Electric Blossoms

Chapter 1

The sound of creaking floorboards in the middle of the night woke Chloe from her slumber. Blinking in confusion and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, the maroon-haired girl slowly and quietly made her way to her bedroom door.

She opened her door a crack and squinted in an attempt to see if she could make out anything in the shadows of the hallway.

"Hello?" she quietly called out, careful to keep her voice low so as to not accidentally wake anyone up.

Silence was her only answer.

Sighing softly, Chloe was about to head back to bed but a flash of black-and-red caught her eye. She swiftly spun around, not thinking about what her consequence would be, the maroon-haired girl practically threw open her bedroom door and gave chase to the mysterious black-and-red shadow creature.

"Hey wait!" she whisper-shouted, racing through the halls and dodging doors and other things that blocked her path.

Feeling a bit frustrated now, Chloe pulled out her Rotom phone and scanned every inch of the room. She nearly screamed when the device began speaking, which confirmed that there was indeed a search Pokémon running loose in the lab.

"Zorua, the tricky fox search Pokémon. Zorua often takes on the forms of others to hide it's true appearance. If a normally talkative child suddenly stops talking, it may have been replaced by Zorua." The Pokédex beeped, it's robotic voice echoing through the never ending hallway. Chloe squeaked and covered the speaker with one of her hands.

"Psst, hey Zorua," she quietly called out the Pokémon's name so as to not scare it away. The slate-colored fox-like Pokémon paused for a moment and turned to face her with a curious stare.

Not knowing what else to do, she grabbed a Pokeball that she somehow had in her pajama pocket. Not caring about the strangeness of the Pokeball at the moment, the maroon-haired girl slowly tossed the red-and-white ball at the now stunned and wide-eyed Zorua.

And much to the young girl's shock and disbelief, the Pokeball dinged, signaling a successful capture. Her Pokédex beeped, saying in a robotic voice, "Zorua has been registered to your Pokédex!"

"Whoa!"

Blinking and shaking her head to clear her thoughts, the maroon-haired girl slowly walked over and picked up the Pokeball containing her newly caught Zorua.

Clutching the Pokeball close to her chest, Chloe slowly made her way back to her bedroom where Eevee had most likely noticed her trainer's absence.

"Eevee," she quietly called out to her partner, the brown-and-cream-colored fox-like evolution search Pokémon looked up at hearing her trainer's voice.

"Evew, Eevee?" Eevee questioned, tilting her head to the side and patting over to sniff the Pokeball in Chloe's hands.

To the shock of both Chloe and Eevee, the Pokeball in the young trainer's hands suddenly started to shake rapidly. Gasping and a bit frightened at what was happening, Chloe watched with wide and nervous eyes as Zorua popped out of the Pokeball in a bright flash of bluish-white light.

"Zorua!" It exclaimed with a terrified squeak, the Fox-like search Pokémon then turned its attention on Chloe, and in a flash of purple-pink light, an exact copy of Chloe stood right in front of the maroon-haired girl.

"Why did you catch me?" Chloe jumped and stared at Zorua with wide eyes.

"You can talk?" Chloe squeaked, blinking and staring at Zorua with wide eyes.

The Chloe look-alike just huffed and rolled her eyes. "Of course I can talk, I'm not a normal Zorua you know," Zorua explained simply. "I have a special charm that keeps my illusion from being easily detectable."

"What do you mean?"

The search Pokémon disguised as Chloe just smiled sheepishly and stared down at her feet, her eyes flashing for a second before the look-alike looked back up into Chloe's eyes.

"I know who you are, Chloe."

The maroon-haired girl's jaw dropped and her eyes popped wide open in shock. "W-what? B-but how?"

Zorua simply smiled and in another flash of purple-pink light, there was Ash standing in front of her. "Oh, and Chloe?" Chloe shook her head and blinked up at the raven-haired trainer.

"Y-yes?"

"Don't say a word of this to Goh."

Chloe blinked for about the fiftieth time as she stared at Ash with a confused look on her face.

"You're a search Pokémon?" she sputtered out, gasping and covering her mouth in an attempt to cover up the loud volume of her shout. "Oh, uh, sorry," she replied with a nervous laugh.

"Yes Chloe, I am a search Pokémon, but I'm also a girl." Zorua explained, "Ash is the form that I mainly use because everybody already knows me as a boy. And if I were to suddenly change my appearance, then people might begin to grow suspicious."

The room fell silent after Ash spoke those words.

Chloe opened her mouth to say something but no words came out. So she cleared her throat and attempted to speak once more.

"Wait, you what?" she squeaked, still shocked about what she had just discovered. "Are you serious?"

"Yes I am," Ash replied seriously, "and my name's Luna, not Ash."

Chloe could only nod her head numbly in response.

Silence fell upon the two once again and this time, it was Ashley who attempted to break it. "Chloe?" the sable-haired girl said, gaining the maroon-haired girl's attention.

"Yeah?" she asked back, her voice barely above a whisper as she spoke.

"My mom is gonna kill me."

Chloe blinked in confusion at the other girl's statement. "Huh? Now why would she do that?"

Luna sighed and tugged on her braid, (she was in her true form) which was of course a girl. "Because she's never been fond of me getting captured by anybody, even if it were by a friend whom I trust with my life."

At those words, another question formed in the back of Chloe's mind. "So, uh, is your mom a search Pokémon too?" Luna giggled and rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, obviously she is! What'd you expect? I mean, c'mon, humans can't give birth to search Pokémon!" Luna threw her arms up in the air with an exasperated sigh.

Chloe's face heated up in embarrassment and her gaze lowered to the floor in shame. Chloe you idiot! She screamed in her mind. What kind of question was that? Pokémon can't give birth to humans!

"So, uh, why don't we get some sleep?" Chloe blinked and turned to stare out the window.

She nodded and gave a small smile. "Y-yes, yes we probably should. Sorry for causing all this trouble."

Luna laughed and gave her a foxy grin. "Hey, no need to worry, no harm was done." She waved her hand around to prove her point. "But remember," she said, "don't tell anyone." And with that, Luna gave the maroon-haired girl a wink before heading down the hallway to the room that she and Goh shared.