"Just like two seconds ago, I was a human! I exclaimed I swear!" I looked at my newly acquired otter arms, with their orange fur and the little blue fins on my elbows.

Chimchar craned her head around to get a better look at me, "Maybe, but no matter how much I look at you, I see a regular Buizel."

Her intense staring makes me a little self-conscious, but I shrugged it off.

"So," She asked me, "Where did you come from? I haven't seen you around here."

I confidently opened my mouth to respond, but then stopped. I didn't really know where I came from.

I desperately grappled for my memories of my friends and my family, but their faces were getting fainter and fainter.

"I… I don't know."

"So you've had amnesia? Did you hit your head?"

"No! Of course not!" I pressed my paws to my temples, "I don't know! Maybe I did, but I don't think so."

The Chimchar looked at me like I had just switched to speaking Japanese. She was about to say something, but suddenly, a rustling noise came from the bushes.

"Who's there?" I yelped in a not so brave way, "Come out!"

The Chimchar suddenly cried out in pain, and rocketed forward, crashing straight into me.

She scrambled up, "Who did-," Her words faltered. Standing in front of her were two poison type pokemon, which I recognized as a Seviper and a Toxicroak.

"I guess we'll be taking that!" The Toxicroak smoothly bent down and grabbed a small, jagged gemstone.

"H-h-hey! That's mine! Give it back!" She tentatively held out her hand expectantly.

"Or what?" The Seviper sneered, "You'll knock us out?"

"Um…"

"Wow! I knew you were a coward, but I never thought you would be this hopeless!" The Toxicroak laughed, and ran off toward a small cave next to the beach, Seviper following close behind.

"My Relic Gemstone… they stole it…" She looked close to tears, but she hid it pretty well.

"We'll get it back," I said confidently. Even though I had some amnesia, I remembered some things. Like, bullies are not cool, and brussel sprouts taste horrible. Whatever those were.

Chimchar just stared at me as if I had just grown a large hairy wart on my head, "But… aren't you scared?"

"Nah," I replied casually, "I have a feeling I've stood up to bullies a lot in my past."

"Oh yeah!" She points at me, "I forgot to ask you your name!"

I thought about it, my name was...

"River, my name is River."

She grinned, "Well, I'm Ember, pleased to meet you."

We plunged into the cave.

When you say cave, you think of dark passageways and stalactites hanging from the ceiling, not a hollow stone maze. This place looked like an old tortoise shell that had been abandoned a zillion years ago, and pokemon decided to make their home in it. There were plenty of holes in the ceiling of the "cave" so finding your way around wasn't hard either. What also made things easier were the bullies stupidity. The floor was made out of soft silky sand, so you could clearly see where they were going. Apparently, they had addressed the problem, and tried to cover it up, but only succeeded in making marks in the sand that looked like someone was trying to catch a mouse covered in grease.

Several Pokemon looked at us strangely, as if visitors at this place was rare, but I didn't care. After wandering around in the dusty "cave" for a while, the tracks led to an actual cave, leading down into an inky, black hole.

"Uh, is it a good idea to go down into there?" Ember tapped my shoulder, "Like, maybe we should just… you know."

I stared at her, "You mean not show those punks who's boss? Not get back that rock they stole, oh, um, what did they steal?"

Ember made a circle with her fingers, "My Relic Gemstone, at least that's what I call it. It doesn't look like much, just a ruby, but when you look at the top, it has a really interesting pattern on the top."

"What kind of pattern?" I asked, mystified, but she just shook her head.

"I can't describe it, but it's like a really mysterious pattern, and it looks as if It were made a long time ago." Her eyes shone with excitement, "Imagine what kind of secrets it could hold! It could be the key to a completely different area we haven't explored yet! Just think-"

She could have gone on for hours, but I interrupted.

"Uh... yeah, but even if it's the key to some unexplored place, it will never happen if we don't get it back from... uh, what are their names?

But Ember didn't seem to hear that last part, " Your right, River! I have to focus on getting it back first!" And with that, she ran forward, straight into the darkness.

"Wait! Aw geez..."

By the time I caught up to her, she was in a fierce battle with a Pokemon that looked a hermit crab with red piercing eyes.

She kept shooting embers at the creature, but it didn't seem to be doing much damage.

"Hey! Mr. Crab! Cut it out!" I said,

The Pokemon turned, and that just gave her enough time to get in close and punch the thing in the face. It hissed and fell to the ground and closed its eyes.

"Woah, did you just kill it?"

"No, it just fainted, thats all."

That didn't reassure me much but I didn't really have the time to think about it.

The cave was much darker than "Beach Cave" and finding where the bullies were was harder. Every sound echoed off the walls, making everything seem ten times louder, the Pokemon were more fierce, defending their little alcoves in the walls, but none of them attacked.

"Hey!" Ember cried, "Look! Light!"

She was right. There was a opening in the cave into a small pit, with ocean water lapping against the small sand beach. You could see the sun setting in the opening casting a warm orangey glow against the pit walls. What ruined the view were two Pokemon, mumbling and growling while they crouched over something.

"Hey!" I yelled, they turned and a look of absolute shock washed into their faces. "Give back Ember's Relic Gemstone! Its really important to her! Or, or I'll teach you a lesson!"

"Oh!" the frog like Pokemon said, "How rude of you to barge in and yell at us. And speaking of rude, I forgot to introduce myself. I'am Toxic.

"And I'm Jaws." the snake hissed. "Pleased to bite you."

I charged.

I realized several things as I charged the bullies,

One, I didn't know how to fight

Two, What I was doing might get my face punched inside out.

Three, I was going to get my face punched inside out.

The Toxicroak grinned, "Ahh, so this is a brave one! Well, bravery won't get you anywhere this time!"

He raised his hand, and the needle sharp red bone glowed purple with poison. He thrust his fist toward me, and I ducked, and threw sand in his eyes. Simple, not a real move, but still effective.

"Arg!" He stumbled, clutching his eyes and fell backward into the water.

Jaws came after me. His tail soaked in venom. I was out of balance, so there was no way I could dodge. I didn't need to. Ember rushed forward and intercepted the blow with her fist, punching upward, shielding me from harm. Things were actually looking pretty good, when suddenly, Toxic flew out from nowhere and slammed into Ember.

"You can turn invisible? No fair!" I said under my breath.

I charged Toxic and punched him in the gut, then kicked him in the face as hard as I could.

He fell backwards flat on his back, but he was no where near down.

He sprang up like a frog (but I guess since he actually was a frog, then that was kind of obvious), and charged at me. He put me in a headlock, with my face, right in his armpit.

"You think your so powerful, Hah!" He pointed his razor sharp hand to my throat.

My arms were pinned down, my legs were flailing around in the air, like wheat in a hurricane. Obviously sand wasn't going to save me this time.

I looked down into Toxic's slimey armpit, which trust me, isn't something you want to look at.

Then I got an idea.

I could feel Toxic's cold finger touching my neck now, the poison slowly burning away at my fur. I didn't have much time, so I quickly kicked my plan into action. I took a deep breath, and blew as hard as I could.

"Gah!" Toxic sprung up into the air, releasing his grip around my neck. I fell backwards on my back exhausted by the effort. I felt like someone had just drained all of the water from my body.

"Thats strange, all I did was blow into Toxic's armpit, nothing special right?" Then I realized why. Toxic was sopping wet, from his disgusting armpit, to his glowering frog face, which was not much better.

I felt sick. Did I just barf onto Toxic's armpit? Gross.

I didn't have much time to think about it because Toxic charged, I got ready to dodge his attack, but then he vanished into shadow, leaving nothing behind.

I whirled around but it was too late, he crashed into me with full force and knocked me to the ground.

"Hey!" Someone yelled from the other side of the clearing, "Hey STUPID!" I realized it was Ember, trying to pry Toxic's attention from me.

I heard the unmistakable sound of a fist uppercutting into something.

Crack.

"AUGHHH!" Toxic flew backwards, and landed splat on top of me, knocking the wind out of me.

I pushed his slimey body off of mine and tried to ignore the slime that was now plastering my fur, it felt like I had just dipped into a cold pool.

Meanwhile, Ember wasn't so lucky with Jaws, everytime she tried to get in close, his snapping teeth would bite at her, but if she dodged, his tail would swing back around and hit her.

Suddenly, Jaws got a lucky hit with his Poison Tail. Ember flew across the Pit and slammed into the wall.

"No!" I cried, but I was too far away to help, I felt my body lighten as I charged Jaws, right before Jaws was about to finish Ember I slammed into the snake, making him crash into the wall and drop to the ground, unconscious.

"Hah… Hah… We did it, Ember panted, "We did it…"

I was breathing hard to, after using that attack, I felt worn out, as if were wearing a fifty pound metal jacket.

"W-wheres your Relic Fragment? Let's grab it and get out quick before those brutes get up again." I said, breathing hard.

She stumbled up to Toxic, who was still holding the piece of stone, and held it up triumphantly, "I got it!"

I got up and brushed off my fur, "You mean, WE got it."

She grinned at me but then she winced and fell down and felt her back where she had smashed into the wall.

"Your hurt, lets get out of here so we can check that out at the hospital." I said,

She got shakily back up to her feet, "You always say the strangest things, what is a hospital?"

"Its a place to get wounds treated, come on! There has to be one!"