think she was just checking if you were a weakling and trying to be an armchair godfather, or if you could actually hold your own," Alonso explains as he lands on my shoulder.

"No, no. I get that part. But shouldn't she have done that before agreeing?" I argue, gesturing to the ball. "It seems really out of order to agree and then test me. I almost wasn't ready for it… did I just recruit a possible psycho onto the team?"

I ignore the pot and kettle that suddenly springs to mind.

Alonso looks at me funnily, like I said something strange. "What do you mean Don? That's a pretty normal thing to do. Most of us agree to go with someone we think has the potential to make us stronger, and then also who we think has potential in the future," he explains confidently.

"Most of us travel with squishy humans, if it were common I'm pretty sure I'd have heard more stories about Trainers getting their face melted off by some Pokemon," I responded doubtfully.

"Oh, yeah. They don't get tested on physical strength. They'd get clipped and we'd all be out Trainers… barring you of course. But we all know you're strange Don," Alonso states dismissively. I feel my eye twitch at this, and try my best to not smack him off of my shoulder in response. This bird leaps to my defense the moment anyone insults me, then proceeds to insult me. Where's the justice in this world?

"Thanks Alonso, really needed that last part. What would I have done without the critical knowledge I'm strange?" I mutter in a deadpan tone, rummaging through my bag for a spare potion.

"Hmm, probably forget that it's only an illusion when you aren't yourself or in human disguise, turn into me, and jump off a tree seeing if you can learn to fly," Alonso jabs, without missing a beat as I finally yank out one of the potions I purchased via idiot gambler guy. What was his name again? I should probably remember the names of people that I make hate me.

"Okay come on, there has to be a way that I can learn to make it solid. Why is this-" I gesture broadly over my entire body, "-solid when nothing else is? I can't even turn into a different human, only this. My clothes I make for this is solid too, it's ridiculous Alonso!" I complain to him, despite having already gone over this multiple times.

Scowling, I open the now sleeping Sneasel's Pokeball and look over her wounds from my attacks. None of them were too concerning, and most of them aren't going to last the next couple days. Despite that, I still spray her with a fresh potion before returning her to her new Pokeball.

"Make sense? Nothing about you makes sense Don. You're a Pokemon that acts like a human and wants to be a trainer. You somehow have the same ability as Mew but only in terms of being a Human. You're laid back and relaxed, but every time you train I think you're going to somehow manage to kill youself through overtraining. On top of that, you've declared some sort of blood grudge against a criminal organization but haven't acted on it at all besides insults," Alonso caws out in frustration, ruffling his feathers and puffing out his chest as he uses his patented glare on me. Holy shit, where'd that come from?

I'd be lying if I said it didn't work at all, damn bird has the evil eye I swear. Did he think something was off with me, like I'm not actually a Pokemon? I mentally reorganize myself and sigh, clipping the Pokeball on my belt. "Alright, where'd that come from? I'm not trained, but I think I can recognize a stress filled outburst when I see one," I say expectantly. Alonso glares back for a bit longer and I start to reconsider my guess on stress, but he slowly looks away and scowls.

"Don, I'm not kidding. I'm, well, worried. I'm supposed to act as your guard and right wing, but how do I protect you from yourself? I'm constantly worried you're going to self-destruct over the whole Union Cave fiasco, since afterwards you've been… different," he explains as he shifts his weight.

Oh damn. I mostly said that to try and shift the conversation's direction, not to get some sort of heartfelt admission. Okay Grimm, you can do this. Emotionally bonding with people is normal and fine. You aren't some edgy gremlin with an avenger complex, you're just a petty asshole who feels slighted.

"That's… well to tell you the truth, the whole Union Cave thing really shook me up. I'd been looking at the world like it was only slightly dangerous and kind of silly on some things. Then I was almost squished into a fine paste like… my impromptu travel partner was and suddenly it was beaten into me that if I want to survive I needed to get a lot stronger. Strong enough to absolutely crush anyone that would threaten me like that again. In all honesty? I'm just going after Team Rocket out of principle. If they were to disband I'd probably just beat the shit out of their executives and out them as criminals and call it a day. I just made it sound dramatic because I could," I confess, sitting down on a nearby rock. Turns out I really wasn't as over the whole Union Cave thing as I thought I was despite my general apathy and not caring about most things. Imagine that?

"So… this entire time I've been worried about you becoming a revenge obsessed dumbass for nothing? Now look, I want them clipped and taught a lesson for that whole situation, don't get me wrong, but to me it looked like you were… obsessive? Self-destructive?" Alonso trailed off, muttering a few other adjectives I gracefully ignored due to his status as my starter.

"Yeah Alonso, gonna be honest with you here. I may be an asshole but I'm not an edgy teenager. Yyyeeet," I say confidently until the end, realizing I'm technically still a baby by Pokemon standards. I'm what, 2 months old or something? When are Pokemon adults actually. Evolution?

Oh shit, do Pokemon go through puberty? Am I going to go through Pokemon puberty? Aaaand those thoughts are getting repressed.

"Uh, what do you mean by 'yet' Don?" Alonso inquires cautiously, giving me The Stare.

"Oh, uh, I'm about 2 months old or whatever. I should probably actually figure that out sometime soon, I haven't looked into it much honestly," I say casually, hoping to God that my age is normal. I say God because this situation is technically his fault and I don't care what anyone says. If it turns out there's Pokemon CPS or whatever that tries to stop me over this I'm blaming him.

Alonso goes completely still and just keeps looking at me. I wave one hand in front of his face without any reaction, and eventually resort to prodding him lightly until his brain continues to work. Yeah this doesn't look good for me, hopefully I can convince Alonso to not freak out over this.

"You're WHAT?!" Alonso squawks out, flapping his wings to right himself after one poke almost knocks him off.

"Yeah, came out of my egg a month or two ago in Azalea Forest. Met a Growlithe once I learned how to walk, really energetic guy. Wonder how he's doing actually?" I explain, thinking about Growlithe for the first time in a while. I should use Dex to check in on how Garrick is doing, wonder if they have badges yet?

"Where the fuck are your parents?!" Alonso yells at me, causing me to flinch away from the sound right next to my ear. Looks like that's a 'no' on stopping a freak out.

"Holy shit, what the hell Alonso? My ear was right there!" I complained loudly, holding one hand against my poor abused ear as Alonso flapped off of my shoulder and flew around me angrily.

"The Don is an Arceus-damned child! When I find his parents I'm going to clip their damn wings and-" Alonso says in an angry tirade, flapping his wings angrily and causing a gust of wind as he turns away from me. Does my father even have wings? Mother dearest sure doesn't at least.

"Alonso! What the hell is your problem?" I interrupt, trying to get his attention back on me before his yelling attracts Mt. Silver occupants that decide to beat the shit out of us. Seriously, I may be young but my body is still fully formed and functional. There's nothing stopping a newborn Pokemon from fighting, as I so evidently proved by getting my ass kicked by that Tododile.

"My problem is that there's no wonder why you're strange and have issues, your parents are a bunch of filthy egg-abandoners!" Alonso replies crossly, getting me to stop and realize why he's freaking out.

He thinks my parents abandoned me, and since he's very community oriented when it comes to his flock…

Oh this could be a problem. I can't exactly use the excuse that mentally I'm actually twenty something years old, since then that raises questions that can only be explained through reincarnation and time travel. Also that argument is mostly used by pedophiles trying to explain why it's fine to like someone that looks like they are 9 just because they happen to be a 3000 year old demon or elf or whatever. It makes me feel dirty even thinking of using the mental age argument.

And while I'm not some pansy that thinks things like time travel and alternate dimensions getting out would end the world or something, I really don't feel like explaining it. It'd be less of a headache dealing with this if I'm honest.

Actually, maybe it would shut him up if I told him? Or maybe he'd think that I'd make it all up due to some perceived way to deal with the "trauma" of having been "abandoned".

Was I even abandoned? I think Nurse Joy said something or other about egg thieves and smuggles being a problem, so probably not.

"-on. Don! Stop doing that spacing out thing and pay attention!" Alonso says sternly, still flapping up and down in front of me. Damn did it again, I really need to fix that problem of mine.

"Okay I can fix this, I can. I'll teach you all about being a Pokemon and I can track down your fucking cowardly-" Alonso stops himself suddenly, shaking his head. "Gotta stop using that language, not when there's a child that wasn't taught better-" he says, devolving into a mumbling fit as he looks me up and down and glaring at the air itself sometimes.

Is… is Alonso having a panic attack over this? We've been travelling for

"Alonso, calm the hell down! I'm perfectly fine without my parents, and they didn't abandon me. My egg was stolen by criminals and lost in the woods, there's no reason for you to try and hunt them down and 'clip their wings'," I state with exasperation and an unimpressed look. Alonso completely ignores me and continues with his rampant mumbling.

Ooookay then. I'm just going to move across the way and wait for him to get it out of his system. I think he just had part of his world get bitch slapped by the absolutely unimportant fact of my technical biological age. He can't possibly keep going on about this for a while, it'll be fine. He's just being dramatic.

LINE BREAK

Okay I was very wrong, he absolutely can keep going. It took him hours to stop mumbling into the air with a wide eyed look with occasional glances over to me, and directly after that he started trying to act like a responsible adult and treat me like a poor innocent child led astray by a cruel world.

Needless to say, I immediately put a stop to that line of thought on his part. First of all, he is absolutely not a responsible adult. He is a part of a literally cutthroat avian mafia consisting purely of murderous and violent Dark Type Pokemon. I've literally planned with him on how best to beat the ever loving shit out other sentient beings.

It also helps that I can beat him in a fight now, since my practice with Dark Pulse is shining through. I can use it just fine, and can even slightly lean to the sides when using it instead of having to mostly hold still. Notice I said can, and not will or have

This fact was showcased via me shooting a bunch of them over him trying to literally baby me when I went into my natural form to sleep and him dodging. Sadly, this just led to him almost tearing up over how strong I was despite my age and how I'd grow up and legendaries would fear me and how I'd be the champion of every region at once. Ace of aces, yada yada yada.

This has to be one of the strangest days of my life. Either of them actually. I manage to recruit a Sneasel into my party by promising her the opportunity to stab a lot of criminals. I then get confirmation that my illusion displacement bullshit works, despite there being no reason for me being able to turn invisible or project an image. Next my murderous bird companion is simultaneously trying to avoid cursing- unsuccessfully I might add- and treat me like a fragile baby and possible messiah instead of the violent jackass of a fox Pokemon that I am. On top of that he seems to have self-assigned himself as my new parental figure.

What is my life right now?

Okay that's actually a horrible question now that I think about it, ignore it.

And all of this because I made a single joke about my age. I just want today to be over, so I settled in to take a long sleep provided my insomnia doesn't decide to fight me.

Which is precisely when I noticed a pair of eyes staring at me from above once I looked at the sky. Desperately trying not to freak the hell out and make Alonso all protective over me, I blink a few times and focus on the body that the eyes belong to.

"Why are you staring at me silently?" I calmly ask the Absol looming over one of the outcroppings and unblinkingly staring. Alonso immediately takes notice of where I was looking and interposes himself where he can intervene just in case.

"Why does it feel like the world is ending when I look at you?" The Absol responds, ignoring my question.

"Because my life is an unending trainwreck, and existence itself seems to enjoy making my life harder than it has to be," I explain. The Absol doesn't budge an inch after my explanation, just continuing to stare.

"Can you stop staring at me like that?" I question, maintaining eye contact.

"No. I have been following you for days after spotting you in the forest, and the feeling has only gotten worse since then. I must see the disaster attached to you come to fruition. I shall not sleep or stop until that happens."

They continue to stare. I continue to stare. They stare more. I stare back, trying to figure out if they are male or female since I can't tell from the voice. They stare back. They didn't blink in the past 5 minutes. I give up and lay back on the ground. Stone is much more comfier when you have fur to cushion it, I must admit. I almost didn't care about sleeping literally wherever nowadays because of it

I should have probably guessed that trying to sleep when an Absol is staring unblinkingly at you to not possibly miss the disaster it feels would mean I wouldn't sleep. I tried my best though.

"Does your disaster sense have a timer on it so I know when my disaster is supposed to happen?" I eventually inquired, still unable to sleep even in my Zorua form.

"No." Is the simple reply I got back. Maybe I should find a brick wall to talk to instead?

"…So, what's your favorite color?"

"None."

I think it's going to be a long night.

LINE BREAK

You know, I already wasn't planning on adding an Absol onto my team and last night certainly hasn't changed my views on it whatsoever. They can follow me for as long as they like, but I'll be damned if I get stuck with them on my team.

Speaking of my team, Sneasel was awake now and outside of her Pokeball. She seemed slightly miffed about the whole illusion thing still, but in all honesty was in high spirits over the whole thing.

It may be my human mentality showing, but I still think the whole joining and then attacking was out of order.

"So, do you have a name?" I ask her, munching on a few berries I fetched from my bag. Since we haven't moved from our sleeping spot I haven't felt the need to change back into being human.

She looked at me like I was a bit off in the head. "Name? I'm Sneasal, you should know that," she states definitely before turning to stare at Absol.

"Not what Pokemon you are, your name. I'm a Zorua but I go by Grimm. Alonso there is a Murkrow. Absol…" I slowly turn to the obsessive disaster Pokemon. "Do you have a name, Absol?"

"No." They reply monotonously, still keeping its unblinking vigil.

"Riveting conversationalist as always Absol," I mutter, shaking my head as I pull out another Razz berry.

"Anyways, do you want a name? I can give you one if you want," I query the Sneasel. She looks surprised by the offer, but quickly starts to think while clacking her claws on the stone.

"Hmmm… sure! It could be fun, and I guess it'd be good to not have to learn a new name when I evolve," she reasons, giving me her full attention as she waits for her name.

Hmmm… defining traits of a Sneasel or Weavile. Snazzy looking, dual type, really fast but a glass chin, got that really Egyptian look.

Hmm, Egyptian…

What are some good Egyptian names? I'm not going with Cleopatra, I'm better at naming than that. Uhhh do any gods work? Not really, not without bastardizing the meaning. Whatever, I'm going with generic. Eventually she'll have the neck ring and headdress looking things.

"How does the name Pharaoh work with you? Opinions?" I eventually ask. She cocks her head to the side and squints at me a bit.

"What does that even mean? I've never heard that word before, is it foreign?" she inquires, having stopped drumming her claws on the stone.

You know, I wasn't even thinking of the whole fact of words and names I drop and people having no idea what they mean. That's… possibly a problem. I think people are already questioning my sanity over the whole Pokemon wanting to be a Trainer thing, this won't help.

"Oh, well it's just a name. They don't really have meaning all the time," I gesture over to Alonso, who was currently practicing moves against some loose boulders. "Take Alonso for example, I don't think his name really means anything. It sure isn't a word I know. And then there's my name, which I chose for myself because I felt like it." I explain casually, doing a full body stretch before closing my eyes and changing to human form. I reach down and close my satchel before slinging it over my shoulder.

"You could use that one, or come up with your own. Just let me know once you decide," I say with indifference. Sneasel seems to mouth the word 'Pharaoh' a few times to herself, as if testing the foreign word.

I give a quick glance at Absol, who I'm pretty sure hasn't moved the entire time, before whistling and grabbing Alonso's attention. He quickly flew over and landed on my shoulder.

"Alright team and unsettling tag-along, we're going to spend a day or two looking for a Larvitar to join us. If we can't get someone, then it's no problem. I'm pretty sure after some work, the two of you could batista bomb the starter league," I confidently state after looking at them both directly.

"Er, what's a 'Bat-ist-a Bomb'?" Sneasel asks, looking at Alonso instead of me. Rude.

"The Don has weird names for things. Just ignore it, it's better that way," Alonso eventually responds, shifting on my shoulder like he's still upset at my parents. Also, double rude.

"Ignoring that faithful comment, I think we can really shake things up in the league. I fully expect that we are going to be… unpopular with other trainers to say the least. I've already made a debut that casts me as a complete asshole, so I'm going to play that up for the cameras. That means we really need to be able to follow up on anything we do. Before we leave, we are spending a week training. After that we will return to Johto and then absolutely tear through the league. Understood?" I confidently state to my 2 teammates, slipping into my role as a leader. It's annoying to do long term, but I can certainly do it for a bit.

My eyes glance over at Absol, silently questioning if I can avoid the disaster it feels around me. Is Absol's presence prophetic, or are they attracted to the chance of disaster? All I can really hope is that I make it out alive with my team. I'm already attached to Alonso and I would have to lose Sneasel after just meeting them.

A/N

And there we go. Regular updates are back on the table.

Anyways, I have another chapter to write. Posting this midday and writing another few thousand words today.

Peace

-Taldor