Warning: Animal abuse/neglect, animal abandonment, graphic descriptions of violence, permanent injury, death.
Eevee are incredibly rare Pokemon, rarely ever seen in the wild.As such the most common way to obtain one is from a breeder. Often, they are given as gifts for special occasions and are quite popular to give someone as their first Pokemon.
Like in the real world, though, since they are common gifts sometimes someone will gift a creature to someone else who doesn't actually intend to take care of it. many people just think of them as cute gifts without actually realizing the responsibility that raising an animal actually is.
Though there are many centers where people will take in Pokemon to be watched after until they are adopted, unfortunately some people may just not bother. It is far from unheard of for people to find abandoned Eevees in unsafe places, like Zapdear.
This Eevee was leashed to a tree so he could not attempt to follow his owner, then left alone. It didn't have food, water, or shelter. Being young and untrained, it also had no means to defend itself.
Alone in the forest the Eevee became sick and injured. It starved without food to eat and could not get enough to drink from the rainwater. It constantly gnawed at the leash because it knew that if it were able to get that off, then it had a chance of finding somewhere safe, unlike if it just stayed here.
After several days the Eevee was finally able to get through the tough fabric. However, it was week from days of not eating. It ran through the forest but was not able to get very far before being spotted by a territorial pokemon.
By the end of it, the Eevee was unable to stand. It had been badly injured. It had scratches all over its body, one of its paws was broken, it's ear was torn and most importantly it had lost one of its eyes.
The Eevee dies.
The Eevee feels warmth. It cannot see very much, but it does see a bright white light that spreads into different rainbow colors. It is beautiful. The Eevee hears the comforting yell of a bird.
Then, it feels the pain settle back into its body. Its still lying still, bleeding out onto the forest floor, unable to see more than the vague shapes of the forest plants illuminated by nothing but moonlight.
But this time, he hears the first steps of something approaching it. Before it can guess if the creature is going to attack or eat it, it feels its body being moved on to a soft jacket, wet from the rain.
Before it knows it, it's being ran back to safety.
It was not the first time that Silver had seen the legendary bird Ho-Oh.
The first time he had seen it had been just after he started traveling with gold. He would exit a building, by himself, and see it perched on the fence making eye contact with him. Before he could start to do anything, it flew away. Disappearing into the sky where it could not be watched.
Every so often it would appear to him privately, and disappear moments later. Silver would never attempt to battle it, nor did he ever mention this to anyone.
After Gold had left for Mt.Silver, Silver hadn't seen the Ho-Oh. He had decided that he was fine if he never saw it again, accepting that he might never see it again. But, one day, outside alone at night, he saw the bird in front of him glaring at him.
Instead of just regarding him then flying away, this time it caught at him and beckoned him to follow. He ran after it, into the forest, getting rained on, then lost sight of the Ho-Oh. But, at his feet, was an injured Eevee.
He picked it up in his jacket and rushed it over to the Pokecenter. The nurse quickly took it into care. He stayed inside to dry off from the rain, but wasn't planning to stay longer. However, the nurse insisted that he stay because the Eevee had already gotten attached to him, and would need someone to look after it. He was reluctant, convinced that he shouldn't be put in charge of any more Pokemon, but agreed.
The Eevee's paw was able to heal correctly, and it's wounds were properly treated. However, nothing could be done about the Eevee's left eye, as it had permanently lost it, and it only had peripheral vision and the other one.
Silver was given instructions on how to look after the Pokemon and what to watch for, then was allowed to leave the center with it.
The Eevee did have a Pokeball, but preferred being outside of it in favor of being carried by Silver. Having been abandoned before, it needed constant reassurance.
When silver talked to other people, the Eevee was very sociable and friendly. It was very curious and liked being pet by other humans. Other people would often comment that "he's a sweetheart", so Silver named the Eevee "Candy". He keeps it a secret, though.
Candy and was friendly and sociable around humans, but was more anxious around other Pokemon and couldn't be left in a room alone with them. Even Silver's other friendly Pokemon, like Cloud the Ampharos, it was anxious around. Silver was able to identify that it must be because of some kind of trauma, but wasn't sure what to do about it quite yet.
Around this time, Gold returned from the mountain. He was able to help with the Pokemon separation anxiety by sometimes taking care of it instead while silver couldn't.
With encouragement from Gold, he was able to ask Professor Elm how to help his Eevee with anxiety. The professor was able to quickly help him get in contact with a Pokemon behavioral therapist, who he can visit regularly.
Citrus and Candy's relationship is very important. Citrus is another Eevee that gold had, and it was very excited about candy because it was the same Pokemon as him. Candy was reluctant at first, but the two actually managed to become friends. They would play together and citrus was very eager to teach candy things.
After having made another Pokemon friend, Candy started being more sociable to other Pokemon. It made friends with all of both of Gold and Silver's Pokemon.
Silver was trying to stay away from pokémon training, but he had a belief that every pokemon should know how to defend themselves. A Pokemon not knowing any attacking moves could lead to situations such as the very one that Candy was in against the territorial Noctowl.
Attacking moves, even basic ones such as tackle, didn't come naturally to the Eevee. It was easier to teach it non-offensive moves, such as healing moves like heal bell. That's actually rather impressive to learn.
Training candy was a slow and steady process. The last thing that silver wanted is to push it too hard, but the Eevee was quick to give up. Having citrus around made training far easier, since citrus always wanted to learn the same things. It would see candy training, thought it would look fun, then participate encouraging candy.
Noticing this, gold would usually leave citrus with silver. Silver would make a lot of progress with the Eevee as long as citrus was around.
Finally, silver felt like candy was at a point where the Pokemon could properly defend itself. And if not defend itself, have the ability to run away by healing itself or digging underground.
But still, he felt bad for the little Pokemon. It's still suffered from anxiety, especially since it couldn't see well. If it even thought for a second that it couldn't see its trainer or citrus around, it would start panicking and crying.It wanted to be held because then it could feel for sure that it's trainer was there, instead of just having to rely on very poor vision.
Silver started to talk to other trainers who owned Pokemon with disabilities. He looked at first at trainers who had pokemon that had similar disabilities to his own, such as blindness and separation anxiety, but it started to be more open when it came to listening to trainers with completely unrelated disadvantages with their pokemon.
One that he found particularly relevant was someone who also had a disabled Eevee. This one wasn't blind, but instead it had a missing leg. It struggled with balance, so the trainer evolved it into a Vaporeon since those usually swim instead of walk and use their tail for balance. This made silver start to consider if evolution could help his Pokemon in any way.
He read a lot about the different eeveelutions. Eeveelutions were not just about what powers they had, but often also had an effect on temperament and personality.
For example: Flareon. Fire was all consuming. When the Pokemon got scared or felt intensely, it's fur would warm up to a point that humans couldn't touch it without being burned. Though many Eevee would thrive if they had that kind of presence, Silver knew that Candy would just get lost.
Leafeon are said to have calm and gentle personalities, bonding strongly with nature. People theorized that the Pokemon was so peaceful in order to always have the carefulness needed to tend to plants without being too rough to them. It didn't seem like a bad idea for candy, since it would help with the anxiety, but Eevee couldn't evolve into Leafeon with a stone. They needed to be taken to certain overwhelmingly magically forest places. There were only a few guaranteed areas in the world, and none were consistent in Johto or Kanto.
Two other options came to mind, though: Sylveon and Umbreon. Both of them unlocked a type that let them sense the world through other means. Silver had trained more than just the one dark type left on his team, and was familiar with their abilities to sense things in darkness. He wasn't very familiar with Psychic Types, though... The one he knew the best belonged to Gold.
He did his research. He asked psychic type trainers what they knew, and also went out of his way to find people that have Espeons. He brought Candy with him to all of these conversations. It was partially a side effect of him just taking Candy with him anyways, but he did genuinely want the Pokemon to stay informed about its potential future.
Silver decided he would evolve candy into an Espeon.
After he made this decision, gold decided to trade citrus to silver. He figured that Candy needed the friend, so it was easiest to just let silver keep him. This did make training easier since silver always had the partner Pokemon on hand.
Every day, silver would wake up early to train with candy. Nearly all day, only stopping when twilight hit. when the sun started to set, and it seemed the time window for evolving into espeon was over.
Just as the day was starting to end, when the sun was starting to set and the time window was starting to close, Eevee evolved into Espeon.
Did Evie had a slightly more pinkish coat than normal espeons, visible pupil in its eye. The missing eye was healed over, a faint scar stretching across that side of the face.
Shortly after, when the sun had just barely set, citrus evolved as well into an Umbreon.
As an Espeon, much of candies anxiety subsided. With its new psychic type it had a new way to sense its surroundings and to be sure of itself. It's power grows exponentially, though silver is still hesitant to use it in any battle as he is with the rest of his Pokemon. Part of it is because he's sworn off battling, but another part of it is because he still doubts the Pokemon and doesn't want it to get hurt.