"Shadow! The Guildmaster is calling you!" Chatot said. The shinx was a bit confused as the wigglytuff had never called him before, but he follwed the bird and went to the guild master's room. "Uh... Guildmaster...?" Shadow said as he came in and the wigglytuff had his back turned until he turned around and exclaimed "YOOM TAH" as usual. "Good to see you, Shadow! Now... I have a special mission for you. Do you know a luxio named Clarice?" Wigglytuff said and Shadow nodded. "I think I've heard that name once... What does that have to do with the mission?" the shinx replied. "Well, she was the one who requested for this mission to be publish, but I thought maybe you might be able to do it, as you were part of the luxray tribe before right? I thought that you might know Clarice." he explained and showed the electric type the mission. Shadow widened his eyes when he finished reading it. "Tell her daughter that she lived alone...? Without even knowing her parents...?" He said quietly, his voice filled with disbelief. "Well, like she said, she doesn't want her daughter to have painful memories haunting her... But we still have to save Espiana as Ms. Clarice is worried for her." The normal type explained and Shadow slowly nodded, saying that he accepts the mission. "But, one last thing, why Lithona?" the shinx asked before he left the room. "Well... All that I can say is that she wants her child to be on the good side or otherwise in the 'light'. That's what Ms. Clarice said..." Wigglytuff said and Shadow went out of the Guildmaster's room.

After gathering his things, the shinx left for Mystifying Forest. He looked around for a bit, but seeing the eevee no where in sight, Shadow made a temporary base inside a tree. He got a sharp stick and posted his mission on the tree inside. The shinx tried to organize his things inside before leaving the tree with some berries, his explorer badge and accessories. "I can't really yell out her name because it might make her remember, and she wouldn't know if I yelled her new name..." Shadow sighed a bit as he could only search for Espiana and couldn't call out to her. "Ahh... If only I was a luxray... Those X-ray visions would save me lots of time..." he complained a bit while continuing his search. What he didn't anticipated was how they would meet.

"OW!" Shadow heard the other pokemon say as they bumped into each other. "I-I'm sorry, I-I wasn't looking... A-a shinx...?" he took a few steps backward to look at who he bumped into and surprise, surprise, it was Espiana. She was full of wounds, still shaking a bit and once in a while, seems to lose her balance while standing. "! No, it was my fault... So, you're Lithona, eh?" the shinx said, helping the eevee stand properly. "Li...Lithona...? I-I don't know... I can't remember anything..." she said quietly. "Well, you look exactly like Lithona from the picture on my mission." he told the eevee. "C-can I see that mission...?" Espiana- or Lithona- asked. Now, Shadow was really glad he left the paper back at his temporary tree base, or else, his mission of keeping Lithona knowing she is Espiana would be ruined. "Let's see here... O-oh. I seemed to have lost it... But I still need to get you safe anyways. It is an explorers duty to save others when the times come!" Shadow somewhat exclaimed, which made the normal type giggle. "O-okay then~ T-thank you...  ... What's your name...? I want to know the name of my hero at least...~" she asked. "I'm Shadow, a member of Wigglytuff's guild." he said with confidence as they walked back to town.

But something else happened... Shadow stuttered a bit and growled a bit. "W-what's wrong...?" Lithona asked, confused. "Just stay close to me...!" he said and a wild Flygon came close by with another Flygon and they seemed to be battling. "We can't get caught in their fight, c'mon...!" Shadow whispered to the eevee and they tried to avoid the two, until a miss Dragon Breath was close to hitting Lithona. "LITHONA!!! Watch out!!!" the shinx jumped in front of her and took the hit. His blue scarf was somewhat burnt. "!!! Sh-Shadow!! Oh no, oh no... A-are you okay...?!" she asked the electric type, very worried for his well-being. Shadow slowly stood up and grinned a bit. "Don't worry about me... Worry about yourself right now... That attack could have finished you with you mostly injured already... now, while they aren't fighting in this direction...!" even if he had just endure a lot of damage, he still led Lithona out of the forest and back into town, where he asked Blissey to heal her. Blissey told Shadow to let her heal him too, but he refused, saying he has to go somewhere for a while.

Shadow quickly went back to Mystifying Forest to grab some of his stuff, but still didn't take the mission paper that was stuck on the bark and went back to the guild with Lithona mostly healed by the time he went back to get her from Blissey's. He showed Lithona to Wigglytuff, and Wigglytuff kinda celebrated a bit. The Guildmaster went to Shadow and whispered "She doesn't know... Does she?" and Shadow shook his head. "I didn't let her know. All she knows is that she is Lithona..." the shinx replied. Lithona came up to them. "Um... so you're the guildmaster, right? ... Can... Can I be an explorer too? Please?" she asked. "Mm? Why do you want to be an explorer, Lithona?" the shinx asked back. "After what you did... You took a hit for me just so that your mission was a success was what I thought at first... But then, I realized that wasn't the main reason why you jumped in front of me to take a Dragon Breath..." Lithona hesistated a bit since she was still a bit nervous with the guildmaster near them. "Before that happened, you told me these exact words. "It is an explorers duty to save others when the times come" and that's what you did. So... I-I want to help others too. And maybe... I might learn my past... Please let me be an explorer!" Lithona exclaimed. Wigglytuff thought about it for a while, and then accepted Lithona in the guild.

~Present~

"Lithona then tried to do missions with me... At some point, I guess that the ribbon fell off... Where was that scarf...?" the luxio looked around his used to be tree base. He found his old scarf at the very bottom of a pile of items. He examined it for a while. "... So that's what the other version of me had instead of the purple band I have... It was this scarf... ...!? Li-Lithona's ribbon is here!?" Shadow found the exact same ribbon near the pile he found his scarf in. "I-I don't remember...getting t-this... ... Am I missing something...? ...! She thought that Dark killed her parents... Yet those were eeveelutions... Neither of them was a luxio...! Oh... When she...left the guild...for a while..." the luxio remembered that the eevee left Wigglytuff's Guild at some point and she had left her ribbon in the room. Then it was after the news about the darkness taking over did she came back as an espeon with a dark typing along with some colors from an umbreon. "She must have been adopted or something by those 'mons... What happened to her at that time...?" Shadow went quiet for a bit until he remembered why he was back in the forest. "... Huh, just like how we met, eh? Well... I how I don't have to defend here like that... Because getting hurt that much...means something bad would happen... I still can't control it well..." he thought, thinking about what he might  do to Lithon while in his dark form. The luxio took the scarf and went out of the tree. That's it, I have to find Lith as fast as I can before whatever I'm worrying about happens... I just hope... She's alright...