CHAPTER 1 — A Yawn is Worth a Thousand Words

Calm seas glistened with millions of lights almost too bright to look at. Waters parted occasionally as Pokemon passed close to the surface—sometimes shoals of Seadra or schools of Remoraid—but the flashes of fins and heads were always too quick for the eye to properly make out. More turbulent splashes arose in the form of Mantine bursting from the sea. They were as large as any car, and they soared through the air with wings spread wide as they hummed. Some of them flew so well it was hard to believe they were still classified as fish.

The white-winged birds they mimicked flew high above their heads. Massive colonies of Wingull and Pelipper blotted parts of the azure sky. If not for their telltale blue stripes and beaks, they might have blended in with the clouds drifting by—

Mm, clouds… Sorry. I got distracted. That was a magic word for me nowadays.

Caws from those migrating birds mixed with gentle murmurs from the sea as waves lapped the shores of a small island. Sunlight, warm and pleasant, beamed down from the skies and heated fields of golden sand—not hot enough to bake me alive, but enough to leave my plump stomach feeling nice and toasty.

I wasn't alone on this pitifully tiny island, one of dozens scattered off the coast of the mainland. The usual collection of neighbors were around. A Kingler, old but still full of vitality, moved down the beach with her newest cast of kids scuttling along in close pursuit. An oddball Staryu I was familiar with laid back-first on the sand nearby and wriggled his arms around like he was making a snow angel. His, uh, speech was very limited. Magikarp was here, too, and swimming laps around the island like usual in my peripheral vision. Hopefully someday, he achieved his dream of becoming a Gyarados. I was definitely going to make sure I stayed the hell away when that happened. Nobody wanted to end up as collateral damage in what would surely be a rampage induced by an influx of evolution hormones. I'd heard a lot of horror stories from Kingler already about similar incidents.

For the most part, though, the sandy shores of the island were covered with my herd.

A few dozen pink Pokemon laid around doing nothing. Some of them napped under the sun. Some meandered across the sands with agonizingly slow steps in pointless circles. The few couples we had curled their tails together in loving displays of affection and cared for their children, but most of the herd followed my example… which was laying at the water's edge with my tail dipped into the sea and my glorious, chonky body sprawled out to appreciate pleasantly warm sands.

My eyes were not closed, though. They followed the clouds high, high up in the skies. A dopey smile stretched across my face as I counted them. So big, so fluffy… There was something so incredibly riveting about watching clouds crawl by that it was hard to look away.

I kind of wanted to eat one.

That one there looked like a donut. The one next to it reminded me of a Bulbasaur—not that I'd seen one in person yet—and that one looked like an Octillery… My thoughts broke off halfway as a big yawn left my mouth.

My favorite hobby used to be writing—specifically, creating fanfiction. The details were a little fuzzy after days and weeks had bled into months and then years, but I still remembered. I just tried not to think about my old life too much anymore. It helped that a Slowpoke's mind meant you were always in a dim, half-drowsy state outside of battle. I had to work extra hard to keep my state of awareness lucid enough for me to actually still feel like a human.

But that was a moot point. I wasn't human anymore. Hadn't been for a long time.

Nope, now I was a bona fide Slowpoke who had ended up leading a herd by virtue of being the most intelligent and powerful.

It wasn't such a bad life once I came to terms with it all. Sure, there were some close calls where predators like Tentacruel almost made snacks out of me and my brethren, and sometimes eating seafood and plants all the time made me cranky, but those were faint blips in a Slowpoke's memory— my memory.

My new way of life was peaceful. Wake up, stretch, swim for exercise, fish, eat, sleep. Rinse and repeat.

It was ordinary. Slow. That was just the way I liked it.

I could literally watch clouds pass all day and find nothing but bliss in it—

The sea rippled.

The moment I sensed nearby vibrations in the water from my tail, I snapped out of my cloud-watching. Lazy mode off, serious mode on. Thoughts instantly sharpened as psychic energy wrapped around the tip of my tail like a spearhead. The extension of my body shot out almost like it had a mind of its own.

Ah.

My lazy exclamation was severely delayed and came about six seconds too late. By then, my tail had long swung itself out of the water to reveal my newest catch: a very fresh and very dead Remoraid that had probably gotten lost from its school. Good for me, bad for it. I was just happy to have a nice midday snack. I'd speared it clean through its middle, so there wasn't a lot of blood.

There were actual fish in the ocean, but there were a lot more Pokemon. The first time I killed a Shellder or other Pokemon to eat had not been a fun experience to say the least. I got used to things pretty quick after that. You kind of had to if you wanted to survive. It was eat or be eaten in this kind of world.

Truthfully, I preferred foraging for plants over fishing for seafood. It was only because I worried about a Shellder biting my tail one of these days and me somehow being unable to get it off. Who the hell wanted one of those fuckers attached to them for the rest of their life?

Hell no. Not me. I'd stay a Slowpoke, thank you very much.

Anyway, food first. It was time to cook this baby.

Eating seafood raw wasn't bad, but it lacked that… oomph factor, you know? Flavor, pizzazz, you got the gist of it.

Rule number one of Slowpoke life: enjoy the small things in life (but don't be afraid to spice it up now and then with small luxuries).

With great reluctance—plus the illusion of creaking bones—I pushed myself up, tore myself away from my miniature sauna, and tottered away to get this cooking show started. There were some pieces of driftwood stashed away that had long dried, so I grabbed a few with Psychic and started burning holes into them—literally. A small fire got going before long. I transferred the dead fish to a twig and stuck it in the sand, letting the flames cook it. Meanwhile, I shuffled around the beach looking for where I put those leftover salt crystals that had formed the other week.

I found three small Slowpoke munching on them.

I told you not to eat those many times before, I gently scolded. I tried not to eye the slobber all over my precious salt crystals once they were spat back out onto the sand. Urgh.

Sorry, one of my herd members apologized for her young children. They really like the taste.

I waved off her concerns with a flick of my tail. Water under the bridge.

I'm… sorry? Leader, what does that mean? The Slowpoke mom stared at me with confusion, and that was saying something when Slowpoke normally looked derpy as hell in the first place.

I sighed out loud as I walked away. It's a human saying, but never mind.

Drool-covered salt crystals: acquired.

One claw pulled the fish stick out of the flames while the other hammered a salt crystal into smaller chunks that I sprinkled over my snack.

I tore into the thing with a vigor unlike any Slowpoke you'd see in the wild and nearly melted with pleasure.

That hit the spot. If there was anything I missed about being a human, it was having decent food.

I ended up giving away the last few bites to curious clansmen when they wandered over. After years of living together, they still didn't really get the whole 'adding condiments to your food' thing, but they did like how my cooking tasted.

My eye twitched when one of them yawned.

Nope, it was too late. Before I knew it, my own mouth stretched wide in a yawn that set off an entire chain reaction. Every Slowpoke nearby followed suit. The saying that yawns were contagious could not have been more true.

Oh yeah, the only other thing that irked me about being a Slowpoke was how terrifying the urge to yawn was. It was like this world's god—Arceus—had coded it into our systems that we simply had to yawn at least twenty different times a day.

Annoying but tolerable.

Yawning, lazing around, and cloud-watching. That's what Slowpoke life mostly boiled down to.

Today was a little different. I thumped my tail against the sand to get people's attention, but that wasn't enough on its own. I reached out telepathically while I was at it.

We've had enough time to rest. We'll continue our journey to the mainland now. Follow me, I declared.

This small island wasn't actually our base of operations. We lived on an island further out at sea, but we periodically moved around to avoid the gazes of predator Pokemon and pesky humans. Slowpoke were seen as easy prey.

It was around this time of year that Tentacruel started being more active. When that happened, our herd temporarily lived on the mainland for a while before returning.

I was the first to the water's edge, and I tried not to sigh when Slowpoke everywhere trudged along at, well… the pace of a Slowpoke. Our kind was not 'stupid' like people thought we were. We just liked taking things slow outside of crises.

I did, too, but not all the time.

After what seemed like forever, the little children were loaded up on the backs of their parents. I bade my temporary goodbyes to our neighbors, and we began to swim through the sea.

The mainland wasn't far. About twenty minutes later, we hauled ourselves up onto rich, earthy dirt and began to trek through a dense forest. Our formation had me in the front and our other skilled fighters flanking the sides with families and young ones in the middle. I kept my mind sharp and psychic senses spread wide.

We made it to our destination without any trouble. Trees thinned out and eventually gave way to a small village.

Yes, a human settlement called Azalea Village… That should have rang a bell, right?

Huts and bigger, thatched buildings made out of wood were spread around the village in uneven rows. Normally, this place would have been bustling with activity. People wearing old-fashioned, loose-fitting robes would have bartered for goods on the streets. Others wearing straw hats would have carried firewood tied to their backs and handed them out to the elderly. Men would have been at the village's largest well drawing water for their families.

There was none of that.

My herd and I had been to Azalea Village multiple times before. This was a time period when the common person was still afraid of the creatures known as Pokemon, but the villagers here were nice to Slowpoke and other harmless looking species at least. They even kept some as pets in a small cave and lake nearby, places that they let us take refuge in every year when we dropped by.

They also sometimes gave us treats that weren't seafood or plants, but I totally wasn't biased toward this village because of that.

That was beside the point.

The village was unnaturally somber today. There was no lively street market or people sitting outside on mats chatting with each other.

Instead, what I saw was people with half-sunken skin and lifeless eyes lying around on the verge of death.

…Shit, was there some sort of plague going around or something? It probably wouldn't affect Pokemon, but that was still concerning.

Wait here, I commanded my herd. As the leader, I had to step up and investigate. I was not going to bring my herd somewhere that wasn't safe.

The group of Slowpoke hid obediently in the trees while I entered the village. Mournful, muttering voices reached my ears as I trotted along the outskirts. No one noticed me yet because they were too busy crying.

"Water… need water…"

"Gods, please don't punish us further! My children won't make it…"

"Damn it… Why won't it rain?"

Ah.

So it wasn't a plague but some sort of drought the village was going through. Further investigations revealed that there hadn't been rain for a whopping number of 79 days now. Seventy-nine fucking days. It was a miracle the villagers were still clinging to life from water reserves and drinking all the water in the lake before it completely dried up.

Well, there went our little refuge away from home, jeez.

The villagers apparently believed they'd done something to offend the gods. I was pretty sure that wasn't the case, but again, this was a time period when the common person was still afraid of Pokemon. Religion was very much a thing, and so were superstitions.

I felt bad for them, but it wasn't like there was anything I could do. I was just a wee little Slowpoke trying to make it in this world with her herd.

I was no god. I couldn't summon rain for them at the snap of my fingers—er, claws.

It looked like my herd was going to have to go elsewhere. Camping out in the forest didn't seem too bad. We needed to stay away from the danger-infested forest to the west, but anywhere else was fine.

I started walking away to rejoin my herd when I saw it.

Oh no.

It was like things happened in slow motion.

A man with a scruffy beard raised a hand in front of his mouth, but he couldn't hide it.

Not that telltale widening of his mouth.

Not those eyes crinkling shut out of reflex.

Not that damned yawn coming out of him!

On cue, my muzzle opened wide in an unrestrained, massive yawn longer than any others I'd expelled today. I was pretty sure my mouth hung open for ten whole seconds—enough to catch a Cutiefly if they had lived here.

I couldn't stop my yawn mid-way even when something wet plopped onto my head.

I barely registered the wet feeling as it was followed by three more plops in quick succession—raindrops, I realized. By the time I finished yawning, bucketfuls of rain were pouring down from the skies.

Good yawn. My Slowpoke body felt satisfied.

And well, would you look at that? Sometimes miracles happened after all. Now the villagers wouldn't die, the lake would fill up again, and my herd could move in for the season—

I blinked just then, and it was because I became very hyper-aware of stares on all sides.

I hadn't realized it while yawning, but villagers had come out of their houses or picked themselves up off the streets, and they stared at me with wide eyes.

Uh… Why were they looking at me like that?

It wasn't like they'd never seen a Slowpoke before!

Slowpoke Tail delicacies weren't a thing yet, either! I really, really hoped this wasn't the start of a gruesome, macabre tale—

I grew even more startled when the villagers suddenly went on their knees by the dozen and bowed so low their heads hit the dirt. In their dry, parched voices, they fervently yelled out unbelievable words.

"The gods have spoken!"

"That Slowpoke made it rain! It's the messenger of the gods!"

"It called the lifewater with its yawn!"

It took me a solid ten seconds to realize what the fuck they were on about.

They thought I made the rain happen.

If this was an anime, question marks would have literally assembled themselves over my head in the equivalent of a comedic 'WTF is going on' moment.

Uhh… wait a sec. I didn't do that, I said awkwardly out loud.

Of course, they couldn't understand me. I was a Pokemon, and I was nowhere near good enough to telepathically speak into the minds of humans yet.

"OUR SAVIOR!"

"THE ONE WHO CALLED THE RAIN!"

No, seriously, that wasn't me—

"Gods, we thank you for bringing us your servant!"

It's just regular rain, y'all, a force of nature. Think about it, a yawn can't summon rain—

"We must worship this Slowpoke!"

"Thank you, oh wise messenger!"

"You were sent to save us! We'll never forget your kindness!"

Oh for Arceus's sake… forget it.

I gave up.

There was a part of me that wanted to flee from this madness, but I had no escape. The villagers surrounded me on all sides bowing and praying to me as if I was Arceus Himself. Unless I wanted to get violent with them and secure an escape, I wasn't going anywhere.

Rule number two of Slowpoke life: don't fight it, accept it. Kakunamatata.

In the span of a single yawn, and with extraordinary, convenient timing of rainfall and a subsequent misunderstanding that would snowball into many more, the legend of a Slowpoke began in a quiet village of Johto…

The divine Slowpoke that ended a seventy-nine day drought just by yawning.

Author's Note: What started as a joke on my Discord server became an itch I had to scratch real bad. Never, EVER thought I'd write a self-insert, much less one with a Pokemon protagonist, but here we are. The idea was so funny that I just rolled with it.

Oh yeah, 79 days was a reference to Slowpoke's Pokedex number by the way LOL.

To clarify, this is not a one shot. This will be a multi-chaptered fic.