This chapter's title comes from the classic African novel of the same name, which I read for school in 10th grade. Good book, I'd say, though I don't read very many original books nowadays.

From here until further notice, updates will be on Mondays and Thursdays unless I don't have a chapter ready. I'd like to thank you guys for your support of the first chapter; here's the second one. Happy reading!

DARIUS ASHLAND, 18

From the moment the tremors began, everything turned into a blur of sorts. Later, I would only remember these events vaguely, as though I'd only seen them in photographs rather than living them out in my physical body.

Minor earthquakes happened in Hoenn all the time; we were used to them. The building codes had been written with them in mind. But normally earthquakes weren't so loud, were they?

There was an audible rumbling noise, as though some colossus were extremely hungry. Only later would I appreciate just how poetic that analogy was.

Mt. Koru was hungry. It was hungry for the lives of humans and Pokemon, and there was no placating it. The mountain would not listen to reason.

"It's happening!" Xander wailed. "We're all going to die!"

"No, we won't," I insisted. "We'll find a way out of this."

Even as I said those words, I knew I didn't believe them in the slightest. All of the evacuation buses, as the callous cop had called them, were gone. I didn't want to surrender to my own mortality just yet, but things looked pretty bleak.

Volcanic ash started to fall from the sky, along with chunks of rock, some of them flaming. Most of the chunks were far away from us, but I noticed a shadow about thirty yards away. It was small at first, but rapidly growing; I knew what that meant.

"Xander! Be careful!" I bellowed, the N95 mask muffling my voice somewhat. Still, I believed that he got the message.

My heart thumped powerfully between my lungs, so hard that my chest hurt. Combine that with the shortness of breath from the smoke, and it truly felt like I imagined a heart attack would.

It wasn't much longer before another earthquake occurred. This one was much more powerful than the first, and it swept me right off my feet and onto my back.

I landed painfully on my tailbone, the wind knocked completely out of me. Xander, through spreading his arms like the wings of a Flying type, had managed to stay upright, but just barely.

Grimacing, I decided that my tailbone probably wasn't broken, but it was most likely bruised. Walking would be painful for some time; that is, if I even lived long enough to walk again.

Seconds later, a giant flaming slab of rock made impact where the shadow had been. Although I hadn't been directly underneath it, thank Arceus, the force exerted on the ground caused me to go flying backwards, ten feet in the air.

Somehow, I managed to land on my feet, but my feet didn't like that. I rolled my left ankle as soon as I hit the ground, and that sent a jolt of pain up my lower leg.

Immediately, the few remaining Water types set to work on putting out the fire on the rock slab. Meanwhile, I noticed a shadow just to my right, and managed to roll out of the way just in time.

Who would've thought that I could be so nimble with an injured ankle? Not me, that's for sure…wait a minute, where's Xander?

He'd been there just a few moments before. When I had dodged the slab of volcanic rock that had most recently made impact with the asphalt, I'd taken my eye off my brother for a few seconds.

How many seconds, I did not know. But sometimes, if you look away for just three to five seconds, something can happen that you didn't notice.

My eyes widened as I realized what might have just happened. It was an unthinkable possibility, too horrific to even contemplate. And yet, the fact I was even considering it meant that things weren't going well in the world of Darius Ashland.

I'm not proud of what I did next. The most productive course of action would have been to suck it up, get to my feet, and begin searching for Xander. That's what a brother is supposed to do, after all.

Instead, I sat there on the ground, wiping tears out of my eyes. It was hard to tell whether these tears were from the smoke or from my sorrow; if I'm being honest, probably a combination of the two.

All of this had occurred in less than two minutes. In just this short period of time, I had potentially lost my brother after volcanic rocks fell from the sky. And if he wasn't dead, I was doing him a disservice by not searching vigorously.

So, despite the severe pain, I managed to stand up after a lot of effort. I began to walk, shuffling awkwardly thanks to the fact that every step made my ankle throb.

Doubled over like an elderly man, I walked around to the other side of the rock. Although the Water types, such as a Blastoise and a Vaporeon, were working with haste to quench the flames, just being near the rock felt like walking through a bonfire.

Thanks to the rock's immense size and the pain in my leg, it took a decent amount of time for me to reach the other side. When I did, I looked around for any sign of my brother.

There was none.

"Nooooo!" I yelled, so loudly that it seemed as though my voice could wake the dead. Which possibly; no, probably, included Xander.

I couldn't believe it. Just when I'd believed that things couldn't get any worse, my brother had vanished.

After that, I was basically blind with rage and grief. I clenched my hands into fists, and it was almost impossible for me to see anything thanks to my eyelids also being clenched shut.

Probably the worst part was that none of the Water types even paid me any attention. Of course, they had a job to do, which was making sure the fire from the slab that had just landed didn't spread and endanger more of the town.

I don't remember much from the rest of that day. I must have lost consciousness eventually, but before that happened, I stomped my foot as vigorously as I could muster. If there was any chance that my message would reach Arceus in the heavens above, it was well worth spending the last of my energy on it.

At some point, there was a searing, burning pain across my stomach. Perhaps I truly was having a heart attack, because I certainly felt heartbroken.

Not too long after that, everything went black.

"I don't know how it happened, Doc," said a familiar male voice that sounded far away.

"Please describe the events in detail, Mr. Forest. At least, the version of them you witnessed."

I had been floating in and out of alertness for some time; though I couldn't open my eyes to see, I could still hear some of the conversations taking place around me. I wondered if the speaker knew I was awake.

"Well, he was clearly distraught; his brother had just vanished, after all. And it seems like he worked himself into a frenzy and passed out."

They're talking about me, I realized with a gulp. They were having conversations about how I'd been found, believing that I was unable to hear them. They thought it was behind my back, even though I knew every word they were saying.

"Before he passed out", the familiar voice continued, "I think some of the flame got on his shirt. They always say…what's that advice they always give if your clothes catch on fire?"

"Stop, drop, and roll?"

"Yeah, that's right. He didn't seem to be in the right frame of mind to remember that, because he didn't follow that advice. He just stood there until he collapsed."

Everything was becoming more difficult to process with each passing second. It felt like everything was swimming around me, rather like when you stand up suddenly after lying down for a long time.

"Then how can you explain this?" the unfamiliar voice asked. "Why is he…the way he is?"

"I couldn't tell you that, Doc" the voice that belonged to my friend responded. "Your guess is as good as mine; indeed, it's probably better than mine, since you're a doctor."

"I have a degree in medicine, not in the supernatural. I have no idea how this happened."

Is something wrong with me? Like, besides having been burned?

That was the last thing I remember thinking before I went under again. What felt like minutes later, I awakened in an unfamiliar place.

My entire body felt…different, somehow. It's hard to explain to someone who's never been through it, but I truly felt as though someone had entered my genetic computers and completely rewritten my DNA. There was a weird feeling of everything having been rearranged inside me, and not a pleasant one.

Once I opened my eyes, I saw that I was in what appeared to be a hospital bed, though a rather rudimentary one. The bed had been adjusted so that my head was above the rest of my body, but only slightly. I was also propped up on several pillows.

While the bed would have been in its proper place in a hospital, the room itself was not. The floor was made of navy blue carpeting, and the only thing separating me from what I assumed was the next patient over was a thin wall, what looked like an office cubicle's dividing line.

I looked at my left arm, which was orange. My stomach dropped at the sight of it.

I must have been burned pretty badly. Either that, or something's even more horribly wrong than burn wounds.

Then I rolled over just enough to get a glimpse of my right arm. It was also orange, and at that point I knew that the latter option was the more likely answer.

Panic rose within my throat. What, exactly, had just happened to me?

It was probably better to focus on what I knew, as opposed to what I could only speculate about. I knew, for instance, that Mt. Koru had erupted that morning. (Was it still the same day? Or had it been several days since I'd passed out?)

I also knew, based on the conversations I could recall from when I'd been floating in and out, that I'd sustained some burns on my stomach. I didn't feel like looking at that part of my body, for fear of how ugly the burn would be.

And then this new place I'd ended up…it looked like a field hospital of sorts. I'd heard of them being built in disaster zones back in history class (before I'd had to drop out of school and take a job to care for my brother), but I'd never once imagined that I'd ever live through such a disaster.

"Darius! You're awake!" exclaimed a familiar voice that seemed to come from directly in front of me. I'd been staring at my left arm, trying to figure out why it was orange, when I heard that voice.

Turning to face it, I saw a tall, rather skinny guy about my age with white-blonde hair and a long nose. If I didn't know this person so well, I would have expected him to be a troublemaker; he certainly fit most peoples' mental image of a bully. Fortunately for me, he wasn't.

"Oh. Good morning, Christian" I said. My mouth felt dry, as though I'd been wandering in the desert for some time.

"It's great to see you up again" my best friend from high school told me. "I just wish it were under better circumstances. I found you next to a slab of rock in the middle of our small town, and called an ambulance. But the hospital was full, or at least it was going to be, so they took you here instead."

I frowned. "Where's here, exactly?"

"This is one of the convention centers in Oldale Town. It's been converted into a field hospital for victims of the eruption of Mt. Koru. Those who survived, that is. But as it turned out, it's a very good thing that you're here instead of the actual hospital."

"Why is that?"

"Well, apparently the hospital's generator…is that what it was? Whatever lets them have power even when there's an outage?"

I looked at Christian blankly. "What about it?"

"Well, the proper hospital is closer to the volcano. The generator was knocked out by the eruption, and most of our hometown's been without power for two days. That's also how long you were unconscious."

Two days. In two days, a lot could change; so much could have happened while I was out. I had about a million questions for Christian.

"What happened to Xander? I searched for him, but I couldn't find him amidst all the chaos. Is he okay?"

Christian didn't answer right away, but he didn't have to. The way he frowned and grimaced after I posed this question told me everything I needed to know.

"So he's dead, isn't he?" I managed to say this with a straight face; the tears would come later once the news was confirmed, but I was at the stage of loss where it still didn't seem that real.

My best friend sighed, running a hand through his white-blonde hair. He didn't speak for a good ten seconds, but when he did, he didn't have good news.

"After you were taken away in an ambulance, the Water types were able to put out the fire on the slab of rock. The rescue teams were able to lift up the boulder, and they found Xander there."

It was then that I knew there was no hope. Nobody could survive getting crushed by something that massive.

"His vertebrae had been completely shattered by the fallen boulder. I'm not going to show you any pictures of the scene, but he didn't look like Xander anymore."

Christian held out a hand for me to hold, which I tried to do. My arms were still a bit stiff from lying in bed for so long, and I realized that my hands were more than just orange; they also consisted of paws.

Paws.

"I'm so sorry, Darius. I know that your brother meant a lot to you, and I can't imagine how devastated you must be. Just know that I'm here for you."

The heartache of having lost my brother hadn't fully set in yet. It was dulled somewhat by the realization that my hands had been replaced by paws.

"What about my body? How long will it take for me to recover?" I asked. I probably sounded rather dismissive of my brother's demise, but I didn't feel that way at all. I just couldn't muster the realization of its implications yet. I still needed time to process everything, but time's a luxury I couldn't afford.

"Well, there's good news and bad news," Christian told me. "The good news is that you've healed a lot more quickly than most people. It's only been two days, but the bandages on your stomach have been removed. So that's good."

I didn't really want to ask this question, but I knew that I'd find out sooner or later; best to get it over with quickly, I should think.

"So what's the bad news?"

Christian sighed. "The bad news is related to the reason why you healed so quickly. Humans take a while to recover from the severity of the burn you received, but there's a different race of beings who can heal a lot faster. I think you know what I'm talking about."

Of course, I did. "Are you saying that I'm a Pokemon now?"

Once more, Christian didn't explicitly answer the question; however, judging by the facial expression he made upon being asked it, I knew that I wouldn't like the answer.

Instead of telling me yes or no, my friend rummaged through a bedside cabinet (which I hadn't noticed prior to this), evidently looking for something.

"What are you looking for, Christian?" I asked him.

"A mirror" he replied matter-of-factly, as though nothing was out of the ordinary whatsoever.

"Why would you need a mirror?"

"I'm going to show you what you look like now, duh."

I frowned. "You pretty much gave away the game right there. You're saying I have become a Pokemon, you just don't want to tell me."

"I won't tell you that. I'll show you instead" Christian replied, pulling out a small handheld mirror from the bedside cabinet. He handed it to me. "Hold it up to your face."

I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes; what else were you supposed to do with this object?

Nonetheless, I did as I was told, and what I saw nearly caused me to faint; it was a good thing I was already in bed.

Where my human face, with its black hair, slightly olive skin, and green eyes should have been, there was a rather orange face with brown eyes, whiskers, and a yellow ring around my neck.

I knew the name of this Pokemon species; I'd seen them at Oldale Beach a few times during day trips with my family. I'd never gone out of my way to interact with one, but they had seemed friendly enough.

"I'm a Buizel" I mouthed. "Holy hell, I'm a Buizel."

"That's right," Christian replied, grimacing. "Also, what you said just now rhymed. You should become a pop star or something."

I frowned, gritting my teeth. "Not funny."

"Ah, sorry. Anyway, they say you can be discharged tomorrow if you agree not to exert yourself too hard once you're out there. Indeed, we could probably persuade them to discharge you now if you can walk on your own."

Although my body was rather fatigued, I also felt restless. "I'd be happy with that," I responded. "Besides, if the field hospital needs more patients, I'm more than willing to give up this bed."

Christian nodded. "Okay, then. Do you need me to help you up or…".

"I'm fine."

In order to prove my point, I spread my new orange arms out to the side and lunged forward in a sit-up. While this was a worthy form of exercise even as a human, it was very difficult to do as a Buizel; at least, for someone who had just become a Buizel.

I was ultimately unable to get up, so Christian offered me a hand. This time, I took it gladly.

Walking was a rather awkward maneuver. Nobody remembers learning to walk the first time, but learning it the second time was rather nerve-wracking.

From a standing position, I could only shuffle forward gingerly. I held my arms out like the wings of an airplane, doing my best to keep myself steady. This was easier said than done.

"Good job, Darius," Christian told me as I walked over to him. "Now, before you leave the field hospital, I just wanted to tell you something."

"What's that?" I asked, hoping that it wasn't bad news. I'd had enough bad news for a lifetime.

"Well, you see, your home was destroyed by the volcanic rocks. For the time being, we've decided that you're going to live with me. If you're okay with that, of course."

A tiny bit of happiness welled up inside me.

"More than okay!" I exclaimed. Living with one's best friend is often a fantasy, but I was happy to make it my reality.

Of course, the reason I'd be living with Christian was unfortunate. I might have been happy before, but I wasn't happy anymore.

My smile quickly turned into a frown as everything sank in.