*Beep* *Beep* … *Beep* *Beep* … *Beep* *Beep* …

"Mmmfff," Stella groaned while face down into her pillow. She blindly reached her arm out to her desk and pressed the snooze button.

Unwilling to get up, she laid in bed for a few minutes longer, listening to the sound of rain battering against her bedroom window.

Finally, after a short moment, she rolled over and looked outside at the grey skies and water droplets sliding down her window. "Going to need a jacket today," Stella thought as she sighed and began to hoist herself out of bed.

As she stood up though, she kicked her foot into a cardboard box on the ground. "Hm?" Stella looked down at her bedroom floor, where there were a few boxes scattered around her bed.

"Huh, guess I forgot to clean up after last night."

Stella quickly pushed the cardboard boxes along the floor back into her closet. They weren't organized properly, but she could deal with that later.

Stella walked out into the kitchen to eat breakfast. This time, she prepared a few cooked combusken eggs with pecha berries for breakfast.

"Oh I should mention Stella," her Grandma began as Stella sat down to eat, "I will be going next door to see Mrs. Lane. She's going to be giving me some computer lessons. Afterwards, we're going to be watching a marathon of Pokénovella in the afternoon, so I might not be home when you arrive. Feel free to take some of the leftovers from last night or make something yourself."

"Sure thing," Stella replied.

Pokénovella is a popular soap opera that plays in the Alterra region. Its dramatic plot, romantic tone, and relatable domestic setting makes it a favorite TV show for many adults.

"I wonder if Vincent is going to trade his victreebel for Wanda's stuful! Ooooo it's all so tense!"

"Right..." Stella replied hesitantly as she poked her fork into her food, completely oblivious to the show's plot.

After Stella finished eating, she put her dishes in the sink, filled up Skitty's food bowl, (who was complaining rather loudly by the way) and went to her bathroom to brush her teeth.

After she began to brush her teeth, it took her a moment to notice the green scarf tied around her neck in the mirror's reflection. With the way it was wrapped around her neck, it looked like it had a dark and light green zig-zag pattern.

Stella slowly stopped brushing. "What...? Where did this come from?"

Stella instinctively felt for the scarf at her neck and froze up. Flashes of her memories came back to her.

It knocked me out last night.

I was an eevee.

The scarf was there too.

There were those other two pokémon.

We were on a mountain.

That view was beautiful.

Stella suddenly dropped her toothbrush and started breathing heavily, trying to calm herself down. She didn't consider the scarf to be a problem in her dream because it was just a dream. That wasn't real. But now... Now she was certain. The scarf on her neck had actually lunged at her face and knocked her out last night. In the real world.

In a panic, she tried to tear the scarf from her neck, untie it, do anything to get it off, but it wouldn't loosen no matter what she did.

"Why won't this thing come off?!"

Stella stopped pulling for a moment to think and breathe. She suddenly had an idea. She rushed into her room, opened one of the drawers under her desk, and pulled out a pair of scissors.

"Okay, let's try this."

Stella pulled the scarf down slightly, holding it in place so she could cut it off with the scissors.

Stella closed the scissor blades with the scarf in between... But nothing happened. Stella tried as hard as she could to cut the scarf, using both hands to force the scissors to close, but the fabric seemed impossible to cut!

"Man, this is a tough scarf! Why won't it cut?!"

Suddenly, Stella heard a loud *SNAP* sound and something clatter to the ground. Stella took that as an indication that she'd successfully cut the scarf, so she tried pulling on it. But it wouldn't come off. It was still stuck.

"Huh?" Stella thought out-loud.

It was then that Stella saw the issue. She looked at the scissors she was holding. The metal blades of the scissors were cut cleanly in half, and the missing halves of both blades were laying on the floor at her feet.

Out of sheer bewilderment, Stella dropped the broken scissors and stood for a few moments in complete silence.

After taking a moment to process what just happened, Stella fell into her bed, her mind a mix of confusion and defeat. She stared up at the ceiling, frustrated, baffled, and unsure of what to make of her situation.

"Right, apparently I have an indestructible, untieable, magic scarf that is stuck to my neck and can cut metal in half. That's neat. Yeah… That's real neat."

Just then, Skitty walked into Stella's room. They gave a concerned meow while tilting their head. Stella turned her head towards Skitty and somewhat dejectedly replied, "Oh hey there." Just then, Skitty hopped onto Stella's bed, laid down next to her and started purring. "Thanks for the concern Skitty. At least you aren't talking or anything weird like that." As Stella began to pet Skitty, her mind started to wander.

What could she do? Stella thought back to the dream she had. Last night, after the scarf made her fall asleep, she had that strange dream where she was an eevee, wearing the same scarf. Could they be connected? Maybe she wasn't dreaming after all? Maybe the scarf actually took her to a world with only talking pokémon? And turned her into a pokémon too? Is it even possible?

Stella knew she was naturally a skeptic, something her grandma told her was a family trait. But even trying to be open-minded, Stella still found it hard to believe that her "experience" was anything beyond a dream. If she told anyone otherwise anyways, everyone would just call her crazy. Even then, she woke up from the dream. How could she even wake up from travelling to another world?

Stella was starting to get a headache thinking about her strange circumstances too much. She decided to believe that her experience was a dream and leave it at that; she didn't have enough information to make any other conclusions. Besides, she remembered some advice she received last night as her mind wandered to something that Talia, the nidorina, said in her dream. "Your scarf seems inert and I don't think any more guessing will help us learn more about it, so I don't think it's worth worrying about it." She did have a point. There was nothing she could do about her situation as far as she knew, and it wasn't hurting her, so Stella decided to not worry about it for now. The only bother it would probably give her was making it harder to change clothes.

Stella held up the front of the scarf so she could see it. It was tied so that the front was arranged in a triangular shape and the knot was tied at the back of her neck, backwards to how it was tied in her dream.

Stella sighed. "I guess you're staying with me for a bit then," she mumbled. Stella was at least thankful that it didn't look bad on her.

Stella glanced at her alarm clock. She had about fifteen minutes to get downstairs and meet up with Michael. Stella got up with Skitty clinging to her arm, meowing and complaining. "Look," Stella began, "I know you want more pets, but I need to go to school now, okay?" Stella gently ripped Skitty from her arm and plopped them back onto her bed.

Stella walked over to her desk where her backpack hung on the chair. As she grabbed her backpack, Stella noticed the vial of rainbow powder that she left yesterday on her desk; the mysterious "Emera Powder" that she found in that chest. Remembering that she wanted to ask Michael what he knows about it, she grabbed it and quickly stuffed it into her bag.

Stella then went to the bathroom, finished brushing her teeth with a new toothbrush, and changed into some warm clothes with a rain jacket over it. With winter getting closer, it was only going to get colder too.


After a brief rainy day at school, Stella asked Michael about the strange vial of "Emera Powder" she found. With another internet search and no luck, Michael suggested they visit the public library where they kept some of the more obscure research records, things that weren't uploaded publicly.

After Michael asked the librarian for a few documents that might be related to the strange "Emera", they walked to the corner of the library where there was an opening to a small café.

The library café had a cozy vibe, with relaxing lo-fi jazz music playing gently from a nearby speaker. Wood and plant-based decor were prominent in the café, giving it a brown and green aesthetic. The chairs and tables were made of lacquered dark oak wood, and were each organically and uniquely shaped, almost as if they grew out of the ground just the way they were. Some of the shelves held either black and white polaroid pictures of customers enjoying themselves, or small, low-maintenance potted plants such as cacti, pothos, spider ivy, and rubber fig.

As Stella and Micheal walked in, they could see that the library café was sparsely filled. At one table there was a business-suited adult working on a laptop. At another table, a couple was being served mixed chesto berry coffee by a female indeedee who served them using psychic from a distance. On a sofa in the corner of the room, a college student and their shuppet were reading a book together. The student was laid out along the whole couch with their shoes off and socks on. Their shuppet, on the other hand, hovered behind them to get a good reading angle. On the windowsill, there was a leafeon laid out on a small bed. They gazed lazily outside as crowds of people walked up and down the street as it rained, a large majority of them carrying umbrellas while others wore rain jackets.

"Alrighty, let's see here..." Michael said as they both sat down. "We don't have a lot to work with but at least it's something. Can't believe there is almost nothing on your 'mystery substance.' And you just randomly found it in your bedroom?"

"Yeah," Stella replied as she took off her rain jacket. "It was in a dusty old box in the back of my closet. Dunno how it could've gotten there."

"Weird stuff man… Oh well, let's see what we can find."

While they read through the documents, Michael ordered a decaf coffee from a barista behind the counter. Since there weren't many documents, it only took the two about twenty minutes to read through all of them. However, since Stella wasn't overly familiar with the language used in scientific reports, she did a lot more asking than reading.

"Man," Michael complained, "there's seriously nothing here. Closest thing is a report on the possibility of turning thunderstones into powder and mixing them with metal alloys to make them more conductive, but that's really it. I mean, it sounds like sand when you shake the bottle around, so it must be some kind of crystal or rock-like substance. And it reacts to Pokémon, so it's likely related to evolution stones in some way…" Michael leaned back in his chair and pushed up his glasses as he drifted off with his words. "This is a real mystery Stell…"

"Oh my gosh! Michael and Stella!?" A new voice exclaimed.

The two turned to an employee wearing a dark green and light brown uniform behind the counter. "Didn't expect to see you two here!"

"Oh hey Rebecca!" Stella exclaimed. "You work here?"

"Yeppers!" Rebecca replied, "Started working here just last week! Actually, I'm on break right now, just got finished lugging in a bunch of boxes in the back, so lemme come around the counter to talk to you guys."

Rebecca was both taller and looked more mature than both Michael and Stella. Rebecca had fair skin, and some green highlights running through her long, black, and slightly curly hair.

As she approached the table, the indeedee who was serving coffee to the couple before was now meekly following behind Rebecca as she pulled up a seat to the table.

"Oh, so is this why I haven't seen you in school this past week?" Michael asked as Rebecca sat down.

"Bingo! I figured with the end of school coming with winter break, I might as well not even go the final week. I mean heck, all we do all day is play board games and watch educational videos all day. No assignments, not much learning. With senior year coming up, I'd rather be doing something more productive with my time like getting a job and making some actual money, you know?"

"Yea I feel that man, good for you!" Michael replied.

"By the way Stella, I love your scarf!" Rebecca exclaimed. "It looks really fashionable on you! I don't recognize the brand, where'd you get it?"

"Oh I uh… I found it among some old clothes in my closet yesterday." Stella quickly replied. "You know, it's getting cold and everything."

Stella didn't feel like explaining that her scarf was stuck to her neck, especially since she couldn't explain it to herself, so she tried to avoid that conversation as much as possible.

"Oh but anyways, is that indeedee yours?" Stella asked as she tried to lean to the side, attempting to get a better look at the indeedee behind Rebecca.

"Oh yeah, I caught her recently. She's a bit shy around people though, so I thought I'd have her help out here at the shop. Just to help her get used to being around new people. Say hi Dessy!"

The indeedee gave a shy wave and softly smiled from behind Rebecca's back.

Both Stella and Michael gave a small wave, replying with a "Heya!" and "Hello!" from both of them respectively.

"So what'cha guys doing here?" Rebecca asked, gesturing to the documents they had scattered on the table.

Stella told Rebecca about the bottle of "Emera Powder" she found in her room. "Oh really? It's attracted to pokémon? Can I see?" Rebecca asked.

Stella took out the bottle of emera powder and handed it to Rebecca. "Make sure you're gentle with it," Michael cautioned. "Whatever this stuff is, it's probably the only sample of its kind."

As Rebecca held the vial, the sand inside started creeping up the side of the bottle, in the direction of Dessy the indeedee. "So weird," she muttered as she stared into the rainbow powder, mesmerized by all of the colors. After a moment, Rebecca handed the vial back to Stella. "You guys find any information on it?" She asked.

"Nope," Stella replied.

"Yea," Michael began, "nothing even close. Just a few documents on maybe crushing evolution stones into powder, but we don't even know if this stuff is related to them. It's really just conjecture on our behalf for now."

As Michael talked, Stella put the vial back into her bag, but noticed that the powder in the vial was shifting towards her a tiny bit. Did it do that before? Stella looked behind her so see if there was any pokémon behind her, but the tables were empty. "It can't be attracted to me, I'm not a pokémon," Stella thought as she put it away in her bag. "Maybe it's attracted to a pokémon on the other side of the wall?" Stella shook her head at the thought. "Or maybe it's just weird powder being weird."

"Man, that sucks, hope you guys do find out something," Rebecca replied. "Sounds like such a cool mystery to unravel though!"

"Yea, it's definitely a head scratcher," Michael replied. "Never heard or seen anything else like it before. I think that we might have to look somewhere else," Michael said as he began to organize the documents to return later.

"Speaking of weird stuff," Rebecca started, "have you ever heard of…"

The topic of conversation changed to random weird things they've been told or heard about. Things like spooky unsolved mysteries, urban legends, and trivia about random oddities around the world.

Suddenly changing the subject, Rebecca said, "You know, speaking of weird stuff, I had this wack dream the other night. Like dude, you ever have one of those dreams where you're flying? Well like, I had one of those, but instead of me flying, everyone else was flying! Felt left out completely."

"Man," Michael complained, "at least you get something interesting. All I get are just boring dreams of riding the subway for hours on end and stressing out over exams."

Stella stayed mostly quiet throughout the conversation since Michael and Rebecca were both much more talkative than her. Moreover, she couldn't stop thinking about the scarf around her neck, the dream it might've caused, and the powder she found in the same wooden chest as her scarf. To Stella, they all seemed to be related to one another, especially since she found the vial and the scarf in that chest, yet she couldn't imagine why. She felt like she only had half of the puzzle. But since the topic of dreams came up, Stella decided to take the opportunity and talk about the dream she had. "You know, I had this one dream last night…"

Stella recounted to Michael and Rebecca the strange dream she had the previous night, omitting that she wore the same scarf in the dream that she was wearing now. She wanted to share the dream with at least someone else just to get it off her chest, but was hesitant to dive into a conversation about her scarf too much.

"Man, I'm really jealous now!" Michael exclaimed while chuckling. "Is it really just me who gets boring dreams?"

"Nah it's not just you Mikey, sometimes I get mundane stuff too," Rebecca replied. Rebecca then turned to Stella, "But still though, having a dream where you're a pokémon having an adventure? That sounds so cool! I bet you were cute as a heck as an eevee!" Rebecca teased.

Stella snorted and gave a light chuckle in response. "Hehe yeah, I probably was."

"Though if I was a pokémon, it'd be so useful for studying pokémon biology!" Rebecca gleefully exclaimed. "I mean heck, if I could talk to other pokémon and experience life as a pokémon, we could learn so much about them!"

Stella smiled at Rebecca's comment. "You're always thinking about ways to learn more about pokémon anatomy and biology aren't you."

"Of course!" Rebecca replied. "You know it's my favorite subject! Can't wait until I graduate highschool and can study pokémon in the field as part of my classes. It'd be so cool!"

Michael suddenly took his phone out and glanced down at it. "Hey, sorry to interrupt," Michael began as he stood up and picked up the pile of documents, "but I gotta head out to help mom take care of some stuff for later tonight. Apparently the TV broke and she needs it for some event later with her friends."

With a somewhat downcast expression, Stella replied, "Oh, alrighty. Kinda disappointing though that we couldn't learn anything new."

Michael turned to Stella and said, "Eh, don't worry, it's fine. I'm not sure how else we can find info on the powder, sand, dust, whatever it is... but I'm sure we can think of something. It had to come from somewhere right? Someone labeled it and knew what it was, so it isn't impossible to imagine that at least someone somewhere knows something about it."

"Right, thanks for the reassurance Michael," Stella replied.

"No problem. I'll return the documents to the librarian so you don't have to deal with it. The whole process of returning archived stuff is freaking annoying. They have to read through every single document and verify them; takes them way too long."

"Thanks again," Stella replied.

"Aw man, wanted to talk to you guys more. But it's good timing actually!" Rebecca exclaimed. "My break is almost over, so… guess I'll see you guys later?"

The three each went their separate ways. Michael went to the library reception desk, Rebecca returned to work, and Stella took the subway home. After hopping off the subway, she walked the rest of the way home, her mind filled with all questions, no answers.


Like Stella's grandmother said, nobody was home except for Skitty when she arrived. Stella warmed up leftovers from the previous night, and prepared herself for sleep.

Before she went to bed though, she pulled out one of the cardboard boxes she left in her closet, and pulled out the small, rustic-looking wooden chest she found both the emera vial and the scarf in. She examined it, looking for anything noteworthy that might answer questions she had about the vial and her scarf. The only thing of note she found was on the front of the box, a stamped white symbol of a pokéball flanked on either side by wings. Stella figured that it must be important and related to the scarf and vial, but couldn't imagine what the connection could be. Searching up for "pokéball flanked by wings" on the internet gave her images of flying-type trainers posing with their pokémon on either side of them. Not exactly what she was looking for.

With no results, Stella took out the vial of emera and put it back into the chest, closed it, and left it inside the cardboard box in her closet.

As she climbed into bed, her mind filled up with all of the questions she accumulated throughout the day. What was up with the scarf stuck around her neck, the weird vial of powder she found, and the strange dream she had where she was an eevee? There was the box where she found the scarf and the vial of emera too. Where did it come from? Did that symbol mean anything?

Stella quickly realized that she wouldn't get anything done if she kept worrying about it. She could try and figure things out tomorrow, so she tried to clear her mind, relax, and fall asleep.