Chapter 10

The Shocking Cerulean City Incident

Within ten minutes of having the near death experience Felix and Gaby found the exit. Both reveled the warm feeling the sunlight left on their skin. They had managed to cross Mt. Moon within hours. It must have been a new record. While Gaby stuck her face towards the sun like some overgrown pink plant, a small pile on the road caught Felix's eyes. What do we have here? Moving over and kneeling down he found a pile of Sitrus Berries.

"Why would there be a pile of Sitrus Berries on the road?" he asked the question out loud he was unable to answer.

"There wouldn't, wild Pokémon would collect them." Gaby answered calmly still basking in the suns glory.

"Then what is this then?" Gaby finally turned her head in Felix's direction. She had to blink several times in order to see again.

"Huh, indeed. Why would someone leave so many berries just lying around?"

"Exactly, what should we do with them?"

"Take them of course, it clearly is a gift from Mew. We wouldn't want to anger her by refusing her generous gift. "Not giving Felix a chance to argue she marched forward and collected the berries. Not that Felix would have argued. If someone or something left him a pile of berries to find, he would take them. He remembered that he had found Lum Berries in a similar fashion.

"Come on Felix, let us get to Cerulean City. I want to keep on going as long as Mew is watching over us."

"Sure, let's go."

Felix soon found himself in the Cerulean Gym. Gaby had dragged him in here as soon as they had entered the city. She wanted to capitalize on the Mew luck they had. Felix wanted to go train some more, but his arguments were ignored. So now he was standing in front a ferocious looking red head. This red head was Misty, the Gym Leader. To Felix's dismay she accepted the challenges Gaby issued for both of them and picked him to go first because she liked his ears. The battle itself went better than expected. He had been up against Staryu and Starmie. His team consisted of Sara and Byte again, seeing how his Slowpoke was still unresponsive. Sara was able to hold her ground against Staryu but lost eventually. It was an unfair battle seeing how Staryu could easily attack and dodge using the pool to its advantage. She did manage to land a Mega Drain however, so it wasn't a complete loss. Byte was fantastic. Seeing how he could levitate through water just as well as through air and didn't need to breath he mitigated any advantages Misty's water Pokémon had. Felix was now able to outmaneuver Misty and take her Pokémon by surprise. Byte quickly cleaned up Staryu and expertly took out Starmie. After hugging his Pokémon he received the Cascade Badge.
Gaby was not so lucky. First she was up against a Politoed. Abra did good work and was able to pull out a win. Misty's second Pokémon was a Gyarados. Abra fought valiantly but was soon overpowered. Her Igglybuff never stood a chance. Once she called it Gyarados gave it one disdainful look and sent it flying with one simple huff. After that embarrassing loss, she also had to endure Misty's wrath. She was pissed that Gaby had used a baby Pokémon that clearly was not able to battle yet. Felix decided to intervene and divert Misty's attention, as Gaby looked close to tears.

"Excuse me Misty, why is that Psyduck playing with the pool controls over there?"

Misty looked up to see in deed her Psyduck.

"Damn it Psyduck, why can't you behave once?" She ran off to put the Pokémon back into its ball. Felix used this distraction to pull Gaby out of the Gym.

Gaby was quite and that worried Felix. Any attempts at starting a conversation failed miserably and that worried Felix even more. Shortly before arriving at the PokéCenter Gaby let out a long sigh.

"She was right, you know?"

"Who, Misty?" Felix could feel the weight lift from his shoulders. It was good to hear Gaby talk again.

"Yeah, you were also right…"

"Me?" Felix asked in surprise.

"Yeah, we should have trained more. If I ever want to reach the Indigo League I will have to do better."

The tone in her voice made Felix worry again. Gaby sounded … defeated.

"Are you alright?"

"No… but I will be. It was a hard lesson but I had to learn it and I am glad Mew made me overconfident so that I would fall on my nose. I better myself so I won't disappoint Mew."

Gaby was slowly getting her old spark back and life was returning to her eyes.

"Anyway, less about me and more about you. You won your second badge today all by yourself! And to think I knew you when." She added playfully. Felix was feeling uncomfortable.

"I didn't really do anything special."

"Bah, you did better than me. That alone is something special all by itself."

They reached the PokéCenter by then. Quickly they deposited their Pokémon with Nurse Joy and collected their room keys. After all of the necessities were taken care of. Gaby grabbed Felix and pulled him to the cafeteria. Pushing him onto a bench she said.

"Let me treat you, seeing how you finally were able to beat me at something."

"I would rather have lunch…"

"You can have lunch afterwards, treat first."

Bowing to the inevitable Felix waited patiently. Gaby quickly returned with two beautiful red apples.

"I was going to get some ice cream but these just looked to good. Here, enjoy."

Felix accepted the offered apple. Holding it up slightly, he said.

"Well, to my second badge."

Gaby bumped her apple against his in a toast.

"To your second badge."

Both took a bite at the same time. It was scrumptious. The apple was sweet and the juice more or less exploded from it once you took a bite. Felix savored every second. Swallowing he lifted the apple and took another bite. Something was wrong this time. It felt something pocked him in the gums. Pausing a moment he open his mouth and removed the apple. Throwing a glance at it he froze. Not only was the skin red but also the flesh. And sticking from the bite mark he had just made was a tooth. In a daze he raised his other hand to his mouth and felt for his teeth. He felt cold when he noticed that one of his was actually missing. While he was feeling for the gap just to be sure, the tooth adjourning the gap suddenly moved and popped out as well. It fell onto the table with a clatter. Gaby looked up at the noise and starred at Felix. Felix was sitting there eyes wide in horror a bloodied apple in one hand and the other bloodied as well was feeling his teeth. Both of them were frozen in shock. Another tooth fell onto the table.

"Nurse Joy!" Gaby screeched.

The day rapidly got worse for Felix. The teeth did not stop falling out and soon he was left toothless. Nurse Joy had called the ambulance and he was taken to the local hospital. There he was lying in a bed, waiting for the doctors to return with their diagnosis. He had been through various x-rays and examinations. The doctors had also taken various samples of various bodily fluids. Luckily for Felix the doctors were only interested in his mouth what caused them to miss any anomalies located on his rear. Felix was contemplating his journey so far when the door opened to his room opened and Gaby entered.

"How are you feeling?"

Felix gave her a dirty look. "Real peachy, who cares that I have to eat soup for the rest of my life?" He had trouble pronouncing "s" sounds correctly, which made him sound ridiculous in his own opinion.

Gaby was rather uncomfortable. She simply held out two Pokéballs and a Ultraball.

"I brought you your Pokémon…"

Felix's face softened, as he accepted them. "Thank you"

Gaby pulled a chair up to the bed and sat down. "You want to talk about it?" She really was worried about her up and coming priest. Something was up with him, she just knew it.

"What would I want to talk about?" He did not manage to look her in the eyes, while saying that.

"Oh, I don't know. How about you losing all of your teeth for starters. Or the fact that your eye color and ears changed. What is going on Felix, maybe I can help you."

"I do not know, I really do not know…" Felix said quietly. Tears started to form in his eyes. "I just do not want to anymore."

"Here, here now…" Gaby leaned forward and hugged the crying boy. Felix melted into the hug and let lose all of the angst and uncertainty that had been building up. Tears now flowed freely into Gaby shoulders.

"Why me? Why always me? Can't I live a normal life?" Everything he said was interrupted by muffled sobs. "I do not want to anymore. I want it to stop. I want a normal life. I want my mommy."

Gaby now swayed slightly in the attempt to calm the boy. "Why don't you go home and visit her?"

Felix did not answer, he just kept on crying. After an indeterminable amount of time, his tears finally dried and the sobbing subsided.

"I can't…"

"Why not?"

Felix broke the hug.

"Thank you Gaby, I needed that." She gave him a stern look but decided not to press.

"So are you ready to talk about it?"

"There is not much to talk about. My eyes changed, my ears changed and now this. I have no clue how or why."

"Gosh, that must suck."

The door opend at that moment and one of the doctors who had examined Felix that day walked in. He had a portfolio in his hand which he was studying.

"Hello again Mr. Ferell, all the results are finally in and I have to say… oh… who are you?" The doctor, his nametag red O'Conner, finally looked up from the portfolio and was shocked to see Gaby.

"I'm a friend." Looking at Felix she said. "I do not have to hear this, you can tell me the short version later. I have stuff to do anyway." With that she got up and left. Dr. O'Conner watched her go, still a surprised look on his face. With a slight shake of the head he started anew.

"Anyways, the results are finally in Mr. Ferell and I have to say that they are quite… interesting. What especially intrigues me are the x-rays. Here take a look." He pulled a black and white piece of plastic out of the portfolio and handed it to Felix. He had to hold it against the light in order to see it probably. It was and x-ray of his jawline. His face bones looked stretched, as if he put to fingers in each side of the mouth and pulled. His jaw however was nice and straight. There was his gums, in this picture it was only a faint lines. Small bumps and craters marked the place where his teeth had been. In his gums, clearly recognizable, where more teeth. These teeth however clearly did not belong to a human. They looked predatory all of them were sharp and pointy and the canines were clearly pronounced.

"As one can clearly see, you will have a third set of teeth. That set however is not human. After some research, my colleagues and I could identify it as feline."

"Feline? How could you tell?"

"Well, that part was rather easy. There are only 30 teeth in total here. Humans have 32 you see. That was the first step, then we looked at how many from each kind of tooth there is. On the bottom you have three incisors, one canine, two premolar and one molar left and right. On the top you have three incisors, one canine, three premolar and one molar. That is your dental formula. It divers from the human one quite severely. Once we had the formula we simply looked it up and it corresponds to the dental formula of felines."

"So what does that mean, I'm a cat?"

Dr. O'Conner chuckled. "Mr. Ferell, you are most certainly not a cat. But just looking at you shows me that you have some… um… cat like aspects."

"So, is it dangerous?"

Dr. O'Conner rubbed his chin in contemplation. He hmm'd and haaa'd a bit while he locked at the different items in the portfolio again.

"Well, I can't really say. Apart from a weird blood panel, you look healthy enough. All of the wounds in your mouth healed well enough and any residual bleeding stopped. All of these things could be explained by some freak genetic mutation, but that would be an easy way out. There has to be a better explanation for it. To be on the safe side, you should stay here a while, just to run a few extra test."

"I'll think about it." In truth he already had. He did not want to stick around and give them more opportunities to find his tail.

"Alright Mr. Ferell, I will check on you later again. You can decide then."

Dr. O'Conner gave a small little bow before leaving the room and closing the door behind him. Not ten seconds later he came back.

"I almost forgot. These were collected for you. There are yours after all." He handed Felix a small plastic bag. It contained all of his old teeth.

"Thank you, doctor."

"No problem, Mr. Ferell." Dr. O'Conner did his small little bow again he left for the second time.

Felix sat there for a long time, looking at his teeth wondering if he should keep them. They were his teeth after all, but recognizing how stupid the idea keeping a bag of teeth was he threw them into the garbage bin. Feeling alone and half-wishing that Gaby would come back, he grabbed the Pokéball of his starter and released him.

"Analyzing surroundings. Result: unknown medical ward. Inquiry in trainers health?"Byte said in a monotone robot voice as he materialized. Felix gabbed at him.

"Health of trainer compromised. Inquiry in missing denturs?" Felix rubbed his eyes trying to accept the fact that he could fully understand Byte. He always felt like he could understand Byte, but not like this. Truth be told, he saw it coming.

"No response, body emits signs of distress. Inquiry in the mental and physical status of trainer?"

Felix took a deep breath and looked at his starter. "I can understand you know…"

Byte gave him a surprised look.

"Comprehension was not available before?"

"Well, I caught the meaning of what you were saying but never what exactly you were saying."

"Noted. Previous inquiries still remain valid."

"I lost all of my teeth in another transformation. It was a bloody mess and I was brought to the hospital."

"Duration?"

"I want to go now, but I want a second opinion if I should stay or not. I do not want them finding my tail. On the other hand the doctor said all of these changes could be dangerous."

"Superficial scans of your anatomy show no signs of illness. Deeper scans may provide additional data."

"So…., do you think I should go?"

"Affirmative"

"Alright, then. Let's get out of here then."

Felix collected all of his belongings which had been brought from the PokéCenter and left. Later when Dr. O'Conner returned, he found that his patient missing. A call to the front desk confirmed that a Mr. Felix Ferell had released himself from the hospital, not even ten minutes ago.

And there we have it, we are officially in the double digits now. I know I am a bit behind schedule, but I had important things to do. Really, no lie! I had to test an ASHPD, rescue my girlfriend from a ghost pirate and figure out in which castle the princess is so I could save her. If you know what I am referring to, congratulations, you are as much of a geek as I am.

As always I would like to thank all of the people who left a review. A special shoutout goes to the suprising amount of readers in Luxembourg. Who would have guessed?

That is all for now.

benthefirst, signing out.

Boom Boom Pow Away!