Knuckles groaned. What?! He hadn't even had enough time to get up by himself before he was awoken by a rude shake to the body. "Wake up, Sandshrew-sama! Come on!" the voice shouted. "Come on!"
Knuckles gave a grunt and yelled "Aright! Aright! Fine! Arceus," Wait, Arceus?! "can't a guy get some sleep?!" he asked, eyeing his hat for any damage.
"Guy?" the voice, younger than eight, asked. "But you're a girl!" What. What. Knuckles scurried up into a sitting position, staring at his pelvic area. Sure enough, instead of male genitalia, there was the female equivalent. "Gaah!" she yelled, "What is this?!"
The young child, though innocent, replied honestly: "Sama, that is a vulva. All females have them." He wasn't wrong, but Knuckles wished that he hadn't reason for saying such a thing. Oh well, he thought, I can't go about changing the past. "Uh, sorry to bother you, but, uh, where am I?" she asked, grabbing her hat from in front of the child and putting it on.
The young child laughed. Knuckles asked what was so funny, and he just said "Sandshrew-sama, you talk funny!" Wrong answer, let's just say.
"Where am I?!" she asked, almost yelling, to which the young Pokémon sweat dropped.
"Uh, just outside Nara City, Yamato! The day is 21 November 1872!" the Pokémon said.
Knuckles blinked a few times, the cogs in her head turning visibly to the rest of the world.
"1872?!" the Jamaican asked. What?! But it was 1993 just yesterday!
The child shrank by metres he didn't have. "Y-yeah, sama!"
The Sandshrew sat down, exhaling sharply. Time to get accustomed to this. Also, did he say Yamato? She was in Yamato?! Well, she's close to a Time Stone, at least.
"Can you show me around, . . . ?"
"Oh, um, my name is Lunthorne. Yours, Sandshrew-sama?"
The Sandshrew blinked a couple times before saying "Uh, Knuckles the E-er, Sandshrew."
"Are there many Knuckles-es where you come from, Knuckles-sama?"
She tried to remember, but couldn't. "I think so, I can't remember, honestly. It's been so long." Sigh, she thought, why? "Anyway," she continued, "show me around town. I'll need to know where everything is, now won't I?"
The young Pokémon nodded, motioning to follow her with his red-splotched orange paw. Once he knew she was ready to run, he sped off, leaving the Sandshrew in the dust. Almost as fast as I was, she thought. "Hey! Wait up, Lunthorne!" she yelled, running after him.
After about twenty minutes of that, during which they talked, Lunthorne about Yamato, and in fact, the Pokémon world in general, and Knuckles talked a little about where she's from.
Finally here, they both thought, and about damned time. As they entered the town, they saw an assortment of structures in the middle of the town, and a positively ancient looking tower off to the north. In the centre of everything, though, was an absolutely grand building. Its walls were made of marble and ivory, and the pilliars were carved from ebony wood. "Splendid, huh, Knuckles-sama?" Lunthorne said, winded. Shouldn't have ran that fast, he thought complacently.
Knuckles just stood and stared. Magnificent, it was.
"What is it?" she asked. Looks like a capital building or something.
"It's the Guild building. Kansai's Guild is spearheaded by a Pidgeotto named Uachdaran."
The Jamaican was very confused, to say the least. "What's a Guild?" she asked.
"A guild is where Pokémon go to train so they can be in a Rescue Team!" he explained, enthusiastically. He had wanted to be in a rescue team since he was a small child. His mother, during her time in the world, fretted about the danger involved, but he'd ignored her. His father was an explorer, a somewhat famous one at that, and died in battle at the hands of the Österichs.
"Wow, that's... actually somewhat intriguing. What's a Rescue Team? Is it what it sounds like?" the once-Echidna asked, her voice legitimately inquisitive.
Lunthorne flicked his wrist, trying to get the extra dust off his paw. "Uh, basically. A Rescue Team is a group of Pokémon that go on missions to find others or to retrieve items. Also, they get paid a tenth of their findings, and the rest goes to the guild." Another thing he wished to say, but couldn't for lack of words, or in fact, knowledge of, was that the Guilds occasionally host tournaments involving staged sieges.
Eventually, they came up to a hotel. Its construct was nothing short of entirely routine. No extravagances here, simple oak panelling covered the walls inside, with carpeted floors coloured with a chequerboard pattern. Natural tones seemed to be the emphasis in the interior design. Outside was a sign showing a stylised moon and bed transfixed under text of a language Knuckles couldn't read, though she suspected it was Japanese, or rather in this world, Yamatan.
The worker behind the counter was a bipedal canid of arguable descriptability. Some would say he most appeared a Jackal, others would say a Wolf. In either case, he appeared unique to Knuckles' new eyes, as not only was his fur colour a strange hue – cyan, but he has a dark Domino mask pattern on his visage. In addition, one of his arms can be described with a strange form of fur-vitiligo, splotches of yellow mixing with the blue. His maroon irises pierced both their souls with pure intensity. This is, undoubtedly, a Pokémon dedicated to his job.
When he asked how long they'd be, those who heard him would've undoubtedly swooned over the deep pitch of his voice complimented by the worn gravelly sound of a Pokémon who's done a lot of yelling. Their minds would instantly fill with fantastic imagery of him in a war, yelling to his comrades to fall back, or maybe charging into the field. That is to say, if they weren't in public. Then again, his working-class dialect and bad posture don't exactly help his case in a society where perfection is stressed as much as this one.
Whatever the case, though, there is a plot to follow. Knuckles replied with "About a week, Oteru-san," the once-Echidna said. It pained her to use Oriental words, when her Anglo ones would do just as well, but there was an appearance to keep, and some shame would be better than being as suspicious as could be.
Once acquainted with their room, she tossed what little she had, namely her hat, onto the bed. It had a simple design passively complimenting the rest of the structure – specifically, a twin mattress, red-and-green argyle bedclothes, and a tan-and-white tartan pillowcase. The bed itself wasn't very special, either. It was smooth on top, white, and the springs aren't demonstrably better or worse than your average mattress'.
Of course, Knuckles never really had used one before, so anything would be like sleeping on a cloud compared to the hard concrete floors of Hidden Palace, and occasionally one of Ivo Robotnik's patented Keep-Em-Outs. Sure enough, as soon as she rolled onto her bed, she let out a moan of comfort, as she hadn't expected something so, in her mind, luxurious. After thinking that, she mentally chastised herself because it was suspiciously like how Rouge the Bat spoke and it gave her a bad case of the shivers.
She continued on until she eventually fell asleep, Lunthorne, meanwhile, curled up out more towards the door. Not for any reasons involving bed shortages, but instead because he preferred the feel of the cold hardwood flooring versus the blistering heat of the bed with all its clothes and skirts.
They both drifted off, not noticing in the distance, a suspicious shadow entering Nara City from their forest route.