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P** art Two...**

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After my successful test taking to be a certified poke' caretaker, the proposition of the testers on that fateful had been this: before the testers had come to my uncle to discuss it after my tests, the pokemon center had described to them a trainer - a very high up, snobbish, reckless trainer, mind - who had battled Norman for a gym badge a month back. That trainer in question had barely lost the fight. For you see, where Norman had used his powerhouse of a Slaking last with no other pokemon to call upon, the opposing trainer had still had all three of his own at the ready.

Yet, in the end, with Norman being so skilled in his work, the Slaking had proven to be too much for every pokemon sent against it. And the last that had been sent out - the last chance for the snobbish trainer to win a badge - had in fact been a Kirlia; the same Kirlia I had come to adopt along with know as the Gardevoir, Aura, today.

Yet, if she had belonged to another back in the past, how had I come to be her master presently?

Well, when Aura's former trainer had just barely lost against Norman that month back, he had immediately brought his pokemon to the Pokemon Healing Center for treatment like all smart trainers would. Still, he wasn't a smart trainer. When his party had been healed, he'd quickly if not wordlessly taken them all back... all except the one who had been his failed last hope to find victory against Norman, who had supposedly been his biggest disappointment in his trainer career thus far; his Kirlia who was now my Gardevoir.

Unbelievable, correct? Cruelty. Hatred. Frustration. Anger. Terrible morals not at all appropriate to ever aim at innocent others in this world. Especially to others like dependable Aura who had turned out to be a far better friend to me than I could have ever asked for.

Yet, Aura's former trainer had not been thinking about her feelings back then. Not with his hubris clouding his mind and heart filled with rage. He left her forever. He didn't take her with him when he left Petalburg. And when he had done such on that day, Aura's former trainer hadn't only spat on the trainer's code of treating his pokemon with loving care. No, when he'd abandoned her after having been defeated... he had literally crapped upon it.

Truly, even though she had tried very hard to win him the badge from Norman, Aura's defeated trainer had only cared about winning; not about respect, not about humility, not about her most of all. And therefore, for his lack of honor towards anything and everything, for him having left her behind, he had not deserved to be a trainer on that day. If he was still around today, he still did not deserve to be. He was a fool.

Still... maybe it was good he'd been a fool. If not, he wouldn't have split up with Aura. And I wouldn't have come to presently cherish her so.

Getting back to the point, when the testers had explained Aura's distressing story to myself and my uncle, it turned out that I hadn't been the only one to have been unjustly hurt by the world. My parents had been taken from me when I had been an infant, true. Still, abandonment... that had been an unimaginable thing to me until I had heard Aura's story.

My younger mind couldn't wrap around it all. Someone had just abandoned her? Just like that? With the snap of someone's fingers? Within the blink of an eye? How? Why?

Right in front of me when he had listened to Aura's story of being left behind, my Uncle Mordecai had cursed the dishonorable trainer a million times over before - with a sigh, balling and un-balling his fists - he had regained control over himself. After he'd resumed his composure as well as told me not to follow his shown example of cussing a storm, my uncle then went on to hear the testers explain further that the Kirlia in question was called Aura. Having been in the Petalburg Pokemon Center for the last thirty days, she had been in need of another home, of another family, of a better life then she had formerly had.

And seeing as how we Squiress had obvious talents for handling if not bonding with pokemon, seeing as I had just aced my license tests, perhaps we were the correct folk to approach about Aura's evident problem? Maybe we were the answer to her troubles? We were. Or so we would come to find out in the future.

"Agreed. We're those folk who will make things right for that Kirlia." My uncle had immediately if not boldly replied, having reached out for the pokeball that had held Aura then, "This pokemon deserves far better treatment than she has been given. We will give her a second chance at happiness. Give her here. Myself and Antony... we will not ever do to her what has already been done. No matter the time it takes, she will find purpose with us. She will be happy with us, will she not, Antony?"

Indeed, if it were not obvious to you before now, Aura came to be more than happy in the company of myself as well as my uncle in our daycare. Of course, like it had been for me in accepting the truth of my parents' deaths over the years, us having gotten the Kirlia to be cheery again had not been a fast process. No, it had taken us many a day until we had had her dancing in the reception room for our guests, until we had had her helping us communicating with pokemon in our care, until I'd had her become my very best friend like nowadays.

The first week where myself and my uncle attempted to include Aura into our lives in the daycare had proven to be the worst. I remember clearly that it'd been a very disturbing, alien, cold experience because - in the past - we Squires had gotten used to easily befriending pokemon in our care.

During our first seven days with Aura though, she hadn't left her pokeball when we'd wanted her to. We had commonly feared for her health, her sanity, her condition then. It seemed that even after having had a month to come to terms with it beforehand, it became obvious to me and my uncle that Aura hadn't taken the news that she had indeed been left behind by her former trainer very well.

And why wouldn't she have been upset by that? Myself and Uncle Mordecai hadn't been abandoned by anyone but we had been just as mad/sad about the situation as her. We understood her isolation, pain, her fear of letting us get too close to her. She had been really... scarred then.

You see, you probably don't need me to say it but to abandon a pokemon, to ever leave it behind due to something as silly as a loss against a gym leader... that was like - if not as good as - outright killing a pokemon. And if it had not been for us going to the pokemon center for her to be repeatedly treated, to be warmed, to be fed in her pokeball, Aura could have very well died back then in the past; despite our encouragement for her to join our daycare family.

No matter her attitudes towards us though, no matter the frustration of the matter of her not coming out to see us, myself and my uncle had remained determined in our quest in giving wronged Aura what she deserved; a better family, a worthwhile purpose, a brighter future. And in the end, our patience with her, our hopes towards her, our prayers for her, won out. Indeed, she gradually opened up once more, wiped away her tears, forgot her past, regained her vigor to dance her twirling dance.

Her road to recovery, to her being accepted into my daycare family of today, to her loving me and me loving her now, had in fact begun on a very stormy day where I had been silently sitting at the daycare reception room's window looking outside. Imagine that. My gaining a best friend was during a rainy day? Sounds like a drama movie, don't it?

Now that I think about it actually, I had lost my parents during a storm of a day. How very coincidental I had begun an unimaginable relationship with the love of my life - my Gardevoir - on another dreary day, huh?

Getting back to the subject of me befriending Aura, while my uncle had been getting around to herding the pokemon in our charge inside out of the bad weather, I had been glaring outdoors through the windows. During my looking outside where the rain came down heavily, the lightning flashed, the thunder made my heart jump, I had been - like during every other thunderstorm previously - thinking about my past. It had been then when I was wondering how I was ever going to get over my discomforts of how rain always reminded me of a certain misfortune where I had lost my parents... that I had sensed I wasn't alone in the room anymore.

Well, put better, Zig-Zag had sensed it first.

And indeed, when my Zigzagoon had finally shifted my attention from me looking outside to looking to him, I had turned around to find him staring towards the door leading to the living room. There, at the said door, I next found the most delicate creature - practically a childish girl dressed in green/white cloth with soft, red horns upon her head - watching me with the largest, clearest, if not shyest burgundy colored eyes.

At once, at seeing that I'd finally if not disbelieving noticed her watching me from the door, Aura had rapidly retreated back out of sight then. And immediately, knowing who I had seen, I'd had Zig-Zag pursue her!

Easily, my swift pokemon had chased the Kirlia down. Yet, despite my hopes then to speak with her, even as I had taken the appropriate action as a pokemon keeper in having respectfully approached her in a crouch so as not to scare her anymore, I'd found that the task of wanting to speak with conflicted Aura had not been such an easy thing. No, even as I had tried to comfort her, to tell her that I hadn't been someone for her to fear, she had turned away from my words, from my smile, from my every hope to keep her from returning to her nearby pokeball.

Simply put, at that moment where she had jumped back into the confines of her pokeball and ignored my gentleness aimed towards her, I had been harshly crushed by the experience of not having gotten through to the Kirlia. Even though I'd had the talent like my forefathers in dealing with all kinds of pokemon in the past, even though I had recently earned my license as a pokemon caretaker, I had failed in convincing a pokemon - a very troubled, hurt, fragile Kirlia, mind - that she had been safe in my company. That she'd had nothing to fear.

Still, in quick succession, my frustration during that instance had soon turned to curiosity. I began to wonder what had brought Aura out of her pokeball to peek in on me in the reception room? After having remained withdrawn for the last week, why had she left her pokeball for the first time? Why had she been staring at me from the door?

Oh, heh, despite me having gotten my legal pokemon caretaker license, how very naïve of my poke logic I had been at that moment. I wouldn't figure anything out about Aura's actions until later that same day when I had been looking to go to bed early. Yet, due to the heavy rain still coming down outside, my sleep had been uneasy that nighttime. I kept having nightmares of headlights coming at me at high speeds through the curtains of rain, of my father's and mother's car getting hit repeatedly by some other vehicle no matter my shouting or yelling or the waving of my arms from the backseat for them to watch out.

And as I had woken up in a cold sweat for the hundredth time on that stormy night, as I had taken to sitting up to stare outside my bedroom window with worried Zig-Zag and Fen lying on my bed with me, it was then that Aura had uncertainly showed herself to me a second time from her sanctuary. Not only that, she'd - uncertainly, fearfully - presented me with the chance I needed to connect with her.

From a crack in my doorway, the Kirlia had nervously peeked inside my bedroom. That time around on that rainy night though, she hadn't fled when I noticed her. Of course, having been shaken up by all that'd happened to her during the previous month, she had been hesitant in coming to me when I had delicately cooed, gestured, encouraged her to come to me.

Nonetheless, to my greatest pleasure then, with the storm still raging outside, she had indeed come - no, rather - danced forth on her tip toes to my outstretched hands to be gently picked up. In my awed grasp, I set curious her down onto my lap on the bed. With Zig-Zag and Fen watching closely, I talked gently with Aura.

Truly, during that night where I had actually gotten the disturbed Kirlia to actually come sit between curious Zig-Zag as well as Fen with me on my bed, I had thought of myself as the king of pokemon researchers! I had brimmed with overwhelming joy to see that I had somehow reached out to her; that I had gained a bit of trust from her.

Yet, it hadn't been until she had begun touching my face, my tired eyes, my disheveled hair, that I had abruptly realized something about her. Those two times that she'd appeared to me on that day had been during moments where I'd been deeply troubled by the rain. My troubles, my discomfort with the rain, had forced into my mind the thoughts of the day where my parents had died during their car crash. And, as all Kirlia did when near anything feeling strong emotions of any kind, why wouldn't she have appeared to me when I had been having nightmares of my parents' deaths?

So, as I'd come to find out, it'd been when she was touching my face along with brushing my hair out of my weary eyes during that rainy night that I'd figured out that Aura - as a Kirlia - had been following her instincts as the "Emotion Pokemon". Her having acted the way she had, her having come to see conflicted me in my bed despite her suffering from her own troubles at the time, had been her way of remaining true to her caring instincts; of wanting to know what was wrong with me.

She'd wanted to learn why I had been feeling so uncomfortable, so depressed, so miserable since the rain had started pattering down outside.

And so, having realized why she'd come to see me on that nighttime, having understood she wouldn't have been able to rest herself if I had went on hating the rain, I just... spilled my heart out to Aura on the bed. I don't know why exactly but for the first time in a long while, I explained to her - to someone other than my uncle - my reason for despising the storm outside. I told her the full story of the past deaths of my parents during a rainy day/night like this one.

Again, I don't know why I'd discussed the passing of my parents so easily then. It'd seemed like the right thing to do with Aura at the moment, you know? And since I had gained her attention on that night, it had kinda been like I wanted her to understand not only the reason for why she felt that I had been so very uncomfortable... but that she hadn't been the only one who had been wronged by the world.

Truly, during the talk, I understood her pain better than most anyone else. I knew what it was like to be wronged by the world. I knew how reality could be unfair.

When I finished explaining the loss of my parents due to misfortune in the past, there had been a long silence between myself as well as Aura. To say the least, even though my intentions had been good while the rain had poured outside, I had been very open about a lot of dramatic stuff and felt awkward, unsure, even stupid afterwards to have said so very much to her; a stranger in my life.

Nonetheless, my fears at having maybe driven the Kirlia further into her shell with my sad story had instantly dissipated when she'd simply reached out to ever so gently wipe my wet eyes. Then, before I realized it, she had stood upon her feet to begin twirling, spinning, dancing on my mattress.

And after her magnificent performance had come to a gentle end, after she had bowed a respectful bow to me, my heavy heart... had severely lightened.

Honestly, no longer did I think of headlights rapidly coming at me through the rain, no longer did I dwell on the thoughts of death, no longer did I find myself stuck in the past with the rain pouring outdoors on that night. Instead, as Aura had taken to nuzzling in between Zig-Zag as well as Fen on my bed rather than return to her pokeball, everything had felt perfectly grand! In turn, feeling happier than happy, my eyes had closed, my brain had shut down, my heartbeat had slowed and my dreams... hadn't been of despair on that night.

Rather, from then to this day, they have been dreams of happiness, of gentleness, of a certain understanding Kirlia - rather than ominous headlights - coming out of the rain to in fact give me an umbrella. Then, with her holding my hand, she guided me out of the stormy weather to a sunnier one. Those dreams were just the beginning to our fantastic relationship, of course.

When I'd spoken of my deceased parents with her on my bed, I hadn't truly realized I'd done the trick in waking Aura up from her sorrow. Not until the next morning, anyway, where I found my more than happy if not relieved uncle being helped by the emotion pokemon in the kitchen. It was an awesome morning then; with my uncle smiling for the first time in forever, my heart at ease and Aura actually behaving like she was enjoying herself.

It turned out our Kirlia had finally come to realize that her having dwelled in the past hadn't been the way to go. Not if it had made us - her newest family - suffer with her. True, her being abandoned had been terrible. On that, we all had agreed. Nevertheless, another thing we'd all agreed upon had been that myself and my uncle had been waiting for the last week to show her a better life along with brighter future.

And with me having lost my mother as well as father during a rainy night, with my uncle having lost his brother in the process, Aura had come to understand she'd not been the only one in this daycare family to have suffered a tragedy in life. In the past, we all had been hurt in some equal way. We understood one another. Thus, if she were to recover then, our Kirlia had decided to recover with us; her newest little family.

Mind though, having come to terms with herself on that day, having finally emerged from her pokeball to join us in the daycare finally, she had not taken very long in recovering from her past. With my uncle's adventurous spirit, with my bright attitude, with the energy of the daycare day in and day out, she had soon forgotten her former trainer in a matter of months. And by that time, she'd taken to being intelligent enough to help us.

In our working with pokemon left in our daycare, in communicating with them for us, in saying hello along with goodbye to the customers who had come as well as went, Aura soon became a sensation. She became what the daycare cutely needed; the mascot, in a sense.