A New Life Through The Eyes Of Kanto: An Autobiography

A New Year's Eeveelution

"And you know, I'm thirteen now, Gary!" June brought up.

"Oh! Happy birthday, June," I said, turning to her for a split second and nodding before turning away.

"And it's New Years Eve today, too," June added.

"I know."

June and I were on our way to Lavender Town, having trivial talk. While it was nice having her back, being able to have some kind of conversation with somebody, I kind of missed the silence of her being gone, too.

It had been a couple of days since we had run into Robin, and I still hadn't gotten to see any of June's other Pokemon. She always just told me she was going to go spend some time with them whenever it was time to eat, or snuck off when she thought I was sleeping. Why did she feel so uncomfortable allowing me to meet her many Pokemon? My Pokemon and hers had met before when she first traveled with me, but she wouldn't let me meet them.

Why?

When I asked, she kept telling me she needed more time. She wanted to be fully comfortable with herself no longer being a Gym Leader, and her Pokemon accepting it, before she could just allow her Pokemon to be on display so easily again. She said that she felt they were a part of her; something special to share. She wanted everything to be okay before revealing this side of her. I reminded her that we already battled before and I'd seen some of her Pokemon already, but she insisted it wasn't the same thing. Not after all she and her Pokemon had been through to reach their dreams, just to depart from them.

Respecting this, I resisted the urge to even sneakily follow June to spy on her when she left. But the desire was so strong.

June had been asking me questions about things during our time apart.

"Robin has eight Badges," I mentioned at some point.

"Eight?" June asked in surprise. "That's just wonderful!"

"Yeah," I muttered quickly, nodding.

"And you have five!!!" June said with too much enthusiasm, clearly trying to make me feel better.

"Yeah," I repeated, nodding again.

"Hey," June said, putting her hand on my shoulder, stopping to look at me.

I kept on walking. "I'm fine. We don't have time to be stopping. We have to keep going."

June didn't say anything and stayed behind as I walked past her. Eventually, she ran up to me, her boots crunching in the grass and snow. "Sure is cold," she muttered. "Hey!"

I stopped and stared at what lay before us.

A huge stone block sat in the grass in front of a town.

STONE TOWN

"Gary, look!" June said happily. "We're in Stone Town!"

"Yeah, obviously," I stated snottily. "I know about this place, a bit. It's right at the foot of Evolution Mountain, where evolution stones can be found sometimes."

The enormous Evolution Mountain towered behind the many houses inside of Stone Town. A tall cliff towered above the town as well, but not higher than Evolution Mountain did behind it.

"We have other places to go. Come on, June."

"NO!" June insisted strongly.

I turned to her in surprise.

"I'd like to explore this place, Gary," June said quietly. "Please?"

"You can, June," I allowed. "But I have other places to go. So, if you want to check this area out, be my guest. I have to keep pressing on."