It had been going well... as well as one could expect from Master anyway. He was always a weird kid, even for the Hoshigami family standards. And while he grew surrounded by our kind. He never connected much with the other Pokémon in the family.

  Even to me an Eevee that was with him his whole life... It didn't make our link less, and while he never used my given name, he still had nicknames for me and the other Pokemon that spend time with him.

  So when he decided to take in the travel instead of the normal training in the temple, and also decided to take me with him. I was rejoiced, he had stopped speaking that often with us, deciding to spend more and more time on the temple archives instead.

  I should have known. I should have paid more Attention to Master, to my friend... To Reiya.

  I should have questioned more why he didn't want to take in Mori and Grim with us. Mori was one of the Stantlers personally raised by the Mistress, he was less of a powerhouse and more of a tank.

  Mori himself confessed before the travel that his orders were to ensure Master survived the rougher aspects, and he was sent to ensure he could capture a Pokémon en route.

  Grim on the other hand was the one who would be the powerhouse of the team, sent to ensure Master did not bring shame upon the house. As most Ghost types are, Grim would ensure those who became enemies to master did not have a good time.

  And while that meant that Mistress and Master's Father did not put many hopes upon myself and Master. At the very least, it would mean he would be safe and we could train and grow with more leeway than most trainers had during their travels on the route.

  Before departing, however, they gave instructions to Master and myself, both together and separated.

  What they told Master in secret I had no need to know. But what Mistress told me... It... Was not something that I wished to known.

  "Reiya has been reading dangerous books," Mistress started, "He may attempt to go off route."

  That was, of course, something incredibly dangerous and foolish.

  "That is why Grim and Mori will be with you two," Mistress continued, "Should that come to be, your mission is to ensure he returns safe. He will be given one of these."

  Mistress had shown me then the device that I had pushed after Master fell unconscious.

  "This will call the rangers to your location, a team with a psychic-type Pokémon will teleport and neutralize ANY pokemon threat." Mistress had not elaborated more on that, but the message was clear enough.

  I should have returned to my Poké Ball after pushing the button.

  I had not done that.

  The light of teleportation flooded into the cave after a few seconds of the device powering up. Master was still sleeping unconscious on the cave floor, his chest going up and down slowly, and my pokeball... Along the pokeballs of my peers remained a broken mess.

  I had went through every one that Master carried, none worked. And each and every one of them stood in front of me.

  My body, still alien and yet as familiar as the one I had been born with laying down on the floor. My head lowered as much as possible with both my ears stuck to the floor.

  I was attempting to make myself as small and non threat as possible.

  Why?

  "CONTACT!" The first of the human rangers to fully materialize screamed as the sound of firearms resounded in the cave, not a single one of them fired, not yet.

  It was foolishness to shoot at a Pokémon first; half of our kind knew some kind of movement that would protect them from the damage. The Umbreon and Espeon line had access to Reflect, for example. A move that I could theoretically use now.

  I had been trained extensively in preparation to my evolution to Espeon. Now that I had evolved into an umbreon I had even other defensive moves up to my disposition.

  "What does the TM reader say?" Another of the rangers roared the question, "Are we clear to shoot?"

  That sounded about right, Mistress had indeed said that this was a possibility, but I couldn't risk Master. Not after failing him once, I needed to ensure they would take him.

  "Calm down." And then, the voice of another resounded in the cave, Psychic TM energy? "This one is not one of the expected Pokémon in the area, is it?"

  "...Subject #4 is correct." The voice of an older Ranger said as it moved towards Master, "I assume you are the one who called us. Our report said that an Eevee knew about it, evolved into Umbreon, huh..."

  She nodded, as slowly as possibly, moving a paw towards one of the pokeballs.

  "I see..." The old Ranger said nodding, "Tech! Come and take a look, Subject #4 pull these for study."

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  At no moment had the old Ranger moved closer than five meters from her, not close enough and yet not far enough.

  "As you say Captain." The voice resounded in the cavern yet again, "I don't detect any hostiles, but I would suggest you to start preparing the barriers. This is, after all, the wilds."

  There was some mirth in the voice.

  "Ca-Captain, Alakazam has given me the pokeballs, what would you have me do?" The voice of a meek young woman asked from behind the old man, he did not turn the Attention away from her. And it was at that moment that Umbreon noticed something else.

  The old man had a hand resting on his belt, where a small knife stood alone.

  "Check on the integrity of the pokeball as well as the metadata," The old man asked, "I want to know if any of those is registered to an Umbreon or Eevee, in case that it's to an Eevee. I want to know how much was the Eevee away from evolution."

  "...That is... That is classified information, Captain," The young woman stammered as she answered, "We could... we could get court marshalled..."

  "You are one of the new ones right?" The old man asked, still not leaving his eyes from Master or her.

  "That would be correct Captain," The psychic TM resounded yet again, "Cadet Elena Bright, top scorer of her generation. And here you are, scarring her for life."

  "It's... it's fine Alakazam, I signed for this." The young woman said, Umbreon could not see her, the men behind the old man or the Pokemon in question. She hoped they were preparing the medical equipment to rescue Master.

  "As Subject #4 said, you are indeed a newer one. Then tell me, what is the procedure for hostile wild pokemons found during a rescue operation?" The old man said with a smirk on his face.

  "Neutralize any hostile near the area to the best of our capacity, and in case the Pokémon puts in danger the rescue target...." The young woman started reciting and then slowed down as her voice was filled with grim realization, "...If the pokemon is near the rescue target... take them down."

  "Would you say this Umbreon is close to our rescue target?" The old man then pulled out his knife as he pointed at Umbreon, "And what degree of danger is an Umbreon at."

  "...Dispose on sight..." The young woman said, "But this is obviously a tamed Pokémon!"

  "Is it?" The old man said shaking his head, "Subject #4, would you say you are tamed?"

  "Not particularly, no." The psychic voice said as the figure of the humanoid Pokémon floated besides the old man, "But then again, I am not the same as your ordinary Pokémon."

  "... And Umbreons have access to Psychic TM, don't they?" The old man asked, this time turning its right hand towards a sphere with the top painted green and with a net motif, a net ball? "This is what will happen, I'll put you inside this one. If Elena finds evidence that says you are indeed this trainer's Pokemon, we will release you into his custody."

  Umbreon nodded and relaxed itself.

  Against common belief among the young trainers, it was not impossible to 'Capture' in a new pokeball a pokemon. That was a myth spread to prevent trainers from stealing from each other with the use of Poké Balls.

  It wasn't impossible for a pokemon to resist being captured, if one wanted they could even resist to go into a pokeball they had been captured before. Or even escape from it.

  There were some situations that would make that hard to achieve, and sometimes, a trained 'Trainer' could even react in time to said situations. Umbreon knew the Ranger would be one of those.

  "Found it!" And before the old man even pushed the button on the pokeball, the young woman said showing one of the pokeballs, the one that was hers. "This pokeball is registered to an Eevee called Oboro! She had achieved the standards metrics to evolve. The metadata suggests that the pokeball was prepared to accept Psychic energy so they had planned the evolution!"

  "Psychic Energy would mean to an Espeon." The Alakazam chimed in, "And this is not an Espeon... but then again... If it evolved under duress... and in this beautiful night... It stands to reason to believe that the Eevee Evolved into Umbreon."

  "It changes nothing," The old man pushed at the button on the pokeball, a ray of red energy was released and the TM energy pulled at her body.

  Umbreon merely accepted the call and allowed her body to be transformed into the same red energy as it was pulled into the ball. Her awareness would slow down and she would be put into stasis.

  That was how the pokeballs could hold the might of a pokemon even if they were that small.

  "I'll take care of that captain." The Alakazam said as her new pokeball was pulled away, "Umbreon is quite high in the danger list after all."

  "...Suit yourself Subject #4." The voice of the old man said, and before Umbreon could go into slumber.

  The surroundings turned clear once again as her mind no longer slowed down.

  "Move!" The old man screamed and Umbreon could see a rush of movement around. But how?

  "This is my gift to you Oboro." The psychic said, Umbreon wasn't sure why, but it seemed to have stopped the TM energy that was putting her into rest. "I owe your family much from my time on the academy, before I turned into an Alakazam. So now that I am like this, might as well return the favour."

  "Found the remains of an Alpha Mightyena!" The voice of a ranger sounded at the distance.

  That would be the Mightyena she had been fighting. Was it an alpha then?

  "We have found the remains of an unidentified normal type pokemon!" A third voice called from the back, "We don't have enough remains to identify, taking a blood sample and tissue sample!"

  Umbreon didn't want to think about who that would be, she knew of course, the mightyena had been pushing them further and further into the wilds.

  Mori had attempted to buy some time to escape... But while they managed to stall and damage the Mightyena... It was a tall order for him to defeat it, it was thanks to his work that she had been able to defeat it.

  His sacrifice had not been in vain.

  "That will be a mighty interesting story for you to tell later..." The Alakazam said to her, but that didn't worry her.

  "Trainer is unconscious, there are remnants of Normal TM on his system, energy signature and formula matches Healing TM - Wish!" Someone reported, Umbreon's awareness focused on that direction. They were setting up Master on a stretcher. "Trainer has no visible wounds on his body, but it seems to have lost blood. We have found an empty Substance #104 bottle!"

  That would be the Max Potion?

  "... Trainer doesn't show any sign of rejection, he may have been lucky." There seemed to be an issue?

  "Humans are not compatible with Potions," The Alakazam said, "He may have been desperate and decided to apply it on himself, wouldn't be the first time we see it happen."

  Umbreon of course knew the truth, and if what they said was true...

  "He applied it on himself," Alakazam said yet again, "And no one will suspect otherwise. No Pokemon, trained or not would think of doing something like this. Pokemons aren't that smart."

  What?

  "Poor bastard, he managed to survive, but we will need to schedule remedials. The potion did help him survive, even if it didn't heal him." The Ranger said shaking his head, "We will set up some healing solution with extra Healing TM. Tell the Chansey squad to be ready!"

  The Ranger called out and then the old man nodded and relayed that information via radio.

  "Did you find the egg?" As they loaded Master into a raised platform they had made at some point, the old man asked, "Or evidence of it hatching."

  "... we have found several egg fragments, none matches the descriptions that they gave us." Another ranger came back and reported as thus, making the old man turn towards the Alakazam, "Can you scry the answer of what happened to the egg from the Umbreon?"

  "So they said," The Alakazam said to Umbreon, while his body nodded and closed its eyes as it seemed to focus.

  Could he even hear her?

  "Master took the egg and tried to incubate it, he managed for it to hatch. But we got attacked by wild Pokémon and the cub ran away." Umbreon tried to project the memories in question, she hadn't practiced this aspect of Psychic, not against other Pokemon, so filled with Psychic TM at least.

  "The Umbreon has memories of her trainer hatching the Poké Egg and the cub running away, after they got attacked by local Pokémon." The Alakazam projected outwards, Umbreon could still heard it since he was sharing that with her, "The mental image matches the description of what we thought could hatch. Shall I remain to help with the search? You know how difficult it would be to fish for a dark Pokémon during the night."

  "...No, we are leaving. If they want to recuperate their illegal Pokemon. Then they can go and fish for it," The Ranger said, shaking his head as he walked to the elevated platform, "Attention! We are leaving in five, collect environmental data, samples and whatever you can. Abandon any material that is damaged or that you personally didn't keep at hand."

  The other rangers quickly started moving around, their weapons always at the ready and when everyone was on the plataform, the old Ranger turned to the Alakazam again.

  "Do the number of living entities match?" The old Ranger asked.

  "Yes, Captain, we don't have extra life forms on the platform. Worst case scenario the platform was replaced and you all will be dead though. So if you are worried you may want to poke the plataform with your dagger." The Alakazam said as it smirked.

  "Funny," The old man said shaking its head, "Subject #4, start teleport to pre set coordinates."

  And like that, the dark cave was surrounded in the light of teleportation.

  Leaving behind the remains of her struggle to keep Master alive, as well as the blood that he had shed because of her incompetence. The bodies of her former companions and the corpse of the mightyena that almost killed them too.

  The rangers took nothing of the place besides Master, the pokeballs and left everything that they used to cordon the area. Before she wouldn't have understood why, but after their encounter in the wilds.

  She knew better. One of the least feared pokemons in the route had been the reason they almost died after all. She would never see the same way a Ditto.