Record #2: The Berrybush

The young quadruped tilts their head up upon feeling an odd rush of wind flowing through their light blue fur. They nearly stumble down to the grass with their rear black-furred legs. While wind isn't an unfamiliar sensation, they find it odd when considering their older brothers' explanations. Such harsh wind, they remember, is supposedly an indication of a nearing winter, and while not yet over, the season is already approaching spring where the winds become sparse and far weaker. But to the little quadraped's curiosity, the wind didn't appear to be from an oncoming storm nor merely a misplaced remnant of the recent winter. There wasn't the accustomed smell of petrichor and the wind wasn't nearly as chilling cold as they were used to.

Rather, as far as the furred creature could tell, the wind came from the circular den in the sky that was emitting an alluring mixture of blue and purple light. Their four legs clung onto the grass beneath them and their golden eyes locked onto the sight. The wind around them began to settle as the pushing force their fur once felt, softened. The creature saw the alluring lights disperse and the circular den dissipate while their mind was racing through the tales their elders and brothers had told to them, wondering if there was an explanation as to what they'd just seen. Finding no answers, the creature was instead quickly distracted by the figure that seemed to be falling from the final remains of the den. Perhaps if they were older, more evolved like their brothers and sisters, they would've seen what the figure was, but as of now, they were still young. Their eyes had yet to grow into the powerful eyesight their species seeks after.

The quadruped's curious mind was leading it to chase the figure despite the warnings their elders had given them about such actions.

'You must not chase what you don't know.'

They remembered clearly looking up to their elder in awe, soon accompanied by the sensation of their elder's paw on their head before they spoke again.

'If you feel danger, come to me.'

Lost in thought, the little being trips a front paw over a small ledge downhill. Falling on the grassy earth, they got up before shaking their head as they snapped back into focus. Continuing chasing onward down from the hill they were on, they continuously follow the figure that was falling farther down and down into the distance. They supposed it could be dangerous but they never felt that it was, so they merely made a short wail in excitement as their fur glowed for a moment, all over a possible new discovery. While their siblings, the ones as young as they were, were known to flee, this particular furred being was rather naïve and cared not to take the rulings of their elders as seriously. As the figure from the sky kept rolling, they ran through the meadow of grasslands, past the other creatures that resided there, all with their little legs, and as they began to tire, the creature whined slightly as their pace began to slow.

Their run gradually became a jog and then a brisk walk before they looked up to the sky and then back at the hill it had run from. The sky was nearly dawn and while they had snuck out early in the morning to enjoy the view from up above their home, the young quadruped only just realized they had ran far past where they'd be able to run back home to, all before their elders awoke (or at least the ones who'd never let this particular furred being outside the home). Knowing a search party and scolding await them, the little creature accepts their fate as their tail droops downward and they stretch their legs. Seeing themselves nearing the border of the forest, they walk back slightly towards the hill to avoid the 'smugglers' their elders had taught them to be wary of.

Still not quite given up on the idea of finding the falling figure from the den in the sky, the quadruped smelled the air around him, hoping to find some sort of trail they could follow. While they did seem to pick up on something, the smell was quickly masked by the familiar scent of berries the quadruped so adored. They hoped it was Sitrus; they could almost taste the sweetness of the yellow berry on the tip of their tongue. Slowly careening towards the smell with its own four legs, they found a small patch of berry bushes (sadly none of them being Sitrus) and proceeded to munch on the ones they could reach, but stopped as they found another unfamiliar sight. A bush with a few lengthy berries of what they could only assume was covered by leather (somewhat like the collar of a Buizel, but more warm and sandy in color) with off-shaded crescents at its tips, was before the small creature and it couldn't help but be curious.

As stealthily as possible, they walk up to it and with little hesitance, nibble on one of the berries to find it oddly, fleshy? It felt like when they bit into their siblings as they played around. As they continued to nibble on the berry, the quadruped found their mood dampened as they thought of how their fangs had yet to fully grow in; their brothers said it'd take another cycle of the moon. Nonetheless, as if feeling the bravery of their elders, they continued nibbling, believing it would create some sort of effect on the berry. It wasn't until the berry suddenly moved away, pushing the creature back, that they let the berry out of their mouth. The creature still had no clue what the berries were doing - a defense mechanism? - but upon seeing another one of the same berry pop up at a different part of the bush, they jumped from their hind legs to nibble on it once more. The berry, after a moment of being nibbled on, moves away again, and too, pushes the quadruped back. With the berry out of their mouth, the small being finds another berry, jumps to nibble on it, and the berry nibbling cycle repeats.

Soon, the berry nibbling slowly became a game to the small creature, and with glee, they continued to play as they awaited for the inevitable search party of his siblings that would stop their fun. For now, the quadruped played until they had become overly excited at one point, fully biting into a berry harder than even they expected themselves to be able to. A little drop of liquid fell into his mouth and it almost believed they had finally tore into the berry before a slight raspy voice came out from the bush they'd been playing at.

"Ow- what… the…"

The taste of iron finally hit the being's taste buds and almost immediately, it recalls a warning an elder had once given over playing with their little siblings too harshly. Taking the berry out of their mouth on reflex, the little quadruped freezes and realizes what they had been playing with this whole time: something very much alive, and they've disturbed them. Their brain screams 'danger' over and over as their fur dazzles brightly with light until they, finally, hear something jumping backwards from the bush.

Damien didn't know when he truly awoke, but, as his sense of pain quickly became apparent with the aching of his back and burning in his chest, he knew that at the very least, he wasn't experiencing a dream. His eyes had yet to flutter open to see around him, but Damien had been feeling a poking sensation near his fingers for a while, with every so often, one of his fingers curling up in reflex. When his fingers became sore from being curled up, they curled back down, and the poking sensation began again. Rinse, repeat.

For a brief moment, as Damien ignores the aching of his back, he wonders if this was merely a weird transition to the afterlife. If so, how did he die in the first place? Damien's mind racks for answers as he aims to recall what he was doing last. The pain in his chest told him he had likely just finished volleyball practice…

'But the last session wasn't nearly as intense as usual though…'

He likely would've been stuck in a long line of thought if not for a sudden sharp pain in one of his fingers, causing Damien to realize he certainly wasn't dead. He wasn't religious but even if he did end up in some underworld, the pain certainly wouldn't feel so real. This realization, accompanied by a sudden gasp for air by his lungs, finally got Damien moving away from his trance-like state. His eyes jutted open and lungs heaving for air to truly breathe, he too, finally got himself to speak. Or, at least whispering with the raspiest voice he's ever made.

"Ow- what… the…"

Of the little he could make out with his clouded vision, all Damien could see was a mixture of pokey greens and browns. With his back aching whenever he tried to move too quickly, Damien could only surmise that he, for some reason, was stuck in foliage. Then, taking account the now present feeling of his fingers being drenched, whether it be water or drool, Damien was barely able to hold back a shudder. Imagery of wet plant-life isn't quite comforting after all. Struggling to move around, Damien squints while his soaked fingers search for his glasses. Luckily, that didn't take long as his fingers soon found the smooth plastic texture of his glasses rather than the sharp, rough, and rather annoying texture of the leaves and branches around him.

Slowly struggling to bring his glasses up to his eyes with what Damien only guesses are branches tugging against them, he finally does get it placed atop his eyes… only to be blinded by a bright light. In a sudden rush of adrenaline, Damien finally untangles himself away from the bush with a harsh twist and jumps back, wobbling away from the light he squeezes his eyes shut to. His hands, hovering behind him as to keep balance, grasps onto a rough surface that Damien uses to reorient himself. Finally, as he shakes away whatever liquid was coating his fingers, Damien cautiously squints his eyes open again. He tilts his head back to look at the tree he used for balance, and then looks in front of him, now above the bush he had been stuck in.

'Oh, a Shinx.'

. . .

'A Shinx?'

Damien blinks as he stares at the small cub-like creature in front of him. Feline, light blue fur in front with black at its rear, oval ears with yellow star-shaped markings inside, and a black tail with spiked yellow fur also shaped like a star. It checks all the boxes, though its fur was glowing (which was why Damien was still blinking rapidly in irritation) and it looks far more real than any other version of Shinx he'd seen. Screaming internally at the sight of the creature, his body slumps down the trunk of the tree, the harsh bark scraping his back and causing Damien to grunt in pain.

'Was that a hallucination?'

Squinting, Damien takes his glasses off and rubs them with the hems of his coat, attempting to remove any sort of imperfection on the lenses of his glasses. Then, slowly crawling forward, he brings his head up and separates the branches of the bush in front of him. The light blue furred creature is still very much there with its eyes closed, glowing. For a moment, the Shinx startles, as if wanting to run away, but they lock eyes with Damien and freeze again as they realize that Damien, too, was looking at them.

"How?"

Damien questions what he'd just whispered aloud for a moment on impulse. His mind rushes with thoughts so quickly that his currently sore body has trouble keeping up, a pulsing migraine already taking place in his head. Placing the base of both his palms on his forehead and letting the bush rebound back to what it'd looked like earlier, Damien breathes through his nose before letting go of one of his hands to reorient his glasses.

'Calm.'

Aiming to keep his moment of tranquility, Damien continues to breathe through his nose (a technique he'd mastered by now to keep himself from fainting whenever he practiced too much with volleyball in his earlier years of highschool) and begins piecing together his situation, throwing away the feelings of pain his body is sending him. Recalling the last he remembered before he passed out, Damien thought of the winter chill, the desolate night, the short practice he'd attended that night, and most importantly, the phenomenon in the sky that sucked him in. He let the pieces of his memories flow together, and right before he'd formed a logical thought, a sharp pain in his eyes reminded him of the small creature in his presence, and thus, a new important line of thought.

With the rush of adrenaline fading from his body, Damien bites his lip from the aches that accumulate in his back. His eyes roam over himself in a quick examination, noticing both the thin laceration marks from what he assumes was from moving around in the bushes earlier and a small clot of a bite mark on a finger. Unsteadily, Damien silently peeks out from above the bush in front of him once more and realizes the Shinx is still there, frozen and still faintly glowing, but out of breath from doing so for so long. The little details in mind, Damien forms a conclusion like he was aiming to before his adrenaline ran out previously. This small electric creature had bit him for some reason and when he awoke, they became… scared of him?

Damien didn't know for what particular reason; his pained expression from the aching of his body sure didn't express 'strength'. But ignoring the pain his knees gave, he slowly treads around the bush, being just loud enough so the Shinx would hear him but not so slow to where the Shinx wouldn't become further frightened and run away. He wasn't sure why he was approaching the frightened creature - it's not as if he was some zoologist that knew how to handle a wild animal - but he lent out his hand and crouched down, back to the grassy ground right as the Shinx appeared to step back in wanting to flee. Though the furry quadruped seemed hesitant as they stare at Damien with their golden eyes, in their tired state, they still sniff at Damien's hand.

For a moment, Damien's other hand slowly approaches the tuft of light blue fur on the Shinx's head, as if following some intrusive thought. But as the Shinx, too, seems to realize the approach, they bite into Damien's arm in reflex. Luckily, Damien's coat hadn't just disappeared and it protected his arm, but the sudden action by the Shinx was enough to get his other arm to latch onto the tuft of fur on Shinx's head as if he was holding onto a particularly worn volleyball, and then, proceed to pull his and the Shinx away from each other. It wasn't until Damien's brain finally caught up and realized what he'd done that he began to monotonously start petting the Shinx's fur as if they were a cat and he was aiming to avoid said cat clawing on his face.

It seems both creature and human didn't know what to think of the situation though as the Shinx stares at Damien intensely for a moment, eyes wide and still as a statue, before it gives into some hidden habit of theirs, and actually starts purring.

Believing their immediate fears to somehow be over, Damien lets out a sigh of relief as the blue-furred creature cranes their neck into his fingers and continues to pet them through their fur. There was a period of solace for a moment as Damien let his mind clear out to the sound of bird calls and the rustle of leaves caused by the occasional weak winds. Then, his mind returns to the line of thought he'd ignored a mere minutes before on the reality of the situation.

'I'm in a Pokémon world aren't I?'

As if reality was hitting him like a truck, Damien's brain locks onto the idea of a 'Pokémon world' and repeats it in his head, without thought of anything else. In the meanwhile, all he does is stare off into the distance as his hand continues to pet the Shinx below him, all as if both are some involuntary impulses of his. When the idea started becoming almost physically tiring to think about, as if he was actually hearing it, did Damien return to reality. Needing something else to focus on while he reorganized the other pieces of information tied to the tiring idea, his hand (the one not preoccupied with petting Shinx), gradually fell to the grassy ground and wiggled around in it. Letting the ticklish and coarse texture of the verdant grass envelope his fingers, Damien finally accepted the facts and experience he's been given before the grass-enveloped hand too, settled down.

Damien repeats the conclusions he'd made in his mind while he looks down at the Shinx currently enjoying his petting. The phenomenon in the sky could've only actually been an Ultra Wormhole (whether it actually made sense in his world was not his area of study to worry over) and the feeling of fur between his fingers only proved his current belief of being in the universe of Pokémon to be real. (That is, unless there's coincidentally another universe where some living creatures look and act just like a Shinx.) The pain he's currently feeling (which he'd been ignoring still) was the result of falling out of that Ultra Wormhole onto a bush, then getting whatever small lacerations trying to get out of it, and ultimately, slumping his already aching back against a tree. Damien had been about to question how, logistically, a single bush had saved his fall, but with a haze creeping in his mind, he shook it off.

In Damien's current state of mind, he avidly tries to avoid another headache while he now considers his experiences with the franchise. He's at least glad to not be completely clueless over it. He's not someone that knows the ins and outs of it; he hasn't memorized all the moves, abilities, natures, content, and all there is, but he did watch the anime for it as a child, and tried to keep up with it at least. Though most of the information he knows about the games was avidly told to him by second-hand experience, he, too, avidly and greatly remembers the times he played through Generation IV and the remakes of Generation II on his old DS. After all, it was the first birthday present Damien was given despite his family not being in the best situation as well as another thing he played to take his stress away from life (if he wasn't already focusing on school or volleyball).

Damien almost laughs about his situation, both having read the few fan-made stories of such an experience and just the cliche thought of it all,

'What, am I some anime protagonist?'

He knows that thought is very much false; if that was true, he wouldn't have been kept as some sideline character in life (or at least he so believes). Nonetheless, Damien still rambles on in his head almost immediately over the possibilities of what the Pokémon world he's trapped in would resemble. The games? The anime? The manga? (Damien truly would curse out loud at the last one. He'd read most of the series in his first year of highschool, a weird transition phase into him reading those fan-made stories, and if he had anything to say about it, it'd be that the manga was brutal. What else could you say about an Arbok being literally sliced in half?)

Or was it an odd amalgamation of everything? Damien would've wondered longer for how that would function before he heard a small whine from below him - he'd apparently stopped petting the Shinx below him at some point, which luckily seemed to be enjoying his company. Damien took a breath of the clean air around him (much better than that of the city) and reoriented his glasses before looking down.

"Sorry buddy."

Damien was about to start petting the fur of the quadruped once more before he heard the sound of a faint but insistent buzz, causing him to straighten his back and look around. It was as if the sounds of the bird calls and slow trampling of grass around them were completely silenced. He looks back down at the Shinx, seeing them tense and unmoving once more. They had yet to glow like they had earlier, but when Damien caught a glimpse of the faint outline of a creature, or more so of a horde of creatures, nearing him and the Shinx, he gulped. As the hoard got closer and he was able to see the colors of the impending creatures - Pokémon - that was when Damien realized the situation they were most likely about to face.

Large red eyes, black antennas with a sharp bend, veined wings, and a body shape like that of a giant yellow wasp. With its large conical stingers, it creates an impending image that Damien felt almost spelt his own doom as he looked around for the reason they were approaching them in the first place. Damien and the Shinx near his feet were to face a horde of Beedrill. From what he remembers, Beedrill were territorial creatures, mostly on the outlook for intruders against the welfare of its pre-evolved forms of Weedle and Kakuna. He believes that wasn't really the answer though, for they were on the forest outskirts, with a field of grasslands behind them, but, upon seeing the bushes of berries, often with several bite marks on each one, Damien could figure out the situation.

'Shinx probably got around to eating them.'

He didn't blame the Shinx frozen below his feet, it's fur beginning to glow like earlier. After all, it was still essentially like a cub to a lion if he compared it to his world. He also wasn't majoring in biology, but anyone could figure they hadn't been taught the way of the world quite yet. In any case, the Beedrill were approaching, and Damien's heart was thumping in anticipation of an attack, his adrenaline from earlier kicking back in.

'If the Beedrill were patrolling and found their food stashed, they surely weren't approaching to simply greet us…'

Damien had forgotten about his belongings all the while, but even when he did, he bit his lip at the fact he knew it wouldn't be much help; it's not as if he packed for a camping trip with bug spray or a knife. So, as the insistent buzzing of Beedrill only got louder as they approached, Damien's instinct was to simply cover the body of the cub below his feet with his body. Perhaps it was merely due to the young Shinx being as seemingly innocent as they were, but Damien, too, never exactly trained his body to act necessarily rationally when he has to make split second decisions, even if he did get over simply freezing.

Yet, as Damien awaited some feeling of worse pain at his what was already aching back, he instead heard the sound of a magnificent roar so powerful his ears almost felt like bursting. He felt an unsettling force behind him, and for seconds that Damien never bothered to count, time felt frozen. Following that, the sounds of buzzing began again, almost making Damien stand up to run, but rather than get louder as if approaching him, the sounds instead dissipated, and Damien concluded the Beedrill were running away instead.

His second breath of relief from the past few minutes would be interrupted however, as Damien quickly felt the Shinx he had instinctively grabbed to protect with his hands, begin to squirm away. Despite Damien's small effort to stop the cub - after all, any other Pokémon strong enough to chase away a whole hoard of Beedrill was just as dangerous and he hadn't risked his life protecting it without some internal reason - it was a fruitless effort as the cub ran right out of his hands. Damien tilted his head backwards when he heard the Shinx (its fur not glowing anymore), seemingly let out little trills of joy. It didn't take very long for Damien to realize again, what Pokémon had protected him from the horde of Beedrill.

Most of the Pokémon behind Damien were undoubtedly Luxio, with their black and blue fur much like the Shinx but instead larger in size and with a black mane surrounding their face. A small (what Damien would call) pride of Luxio stood behind him, seriousness in their eyes. But what stuck out most to Damien however, was the figure towering above the Shinx he was just with - currently still happily chattering - a Luxray. Resembling much like a full-grown lion, its body was covered much more with black fur than blue, though still present, and its eyes now appear with red. It was clear now that these Luxio and singular Luxray, are with no doubt, the Shinx's own pride.

While Damien would've liked to continue staring at the group's interactions further, the Luxray's eyes didn't take long to glance from the group of Luxio behind him, right to Damien himself. As if the Luxray's gaze was tearing into him, Damien uncomfortably rubbed the lacerations caused earlier by the bush, and gulps.

'This… isn't good is it?'

A/N:

Second chapter complete and Damien's now fully in the Pokémon universe, woo! I was meaning to post this earlier but I honestly forgot so I hope the chapter length (now noticeably twice as long as the first since it's much less of a 'prologue' chapter) will make up for it. I hope to keep this general 4k length from now on. I also note that while the 1st chapter said it was posted on 12/29, it was actually posted on 1/2 so Happy New Year! (Let's hope 2023 isn't a wildfire like the last...)

I hope the pronouns used for Shinx in the 1st part of the chapter didn't sound too repetitive? I couldn't think of many options asides from 'quadruped', 'creature', & 'being'.

Otherwise though, I don't have much else to say asides from that another chapter will hopefully come next week, and again, much thanks to my beta readers avardiris, ShiroHatzuki, & raindrops!

11/7/23 Update: I was originally going to try to 'shorten' down unnecessary words in this as based on feedback, but I worked on it for 10 minutes and then realized 'I'm going to hate this entire process' and stopped. I simply can't identify what can and can't be shortened really and neither does my beta-reader, so in the end, I'll be happy so long as it's legible and coherent. I may be aiming for a 4k length every chapter, but my style is more or less adding a lot of wording to emphasize what I mean in the end. Anyways, the only real change here is the wording for the 1st paragraph and changing any 'shinx' to 'Shinx', for consistency's sake.