As I arrived in the familiar clearing I noticed Apollo on the same branch I had first seen him, waiting for me in our favorite tree.

Joy. Relief.

He teleported to the base of the tree as I came to a stop, heaving the backpack off my back and setting it down.

"Sorry buddy, I had a lot to do. But it all worked out better than I could have expected. I kept my promise just like I said I would," I beamed.

Happiness.

"I've got lots to tell you about, but first let's do some Double Team practice, then we can talk during the break. We didn't have time to practice it yesterday like we wanted, so let's work on it now."

We spent the next hour working on his Double Team, but progress was slow. Despite his efforts he was only able to summon faint flickers of an afterimage that was nowhere near a passable clone, and the longest he could hold it wasn't even a full second. I decided to start tracking our progress in my notebook, so as he practiced I began documenting what I'd seen in our initial testing and where we were now. By far the two biggest improvements had been to Confusion and Teleport, which seemed to come much more naturally to him. Disarming Voice had slightly improved after our first training session, but it was still far too slow for my liking and I wasn't convinced it was enough to do any serious damage. I wasn't sure if Apollo had any attacks that were fully battle-ready, but it was entirely possible I was setting the bar too high; I just didn't want to send him into a losing battle. I wanted us to be confident when we fought and for victory to be a very real possibility.

As I finished documenting our current progress I glanced up to see my partner visibly trembling. I wasn't sure if it was exhaustion or frustration, but I took that as a clear sign that we needed to take a longer break.

"Break time, you're pushing yourself too hard buddy."

Apollo's shoulders visibly sagged and he hung his head a bit.

Disappointment.

"Awe, come on now. You're definitely getting better, you just aren't a natural at this one. It's fine, we'll get there soon." I said supportively, feeling a bit heartbroken that he was taking it so hard. Apollo seemed to have a strong drive to improve that I respected and admired, but it wouldn't do any good to beat himself up. I placed the notebook down and walked over, kneeling down to rub his helmet in a show of support.

Embarrassment.

"Hey, none of that," I scooped Apollo up in my hands and held him in front of my face, looking at him seriously.

"Think of how far you've come in just the past couple days. You can't deny you've gotten stronger, and it'll continue as long as we keep at it. It was our first time really practicing Double Team, and in that short period you're already getting better. Trust me, soon it will just click for you. Before you know it, you'll be able to create multiple perfect clones, I promise."

Apollo slowly lifted his head and looked at me for a moment before hesitantly nodding.

Trust.

I carried him over to our tree and set him down, taking out the thermos and pouring a bit of water in the cap for him to have. I sat with my back against the tree and pulled the Pokéball out of my pocket as I rolled it between my fingers, which had quickly become my new favorite thing to fidget with.

"Wanna know something really amazing? As of today I'm finally free," I said, looking up at the passing clouds.

Apollo finished taking a drink and looked up at me, tilting his head a bit. Confusion.

I went on to recap the events of the day, spending some extra time to explain a lot of very human concepts that I realized made no sense to him. What an orphanage was, what it meant to be a legal adult, what city hall, judges and legal documents were, the concept of money and a bank account, and many other things I wasn't sure he really understood no matter how hard I tried. I got the feeling that he could tell I was exceedingly happy though, and that seemed to be enough for him to share my enthusiasm.

"It all worked out in the end, so I guess I was stressing over nothing." I concluded happily.

It was then that Apollo pointed to the Pokéball in my hand, and I realized that I had kind of spilled the beans on that during my explanation of the morning.

I expanded it and placed it on the grass in front of him, allowing him to inspect it as he wished. "Yup, this is the Pokéball I was talking about. Supposedly they are pretty cozy, but I still wouldn't have felt great about keeping you in it all night."

Intrigue. Perplexion.

"It's a really cool device; I wouldn't be surprised if nearly as much engineering went into this than that spaceship that went to the moon," I said with a grin.

Apollo walked around it, giving it a good look as he inspected it. Awe.

Before I knew what was happening, he reached out to touch it.

"Wait!" I shouted in alarm, but it was too late. It popped open and Apollo disappeared right before my eyes in a spiraling vortex of light, and I felt my heart skip a beat before pounding rapidly. As it latched closed and began to rumble, I held my hand to my heart and tried my best to calm myself down. I knew that he would be just fine, regardless of if he was caught or not, but it was still a bit terrifying to watch my partner dissolve right before my eyes without any warning.

A few tense moments as the ball rocked back and forth a bit before coming to a stop and remaining still.

I know it was inappropriate, but I broke out laughing. I'd had frequent thoughts on how I was going to talk Apollo into allowing me to capture it, and how I could word it in a way that didn't sound negative in some sort of way, but the issue had just resolved itself in the blink of an eye.

That made this the second major concern that I'd been worrying about that easily and quickly got resolved today.

Both times, I had been trying to think of the best way that I could take care of the issue, but when given the chance others had taken care of them quite easily, making what I thought were complex problems very simple.

Perhaps not a direct similarity to this morning, but I couldn't help but notice the parallels.

I picked up the ball, holding it in my hand. I wasn't able to feel any difference in weight from before, which was truly a mind-boggling experience. I'd already known it was the case, but to actually see and feel it was another story.

I clicked the button to release him. It popped open and light spilled from the opening, and I watched as it gathered onto the ground in front of me before quickly condensing. The familiar silhouette of my partner quickly began to take form as the light was all seemingly drawn inward, and in no time at all the white light began to fade as my new starter materialized and the ball snapped shut.

Apollo's head was whipping around, gaining his bearings and seemingly trying to understand what had just happened.

I resumed laughing, even harder than before. I know it was a bit rude of me, but the whole situation and Apollo's reaction were painfully funny to me. I made sure to get it all out, since I really shouldn't be laughing at every Pokémon I ever caught.

I spent a bit of time explaining to Apollo what had happened, why Pokéballs were necessary, and that I had no intentions of keeping him in there except when absolutely necessary. It took a bit of convincing, but he eventually understood and seemed to see the humor in it after sending me feelings of amusement. I did apologize for not properly warning him, and told him that he could pull a prank at my expense to get back at me whenever he wanted, which he seemed quite happy with.

We resumed our training, this time going back to focus on Confusion. By the end of that session, he was able to disorient me enough that I fell to my hands and knees, and I felt so dizzy I thought I might throw up if we kept going. I decided that we had reached the end of my participation in Confusion training, and that it was surely ready to use in a battle. I felt an immense sense of relief knowing that we had at least one move that could possibly win us a battle, but decided against picking a fight with any wild Pokémon. I still didn't have any potions, and I wasn't a licensed trainer so taking him to a Pokécenter to heal him would cost money that I really didn't want to spend. I needed to save the little money that I had for a visit to the Pokémart before we set off for Petalburg Woods. I wasn't sure how much everything would cost since I'd never actually been, but I wanted to bring at least five potions and three antidotes. When I had previously done my research on the woods, this was generally what trainers recommended you bring at a minimum, and I was inclined to take their advice rather than put myself or Apollo in danger.

As the sun began to get lower in the sky, I decided to get a head start on setting up camp while Apollo practiced his Disarming Voice. I'd never set up a tent before and didn't want to start so late that I would end up struggling with it in the dark if I ran into any issues. Although it didn't have any instructions, I found it to be pretty self-explanatory and not nearly as difficult as I had worried it might be. There were two poles with cord inside them that you needed to straighten and connect, then you simply laid out the tent, slid the poles through some loops, and you had the basic shape of the tent. I used my new mini shovel to hammer down the stakes although we hardly ever got strong gusts of winds around here, and I strapped the rain cover on top even though I highly doubted it would rain. It just seemed like a good idea to practice doing the whole thing, and I figured if I started cutting corners now I would likely regret it sooner rather than later when a freak storm came through one night on my travels.

I was nearly out of daylight, so I went and gathered some sticks and dried leaves for a fire. I used the shovel to create a fire pit, placed all the dried leaves in it, then leaned the sticks against each other to create a cone over the leaves, and with the help of the firestarter I had a campfire going in no time at all.

I was definitely going a bit overboard with my camp, but I didn't care. It was my first night of true freedom, and I was going to go all out.

Watching the fire to make sure it fully took, I couldn't help but adopt a smile as I thought of how today could have gone so much worse, but worked out in the end. Perhaps this past week hadn't just been a fluke, and my life's luck really was on the upswing.

Caution. Anxiety.

I glanced up to find that Apollo had stopped practicing and was now staring at the fire from a safe distance, seemingly very wary of it. I suppose it made sense; he'd likely never seen a fire before but might have some natural instinct telling him that it wasn't something to take lightly.

"It's safe Apollo, just don't get too close and it won't hurt you," I reassured him, urging him to come closer to me.

A moment later, he teleported onto my right shoulder and held on to my neck, watching the fire with clear skepticism.

"You'll learn to appreciate the campfire once we start traveling through colder areas, trust me."

As the sun began to set and darkness overtook the sky, I decided to give Apollo an abbreviated version of my life as a form of campfire story. I'd previously avoided discussing anything that might bring up negative emotions, but now that our partnership was official and our bond was growing strong, it seemed like a good time. It felt important to me that he knew about my life, and hoped I would learn more of his when his telepathy developed. I told him about my mother Patricia and what a great mother she was, how I grew up in a cramped apartment in Petalburg that I planned to show him, and how I had been the one to find her body. I talked about how I'd often felt alone but had since grown used to it, that I'd never really had any friends I could consider close, and how I'd withdrawn completely after being sent to the orphanage, pushing away anyone even remotely resembling a friend. I talked about life at the orphanage, about Miss Augustine, about my meeting with Norman, and how I spent nearly all my time there doing research for my journey on the computer or flipping through my notes and thinking.

I also spent some time talking about life as a Pokémon trainer, and what getting your license meant. I explained what a Pokécenter and Pokémart were, and the general way that the gym circuit worked. How the end of that road was the Elite Four and the Champion, and how I'd once dreamed of claiming the throne but no longer found myself caring much. One thing I did want to do was to make it into the Ever Grande Conference, but that I wasn't in any rush to complete the circuit and get there.

Apollo was a surprisingly good listener. He seemed to give me his full attention, and wasn't afraid to interrupt when he didn't understand something or wanted more details. I was getting used to his style of communication, and was surprised at how similar it felt to talking to somebody. Sure, I was the one doing all the talking and carrying the conversation, but I kept finding that simply talking through things out loud was a really good form of therapy for me. I still didn't know how much Apollo had heard from me the first day I came into the woods, but I was going into much more detail this time and he never gave me the impression he'd already heard some of this. Perhaps he had come at the very end of my first day, maybe he just didn't have a good grasp of English at the time, or he could just be being polite now in allowing me to repeat myself for therapeutic purposes.

As the moon peeked out from behind the trees, I caught Apollo staring at it with a sense of wonder as he slowly and rhythmically swayed back and forth. I could tell he was still listening, because he would still send me emotions telepathically to offer his support or indicate a desire for more detail, but he rarely broke his gaze from the sky whereas I kept admitting the flames of the campfire.

By the end of my ramblings, my throat was hoarse and it was well into the night. I decided to stop feeding the campfire with sticks, intending on letting it die out as the night began to wind down. At some point I'd realized that I had nothing to eat for the night, but I wasn't feeling hungry and decided to just skip dinner. Tomorrow I'd go back into town and do a bit of shopping, just to see how far my inheritance would take me.

I scooped Apollo up from my shoulder and placed him down a safe distance from the campfire, letting him continue his admiration of the moon as I stood up and unstrapped the sleeping bag from my backpack. I also grabbed the lantern and tried turning it on, however it didn't work, likely due to either missing or corroded batteries. Just another thing I'd need to buy.

As I went to the tent and began fumbling around trying to unroll and lay out the sleeping bag with hardly any light to work with, I thought of my finances. I was almost sure I'd spend all the money I had on my first shopping trip, so I'd need to figure out some ways to make more. The two main ways were to battle other trainers and to win gym badges, since each gave you a cash reward paid for by the League and grew with each consecutive badge. The scary thing about trainer battles was that it was quite literally gambling; you would agree to an amount beforehand with the other trainer, and whoever won took it all. That meant that in theory you could bet all of your money away in a single match, which was a scary thought.

Many online had likened battling to visiting a casino; you set a hard limit and don't go over it no matter what. There were many stories of trainers being taunted into betting everything they had only to get hustled and find themselves completely broke, and I was determined not to let that happen to me.

Nervous. Scared. Threatened.

A Howl rang out, sending shivers down my spine as I quickly exited the tent. Red eyes peered at us from the edge of the clearing before suddenly taking off in our direction. The dark figure was dashing towards Apollo specifically, who was frozen in fear and trembling. It was hard to see; the only light we had had was from the faintly smoldering embers of a dying campfire and the overhead moonlight.

My heartrate picked up as I realized we were under attack. I reached into my pocket for Apollo's Pokéball, but discarded the idea of recalling him as soon as I had pulled it out and expanded it. We'd been training hard, and I'd be left totally vulnerable to our attacker if I recalled him. We were going to try to fight this, but I'd keep the Pokéball in my hand ready to recall in a moment's notice if the attacker made serious contact with Apollo.

"Apollo! Teleport then Confusion!" I bellowed, trying to snap him out of his fear induced paralysis. My voice seemed to bring him back to reality, as he straightened and focused. Right as the figure got close enough to jump and dive at him with its maw open, Apollo teleported behind him, causing the figure's jaw to snap closed on air and awkwardly stumble during its landing. Now that it was close enough, I recognized it to be a Poochyena. I had a quick moment of panic as dots began to connect in my mind and I realized that I'd just made a big mistake.

It was too late to stop him; Apollo focused and I could see his horn glow faintly in the night as he let loose a Confusion. There was absolutely no response from our assailant, and I cursed myself for not realizing sooner that the attacker was a dark type, thus completely immune to psychic-type moves.

"Disarming Voice!" I bellowed, realizing it was our only hope of winning this. Apollo seemed a bit stunned that his previous attack had done nothing as the canine made another dash towards him.

Apollo snapped back to the present and drew in a huge breath, unleashing the attack just before the small dog slammed into my partner, sending him tumbling back. Although the Disarming Voice did nothing to stop the attack, I could tell that it had hit its mark and hurt the attacking Pokémon, as it growled and seemed to be in a bit of pain as it faced down Apollo, seemingly much more wary of him now.

"Get up buddy, you've got this! Give your best Disarming Voice!" I ordered, my heart pounding as I tried to push away the concern I was feeling for my partner.

It was just a Tackle, he'll be fine. Just don't let a Bite land and we can win this.

Apollo scrambled to his feet and drew another breath as the Poochyena began another sprint towards my starter. Apollo let loose an absolutely ear-piercing Disarming Voice, easily the strongest I'd ever seen him do. I'm not sure if it's because it was dark or just more powerful due to adrenaline, but this time I was able to faintly see the pink waves rippling through the air before washing over the Poochyena. It whimpered and visibly flinched in pain, diverted course as it took a sharp turn before fleeing into the bushes, deciding that this meal wasn't worth the effort.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding and thanked Arceus above that our attacker seemed to be so weak. I wasn't sure if Poochyena could learn Quick Attack or any ranged moves, but if that were the case things could have gone very differently. I shuddered as I thought of how different things could have gone if it had landed a Bite, or if it hadn't started the fight with a Howl that got my attention.

I ran over to Apollo, who was panting and slightly trembling. Bending down and scooping him up in my arms, I hugged him tightly as I muttered reassuringly. "You did amazing buddy. See how strong you've gotten? I'm so proud of you."

Pride. Accomplishment. Relief.

I looked him over for injuries and found him to be fine, just a bit battered and rattled, nothing that a good night's sleep wouldn't fix. It took a bit of time for us to fully calm down while I constantly praised and reassured my partner, but we soon retired into the tent for the night. I was starting to understand that Apollo's size and seemingly frail appearance made him a prime target for predators. I'd need to be more careful about leaving him out in the open alone, and make sure that he was capable and confident enough to handle some of the larger predators we were likely to come across along our journey. Evolving into a Kirlia would likely help, and I'd like to think he'd be strong enough by then to handle most wild Pokémon, but it would only stop being a concern once he became a Gallade.

After I fumbled around in the darkness and found my way into the sleeping bag, Apollo found a spot he seemed to like and laid down on the foot of the sleeping bag. I felt a bit bad and offered to let him sleep in the bag beside me, but he didn't seem to want to sleep with anything covering him so I let him be.

It was late and the day had been very eventful, so I did my best to push the many thoughts swimming around in my mind and forced myself to sleep. Tomorrow was bound to be yet another eventful day, and I needed to be rested if I wanted to make the most of it.

I awoke to the sounds of rustling leaves and Taillow chirping in the distance. Apollo was still asleep, and I couldn't help but smile as I saw him clinging to the sleeping bag, hugging my ankle through the fabric. I gently nudged him awake, and a minute later we left the tent to be greeted by a bright and sunny day.

It dawned on me that today was the last day before my journey. Tomorrow I will be 16, and I was going to get up extra early to get my trainers license as soon as possible.

By this time tomorrow, I'd be a full fledged trainer off on my journey. The thought gave me goosebumps, and it only made the final preparations I made today all the more important.

My stomach growled at me, and I remembered that I had completely skipped dinner. I really needed to figure out how I was going to feed myself during my journey. I would obviously buy some non-perishable food to travel with, but I knew I shouldn't rely solely on that. Not only would it be difficult to carry a ton of food with me, but it wasn't likely to be very tasty or nutritious. I'd need to figure out how to scavenge and hunt along the way, as eating things like ramen or dried fruits would affect my mental and physical health over time. I'd personally never done any hunting or fishing before, but I knew I'd need to figure it out if I was going to spend lots of my time outside of human settlements.

This raised a bit of an issue that I would need to bring up with Apollo, since I somehow doubted that a Pokémon so in tune with emotions and empathy would have no issues with me harvesting and eating other Pokémon in his presence. I would need to convince him that meat was simply a part of many creature's diets, both for myself as well as potential future carnivorous teammates. He'd been hunted enough that he must have some concept of carnivores, I just wasn't sure if it would somehow damage our relationship or be extra hard on him due to his exceptional innate empathy.

I decided that I could wait a bit longer to eat, so we started the morning with a bit of Double Team practice. By the end he was getting fairly close to making a passable clone. It wasn't quite there, and he could only maintain it for about a second, but I felt as though it were getting close. Apollo was much less hard on himself today; he seemed to recognize that he was making improvements and wasn't far off from being able to do it. I got the feeling that the battle yesterday gave him a newfound sense of confidence, which made me immensely happy to see. Ralts were naturally very skittish, and the research I'd done online indicated that it was one of the more difficult species to build up confidence in. I'd honestly been a bit worried that he would totally freeze up in that scuffle with the Poochyena, and although I saw hints of it I was immensely grateful that I had been able to snap him out of it.

Since we'd be returning back in an hour or two, I decided against packing up the tent. I grabbed my backpack and had Apollo Teleport onto my shoulder, and we made our way back to Petalburg City to do some shopping. Although we passed a few Pokémon that seemed to make him timid, none of them messed with us due to my presence, and by the time we started getting closer to Petalburg he seemed fully relaxed.

That was, until we ran into a boy who was having their Poochyena practice Mud-Slap just off the path.

Apollo clutched at my neck, clearly nervous of the species as I tried to reassure him and quickly slip by, but we had already been seen.

"Is that a Ralts?! Dude, where'd you find it?" the boy all but demanded as I kept my pace, refusing to stop.

Nervous. Anxious.

"In the forest like everyone else," I replied bluntly, looking straight ahead and refusing to stop as the boy ran up beside me to meet my pace, his Poochyena close in tow. I felt Apollo looking at it warily and clutching me tightly, but thankfully he wasn't in full panic, likely due to being high enough the Poochyena wouldn't be able to reach him.

"Yeah but where in the forest? How'd you catch it? What Pokémon did you use? Are you selling it?" The boy pestered, seemingly unaware of how rude he was being.

I kept my pace but turned my head to face him for the first time, leveling him with a glare. "He is my friend and starter, and he isn't for sale dude." I spat, quickly losing patience with this boy.

The boy groaned, finally taking the hint as he stopped following me. I could feel his eyes on the back of my head, but thankfully we were able to continue on without further incident.

Perplexed.

I hummed to myself, wondering how to explain the situation to Apollo. "He's just never seen a Ralts before. You're kind of rare, so he wanted to know more about you, that's all." I answered as diplomatically as I could, causing Apollo to fall silent in thought.

As we approached the city limits and the encounter replayed in my mind, I realized that I might be inviting trouble by having a Ralts on my shoulder strolling through town. They were extremely coveted, and I was almost sure that I'd have to deal with some glares from those who may see it as a form of gloating, as well as people who pestered me for information like that boy.

In the end, I couldn't bring myself to recall Apollo. He'd never visited a human settlement, and I wanted him to see what it was like. I also wanted to start getting him used to being around other people, as well as show him both my childhood apartment as well as the orphanage. I briefly considered introducing him to Miss Augustine, but quickly decided against it. We'd already said our goodbyes, and I didn't want to cause any sort of problems or commotion by bringing him inside. Knowing Miss Augustine, she surely had little to no interest in meeting my starter anyways; she hadn't even asked what species of Pokémon I had found. If she knew much about Pokémon, she would have likely been able to piece it together based on my description of him liking the moon, but I highly doubted that she made the connection.

"Hey Apollo, I want to warn you of a couple things before we are in the city…" I started, looking to my right with a serious expression.

A slight nod was my response, so I continued. "Firstly, there will be quite a few people around. I'm not sure how you'll fare around so many emotions, but if you ever want me to return you to your Pokéball just let me know. You'll be safe there, and it should give you relief from any sensory overload. Another thing is, some people might get a bit… jealous or angry when they see you. Don't let it get to you, just let me deal with it. The last thing is, please don't attack or run away. You'll see lots of people and Pokémon, and no matter what emotions you get from them, I can promise you that you'll be safe as long as you stay calm and stick to my shoulder."

A hesitant nod. Trust.

I took a deep breath, steeling myself for what was bound to be a bit of unpleasantness. It would all be worth it though if I got to show Apollo my hometown and get the supplies we desperately needed.

I just hoped we wouldn't attract too much unwanted attention.

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