Chapter 1: New Beginnings

He awoke numb.

Slowly, surely, feeling returned to his limbs. At first, there was a chorus of prickles in his far extremities that radiated inwards with ever-increasing numbers. He was soon curling up, each slight movement merciless in generating an explosion of needles.

His nerves eventually ceased their haphazard firing, paving the way for untarnished sensations. Predominantly, the wind; it tore through his wet fur, the sound roaring in his ears. He was cold. Deathly cold. He shivered, his drenched coat conspiring with the gale to sap what precious body heat remained.

Not even his bones were spared from the chill.

He took a deep breath and immediately choked. His chest heaved and he wheezed, his body working to expel unwelcome salt water from his lungs.

Once the coughing fit ceased, he wiped his mouth with a shaky limb and opened his eyes: an endless wall of water stretched into the hazy distance, with high crests and low troughs racing across the deep cerulean surface, swapping partners in a zero-sum game of rhythmic motion. Up above, the soft glow of the moon was a beacon, illuminating a slice of the ocean from shore to horizon in an ever-expanding cone of gentle, reflected sunlight.

He wanted to lose himself in the view; to keep on looking and ignore the reality bubbling under the surface. Except he couldn't, not when this situation made so little sense. The more he wracked his brain for answers, the deeper his confusion went. He could recall nothing. Absolutely nothing.

His mind was blank.

Who was he? Why was he here? If this was to be his existence, he wanted nothing to do with it. He had vague notions of warmth, not cold. Pleasure, instead of discomfort. Yet, those feelings translated to nothing.

The base of his spine twitched suddenly, and something very much attached to him slapped against the damp sand of the beach. An involuntary squeak left him at the sudden and unexpected movement, the sensation utterly bizarre. He did not want to experience it again, but, to his dismay, the limb continued to twitch, whipping about and scraping against the mud, sending numerous tingles and jolts up his spine.

Curious, yet filled with a vague unease, he turned to look behind him. He choked as a tail came into focus. An honest to Mew tail. A yellow, lightning-bolt shaped tail.

His tail.

An anxious whine rose in his throat. His heart pounded in his ears. He did not understand why it upset him to have a tail, nor was he aware enough to understand its significance. But the emotions were inescapable, threatening to overwhelm him.

Colors swam at the edge of his vision, his breaths coming and going in rapid staccato, and he frantically hugged the newly discovered appendage close to his fuzzy chest, holding onto it like a lifeline. The irony was not lost on him.

Dizzy, confused, and simply exhausted, it wasn't long before reality left him entirely, leaving only the sweet embrace of oblivion.

He woke with a start. Adrenaline surged through him, forcing his eyes wide open.

His surroundings were... confusing. Different. Instead of the ocean, he found himself surrounded by rock. A cave, he supposed. What at first appeared to be an enclosed space was actually connected to the morning air by a jagged opening rife with stalagmites, encompassing about a third of the wall to his left. It scattered the rays of the sun, which cast deep shadows throughout the cave. It was enough light to determine that the space was lived in, however, if the barrels on one side of a conspicuous staircase were any indication.

He sniffed, noticing a peculiar scent in the air. It tickled his nose and clung to him, thick and pungent, so strongly that it masked the source entirely. Another sniff and his fur stood on end, making him keenly aware that something was off, something obvious, but he couldn't place where the feeling originated. Nonetheless, he couldn't lie down forever, and so he tensed his legs and shot to his feet.

He stumbled as dozens of spots interposed themselves upon his vision, encroaching nausea permeating his being. He hissed and clutched his head; the effort to remain upright was enormous. As if only to make things more difficult, his blasted tail kept whipping back and forth, the unconscious motion an intimate reminder of just what was attached to his lower spine.

Having had enough, he glanced down at the twitching limb and gave it a mean look, as if that alone would tame it. In the end, it was a surprisingly trivial task to force it still. All he had to do was clench some newfound muscles and—

—proceeded to fall flat on his rump, scattering hundreds of stalks from a curiously placed pile of hay underneath him. Apparently, his tail was the only thing keeping his balance.

A trill, not unlike a giggle, rang throughout the cave. It had a faint, melodic tone to it, almost eerie in its timbre. His ears swiveled at the unexpected noise and his heart began to beat with increased urgency, static dancing across his fur.

To his immediate chagrin, he squeaked in terror.

"O-oh, sorry," a voice, originating from behind a relatively large, hastily put together doll with a crooked head, began, "I didn't mean to startle you, really!" The speaker—a she, he assumed—gave a distorted warble before the doll, no, the pokemon began to creep toward him. Not just any pokemon, either but a mimikyu. A talking mimikyu. Something about that rubbed him the wrong way and, for the life of him, he couldn't figure out why.

Then it clicked.

"Pokemon can't talk!" he blurted out.

"Are you stu—" The mimikyu cut herself off and huffed with enough force that her costume actually quivered. There was just this look in her beady, little black eyes that managed to convey so much with so little. "You're clearly talking, I'm talking clearly," she paused to let out a coo that sounded suspiciously like laughter. He frowned. Was she making fun of him? "We're both, clearly, able to talk. So, what exactly happened to you out there? Did you hit your head or something? Because I waited hours for you to wake up," she fidgeted in place, "and when you didn't I, um, was getting kinda worried."

While the pokemon's concern was touching, he was more preoccupied with the implications of her words. He scrutinized his animalistic paws and yellow coat, gave his tail an experimental swish, and even twitched his whiskers. He sighed. Her words rang true. There was no point denying the obvious: he was a pokemon. A small, fuzzy electric mouse. Pikachu, if he was not mistaken. His ears drooped at the overdue realization that he was no longer... something.

Then again, what was he supposed to be? The thought troubled him. If it were truly such an integral part of his identity, surely he would recall more than a vague sense of belonging. Maybe it wasn't that important.

Whatever the case, the poor pokemon before him was surely growing anxious as the silence dragged on, jittery as she was. Putting off his self-discovery for later, he decided to finally grace his host with a response. "I, uh, don't actually remember."

The diminutive being leaned forward. "Really? Then what were you doing before you came to the beach?" She squinted, the strange doll-head swaying a bit.

He was going to answer her before she suddenly got much too close, her pseudo head nearly brushing against his chest. "Whoa!" he exclaimed, nudging the excitable pokemon away with a paw tip. Her costume was surprisingly warm to the touch. "What do you think you're doing?!"

With this new proximity also came the strange scent from before, overpowering the faded aroma stuck to his coat. He scrunched up his muzzle. It was obviously originating from the mimikyu, but that failed to explain why he was covered in it. Did she personally drag him here and dry him off? It would explain why he wasn't wet anymore. He felt a warmth in his chest. That was nice of her.

"I'm just getting a look at your shock pouches!" she chirped, staring intently up at his face. Did she have a short attention span? "I could never get them quite right…" He glanced down at the haphazardly put together Pikachu head and winced. The pouches were sloppily done, as if drawn on by crayon. "Oh! I almost forgot to ask for your name! Mine's Mimi, what's yours?"

He opened his mouth but quickly snapped it shut. She wanted to know his name—was that something he could give her? Did he truly not know his own name? No, he refused to let something as important as his own identity slip away. If the names of random pokemon were in his vocabulary, then his name must be within his grasp. He only had to jog the memory. Easy.

Biting his lip in concentration, he went over everything he knew about himself. It wasn't a long list. Starting with the obvious, he wasn't always a pikachu. That much he knew from the get-go. Then, what was he? The answer came to him without much fuss, surprisingly: human. He was a human.

If only he knew what a human actually was.

Regardless, it hardly mattered; learning that little tidbit appeared to have done the trick. He knew his name. It was—

"Hey, you okay? You spaced out for a second."

He blushed; he didn't realize how long he was standing there, staring into nothing. "Oh, sorry. I was just… thinking. Anyways, I'm Liam. Nice to meet you, Mimi!" Liam held out a paw for her to shake before he remembered her lack of any kind of visible limbs. As he attempted to retract his paw, an inky miasma spilled from under Mimi's cloth and took on a ghastly facsimile of an arm. Complete with three ferocious looking claws.

Seemingly unperturbed by the horror she unleashed, Mimi took advantage of Liam's overstretched paw and gave it a firm, yet surprisingly gentle, shake. Similar to her costume, the hand was surprisingly warm.

"Nice to meet you, too!" Mimi said, holding onto his paw for longer than was strictly necessary, and he had to bite his tongue when one of her shadowy appendages caressed the sensitive underside. Accident or not, it made him… uncomfortable, to say the least. Thankfully, she released him before he could follow that train of thought any further. "This is fantastic—an actual, real-life pikachu!" Mimi completed a full twirl, briefly showing off her fake pikachu tail. "You gotta tell me what being is pikachu is like! Please!" He was taken aback by the desperate, almost pleading, quiver in her voice.

"Mimi, um, I don't know how to put this but… I'm not a pikachu." Liam truly hoped Mimi didn't dismiss this as a joke, too. "I'm actually a human." Witnessing the beginnings of an eye roll, Liam hesitated, but nonetheless pressed the subject. "Where I come from is a mystery to me. I don't understand why or how I became a pokemon. I don't even know what kind of person I was! But of this I am certain: I am human and my name is Liam." His voice remained steady, which was impressive for someone currently sweating bullets.

"You're serious, aren't you?" She scooted closer. Her head—her true head—was tilted slightly to the side, as if she were seeing him in a new light. "You remember nothing? At all?" He shook his head. "And you're a human?" He nodded, wondering where she was going with this. "Wow. Not only are you the best pokemon ever, you're also the coolest mythical creature, too!"

Liam was floored. Sure, it was a relief to have the mimikyu's trust. Mucking it up with the first pokemon he encountered was not an appealing prospect. On the other hand, his situation seemed to excite her well beyond what he felt comfortable with, her obsession with his current species notwithstanding.

Despite all that, he couldn't bring himself to say anything about his misgivings. Not when she seemed so happy, her eyes sparkling with contagious wonder. But something she said did peak his interest.

"Mythical creature, huh?"

Mimi nodded. "It's to the point that pretty much everyone dismisses your kind as fairy tales. But I knew—I just knew!" Mimi used one of her magical arms to straighten up the head of her costume, and addressed him in what she obviously thought to be an esteemed tone. "Our world is too advanced," she began, "We have tools that no pokemon would—or could—ever think to create! Structures that are an impossibility with current or past technologies! Strange artifacts with patterns that cannot be explained! Oh! Wait here, I have proof!" The mimikyu then melted before his very eyes.

Before he could process the absurdity of what in the name of Mew just happened, Mimi re-materialized beside an inconspicuous chest a short distance away. She popped the latch with her claws, the hinges creaking obnoxiously, and then leapt inside, tumbling head over tail. Incidentally, this gave him a brief, and unintentional, glimpse under Mimi's cloth; the legion of wispy tendrils writhing every which way—squirming, churning, over and over, again and again—convinced him that further inspection was, perhaps, ill-advised. He shuddered and prayed that what he saw wasn't as bad as it seemed.

Obvious frustration and many curses were had as the mimikyu noisily sifted through the large container for whatever she was looking for. Occasionally, a random trinket or two would be tossed out of the chest, seemingly with little regard for their integrity. Liam flinched as a rather large marble bonked him on the forehead, making his cheeks crackle.

After about thirty seconds of spelunking, Mimi exclaimed, "Found it!" and peeked out over the edge of the chest. In her ghostly clutches was some kind of rock, still too distant to make out any details. His vision wasn't all that spectacular, apparently. In any case, Mimi bounded forward with her prize held tenderly between two tendrils. With shocking grace, she expertly avoided the junk (toys?) left out in the open, almost gliding around them.

"So that's what you were looking for, huh?" He squinted at the flat top; he could just barely distinguish an etched pattern from the rest of the stone. "What is it?"

"My treasure!" Mimi held the rock close to her body, eyes full of pride. "It's a fragment from some ancient relic. Entrusted to me by the greatest explorer to have ever lived, whom will be spoken about in hushed awe for generations to come! The one, the only: Intrepid Explorer!" Liam jumped as no less than six tendrils suddenly exploded out from under her cloth, each emitting, in sequence, a weak and colorful shockwave that rattled his eardrums and shook the den. "Woooo!"

If anything, he was astonished by how much flare the little ghost had.

After retracting her tendrils, thankfully shoving them back from whence they came (he shuddered again), Mimi leaned in casually, her true height just shy of his waist, and proudly whispered, "He's also my papa."

"Your father?" Mimi nodded and Liam scratched his chin, humming. An explorer sounded kind of cool, actually. "Is he out exploring?" Sympathy swelled in his chest as Mimi looked up at him with misty eyes.

"Woah!" Liam suddenly found himself being tackled by the adorable abomination, knocking him flat on his bottom for the second time today. Darkness spilled out from under the mimikyu's cloak and coalesced into dozens of appendages with a single, unified purpose: to hug the life out of him.

"What's wrong?" he asked through clenched teeth; speaking was more than a bit difficult at the moment.

"I— he— h-he never came back!" the tiny pokemon wailed, constricting him more and more with each gasping breath he took. "And then— a-and then, mama left to go l-looking for him a-and— and—" Like a banshee, her sobs rose in an ever-increasing pitch. Not even his folded back ears could block the sound. "I've had n-nobody. Until— u-until," she sniffled, "until I found you."

Had she truly been alone in this cave for however long since her parents vanished? Heart melting and lungs collapsing, Liam knew he had to do something, anything to cheer up the little bundle attached to his hip.

Ignoring the pain in his everything from how tightly she held him, Liam returned the hug as best he could and felt the mimikyu melt into his arms. Metaphorically, this time.

"I'll stay if you'll have me," he assured her, still having trouble breathing. Thankfully, her grip loosened as she listened, allowing him to speak more easily. "You saved me. Brought me into your home and back from the brink of death." A possible exaggeration, if he were honest, but it did make his point. "I was soaked, freezing my furry little tail off," that earned a giggle out of her, "but you dried me off. Gave me someplace warm to recover." Thankfully, her numerous limbs began to relax completely, and he was able to carefully extract himself from her coils. "Keeping you company is the least I can do. Besides, where else would I go?"

"T-thanks," Mimi said, rubbing her inflamed eyes with a tendril. "Here I am, bursting into tears in front of a virtual stranger." She gave a humorless chuckle. "I'm so pathetic."

"Don't say that!" he admonished. "I may not remember much, but I do know that insulting yourself is never the answer. Chin up— uh," giving her a clumsy smile, he stage-whispered, "You do have a chin, right?" Mimi shook her body back and forth. "Is that a no, or...?"

"Pfft, no chin here," said the mimikyu, puffing herself up. "Who needs structure, anyway?" They both laughed at that. Mimi abruptly grew rigid and, accompanied by an embarrassed chirrup, detached herself from his side with all the elegance her fairy typing implied—which was to say, none at all. "Ahh! I'm sorry! I didn't realize I was being so clingy. I mean, I knew. But, um, sorry..."

Liam waved her off. "No harm done. It was kind of nice, actually." And he truly meant it, too. If he ignored the whole 'being squeezed to death' thing. Liam stretched, causing a few joints to pop with a satisfying crack. "Hey, weren't you going to tell me about your relic fragment?"

"Oh yeah," Mimi said, picking the fragment back up from where she left it. "Pappa told me this is the key to finding some ancient treasure. Like a lost city, or even advanced technology! Ma insisted he was full of it, but I know she was just trying to keep me safe. So I've kept it close. I even used it in an attempt to psyche myself up and join the local Explorers' guild!"

"So you're an explorer?" Liam inquired with a smile. "That's cool!" Mimi turned away, avoiding his gaze. His expression fell. "Is something wrong?"

"I didn't get in," she seethed. "Nothing ever happens when I stand above that stupid grate. That's what the sign says, 'stand here and await entry,' but no pokemon ever comes out! Ugh! It's so aggravating!" Huffing, Mimi narrowed her eyes. "I bet it's because I'm a mimikyu. They're all too busy going, 'Ahhh, run, it's an abomination!', to even consider I'm a pokemon just like them!"

"Do pokemon really do that around you?" Liam asked, aghast at the very concept.

"No, but they're all thinking it!" spat the mimikyu. "Idiots. If only I were a pikachu, then I could—" She froze, and her eyes widened. "That's it! Liam, if you sign yourself up at Wigglytuff's Guild, I could just hitch a ride in your shadow. Then all I have to do is sneak out when we, I mean you, get a mission. No one will ever have to know I'm there. It's perfect!"

Perfect was not the word Liam would have used. Insane: now that was an apt description. He had no idea what she was talking about, nor what Wigglytuff's Guild was. He needed more information.

Liam's ears fell. "I don't think—"

"But you gotta!" Mimi insisted. "This might be my only chance to make something of myself! You have to understand. Please?" She let out a whine, looking up at him with twinkling, beady eyes. That was just unfair, he thought, unable as he was to say no to such a heart-melting look.

"Okay, okay," he conceded. "But I do have a caveat."

Mimi scooted forward, her expression full of determination. "Anything."

"You have to reveal yourself the moment we get inside." Seeing her about to argue, he shook his head. "Ah-ah-ah. No buts. Hiding will turn out poorly. For both of us."

"Fiiiiine," Mimi said with a pout. "But I get to pick our team name!"

A team name was the last thing on his mind right now. All he wanted was to make the poor mimikyu happy. She needed him. It was nice to be appreciated. And, if he were honest with himself, he needed her, too, alone in this world as he was. If staying with her required him to sign up at some unknown guild, then so be it.

How hard could it be?

After his moment of thought, Liam shrugged. "That's fine with me."

"In that case, I have the perfect name," Mimi leaned in dramatically, "The Intrepid Explorers!" Liam could practically hear the mimikyu's grin. Then, almost too silently for him to make out, she whispered under her breath, "I'll make you proud, Dad."