Warrior Eevees #1: The Storm of Fire

5- The Evolution Ceremony

Emmy slept every night in the Great Oak with the Forest Tribe until the moon waned into nothingness and began to swell again. Day after day, she awoke with the rising sun to patrol the borders with the Plains Tribe and the Lake Tribe, hunted prey in the underbrush, which she finally felt she was improving at, and practiced fighting with the Pokémon she was growing to see as her friends. Day after sunlit day was spent laughing with Sycamore, trying to scale trees with short, unevolved claws, and helping hunt berries with Thyme. When the sun shone, the Tribe basked in its light, filling the air with the sweet scent of their leaves. When it rained, they were equally happy, reveling in the mud that made the forest grow strong and healthy, no matter how long it took Emmy to groom it out of her pelt by night. The Forest Tribe was a cheerful, peaceful place to live, ignoring the occasional sightings of the Braviary, and the occasional reports of skirmishes with their bordering Tribes.

"But we've been at peace with the Lake Tribe and the Plains Tribe for a long time now," Sycamore explained as Emmy followed him down a now-familiar trail, their paws padding quietly over the mossy ground, searching for prey. "And none of us want to break that peace, not really, even if the Lake Tribe is annoyed with us sometimes."

Emmy nodded in agreement, distracted by the scent of prey Pokémon, their footprints clear in the mud. The forest seemed to absolutely burst with life and only grew more and more full of it every day. No longer did the trees and bushes fade to a repetitious blur that made it difficult to navigate. Emmy had learned their scents and shapes, and knew where the oak groves were, and where the willow trees grew thick, and where the sycamores and birches reigned supreme, each area seeming to have its own personality and identity. Which brought her to a question that had been brewing in her mind.

"Sycamore, why have I never been to the center of the territory?" she asked him.

He looked up sharply from the bush he had been gnawing on, apparently savoring the taste of the bark.

"Oh, no one ever told you?" he asked. "Well, you'll probably be there tonight, that's where our Tribe's Moss Rock is. We try to avoid that area of the land when it's not an Evolution Ceremony, because we don't want to accidently damage it."

Annoyed with herself, Emmy realized she knew what a Moss Rock was somehow. Her brain was doing it again, reeling off trivia that told her nothing of her past:

Exposure to a Moss Rock will cause Eevee to mutate into Leafeon, explained her own mind condescendingly while still retaining any information on who she was and where she came from. Of course the Forest Tribe has one- They're all Leafeon, they couldn't evolve without one!

But all she said was: "You can damage a Moss Rock?"

"Sure," Sycamore nodded. "There's lots of rocks that are mossy out here, as you can see, but it takes a really special kind of moss to evolve an Eevee, and the rock has to be the right type, too. So, if someone chased some prey through the clearing without paying attention and ripped the moss off, or if we had a fight there that damaged it, it would be impossible to replace."

"What kind of moss?" Emmy asked.

"I don't really know," Sycamore stretched his forepaws out, digging his hooked claws into the ground. "It glows a little at night, and it's really fuzzy. If it wasn't so rare, I'd make my nest out of it. But like I said, you'll be there tonight, probably. Hollyhock is assessing Swift, Tough, and Brave, and if they pass, they'll get to evolve."

"Really?" Emmy said. "I thought they were still kittens."

"Well, sure," Sycamore said amiably. "But we usually let our kittens evolve a little before they reach adulthood, the only reason we don't let them evolve right away is in case they decide they want to leave for a different Tribe and would rather not be the dominate Eeveelution here. But Tough, Swift, and Brave seem to be Forest Tribe through and through, so we'd like to start training them to be Leafeon as soon as possible."