Chapter Seven:
Howl

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon in any way, shape, or form. The only "ownership" I can claim are the personalities and my interpretation of how Pokémon look in a more realistic light, but other than that...yeah, I don't own anything on them. XD I do, however, own my original characters and writings, unless otherwise stated. In an exceptional case, a few special OCs belong to their respective owners, I'm merely borrowing them for the story that's to unfold. I'll point them out when their time to show up comes. :3

Note: *waves again* Thought I'd go on a semi-regular schedule, so another chapter is to be had! Also, guest appearance has finally made itself aware. :D

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If you could only see the beast you've made of me
I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free
The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound
I hunt for you with bloody feet across the hallowed ground
-"Howl" by Florence & The Machine

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It was quiet and dark when he awoke. He hadn't been expecting that ride to be such a doozy, but then again, he hadn't really expected to travel from one world to the next in the first place, either. The first impression he interpreted were sounds and smells, split seconds before sight kicked in and everything was laid out before him, dark or not. Superb night vision had its advantages. Thick, woody scents assaulted his nose, his mind automatically pinpointing his location in a forest of sorts. The heavy musk of animals from their constant traffic through the area, and even the near-constant scent marks of humans pushing through came to him. Things were already categorizing as vital, not important, and some of slight interest but not immediately so. It only took a few moments to gather his bearings before he began prioritizing what needed to be done.

...if only he could catch her scent.

That would be nice a nice, convenient start. He was supposed to be in the same place she'd been dumped so unceremoniously, after all, but then again, he didn't trust everything that had been planned. Not completely.

He turned his attention to the task, eyeing his surrounding, noting the dense growth of the woods, perfect for wild animals to hunt, but clear enough to traverse for people. He could smell everything carried on the wind or in the vicinity with growing clarity and none of it registered as immediately vital to him. The one scent he wanted to find, he could already tell it wasn't here, that she hadn't come through here. That much, he could already articulate from the get go and it irked him.

He wished he'd gone with her on that hunt instead of letting her go alone, then maybe…just maybe, none of this would have happened. It was not for the first time the thought has crossed his mind, and it wouldn't be the last, not until he found her. "Gone, but not dead," had been his first clue that there was hope, and it had been the one saving grace that kept him from snapping the neck of the monster who had done all of this. It didn't take long after before the bastard had finally cracked, finally conceded to send him to the unknown world he'd so contemptuously tossed his mate into. Flinging unwitting victims into a portal seemed to be this particular nasty beastie's not-so-guilty pleasure.

Too long, he'd waited too long to start looking and he was feeling an inkling of regret gnaw away at his gut. He knew she could take care of herself, fine and dandy, but there were times he worried more than usual, especially during long periods of no contact. Or when she came home, smelling of her own blood, more saturated than usual, and her mood plateaued in the realm of melancholy from whatever horror show freak she'd dedicated herself to eradicating. And for all he knew, this place could have been a veritable wasteland with little to no chances of survival that she'd been flung into because of the latest mishap. Looking at it now, he doubted it, but he was still wary and on alert.

Pausing to give the sky a glance, he stiffened momentarily at the sight of a full moon that sat in the black sky like a huge coin, silvery-blue and bright. His shoulders dropped, a fraction of an inch or so. The full moon…that would mean she'd be out in her fur, hunting, or already eating her kill, or perhaps even resting. It was not his time to shift, his schedule was slightly off from hers, but still…a chill rushed down his spine at the sudden memories of loping in his fur alongside her, and he felt a twinge of regret stir inside him. He should never have let her go alone, not this time, he knew he should have listened to his gut instinct, but no. He let her go alone, like he's done hundreds of times before, trusting she'd be all right, trusting she'd come back.

Sudden movement halted his thoughts, made him tense and he waited, on edge, eyes sweeping over toward the direction it came from. Something small and quick darted between one shrub to another, whisked around to the backside of a thick tree trunk and then…nothing. A few seconds passed. Then a furry snout came poking out, twitching and sniffing, followed by a squashed little face, with a waddling body trailing behind it. He could already see mismatched, zig-zag patterns decorating its fur. It looked like a cross between a dog and a raccoon, with a black mask over its liquid brown eyes. Its fur was coarse and in spike-like tufts and coloured in creams and light browns.

He stared, taken aback, before he let out a gush of air that he hadn't known he'd been holding until it puffed into a relieved laugh. The noise startled the creature and it jumped in the air before turning tail as soon as its feet hit the ground, darting back the way it had come.

Oh, relief. It felt so good to have that strain of worry and anxiety that had been building up like a festering sickness suddenly deflate and ease away. He quickly felt less apprehension for her, and realized she could have been sent somewhere, anywhere far worse than this place. She could have been sent to somewhere so much worse than this world. Yet, she was here, where he knew the creatures inhabiting this place had been nothing but fantastical monsters that occupied the imagination and gaming of children where he was from.

The minute Alastor found Lupin, he was going to hold her close and not her go for a good long while. And then he was going to smack her upside the head for worrying him and for getting herself in such a predicament in the first place.

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"Why aren't we headed into town?"

Lupin poked at the fire, stoking and adjusting a log with a thick stick. Its tip was a bright, cherry red and the embers beneath glowed red hot, bright and cheery as the fire made the wood crackle and pop. Satisfied, she put the stick down and turned her attention to the simmering pot hanging on its pole above the fire, ladling at the stew inside. It was thick and hearty, and especially very meaty, laden with Tauros meat she'd bought in Florando. With a pinch of salt and pepper and some herbs, it was very enticing and easy on the nose. Even Totodile briefly forgot his own question at the scent for a few seconds before he shook his head and repeated it more sternly.

"We can get way better chow down in the Pokémon Center in town. Like the chow we should have gotten when we stopped in Florando, but nooooo…" He added with a beady glare. He grumbled a bit more as he trudged around the campfire toward her when she ignored him. She continued stirring, lifting her sleeve out of reach when he made to snap at it. He snarled, back plates flaring before he scampered around her. A few seconds passed before she felt her tail singing with pain. She whirled, ignoring the painful twinge her back made at the slight contortion as she stared, aghast at the sight. Totodile had latched his jaws around her tail and try as she might to pull it away, he stubbornly hung on.

She made a swipe at him, cringing every time a jolt of pain raced up from her tail bone, along her spine, and to the back of her skull. He ducked, giving it another harsh tug and she let out a strangled half-snarl, half-cry.

"Get off, get off!"

"Not until we go into town!" He growled back, his mouth muffled by her fur.

"We can't, not tonight all right, just—get the fuck off of me!"

She finally managed a hit, but it was a glancing one. He released at last, skittering across the ground on all fours before rearing back to his hind legs on the other side of the campfire. His eyes glittered in the fire light, his scales catching in the sunset's dying rays that still barely peeked over treetops. Lupin was smoothing her tail over gingerly, the pain already receding. She had her eyes locked on Totodile, however, her hackles raised and a growl building in her chest.

"We're on a tight schedule, in case you forgot. We're not going to dally around out in the woods just because you don't want people to see your furry little butt."

"Look, tonight isn't a good night, but we can go down tomorrow. We'll even be in Cherrygrove by then and we'll be right on schedule—"

"Why can't we go tonight? We're right there. And don't start with that full moon tale again. You're not some shapeshifting monster, you're a liar with a weird tail and fuzzy ears trying to pass yourself off as human. It's pathetic, you barely put any effort into hiding anything." He snorted derisively at her, nostrils flaring and yellow-red eyes narrowing to mere slits.

Lupin didn't bother with the stare down game. Instead, she whipped out his pokéball and recalled him. The split-second look of surprise on his face before he disappeared in a flash of light would have been a priceless reward for everything he's done up to this point to her. It would have given her some satisfaction, some relief, at not having to put up with his smug attitude and know-it-all air of a lab-raised pokémon. But it didn't. It left her feeling a white-hot rage building knots in her chest, twisting over on itself so tightly, it was spreading painfully down to her limbs, her stomach, her very core.

It took her a very long minute to realize that the pain really was real and that it wasn't imagined. It wove over itself, tighter and tighter, making it hard to breathe and she struggled to keep her limbs from shaking but to no avail. She dropped the pokéball, and turned away before stumbling to her hands and knees. Lifting her head, she hurriedly scanned the sky. It was nearly dark, the sky that had been bleeding its last dredges of daylight before disappearing to the cooler scheme of night. She searched for the moon, but couldn't find it, not with the trees blocking the horizon. Another twist and brief stab of agony in her chest and gut had her tensing up again and she twisted away further from the campfire.

She heard, rather than felt, something rip and her ears swiveled in its direction long before the idea to search with her eyes came to mind. When it did, she craned her neck, trying to minimize the movements to keep her head to stop aching so much, but the pain took a brief backseat. She could feel her arms beginning to bulge and her frame expanding out, and fur was bristling out of flesh. Rough, dark patches began covering the tips of her fingers and the palm of her hand like thick black calluses. Her finger nails—already tipped with sharp, thick points—thickened further, darkened, lengthened into curving hooks. And everything else just seemed to grow and bulge and shift.

Well, everything except her clothes. The last second idea to strip off her long coat and kick her boots off came in a rush and she fumbled with inarticulate hands to yank the laces off and just in time. She heard and felt the crunch and crack of bones and briefly wondered, horrified, if her body was breaking itself before she realized it was physically readjusting, rearranging.

Her brief stint of curiosity was thrown on the backburner as well as she felt everything stretching, rippling, changing. Clear thoughts scattered at the faint noise of ripping, tearing, screaming, roaring—

…was that…her making that horrible noise?

Everything seemed clouded now, the pain peaking somewhere between agonizing and sweet, unbearable and euphoric. It hurt, it really did, especially her face as it began to swell and lengthen, but there was a blissful release once everything began to settle down and ease itself into place. She had tried to fight it at first, but when she had relaxed, it came easier and was less painful to endure. The transition wasn't smooth, even when she stopped tensing up, but it was smoother than resisting completely.

She lay on the ground when everything seemed to have finally settled and stopped, panting heavily, her tongue lolling. Air gushed out of her lungs and was sucked back in greedily while her heart pounded away in her chest. It soon began to slow, as did her pulse. The pain from before was a faint throb, and was replaced by a tingle, and that too was beginning to ebb away. With a soft grunt, she pushed herself up. Her vision swam only for the briefest of moments before she steadied herself and she was up on her feet. She swayed, somewhat off balance, then stilled and realized almost immediately: I'm taller.

She snorted, glancing down. Everything was covered in fur, she realized, except for all the scarred areas on her body, like the burn marks on her wrists or the claw marks on her abdomen. She saw torn clothing around her and let out a soft whimper, although she noted her boots and coat were in relatively good condition. Her boot laces were slightly frayed from where her claws had torn at them, but she could get them replaced in Cherrygrove, she reasoned.

Diverting her attention away from the destroyed clothing articles, she breathed in deep and a heady rush of different scents came rushing in and flying through her head. The campfire was the strongest, muscling in to the forefront of her mind. Then the wafting scent of her cooking dinner that still simmered over the campfire caught her attention. She had hoped to eat something beforehand, hoping to quell most of her hunger and perhaps stay in one spot instead of wandering away. Other scents—a myriad of animal musk and plant fragrances; fresh water from a stream or creek; humans and pokémon alike—came sailing on through the filter next, and she immediately categorized them as insignificant and not an immediate danger to her at the moment. She moved heavy paws forward, shuffling slowly toward the campfire.

The heat was strong, but it was dying. No matter. She had no need for fire tonight, not when she was covered in thick, but soft fur. The wind was picking up, tickling her nose and bringing on fresher scents. She inhaled again and shuddered. Nothing of interest, she noted again. Nothing of importance, at least not yet. Turning back to the fire, she reached for the pot and took it off the pole, her mouth salivating at the scent of cooking meat. The pads on the tips of her hand-like paws gripped it well and she brought it down to the ground, sniffing hungrily. It was hot as she stuck her snout closer and gave the broth a quick lap, yet it was good.

But, she realized, not good enough. She wanted something hot, yes, but she craved hot blood, fresh from a kill. She gave the broth a few more laps, and even managed to scoop up some of the cooked Tauros meat and some of the veggies floating around in the stew, although it didn't quite satisfy her craving. Should she leave? She could satiate her hunger then. But what if someone saw her? One instinct gave the solution to not get caught. Another said to not leave witnesses. Another alternative told her to stay put and wait out the night. She decided to stay for the time and finish off the food in the pot as she mulled over what she wanted to do, not wanting to waste it since she'd cooked it earlier. She found herself still hungry and not very satisfied with the cooked meat like she thought she would be. Her stomach flip flopped in on itself, demanding to be filled and she whined pitifully at the torn decision to stay and go. Finally she pushed back up to her feet, still feeling unsure of how well she could move when her thoughts—already becoming muddled and less sensible, unlike the way they were when she wasn't in her fur—came to a standstill.

A round object rolled around on the ground when her paw struck it, the shiny surface gleaming orange and red and yellow in the dying firelight. She dropped back down on all fours, sniffing at it carefully. She nudged it once with her nose, then again, then a third time, only harder. It rolled across the ground, bounced and swerved its path and bumped against her satchel. It remained still for a moment before it split in half. Blinding light leapt from its open maw and she let out a surprised bellow, teeth bared and black lips peeled back in warning as the light took shape and solidified. The dry musk of a reptile filled the air. The renewed scent mingled with its earlier predecessor. Blue scales gleamed in the fire, and yellow-red eyes stared around, long crooked snout gaping in a hiss. He paused at the sight of her and opened his mouth wider, hissed louder and a small, squeaking growl emanated from deep in his throat as he scuttled backward away from her.

Her lips pulled back down slightly, covering most of her teeth as she tilted her head to the side.

Totodile, she remembered. He seemed so much…smaller now. She reached out to bat a paw at him experimentally. He reacted instantly, snapping his jaws at her paw while his tail swerved in the air and smacked the ground as a counterbalance.

"K-keep away! I mean it!" He warned with another growl, giving the camp a once over when she didn't press forward. He froze at the sight of the torn clothing, the cast aside boots and uttered quietly, "Where is she?"

She cocked her head to the other side. Was that…fear she heard in his voice? Even if it wasn't, she could certainly smell it, and it was coming off of the pokémon in waves. Faintly, she felt the urge to nuzzle him, to comfort him, to tell him she was all right, just different. She was wolf. Not human. Could she speak if she tried? She resolved to keep silent after a moment's consideration. Her voice probably wouldn't sound the same even if she could. Instead, she turned away with a groan. He wouldn't understand. He wouldn't believe her, not until the morning when he saw her change shape. He could stay in camp for now. She was still hungry and sitting her on her rump wasn't going to fill her belly.

"Hey! Hey, get back here—what did you do to the girl I was with, where is she?"

Girl? She wasn't a girl. Girls were little and tiny and helpless. She was strong and big and ran when the moon was full, like it was tonight. She hunted on fleet paws and could crunch bones with her jaws. She wasn't just some girl, she was a werewolf.

Wait, where did she see that again? How did she know? It was turning fuzzy now, and the pull of the forest was strong. The urge to hunt was a temptation she couldn't resist much longer and she was still so very hungry. But for what, she had to decide and quickly; she was brimming with energy that demanded to be spent tracking, hunting, killing. She wanted hot blood to gush in her mouth and slide down her throat, to take into her jaws a heart still pumping and beating. She wanted to hunt and this little blue reptile's constant nattering was beginning to annoy her. Not enough to kill him, of course. He wouldn't make much of a meal, and he was…friend? Ally? It was starting to blur, but something rang in her head to not eat the little blue reptile on principle. And a reason that she couldn't quite recall at the moment, one that stayed her jaws. Someone would be mad if she did eat him and she couldn't quite figure their face out at the moment. She could remember a vague scent mark, however, that clung to his reptilian hide. A human male, she recalled, and that was all she could remember for the time being. She'd remember in the morning, she reasoned.

She turned her head to snarl a warning, but was met instead with icy water blasting in her face. It got in her nostrils, her mouth, choked her throat and she instinctively turned her head away, hacking and coughing, gushing air out of her nose as best she could. Her throat felt ragged and raw, painful to breath for a few seconds.

"Answer me! Where is the girl I was with, what did you do to her?"

She turned at the voice and opened her jaws to respond in kind and instead a guttural roar came pouring out. It shook the very air, rattled the bones and gave her a rush. Not to mention, it shut up the little blue reptile up quite impressively. He stared with those yellow-red eyes, flabbergasted and shaking, excreting a sudden assault of fear angry scared from every scale on his body.

Why didn't he use that nose of his to sniff her out? Was he suddenly blind to her scent mark? He knew her, she was sure of this, but he was acting so blind right now. It was almost embarrassing.

They stared one another down for several long moments, her fur bristling and his back plates flaring, either out of fear or an attempt to look brave and big or maybe it was all of those. She saw his gaze sliding all over her form, untrusting and wary, before they settled on her snout. The tension in his body slowly eked out and recognition slowly filtered through. His jaws worked open and closed with soft clacks, but no words came forth.

She took that as a cue that he understood at last and could be left alone. She snorted at him, letting her own body to relax before turning on her heel to trot away on, first on all fours, before loping up on her back paws. She heard Totodile calling back for her, heard his last words entreating her to return, moments before his voice was lost to the music of the forest spread out before her. They barely registered, however, as she opened her jaws and let out a blood curdling howl, shaking the very trees to their roots.

Time to hunt.

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The air at night wasn't entirely too cold for him, even when he was outside. Not during this season and area of Johto, it was quite balmy and comfy. He simply liked the warmth others provided because it was easier than always moving around and flopping about and getting comfortable and worrying about poking himself against a nest-mate's spikes and scales. It had been nice living at the professor's lab, especially. Chikorita and Cyndaquil were both warm sources and they always slept in a pile together, so he was never without comfort. Not that being out in the open was any more uncomfortable, but tonight…

Tonight, however, he felt chilled to his bones. Utterly terrified, and too frozen to move and attempt to keep the fire going. It had slowly died down to bleak embers and then to ash right before dawn, but he dared not move from his spot. Even when his stomach began to grumble with hunger pangs, he didn't dare move toward the overturned pot, where he could smell remnants of cooked food and it smelled so good it made his mouth water in spite of himself. His mind kept reeling back to the moments before being recalled to his pokéball, of the woman he'd come to know for the past few weeks, to the monster that had replaced her when he was released. Or at least, the woman he assumed he had known. A stranger with a strange secret, and now he knew she hadn't been lying to him, like he had believed.

She'd changed. Changed from a human shape to…to something else. It was no pokémon he was familiar with, no creature he knew of. She may have recalled him, perhaps only moments before it had happened, but he knew it was her. She'd changed into something that seemed like a storybook monster that humans and pokémon alike told of to scare one another. Her scent was neither human nor pokémon, but perhaps a mix of both, and that was why it always smelled so odd. That was what he told himself since the beginning, when he'd seen what she was, there wasn't any way. This was different, this was something entirely else, something in its own league. She perhaps could have passed as a pokémon, but there was something else that just rang klaxons in his head, that told him otherwise. She had smelled roughly the same, except for a deeper animal aroma, more pronounced now that she was in her fur, but he hadn't wanted to believe it at first. After he'd seen the scar on that long snout, the very same that he had grown used to seeing on a human face, it was too hard to ignore the facts that it was her.

It was Lupin, but at the same time, it was not Lupin. She really was a monster in a human shape.

She had called herself a werewolf. A monster in human skin that changed on the full moon, or so she claimed from that book of hers, that journal she always had her nose buried in. It was the same one the professor had found on her when they'd dragged her out of the lake. She kept it on her at all times, read through it constantly whenever they had a chance to rest, always staring, reading, muttering to herself. She didn't think he noticed, but he did, he always did. He found it annoying at times. If she hadn't found anything about herself in it by now, she probably never would.

Yet she had treated everything in it like truth, however tentatively she believed in it, but he had scoffed and disregarded it, and even forgotten for the most part. He couldn't now, not with the evidence that had surely stood before him last night. She had been covered from head to toe in fur with a lupine face and…and scars. So many scars. Scars he had never seen before that covered her arms, her belly, her legs, her back…

He had only ever seen the one on her face.

But it had been Lupin, he had no doubts in his mind now. It was her, whether he liked it or not. Her form was different, but her scent…no, he couldn't have mistaken it even if he wanted to. And oh, he wanted nothing more than to forget the image burned into his mind. He had wanted to believe some strange pokémon had entered camp and flung her away, but after hearing her speak about the monsters in her book, it was hard to.

Scars and fur aside, she was huge. Not as large as his mother and father, mind, but still big compared to him and it reminded him just how small he was. Lean and tall, she was coated in thick fur and her eyes had glittered gold in the bright firelight, both wild and civilized, intelligent yet savage, and when she had roared, it scared him. Her sopping wet fur against the glimmer of white fangs peeking beneath black gums had him regretting spraying her in the face almost at once. Especially with the way the red in her fur had looked chillingly like blood, dark and dripping and foreboding.

But as soon as he calmed, so had she, and then she was gone, prancing off into the forest without a second glance back at him. Then that blood-curdling howl had ripped through the fleeting quiet interlude after her departure. It left the forest coldly silent, as though everything, including the wind, was holding its breath, waiting for the dark predator to move on. Even after that, the chorus of the woods refused to sing for the longest time. The howl had left him stiff and frozen to his spot, curled beside the fire, but even with it burning half the night, he was still cold. He dared not sleep, afraid she'd come back, forgetting who he was and deciding she wanted a midnight snack after all. His eyelids were drooping by the time dawn came rolling through. Sleepy and rosy-coloured, the sun peeped through fog and snippets of clouds that dotted the horizon. The forest, after Lupin's impromptu departure, had at last resumed its nightly chorus, although it seemed an eternity had passed before the first chirrups stirred the rest into gear. But now as the nocturnal insects were settling, the morning birds were chirruping away, completely at peace.

He shivered, suddenly wishing for the fire to be borne again and he moved for the first time in hours, staring forlornly at the ashes in the dugout pit. It was at these times he wished he was a fire pokémon. Not that he couldn't survive this temperature, but still…a fire was nice. He didn't have the paws to make it and neither the heart-fire. Humans—and Lupin, by extension, he supposed—had clever paws and were almost as quick to make it.

The Totodile stiffened again when he heard the uncoordinated scuffle of movement approaching, slowly but surely and he turned his head to view where it was coming from. At first, he considered it might be other trainers. Or poachers. Pokémon poachers tended to roam forests, collecting whatever they could get their hands on, whether they be wild or trained pokémon. Thieves. He hissed in warning, arching his back and preparing to dash for cover or perhaps ready a water gun attack or maybe even both.

But then the wind changed and he relaxed, surprised, not quite believing his nose before his eyes confirmed what he'd smelt. Lupin was ambling her way back, albeit in a plodding manner. Before long, she stumbled into the small clearing where she'd made camp last night. He hissed again, not sure whether or not he should run or stay. Instinct told him to stand his ground, it was his duty as a pokémon readying itself as a starter for a potential trainer, to stay and fight and train. But something else clamored for him to run to safety.

Now he understood why Chikorita and Cyndaquil feared her so much. She really was different.

She stumbled to her knees and sat there for a few belated seconds, not moving any further from her spot. She was naked, from head to toe, and no trace of her fur was to be found except for her tail and her ears. They all slumped low; ears pinned to her head in a listless fashion, her tail flat and unmoving on the ground. Lupin swayed, and he saw the exhaustion lining her face, but there was also a kind of glow to her, one that praised conclusion and succession of a sort.

He stared, still tottering on the line of stay or go, when her mismatched eyes finally drifted over him. She stared for a long time, as though not completely registering who he was or where she was for that matter before recognition finally kicked in. Her lips pursed and her brow furrowed and she looked away at the encampment, and she blinked very slowly before wordlessly standing on wobbly legs to scoot toward her pack.

"Morning," she finally muttered to him, the first word of greeting she offered as she laboriously began unpacking clean clothes from the confines of the satchel. She started to dress just as slowly, her energy waning and he immediately wondered just how was she going to make it to Cherrygrove in such a heinous condition. Her hair was a mess, her body was streaked with dirt and she looked ready to collapse.

He carefully waddled closer, afraid of making any sudden movements lest she leap at him with suddenly renewed vigor, and with her other face in place instead of the one he'd come to know.

"We should…be in a Cherrygrove in a few hours," she continued, although it seemed more for her benefit than his own as she said this, as though she was reminding herself aloud.

"Yes," he agreed. "If you can make it in a few hours."

"I can…just…tired. I might sleep when I get there. If that's okay?"

He stared for a moment longer, then dipped his snout in a single nod. "Yes. You can," he agreed once more. He paused, then said, "Do you…remember anything from last night?"

"The moon," she said wistfully and she paused in her movements, going still and quiet, while her eyes grew distant and cloudy with faint nostalgia. "So big and round and…calling me. Blood. I remember…blood. I could smell it. Taste it. Singing, there was…singing. The moon was singing and my blood sang back and I called…called out to it with my voice."

She grew quiet, her shoulders slowly falling and the shirt in her hand lay forgotten as she stared back out into the forest, like she was back there once again. Totodile stared, watching, in awe and wonder, wondering briefly what she had truly experienced and how it would feel to be a feral pokémon running as free as she seemed to have done last night. Then he remembered himself and shook all thoughts from his head. No, he was a trainer's pokémon, not some wild beast roaming the forest. He didn't want to know what it was like to sluice through a wild pokémon's river, to worry about when or where his next meal would be, or to wander the wild aimlessly about, stuck to just one territory. He wanted to roam beside a trainer in the backwoods, yes, but that was different. Traveling with a trainer meant going everywhere.

He stared at Lupin for a moment longer.

But not with this one, he decided.

Never again with this woman. After this, she was on her own, just the way she had originally wanted. He fleetingly wondered if it was too late to trek back to the professor's lab.

He shuffled forward, rising to his back legs and stooped to pick up her shirt, jerking it in the air.

"Here. C'mon. Dress yourself. We're wasting time."

The nostalgia in her eyes vanished in an instant and she looked back at him, as though for the first time.

"Morning," she greeted tiredly and he sighed.

It was going to be a long day, he could feel it in his scales.

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Addendum: Dun dun dunnn! A werewolf was on the loose! Whatever shall people do! Well, technically two of them, but who's counting? :P And where in the world of Pokémon is Alastor? One can only guess!