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Barry blinked his eyes open, staring around in some confusion. Where am I? he wondered, watching a waterfall next to him flow. It looked like it was flowing towards the ceiling. I'm upside-down, right? He thought, trying to wiggle his arms and legs to figure out how he was hanging upside-down. Everything felt weird and he glanced over at his arms, trying to see why they felt so-
His arms were flat flaps of grey. They didn't even have elbows; they seemed to bend anywhere he wanted them to, and at the end had only a single thumb protruding from it. The rest of his body was squat and round and also grey, with short, flat feet simply sticking out of his abdomen without any legs. Feeling an odd sensation from his butt, he looked around to see two long, flat tails floating behind him, little dots of red at their ends.
He flipped around in the air, squeaking in surprise. His head felt heavy and oddly shaped.
"Feels weird, doesn't it? But I got used to your body quite quickly. I'm sure you'll get used to mine in no time. And for the record, there is no 'up' here, so don't worry which way you or the waterfall are facing."
"Y-You're… who… what?" Barry mumbled, patting at his head with his short arms. It had large, flat planes to it. He was indeed floating in midair, and found that he was able to fly over to the waterfall as soon as he willed it, though he couldn't see his reflection in the rapidly rushing water. "Wait… my body? You were in my body? Are you… Azelf?"
"I am. If you don't mind, I will drive. I am more familiar with this body and this realm." It felt a little odd, flying along in a body that he wasn't controlling, but Barry was distracted enough by the strange sights whizzing past; flowers growing in and out of the ground, land floating in space facing every which way, waterfalls in many directions…
"What happened to Dawn and Lou?" he asked. "And everybody else?"
"All scattered when we entered this realm, I am sure," Azelf responded. "Those of us with Pokemon forms have reverted to them. Those without will likely have been transformed somehow. This place is not inaccessible to humans, and indeed all humans find their way here sooner or later, but it was not made for your kind."
"What the hell is this place, though?" Barry asked in frustration. His voice wasn't leaving his mouth, but Azelf was hearing him anyway. "Where are we?"
He felt a sudden thrill of fear and Azelf darted into what looked like grass, only to have flowers spring up all around them, hiding them from a huge shadow that passed overhead.
"We are in Giratina's realm," Azelf responded, even their thoughts a whisper as a huge, red-edged shadow of black and gold began to slowly move past them. "We are in the Reverse. And we must find the other avatars before it is too late."
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Even with her eyes closed, her head was spinning. She tried to put her hands to her head to hold it still, but it was hard-her arms were too short to reach. She curled up as best she could, tucking her chin into her chest and wrapping her tail around herself…
Something felt off, but she couldn't quite figure out what. She slowly cracked her eyes open, wincing at the first intrusion of light before she could acclimatize herself. She could see trees above her, though the ground around her was dirt. She reached out with her paws to steady herself as she tried to stand up. It was awkward; her whole body felt balanced wrong. She had to really focus to hold her tail off the ground, vaguely aware that snuffing out the flame on the end of her tail in the dirt would be a bad idea. Her paws were awfully short, making it difficult to balance herself, and her own skin was such a blindingly bright orange that it almost hurt to look at.
What... what…. what?! she thought, craning around to stare at her tail again and overbalancing herself enough to fall over. Tail. I have a tail. A tail that's on fire. I'm orange. Am I a CHARMANDER?! How?! Why?! What the fuck?!
She lay on her stomach for a long moment, staring ahead of her, trying to focus on literally anything but her suddenly altered form and the awkward sensation of trying to find a comfortable way to hold her tail. Trees… I see trees. I'm in a forest. Okay. I'm in a forest. I'm in a forest and I'm a Charmander. The sky above's kinda purple… evening? Or predawn, maybe? I don't see any stars. Don't see a sun either, though. No shadows except those cast by my… my… mytailflame. Okay. I'm in a forest. I don't know where. Those look like elm trees… do you get those in Sinnoh? I've only really noticed pines…
She sat up slowly, trying to look through the trees around herself, but only darkness encroached on every side. She couldn't see anything but the trees closest to her, and nor could she hear anything. Why is this forest so quiet? she wondered. No wind in the trees, no sounds of Pokemon… other Pokemon… I can't be the only one here, can I? Where even is here?
She closed her eyes and pressed her tiny paws to them as she tried to think. We were… on Mt Coronet… fighting Galactic… Cyrus had Dialga and Palkia by the Red Chains, but Mewtwo broke them… there was that black light, and… and…
"This had better not be a fucking pocket dimension," she growled, looking up and around again. As if on cue, the earth shook violently beneath her.
She rolled across the ground, tucking her tail between her legs and her tailflame against her belly so she could shield it with her body. She wasn't sure if she was really a Charmander or not, but she did not want to test it by letting her tailflame snuff out. Besides, even when burning against her belly, the flame didn't hurt at all. It was pleasantly warm and slightly ticklish.
When the shaking finally stopped, she got unsteadily to her feet, bracing herself against a tree. Then, lacking anything better to do, she set off between the trees, her tail bobbing behind her as the only light in the darkness.
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"This was a mistake," Raikou growled, nervously pawing at their ears. "We shouldn't have come back here. Not even for Master."
"What's done is done," Suicune said serenely. "All we can do now is try and find Master."
"We should find those other avatars that we promised to look after first," Entei interjected. "Master told us to. And we need to be careful that Giratina doesn't find us." The three of them shuddered in unison. "They will no doubt want retribution for what happened before…"
"Will Giratina want retribution on us?" Raikou asked. "It was Master who came here to resurrect us, after all."
"Giratina is not famous for their calm nature and kind disposition," Suicune pointed out. "All of us who have trespassed from the realm of the living will be endangered if they find us."
"But Master in particular," Entei decided, straightening up. "We should go-" They paused suddenly. All three of the Beasts felt their fur stand on end.
They managed to shrink back under a rock formation just before a shadow swooped overhead, glowing darkly and smelling strongly of rage. It lingered for an uncomfortably long time before finally, blessedly moving on.
"It didn't find us," Suicune sighed in relief.
"But I'm sure it knew we were here," Raikou said nervously.
"Let's go," Entei said, darting out of the rocks. "I can't smell a damn thing in this place. Keep a sharp eye out."
They took off running in the opposite direction from where Giratina had gone, feeling some comfort by putting distance between themselves and the dark god, even knowing how little direction meant in the Reverse.
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"HELLOOOOOO! ANYBODY UP THERE?! ANYWHERE?!"
She froze momentarily at the sound of the shout, breath catching. Was that-?
"HELLLLOOOOOOOO!"
"BLUE!" she yelled, running off through the trees after the shout. She found that she could take to four paws as easily as two, and after a moment's lack of coordination she managed quite a rate of speed through the dark trees. She barely braked in time to keep herself from falling into a huge ravine-a fresh-looking split in the earth with newly-uprooted trees dangling across or into it, likely ripped open by the earthquake. "Blue, is that you?" she yelled into the ravine.
"Holy-Saylee?!" Blue yelled up. She couldn't see the bottom, even when dangling her tail over the edge, but it was definitely his voice. "Saylee! Do you know what the hell's going on?"
"Not even a little!" Saylee called down. "I think I'm a Charmander now, though!"
"Right, so that fire's you! Hey, can you hold that as far down as you dare?" Blue yelled. "I've been stuck down here because I can't see a goddamn thing and I can't control these vines well enough to feel out a way up-I don't know what the f-what I am, but I've got vines and it's so weird I wasn't even that surprised when you said you're a Charmander now!"
Saylee stretched out her tail into the ravine, illuminating as much as she could. After a moment, two thin green vines stretched out of the darkness, snaking around the roots of an exposed tree.
"Great! Fantastic! Hold on, kid… I've also got a Caterpie!" he called up. "Hang on tight to me, kid, okay? Here we GO!"
Saylee watched in surprise as whatever Blue was now slowly emerged from the darkness as he reeled himself in by his vines. He let one go from the tree roots once he was close enough and swung it up towards Saylee, who moved her tail out of the way and grabbed the vine, using it to pull him and the Caterpie clinging to his back out of the ravine. Blue was barely bigger than the Caterpie, thin and green with a white belly and gold leaf along his back and around his eyes. He had a large head with a long snout and a large, flat green tail, but arms and legs so tiny that they were barely there. "Okay, I give in," Saylee said with a shrug, letting his vine go as soon as he was up. "What are you?"
"Wish I knew," he said, plucking the Caterpie off his back and setting them on the ground. "Here you go, kid."
"Thank you!" the Caterpie said happily, hurrying up to hug Saylee. "Ooooh, you're warm!" the little bug-type giggled, insistently crawling into Saylee's tiny arms.
"I woke up like this," Blue said, gesturing down to himself. "When I was wandering looking for people, there was an earthquake, and the ground just opened up and I fell in. I tried following the bottom of that ravine for a while, and found that kid stuck at the dead-end here. Do you have any idea what the hell happened?"
"Not really, just that it was something to do with whatever that black light at the peak of Mt Coronet was," Saylee said, shaking her head and adjusting her grip on the baby Caterpie. "I haven't been able to find anybody else, just trees and that one earthquake. But if you're here too, then maybe some of the others who were on the peak are here too?"
"Who was up there…" Blue said, looking up at the sky thoughtfully. "Mewtwo, Key, Archie, Cynthia… Looker… Lance? Yeah, Lance…"
"I hope Steven Stone's here, because if I had anything on me I'd bet cash money that he knows what's going on," Saylee grumbled. "Hey, sweetie?" she said, looking at the Caterpie. "What's your name? Where's your home?"
"Serena," the Caterpie mumbled sleepily. "An' I came from… that way." She waggled her tail in the direction she wanted them to go, though without any sun or stars Saylee hadn't the faintest idea what direction that actually was.
"Well, if we take her home, maybe there'll be some other Pokemon we can ask," Blue said with a shrug. "For lack of anything better to do… shall we?"
"Hey, mister Blue?" Serena asked as they set off. "How come your name's Blue when you're green?"
"Because it's my name," Blue said, rolling his eyes. "Now go to sleep and we'll take you home."
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"What about this?" Silver said, turning into a Grovyle. It had taken him a while to get the hang of the fact that he could shapeshift at all, but it wasn't actually difficult; all he had to do was focus on a form and, in an instant, that was what he was. If he didn't focus on that Pokemon, however, he tended to revert back to Ho-oh's form, so he concentrated hard on being a Grovyle.
"Good idea," Ho-oh thought approvingly. "This part of the Reverse World is mostly forest. We'll be mobile and hard to spot, and most of Giratina's helpers and the others here won't be able to recognize us."
"What about Giratina?" Silver asked, practising jumping from one tree to another. Waking up in the form of a gigantic rainbow bird had been a huge adjustment, but at least Grovyle were broadly the same shape as a human, which was the one form it seemed he couldn't take. Ho-oh had almost immediately suggested shapeshifting into something less conspicuous.
"Giratina will recognize us no matter what. It'll be better if they don't, trust me."
Silver snickered. "Still pissed off about the stunt you pulled with the Beasts, huh?" he said. "Pretty cool, actually. Kudos."
"Thank you," Ho-oh said quietly. "Giratina does not forgive. They have kept their grudge against Arceus for longer than I can say. We must avoid them at all costs while we go about our mission."
"And what is our-what the fuck!" Silver yelped, clinging tightly to the tree he was on as space warped around him. He had no idea how long it lasted, before physicality settled around him and the world stopped being a kaleidoscope.
"Deal with that," Ho-oh said grimly. "Hurry. I know where to go, and so do you. We may have much time, and we may have none. Here, they might as well be one and the same."
"Poetic way of saying this place is fucked up," Silver grumbled, leaping off between the trees again.
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Can you tell that this part of the fic's going to be weird? This part of the fic's going to be so weird. We've semi-merged the Reverse with something from elsewhere in the Pokemon 'verse, for conceptual reasons that will hopefully be clear in time. For now… hope the weirdness is entertaining XD
(And yeah, I'm aware that both the catch/death stats and team listings are missing from this chapter. Do you want them back, or do you think that their absence is appropriate to this section?)
