Wake Up, Apollo Dear

"Hey... hey, you!" A voice called out to me from beyond the grave.

"You, with the messed-up feathers! Wake up!"

It was... some kind'a girl? She sounded nice--

Whoa, mama! Upon opening my eyes, I was greeted with... oh, man, how would I even describe her? Painful to look at? Deformed? Some kind of creepy creature with a bunch'a tentacles spilling outta her sides and a... really creepy smile.

She didn't have no mouth, neither. No mouth, and yet... I could tell she was still smilin'.

"Oh, finally, you're not dead anymore! Get up, dummy." The girl wrapped her tentacles 'round me... or, tried to. They passed right through my... abnormally-sized body.

I couldn't help but assume I was just dreamin' somethin'. "Hah! Nice try, dream demon. You're not gettin' this guy wrapped up so easily..."

I tried to jab a finger at my chest, but... well, I didn't have any fingers. Come to think of it...

"...what are you doing?" The girl questioned, tilting her weird smokey head to the side.

The question was appropriate. I was... uh, well, I was bobbin' back an' forth, trying t' find my arms. It wasn't like I'd just lost them, had I? That-- that didn't just happen. You didn't go to sleep and lose your arms overnight.

"Oh, nevermind. Listen: I'm your guardian angel! I'm here to help you! All you've gotta do is listen to me. Everything I say, you've gotta do. I promise it'll only be good things..." The lady's grin grew wider, somehow, but I was preoccupied with the whole missin' arms deal.

"Uh... sure, sure, whatevva you say. Can you help me out here?" I hated to admit it, but I couldn't really get off my back like this.

"I'm trying..." This 'guardian angel' said, repeatedly shovin her arms through my chest. Eventually, after an awkward bout've just layin' around, she managed to grab hold of my back. "A-ha!"

Without further ado, she pulled me right up. Her tentacles were really weird-- they almost felt cold to the touch. Smooth, too, like skin. What kind of skin... I couldn' really recall. But skin. Somethin' familiar.

"There we go. Now you can walk like a normal person instead of sitting on your butt all day." The 'angel' put all four'a her tentacles on her hips and kept grinnin' at me. "Now then, slave, do a little dance."

"What? You'll have ta make me!" I was tryin' to chin up, but it was a bit hard to without hands. "I'll-- I'll fight ya for it."

Funnily enough, that was enough t' make her back down. "Okay, okay, don't do a little dance! Don't-- don't fight me, right? Never fight me. I could uh... I could crush you in an instant, and you really don't want that to happen," she postured.

"You don't look that tough," I lied through my teeth. I was talkin' to a creepy alien monster thing with tentacles that was claimin' to be my guardian angel, after seemingly stealin' my arms and three-fourths'a my height, of course she looked tough t' me.

"Yeah, well, you're a quarter of my size. You couldn't take me down if you tried," she sneered back.

"Oh yeah? You wanna test that theory?" I spread my legs out, ready to take her on taekwondo-style...

"I've got a better idea," the stranger offered. She pointed her tentacle behind me. "Look."

"I'm not fallin' for your tricks, lady! I mean it!" She wasn't going to throw me off with that old trick!

That ticked her off, 'pparently, cuz next thing I knew I was wrapped up in one of those tentacles and squeezed enough t' make breathing a luxury. "Right, squirt, can you shut it for a second? I'm serious. Look around you. Look where we are."

She propped me up enough t' see... endless somethin'.
The place stretched out for miles and miles. Into the horizon and probably past it. Towers of all kinds went up and down the place, rotted and grown over, cracked and crumbled and nothin' like what... like what they should have been? But... they'd always been like this, hadn't they? Yeah.
In the middle of all this, in the direction that this 'guardian angel' of mine was pointin' me, was... a giant tower. A really giant tower. I couldn't even see the top of it, and I got dizzy just trying to. It was so far away... but it still looked huge. The longer I looked at it, the more I could've sworn I saw something flying near it... like there usually was, right? Stuff flew. Especially around... there?

My head hurt. All of this wasn't anything especially strange. But I'd never seen it before.

Lady's words cut through my headache. "I can't leave this place. I don't think you can, either. I woke up before you and tried leaving you alone... but wherever I went, I just ended up back here with you."

Her tone quieted a bit, her words growin' serious. The way she said them made my spine crawl. They were nearly as cold as her tendrils. "Now, I'm sure you're a great guy, but I can't spend my life with someone I've never met. And I really want to get out of here. This place gives me the creeps. Feels too far away from wherever I'm supposed to be. If it were up to me, I'd already be climbing up that tower trying to get the hell out of here."

She stopped for a moment. "I don't even know if that's how you leave. But it'll get me a good vantage point, if nothing else, and I'll take anything right now. Besides," she went quiet again, "it feels like I'm supposed to be high up. Not 'down here,' whatever that means. It probably means that I'm not supposed to be with you."

A laugh left her... slit? Her ears? Her head? Whatever was letting me hear her. It was cold and ethereal, like someone was echoin' it from inside a cave.

"But I haven't got a choice. And I don't think you've got one, either."

Wait, this isn't how it went.

"You both know we're stuck here, forever. Together."

Ah, shit.

My eyes were crusty again. I'd slept in way too late, probably.

"Oh, finally." Diana let out a sigh of relief. "You were out like a rock after last night."

"Last night...?" I was too groggy to remember...

"Yeah, the Grimy Ghettos again. You were chasing after some Scrafty for scraps. We still had an escape orb, though, so... I teleported us out of there and we were fine." Di said, nonchalantly, tracing her tentacles across the wall of the room we were sat in.

"Where... where are we, then? Can't be too far..." I yawned, nearly fallin' back in bed with the effort.

"The Park."

"What?!" I shot up like a rocket. No way. "How'd they let you in?? How'd you get in?? Wouldn't the Guard have your head?"

Diana's tone turned bitter. "Funny, that. Turns out that a fainted Torchic acts as great bait for innkeepers." She crossed her hands-- the pair I'd been using as my own for over a year now-- and frowned.

"I heard that!" A chorus of voices called from across the hall. "Any more talk like that and you'll be out of here in a jiffy~!"

Di went on. "I kept myself stuck in some wall and didn't get noticed 'til you were already here in bed. It's really a miracle that I haven't been chased out yet."

A judgy Hydrapple strutted her way into the tiny room I was stuck in. It was tiny enough, in fact, that the Hydrapple had to have all five of her heads duck under the entrance to reach us. "Count your blessings that you had enough to keep him," she scoffed. "If it were up to my brain instead'a my wallet, I'd have slammed the door in your face."

Two of her heads bent down to my level to offer me... one cookie. And some milk. "Just enough to get you movin' and groovin' again. Then you're out. I can't afford to let criminals like you loiter around these parts~! I'd be doin' a disservice to the local Riolu."

A third head slithered up to my side. "You should've seen the reaction'a one of those when we brought you in! Pure revulsion. I can't imagine the kinds'a deeds you've done to deserve that."

Diana's tendrils turned to a fist, and she wasted no time mimicking a cough into one. "That'd be me, sorry. He's trying to be all goody two-shoes now so I'm sure it helps his aura plenty."

The third head looked up at her and gaped a little. It retreated to the sugar-plum core of the Hydrapple, gossippin' with the other heads while I ate my pecked at my cookie and milk, Diana holdin' up the tray for me after the Hydrapple's heads tried to drop it on me.

"Hey, why'd you do that?" I asked, trying not to bark the question out. I couldn't really hide that the Hydrapple had ticked me off, but I didn't want t' spit on her hospitality.

"Sorry, sorry~!" The main head sung. I could hear the insincerity drippin' from her tone. "You'll have to ask again another time. I've got some higher priorities. You," she turned most of her heads towards Diana but kept one fixated on me, "smoke-head. I don't take kindly to jabs directed at my guests. Drop it or you're outta here. Vamoose. Gonezo."

Diana took one look at the Hydrapple, her gaze drifting from head to head. She took another look back at me and my half-finished cookie... then back at the Hydrapple... and gave her answer.

"Shove it, dirtbag. Be glad I haven't chased you out of here first."

And that's how I ended up out here, in town, causin' everyone to lose their minds.

"The look on her faces!"

Who knew bein' tied to a giant prick with nothin' but evil in her heart could get you kicked outta every town you visit.

"You've gotta admit, that was worth it."

Or that havin' this prick play coy when you try to apologize for her usually didn't work out.

"Oh, come on, lighten up. You're not super hurt or anything. It was just one night."

I certainly didn't. Not for a while, anyways. I've commited that stuff to long-term memory by now.

"Shoot, wait, is that Wyze?"

I've committed the screamin' and scared faces to memory too. All the townsfolk whisperin' bad stuff about us, yellin' for guards, throwin' stones.

"Okay, it's piggyback time. Let's-- let's teleport out of here before..."

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" The Sneasler came chargin' towards us.

In an instant, we were right where he used to be. This was gettin' tiresome.

"Seriously? Our third encounter and you still don't know I can show up wherever I want to?"

There went Diana, tauntin' him again. And there went a Close Combat, phasin' through her too.

"Sucker Punch." I called out, watchin' as that weird Riolu came in from behind. He missed, thankfully-- Di'd heard my words a split second before he hit--

--but now we were out of the Park again. Back to the grimy wilderness overrun with ferals and explorers givin' us bad looks. Back to stealing what we could and scrounging for what we couldn't. All that fun stuff.

"Hey, earth to Apollo?" Di waved a tendril in front of my face.

I didn't really respond. I didn't want to. I was so tired of this. We'd finally found a way into the Park, and she'd gotten us chased out in record time. I'd been able to have a comfy rest, for the first time'n ages, in an actual bed. I'd been able to talk with another Pokemon without Di absorbin' all the attention. I'd had a cookie.

And now, all I had was Diana.

As always.