CHAPTER 1: AWAKENING

Luneria Beach

The next thing Ryan knew, he heard waves crashing onto the shore of a beach, the shrill cries of birds, and the warm sunlight on his body. In general, nothing felt right to him, and although that included his body, he didn’t notice that he had been transformed yet. However, he could at least tell he was alive thanks to the splitting headache he had at that moment. Before he had a chance to even open his eyes, let alone stand up, he had blacked out again on the unfamiliar beach that he didn’t yet know he was on.

Later that day, a strange weasel with bluish-black fur, an ear that resembles a red feather, and gold markings on its chest and forehead, carrying what looked like a messenger’s bag over her shoulder, stormed onto the beach. On this particular day, much to her disappointment, she had been rejected from the guild on her seventh attempt to join due to not having a partner to join with her, as this particular guild requires a prospective recruit to have a team of three. She groaned, raising her arms in exasperation and scaring off some nearby wingulls.

“This is so frustrating! Where am I supposed to find two other mons who want to join a exploration team with me?” She sat down on the beach to watch the sunset and sighed. “At least I can be alone in my frustration here.” She looked to her right to ensure she actually was alone, and she took a long look at a bluff with an abandoned lighthouse at the very end. For the last month, she had been living on her own, hiding out in the aforementioned lighthouse, which no other mon dared to enter and living off of the oran berries that grew on a lone tree near the tall structure.

I really hope I don’t have to stay in there for much longer, she thought to herself before looking behind her. All she saw was various varieties of subtropical flora starting from about 20 meters back from the coastline, as well as the occasional palm tree sitting on the beach. She then faced her left, and what she saw surprised her. It wasn’t the cave with the foggy-looking entrance, she had noticed that when she first woke up on this beach. It was what appeared to be a small brown fox-like creature, sprawled out and unconscious. This puzzled the sneasel.

An eevee? Here, on the beach? the cat-like weasel muttered. Looks too clean to be a feral, as the villagers call wild pokemon… and it also can’t be a castaway because it’s fur would be caked with sand and seawater… The sneasel gasped. There was only one possibility left in her mind, and it almost seemed too good to be true. Could it be…? She stood up and walked over to the eevee to try and wake it up by shaking. That’s when she heard the muttering.

“Head… ache… oh how I hate headaches…” it said, eyes still closed.

“Oh, a headache? Let me see what I have…” the sneasel said, mostly to herself, as she looked through her bag. All it contained was some sleep seeds, which she used for her insomnia that she had had since she first showed up, a handheld mirror that she found, and a persim berry. Is a headache like confusion? She thought to herself before shrugging. Only one way to find out, I suppose…

She opened the eevee’s mouth to feed it the persim, and it ingested the berry. Finally, the headache that Ryan had been dealing with for much of the day went away, and he was able to open his eyes. Initially, all he saw was the ocean.

“Huh?” he said aloud. “Is that… the ocean? Seattle doesn’t even sit on the ocean! Plus, there’s no beaches… Wait, where’s uncle Terry?”

That was when he noticed the sneasel next to him that helped to ease his discomfort. He completely forgot about his uncle as his eyes went wide at the sight of a real, living pokemon.

“Gyah!” he shouted in shock, unable to get up. “W-what is this craziness? A-a sneasel? But I- but- uh-” he trailed off as he realized something was not right about himself. “Wait, something doesn’t feel right about my own body… a lot of somethings, actually…”

“I knew it!” the sneasel shouted, pointing. “You are a human!”

His shock doubled upon hearing the sneasel speak. “The sneasel just spoke! What kind of crazy world is this!” He just stared down at the sand, but all that did was show yet another shocking revelation: a pair of fluffy, brown, paws. “What.” He tried to move his right arm up, and the right limb responded. Trying to flex his fingers made the digits on the paw flex as well. All that to say nothing of the extra bit sticking out of his back that he previously hadn’t noticed. He turned his head back and saw the bushy, white tipped, tail. “Oh no, don’t tell me…” he turned back to the sneasel. “You, weird, talking sneasel, do you have something reflective?”

She pulled out the mirror from her bag and aimed it at him, and what he saw was the face of an eevee staring back at him. “No. NO. This can’t be real!” he said, growing increasingly spooked as the eevee seemingly repeated what he was saying. The sneasel covered her ears as Ryan yelled at the top of his lungs. Even after he stopped, he continued to shake with fear and uncertainty, especially since he was struggling to even stand. The sneasel sighed.

“Wow, that was loud. Please don’t injure your throat,” she said, concerned. “Or my ears,” she added, chuckling.

“…s-sorry…”

“Hey, no big deal,” she said shrugging, then opted to change the subject. “You seem like someone to be trusted. The thing is… I’m a human too.”

Once again, Ryan the eevee froze in shock. The sneasel facepalmed.

“Oh, snap out of it already!” she said, clearly starting to get irritated by her new acquaintance’s behavior. She sighed again to calm herself down. “Yes, I’m a former human, just like you. Well, maybe. I don’t remember anything past a month ago… I’m pretty sure I remember my name though.” She extended a claw out. “Name’s Lena. You?”

Ryan hesitated. He wasn’t sure that he should trust someone he just met so readily. However, she seemed friendly, if a bit irritable, and he would need help adjusting to his new body…. He clumsily shook her claw with his right forepaw and shared his name as well.

“Ryan, huh?” Lena said, and chuckled again. “What a boring name.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ryan answered annoyed as he tried to stand on all fours because he could certainly tell he was a quadruped. “Come to think of it, I was too shaken up by… well, everything… to notice, but my headache’s gone!”

“Consider yourself lucky that I was here with that persim berry. Those things handle migraines like a… well… like… um… they handle them really well.”

“Oh,” the eevee said, more cheerful now despite his struggle to stay standing because of his unfamiliar body, “thanks!”

The sneasel waved dismissively. “Oh, it’s nothing.” She stole a glance behind Ryan and noticed a backpack. “Uh, Ryan… is that yours?”

“Huh?” Ryan turned around clumsily, nearly falling flat onto the sand and noticed the neon-blue bag next to him, perking up a bit at the sight. “Yeah! That’s my bag! It must’ve gotten caught in the blast from the gateway! This could be huge! I might even have something that could jog your memory!”

“Blast? Gateway?” Lena said, mostly to herself before looking back at the sun setting over the horizon as Ryan grabbed the handle with his maw and tried to pull it. “Oh, uh, you need help with that?” Ryan nodded. Lena picked up the bag, and although it was comically large on her, she was able to manage it. “Anyways, it’s getting late. You wouldn’t have anywhere to stay, do you?”

Ryan shook his head. “Um… no, I don’t, but I don’t mind sleeping under the stars.”

The rumble of thunder to the east startled both Pokemon and quickly changed Ryan’s mind.

“O-ho-ho-kay! On second thought, where are you staying?”

Lena gestured for Ryan to follow. “C’mon, I’ll show ya!” She walked off toward the lighthouse, and Ryan tried to follow, but kept tripping over his own paws. Soon, though, he got the hang of walking on all fours enough that he could easily keep up with his new companion.

From atop one of the trees near the coastline, a black cat with scarlet stripes and fur patterns and donning a red bandana watched the duo continue toward the lighthouse, holding a pair of binoculars in his paws as he leaned on a palm tree. The litten lowered them and thought, So that sneasel is a human, and now there’s another one… interesting. Then, he started to head back to the village, which was a short distance inland. His house, where he lived with his parents, was positioned with the back against the forest that he headed into to get to the beach. He climbed in through a back window that he had left open, but he found his parents, an incineroar and a cinccino, waiting for him. They were not pleased that he had snuck out.

“Benjamin,” the cinccino said. “I can’t believe you would sneak out of the house like this!”

“I agree with your mother,” the incineroar added. “Please tell us before you just… leave the house.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Ben said dismissively. “But you might want to sit down for what I’m about to say. Remember that sneasel you saw at the guild yesterday?”

Both of Ben’s parents nodded sternly. “What about her?” his father asked.

Ben sat back on his haunches and rubbed his forepaws together. “Well, I was watching her and I learned something very interesting about her…”