old stuff is be separated from the new parts added on by a ====================================================

Something seems wrong with my writing currently, so please point out what I should change with past tense writing and stuff
I'm struggling really bad xD

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"𝐙𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐤," he calls.

His voice chimes. They were old chimes, the rustic kind. Anyone around would be soothed by it whenever he'd speak. It's calm and gravel-like. 'Husky' is the way the girls in the village called it ages ago.

In the midst of the leaves, inside the treehouse built with branches and vines, a figure appears. A Pokémon. It's long black fur dangles from its head. At the very bottom, a single bead holds it together. It's red claws scrape the floor beneath him as it walks slowly over toward his master on his hind legs.

"Isn't it beautiful?" the man breaths. His wrinkles on his cheeks crease even more as his lips curl up toward the sky.

The Zoroark sits down next to him, letting his legs hang off the edge of the steep porch. He looks around just as the old man tells him to.

Green.

The sun shines through the tree's crowns, dancing just like every other normal day. It truly was beautiful.

They stare for a good minute before Zoroark turns back toward his owner. He speaks sheepishly, "Zor."

"Hm?" Lucian finally tilts his head to look over at his dearest friend.

Zoroak only stares back.

"Do you expect me to say something?" The freckles glued to his cheeks bounces when he talks. His skin was a light brown, just like the rest of his village.

"Yes," Zoroark tries to say, but all that comes out is, "Roak."

Lucian laughs, the white hair behind him swaying and flying away from his white robe that drapes over his shoulders.

Although Zoroark loves to see Lucian laugh, he can't help but see him and tell himself how fragile he is. Every vein and bone in his arm you could see; wrinkles adorning them. He reaches out to his master, lightly grabbing one of his arms and pulling him back toward him. He doesn't want him falling to his death from laughing at merely nothing after all.

"Oh, goodness, Zor! Let this old man have his fun sometimes, will ya?" he pats the dark type Pokémon on the back before sighing and sitting up straight once again. "What happened to you, huh?"

Zoroark hastily looks away. It hurt.

"Don't you remember? Remember the day I met you? You were so little then. Lost your mom... still never know what happened to that guy... he's surely dead now though, I mean, look at me," he chuckles. "I'm eighty... something."

Some silence.

Zoroark looks out at the other treehouses found high up in the trees. Each roof was decorated in large leaves and more vines. The trunks of the trees everyone sits in all have ladders and vines to help them get down. Though, some have Pokémon to help them get down, too.

"You really were cute back then," Lucian blurted, placing a hand on one of Zoroark's leg.

"You were cute, too, Luc," the Pokémon laughed to himself. He remembers Lucian with ruffled brown hair, chubby cheeks, and a torn, warn beige shirt. His eyes were blue, completely distinct from the rest of his skin and hair color. He didn't know it then, but Lucian was definitely one of the more attractive boys out of the entire village.

The man's skin creases like thin paper when he smiles, "You were so small."

Zoroark nods and breathes in the air around them.

He remembers.

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In the middle of the boisterous rain, there was a loud and unfamiliar zipping sound that rang deep within the forest. It was night. Darkness swallowed every tree and every creature that scattered the place. There would be a flash of light that would seep into the watered leaves and muddy ground every now and then, giving everything a certain disfigured configuration. It smelled of earth and moistened plants.

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When the ends of the net clicked, connecting and wrapping itself tightly around its overdue prey, a man walked over toward it, pulling down on the sleeves of his gloves.

"Haha! Gotcha!" His voice was deep, yet scratchy through the sounds of the raindrops falling lightly at the end of his worn cap. He had 'caught' his first Pokémon of the week. And it was his most prized one yet. "Ya best pray that the bastards I sell you to aren't gonna use ya for somethin' stupid." His dirtied boots compressed the mud and damp greenage beneath him. "The most of them are stupid," he spit.

A frail Pokémon watched from the distance. It quivered in the rain that soaked his grey and red coat. His heart pounded against the Pokémon's chest as his feet struggled to move toward his mother snared in the nasty net. He feared the worst.

"I tell ya," the Pokémon hunter snarled when reaching for the ends of the net, "If they get caught doing something stupid with you, I'll probably be thrown in jail with the lot of 'em. They'd rot me out!" He tugged at the net viciously, jostling the Zoroark up on its head so its face could meet the mud.

Zorua gave a whimpering bark.

The hunter turned his head sharply to the sound of the young Pokémon. "My, my." The man threw the net back down to the ground, the Zoroark in the bag rubbing up against the mud. "A Zorua! Haha! It's my lucky day! Why I haven't even seen one of you in the market in years!" He trudged his feet along the ground as his hands reached behind him, his fingers grasping onto another useful gadget used by most of those in the Pokémon hunting business. "I bet you'll be worth big-"

"Stop!" a voice interrupted. A boy, noticeably bedraggled by the night's storm, gazed over at the Pokémon hunter. His eyes seemed dull, but in the dark of night where only lightning strikes could provide vision, they appeared like stars in the sky.

The Pokémon hunter laughed, chortled, and coughed. "What are you doing out here, boy?" he put his hand on his stomach and shook his head. "Get outta here! Something like you out here in this storm. You best head home kid, you'll catch a cold!" The hunter moved back toward the shaking Zorua. Hands reaching out toward the Pokémon's dampened coat.

But his hands could touch it, the boy screamed again, "Stop!" this time with more aggression.

"Tell ya what kid," the hunter breathed, "if you can stop me from getting this Zorua, hell, I should might as well retire! Now get out of the way, kid. This is serious business, I wouldn't want you hurt," he snorted.

Some more teeth gritting. He continued to stand there, letting the rain hit against his hair.

The man looked back up at the kid as the rain poured and rolled right back off of the boy's dirtied cheeks and brown muddled hair full of mud. He noticed he wasn't moving. "I'm being serious, boy!" the hunter bellowed, finally reaching his hands down below him before realizing the Zorua had disappeared. "What in the— alright! That's it! I warned you, kid, but now you've really done it!" He reaches into his pocket and got out a strange device, glossy black with a glow of blue at the end.

The boy's eyes widened and he immediately skipped over to the tree beside him, nearly missing the shock emitted from the taser.

The Pokémon hunter cussed behind the tree— he had shocked himself. "Dammit! The hell do I even wear these gloves for if they can't even protect me from a small shock!"

The boy knelt down, pushing his knee down into the mud. He gestured his hand toward himself, eyeing the Pokémon's blue eyes across from him.

But the Pokémon did not budge. He, instead of the boy, eyed his mother who was yelping inside the net to her young.

"Come on!" he tried yelling as softly as he could.

It happened too quickly.

The Zorua darted, slipping halfway on his way to the boy, leaving mud on the left side of his body for when the boy would pick him up gently. It was cold, but it didn't mean that it wasn't comforting.

Without saying another word, the boy didn't hesitate and ran away, flying past the other trees and curled up ferns.

Zorua tried his best to keep an eye on his mother until she was completely out of site.

He'd later regret doing so.

The poacher let out his anger on his mother.

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"Lucian," a strangely familiar voice spoke.

"Uh— yes?" The boy with messy brown hair turned around, setting down a damped cloth on a stone next to him that he was using to wipe the dried dirt off his shirt.

At first, frozen in fear, Lucian jumped to his feet and nearly fell into the running stream behind him. "What the! Who are you? Where did you come from?!"

The person that stood in front him walked closer toward him, his beige shirt waving from his clumsy walking. His hand reached out toward Lucian, their blue eyes staring into one another's.

"Stop, d-don't come any closer!" Lucian screamed. He studied the boy's hair, his lips, eyes, outfit. Everything was too exact. It was him. It was an exact copy of him!

Even though the hand that was his came closer, he didn't budge. Not even when the hand reached the skin on his cheek. Lucian winced, shutting his eyes closed... before realizing that he wasn't actually feeling anything.

Lucian opened his eyes to find nothing in front of him, only the dark green forest.

A Pokémon barked at his feet, wagging his grey tail with a smudge of red at the very tip of it.

He looked down at it, his heart beating at an uncomfortable rate. Lucian exhaled, "Zorua... was that you?"

It nodded, jumping around in a circle, snickering to itself.

"Don't do that again," Lucian shook his head, leaning down and picking up the cloth. "You can speak my language?"

Zorua didn't respond but played with a small flower still wet from the rain.

Lucian sighed and lifted his shirt from his stomach. He asked exhausted, "Is the mud gone?"

Zorua nodded, but quickly ran between Lucian's legs and turning toward a part of the forest.

He stared at the Pokémon, realizing where he was pointing towards with his snout. "We can't look for Zoroark."

Zorua looked back at Lucian but then back at the forest. "Zor."

"I'm sorry." Lucian knelt down. "It's already morning..." Tears slowly began to form in his eyes as he chocked on his words. "They're probably gone already... there'd be no way to track them. And even if we did, how would we get Zoroark away from that man and out of the net?"

The Zorua's eyesight blurred.

"Come home with me. My village is nice— they take care of Pokémon all the time... though I've never seen one of you before. My village, you know, has spoken of you before... I thought you were only a Pokémon made up for storytelling. Unless I'm just confusing you for another Pokémon, I guess," he scratched the back of his ruffled hair.

The Zorua didn't respond. He continued to study the dark forest.

"I promise we won't harm you. Maybe if I speak to my father we can find your mother, okay? He's dealt with one of those people before. Our village isn't very found of 'em." He got up and walked back over toward Zorua. "Trust me."

The greenish-blue eyes of Zorua glanced up at Lucian's blue eyes.

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The room was crowded, people were gathered with their families for the morning's scheduled ritual. Everyone looked toward the very back of the room, eyeing a man in a colorful robe.

His hat was also full of color, strings of red, blue, yellow, and green made up the very front of it. The light above him came from a hole in the roof and bounced off his light ebony skin. His black beard was shaven, but noticeably growing back.

"Let us venture outside tomorrow tonight and celebrate!" he bellowed, "Let us join Pokémon and friends! For today is the day before we honor the Pokémon that fill this beautiful world, yes, yes!" He clasped his hands together before letting them open up again, throwing his arms to his side. "Now get back to preparing for the festival, haha!" he grinned as he looked down at the people smiling all around.

Everyone chanted and clapped as though they had practiced the night before. Some kids ran past Lucian, gleaming smiles pasted on their faces. Mothers followed, ready to help their children prepare their mâchés.

Zorua sat in Lucian's hands, looking around curiously. The ruckus would soon get to its ears though. It shivered in Lucian's arms and hid its face in his chest.

Able to walk further into the crowd, Lucian tried his best to walk around the people, following the circular wall made of small layers of wood and green strings of leaves.

"Lucian," someone grabbed his arm. It was Mandalyn, his friend whom he's known since birth. Though, they were still only six years old at the time. Her dimples appeared as her lips curved upwards. "We've been looking for you, where have you been?"

Without saying a word, he gestured to the Pokémon he held, still hiding away with his snout which he squeezed into his arm.

The girl's eyes widened. She jumped in front of Lucian to try and get a good look at the Pokémon. "I've never seen this one before," she petted Zorua's back, "What type of Pokémon is he?"

"I just know that he's a Zorua. That's about it."

"A Zorua?... Sounds familiar." She put her hands back down at her sides. "Have we learned about it at all?"

"Yes—" Lucian started before a man in the crowd bumped into Lucian, causing him to bump into Mandalyn as well.

Zorua shook, tossing itself around in the boy's arms.

Noticing this, Lucian apologized when he finally balanced himself, "I'm sorry, but I actually have to speak to my father, okay?" he looked back toward the stage and began to jog. "I'll try talking to you later!"

She watched as he jolted to the back of the room. Her shoulders lowered.

"C'mon— Mandalyn!" someone called from outside the large hut. "We're gonna create Pokémon mâchés!"

She turned around, her posture fixing itself. Her dimples appeared once more and she ran toward the other kids. "Coming!"

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"Zorua, you know what I said about the illusions," Lucian picked up the wooden bowl from the floor.

It was evening, only a handful of light leaked through the leaves of each tree. The festival was to start in only a half an hour. All the people in the forest gathered with fruits and vegetables grown for a feast. The girls wore dresses filled with color while the boys wore colorful skirts attached with palm fronds, the leaves of the trees they grew a half a mile away from the village. But the men, those who had passed their thirteenth birthday, wore no shirts. They colored their chests with paints just like they would their shirts if not better while the women wore fancier dresses that they'd make themselves with some help from Smeargles who they had befriended.

"I'm gonna end up like the guy who cried Lycanroc," Lucian complained. He looked around the rest of the room to see if Zorua had done any more damage to his side of his family's treehouse.

A purple aura consumed the Bunneary in the room and revealed Zorua laying down on the white mat which belonged to Lucian. "Rua!" it barked, tossing itself in a circular motion and landing on its tainted red paws. A colored triangle-like hat sat atop its head, hanging off one ear. It was made of vine and paint made by the villages' artists and Pokémon.

"Father said you can't come out tonight," Lucian tried to say hastily.

Zorua glanced back at the boy now dressed in skirt-like shorts, adorning the colors of Zorua's hat. Although somewhat shirtless, he had a short but massive palm frond attached to both his back and chest, tied with another vine found in the trees they lived with.

Zorua, uncontrollably, snickered and chuckled to itself, falling onto its side and letting the hat fall off its head.

Lucian's shouldered stiffened. "And now you're laughing at my outfit, huh?" He walked on over to his bed and picked up the hat that Zorua stole from him. "That's very rude, you know."

The Pokémon continued to laugh.

His lips began to quiver. "Stop laughing!"

Didn't stop.

He looked away from the troublemaker of a Pokémon. "Guess my dad is right," he scoffed to himself. "I'm cursed." He turned back to the open door and walked out to the open porch.

Finally able to breathe, Zorua sat himself up. It shook its body, fixing the aligning of its fur.

Lucian's father, the villagers' priest to some, certainly did not find Zorua's coming welcoming or interesting at the very least. For he had listened and read stories of those who had found such a Pokémon in the forest. Cursed 'till death. He had told himself if anyone in the village ever to find one, he was to banish them, as he did not want their bringing of a mess to affect the village and its people... but he never expected for the person to be his own son.

The dark type Pokémon scratched the back of his ear with his hind leg, looking around the room as he did so.

He was alone.

Alone.

His breathing quickened. The room was still empty, his heart pattered as quickly as the rain that came down two nights before. He quickly created an illusion of his own imagination. His mother and the poacher.

The Pokémon yelped and yelped, throwing itself against the wall.

He kept kicking her. Tasing her.

Lucian rushed into the room, seeing this illusion for himself. He first thought it was real, but quickly remembered what his father had told him.

"Zorua, stop!" he tried to scream to him.

Zorua didn't even hear him.

Dropping his hat, Lucian ran over to the mischievous Pokémon and grabbed him, trying his best to hold onto him.

It squirmed around in his arms.

"It's okay!" Lucian tried to comfort him, holding onto the Pokémon even tighter. "It's just in your head, you have to stop thinking of it!" His father didn't tell him that one.

More minutes passed by and Zorua continued to cry. Sometimes he kicked at Lucian, other times he just laid there and cried.

"I'm here," Lucian cried into Zorua's fur, letting the emotions get to him. "It's okay."

Zorua finally calmed down, curling up in the boy's arms.

Lucian lifted up its head, wiping his tears away. He gazed at where the illusion took place. It was gone.

The was now quiet. sniffling was the only thing you could hear.

"I can't leave you here," Lucian frowned. "You're gonna have to come with me."

Zorua lifted his head up and left his snout on Lucian's arm, pointing up at him.

"Let's make you an outfit. Maybe my father won't notice," the boy tried to smile, setting Zorua back down on his mattress made of grass and soft leaves.

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