AN: First Blair and Summers exclusive, with insight as to what they were doing before the Nexus plotline. In this case, during the early-ish days of joining Wigglytuff's Guild.
Reminder as always, these chapters are responses to the Mystery Dungeon Subreddit's Writing Prompt Wednesdays, and if they seem rather 'first draft', that's because they are. Anyway, I will add in the prompt from which this story spawned.
Prompt: The consequences of being a Pokémon catch up to the hero.
It was still dark out as a little vulpix slowly went down the guild hall. The sounds of the other denizens of the underground base still quietly sleeping made the fox more at ease, something she was happy about, because everything else was wrong.
For every step she took, a voice inside of her was saying it was wrong, getting louder the further she went. Every twitch with her ears had the voice say it was unnatural and every movement from any of her tails was met with a barrage of thoughts that implied the impossibility of what she was doing.
Step by step she managed to exit the base, with an ever growing urge to just scream at the voice to be quiet.
"Those are hands, not paws." it would say. "You should be walking on two legs. Humans don't have tails. We don't breathe fire!" Further she went, as that voice continued to object to everything about her, but she pressed on until she reached the beach. For a moment the voice went quiet as she sat down on the spot she first woke up.
She raised her paws and stretched them out, trying to look at them as she would hands, but the way her joints were now, it was impossible. She gazed into the ocean as the sounds of waves rolling onto the beach calmed her.
"Blair, what did you do for this to happen to you?" she said out loud. She looked towards the horizon, wondering from where she had come from. Still as a rock, she took in the view of the sea for what felt like hours.
"Thought I would find you down here, Blazewind." came from the newly arrived treecko.
It took Blair a moment to react, still having to get used to her cover name. "Oh, Summers!" she said with a surprise to her voice. "Why did I come up with that bogus name?" she then mumbled under her breath, the voice replying with a concern for her safety. She would have laughed out loud if Summers wasn't there. The fake name was fine, but her body on the other hand...
"So, what is the problem this time?" her partner asked.
"Problem?" she replied, not sure what he was talking about.
"You always go down here when something is bothering you." he sighed. "So what is it this time?"
"Wait I do?" Blair started to think back. She had that nightmare, she was on the beach. She felt like she should be doing something important, at the beach. She had a headache, and down to the beach she was. "Huh... I do. Guess it's because this is the first place I remember. Gives some comfort, you know." She shrugged, to a less successful degree. "As to what is wrong, you are looking at it."
She barely managed to finish the sentence before Summers rushed over and gave her a hug. "Don't start thinking like that! You are you, and that is fine!" he said, squeezing her tighter.
"No, Summers, you misunderstood! Can't... Need air!"
Summers let go, looking a bit embarrassed. "S-s-sorry..." he stammered out.
"It's... it's okay." She responded, taking a deep breath. "What I meant was, that I have this little voice that yells at me for being turned into a vulpix, and because of it, have to do everything like a vulpix would do."
"Oh? So that is it?" Summers smiled as he raised a finger and started to nudge it on her forehead. "Voice inside Blazewind, please stop being mean to her. It's not her fault that she is so foxy now."
Blair laughed as she batted her partner's arm. "Yeah, I don't think it's listening. Thanks, though."
"You are welcome." Summers replied with a bow, before shielding his eyes as the first rays of the morning sun hit the beach.
For Blair, the voice died down and a new one started talking to her. "You know what?" she paused as she took in the sight. "I don't think I have experienced that many sunrises in my forgotten life."
"Why do you believe that?" her partner asked.
"Because now there is this other voice speaking to me." Her smile grew ever wider as she closed her eyes. "It says that I have to move forward. To never stop and go out there and save the world! To be able to bring about another sunrise."
"Well then," Summers laughed to himself. "I guess we have to go back then. Can't be out there saving the world, if you are getting chastised by Chatot for not being there for roll call."
"Yeah. You go on ahead. I need another moment." Blair replied as the burning orb continued to rise.
"Don't take too long." the grass type said before heading back to town.
Blair waited until her partner was out of sight. She then raised a paw and reached out towards the sun. "Come on, Partner! Let's bring it back." she blurted out, surprising herself. She lowered her paw in response, and for just a moment, she saw a strange, yet familiar green pokemon. "Okay..." She shook her head. "You are officially losing your mind, Blair."
She got up and started walking back to town. As she began, the voice returned.
'You are a human, stop acting like a pokemon'
But Blair ignored it. There was another voice she was listening to, smiling as she responded to it. "Let's do it. One day at a time."
AN: The burdens of an amnesiac timetraveler.
Oh, and once I catch up to 'prompt I won't specify', yes, I definitely planned that callback to this one, and isn't a complete coincidence that I used the same phrasing for similar issues. Definitely planned. Totally.
I am really doing a lot of suspeciously specific denials in recent times...
