What were so far the longest minutes of my life passed, the quiet of the cave seeping into the air as much as the cold dampness. I would've tried to think up a way to transport Kieran with minimal dexterity if my mind wasn't still buffering. Hey, I did say it had only been minutes! I could process until something else was thrown at us.

Then, a sound jolted us apart. Kieran fell to the floor again with a thud, but seemed to shrug it off as he looked back up to me. His gaze reflected my own hope.

What we'd heard was a voice!... Or, to be specific, a long string of swears. It was on the verge of becoming a new vocabulary lesson, I had to admit. Kieran remained on the floor as I, wobbly as could be, padded toward the sound of the voice.

"Dude," he whined, "bring me with you."

I sighed. "I won't forget you here, don't worry. There might even be a Pokémon over there that, you know, has hands."

"That's optimistic," he grumbled, but stayed put.

The cave we were in was separated into a chamber and a hallway. Hopefully there would be more chambers lining that hallway (and maybe even a way to the surface!) or else all that was left past my field of vision was a thin, long corridor leading to endless claustrophobia. At least it looked well-lit.

As I entered the hallway portion of our environment, I realized there was another passage to my right. A labyrinth? Great. There were still faint echoes bouncing off that direction, so I started making the turn.

What I didn't expect was sudden movement down the path I'd opted not to take. Something had rounded the corner and skidded to a halt entering the hall, and my head jerked toward it on instinct.

It was a tall figure— a quadruped that looked like some weird white dog with a misshapen lion's mane around its neck and chest. It also sported a blade (or was it a horn?) sticking out of its head. It was so tall, and seeing something at least twice my size moving this fast made my heart jump.

I yelped, losing balance and falling to the ground at the sight. A snort and cackle rang through the area, and I recognized the cadence from earlier that day. Flushing away my embarrassment, I rolled onto my belly and got back to standing up from there.

"Hey... Lola," I tested.

The weird dog nodded, her grin visible from my position some dozens of meters away. She pointed a claw at me, leaning awkwardly to the left now that her front right paw was occupied.

"Micheal," she guessed, speaking as nonchalantly as she would playing a trivia game at home.

"Yeah it's me," I nodded.

"What is she?" Kieran called from his spot.

"You know what? I'll let you be the judge of that," I answered. As previously stated, I knew next to no Pokémon. "Lola, can you come over here?"

And I ended back up in the room with Kieran. I hoped that, with Lola's help, we could hoist him onto her back. She walked unsteadily toward me, and I noticed her head leaning to the side because of that horn's weight. She seemed to still be adjusting to her new body, but her speech pattern didn't reflect that in the slightest. Was I seriously the only one this shocked to find out they weren't human?

"No way, you got Absol?" Groaned Kieran as she entered the chamber a minute later.

"Absol?" Lola asked. Now that she was inches from me, I noticed red eyes sparking with curiosity.

"Pokémon," I said, enunciating a bit too much. I needed a reaction out of this. "We are Pokémon right now."

She squinted at that. "Pokémon," she repeated, an ounce of skepticism briefly in her voice, before vanishing entirely when she turned to Kieran. "Should've guessed. So I got a good one?"

"Yeah, you did," Kieran fumed.

"Hey, Gab!" She yelled down the hall. "I found more people."

Apparently our aforementioned classmate had been following close behind, and I mentally slapped myself for not noticing. What looked like a flying squirrel around half my size waddled over to us, head down and hands fidgeting together. As she got closer, I noticed yellow cheek pouches that were reminiscent of a Pikachu. Sure, I had fallen off the Pokémon train a long time ago, but some things are unmistakeable.

"I'm Gab," she said, sitting down next to us. I could've guessed that one with how quiet she'd been.

"See? We have a Pikachu," Lola said, gesturing to Gab.

"Emolga," Kieran corrected.

"Gesundheit."

Gab's eyes widened when she saw him. "Do you need help?" She mumbled.

As the one member of the group who had hands, she grabbed him and held him up. She had no hopes of actually carrying him though; he was at least half a foot taller than her.

"Were you guys the ones swearing up a storm a minute ago?" I asked. I had a hard time believing soft-spoken Gab was the culprit, but she had the incentive. However, she wasn't the one to answer.

"I thought it was you two," Lola answered, looking to Gab with that hint of concern in her eyes, gone as fast as it had appeared when she stopped to lean on the wall.

As if on cue, the as of now interrupted string of incredibly inventive profanities reprised. If the tone before had been anger, this was urgency and panic. I heard another softer voice trying to talk the first down, but it only got louder and louder.

It took me a second too long to realize that it was also getting closer.

There was only one way I could describe the Pokémon barreling into the room: a blue goblin that somehow got its hands on armour. It was weird, and was still yelling profusely. It'd made it to the back of the room without seeing us, but now that it'd reached a dead end we were blocking off its exit. After a few quick glances from side to side, it finally shut up and put its fists up defensively.

"Meditite," I heard Kieran mumble. That must've been the Pokémon's species name, but to me, there was no need to guess her identity. If this was a student, there was only one I knew who was ready to fight at any second.

Valérie.

I wish I could say we figured out it was only another student following her, but the haste she'd entered the room with was insanely contagious. We all turned to the other echoing call that came from down the hall. The fur on my neck bristled, a brand new feeling I was not in the mood to deal with on top of the panic.

I expected the other voice's owner to bolt at us at full speed, but I didn't expect it to fly above us in a blur, and then begin to circle us.

"It's a bird, get it away! Get it away!" Kieran shrieked.

If you've ever seen your family react to a bat flying into the kitchen, you've seen how that room erupted at that exact moment. People tripped all over, everyone screamed bloody murder, the works. It is hilarious upon looking back, but it took a long time for me to laugh at it.

The new arrival landed in a less crowded area. She was a tiny blue bird with very cloud-like wings, which she raised in an attempt to signal us to stop screaming. We quickly calmed down when registering just how downright minuscule she was.

"It's me! I'm Chloe!" She chirped.

Valérie finally lowered her fists, her voice tired but firm. "Chloe? What happened to you?"

"Same thing as all of us, apparently," I answered, to Valérie's quizzical look. "Welcome to the Pokémon club."

Valérie's face scrunched up as she put two and two together, her eyes darting around the room before stopping on herself. She stared at her strange, blue, three-fingered hands and ended up throwing them over her droplet-shaped head. "What the absolute hell?"

Finally an appropriate reaction!

Chloe hopped to Valérie, keeping her wings tucked in. "It's okay, we're all here with you."

Valérie lowered her arms to a more casual position and sighed. "I know that, but why? Why us? Why this? Why Pokémon of all things? I don't even play that!"

"We don't know either," I quickly added, satisfied that concern was back on the table, but not wanting her to explode again. I looked around to the rest of the group. "Any theories?"

Silence once again fell upon our circle.

"Well, obviously, it has to do with whatever was going on outside the bus," Kieran said, still propped up by Gab, who simply nodded in agreement.

"Probably," said Chloe. "Maybe that light tunnel was a portal that took us to the Pokémon world?"

Valérie rolled her eyes, getting irritated against better judgement. She muttered another curse as she brought her hand to her forehead.

"That's a good possibility," I said. "But where are the actual Pokémon?"

Kieran spoke up. "We've been in a cave for ten minutes. They're probably outside."

"You'd think we'd have heard something other than us so far, though."

"I cracked it. Purgatory! We're in purgatory," Lola pitched in.

We all turned to her, and she just returned a smirk. She was still leaning on the wall, her horn weighing on it as well. I was sure the thought crossed all our minds at the time, but if she was taking everything as a joke, including darker topics that shouldn't be brought up, it might prove to be annoying later on. Just 'annoying' would be the better scenario.

"Actually, who cares about that right now?" Valérie asked. Even though she'd brought it up, any thought of further discussion was abruptly cut off by Lola's remark. "Wherever we are, we should be focusing on getting water, food, and shelter. Let's get a move on."

When I'd thought only Valérie was always ready to fight, it wasn't without reason. I'd had karate classes with her. The set of skills mixed with her steadfast personality made her a potentially ruthless survivalist. If she— and all of us— could grasp the now-reality of Pokémon, we were in good hands.

"Wait!" Gab said. I realized then that she'd clearly been struggling with holding Kieran upright. She'd started pushing her own weight against him just to counteract the force of gravity. Kieran also must've noticed, his eyes fixed toward the ceiling in exasperation. It's mean to say, but the sight of that tiny flying squirrel trying her damnedest to not let a huge yellow cocoon fall was pretty laughable.

Gab didn't say much more, but she didn't need to. Valérie just went over to the two of them and picked Kieran up like it was nothing, letting Gab fall to the floor.

"Okay, let's go."

With that, our ragtag group of shocked human-turned-Pokémon left the premises and headed off into the cave halls.

The walk following our 'landing' was surprisingly quiet. I guess that it was a result of giving ourselves a task while still grappling with the current situation. Maybe the former overshadowed the latter.

The hallway was about the same size throughout the trek, the lighting being mostly even as well. When we'd started walking, the unanimous decision was to take the tunnel that leaned upward, since that upped our chances of getting to the surface. It tired us faster, I'm sure, but at least we had a strong will to go with it. The blue glow coating the walls was eerie at first, but was starting to look... cool. Never in my life did I think I'd be stuck in this kind of scenery. Had I ever even gone into a cave? Were there stalagmites somewhere in here? Bats?

How much air was down here?

And... time to change the subject!

"So... how's everyone's day?" I blurted out.

Everyone stopped, and, needless to say, I got some weird looks. Lola chuckled, Gab glanced away, Chloe looked from face to face as if she actually wanted to hear an answer, and Valérie rolled her eyes and shrugged... which only left Kieran.

He was the first to talk after the deafening silence. "It's going fine. Everything's chill. I'm fine. I'm cool."

"Oh yeah, Mr 'it's a bird! Death has come for us all!'" Lola snickered, her fangs showing off a certain glint.

"Hey! You freaked out too," Kieran grumbled. "So did Valérie."

"It was the situation I was fleeing from, thank you very much," Valérie said, holding him up to her face. "It seemed like the right option at the time."

"I didn't think Swablu would be that scary", Chloe mumbled, hopping about our path. She'd kept her wings tucked in for the entire duration of the walk.

"You aren't," Gab reassured.

Come to think of it, she had wings as well; they'd just been tucked in by default because she kept her arms down. It was debatable if they even counted as wings, actually, same as if a flying squirrel could even technically fly. What was it Kieran called her? Emo-something?

I was snapped out of my thoughts by an exclamation from Chloe, followed by a fluttering of wings.

"Oh my gosh!"

In our path was a dark green bush filled with big, blue fruit. Chloe flew to it, like a bullet to some unlucky prey. She landed on a branch, her weight barely lowering it, and chomped down on one of the blue berries. Some pieces she'd bitten off fell to the floor, but she didn't seem to care. Honestly, she seemed like she'd just gone to heaven, the branch she'd landed on shaking with her bounces.

"You doing okay there?" Valérie asked hesitantly. "I don't know that kind of fruit. Ugh, is it a Pokémon thing?"

Kieran squinted, getting a better look from his still position. "Yeah, they're-"

"They're Oran berries! They heal you!" Chloe chirped, beak full of fruit. "I've always wondered how they tasted, and they're good!"

With no more than a collective shrug, the rest of us joined in, since we hadn't eaten since lunch. Well, that and the hope for a ham and cheese sandwich was now as far away as the actual thing. The fruit was tart, kind of like an orange but with a sour aftertaste. It was weird, because the texture resembled that of a blueberry, but with a thicker peel. It was really juicy too. I almost felt like I didn't need water after starting one. Overall, it was an okay fruit, just different than what I was used to. Hopefully, it wouldn't be the default for long. Just going through one berry was probably going to make me feel full anyway.

My focus eventually wandered to a puddle near the bush. I guess I knew what I was, but seeing that fire lion cub on the other side of the mirror, staring back at me... it was something. The others soon joined me near the small puddle.

"What even is this thing?" Valérie asked, dumbfounded. She patted the swirls that were where her ears used to be.

"It's you," smirked Lola. "Some improvement on the previous model, I'd say."

"Very funny. I meant: what were the designers thinking? My head's an onion."

"There might not be designers, for all we know", Kieran stated, gaining a deep, faraway look in his eye. "You think this is actually where it all came from? A world where Pokémon exist?"

"Or maybe you're high," Lola answered.

"You're high."

"Language," Chloe warned, before jumping to the right side of the bush. "Hey, what's that?"

Our eyes were drawn to a splash of yellow against the gray wall, hidden by the shadows, but just noticeable. Gab padded over to the object and pulled it out, laying it on the dry, lit ground for us all to see. She'd dropped it as silently as anything else she did, but the rest of us were near cacophonous in our reactions.

It was a note. An old, worn, faded note, but one nonetheless. I didn't need to get closer, as my eyes could now easily focus on words without glasses. It read:

'I have not found this land's beast yet. It seems empty, but I have planted some seeds in the meantime. They sprout fast, so I shall have some ready soon! :)'

"What?" Kieran said, before most of us had finished reading. "Why'd they sign with a smiley face?"

"Who cares?" Valérie countered. "I'm more concerned about 'this land's beast'."

I joined in. "Well, I'd like to focus on the fact that someone else was here—"

"... is it a Pokémon thing?" Valérie cut me off, to Chloe's fervent head shaking.

I sighed. "This place has been empty so far except for us. We're not the first ones here, but whoever wrote this could also be outside, or dead. And if there's a monster in the cave..."

"We're monsters in a cave," said Kieran.

"... we have to get out, then," I said though gritted teeth.

"Yeah?" Went Lola, leaning on the wall again. "It clearly says they haven't found the monster yet. There could just not be one."

Everyone except for her exchanged some skeptical looks. Yes, we'd been exploring this place for over a few hours, but dark corridors did not exactly inspire a cozy atmosphere, or at least insinuate that nothing would reach out of the shadows and get us. As silly as it sounded, the monster remained on the table.

"We have to keep going," I announced, getting up and leaving my half-eaten berry on the spot.

Valérie heartily joined in, picking up Kieran as she practically ran to me. Chloe flew up to Lola's head, which she in turn responded to by shaking her off. Chloe hopped about, making her way to the trail with her. The last remaining member was Gab, who picked up the note and carefully folded it.

With that done, we set out.

... It didn't really matter, because we barely got ten minutes before we had to stop again.

Suddenly, everything went dark, to everyone's surprised shrieks. Yeah, mine too. Our surroundings had turned pitch black in a split second. I gathered my bearings.

"We're all in high school, right?" I asked, deadpan. I got weak chuckles as the sole response.

Between that, the note, and the Chloe incident...

I didn't get time to test out my improved night vision. I heard a crackle of electricity to my right; something akin to a lightbulb starting up in an old office. Right when I turned to see what made the sound, I had to squint and recoil away. There was a new light source. It was Gab, and her new stark white light came to much contrast to the sudden dark.

"How are you doing that?" I asked, flabbergasted.

"You gotta crack her like a glow stick," went Lola.

"I..." through my squinting eyes, Gab looked just as surprised as the rest of us. "I thought Emolga might know Flash, so I tried it."

Of course! If we were Pokémon, we could know moves. Why had it taken me this long to figure that no-brainer out?

Buddy, you should maybe tolerate missing some things when it's your first day being ripped away from your body.

"So you know Pokémon," Chloe realized, before gasping. "You have to show me how to do that!"

"I-I'm not sure if you can-"

"Sweet," Kieran sighed from the ground. His previous yell might've been from Valérie dropping him as opposed to the sudden dark. "Another person who won't need a briefing."

Maybe Gab didn't, but judging from the looks I exchanged with Valérie and Lola, the three of us would definitely need a briefing. Probably an hour-long one.

It didn't take long to notice that the lights had gone out because the mushrooms had dimmed.

We stuck around the same corner of the room for a while, just to see if the lights would go back up.

"Wait, how long has it been since we came here?" I asked, breaking the silence.

In the meantime, Valérie had managed to pick Kieran back up. She shrugged. "I don't know about everyone, but it's just been a couple hours with you guys. I landed maybe a couple minutes before sprinting off."

"Same for me," Chloe added. "Does the portal ride count, though? That has to add another hour."

A few murmurs of agreement passed around the group, and I put forward my theory. "So, we left school at lunch, and stayed here long enough for the sun to set back home, right? You think there might be an equivalent here?"

"The dungeon's got its own day-night cycle," Gab realized.

"Ew, why call it a dungeon?" Valérie asked.

Chloe cut through Gab's stammer of a response. "It's a video game thing."

Great. Even the day-night cycle couldn't be normal here. I stared down the now pitch-black corridor. As I looked around, I realized none of us wanted to keep going. Be it because of Chloe's beak consistently pointing toward the ground or Valérie's arms sluggishly holding up Kieran, I could see we were all tired. No one else wanted to admit it, though.

"Should we break for the night?" I asked slowly, to everyone's quiet nods.

Chloe was the first to doze off, practically doing so on the spot. Valérie promptly placed Kieran on the ground and sat close by. Lola laid down facing the dark hallway we'd been following, in a position that was a movement away from a pounce. Gab leaned on the wall, and extinguished her own light when closing her eyes. As darkness fell again, I found myself on my back, tail swishing against the dusty floor, eyes toward the ceiling.

Needless to say, we hadn't gotten to the fort. At no time today had I expected Pokémon to suddenly become real. As I stared at the ceiling, only one thought circled my mind.

On to the next day.