A/N: Sorry for the late update, this chapter has not been beta-ed but I'll upload the beta-ed version when it's been done. Enjoy:
Aimée
Chapter One
Le réveil
Whispers, wistful and whistling, wisped silently about her head. Sounds waded wantonly through her mind. Her ears fluttered, twitched and recoiled at the onslaught of sound that invaded the space between them. They made no sense, the words, despite them being of a language she understood wholeheartedly. Nothing made sense as her brain sought to wake her from the sleeping depths of unconsciousness, away from the state of fear she had all too soon forgotten.
"Are you okay?"
There was a taste in her mouth of something distant and forgotten. It tasted of metal and the heavy pang of it sat uncomfortably on her tongue, which, for its ignorance, tried to rid itself of the pungent horror. Her eyes dared to open but were stuck shut by something she couldn't identify. Raising her limbs, she rubbed at them and eventually opened them to a bright, blurry environment she couldn't understand. Her eyes slam shut in their confusion and began to unleash salty droplets on her face.
"Oh no, don't cry, child! It's okay, you're in safe hands."
Rolling over slightly and craning her neck, she forced herself to a sitting position, though she found herself unable to maintain the position unless her arms were out to balance her. Her head lolled from side to side as she was unable to maintain the weight of it and so her eyes remained shut, so as to not confuse her even more. Her ability to smell had returned and the unforgettable scent of clinical cleanliness entered her nose, forcing a sneeze. Somehow, the scent seemed more acute than it ever had before.
"That's better, now, come on, get those little eyes open!"
The words were beginning to make sense now, they were becoming clear and were understood. Though, she immediately noticed how patronising she was finding the experience and this angered her slightly. She opened her eyes and squinted, surprised by an unusual vibrancy of colour and perfection of vision that she had never been able to see before. A feeling of surprise and pure happiness dawned on her as it finally clicked in her brain that she could see. She could see, without the glasses, without contact lenses. It was beautiful.
"Well, you certainly look happier!"
Frowning slightly, she turned to face the source of the voice and nearly leapt out of the bed. It was a chansey. Fair enough, they weren't exactly common pokémon, but that wasn't what surprised her. It was the size of the thing that made her, for want of the world, jump out of her skin. It was, as her mind accurately described, friggin' huge! The circular pink shape almost engulfed her field of vision as she turned to face it and there were several odd things about it, other than its enormous size and the fact that it was talking to her so informally; it wasn't a chansey she knew well enough to call her 'little'.
It looked, for the most part, as one might expect a chansey to look. It was a perfectly ovular shape with two little, for lack of a better word, flaps acting as arms. Upon either side of its head were three small pink strands that stuck out as though imitating hair. Its mouth was small and sat directly beneath, in a genuine smile, two brightly glistening blue eyes that practically bled compassion. However, within the small pouch in which an egg should have sat, a small black crystal, that glistened darkly, was seated.
"I'll be back in a moment, please excuse me."
With that, the abnormally large chansey left the room. Frowning slightly, and with a finally clear head, she decided to get out of the bed and explore. She was surprised, firstly to find that the bed was not in fact a bed. It was an oddly comfy collaboration of straw and moss, coated by a single white sheet. This bed sat upon a wooden floor whose formation was mirrored by the ceiling above and by the walls that had been painted over with a thin layer of white paint that had begun to flake off in several places.
Directly opposite the bed was a large empty space that led gave a great spanning view of the surrounding area. From it crisp, fresh air entered the room with energy so vibrant that it made her want to hop, skip and jump around the place. The room was little bigger than the average ten feet by seven feet by ten feet. Directly left of the bed was a blanket upon which many surgical instruments and berries sat. Most of them, she was unable to identify. Whilst the room was oddly natural, it somehow retained a sharply sickening clinical scent that persistently invaded her nose.
To the far right hand corner of the room sat a mirror. It was this very object that had attracted her attention. Warily, as though sensing it would give an unfamiliar image, she approached the mirror as, from the angle she sat, she was unable to see her reflection. It was as she moved towards it that her fear sharpened: for some reason she couldn't understand, she had to crawl as her legs simply couldn't support her body. That and, the ground felt strange under her hands.
Oh… she observed as she stared at her reflection, … Bugger.
Staring right back at her was an eevee. An eevee that was as strange as the chansey in its own right. Upon its… her head was an uncharacteristically large tuft of fluffy brown fur that fell over the majority of her forehead, as though attempting to imitate the fringe she knew should have been sitting over a human face. Similarly, the fur white mane that sat around her neck was far fluffier than could normally be expected. The shade of brown that made up her fur was, oddly, several shades darker and, in fact, resembled her natural human hair colour. Her eyes though had retained their glistening sky-blue beauty.
Okay, she told herself, So… I'm an eevee. Well, that's certainly not something that happens every day. In fact… what happened? I can't remember… Oh my God! I have a tail! EPIC!
As though captivated by this sudden revelation, she started wagging her tail from side to side as fast and frantically as she could, following its movements with her newly obtained twenty/twenty vision. Though, as she it began to dawn on her what she had become, a feeling of emptiness filled her heart. Something was missing and she couldn't comprehend, remember or understand what it could be. Something was irrevocably gone and it hurt her to think about it.
I had… I had… a… I had a bag! she exclaimed, A rucksack. So… I must have been doing something, going somewhere. It was definitely a heavy bag. But where was I? Was I with someone? Who… who was I? Damn, I can't even remember my own name!
Sulking, the tiny little eevee returned to her bed and curled up instinctively in a ball. Amused, the little creature observed to itself that being a typical Gemini had its distinct advantages when it came to adaptability and getting used to things. She placed her head on her han… paws and sighed. She had so many questions and no answers, no way of getting answers. Frowning with a noticeably frustrated expression, she unconsciously started twitching her tail, signifying her further her anger in the face of the unknown.
"She's okay?" cried an already annoying voice loudly, "Thank Arceus for that!"
Arceus? The name was familiar to her. As though she'd heard it before, read it before. Something in her mind was trying to tell her something about that word, it was important, relevant but it faded as soon as it appeared. Her main concern was the situation she was in. She could work out the details later on when she had at least some grasp on the situation.
The tiny entrant to the room was in fact a piplup. A small blue ball who was barely four inches taller than herself. It carried a necklace from which a familiar black obsidian hung. The piplup had bright green eyes that sparkled excitedly and contained within an egotistical and self-righteous sense of over-confidence. The piplup waddled over with a movement that almost resembled skipping. It seemed curious, far more curious than the eevee could ever have wanted it to be.
"Hello!" shouted the tiny piplup, whose voice, despite its tiny size, rivalled that of the largest pokémon, "I saved you! How are you? What's your name? Nurse Chance tells me you've been out of it for quite a while. You feelin' okay? My name's Ice."
Ice, the tiny male piplup, was about to continue his lecture but a hand on his shoulder stopped him as his mouth began to open once more. Nurse Chance had a slightly annoyed expression on her face. She seemed to find his lightning-speed sentences annoying and she certainly carried the face of a nurse frustrated with her patient's treatment being interrupted. The eevee smiled, contented that, at least for a while the words had been silenced.
"Let her speak, Ice," commanded Nurse Chance assertively, "How are you feeling, child?"
Sitting up, the eevee placed a paw on its head and rubbed its unnatural fringe vigorously. Frowning, it sighed loudly before looking back up and meeting the eyes of her two new companions. She knew she had been a human, that she was a human, but, perhaps, that information was better kept to herself. At least until she knew what was going on. Assertively deciding to keep her true identity a secret, she formulated a thick web of lies in her mind. At the centre of which, her real name hid behind a thick veil of darkness.
"Okay," she began, "I suppose."
"Have you got any pain anywhere?" asked Nurse Chance, "Any discomfort?"
"I'm a bit sore," she explained, mentally acknowledging that it was a mental lie for her trying to get used to her new and unfamiliar body, "But otherwise, no. A slight headache but nothing serious."
"That's good news!" exclaimed Nurse Chance with a deep sigh or relief, "I'll be back in a minute, I'm going to fetch the Doctor."
Nurse Chance walked out of the room awkwardly, and her movement resembled that of waddling more than walking. Her exit left the eevee alone in the room with the piplup named Ice who had already demonstrated an extraordinary ability to annoy and frustrate everyone he met. The eevee sighed and walked over to look at herself in the mirror. The sadness in her eyes was as clear as day when looking at her reflection. Something was missing. She knew it.
"What'cha doin'?" asked Ice who had waddled over to her side, beaming with a curiousness and nosiness that made her feel extremely awkward and, to an extent, exposed, "Bit vain isn't it? Looking at yourself in the mirror?"
"Look," she snapped irritably, "I'm not in the mood."
"Jeez," retorted Ice, clearly annoyed at her reaction, "What's your name anyway?"
The eevee frowned. It was well and truly obscured by the thick veil of darkness that blotted out every tiny piece of information she knew she needed. Her name was hidden from her. With it, whatever she was missing also hid. Frustration tore at her heart with ferocious force. Why couldn't she remember? She knew she was a human but everything else was a mystery, and all of the clues were being kept away from her grasp. Sighing, she made up a name.
"Just call me Tid," she stated, "It's my nickname."
She turned away from the mirror. Her lonesome blue eyes stared into the wandering green eyes of Ice, who seemed to be reading the floor as though it contained hidden mysteries only he could understand. He looked up suddenly, oblivious to the pain in her eyes, his emerald orbs alight with wonderful and sparkling things. An evident smile decorated his yellow beak as he opened it to unleash his all-knowing and incredible ideas.
"Tiddles sounds better," declared Ice, "I'll call you Tiddles!"
"No, that's just patronising," snapped Tid, rapidly losing patience, "Call me Tid, like I asked you to."
"Nah," said Ice, waving the notion away with his wing, "Tiddles sounds better."
Ice, who had waddled two metres away, had begun to lecture Tid on the pleasing aesthetic sound of Tiddles over her own, chosen name. She found it to be an impressive display of egocentricity that was almost sickening. Though, she noticed with a sense of satisfaction, when he was delivering these stunning speeches of world-importance, he had his back turned to her. This gave her the perfect opportunity to vocally bitch about him without him realising.
"You sicken me," Tid stated as cheerfully as she could manage, "So much so that I actually feel nauseous."
To her surprise, the piplup turned around with a curious frown staining his forehead. He paused mid-rant to asked her what it was she had said. Thankfully, Nurse Chance chose to re-enter the room at that point with a slowbro accompanying her. He also wore around his neck the same crystal that Ice and Nurse Chance wore. Around his neck was a stethoscope, though she found this strange, she was able to shrug it off as her mind immediately distracter her with his height.
Compared to her, he was huge. He was at least four feet taller than herself and he seemed to loom over her like a vast and terrible tyrant. She felt small and weak in his presence. She wanted to curl up into a ball or run away, anything to avoid seeing him. To her surprise, he seemed to notice the fear that diseased her sea blue eyes and he knelt down. With this movement, his height was slice in half and he suddenly seemed a lot less threatening.
There was a genuine, heartfelt kindness in his eyes that she had seen before. She couldn't remember where from or to whom those eyes had belonged, but she remembered the same brown orbs sparkling back at her. He reached out a hand, or paw, and placed it on her head. Which, although seemed patronising, was actually surprisingly reassuring for Tid. She found herself relaxing and she found the slowbro's presence many times less scary than before.
"My name is Doctor Slomo," he began, his voice droned but was sufficiently high-pitched so as to not be boring enough to plunge listeners into sleep, "But everyone calls me 'Doc' or just, 'the Doctor'. May I ask what your name is?"
"Tid."
"Do you remember what you were doing?" asked Doc, "What happened before you passed out?"
"I was looking for something I'd lost," she replied, "And I didn't pass out. I was knocked out."
"Aimee? Aimee?" called Water loudly, "Shit. This isn't good."
Aimee's companion, a terrifically intelligent swampert, had gradually awoken from unconsciousness and had seen her trainer lying beside her. Leaning over her trainer's seemingly lifeless body, she listened carefully for breathing. When the blessed breaths echoed soundly within her ears, the swampert sighed with relief so intense that pokémon in the immediate area actually shuddered.
"Aimee?" she asked, when no response came, she began to talk to herself, "Okay. The sun can't have set too long ago, so the sailor will still be there. He promised to wait for us. I hope he's as good at keeping promises as you are."
The swampert looked back at her comatose companion. Her face seemed so innocent and peaceful despite the physical decimation her body had received. It made her cringe, the injuries. They were horrific and totally unjustifiable. The rib injuries alone were enough to cause concern but Aimee had taken a direct attack from a legendary. It was a miracle that she was still breathing.
Aimee's breathing was laboured and Water could sense that one of the ribs had punctured her left lung. That particular lung was a bloody, collapsed mess. Had the human been conscious, she would have been in terrible pain. For that, Water was thankful. A salty tear fell from Water's eyes as they examined the destruction the attack had caused.
In the centre of her chest, the black hoody and white t-shirt had been torn apart and the edges of the material still smouldered from the residual heat of the wound. A massive open, shallow wound sat in the direct centre of her chest. It was soaked in new blood that began to seep through and form on top of the stick red mess that had already coagulated on the injury. Aggravated red rashes of burning flesh sat around the wound, giving off the very heat that continued to damage the clothing surrounding the site.
Her face was coated with the thick black paint of soot, as were any exposed bits of previously vibrant pink skin. Around her mouth, frothy, bright blood sat, dribbling out from the side and forming a small pool that was soaked up by her discoloured hedge hair. Tiny cuts and grazes sat alongside the enormous injury but they had been there long before and were a result of the girl's own clumsiness and inability to keep her glasses on.
"Okay," asserted Water, realising that Aimee's survival relied entirely on her speed, "I'm going to carry you to the dock, Aimee. Then we're going to get back to mainland. Then I'm going to get you to a hospital. They'll fix you up and we'll be back to normal in no time at all. You'll see. There won't even be a scar!"
Despite the apparent cheerfulness and optimism in Water's voice, tears had begun to pour profusely down her face as she picked up the weightless body of her trainer. Placing all of the strength she could muster into her legs, Water hiked with difficulty up the side of the grass-coated mountain which stood between her and the dock. Carrying Aimee used up large amounts of energy and effort as her entire focus was placed on making sure that Aimee's dangling arms did not hit any stray rocks.
Eyes blurred by salty tears, Water strove forwards.
