"… Ugh…"

Ren groaned softly as he slowly opened his eyes, his vision blurry after a deep, dreamless sleep. For a moment, the teen was heavily disoriented, his vision blurry as he lay there stiffly, his mind very slowly waking up with him. He lied there for another couple of moments before slowly reaching up to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He groaned again as he felt how sensitive the skin on his face felt, until finally he opened his eyes once more and…

… Wasn't this the ceiling of the attic in Leblanc?

With a very confused look on his face, Ren very slowly sat up in his bed (he was in his bed?), feeling the familiar weight of his covers roll themselves off his frame as he rested on the palms of his hands.

"I'm… back in Leblanc."

To say Ren was confused would be an understatement. He was back in his home, and… one look at his hands confirmed that he was human again? For some reason, the attic felt so familiar but also so off. "So was that all… just a dream?" But it was so vivid. He had felt everything… the wind blowing through his new fur, the thirst on his tongue, the massive bug cleaving through his torso—

At that thought his hand quickly shot to his side where he had been hit, but found nothing but a dull ache where that searing pain had once been. Ren furrowed his brow, slowly looking up so he could glance around the room once again. Nothing seemed out of place, his laptop sitting on top of his workbench, his shelves filled to the brim with all sorts of keepsakes from friends and the claw game in Akihabara… So why did he feel like something was wrong?

Maybe… Maybe that was all just a crazy dream. He was back in Leblanc safe and sound, after all… perhaps he shouldn't worry about it too much and just continue on with his day? He just couldn't shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong.

He glanced down at the covers of his bed again. "Looks like Morgana's out doing something again…" The cat was nowhere to be seen, which was a bit unusual but he was his own person. With a sigh, Ren slowly pushed himself out of bed, stretching a bit to get the kinks out of his back, before going about the room so he could start his day. He figured he should see if he could meet up with the rest of the team to see if they experience any strange dreams after the fight with the Holy Grail—

A sudden, overwhelming feeling of dread washed over Ren, like someone had taken a bucket of ice cold water and dumped it over his head. "T-The Holy Grail… but didn't it banish us from the people's cognition…?" He suddenly realized why everything felt like it was extremely wrong, it was because…

"Hahahaha… you ignorant fool."

Ren gasped as he quickly looked around the room, his eyes wide at that familiar, haunting voice. "You… where are you?!" He yelled, furious that this thing kept toying with him. Had it not done enough, forcing him to watch as his closest friends disappeared into nothingness and separating him from them?

The voice of the Holy Grail chuckled lowly once more, the sound surrounding him as if it were trying to crush him. "Mementos and reality have finally merged into one, as per the wishes of humanity. Your pitiful 'social reform' was always nothing more than an impossible dream, wishful thinking while the rest of the populace wished to be led by me as they fell deeper into their own self made constraints."

Ren couldn't help but growl angrily at the Holy Grail's words, opening his mouth to reply just as the ceiling above him suddenly cracked and shattered with a loud bang. The teen was thrown onto his back from the force of it, forcing him to look up at an eerily familiar blood red sky, and high up above Yongen-Jaya was the Holy Grail itself.

"Do you not see now? This is the wish of the people… But if you still wish to interfere, I suppose I'll have to deal with you personally, just like I did with the rest of your team."

Ren's ears were filled with the sounds of his friends' screams when they were erased from reality, his eyes scrunching shut as he held his hands to his head. He desperately tried to block them out, writhing on the attic floor while the Holy Grail laughed coldly above him. It felt like it would never stop, letting out a yell of despair—

"NO!"

Ren awakened with a sharp gasp, shooting himself up into a seated position. Unfortunately for him, that was more than enough to aggravate the still fresh gash on his side, making him suddenly cry out in pain and hold a paw to his side. His breathing was wild and erratic, the teen trying to get himself under control while he held his throbbing wound.

It took a good few minutes for Ren to finally rein his sharp gasps in, slowly but surely evening his breathing out as he sat there. His side was still in pain, but it was less than when he woke up, allowing him to finally open his eyes and be greeted with the same paws and furry legs that he had before he passed out.

"Dammit…" He groaned out, gritting his teeth as he held his head in his paws. "Dammit, dammit, dammit…" For a moment, he truly let himself believe that he was back in Leblanc and that he was human again… which made this awakening even crueler, as he was once again lost, tired, and wounded in a body that wasn't his own. Ren truly was at a loss for what he should do.

… But he couldn't let himself fall into despair. Not when he knew there was a chance his friends were still alive and possibly even worse off than he was. He had to keep persevering no matter what… he had people counting on him.

Ren let out a deep sigh as he shook himself off, trying his best to put the nightmare out of his mind. "Shake it off, Ren… you're stronger than this." He took a few more deep breaths, letting his shoulders slump a little bit more with each one. When he opened his eyes again, he finally took note of his surroundings.

"This is… different." The teen said with a raised brow as he looked around what appeared to be a small hut fashioned into a rough looking bar, complete with a wooden counter and a couple crude stools and wooden boxes acting as seating in front of it. Light filtered into the hut through small holes in the walls and through the sides of what looked like a flap door, making Ren squint a bit as he got used to it. Hadn't he been in a forest before? He remembered finding that pond of water, getting into a fight with that bug creature, and then passing out…

"Did someone bring me here..?" Ren wondered aloud, glancing back down to where he was sitting. That was when he noticed what looked like chains of leaves put together like makeshift bandages wrapped around his torso and his wound. It seemed like whoever did bring him here was friendlier than that monster he fought, at least.

His thoughts were interrupted when the door to the hut was suddenly pushed open, making Ren squint as more light was welcomed into the small building. It was mostly blocked, however, by a large silhouette standing in the entrance. For a moment the figure looked vaguely humanoid, until it revealed itself to be a rather large white furred monkey carrying a leaf-sack filled with berries and coconuts behind it. The ape walked in and let the door swing shut behind it before it noticed Ren was staring at it.

"Ah, I'm glad to see you're awake. You were in bad shape when I found you," The ape said as he went behind the counter to deposit the sack onto a pile of leaves before moving over to Ren, his eyes on the bandage around his torso. "You're lucky I was in the area looking for sitrus berries, you know."

Ren struggled to not balk in surprise at how nonchalantly the monkey was speaking, watching him check over the bandage he had obviously applied himself. Sure, he thought he had heard those smaller creatures speaking from before, but to see one striking up a conversation with him face to face was a bit surprising.

"A-Ah, well… I appreciate you saving me, uh…?" Ren quickly said once he realized he hadn't said anything in response for a good minute or two, biting back a cringe of pain when the ape gently moved his hand over his wounded side.

The monkey hummed a bit as he stood back up, a light smile on his face. "I am Oranguru, and it was no issue at all. Let me get you something to drink now that you're up," Oranguru moved behind the counter and grabbed what looked like a hollowed out coconut, setting it on the counter along with a bunch of yellow spotted berries that Ren had never seen before.

The teen nodded respectfully, grateful to him for his aid, for he would have surely bled out in the soil if he hadn't found him. "Thank you, Oranguru-san, I'm in your debt. My name is Ren Amamiya."

Oranguru raised a brow at his words, though his attention was still more on the berries he was masterfully squeezing the juice out of. "Just Oranguru is fine, and do you mind if I call you Ren? The other part's a bit of a mouthful." He had squeezed around nine or so berries into the cup before he swept them off the table, going behind him to grab a small bamboo jug off the wall.

Ren paused for a moment before nodding, noting that he wasn't in Japan anymore so the honorifics system here must be different. "That's… rrgh… fine, Oranguru," He replied, cringing as his gash shot another wave of pain up his side.

Oranguru continued to make the drink, pouring what looked like a bit of fresh honey into the drink before covering the top of the cup with a leaf and shaking it up and down a few times. Once he was satisfied with the results, the ape carefully placed a bamboo straw into the cup with a little stir and walked over to Ren, holding the drink out for him to take. "This should help with the pain a bit."

Ren gingerly took the cup from him, nodding in thanks. He brought the straw up to his lips and took a sip, and immediately hummed at the delicious taste of the drink. The berry juice was sour almost akin to lemon, but the fresh honey helped give the drink a wonderful balance. "This is delicious, thank you." He took another larger gulp of the drink, and true to Oranguru's words he could feel the pain of his wound start to dull a bit. Interesting… "How, uh… how long have I been out for?"

"Around a day, I'd say." The ape answered nonchalantly.

Ren nearly spit out the mouthful of juice he had, putting a paw up to his muzzle and swallowing thickly before coughing. "A-A whole day?"

"I was honestly expecting you to be asleep at least another day. You're up faster than I thought you'd be," Oranguru said with a light shrug, wiping out another cup with a makeshift rag.

Once Ren got his coughing under control he sighed a bit, wiping his mouth. "I… guess you're right, yeah." He had lost a lot of blood in that fight.

There was a brief but comfortable silence between the two as Ren drank, the ape letting him finish the juice before he spoke again. "It's been a long time since I've seen a Zoroark around the island," He said, cleaning off some of the spilled berry juice on the counter. "What brings you to Melemele?"

Ren's brow furrowed a bit at the question. 'Is that what I am now? A… Zoroark?' He felt the foreign word on his tongue as he muttered it, having never heard of such a creature before. The name Melemele didn't ring any bells, either, and he liked to think he was fairly knowledgeable when it came to world geography.

"Honestly, I… I don't know. Before I woke up here, I'd never even heard of a place called 'Melemele'." Ren replied after a moment of thinking, signing softly as he glanced down at his now empty cup.

Oranguru raised a curious brow at that, pausing in his cleaning to lean over the counter. "Before you 'woke up' here? How did you find yourself here in the first place?"

The teen paused for a moment. How was he going to answer this without making it sound like he was crazy? "It's… a bit of an unbelievable story." Honestly, he was still having a hard time believing this was real himself.

"Unbelievable?" Oranguru said, humming to himself in thought. "I've been on this island for many years and heard many tall tales that turned out to be true. You won't find judgment here, I promise."

"… Well," Ren started, shifting a bit. "Before I got here, I was a human. Something happened to me back home, and when I woke up I found myself lost, and turned into a… Zoroark, you said?" It was an extremely short and simplified version of how he got here, but he was tired and he really wasn't comfortable with talking about the Holy Grail just yet.

That definitely surprised Oranguru a bit, if the raising of his eyebrows indicated anything. "That's… quite the predicament you're in." He said after a moment of silence. "It is quite unbelievable, though it would explain why you have such a human name, and why I found a Zoroark of all Pokémon in a Scyther's territory."

Ren blinked a bit in confusion before making the connection that the bug monster that almost killed him was called a Scyther. Fitting. "What do you mean by that?"

Oranguru continued. "I've only seen a couple of Zoroark around the forest, all of them from trainers, but they preferred to trick and deceive with their powerful illusions rather than fight head on. Which, judging by your injuries… you did the opposite."

Ren's mind was whirling as he took in this info, looking down at his claws with a furrowed brow. 'Zoroark are able to trick people with illusions?' The teen was wondering what that even meant, until he remembered something strange that happened earlier. 'Wait, the gun I pulled out earlier… Was that an illusion I made out of instinct?'

This was getting stranger by the minute.

"Hmm… You seem to be telling the truth," Ren was pulled out of his thoughts by Oranguru once again. "So, Ren… if you truly are lost, what do you plan to do next then?"

That was a question that he hadn't found an answer to yet. In the first couple of hours that he had been here, the only thing he did was get seriously injured and waste an entire day recovering, and he still had no idea where he was. "I… don't know. But I know I need to find my friends. They're out there somewhere… at least, I hope."

"Your friends, hm? Well…" Oranguru smiled before he continued. "A good goal to have. Perhaps I could give you an idea of where to start?"

Instinctively, Ren's ears perked up. "Really?"

The ape nodded in confirmation, nodding towards the door. "If you walk straight from the entrance of my hut here, you'll soon find yourself on the outskirts of a place called 'Hau'oli City'. It's a large place with many humans, I'm sure you'll find someone that could help you."

Hau'oli City? Humans? Ren couldn't believe his luck! "That sounds perfect, thank you so much Oranguru."

"It's nothing, my friend. You look eager to go, but before you do, allow me to fix you one more cup. It'll do wonders for your injury."

The human-turned-Zoroark happily obliged.

After another tall glass of that delicious sitrus berry juice, Ren bid his newest acquaintance goodbye before hitting the road, now very eager to be among the company of actual people again. Oranguru made sure to let him know to not push himself too hard while his wound healed, so he was trying to take it easy while he strolled through the forest. Along the way, however, Ren decided to try something that he had been curious about ever since Oranguru had mentioned it in his hut.

"So I can supposedly make illusions now, huh…" He said to no one in particular as he glanced down at his open paws, remembering the TT-33 handgun he had pulled before he passed out. "Maybe I can try doing that again?"

With a crouch, Ren tried to mimic his stance from before. Bringing his paw down to his waist where he would normally carry his gun, he waited a moment before swinging his arm with a flourish and holding it in front of him, ready to fire.

Or at least he would be ready, if there was anything in his paws.

Ren simply stared at his empty grip before coughing awkwardly. "At least Morgana wasn't here to see that…" He muttered, knowing that the cat would've relentlessly teased him for looking like an idiot. "Let's try one more time."

For a good twenty minutes or so, Ren tried to recreate what happened during his fight with the Scyther but to no avail, only succeeding in making himself hope that no one was watching him do this.

"Okay, this is obviously not working…" He huffed as he stood back up, scratching the back of his head in thought. "Am I going about this wrong?" If the gun was an illusion he created, perhaps he needed to think about how the gun looked and felt to him?

With a soft sigh, Ren closed his eyes and held his paw out in front of him, picturing his TT-33 clearly in his mind. The weight of the handle in his grip, the sleek metal shining under the lights of a palace, the satisfying sound of it firing into a Shadow…

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Until he suddenly felt a familiar weight appear out of nowhere in his claws. He quickly opened his eyes, and sure enough, there was his handgun. Ren grinned as he looked it over. "That's better."

Now that he knew it was nothing more than an illusion, he couldn't help but marvel at how real it looked. It was a perfect resemblance to how his gun looked and felt in a palace, though he doubted that it would fire. Idly, Ren wondered how he could dismiss it now, and just like that the gun glowed like it had before and vanished into thin air.

Ren continued to practice this newfound ability as he walked, summoning his gun into his grip with a flash and aiming down the sights before dismissing it. Each time he could summon the illusion a little bit quicker, and eventually he could smoothly reach down to his waist and come back up with his handgun without too much thought. He was so engrossed in playing with his newfound ability, that he didn't even notice that he had found the edge of the forest until the glare of the sun made him look up.

For the first time since he had arrived in this strange place, Ren felt relieved beyond belief. There was actual civilization here, and he could see actual people simply milling around, going about their lives. He had been worried in the forest that that's all this place was going to be, endless wilderness with creatures (Pokémon?) that were either afraid of him or wanted him dead. Silently, he cursed the Holy Grail for turning him into a Zoroark when humans existed in this world anyway. What interested Ren about this newfound place was how much it resembled Hawaii. Inwardly, Ren wondered if this place spoke English, which made him glad that he continued to study the language even after his class's trip there.

He really wanted to go up and ask one of the passerby's directions to Hau'oli City (since this area looked more like an outskirts to a city), but there was just the issue that he still looked like a bipedal kitsune with large claws and dark red fur. Not the best look to convey that he means no harm.

After some internal debate, a thought crossed Ren's mind. If he could make extremely convincing physical illusions like his gun… what's stopping him from using illusions to disguise himself as something else? It was worth a shot, at least, and lucky for him there was a small puddle of water nearby so he could make sure he looked okay.

Looking down into the puddle, Ren let out a sigh as he focused on picturing what he looked like before he woke up here. His frizzy black hair, glasses resting on his nose, his lanky, athletic frame and pale skin… Breathing out, he let that same energy he felt while summoning his gun flow over his form. Light danced in front of his eyelids, keeping his focus steady until…

He slowly opened his eyes and, to his pleasant surprise, looked into the puddle to stare at his very human face. It was an almost exact image of how he looked back in Japan, and looking down at his torso he saw the familiar black and red of the Shujin Academy uniform.

"Woah…" Ren muttered, reaching up a hand to gently touch the skin on his face. It almost felt strange now to feel fingers touching his skin instead of claws touching his fur. It was a relief to be looking at something that was more familiar, though he did notice that it was taking a bit of effort on his part to keep the illusion up.

"It'll do for now," He said with a huff, resting his hands in the illusory pockets of his uniform. "At least nobody will run if they see me anymore."

Satisfied with the result, Ren sighed again as he stared out onto the street below before slowly stepping out of the woods, a little apprehensive but eager to find out just where he was.

He had friends to find, after all.

Thanks for reading! I'm going to try to keep a bimonthly upload schedule for this story starting with this upload, as a way to keep me working on chapters and prevent burnout. If you liked it I'd love to hear what you think with a review!