…

Ugh…my head…what happened? I screw my eyes shut in concentration. The last thing I remember, I was…I was walking to the backyard…I think I was bringing out sandwiches for Elliot, Stephanie and I's lunch…but then…?

A sensation I could only assume feels like falling down a manhole. One minute the ground was there, and the next it was gone.

It was dark…I remember hearing screams, and the echoing of a terrible laughter; not joyful as much as…victorious.

I slowly open my eyes, squinting against the light. I'm…in some kind of hospital room. It feels familiar, somehow, although I guess once you've seen one hospital, you've seen them all. Although, this one seems…less well supplied than I'd expect. And what the heck am I laying on?

Hay. I'm laying in the middle of a bed made of hay.

But the strangest part is not seeing materials one would expect in a barn in a hospital room; looking where my hands should be, I see a pair of small gray paws.

Ough…am I having that dream again?

Maybe a recap would help. Several years ago, I was whisked to a strange land inhabited solely by pokemon, courtesy of lab accident involving ultra wormholes. My former boss, Dr. Laurel, and our pokemon teams made it here too, he and I were transformed into pokemon, and I lost my memories. Thanks to the memory loss, landing all over the place, and a vindictive Dr. Laurel, we were all eventually wanted by the law, but Skitty, my beloved friend, explorer, and leader of Team Starburst, helped us stop him from taking over this world, and we eventually returned home. There was also the matter of a bargain with Giratina; we could return home and have Dr. Laurel's memories of his research and this place wiped in the process, but we were never to return.

So that's how it stands. We had our tearful goodbye with Skitty, and since then have returned to life as normal. While I had no choice but to accept it, I still grieved for my time with her being cut so short. She did so much while I struggled with my past and identity; she was always there, looking out for me, even when it put her life and dreams at risk. We had made plans to become proper explorers after stopping Dr. Laurel, having thought we'd instead be stuck in her world, so this outcome had been quite a shock.

Since returning home, I started having recurrent dreams of this place, often involving waking up all alone in my white zorua form, looking for any sign of Skitty or the other members of the Exploration Center, and always finding no one. This is exactly like one of those dreams.

At least that's what I think, until I look to my side and see a seviper lying unconscious on their own hay bed.

No, not just a seviper, it's Stephanie's, I'd recognize that purple scar crisscrossing its way down her face anywhere. The day she got that was actually when Stephanie and I met; there they were, cornered by a bunch of angry zangoose, when Serperior and I passed by. We helped scare them off, then rushed to the pokemon center. After Seviper was stabilized and it was clear she was going go be ok, Stephanie and I nerded out over our dual interest in snake pokemon, and the rest was history.

Anyway, what's weird is that she's here. I'm always alone in these dreams, and of all the pokemon to conjure up? We're…close, but not as much as I am with the others on my team.

I slowly push myself up, legs trembling beneath me. I can't help but notice I'm in a little more pain than normal for a dream. I-I couldn't truly be back…this couldn't really be real…

Could it?

I go over to Seviper and nudge her gently. "Seviper? Are you ok?" Am I? I see her eyes screw shut slightly, then open just a crack. "Huh? What the…?" She looks up at me, confused. "Who are you?" She sits up slightly, looking around frantically, "where am I? What is this? Where's Stephanie? Where is she!?" I back away as she thrusts the sharp end of her tail to my neck. "Tell me!"

I don't know what it is about this form, but it just seems to rub pokemon up the wrong way. Seviper's threatening me for nothing, a response reminiscent to that I got from my own team when Skitty and I found each of them last time. Although they were lost and confused, and we were looking to arrest them, so I guess it's fair. I might not be my best self in that situation either.

"Seviper! It's me, Gwen!" I say quickly as she starts pressing her tail closer. Confusion flashes across her features, "…Gwen?…what?" Just then, the door bursts open; evidently our raised voices attracted some attention. And not a moment too soon—Seviper sharpens her tail basically every day, and I don't particularly feel safe with it so near my neck.

"Oh, oh my! You're up!" A nervous looking polteageist—nurse Polteageist—stammers. "Wait right there and I'll fetch the doctor," he says before closing the door gently.

We're alone again, Seviper looking more like her usual wide-eyed self. "Gwen? What is this? Are we…? The others said…when you were in the other world…you looked like…that, but…" "I don't know how, but I think we're in that other world now." I say. She looks around again with panic, "but…Stephanie? Where is she? The others?" She's right, at this moment, it looks like it's just the two of us. How could we have come to this world again? And why?

I'm hearing voices arguing outside, the deja vu is so strong it almost leaves me unsteady. Or it could just be the spontaneous interdimensional travel, who's to say? "We have to get the Master!" Someone angrily says. "She's in a meeting, not to be disturbed!" Someone replies. "She'll want to know about this! It was her order!"

Oh no. Not 'Master' Lurantis. She's not a terrible pokemon or anything, but let's just say we didn't always see eye to eye (something about her being reviled by my existence, which to her marked the destruction of everything she felt the Exploration Center represented and she held dear). While we did part on more friendly terms, she's not exactly the first pokemon I'd like to see here.

A few moments later the familiar form of Dr. Drampa ambles in, "Hello there Gwen, welcome back! I'm glad to see you're both awake! And who's your companion?" He says, as Seviper scrunches up behind me. "Don't worry, it's ok," I whisper to her, "this is my friend, Seviper, she's also from the human world, although she was never a human herself." "I see, how fascinating. Well, let me look you over…"

He completes his physical exam, letting us know all appears in order. I start to hear a commotion in the hallway—mostly shouting. "Master! Please wait!" "They've only just—" Then suddenly the door flies open.

I'm expecting the preppy, slightly unhinged Lurantis to be standing there, out of breath from her flight down the hall. Instead, standing in the doorway, is a delcatty, eyes wide, grin slowly spreading across her face. The gears in my head start turning—it doesn't take a genius to figure it out.

"Gwen!"

"…Skitty!?"