Toby remembered his name.
And aside from the vague notion that his skin had not been white, and he did not wear a green helmet all the time, that was all he remembered.
Staring at his reflection as it shimmered and warped in the pond below him, Toby muttered to himself. "I must have been human at one point, but now I'm a ghost or something." He raised a hand to look at it, and found no digits, or even a wrist. "A very useless one too, if I don't have opposable thumbs."
"What are opposable thumbs?" asked a voice from behind, "and who the heck are you?"
Toby whipped around, searching for something else like him, but all he saw was a funny-looking cat with a sour expression. Its black mane flipped up in something like a widow's peak, and its blue fur bristled visibly.
"I know you're not Nia," it growled. "Get out."
Though Toby wanted to panic at the thought of a housecat talking to him, he raised both hands in surrender and backed up until he was standing on rocky edge of the pond. "Listen," he started, "I don't know who Nia is, and yeah, I'm not them, but I'm sort of lost, and I don't know how I ended up here and I could really use some help."
"You're going to need some help if you don't get out," the cat said. It leapt off the raised deck it had been standing on and slunk towards Toby. "I've got a lovely dark-type move called 'bite' on my side, and if you don't leave here right now, so help me, I will bite you until you cannot even stand."
Pushy, pushy. Toby took a step forward, hands still in the air. "No seriously, I have no idea where I am." He threw his hands up higher, though this time it was in exasperation rather than defeat. "I don't even know what I am!"
The cat seemed surprised by this, and it jerked its head backwards. "Wait, really?"
Toby nodded fervently.
"Oh. Oh." The cat seemed rather flustered then, and it looked around wildly before inching closer to Toby. "Um… you aren't, by any chance, a human, are you?"
So these things did know what humans were, at least. Toby nodded again, trying to avoid the cat's curious gaze. Instead, he focused on the garden around him, and on the house, which seemed to be made of equal parts metal and equal parts bamboo.
The cat sat back on its haunches, looking thoroughly bewildered. "Wow. I didn't think the legends would send anymore humans. And to think that I found you in my family's garden…" It swished its tail back and forth a few times before jumping to its feet. "Oh! What's your name then?"
"I'm Tobias, but I go by Toby." He was about to ask the creature's name when another thought popped out of his mouth. "Uh, could you tell me what exactly I am?" Toby waved his arms for emphasis, and the cat laughed.
"You're a ralts, a psychic and fairy-type pokemon, so I advise you to not draw too much attention while we're in the city."
"Why's that?" Toby asked.
The cat hummed for a moment, clearly trying to find the right words. "Well," he started, "we're in a place called Bolt City, and there are a lot of electric pokemon, like me, and steel-types. And well… fairy pokemon don't do so well against steel."
Somehow, Toby recalled something about iron chains on fairies, and decided to agree with the cat's explanation.
"And before you forget to ask," the cat continued, "I'm Flash, and I'm a luxio."
That was helpful, actually. Wondering how many species he would have to learn, Toby asked what other pokemon there were.
"Oh, there are tons and tons!" Flash said. "Hey! I have a book with most of them in my room, why don't we go in?"
Toby sort of liked the garden and the serenity that it exuded, but he followed Flash inside anyways.
The inside of the house seemed much like the outside. Metal and nature combined in effortless, soothing patterns that made Toby wonder how anyone might think they couldn't mix. The floors were covered in mats, but metal pips ran between rooms and circled the hallways. Sometimes, a wisp of steam would curl from two joined pipes, and Toby gathered that this was a kind of heating system.
Eventually, they reached a door with a small picture frame hanging from it. As Flash opened the door and strode in, Toby caught view of Flash with another ralts grinning beside him. It wasn't a photograph—whatever a photograph was—but the watercolors were so realistic that he almost thought it was.
He stopped at the door and examined it again. "Who's in this picture?" he asked.
Flash froze. He frowned and looked at the floor before climbing onto a raised pallet and staring out a wide window. "That's Nia, a ralts I knew as a kid. She used to teleport here until five years ago, this giant, bottomless cliff showed up and split the city into thirds. I guess she just couldn't cross the chasms, even with her psychic abilities."
"Did she live in the city?" Toby asked.
"No, she lived really far away, so far that it took us a week to travel there as a family. I used to really miss her, and I still wish we could meet up, but time goes by, you know?"
Toby murmured some kind of sympathy, but he was more curious about why the other ralts's teleportation no longer worked. It was odd, really. What kind of barrier existed between all the pieces of land out there?
A minute later, Flash bumped Toby with the spine of a huge book and swung his head towards an open spot on the floor. "You wanted to see some more kinds of pokemon, right?" he said, though it came out funny since the book was clenched between his teeth.
The two pokemon plopped down on the floor, and Flash opened the book. They flipped through it for hours, probably, with Flash explaining all the species as they leafed through page after page. Time seemed to slow down for those hours, but it sprung back to normal when a knock rang at Flash's door.
"Flash?"
The luxio's snout curled in guilt. He shot Toby an "oops" kind of look before yelling back. "Yes, mom?"
"Come eat lunch. You can't stay holed up in your room all day."
"Uh… is it okay if I have a friend with me? He just sort of showed up without warning, and you seemed busy earlier."
The door swung open, and a luxray poked her head in. She squinted at Toby before sending a questioning glance toward her son.
"You don't normally see ralts around here," she said. "Not that it matters that much, I suppose. Come, you can eat with us too."
As the two boys stood up, Toby realized that he could sense confusion permeating the room. Well, he was a psychic, he supposed.
The three pokemon needed an elevator to reach the dining room, and when Toby walked in, he saw a lot more pokemon than whatever Flash's family was made of. A group of manectric and electrikes gathered around some tables closer to the entrance, while magnemites, magnetons, and even a magnezone hovered nearby. Here with all these electric pokemon, Toby felt more than a little out of place.
"We're a small family," Flash said, "so we like to eat with the people living on the lower floors of the building. It makes it more fun, you know?"
Though initially weirded out by the bright colors of all the fruits and berries, Toby found his appetite ravenous enough that he ate at least four whole berries, plus a huge apple. Stuffed to the brim, he leaned back on the wall behind him and closed his eyes.
He did not have the luxury of relaxing for long though; a crackly voice called his name from across the table.
"Toby, eh? How'd someone like you get to Bolt City?"
An ampharos was leaning on the table, a smile gracing his face. His tail swayed slowly behind him, and he seemed nice enough.
"I just sort of ended up here," Toby said, sending a glance to Flash. What was he supposed to say to this guy?
Luckily, Flash seemed to catch his drift. "Dad," he said, "Toby was in our garden this morning, and he doesn't remember much."
"Oh? That's fascinating. How'd you get into the garden, Toby?"
No matter how hard Toby thought, he couldn't answer that. Just for show, he pretended to think about it. "I don't really know, sir."
"Huh. Fell from the sky, basically? Reminds me of the first time Nia teleported here. You wouldn't happen to know another ralts named Titania, would you? Or maybe she's a kirlia by now."
Toby shook his head. He'd just gotten to this world; of course he didn't know anyone named Titania.
"Shame," said Flash's dad. "Well, if that's the case, then I guess that settles everything. Flash, you were right about this one." He turned towards Flash's mom and called out. "Tabitha? I think we need to have that discussion again."
The luxray glared at her husband so coldly that Toby figured she was looking at his organs and thinking of how to rip them out. "No."
"I don't think we have a choice this time, dear."
"No. My answer is final." Flash's mom turned back to the manectric she was chatting to.
Shrugging, the ampharos climbed over the table and whispered in his wife's ear. Her eyes widened significantly, and an air of surprise pierced the air. She swiveled towards the ampharos and whispered back to him.
"I think so, and you know what the metagross said."
"But surely not Flash!"
They locked eyes for a moment, and Toby looked to Flash to see what he thought of the commotion. Like Toby, the luxio was listening in, confused by the lack of context. Toby swore he saw his new friend mouth something like "what metagross?"
By then, the whole dining room had quieted, and Flash's parents soon realized this. They glanced around the room before calling Flash and Toby to follow them.
The elevator ride back to the house felt long and tense, and Toby picked up on a rather large amount of fear. As he and Flash followed the older pokemon through the winding hallways of the house, he wondered what would happen next.
They stopped at a set of sliding doors with a cityscape painted on in black ink. Flash's dad opened the doors and ushered everyone inside before closing them and facing the three other pokemon.
"Flash," he said, "do you realize who you have found?"
"Uh… well we figure Toby's probably a human, right Toby?"
Toby nodded, and Flash kept going.
"But like-
The ampharos cut him off, voice sharp and charged. Anxiety seemed to puncture his words. "No. No buts, Flash. You must take this seriously. If Toby really is a human, and we know from the metagross's final prophecies five years ago that he likely is, then you must travel with him."
"I have to?" A visible lump formed in Flash's throat.
"Yes. I know you've been a homebody since evolving, but you found a human, and you're going to go with him whether we want you to or not. Understand? No matter how hard we try to stop it, something will inevitably force you and Toby to travel and fix this world."
It was obvious that Flash had not thought this far ahead. Maybe he'd been too caught up in the excitement of a new friend to realize that something serious might come out of this.
Without thinking about it, Toby slapped Flash's back and grinned as widely as he could. "Hey," he said, "don't worry! I'm sure we face all of this with no problem."
"But we'd have to join an exploration guild!"
Flash's mom butted in there. "What's wrong with that? You and Nia used to always pretend you were famous adventurers."
"When we were kids! I want to help you guys with your business, not gallivant off to save the world."
Suddenly, Flash's dad burst into crackling chuckles. Something about the room lightened considerably, though Toby couldn't quite figure out why.
"That's what you're worried about, son? Then there's nothing to worry about. You know your parents have several explorers in our employ, right? We started hiring right after the chaos five years ago to see if we could reconnect with our old trading partners." Still laughing, the ampharos twirled around and flung open the doors. "Now come along, boys! This old 'mon is going to teach you how to be an explorer!"
As the ampharos bounded out of the room, Toby sensed exasperation oozing from Flash's mom. He offered Flash a reassuring smile and then ran to catch up with the older pokemon.
Author's Note: it seems I forgot the disclaimer last time. Oops.
I do not own pokemon, and it would be hopeless to try owning it.
Um... some other things I have to say: I am still settling into the characters right now, which is why things might seem sudden and odd. Also, I highly doubt there will be many more instances where I update more than once a week. Maybe even once a month. Who knows?
Reviews and comments are much appreciated. Thank you for reading!