MYSTICAL

"Hmmm... I suppose dedicating a decade of my life to searching for a fascinating legend of a Pokemon would seem crazy to most people. Though...there was a time I'd gotten a bit....inebriated....with a special friend of mine. He told me that the end of the night consisted of myself firing a rifle while balls deep in a squealing Suicune, but...that's nonsense.

.....Oh, oh...Mew. What if that did happen??"

Nightfall had long ago descended upon the land when Eusine’s eyes fluttered open. A few thin, ash-colored clouds circled around the moon as though cradling it delicately, and the soft, radiating light of the heavenly body reached through the man’s tent, its glow seemingly comforting in the darkness of the woods. Judging from its position in the sky, it had to be very early in the morning - perhaps around two or three o’clock. He was still physically tired, but his mind was racing, for it wasn’t the moonlight that had awakened him, but a noise from outside the tent. Still...Eusine had spent so much of his life flitting from place to place in an attempt to reach what seemed like an unattainable goal - he’d spent perhaps the majority of his nights in tents by this point. A silly rustling from nearby shouldn’t have affected him so much. But...it always did. 

99.9999% of the time such a noise was next to nothing. It could have been a rattata scampering about or, on a particularly windy night, it could have been nothing more but branches scraping against those of fellow trees. But in his mind there was always that tiny, improbable chance that it was what he was searching so doggedly for. His fingers grasped the top of his sleeping bag tightly as he weighed his options. Perhaps he would have been a fool for expending energy on what was probably a fruitless activity, but a peek outside the tent could possibly lessen his tenseness. He sat up and let his eyes narrow, searching through the mesh window for any signs of the creature he was seeking out. 

Nothing.

But wasn’t it almost always nothing? It wasn’t as thought he hadn’t seen the Pokemon before - on the contrary. He’d witnessed its beauty on several occasions, but never long enough to for it to realize that he was worthy. In the deepest corners of his mind, Eusine often wondered if the constant exploration was still worth it - sometimes it hardly mattered that he’d ever even encountered the legendary creature, let alone multiple times, because that wasn’t the point of searching. Anyone could have seen it - anyone could have been there. But only the most talented, honest, and brightest people could ever hope to befriend it, much less capture it. 

Knowing these things, many people perhaps would have given up chase long ago. Often Eusine wondered secretly to himself if he should have done so - but hadn’t he already spent over a decade on this task? If he had wanted to quit, he would have done so earlier! Why would he give up everything he had accomplished now?

After his mental interlude of positivity, the man wiped his tired eyes and began lacing up his shoes. He’d only just finished tying the first pair of laces into a double knot when a noise issued from outside the tent. Immediately, Eusine’s eyes shot towards the tent window again, but he could see nothing apart from the dense canopy of tree branches. Forgetting about his second shoe, the wanderer pulled himself up and shot outside the tent to see what was sneaking about. Quietly, his indigo eyes scanned the area around him, noting nothing of particular interest. He circled the tent once before the noise was heard again, and his hand went right to his pocket to clutch one of his Pokeballs. Heart beating quickly, he began to wonder.

It couldn’t have been, could it? 

With as much fervor as he could muster, the blonde raised the Pokeball into the air and spoke in the direction of whatever was continuing to rustle through the thick, leafy floor of the woods.

“Show yourself!” he commanded, though the command's fierce intent was lost as Eusine felt his shoeless foot slide into the muddy ground below.