CHAPTER 10

˂AAAHHH! What's happening to me?!˃ Thomas cried, using thought-speech. ˂Hey, wait. Can you hear this?˃

˂Yeah, you're thought-speaking,˃ I said.

He fell silent after that. I guess he was trying to control the Squirtle brain.

˂Hey Thomas?˃ Rachel said. ˂I know you probably think you're a Squirtle right now. Don't let the Squirtle mind get control. Fight it!˃

˂Huh?˃ Thomas said, sounding confused.

˂Look out!˃ I cried. A Pinsir was heading straight for him.

"Squirtle?" he said. Then, he leaped forward and tackled the Pinsir.

And so we fought, 7 versus 8. I was feeling weak. I should have demorphed and remorphed.

WHAM!

A Scyther slammed me right over the head.

My vision went blurry for a few seconds. I tried to focus on the Scyther. I tried to focus on where it had gone. Where was it? Where was it?

I stumbled forwards, feeling dizzy.

I saw the Scyther. It had an expression of triumph on its face. Then, it raised a claw.

I tried to focus. Demorph! It was the only thing I could do.

But I couldn't do it quick enough.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the Scyther to finish it.

And then... and then I felt a sensation I had never felt before. I suddenly had a weird, tingling feeling on my forehead. Then, it spread over my head, then onto my body, legs, and finally covered my bulb.

I opened my eyes.

What was going on?

I glanced down at my legs, then yelped in surprise.

I was white. A brilliant, glowing white.

The Scyther froze in alarm. It just stared.

Then, I felt a weird, growing sensation. It was almost as if I was morphing, except it was happening much quicker.

My teeth grew sharper. My eyesight improved slightly, along with my senses of smell and hearing. And... my bulb! It split open, to reveal leaves and a smaller, pink bulb.

The whiteness faded away.

"Ivysaur?!" I cried, not sure of what had happened.

Wait a minute. Ivysaur?!

I had evolved!

The Scyther, realizing this, let out a grunt of annoyance, then started to bring its claw down.

FWAAAP!

I reached up with a now-longer vine and stopped the Scyther's claw. Then, with my other vine, I quickly and swiftly lifted him off the ground and threw him over my head.

I looked around. Instead of seeing two Nidorans and a Charmander, I saw a Nidorino, a Nidorina, and a Charmeleon.

˂Wow! You... you evolved!˃ Thomas said.

˂Yeah,˃ I said, testing my vines by whipping at the air. ˂This is cool!˃

Michael, Lisa, and Thomas were still a Mankey, Pikachu, and Squirtle.

We quickly finished off the rest of the Scythers and Pinsirs, and Michael acquired a Pinsir.

˂Hey, how come we didn't evolve?˃ Michael whined.

˂Because Mankeys require more experience than we do,˃ Bounce explained. ˂Lisa didn't evolve because Pikachus need Thunder Stones to evolve. And Thomas hasn't got enough experience yet to evolve.˃

Michael sighed. ˂Thanks for the lecture.˃

˂Come on, we gotta get out of here!˃ Lisa said. ˂Everyone demorph. We need to go out through the ducts.˃

We demorphed. I felt sad leaving my new Ivysaur morph. But I couldn't escape as an Ivysaur.

Once he was demorphed, Thomas acquired a Pinsir, too.

Then, we all morphed. Rachel, Lisa, and I morphed Pidgey, and Michael, Bounce, Blitz, and Thomas morphed Spearow.

We were going to make it.

Author's Annotation: It's finally evolution time! These first evolutions happen around level 16 or so, which is usually really early in a Pokémon playthrough, so I wanted to mirror that by having them happen early in the series. Now was the perfect time because all of the characters' initial morphs have now been featured on the covers. Yes, that is the actual reason. I'm not kidding.

Thomas is the new addition to the team so he needs to catch up on XP, just like a new addition to a Pokémon team in gameplay usually does. You see? It all makes a twisted kind of sense.