In Someone Else's Shoes, Chapter 48
The stars twinkled in the night sky above. I was lying on my back, Vulpix curled up next to me. Pokemon like her didn't understand the appeal people had with looking up at the stars. I could spend hours on end staring at them, wondering what the night sky hid in the darkness.
"You think Mom and Deneb are doing okay?" I asked my fuzzy companion. Her ears perked up before she looked at me, but didn't answer the question.
"Mom's probably worried," I answered myself. "I didn't call her once we arrived at Slateport. She's probably pacing around the kitchen, waiting for that phone to ring."
Vulpix barked once, agreeing with my guess.
"How about Deneb? You think he misses me?" Again, she barked once, but I shook my finger at Vulpix.
"Ah, but you didn't see him the last time I did. That was when I borrowed Amy and teleported to the Indigo Plateau. You didn't hear what we talked about then!" I said slyly, which seemed to confuse Vulpix. I almost forgot there for a moment I was talking to a Pokemon.
"Vulpix," I whispered, barely audible, "do you think... he likes me? The same way I like him?"
I turned to her, but her attention wasn't focused on what I was asking. She was looking towards Route 110, her ears twitching left and right as she tried to pinpoint something or someone. I didn't move, not wanting to alert whatever it was. I tried to spot whatever it was in the darkness, but I couldn't see a thing beyond the campfire. Then, I heard some rustling in the bushes nearby.
Vulpix growled towards the bushes, standing between them and me. I got up and grabbed my bag, ready to fight or flee, depending on whatever emerged from them. The bushes rustled a bit more, before a very familiar Pokemon poked her head out.
"Starly?" The odds of it being Yunie's Pokemon were tiny, but she had gone north before me. There was a chance this was her Pokemon.
The little yellow critter smiled and ran towards me, forgetting the item it was dragging along. I hugged her close, while Vulpix went to retrieve the item. It turned out to be Yunie's backpack!
"Starly, what happened to Yunie? Is she alright?" The little Pokemon shook her head, squeaking in its voice to try and tell me what had happened. Of course, I don't speak Pokemon, so I couldn't tell what she was trying to say. I grabbed Yunie's backpack and started looking through it, hoping to find some sort of clue.
Strangest thing was, her backpack didn't look to be out of order or anything! Everything inside it looked pretty much like it did the last time I saw it, including her camera supplies. The backpack itself didn't look damaged, other than the drag marks caused by Starly. Just where did Yunie disappear to?
"Starly, you have to tell me: where is Yunie? Was she kidnapped? Is she hurt?" I held the Pokemon before me, but she just shook her head at every question.
"I don't get it. Do you understand what I'm asking?" Again, Starly just shook her head. This was going no where.
Vulpix finally came along to help, barking at Starly. The two Pokemon exchanged some dialogue while I eagerly awaited Vulpix's translation.
"Well? Did she say what happened to Yunie?" Vulpix barked twice, and shook her head as well. Had she just vanished off the face of the earth?
I sat back down next to fire, unsure what to do. I didn't want to just sit there and wait for morning to go looking for her, but at the same time, it looked as if Starly had been dragging that backpack along for some time. Who knows how long ago she was separated from Yunie.
"Tomorrow, when we get to Oldale Town, I'll tell someone about Yunie. They'll find her, I know they will." My promise seemed to comfort Starly, if only slightly. She sat down next to the fire, Vulpix curling up at her side.
I looked back up at the stars. They probably knew where Yunie was. If only they could tell me.
~o~
"Hey, are you okay?"
The owner of that voice was annoying beyond belief. He sounded like some high pitched imitation of a kid's voice, done by a grown man. Where was Star's soft, soothing voice when you needed it? I tried to stretch out my arms to pick myself up, but something felt weird. My arms were somehow lower than they should be. I opened my eyes, trying to see just who was talking. All I saw was a Charmander.
"Hey there, little guy. Where's your trainer?"
"Little guy? I'm bigger than you, you stupid girl!"
I couldn't believe what I had just heard and seen. I scrambled away from the talking Pokemon, only to roll over into a puddle behind me. The Charmander started to laugh at me, so I forced myself on my feet to teach him a lesson. It was then that I noticed: he was as big as me!
"How come you're so big?"
"I'm not that big, you're just small," he quipped back at me. I finally took a look at my own body. Put short: it wasn't my old body. I turned around and stared at my reflection in the puddle through the ripples. I was looking back at a Pokemon, not a person. I was a Chikorita!
"Wha-? What's going on here?" I backed away from the puddle this time, my sight becoming obstructed by the giant leaf on my head.
"Are you okay? You're acting weird."
"I'm a Pokemon! How should I be acting?" I yelled back at the Charmander. Rather than take offense, he just tilted his head, like I had asked why the grass is green, or the sky is blue.
"Maybe you should see the doctor in town. I don't think you're feeling too well."
"Yeah, the doctor! Take me to the doctor, I'm sure he'd know what's going on here!"
Well, that was my first mistake. This talking Charmander led me away from the clearing in the forest to a town. However, rather than find a bunch of people, I found a bunch of Pokemon running about like they were people. All of them talking, too! Suddenly I felt out of place, but in a Pokemon body, no one looked at me twice.
"Charmander, I don't need to see the doctor anymore," I told him. The thought of being examined by another Pokemon in some medical fashion was just a bit too weird to swallow.
"Are you sure? You were saying some strange things back in the forest."
"I was just- uh, groggy! Yeah, you woke me up, and I was still having a dream! I dreamt I was a human, see?" Unfortunately, he didn't.
"Human? What's that? I've never seen a Pokemon like that before."
"Forget about it. Um, is everyone here a Pokemon, then?"
"Of course, what else would they be?" Charmander was starting to look at me funny again, so I quickly put two and two together before I was sent off to the Pokemon equivalent of the loony bin.
"Sorry, I haven't introduced myself: I'm Yunie." I was about to offer a handshake, but caught myself before I raised any more suspicious flags. Still, Charmander looked at me like I was crazy again.
"'Yunie'? What kind of name is that?"
"It's my name," I said. "What's yours?"
"Charmander."
"Of course," I said, rolling my eyes. "So, Charmander, what do you do here?"
"Nothing important, really. I was wandering in the forest when I found you lying in the clearing. I thought you might be in trouble." I am in trouble, just not sure how to get out of it yet.
"Well, thanks, but I wasn't-"
Before I could finish my sentence, the ground started to shake. Most of the Pokemon in town started panicking and running around, crying for help. The quake didn't last more than a few seconds, however, so there was no real damage. Save for my pride, having fallen over with the quake's sudden strike.
"What was that?" I asked.
"Another earthquake. They've been happening more and more these days. Xatu says if something isn't done soon, we may not have a home anymore."
"So, why hasn't anyone done something? What needs to be done?" Maybe if I helped out, I could get out of this body and world. That's how it usually went down in games and movies.
"I don't know. We'd have to ask Xatu, and not just anyone can go ask. He doesn't like being bothered unless it's for a good reason." Translation: we needed to prove ourselves somehow first.
"Then let's give him a good reason! What does one do around here to get permission to talk to him?"
"Well, I'm not sure. The most important thing anyone can do around here is be part of a Rescue Team."
"Rescue Team? That mean what I think it does?"
"We help out other Pokemon in need. It's hard to join a team, though. They don't like newbies." I could almost stake a fortune on Charmander's answer to my next question.
"How about we make our own team?"
"Our own team? Are you sure that we can pull it off?" Well, I'd have lost my fortune there. I was expecting him to say it wasn't allowed for whatever reason.
"Sure! Unless there's some rules or something against us making a team, we're set! Once we're a team, we can take on a few jobs, gain some notoriety, and then we can see Xatu about that thing that needs to be done." And finally leave this Pokemon world. Charmander pondered the idea for all of a few seconds.
"You make it sound so easy. What shall we call our team, then?"
"Team Starly! We'll shine brightest in the night sky!" I screamed out, drawing attention from all other Pokemon in town. Charmander looked a bit embarrassed at my display, but he stood by me all the same.
"Team Starly, yay," he said in a soft voice, raising his arm in the air sheepishly.
"Yeah, you'll get into it. Now, what needs doing? Let's start building our notoriety!"
I marched into town, Charmander dragging behind. If I was stuck in this strange world, I might as well make the best of it! The real Starly was probably still waiting for me back in my world. Unless this was all some crazy dream.
~o~
"Thank you, sir," I told the captain of the ferry once I had disembarked. Contrary to Robin's warning, the trip across the river was peaceful, and the wild critters in the area surprisingly docile. Probably just trying to scare me or something. I got that a lot.
There was still a short way before Oldale Town, and now I had two Pokemon to look after, and a second bag to lug around. Since Starly was still Yunie's Pokemon, I guess it was okay for her to hang around me without costing me one of my own critters in the box. However, that didn't save my back from carrying Yunie's backpack. Even though I was carrying a bike in my bag, hers still managed to weigh more!
Once I got to Oldale Town, I was a bit disappointed to see that it was much smaller than I had anticipated. A handful of houses, a Pokemon Center, and a local office was pretty much the entire town. I walked over to the office, hoping it was also home to some kind of law enforcement, when I witnessed most of the townsfolk gathered around something on one side of town. Ever curious, I mingled into the crowd to see what was going on.
"Was that really made by a Pokemon, son?" Asked one of the townspeople. I forced my way through, seeing with my own eyes the object of their wonder. It was a footprint, a massive footprint with a strange design. Almost like a tribal marking or something.
"Yes, I believe so," said the young man with the thick glasses inspecting the footprint. "Looks to be the work of Groudon."
"Groudon?" I asked, eager to learn of this massive Pokemon.
"Yup, Groudon, the Continent Pokemon. Local legends state he is responsible for creating the land on which we live. Many trainers still try to catch him or his brother Pokemon Kyogre, but thus far no one has been successful. Show's over, folks! I must document this finding!"
The nerd pushed everyone away from the scene, much to their dismay. No doubt something like this didn't happen too often, let alone in such a small town. For some reason, I made a mental note of this Groudon for later. Somehow, I had a feeling it would become important somewhere down the road. Seems I was lucky enough these days to run into really rare Pokemon without even trying.
After that little event, I continued towards the office building at the north end of town. There, I learned that Oldale Town only had one resident officer, on loan from Petalburg City in the west. Because he was just one man, there wasn't much he could do on his end aside from looking after Starly until Yunie turned up. He did, however, give a call to the police in both Slateport and Mauville cities, informing them of Yunie's disappearance.
"I wouldn't worry too much about your friend," he told me, shortly after making the calls. "Trainers go missing all the time. For days, weeks at a time, they vanish, only to be seen again after being on the road for so long."
"Well, that's true..." Hadn't occurred to me until now that I was guilty of doing just that. Mom would've had the Pallet Town police on speed dial after a few days on the road.
"Look at it this way: if she had been abducted by someone, say Team Rocket, heavens forbid, they'd have whisked away her Pokemon. I tell you, she probably just went off on her own somewhere and was separated. I'm sure she'll turn up once the police start searching Route 110. In the meantime, feel free to go about your business. If anything happens, I'll let you know!"
I left my Pokegear phone number with the officer, despite the fact the device was still broken. Rustboro City was not far from Oldale, a few days at best, but I still had to pay a visit to the Professor in Littleroot. Since I had to pass through Oldale again on my way to Rustboro, I figured I'd just get updated on my way back through later.
After bidding farewell to Starly, who was heartbroken to be abandoned again, I set out for Littleroot Town in the south. The road wasn't long, and there was still plenty of time before the next sunset.
I prayed silently that Yunie was safe and sound.