Awakening

“–ke up! W— –e you d—?”

A voice tried to force its way into her consciousness, but her head was so foggy… She couldn’t think, couldn’t move a muscle. Everything was dark. Where was she? Who was she? What was the voice saying?

The voice, focus on the voice…

“– –ve t- –! It’s a M—— ——-! –n’t yo- -ake up already?”

She felt someone shaking her body violently, but their words were barely registering. -ake up… wake up already? These words stuck with her, swimming around in her mind. Wake up. Could she do that?

With an immense effort, she opened her eyes. A blurry figure of maroon and black was looking back at her. She tried, and failed to focus on the figure, resulting in a splitting headache. Defeated, she shut her eyes again.

“Are you kidding me? Get up, idiot, don’t go back to sleep! There’s a Dungeon forming right on top of us, don’t you understand?”

She could hear the voice more clearly now, and understand it better too. Get up, it was asking. That seemed so hard, so hard, but it was also talking about some kind of dungeon? She groaned, and forced her eyes open again.

Her focus was better this time, and she was able to see the figure more clearly. A foxy face looked down at her, its fur a maroon-orange, with black markings around its eyes resembling heavy makeup, perhaps a mask? The fox also had smaller white markings, in the shape of downturned eyebrows above her eyes and teardrops below. Her addled brain scrambled to find the words for what she was seeing.

“Nickit?”

The fox scoffed. “Okay, miss state-the-obvious, thanks for that. Now would you get up before I leave you behind?”

She blinked once.

Twice.

Reality began to set in.

“T- Talking nickit?” she said stupidly, trying to scramble backwards and push the creature away from her in one motion. However, her body did not work the way she wanted it to. In fact, she realised with a lurch, this wasn’t her body at all.

She was laying prone on her back, and she couldn’t right herself. However she moved, she just kept rocking back and forth, like her whole shape was now some kind of sphere, or half-sphere? She stifled a gasp as she dared look down to inspect her front. She could see she now had a smooth yellow belly – made of some kind of shell, maybe? – and she had three pairs of limbs?

She raised a hand to her face to inspect it more closely, and instead of fingers she found something much simpler. A large orb with a smaller orb attached. “Boxing glove,” she said stupidly.

“What the heck are you even talking about?” the nickit shouted at her. “Are you stupid? Just get up and get out of here before-“

The nickit trailed off, glancing around fervently. It pawed the ground in frustration, then turned its attention back to her, growling. “You wasted so much of my time that it’s too late. It formed right on top of us, and now we’re trapped. Great.”

She just stared at the nickit, dumbfounded. It was talking to her. Pokémon didn’t talk with humans like this, with rare exceptions… But even then, they used things like telepathy, or aura, or stuff like that, they didn’t actually talk, with their mouths, did they?

“Are you just going to lay there stupidly all day? What are you doing?” the nickit was still shouting at her. The fog in her brain was slowly being replaced by real emotions, spurring her into action. This nickit was angry. She had to move, she had to run! Her breath becoming short, she tried to right herself again, her six limbs flailing wildly. She couldn’t get up! She was like a… a beetle, stuck on its back!

She heard the nickit growl in irritation, and looked over with panicked eyes. It was stomping towards her.

“No! D-Don’t hurt me! I don’t know what’s going on!” she cried out, fear taking hold. The Nickit hesitated, but with a roll of its eyes it carried on.

She shut her eyes tightly, fearing the worst. No, no, no, what was happening to her? This fox was going to eat her!

She felt the nickit push its face under her back, and tensed up, fearing the worst. However, the pokémon simply flipped her over, grunting with the effort, and left her laying on her belly. She opened her eyes slowly. The nickit was walking away from her now, muttering to itself.

“You’d think a ledyba would know how to sort herself out, but nooo, I have to run into the stupidest bug I’ve ever met… prejudiced, too…”

“A ledyba?” she blurted. “But I’m human!”

The nickit stopped in its tracks. There was an agonising silence.

“What?” the nickit eventually replied.

“I’m… human?” she said, somehow unsure of herself. She was definitely human! She knew that much. She was a human. But now she wasn’t?

The nickit spun around and glared at her. “Okay, now I’m not sure if you’re stupid or if this is some kind of joke, but let me get one thing clear for you right now. You are a ledyba. Got it?”

She winced. What could she say? “I… I think I must be a ledyba now,” she explained shakily, “but I definitely used to be a human. I- I’m not sure wh- what’s going on-“

She swallowed a painful lump in her throat. Human body or ledyba, she could tell she was on the verge of tears, but she held them back with all her might. The nickit, however, was less than impressed.

“You’re crazy. Great.” it said, rolling its eyes. “You have sixty seconds to get up if you don’t want me to leave you here. I don’t have the patience for this.”

She sucked in an alarmed breath. Left alone? Here, as a ledyba? That seemed like the worst case scenario! She took a moment to steady her breathing, then steeled her resolve. She had arms and legs as a human, and she had arms and legs as a ledyba.

Right?

All her ledyba limbs seemed the same, like they were all legs, or maybe all arms? Whatever, it should be the same principle – two to walk on, two to push herself up. She’d figure out the extra two later.

“Forty seconds.”

She forced herself into action. Like she thought, her movements came naturally to her. She used her top two limbs to push herself off the ground, trying to stand on her bottom two. She felt her legs shaking as she tried to prop her body up. Were they too weak to hold her? Would she even be able to balance? She let herself fall back to the ground, frustrated. This wasn’t working.

“Thirty seconds,” the nickit clicked in frustration. “What’s the big deal? You can fly, right?”

Fly? As if!

She ignored the nickit, coming up with a new plan. She would just crawl. The only thing she needed to do was work out that middle pair of limbs she had – she didn’t want them dragging uselessly along the ground. Eerily, this came naturally to her as well, like her brain was naturally wired into this body.

“Twenty.”

She pushed herself up onto her six legs, staring at them all the while. Once she was confident they wouldn’t give out, she looked up at the nickit. “There,” she said. “I’m up.”

“Why not fly?” the nickit bluntly asked the question again. “You have wings, use them.”

“Because,” she answered, suddenly annoyed, “I’m a human. I don’t know how to use this, this ledyba body that I’m in.”

“You’re not a human,” the nickit insisted. “I don’t know what a human even is, that’s just a made up word. You made that word up.”

“No humans?” she asked, feeling the colour draining from her face. “What do you mean, no humans? Where am I?”

“You’re in Crooked Grove,” the nickit replied, deadpan.

“I- What country? What world?” she asked frantically, fearing the answer.

“The East Continent. What do you mean, what world? It’s just our world. The world of pokémon?”

“The world of pokémon…” she replied in a whisper. A world without humans? Did such a world even exist? It did according to this nickit, but if so, how did she even get here? This must be a horrible dream, right?

“Look,” the nickit said, seemingly at its wits end. “I’m done with all this crazy talk. A dungeon just opened up on top of us, and we need to get moving asap. I do not want to get stuck here. Are you with me or not?”

Panic jolted through her new body, and she forced it to take a step forward. “I- I’m with you!” she insisted. She didn’t want to get stuck in whatever this ‘dungeon’ was either. “Wh- What’s your name?”

“My name?” the nickit replied, already turning away to make a move. “Piper. What’s yours?”

“I’m K- I…” she stuttered, suddenly cold and unsure. What was her name? “I don’t think I can remember!”

She could tell Piper had rolled its- her? eyes again without even seeing them. “Whatever, don’t care. I’ll call you Ledyba, then,” the vixen shrugged. Then she set off at a trot, startling Ledyba into motion.

“W- wait!” she called, trying not to trip over her extra legs. Moving like this was something to get used to! She knew how to crawl with four legs, but six had a different rhythm to it. She was pleasantly surprised at how quickly she was picking it up, though. It was like, now that this body belonged to her, she just instinctively knew how to use it.

Except flying.

That could come later.

As she struggled to catch up, she finally got a good look at her surroundings. She had woken up in some kind of forest clearing, surrounded on all sides by giant, gnarled trees. They grew tall and proud, carrying beautiful boughs of yellow-gold leaves upon their dark and twisted branches. Ledyba noted that the trees grew very close together around the edge of this clearing, almost as if to form natural walls of wood. She caught up to her companion, who was making her way down a path leading out of the clearing.

“Th- The trees sure grow close together here, huh?” She tried to make small talk, but Piper scoffed at her.

“They’re not supposed to,” she said over one shoulder. “Like I’ve been saying, I’m pretty sure this place got turned into a mystery dungeon, right on top of us.”

“Mystery dungeon?” Ledyba asked, feeling out of her depth.

“Are you seriously asking me that right now?” Piper complained. “Do you live under a rock or something?”

“I told you!” Ledyba said, irritation returning. “I’m a human. I just woke up here in the body of a ledyba. I have no idea what’s going on!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Piper dismissed her again, and Ledyba snapped.

“What’s your problem?” she fumed. “Why do you have to be so unreasonable? Can’t you just explain it to me?”

“I’m the one being unreasonable?” Piper spun around and aggressively pushed her face into Ledyba’s, who shrunk back, all sense of bravado gone. “You realise the things you’re saying are totally off the wall, right? You’re some unknown species transformed into a ledyba? Get real! I’m not going to waste my time on your tall tales when we have far more important things to worry about!”

With that, Piper spun back around, slapping Ledyba with her large tail in the process. Ledyba let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. Piper had seriously intimidated her, and she realised she was holding back more tears. What a jerk! she thought. I can’t believe I have to rely on her to get me out of this dungeon thing!

She heard Piper sigh, then to her surprise she began to talk. “Mystery dungeon. It’s like if an area of the world twisted itself into some sick maze, or labyrinth. So here, like… Instead of a normal forest, all the trees have been sucked in close together. They’re making walls, see? The walls of the maze.”

Ledyba looked to her left and right. She could see what Piper meant, the trees did seem to be forming great, impenetrable walls to their left and right, making this pathway into more of a corridor.

“These places are extremely dangerous, got it? The pokémon you find in here are all feral for some reason, and if you get knocked out in one of these places, folks say you can get trapped forever.” Piper looked over her shoulder with irritated eyes. “That good enough for you?”

Ledyba gulped, and nodded. “Th- Thank you,” she whispered. Piper just scoffed, and kept her pace. There was one other question Ledyba wanted to ask, but she wasn’t sure she had the courage. “Y- You are a girl, right?”

Piper actually barked a single laugh at this question. “Ha! What, can’t tell?”

“I- I don’t know how to tell the difference between some pokémon, okay?” she replied, blushing slightly.

“Yeah, I’m a girl,” Piper answered, eyeing Ledyba over her shoulder. “You said ‘some pokémon’, like you do know how to tell the difference between others?”

“W- Well!” she said, glancing to one side, “some pokémon display gender dimorphism, so they have different characteristics if they’re a boy or girl! So, um, ledyba who are girls have shorter antennae…”

She unconsciously reached up to feel hers, noting their short length. She felt a strange comfort at this, though she couldn’t place the source of that feeling.

“Don’t try and distract me with big words,” Piper said, stopping suddenly. “What I’m picking up from this is that you know what pokémon are. If you’re some alien species ‘human’ from another world, how could you know that, huh?”

“I-” Ledyba stammered, stopping too. “In, in my world, humans and pokémon live alongside each other. Teaming up to, to accomplish things we couldn’t alone. Humans help pokémon battle, too, to make them grow stronger. It’s-“

“So of all the alternate dimensions or whatever this is you could’ve come from, you just so happen to come from one where pokémon also exist?” Piper said, voice dripping with scepticism.

Ledyba sighed. “Whatever. If you don’t believe me-“

Her breath caught in her throat as her guide was knocked sprawling. A petilil had charged in from a side path, and struck Piper with a tackle. The wild pokémon turned its attention to her now. Ledyba froze up in panic. What should she do? Should she run? There was no way she could fight!

Just as quickly, Piper slammed the petilil with her own tackle, knocking the feral to the ground. She was on the plant creature in an instant, battering it with her paws. Ledyba was terrified at her aggression, shivering in place. Surely Piper was going too far?

Finally, Piper pulled away from the petilil, leaving it crumpled like the golden leaves on the ground. “Pah, stupid ferals,” she spat. “New plan: let’s just stop talking to each other so we can focus on getting out of here.”

“D- Did you kill it?” Ledyba asked, voice shaking.

“What? Of course not!” Piper said incredulously. “Takes wayyy more than that to kill a mon. Is this another- You know what, whatever, just follow me. Let’s get out of here.”

Ledyba unfroze her limbs and scurried to catch up with Piper, sparing a final, pitying glance at the defeated feral pokémon. She knew she shouldn’t feel bad, that this petilil attacked them first, but she still thought that Piper didn’t need to attack it so ferociously.

She caught back up to Piper. She thought she heard the fox muttering to herself again, but she couldn’t make out her words. She sighed, and turned her attention to her surroundings again. She noticed a path off to the right, where the petilil had ambushed them from. It looked no different to the path straight in front of them – in fact, when she looked closely, they looked uncannily similar, like the strange corridor of trees was copying itself over and over again to form this great maze.

She shuddered, and stuck close to her guide, who was proceeding straight on.

After a little more walking, the path opened up into a clearing. Ledyba blinked, confused.

“Are we… back at the start?” she asked. This place looked the exact same as where they’d started!

“No, dummy, it’s just another clearing. That’s what mystery dungeons are, just rooms and corridors.” Piper was glancing around, alert. “This one’s empty, luckily. I’ve heard ferals like to gather in the rooms sometimes.”

Piper stepped into the clearing, and Ledyba followed. Though at first glance the place did have that uncanny similarity with the first clearing, she could see now that the size was slightly different, and there was another path leading off to the right. Piper made a beeline for this path, and Ledyba followed.

She bumped into Piper’s soft tail, and came to a stop herself. Piper was alert, looking down the path at an approaching oddish. She tutted. “Should be fine, just watch my back.”

Ledyba held her breath as the oddish sauntered in their direction. It seemed mindless in its intent to fight Piper, but the fox stood her ground, unfazed. When the plant pokémon was just close enough, Piper launched herself at it, surprising it and tackling it to the ground. Ledyba was so engrossed in the fight that it caught her completely off guard when something hit her with a tackle from behind.

Fear flooded her mind as her body was sent tumbling. She nearly ended up on her back, but she used the momentum to roll onto her front. She scrambled onto shaky feet, coming eye to eye with another feral petilil.

“R-Piper! Help me!” she screamed, as leaves began to swirl around the petilil. It was preparing some kind of attack, she knew it! She looked around the room wildly, searching for a place to run, and realised Piper was watching from the pathway, already done with her own battle.

She looked completely unimpressed. “What the heck are you doing? Just fight back, they’re really weak!”

Ledyba’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “Haven’t you heard a single thing I’ve been saying this whole time? I’m-” she was cut off by a barrage of leaves, flying past her body with vicious speed and scratching her wherever they made contact. She winced with pain, but luckily it wasn’t as bad as she’d been anticipating. The petilil was still approaching her, however, and the only pokémon who could help her was an uncaring, unsympathetic-

She slammed into the wall of trees as the petilil tackled her once more, cutting that thought short. She screwed her eyes tight, the unfairness of the situation overwhelming her. When she opened her eyes, she’d be back at home, in her… In her bed? The lump in her throat was back. She really couldn’t remember a thing, could she? She was going to die here, killed by a walking plant, and no one would ever know-

“Snap out of it! I knocked that dumb petilil out, okay?” she heard a grating voice invade her thoughts. She opened her eyes, and saw the fox looking down at her without a shred of sympathy. “I’m just not going to argue. I’ll do all the fighting, whatever gets us out of this stupid dungeon the quickest, whatever.”

“Sure, whatever,” Ledyba said bitterly, pulling herself to her feet. Her six feet. Her six boxing glove feet. How was she not losing her mind right now? This was crazy! She was a pokémon, for crying out loud, and she was stuck in some crazy ‘Mystery Dungeon’ and being attacked, both physically and verbally! Oh yeah, and some nickit with a terrible attitude was talking to her.

Focus, Chloe, she thought to herself. Focus on moving forward. At least all this action is forcing me to keep my mind off of everything. The crunch of golden leaves underfoot, the pain from the bruise forming on her back and the cuts in her… her carapace? Was that the right word? The gentle breeze, the warm sunlight, everything felt so real. She desperately wanted this to be a dream, but if it was, it was just so lucid. Surely she would have woken up by now?

Wait.

Chloe!

That was her name! It was like a beam of sunshine had cut through the clouds in her mind. Nothing else was coming to her yet, but remembering her name had been enough to lift her spirits. She was about to let Piper know the good news, but Piper spoke first.

“Trouble,” she warned, coming to a standstill. Chloe peered over her shoulder, seeing into the room ahead. Within were two pokémon, a vileplume and a petilil, and behind them, a-

“A staircase?” Chloe whispered.

“Yeah, I’ve heard about this. That’s our way out of here,” Piper explained.

Chloe stayed silent. She had a million questions – ‘why is there a stairway to nowhere’ at the forefront, followed closely by ‘and how is that our way out of here’ – but figured now wasn’t the time. Piper glanced at her.

“Are you going to help this time?”

Chloe hissed. “I thought you didn’t want to argue?”

Piper rolled her eyes and turned back to her enemies in one motion. She crouched low to the ground, and started stalking the petilil. She was silent, like a shadow passing over the clearing. Chloe held her breath, watching in awe as Piper’s tail silently covered her tracks as she walked. Piper stopped no further than a metre away from the petilil, and crouched low. The forest held its breath.

Then Piper pounced.

The petilil didn’t have a chance. Piper’s surprise attack knocked it out in one hit, instantly eliminating one threat and drawing the attention of another. The vileplume sluggishly hauled its body around and took a menacing step towards Piper.

Piper kept her distance. It looked like she was unwilling to make the first move in this fight. There was a wariness in her eyes, which made Chloe nervous. Was this enemy not as easy as the others had been, then? It was definitely way bigger.

The vileplume took another lurching step, and purple powder bellowed from the giant flower on its head. It scattered towards Piper, but Piper wasn’t there any more. Chloe did a double take, trying to figure out where the fox had gone, and she missed the moment Piper landed a powerful quick attack on the vileplume from behind. The plant creature toppled over, more purple spores bursting from its body, some of them getting in Piper’s fur.

“Bleh!” Piper hacked, legs shaking slightly. “Ledyba, let’s go! Run to the stairs, now!”

“Wha-!” Chloe jolted into action, making a beeline for the stairs. Wasn’t the vileplume not knocked out yet? Would she be safe? She stole a glance, and saw that it was trying to get to its feet again, but Piper was still urging her towards the staircase.

“It- It doesn’t go anywhere! The vileplume’s gonna kill us!” she screamed, and she heard Piper scoff again. The fox ran past her and stopped at the foot of the stairs.

“Hurry up!” she called, reaching out a paw. Chloe reached out with her own arm, and as soon as the two of them connected, Piper took a step onto the stairs.

The stairs disappeared.

“The stairs!” Chloe spluttered. She span around urgently. “Th- The vileplume!”

The vileplume wasn’t there.

“We’re on the next floor, genius. The vileplume’s gone,” Piper explained impatiently. “Now, could you let go of me?”

Chloe looked at her hand. Her stupid boxing glove. The smaller orb, as she had called it earlier, was stuck to Piper’s paw, as if by glue. She stared at it.

Seconds passed.

“I don’t know how to do that,” she said blankly.

“Let. Go,” Piper growled.

Chloe gulped.

She could figure this out. Could she figure it out? Piper was staring daggers at her, and the pressure wasn’t helping. Okay, the smaller orb was sticky, so she could actually pick things up with it, in a sense. So how to let go? Was it always sticky? Had she been the one to make it sticky somehow? She had reached towards Piper, and she’d tried to grab her paw with a very human motion, she’d tried to clench her fist. Maybe attempting that motion had activated her grabber? So if she just tried to unclench her fist…

Piper ripped her paw away, as Chloe breathed a sigh of relief. She was so glad to have figured out whatever that muscle was, she almost didn’t hear Piper muttering under her breath.

“Gross.”

Chloe chose to ignore her, instead taking in her surroundings. What she saw soured her mood. Another empty clearing, with two corridors leading away, in front and to the left. She thought back to Piper’s words.

“What do you mean by next floor?” she asked cautiously.

“We hit the stairs, we got sent to the next floor. We find the stairs again, and so on,” Piper explained in the quickest way she could think of.

“How many floors?” Chloe asked, her heart sinking.

“How should I know? This dungeon is brand new!” Piper snapped. “Could be two, could be twenty.”

“Twenty?” Chloe felt faint.

“Yeah, so thanks for taking so long waking up,” Piper said bitterly. “Let’s stop wasting time.”

“It’s Chloe, by the way,” Chloe sighed, resigned to her fate.

“What?”

“My name. It’s Chloe,” Chloe smiled.

Piper frowned. “Weird name. Like I said, let’s stop wasting time.”

Chloe’s face fell. How rude! She was just trying to be polite. But Piper clearly couldn’t care less, already making her way towards the corridor in front of them. She rushed to catch up. The sooner she could be away from this nickit, the better.

She followed Piper into the corridor, a step behind now. She sighed. But what would she do when she was out of the dungeon? She had no idea how this ‘world of pokémon’ worked, and obviously she knew no one willing to help her. Maybe she should try to find other pokémon who would be willing to help her? She did not enjoy the thought of having to figure things out by herself, that much was sure.

A ledyba… she was a ledyba. It was such a silly thought, like she was playing some childish game, but now it was her reality. She wanted to try and sift through her memories, try and remember who she used to be, how she could have ended up this way, but this reality was all encompassing to her.

I’m a pokémon, I’m a ledyba. I’m a pokémon!

Of all the pokémon, why a ledyba? Couldn’t I have been turned into something cooler, like a lucario? Or cuter, like a mawile?

She smiled involuntarily, reigning in her thoughts. Was she actually starting to enjoy this?

She bumped into Piper’s tail again, and stopped, quickly snapping back to reality. She peered past the fox, and spotted the stairs in the next room. She also spotted another vileplume, and what she thought she could recognise as the evolved form of petilil, though she’d forgotten its name.

“Damn,” Piper whispered under her breath. “They’re both evolved forms. I dunno if I can take either out with one sneak attack.”

She looked back at Chloe. “Okay, can you actually help? Or do I seriously have to fight two tough ferals by myself?”

Chloe gulped, but felt a strange confidence overcome her. “I’ll try,” she said, stepping forward. Piper looked surprised, but nodded.

“We need a plan. Hmm,” Piper’s face scrunched up as she thought hard. “Remember last time. We just ran to the stairs without finishing that vileplume off. We should do the same, but…”

She continued thinking out loud. “It’s too risky to try and rush past two at once. I’ll sneak attack the lilligant to weaken it. Then you run in and just keep the vileplume distracted. You don’t have to beat it, I guess, just make sure it doesn’t bother me, because I’m going to try and actually knock out the lilligant. Then I’ll call you over to the stairs and we can make a run for it. Vileplume are slow. Got it?”

Chloe took a moment to digest the plan, then nodded. Piper looked pleased. “Okay, wait here. Jump in as soon as I hit the lilligant.”

Chloe watched as Piper expertly snuck her way around the two ferals. Her tail swished back and forth silently, like a brush sweeping away any tracks she was leaving behind. Chloe couldn’t help but be impressed.

Then Piper pounced. The lilligant took the hit and was knocked away a good distance, but stayed standing. Chloe watched the vileplume light up, and turn towards Piper.

“Oh no you don’t!” Chloe shouted, and rushed at the vileplume. The feral, startled, turned to face her instead. Chloe suddenly found herself face to face with a giant plant monster, and she had no idea what to do.

What had she been thinking?

“Ah… Ah…” she tried to scream, but the sound caught in her throat. The vileplume took a lumbering step towards her, mindless aggression in its eyes. It was slow. Piper had said it was slow. She could run away. She should run away! So why wouldn’t her legs move?

She watched hopelessly as the creature’s plant filled up with purple spores. It took another step, tilting its head to shower her with the poison. It was so slow.

So just run, you idiot!

“Ah!”

Something clicked in her mind, and she scrambled to the left, purple spores flooding into the space she’d occupied moments before. Phew! She could move again.

But could she fight?

No.

She definitely couldn’t fight.

Chloe knew her limits, and decided that attempting to use any kind of attack right now would be suicide. The vileplume was slow, and she could dodge its attacks. According to Piper, that was all she needed to do.

She sidestepped a tackle.

She jumped backwards to avoid more poison powder.

She rushed out of range of a vine whip.

How much longer did Piper need? She didn’t dare take her eyes off her enemy, instead trying to listen out for the sounds of Piper’s own battle. But her head was roaring with adrenaline, and she couldn’t pick out any other noises. A vine cracked next to her ear – did she still have ears? – and she yelped, realising how tired she was.

Please hurry, Piper!

She watched the vileplume carefully, trying to anticipate its next attack, but the vileplume had stopped moving, staring at her with dull, irritated eyes. She noticed its flower had started glowing faintly. Was it trying to recover some energy or something?

“Ugh, finally!” she heard Piper speak from somewhere on her right, and risked a look. Piper was standing over the unconscious body of the lilligant. She’d done it!

The stairs? Where were the stairs?

“This way!” Piper called, and Chloe simply bolted in her direction. Piper let her catch up, and they ran side by side towards the stairs, which were at the other end of the room.

“Where’s the vileplume?” Piper asked sharply.

“B- Back where I left it,” Chloe panted. “I think it was trying to recover energy, it was just sitting there glowing.”

“G- Glowing?” Piper asked, startled.

Chloe tried to respond, but an earsplitting crack drowned out her words. At the same time, a beam of pure green light shot past them, grazing Piper’s flank. The fox cried out in pain, but didn’t stop running. Neither of them did – the stairs were their only hope, and they were fast approaching.

Both of them jumped at the same time, locking hands as another crack rang through the clearing. But they hit the stairs before the solar beam could land, and were sent tumbling through the grass and leaves of the woods together. They landed in a heap, Piper collapsed on top of Chloe.

They lay there for a few seconds, panting, before Piper snapped to attention and jumped away from Chloe. Chloe shook her head, trying to clear the ringing in her head. She watched as Piper inspected their surroundings. After a few moments, Piper turned to her, a relieved grin on her face.

“We’re out.”

“We’re out?” Chloe gasped, elated.

“I thought you were a ledyba, not a chatot,” Piper smirked. Chloe watched as she stretched her body, clearly tired from their delve. She felt sore too, but wasn’t too sure on the best way to stretch her own, insect body.

A ledyba! You’re a ledyba now!

The thought came back to her once more, and she laughed. Okay, maybe she really was enjoying this. Shouldn’t she be more worried about her old home? Did she have people she cared about, people who missed her? She hated the thought that she could have forgotten about them.

But there was a part of her that saw this as an opportunity – people often dreamed of becoming pokémon, didn’t they? So why not live the dream? Her name had come back to her, so surely her other memories would with time as well. And as for getting back home, she had no idea where to start, but she didn’t see any reason to worry about it for now.

Does that make me a bad person?

She frowned at the sudden thought. Did it? Was it wrong to enjoy this? If there were people who cared about her, then didn’t she owe it to them to focus on finding a way home? She wasn’t sure-

“Alright, I’m out,” Piper’s sharp voice interrupted her thoughts. Chloe looked up, surprised.

“What do you mean?” she asked, worried.

“Listen,” Piper explained, her eyes bored. “They say the worst thing you can do is enter a mystery dungeon alone. That it’s stupid dangerous. So we needed each other in there. But now that we’re out, we don’t, so I’m leaving.”

“Wha- Hang on, can I ask you something first?” Chloe spluttered.

“I guess,” Piper said impatiently.

“Well, I… I was wondering if you could show me to the nearest, erm… town? Settlement?” she asked tentatively.

“No.”

Chloe was taken aback by her abruptness. Piper was really just going to abandon her there, after everything they’d been through, everything that Chloe had told her?

“I’m leaving.” Piper turned and started walking away, tail twitching from side to side.

“Hey, hang on! At least point me in the right direction! You can’t just leave me here!” Chloe called out desperately.

“Watch me,” Piper smirked, and took off running.

Chloe jumped to her feet, and not knowing what else to do, ran as fast as she could in pursuit of the only pokémon she knew in the world.