CHAPTER 1: Ablaze

The small vulpix woke up alone in a gloomy forest covered by a fog so absolute that the time of day was indecipherable. To her side there lay what appeared upon first glance to be a pool, but when inspected turned out to be a drop downwards, the mist gathering below was dense enough to create the illusion of water. She peered over before stumbling away from the overhang, shocked.

Where was she? More importantly, how did she get there? The fox desperately tried to remember something, anything, and amidst random knowledge about pokémon which did nothing to place or define her one concrete fact floated to the surface in her mind. The vupix's name was Ashen and she was a human. The rest remained a blur. And yet… she was not a human here. Somewhere in her mental archives her mind offered up that she was a vulpix, but this barely registered because her mind still felt as clouded as her misty surroundings.

A soft glow caught her eye, ahead in the mist, shifting shadows in the half-light. Ashen approached it cautiously, treating the carpet of rotting leaves almost with reverence in the way she delicately picked her way across it. The small fox found it strangely easy walking on four legs and had already developed elegance in her gait, although her hesitation marred this slightly. Before long there was a wall of light looming through the fog, projecting a clinical whiteness outwards, and at the centre lay an aquamarine metallic object.

It was familiar, somehow. In this world so alien to Ashen, of which she knew nothing, this held some unspeakable mental connection with whatever her past had been. It filled her with wonder and hope which seemed to stem from some supressed memory she could not access, although the very mystery of the feeling left her with tainting unease. She took a step forwards, cautiously, to the glowing centre, to try and touch it somehow…

Something heavy thudded into the small of her back and she turned around, alarmed and fearful. There was a hostile small purple rat behind her. Rattata, she acknowledged. More information seemed to spread from there: evolves into raticate, often hostile, attacks in mobs. She attempted to scan the undergrowth around the Rattata to see if it was accompanied when it hit her again, this time not leaving a bruise, but instead biting hard into her right foreleg.

She screamed and jumped back, adrenalin rushing through her. Unsure of how to fight she braced herself and attempted a menacing growl which turned out to be more of a pathetic whine. The rattata rushed at her again, and she saw another appear in the background. Ashen fled.

Its snapping teeth only just missed the fire fox's back leg and she knew they would hit their target next time. On three legs she was unbalanced and awkward, even worse unable to see where she was going in this infernal fog. In was only a matter of time before the vulpix fell down somewhere and then she would be easy prey. Ashen's heart beat in a frenzy, painfully within her chest, her panic rising and the instinct to survive stronger than ever before.

She turned out her head only to see a rattata in mid-air about to strike. Her mouth opened in a scream of terror, and out with it burst a massive fireball. It struck the rat and blew it backwards until it disappeared into the fog and she heard an ominous thud. She noticed a few other silhouettes retreating, scared off by her fire. Ashen had produced that, she realized, and that was when the fact that she was a vulpix sunk in. She sat down with a start, overcome by fatigue, injury and shock, and rested.

Her eyes drifted closed as she lay there, exposed on the forest floor but shrouded by the fog.


When Ashen awoke fire was all around her. She stood up with a start, putting a painful amount of pressure on her foreleg before she remembered to lift it. The bite still hurt. She could see flames glowing through the dark smoke, flickering and revealing nothing about their distance from her in their brightness due to the density of the smoke. Whether the fog remained or not she could not tell, but perhaps it was contributing to her mysterious surroundings.

The vulpix looked around, her eyes wild. Which direction was the fire burning in? It seemed to be everywhere, and in her dizzy and disoriented state she just seemed to be trapped in a whirlwind of fire on all sides. Ashen struggled to her feet, cast a terrified glance around, and then ran in a random direction. Before long she found herself running through flames, determined not to stop, and not fully registering the effect they had on her body.

In her state of mind the array of colours was dizzying. Pinks and even blues leapt up in the centre, surrounded by gold, brilliant orange, and crimson red. The world kept swirling around her; her viewpoint was constantly dynamic, shifting as she ran. Her injured foot sent a jolt of pain up her body when it snagged on a sickeningly soft bundle that had possibly been breathing previously… had she killed? It was more than just the rattata.

For someone whose mind was a clean slate she felt as though she had already done enough harm in the world in her few moments of consciousness.

The scale of the fire began to dawn on her as she fell over and began to gag, her body having nothing to throw up. This forest could be vaster than she could imagine, and who knew what sentient pokémon would get caught in the blaze? That fire that had come from within her… this fire…

Ashen sat down, glancing over her body, shocked to discover no burn marks. Of course, she realized, flash fire. I absorb the flames. Fire is part of me now. If anything it made her feel empowered, she was soaking up the strength of the fire. If not for her injury and inner turmoil she would have been at her most powerful. Then she stood up, tenderly this time, and limped along slowly. Despite the fact that the destruction around her, leaving logs charred and hollow, this was still not somewhere she wanted to be: it unsettled her. Eventually the smoky mist parted and she found herself at the shore of a lake. Within it she could see some pokémon seeking refuge in the water.

It was ironic that before Ashen would have also sheltered in the lake, but now it posed more of a threat to her than the inferno. She staggered into some bushes that would soon be ashes by the shore of the lake and let herself fall unconscious. Her last thought was that she hated being a pokémon, especially one which could cause such destruction.


When she awoke the vulpix was on a pile of oddly comfortable straw. That's a perk of being a vulpix, she thought bitterly, straw is comfortable now. Then the fox sat up with a start and looked at what she could see of herself again. Orange and furry.

With the drama of the previous day she had not fully come to terms with being a pokémon yet. Everything had just happened so quickly the former human hadn't had time to question being a pokémon, the fight to survive had been a priority. And yet now, in the light of day, unclouded by fog, it seemed even more surreal than it had in the dense forest. How could she change species? The little knowledge she retained had nothing about that in it and it seemed like an absurd idea. Anyone she told would just think she was delusional. And yet… she had to find out, somehow, because the glowing object in the forest had evoked some sense of meaning for her, a sense that she was meant to do something. Whatever it was, it nagged inside of her in the form of a small degree of anxiety, whatever it had been was terribly important. Maybe it would help redeem for the fire.

Her eyes rested on her right foreleg which had been bandaged. The injury hadn't been that serious, surely the burns of others would have used up the attention of her benefactor? She began to slowly look around, but she did not see the massive infirmary she had expected. It was not a house either, but some bare room that looked as though it was underground. Then a horrible thought struck her: what if this was some kind of prison? No, no one had been there to see her light the fire, she was safe, from that kind of retribution anyway.

Ashen began to get to her feet when a trapdoor she had not thought to look for swung open and golden light seeped through. The entrant looked holy in the glowing halo entering the basement with them, and bore a smile akin to one from any saint.

"You shouldn't get up to strain yourself," the male charmeleon chided, "you've done too much running on that leg already. It needs to rest."

"But…" Ashen began, but suddenly changed the course of the conversation when she realized it would be rude to reject this kindly pokémon's advice. "I mean, thank you so much for looking after me. I'm…" she briefly considered having an alias, then decided it would be futile. Maybe they'd have heard of her and be able to give her information, anyway. "Ashen."

"Flo," the charmeleon offered.

There was a brief silence between them. Ashen looked away, awkward and depressingly conscious that she did not know any social conventions. For all she knew she could be being incredibly rude.

"Uh," she tried, nervous, "uh… thank you again, but I don't want to be a burden."

"No, it's fine, little vulpix. I'm always glad to have visitors. Are you hungry?"

"I would… yes… I'd like some food if you have some to spare."

Wordlessly he left, closing the trap door that was out of her reach behind him. This entire situation was terrifying and although the charmeleon had not seemed predatory that was all she could think about: his intent. Maybe it said something about where she was from that she was so suspicious, but being trapped in someone's basement did not seem like a safe place. The fire-type rose to her feet with a small wobble.

Pacing was hard now her earlier adrenalin had dissipated. Now her walking was slow the bump in her gait was more pronounced and the pain in her leg was so bad she ended up doing a hop-like movement with every step. She could move, but there was no chance of outrunning her benefactor. If, she reminded herself, he did need to be outrun.

Part of her wanted to set the basement alight, despite her previous horrific encounter with fire, just to see some bright light. Another was sure she would never breathe fire again, how could she? Maybe if she never used it nothing like the forest would ever happen again. That reminded her, she should ask him about how bad the damage was. Maybe in that fog she ran in circles and it was only fifty meters at most, or it was a really tiny forest. Denial, Ashen thought, but she still kept speculating. Maybe they had all escaped the flames. It was possible.

The trapdoor opened again, with it the light, charmeleon and a plate of toasted berries.

"Here," he offered her the delicious food.

The vulpix took it with a nod and wavered slightly over whether to eat it straight away or to ask her questions before he disappeared.

"I see you stood up, against my advice."

"I had to see that I could. Uh, please could I go up? This basement is… depressing. I want to see the air." Suddenly, before she could stop herself, some of the questions she had been meaning to ask were blurted out, "Where am I? Why are no other burn victims here? How big was the fire?"

He laughed for a while before replying, "You can go upstairs in a second, I just had to check that you weren't going to be feral. You're in my house, a small shack by the lake. There are no other victims here because they all seemed feral and I didn't know who to trust, but I had never seen a vulpix around here before so I took you in. The fire was large, but there have and will be larger."

"The death toll?"

"Maybe fifty. Only a few that were sentient, though, most were mindless. I think the only thing the magnezone will be concerned about is whether the perpetrator will do it again, and the loss of habitat. They'll send a squad to guard the Time Gear, it won't have been damaged in the fire."

"Time Gear..?"

She felt stupid. He looked at her with a mixture of surprise and newfound suspicion.

"They're blue and made of metal, and control time in a region..?"

"I… I'm not from around here. Do they glow? I think I saw one in the forest."

"Hm, you must be from very far away… but yes, they glow. They're normally hidden, this one by the fog, so the destruction of the forest is quite serious. No one would ever steal one, but feral pokémon might damage one or something. In all known cases that just results in a stop in time in the area…" he trailed off, seemingly getting more distantly removed into memory.

"Upstairs?" she asked gently.

"Oh yes, follow me," the charmeleon abruptly snapped out of his trance and walked up the rope ladder.

It was worn in places where small claws not unlike her own had seemingly worn it away over time. The rope was fraying, slightly, but she still managed to grip on in order to climb the short way up. However, once she had reached the top and lain down to rest her foot, she noticed that the house seemed odd for a charmeleon. The bed in the corner was surely too small; the space would normally accommodate a pokémon of her size. There was a suspicious amount of flammable material around, although the walls were stone.

Although she had never been in a fire-type's house it all seemed very suspicious. She didn't want to distrust her host, but she kept thinking that he must be a bandit who had stolen the house. Maybe where she had come from it was abnormal for a pokémon to take another in, because the entire thing felt alien and uncomfortable. Ashen sat down on the floor and ate the berries, determined to distract herself from these negative thoughts.

As she ate her leg wound's throb lessened, until by the time it was finished she could barely feel it. The vulpix looked down in surprise and found there only to be a scar. She knew, remembered, that oran berries had regenerative qualities, but she had never thought they could be this strong. Her leg flexed as powerfully as it had her first day of being a pokémon.

She looked up to thank him, but he was gone.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: This will be updated quite often, I'm excited about it. Before long we're going to find out all sorts of mysteries~! I have so many plot twists planned everyone will just be chasing in circles. This fanfic should be about ten chapters long, but could increase to fifteen. Please read and review!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pokémon