Nuzlocke: Hearts of Gold and Souls of Silver

“I have lived long enough, and gone past things that blocked me from growing stronger, without doing a single thing to change it's way of being. I may have been doing this wrong the whole time, but this time, things are going to be different, this time, I will not let this keep happening”

After climbing into the chamber which connected me to this world, I was flashed by a white light, just like a flashbang at very close distance, once the effect worn off, I found myself laying on a sitting on a bed in the middle of a room. All it had was a table with a computer on it, a red an white ball on it's side, it was a pokeball, probably with my starter on it. On the rest of the room, was a carpet filling most of the room's ground, and on my left was a stairs leading to downstairs.

I got up on my four hooves and wrapped the pokeball in my levitation field,bringing it near to me, I pointed it to the ground, using my levitation power to press the button on the middle of it in order to let the pokemon out.

out of the pokeball came a small dog like creature, brown and white coat and with black eyes. I decided to introduce myself to him.

“Hello there little guy, you should be Pulse” I introduced myself. “Come on, we should be get out there now, people are waiting.”

“Who are waiting for us?” He asked me. Hearing the creature talk surprised me.

“The other competitors, of course,” I answered my new companion. “Our journey across this land starts today”

He didn't say anything in response, he might be still processing who am I and why am I his trainer. I would take sometime to explain everything in detail to him late, but now we had bigger priorities.

We went downstairs, the first floor of the house was just a room with a sofa, a TV and a small kitchen, not much different from a small apartment in Canterlot. There was a door that led to outside,as we went through it, I could see that outside the house was a small town, full of ponies outside, mostly competitors, gathering around a big screen where soon the announcer would remind us of the rules and a few extra information. Me and Pulse went in the middle of the crowd, I was actually searching for Blackburn.

After a few minutes of searching, I saw Blackburn getting out of the house where he connected and stepping out of it. I hurried to him so we could plan some of the basics of our start and not get eliminated right of the start, there is always a crowd that stays behind and battle against each other, almost one fifth of the competitors are eliminated right of the start.

“So, what we will do is get out of here and head to route 29 and leave New Bark Town right after the tournament has officially started,” He explained his plan in detail, we can't just lose right yet. “Then, we capture or defeat the first pokemon we see and we head over to Cherrygrove, which is the first city we will encounter going that way, from there we develop the rest of the plain. This is i for now, just enough to keep us safe during the start, we don't want to get Freddie on us right off the start now, do we?”

“I don't have that plan on me, we could either win or lose if we go all tackle and scratch on him, but with the rest of his gang with him, this won't be exactly easy.” I argumented. “We go with your plan.”

“All right, get ready, the announcer is about speak up.” He finished our planing stage and told Parker to get ready as well.

Moments later the announcer came on the big screen to explain the rules and give us the information needed.

“Welcome, everypony, to the Region of Johto and Kanto. Behind you there is the Route 27, which leads to Kanto, but for now, you will all stick around Johto.” The announcer informed everypony quite fast to speed up the process. “If you all check your bags, you all received a potion and 5 pokeballs. The pokeball will be used to capture the first pokemon you see in a new route. Your objective is to be the champion of the both regions, by the defeating the eight gyms in Johto and the eight in Kanto, but for now we will stick in Johto only, when we head into Kanto, it will be a round two. That means that the participants that managed to defeat the elite four and the champion of the moment, which can change if the player decides to stay and rule as a champion, or continue the journey on round two, more information will be given by the time. For now, I let you all start your journeys.”

As the announcer finished, everyone was gathering around to start battling, or just run to not be eliminated.

“Ah, and before I forget, no Player Versus Player battles will be allowed during night time, the tournament will receive a short pause during night in order to let our viewers rest to keep up the very next day. to everypony, I wish good luck. let the game begin!”

As he finished of his speech, me and Blackburn ran through the entrance of New Bark Town and went ahead in route 29, all we could hear was the infinite amount of battles happening behind us and the eliminations showing on a feed located withing the interface of the VR helmet

A few steps out of the town, We had arrived on route 29. I ran to an area filled with tall grass in order to find a pokemon that would help us in the long run. Blackburn had found an Ratata and captured it, he and his Charmander seemed to start developing a healthy friendship, while me and Pulse didn't talked that much yet, I was waiting until nighttime to start a conversation.

I ended up finding a Pidgey and with the help of Pulse, we capture it and I decided to name it Scout since he was quite fast. After this I regrouped with Blackburn and his companions and we decided that it would be better for us to head to Cherrygrove, since the remaining players were getting out now.

On our way we saw two ponies who seemed to be in trouble with some Ratatas around them.

“What do you think,” Blackburn shared a though. “Should we help them out?”

I started thinking, most of me tried to tell me they were going to backstab  us once we were finished helping them out, they would take advantage of our damaged pokemon and eliminate us both, and a small portion that rested in me argumented that helping them would benefit us, that they wouldn't fight us just to win.

“I should just leave them, it for the best of us” the selfish part of me spoken, almost convincing me, but I had to give a response to Blackburn.

“We should just leave...” I started speaking when the other part of me reasoned. This wasn't the ideals I had stood up with since I was a little colt, this was selfish, this wasn't me. “Wait! We should help them! They need help!”

“Then lets do this!” Blackburn created courage and commanded his pokemon to attack the group of Ratatas. I told Pulse and Scout to do the same thing. We were outnumbered, it was a group of 5 Ratatas against four of our pokemon. I told Pulse to hit them with tackle while Scout would protect him from any enemies trying to attack Pulse.

The battle was on it's heat. Blackburn's Ratata and Charmander where taking it well, avoiding most of the attacks and taking half of the group. Pulse and Scout taking on the other half. A few moments later, we had won the battle, our pokemon had been a little injured, but everything was alright. I attempted to talk to the two ponies we helped.

“Thank you two for the help,” one of them thanked us. “We would have been' eliminated without your help.”

“That wasn't much,” I told them, trying to make a friendly impression in case they were thinking in battling us in since we were in disadvantage with the injured pokemon. “We just want to help”

“Now if you guys excuse us, we must head to Cherrygrove, It's going to get dark here in a few hours and we want to set up in a place where we can stay” Blackburn finished our conversation so we could move on.

“I'm afraid we can't let you two go.” They told us, with a serious tone. “You two have shown great skill over this. We're sorry, but you two would be enough trouble for us late, we are going to have to put you down now”

I felt my body froze. “This isn't happening. It can't happen, not yet!”

“What in Equestria is the problem with you!?” Blackburn replied to them.

“I told you so.” The selfish part of me played with my reaction. “I was sure they would betray you this fast.”

“It's nothing personal, but both of you are strong, we can't let you grow even more, you represent a threat to our run in this tournament.” they answered Blackburn.

“What do we do now Blackburn?” I asked, I didn't knew what to do, this wasn't going to end well.

“We can't run, it is against the rules” He desperately answered me. “We gonna have to fight through this, one way or another!”

“This is really happening!” I was panicking. My ideals had played against me, my good intentions were nothing here, everyone just cared about winning, even I, but my reasons were personally challenging, I had to fight against someone that played with me since the begging of my life.

Blackburn threw his Charmander into battle. even injured, it could still battle. I didn't want to leave Blackburn alone with his pokemon, so I threw in Pulse, his health was on 50%, my gui told me.

The two trainers surprised us. they still only had one pokemon each, we probably had slayed the ones they would capture. But our surprise was over, they threw in a Totodile and a Pikachu. luckily, we were still in the start, and they didn't knew any type attacks, just tackle, and due to our early battle, our pokemon were able to learn some attacks.

I ordered Pulse to quick attack the Totodile, I would take care of him for Blackburn, while he would burn up the Turtwig. The battle was going well, until the Totodile  deciding to hit Pulse with a scratch and leave it up with 10%.

I was worried I could lose my starter right of in the very first route I'm in. Blackburn saw me very worried and decided to stop hitting the Turtwig and finish off the Totodile in order to help me up, making it faint. With that chance I ordered Pulse to finish off Turtwig since it's health was low due to my partner's Charmander. While Pulse was charging the creature, the Turtwig started shooting leafs against Pulse trying to defend itself, the pokemon was panicking, either missing or shooting leafs easy enough for Pulse to dodge, I heard a loud bump and a pokemon's cry.

We were arriving Cherrygrove city, I was holding Pulse, It was good to see that he was still okay, but he was quite injured. night was coming and the sun was setting by the mountains, me and Black would go in the pokecenter, heal our pokemon and buy some stuff on the pokemarket and leave right away to route 30.

I couldn't stop questioning my ideals, I have been betrayed by someone I tried to help, I also felt that Blackburn was kinda mad with me because if we had just left, we wouldn't go through all this.

We arrived Cherrygrove and decided to enter the pokecenter to heal our pokemon. As we went inside, there were a bunch of ponies around talking casually, most of them would battle if they saw each other the very next day, but for now, they were resting of what they had passed in the New Bark Town Massacre. We gave our pokemon to the receptionist and she gave us back moments later with them fully healed.

We were about to leave when we saw Freddie and his three gang members and their pokemon together.

“Look here, look what we found here” Freddie was surprised to see us. “You both seems to have survived the spawn party we had back there, I don't remember seeing any of you in there, let me guess, you too ran away is fear, huh?”

“Fuck off Freddie!” Blackburn engaged, attracting the attention of the ponies in the room into us. “If it wasn't night, we would destroy you and your stupid so called gang”

“Black, don't get all full of yourself here,” I whispered. “Be careful with what you say,”

“We don't even want to fight you two yet, we are waiting for you to grow a bit stronger, so when you think you have any chance, we crush ya out!” Freddie,all full of his selfish will, tried to make us feel down, it didn't really work. “Now if you excuse us, we have a long day tomorrow ahead of us,we just came to say hello. Voltage! Space Filter! Poison Strike! move out!”

Freddie and his group went through the door, leaving an scent of disgrace in the air. He had just waited for us in order to play with us, even here.

After going in the pokemart and buying a few pokeballs and potions, we headed into route 30, it was getting quite dark so Blackburn offered himself to make the campfire since he had a fire pokemon, I agreed and decided to search for some wood, and while at it I would search for a new pokemon.

After a while I had found a Spinarak, which threw several spider webs on me, but I protected myself with a magic shield and ordered Pulse to quick attack the arachnid. Pulse had hit it hard, but not enough for it to faint, and by that, making my job of capturing it easier. I decided to name it Widowmaker, the green with black stripes giant six legged spider had accepted joining our team.

When I came back with wood for the seats, I could see that my friend Blackburn had captured himself a new friend, an owl pokemon, a Hoothoot.

“I called it Whoou,” He told me. “What do you think?”

“It's all right,” I answered him. “For and owl I guess.”

“It was all I could think of in the moment.” He replied my comment. “It was all I had in mind.”

“I captured this Spinarak, decided to call it Widowmaker, by the way.” I presented my new pokemon to Blackburn. “From the little I know of spiders, I heard some eat it's own male companion to feed the child. seems like a pretty deadly fate for a male spider.”

“The more you know...” My friend replied with a comic joke he heard around. “Now why don't you and your pokemon grab a seat and we have a night together?”

“Yeah, why not?” I accepted his invite and sat in the campfire. “But before, I'm gonna have a talk with my pokemon, to let them know what we're doing. I think you should have one with yours too.”

“All right, go ahead, we will be right here.” He finished his sentence and went to talk to his pokemon.

I took my pokemon with me and we stopped in a more private area. I was gonna let them know of everything, and I didn't want Blackburn's pokemon to have a shook in case he didn't tell them.

“Guys, before we start, I want you to know that this is a serious matter,” I started. “What I'm about to tell you is something that may scary you, but I want you guys to be calm and take it easy, I need you guys to go across this journey with me, because of free will and not by obligation.”

“What is it Atlas?” Pulse asked me with a worried look in his face.

“The reason why me and Black are here, is because all this is a competition, but the thing about this is...” I gave a small pause before continuing. “is that we only got one chance.”

“What do you mean by "one chance"?” Scout asked me, he was even more worried than Pulse.

“I mean that if any of you faint...” I didn't know if I could do this, tell them about the possibility of their deaths. “you... don't come back.”

“You mean we die ?!” Widowmaker jumped with the recently told news. “This can't be!”

“It's the truth, but before we continue, I want you to know about the ones that came before.” I was trying to keep myself calm, I needed to gain their trust in order to have a good run, I didn't want this to end bad. “As you all can see, they aren't here.”

“You have done this before, haven't you?” Pulse followed the though. “You wanted to win, but you failed. You want us to be the new team for your game.”

“Days before I came in here, yes, but now...” I realized my main objective wasn't to win this, but to create courage and a better personality. “My priority doesn't involves winning, but becoming a better pony, let's say that winning is a side quest of mine, not really important.”

“What do you mean by becoming a better pony?” Pulse questioned my way of being. “You don't seem to have bad intentions after what you shown me by battling to help a couple of other trainers who attempted to betray you.”

“I don't mean becoming a better pony by becoming good, or stop being bad,” I answered Pulse, but he left me with other thoughts of what I consider the wrong or right thing to do. “I mean that I want to grow stronger inside to make myself able to face what I fear the most. The ones you saw on the pokecenter, those are the ones who blocked me from doing that since a I knew them. I went years without changing a single thing in order to stop that, I just accepted.”

“But what do you need a team for?” Widowmaker asked.

“Getting to go solo or with Blackburn on them wouldn't go right,” I explained. “Even if we won, they wouldn't learn anything about not messing with others, I need the help of you guys to show that being nice to other ponies could benefit for both sides, not counting I need help to keep up with myself and not change my way to be, specially if they betray me right away when they have the chance.”

“You think by creating a bond with us would make them see such a thing?” Widowmaker continued his questions.

“It's worth a try, the bond between ponies and pokemon always made them stronger, physically or mentally.”

“You want us to overpower them?” Pulse asked. “You want to win and show them that you are stronger?”

“No, I want to prove to myself that I don't need to care for what they say to be myself with my ideals.”

We all stared at each other for some time in silence. I could see that even through Scout and Widowmaker had understood what I wanted them too, but Pulse was analyzing them deeply. He finally broke the silence with another question.

“What happened to the ones before us?” He made me remember I had to tell them what happened to my old parties and what could possibly happen to them as well

“In older runs I had, my team was always loved by me, we cared for each other, but I real all I though about was winning the competition.” I started telling them the story behind me. “I had played the games before this and they always told me that my love for my pokemon made me the strongest, but in reality I never cared, all I did was train them until they were the stronger they could be, when I moved to the VR competitions, the levels were removed, even through I could go almost to the end, I never won, I didn't care for my pokemon, I would get sad at each lost, but I never had personal affection to them like I'm developing with you guys right now. I will repeat what I said before, If any of you doesn't want to come with me, I'll freely release you guys once we arrive the next city. ”

“The words you speak are truth.” Pulse came to his conclusion. “We understand your struggles and your worrying, we also understand that you doesn't focus on winning, but on growing into a better creature, I will accept your friendship and will go through this journey by your side, even if that cost my life.”

The words he spoke couldn't make me more happy to see them coming to such a conclusion that could cost them their lifes. I  was crying tears of joy, and with the emotion I had in the moment, I hugged all of them with my hooves, wrapping them and getting them very close to my chest. I couldn't be more happy.

After our not so short conversation, we came back to the campfire. Blackburn and his team had finished their conversation and were now chatting. they interrupted their conversation so Blackburn could blame something on me.

“What took you so long?” My hungry friend told me “I wanted to prepare our meal for the night!”

“I told you I had to take a moment to talk to my pokemon,” I explained. “You could have done it without me, you know?”

“Quit talking and seat,” He gave me the order when handing me the meal over.

“So, what will we do for the rest of the night” I asked while levitating a piece of the meal over to my mouth.

“It's still quite early, maybe we could start telling stories, and maybe you could even sing for us” Blackburn shared the idea

“You know I'm more into writing the song and playing an instrument than I'm in singing.” I argument ed. “And you also know that I'm shy when it comes to playing in front of people.”

“Oh come on,” He insisted. “It's just between us, and also, you owe me one after almost eliminating us in that battle earlier today.”

“I will think about your suggestion, but for now, why don't we just talk?” I gave my suggestion

“Talk about what exactly?” Blackburn raised an eyebrow.

“We could go with random topics, for example, tell me how you got your cutie mark, you never told me how you got it.” I chose a topic, that some why I have been desiring to know more about my closest friend.

“I haven't?” He was searching in his mind if he had told me such a thing or not. “Oh yeah, right, I haven't. Well, years ago, I went with my dad in a shooting range, that was on of his favorite places, and then he took me there so I could take a look. There were some people training, but he got a private area so he could teach me how to shoot with a non-lethal rifle on a battle saddle. For the following weeks, I had been going there, both alone or with my dad, So I could train, turns out I got so good at it, that I realized I had got my cutie mark.”

“Well, considering the cross hair as an image of it, I guess it makes sense.” I wasn't very surprised by the history, but I wasn't expecting my friend to be a professional shooter. “Well, at least it's better than mine, I just found out that I had a musical taste and *poof*, there it was.”

The rest of the night was fulfilled by our non-sense conversation, sometimes we laughed and sometimes we remembered good old times, I had then realized I have had good moments in my school, but I just couldn't see much fun in them.

“And I also remember that Mr. Robberson told us a joke about a doctor that got the skeleton out of the pony, and when the pony waked up, he couldn't move, and the doctor was never heard from again!” Blackburn told an old joke that our biology teacher had told the class. “But the funniest part was when he said "and that was how I lost my medical license". We all got that he was just joking moments later.”

“Ha ha ha! I remember that! Anyway, tonight has been fun, but I think we should hit the hay,” I said while I yawned. “We have a big day ahead of us, maybe we could even get our first badge!”

“Not without you singing first!” Blackburn was claiming my singing presentation.

“I ain't singing tonight, Blackburn, It is way too late!” I argumented

“You are just afraid that she would see and hear you singing and not like it, uh?” He asked me, I was confused.

“She? She who?” I asked him

“You know of who I'm talking about, the princess, I saw how you were looking at her before we got in the pods, I know you got hots for her.”

“I do what now?” I suddenly jumped in surprise with my friend's resolution of things. “She just helped me get better emotionally, all we did was develop a friendship between us, and also, I'm like a thousand or two years younger than her! I'm not such high class to have such a honor IF I did really were interesting into a deeper relationship!”

“Yeah, yeah, sure thing you do have "just a friendship" between you two. And what does age and class matters?” He pointed out things he though was true, and if I keep seeing from his perspective, I would think so too, but I knew they weren't true. At least I hoped so.

“You know sometimes I hate you?” I finished our conversation.

“Yeah, I love you too, but as friends, and you still owe me a song.” He finished his sentence. “Have a good dream, I hope she visits you there.”

“Uuugh, where do you get this things from?” I asked, but he didn't even bother to answer, he went to sleep and I should probably stop thinking about all this last minutes of talking and go to sleep as well. I needed to rest for tomorrow.

The day had come. I was waking up and tried to look for Blackburn,I looked around my ground but he was nowhere to be found.

“Where did that bastard go?” I asked out loud

“Have you tried looking up?” I heard Blackburn's voice coming from above

The moment I looked up, there was my friend, flying happily across the sky, he had his Charmander in his back

“I'm teaching him how to fly,” He told me. “One day he is going to be a Charizard and you bet he is gonna be awesome, isn't that right, Parker?”

“Absolutely” Parker replied his trainer. I haven't seen him talk before, this was somewhat new for me.

“So, are we ready to go?” I asked my friend and his starter. they seemed to be playing around for some time now.

“You could say that. We don't have anything unpacked, and everything we need is on our saddlebags.” He told

“Okay then, we should move on. From what I remember, there is a few trainers ahead, they won't be hard to beat though, Their AI ain't that good  when it comes to battling.”

“The worst we would get into is a Ratata, no offense Whiskers.” Blackburn made a point.

“None taken.” his Ratata didn't take that as a offense.

We then started our Journey through route 30. it was a little hill, filled with some tall grass and a dirt path, and on it, we could see the AI trainers looking in one direction or looking around for the next trainer, there were a few who trotted in circles, waiting for someone to jump in their view.

Then came our first battle, this one I had to face alone, unlike the double battles me and Blackburn took together. I was going to battle this one while Blackburn went for the next, so we could clear our path and get to the next city.

The trainer threw in a Pidgey, not much of a deal for my team, but I wasn't going to put in Widowmaker, since she was a bug type.I decided to go with Scout, making that none of us had the advantages beyond the stats.

Pointing his hoof, the trainer ordered the Pidgey to go for a Flying strike, trying to hit Scout from above, then the Pidgey opened his little wings, and flew as high as it wanted to get in order to hit Scout with a powerful blow. It then charged down in Scout's direction, I ordered Scout to dodge, and try to hit it afterwards while it was still charging. Scout did what I told him to do smoothly, and hitting the foe's pokemon with a quick tackle to the chest.

Vroosh! The Pidgey went down, making the trainer switch to his Caterpie. I decided to stick with Scout since it was a bug pokemon, I would had the advantage. I ordered Scout to hit the Caterpie with a powerful wind he would produce with his wings. With that said, Scout took his wings and used them to throw two powerful wind attacks in the foe's direction. The foe would not be fast enough to dodge such an attack.

Slash! Slash! The two attack did not miss the pokemon, hitting it with it's weakness, the Carterpie went down and we won the battle as well as some money for me to use on the next city. Maybe we could get to stay somewhere with a bed, sleeping in the ground isn't very relaxing.

As we climbed the hill, me and Black were battling to clear our path, our pokemon handling every battle with both caution and dedication, everything seemed to be going well, until ahead of us we could see that Freddie and his three companions were going four on one, my inner me told me to help, but I held myself, I couldn't risk going this weak on them.

At least with their battle, I could take a look on their starters or the other pokemon they captured. Freddie had chosen a Gastly, a ghost type, Poison strike had a Ekans, a poison type, Voltage had a Taillow, which is flying type, and finally, Space Filter had a Medite, a psych pokemon. With that in mind, I could make a team that could beat all of them, but I have to remember that those are just their starters or/and captured pokemon, I have no idea of what they're going to find.

We went ahead in order to don't get involved in the battle and we reached the end of route 30 and the start of route 31, not only this but there was a small cave in the mountain side and with that, it meant we could capture two pokemons.

I went in the cave with Black, everything was dark, but I had expected it to be. I used my horn to glow some light around in the search of a pokemon, my friend had manage to get himself a Geodude, I was hoping for one as well, the first gym was flying type and I didn't want to use my bug type directly at them. Unfortunately, I had found a Zubat, which I decided to name her Sonar. With our pokemon, we didn't have much left to do than leave the cave, we didn't have what we needed to explore.

Leaving the cave, we went straight ahead to route 31, we should be getting someone new there. The route was a path down the hill that route 30 made we climb, and the path was filled by trainers, but the good news where that Violet city wasn't far anymore and we still had some hours of daylight, It had taken us a few hours to get past all this, but we didn't care, time was with us until we either win or lose.

I jumped in the first bush or tall grass I had found I search for a pokemon, turns out I had found a Oddish. In old games I had never liked him so much, but this time I was willing to give a chance to the little guy I decided to call him Seed, since it was pretty much one. I would let both of my new companions get the same explanation I gave to the original three that had gone past the conversation, I trusted them would give the message to the newcomers. Blackburn had acquired himself a

As we went on the route, a big amount of trainers were battling us. battling our way out of here was easy and unpleasant at the same time. I had all my pokemon equally sharing the battles in so no one feels left out, after all, the trust we develop with each other would make us stronger after all.

“Ugh... What a way to spend our way here,” Blackburn started to get tired of a hole day of battling “Battling every single AI trainer on our way, At least I hope we grew stronger.”

We had just entered Violet city using the gates, the houses on the city had some style of ancient buildings, maybe cultural representation, in the middle of the city there was a big wood tower and by it's right there was a school. By the left there was a pokemarket and the Gym. That was the place where we would get our first badge.

“Before we jump into any battle, I think we should get a little more training and maybe organize our party for the battles,” I suggested. “And you even manage to get a Geodude out of the cave, this will be even easier for you.”

“True, I'd have a lot of advantage against flying types,” He had the same opinion as me. “But I think we should ask around if there is a place around where we could train a bit more, specially you,since you didn't get a rock type.”

“Don't worry, Pulse,Scout and Sonar doesn't take very effective hits from Flying type, we just have to do this right.” I replied.

“All right, I'm trusting you to make this right, try not to get so screwed up in the gym then” He gave me his trust that I would not screw up. “You go making the fire for our little camp, since the sun is going down. I will go around and listen to what the AI to see if there is a training ground around.”

“Okay then, I see you in minutes.” I gave him the permission to go around and do his thing.

As my friend flew away searching information, I gave myself a time to check my ideals and what I believed was right, and make sure that I was not going insane due to yesterday's surprise, making a list of the general.

I mostly believed that a pony should always do something to help other ponies, with a few exceptions, depending if what the pony I'm trying to help is good or bad, and also I believed a pony should be always kind and thankful to the other that helped you, not backstabbing them. “that was your fault” My inner me was saying and playing with my emotions. “You made yourself look way to powerful.”

I decided to stop listening to my dark thoughts and continue with my analysis. With that, I also believed that a pony should not be cruel in order to change somethings, and with it came only one exception. "Sometimes you need to be the villain of the history in order to be the hero".

I remembered that we needed wood for the campfire, we were camping in route 31 and there where a few trees around, I was sure there were a few broken sticks around, enough to make a fire. As I was picking the sticks, even more thoughs flashed in my mind. Was I a villain so I could be a hero? If so, what have I done so bad to describe myself as a villain?

“Revenge.” the voice in my head said one again. “You're seeking revenge from what struggled you pass years, and by then, comparing yourself to then, being equal to their bad nature.”

Was I really going for revenge? Was I being a even worser pony than Freddie if I was seeking revenge? “It can't be, I can't be worst than *them,” My other side was arguing. “This is not in what I believe, this isn't what describe my nature, revengeful isn't my **virtue*”

Virtues. The word was flashing in my mind like crazy, getting more attention than anything. Virtues, what would be my virtue? I tried to think about good things that describe me, but nothing seemed to appear. Then the dark things came in, which I could list most of them. Revengeful, careless, insecure, the list goes on.

“I can't believe that what describes me the most is revenge” I told myself, throwing my soul into a pit of sadness, I felt like crying, and I believe I was really crying while gathering materials for a fire.

I looked over my companions, I saw Pulse looking at me, I realized I had said out loud about what I believed was my virtue.

“Is... Is that what you think?” He said, and as he said that, Luna's first words about me when she came in my dreams echoed with him. “From what I could see of you, you were honest, always letting us know from the start about a possible ending, and also friendly and respectful, giving us the choice to go with you or to leave. You gave part of yourself in order to help two ponies you didn't even know, I could list thing that show how good you're, and I could also point flaws.”

“But I couldn't help the pony we saw earlier on this route, she was outnumbered and we didn't even bother to help.” I told him, I was forcing myself to point such flaws in my character.

“We can't always help, sometimes, we will have to let others down” He told me, he was trying to make feel better.

“How do you know such things?” I asked my friend, he seemed to know a lot about emotional breakdowns.

“Just like you, I prefer to stick with certain ideals.” He appeared to know I was discussing with myself. “And no, I don't read minds, you just like to talk out loud when having an dark emotion filling your head.”

Dark emotion. I would still have multiple breakdowns with those. Luna's training with such subject wasn't working, I didn't put it to test, I was going to have a lot of those, but the less I had the better.

“Now, if I'm going to point a flaw in you, this is one, you don't seem to be able to control your emotions very well, but complete with this phrase with me. "A friend is a someone which accepts who you are and let you be yourself..."” He was playing with me, but trying to make me feel better.

“"But a friend helps you find where you fails and helps you fix it."” I completed his phrase with what I though would fit. I felt better with the meaning he was trying to provide me, but I felt disappointed in myself for having such a stupid breakdown and let Luna down with the training, but It helped me to overcome it faster than I would before, It was a kind of a progress.

We had collected enough wood for the night, so we started moving back to where we was planing to meet, I still had to wait Blackburn to come back and lit the fire.

“Thank you my friend.” I told Pulse, I couldn't be more greatful to have a friend with me in such time, knowing I could lose him any moment.

“It was nothing, I will always be here with you, well, until the moment I go down at least.” He replied. I somehow felt like our bond had grew even more, of all my pokemon, he is the one I have been more open too, although the others were listening to the whole conversation.