Welcome to Gaia! ::

Eon yipped and pounced on Ai playfully, bounding around her as if they were as young as when they'd first evolved.

Andarien shrugged. He didn't know the answers to Miyuki's questions. "Why don't you ask her?" he suggested again. "She told you her species, why not her type?"

As for how it happened, he was sure Shiro would know.

"If it's about Pokemon, then we'd best ask Shiro," was Andarien's only suggestion.

Fortunately, they hadn't started far from the camp, and they had now already arrived. It was a bright, sunny day, and Shiro was sitting outside his tent, working on his tablet while his spare battery charged beside him.

There were others about, of course, but the comings and goings that were constantly going on were pretty much ignored unless something very different happened.

At first Shiro didn't react. Eevees evolving was after all somewhat expected.

"Which forms did they take?" he asked, finishing up what he was doing on the tablet.

Kaede had been following after the rest of her family, and now she poonced on Shiro.

"Hey!" the neko protested, nearly dropping his tablet. Then he spotted Soki and stared. "What ...."

Shiro stared at the Sylveon in silence. He was stunned. He had read through the entire Pokedex, and there was no creature like this one. Eevee had seven possible evolutions ... not eight!

... or did it even stop there?

"Miyuki also was wondering how the evolutions happen in nature," Andarien added. "Back in Gaia, the lady at the shop said that they had to have special stones to make them evolve."

Now that was a question Shiro could answer, and so he did.

"Well, it's well known that Eevees are genetically unstable," he began to explain, "so it doesn't take much sometimes to make them evolve. But ..."

He caught the look Andarien was giving him and checked himself. "Alright, simple terms." He pursed his lips and thought for a moment. "Think ... water. Its colour. Clear, colourless. Anything can change it, and it doesn't take much. Add some milk, it's white. Add some charcoal, it's black. Like that. I know the analogy doesn't hold up beyond adding a single thing but it's the same idea anyways."

He looked at Miyuki. "The stones Ai and Eon were given in their collars weren't just to make them evolve, it was to prevent them from evolving into something you didn't want them to evolve into. The stones direct their evolution, but that's it. They can be changed by other forces. Like Zeus and the static shock. Yasu and his battle with Ponydash."

He eyed Suki again. "In this case ... magic, it would seem. I ... wasn't aware that magic could affect Pokemon."

"So you're wondering how that particular evolution could happen in nature," Shiro mused, trying to make sure he understood just what she was trying to learn. "Where magic might exist without any form."

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "Look, Gaia is a magical place, and there are magical creatures. People who use it, creatures who use it ... let's face it. Accidents happen. And the magic we use had to have come from somewhere. The magic that we use - that we learn. Is it in us? Or is it around us? Was I performing magic when I summoned Ura out of that tome? Or was I activating magic that lay dormant in the tome itself?"

He said this, not sure whether Miyuki knew where Ura had come from or not.

"The point is, magic is out there. It wouldn't surprise me if Suki was a magic type Pokemon. I don't know if it's possible, but to be fair we've seen a lot that oughtn't be."

"I'm sure that's true," Shiro agreed, "but I feel it only fair to point out - Miyuki, I know about as much about this as you do. In this case, I really don't think I'll be of any help to you, as much as I'd like to be."

He shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry."

"Well, there are a lot of them," Shiro chuckled softly.

They were indeed beginning to look like a rainbow. And they had plenty of time to complete that rainbow.

"Hey Shiro, can I borrow your notes on Leafeons?" Andarien asked his cousin hopefully. "I want to start training Kaede properly as soon as I can."

Shiro nodded. "Sure. Just ... not now. Tonight, all right? I'm working on something at the moment."

Shiro glanced up at Miyuki briefly before turning back to his screen. "I ... had an idea," he said vaguely. "Trying ..."

And then he was focused on his screen again.

Andarien rolled his eyes. "We'll never get anything from him now," he muttered.