A VERY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER TO START

After some help creating a plot outline, this will be my first story I have ever attempted to write. I've always wanted to make one myself, but I've only been commissioning them.

I'm proud of myself for trying to do this, but this will be my first time I've ever tried to do this, and I have zero experience.

I would love to hear your feedback and criticisms. I'm not perfect, but I'm hopeful that this story can entertain you.

Updates are not guaranteed. I am first testing the waters to see what everyone thinks about the quality of this story.

Current projects on this account are still being worked on in the background, such as Spirit on the Outside. I just wanted to try writing myself in the meantime.

Lastly, I wanted to give a massive shoutout to SugarMasonMearii on DeviantArt for making this fantastic cover art for me! I can't thank them enough, and you should go check out their page as soon as you can.

I really hope you enjoy this project of mine.

~Ryan

I know how you feel.

It's hard to watch you in such a state.

You deserve so much better.

I don't know how to explain it to you.

It was only by chance that I saw you at all, but...

I wanted to try something.

I have a plan for you.

A very strange one at that, but a plan nonetheless

However...

I think you might just like it, Kip.

This doesn't feel right.

The ground is itchy. A little too itchy for my tastes.

Opening my eyes, something is immediately wrong with my surroundings.

I'm... outside?

A slight breeze crosses over my face and brings me a little further into reality. I'm on my back, and a wide open array of big white clouds and a bright blue sky floods my vision. I tilt myself over on my side to get a better view of my surroundings. I seemed to be in the middle of a forest of some sort, but in some sort of clearing within it. The trees around me were absolutely massive. I couldn't tell necessarily what the trees were though. Chestnut? Oak? Birch? Unfortunately, I'm not the best at nature if I'm honest.

The grass was also surprisingly tall. There isn't a lot of tall grass that I see around Canada, or at least, not as green as this. It was incredibly lush, with an amazing aroma that seemed to completely engulf me in one small sniff of the air. I could even see some pinkish flowers off in the distance of my vision, almost begging to be picked.

This environment almost felt like a childhood dream of mine. Something I could imagine myself frolicking around in on a cool summer day, but unfortunately, a big realization hit me in the head like an imaginary brick;

What exactly is there to remember? I can't remember... anything...

A slight panic ensued in my brain. Why couldn't I remember, well, anything at all? What do I even mean by "childhood dream" if I can't even imagine my own childhood? What was going on?

No matter how hard I tried to think backwards, Very little showed up. I could remember a few things. I knew for a fact that I lived in Canada as I had thought to myself beforehand, but for some reason, I couldn't remember a province or even a city, which struck me as extremely odd. Another thing that baffled me was that I couldn't even remember how old I was. I felt young, but not crazy young. I could certainly do things on my own without much issue... at least I thought so.

20? 18? No, maybe even 16? AGHH! Why can't I remember such a stupidly easy detail.

A certain fact brought me back to reality, but also worried me slightly. If my surroundings were so unfamiliar, then where was I?

A place like this seemed pretty normal, but it certainly didn't ring any specific bells in my head. How would I have even woken up outside anyways? Did I sleepwalk? Was I kidnapped and taken here for something? Did I get drunk and pass out or something? It's not like I could remember if I even drank any alcohol at all, but based off of what age I felt like I was, I certainly hoped I didn't!

My absence of specific memories was bothering me a lot. The idea that I could remember so much about life in general, but I somehow couldn't remember most of my OWN life, was really irritating. Again, I knew what area I lived in, but nothing specific. I also knew my own name, but I didn't know my own age? Why is this so random? It's like somebody took my memories, jotted them down on a white board, and accidently swiped the eraser across the entire board. Everything I remembered and forgot was just so incredibly random that it was honestly giving me a headache.

My body felt extremely tired, and my slight panic of my situation didn't exactly bode well with energy levels. Nevertheless, I had to fight off the lack of energy to figure out this mess. Even with my lack of memories at the moment, I knew deep down that being out in the open like this was definitely not normal for me at all.

Through a lot of effort, I managed to build up enough energy to stand myself up on the grass.

...or at least I thought I would of.

The moment I even tried moving my body again, everything felt... off. Nothing felt like it was where it was supposed to be. I already felt as if my surroundings were a bit larger than normal, but it wasn't necessarily surprising to see tall trees and grass. They get big sometimes, duh.

But this felt different, very different actually. I would have assumed that sitting around like this for however long I was here for would have given me some pins and needles to deal with, but considering that I had already rolled onto my side earlier, I didn't exactly think that any longer. Regardless, this was much, MUCH different.

Catching my breath, I again attempted to stand up, this time managing to raise myself at least halfway up... before my body surprisingly couldn't stand up straight. Not expecting the resistance in my hips and back, I fell back down to the ground, closing my eyes and sticking my hands out to the grass, both as a quick reaction.

...and it felt... really weird.

I had definitely landed my hands on the ground, but they felt almost swollen in spots. I couldn't even feel my fingers stretch out when I stuck the landing. Something seemed very wrong. I opened my eyes, and turned one of my hands over.

...only to not see a hand, but a paw-pad.

"M-m-meoOHHW?"

Attempting to cover my mouth after hearing such a sound coming from my OWN voice, only lead me to falling straight onto my face. The smell of the dirt below was so strong that I had to come up for breath immediately. Never in my life had a smelled something so potent.

Lifting my head back up gave me an easy reason to see why. The leftover dirt started to flake off of my mouth, but looking at it more closely in my field of vision showed that it wasn't just a mouth anymore, but a muzzle instead. The droplets of dew in the grass stuck up on my face, and managed to sneak it's way onto the sides of my new wet nose. The sunlight coming down from the sky and through the bundles of trees around me gave the follicles off the side of my face a good highlight. What I though were pieces of hair stuck to my face were actually a set of whiskers.

That was when my sanity gave out

"MMEEEAAAHHHHHHOOOOWWWW!"

My head spun in every direction, trying to look for some sort of mirror. Of course there wasn't any mirror out here, but maybe... YES! Water! A small pond was only a few steps away, crowded by a few berry bushes. Stumbling on what I now knew as forelegs, I forgot about everything else and headed for the water. I NEEDED to see myself!

A few very awkward steps was all it took for me to see the true nature of my situation.

In the calm and clean body of water right in front of my face, I saw my own reflection.

The reflection of me...

...the reflection of a cat...

...the reflection of a Sprigatito...

...and once again... I screamed.

If I would have guessed, anyone within the next fifty kilometers would have heard my ear-deafening screech. It was the most horrifying, blood curdling scream you could possibly imagine, and I couldn't have felt any more terrified than I was right now.

I instantly back-pedaled, absolutely horrified by what I just saw.

No no no no no no no no NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! This isn't happening. This isn't HAPPENING!

My legs were clearly all wrong, and, quickly looking back I could easily see why. Not only were they clearly much shorter than they should be, but the ankle was essentially bent backwards. Nothing about my posture felt normal anymore, and all I could do was sit back down to try and assess my self.

YYEEEOOWCH!

A sharp and sudden pain went right up my spine. Taking a look behind myself, I could see a bunch of fluff clouding up my vision. Lifting myself back off the ground slightly, the fluff began to fan out. An unfamiliar feeling swept through my body, and prompted me to react to it. I felt as if I had something else attached to me; something new. I tried moving around this bizarre new sensation, and the fluff began to move about. Left, right, left, and then right again.

It was a tail...

...my tail...

...and everything went black...

"How're you doing little guy?"

A gentle voice brought me back to life once again. I felt so tired that I didn't realize that I didn't even recognize the voice at all. A few seconds went by with no movement on my end, but realizing that I maybe should be concerned about the random voice talking to me, I tried opening my eyes.

I made the mistake of opening them too fast. I was immediately blinded by the bright lights in the room I seemed to be in.

"Oh, sorry about that. Here, I'll turn those down for you."

A quick turn of my head showed me the origin of the mysterious voice. It seemed to be a teenager of some sort. Blond hair, blue eyes, un-ironed shirt and dirty shorts. Yep, exactly what I'd imagine him to look like.

The teen headed off to the wall to turn down one of those fancy adjustable light switches. The lights quickly dimmed and I was able to fully open my eyes up. Looking around at my surroundings, I seemed to be in some sort of medical room. It didn't look like any serious part of a hospital or anything though. If anything, it just looked like a checkup room with a few gadgets and nothing more.

"So? How're you feeling?"

Seeing that the teen was very clearly talking to me and didn't seem like a threat at all, I calmly responded back.

"Meoo me-"

I instantly froze.

You can't be serious...

Looking down confirmed that I was certainly in a hospital. I was lying down on a cushioned seat with some tissue paper on top; a telltale sign of a any check-up room in my mind, but my mind was instead focused on the big elephant in the room. Looking down confirmed my deepest fear. My arms weren't arms anymore. I had forelegs.

It wasn't a dream. I had really turned into a Pokémon...

I didn't know what to think. I had thought it was all a nightmare and that maybe I just passed out outside or something, but I was so wrong. Trying to squeeze one of my paws closed proved little success. I had very little dexterity, and I didn't even seem to have any sort of toes at all. Just two stubs with little toe beans at the bottom.

There was no point in trying to deny it. I tried to at first, but I knew what a dream felt like versus reality, and there was no way that this wasn't a dream.

I looked to my side and saw a small mirror on the side of the wall where the fusion I was sitting on was pressing up against. Knowing I was now on four legs, I continued to ignore the teen in front of me and clumsily got up to walk towards the mirror.

Sitting down once again at the end of the cushion, I was wary of my new tail and made sure to put that off to my side to avoid crushing it. It felt incredibly soft pressing up against my body, and I almost wanted to imagine it as a little pillow for me to rest on.

I took a good long look into my reflection.

The first thing that really took my attention was my eyes. They were enormous! They still seemed to share a human look to them, with a reddish-pink iris and black pupil. I certainly looked intelligent because of that, and it separated me from something like a wild animal.

My ears were my next feature I paid attention to. Now that I had some time to focus on them, I could feel a new sensation on the top of my head. I proceeded to shock myself slightly by moving my ears independently of each other. I could perk them up, stretch them to the sides, and even fold them down. It was a crazy sight to behold!

Looking over the rest of my body gave me a good impression of just how furry I was. I had large tufts of fur stretching out of each side of my face, even further out than my whiskers. I also had a rather large tuft of fur around my neck, almost like a mane. The mane shared the same look as the pattern that took up the middle of my face. It looked sort of like a leaf, and my neck fur looked almost like a leaf fanning out.

What I seemed to had failed to notice when I saw my reflection for the first time was a strange amulet around my neck. I wasn't entirely sure if it was there before, but I wouldn't have been surprised if I had just missed it after the amount of panic I was experiencing.

Looking down to my forelegs, I found it surreal to even consider the fact that I no longer had any hands. Lifting up one of my forelegs showed me just how dainty they felt. I felt as if my limbs couldn't get any skinnier, but I also still felt like I had more than enough strength to support myself with them. I felt very comfortable standing like I was. Now that my arms had essentially relocated towards the front of my chest, my posture felt more natural in this position.

Looking back at my back legs, I found that they looked pretty much the same, however the oddity of my ankle being bent the opposite way just didn't sit right with me, not that everything else was...

Giving one of them a slight kick outwards gave me quite the surprise. They felt even stronger than my forelegs. I felt like I could easily jump over a wall in one swift jump. Considering how light my body felt, I could almost imagine myself feeling like a feather floating through the air.

Lastly, my tail. Oh god my tail! It was the strangest feeling I have ever had. Not only was it easily one of the largest parts of my new body, but it also felt like one of the most sensitive. Moving it out from against my body again, I gave it a few experimental flicks. It felt incredibly natural to move it back and forth, and I decided to bring it up to my face. It was probably the softest thing I had ever felt. It was as if it was made completely out of velvet, and I struggled to not start snuggling into it..

"Buddy?"

I finally broke out of my trace and looked back at the teen.

"I don't know what you're doing there bud, but you seem healthy. I found you passed out on the grass in the forest outside my house. You gave me quite the fright," the teen stated.

I guess that made sense. If I could remember correctly, I actually ended up passing out from shock.

"Say, what's with the weird necklace you have on? Do you belong to somebody else?" he continued.

Looking back down to my neck showed me the amulet he was talking about. I wasn't originally concerned about it in any way, but looking back at it did raise some questions. Why was I wearing it? It looked very odd. It wasn't something you'd see at a cheap souvenir shop, rather, it actually looked to be hand made. Something about it seemed important to me, but I couldn't remember whether or not I wore the necklace as a human.

As for the teen's second question, the idea of me being owned by somebody was an extremely strange concept to me. Wanting to get rid of that thought from bot of our heads, I quickly shook my head as an answer.

"No? Well, whoever put it on you has good tastes. It looks great on you!" the teen smiled.

Looking back up at the teen scared me a little bit. Now that I was a cat, I was incredibly small. I felt so vulnerable. I didn't realize it, but I started to curl myself up to make myself even smaller. I don't know what was coming over me, but I couldn't help but feel scared.

"No no, don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you."

The teen slowly came closer to me on the cushion, and I instinctively curled myself even tighter. I closed my eyes expecting the worst, but suddenly, I felt a comfortable sensation on top of my head.

Slowly opening my eyes back up, the teen was staring at me with a faint smile on my face. The sensation was so pleasant, and my body started to relax. The teen noticed this, and continued to move his hand down my back.

"Aww, you're so adorable when you purr."

What!?

Terrified at my own actions, I bolted to the other side of the cushion, away from the teen's hand. Stunned, the teen looked at me with a concerned look on his face. I couldn't believe myself. I was actually purring like a cat! I wasn't an animal. I couldn't be acting like this. I had to find a way to turn back into a human.

But, who was I? I couldn't even remember my friends or family, heck, I didn't even know if I had any friends or family.

I wanted to go home. I wanted this to all be a dream. This was all just too surreal. What was the purpose of all of this? Was this some sort of punishment for something I did wrong? What was the amulet around my neck? Why erase my memories if I needed to learn a lesson then? Why can't I remember?

...remember

...p-please

...remember

I couldn't take it anymore. This was an absolute nightmare, and I had to let it all out...

...and I cried.

It took a long time to regain myself. I ended up falling asleep after my incident. I felt like I didn't want to go on anymore, and I lost even more energy and motivation than I thought I could lose at this point.

Perking my ears up, I heard a sliding door open from my right. I seemed to still be sitting in the same room as before, and looking over a saw a young woman in a nursing outfit come over to me.

She had the most beautiful brown hair. Its waves flowing like a calm river, and it shined so well under the fluorescent hospital lights. Her green eyes stuck out to me like emeralds, and seemed to share the same green color that my fur had around my neck, only much glossier.

"Hi there little buddy. I'm sorry to have to wake you up, but all of your checks came out clean, so you're good to go home now"

Home. I didn't even know what that meant to me now. I didn't even remember my home from before this... thing happened. Did I even have a home? Who knows how much I had before this mess.

"I'm sure you familiar with the boy who came in to check on you. He was the boy who found you in the forest passed out. He's going to take you in! It's strange to see such a Pokémon as yourself in the Sinnoh region, but I've seen much weirder."

Sinnoh. So that's where I ended up. I guess it was easy to understand that I wasn't on Earth anymore. There's no way somebody wouldn't freak out after seeing a bright green cat that can seemingly understand Engl-

...wait, WHAT!

The guy was taking me home? W-what would I do?

I guess it wasn't a bad decision. Looking at my options, I didn't exactly have a lot to go off of. I could go off into the wild again, but not only did I not know where to go from there, but I'd imagine I could be in danger from wild Pokémon or something. At least if I go with the boy, I'd scratch that second problem off of my list.

"Just wait there for a few minutes, ok? I'll go let Anthony know that you're good to go."

So Anthony was his name? I guess that's a nice name, but... I couldn't help but look down and frown at the thought.

Is that it then? Am I going to be somebody's pet?"

"Is that ok?" The nurse said, sounding concerned.

I looked back up towards her and forced a sad smile

"Myea," I chirped while nodding.

The nurse looking satisfied with my answer walked out of the room and closed the sliding door.

It was hard to process what to feel like. What was this Anthony going to do with me? Was I going to battle Pokémon with him? Was I just going to be a house pet? I didn't know what the answer to those questions were, but I had a hard time thinking about what to do about myself.

I had zero idea on what to do about getting back to my human self again. I didn't even know if it was possible, and even if I did find out how to become human again, what would I do? I can barely remember anything about myself at all, and I'm not even in the same world anymore. There's just so many things I had to worry about, that it was overwhelming my small head.

Speaking of my head, I poked mine down to see that amulet sitting around my neck once again. I had put the amulet off twice now as just some weird piece of jewelry, but I still wanted to understand it at least a little bit more. It seemed to be secured around my neck with a thin metal chain. The amulet itself seemed to take on a blue hue, and ever so slightly looked like it was glowing beneath the blue gemstone that seemed to take up entirety of the amulet. The gemstone looked nicely cut, like a diamond for someone's wedding ring, but other than that, nothing else seemed to be there. It seemed as if it was just a simple gemstone and nothing else.

However, there was one thing that was off about the amulet to me; how'd it get on my neck in the first place? Assuming that I never wore it before as a human like I had thought previously, My head was clearly far bigger than my neck, almost comically so, and I didn't see any clip to connect the chain together. That meant that the necklace had to have come over my head, but with just a simple chain and no strap to loosen it, it looked impossible.

I decided to try and grab at the necklace and see if I could take it off, but I already had a problem with grabbing it thanks to my fingerless paws I now possessed

*SHING*

Woah.

Staring at my paws, I gaped my mouth open slightly as I wiggled around my new claws. It seemed that they extracted out of my paws somehow. I wasn't too sure as to how I did it, but it certainly helped with picking at the necklace.

Tugging and scratching at the necklace didn't seem to prove any success, and spinning the necklace around my neck to see the back didn't prove to be successful either as it showed me that there indeed was no clip to disconnect it from my neck.

As a last ditch effort, I folded myself forward a bit to bite down onto the necklace. Grabbing it with my teeth seemed to be pretty easy. Along with my transformation, my teeth had gotten much sharper, and my canines were also a lot more pronounced. Still though, with all of the chewing and tugging in the world, I couldn't get the necklace to break off, and I eventually gave up and sighed in defeat.

"Hey, look who's awake!"

Perking my head up, I had failed to notice the sliding door open up again, and Anthony was once again standing in front of me.

Anthony's smile faded a little bit as he lowered himself down to my level to talk to me.

"Now, I don't want to force you into anything you don't want to do, s-so I thought I'd make sure and ask you, that's all, but..."

Anthony seemed to be thinking over his next words with some issues.

"...do you want to come home with me?"

I figured that that was what he was struggling to say, since the nurse from earlier already spilled the beans that Anthony wanted to take me home.

Thinking back to what thought about my situation earlier, I couldn't think of any reason why I shouldn't go with Anthony. From my, granted, very small amount of time interacting with him, he seemed to be a good kid, but did I really want to be his "companion"?

But did I really have any other choice? Thinking about my other options only proved how hopeless my situation felt, and that this was really my only plausible option.

Still, I didn't want to make Anthony feel bad about taking me in thinking that I hated him. I had no reason to act like that, and so, I decided to smile.

"Nyah!"

I couldn't help but feel a bit embarrassed about myself after doing that. I could feel my cheeks flush red underneath my fur. I knew very well what I looked like after seeing my reflection twice now. I was freaking adorable!

Anthony seemed to feel an even greater sense of happiness as he proceeded to close his eyes and fist pump into the air in giddiness.

"Yes! Don't worry bud, you're going to have a great home. I even have another Pokémon for you to meet!" Anthony said with joy.

"Say, bud," Anthony pondered. "I actually kinda like that name. Bud, like a seed. You are a grass type after all."

Bud. It seemed to be a pretty demeaning name if you asked me, but I again didn't necessarily want Anthony to feel like I didn't like his decision, so I just chirped again at his choice.

"Yeah? I'm glad you like it, Anthony said. "Are you ready to go now?"

I stood up, ready to finally move out of this surprisingly depressing room. With colors this drab, I was glad I wasn't going to stay here for much longer. Looking down towards the floor though, gave me a new problem to worry about.

I was scared.

I had no idea how to walk properly on four legs, but now, looking down at the ground, it looked as if I was looking down from the top of a city skyscraper. I know that cats are able to do jumps like that with relative ease, but I just couldn't do it.

Instead, I sat down again, making sure not to crush my tail again, and stuck my forelegs out to get Anthony's attention.

"What? Do you want uppies?"

I could help but cringe and look away in disgust at that kind of statement.

Yes... I want uppies, but could you please not say it like that?!

Of course, since I couldn't seem to speak English anymore, I couldn't tell Anthony how stupid that sounded, so I just pretended it didn't happen and proceeded to let him pick me up in his arms.

Anthony kept a good grip around me while we walked towards the main entrance. I was assuming that he didn't want me to fall, but it was comfortable enough, so I didn't bother him about it. It was really weird being held like this, especially since I feel still so high up in the air. I tried my best to look anywhere but down. It looked like I needed to figure this fear of heights thing out.

Looking around the hospital was an incredible experience on its own. I knew that I was now in the Pokémon world, but seeing actual Pokémon around me was so surreal.

Again, I couldn't remember much of anything from my own life, but I could still recognize all of these Pokémon. I assumed I must have been a fan of the franchise back on Earth.

There were Pokémon I expected to see in the hospital, such as some Happiny, Chansey, and even Audino, but looking around surprised me a lot more than I though it would.

The hallway we were travelling through had tons of patients up and down the walls. It looked like this hospital dealt with both humans and Pokémon, kind of like a hospital crossed with a veterinary.

A Pachirisu and Pichu were running around the hallway chasing each other on one side, and on the other side, a massive Scizor and Houndoom were watching them over alongside another human. They looked almost emotionless, and it made me feel a little uneasy in their presence.

Suddenly, the two bigger Pokémon noticed me staring at them and I yelped, crouching my head further down into Anthony's arms.

"Ha ha, don't worry about them. They won't bite."

Peaking my head up, I couldn't help but notice the Scizor cracking a smile, not one of smugness, but one of... amusement?

M-maybe I overreacted

My emotions had been at 110% since I woke up. I didn't know what was going on, but I almost felt more... animal like. My instincts were kicking into overdrive, and I couldn't seem to control them. I truly was acting like a cat, and I didn't like it one bit.

After about a minute more of walking down the hallway, we reached a booth beside the entrance. The booth seemed to have a lady dressed up in a nursing outfit, and on further inspection, it was the same woman I saw back in the room I was stationed in.

"Hi Rachel. I appreciate all of the help you've given me," Anthony spoke first.

The nurse, who I now knew as Rachel, giggled.

"Of course! Anything to help out a cutie like him!"

Before I realized what she said, her hand came down and pinched my cheek. Again, I couldn't help but flush red. It was a bit... awkward for me to say the least.

"Did you give him a name? If so, could I label it down for the paperwork before I hand over your copy? He'll officially be registered under your name after that, hun.

"Uh," Anthony started to look down in embarrassment, "Bud. Bud is his name."

Rachel giggled again. "Bud? That's a cute name! I hope you two get along. It's not everyday you see a wild Sprigatito, especially in a cold environment like Sinnoh."

I never really thought about it, but finding me in such a place like Sinnoh was certainly very odd. Obviously, everything about my life recently has been odd, but it still seemed noteworthy enough to point out. Maybe there was a reason for it? I must have come to this world for something, right?

"Alright," Rachel smiled. "All done! You're good to go guys!"

Rachel gave me one more pat overtop of my head before Anthony headed over towards the exit.

Walking towards the exit, everything became quieter and quieter and it fake me time to think clearly again.

What was my goal? Why did I turn into a Pokémon? Could I trust Anthony to take care of me? Should I even let him, or should I take control for myself?

I sighed. It was hopeless right now, and all of my overthinking was just making me tired. I felt rather tired all of the time, making me think it was a new symptom of being cat now, but at that moment, it felt more like just straight depression. I couldn't lie and say I wasn't at least a little bit curious about what was in store for me, but other than that, I had no idea what to do, and I was scared about my future.

I wanted to keep closing my eyes and reopening them to see myself in my bed at home, and my mother and father to open their arms for me, but I knew that wasn't going to happen.

Heading outside of the door. The smell completely overwhelmed me, and I almost sneezed right out of the gate. My new nose was so sensitive, and I could easily pick up scents from all over the place. Fresh grass, gravel from the trail in front of us, a little bit of tree sap, and a touch of lavender. It was crazy!

"So," Anthony started, looking down towards me. "What's next?"

I looked back up towards him. I wanted to be happy for him, but I just sighed instead.

I don't know. You tell me...