Your mirror.
You've been lonelier than you've ever been these past few weeks.
You had just tried to claim back what was rightfully yours, to regain this village's favors, recover the companions you've lost. Only for the plan to backfire spectacularly. That night on Loyalty Plaza, the ogre and her new friends defeated your thralls, you even saw your old partners, all three of them, standing by her side. You narrowly made it out, bursting out of the capsule the human attempted to seal you in.
They all knew now. They knew what you really were. They definitely did and they all loathed you for it. You couldn't accept this. You wouldn't return to the darkness. You would nurse that wound and return to take back what you deserved.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, as you heard they say in a region not so distant from the old continent. You were too hasty, too careless in indiscriminately recruiting every person you ever laid eyes on. You would need to start small. Turn a single human to your cause. Preferably one capable of standing on his own, but docile enough not to slip back into their old selves the way that one girl did.
You found the perfect candidate in the dead of night, surprisingly still up and about. You felt a sense of familiarity at once. He looked your way without noticing you once before and he was doing so again now. You felt you saw that tired gaze. Maybe in your slumber. He was a child then, looking over the old woman's wares, as unaware of your true nature as the rest of them.
Those past years, the blink of an eye from your perspective, seemingly steeled him into someone stoic and courageous, if maybe foolish, enough to be venturing in the Timeless Woods at the hour the spirits went out to play. And you all too easily lured him to you with a rustle of leaves. And surely enough he found the kibi dango you left for him to find.
He took a while squishing at it and smelling it before he gave it a bite. And he appeared mildly impressed, not even terrified, as your influence clouded his soul. He gave in and was fully under your power. It was easy. Maybe too easy.
You came out of hiding, floating in the moonlight of a small glade where he could see his new master. You made him go through the old song and dance, figurative and literal, and he complied, with so little resistance you wondered if the man's rugged exterior was not a front for unforgiveable weakness.
But, no, you began to doubt that was the case, probing into his mind. This was no passive compliance. This was curiosity. With a dash of overconfidence, the origin of which you couldn't ascertain.
Until his shadow began to stir.
Resistance comes, in the form of his shadow suddenly springing to life. But before you can even think of defending yourself, the beast inhabiting the man's shadow has stretched into yours, and attempts to pull it right in. Glancing down, you can make out red eyes.
Red eyes that seem to say: This human's mine. And if you want to mess with him so bad, I'll make you pay the price.
Destiny Bond.
You can tell it's using Destiny Bond. But not between you and itself. You can't tell if it was its real intention or not, but the spirit that brushed against yours wasn't that of the shadow creature, but of its trainer.
Your mind goes blank. Briefly. And then come fragmented images from a life you never lived, a life beyond what you should know, beyond what you should care about. You realize nothing prevented the human from slipping into your mind like you slipped into his. And that terrifies you. Enough so that you start ordering your thrall to get the hell away from you before this can happen.
You would gladly let go of him if it meant he couldn't hurt you the way you already hurt others.
He disobeys. He doesn't run. The images in your mind intensify. You see a cocky boy who simultaneously felt like the best and the worst person in the world. You saw the desperation as he wanted to prove to his own that he was worthy. You saw people he called friends admiring him. Then you saw them turn their back to him when the spell was broken and his intentions became clear. You saw how lonely he was then, how lonely he still is today, how badly he regrets treating those he loved as mere stepping stones.
It was all too familiar, now, wasn't it?
Whatever hold this human's Pokémon had on you ceased like the snapping rubber band, you lost your balance and fell to the ground. Snapping back out of your trance you look up to see the human breathing heavily, looking down at you, slowly realizing what you were doing.
What you hated, however, was that what you saw was not his sadistic glee that the roles were reversed, but the strange light in a single one of his eye. Something you'd never experienced for yourself throughout the centuries.
Don't look at me, you wanted to tell him. Don't look at me like that!
You lashed out and tried to strike him. His shadow once more rose from the ground, shielding him from your chain, which didn't seem to have any visible effect on the red-eyed Pokémon. Before its human even ordered it to, it retaliated with a strong projectile of spiritual energy that sent you flying into a tree trunk, and pathetically you slumped to the ground.
You were undone. Undone by this move. Undone by this human's eye.
Undone by sympathy. By the same feeling you spent your entire life writing off as a weakness.
The human stared down at you, as you laid unmoving at his feet. He plucked something from his belt.
This time, you weren't scared your plan went sideways. What you felt was more akin to resignation. And it is with this understanding that you still have a lot to learn that you allowed yourself to be sucked into the Poké Ball, and let it lock you in.
Momoi joined the team.
