I need to look in a mirror, Erin thought as she did her best to struggle out from under her blankets. Simple tasks become weirdly difficult when your fingers become much shorter and you're starting to panic.

Once she got the blankets off, she tried to jump out of bed, but her legs were also much shorter than she'd accounted for and she fell off rather painfully on her shoulder. As she got to her feet she caught sight of what had to be her tail, orange with a bit of fire on it, and even though she tried not to look, she had seen her feet as well. They were rounder, and orange as well, with unmistakable Charmander claws. Once again, the only answer she could think of didn't add up. She couldn't have turned into a Charmander.

She awkwardly waddled as fast as she could to the door (not being used to a tail, it was making running difficult). As she turned back to her bed in confusion, and a strangely reassuring thought occurred to her. If I really turned into a Charmander, my tail would have lit my bed on fire. That didn't happen, so I can't have turned into a Charmander.

The handle was a bit high up and she struggled to get her hands (Paws? Claws?) around it. She found however, that she couldn't open it. It was then that panic really started to set in. She scratched at it and clawed at it desperately. She did that for a minute or so before her self-discipline kicked back in and she forced herself to calm down and take a deep breath.

And then she heard a primal cry of terror outside her door.

Fear hit her stomach. That wasn't a Pokémon's scream, it was a man's.

And not a boy's, a man's.

A man's whose voice she didn't recognize.

As each thought hit like a block of ice one after the other, a strange thing happened to Erin's panic, it turned to rage. There was a stranger in her house and she was stuck on annoying trivial stuff like possibly turning into a Pokémon and turning a door handle. All rational thoughts left her mind and she used her rage on the door, ramming it over and over again.

Outside the screaming stopped and for a moment the only sound was Erin beating at the door. Then there was the sound of footsteps running down the hall followed by the sound of crashing outside her room. The door was yanked open and hatred washed over Erin as she got a good look at the interloper.

He was buck necked, and that pissed Erin off.

It's not that there is necessarily a gentleman's code to burglaries or thefts that dictates a particular attire, so it wasn't exactly like she was expecting a suit and tie, but there was something obnoxiously indecent about not even having the good manners to cover his privets when breaking into another person's home that offended Erin on a personal level.

Additionally, for a young woman living alone with no one else but her Pokémon (who were not currently in the vicinity), having a completely naked unknown man rip her bedroom door open when she felt confused and vulnerable triggered something of a fight or flight response. Having just ascertained that she was trapped, that left fight.

Erin lunged forward and bit the man's leg as hard as she possibly could. Her fangs sunk into his flesh and she tasted blood. There was no way she could have broken the skin so fast if she was human. For some reason, it was this action and not her appearance, height, and lack of apposable thumbs that caused her to fully accept that she had in fact turned into a Charmander. She didn't need a mirror anymore, she needed to protect her home. If she was a Pokémon now, that just meant she would fight him directly.

The man yelped and fell over, crashing to the ground. It looked like he'd already knocked over a pile of board games before Erin had gotten out and he now feel on some Parcheesi dice. The bite had caused him enough shock to topple him down, but the dice were where he really took damage. This annoyed Erin, but she remembered she was probably only level one, maybe level five at highest.

Then he yelled in a voice that is normally reserved for swearing, "Marowak!"

Shit-, She loosened her bite in shock, Is this Scout!? If I've turned into a Pokémon could he have turned into a human? She had exactly enough time for these two thoughts before the man kicked her in the face and sent her flying against the wall.

As she got reoriented, he scrambled to all fours and bared his teeth at her angrily, ready to fight now. With her new theory about who this person was, Erin took a defensive stance and looked for anything that might reinforce her theory. His hair was white with some black flacks here or there, and his skin has a light tan, both very similar in color to Scout's skull and fur. His defensive stance of staying on the ground on all fours was weird for an adult human. He was probably not getting to his feet either because not having a tail was throwing off his balance, or similar to Erin's shorter limbs his longer limbs were causing him difficulty.

The look in his eyes said that he didn't recognize her either, and attacking him had established her as the enemy. He too was trying to protect the house from an intruder despite his circumstances and Erin felt a parental sense of pride at this. He could also just be standing his ground in his own territory after being attacked. That was possible too.

His eyes flashed angrily in frustration and Erin realized he kept twitching his muscles with increasing aggression. Erin suddenly realized what he was doing. He's trying to use earthquake. Of course, he's still trying to fight as a Pokémon. That should buy me some time.

She turned and ran to the back of the hallway. Her room was at the end of the hall so there wasn't much room left, but putting a bit of distance between them caused Scout a moment of confusion as he didn't know quite how to chase her. A scary thought occurred to Erin as she turned to face, What if he realizes he can use pokéballs now and catches me before I can calm him down?

She tried to say, "Scout is that you?" but what she said instead was, "Charrrrr-mander?"

She didn't seem to get her meaning through, but her sudden change in attitude from aggressive to urgent caught his attention. She tried again, focusing on just his name.

"Charmander. Char. Char. Charss. Chasco. Char. Sss…" She breathed in and out like a singing exercise as she felt her away around her new vocal cords. S…co…ut"

Scout's eyes went from confusion to disbelief to wounded suspicion. Erin breathed in and out again slowly and worked her way around the words, "This… is… Er…in." Slow breath in. Slow breath out. Focus and speak clearly and slowly, "Are you... Ssssscou…t?

She stared him firmly in the eye and he had a moment of pure disbelief. He looked over her suddenly and must have picked up on a number of things that were similar to her human appearance. He hung his head and nodded. With the threat gone and taking in their situations, he started to cry. Erin waddled up to him and hugged his head while she ran her claws through his hair. He hugged her tightly and cried silently while she did this. They both took their time.