As I stood before Naert in my favourite form, silence filled the air between us. She was staring at me with solidified face expression of some mix of angry and surprised, that I wasn't sure what could I expect, happiness or rather a flamethrower. I didn't know what should I do now, no matter how I wanted her back my explanation would be pointless. That wasn't something that could be forgotten or ignored, I was just different, changed. I could depend only on that she would believe and...

"Myron? But how?" these word seems to escape her mouth since her ears perked as it was some unexpected sound.

"I... I always was like that," I said, it was hard to focus on speaking while so many though were rushing through my mind. It was hard to say that I was lying to her so long, it was hard to think that I really lied to her. "I wanted to tell you that earlier but, but I couldn't. Fear that you would think about me different then you were, was, I just couldn't."

I lose eye contact with her as I sat down and stared at the ground. Was I really that bad to be afraid to say it? But I did it now and it didn't make me feel better.

"Please, say something," I asked when my stress reached a higher level, my heart was beating extremely fast as I was in uncertainty.

"Sorry," she said silent and I immediately looked up to see if she was about to leave, she wasn't. "Sorry that I left you, that I didn't return when I had a chance. Forgive me that I stayed blind to your problems."

She stood up and walked closer to me.

"When you tried to tell me about that I was too afraid. You were ideal for me, you taught me how to live. You shared with me your home, knowledge, cared about me, fed me when I was hungry and defended when I was scared. When you started telling about distortion world and Giratina I was too afraid. I was afraid that life which we had would end, that we wouldn't be happy anymore, that you could be someone different than I thought you were.

"But only after some time passed, I realised how much I hurt you that my run couldn't prevent changes and learned that no matter how different you would be, you still will be the same pokemon which I met. That there is now my time to support you just like you were support for me," her voice broke down at the end of the sentence and single tear went through her face. I was astonished, she was thinking that it was her false, that she hurt me while it was me and my lies.

"You shouldn't blame yourself if I would tell you at..."

"Ah shut up and come here," she cut me off and I felt that invisible force throw me ahead in her soft and tight hug. At first surprised I enjoyed the touch burrowing my head in her fur on the neck and closing my eyes.

"So you believe me? Don't you think that I made some illusion as espeon?" I asked didn't let her go just as she didn't let me.

"You wouldn't be able, it passed thirty years, some young espeon wouldn't be able to deceive me. I don't speak about it but I became really good in psychic," she spoke in my ear. "So, do you forgive me?"

"It was really..."

"Don't argue whose fault it was, just forgive me please," she breathed in my ear.

"Okay, I forgive you, how could I not?" I whispered as I opened my eyes. I saw that new tears appeared on her face and that she had her eyes closed just like me second ago. I wanted to wipe her tears with my leaf but quickly found out that I hadn't any leaves and there is a weak yellow glow around me. Not having leaves I licked her tears and she patiently waited as I was doing that. Then she rested her head on my neck and I did the same. I didn't know how much time had passed as we were enjoying each other's presence but it seems that both of us were tired after this day. Still together we laid side by side and I felt as Naert warm tails covered me.

Before we fall asleep she opened her eyes once more time.

"Is it still you?" she asked as she noticed my different appearance.

"Yes it is still me," I answered, ready to fall asleep at any moment. She smiled and rested her head close to mine, closing her eyes.

I woke up before sunrise but I felt well rested, as I opened my eyes I met Naert's eyes already staring at me.

"Hello sleepyhead," she greeted me.

"Wasn't that me who was waking up earlier?" I said rubbing my head through her neck, it was so warm and soft that I could fall asleep again without any effort. It was the thing which I was missing so long, some warm at night, someone who would be worth my wakings.

"A lot of time had passed and things changed," she stated as she stood up and stretched. "So could we talk about things which you wanted to say me back then? Why are you umbreon or espeon while I remember you only as leafeon? What is your real name, Lasota or Myron?"

As I remained lying down, she really wanted me to talk about it. I didn't need to force any hard speech, all I needed was just answer her questions.

"I actually can change into every eeveelution, all that I need is contact with each element, plants to leafeon, darkness to umbreon and the sun for espeon," I started my explanation. "You remember that arcanine from yesterday? He was talking about distortion world and Giratina. I was probably born there, I not actually sure but my latest memory is from that different world. Young eevees evolve into the way in which they train themselves, I actually never evolved but I gained an ability which changes my appearance depends on my environment.

"But it is not completely transformation into a different type, I can't breathe fire as flareon or shooting ice as glaceon, psychic as espeon I learned recently as my internal changes still progress. There is also a problem with me as jolteon as I can't control myself in that form."

She was listening patiently not breaking eye contact, it seemed that she really wanted to understand me and wasn't scared.

"What about the name?" she reminded me after I paused.

"Myron and Lasota," I repeated my two names "Both of them are faked, I just named myself after them as I don't want to use my real one. After I left Distortion World I decided that I won't be Giratina's servant and tried to forget everything about her. She gave me a name...and it was my first name so I guess it is my real name now. But I really don't want using or remember this one. "

"So what should I name you?" she asked and broke eye contact looking around through the wall of bushes.

"Whatever you want, but last time I was using Sinar," I answered trying to find out on what she was looking in the bushes. Then she stood up and walked closer to them. I saw that on this one bush before Naert were still fruits but after a moment they fly off the twigs moved by psychic and disappeared in ninetales mouth. She didn't change too much.

"What were you doing all this time. You said that you became good at the psychic, someone taught you or are you self-taught?" I asked also standing up just as the sun appeared on the horizon.

"First five years I was just blindly wandering where my feet took me but it wasn't a journey which we had together. I was just moving from place to place without any purpose to live. Then I became desperate to have a goal and I let human to catch me," she paused for a while as if to gather thoughts. Here I regretted that I wasn't espeon so I could look what was in her head. "I don't know what I was thinking then, that I could live as if I would never meet you? I didn't enjoy my time as trainer's pokemon as I enjoy now. Before you showed me the wilderness I didn't enjoy my trainer at all, but I couldn't run away. With time I get used to it, to eating dry food, to obeying commands, to fighting in an arena. I spent like that ten years or even more, I am not sure. This trainer was travelling to different places in the world and it is possible that I missed some winters in my calculations. The only advantage of that was that I was training psychic these years. He finally becomes bored of the journey.

"Then he returned to his home and I get a lot of free time which I needed to spend somehow. So I started thinking about my future, ninetales can live thousand years so I would be probably given from generation to generation of this trainer. I didn't want to become an object and repeat trainer's journey again and again until I die. Then I started to feel very guilty that I left you but I thought that it was too late, that you already died and ...wait, how are you still alive? Domesticated eeveelutions usually live sixty years but those in the wilderness have a shorter life. I mean, I knew that you are still alive only thanks to psychic that's why I still had a hope to look for you. But you don't even get old, only a little gaunter than you were, just if your time has stopped."

Am I gaunt?

I never paid any attention to my appearance, maybe only to leaves as leafeon but besides that, it was completely indifferent to me. But now as Naert pointed it became for a moment most important thing, only for a moment then I also noticed that I wasn't umbreon any longer and changed to leafeon not even thinking about it, it was luck that I didn't change to espeon while I was distracted. I couldn't imagine myself trying to clean my leaves, flippers, spikes, and a lot of fur of every of my form every day nor that I knew how I should do it.

"It is just one of my changes, I don't know how long I can live but it seems that I am not getting older. But isn't it better? You won't outlive me and we could meet again," I said and leant on her side once again, I couldn't get tired of her.

"Is there anything more that should I know about you? You can say it, I won't be scared the second time," she said calmly. It was one more thing.

"Yes, it is one more thing. You probably noticed that there is no sight of injuries which arcanine gave me," I said presenting my flank and neck where arcanine's claw met my body. I would probably look just like this arcanine if I couldn't heal myself.

"So he really hurt you? I thought that I foresaw that since you stood up," she worried carefully examine me.

"Yes but I can heal my wounds very fast and even these which should kill me," I thought for a moment if should I present this like I did to Rea but decided that won't be necessary. Then I reminded what I heard while I was fighting arcanine, that Rea would be next who Giratina planned to made her servant. I didn't know what promise could lure Rea to thing like that but I barely knew her, maybe she had some wish which Giratina could use.

"We need to go back," I slurred, still deep in thoughts.

"Back? Where? Don't you mean that place where so many fire types died?" groaned Naert.

"No I mean to the eeveelutions pack where you were heading earlier, it is possible that something bad will happen there," I explained, the problem was that I didn't know where we actually were. I didn't recognise this environment. "You know the way, right?"

"Yeah sure," she replied and pointed to the north. How did I even appear on this bank of the lake?

"I dragged you here since you fall unconscious after the fight," Naert answered on my never spoken question.

"I didn't say anything," I perplexed.

Yes I know, I heard strange but at the same time familiar voice in my head.

I looked at her weirdly and she answered with a smile, it was very weird to have someone who read my mind.

"Didn't you say that you need to focus really hard to be able to read other's mind?" I asked reminding her short psychic lesson.

"I did but you were espeon then, it is hard to read the mind of psychic as they are complicated, now you are like an open book," said ninetales still smiling as we started our walk around the lake to Rea's pack. "Who is this Rea anyway? Some friend of yours?"

"Didn't you read this already?" I questioned.

"Reading through and memories isn't the same, thoughts just fly around. It is much harder to read someone's memories and I would do it but it is always a risk that after that you could forget some of them become crazy or even get some permanent disadvantage," she proved again to me that psychic didn't have any secrets for her. "And I don't want to replace every talk just by reading what you have on your mind. So who is this Rea?"

"It is flareon, I was helping her to get to her pack safely. Someone ordered her to catch me, which she did, but later they tried to kill her to keep her silent, so she freed me and I helped her...with her problem," I gave her short version what happened and stopped when I was about to tell her earlier events. How I could explain that I was killing more than two times per week everyone who I met around my mountain, that with killing I tried to fulfil my time which could I spend suffering thinking which I lost.

You don't need to say it if it is too hard for you but if you want to share it with me just think about it, I will listen.

At first, I wanted to decline maybe even lie that nothing important happened but it wouldn't free me. These things would return sooner or later, so as we were heading to the north I started to think. From the very start, training for Giratina, suffering and pain of changes, my fear during that, a day when I left Distortion World, first prey, second and third, I didn't remember next it melted with each other, it was so many of them. Day after day until the moment when I was about to destroy Distortion World barriers but I decided otherwise. Next stage of my life as I tried to live as peacefully as my hunger allows me that, I was being of Giratina, legendary of death, every kill, scream and fear on this world was like music to her ears. While I was memorising my past I was looking at Naert, she wasn't commenting she was only looking ahead and only her face expression and frequency of wagging of her tails were changing as I was releasing new and new parts of my past. Not everything was completely new to her since I told her about some of my adventures as we were together but now she could see it as a whole.

It took me half of the day of going through the good and bad memories, half of the day of speechless talk but I finally shared everything that I could remind at this moment and waited on what she would say.

"You did a lot of bad things," she finally said and I felt that I was sinking in myself. What would she do now, could she hate me? Be scared of me? Or leave me again!? What if she...

Stop.

I noticed that as I was distracted by my though she looked straight at me.

"Myr...Sinar, you killed more than once, but you were forced to do so, you had to choose, become predator or die in hunger. You chose like everyone would. I won't leave you again. I will help to go through this, we will go through this together, starting from helping Rea and ending at Giratina, then we may return to our secret valley, to the den under the willow and live there as long as our long lives manage to keep us in this world," she spoke and my fears immediately disappeared replaced by familiar warm feeling in my chest. I really had someone on who I could depend on, who loved me and who I loved.

She was leading me again, not that I had a problem with going behind her, but following someone wasn't something to which I was used to doing. I couldn't recognise anything around just yet but trees and bushes started to become familiar to the ones I saw when I split up with Rea. Light green leaves on deep brown twigs of medium sized trees of broad branches. The sun made it halfway through the sky covered in sporadic white clouds.

We weren't walking by any forest path but also nothing was standing on our way. The ground was covered by mosses, small twigs, and leaves which fell to the ground probably even before the winter making the ground very soft and comfortable to walk. I wasn't sure if Naert was still listening to my thoughts so I tried not to think. It was actually pleasant feeling after so long time spent as espeon. But maybe if I was trying thinking about nothing then Naert felt that I was trying to hide something, not that I am enjoying the moment.

No, that's fine, if you would lie or try to hide something, I would feel it too.

Now I could be sure that she was still listening to my thoughts and if I remember correctly, she said that she needs to put some effort to do that since she wasn't psychic type but fire with...what exactly? Psychic possibilities? Was it some after-type?

"Ninetales are actually weird if it comes to thing what we can do. We are as fire-type but we don't have problems to learn things of different types like a ghost, dark or psychic. However, I focused only fire and psychic," she spoke.

"That is almost like my type changing," I said surprised by her possibility, maybe if we would have some more time I ask her to teach me some fire thing as espeon or if my changes would be still progressing also as flareon.

Sure, that would be fun.

"But you are quite good as espeon, who taught you?" she added in normal speech, I didn't want to say it but her psychic was getting me tired and confused.

Oh, sorry.

"No one actually, I had few sporadic situations when I tried to use my psychic power but generally I failed every attempt to use it, I don't know exactly what happened back then in this fight, I just tried and 'poof' it happened. I doubt that I can repeat that," I answered her, now really trying to don't add any internal comment, I found it hard to stop my thoughts.

"That seems that both of us were lucky that this happened, this arcanine beat me quite fast, I last time, when I was beaten like that, was... well it was you who beat me when I was still vulpix. Since then I didn't lose a fight," she said, taking pride pose. Every time when she did that, I had a feeling that time had stopped for a second, as if it was a dream in reality or some kind of hypnosis which pinned my eyes to her and blocked my mind to doing anything different than just looking.

I wouldn't be doing that if it wouldn't be effective.

I snapped out as she giggled; but I wasn't shy to look away or to blush. We weren't some young lovers who may struggle to admit their attraction, and her sight was something that was making me happy.

"So, since you can be leafeon, espeon and umbreon then...,"

"And every other eeveelution," I added.

"...right, But then which one is umm, your true appearance? I mean, you need to have some base form from which you transform to different," she inquired. It seems that my ability took her attention but that wasn't an everyday thing.

"Eevee," I answered faster than I thought. She immediately stopped and quickly turned to me.

"What?!" she squealed. Was it something wrong with that? Did I say something that she didn't want to hear? "You need to show me! Eevees are so adorable and cute..."

"NO! Please, everything but not 'cute', it is weird to be called like that," I said very ashamedly as I lowered my ears instinctively and tried to hide behind me leaves. I didn't like my primal form too much, it was gathering of weakness. I felt defenceless as eevee, completely depending on my environment. "I may show you some day. But even then don't call me... like that."

"Uhm, okay, I am sure that it's not that bad as you may things it is but would it mean that you didn't evolve?" Maybe should I show her second part of my past, not only things which I did in this world but also the thing which happened to my in Distortion World?

"Well, there was a time when I tried to discover how much about myself as I could since I didn't know my body and I was curious," I said. "As you know evolution always takes this few second and it seems that I stuck in this process, just evolving and devolving over and over again in the same moment. Why does my type is changing depending on the environment?It's some replacement for real evolution.

"Add to this Giratina's manipulations like exposing young me to strange violet clouds in Distortion World, changing gravity and some opposition of concept of matter. I never discovered what the last one thing was, it is something that Giratina can control and it is something different to everything that we know," I explained to Naert as we continued our walk through the forest, now side by side.

Antimatter is opposition to the matter, even if there was a void somewhere it wouldn't look as empty as antimatter: a thing that was absorbing everything in its surroundings. It was like a hole without a bottom, what falls into there never comes back, only Giratina was able to use it, I had it inside. That was a thing that made my existence possible just like it was in this arcanine, making him still alive even if he shouldn't be alive. That was this dark mass of rage and hate, of deepest nothing. It was hard to imagine completely nothing, the world around taught us that there is always something, even if I would try to imagine 'nothing' maybe as darkness then it won't be the same as antimatter, where even darkness doesn't exist.

Now you try to bore me to death with this wandering? I got it, void of some sort.

"Um sorry. I just can't get used to your..." Seeing? Hearing? "...knowing what I think, I have a feeling that you are just showing your psychic," I said.

"A little," she spoke, " I was wondering, how were you able to hide all these abilities from me by whole three years, I remember that even in the night you were leafeon and I never caught you murdering some pokemon."

Murdering, that sounds bad, I thought.

"Well, that wasn't easy to pay attention to always be in contact with some plants but I managed to do it. About food, I could live these month or two just by sun and water but it was exhausting. Sometimes I was sneaking out for a day or two with some excuse," I said, "It was usually when you started to smell too good for me."

"What? You were thinking about me as a food?!" she said surprised.

"No! I would never do that!" I immediately regret what I said. "It was just a smell," I added innocently. I shouldn't be joking like that, now every time when I say that I like her smell she would remind me of this and won't take it as a compliment. What if she would start to think that I couldn't control myself and try to hurt her. I was more than once in great hunger but it never became anything more than a feeling, something that could take control on me.

"You keep forgetting that I can hear your thoughts but that calmed me. I will try not reminding that," Naert said with her usual pleasant and little seductive voice which she used to use when she was talking with me. I luxuriated in her voice as familiar feeling in my chest appeared and grew. Firstly I was happy that I could feel it again, but then I started to feel weird since the feeling wasn't pleasant in anything in which it should, it was growing inside of my chest and started to become painful blocking my breath. I coughed trying to clear my throat but it didn't help, my breath changed to gasping.

"What is wrong?" Naert worried seeing that I slowed down trying to throw out invisible thing from my throat coughing and rasping fighting for oxygen. Naert quickly walked behind me and hit me few times with her paw in my back trying to help me. But that didn't help and being already weakened I fall to the ground because of the strength which she put into her paw.

"Don't give up, I'll try using psychic," Naert stuttered scared but I knew that it won't help. Nothing was in my throat, it was something in my chest which was making me a pain of agony blocking my breath. The pain wasn't visible to Naert since I couldn't scream, only writhing on the ground, kick the air around and choke.

The feeling disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, clearing my throat. I breathed deeply and went into another wave of coughs but now I could breathe. Naert was standing above me waiting as I caught my breath.

"What was that? Are you ill? I thought that you were going to die," she bombarded me with questions looking at me with worry in her eyes just as my breath became calmer. I started standing up and she immediately helped m with her muzzle.

"Tghaa," I tried to say but my voice didn't return to me yet. "That was nothing," I finally said harshly. I wanted to explain what exactly happened but I needed a while before my voice returned to me. I looked around, maybe it would be something to drink what could help, it wasn't.

"You can't say that was nothing. You almost died here, I, I don't know what I would do if you would die in front of me. Please tell me is it anything what could I do?" she asked.

Just wait a moment, I thought, hoping that she was listening to my thoughts. She nodded. After few minutes of rest and clearing my throat I thought that I could speak finally.

"Naert," I said mainly to try my voice but also to take her attention, it wasn't necessary since she was paying all her attention to me as if I was about to suffocate again. "I told you that I was changed and my changes are still progressing, that's how it looks like."

"So, that was normal for you? That is terrible! How often does this happen?" she said that fast that it took me a while to understand what she just spoke.

"Actually, not too often; my last one was a week ago but it was the first one since I left Distortion World," I answered, quickly calculating days when I and Rea ran from ghosts pokemon horde.

"I hope that won't be too often. You said that it changed you somehow but you still are leafeon with normal appearance," she spoke.

"Each change gives me a new ability. Last change allowed me to use psychic as espeon, this one well we need to find out. It didn't expand my skills as leafeon that for sure since I don't feel a difference, I doubt it would be something form espeon form again and for sure that wasn't for me as jolteon," I said trying to guess what could it be.

"Why no jolteon?" she asked puzzled. "What so special in this form?

"It is probably a way of evolution in which I would go if I would be 'normal' eevee. I can use electricity as jolteon but can't control it, it is quite useful in combat since is very powerful but generally it is more problems with than benefits," I explained. Also, it was hard to find electricity in nature, only storms had some of it and other electric pokemon which I didn't meet too often.

It wasn't long when we stood at the edge of the familiar looking clearing with tall stones at the opposite side. I actually wasn't sure how I was supposed to meet with Rea, should I just walk in the pack, yelling her name or better would be to ask someone where she could be. We walked between the stones and we weren't walking long before we found a sleeping umbreon in the middle of the narrow patch. The umbreon, even sleeping, was strong and bulky and Rea's snoring was nothing compared to theirs. I had a feeling that I can sense vibrations of the air when the umbreon was snoring.

"I guess that's a guard," Naert said unsure.

"Let's find out," I answered and poked the back of the umbreon. He wheezed but didn't wake up.

Why is a nocturnal guarding during the day? I thought.

I poked him once again, this time much harder.

"What?" he yawned angrily as he opened his eyes and stood up, I thought that when he was lying he was big but when he stood up I had a feeling as if I changed to eevee. Even the houndoom I met earlier, Gloim, was shorter than him. Now I could understand why he was a guardian.

"Oh, hello!" he added completely ignoring me, speaking straight to Naert, I immediately didn't like him for the way in which he said it. It irritated me.

Someone is jealous! I heard Naert's mental voice.

If it was how being jealous feels like then yes I was. I lifted my leaf-tail and blocked umbreon's view on Naert, who was taking his attention.

"Hey, it is me with who you are talking," I snapped. "We are looking for a flareon, female, her name is Rea and I know that she belongs to this pack, do you know where is she?"

"What was her name?" umbreon asked obviously paying me much less attention than I thought he was looking at my tail as if he wanted to make a hole in that just by looking at it.

"Focus. R-e-a," I taunted saying this letter by letter as if I was about to explain something that he couldn't understand, now I had his full attention.

"You are not from this pack," he noticed still not answering my question. I would take him as dumb not able to make proper conversation but his voice tone and sight were telling me otherwise.

"No I am not, we are just looking for Rea," I said, emphasising 'we'. Then I thought that maybe I wasn't that much different than others, defending a mate was a normal thing.

"Just wait until this umbreon challenges you, in the name of normality," Kilian remarked.

I hoped that wouldn't happen. Not that I was scared, it was just that he was from Rea's pack, he was also eeveelution, and I still had unchecked changes, so I didn't know what I could do and what I couldn't do. Changes were not always adding a thing, sometimes was just replacing or deleting some ability. I remember once I could change a colour of my umbreon's rings but with time I lost that ability.

"She is not here," he answered me shortly. "And as you do not belong to this pack I can't let you in," it seems that he wanted to play my game as he put more accent on 'you'.

"If she is not here then I don't need to enter, but where did she go?" I hoped that she wasn't already kidnapped by Giratina.

"She was ill from some...weird illness and she went with two of her friends to find a cure," he answered me and now without any wickedness or he just couldn't find where to put it.

"Thanks," I said and turned to walk away, Naert who was all the time standing behind me followed me. I was looking at a corner of my eye if she looked back at umbreon. To my happiness, she didn't.

"I would say that you don't need to be infatuated with me but I think I like it," she purred in my ear as we made some distance from the entrance and its guardian.

I wasn't sure if I liked it, this umbreon really irritated me but fact that I found another normal thing in me made me feel good. But why did I get angry so fast? Was it just the way he spoke 'hello' or maybe his much more showy stance?

I saw that Naert was smiling, probably reading my thoughts but she didn't comment on them.

"So, we are about to find this flareon but she wasn't where we thought she would be. What now?" asked Naert as we stopped after wall of bushes which were separating a clearing from the rest of the forest. I actually wasn't sure how we could find her, looking for track and scent was some way to find her but Naert wasn't probably good at that...

No, I am not.

... and I could do it only as umbreon during the night as my dark-type form has a much more sensitive nose.

"Maybe if you would teach me this searching by psychic technique then maybe I would be able to find her," I suggested. Though I wasn't keen

to return to my espeon form, it was the only thing which came to my mind.

"I could try to teach you but I don't know it very well myself. I mean, one of the pokemon of my former trainer tried to teach me but I ran away before I learned that so you might say that I know only half of this," she said, it was visible that it wasn't easy for her that she couldn't do something, her old pride in the way. "Maybe this idea with you as umbreon would be better? Not much of the day left so we can rest now and start looking for her with the nightfall."

"Okay, it seems that is the only option," I accepted her suggestion looking around with a hope that maybe I would see some more visible track but it was pointless. I didn't even know when Rea left and because of my irritation, I forgot to ask about it.

"Should I go ask the guard umbreon for directions?" Naert asked with a smirk.

"No, smell will be enough," I said.