It's not a nice feeling, one minute sleeping blissfully unaware and the next moment later, being wholesomely and vividly conscious. It's kinda like being slapped on the face with a bucket full of water after pulling an all-nighter on an assignment you left until the last minute. Which believe me, I know the feeling. (Stupid humanities task...) Only, this was ten times worse.
On a normal day, I'd groan loudly into my pillow, trying to block the sounds of an angry mother. Once I spot the time on my phone with bleary eyes reading 8:59 AM or in other words 'you're gonna get into big trouble, young lady!', I would pounce out of bed screaming profanities about how I would get detention if I was late even by a single second. I come rushing down the wooden hallways with a toothbrush in my mouth whilst my hands fiddled with an ugly striped tie around my collar as my mother would do the whole 'I tried to wake you up sooner but you just wouldn't budge' talk. That was the everyday morning of Marella Steins.
And like every morning, I proceeded to execute the first action of my routine; groaning into my pillow.
Urgh...
For whatever reason though, no sound came out of my mouth. I tried again but that nothing, not even the feeling of my voice-box vibrating was present. My first instinct was to start screaming and flailing my arms around in a panic-both of which I could not achieve. At that moment though, I became mildly aware of the throbbing pain in my head.
Everywhere else ached just as much. I didn't have a clue why I was in such pain; it wasn't like I ran in a marathon the day (blah, I can barely survive three minutes jogging, how could I ever possibly run a race) before nor was I sick (I thank my mother for giving me her superb immune system) and it wasn't like I got into an accident or something.
...wait.
Oh no.
Oh god.
No way.
Did I...?
All sorts of thoughts ran around wild in my mind as I tried to recalled what happened before I had assumingly blacked out.
...I was thirsty. I had gone out for a drink when… I can't remember.
Damn. What type of crappy situation was this? As I began to gain awareness, I only just realised that I can't seem to open my eyes. Soon after, I figured that I'm unable to move any part of my body at all. It felt as if I was being wrapped tightly in a blanket, in a small warm burito of cosiness, curled up within the sheets of my small bunk bed every Monday morning when I just can't be bothered going to school.
My throat was absolutely parched-I could still feel that rough gravel-like irritation at the back of my mouth. It was like sandpaper and the uncomfortable feeling was just killing me!
I was thirsty then... what else had happened on that day? Wait, I think it was night time!
More memories begrudgingly start to awaken; I had hit my head on something really hard... and fell to the ground. It was at home, during the late in the night... after binge-watching some anime on my laptop. It was then when I felt thirsty… then I got out of bed for some water and…
Hm... I don't really know what happened after that. The rest is a hazy, blurred-out memory. I think I... I might have heard something. Curious, I looked back and—
Then the thought suddenly popped up: I… died, didn't I?
Oh. Oh. Wow, never thought I'd die at the age of… fourteen. It's quite depressing, now that I think about it. I never finished high school, never got a job and never had experienced romance like most teen girls got to. Really, I hadn't even started living yet.
How… sad. But for some reason, I don't feel much. Like all my senses are numbed like my mind has dulled my emotions to keep myself from feeling. That heavy drowsiness that sinks my consciousness deeper and deeper into an eternal slumber.
Meh…
What can I do about it? I'm dead.
And I guess that this is the afterlife: a black void of nothingness. It feels calming… I just want to rest… sleep… yeah, that sounded pretty nice right now.
I breathed a deep gulp of air. I've been in this odd coma-like state for the past who knows how long. It felt like days but it could have been easily a couple of weeks. There was no means of telling the time in the space. Slowly, though, I was gaining sensation in my body.
"…Hello?" My voice resonated horribly. It's hoarse, dry and didn't even sound human. It was like nothing I've heard of before, coming out as a sort of sharp high pitched holler. Currently, though, I'm glad I can even open my mouth. Hesitantly, I tried moving another part of my body yet nothing would move.
Eventually, I opened my eyes… only to be surrounded by the familiar darkness. I could make up the rugged edge of what I thought was a concrete surface. Maybe a cave wall or something?
I'm cramped into a small crack of some sort in wherever I was. It was just spacious enough for me to move around slightly and wriggle my toes.
...toes. Hang on a second. I can't actually feel my toes. Frowning, I looked down at my self and—oh my god!
I don't have any clothes on!
I.
Don't.
Have.
Any.
Freaking.
Clothes.
What the heck? Embarrassment crept up my neck as I thrashed around. Then, I realised I had much more troubling issues to deal with then clothes.
It wasn't that I couldn't feel my toes, I just didn't have any. I was missing my toes. As well as my hands, fingers, arms and legs; I didn't have any proper limbs. My body was much, much smaller than it should be and I had thin hair all over my body AND it was a goddamn shade of purple. Purple! And there were these things on my back which I couldn't quite describe.
Geez! Too much information to process at a time. Deep breaths, deep breaths… who am I kidding? How could anyone stay calm in a situation like this? So, I died and got reborn into this… what am I even? I don't recall any animal on the entire planet earth without limbs and having hairy skin, alike to dogs, which was the same colour as a grape. (Unless you eat green grapes. Blah, that's nasty. Everyone knows that purple grapes are the best!)
"Ugh!" I screeched in pure annoyance as the disbelief settled in.
At that point, I was so confused and utterly lost that any teensy bit of useless information I could find, I'd gladly take; I just needed something—anything right now. If I could only see myself right now.. If there was a mirror, window or something that's could show my reflection nearby, perhaps I could see exactly what I had become
But unfortunately, things were never quite that easy. For one, I don't think I'm near human civilisation because, well, I'm in a cave or cliff side of some sorts, aren't I? Judging by how dark it was and the texture of my surroundings, it would have to be one or the other. Of course, I had no way of knowing that but I wasn't about to get my hopes up.
Drip.
My ears began twitching feverishly, picking up a slight sound echoing throughout the barren place. I assumed my hearing was much more sensitive than it was when I was human. It seemed like the noise came deeper into the crack inside the wall and since I had nothing better to do, I followed it.
Drip.
It was extremely awkward and painstakingly slow trying to make my way towards the source of the sound. Without limbs, I couldn't do much but wriggle uselessly for a moment and I ended up caterpillar-ing across the ground, using my head to pull my small frame across the rough earth terrain. Oddly enough, it wasn't as nasty as it sounded. Don't get me wrong, it hurt alright! But rather than getting painful scratches and bloody bruises, it felt more like a tender twinge in my new body.
Within a matter of gruelling moments that felt like hours, I had made my way through the tunnel and into another section of the cave where there was a decently sized pool of murky green water. Upon the sight of it, I rush towards the underground lake and dipped my head into the liquid. Ahh, H2O has never tasted so good!
Swallowing mouthfuls of more heavenly water, I caught sight of light hitting the pond and the blurred out reflection staring back at me. My eyes had quite some time to adjust to the dark and I could see the image quite clearly; the small pointy purple ears, the giant mouth and squinted eyes. Not to mention those large, blueish-violet bay-like wings that hanged uncomfortably on my back and two odd 'tails' that were actually attached to my body. This... being looked oddly familiar.
What... that was... Zubat? Like from the Pokemon game? Was I a Zubat?
Oh, flipping Arceus, I think I'm gonna faint…
Pokemon. Pokemon was my childhood. I played all the games, bought the cards and battled with my friends. They grew out of it but I never did, always looking forward to the latest game. I could name just about every Pokemon from the first couple of generations except for the latest games, including Sun and Moon. I never got to finish my Moon version on my 3DS because of school and work… also, well, I'm dead now.
The point was that I was a Zubat of all things, one of the most common, bland Pokemon in the poke-universe. A Pokemon which was virtually found in every single region around the world and was hated for the tendency it showed up in games.
Why couldn't I be some other Pokemon like a… I dunno, Pikachu? Eevee would have been cool with all the evolution possibilities and I've always wondered what it would be like to be badass Pokemon like Lugia. Couldn't I become a Dragonite? Or a Roselia? Or Bulbasaur, or any of the starters? Or really, anything else?! Was I really that unlucky that I had become a Zubat of all things?
Gosh, that sucked. That really did. If bats could cry, there would be a puddle made up of my own tears beneath the ground I stood on.
Damn. Well, can't do much. At least I was put into a world I know and also relatively friendly. Imagine if I was in the world of Call of Duty or the Walking Dead or something as equally gore-y… yeah, I'd rather not. In that case, I was actually pretty lucky.
Another question popped in my head; which universe was I in? There were several universes of the Pokemon franchise like the Mystery Dungeons, the games, the anime and the manga. Each was pretty different but they all themed around Pokemon.
I would have to figure that later. Right now, my main problem would be surviving as a wild Pokemon. If I'm not mistaken, no matter which universe I'm in, it's a Pokemon-eat-Pokemon world and I would rather not be eaten. Hopefully, I could find an exit and find some berries outside. But first, I need a better way to move around—dragging my body like I did before across the bumpy ground was something I definitely don't plan on doing again.
Zubats' main movement was flying by using their wings and that meant I should be doing that too. But like almost all things in life, it was much easier said than done. I kept crashing into the walls and the ceiling every five seconds to the point where I thought I had broken something in my new, small body. To my dismay, I didn't exactly have another method to learn how to fly other than plain old repetition.
It had been what I thought several hours if not days of failed attempts to fly when I met my first human in this world. With that, I could cross out Mystery Dungeons from my mental checklist. He looked a bit like infamous Youngster Joey, with a blue cap and a yellow short sleeved t-shirt. The boy noticed me almost immediately.
"Oh my Mew, another one?! Rattata, let's go! I'm out of here!" Maybe it is Youngster Joey and his famous 'top percentage Rattata'. Either way, he turns right from the tunnel he came from. It was then when a random but genius (no, not really) idea had sprung in my mind. If I followed him or went the direction he had come from, I'd get somewhere right? My flying wasn't the best but it was decent for the amount of time I had practice.
I decided to chase after the boy with the best of my ability, bumping into large rocks here. By the end of it, my body was torn and bruised but it was worth the pain. At the end was a colony of my own kind—Zubats and the occasional Golbat, most of which were sleeping, hanging from the rooftops like how we're supposed to do. I was ready to faint from that exhausting journey and I quickly joined the party, hanging off a ledge nearby the pack using my two… tails? Or limbs, I supposed. Either way, my world turned completely black the moment I get myself in a good position.
"Hey, wake up!" Someone nudges me and from my surprise, I let go. And immediately find myself falling down at a rapid pace as the floor came dangerously closer into my vision with every passing millisecond.
Oh god, oh god, oh god!
I nearly hit the ground but managed to flap my wings fast enough to keep me hovering in the air just in time. A huge sigh of relief escaped my lips-I think I just lost ten years from that stunt!
"That was close," I muttered, on the verge of breaking into a pile sweat. It was then when I noticed a fellow Zubat in front of me.
"Sorry about that. I'm Gilbert!" The bat greeted me with a sheepish smile, "You must be new here since I don't remember seeing you,"
How could he recognise me when there are so many just like him and myself? I wonder…
"Y-yeah," I stuttered and couldn't help but curse in my head when doing so. Damn my introverted self.
"Anyway, it's night time already. You should join us for the flight!" He nudged his head toward the exit where several other bats were flocking together as they headed out.
"Flight?" I echoed.
"You don't know?" Gilbert asked. To that, I shook my head slowly. Before I can say anything I'm pushed towards the flock and in moments, I was outside for the first time in my life. In my new life. "I could explain but it would be easier to just show you. Come on!"
It was night time and beautiful it was with the crescent moon and scattered stars casting a luminescent but pale light onto my surroundings and for a moment, I almost thought that everything was glowing. The colony of bats moved in one huge group as they scaled the forests and picked fruits from the trees.
"They're gathering food for the hatchlings and the elderly," Gilbert explained, "Those apart of the group contribute by giving the berries they collect to the ones who need it,"
"Huh…" I said as I watched the bats do their work. The scene was utterly fascinating; I had never seen anything like it and the anime failed to explain what really happened in a wild Pokemon's life, "So, could I help? Could I join the group?"
"Yep! 'We welcome anyone of our kind with open wings!' That's our motto!" Maybe, this wouldn't be so bad—I could live as a Pokemon with others who were my kind. The chance of me returning to my normal, high school life was below zero. If had to adapt, might as well make it worthwhile.
But the memories of my time as a human were all that my mind thought of as Gilbert showed me the ropes.
Months with the flock past in a wing beat. I never went beyond the surrounding forest and spent my time talking with Gilbert, helping nurse the eggs or training. You heard me right, training.
Why would I need to train? To put it simply, there have been a few attempts on me and some other bats with some of the younger trainers trying to catch us. Mimi, a female Golbat who was like the mother of the group was caught a little while ago by some trainer. It made me realize that I could one day be captured and the thought of being someone's battle weapon didn't seem fun despite the fact that I was a human before.
Sometimes, I would spar with the more older and experienced Pokemon for training, 'grinding' in gaming terms without actually making anyone faint. It was unnecessary but I still did it anyway.
I had a full move set as well which contained Wing Attack, Bite, Confuse Ray and Poison Fang—the normal moves of a Zubat. Turned out that the attacks were only guidelines to battling and it really depended on the Pokemon to choose a fighting style. It made sense, considering that this was no longer a game. It was reality, for me, and for all the Pokemon that lived in this world.
"Wing Attack," I mumbled to myself and imagined my wings glowing, before rushing up to the large stone and hitting with all my might. There was a whoosh of wind a small tornado appeared and vanished into thin air as quickly as it came into existence. Even now, seeing it happen in real life made my heart pound in satisfaction. Granted, it only added another mark to the ever-growing pile of scratches I had given to the rock training dummy but it was decent damage for a creature my size.
"Training again?" It was Gilbert, who had recently turned into a Golbat. He looked bigger, stronger; it made me want to evolve someday, "You know that there is no point doing so, right?"
"I know," But it had become a habit. There wasn't much to do anyway and I found training a great pass time. A purpose in my new-found life. Apparently, as a female bat, I was expected to babysit the pups at home whereas the males gathered food and spent their time battling. No matter how fun and cute the baby Pokemon were, as a former-human brought from a world of equality, it felt wrong.
"Sweetie, that's just how life is. You'll grow up a wonderful mother and learn that it's all just how it is," Mimi had said just hours before she had been caught. There was a bitter taste on my tongue as I put on a smile and told her I understood. I didn't really.
No one in that damn cave though would understand though. They were nice, wonderful creatures and Gilbert. He was a brilliant, nice and loving bat that had been patient with me all the way up until now. But he, they didn't see the world as I saw it; they weren't human. And that difference was all it took for me to see the line drawn between me and the rest of the Zubats. I was unorthodox; irregular in all the wrong ways.
Gilbert awkwardly remained silent, the sound of our wings beating silently through the night, "I wish you would take care of yourself better. I know you're independent but it's okay to rely on others more. Rely on me more,"
"...uh huh. I'll try," I practised Wing Attack once again, drawing my attention back to the dummy.
I knew he was interested in me as any other guy in a rom-com t.v. series would be with their love interest. It was the first time anyone had a crush on me and I was even happy for a moment. However, I saw him as a friend. I didn't want to be a breeding partner, attached to someone I didn't really like for life. There was that little part of me which just couldn't accept that.
Worse, I understood that it wasn't romantic attraction. It was just animal instinct.
"You should head back soon; the night is ending and you know what happens when the sun is out," Bats were not nocturnal for no reason. The mammal's pupils were sensitive to light as they stayed in dark places like caves. Overexposure from the sun led to permanent blindness but most Zubats didn't mind as the dominant method of finding their way around was via echolocation. I was a special case as my eyes got used to light ever since I was 'born'.
"Yes, yes. I'll head back soon," That was complete and utter bull. Or should I say Tauros? But anyway, I always lost track of time when training and ended up going into the cave sometime during the morning which was really bad for my health. I was darker in skin shade than the usual Zubat and even suffered bad sunburns during summer days due to my bad habits.
Today, the feeling of wanting to beat someone up was ten times more intense than usual and taking all my pent-up emotions on an unfeeling target made life just that much easier to get on by.
"…Okay," He left without making much of a fuss, which was a little unusual because Gilbert was normally all motherly when it came to me but I didn't ponder much over it. My mind was focused back on the intense imaginary game of battling another Pokemon.
There was only one instance where I've come face to face with other Pokemon on my own and it was not a pretty battle. I was still fairly new at the whole being a Zubat thing and during one of my late training sessions that had reached the break of dawn, I had run into Ursaring territory. Angry mother bears are absolutely terrifying and if I learnt anything from that experience, it would be to FLY AWAY AS FAST AS YOUR WINGS CAN FREAKING CARRY YOU and STAY AWAY. I got a nasty scar from the battle as well, running across my left wing and back.
Gilbert and the others thought that would mentally traumatise me for life but it only drove me further in my quest of becoming stronger. I wanted to be able to defend myself and others, even if it meant breaking the rules of the colony.
I continued my usual exercise regime, honing my skills via repetition, flying (which, by the way, I've become an expert now and I teach the little ones back at home how to fly. It's amazing when you compare to when I was first trying to flap my wings), my stamina and dodging. How do I practice dodging? Well, instead of being an idiot and agitating some wild Pokemon (it's not like I've never done that before though. hahaha...), I fly through the trees at a really fast pace and try to dodge all incoming branches. Either way is stupid but honestly, it's become a little fun activity as I try to keep up the same speed for as long as I could manage. My personal best is around three minutes.
When doing this, my echo-location skilled become trained as well as in split seconds, I have to send out and receive a message from my brain which tells me just what and how far something is in front of me than actually dodge it. It sounds really tedious but its actually faster than the amount of time my eyes process anything which is pretty amazing.
I was testing my flying abilities when something unnaturally purple came into my view. Like I normally would with any obstacle, I flew around it… only to crash face-first into the trunk of a tree.
"Freaking hell!" I screamed as pain spread throughout my entire body, shaking my head, "That hurts!"
Unfortunately, I was not alone at the current time, "What the…?!"
I spun around instantly and staring at me with a shock expression, I saw a boy with long, pale purple hair and dark pupils. He wore a violet jacket half zipped up and shaggy army trousers. The scowl on his face was unmistakable. My eyes widen–not that it was noticeable, considering my eyes are pretty narrow in the first place. Was that… Paul?
As in the Diamond and Pearl series, Paul? The douche bag who basically abused his Pokemon and only cared about being the strongest? The dude who abandoned poor Chimchar which ended up kicking his ass in the league after Ash took him in? Speaking of Chimchar… a young monkey-like Pokemon was next to the boy had a meek expression, frozen to the ground in shock.
.
.
.
Yeah… nope! Not dealing with this! At the speed of sound, mind racing and heart pounding, I flew in the other direction in an attempt to escape.
But fate seemed to have other plans for me, "Chimchar, ember!"
There was a sizeable stream of fire which came from behind but I dodged it easily enough. Only, I forget that we were in a forest and within seconds, the dry branch had burst into flames. I felt my mouth go dry.
Shit! The forest—if I left there, the forest would burn and that would mean a food crisis to the whole Zubat population as well as all the native Pokemon that live here. I wasn't the one careless enough to use a Fire-type Pokemon in this natural environment but I had played a part in this accident and that meant I had to fix it.
How the heck was I gonna do that though? Being a flying and poison type, I don't have any water-based moves and I doubt that Paul would do anything for the environment either. Plus, he can't even understand anything that comes out of my mouth because I'm a Pokemon!
Damn it. Paul Shinji, why must you pop out of nowhere and ruin my life?
The flames were growing bigger every passing moment. I did what first came to mind, biting a section of the branch and it broke off from the tree, falling onto the floor. Because it's Spring season, the grass is all fresh and alive and thus wouldn't burn up in flames as a dry branch would. It worked for the most part but since there were still a couple of burning embers and I couldn't just stomp on them just like how I would put out a campfire when I was human, I did the next best thing; I tucked my wings and rolled on them using my whole body like a burrito.
When I was satisfied, I swiped my sweat with my wings in relief. Glad that's done over with! Though, I had completely forgotten about, "Whoa!"—that came from Chimchar (I really wonder though, would Paul really say something like that?).
Oh, crap. I thought as I stared at the shocked faces of Paul and the baby fire Pokemon beside him through the former's was more of a slightly taken back look. What do you in a situation like this? The answer's simple: you run.
So run I did but I don't have legs, god damn it. Once again I flew away from this mess of… I don't even know! All I could do was hope that he would forget this event actually happened and the fact that I even existed. That wasn't too much to ask for, right?
"Tch. It got away," Paul growled frustratedly, clicking his tongue in displeasure, "I wanted to catch it too,"
Feeling his trainer's deathly stare upon him, Chimchar flinched. The purple-haired trainer sighed, "Let's go; we've wasted enough time as is,"
As he headed towards his campsite for that night, a thought floated in his mind; that Zubat had a distinctive scar of its back; there was faded skin shaped like claws marks. If he would ever come across that Pokemon again, he would know.
.
.
.
A/N: Hey, it's AmaryllisGreen here! I've decided to publish "One in a Million" on this website, a fanfiction I had previously kept on Quotev for some time now. There are only a couple chapters so far (and I mean like five) but I'll eventually publish and continuously update on them both here and Quotev.
For those wondering when I'll update any of my other fanfictions, I'm working on them! Slowly. And surely. Honestly, I don't have much motivation for those works as I do this one. It's much easier to write when you've known the characters from childhood. And it's literal crack. Almost.
Anyway, hope you enjoy!