Changes

The Full Story

"Look at you," Ronyo said, scratching the eevee behind the ears. "You’ve got your whole life ahead of you."

"Veeeee" it purred, leaning into the scratch.

"And you can be anything you want," he said, continuing his musings. "Dark type, plant type, fire type; seems like every time there’s a new type discovered, there’s an eeveeloution to go with it." The scratches slowed as he seemed to get lost in his own thoughts. "And even the constraints seem to help. You’re not like a ditto that doesn’t even know who he is to begin with. You’re limited, but in a good way."

He looked down at the eevee, and the eevee looked back with a mixture of curiosity and happiness. “All that to say,” Ronyo said, resuming the scratches, “is you’re probably my favorite. Unofficially, of course; I’m technically not allowed to play favorites,” he finished with a wink.

With a sigh, he turned to leave. “Thanks for letting me stop by again, Mrs. H!”

The elderly Mrs. H just smiled and said, “You can still adopt him if you want, Ronyo.”

This time Ronyo paused. He blinked. Twice. Then turned back to the eevee.

"You know," he said, "I never took a Journey. Got too wrapped up in school and computers and the next thing I knew I had a job and a life and…" He smiled sadly. "I always thought it was too late for me, but…" His sad smile turned into a foxy grin as the eevee’s ears perked up. "What do you say, you want to take on the world with me?"

"Vee!" the eevee yelled as it jumped out of the basket towards Ronyo.

A few minutes later, the two walked out of Mrs. H’s apartment, the eevee riding on Ronyo’s shoulder. “It’ll take a couple of weeks to get my vacation approved, and about that long for the adoption paperwork to go through, which gives us some time to get to know each other before we set out,” Ronyo said, adjusting his stance to account for the extra weight.

"So to start off, can I call you Eddie?"

Eddie was so excited he nearly fell off his new trainer. Nearly.

Day 1: Favorite pokémon: Eevee

Thanks to its unstable genetic makeup, this special Pokémon conceals many different possible evolutions.

-----

Ronyo stared down the biker, Eddie perched on his shoulder. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, “but are you asking for a CHALLENGE?!”

The biker smirked in response. With a call of “You’re up, Jynx!” he threw out his first pokemon.

Ronyo blanched. Why’d it have to be a jynx? It—sorry, she—was already swaying her hips, and he was feeling the twitch in the back of his mind encouraging him to join in.

Needless to say, it wasn’t his favorite.

A nip on his ear from Eddie brought him back to reality. “Sorry, bud,” he murmured. “Um… Start out with a sand attack, and if I forget to say something just tackle.”

With a quick “Vee!” Eddie was on the field.

"You okay, Hot Shot?" the biker said from across the field.

"Yeah…" Ronyo said, scratching the back of his neck and doing everything he could not to look at the jynx. "Jynxes tend to make my ADD worse. Nothing major."

But of course, he wasn’t allowed to have favorites.

Day 2: Least favorite pokémon: Jynx