Shadow's POV

I nearly yelled out in surprise. Right there, like an identical, small copy of myself, was a snivy. Even worse, even more horrifying and unbelievable, it looked just like me. It had that shadowy black and dark violet color in all the right parts. The only other thing that was different was the fact that it had normal amber eyes instead of my river blue eyes. I picked up the snivy with trembling hands, and dropped it harshly on the forest floor. Where in the name of Arceus did that buneary get this mutation from? When I looked at it, it was like looking in one of those distortion mirrors at a carnival that made me look smaller. Let alone where, but HOW could the buneary get this? It was crazy, unbelievable, and freakish!

In mid-thought, the snivy jumped out and hugged me with its tiny little arms. It was cute, I couldn't stand it. I hated cute, it distracted everybody from the real world. Suffering, starving, disappointments, the thought made me push the creature off balance with my violet-colored foot. The snivy fell, and then climbed wobbly back onto its feet in front of me on the mossy floor, and his amber eyes glimmered in the afternoon sunlight. I saw his eyes fill with tears, and he bawled out in a fit… unbelievable!

"Stop it!" I demanded as I couldn't take another second of this retarded abomination. He wouldn't stop, and a horrifying thought came to mind, I had to treat him with kindness. I shivered at the thought. Kindness was like a disguise, you can use it to get in good with anyone, even if you are cruel, shy, stupid, or basically any other personality. I picked up the baby, holding back an urge to slap the crying snake for being covered with berry juice, most likely from the crushed berries in the basket, and kind of rocked it, remembering some stuff I saw mothers did in the forest with their little cubs.

"There, there little…" I was about to scream 'imbecile', but I was able to hold it back. "…Darling, don't cry… don't cry." I couldn't believe I just said that! I wanted to puke in the river, but that could just make it worse somehow; I could have puked on the baby… but it could actually enjoy that, I don't know, babies are weird. Still ignoring the berry juice that stained his reptilian skin, I carried him toward the lazy river bank.

I bathed him in the shallowest water of the river, careful not to let him get carried away by the weak current, and splashed the water on him. He flinched a bit, but I continued. I didn't care what he thought. I didn't care it was too cold or too whatever. He was just another Pokémon, nothing special, well, except the unusual color that for some unnatural coincidence looks like me. I wondered if he could use different kinds of poison and dark type moves like me, but it was too early for him to learn how to battle. I continued to bathe him, and wash my sticky hands covered in berry juice in the process.

When finished, I carried him inside my den. He squirmed in my hands, but I didn't care about that either, except for how annoyed I felt. When inside, I put him down on the wooden floor and watched to see what he would do. His first action was to run. He started to dash toward the wall of my den, farthest wall from the door, and ended up face-first into one of the walls. He fell, but he stood back up and stared at me. I never understood Pokémon babies, and their crazy actions along with it. He then ran up to me, tripped, but then started to run up weakly to me again. I gave that expression that said 'Really?', and just stood there in annoyance. He then finally reached me after tripping a second time, and hugged me! He must have thought that I was his father… or mother since I was the first one he saw when he hatched, since I assumed he hatched in the basket. Man, and when I thought I had enough trouble going on right now.

I pushed him away, but he kept running up to me. Finally, I thought that in order to get him tired and exhausted, I had to let him run around outside. I picked him up and carried him out the door and placed him on the grass near the river. While he ran around, finally ignoring me and giving me some relief, I watched the sun set and the moon start to rise. The stars started to spread around in the sky and the whole world was covered in a thick midnight blanket. I lay down on the autumn blades of grass and stared at the stars that shined like diamonds.

What could I do? I hated children, they are just so annoying! I could give the kid away, but what the forest Pokémon are rude, so if I left and dropped this kid off with some other Pokémon of the forest, they will look at him as they did for me when I came into this forest; a freak. They will bully him to a pulp, and I couldn't let him go through that, not how I did. One thing he could be wandering the forest and second thing his tail could be broken in a starly tree. I couldn't leave him here, and no matter what I do around here, he would become like me, a grass snake that grew up to be tortured as a kid and mean as a teen. Well, not like I'm a teen, but if he grew up at my rate, he might as well be. I had no choice, if I didn't want to take care of him; I had to do it in order for him to have a good life.

I stood up and stretched my tired limbs, and after, I looked around for the annoying scoundrel. He was by the river, watching the swimming magikarp. I walked over and watched it with him. It was boring, but he seemed to love it. While he was distracted, and not being a pain, I got my tail ready, and knocked a magikarp out of the water onto the grass terrain. The baby snivy kept yipping and cheering,

"Yip, yip, yip!"

It was cute, and again, I couldn't stand it. I watched the flopping magikarp. I liked starring at the fish than at the baby, but watching the magikarp wanted me want to puke.

"Yuck, this fish is making me want to…" I realized that I was saying this out loud and didn't want to say anything like 'puke' or 'throw up' around the kid. I looked at him and saw him staring right back at me. "… It's making me want to... go eke?" I said, making it sound more like a question than a statement.

"Eke, eke, eke," he mimicked. "Zeke, zeke, eke," he mimicked again, but saying it the first two times wrong the second time and he looked at the magikarp again. Then, I got an idea from him saying Zeke.

"Hey, uh, kiddo," I said, trying to get his attention. He looked up from the scaly fish and stared at me. "Do you want to be called Zeke buddy? Do you like that boy?" I said as if he was a poochyena or a growlithe. He yelled,

"Zeke, yay, Zeke, Zeke, yay!" He sounded like a little baby, which he was, but I knew what he was saying, he liked the name.

"Aw, you're a good kid, and its official, your name is Zeke." He kept yelling his name in the ebony colored night. I started to walk inside, hoping Zeke would follow, or not, either way, it didn't really matter. When inside, I collapsed on my straw bed and my eyes closed and I tried to sleep. All my muscles started to relax and I tried to sink in a deep slumber.

"Zeke! Zeke!" The voice squealed in my cabin. My bloodshot eyes shot open to see Zeke standing inches away from my face. He looked tired, and without any place to let him sleep, I lifted my arm, and he crawled under it and I wrapped my arm around him. It was sickening to me, but it was surprisingly warm. It was easy to fall asleep, so I drifted off into a dream land.

I was in a forest, one that was full of Snivys, Servines, and Serperiors. I couldn't stop smiling. I wasn't judged for what I looked like, and in fact, I was loved for my unusual color and special powers. I had a bunch of friends, and our chief, a Serperior, protected our clan from other Pokémon. It was the best, and everything seemed perfect and I knew I was in White Forest.

One spring morning, I was practicing my leaf blade with another snivy when I heard a cry. It sounded familiar, but I didn't really recognize it. I called off the practice and dashed toward the sound. It was from a TV in the house that we were training by. A window was open which explained how I heard the squealing sound, so I crawled on top of a haystack that lay under the window and peered into the old-fashioned home.

The TV set was worn down and inside sat an old woman in a rickety rocking chair. On the TV, what I saw before my blue eyes was Zeke and scientists. Memories flew back to my brain and I remembered that a long time ago I left Zeke in the log den. He must have been found and experimented on. His eyes were no longer amber, but it was a mix of purple and yellow. It looked really weird, and he looked helpless. I could tell he was about to cry and sob. I shouldn't have left him there. I should have taken him with me. He would never have been forced to be tested on. I wish I could change the past. My whole body started to fill with an emotion that I never felt before; guilt. If only I brought him with me on my journey…

I flung out of my bed and was breathing heavily. I lightly slept all night and when I jumped out of bed, I brought Zeke with me, and he was face down on the hollow log floor, not crying. I picked him up and settled him right side up, and he wobbled back to the straw bed with baggy eyes. He collapsed on the bed as I did the last night, and I started to feel worried. I had to leave on a journey in about a day, but I couldn't just leave the baby grass snake here. My dream was possibly going to happen if I didn't think of something quick.

Suddenly, it struck me like a lightning bolt.

I had to take Zeke with me; I had no other choice that would make us both happy. I hated that kid, but some urge inside me kept me from wanting to give him away. He would slow me down, but that annoying urge was telling me to take him with me. I could have just stayed, but I wanted a chance to be with my own kind, so I knew what I had to do...

"Zeke, wake up, wake up," I hollered at Zeke, trying to wake him up. I shoved him to wake him up as well, and I didn't care if he was sleepy, it was for his own good.

Zeke rolled over to face me and his amber colored eyes were partially bloodshot.

"Zeke, would you like to go on a little trip?" I asked. He looked exhausted, but when I mentioned the trip, he still had that tired look on his face, but he sprang up on his feet in enlightenment. Even if he was tired now, he would shrug it off, and we'll go to sleep earlier today, if he did good work at all, if not, than we would go late at night till we got everything we needed.

Yeah, it sounded cruel, but that was part of who I was.

All day we fetched extra berries and apples in the forest. We purified water from the river and bottled it than through the bottle in the basket, than gathered up straw in the forest for straw beds for when we have to sleep anywhere. Last we took any leftover supplies that would be left over in the floating log cabin that I call a bibarel den. Yes, this sounds a little humane, but have you seen how easy lives are for humans, they have the good life, so why not try and do stuff like how they do? So now was a time for Pokémon to take it up a notch.

We slept all night than we prepared to leave. Yesterday was pretty successful with everything we scavenged. We packed up, transported everything from the basket to a small leather case that was like a backpack, or satchel, that was mixed together and we carried everything easily like how you can carry a whistle around your neck. When sure that we had everything, besides the leftover berry juice from years back that stained the floor, we set off through the forest and started our journey to a home where we belonged, together, that I could hardly stand.