The Lucario was pushed back enough that Chloe was able to get in between us both. She had her back to me and was glaring at her father with annoyance and another emotion I couldn't identify.

"I think that's enough father" she said that last part a bit slower to further show her annoyance and anger with his actions. I looked over at the female Lucario, Chloe's mother and found her to be smiling? What happened to make her smile, unless she enjoyed the fight that much, or maybe it was connected to her daughter's actions?

My thoughts were torn from her as the father relaxed his stance and the ends of his stick seemed to flicker out of existence before the bottom portion of them shot out and thickened to match the rest of the sticks thickness. He then reattached the ends and put the rod on his back before bowing low to his daughter.

"I am sorry for my actions Chloe. I got a little carried away and didn't expect your new partner to be so skilled" he said and I cocked my head in confusion at him, "'new partner', was there other before me that failed his test? And what was this feeling I got thinking about others traveling with Chloe?

"I—fine. I'll forgive you this time. I'm going to go train a little with the others, but if I find out you did this again after I leave I'll—" Chloe growled at her father but stopped mid-sentence and stormed off.

I stepped aside and watched her go, confused, was she acting this way because of me?

"You know. You're the first Pokémon I've seen her get so flustered over" the female Lucario said as I turned towards her. She suddenly held out her hand out to me before apologizing on the male's behalf.

"I am sorry that my husband put you through that, he just does things without thinking sometimes and while you need a little training. You have very strong fighting instincts and a strong battle-sense"

I looked at her hand for a moment and then at her seeing that she was apparently the one that kept the male in check more often than Chloe did, and I took her paw.

———————————

Over the next half hour the two parents showed me around, where I would be staying, what they were doing here to begin with, and their names.

I learned that the mother's name was Sapphire, and the father's name was Azrill and he was 'a bit of work,' in her words anyways. She was usually the one to keep him in check and according to her stories he was always the one that went headfirst into most battles. Behaving in a way that's more like a brawler than an assassin.

Sapphire lead me around the outside area, going past several places of people doing different things. This was all on one mountain? How can all of these people fit up here?

"Anyways, usually Azrill beats the men that Chloe brings back black and blue, and even after training they usually aren't seen by someone worthy by him...or her" Sapphire looked at me and I tilted my head, looking away from a training area where darts were being constantly fired out of holes in the four walls surrounding one person. I would have to go there sometime, looked like fun.

"Huh I just realized that you caused Chloe to speak aloud instead of using telepathy for the first time in a long while. She must really appreciate you to break that vow of silence she had going" Sapphire said suddenly and I looked at her confused.

"Ah, she probably hasn't told you has she," after seeing me shake my head no she smiled and continued, "when Chloe was just a Riolu she had a bit of a traumatic experience with a Kadabra. She had apparently gotten lost somewhere in the city and her training under Shadow, as her first partner, had just started.

"Anyways, she offended the other Pokemon enough to make it use Psychic to throw her across an alley, and I imagine that the way we found her, it was a one sided beating" Sapphire stopped and seemed to contemplate speaking more before looking at me and shrugging. I was very interested in this; a backstory other than my own, and yet so similar to my own too.

"She had offended the other Pokemon enough that he tried to take her ability to physically speak by severing the connection of her vocal cords. She was heartbroken, but even after this experience she kept on training and striving to get better.

"The only reason she's still able to speak is because she was young at the time. We were able to help her brain reconnect to her voice box enough that they would heal fully on their own. Though that didn't stop her silence unless she needed to speak aloud for something. So  she learned Telepathy instead to train her mind and has grown quite good at it, even better than I since her evolution"

At that moment Chloe seemed to appear in front of them and she had her arms crossed under her chest spike, looking at the two with slight annoyance.

Come on. Shadows father wants to speak to you about...everything really She looked at me and then her Mona be tilted her head curiously, what did you tell him mom?

"Oh nothing I don't trust he'll be able to handle" she said and grinned at me before disappearing from right in front of me. I looked around for a moment to see if I could spot her but that seemed impossible at the moment. There was so much things around and so many places to go, as well as the countless other Pokemon around that it just made it harder to focus, and I couldn't even feel her neural pulses anywhere near either.

She does that a lot, I'm still trying to get her to teach me how to do it, but all she says is 'you already know, it's just waiting to be revealed' Chloe growled in frustration and I tilted my head at her.

Oh never-mind, just follow me. She turned around and started to walk off, and in doing so one of my paws seemed to become trapped in one of hers as she lead me there.

Eventually we came to a door near the central left side of the main building, I was too ensnared by all of the pulses of electricity and new things to see that I didn't realize we had stopped. The entire place was pretty straight forward: it seemed like the center of the building was a training area, where there was currently a pair of humans in black clothing fighting with various weapons. One of which was going to fly from the area when it was stopped by a field of energy.

I had felt the field beforehand and wanted to see what it was but I was unable to get close enough to touch it before being dragged off to the left where a large black wood door stood in our way.

It's Chloe was all she said before pushing on the door that looked ready to crumble into ash and into a larger room than I thought was possible. It had to be at least twice the size of that middle area and on the right side there was an entire wall of different weapons, with a few missing here and there.

"Ah you've finally arrived" an older human man with a beard stopping around his mid-chest area spoke and held out both arms as if to welcome us with a hug. "And don't worry, we haven't been waiting for long"

Liar, you've probably been here for the past ten minutes drilling Shadow about this morning Chloe spoke clearly, but in a playful tone as to not offend. The old man just smiled but didn't comment otherwise.

He motioned for us to sit in front of them and as I got closer I noticed that the entire family was here: Shadow and her Pokemon were to our right, Chloe being between me and Shadow as we sat down; Sapphire and Azrill were standing off to the side, and stayed there even as me and Chloe sat down.

Shadow's family were resting on both knees behind the old man, with Shadows Father on the old man's right side and her mom on his left. The others were behind them, sitting there with bored expressions while trying to be as patient as they could for whatever was coming.

"Now first of all I want to welcome you here to our clan" the old man said looking at me, "and second this isn't an interrogation as you might be thinking, it's more of a friendly introduction amongst acquaintances."

I got down with them and put my hands on my knees, letting them know that I was willing to trust them and wanted to get along. Chloe sat down next to me like everyone else, sitting on their legs with their feet pretty much behind them. It looked quite uncomfortable for a Lucario to be doing, but I wasn't about to question it just yet.

"Okay so now that we're all settled let's get the introductions going" the old man said, "my name is Sao Ming, I am the head of this clan and it's leader. We called ourselves the Silver Flower Clan. You already know Shadow, this is her mother, Aria, this is her father, Haru. You have already met Zenith, their youngest and their second youngest would be Shadow—"

"I'm sorry elder" Aria interrupted bowing her head, "may I ask to introduce them to the Zeraora." Sao just chuckled and motioned for her to continue. Aria turned and motioned to the little girl beside Zenith and went from there.

"This is Ruby, and as you have probably noticed her name comes from the ruby red color her eyes are, which is quite rare among humans if you didn't know that. Next is Zenith, he's the second youngest and has a bit of a temper, you saw that from our training experience earlier today.

"Shadow is our middle child, she has been a very fast learner and is one of our best, even her older sister and brother can't deny that," she looked at the two older ones pointedly, but they pretended not to notice.

"Next is Mareena, she has always been one that has loved the water, even though she couldn't swim she was always somewhere near water since birth giving me and Haru quite the scare many times. And finally our eldest, Kai, he and Mareena are Twins but he was born a few minutes before her. He is our strongest, able to contend with their father in almost everything. They are alike in many ways, some of which I wish they shouldn't."

She looked at the two, who were coincidentally now right next to each other and they both sheepishly smiled in response. Aria just shook her head and sighed before looking at me.

"Now that that is over with would you like to tell us your name?" She asked and everyone attention focused back to me. I looked at Shadow, and then Chloe. They both had the same expressions, anticipation and hope. Hope that I would trust them enough to tell my name, but I didn't have one.

Sure I have had many names among the public, usually ones that related to the things I did around humans: Lightning Cat, Yellow Demon, Crimson Flash, and many others. But the one I liked the most was one I was called by the Pokemon, Bolt.

———(I hate Naming Characters)————XI

Anyways thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. It is a bit shorter than usual but the story is picking up a little bit from here, now I apologize because I just have a basic idea of where I want to go and how long I want this book to be, but it will come to me...eventually.

Oh also I found this picture on Pinterest, I don't own and have definitely not made or commissioned it, nor do I know who the creator is to credit them (whoever they are).

Anyways I figured might as well let this sit on the bottom of the book so you guys can stare at it forever, and though it's completely unrelated to Pokemon it's something that related to a book I have as a draft, not published yet but I do have around 13 chapters prewritten.

Anyways let me know if you want to see a new book, it's called Generation Fur.