Why do I even keep up with this disclaimer nonsense? The joke got old long ago.

Also, suddenly third person oh man!

"...AND THREE! SMILES GO FOR MILES!"

Kaylee unplugged her ears. It was another bright, sunny day in the Guild. (Well, not /in/ the Guild, but you know what I mean.) Today, her first plan was to let Mort and Patsy try to get out of earshot and drop some eaves.

She didn't count on her guildmates interfering.

"Aren't you one of the new recruits?" asked a high-pitched and entirely-too-loud voice. Not Loudred loud, but still uncomfortable. Kaylee turned and opened her mouth, but the voice went on. "Delighted to meet you! I'm Sunflora!" She thrust a leaf in Kaylee's face.

"Nidorina," said Kaylee, shaking it. "I mean, Kaylee."

"A name?" said Sunflora, a little surprised. "Oh my gosh! You're not a human, are you?"

"No. But the other two had names and started feeling a little psycho or something calling me Nidorina."

"Oh my gosh are /they/ humans?"

Kaylee snickered. "No, I'm-" Wait a minute. What if-

Sunflora took the silence as a cue to wreck Kaylee's train of thought. "Oh, sorry. It's just that after Kard, I thought more might turn up eventually. I'm not saying I like you any less!" Sunflora took a glance at the ladder. "I ought to catch up to Bidoof. I'll talk to you later!"

"Yeah," said Kaylee, trying desperately to remember where her thoughts had been a moment ago. That was futile, too. Patsy nudged her as he passed, muttering something about being at the café when they needed him, and riffling through his Treasure Bag.

Well, too late now. She could go see what Mort was up to, she guessed.

Mort froze at the sound of an all-too-familiar throat clearing. Putting on his fake grin, he turned to see Chatot with a very suspicious look on his face.

"J-just taking a closer look at that job! And putting it back when I decided I wasn't interested! I-I'm really near-sighted."

If Chatot had eyebrows, they would be raising. "Let me see that, if you please."

Laughing nervously, Mort obeyed and tried to read the look on Chatot's face as he looked the job over. "Bulbasaur?" Chatot read aloud, looking up. "Spacial Rift?" Mort could feel the sweat starting, and hoped desperately that it wasn't visible. They stood in agonizing silence for several seconds, neither moving. Apart from a certain muscle under Mort's eye.

"Well, your disinterest is well placed. This mission is ranked several stars. You should be doing C rank, if that. It wasn't marked." He squinted back at the paper. "And it's in such a messy scrawl. I'm not sure this is a properly submitted mission. But I wouldn't want to take another one up with the Guildmaster." He pulled a stamp out of nowhere and marked it appropriately. "Be sure to alert either me or the Guildmaster should you find another unmarked job."

"Will do," said Mort, breathing a sigh of relief.

Kaylee clumsily stumbled into Chatot as she tried to recover her balance from the rather poorly-done climb. Freezing up, she stuttered an apology as he hopped off in a huff.

"Have you picked up a job yet?" she asked Mort when she regained her composure.

"No," he said. "And with a little luck, not ever," he added under his breath.

"Not ever? Is this part of your master plan?"

"Wha-?" He looked up at her in shock.

"You see my ears?" She wiggled them a bit for emphasis. "You see how unnaturally big they are? Mom says I'll grow into them, but I sure hope not."

Mort laughed uneasily. "Don't want to be a Nidoqueen? I'll be sure not to get you a Moon Stone for your birthday." Where was she going with this?

"I can hear all sorts of things with these. Including, say, whispered conversations."

Mort took some time to spit it out. "You know?"

"No. In exchange for that little secret, you tell me yours."

"Uhhh..." Mort was sweating profusely. "Well... not here!"

"How about if I guess? You and Patsy are humans, aren't you?"

Laughter. It sounded far too confident to be Mort's, though. And far too not-coming-from-Mort. Kaylee turned to see Patsy, a smug grin on his face. "That's ridiculous. Where'd you hear that?"

Mort took advantage of the distraction to wipe the sweat off his face and take a few calming breaths. Patsy was the good liar here. He'd bluffed his way out of much worse before. Like the time when he'd emptied the larder and was even caught red-handed. Well, much worse in the sense that there was evidence.

Kaylee shook her head. "Now I think of it, it does seem kind of silly. I mean, the last time a human-turned-Pokémon showed up, it was really convoluted and you two don't seem to be under that kind of stress." That... that sounded a lot like sarcasm. "Fine. We'll go somewhere private. But Mort is going to do the explaining."

"Are you sure?" said Patsy. "I mean, you know how he is. Always stuttering, and-"

"Well, I don't suspect /him/ of having a silver tongue," said Kaylee.

Great. Just great. Mort had been relying on Patsy's silver tongue.

The beach was usually pretty quiet and empty. Mort didn't feel comfortable leaving the Guild; it was part of his plan. But he couldn't think of a better option, so the beach it was. Patsy and Kaylee glared at Mort, arms folded. Both glares said, "You are so dead."

Mort swallowed. "Okay, well..."

"Yes?" Kaylee said forcefully.

"You see, we, um..."

Patsy raised a nonexistent eyebrow.

Mort broke. "Argh! You're right! We are humans! Patsy broke a mad scientist's thingy and reality rewrote us in another world and we're just trying to get back!"

Silence.

"Yeah, right!" said Kaylee between guffaws. "If it were that simple, you wouldn't be so uptight about keeping it a secret!" She sighed and wiped a tear. "Now, really. What aren't you telling me? How far are we gonna go if we can't even trust each other with our secrets?"

"Well... okay?" said Mort, glancing at Patsy, who just shrugged. "I-if you put it that way? Well... geez. Um, like we probably said before, we're from far away. Um."

"Yes?"

"A-another continent." He started gaining momentum. "We were testing out some technology to cross the sea. But there was a storm and it was destroyed and we washed up on the beach. Th-the technology's supposed to be a secret. That... that..."

"Ooh. And it's a painful memory?" Kaylee suddenly felt sorry for pressing the two so hard. "Were there any others?"

"Yeah," said Mort. "Leroy, for example. I didn't know he made it. I think he hit his head. That's probably why he acted so funny when we met."

"And after him, who knows?" said Patsy. "I mean, he didn't have any particular reason to show up. Could it be that-" He stopped. Kaylee gave him her look. "Even less competent swimmers made it?" he finished.

Mort's mind reeled. Patsy was right. Anybody could turn up if Leroy had. Cassie? Tracy? Hopefully they knew enough about this place to avoid raising suspicion.

"Then... what about the spacial distortions or whatever at Luminous Spring?" asked Kaylee.

"Oh! Well, our own continent has a place where we're supposed to evolve. That probably did it."

"And you said something about the Master of Space earlier?" said Kaylee, scratching her head. "Palkia, right? What could you possibly have been—trying to get him to open a portal or something back to your home?"

"Exactly," said Mort. "I'm really not sure this continent has the materials for another, uh... or at least not easy to find. Plus, after that last fiasco..."

"But I'm sure there are better ways of doing it," said Kaylee. "Didn't Team Ultimate find a way to cross the sea?"

"Yeah. But probably none they'd share with us."

"Oh. Speak of the devil," said Patsy.

Mort and Kaylee turned. Yep, there they were. Kard and Torchic, approaching from Treasure Town.

"Oh," said Kard. "You're not this Bulbasaur, are you?" He had Mort's job.

"It worked? You took it?" Mort spluttered. "That's—that's—wait. I'm having second thoughts."

"Well, good," said Torchic. "We're not taking you."

Kard nodded. "This job is clearly forged. We're here to give you your punishment."

"A warning," Torchic interrupted sternly.

"Fine, a warning. Anyway, we've got more pressing matters. A mysterious villain has shown up and nearly killed a few explorers. Legal or not, you've been preempted."

"Sounds fair," muttered Mort.

"So like I said, this is your last warning." Kard put the paper down on the sand. "Here, in case you want a reminder of your shame or something."

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Today's jobs put them through a much more densely populated cave than yesterday, and, try as he might, Patsy couldn't zap all of them. And explorers didn't take any chances. Everything is definitely trying to kill you. Mort tried unsuccessfully to shoot "seeds or leaves or anything, really" out of his back, with little success.

By dinnertime, the incident with Team Ultimate was all but forgotten. (Of course, everything was forgotten at dinnertime.) It wasn't like there was anything they couldn't handle. And so, they thought nothing of the villain they had mentioned.

That is, until later that night.

Author's notes some more

Yep, it's settled. We'll be lucky to get more than one chapter a month. Well, the secret's out! Who honestly didn't see that coming? And poor Kaylee. She isn't very good at identifying lies. I did like the perspective change. I wanted to keep the secret (if I can call it that) a bit longer and didn't think I could pull it off from Mort's perspective, but I did like the story better from Mort's perspective, and it's been hard deciding when to switch. But yeah, I'm probably gonna stick with Mort.

Aaanyway, I'm gonna lie to you and say I'll have a new chapter in a week. See you after the longest week of my life!