1. Achoo
Bush field, Grass continent
"Gimme a few more minutes..." Rain mumbles.
"Mate, we shouldn't stay here too long. I know a couple of Spinaraks who live around here and I'd rather not bump into them," the bird replies.
Rain groans in drowsy annoyance and slowly opens her eyes. She looks up at the taller raven and her eyes widen. Ignoring all fatigue, she hops to her feet. She gives each limb an exploratory shake and tries to get a feel for her new body, then analyses herself.
"I'm an Eevee," she blurts out.
"Right. Are you okay? I found you lying here in the middle of the woods, and I can't tell from your fur if you look pale or not. No offense," he grins. "You passed out the moment you woke up and saw me. Am I really that stunning to look at?"
Rain ignores the joke and looks around at the foliage surrounding them. "Are we in the grass continent?"
"Unless you can name another continent with this many forests, I'd say yeah."
She takes a minute to observe in her surroundings in detail for the first time. She is standing in the middle of a small field with a variety of flowers and bushes that bear comically large berries scattered around. Behind her is a forest littered with oak trees and tall grass, and the front of her seems to lead to a path or clearing. And of course, there was the massive avian creature currently standing before her with a smirk on his beak.
The raven looks proportionally similar to those on Earth, but his face far more expressive than an ordinary bird. His sky blue wings end in black and his feathers appear slightly ruffled but fluffy to touch. The talons on the ends of his feet seem almost metallic and give off a subtle sheen. She recognises him as the 8th gen flying type - a Corvisquire. If she had to guess, he stands more than a foot taller than her on all fours.
All fours... Rain turns in a circle as she examines herself again. Her point of view is noticeably closer to the ground. Her ears swivel around independently, but with some effort, she can rotate them conciously. Most of her fur is a light grey, while the fluff covering her neck and tip of her tail are white. She is covered with dirt and leaves from being laid on the ground for so long. Her tail hangs low just above the floor, twitching occasionally. Noting her heightened sense of smell, she sniffs and faces the other Pokemon.
"Uh... Corvisquire? How long was I out?"
"Hmm, I'd say about 5 minutes? Not sure how long before that though. You can call me Cory, by the way."
"Thanks for, uh, looking out for me, Cory. My name is Rain."
"Man, like the weather?"
Rain rolls her eyes. "Like the weather."
"Well then Rain, do you remember where you were headed? I came here to gather berries for supplies before I noticed you just lying here."
"I- I don't know. I'm... not from around here."
"Oh. You got amnesia or something? Whats the last thing you remember before passing out?"
"I was with my brother, but I don't remember being a Po-" Rain stops herself before admitting to Cory of her situation. Do Pokemon here think humans existed? What if the Pokemon in this universe are hostile to humans? Maybe humans exist in this world and are at war with Pokemon? Or if there are other humans who were transported to this realm, caused non-stop issues for the native Pokemon and gained a reputation for being aut-
"Mate, you alright? I think you might be turning even more pale."
She furrows her brow and thinks about confessing, but quickly shuts the idea down.
"How about we take a walk to jog your memory? If you've got nowhere to be, I was looking around for a place to stay tonight, and I've heard about a town not too far from here."
"Sure, might as well."
"Great! Let's pick out a few berries on the way out - try to find the round pink ones. They're the sweetest. "
"I've never seen a... miscoloured eevee before. Well, there was that one Caterpie I saw a while back, but maybe he just had jaundice..." Cory rambles on. "What about your brother, is he like you?"
"Well, no. He's... a normal colour," Rain stutters. "Cory, what do you think about humans?"
"Humans?" Cory cocks his head. Very raven-like, Rain notes. "Well I asked my father about it when I was a hatchling, but all he said was: 'Human fairytales are for idiots. Now stop wasting my time.'. But I think its cooler to think they existed."
Rain looks down at the ground beneath her and slows her pace. Seems like humans are just a fable here.
Lost in thought, she starts to think about her family and friends.
Did she die and reincarnate here? Is her human self currently in a coma on Earth? Her head starts to hurt again, and she tries to literally shake the thoughts out of her head. Whatever the case, she has to find her answer eventually, right?
In the meantime, she needs to tolerate this crow comedian.
"Hey Rain, look," Cory gestures to the grass next to them and picks some out with his beak. "I think weed make a good couple."
"Ha ha. Good one," Rain responds. "But I wouldn't call that a weed, those leaves look like they belong to a flower."
She walks over to the patch of grass Cory is standing over and sure enough, sees a small cluster of bright blue flowers. The flowers are larger but nonetheless, she recognises them from her hometown.
"Myosotis," she whispers.
"Uh, gesundheit?" Cory replies.
"No that wasn't- I mean, thats the species of this particular flower. Myosotis. Though they're usually known as Forget-Me-Nots. I used to see them a lot around my home."
"Forget-Me-Nots? Thats pretty ironic."
"I guess so," Rain agrees.
Sunflower Meadow
"...unbeleafable? That's the best you came up with?" Rain repeats, as the duo continues walking down the dirt path.
"You try to make plant puns then!" Cory says. "Also, you're leaving me to do all the talking. C'mon, Rain! At least tell me one thing about yourself that's not being a huge flower nerd."
Rain shrugs. "I can't help it. I've got amnesia."
"An amnesiac that remembers about 100 fun facts for plants?"
"Hey man, I don't get to choose what I can and cannot remember."
"Then I guess you'll have to settle with my subpar jokes, bud."
Rain rolls her eyes.
The raven Pokemon stops short. "Wow. Those are some really big flowers."
After hearing nothing but poorly made jokes for the past 10 minutes, Rain sighs relief. The two Pokemon take a break from their long walk to look over the giant meadow of sunflowers before them. Cory is just tall enough to peek out above it, but Rain has no such luck. The sea of yellow stretches out to the horizon, while the footpath they are on seems to split off around it.
"I've never seen a sunflower field this big in my life," Rain comments. "This can't be a natural field. Someone is definitely tending to them..."
She takes a step closer to the pasture and takes a sniff. She smiles at the nostalgic scent of earth and freshly turned leaves.
Without warning, a light breeze kicks up some of the loose pollen and sends it right up her nostrils. She twitches, crinkles up her nose, then sneezes loud enough to make Cory flinch.
"ACHOOO!"
...and sends several small, bright stars flying into the ground in front of her with a bang.
As the dust dissipates, Cory stares at Rain as she stands frozen in shock.
"I think that might be sneeze of the year."
"Oh my God. That was Swift, right?"
"Yeah, and I think that was the biggest one I've ever seen."
Rain shakes off any dust stuck on herself and expells the remaining pollen from her nose. In the middle of the row of flora, there is now a small, shallow, eevee-sized crater with leaves and roots strewn about. Rain's jaw drops and her heart races at the surprise of using a move for the first time. Before either of the two could say anything, someone shrieks.
"My sunflowers!"
The flowers in front of them part as a smaller, humanoid sunflower makes its way through.
"Was trashing my beauties then beating me up once not good enough for you? I've already told your guildmaster not to let you guys to come here and destroy my work again..."
Now out of the sunflower thicket, they get a full view of the peculiar stranger. It has a green trunk and leaves as limbs, and a thick sunflower for a head.
"It took me weeks to restore my field after that Chespin came... please just leave me alone and don't bully me anymore..." Sunflora whimpers, tearing up. Rain shifts awkwardly.
"Oh man sorry about that, mate. I don't think Rain did it on purpose," Cory says, rummaging in his satchel. "Here's a Pecha berry as a token of our apology, we'll get outta your hair- or should I say petals -now."
Cory places a round pink berry in the Sun Pokemon's hand-leaves, and he accepts it reluctantly.
"And please tell your guildmates to leave me and my flowers alone..."
"Wait," Rain interrupts. "Guildmates?"
Sunflora sniffs. "Y-yeah. Aren't you two part of that 'Clover' guild in Capim town? They're the only ones who keep causing trouble around here."
Cory was already turning to leave, but upon the mention of a guild, Cory whips his head back around to face them.
"A guild! Could you point us in their direction?"
The Sunflora meekly points in a direction away from the field.
"Thanks! We'll be off then!" Cory says, skipping off in the pointed route. Rain apologises again to Sunflora, then paces quickly to catch up with Cory.
She briefly wonders how a Sunflora's digestive system works.
En route to Capim Town
Rain and Cory stop in their tracks when a small group of arachnid Pokemon emerge from the forest in front of them.
Two of the three intruders at the back are small green arachnid Pokemon with a pair of red mandibles with a white horn on their heads. The one in front is of similar shape and build, but of a larger size and a scarlet red in colour. The larger of the three is visibly pissed off, and clicks its mandibles in indignation.
Rain feels goosebumps all over as the Ariados towers over her. It gives Rain a quick look up and down, scoffs, then turns to glare at Cory.
"Was wondering where all that chatter came from," it says, glancing over the dirt hole. "You still never shut up, Cory?"
"He does yap a lot..." Rain mumbles.
"I see you've evolved, Spinny! And you know I love my jokes." Cory shrugs his wings.
"Boss, you know this bird?" a Spinarak asks.
Rain turns her head towards Cory and gives a puzzled expression, as if to ask a similar question.
"Oh me and Spinny met a long time ago. I used to love tortur- uh, pranking him," Cory starts. "There was one time, I was trying to learn scary face and I needed someone to practice on..."
"Don't finish that story. And stop calling me Spinny, it doesn't even fit anymore," Ariados growls, which was a bizzare sound for a spider to make.
"So I thought I'd get little Spinny here to help! Except I didn't tell her she was helping me. And I thought if I did it at night it'd scare her better. And I actually already learned the move..."
The short story causes Rain to sigh, and she frowns at the memory of her brother doing something similar to her in the past.
"Spinny may have peed out of fright. A little." Cory chirps, stifling a chuckle.
The Ariados has clear rage written all over her face as she begins turning a deeper shade of red than she already is.
"I'm going to kill you."
'Spinny' the Ariados pounces onto Cory.
Rain gulps in awe.
The past few minutes have been a blur, starting with an extremely pissed off spider leaping at Cory. The former tried to maim the latter with her sharp, spiny legs but Cory simply took a step to the side and parried with a wing. Since then, the chaos has only grown and all the Eevee can do is stare at her first real, live Pokemon battle taking place in front of her.
A flurry of purple-tipped needles fly out from Ariados' mouth towards Cory. He reacts by leaping backwards with the aid of his wings, letting the Poison Sting hit the ground beneath him with several loud thuds.
He folds his wings and grins. The raven breathes a little heavier than usual, but it is clear that he is still not taking it seriously.
"I've gotta say, you must've trained hard, huh?"
The bug type responds by sending out another Poison Sting, this time aimed at his face. Cory ducks down and to the side to avoid the second volley. A needle narrowly misses his beak, and Ariados lets out a disappointed tsk.
"Shut the hell up and fight back, you stupid chicken!"
"Aw man, no need to be so harsh, Spin-"
"You two, stop standing there and get him!" Exasperated, Ariados yells at the two Spinarak bystanders.
"Y-yes ma'am!"
Cory's smile drops as Spinny fires a third Poison Sting at him, this time accompanied by two String Shots. He dips to the left and dodges a majority of the projectiles, but one String Shot finds its mark and winds itself around a wing. The flying type lets out a squawk and stumbles. Before he regaining his footing, the great spider fires another, denser round of webs at which wrap around his body, rendering his wings immobile. He gestures with his beak at Rain and smiles weakly.
"Rain, think you can help a mate out?" Cory says.
"Cory, I don't know any moves!"
"Well thats not true, I just watched you-"
Ariados interrupts by clicking her mandibles in annoyance and starts to pace towards the disabled raven.
"Woah woah woah, chill out!" Cory says, hopping backwards, away from his captor. "I've got a bunch a berries in my bag, and they're all fresh! You can take them!"
The poison-type sharpens her front legs like a pair of knives, ignoring his plea. "I'm not going to actually kill you, Cory. I'll just embarass you like you did to me last time. And I think I'll start by plucking out all your feathers 'till you're flightless," she says.
Cory cringes at the thought before coming up with an idea. "Oh, oh I got it! Rain, Achoo! Achoooo!" He says, signaling to the worried Eevee.
Rain looks at him questioningly, until she understands. Much to Ariados' confusion, she uses both paws to pluck out a lengthy blade of grass on the side and starts tickling her nose with it. After she feels the familiar itching inside her nostrils, she faces Ariados. Then sneezes.
"ACHOOO!"
Rain's little body recoils from the extreme force expelled out her nose. A barrage of stars form in front of her, zipping towards an astonished Spinny. She tries to dart out of its way, but the attack simply curves and follows the spider's every movement. The move finally hits her mid-jump, and she hollers in pain. Her enormous body lands in a loud crash and a cloud of dust forms, separating Rain and Cory from their three assailants.
The Eevee-Corvisquire duo swap between looking at the unconscious Ariados, bewildered Spinaraks, and finally, at each other.
"Mate, that was great! But we gotta run, I don't think she'll stay down for long." Cory says worriedly. Wings still bound tightly from the previous String Shot, he starts hopping away.
Disoriented from what was the largest and loudest sneeze of her life, Rain simply nods and follows suit.
"...and if you ever need to sneeze again, let me know so I have time to escape."
Still en route to Capim Town
Cory shakes off the remaining webs from his wings.
It took a considerable amount of time for Rain to pry the residual String Shots from Cory's feathers, but the deed is finally done. Rain sighs in relief and briefly thinks about how much quicker the chore would have been if she still had thumbs. After rising to his feet, the flying-type starts preening himself.
"Oh yea, that's better. Thanks mate," he says, picking out the last bit of grime with his beak. "Not just for the clean, you really came in clutch back there too!"
Cory gives his freshly freed wings an experimental flap, and Rain flinches as some of the looser grains of sand blow off the ground. She smiles awkwardly at the taller Pokemon.
"I didn't do anything though. I was too scared to even move a muscle until you yelled at me," she replies. "Plus, you did all the actual fighting."
"Aw nah, don't sell yourself short! It was your Swift that dealt the finishing blow."
Rain doubts she did any actual damage, but she decides not to argue about it.
"Are you sure that Ariados isn't gonna chase us here?"
"Nah don't worry your little head about that ankle biter, Spinny won't come out this far from her forest. I think."
He flashes her another smile. Unamused, Rain stares at him blankly.
"If you're that worried," Cory adds, "let's get a move on then! We've got a guild to visit."
Rain nods in reply and the duo continue their trek along the dirt path.
"Also, you would never pull a prank on me like you did with that Ariados, right, Cory?" she asks.
"..."
"Cory?"
Along their walk, the two of them rest for a short moment to recharge. They each enjoy a single berry, freshly picked from the morning earlier. Cory decides to break the silence with some conversation.
"I've been meaning to ask, why don't you know any moves?" he asks, between chews.
Rain frowns, unable to come up with a suitable answer. She figures most native Pokemon have at least more than one move in their roster, so it makes sense that Cory is curious to know why she's so different. She stops walking to think. She can tell him that she simply never learned any moves, play the amnesia card again, or maybe even distract him with a pun.
Or she can tell him the truth.
When she avoided confessing before, she wasn't sure how the Corvisquire would react to a human. He might have outright killed her, for all she knew. But now...
Cory has been nothing but kind to her so far, all things considered. How many humans would have bothered ensuring the safety of a complete stranger passed out on the ground? Or even go so far as to offer to accompany them to shelter? She knows she would have chosen to ignore them and go about her merry way if put in the same position. Yet the bird beside her didn't hesitate for a second. Not to mention he could have easily flown away and left her at the mercy of a severely agitated Ariados, but he stood and fought instead.
And being honest with herself, she finds his sense of humour a little endearing... still annoying.
Finishing the last bite of her berry, she answers his question with her own.
"Is there a reason you don't just... fly?" she asks. "It'd be ten times easier for you to go where you wanted."
"But you can't!" he answers. "Don't sweat it mate, nothing wrong with taking the scenic route every now and then."
She admires his altruism and honesty - he deserves at least some truth from her. She looks the raven in the eye and confesses.
"I can't use moves because I used to be a human."
She braces herself for Cory's answer.
"Oh." he replies. "Is that it?
"What. You- are you not surprised? I mean I'm still grappling with the fact Pokemon are real, much less becoming one..." she stutters. "Why are you so calm about this?"
"Well for starters, when I asked you where you're from, you told me 'not here'," he begins. "Then there was that really odd question about humans and the fact that you can't use moves at will..."
Rain blushes in embarassment. She has been hiding it a lot less well than she thought.
Cory continues, "It's kinda hard to be surprised after that? Not to mention the number of times I've watched you trip over your own tail."
Rain buries her face in her paws and blushes in shame.
"Oh my god," she moans.
In hindsight, it was rather obvious. Constantly fumbling around while trying to use her paws as hands probably didn't help either.
Cory scratches his nonexistant beard. "It is a little concerning, considering all the stories I've heard about humans end with them saving the world... but maybe you're just here for fun? It'll probably be fine."
Not long after the confession, the two come to a stop in front of a sign that marks a sharp turn in their path.
"Capim Town..." Rain reads aloud.
Cory nods. "We're close! Finally!"
He starts off in the sign's pointed direction with a spring in his step.
"Cory, is there a reason you're so... eager to see this guild?" Rain asks. "I mean... I am excited to see what it looks like but not as much as you seem to be."
The bird stops hopping and looks back at her.
"Uhh... keep this a secret, mate, but... I'm kinda jobless right now," Cory answers sheepishly. "And where theres a guild, there must be jobs... I think? You could say I'm looking for someone to take me under their wing."
Rain dead-pans. "What did you do before... finding me?"
"I've been trading and doing odd jobs for Pokemon here and there," he replies. "Well I used to live with my parents, but we had some... disagreements."
"Anyway, the guild can probably solve both our problems! I see if they have a job opening, and they can probably help with your... human issues."
He makes a good point, Rain thinks. In a whole guild of explorers, someone has to know something about her current situation, right?
Continued in Summer festival
Myosotis / Forget-me-not is a Genus of of flowering plant usually found in Europe. The name is derived from the Greek words "Mus" and "Otis", meaning mouse and ears respectively, referring to its leaves looking like mice ears.
Wild sunflowers have many flower heads, while domestic sunflowers will usually only have a single one. What is colloquially known as the "flower" of the sunflower is actually a flower head, with many smaller single flowers in the middle.
3 Mar - Posted
11 Mar - Fixed dialogue/grammar issues, changed some sentences
7 Aug - Added small content under "Still en route to Capim Town"