Reflections
Writen by Arti Cuno

Note: You'll pic up on who I mean by "he" is no doubt by the events mentioned, the name is at the end (Japaese name anyhow) this is my first shot at a SHORT fic so commend me it's only 2.5 pages long, an all time shortness record for me ^.^;;

Night was just starting to fall. The pokémon in the forest were starting to stur. Some going to sleep, some only now waking up. HoHos hooted and flew over head, taking the place of pidgeys that were out durring the day cooing. Pikachu ran off in groups to find places to sleep, the bugs were still out, unfortunately, beedrill flying over head wasn't a sound many liked to hear. A lone pokémon trainer was out in the night, laying back against a tree, thinking over the past year of training he'd gone though.

He rubbed the head of the sleeping pokémon on his lap and sighed. He'd had it pretty good to start off. He'd received an eevee AND a charmander to start his journey. It was good to have familly in the pokémon business. Eevee was his favorite though, she was a good fighter, and even if she was small she had a lot of fighting abbilities. He'd won all his first battles because of her.

He sighed and looked at the stars winkling above. He thought back to before he became a trainer, and found rivals where he once had friends. He'd lost his once best friend to his ego and "I'm better then everyone" attitude. Winning all the battles in the world wasn't worth losing a friend like he'd had. From the very first day of training, he vowed to be the best, to beat all the rest, he'd almost accomplished that, only having suffered two major losses so far, one to the Viridian gym, another at a crucial point at the pokémon league on Indigo Plateau.

The sleeping pokémon in his lap, his eevee, woke up slightly. She stirred a bit and rolled over on her back, looking to have her tummy rubbed. Her trainer smiled and did as she wanted. Eevee was spoiled, but it didn't matter, she deserved it.

As the puppy went back to sleep, her trainer moved her so that she was laying on a soft patch of grass. He stood up, stretched, then walked over to the side of a small cliff and looked over the side. He could see Pewter from there, the place he had his first gym battle. He had won no problem. By the time he'd first arrived there, he'd caught a poliwag when fishing for the first time.

Just going through from Pallet to Pewter he'd caught 10 new pokémon, and he remembered everyone and how he'd caught it. First, had been a simple pidgey, which was now a magnificent pidgeot. Second was a sandshrew, now a sandslash, then rattata, spearow, pikachu, caterpie, beedrill, nidoran male and female and a growlithe. The growlithe and Nidoran male were the ones he tended to favor slightly over the others he'd caught. They were now an Arcanine and and Nidoking and two of his strongest pokémon. Next to the gift he'd been given by his girlfriend.

"Here, you can have this." she had said, handing him a box with holes in it that seemed to be chirping at him. It had been done up in light blue paper and a navy ribbon on the top, when he opened it, it had a young Articuno in it. His girlfriend was an articuno trainer, and a rare pokémon breeder/collector. She rarely gave any of her Articuno away, but she'd given it to him as a gift. So he'd think of her as he went off to train pokémon again for a while again.

With the bird she'd also given him a special pokéball for it. It allowed to bird to get out when it needed, if the "lock" on it was off, to but it was trained to not wander off. If the lock was on the bird couldn't come out unless it was called out. She's never believed in keeping he pokémon locked up for long times unless it was absolutely necesary. Even then she usually gave them breaks when she was traveling. Something she couldn't do much of being a gym leader. She'd told him she wanted to go with him on his journey, but she couldn't.

He sighed and checked back on eevee as his train of thought seemed to takea temporarily stop, as if coming to a train station and letting off all the passengers, only the passengers felt more like tears of lonlyness and hatered toward himself that were close to streaming down his cheeks.

Every time he'd meet up with his once best friend, he couldn't help how he acted really, something came over him, he became hostile and just snapped, trying to keep distant from everyone. The truth was he was scared. Scared he wouldn't become all his grandfather had bragged he would be, and that his friend would out do him in the end. Before he became a trainer he was always the shy one, he didn't like having people around him, but with his grandfather's job, there was no way he could avoid the attention of all his home town and more when he became a trainer... The worst choice he'd made he used to think. He loved being able to train his pokémon and be out "on his own" when he wasn't being followed by a group of cheerleaders, he didn't even want them to follow, they just did it for the pupblicity or something he'd decided long back. They didn't seem to really care about him anyhow, they were all so one dimentional and outright blah...

Taking care of the pokémon is the only reason he stayed a trainer at times. He didn't care about the pokémon BATTLES themselves, but watching the pokémon grow was what mattered.

Eevee began to stir again and whimpered realizing her trainer had left her on the ground, she seemed to prefer snuggling when she was out of her pokéball, which was almost all the time when he got away from people. He didn't like showing off his pokémon. It made him feel like he was bragging too much, even if he did that anyways, it was just a reflex he'd developped to keep people away, from seeing how he really felt inside. Abandoned, alone, and drepressed.

Everything he did seemed as if it wasn't good enough. People always expected more from him even when he did his best. He could have beat the Elite if it wasn't for all the pressure that had been placed on him by his home town. Everyone praying he'd win, be the best, he couldn't take it, and because of that lost in the fourth match.

His best friend had only made it a little further, to the fifth round. He thought his friend would only try to rub it in that he'd gotten further since even his friend had seemed to change, their friendship was turned into pure rivalry, hating one another right down to the core. It was doing more harm then anything though.

He sat on the edge of the cliff and watched Eevee some to his side. The pokémon yawned and slumped over leaning against him and trying to sleep again. He scratched the eevee behind its ear and she yipped happily. Eevee and his other pokémon seemed to be the only thing that cared for him other then his girlfriend. He knew she'd do anything she could for him. He used to be like that towards his once best friend... When they were little, his friend had been playing with a plastic pidgey toy, pretending to have it flying about, they were only around five and seven at the time. Some bullies had decided to come along and break the wings off the bird. After they left and his friend was in tears, he had knelt down beside him and his broken toy and told him to wait where he was. After leaving for nearly a half an hour, he came back with a new pidgey toy for his friend, he'd spent the last of his allowence on it, just to make his friend happy.

"If only times could be like that again," he sighed aloud.

A twig snapped from somewhere behind him. It was just a pokémon, he thought, not even looking back. Even if it is someone they're only out looking for pokémon found at night.

He dried his cheek where he had been crying slightly. He tried looking on the bright side of things, but there was none. Everyone expected too much of him. As if they wanted him to run off, become famous "do them proud" then you can come back. His on family seemed disapointed he even showed his face in their town after having lost at Indigo.

"Shige-chan?"

He turned his head, knowing who had called, only one person called him that, as a pet name, but he didn't overly like it.

A girl, his girlfriend walked up to him and sat at his side, opposit Eevee. She leaned against him and kissed him on the cheek. "Shigeru, come home with me?" she asked, looking up into his eyes. "I miss having you around."

Shigeru smiled for the first time that night and put an arm around her. "I've missed being around. I wanted to come back but had to have time to myself, to think about... well, some things."

She nodded, understanding he needed his space at times.

"You came all this way to find me?" he asked.

She nodded again. "I'd have looked all night if I had to. I wanted to bring you back home, where you belong."

Shigeru kissed her and held her close. He hadn't realized before but there was a bright side to everything in the end. "You always know just what to say." he said, still smiling, the pain of all he'd worried about only moments before gone.