Or in which Amber comes clean to the Deltas.
Amber had, she thought, taken the revelation that she was rescued by the Augur of Torren (and furthermore, that she was in Torren at all) quite well. That is to say that she had only frozen up for perhaps half a second chasing a memory about him that she knew was there but was staying maddeningly out of reach, much like a laser pointer would seem to be easy to catch to an unsuspecting cat before they realized it could disappear and reappear wherever it wanted, especially atop their paws, before discarding that particular train of thought and forcibly restarting her brain.
As it turned out, he was very curious about how she had managed to understand the non-Psychic Pokémon that had been with her, and when the fact that she was psychic (and had only been so for a few hours before her recent stint with a two-day period of unconsciousness) came up, he (quite sensibly) brought up Squirtle: "Your Squirtle is a dark type, is it not?
Seeing her nod, he continued. "If that's so, then how are you understanding them psychically? I doubt you've learned Miracle Eye this quickly."
Amber frowned. "That is… a good question." She paused, thinking for a moment. "Off the top of my head I can think of a few ideas, most of which are probably wrong, and I'll probably only think of more as time goes on."
Adam hummed, stroking his beard. "Well, we might be able to get Diana to drop by and take a look." Seeing Amber's confusion, he elaborated: "She's a Psychic-type Gym Leader."
At that time, a brown-haired woman trailed by a Togekiss and a Gardevoir entered the room. "Ah, good, you're awake. I'm Harmony, hospital volunteer and Sonata City Gym Leader. How are you feeling?"
"Eh…" Amber shrugged. "Not too bad, all things considered. I assume I've got you to thank for that?"
Harmony nodded. "Indeed." She walked forward, then checked a computer connected to Amber's IV. "Well, it appears you've taken well to the Heal Pulse-Life Dew treatment. Your leg aside, you appear to be healthy."
Amber looked down at the appendage in question, then sighed. "Thank you for that."
"Now." Amber turned to Adam, and nearly flinched back at the intensity in his eyes. "I believe that, now that you're awake and no longer in danger of dying, we can talk about why you saw fit to crash a boat into Nasca Town." Squirtle stepped back, building a visible sheen of aura on her now-upraised hands.
"Adam!" snapped Harmony. "She was concussed!"
At almost the same time, Amber shot back with "I didn't exactly get to pick where I landed on the sudden magic expanding landmass!"
Adam looked at her strangely. "Sudden… magic expanding landmass?"
"I have no idea why it happened either. One moment, we were traveling in a storm and the next moment I see a growing coastline and smack my head on the door." She shot him a glare. "So I'd thank you to not cast aspersions about my motivations when I was in the middle of fleeing from a mad scientist's island."
Both of the adults' jaws dropped. So did Squirtle's hands, as she read their auras and saw the aggression fade.
"What." Adam closed his mouth, but still looked at Amber blankly.
"Did that not come up when you discussed things with Bulbasaur?" asked Amber.
After learning what, exactly, the three Deltas and Amber had escaped from, the two Gym Leaders left the room to, as Amber guessed, fact-check (and then process the implications of) their story.
"Amber, there's something we discussed when you were out that I think you should hear," said Bulbasaur.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Well, with what you said about your hair and how you've been acting, I think- and both Charmander and Squirtle agree with me- that you're not the same Amber we knew." Bulbasaur looked up at the woman in question with both apprehension and determination in her eyes.
Amber's face was inscrutable, even as she nodded. "I'm not the Amber you knew, not entirely."
"Not entirely?" asked Charmander.
Amber shook her head, with an oddly sad smile on her face. "Nah, there's… I guess the best way to put it would be, uh, two lives' worth of memories in my head. One was Amber's, and one was… well, it was from a world without Pokémon."
The three Pokémon were gobsmacked, jaws opened as if to invite flies to enter.
Squirtle, oddly enough, was the first to recover from the shock, and she jabbed both of her companions in the side hard enough to jolt them back to the situation at hand.
"Right." Charmander shook herself in a not-quite-catlike manner. "Well, you still saved our lives, so you can't be all bad!"
Bulbasaur, on the other hand, was less immediately sanguine. The four-legged Psychic-type sat silently for a moment, then looked up at Amber. "Tell us more. What was your other life like?"
"Well, first I gotta preface this with the disclaimer that I… ach, how do words." After a moment of thought, Amber continued. "I'm having memory issues. Like, I remember most things, but I know there are big gaps that I know should have something in them. Like, I'm having trouble remember what I used for my big English project."
"Wait, what?" asked Bulbasaur, confused.
"Sorry, got off topic. Yeah, I was…" Amber paused, considering how to word this best. "I was a student, and I just about finished up my first year of study before everything went to shit." After pausing for dramatic effect, she continued. "The president of the country had ignored an epidemic long enough for it to get to a massive crisis and then some. You… well, I think you can guess how I died."
"Wait, you died?" asked Squirtle, awestruck at the idea of working with a reincarnate.
"It wasn't fun," Amber drawled. "Trust me on that."
After another twenty minutes of discussion, the four lab escapees came to an understanding of sorts-while Amber wasn't the same person that the three Deltas had known, they had no issue remaining aligned with her.
With that particular issue resolved, Amber was left with a significant amount of nervous energy and no way to express that energy besides a bouncy left leg and a tapping set of hands.
At least, until the sudden entry of a Hoopa into the room made her start.
"Oh, so you're the secret that Hoopa's not supposed to know! Hoopa doesn't get all the hoopla about you! What's so special about you?" the diminutive Psychic-type asked, darting around Amber much like a hummingbird.
After a moment of thought, Amber shrugged, one corner of her mouth tugging up into a smirk. "I dunno, maybe I have too many names?"
"Is- is this for real?" asked Bulbasaur, who was approaching overwhelmed thanks to all the revelations she had experienced recently.
"Hmm… That's boring! Hoopa doesn't know why that secret is so important!"
Amber shrugged. "I'm not exactly the paragon of secrecy and deceit. Most things about me aren't that secret."
Bulbasaur side-eyed her at this, but didn't bring up the matter of reincarnation, at least partially because of Hoopa's presence.
Hoopa evidently didn't notice the interaction between Bulbasaur and Amber, because the hovering imp was inspecting Charmander closely. "What's wrong with your flame? It's all purple! Before the little Dragon could respond, Hoopa had darted off to hover over Bulbasaur and poke at the tiny nub of crystal poking out of her bulb. "And your bulb is super weird! It smells like a Sableye!"
Bulbasaur released a quick burst of telekinesis that nudged the little genie back. "Please don't touch."
Hoopa did a loop, then approached Squirtle. "You look like a Fighting type!"
"I am," replied the Tiny Turtle Pokémon.
"Huh. Neat!" Hoopa did a little ascending twirl, then swept back along the three Deltas, bopping each of them on the nose before rising to hover in front of Amber. "Are you sure you don't want to tell Hoopa what's so interesting about you?
Amber shrugged, still smirking. "I'm not sure what else you'd need to know, you little rascal.
"Hmmm… Okay! Hoopa will find out and then Hoopa will let you know when Hoopa does!" With these parting words, Hoopa tossed out a ring and travelled through it, leaving it to shrink into nothingness with a cheery "Ping!"
"What just happened?" asked Bulbasaur.
And that's that.
I don't actually have S1E5 written yet, I was discussing something really out of left field with someone in a Discord server and my muse took that and ran. I'll probably drop that in the next few days, but I also might be a little slow with S1E5 since my muse got kidnapped and also I have two (2) lab reports due next week.
Still looking for a beta, if anyone's interested.
Read and Review please!