Chapter 2: The Best Birthday Ever

"…How big IS this base, anyway?" I asked, dumbstruck.

"Mmm…it comprises the entire underground area of Long Island, certainly enough to allow more Pokéumans to come in for another few decades or so." Darren then cleared his throat and tapped me on the shoulder. "This way."

"Is it okay if I'm in PJs?" I asked, worried.

He chuckled. "Amy, this is Pokémon. Does it look like it would matter?"

Apparently, it didn't. I followed the Golurk down several more halls, passing various Pokémon with notebooks and pencils, almost as if they were at school. Darren waved and said hi to lots of them. It looked like he was popular here, or at least very well known.

"Yo, Darren!" greeted one I could finally recognize. He was a Dragonite. "Is that your…?"

"Rescue Number 301. Honorary Elite." Darren gestured to me proudly. I remembered that I heard him say something about that before…

"Whoa, good job, man! Gotta get going. See ya!" The Dragonite hurried along.

"Believe it or not, there's a lot more of them in the daytime. Most of them are already asleep. These guys are allowed to take night classes. Most of them have Insomnia," explained Darren.

By this time, we went down a giant staircase and got as far as what he explained was the main hall. He led me to a door that made me just stand there in place. The door was decorated with a stain glass picture of a whole lot of Pokémon, many of whom I didn't recognize at all. "Amyyyy…" Darren waved a giant blue metal hand in front of my face, making me jump. "You there?" He then gestured to the golden doorknobs in the shape of Poké Balls.

"Aww, man…" I complained.

He laughed. "Don't worry! You'll have as much time as you want to look at them later. For now, I'll have to introduce you to the headmistress."

He knocked on the door and announced, "Ma'am? It's Darren. I brought someone." To my surprise, the doors swung open by themselves despite having doorknobs.

"Please come in. Both of you," said a soft, soothing voice.

We did so and entered an office-like rooms made of crystal, like all the walls of the base. It had a main desk, a tank of water behind it, a few velvet chairs in front of the desk, and a few other random things. Sitting behind the desk was a long, slender, beautiful fish-lady (I later learned she was a Milotic) with a pair of robotic arms attached to a ring around…well, where a pair of arms would naturally be.

"Greetings. My name is Asula, and I am the headmistress of the Pokeumans' Long Island base. What's your name?" she asked.

"Amy?"

"Oh! Please, sit down in one of those chairs. Would you like anything to drink?"

I sat down in the velvet chair in the middle. "Just water, please."

As I took the cup Asula filled with water from a water cooler to my right, I noticed that Darren remained standing. I wasn't sure if it was because the chairs were too small or if he was used to standing up. As if he read my mind, Darren explained, "It's okay, Amy. It's actually easier for me to stand up."

"Allow me to explain everything," said Asula.

She used one of her robotic arms to press a button on her desk, and a flat TV screen of some sort descended from the ceiling in front of me. "I used to explain all this in person to those who've come before you, but repetition gets tiresome after a while. I hope you'll understand."

Darren dimmed the lights in the room as the TV turned on and started playing the video.

Apparently, Pokémon existed after the dinosaurs but before humans. Problem was, the humans tried to enslave them or something, and there was a war, and they couldn't stand it anymore, so all the Pokémon left for an alternate dimension and erased ALL traces of their existence, from their fossils to the humans' memories, leaving nothing behind. It would have remained that way if it wasn't for an event 100 years ago. Some mad scientist named Mr. X had managed to find a trace of Mew's DNA in South America and tried to bring it to life, but failed miserably, causing an explosion that scattered some sort of invisible cloud all over the world. The cloud started turning certain people into Pokémon, and since it was Mew's DNA, they could turn into absolutely any Pokémon (except the Legendaries) at any time. It was completely random. Mr. X, who was turned into a Mewtwo, got ticked off and created an evil organization called Pokéxtinction. Its members would take ordinary jobs and be on the lookout for Pokéumans who were about to transform. As soon as one was spotted, they would kidnap the person, genetically fix them, and kill them. They would also alter the memories of anyone who happened to see the person transforming. As it turned out, Mew stayed behind and saw what was happening. He started the Pokéumans organization, comprised of thousands of bases all over the world, to rescue these people, give them a new life, and eventually, fight back against Pokéxtinction. In fact, one of the main reasons the entire Pokémon franchise was "invented" was to let people be aware of Pokémon so that they wouldn't be too freaked out if they started turning into one.

Actually, that explanation can't do proper justice to how I really felt. The visuals were filled with examples of all this happening, like a documentary and live newscast combined, all narrated by a voice recording of Asula. By the time the movie finished, I was shaking in horror.

Darren turned the lights back on as the TV screen retracted into the ceiling. Asula looked like she had fallen asleep, but perked up instantly. "So you see, that is the true state of our world," she concluded calmly.

"I don't get it…" I mumbled numbly. "Pokémon and people CAN'T get along? Like in the TV show, and the games, and…?"

"That is correct."

"What about my mom and dad? Aren't they going to notice that—?"

"Ah, yes. I forgot to mention. After they captured you, Pokéxtinction created a clone of you with all your memories to take your place. Your parents will, unfortunately, never notice the difference."

"A clone…of me…" I could hardly believe it. That clone would live out the rest of my—

"Wait, does that mean…?"

"I'm afraid so. You can never go back home, or else you'll risk being captured and killed again."

I hung my head as I tried to think about what this all meant. I just turned 10, and always imagined that I would become a Pokémon Trainer just like Ash Ketchum, but to turn into a real Pokémon? And have all this happen to me as a result? And I couldn't leave? This was huge!

"You appear to be turning into a Jigglypuff," said Asula.

I knew that, of course. "How long will it take?"

Darren spoke up for the first time in a while. Obviously, he was still standing. "About one week, just like for everyone else…except for Riolus and Lucarios, of course."

"Except for what and what?"

"Never mind…" he muttered.

Asula then picked up a thick book of some sort, as well as a sheet of paper, and handed it to me. Looked like her robotic arms stretched a long way. "What's this?" I asked.

"Reference information. In case you forget anything about Pokémon," she answered.

Darren added, "And since you've only played up to 2nd gen, this will teach you all you need to know about the 3rd, 4th, and 5th gens, including abilities, double battle, triple battles…Wow, you really missed out on a lot."

My jaw dropped. "TRIPLE battles?"

They both laughed.

After they calmed down, I finally asked, "So what happens to me now?"

Asula explained, "You will live here, just like Darren and everyone else who was rescued. You will take academic classes, gym class, battle class…but you also have many more options than those. When you think about it, it's almost like high school.

My jaw dropped again. "High school?" I shouted. "But I'm only in 4th grade!"

"As I said earlier, people can transform at many age, though it's mostly concentrated in the teenage years for some reason. I'm sure your classes won't be too difficult for you to keep up," Asula assured me. "Now, Darren, could you be a dear and take Amy to her room? It's the middle of the night, after all. We ALL need some sleep now."

"Yes ma'am!" He saluted. I stood up and followed him out the door.

In the hallways, Darren stole a quick peek at the slip of paper on top of the book I was carrying. "Apparently, you're in Room 301 with Eric the Sableye and Cole the Bayleef. Heh. 301."

I noticed. "Yeah, what's WITH all this 301 business?"

"Well, Amy, I'm a member of the Pokéuman Rescue Troop, or as we call it, the PRT. We're the ones who rescue people like you. There are loads of ranks, with the highest one being Honorary Elite, and in order to reach it, we have to complete over 300 missions. Once we complete our 301st mission—in my case, rescuing you—we attain that rank and are qualified to take ANY mission we want. Plus, we get loads of respect. Takes years to complete that many missions. For me, it was 5 years."

We walked along several corridors and soon came to a series of hallways with numbers on the doors, but it looked like 301 was a long way away, so I asked, "Darren, when did you notice yourself turning into…an Atlantis robot—"

"Golurk," he corrected me. "Like I said, I was hard at work on a robotics project for my high school's science fair. This one way was better than anything else I'd ever done, and would've looked awesome on my college applications. I'd completed the poster board and was presenting it to the judges when I noticed the back of my hands had these symbols on them. Then the judges gave the usual, 'You're one of them' line, knocked me out, and next thing I knew, I was strapped inside a truck when this Grovyle came in to bust me out. His name's Reggie, by the way. You might see him around."

It was really hard for me to follow. College applications? Grovyle? What? But I said, "Gotcha," just to be polite, and besides, at least I understood most of it.

"Well, we're here!" Darren gestured at the dark blue crystal door in front of me labeled 301. He opened the door to a room with all the lights out, but the light from the hallway allowed me to see that it was a room with two bunk beds, one to my left and one to my right. In the middle was a crystal table with a flat-screen TV and a computer. Beyond it, I could barely make out a writing desk of some sort, as well as some drawers behind the bunk beds. On the left bed was a Pokémon I recognized, a Bayleef. The one on the right was a purple guy with gemstones for eyes. They both looked older than me. They were asleep on the bottom bunks, and I placed my hands over my mouth before I could accidentally wake them up. But Darren had other ideas.

He turned on the light and announced, "Cole! Eric! Wake up. You have a new roommate."

They both did; in fact, the Bayleef nearly hit the roof of his bunk. "DARREN!" he shouted, all annoyed. "WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? WHAT ROOMMATE?"

The purple guy shouted, "My eyes! MY EYES!"

Darren strode over to the Bayleef and said, "The big idea is that I'll be Mr. Honorary Elite as soon as I get her in here, so show some respect, Cole."

The Bayleef, whose name was apparently Cole (which would make the other guy Eric) cleared his eyes and finally noticed me. "Oh! Sorry, kid. Welcome to Room 301. Name's Cole. What's your's?"

"Amy. Which bed should I take?"

"Oh, either one will do. But could you make it quick? Eric hates too much light, and frankly, I would rather not mess up my sleep, either, especially on a Friday night. Had a really cool dream for a moment there."

I looked back and forth at the two of them, and then figured that I knew the Bayleef better than the other guy, so I placed my book and paper on the table, climbed up the ladder, and plopped into bed, dragging the covers over myself. It was quite convenient that I was still wearing PJs. Darren was about to leave through the door when he said, "Oh yeah, Amy? Tomorrow's a Saturday. These guys can show you around, but when Monday comes, you've got classes."

"Classes?" I tried to look at the piece of paper with what looked like a schedule written on it, but Darren turned off the lights.

"And don't worry about being half-human. Like I said, you'll be 100% Jigglypuff by next week. See you around!" With that, he closed the door, leaving us all in complete darkness.

"Finally…" huffed the other guy—I mean, Eric. He fell asleep instantly.

Cole yawned, "You're gonna like it here, Amy…" and fell asleep too.

This was the first time I ever had roommates. I was an only child, and even if I had siblings, we would all have rooms to ourselves. I mean, my house had two extra rooms that we used for guests, so at first, I was worried about how I would get along with these guys. But then my eyelids grew heavy, and I was out like a light. Guess everything that happened tonight was enough to wear me out.

The next thing I knew, the lights turned on, shining right into my eyes and waking me up. "Uugh…what time is it?" I asked, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

Cole answered, "Oh hey, Amy. It's 8:55 in the morning. Why?"

"Oh my gosh! Medabots is almost on! Quick, how do I change the channel for Fox Kids?" I shouted, scrambling down the ladder.

Cole stared at me blankly. "Medabots? Fox Kids? What are you talking about?"

"It always comes on at 9:00 on Saturday mornings! Now how do I change the channel?"

By this time, Eric had already woken up. "Hey, Jigglypuff girl..."

"Her name's Amy," explained Cole.

"Amy. Did you say Fox Kids?"

"Yeah! Don't you know it?" I jumped up and down, squirming with impatience. We were going to miss the episode at this rate!

"Of course I do." He gave me an odd look. "That's what it used to be called, like, ten years ago. Now there's no more cartoons on that channel."

I froze in place. I couldn't believe my ears. "What...?"

"Look. I'll show you..."

He turned on the gigantic wide-screen plasma TV and used the remote to channel 5. There were no cartoons...but it was definitely the Fox network.

I couldn't speak. What was going on in here?

Cole looked at me in confusion. "You sure you're not from the past or something?"

I couldn't tell if he was joking or if he was serious. But I knew that I wanted an explanation for this as much as him. Why did Fox Kids drop off the air so suddenly like that? They clearly said that a new episode of Medabots would be on this morning.

"It's okay," said Eric. "You can always see the Pokémon cartoon, although personally, I can't stand it. Here..."

As he flipped the channels, I asked him, "What kind of Pokémon are you?"

"Huh? Oh, me? I'm a Sableye. You didn't know that?"

Everyone seemed to be saying that. Maybe this WAS the future or something.

"By the way, I always watch Dragonball Z on weekdays at 5. Just so you know," said Eric.

Then he got to the channel, which was Cartoon Network, to my surprise. Yes, it was Pokémon...but it was Pokémon Black and White. Ash had a completely new outfit, Misty and Brock were nowhere to be found, and they were replaced with new people named Iris and Cilan. In addition, every single Pokémon on the show besides Pikachu and Meowth were ones that were completely new to me.

After the show was over, Cole turned off the TV. "Amy? Sorry we couldn't introduce ourselves properly. Want us to show you around the base? It's really cool. You're gonna like it."

"Uh...sure." I suppose I could've watched cartoons all morning, but I was too confused. I figured that I really needed to study that huge book later.

In the hallways, about the same number of Pokémon were out and about as the number of ones last night. "By the way, a lot of these guys sleep in late on weekends," Cole explained.

He and Eric led me on a tour throughout the facility. It really was all made of crystal in various colors. It was so huge that I don't even think we got close to covering everything. There were rooms with arcade games and rooms where you could watch movies. There was a giant theatre that could hold hundreds if not thousands of Pokémon, the breakfast room (I finally got a chance to taste real Pecha Berries. I lost count of how many I ate because they were so good!), the classrooms, an art room, and even several "store" places where apparently, everything was free! Normally, I wasn't very much into fashion, but there was this one place run by a guy (who I learned was a Leavanny) who could make a giant red bow like in Super Smash Bros. to tie on the back of my hair. He said that I was lucky I could arrive at that time, because normally, his shop was crowded by girls trying to make him give them complete makeovers. (And take in his handsome good looks, at least according to him. I really can't testify if this is true or not, because all guys looked ordinary to me.)

Finally, we came back to Room 301. I was exhausted. I grabbed the book and the piece of paper, climbed up to my bed, and plopped them down.

"So what'd you think?" asked Cole.

"Everything was so cool! This place is AWESOME! Except…"

"Except what?" asked Eric.

"…Everyone's older than me." I mean, it was nice to see that so many people were Pokémon fans who didn't think Pokémon was just for elementary school kids like me, but…

They looked at each other. Eric asked, "Yeah, how old ARE you, anyway? Seven?"

"No, ten. I'm not that short!" I complained.

"Actually, Amy…you are," said Cole.

"What do you mean? I'm not…" Right then, I remembered how my PJs felt a little more baggy than usual all day. "Wait…" I quickly climbed down the ladder and stood up next to them. "How tall am I now?"

Cole narrowed his eyes. "About my height. 3 feet 11 inches."

Three feet, 11 inches! I gasped. "I'm shrinking!" After all, I used to be 4 feet, 3 inches the day my parents measured me for my birthday.

"Nah, you're just turning into a Jigglypuff, remember?" said Eric.

"Oh, right. I forgot." I remembered that Jigglypuffs were 1 foot 8 inches. Man, that was short, now that I thought about it. Just like Eric.

"It'll be okay. Don't worry! Both Eric and I had to deal with it. Well, maybe Eric more so…I mean, he was 15 when this happened to him…"

"I'm still 15, you know. I haven't been here that long!" he retorted.

So as it turned out, Eric was 15, and Cole was 17. For the rest of the day, they both tried to use the computer at the same time, while I read the book. I studied it as hard as I could, memorizing the names and appearances of the Pokémon of the next three generations. I also studied the concepts of Abilities, battle tactics, double battles, triple battles, and more. I was surprised to find that Darren, as a Golurk, was actually Ground/Ghost-type and not Steel/Psychic like I thought. Or Steel/Fire, for that matter. Guess that explained the ground heaving and shadowy punches from when he rescued me. By the time an Ampharos patrolling the hallways said "Lights out", I was still reading! Yawning, I closed the book and conked out right there on the bed.

The next day was spent with yet another tour around the place. My PJs felt baggier than yesterday, my skin started to turn pink, and my bright-green eyes were getting bigger. This time, though, they showed me around places such as sports arenas (they even had one for ping-pong!), the swimming pool, the gyms (both with and without equipment such as treadmills), and the battle arenas. None of these I had any particular interest in, except maybe the swimming pool. And the video game rooms. There were game systems I'd never seen before, such as the Nintendo 3DS and this thing called the Wii U. We passed one of the gyms normally used for Battle Class when Eric ran inside.

"Ed!" he shouted, waving at what looked like a brownish keystone in the middle of the gym among many other Pokémon practicing battle moves.

The keystone was actually alive. A mess of purple and green ooze suddenly squirted out of it to form a face of some sort. "Eric!"
"What's up, man?"
"You are SO going down today!"

By this time, Cole and I had run in after them. At first, I was surprised, but then Cole said, "That's Ed, Edd, Eddy, Eduardo, Edward, Elric, Ed the 2nd, Ed the 3rd…Well, my point is, he's a Spiritomb."

Oh right, that creepy Dark/Ghost thing. "Oh yeah. The one made of 108 spirits? I didn't know they meant that literally."

Cole laughed, "Well, when Ed was a human, he had Multiple Personality Disorder, so it actually worked out pretty well for him!" I didn't even know there was such a thing as Multiple Personality Disorder.

Then Eric noticed us. "Oh, hey guys." Then to Ed, "Her name's Amy. She's my new roommate. And Cole's."

"Oh, hey! Nice to meet you!"
"Liking this place so far?"
"How old are you, anyway? Like, five?"
"We're all 16!"
"You're turning into a Jigglypuff, huh? That's a Normal-type, right?"
"Cool! That means we can go all-out with Ghost-type attacks!"
"Hey, don't hurt the poor thing! I'll clobber you if you do!"
"She's IMMUNE to it, douchebrain! Study harder!"
"Besides, we were gonna battle Eric! Were you even paying attention?"
"Huh? What?"

I couldn't help but chuckle a bit, especially since Cole and Eric were rolling on the floor laughing. "They—I mean, he—never gets boring!" guffawed Cole, fighting off tears from laughing so hard. But it occurred to me that not only was the Jigglypuff transformation making me shorter; it was also making me look younger.

After they all recovered, Eric ran to one side of the gym, and Ed bounced over to the other side. Cole and I sat on a bench on the side, and suddenly, the Pokémon in the rafters above stopped to watch.

Eric sharpened his claws and shouted, "Today's the day I'm taking you DOWN!"

Ed retorted, "Yeah, yeah, keep dreaming, amateur." To my surprise, all of his voices spoke at the same time.

"In battle, Ed's personalities all combine into one. Makes him one of the fiercest fighters here. He and Eric battle each other almost every day," explained Cole.

The two of them charged. Suddenly, I realized what was happening. A real Pokémon battle. It couldn't possibly be turn-based like the ones in the games, right?

I was right. It wasn't. Eric opened with a Dark Pulse (I remembered the attack's picture from the book) and Ed tried to hide back in his rock, but it partially hit him as he went in. Then Eric leapt into the air and used Shadow Claw, making a huge crack in the rock and forcing Ed's face to come out. Ed then used an Ominous Wind, which spanned the entire battlefield and hurt everyone in it, including Cole, but not me. Turned out that the Jigglypuff part of me was strong enough to grant me type immunity. Whew!

"You can't beat me!" shouted Eric. "I have no type weaknesses! I AM INVINCIBLE!"

"Oh yeah?" shouted Ed. "SO AM I!" He zoomed at Eric even faster than before.

By this time, Cole recovered enough to laugh and say, "They always have to say that somewhere in every battle." It just occurred to me that I should check the combat chart again to find out if what they said was true.

They continued to clash until Ed turned the tables with a Curse attack. I knew this one. At first, it was kind of funny when Ed created a nail out of thin air and stabbed himself with it, but the effects on Eric were catastrophic. He did his best to finish off Ed, but Ed kept using Ominous Wind, and he was pretty lucky today, because he kept getting the stat boosts that normally had only a 10% chance of having. Eric was no match. With one final Dark Pulse from Ed, Eric fainted.

We ran over to him, and I became worried. "He just fainted, right? He's not really dead, right?" I asked.

Cole reassured me, "Don't worry. We NEVER die in battle. Just like in the games!"

As if to prove his point, Eric's gemstone eyes lit up again. "Rats." He then sat up and shouted, "WELL, THERE'S ALWAYS TOMORROW!"

Ed bounced out through another door. "IN YOUR DREAMS, SUCKER!"

As we helped Eric out of there, Cole said, "He actually did beat Ed once. That was when Ed forgot to use Curse."

Soon enough, though, Eric was okay enough to only need Cole to help him stand up. We were going back to our room when I heard someone say from another room, "And now presenting the Honorary Elite award to…Darren the Golurk!"

I stepped back and peeked through the window, though I had to stand on my tiptoes. Through it, I saw a room filled with Pokémon such as a Pidgeot, a Flareon, a Rhydon, and more in the seats. On the stage was an Escavalier and...Darren! The Escavalier presented him with a medal and updated his badge with the words "Honorary Elite" on it. Wow. A whole ceremony just for that? Judging from how loudly everyone was clapping, cheering, and throwing confetti, it must've been a REALLY big deal!

Darren went up to the microphone. "Thank you, thank you! In fact, it was all thanks to Amy the Jigglypuff, my Rescue Number 301!"

"AMY!" shouted Eric.

I jumped and nearly shrieked. Cole and Eric noticed I was lagging behind. "Come on! We're not allowed in there!" warned Cole. I followed them as quickly as I could.

Back in our room, they spent the rest of the evening fighting for the computer, as usual, until Cole finally decided to watch a bit of TV. On my bed, I studied the book even harder and found that yes, surprisingly enough, the Dark/Ghost type combination has no weaknesses, and the only ones with that combination were Sableyes and Spiritombs. Eric and Ed. Lucky them. Eventually, the same Ampharos passed by to say "Light's out."

In the darkness, Cole reminded me, "Remember. Classes are tomorrow."

I thought back to the class schedule I had and said, "Hang on. All our classes are in different rooms?"

"Yeah," said Eric. "What did you—? Wait…"

"My elementary school never did that! We always had the same teacher for all the subjects!" I sighed in dismay. "What am I gonna do?"

"Oh right, you were in 4th grade…" Cole then explained, "Don't worry, it's not that hard. Besides, we showed you where the classrooms were. You'll be fine."

That made me feel a lot better. "Thanks guys…"

As I closed my eyes, I thought over everything that happened the past few days. My 10th birthday, slowly turning into a Jigglypuff, Darren busting me out of that freaky lab place, coming here to Long Island, finding my way around this base, the freedom we had, the activities we could do here, the amazing food, the new Pokémon and things to learn about, witnessing a Pokémon battle…okay, except maybe for the battling aspect, everything here was perfect! I thought back to my mom and dad and my old life back at home, and the clone that must surely be taking my place by now. My clone…

Well…

I hoped she was happy where she was, because this new life of mine made this the best birthday ever!

Or so I thought…

To be continued…