After waking up and eating breakfast, we left the motel and walked back over to Sue and Leevan's Fashion Shop. We walked in to find her finishing up what looked to be a jacket of sorts... but it also looked kinda like a pile of cloth?

"Hey Leevan!" I said, eying the thing she was making. "Is that...?"

"Yep! And I've just finished!" She replied, holding it up to take a final look. "This one is yours, go ahead and try it on!"

As she had lifted up the jacket, I got a decent look at it. It looked like she had folded cloth and trimmed it, wrapping it around and stitching it so that it was in the shape of a coat.

She held the jacket over to me, and I stared at it. Normally how I would put a jacket on would be to stick one arm through and then put my other arm behind my back to get it through the other arm hole. But now having four legs, that was impossible! I can't bend a leg backwards like that!

I looked up at her. She was holding the jacket out with a smile still, kind of holding it at a weird angle... shouldn't she know, best of all that I can't put it on myself? I mean- Oh wait! Duh! She's holding it out for me to slip my legs through!

I stuck my right paw into the first jacket sleeve. I don't know if it was my for or the jacket, but I already felt snug in there. I then put my back leg in, and then the other one. Finally, I put my left paw in, and that was that.

Leevan brought out a large mirror, and I took a look at myself. The jacket was a nice blue color, with a sort of bundled look to it... in a good way. It had button-like things along the opening, and little string loops to fasten them around so I could close the jacket. Overall, I really liked it.

"Well?" Leevan said. "What do you think?"

"I love it!" I replied. Honestly, I felt weird without wearing something like clothes for so long. I mean, having fur basically defeats the purpose, but it was somewhat reassuring to me that I still felt better wearing clothes.

Next was Sam. She pulled out a similar green jacket with a hood and offered it to Sam. He dropped his bag on the floor and put it on. It looked a bit like a raincoat, it was made of some kind of smooth cloth. The inside, however, looked very fluffy. It looked nice on him, and it brought out his hazel-looking eyes.

"This feels great! He said as he turned, looking at himself in the mirror. "What's it made of?"

"The exterior is made of a material of my own design," Leevan started. "It's a combination of a few different things to make it water-resistant and warm. The inside is lined with fur, because I'm sure you'll need it to stay warm on the mountain."

"Sweet, thank you!" Sam said with delight. "I love it!" Sam then stepped aside as Rou fluttered over.

"And for you, it was a bit harder..." Leevan said, glancing down at Rou. "You are already pretty feathery, and your round shape was hard to deal with... so I decided to make you this!"

Leevan pulled out a small cloak, it was a dark color, almost a dark blue or grey. It was made of some kind of wrapped, thin fabric. It looked much more baggy then the others, and I assumed there was reason for that.

"When you wrap yourself up in these, it will keep you comfortable and as long as you try not to get wet, you should stay warm!" Leevan said. "If it does get too wet, you will have to set it out to dry."

"Oh, so it's kinda like wool then?" I said, making a connection and interrupting before Rou made a mean remark. "It soaks up water really easy?"

"Wool?" Leevan asked with a curious expression. "What is wool?"

Realizing my mistake and not wanting everyone to know I was a human, I quickly decided to drop the subject. "I- I must've been thinking of something else. Never mind!!"

There was a pause, and Leevan figured that she wasn't going to get an answer from me on the subject. She finished up with our instruction.

"Now make sure you know what you're doing, going up those mountains... I've heard stories of Pokémon getting lost in the snow or never coming back down. You three stay safe, got it?"

"Yes we will!" I said, thankful for the relief. "Thanks again for the deal!"

As we closed the door behind us, Sam looked uneasy, then suddenly shook his head and forced out a smile. I knew that this hike could be difficult, especially for him, but maybe we'd turn out fine? I mean, we've come this far and been okay, right?

We made sure that we had everything, and then we asked around for some sort of map of the mountain. We soon found a store that had large maps for sale, and and we purchased one of the area.

We found a place to sit, and I laid out our map.

"Alright," Sam said aloud, straightening his glasses and hunching over the map. "This is where we are, Fal 'oh town in the Fav 'La district." He pointed at a small town on the map, near the coast. Nearby was a mountain range and on the top of one of the mountains was a point that said 'Cattail Peak'.

"And this is the highest mountain," Sam continued, pointing at the mountain I had noticed. "We need to go to... Kat-el peak?"

"Uh, Sam? I think it says Cat-tail peak." I stated. "You know, like a cat?"

"What's a cat?" Rou asked.

"Oh that's right. You guys are Pokémon." I remembered. "A cat is like... kinda like a Meowth, or a skitty!"

"Really?" Sam said. "That's kind of weird."

"Yeah... and why would you name a mountain peak after a species?

I looked at him oddly. "Uh, well it's not really too different... some places would have kinda weird names back..."

I froze.

"... back home."

I realized something that started to confuse me. How was it that I could remember certain things from home, but not other things? Like I could remember certain things from my life, like my brother would watch tv shows and what the internet was, but I couldn't remember much of my family. Or even much about myself for that matter. I could at least remember what kind of person I was, or am? No matter what happened, I would take it in stride. I somehow knew that, although I'm not even sure what had happened to me.

Gah, I don't know! Maybe I SHOULD be worrying more about who I really am! I can vaguely remember some things, like my home being a warm, loving place to be, with a feeling of peace and calm fondness. I think I lived in a town? I also remember some things like Bill Nye the Science Guy and the Magic School Bus, as well as some songs I must've listened to. I'm also pretty sure I was in high school.

I could remember a bit of TV shows, movies, and a bit of music... do I remember this because I need to? Did Arceus let me keep certain memories because I would need them, but not my important ones about myself? Why could I remember what a meme was but not my own last name?

Ugh... this is so frustrating! Why couldn't I just keep all of my memories?! Would they really distract me from whatever thing I'm supposed to do here? Maybe. Either way I was frustrated about it. I knew being angry about it wasn't going to change anything, but I wasn't going to give up that easily.

I was lost in these thoughts when I heard a rude tone. I blinked and shook myself out of these worries for the moment to find Sam and Rou in a heated debate.

"I doubt you'll need it." Rou said with a snarky tone.

"No I'm sure I will." Sam said back, tail flaring up.

"What is this about?" I asked.

"Little bonfire here wants to get himself a scarf." Rou said with a condescending tone. "Not that he's going to need one, he could probably keep us all warm with that attitude of his."

"Wow, and they call us fire-types 'hotheads'." Sam muttered under his breath.

"ALRIGHT." I said with a small unexpected growl in my voice. This caught both their attention. I calmed myself down. "Why not get an extra scarf? If he doesn't need it, maybe one of us will?"

Rou scoffed. "Fine." He said, looking away from us.

We bought the additional scarf and eventually decided on taking the quickest route up the mountain. It was a path that not many Pokémon travelled by the looks of it, but we wanted to get there as soon as possible.

We had asked people- er, Pokémon in the town why the quickest path wasn't used more often. They said that the more popular paths avoided Mystery Dungeons, and the original ones didn't. I still felt that we were able to handle a few mystery dungeons, so I disregarded this.

We soon were on our way up the mountains.

——————————-

"Ugh.. can this be any more boring?" Rou said with a sigh. "This is about as boring as a Staravia looking for a bug in a desert."

We had been hiking for a few hours with nothing much to see but forest and rocks. Not talking much seemed to have taken a toll on our little bird. He kept complaining about how dull this was and things like that.

"Maybe if you'd stop complaining, we could attempt to have a decent conversation." Sam said ruthlessly.

"Okay, that's it." I said, fed up with their constant bickering. "Sam, you up here with me. Rou, lag behind a little bit."

"With pleasure..." Rou mumbled as he slowed down his pace.

As Sam and I got out of earshot from Rou, I confronted Sam. "Alright. What's going on? Why are you arguing with Rou so much?"

Sam fidgeted in his step. "I- I'm not sure." He confessed, looking at the ground as we walked. "I guess I'm just still mad at him for making me jump in the water... doesn't he know how much that hurts Charmanders?"

I thought about my answer. Surely drenching an open flame like the one on Sam's tail would hurt, but some things worked differently here... maybe it's not common knowledge? I decided the best thing to do at this point was to listen to both sides, and then maybe go from there?

"Okay, try to resist fighting back for now, and let me see if I can sort this out." I said l.

"Okay..." Sam said with a sigh.

I was about to call Rou closer to switch places with Sam, when suddenly that familiar stomach-flipping feeling happened again. Oh no, we must've walked right into a mystery dungeon!

My surroundings shifted, and I blinked my eyes. When my vision cleared, I looked around and saw Sam close by... but not Rou!

"Rou!!!" I called out, hoping he could hear me. "Rou-"