Raihan was sure he had seen that tree five times already.

The two humans turned into Pokémon had been walking for so long that Raihan could see Piers was stumbling a little as he played leader, shredding long grass with his claws. Watching the sight made him briefly wonder why Zigzagoon did not learn Scratch, although he heard their Hoenn counterparts could learn Cut. Maybe their home's Zigzagoon could learn Cut too, but when Galar did not have HM01 in production they never taught of testing that. Maybe that was what he should do when they got home. Persuade Piers to try teach his Obstagoon Cut for science.

At the very least Piers would be able to learn Surf if they found some TMs around here. Raihan pondered where exactly they were because if they were in Galar, Piers wouldn't be leading him past the same tree this number of times. He wasn't Leon.

"Are you a'right, Piers? I think we've been here."

Piers let out a quiet growl, his voice very obviously showing his exhaustion. "I'm fine. Why do all these trees look the same? If we were human we could probably use our phones… Speaking of which, what the fuck happened to 'em?"

Raihan tried to shrug. Being a Trapinch, it still felt very awkward. He was really missing Rotom right now. "Who knows? What happened to our clothes?" Piers stopped to stare at him. "For all we know, when we turn back we'll be bare ass naked."

Piers regarded him silently before turning back to the task at hand, suddenly finding the smell of the grass interesting as he hacked away again. "C'mon, we're not getting anywhere chatting." Great, now he was going to find out if Pokémon had nightmares about public nudity too.

As Piers distracted himself again, Raihan glanced at that suspicious tree again then strolled up to it. He had no idea what level he was, but he might as well try, right?

Suddenly a thud echoed through the forest and Piers jumped, losing control of his instincts. His carefully controlled walk turned into a sprint and he zigzagged into a stump, snapping out a string of foul words. "What the fuck was that?!" He awkwardly rubbed his snout with his paws as he turned to see Raihan before a newly collapsed tree. "Rai, what the hell did you do?"

Raihan grinned victoriously, nudging his newly floored friend. "Guess I do know Bite! I remembered Trapinch has very strong teeth so I thought I'd test it out. If we see the fallen tree again, we'll know we're lost, you know?"

Piers shook the pain off, tail ruffling as he did so. "Smart, couldn't you have warned me first? We have no idea if there's even any Pokémon Centres around here. What happens if we faint out here?"

"Whatever happens to the wild Pokémon trainers grind on, I guess." Raihan nudged him again. "Why don't you try get on my back? You're half my size, I can probably carry you."

The Zigzagoon gave him a long cool stare. "Have you weighed a Zigzagoon? They're a lot heavier than they look… Besides, isn't all of Trapinch's weight in its head?"

The gym leader circled around to the back of him, eyes examining his friend's new body as he did so. "It's supposed to be heavier, but it doesn't actually feel too heavy, maybe we're buff compared to normal Pokémon. I don't feel like I have a 10 in my Speed stat, at least!" He tucked down his head. "Hey, look over there! Right in front of you!"

"Look at wha-" A strangled noise left the badger Pokémon as Raihan burrowed under his tail and struck his stomach, catching him on his back. "Ah- Arsehole! You could have knocked me out!"

"But I didn't," Raihan shrugged, feeling Piers' claws awkwardly fumble against his smooth shell. "Come on, let your paws rest. I can see over the grass a little so just tell me where to go and we'll see if we find anything new."

Piers flexed his digits and bent his paw round to extend his middle claw in Raihan's vision. He just laughed and took over their search.

After walking in completely random directions, Raihan and Piers once again found themselves in front of the tree Raihan had destroyed.

"What the fuck is goin' on?" Piers grumbled, narrowing his eyes at the wreck. "How are we still going in circles? Why is this forest so weird?" They hadn't seen any Pokémon, they hadn't seen any humans, and the grass Piers had slashed around here appeared to have grown back. Yet that same tree remained bashed in, as if only to taunt them that they forever lost.

Raihan plodded over to the wreckage, burying his head in the hollow. "There's something weird happenin', isn't there? Huh, this wasn't in here before!" His mouth clamped around the object before tugging it out, revealing to his friend two oran berries connected by a twig. "Guess we have something in case we get hurt before we find the Pokémon Centre!"

"10 whole HP, wow," Piers mumbled as his eyes narrowed. "What level are we? If you used Bite, you have to be at least level 8, right?"

Raihan tilted his head, berries hanging on a tooth. "Yeah but you managed to slash at the grass without using a move… Why does Trapinch need to learn Bite, anyhow? Look at my teeth, I'm not going to forget how to use them!"

He could feel a headache coming on, thinking about the lack of logic. "I have no idea, did you use Bite or not? Never mind, my point is… How much damage can we take? Am I going to faint if a bug bites me?"

"Times like this, I could really use my phone." Raihan sighed. "How about this? We stop worrying, we look for the Pokémon Centre and start panickin' if we get attacked."

How were they going to find the Pokémon Centre if they couldn't get out of this damn forest? Looking around, Piers noticed a sparkle in the distance. "Rai, there's something over there."

Raihan followed as Piers pointed, struggling to hang on as he did so. Damn stubby arms, legs? Regardless, he was missing being bipedal. They were led into a dead end but the room-like structure was not completely insignificant, their vision greeted by something odd. "Did someone drop their bloody wallet here?" He shovelled up the loose poké with his jaw, dropping the coins in Piers' paws. "I guess he was one of the few losers to get beaten by wild Pokémon."

"How do we know it was a guy?" Piers mumbled before his fur prickled and he turned to see a Rattata and Poochyena enter the 'room', both snarling. "... I guess we're about to become one of those losers."

"Fuck," Raihan snapped, gingerly placing the berries down as Piers hopped off his back, burying the coins underneath him and dropping the berries with them before taking on what Raihan guessed was supposed to be an aggressive stance. He looked like an angry cat Pokémon above everything else. "Now it's time to start panicking, huh?" His voice was lilted yet he was wary as he stared down the hostile Pokémon. He was the eighth gym leader. He was not going to be bested by two route 1 Pokémon. At the very least, they now had proof that wherever they were, it wasn't Galar.

Piers took a deep breath, looking at the dirty grass beneath them. "Guess we have no choice, we'll have to try and beat them." With those words, he swiped his claws at the earth, sending a wave of dirt into their enemy's eyes and prompting them to screech. Raihan took the chance to run up to the Rattata, nearly staggering as he did so, then clamp his jaw into its side, feeling it thrash as its tail started whacking him.

"Eww, Rattata taste horrible!" He pulled away and spat, just relieved he could neither taste nor see any blood. Piers rolled his eyes, dodging Poochyena's Tackle as it flailed towards him. Was that an oran berry wrapped on its back leg?

"Just hold your nose, you won't taste it." Raihan glared at him, with his lack of nose and stubby legs, and Piers laughed, locking his eyes on the berry. "Sorry, guess you'll have to suffer!" He struck Poochyena from the back end, snagging his teeth around the berry vine as it yelped then running back to Raihan's side, almost zigzag-crashing into him as he did so. "Damn feet, least we have three oran berries now!"

Raihan watched him bury the berry with the other two. He wondered if Piers realised they would be eating dirt covered berries at this rate, but shook off the thought to remark. "I thought Covet was supposed to be cute!"

"What are you talkin' about? I'm a Zigzagoon, of course I'm cute!" However, despite Rattata's dirt-covered vision, it landed a hit to his side, prompting him to stagger back and growl. "Fuck, that hurts!"

Raihan chuckled as the 'cute' Pokémon launched out a string of curses at the enemy Rattata. "C'mon, I'll knock Rattata out, you handle Poochyena! Whoever knocks out their enemy first gets the poké!"

"You're on!" Piers dodged more of Poochyena's thrashing then threw a tackle at it as Raihan sunk a bite into Rattata, the rat squeaking and the hyena howling before they both crashed to the ground, exhausted. "And if it's a draw?"

"They fell at the exact same time? That's extremely unlikely," Raihan noted with a laugh before unearthing their treasure. "Let's get out of here then split it. Now… How exactly do we get out?"

Piers brought a paw to his face. "That's what we've been worrying about for the last…" He faltered. 30 minutes? Hour? How long had they been wandering around in the forest? "Fuck knows how long. But we need to get out."

"Excuse me?" The two of them tensed as they heard an unfamiliar voice, turning back to the direction they had come from to see two Pokémon. A Ninetales that they could not quite tell if it was shiny or just really old, and a Flaaffy. The Ninetales had a look of worry on its face however the Flaaffy looked wary, as it glared at them. Piers found himself glaring back until Raihan nudged him. He'd blame the sudden agitation on instincts.

"Uh… Hey! Are you talkin' to us?" Raihan asked, though he felt uneasy. For a moment he wondered if he could only understand Piers as a Pokémon because they were both human, judging from how their enemies could only snarl and shriek. Unless this Ninetales was a human turned Pokémon too, maybe this meant they could understand all Pokémon now.

The Ninetales nodded, as concern turned into a bright smile. "Of course, you're the only conscious ones here!" It faltered as it looked at the fainted Pokémon. "What happened here?"

"They attacked us first, self defence," Piers said dismissively, frowning as Flaaffy continued glowering at them. "What's your problem?"

"Oh don't mind him, he rolled off the wrong side of the bed this morning," the fox chirped, prompting the Flaaffy to break his concentration and snap at it flustered.

"I did not! You pushed me off!"

"We had a mission, you're not going to become a top-notch explorer if you can't wake up," Ninetales hummed, tails swishing. "So, you two! You're pretty deep in the forest, are you alright?"

Are they alright? Piers and Raihan exchanged glances. How on Earth did they explain their predicament? Would these Pokémon even believe them? Raihan went ahead and answered. "Not really, we have no idea how we got here, and we're lost. Do you know where the nearest Pokémon Centre is?"

Flaaffy tilted his head. "Pokémon Centre? Is this some slang we're too old to know about?"

"No, it's like a hospital for Pokémon," Piers mumbled as he made some mental notes. Maybe the Ninetales was just really old. But how old did they look to them? Flaaffy just looked like any other member of his species. "We just… Need to get out of here. We have no idea how to get home from here."

Ninetales piped up again. "Oh, so you're looking for a hospital? We have a clinic in our village, we'll take you there!" It looked Piers over, tilting its head. "That's an interesting thing you've done to your fur, how did you dye it that colour?"

"It's not dye, it's natural," he deadpanned, as he added another silent note. Apparently this Ninetales had no idea what a Galarian Zigzagoon was. Maybe it made some sense when they weren't in Galar.

"Don't mind the old man, he wouldn't believe me when I told him black and white Zigzagoon existed." Flaaffy turned away, they noticed a bag resting against his back with a badge on it. What an odd badge it was, looking like a blue Pokéball with wings. "How about you go in front, Ninetales? I'll make sure no one attacks us from the back." The way he clutched the strap of the bag, Piers wondered if the sheep was expecting them to try to rob him.

The perpetually cheerful Ninetales nodded, nudging past his friend down the corridor. "Of course! Come on, we'll get you two out no problem!"

At the very least, they had one problem solved. The two former humans looked at each other. The real problem was, how on Earth did they end up like this in the first place?