Pangoro

The Poké Ball clicks open with its usual soft thrum, and light spills out as you emerge from the device. The world settles into place. The road dust, the warm smell of summer grass, the steady rhythm of your trainer’s footsteps just ahead of you. You’ve been traveling all morning. You can tell by the way his shoulders are set, the way his hand keeps drifting to the strap of his bag as if checking that everything important is still there.

Something important is going down. You’ve felt it since dawn.

He’s quieter than usual, thoughtful in a way that pulls at old memories, and when he finally speaks, it’s not to you but to the open road. A name slips out, half-smiled, the words echoing faint memories in your mind. You know that name. Or maybe you knew the feeling tied to it. It reminded you of faded afternoons, younger days, battles fought more for fun than pride.

Your tail flicks before you can stop it.

There was another trainer once, long long ago. Another laugh that echoed across training fields. And beside them, always just a few steps away, was their Pokémon. Pancham. You trained together, ate together, pretended you didn’t watch each other when you both thought no one was looking. The two of you told yourselves it was just rivalry. You told yourself it was nothing at all.

Years have passed since those days. Life had different plans for the two of you, and your paths split. It had felt in your mind as though you'd never see them again, that trainer and her Pokémon. More accurately, you never thought you'd see Pancham again.

So when your trainer slows and says 'we’re almost there,' when his pulse quickens in a way you haven’t felt since our earliest journeys together, the realization that you might actually get to see her Pokémon again finally sets in.

Just then, you see it. Somewhere ahead, just beyond the edge of the clearing, is a Pokémon who once meant more to me than you ever admitted... back when you were both too young to know what to do with feelings like that.

The two trainers greet, but your attention is not on them. It's on him. He's so much bigger now, having evolved into a Pangoro. He's tall, imposing, and he's clearly gotten much stronger since our early days. Scars dot his body, and it's clear he's been through a lot. He doesn't move, but his eyes steal glances in your direction every so often; he clearly remembers you too.

Without looking in your direction, he looks up from the ground, staring off into the tree line at the bottom of the hill. "Hey," he mutters, "Been a while."