Thoomp!

Gliscor was awoken to a faceful of sand; a far cry from the large, comfortable pillow positioned beside his trainer’s bed. “W-what, this isn’t where I went to sleep…”
The Pokémon got himself a small running start, before leaping and shooting up into the skies. His eyes were met with a vast sea of sand and sparse cacti, but not a single trace of his trainer. Gliscor glided downwards across the stretch of the desert. Why would he be here, but not her? Just when he thinks his hopes are fully dashed, he spots an outlier amongst the sand; another Pokémon.

The trainer felt her body ache as her mind swam. She was flat on her back against something that was not her bed, the realization sending her flying forward as if a glass of freezing water was just thrown in her face. She forced herself back up, and then she realized it; her body was wrong. She felt as if her entire body had fallen asleep, and what it was waking up to was not her own. Her eyes were blurry, but she reached up with whatever appendages she had to brush the sand and sleep from her vision. The limbs staring back at her were not human hands, but instead large brown wings that appeared to be as big as her. The trainer’s morbid curiosity led her head to crane down to the rest of her body. She was a bird Pokémon, that was for certain. She was coated in feathers that resembled fluff, and had what could only be described as a bone apron attached to her waist. Below that were two talons, each of which had three toes. Not only was she not a human, she wasn’t even a Pokémon she recognized. Before her mind could process the implications of what was in front of her, she heard a voice, then looked to the sky. It was her Gliscor, and for the first time ever, she could understand what he was saying.

Gliscor flew down to the distressed Pokémon, he stumbled over his words for a moment as his concerns between the bird Pokémon and his trainer conflicted. “Miss, are you okay? I hate to ask… Have you seen my trainer?”
The Pokémon looked as if she was experiencing every emotion, all at once. She leapt forward and wrapped her wings tightly around Gliscor. “Yes, yes! It’s me, I’m your trainer!”
He wanted to deny the Pokémon’s claim, to assume that she was just delirious from the desert’s heat. But the hug she was giving him was all too familiar, he couldn’t help but instinctually wrap his pincers around the bird.
The trainer turned Pokémon pulled herself back from the hug. “Gliscor, do you know where we are? What Pokémon am I? It’s not one from Johto…”
“Well, it looks like you’re a Mandibuzz.” Said Gliscor. “Back before you caught me, I met one that was with a trainer from Unova. I don’t think that’s what’s important here. You’re a Pokémon! But how?”
Mandibuzz just stared at him, the shock of what had happened to her was finally settling in. “I don’t know, all I remember was laying down to sleep…”
Gliscor clasps his trainer’s wings into his pincers and smiles. “Look, now matter what it takes, I’m going to help you get back home. You’re my trainer after all!”
“Nonsense.” Mandibuzz shakes her head. “We’re both Pokémon. We do our equal share, as a team.”
“R-really? You and me, a team?” His trainer always treated him well, but to hear her consider him an equal made him want to blush.
“Of course!” Mandibuzz gives her partner a beaming smile. “But first, we need to get out of this desert…”
Gliscor gets ready to fly up with a gust, but looks over to see his friend still sitting in the sand. “Let’s go, then! You can fly, right?”
Mandibuzz frowned, her neck slinked down in defeat. “No… I don’t know how…”
“Well to tell you the truth, trainer… I ain’t all that knowledgeable on flying either.” Gliscor holds his friend’s wings again. “My species glides, we don’t have strong wings like yours to flap.”
“But you can teach me, right?” She asks.
Gliscor rolls his eyes. “Oh, fine… Anything for my friend.”

Mandibuzz watches her Pokémon tap his pincer under his chin, as if he’s thinking. Mandibuzz had never seen him be so emotive before.
“Alright. First, try spreading your wings out.” Gliscor outstretched his arms, his membrane wings were like tightened ship sails.
She did as her partner instructed, the asleep feeling waning from her wings as the desert air blew against them.
“Now, get beside me. We’re going to have a running start, I want you to fly up with me. When we start running, flap your wings up and down!” Gliscor said, flapping his arms in demonstration.
Mandibuzz followed his lead again, flapping her wings as the two ran side by side. It isn’t long before she feels her feet begin to leave the ground. With her wings outstretched in the air, she was finally flying. It felt natural, as if all of her new body’s natural instincts were finally kicking into gear.
“You faring alright up here? Do we need to land?” Asked Gliscor, glancing over at his friend.
Mandibuzz has a grin as large as her beaked face could muster. “Oh, you bet I am! I want to do this with you more often!”
“Is that so?” Gliscor’s brow raised. “You’re taking the whole turning into a Pokémon thing surprisingly well.”
“To tell you the truth, Gliscor, I don’t know if I want to go be human again. Flying with you’s the most fun I’ve had since we got our last gym badge!” She said, flying closer to her partner.
Gliscor thought back to that time. Their last badge was from Violet City, and that was seven months ago. He and his trainer were rising stars, until-
“Mountain, MOUNTAIN!” Mandibuzz shouted, the two glided up just in the nick of time.
He stared at his friend in embarrassment. “Sorry, lost in thought… Maybe we don’t have to go back, maybe it’ll be better for us here?”
Mandibuzz gave her friend a relieved look, he said what she had wanted to ever since they took flight. “You’re right, we don’t! C’mon now, let’s find some place we can stay for the night.”

The two Pokémon dove back down over the mountain, and were covering large stretches of forest now. The view of the sea to the right was just about the prettiest thing they had ever seen.
“It’s so lovely here, I don’t see any smog or city lights!” Gliscor remarked, touching down closer to the treetops.
“Something tells me that humans aren’t around…” Said Mandibuzz.
He chuckles. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing!”
“I’ll admit, a break from people does sound nice.” She replied, attention focused on the evening sky. “I just hope we don’t run into something worse than people…”
Gliscor narrowed his eyes, overlooking her last comment. “Speaking of something else, I think I see something in the distance.. Is that… A city?”
“Wait, what?” Mandibuzz turned her attention forward. Gliscor was right, there was something distinctively city-like on the horizon. Whatever it was, it had structures that stuck above the rest of the trees, and had glowing lights like the windows of a skyscraper.
He grunted, straining himself in every which way to get over to the place in the distance faster. “I’m starting to make out what it looks like… It looks like it’s a town, made out of giant tree stumps!”
As Mandibuzz drew closer, she started to see more details of the peculiar settlement. Homes sized just for Pokémon had been carved out into the stumps of gigantic trees. Rope bridges had been strung between the different stumps for its residents to get around. The center of the town appeared to hold more standard looking buildings. The duo decided to swoop down and land there.
“Woah… A whole village for Pokémon to live in!” Gasped Gliscor, loosely clutching Mandibuzz’s wing.
Mandibuzz smirked. “Indeed it is, my friend… But we need to find someplace to stay.”
Gliscor let go of her wing and ran over to a Totodile. “Um, excuse me. We’re new here and I was wondering if-”
Before he could finish his sentence, the Totodile pointed over to one of the larger tree buildings. “The guild will take ya, they house all sorts of strange folk.”
Gliscor said thanks, before skipping back over to Mandibuzz. “Sounds like that place over there will take us in!”
“Let’s check it out.” Squawked Mandibuzz.

Gliscor and Mandibuzz walked up to the tree structure. Each one of them felt like they were being more nervous than the other.
“Are you gonna knock?” Asked Gliscor.
Mandibuzz shot back, hiding behind his batty wings. “What if it’s a psychic Pokémon that answers? What if they read our minds and turn us away for being outsiders?”
He grins at his partner, before turning to knock at the door. “You’ll be fine, if they don’t want you, then we’ll find someplace else to stay.”
Not even twenty seconds passed from Gliscor’s knock. The door creaked open and a Pokémon stepped out. It was of a species foreign to their home region, but one that they recognized. A Mewostic. Unlike most Pokémon the two had seen, this one was wearing clothes. A black cloak was draped over his entire body.
“What brings the two of you here?” The Meowstic asked calmly.
Gliscor spoke up. “Me and my partner woke up in a desert somewhere north of here. We’re lost and wondering if we could stay here.”
Meowstic stayed quiet. He was staring at the two, and Mandibuzz could sense that he was scanning something about them that only he could see. He clasped his tiny paws together and stood aside from the doorway. “A trainer and their Pokémon? That’s a new one. Come in, I’d love to learn more about you two.”
The two Pokémon stepped in, and Meowstic followed. The pair didn’t know it yet, but this was the first day of the rest of their lives.