Well, nothing much to say. Just what I say for all my other fics: Read and review, cos I'm a review addict.
And if you have no time to review properly (but you strongly encouraged to do so), just put something like
NICE!
or
THIS SUCKS!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some instant noodles to eat.
Chapter 1: The awakening
Darkness.
Darkness all around me, wrapping me in it like a suffocating blanket.
A feeling… something important. Something I needed to do so urgently… what is it? I can't… remember…
Yes. A thing so urgent that I just had to accomplish it, even if the cost of doing so was sacrificing my life… but what was it? Can't… fading…
"Miss? Miss, are you alright?"
Slowly, I regained my senses. I felt something soft beneath me, like fine, loose sand. I heard the cries of wingull and the echo of waves. As my eyelids fluttered open, I blinked to accustom myself to the light. As I gradually awoke to the world around me, I realized that a person was leaning over me, wearing a concerned expression.
No. Not a person.
It was a pokemon. A charmander, wearing a flower with red petals on the side of its head at a jaunty angle. Don't ask me how the flower managed to stick on the charmander's head, I'm not too sure myself. It just did. As I groggily sat up, the charmander brightened, a beaming smile on its face.
"Good! You're awake. I can tell you, I was pretty terrified to find someone lying here unconscious on the beach. I was taking my daily stroll here, and there you were lying in the middle of the sand. So I rushed over quick as anything and that's when you decided to wake up. I'm Petal." it ended abruptly, extending its paw to me. Before I even got a chance to shake hands (shake paw, whatever) Petal continued talking, steaming on so fast that she tripped over her words.
"I must say, it's a pleasure to meet you. You're not local-" here she looked me up and down "-are you? I mean, we don't see any mudkip in these parts."
Huh? But-wait a second-
"You talk!" I shrieked.
"Course I talk. We're both pokemon." Petal replied, arching an eyebrow.
"What? I think you need your eyes checked. Take a good look at me, fuzzball. Do I look like a pokemon to you?"
Petal arched her eyebrow a bit more. "Uh, I see a perfectly normal mudkip standing in front of me. And last I checked, mudkip are pokemon."
"Huh? But-"
I ended abruptly as I glanced down at myself. Instead of two human hands, I was looking at two blue, stumpy paws. I waggled the flipper-like thing at the top of my head. My stomach was a vivid orange. And when I shifted myself in such a way that I could get a look at my body, I saw an orange tail which flapped about in the breeze. I blinked.
"AAAH! What am I?" I yelled, running around on all fours in circles. When I bounded to the shoreline to check my reflection, I freaked out even more. If I had any hair, I'd be tearing at it.
Meanwhile, Petal was desperately trying to calm me down. When I tore past her like an express train and accidentally screamed in her ear, she gave up and silenced me the good old fashioned way, by flinging a fireball. Surprisingly, it barely grazed my skin and I hardly felt it.
Five minutes later, she got my story.
"What!" You're human?"
I nodded miserably.
"But how did you-?"
"I don't know." I replied despondently.
The charmander cocked her head in thought, eyebrows knitted, obviously pondering over this matter.
"Tell you what, you'd better follow me. I know just the place where you might find out more of this phenomenon."
We left the beach, and Petal directed us to a steep hill. Luckily, there were stairs cut into the hillside which made it easier to climb. But my stupid tail kept tripping me up. I couldn't control it, and it just had to keep whacking against my sides. By the time I ascended the hill, my behind no longer looked like a mudkip's butt but resembled a large ripe tomato.
"Look here, tail, if you don't stop with the slapping I'm gonna cut you off and turn you into mince meat." I growled at it. Almost instantaneously, the beating subsided. Hm, very effective.
I finally got a good look at where I was. I was gazing up at a huge building of sorts, except that this building was designed in the shape of a wigglytuff's head over a huge yellow tent. There was a huge metal grate of sorts covering a dark hole at the entrance of the structure. I read the sign on the building, 'Wigglytuff's Guild'. Funny, I didn't know pokemon have architects. "So, what's so special about-"
Without warning, Petal (who was standing next to me) clapped a paw over my mouth, and I gave a muffled noise of surprise, fighting to get the paw off. Damn, the claws on it were sharp. Petal dragged us to a nearby bush and crouched behind it, peeking out. When I had freed myself, I was tempted to yell at the critter for sticking her claws in my face, until I saw what the charmander's gaze was fixed on.
Two shady characters were floating a little way away from us, in the shadows. I said floating, because they were a zubat and a koffing. Their kind is always suspended in the air. They were talking in hushed voices, and a kind of rock was perched on the koffing's head. But technically, it's all head. "We've got the stone. Now let's go before that charmander comes back." whispered the zubat. "Aw, you sure you don't wanna mug something from the guild? I've heard they have good stuff lying around." mumbled the other in a husky voice. "No. We go. We are losing daylight." insisted the zubat, flying away. The koffing was about to concede and float after its companion, when a new voice appeared not far away from the bush.
"Nobody gets away with stealing my stone!" yelled a female's voice. I turned my head accordingly. And oh my dear sweet lord, it was Petal. Of course, I had to assist her in dealing with these thugs, so I jumped out of the bush as well.
"And who's going to stop me? A pretty little pokemon with flowers?" the koffing taunted. "If you want your stone back, you're going to have to catch me first!"
It turned tail, and the two of them disappeared down the hill. "No! We have to get that stone!" yelled Petal, giving chase. "All this fuss… for a stone?" I thought incredulously, but shrugged my shoulders (which wasn't easy, being a mudkip and all) and padded after her. As I sprinted after the thieves, it suddenly came over me that I was running on all four paws. Weird, I thought. I tried to stand the way I usually did, on two legs, but I kept falling over. "I hate being a mudkip." I muttered, then continued the chase. By now, Petal was a black dot in the distance, yelling obscenities.
When I had finally caught up with Petal, we were back at the beach. The thieves were floating before a gaping mouth of a cave, backs to the darkness. Petal was panting heavily, and demanding for her stone. (I could not for the life of me see why the stone was so important.)
"If you really have the guts, you'll journey to the depths of this cave and challenge us to a duel. But of course, you're too weak to even survive one floor." sneered the zubat before the two of them plunged into the cave together.
"No!" cried Petal, but they were already out of sight. I patted her shoulder reassuringly, not sure what else to do. She looked up at me with tearful eyes. "My stone… what am I gonna do?" she sniffed. Then a glimmer of hope came into her eyes. "I can't fight them alone, but I'd get a shot of taking them down if we face them together. Whaddya say? Please?" Petal closed her eyes, and when they opened again, they were round, shining, dewy and ever so slightly tear-bedimmed. She even had the puppy dog pout to complete her pitiful expression. I sighed.
"Fine, we'll get them together." I told her.
"Thanks, uh… by the way, I never really got your name." she said apologetically.
"It's okay. I'm Charlotte."
Together, we plunged into the eery darkness of the chasm, listening to various sounds of savage wild pokemon, closing in on us with menacing sneers.
"We are gonna die." I sighed.