Disclaimer: I don't own pokémon!
Rok stared at Atala's heels as he followed her out of the training room. He'd stare at the floor instead, but he did need to know where he was going.
How did he manage to screw up so badly? All he wanted was to do well in the test. He's had battling tests before, he knew what he was doing! So why did he lose it like that? He'd never been particularly violent, but in that room, fighting those robots, he'd felt downright bloodthirsty! He'd wanted more than to just beat those fake pokémon, he'd wanted to kill them. Brutally! He'd envisioned blood pouring from the gashes in their silvery flesh and he'd liked it!
Rok may know next to nothing about this new world he's found himself in, but even he could tell that such ruthlessness, such savagery, wasn't a quality one wanted in a pokémon you're thinking about hiring to save others.
Suddenly, Atala came to a halt and Rok almost ploughed right into her shins. He looked up at the door they'd stopped beside and squinted at the symbols carved into the wood. An effort that proved to be unnecessary as Atala opened the door, revealing her office.
As Rok stepped through, and the door closed behind him with a too-loud "click", he couldn't help but feel as though it had cut away what life he'd managed to build-up since his evolution.
Atala circled around her table and took a seat, he intense red gaze seeming to freeze Rok in place.
Rok wasn't sure how long she stared at him; maybe seconds, maybe years. Eventually, she spoke, and her words cut through the chains that had fastened themselves around Rok's limbs with the force of her look.
"How long ago did you evolve?"
Rok jolted. Whatever he was expecting when she opened her mouth, it wasn't that.
"Only a few days ago." He replied haltingly.
She nodded, expression blank. "And did you want to be an umbreon?"
Rok snorted bitterly. "I didn't even know umbreon existed before my evolution. I wanted to be a leafeon."
Atala nodded, one eyebrow raised slightly. "I see. Are your teammates the only Dark Types you've become familiar with since you left the wilderness?"
'Teammates'. Hopefully that was a good sign.
"Well, I've met one other, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to become an explorer." Rok said, forcing himself to meet Atala's eyes. Harvard had said that the Guild didn't hold with prejudices, but Rok was pretty sure that Darkrai would be pushing their tolerance a bit.
"Are they familiar with the fact that you didn't want to become an umbreon?" Atala asked.
"Only the ones on my team."
"Did they ever tell you about any…effects your evolution may have on your personality?"
Rok shook his head. "I know a little, but most of that came from my own experiences and from the Elders of my village." Right before they banished me, echoed mockingly in his skull.
Atala nodded grimly. "I see. That explains that then."
"Explains what?" Rok asked hesitantly.
"Your aggression during the battle assessment." Atala said bluntly.
Rok flinched, and again as his marks burned.
And then…Atala's gaze softened. It was almost as disarming as her regular intensity.
She stood from her seat and walked around her desk before kneeling so that she and Rok were just about eye-level.
"Listen…Rok, was it? What happened in the training room, that ferocity you just experienced…"
The umbreon started to curl in on himself, ears slumping to hang on either side of his face.
"…is completely normal."
Wait, what?
Rok blinked at the lucario Guild Leader in shock. That violence, that disgusting thirst for blood, gore, and death…was normal?
"I've seen it happen many times, especially with pokémon who change type with their evolution like eevee." Atala continued, "And especially if they're unprepared. Dark Types are naturally ferocious and violent. It's what makes them such damn good fighters."
Rok's eyes widened. 'Good Fighters'…he'd never heard anyone compliment the nature of Dark Types before.
"But if you haven't been a Dark Type for your entire life, that change can be pretty jarring, and difficult to manage without help, especially in the case of umbreon, who evolve from the relatively gentle eevee. What happened to you just now has happened to practically every umbreon in the world and it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's all part of the transitional period."
"But…I wanted to kill them." Rok said weakly, "I know they weren't alive, but if they were-"
"Then I would have stepped in, or you would have snapped yourself out of it." Atala finished calmly. She placed her paw on Rok's shoulder, a gentle pressure that reminded him of his mother's ribbons, how they used to wind around him and send gentle calming pulses into his heart.
The thought is enough to make tears blur his vision.
"Rok," Atala says gently (and she sounds so much like his mother it hurts) "This is not something to be ashamed of, and neither are all your other new abilities. You just need to learn to control it, and here at the Guild we have the resources and the teachers to help you with that. You aren't the first new-hire we've had with these problems, and you definitely won't be the last. So above all else I want you to remember this: There's nothing wrong with you. Do you understand?"
Rok nodded.
"Do you believe it?"
Rok hesitated, before slowly nodding again.
Atala relaxed and removed her paw from his shoulder. "Good. Now." She continued, snapping back into the intense and serious Guild Leader Rok had come to know. "We'd better get back to your friends. I have a good idea of your battle capabilities now, but there are numerous other assessments you all will have to sit through, and you and your jolteon friend will have to sit a few lessons on the civilised world so you aren't completely unprepared for how things work outside the wilderness."
As she opened the door, it felt like Rok's life was finally becoming something real.
A/N: Please review! They really give me the warm fuzzies!