Joey sighed as he let the shears drop from his hand onto the ground beside him. He was tired, tired and so very hot. The summer sun was at its peak in the sky overheard and the breeze that usually blew over the grassy fields had taken the day off. Normally Joey didn’t mind the heat. He was used to working on his family’s farm through the spring and autumn and on the few days he was needed in summer. Heat meant sweat and sweat meant nothing on the farm, but at the ranch…



Joey brushed his hands on his overalls. Strands of fine white hairs from the Wooloo he had just sheared clung to his wet skin. It usually wasn’t this bad, the weather, that is. Joey had been working on the ranch since school let out at the start of summer and since then things had been pretty nice. Clouds typically covered the sky, keeping the heat at bay, and the wind normally blew through the grass, causing it to sway like waves on an ocean. Today was unlike all those other days, and this left Joey hot and bothered.



The heat wasn’t the only thing on Joey’s mind, however. During his time on the ranch, Joey had grown increasingly frustrated with his employer, the shepherd. The man was soft-spoken, reclusive, and apparently very bad at his job. The only time Joey had spoken to the shepherd directly was on his first day of work when he was instructed to round up the Wooloo on the ranch and shear their wool. The problem? The Wooloo were all over the place. The Pokemon grazed in small groups across the ranch and had the annoying tendency to roll away whenever Joey approached them. Wasn’t the job of a shepherd to keep track of all of their sheep?



Joey groaned as he stuffed all the wool he gathered into a bag to take in to town at the end of the day. There were so many other things Joey could have been doing with his summer, but he was stuck working for the shepherd because of his father. Joey had every intention of trying to go back to one of his former summer employers, the flower shop or the restaurant in town, but a chance encounter between the shepherd and Joey’s father secured his fate as shepherd’s assistant for a whole three months.



“The old man at the ranch needs your help,” Joey remembered his father saying.



“The shepherd?” Joey questioned. “Why would I want to work for him? You know what the people say about him.”



“The rumors?” Joey’s father responded. “They’re just that— rumors. Besides, I already told him you were looking for work this summer and would be happy to help.”



And that was the end of the conversation. Joey had no say in any of it despite how opposed he was to working on the ranch. The shepherd didn’t exactly have the best reputation around town. Several tourists, one of which was Joey’s cousin from Kanto, had disappeared in the last few months, and the local farmers all seemed to suspect that the shepherd had something to do with it.



Joey was the only person in his family who thought the rumors had any basis. The shepherd always seemed like a shady figure, but his parents assured him that the man was kind and people were just put off by his seclusion on his ranch. They believed that the disappearances were likely a result of the cliffs, caves, or even the wild Pokemon in the area. The local authorities seemed to agree.



Still, there was no way for Joey to get out of his work. His father had struck a deal with the shepherd and Joey was to honor it. Joey, being the curious young man that he was, worked despite his reservations, believing that working with the shepherd might give him a good chance to conduct a little investigation of his own.



So far, Joey’s investigation had gone nowhere. The shepherd just didn’t involve himself in conversation and there was nothing particularly incriminating in a field full of grass and Wooloo. The barn didn’t have much in it either. It was just a small shack with a stool, some shears, and some other supplies. Joey was starting to believe that perhaps his family was right and he should lay all of his opinions on the subject to rest.



The shepherd’s innocence was one thing, but his job performance was something else entirely. Joey left the barn to find his boss to let him know that he had finished shearing the Wooloo after days of work. During his search across the sea of grass, Joey spotted some sheep Pokemon who still wore their fluffy coats, and this only added to Joey’s frustration. He felt as though he could dedicate his entire summer to this one task only to have it remain incomplete at the end all because of the shepherd’s shoddy work.



Hours passed before Joey was finally able to track down the shepherd and his small flock of sheep.



“Hey,” Joey said as he approached. “I thought I finished shearing all the Wooloo but it looks like I may have missed a few.”



The shepherd nodded in response, not taking his eyes off his flock. “Then bring in those you missed,” he said.



“I, uhh…” Joey began, “I don’t know if it’s really worth it. I mean, I can round up the ones I find but your Wooloo are all over the place. I don’t think I can get them all.”



“My flock is free to do as they like within the confines of my lands,” the shepherd said softly. He didn’t seem to acknowledge Joey’s concern as a legitimate problem.



Joey let out a sharp breath, his frustration growing. “Aren’t you supposed to, like, herd them around? Keep track of them?” Joey asked. “I could have finished shearing all your Wooloo in a day if they were all in one place.”



The shepherd nodded once more. He leaned on the staff he held tightly in both hands. “There was a time,” he began, “where perhaps that would have been the case. But now I am old and I cannot bring back those who stray from the flock. They are safe within my fence. I do not mind letting them wander.”



“But letting them wander isn’t your job,” Joey retorted. He understood that the man’s age may have made his task difficult and the Wooloo were his responsibility, but these excuses just made Joey’s life more difficult. “You need to get it together to make this easier for yourself and whoever assists you in the future.”



The shepherd remained silent for a moment as he listened to the bleating of his Pokemon. “Every year my flock grows just a little bigger,” the man explained, “and every year I become a little less able to care for my family.” The shepherd motioned toward the sheep. “I told your father I needed assistance, and you have done a wonderful job so far.”



“I hav—“ Joey began.



“But,” the old man interrupted, “I did not bring you here to nag in my ear. Hm? If you see a problem that you would like to help me solve then perhaps you should come to me only if you have a solution already in mind.”



“It’s not my problem to solve,” Joey argued. “I’m here to assist you with what you ask, not take over your ranch.”



“So you want me to solve this problem?” the shepherd asked. “You want me to make your life easier and have the herd be properly tended to?”



Joey nodded, “Yes.”



The man turned to Joey. His soft eyes were so calm. “Very well,” he said. “Then you will help me, Joey. You said you are here to assist me with what I ask. Now I ask you to help me tend to my flock as you see fit to make the work of all who come after you all the easier.”



“And how am I supposed to do that?” Joey asked, raising an eyebrow.



The shepherd smiled. “You’ll know exactly what to do,” he said. He did not wait for Joey to respond as he planted his staff in the earth beside him and drew back his hood, revealing an assortment of strange runes and markings tattooed on his bald head.



The shepherd whispered something to himself, something too quiet for Joey to understand. The man repeated his words again and again, raising the volume of his voice with each cycle. Joey watched in confusion, not entirely sure what to make of his boss’s sudden lunacy. The words he spoke weren’t of any language that Joey could recognize, nor did they seem to have any meaning.



Joey took a step backward only to have his foot slide awkwardly in his shoe, causing him to trip and fall into the grass. Joey looked down, confused as to what happened. His shoes had fit perfectly fine in the past, but now it felt so open. Joey pulled the sneaker from his foot to reveal what was now a small, fluffy paw.



Joey’s eyes widened. He pulled his other shoe from his body to find his other foot had undergone a similar change. Two paws rested awkwardly at the bottom of Joey’s very human legs. Joey looked at the paws and then at the shepherd and then back at the paws. Had the man done this to him? No, this couldn’t be real.



Joey pushed himself from the ground. He somehow managed to stand on his tiny feet, but walking proved impossible. One step forward caused Joey to stumble. He fell to the ground, catching himself with his hands.



The grass between Joey’s fingers brushed against his skin as the frightened boy stared at the ground beneath him. His breaths grew quick and heavy. He was so hot but his body was not producing sweat. Joey panted. His tongue hung from his mouth. It felt strange, almost longer than he remembered and his teeth… He felt them beneath his tongue. They poked at it as if sharp and pointed. Something wasn’t right.



Joey went to move his hand to his mouth to investigate but before he could lift a hand from the ground he noticed that something else was happening to him. His fingers were shrinking and white fur was sprouting all over the back of his hands and arms.



Joey looked up at the shepherd. The man was looking to the sky, repeating his chant.



“He-ark!” Joey cried in a plea for help that didn’t come out as expected. “H-ark! Baaaark!” he tried again.



Joey didn’t know what to do. His cries were useless and he couldn’t move despite the sudden rush of energy that filled his body. He felt his clothes grow baggy as they gre— no, as he shrank. Joey looked down into his now too big shirt. His stomach was covered in white fur and yellow hair seemed to be growing from his neck like a fluffy collar.



A discomfort on Joey’s rear drew his attention as his spine extended to form a little tail that brushed against the inside of his jeans. The lightning-bolt shape of the new appendage popped straight up as Joey’s legs grew smaller and his jeans fell to the ground.



Joey’s ears moved slowly toward the top of his head as they grew long and pointed. The sensation was strange but the physical feeling of the change was drowned out by the amplification of all the sounds that surrounded Joey. The shepherd’s chants and the bleating of the Wooloo grew louder until they almost completely overwhelmed Joey. He felt like covering his ears but he could not move any of the four paws he now stood on.



Joey whined in a way he had only ever heard canine Pokemon whine before. His mouth and nose extended from his body as they restructured themselves into a pointed snout.



Joey felt energy rush through his body like an electric shock. He felt like he could run for days and suddenly felt compelled to do so. He bit the shirt that hung loosely around his neck and tore it from his body with his sharp canines. He dashed forward, his paws grazing the grass as he ran. He circled around the Wooloo, causing the sheep Pokemon to form a tight cluster that would travel in whatever direction he pleased.



The shepherd’s chants ceased. The old man felt a sudden wave of exhaustion, but he knew he didn’t have to worry about guiding his flock any longer. His new Yamper would take care of all the work for him. The small canine Pokemon ran around the Wooloo happily, taking special care to herd in any Pokemon who were not a part of the main flock.



The energy and enthusiasm of the Yampur made the shepherd smile as did the heart-shaped fur pattern on the Pokemon’s rear. The shepherd was happy and he knew that Yampur was too. The Pokemon had no recollection of his previous life or memory of what the old man had done to him. He was a simple, blissful canine who was doing the task his kind was bred to do, and he would do it until the end of his days.



Joey would be written off as another mysterious disappearance in rural Galar. A police investigation would find nothing and Joey’s family would assume he befell the same fate as all the others. Only the shepherd would know what happened to the young boy and all the others who shared his fate.