CHAPTER 19: FESTIVAL!

Luneria Village, July 31st

When Team Seekers arrived back from their chosen mission for the day, they found the town square to be completely empty. This confused everyone except for Ben, as normally, there would be plenty of pokemon going about their business on a balmy evening such as this.

“Where is everybody?” Ryan asked, looking around the square. “Normally there’s a lot of pokemon around here.”

Lena took a quick look around. “I think I might know,” she said, pointing to a sign fastened to the wall of the clock tower. “Look!”

In both footprint runes and English, a sign read ‘Augustian Festival, celebrating the arrival of August at Luneria field east of the village! Food, fun, games, competitions, and even a battle tournament! Open every evening from July 31 to August 6!’

“Oh, a festival?” Ryan said. “I think it’d be a welcome change from all of the work we’d been doing. I think we should go see what it has to offer.”

“Well said!” Terry exclaimed. “Let’s do this thing!”

They cheered, then proceeding to head east to the field that held the festival. When they arrived, they saw lots of pokemon, likely numbering nearly a thousand, browsing the stalls, socializing, playing, laughing, as a band on a stage played both original songs and renditions of older ones, some even dating back to the days of humanity. In the back, they saw a ferris wheel, imported from Miobach City and reassembled by a crew of machamps and conkeldurrs with some big bird pokemon offering air support, that towered over the stalls, and it undoubtedly had a long line waiting to ride it. The entire field was illuminated by floodlights that contained luminous orbs where lightbulbs would have been.

It was at this point that Team Seekers decided to split into two groups to check out the fair before reuniting to ride the ferris wheel together. It was a large one, and each car could comfortably hold up to ten pokemon of Ryan’s size, so if they ran into anyone else that they knew, they would be able to invite them as well. Ryan went with Ben while Terry and Lena stuck together.

The first thing the glaceon and litten did was to order some snacks. Much to the former’s surprise, they still had funnel cakes and deep-fried oreos in this world, and those were always Ryan’s favorite things to get at a carnival. After getting some and eating them on the spot, they kept browsing the stalls until they saw the signups for the battle tournament. The duo looked at each other.

“You wanna?” Ben asked.

“Only if you’ll promise not to go easy on me if we’re matched up against each other,” Ryan responded.

Much to their surprise, however, it was a doubles tournament, 2v2, for each bracket, meaning they wouldn’t have to fight each other, they could just sign up on the same team. And they did, each stamping the paper with an ink covered paw as their signatures. I could have written my name instead, but this was faster, he thought as he wiped the ink onto the grass.

Them signing up made them the eighth team, meaning that signups were now closed for the night. The host, a bronzong, led them to where the other teams were waiting. On a large wooden signpost contained the brackets, which had been updated to reflect the signup: loudred and lilligant vs leavanny and scolipede, jolteon and sylveon vs oranguru and passimian, granbull and milotic vs honchkrow and electabuzz, and togedemaru and vulpix vs glaceon and litten.

“Wait… jolteon and sylveon?” Ryan said as he reread the signs, which were bilingual as most were. “I don’t remember any other eeveelutions living around here.”

He looked around the area where the competitors had been gathered and sure enough, he spotted the two eevee evolutions not too far from him, the jolteon having an unusual electric blue fur coloration and a large pink bow around her waist. They also had a small eevee with them, who couldn’t have been older than six years old, and they were also speaking with a morpeko, who Ryan recognized as Harry.

Ben grabbed Ryan’s forepaw to drag him in that direction. “They must be new here. Let’s go introduce ourselves!”

The litten pulled the glaceon over to where they were. The two of them over heard the last little bit of the conversation.

“…but don’t worry, you two; little Riley has been in good paws,” Harry told the eeveelution couple.

“I’m really glad to hear that she was good for you in the last two months,” the jolteon said. She sighed in relief. “I’d hate to have lost her like we did with our other two kids…”

The sylveon looked at his mate quizzically and began to whisper, “But they weren’t dead when we-“

The jolteon jabbed him with a forepaw, laughing it off.

“Excuse him, he’s just still in denial,” she said, lying through her teeth.

“In denial,” Harry repeated skeptically. “After eight years?”

“Y-yes?” the spiky zap fox said nervously as the ribboned fox rolled his eyes.

The morpeko narrowed his eyes skeptically for a moment. Then, he shrugged. “Well, I won’t press any further.” That was when the gerbil noticed Ryan and Ben. “Ah, Ben! Good to see you! But, uh, who’s the glaceon?”

Ryan sighed. “It’s me, Ryan. I evolved during my expedition.”

The eyes of the spiky zap fox went wide at the name drop. She shook her head. No, it can’t be, that’s impossible! She thought. Coincidences happen. Ryan’s a pretty common name. She stepped forward. “I don’t think we’ve met. Or maybe we have. Who knows?”

Ryan tilted his head quizzically. “I’m… pretty sure we haven’t met. Maybe if you share your name, it’ll ring a bell.”

The jolteon took a deep breath before answering. “Angela. And the sylveon’s name is Jack.”

Jack waved a ribbon at Ryan as if it were an arm.

This time, it was time for Ryan’s eyes to go wide. He took a step towards them. “Wait… could you be…”

Just then, they were interrupted by a very loud bell ringing noise, to which all three eeveelutions winced.

“Loudred, lilligant, leavanny, and scolipede,” the bronzong broadcast telekinetically, “it is time for your first battle. As for the rest of you, make your way to the stands.”

Ryan shook his head. “I must be thinking of someone else, I guess. Good luck on your battle once it’s your turn!” Him and Jack shook each other’s forepaw.

“Likewise!” Jack replied as Ryan and Ben headed to the opposite side of the bleachers from where the other eeveelutions and Harry were going to sit.

---

“I almost feel bad for those two,” Ben said as an unconscious loudred and lilligant were carried off the battlefield by a pair of blisseys. “Those bug types made surprisingly quick work of them.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed. “It was almost… worrying how unprepared those two were.” The glaceon shook his head. “But that’s in the past. It’s Jack and Angela’s turn!”

Bronzong then called those two, as well as their opponents onto the field. This turned out to be a much fairer fight than the first despite the sylveon’s type advantage. The passimian went down quickly, but not without a fight. It was Angela that focused on oranguru, and that fight was particularly close. When she had finally taken down the psychic ape, she was nearly exhausted herself.

“Yes!” she sighed, exasperated and gasping for air as she stood over the oranguru.

The two then retreated back to the bleachers, clearing the way for the third match. Ryan didn’t pay much attention to this one, as he was too worried about his and Ben’s own upcoming match.

Oh, I hope nothing goes horribly wrong… for either of our teams, he worried silently as honchkrow and electabuzz emerged victorious over their opponents.

Now, it was finally their turn.

“Glaceon, litten, togedemaru, vulpix! Make your way to opposite sides of the battlefield!” the bronzong announced telepathically.

The four pokemon did as they were told, with Ryan and Ben standing opposite from the other two.

“You two are going down!” The electric hedgehog shouted, pointing at them.

“Yeah!” the vulpix agreed, his tails wagging furiously. “Just because we’re guildmates doesn’t mean we’ll go easy on ya!”

“Then don’t!” Ryan called back. “We don’t need you to! We want the challenge, that’s why we signed up!”

“Yeah!” Ben said, determined.

Bronzong swung their body from side to side, making a bell ringing noise that indicated the start of the battle.

The vulpix started by charging at Ben, both enveloping themselves in flames while Ryan tried firing an ice beam at the togedemaru who just stood there and took the attack.

“Hah, you thought that would hurt me?” the hedgehog said, an air of cockiness in their voice. “Steel types aren’t effected by ice moves, stupid.”

Ryan grunted. “Well, then try this on for size.” His tail started glowing an aqua blue for aqua tail, which he had spent part of his day off practicing. He leapt into the air and tried to slam down with his tail, but togedemaru rolled out of the way and hit back with a zing zap when Ryan wasn’t looking. He yelped with pain as he was catapulted across the field, crashing right on top of a distracted vulpix. The fire fox was quickly knocked out, as you would be if you had just been crushed by a fifty-five-pound living being. The glaceon got up and shook off his shock, noticing where togedemaru had launched him.

“Hah! You knocked out your own teammate! Who’s stupid now?” Ryan retorted, adrenaline flowing. Ben was certainly intrigued at this side of Ryan that he had never seen before now, but that didn’t distract him from the remaining opponent.

The togedemaru growled as Ryan drew closer while preparing to launch another aqua tail. He didn’t actually expect to land the hit, but it would distract the togedemaru and leave Ben with an opening, and that was all he wanted. He leapt into the air to slam down again, fully expecting to be shot out of the air with a thunderbolt or something along those lines.

“Ben! Now!” the glaceon shouted midair as the togedemaru launched its electric move.

The litten enveloped himself in flames and dashed over, making impact with the steel-type hedgehog just after thunderbolt briefly connected with Ryan. The togedemaru doubled over in pain, and Ryan now saw another opening. He launched a third aqua tail, and this time he struck, forcing the hedgehog into a facedown position. Another flame charge from Ben was all it took to finish the battle with his and Ryan’s victory.

It was time for round two, and it pitted a pair of duos together: eeveelutions versus bugs. This time, neither fox had a type advantage, but what they did have was stamina, freshly replenished after their last battle. So, they tried a strategy of simply trying to outrun and wear out the bug types they were up against. It took a while and was fairly boring to watch, but soon, leavanny and scolipede were struggling to keep up with the jolteon as she dashed in superspeed circles around the two. Both attempted to hit her, but constantly kept missing because of how fast she was. Then, Jack blindsided them both with a dazzling gleam. While they were blinded in their weakened state, Angela skidded to a halt, dredging up the dirt from the battlefield, and was able to finish them both off with a discharge. The eeveelution duo had emerged victorious again.

Ben and Ryan’s next match had come up, and they were against a honchkrow and electabuzz. They noticed that they already looked a bit tired, as if they assumed they had this match in the bag and that they wouldn’t need to rest between matches. A terrible mistake in my opinion, Ryan thought.

After the bell rang, Ben began trying to draw the attention of both of their opponents by using double team to make numerous fake duplicates of himself. While they were distracted, Ryan fired an ice beam from a distance at the crow with a hatlike crest. It immediately got trapped in a chunk of ice, and it slammed onto the ground, startling the electabuzz. The latter set off a discharge, hitting all of the duplicates in the hope that he would hit the real one, or at the very least, cause him to reveal himself. One by one, the duplicates disappeared; then, the real Ben leapt into the air to avoid the discharge. The electabuzz smirked.

“Ah-HA!” he shouted. “You think you’re so slick trying to sneak up on me, huh?”

The litten giggled. “Nah, I’m just distracting you.”

Before the electabuzz could even respond, an ice beam struck him in the back, causing him to fall facefirst onto the grassy battlefield. A swift flame charge from midair by Ben finished off the weakened electric type, winning them the battle.

Once the victorious glaceon-litten duo walked off the battlefield to recuperate their strength, they were immediately greeted by Jack and Angela.

“That was a great battle! I’m looking forward to the final round when we get to fight you two,” the sylveon remarked.

“Thanks,” Ryan replied as he ingested an oran berry to recuperate his strength for the final round. “You know, you two sound an awful lot like my parents. Like, your voices are so similar to what I remember them sounding like that it’s kinda scary. Could you-“

“Ding ding!” the bronzong shouted through telepathy while also making bell noises with their body, startling the four remaining competitors. “Final round! Litten and glaceon versus jolteon and sylveon!”

Jack looked back at Ryan. “How about we continue this discussion later,” the ribbon fox said. “For now, Angela and I have a battle to win.”

Ben raised a paw. “Yeah, over my unconscious body!” he shouted, clearly getting into the same competitive spirit Ryan had had.

“Um, yeah, that’s kind of the point,” the sylveon said simply.

The two duos headed off to opposite sides of the field, each adopting battle-ready stances.

All that was left was for bronzong to call out three words, and they did. “Ready. Set. Go!”

All four pokemon rushed at each other, each hoping to get the first hit in on the other. Ben leapt up into the air to try to hit Angela, but she launched a thunder attack before he had even hit the apex of his jump. He fell in a crackling heap, but tried to get back up. Before he could, though, Jack played rough, and Ben didn’t enjoy roughhousing when he was already injured. Needless to say, he didn’t last much longer. Ryan did manage to get an iron tail in just as Jack finished off Ben, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Another thunder and play rough later and he, too, was down for the count.

“And with that, the winners are… sylveon and jolteon!”

The crowd cheered as Ben and Ryan were carried off the field to have their wounds tended to. After Harry collected the trophy for them, Jack and Angela, with little Riley in tow, trailed them. Luckily, the glaceon and litten weren’t seriously injured, nothing a simple heal pulse can’t fix, anyways. After that, each were touched with a reviver seed, and they woke up.

“…did we win?” Ben asked. Ryan sighed as he sat up.

“No, Ben,” he said, disappointed. “We lost.”

Ben groaned, flopping back onto the bed. “I hate losing! It hurts and generally isn’t fun,” he said. “Maybe if I’d evolved sooner it’d have gone better.”

“I doubt it,” Ryan responded. “They’re just too strong.”

Jack wrapped a ribbon around Ryan’s forepaw to cheer him up. “It’s alright. You put up a great fight out there, you know, even if it wasn’t enough in the end.”

“Yeah…” Ryan shook his head, his ‘bangs’ quivering as he did. “But enough about that. We were talking about something earlier, weren’t we? About how I think you sound extremely similar to my parents?”

Angela nodded. “Yeah, I do remember,” the jolteon said as Jack tied her bow back around her waist. “What about it?”

Ryan looked around the popup infirmary. It was just him, them, Ben, and the innocent little eevee child. He sighed with relief, knowing that there was nobody around that he wouldn’t want to hear what he was about to say. The glaceon took a deep breath before asking his question.

“Jack, Angela… you said something about losing a son eight years ago. What was his name?”

The sylveon and the jolteon looked at each other. “His name was… Ryan, same as yours,” Jack answered.

Ryan audibly gasped; his heart started racing. Oh my goodness is this real? To make sure, I gotta ask more questions. He inhaled deeply.

“I need you to answer this entirely truthfully for me, okay? Were you two originally human?”

The two eeveelutions were too shocked to answer at all, truthfully or not.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Ryan said. “You wouldn’t have frozen up like that if your answer was no. Next question: do you have amnesia? In other words, do you remember your human lives?”

Both snapped out of their stupor and nodded.

“Last question, and this one will either completely confirm what I’ve been thinking or completely dash what I’m hoping is happening: what is the last thing you remember happening before you woke up in this world?”

Silence again. Ryan’s heart was racing more than ever. He kept a neutral, steady look on his face, but on the inside, he was extremely anxious about their answer. Finally, Jack spoke up hesitantly.

“The details are a bit fuzzy, since it was eight years ago, but… Angela and I were in a car together, driving through the streets of a city- I want to say the name of it has something to do with the sea- when we got enveloped in a bright light. The next thing we knew, we woke up on a beach south of here, in these bodies. Thanks to Ryan, our avid pokemon fan of a son, constantly talking about it, we quickly figured out that I had turned into a sylveon and Angela had become a jolteon.”

Ryan’s eyes had welled up with tears, only, they weren’t tears of sadness or pain, but tears of happiness. “You had me at bright light… dad.”

Tears began welling up in the eyes of Ryan’s newly found parents now as well. Even Riley started crying, despite that the little eevee had no idea what was going on. Ryan climbed down from the elevated bed and embraced them, tears of joy flowing down the faces of all of them. Ben, who, until this point, had been silent, got down from his bed as well.

“Um,” he said awkwardly, “if you would like, I can leave you be for now.”

With a sniffle, not yet removing himself from the embrace with his parents. “Nah, you’re good.”

The litten shook his head as he left the tent. “No, seriously, I think I should go find the others and see what they’re up to.” He waved goodbye as he left the tent again.

Finally, Ryan let go of his parents. “Ahh, I’m so glad I found you guys!” he said cheerfully, happy tears still streaming down his face. “I thought I’d never see you again!” He turned his attention to Riley now. “And you! You adorable, precious little one…” He tapped on her nose with his forepaw. “What’s your name?”

“Riley!” the tiny eevee squeaked excitedly. “And you’re Ryan! Mommy and daddy already told me about you!”

“Ah, Riley…” Ryan said giddily. “Hey, mom’n’dad, wasn’t that the name you were gonna give me if I was born a girl?”

“Yes, it was… son,” Jack said, scooping up the tiny eevee in one of his ribbons. He shook his head in disbelief. “Dang, it feels so good to call someone that again after these five years.” That was when he realized something. “Hold on, how did you end up here? And in the body of a pokemon yourself? And how’s Evelyn doing”

Ryan sighed and sniffled, the initial jubilation at reuniting with his parents wearing off. “It’s a long story. I’ll have to find time to tell you everything that’s happened later. Maybe while we go catch up with Ben.

“For now, though, let’s go, er… do what I just said. He’s the litten that just left. I think you’ll like him, and the other friends I’ve met.”

---

Ben looked around the still busy festival grounds hoping to find a sneasel and an pachirisu together. He ended up finding them, sitting at one of the picnic tables that had been set up for the event, the former eating an ice cream cone that looks like a vanillite and the latter, a milkshake. With them were the members of Team Waterburn. Next to Lena on the table was a trophy with a number one embossed into it.

“Oh ho!” Ben said as he sat down at the table. “Lena, you managed to win something? What was it?”

“Well,” Lena replied, “there were signups for an art contest, and I figured, why not try something new? Well, turns out I have a natural talent for creating sculptures, and I blew the judges away with my piece featuring the two legendary dragons koraidon and miraidon! I also convinced Terry to try out the contest, and, well… let’s just say it didn’t go as well for him.”

“Oh, ‘didn’t go as well’ is the understatement of the century!” Terry yelled angrily, holding up a piece of paper with a crudely drawn smoliv on it. “You want to know what the judges’ consensus was on mine? Here’s what the note they included says, according to Quincy: ‘You are a disgrace to the entire art community, and the entire world would rejoice if you never touched a piece of paper again ever!'”

Lena rolled her eyes. “Real mature of them, am I right?”

“To be fair,” Quincy remarked, “that smoliv won’t be winning any award shows anytime soon; a hatchling could do better, quite frankly.”

Terry just groaned at the additional insult to his drawing abilities, burying his face in his arms. “Please… just stop. Art clearly isn’t my strong suit.”

“Understatement of, um… of all time.”

Before things could escalate further, Lena spoke up to stop their argument. “Hey, Ben, where’s Ryan?”

To cool himself down, both mentally and physically since it was still quite warm out, Terry began taking a long sip of his milkshake.

“Uh…” the litten rubbed the back of his neck. “How do I put this… he, uh… he may have just reunited with his parents.”

The pachirisu spat out his milkshake at this, right into Quincy’s face.

“What?!” he shouted as Sofia passed the milkshake covered quaxly a napkin. “He did that without me?!“

Ben nodded. “Apparently. We ended up meeting them when we joined the tournament- it’s a 2v2 tourney, by the way- and after it was over, Ryan asked them some questions and quickly figured it out. Tears of joy were shed, too. They even have-“

Before he could finish, Ryan came running up to Terry excitedly. “Terryterryterryterryterry! Guess who I just found?” he asked eagerly, a massive grin on his face.

“Funny you should mention,” Terry replied. “Ben just told me you found your parents. He was about to say something else, too, but you came up and interrupted him before he could.”

“Why don’t you see for yourself, brother of mine?” a feminine voice asked from behind Ryan.

Up strolled a jolteon and a sylveon, the latter carrying a small eevee in one of his ribbons.

“Riley,” Jack said, moving the little eevee closer to the pachirisu, “I’d like you to meet your uncle Terry.”

“Hello!” she said cheerfully, reaching out with a forepaw to touch the electric squirrel’s nose.

“Aw, I think she likes you!” Angela said happily.

“Well,” the pachirisu said, snickering, “I see that you two have been-“

Jack slapped a free ribbon over Terry’s mouth. “Nope! Not letting you finish that sentence. Especially when there’s a six-year-old around.”

After his mouth was uncovered, Terry rolled his eyes. “Dirty minded much? No, I was just going to say that you two seem to be doing well for yourselves in this world.”

“Enough about him, Jack,” Angela interjected. “Let’s talk about Ryan. Our little boy is all grown up now. I’m so proud!” Tears started welling up again as she began rubbing against him affectionately.

“Mom,” Ryan said, embarrassed, as he felt the static begin to build up from the electric fox. “Can you not right now? We’re in public!”

She backed off apologetically. Ryan nodded in thanks.

“Okay, now that we’re all here, what do you all say we go ride the ferris wheel together, as celebration that I found my parents?” the glaceon offered.

“Yes!”

“Definitely!”

“Absolutely!”

They had gotten lucky in finding that the line for the ferris wheel was unexpectedly short, so they were able to get on before too long. All of them could fit in one of the cars, the inside of which were quite spacious. The ride was also tall enough, and positioned in such a way, that the ocean was visible when the car was at the very top of the wheel, a breathtaking sight considering the ongoing sunset, especially for an already worked up Ryan. Tears started welling up again.

“Mom… dad…” he thought aloud without realizing, “soon, we’ll get to go home. We’ll be back as humans, on Earth.”

Jack winced at what he had said. Ryan was confused.

“What? Don’t you want to go back?”

“To be honest… I don’t know…” Jack began. “I mean, we’ve been here for eight years now… we’ve kinda put down roots here. For starters, we’ve dreamed of opening a bakery for… forever, and we were finally able to achieve that dream.”

“Oh, so you own that bakery that always seems to be closed,” Lena said.

“Yeah, about that, we were on a trip to the Water Continent to find more ingredients to use, and we just returned yesterday. But anyways, Ryan, now take a look at your mother.” He gestured a ribbon at Angela. “You remember how much of a nervous wreck she was before? Well, now she’s a lot more confident in herself, and I have no doubt that being thrust into a new world was the catalyst for that.

“We also have another child now, one that we had when we initially thought we’d never see you or Evelyn again, one that we’ve grown to love very much.” He pointed a ribbon at Riley, who was playing with Team Waterburn on the opposite side of the car. “She’s never known anything else. She might not even be human if we take her back, and having an eevee in a world where they don’t physically exist… that’s just asking for all kinds of trouble.

“And all of this is assuming there even is a way back.” Ryan’s ears shot up at this, his mouth agape. The sylveon lightly chuckled. “Judging from that expression, you clearly haven’t considered that. This world, these bodies… there is the possibility that this is permanent, that there’s no way back.”

Ryan shook his head vigorously, his bangs flicking rapidly. “No. I’m not gonna give up until I get home! You may have, but I won’t. There is a way home, there has to be, I just know it!”

“You’ve got determination and motivation, and I’m proud of you for that,” Jack said, smiling. “But, do you really think that Angela and I haven’t tried to get back to Earth?” He shook his head. “We absolutely have; we tried everything we could think of, to no success. We’re stuck here, and so are you. It would probably be best to just accept that and move on.”

“…no.”

Jack looked over at his son. “What?”

“I said no! I will find a way back. I have to! I just have to!”

“Okay, you’re bordering on stubbornness and denial at this point. Also, why do you have to? We’ve been gone so long that there’s probably nothing for us back there anymore!” the sylveon asked. “What do you even have to go back to?”

Ryan was about to respond when he realized that his father had a good point. He realized that he was so focused on finding a way back home without seriously considering why he wanted to go back. He had a job that, despite the difficulty it presented sometimes, he thoroughly enjoyed. He had friends he was close with in this world, just as much as anyone he knew on Earth. Even his family was here, and they didn’t seem too keen on leaving. The only person back on Earth he really cared enough about to even want to back for was Evelyn and she lived on the opposite side of the country for him so it wasn’t like he would be able to see her.

As Ryan’s parents and Team Waterburn parted ways with Team Seekers after disembarking the ride, the glaceon was deep in thought as he retreated to the guild for the night, trying to figure out that why. He ended up conking out before he could determine the answer, and unfortunately, Mew didn’t visit his dream tonight, so he couldn’t even ask her for guidance. He wound up waking the next morning, well-rested yet unsatisfied. However, Ryan decided put the thought to rest for now, instead getting ready for the day and whatever it would bring.