CHAPTER TWO: Meeting in the Middle

Did “meet me after breakfast” really mean anything, if she had no plans of having breakfast? Because if it didn’t, then that meant it was a good excuse for her to avoid having to go to Sobek’s office and be told that she wasn’t doing enough to support the guild.

Which, she knew, anyway. It wasn’t like she needed another reminder of that. When almost the entire rest of the guild was going out on boats and using nets to bring back huge swathes of fish at once every day, and she was going out and bringing back only a small bag of fish, it was easy to see who was being more of an asset.

So, really, there was no reason for her to go and see the guildmaster, if all he was going to say was something she already knew. It’d just be redundant! A waste of time, really. Time she could be using helping the guild by catching fish.

Which would be an idea that would be easier to keep in mind if she didn’t talk to the guildmaster and have him remind her of what she needed to do. Which meant that it would probably be best if she didn’t go down and have breakfast at all, no matter what other ideas her stomach seemed to have. Though, given that she hadn’t gotten back until after dinner had finished last night and hadn’t eaten much for lunch the previous day, the temptation was pretty strong.

But, if she wanted to avoid Sobek, she could just wait until after he would’ve finished breakfast. He always got up bright and early, at the crack of dawn, so he’d be eating breakfast pretty much as soon as it was ready. And he’d probably only be in there for like, an hour at most, before he had other stuff he needed to do. Stuff that was more important that trying to track her down. And since the time right now was…

Daphne looked out the window, straining her eyes to get a glimpse of the sun. She could see only a little bit of light, just peeking over the tops of the buildings at the edge of town.

Right. So, since sunrise had basically just started, and it was winter, breakfast should be ready in about half an hour at most. And, since she didn’t feel like she was going to be able to get any more sleep, she only had to lie awake here hungry for…

About an hour and a half.

Totally doable.

She sighed, and rolled over to her side, squeezing her eyes shut.

After she finished breakfast, Daphne went to check on the Pokémon she’d brought back to the infirmary last night.

It was a better plan than dealing with Sobek, at least, and it wouldn’t take long. Either they were fine and she could feel reassured, or they weren’t and there was nothing more she could do about it.

So she made her way to the infirmary. She heard what sounded like two Pokémon talking as she approached it, which was a good sign. One of the Pokémon definitely sounded like Cetus, at least, and she thought she heard a lizard-like hiss, which would make sense, though she wasn’t close enough to get a clear idea of what they were saying.

As she entered the room, Cetus turned over to look at her. She smiled, and turned back to the lizard, who now had a torn blue cloth tied around one of her front legs. “And here she is. This is the Pokémon who found you: Brionne Daphne.”

The Helioptile’s eyes widened a little, and she looked over at Daphne. Upon looking at Daphne, her eyes seemed to narrow again a little, in what Daphne thought might have been confusion. Or was it recognition?

“Oh, uh, hi. Thanks. And, um, nice to meet you? I’m Chloe.” She spoke up, her voice coming out in a strange hiss, not like the speech of other reptilian Pokémon Daphne had heard before. Maybe they had met before…? That name sounded familiar.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Daphne said, after a moment. “What happened to you? I mean, you don’t look that strong, but the Pokémon in the forest aren’t that tough.”

The Helioptile looked down. “Oh, I, uh… I don’t remember.”

Hold on. “You don’t remember how you got there?”

She shook her head. “No, I mean… I don’t remember anything before I woke up here. Just my name and, uh…” She trailed off for a moment, before resuming. “Yeah, just my name.”

Daphne felt her breath catch in her throat. “I… Right.”

She felt Cetus’ eyes on her, knowing the Corsola could see her freezing up. She heard the healer’s questioning voice. “Daphne?”

Daphne shook herself in an effort to compose her thoughts. She looked down at Cetus. “Could you… Could I talk to her for a bit? Alone?”

Cetus’ eyes narrowed slightly, but she nodded. “Not for long, though. Someone from the hospital should be here soon to take her there. And even besides that, she’s been under a lot of stress, and needs rest.”

Daphne blinked. “The hospital? Why’s she going there? I didn’t—”

“I can’t walk,” the Helioptile said, cutting her off. “My body doesn’t move right.”

“Right…” Daphne said.

Cetus made her way out of the room, turning to Daphne as she left. “Don’t do anything to stress her out, okay?”

“I won’t!” she replied. “I’ll be fine.”

The Corsola gave her a long look, then left the room. Leaving Daphne alone with the Helioptile.

Daphne turned to her. “So. You can’t remember anything of your past?”

“Uh, yeah…” the lizard replied. “I can remember facts. I know things, but…”

“But everything else is gone. You can’t remember your actual memories, and it feels like they’re just out of reach,” Daphne said, with a sigh.

Chloe blinked. “Yeah, actually. It’s exactly like that. How did you…?”

“Because,” Daphne began, closing her eyes, “I woke up a few years ago with no memories except my name. Just like you.”

The Helioptile’s eyes widened. “That… Wait, there is something else I remember, too. I’m not a Pokémon. I’m a human.”

Daphne’s eyes widened. “That… Humans aren’t real. Like, they’re not a thing that exists.”

“What do you mean?” Chloe said, with an undercurrent of nervousness.

“I’ve never met anyone who’s ever heard of anything called ‘humans’,” Daphne replied, her voice hard.

“Then how do you know what they are?” the Helioptile asked.

“When I found you,” Daphne began, “the reason I brought you back with me, is because I thought I heard you say my name. Do you know me?”

Chloe was silent for a moment, her large blue eyes staring at Daphne. “I… I don’t know. You seem… familiar, I guess?”

“What does that mean, though? Like, if we did know each other… I thought I’d just had an accident. That’s why I couldn’t remember anything, and why some of the things I knew were wrong. But…” Daphne trailed off, looking down.

“I don’t know…”

The sound of something approaching the room caused both of them to look up, as Cetus came through the door, followed by an Oranguru wearing a red tag, and levitating a small stretcher beside him. “Sorry. Time to go.”

No! She wouldn’t have time to go to the hospital today, not when she absolutely needed to work. “I, uh, I’ll see you later Chloe. Tomorrow morning.”

Chloe’s eyes briefly darted over to look at Daphne, before going back to focus on the Oranguru, who was much larger than Daphne, and even larger compared to Chloe. “Oh, uh… Alright.”

“You should probably be getting to work regardless, shouldn’t you, Daphne?” Cetus said, with a small smile.

“Yeah, yeah…” Daphne said. “I’ll get going.”

She turned to leave, making her way out of the door, before turning back for a moment. “Oh, uh, get well soon.”

Chloe nodded. “Thanks.”

Daphne nodded back, then left the room, mind still reeling.

Chloe decided that she didn’t like levitation. Or telekinesis or whatever it was called. Or at least, she didn’t like it being used to carry her. Or anything she was on.

She supposed she was just grateful that they weren’t moving any faster through the town than they were. Sure, the stretcher she was being carried in felt fairly stable, but she still felt like it was about to tip over or fling her out at any moment.

It didn’t help that something felt really weird with her eyesight. Everything felt like it was a weird colour. She almost wanted to say purple, but that wasn’t right. Why had it gone weird like this? It hadn’t been like this inside, had it? Or at least, it hadn’t been this bad.

And the sun was beaming down, too. It was… Well, actually it felt nice. Nice and warm. Which was weird, because her body didn’t actually seem like it was warm. If anything, it felt colder than it should be. But the sun was still nice and warm. So she couldn’t complain too much, she supposed.

A faint breeze skimmed the air, carrying with it the scent of the sea. Chloe had been taken aback by the smell when she was first brought out of the building. It was so strong, and it felt so familiar, as well. She’d felt a faint pang of joy at the scent, and it had felt like she could almost reach out into her mind and touch some faint memory. But, when she tried to reach it, she found it was always just out of reach.

At least this short trip by stretcher through this town had been interesting. From what she could see past the stretcher, it was so strange. It felt so weird to just see Pokémon going about their business, like it was completely normal. Which, for them, she supposed, it was.

Flying-types flying through the sky, carrying bags; fighting-types lifting huge stacks of boxes through the streets; even some ghost types passing through walls, seemingly busy. She’d never seen such a big and diverse collection of Pokémon. It was incredible.

The sheer wonder and delight of seeing this all was almost enough to make her forget about her own situation. But a few of the passersby staring at her, clearly conscious in the stretcher, made her shrink back down into the stretcher. They were probably wondering why a seemingly healthy Pokémon was being moved in a stretcher. After all, it wasn’t like she was actually injured, was it?

She stuck her head back down, hiding her face back down beneath the folds of the stretcher. It wasn’t a big stretcher by any means, basically just a bit of cloth tied to two sticks of wood. But, as she’d soon realised, she wasn’t very big herself, now. She was pretty sure Oranguru were usually meant to be shorter than the average person. And this Oranguru was at least three times taller than her. She was tiny now, in addition to everything else wrong with her body.

Honestly, she wasn’t sure how the hospital was meant to help her. She doubted they were going to be able to give her back her old body.

Especially, she thought darkly, since I can’t even remember what my old body looked like.

She didn’t want to think about that. But, her mind didn’t seem to be coming up with any distractions. So short of poking her head out of the stretcher again, which did seem somewhat tempting, she wasn’t going to have much else to do for the next minutes. She could look at the ocean for a bit? She could see it fairly well past the buildings, and she felt like she liked the ocean.

But, no. She wanted to remember anything she could. And besides, maybe she’d be able to remember something that’d be useful for the Pokémon at the hospital?

Okay, what about height? How tall had she been? Obviously taller than she was now, given how short she felt, but that didn’t seem to help. She concentrated as best she could, trying to remember if she ever had to look down on people, or look up to them, to make eye contact. Which one of those did she have to do? Was she tall or short?

Nothing.

Okay, then… Maybe, what was her hair like? What colour was it? How long had it been? Was it straight or curly? She tried to imagine how it would feel to run a hand through her hair. There was… something there. She could almost imagine how that would feel. So maybe, she’d done that before? Which meant her hair was probably at least long enough at some point for her to run her hands through it. And… it felt smooth, she thought. Straight hair. That sounded right.

Maybe she was just making things up, but… She wanted to hope she was working out things about her past. Sure, her hair might not be what she most wanted to know about, but… she didn’t not want to know about it. It was still a part of her past. A part of her. And maybe, if she kept getting small things like this, it would help her work out the bigger things, too. She had to hope, at least.

Okay, what else? What colour had her hair been? It was long, so it must have gotten in her eyes sometimes. When she thought about brushing a hand in front of her face to move the hair from in front of her eyes, what colour were those strands? No, she couldn’t get anything. What about eye colour? She concentrated on that for a moment, trying to think of a way to work out what colour her eyes had been, but… Nothing on that either.

She let out a small sigh. Okay, well… What kind of clothes did she like to wear? Immediately, the thought of formal clothes repelled her, gave her a stifling feeling. So, not suits and dresses and things, then. Shirts? No objections from her brain. Pants? That seemed fine. Skirts? There was some more instinctive rejection on that one, but it felt more like her legs being itchy? Not from skirts, from… from leggings worn with a skirt. Jackets seemed fine, though, if… Yeah, a sensation of heat. Wherever she’d lived, it must’ve been too hot to wear a jacket at some point recently. Did that make sense?

The stretcher came to an abrupt stop, and Chloe jolted, being snapped out of her thoughts. It seemed like they’d arrived, though the building they were outside didn’t seem anything like what she’d imagined.

It was a big building, with multiple storeys, at least, but was hardly the huge pristine prestigious medical facility she’d expected. Instead, it was a simpler brick building, extending a decent bit back towards the ocean, but not hugely expansive in the way she’d imagined.

Instead of going in what looked like the main entrance, the Oranguru took her around the back of the building, to a door marked with some… Was that writing? If it was, it didn’t look like any language she was familiar with. Huh, now that she thought about it, she definitely knew how to read and write multiple languages. Probably speak them both, too, if she had actually functioning vocal cords.

Focusing on the world around her again, she was carried into the building behind the Oranguru, and taken down a few corridors. They looked clean enough, though not the pristine white she’d expect from a hospital, instead having what looked like stone floors. It looked like the inside of an old building, in the same way that the interior of the other place she’d been in had.

No other Pokémon passed them in the corridors, and the room she was finally brought to was empty, too. It was fairly spacious and round, rather than square, with what looks like some crates stacked on one side. On the ground on the opposite edge of the room were some beds of straw, like the one she’d been on earlier in the infirmary. Laid on top of the straw seemed to be some small pieces of cloth, similar in appearance to the one used for the stretcher.

Small windows looked out to a nice view of the ocean, and were open, letting in a soft breeze, as well as some sunlight, beaming down onto the beds of straw. The room and the hospital seemed to be about the same temperature as it had been outside, which was nice.

The stretcher was moved over on top of one of these beds, and then Chloe felt it being slowly lowered down. It was a weird feeling, like she was falling, but very slowly. Which was exactly what was happening, now that she thought about it.

When the stretcher landed on the bed, the small glow surrounding it, a visual indicator of the psychic power that had been used to lift it, vanished.

“Wait here,” the Oranguru spoke up in a deep grunt.

“Oh, uh, okay,” she replied, with a nod. It wasn’t like she was going to be able to go anywhere.

He left, and she lay there on the bed, looking out the window at the ocean. Ocean air was meant to be good for the body, right? She was pretty sure she’d at least heard about sick people going near the ocean to recover. Not that she was sick, but that was probably why this hospital was so near the ocean.

While looking at the ocean, she idly thought it looked nice to swim in. Huh. That was interesting. Did she like swimming? She guessed the idea of going swimming seemed fun. So she guessed she did. Not that she was really going to be able to like this. She doubted the strokes she knew would work the same in this body. And since she was an electric type, she might end up accidentally letting out a shock and electrocuting everyone else in the water.

Actually, that could still happen, couldn’t it? She could just accidentally discharge some electricity in all directions and shock everyone around her. She felt a chill run up her spine at that thought. She didn’t have the first idea how to control her new abilities. How would she even summon electricity from herself, let alone use a move?

She was almost tempted to try at that point, but knowing her luck, the doctor would walk in right as she managed to summon some and she’d shock them. Better to just leave it for now. There had to be someone who could teach her, didn’t there? If it came down to that, at least. After all, there wasn’t really a reason she had to learn to use it.

Hearing small footsteps approaching her, Chloe looked up, seeing a small furry grey Pokémon walking into the room. The Pokémon also had white hair and a red band around his left arm, in which he was carrying a small clipboard. In his right paw, he was holding what looked like a metal rod. Interestingly enough, he looked to be about the same size as she was now. Which is weird because she thought he was an evolved Pokémon? Maybe he was just small, though.

In saying that, she wasn’t entirely sure, since his species wasn’t that familiar to her. Not familiar enough for her to be able to remember the name, at least. She wanted to say it was a Pokémon from Unova or Galar? Something like that, she thought.

“Miss Chloe?” the Pokémon squeaked, placing the metal rod down on the ground.

She nodded, snapped out of her thoughts.

“My name is Cinccino Bennett. I’m one of the healers here. You can call me Healer Bennett if you like, or just Bennett,” he said, walking over to her. Cinccino! That was it.

“Nice to meet you,” she said with a small hiss. “I assume you know why I’m here.”

He hesitated. “Not entirely. I am aware of some memory loss and lack of mobility, but beyond that I might need a helping hand.”

She sighed. “There’s not that much more to it. I can’t remember anything before this morning. Besides my name, that is. And I can’t move. Or, I don’t know how to move. I…”

She hesitated, unsure how much to reveal, before proceeding. “It’s like my body is completely foreign to me. I don’t know how to move it, or how to use any of my abilities. And I had a headache, but that’s mostly gone now.”

“I see,” the Cinccino responded, writing something down on the clipboard. “In that case, it sounds as though your problems are largely mental. Which I’m afraid I’m not qualified to really help you with. I can try and get in touch and see if we can get a mind healer sent over here, though, who should be able to help you more. How does that sound?”

“That sounds good,” she said, a little disappointed. “How soon could they be here?”

“I’m not sure. Best case scenario, before the end of the day, assuming we get one who can teleport. Worst case scenario, no more than a few days.”

“Okay,” she replied, looking down.

“For now, though,” the Cinccino said, “I’m going to give you a few Oran and Cheri Berries to eat.”

“Oh! Because, uh, Oran Berries are good for general recovery, right? And Cheri Berries cure paralysis? Because… I can’t move?” she said, thinking it over.

“You’re fairly close,” Bennett replied. “The Oran Berry is for general recovery, and should help with pain relief for the headache you mentioned. The Cheri Berries are to stimulate your body’s lightning.”

“They can do that?” she asked.

“That’s how they cure paralysis. Generally, they stimulate a Pokémon’s nervous system which causes them to regain movement in a body that is otherwise unable to move. In lightning types, this also helps to give you a small spark to restore your charge somewhat. Speaking of which…”

He looked over to her. “I’m assuming you don’t know when you last discharged your lightning.”

“Discharged?” she asked. “Like used a move?”

“Not quite, no,” he replied. “If a lightning type builds up too much lightning in their system, they can become overcharged and end up with lightning leaking out of their body, bursting out at random. To avoid this, lightning types usually need to occasionally discharge all of their lightning to reset their charge. For a Pokémon of your size, I would say you should do this at least once a week.”

Chloe blinked. “Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“Right. So, given that, I would like you to discharge your lightning here, just in case,” the Cinccino said.

“I… don’t know how,” she said, looking down. “And I don’t want to end up messing up and zapping you.”

“Not to worry,” he said, pointing a paw to the metal rod. “This is a lightning rod. All the lightning you discharge will be drawn to it and grounded. It’s perfectly safe. And as for not knowing how to do it… It should be fairly instinctual. But, try this. Close your eyes, and focus on your aura. Yours should be predominantly lightning and basic types. Feel the lightning, focus on it, and draw it out.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “I guess I can try it. This won’t hurt, will it?”

He shook his head. “It won’t. You’ll probably be tired for the next few hours, but you should probably be resting, anyway.”

She nodded. “Got it.”

Chloe closed her eyes. Trying to find her lightning, she focused on her own body. She hadn’t really wanted to, and still didn’t. Because it wasn’t really her body. Even thinking about it that way felt wrong. She shuddered, but continued trying to focus on it.

There was definitely something there. There was a small hum within her that she hadn’t noticed before. She tried to focus on it, reach out and… There. Her eyes flashed open in time to see a small spark on the end of her claw disappear.

She blinked. “Did I do it? I don’t feel any different.”

“Almost,” the Cinccino said with an encouraging smile. “You found your lightning, now just do that again and don’t stop.”

“Right. I think I can do that,” she said with a nod.

She focused on the same energy inside her, and reached for the same hum, concentrating on it.

She felt it moving through her, reaching her finger, then leaving her body, and heard the crackling of electricity. She stopped from the shock of it all, but managed to keep going until the hum was very faint and she felt like she couldn’t move any more energy out of her.

She opened her eyes. “I think I did it that time.”

Bennett nodded. “You did indeed! Good work.”

“How did it look? Was it fine?” she asked, curious.

“It didn’t look as though you had too much charge in your body, but you’re small, so it was better to be safe,” he replied.

“So, how do I get charge back now? If it’s all gone?”

He smiled. “Your body should naturally recover it. I wouldn’t try using any moves for a few hours, but after that you should be fine until your next discharge.”

“Okay.” She let out a yawn unconsciously. “You were right. That was tiring…”

“Rest up for now. I’ll go and get you those berries,” he said, leaving the room.

Chloe nodded, and tried her best to move her body to get comfortable, closing her eyes to get some rest.