"… you'd better be alive, I don't want to have stumbled on a de- Oh! Hey, you moved! If you can hear this, open your eyes!"

It wasn't purely due to the voice's bidding, however, that Alti opened her eyes, and the second she did so all of her other senses began submitting their perceptions to her brain. Grass blades tickled her from below. A cool breeze blew across her, although she surprisingly realized it did not chill her. The sounds of leaves and grass rustling filled her ears, and she could smell pollen and the other scents of plants. And above her, giving her an expression filled with relief, was a light blue Pokémon that Alti instantly recognized as a Squirtle.

"You're awake," the Squirtle commented, its face only giving the slightest hint of relief. "Good. I thought you were dead. What happened to you, anyway?"

"I…" Alti racked her brain. How had she ended up unconscious in what appeared to be a clearing in some forest? Somehow, she wasn't sure that the last place she had been was in the same place she currently was, but – and this made no sense to her – she couldn't remember the last place she had been. In fact, when she thought about it a little bit, she couldn't remember much of anything.

"I don't know," Alti told the Squirtle honestly, beginning to panic a little bit. "I don't remember why I was here. I don't remember anything, actually!"

She scrambled to her feet, looking around wildly. Was there anything around her that might tell her what was going on? There wasn't, but she did notice that the Squirtle was around her height – in fact, she thought the Squirtle was a little bit taller. Something told her in the back of her mind that that didn't make sense, and it came to the forefront as she realized what she had said wasn't true: She did remember a few things.

"I'm a human," she said. "Squirtles are like, a quarter the size of humans. So why are you taller than me? And… and why can I understand you?" As she spoke, it occurred to her that she didn't remember nothing. She just didn't remember anything about herself and her own past, aside from the fact that she was a human… and that her name was Alti.

"A human?" Alti didn't entirely understand the Squirtle's subsequent reaction to her statement. "There's no way. I mean, you look like a normal Pikachu to me."

It was all Alti could do to stare at the Squirtle in dead silence before the impact of his words had sunk in. When they did, Alti just managed to squeak out, "I… what?" before she decided to investigate. She looked down at her body, expecting to see some ruffled and grass-stained clothes. Instead, she had a yellow, furry body, and when she brought her hands into her field of vision, they were no longer hands but paws. Bringing them to her face, she felt a small muzzle that felt far different from a human's face, and two ears jutted out of her head. Looking over her shoulder, she saw a lightning-bolt-shaped tail with a small notch in it. There was no doubt that she was a Pikachu.

"I swear to Arceus I was human yesterday!" Alti hissed. "What – how in the world did this happen? First I can't remember anything except that I'm a human, except now I'm not even that!" She looked back to the Squirtle, feeling helpless.

He had been watching her with just an expression of confusion and mild interest. When Alti looked at him, he just narrowed his brow further and said, "Uh… no offense, but you're pretty weird."

Alti glared at him. "Wouldn't you act the same way if you woke up one morning and you were suddenly a human?"

After a brief second, the Squirtle nodded. "Point taken. Anyway, what's your name – if you remember it, anyway… I'm Cannon."

"… Alti," Alti told him after thinking for a second. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was what I was called as a human."

The Squirtle – Cannon – accepted this with a nod. "All right, Alti. Well, now that –"

"Help!"

A cry rang out over the clearing where Alti and Cannon were standing. Cannon trailed off, and both Alti and Cannon turned to the direction of the scream. A Butterfree was flying furiously against the wind, heading in the direction of Alti and Cannon.

"What's going on?" Cannon asked, slightly worriedly, as the Butterfree flew to them. Its head snapped toward Cannon, eyes bright, as he spoke. The Butterfree stopped near Alti and Cannon and looked to them wearily.

"You're friendly? Oh, thank goodness. I'm looking for some friendly Pokémon that might be able to help me." It was clear from the Butterfree's voice and the dark stripes on its lower wings that it was a female. After she had finished speaking, Alti noticed Cannon crossing his arms.

"Depends," he said carefully. "What's the problem?"

The Butterfree flapped her wings a little more harshly, and Alti got the sense she was a little annoyed at Cannon's aloof response. "It's my son," she said, voice cracking slightly. "He fell into a crevasse in the woods. When I went to recover him, I was attacked by other Pokémon. I can't fight them off, and I'm sure he wouldn't be able to protect himself if he were attacked – he's too young. I was on my way to Pokémon Square to find a rescue team to get him, but if you're willing to do so –"

"Wait," Cannon said, cutting her off. "So you can't hold off wild Pokémon, but you expect us to brave the same Pokémon?"

Before the Butterfree could reply, Alti sighed and looked at the Butterfree. "I'll go," she said. Both Cannon and the Butterfree looked over to her, with the former saying "There's no way you can do that!" at the same time as the latter said, "Oh, thank you!"

Ignoring the latter's statement, Alti turned to look at Cannon. "What makes you say that?" she inquired, placing her paws on what she supposed would be her hips if she were still a human.

Cannon wasted no time in responding. "You have no idea what your own strength is," he pointed out. "Those Pokémon could be far tougher than you know. This Butterfree couldn't even pass them, for Arceus' sake!" He ignored the Butterfree's indignant tittering and just stared at Alti pointedly.

"I don't really care," Alti told him. We're Pokémon, aren't we? We're basically invincible! "This Butterfree is clearly desperate, and I have absolutely no good reason to ignore that at the moment. I'm going to rescue the Caterpie." Without saying anything else, she walked off in the direction the Butterfree had come flying toward them from. She heard Butterfree's words of thanks behind her, but she also heard a low muttering sound she supposed was coming from Cannon. Before she had a chance to turn and look back at the annoyed Squirtle, she heard his voice, much closer than before.

"Fine," he grumbled, coming up beside her and matching her pace. "But, at the very least, I'm coming with you."