A few things…

For one: I hate to ask, but if you are reading this, please understand that it would be a huge help for me as a writer if you were to leave a review whenever you can. Whether you are trolling or actually giving your commentary on my writing, just please do. This will help me so much, and it only takes a minute of your time.

Next: I wanted to leave a disclaimer here that this story, while already somewhat dark, will only get more disturbing, if subject matter related to death and hardship discomforts you, understand that it exists more and more as you read further into this story, and its upcoming prequels and sequels.

Finally: I have not been doing this, but I just wanted to get it out of the way…

I do not own pokemon! (I do wish this were canon though. Email me if you are reading this, Gamefreak.)

I closed my eyes, and reopened them, but to my surprise, the two soft red eyes surrounded in black and blue fur still were just looking into my much smaller eyes. I screamed, and suddenly, it stepped back a bit, revealing more than the little bit of its face than I had seen before. Just then, it grabbed me, and despite my struggles, the lucario had no problem holding onto me.

As a chansey came into the room, the lucario slipped through an open window with me in its arm, and ran off into the woods. Once we were deep into the woods, it set me onto the ground.

"What was the purpose of that?" I asked tiredly in the pokemon language.

"I've been trailing you for a while," it said,"you seem like you could use some assistance."

"I do," I admitted,"your way about giving me that help seems a lot more like someone would if they wanted to kidnap and kill me, the rest of the details are implied."

"Sorry," it laughed,"I'm Zed, and you're Lulu, like I said, I've been following you."

"I have reason to believe that you aren't the only one watching me." I replied, causing Robin to step back a bit, and look around.

"If not me, then who else?"

"A mysterious man has been showing up in my dreams recently, everything that has to do with him seems cold and lost, like something lost to the ages. His presence alone is enough to chill me to the bone, not to mention his voice, his skin, and the way he hides himself in a mysterious black cloak."

"It's probably just a dream," for a second, he seemed terrified before changing his expression to the blank slate that he held for the rest of our conversation.

"It's a recurring dream that lead to me finding a note in real life that seems to have everything to do with the dream, sure, it may be just a dream, but there is something real about it."

"Have you met him in real life."

"I think so," I answered,"back in the Viridian forest, I came across an old castle, and there was a cloaked figure just outside of it who gave me the same feeling as the man in the dream."

"Few humans are that powerful, to corrupt your dream, and to have some sort of a freezing aura about him, I would go as far as to say that your man is probably a gengar or some other evil spirit."

"While everything does point to something negative surrounding this person, I still am not sure about their true nature. All that I really know is that he says that he is a scientist who believes that he could use my blood to give pokemon the power of human speech and intelligence, and humans the power of pokemon abilities, and that he seems to work for the same group that started the war ten years ago."

"I have a theory as to who this man may be, but it may scare you, are you ready."

"Sure, I've wanted to know for a while."

"No." Zed looked at the ground,"That can't be correct."

"What," I asked,"What was your idea?"

"It was a stupid idea," he grumbled,"It couldn't be right."

"But what if it is?" I looked at the Lucario,"I need to know this."

"I can't feed you wrong information," he seemed annoyed with himself,"If you didn't seem as important as you are, your quest and all, I'd have killed you just after that pidgeotto weakened you for me, but a human contacted you through a human made device, strange. I became curious, and I followed you, waiting for you to prove that you weren't doing anything of real importance. "

"Oh yes," I said,"my quest is of the greatest importance, and you are a good samaritan seeking to help me, or a scoundrel prepared to betray me when it benefits you most?"

"I shouldn't have said anything," Zed chuckled,"and while I am not the former, I am far from the latter."

"Far from is too close," I complained,"Now are you going to let me move on, or are you going to keep me from progressing towards my goal longer, Zed?"

"Don't even leave town tonight?"

"Why?"

"It is the night of the new moon," Zed looked down at me,"We should stay inside."

"Do you know why the New Moon is so important?"

"My old trainer, he was cursed to experience bad luck on the night of the new moon, and I feel like that passed onto me. I lost him on the night of the new moon."

"Who was your old trainer?"

"His name was Kaleb Xyen." Zed looked around,"He was a wonderful man, and he treated both trained and wild pokemon with the utmost respect. The rest is a long story."

"Tell me."

"Kaleb changed one day. After that, he seemed to go nuts. It was totally unlike him to get married, but later into the marriage, something else happened. His wife was injured, Kaleb disappeared entirely, Kaleb's brother, Ryan fled after telling me to leave, and to never come back. I have no idea what happened to Kaleb and Rose's child."

"Kaleb Xyen had a child?"

"I admit, I never met them, Rose or the child, ever since Kaleb married Rose, he kind of disconnected from even his own pokemon."

"What can you tell me about Ryan Xyen?"

"The man was always strange, but when Kaleb disconnected, Ryan became worse than ever, lashing out at pokemon for no reason, destroying things, and eventually beginning to wear a cloak that hid him from the rest of life. His face was rarely seen after that, and those who got a glimpse of if said that they'd never forget what they'd seen."

"Do you know anything about Jack Grey?"

"I as would any human."

Zed looked at my shoulder met him briefly, but that was just before everything got really weird. Kaleb disappeared, and following Ryan's order, I fled, and never was able to find Jack Grey again."

"Any idea where Jack Grey might be?"

"None at all, but I do know that he might be working on a secret investigation about something called Team Shadow."

"If it is a secret, then how do you know that?"

"I sneak around the human towns and cities, silently waiting for something to hear about, so that I can help who needs to be helped."

"Sounds like vigilantism."

"Any reason that pokemon should follow human laws?"

"Nobody is exempt from the law."

"Why do you care about human rules?"

"I was raised to be as human as I could, hell if I know why, but I was, so I take human rules to heart, and I care for them,

"Those rules don't benefit pokemon," Zed spat,"How's your shoulder."

I felt my shoulder, the only place where there was significant scarring caused by anything in my journey thus far. The bite from the drapion was very deep, and even the pokemon center's healing technology healed it only to where a scar remained,"The man who set his drapion on you was fully within the law to assault you just because you appear to be a pokemon, yet you still respect human laws. The begs the question, what are you at heart. Do you respect humans, Lulu, do you fear them, or do you envy them?"

"I guess," I looked up at Zed,"It is a little bit of all of those three things that you mentioned. You're right though, that isn't fair, for someone to be able to attack me. The reason that laws like that are in place though, is because before humans were allowed to attack pokemon, justly or not, pokemon would run wild in human society, destroying buildings. Murdering humans. Of course, it's unfair to me, to you, to every pokemon, but that doesn't mean that I can do anything about it. I am not about to go and talk to humans."

"Don't be a fool."

"I could say the same to you," I grumbled,"if we were to try to make a change in strictly human society, what would a human who liked human rules do to us?"

"They would strike us." Zed was angry,"They would treat us like rebels, they would attempt to kill us."

"Would it not be foolishness to put ourselves in that situation."

"Change is good."

"Sure it is, but I will not endanger my own being."

"What are you at heart, a human, a pokemon, something lesser, or something greater?"

"Easily something lesser," I muttered,"I am a weakling, a coward, someone who is afraid enough of humanity, that I refuse to try to make change where it is right."

"Why not try?"

"As you know." I turned away,"I have another quest, and I must finish it, no matter the cost."

"Why must you finish it?"

"I don't know, but maybe I'll find out who and what I am."

"Lulu, you already know what you are."

"That's not true."

"You said it yourself, but that doesn't matter, what you said, what some human said. What you are is up to you to decide, will you take that opportunity?"

"That makes no sense." I began to walk away,"I am what I am, and I can't change that. I was born to suffer. I was born knowing that the gift of humanity was just out of my reach, and that I was to live as a weak pokemon for eternity. That I was to live as prey, as an organism without the proper skills to defend itself."

"That is a horrid, hopeless outlook on life."

"All other outlooks on life would get me killed!" I exclaimed,"I learned that long ago, I used to be happy, I used to be all smiles and optimism. I used to think that I was something special."

"Why did that have to end?"

"It ended because I was attacked. I was attacked by an ekans who I had trusted, and why? Nobody knows, it was just in the nature of an ekans to attack a pichu who seemed helpless, an easy kill. It only let go of me because my friend attacked it."

"That's a shame."

"Everything leading up to that had been part of a game as well."

"So now, you don't trust anything about life, and believe that nothing will be ok because we're all destined to be killed and eaten by something bigger than us."

"Close," I nodded,"but some species are lucky to have no predators, and get to live out their natural lives until they die of sickness, are killed by another pokemon defending itself, or pass on, simply from old age, it's totally unfair."

"Not necessarily," The lucario chuckled,"When you think about it, smaller pokemon breed a lot more, and would overpopulate, causing each other to painfully starve to death, unless there were bigger pokemon around, to, let's say,"Control the populations," so that I don't offend you."

"Offend me?" I turned around,"As if. The system is unfair, that's what I'm worried about."

"Because you have to mess up your fur, and scratch your skin a little bit to get from one end of a forest to another without being killed by a larger pokemon? Really unfair, misses entitled, I have to spend the majority of my life hunting if I want to survive, and the fact that if I fail one too many hunts, I painfully starve to death is enough to keep me going."

"Great," I chuckled,"it's fair for you, so tell me, is it hard to pick on pokemon smaller than you, is it really that hard?"

"No," Zed looked around,"I guess not, the hard part, is finding a suitable prey, then stalking them until it is the perfect time to strike."

"Great," I said,"so by now, I've fallen deep into your trap."

"No," he replied,"Like I said, I don't intend to harm you."

"I'll believe that when you're starving, that is if you keep following me for very long, I

don't assume you've gotten bored of me yet."

"If you were boring, you'd be dead."

"Then I'd best keep my adventure interesting."

"I won't be watching from the sidelines anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because I want to be a part of it."

"That worries me."
"I'm joining you. Lulu, whether you like it or not."

"I don't seem to have a say in it."

"You're right about that."

"I'm leaving now."

"Not on the night of the full moon."

"I'm leaving now, Zed," I began walking away briskly, and he followed me.

"If either of us get hurt because of the curse, it's your fault."

"I don't care."

"I know that you care, Lulu, you seem to prioritize your survival above all else."

"You're following me," I responded,"If I were afraid for my life before, I can just be

relieved now, my worries were correct, I'll be killed sooner or later."

"You're still afraid of me?"

"Of course I am."

"Nevermind, can we wait until morning to travel?"

"No," I said,"I'm done listening to other people," Come if you please, I'm on my way.

Zed did follow me, and while he constantly tried to get me to stop for the night, his pleas were to no avail.