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P** art One...**

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Shame on me. Yes, shame on me because I should have seen this coming months - NO - years before this very moment! This very moment where I, after having just finished drying myself off after a serious shower in my household's bathroom seconds ago, stood completely naked before the world. And not only naked to the world but before my best friend, helper, pokemon whom was now staring at me with the widest if not most uncertain eyes she'd ever shown during our many previous years together!

Indeed, right now, I was boldly standing naked in my own bathroom. Was there anything wrong with that? Well, no. Not during normal circumstances, anyway.

Yet, seeing as how stressful tonight had been for my entire household up to this point, seeing as I wasn't been able to hide any longer from a certain truth I'd been running from for years on end, tonight wasn't a normal circumstance. Especially not when I'd just had my best friend in the world voluntarily come in to check on me like she always did a moment ago, not when I had her stay with me in turn so I had the chance to honestly tell her my rapidly beating heart's feeling, and not when I had just now thrown aside my towel - my only kind of clothing or such - to see her honest reaction.

Really, even if I should have been ashamed of myself at this delicate instance for not realizing it sooner, although I'd had the many months if not years ahead of time to have seen if not accepted the now clarified fact, the recent realization of what had happened was still not an easy thing for me or my best friend to, well, um, accept on this night.

Yeah, this event wasn't at all easy for us. If anything, it was blowing our minds. For you see, ahem, the realization we or foolish I had just come across, the issue I had just been included on... involved that tender, fragile, warming element entitled "love".

Indeed, was I as of now, Antony Squires, the respected keeper of my family business of "Serenity Pokemon Daycare" near Petalburg City and former traveling pokemon trainer of Hoenn... willing to accept that I had finally fallen in love tonight?

Well, yes. Yes I had. Or put better, although not willing to have seen or accepted it during the many moments beforehand in the past, I'd unknowingly been in love for the longest time.

Honestly, the real question here at the moment as I stood stark naked in my bathroom wasn't if I was in love for I very well was. It was if I was in fact in love not with a human but... but with a pokemon; with the humble Gardevoir pokemon who now looked upon nude me in the bathroom.

Mind, I hadn't fallen in love with just any Gardevoir. This was THE Gardevoir whom had come to me years ago as a reclusive Kirlia. A Kirlia whose happy little dance had been ruined during her earlier months with her formerly abusive trainer. That'd been before I had come to adopt her into my daycare of today, anyhow. Either way, this was the Gardevoir who, as I had watched her do so during all of our past years together, had grown to be so powerful, so loyal, so beautiful now.

This was truly the Gardevoir whom had come to be my best friend, my endearing family, my fierce guardian in this lifetime.

And now, if I was willing to allow it tonight and forget what was supposedly civilized nowadays - which I was - could my currently surprised Gardevoir very well turn out to be my love interest too? As I hoped while she fidgeted with her hands opposite of naked me in the bathroom, could she very well be the loyal lover I'd been hopefully looking for during this entire lifetime of mine?

Aura, my embracing Gardevoir. Despite me ignorance of her feelings during the last few years... she still loved me, didn't she?

Yes. Judging by how she glanced to me now, how she shyly swayed from side to side, how she couldn't keep a happy smile from showing on her face as well as a bright twinkle glint in her eyes, yes, she did. For I'd seen more than enough of her familiar hints, clues and actions in the past to guess so at this moment.

And thus, tonight, I was also well aware now that she had loved me not only now during this very moment on this night but she'd done so for far too long without me having returned the favor.

Yet, despite my lack of affections towards her up to this point, despite me having not returned the favor, it seemed Aura had gone on loving me. Despite my unfair ignorance towards her all of these years, I had taken eventual notice that she'd followed my every order during the previous years without question, she'd intently listened to what I had to say both good and bad, she'd helped me take care of the many pokemon who had been brought to my daycare.

And just a second ago... Aura had even dared to shift the tides of reality to try to turn things in her favor by stepping in between myself and my supposed girlfriend. That had been her attempt to show me where real love was. Indeed, she had recently tried to show me that she could and had loved me more than any other person I'd met during our colorful years together.

Me in love. Me involved in a romance with my Gardevoir; with Aura.

Heh, I may know all of these things at this moment. I may know everything that led up to this minute on this troubled night where I now stand naked with Aura in my bathroom, nervously awaiting her reaction to me having just admitted that I wanted to know if she loved me as I loved her. All of which has happened because my girlfriend - or so called, guh - had just stormed out of my daycare/household an hour ago after having screamed, vented, raged about how my decisions were never made by myself... but by Aura.

Yes, my girlfriend having harshly shouted at me an hour ago before storming away... that had been what had woken me up to the fact that Aura was and had forever been my one and only. For you see, always in some way and even though I had been with my gf most times during the last few months, my Gardevoir had been there following me, doting on me, watching over me. And during it all, never had she asked me for anything back. Just a smile was all she'd needed.

"So, if I needed Aura with me doing everything for the last few months, why did I need a girlfriend at all?" My hot headed gf had just recently screamed before I had forced her to leave my abode, "Why didn't I just make the ever needy embrace pokemon my girlfriend instead? Seeing as I had always gone to her for wisdom on what to do? Hell, she was practically my lawyer to begin with, anyway! I spent more of my personal time with Aura then I did with anyone or anything else!"

Hah, heh, here I am ranting again about stuff you have no clue about. I had a girlfriend that had recently gotten severely ticked off by Aura on some night? I'm the owner/keeper of a pokemon daycare near Petalburg?

I was once a trainer of Hoenn?

Could I actually be in love with a Gardevoir who had formerly been an abused Kirlia before having shown up in my own life and had become my best friend?

Yes. Yes, to all of those questions. Nevertheless, in order for me to not appear to be some freakish mess or lewd monster towards pokemon to you, there's a lot more for me to explain here, isn't there? Again, the answer to that is yes.

So, ahem, allow me to clarify as best as I can as to what's going on at the moment. No, better yet, let me explain a bit of my past. In doing so, you'll come to learn about myself, how I came to be the manager of the Serenity Pokemon Daycare, how I came to adopt supposedly meddlesome Aura into my life.

Today presently - or tonight rather, while I stand in my bathroom - I'm 21 years old. Throughout these years of mine, as I've been told since I was young enough to hear as well as actually pay attention to when little, the Squires lineage has been a family that has had a knack for anything related to pokemon. Truly, many of my ancestors across the globe have either been fantastic trainers, teachers, or such.

Out of everything though, they came to eventually find out - like yours truly nowadays - that they were grand breeders, caretakers, just friends altogether with pokemon.

And thus, like the majority of my forefathers, it turned out that my parents themselves - Shane as well as Tamarie Squires - came to discover that they were not destined to be masters, researchers, nor leaders in the pokemon world. No, they instead took up that humble profession of caring for pokemon. Hence, it had been them who had first opened the Serenity Pokemon Daycare that I now run.

As sad as it is, as brutal as reality can be, I never did get the chance to know my parents firsthand though. Why, you may ask? Well, as I've been repeatedly told about that unfortunate date of the 13th of November when I was two years old going on three, my folks had been driving me home from someplace after whatever on that rainy day when a certain drunken other had blindsided our vehicle at high speed.

Instantly, both drivers of both vehicles - the drunk and my father - had been killed. My mother had gradually lost the fight for her own life in the hospital later. And as for myself... I had made it through that experience with only a few scratches. That was thanks to me having been in the safe seat on the rear, right side of the car when it'd been hit from the left.

This was a great opening act for my life, right? It sounds like something you'd read in an Elite Four Champ's biography instead, correct?

Well, don't be so shocked. It's all true. It's all distressingly dramatic. It's all stuff I've come to accept into my life, that I've come to know as good as I know that all Magikarp splash about for no reason, that I'm not ashamed nor afraid to speak of anymore to anyone interested.

Yes, due to a terrible car accident, my mom's, dad's, and the drunk's lives had come to an abrupt end on November 13th during that stormy day. Alas, like in any dramatic plot of some book or play or movie, that had been the point in my lifetime where I - as the orphan - should have very well been sent off to the snobbish/possessive relatives in some rich city or something along those lines, right?

Wrong. Fortunately for me, the dramatics didn't escalate that much.

Instead, twelve days later on the 25th, I had turned three and the possession of my infant self as well as my deceased parents' pokemon daycare had been luckily passed over to my father's younger brother; also known as my dear, adventurous, veteran trainer of an uncle today, "Mordecai Squires".

Even before today where he's well known in the worldwide pokemon community if not among the elite four organizations, my uncle Mordecai had been a great man who had valued the few yet highest ideals in life. Involved with any issue, he was a bit quick to anger. Nevertheless, he was always patiently fair. He had been firm where needed but was gentle most times.

In the past to the present, he deeply believed in justice, in equality, in pokemon.

But, as he does now and did then, as he came to chiefly teach me as I grew up with him, my uncle considered family, friends and allies the most important of all things on his list. For without family, a man was not and is not anything but an animal. For without friends, a man could not nor cannot hope to achieve anything in his life.

Therefore, having been so loyal to the idea of family staying together at that moment in the past, when he had received news that my father along with mother had perished due to an accident, Mordecai had been fast in snarling about how unfair the event had been to me, about why there had to have been such an accident, about why there had to of been any drunks in the world.

Nevertheless, knowing what had had to be done then, knowing his venting wouldn't have done anything else but maybe made matters worse than they'd already been for everyone suffering from the wrecked car catastrophe, my uncle had instantly went come to Petalburg to adopt me as his own son.

Truly, even though having been in Sootopolis during my folks' deaths where he 'd looked to get his last gym badge from the Water Gym Leader, Wallace, he still had dropped everything to come see if I was okay. That was just how good a man my uncle was. That was just how good a soul he had.

Immediately after his arrival in the city, my uncle had seen my parents' lawyer about their will which had included passing over a portion of their possessions to him, of course. Their daycare for pokemon, however, had been long since determined by many witnesses to go to me in the future.

Yet, seeing as I had only been a baby at that time of the reading of the will... heh, I had been much too young to take charge of my parents' business.

Thus, on that November 25th back then, my uncle - even though having been a renowned trainer on the road who had taken part in numerous pokemon league championships in the past, who was expected by many people to take part in that year's championship - became my legal guardian, set aside his list of things to do and took over my lost parents' respected daycare.

And when he took over, mind, the business became that MUCH more respected. Already as such yet improved, it became a place of profit, of wisdom, of contentment for everyone who had a connection to it. Especially me as I grew up.

As said beforehand, I'm twenty-one. Therefore, eighteen years have passed on since the deaths of my mom and dad. Eighteen years have helped me to better accept the fact that my parents had been unfairly taken from me when I was a babe and their graves were placed in calm Petalburg Woods. Eighteen years have aided me in learning that I was raised by my uncle as best as he could manage and things could have been far worse for me.

During my said growing up, even though I'd had a trainer for a father figure during my growing up, I still took to comfortably following my parents' footsteps to today in becoming not a pokemon master but a professional keeper/breeder.

Indeed, although my Uncle Mordecai had been a very inspiring role model with talents for battling others trainers while I grew up, even though he'd suggested to me on several occasions that I'd had the capabilities like my ancestors for being a pokemon master if I wished to try, I'd still grown up not wanting to command but befriend pokemon.

Yes, it was in fact when I became fourteen that I, like my parents before me, officially started down this path of mine to becoming more of a guardian to all pokemon rather than being a commander of them.

Of course, to say I hadn't turned out to be the least bit of a trainer today would be a downright lie. Everyone in this world owns some kind of pokemon. Thus, in some way, every person alive has been a bit of a trainer. And like all kids who turned ten, therefore, I had indeed journeyed with my uncle to southeast Littleroot Town to take that familiar rite of passage into the pokemon world.

Naturally, when I became the legal age of ten years old, I speak of having gotten my very first pokemon from the good hearted if not random enough Professor Birch of the Hoenn Region.

What had been my first actual pokemon, one would ask? It turned out to be a noble, proud, strong male Zigzagoon who I came to name "Zig-Zag". Classic name for such a striped, swift pokemon, no? Actually, come to think of it now, if my over eager uncle as well as myself hadn't arrived into Littleroot late, if we hadn't waited at least a day or two later to come visiting the professor... we wouldn't have just gotten into the lab to learn that all of the available starter pokemon - Mudkip, Torchic, Treecko - had been taken by other starting trainers.

Alas, here I suddenly sound so very ungrateful about my first ever pokemon, don't I?

Nah, when I was ten, I wasn't ever ungrateful to have been blessed with Zig-Zag in Littleroot. Sure, a Mudkip or Treecko or Torchic would have been neat. Yet, my first ever pokemon - my dear Zigzagoon -turned out to be one of my best friends throughout my life. Especially when he evolved into a swifter than swift Linoone, all which was due to so much of my uncle's helpful training on the side.

Yeah, that furry fella I call Zig-Zag today saw me through tough times in the past. He'd helped me understand pokemon all that much better and... he had even observed me grow closer to Aura without ever abandoning me along the way. If anything, he'd encouraged me to keep going to this point where I now stood before my Gardevoir naked.

So, although I wish to say I never took part in pokemon battling or being a trainer, I cannot. There came times in my life where I had to learn that taking care of pokemon was one thing. To stand up for them though, to be able to defend them, to bond with them, had turned out to be a necessary other. And although I had not wished to partake in it, where I had had a harmonious heart rather than an adventurous one like my uncle's, I partially became a trainer on the side during my pursuit of becoming the eventual owner of my family's daycare.

Guess how my becoming a trainer started? With me having met Aura, of course.

I was fourteen when I unknowingly met the abused Kirlia who would evolve into a strong Gardevoir; the one who would love me for the longest time to this very night where I'm now twenty-one. Indeed, our meeting each other was during a rather exciting June where I had been looking forward to getting my official pokemon caretaker license.

In order to have won such an honor as a poke' care license though, I'd needed to first show to official rangers, breeders, ranchers, testers in general, my skills for caring for pokemon, for feeding them appropriately, for remaining cool when involved in emergencies with them.

Heh, the first license tests had proven to be more than easy for me to accomplish during those days. With my pokemon expert of an uncle having confidently taught me everything he knew, I accurately answered every question on the written tests; tests in which I'd described what food items to give to which species, in how to respectfully approach some types, in how to handle if not tame the wilder pokemon who I would and did come across in the future.

Next, the second license test had placed me in emergency situations where I was directed to point out the sicknesses, ailments, along with injuries of each presented pokemon. In turn, impressing my testers, I explained what treatments the said pokemon had needed.

When I'd breezed through that session of giving pokemon their needed meds, I recall that the people testing me couldn't keep from exchanging impressed smiles, laughs, comments. Yes, to them, I'd been on a roll that testing day. If they'd been around to see me, I would have made my parents proud.

Still, the last license test where I had been led out into the actual wilds of route 102 to accordingly defend myself against wild pokemon with Zig-Zag hadn't only gone well. Rather, it'd proven to be a superb experience! For you see, when a group of wild Poochyena led by a fierce Mightyena had ambushed us from the undergrowth, even I couldn't have even begun to guess how good a job I'd been about to do before everyone's eyes!

Again, I had known at that moment of truth during the testing then that all Squires were born with the ability of dealing with pokemon. Nevertheless, on that day where I had not only faced that pack of Poochyena with Zig-Zag, captured their prime Mightyena, and sent all the hostiles running back into the wild without even a single lift of a finger of help from anyone testing me... it had all been so fast, so epic, so unbelievable like.

I, at the age of fourteen with only a Linoone and no adult help, had fended off a full group of territory protecting Poochyena. Not only that, I had even caught the Mightyena in charge of them all? How very shocking for everyone! In the best way, mind.

Needless to say, my testers had dropped everything at seeing my brilliant success on Route 102. Heh, I can still remember they claimed that they should have known the relative of popular Mordecai - myself, ha ha - would have not only aced the tests but blown them out of the water.

A few moments later, with me feeling very proud if not relieved over my success, my testers had presented me with my certificates to help me secure my license as a keeper of pokemon. As if that were not enough, I'd gotten to keep the captured Mightyena; the loyal one, the loyal family dog, I call Fen today.

Lastly, at having seen my promising skills with pokemon firsthand, it had been then that one of the testers had approached me as well as my uncle with a certain request before we could depart; the request of us taking in, caring for, as well as adopting Aura into our family. Of course, during that time, we hadn't known Aura by that name exactly. We instead would come to know her as a source of sadness. One that I, as a certified poke' care taker, would be willing to do anything to make happy.