Chapter I
I woke up to my alarm blaring next to my bed. Without even thinking, I hit the snooze button and slowly began to drift back to sleep. That is, until I got a very rude Vine whip across my rear end. Even though this happened almost every morning for school, it still really stung. After I fell out of bed from the pain and surprise, I notice that little green annoyance trying (and failing) to hide his laughter.
"Well if you think this is funny; just wait until you don't get breakfast." I said with a grin.
Snivy immediately stopped laughing and sprinted out of the room.
After I got out of the shower and brushed my teeth I looked into the foggy mirror and wiped it down. It's still me: Noah, 18 years old with shaggy dark brown hair and gray blue eyes.
I sighed. "At least its Friday…"
After I had gotten dressed into a dark blue shirt, denim pants, and my glasses, I made my way downstairs to get Snivy and myself some breakfast. I poured him some of the spicy pokefood and got a thankful "Snivy!" for my efforts. I started chowing down on my Lucari-O's (now with more aura! Whatever that meant) and began thinking about how I got my little pokémon friend.
"Which one would you like Noah?" asked professor Juniper. She seemed really nice with her light brown hair, lab coat, and wide smile. I was only 12 at the time. "There's tepig; the fire pig pokémon, and oshawott; the water otter pokémon."
"What about this third one?" I asked pointing to the third pokeball.
Her smile wavered, but only for a second. "Well... that's snivy; the grass snake pokémon but…"
"What's wrong?" I asked, tilting my head quizzically.
"It's just that this one… well he's… kind of… not fond of humans." She said with a frown. I glanced at the pokeball containing the grass type.
"I want him."
"Are you sure, Noah? I don't think-"
"I've made my choice." I said in a firm tone. There was no changing my mind at this point and she knew that.
"Very well," she handed me the pokeball "How about we go outside and meet him?"
The red light coalesced into the 2 foot green snake and he looked around until he noticed the professor and I looking at him.
"Snivy!" he said giving us a death glare.
"Snivy this is your new Pokémon trainer, Noah! Can you say hello?" professor Juniper asked the little pokémon nicely.
Snivy looked me up and down as if assessing me and folded his arms. I slowly walked up to him and began to pull something out of my pocket. Snivy became tense and readied himself for anything. I held out the poffin with a smile, surprising him. "I brought this as a gift for my new friend! Sorry if it's a little spicy for you…"
Snivy looked at the Pokémon cookie in my hand with surprise. He was not expecting that! "Go on, Take it." I said with a smile.
Snivy carefully picked up the poffin and took a tiny nibble of the pastry. I was about to apologise to him for my poor cooking when he snarfed down the whole thing in a second. Professor Juniper looked stunned. "I've never seen him eat with such enthusiasm! Usually he hardly eats at all!"
I grinned at the professor then turned back to the pokémon. "What do you say snivy? Want to be my new friend?"
I came back to reality when I looked into my empty bowl and sighed. I had always tried to battle other trainers but found I was terrible at it and ended up hurting Snivy more often than not. "Well Snivy, I had better get going. I don't want to be late for school again." I gave him a pat on the head and grabbed my backpack. "Hold down the fort okay?" "Snivy!" he replied with a grin and a salute. I chuckled and closed the door behind me.
It was spring in my small, rural town. There wasn't much in the town except the high school. I only lived a block way so I didn't need to ride the bus or my bike because it was so close to home. As I was making my way past one of the many berry farms, I felt a sharp pain in my right arm.
"OW! Arceus! What was that!?"
I examined my arm and found something similar to those sleep darts that you see in the movies. Pulling the needle out I examined the small object and looked around to see who was behind the trigger. There was nobody there but me. I carefully put the dart into my pocket so I could take it to the local police station after school and rubbed my arm in the spot it had hit. I wasn't sleepy. My arm stung but other than that everything about me was completely normal. I shook my head and continued to school.
The day continued onward without anything else abnormal happening. In all my classes I kept rubbing my arm as a tingling sensation slowly spread throughout my body from my arm. A couple teachers noticed me acting strange and asked what was wrong. I just told them that everything was fine, and they eventually stopped asking. Lunch came around and I grabbed a meal without even thinking about what was in it. I wasn't very hungry anyways, I was still trying to figure out what was happening I made my way over to the table in the corner where my two friends and I always sat for lunch.
"Hey guys. What's been going on with you lately?" I asked them.
"I'm just getting some stupid hard assignments from my math teacher." Eian Replied with a frown. Eian had long straitened slightly darker blonde hair that went a little past his shoulders. He always had darker clothes on with a crazy band T-shirt. He really liked heavy metal bands that had that low growling for singing.
"What are you talking about? Math is crazy easy! The real problem here is orchestra!" Mitchell countered. Mitchell always had spiked hair, his glasses, and a school jacket on. His hair was so white blonde that we often joked that he bleached it every day.
I rolled my eyes. Even though we were the best of friends, we always disagreed on school difficulty. "For the last time, I don't take orchestra Mitchell." Eian retorted. I sat down as they continued their argument. I was about to tell them what had happened on my way to school this morning when I was interrupted.
"Hey guys! Mind if I sit with you and Noah?" Diana asked them cheerfully. She knew I wouldn't mind because we were dating after all. It was the first relationship for both of us so we never really did much other than hug each other and hold hands. Diana had naturally red hair and frekles on her cheeks and nose. She also always wore something Pokémon related as she wanted to be a pokémon professor one day.
"Hey Diana." We all said in unison, with my greeting being a lot more cheery than theirs.
They all continued talking with one another when I began to feel sick to my stomach. Nobody noticed at first, but as I began reeling over with the pain Diana started becoming worried. "Noah? Is everything okay? What's wrong?"
I couldn't reply as I was in agony. The other students began looking over at our group once they noticed something happening. It was becoming difficult to breathe, and I started to panic at this point. I couldn't hold it in anymore. I began wail from the intense pain. It felt like there were thousands of needles slowly pushing out from under my skin. I was in far too much distress to notice somebody had begun recording the scene.
"NOAH! NOAH, TALK TO US! WHATS WRO-" Diana stopped in shock as I began to shrink down into my clothes and started growing patterns of blue and black fur all over my body. I was in so much pain I could no longer even scream at this point. It felt like somebody was crushing my bones into smaller, different shapes. Diana was the only one speaking at this point.
"NOAH PLEASE! WHAT'S HAPPENING TO YOU!?" Diana was crying now, but I didn't reply as I was in so much pain. I felt my ears sliding up to the top of my head, becoming much larger and pointed. Strange objects began growing from my temples, and I could feel the end of my spine was growing longer. At this point I was crying silently, not even able to breathe. I began to feel something like molten hot metal pushing its way out from under the skin on the back of my hands.
After what felt like almost an eternity, but was really only a few seconds, the torment began to subside. I was breathing heavily, but finally my anguish was gone. I opened my eyes only to find I seemed to be covered in some form of cloth, which I then realized was my own clothing much larger than before. Everything was dead silent, as nobody would dare speak. After a few moments, a single voice softly and slowly croaked out; "N-Noah? Are you Okay?"
It was Diana, her voice was shaky and laced with fear along with concern, but I didn't reply. A shaking hand grabbed the cloth of my shirt and began lift it ever so slowly. Once the shirt was off, Diana was so shocked at my new form she couldn't even gasp. I wanted to speak, but I couldn't get my voice to work after my wailing as my throat was raw. She began to get out her phone and brought it to the camera app.
What is she doing? I thought to myself.
After a moment, she presented the phone to me and I saw a picture of a small, scared riolu. Why is she showing me this photo right now? I looked up to stare at her quizzically when the photo did the same. Shocked, I looked back at the phone, brought up my arm and slowly waved my hand. The Riolu did the same with his paw. Then the realization hit me like a truck.
It was ME.
I began to break down, and started hyperventilating. Diana took notice to this and began reaching forward in order to comfort me. "Noah, it's okay, just calm down and-" I cut her off when I noticed the entire cafeteria staring and howled at the top of my lungs, despite my damaged vocal cords.
"RIOLUUUUUUUUUUU!"
I bolted at the cafeteria doors leading to the outside. Nobody but Diana tried to stop me, but by the time she realized what I was doing, I was long gone. Houses and farms sped past me while I ran as fast as I possibly could to the only place that I believed to be safe.
Home.