Chapter 1: My Tail's On Fire!

Moral of the story, never trust a witch, or else you may end up become a sac- whoops, spoiler alert. I guess it would be best to start at the beginning. What you are about to read is a record of my entire life, well as much as I can remember, anyway. I hope by reading this, those who live in this world can prevent a tragedy like what you are about to read from ever happening again. Yet, time flows like the sweat off of a Conkeldur's brow, and history repeats. But this doesn't have to. Oops, got off track again. how about I just start the story.

"...ello..."

That was a voice, faint and barely audible, but there.

"...can...hear..."

The voice was a little clearer that time.

"Can you speak up?" I asked, "I'm having difficulty hearing you."

I spake but no words came from my mouth, yet I could hear my own voice clearly. My eyes were wide open, but that didn't matter, for everything was dark all around me. The voice was silent for a good while before it spake up again.

"Can you hear me?"

I was knocked on my butt out of shock. I could hear the voice much clearer now.

"Please, don't be alarmed"

As I got up off the ground, I realized that it was a woman that was speaking to me, but the voice seemed to come from my own head.

"Where are you?" I asked, "I can't see anything."

"I am not there, I am speaking to you telepathically."

"Uh, what?"

"Explaining it to you would take more time than I have."

"What do you want with me?"

"Simply put, this world is in danger. A darkness is waxing, a darkness which I do not have the power to conquer."

"And I have the power to destroy this darkness, whereas you do not?"

"I believe so."

"You have telepathy! I'm just an average guy!"

"You do not realize it, but you have a power that I could never hope to obtain. So, will you help a lady out and save the world?"

I thought about it for a while before I finally answered her.

"Sure, why not? After all, it wouldn't be very gentlemanly of me to turn a damsel in distress down."

"Well, aren't you the charmer. Who says chivalry is dead?"

The voice grew silent and after a short time, I felt something odd happening to my body I felt pains all over my body, even in places I didn't even know I had. Then, small fissures of light appeared all over the dark void I was standing upon, then the floor broke and I found myself in the sky, rocketing toward the ground at record-breaking speeds.

"OH, SHOOT! AHHHHH! HURRY UP AND GROW WINGS! WHERE'S A PARASHUTE WHEN YOU NEED ONE!?"

I was falling so fast that flames surrounded my body as I was falling toward the ground at speeds I swore exceeded mach 10. I eventually crashed into the white sand of a small beach, leaving a crater in the sand and getting a mouth full of the gritty sediment. I was lucky that all I managed to hurt was my pride, though I was numb, everywhere, so I could not spit the sand out of mouth, no matter how much I wanted to. Sand tastes awful by the way. I blacked out for a while as well, and remained KO'd until I felt something gently shaking me.

"Arceus above! Are you all right?"

I slowly regained consciousness and found myself lying on my stomach. I got on my hands and knees and spat out all of the sand in my mouth, before slowly taking a seat in the crater and getting all the remaining sand out of my mouth.

"Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm just a little numb, I should be find after a little rest"

I finally turned to see who was talking to me, but was a little shocked to see a bipedal rabbit standing there.

"I'm going crazy," I said to myself before crawling, with assistance, out of the 15 foot deep crater. I found some standing tide pools nearby, and washed my face and mouth of any remaining sand I could find, before splashing water onto my face.

I turned and seen the rabbit standing a few feet behind me, before splashing more cold water in my face, in order to wake up from this strange dream I was apparently having. The rabbit never left no matter how much water I splashed on my face.

"I think all of the sand is gone now," said the rabbit.

Without warning her I shoved my entire head in the water and held it there, still believing it to be a dream. The rabbit, thankfully, pulled my head out of the water before I unintentionally drowned myself.

"What are you doing, you weirdo?" Asked the rabbit.

"Sorry," I apologized, "I'm just not used to giant, talking, bipedal rabbits."

"What planet are you from? I am not giant, I am only a foot tall."

"But you are half as high as me! And I'm six foot tall!"

"No... you're two feet tall," said the rabbit, "boy, you Charmanders sure are strange."

"A what? What in the world is a Char-whatever?" I Asked as I walked back over to the tidal pool, "look at my reflection. Does this look anything like a..."

I looked at my reflection.

"I look like a LIZARD?"

I started panicking and checked out my entire body with my own eyes instead of my reflection.

"How did I turn red? What happened to my arms? WHOSE BUTT IS THIS?! How did I get a tail?! WAAAH! MY TAIL'S ON FIRE! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!"

I started running all around the beach holding my tail and yelling 'PUT IT OUT!' while doing so, before the rabbit grabbed me by the neck with her left arm and started slapping some sense into me with the right arm. It wasn't long before it worked and I calmed down.

"Thanks for that."

"Better now?"

"Somewhat, tail's still on fire though."

"It's supposed to be that way."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

"So now that we've got all the ridiculous out of the way, "said the rabbit, "what's your name? where do you come from?"

"...I don't know," I admitted.

"You don't know?"

"...Nope."

"It might me amnesia, speaking of which, we need to get you checked out for wounds. Can you walk?"

"Yeah, running around in a frenzy kind of helps with numbness."

She laughed as she led me to a large building in the nearby town. These "Pokémon" as she called them, were going about their everyday lives as if I had never crashed into the beach like a meteor. I was led to a side door of the large building and we entered and I found myself in some sort of clinic with doctors and nurses caring for the patients. We were met by a round, pink Pokémon at the door.

"Well, hello there, what can I do for you?"

"It's my friend, he's-"

The pink Pokémon looked me over for a moment and then she grabbed me and called for some nurses.

"Audino, Jigglypuff, take this Charmander to exam room 12, I need to examine him pronto."

The two nurses picked me up and threw me on one of those rolling hospital beds and wheeled me into the exam room. The pink Pokémon and the Buneary were following me into the exam room. If I wasn't hurting before all this, I was now; that Pokémon needs to teach these nurses to be a bit gentler when they throw patients on beds. In the exam room, the nurses left and the pink Pokémon, the Buneary and I were the only ones left in the room.

"I'm Blissey," said the Pokémon, "I run this infirmary. So, how do you feel?"

"Like I got shot out of a cannon," I said.

"You look like it too," said Blissey

I turned to the Buneary and asked her: "Do I really look that bad?"

"I choose not to answer that," she said.

"By the way, you never told me your name."

"Oh, I guess I haven't. My name is Fluffi."

"Fluffi, Seriously?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with my name?"

"Nothing."

"What is your name?"

I sat there while Blissey was checking all my wounds and writing notes on a nearby paper. I realized that I had no clue what my name was. I guess I forgot that too. So I sat there and thought of what would be a good name. I appreciated Fluffi being so patient with me and then after a few minutes, my burning tail gave me a name, but I immediately discarded that one and went with a different one.

"Drake," I said.

"Drake, is that your actual name or just one you made up?" Asked Fluffi.

Curses, she seen right through me!

"I made it up," I admitted.

"What's your real name?" Asked Blissey.

"I'm not sure."

"What?" Asked Blissey.

"He has amnesia," said Fluffi.

"How did this happen?" Asked Blissey.

"When I crashed into the beach."

"Huh?" Asked Blissey.

"Remember that meteor that impacted on the beach?" Asked Fluffi.

"That was me."

"HOLY BLACK ON A JYNX! How are you not dead?" Asked Blissey.

"I was hoping you could answer that." I admitted.

She looked me over for a few more minutes and patched my wounds before answering.

"No clue how you survived, it is nothing short of miraculous," said Blissey.

"Anyway," said Fluffi, "Do you want to form a team with me?"

"A team for what?" I asked.

"Exploration, treasure hunting, that sort of thing."

"Sure, why not? It's not like I've anywhere to go."

"Great! Now all we have to do is leave this place and-"

"Not so fast," said Blissey, "I gave Drake a clean bill of health, but before you leave,

what are you going to call your team?"

"Bunnyblaze," I answered. Then, Fluffi slapped me in the back of the head and told me to get serious.

"Okay, what about Dragoon?" I asked, "after the order of dragon knights by the same name."

"Is there really a order of knights named that?" Asked Fluffi.

"No," said Blissey, "they're an ancient myth."

"I thought you had amnesia," said Fluffi.

"I know some things, just not a lot," I said.

We left the building through the side door that we entered with and walked back into the building, just through the main door this time. It was quite clear to me that the infirmary was only a small portion of the building, as the rest of it looked like a grand assembly for explorers of all flavors. Just then, we were met by a canine Pokémon that reminded me of a Saint Bernard.

"Hold a moment," said the dog, "Stoutland, head of security."

"Is there a problem officer?" I asked.

Stoutland chuckled at my comment.

"Officer, how quaint," said Stoutland, "I just need to check your names to see if you're on the list of undesirables. Names?"

"Fluffi."

Stoutland checked the list he was carrying.

"Okay, you check out. Name?"

"Tom Ado," I said.

Unamused, Stoutland asked for my name again.

"Drake."

"Okay, you check out as well. Go on in."

We continued on inside and after about five minutes of wandering around aimlessly, we finally found the registration desk for exploration teams. Two small Pokémon, just about Fluffi's size, were behind the desk, arguing among themselves.

"-took my Oran Berry list night at dinner too didn't you?"

"This again? I keep telling you that it was Dragonair that done that, not me. I seen her!"

"It's your word against her's, who do you think I'm going to believe?"

"Uh, your own brother's, of course!"

"Uh huh. You blame her for everything!"

"She has it out for me! I don't know why, but sparking an argument between us is entertaining for her!"

"Last week you were saying that she wanted your job, now she's just doing it for the fun of it?"

"Both could be true! She's devious that way!"

"Um, excuse me?" Asked Fluffi.

"I'll deal with you and your paranoia later. We have visitors. I'm Minun, the cute one, the paranoid one over there is my brother Plusle."

"We run the Guild Registration desk here and unlike my sister there, I'm the good looking one."

"Please," said Minun, "I'm not the one who got the Ugly McCreeperson nickname in high school."

"That is exactly why I hated jocks," said Plusle.

"And you're the reason they hated nerds," said Minun.

"Oh you are so-!" Began Plusle.

"Shut up both of you!" I shouted, "can you two put aside your petty squabbles to do your duty for once!?"

"Heh, you said 'duty'," said Plusle.

Minun slapped him in the back of the head to shut him up.

"Anyway..." Said Fluffi, "we'd like to form a team.

"Okay, you've got paperwork to do," said Minun, "All we need is your names, your team's name and if you want this guild to train you to be a top-shelf team."

Fluffi and I talked over our decision as to whether or not to go for training before finally agreeing to go for it. Minun took the paperwork back and Plusle then led us to a staircase to the basement and informed us that we had to go down it and meet the guildmasters. We were met at the end of the stairs by a Pokémon in Stoutland's employ and were led to a closed door and we were told to go inside. Inside the room they found a green, leafy, lizard Pokémon and a white , graceful, human-like Pokémon with green hair. As they entered, the human-like Pokémon spoke.

"Please don't tell me that another one of the apprentices got incinerated, we have enough to deal with right now."

"Uh, no," Fluffi said, "We just formed a team and were told to come here."

"Does that scenario happen that often?" I asked

"Oh sorry, no it doesn't," said the human-like Pokémon, "this week has just been a frustrating one for me."

"I keep telling you not to jump to conclusions, Gardevoir," said the green Pokémon.

"I know, Sceptile, I just can't stand all the crap the guild had to go through, and Plusle

and Minun's constant bickering doesn't help either," said Gardevoir.

"Well, that just goes to show you how close they are," said Sceptile, "but I digress. I am

Sceptile. I am the Guildmaster here."

"And I am Gardevoir, assistant Guildmaster to Sceptile and the guild. What is your Team's name and your own names?"

"I am Fluffi, and this is Drake. We are Team Dragoon."

"Nice name," said Sceptile, "We'll see if it's a fitting one in the days to come."

"By the way," said Gardevoir, "Who's the leader of your team?"

"Our leader?" I asked.

"Yeah, every team has to have a leader," said Gardevoir.

"That would have to be-" I began.

"Drake," said Fluffi.

"Huh? But-" I started to protest.

Fluffi put her paw over my mouth and whispered, "we'll talk about this later."

"Okay," said Sceptile ignoring the scene that just took place, "Your training program goes like this: Tomorrow, the basics of being a team will be covered and you will be introduced to the members of the guild and your fellow apprentices after dinner, don't worry, Gardevoir will wake you up. Then for the rest of the week, you will be freelancing your jobs, helping wherever you can. Next week, though, you'll be assigned jobs to do."

"And today?" Fluffi asked, removing her paw from my mouth.

"It's too late to do anything today," answered Gardevoir, "So I'll be showing you to your room so you can get some shut eye."

"Morning starts early around here," said Sceptile.

Gardevoir shown us to our room and we turned in early that night. I had no clue how tired I was from crashing into that beach earlier that day. I basically laid on my bed and was out like a light. I slept a peaceful, dreamless sleep that night.