Chapter 1: Cross that Bridge and Start Anew
FennecWitch
Fiery Beacon
- Pronouns
- she/her
Rivers of Asphodel:
Waking up in an unfamiliar body with no memories is hard enough on its own. It's even harder when the ones around you are so familiar you're sure you must have known them. And they can't remember their pasts, either.
Ensemble fic with a fair amount of POV switching. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon like world minus the mystery dungeons.
Major content warnings for body dysphoria and memory loss. More specific content warnings will be given at the beginning of each chapter.
Helioptile Chloe
Brionne Daphne
Espeon Theseus
Zorua Nyx
Landmarks of Asphodel
Settlements of Asphodel
Chapter 1: Cross that Bridge and Start Anew
Chapter title is from the song "Shine Through" by The Stupendium.
CW: Blood, body dysphoria, memory loss
In a very shallow part of the ocean, the fish swam. It was almost at the shore, not that it knew what that meant. What it did understand was that the water was growing quite shallow, and it needed to get back to deeper waters. Although its light, pale emerald scales almost let it blend in with the seawater itself, it was still alone, separated from its school. So it turned to make its way back out to sea.
A sudden rush of movement churned the water, sharp teeth closing around the fish's body. Sharp teeth sunk into its scales, dragging it back to shore before it could even process what had happened.
Pulling herself onto the beach, Daphne briefly dropped the wild Remoraid onto the sand, before grabbing it by the tail and flinging it into a nearby mesh bag, filled with similarly-caught fish. The fish was a bit smaller than she would’ve liked, but, then she supposed she was lucky to have found a lone Remoraid this close to shore. She didn’t have the time nor the desire to fight off a whole school of fish. And even if she did, there was no way she could carry that many back into town on her own. It would just be a waste of effort, unless she wanted to give the wild predators an easy snack. Besides, she needed one smaller catch today, anyway.
The Brionne turned back to the water, going far out enough in that she could wash around her mouth. She had mostly gotten used to the sight of blood over the past few years, but she still grimaced as she saw the traces of the red liquid around her muzzle. Her hair was thin enough that it wasn't too difficult to get it out, but most Pokémon didn’t like the sight of it. She got enough strange looks as it was from Pokémon unfamiliar with her species. Better to not give them more reason to stare at her.
Once she was clean enough to present herself to regular society, she went back to the shore and grabbed the bag full of fish. It wasn’t a particularly large bag, only able to hold about five fish Pokémon at most. But then, she wasn’t very large herself. This was about the biggest bag she could reasonably carry on her own.
Usually she'd take her wagon with her, but she'd managed to chip one of the wooden wheels on a tree root that she swore had never been there before. It shouldn't've been a difficult fix for the guild's carpenter, but they'd been apparently too busy working on things for the Legend Day festival and hadn't gotten around to it. Which was fine. Daphne hadn't exactly been catching enough fish to warrant hauling it around, anyway. She blamed the cold season starting.
She slung the bag over her shoulder, taking care not to disturb the smooth grey stone attached to a cord tied around her neck. She then checked to make sure the blue cloth band was still firmly attached to her flipper before heading to the path through the forest and back to town.
She turned to look behind her. The sun was getting low in the sky, the land below starting to be bathed in twilight. Daphne cursed under her breath. She definitely didn’t have enough time to get back before it grew completely dark. At least, not unless she skipped her detour, but that wasn’t happening.
Maybe she’d get some leniency on the curfew? Winter had now officially begun and the days were shortening so it wasn’t like she had as much time to get back as she would have in summer. All the same, she quickened her pace as much as she could while lugging a bag of fish behind her.
As she started to approach the edge of the forest, she turned off the main path, heading into an uneven area of brush. There wasn’t anything that could even generously be called a path. She moved around the thick plants on the ground in a practised route, until she reached a small cave.
Daphne could see fairly well in the dark, though the inside of the cave was dark enough that she could only make out vague shapes. She stopped outside the entrance, setting down her bag.
“Lily?” Daphne called out, softly. “You there?”
“Oh, um, just a second!” came a voice in return, before a somewhat disheveled-looking Lillipup slowly emerged from the entrance.
She looked up at Daphne. “You’ve got food for me?”
“Of course,” Daphne said, reaching into the bag with her mouth to grab the small Remoraid she had just caught and throwing it at the Lillipup’s feet. “Just the one this time, though. Since winter’s started it’s going to be harder for me to get them. But I’ll do what I can.”
“Thanks,” Lily replied, looking down at the fish, sniffing it cautiously. “I know you’ve said it’s fine for you to give up fish like this, but…”
Daphne snorted. “Hey, better this than you stealing from me again. Least like this I can plan for it.”
That had been an interesting day. She almost hadn't noticed the Lillipup secreting a fish out of her wagon until she'd disappeared back into the brush. A few streams of water in the thief's general direction had made her instantly drop the fish and start desperately apologising to Daphne. After realising how young and malnourished the Lillipup was, Daphne had decided she couldn't in good conscience let Lily starve.
Lily’s ears flattened against her head, her tail drooping. “I said I was sorry. I just… I needed food.”
“I know, I know,” Daphne said, sighing. “Besides, this one’s small enough that I don’t know if we’d even be able to sell it. You may as well take it.”
“Right,” Lily said, then looked up at the sky. “You’d better get back though, right? It’s almost dark.”
Daphne followed her gaze. It was hard to see much through the tree cover, but there was very little sunlight left by this point. Yeah, there was no way she was going to make it back before dinner ended. Unless she left right now, but she was pretty sure she was kidding herself.
She sighed, turning back to Lily. “Yeah, I should get going.”
“Okay. Thanks again,” the Lillipup replied, grabbing the Remoraid and starting to drag it into the cave.
“It’s nothing,” said Daphne, picking up her bag again. “If nothing comes up, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
Lily nodded, her tail wagging slightly. “Okay!”
When she got back on the main path, Daphne moved forward, keeping her head down. It wouldn’t be that bad if she missed dinner for one night, right? It wasn’t like this was the first time it had happened, anyway. In fact, maybe she should just have one of these fish now, since there was no way she was getting back to the guild before dinner ended.
Probably better not to waste it, though.
She was almost out of the forest when her eyes happened to glance over at a flash of yellow on the side of the path. She blinked, then slowly approached it.
It looked like some kind of reptile. Yellow and black, which two long things that Daphne supposed could be ears coming off their head. She didn't see any clothing or a tag anywhere, so she might’ve just passed them off as a wild Pokémon. But she had a fairly good idea of the Pokémon that lived around here and this wasn’t a species she recognised at all. As she got closer she realised that they weren’t moving.
“Hey!” she called.
The Pokémon didn’t move.
A wave of dread washed over her, and she opened her mouth, letting loose a stream of water. The Pokémon began to move slightly and Daphne felt a weight come off her shoulders. What would she even have done with a dead body in the woods? Probably report it to someone, right? But there was no guarantee they’d get there before any wild predators would. Not that that mattered, anyway, because this Pokémon wasn’t dead.
Still, they hadn’t opened their eyes yet. Daphne set down her bag and touched the lizard’s back with a flipper. The Pokémon recoiled from her touch, letting out a strange noise as the things on either side of their head flared out. Frills, then. Daphne hastily withdrew her flipper.
“Hey, you okay?” Daphne asked.
The lizard’s frills began to retract as they shakily started to slowly open and close their eyes. The Pokémon left them half-open, and Daphne saw dazed blue irises looking back at her.
“You alright?” Daphne tried again. “What happened?”
The lizard just stared at Daphne, before opening their mouth. A shaky, wavering hiss was what emerged. “Daphne?”
Daphne pushed herself back, eyes wide. “What?”
But the Pokémon didn’t reply, their eyes having shut again. They were once again slumped on the side of the path. She couldn’t see any obvious wounds so that was a good sign. It was probably a good idea to take them to a healer, though, just in case. But she couldn’t just wait and hope they woke up. And it wasn’t like she could carry both the Pokémon and her bag into town.
Daphne hesitated, then cursed under her breath.
“Don’t go anywhere,” she told the unconscious Pokémon.
They didn’t respond.
Daphne picked up her bag and sniffed the unconscious Pokémon, before heading back into the forest. Moving as quickly as she could, she soon made it back to Lily’s cave.
“Lily!” she called out.
There must have been more panic in her tone than she’d intended, because the Lillipup came running out of the dark cave fairly quickly. She looked a little off, too. Was her fur a little darker than usual? Probably just the lighting. Daphne didn't have time to think about it.
“What’s wrong?” Lily asked, looking around frantically.
Daphne dropped the bag of fish outside the cave. “I need you to look after this until tomorrow. I found an injured Pokémon and I can’t carry them and this bag.”
Lily paused, then nodded. “Right. I can do that.”
“Thanks,” Daphne said, turning back towards the path. “Just don’t eat it all.”
Daphne was gone before she could hear the Lillipup’s response.
The sun had completely set by the time she left Lily's cave. She could still see fairly well, but her sense of smell was more useful for finding something even in the daylight. It didn't take long to track down the lizard's scent and find them again.
Carefully, she grabbed the Pokémon, lifting them up. She hesitated. They were almost as tall as she was and she wasn’t entirely sure how to safely carry them. After a pause, she decided upon sprawling them over her shoulder, keeping the lizard there with one flipper while pulling herself forward with the other. They weren’t heavy, far lighter than the fish she’d been carrying, but she didn't feel like it'd be a great idea to drag them along the ground.
She was on the path already, so the sun having set didn’t matter too much as long as she kept moving forward. And, though it took her much longer than it would have if she was moving by herself, she made it to the intersection of the forest path and the main road.
Since she’d already missed both dinner and her curfew, she decided to take a short break to catch her breath before she crossed the bridge into town. She really should've had one of those fish.
Idly fiddling with the stone around her neck with one hand, her mind lingered on what the lizard had said. Or at least, what she thought they’d said.
Her name.
Maybe she'd just imagined it. She was almost certain she didn't know this Pokémon. There was no way they could know her name. And even if she was wrong, and they had met before, she should have at least some vague sense of familiarity when seeing them, shouldn’t she? At this point, though, she didn’t exactly trust herself to be able to remember anything like that. Hopefully, when they woke up, this Pokémon could give her some answers.
The sound of approaching hoofsteps made her look up as a silhouette came into view in the distance, coming from the main road and heading towards the bridge. As they drew closer, Daphne realised that it was a Mudsdale, pulling a cart behind it. Not a Pokémon she saw a lot around here. Feronia was usually too wet for most ground types.
She looked up at the thick woolen rug on the horse’s back, with a logo on it that she thought she recognised as a delivery company’s. As the large Pokémon approached, Daphne's eyes scanned down to the piece of fabric tied around one of the Mudsdale’s front legs. She focused on the colour, which was definitely either red or green. She could count on one flipper the amount of times she’d seen a green tag, so it was probably red. Male, then.
“Hey!” Daphne said, a little louder than she intended.
The Mudsdale’s head tilted down towards her, and his eyes quickly glanced down to Daphne’s own tag, a solid blue band on her right flipper. “Well, hello there, lass. Are you alright?”
“I am, but this Pokémon’s hurt.” Daphne gestured to the unconscious lizard still slung over her shoulder.
“I see…” the Mudsdale replied. “I’m assuming you’re wanting a ride into town, then?”
“If that’s alright,” Daphne said, looking down. “Just to the Fishing Guild near the entrance to town.”
“No trouble, no trouble at all,” he responded. “I’m returning from a delivery anyway, so the cart’s empty. Hop on in.”
Daphne nodded, pulling herself up into the cart and setting the lizard down beside her. She felt a little wary of hitching a ride with a stranger like this, but stopping had made her realise how tired carrying the lizard Pokémon made her. They were close enough to town by this point that it shouldn't be for long. Just across the bridge.
“I’m Uma, by the way,” the Mudsdale said, as he started to pull them forward onto the bridge.
“Brionne Daphne,” she responded, trying to move herself into a more comfortable position.
“Pleasure to meet you. So, what happened to ’em?” Uma asked.
Daphne looked down at the unconscious Pokémon. “Don’t know. I just found them passed out in the forest.”
She paused. "Yes, I realise how weird that sounds. But I'm pretty sure they're not wild."
“Doubt a wild Helioptile would end up in Feronia. Especially not in winter. Wonder what brings ’em here.”
“Helioptile?” Daphne asked, tilting her head to the side.
“Yep,” Uma said. “Basic and lightning type, from back home in Erimos, usually.”
Well, that explained why Daphne hadn't seen this species before. If they were desert-dwellers, she doubted they'd want to come anywhere near a rainforest.
Uma was still looking at her. “Come to think of it, don’t think I’ve seen many like you, either. Brionne, you said? You don’t look like you’re much suited for land. What brings you here?”
Daphne closed her eyes. “I live here.”
Uma must have sensed the tinge of annoyance in her voice, because he went silent after that. It was probably a bit more than she intended, but she could almost ask him the same question! And it got kinda grating to be constantly asked why she, a Pokémon clearly more suited to the water, was living on land. She wasn't some curiosity to be interrogated and gawked at.
Daphne spent the rest of the journey staring down at the river below. Not that she particularly liked looking at it, but there wasn't much else in terms of scenery besides the big, fancy, metal bridge. Every time she went over this bridge she just remembered the guild members complaining about the bridge being built and getting rid of the need for the ferry service some of them had previously worked at. It was annoying. The bridge had been built before she even joined the guild; it wasn't like them still complaining about it was going to change anything.
Eventually they reached the town, and Uma stopped in front of a large limestone building on the main road. Daphne could see a few lights through the windows. Still Pokémon awake, then. Hopefully that'd include the guild's healer.
“Well, here we are,” Uma said, turning his head back to look at the Pokémon in his cart. "There a healer or something here? I can drop them at the hospital if you like."
Daphne shook her head, cautiously climbing down, then grabbing the Helioptile again. "There's a healer here, don't worry. Thanks for the ride."
“Alright, then. See you ’round,” the Mudsdale said, starting to pull away.
Daphne nodded again, going up to the large wooden doors. She hesitated, glancing up at the night sky, before shaking her head. After a few attempts, she managed to grab the large brass door knocker with her one free flipper and knocked on the door.
A few minutes later, the doors were opened from the inside and Daphne entered, finding a Feraligatr waiting on the other side, his eyes boring directly down at her.
She froze, glancing up at him, before quickly looking to the side after he made direct eye contact with her. “Guildmaster Sobek! I didn’t realise you were back today. Did you have a good Legend Day yesterday?”
Daphne could feel him staring down at her.
A deep, rumbling voice finally broke the silence. “Good evening, Daphne. I assume you have a very good reason for why you’re back so long after curfew, seemingly without any work to show for today.”
His gaze moved to the reptile slung over her shoulder. “And why you seem to have an unconscious Pokémon with you."
Daphne began fidgeting with her necklace again. “There is. I do have a reason.”
“Do you now?” The Feraligatr narrowed his eyes. “Daphne, unless you’ve deluded yourself into thinking that Helioptile are fish, I don’t see why you would possibly have brought one into my guild.”
“They were injured. I found them passed out in the forest. I had to do something,” she said, looking at the Pokémon on her shoulder.
“And yet,” he said, his tone still neutral, “Instead of bringing this Pokémon to the hospital, you brought them here.”
“The hospital’s on the other side of town!” Daphne said, gritting her teeth. “Besides, Cetus can heal them, right?”
The guildmaster let out a long sigh. “Yes. You are fortunate enough that Cetus is still awake.”
“Great!” Daphne said, starting to walk away. “I’ll go take them to her, then.”
“We’re not finished here,” he said sternly, and Daphne stopped in place, though she didn’t turn to face him. “You have a curfew for a reason, Daphne."
Daphne took a deep breath, ready to give one of the hundred counter-arguments she'd rehearsed in her head.
Sobek sighed. "But, your apparent disregard for your own safety aside, you had better get that Pokémon to Cetus. We’ll discuss this tomorrow.”
“Great,” Daphne said again. “Tomorrow it is.”
“Tomorrow morning,” the Feraligatr stressed. “I want you in my office first thing after breakfast.”
Daphne sighed. “Yep.”
She took the lack of any further interruption to mean she was free to go, making her way to the infirmary as quickly as she could while carrying the Helioptile. Fortunately, Cetus, or whichever healer before her had decided on the infirmary’s location, had made sure it wasn’t too far from the guild’s entrance. Daphne soon reached it, making her way through the doorway.
Inside, she found a Corsola standing at a short desk, carefully reading through papers. As Daphne came into the room, the pink coral Pokémon looked up, before hurriedly moving over to her.
“What happened?” she asked Daphne, as the Brionne lay the Helioptile down on one of the straw beds.
“No idea,” Daphne responded. “Just found them passed out in the forest.”
Cetus blinked. "And you thought you'd bring a random Pokémon here? Do you know they're not wild?"
Daphne gritted her teeth. "Yes! Apparently they're desert-dwellers so I don't know how a wild one would get here. And they spoke a little bit. I think, anyway."
The Corsola opened her mouth, then stopped, taking a deep breath. “Alright. Leave them with me for tonight. I’ll do what I can.”
“Thanks, Cetus,” the Brionne responded, looking down. “I’ll come check on them tomorrow morning.”
“Yes. You look like you need to get some sleep,” Cetus said, looking at Daphne with concern.
Daphne nodded. “I will. Thanks again.”
“It’s my job, Daphne,” she replied with a sigh.
Daphne nodded, then turned around. She moved all the way down to the end of the hall, pushing open the door to her room. It wasn't very big, and had apparently just been a storage room before she got it. But at least she didn't have to share. It was bare save for a straw bed and a window. There wasn't really anything she cared about enough to store in there, anyway, except for the grey stone that stayed firmly around her neck at all times.
Shutting the door behind her, she lay down on her bed and eventually managed to force herself to sleep.
When Chloe came to, she had a pounding headache, and her body was wrong.
The headache dulled a lot of the sensations of her body, but even still, she could tell that it was wrong. Still too exhausted to even consider opening her eyes, she tried to move an arm. But it didn’t move the way she expected it to.
She tried the other arm. Same thing. She tried a leg. It moved wrong, too. So did her other leg. It didn’t hurt to move them, they just… weren’t moving the way she knew they should be. They were bending in the wrong spots, and at weird angles.
She tried just moving her fingers. But even that was wrong. They didn’t spread the way she knew they did, and she couldn’t even seem to get them to spread apart into five distinct fingers at all.
Her skin felt dry, too, and she was cold, as well. Her body was resting on top of some strange uneven texture, too. A texture that was almost familiar, but not something she could immediately place. And parts of her felt heavy in a way that she knew wasn’t natural.
Something was very wrong with her body. She felt a strange crawling sensation on her skin, a chill running down her spine. Something terrible had happened to her. Some kind of accident? But what could mangle her body like this? What could completely destroy her joints to the extent that they didn't even bend the same way anymore? And why didn't she feel any pain? How long had she been asleep?
She really didn't want to open her eyes. She didn't want to see whatever mutilated wreck her body had become. She wanted to go back to sleep and wake up in her normal body. She wanted all of this to be a dream.
But she knew it wasn't. And she knew she couldn't just ignore it. The creeping feeling of dread inside her knew something wasn’t right, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to relax until she knew what. She needed to know. She needed to see it for herself.
So she opened her eyes.
And they opened wrong.
Everything was bright. She blinked her eyes a few times, trying to adjust to the brightness. She became aware that there was a bright light directly above her, casting everything around her in a warm glow. And she was facing up, directly at it.
She tried to look down. The way her head tilted wasn’t quite right and her vision felt weird, off in a way she couldn’t place. She cast those thoughts aside and focused on what she could see of her body.
For a moment, she wasn’t sure it was her body.
She saw a mess of limbs and claws and scales, a horrifying, inhuman abomination of a body. Yellow scales coated her torso, which continued from her neck with no separation. It extended out into two thin limbs that ended in black-scaled digits that were most definitely not fingers. As her gaze continued down, she saw what must have been legs, though they barely looked any different from her “arms”, ending in the same black-scaled digits. She became distinctly aware of a dull ache below her, and realised she must be lying on a tail. And there were two bulky weights on either side of her head that were far too large and heavy to be ears.
She wanted to scream, but her mouth didn’t move the way she needed it to. She wanted to cry, but tears didn’t seem to be coming to whatever eyes she had now. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t even move her mess of a form into a standing position, let alone try to walk.
She struggled uselessly, recklessly flailing her wrong limbs in whatever direction she could, as though it would do something. A strange, alien screech left her mouth, the only sound she could form in her desperate attempts to cry out for help. Not that it seemed to do any good. She was completely stuck, alone, in a terrifying foreign body.
She stopped trying to move, pretty quickly. It wasn't working, and every motion was a persistent reminder of her new condition.
In an effort to think about anything else, she tried to assess where she was. She'd fortunately ended up in a position facing out towards the room, and even though the colours she saw seemed distorted somehow, she was fairly sure she'd never seen this place before.
It wasn't the clean white hospital setting she would've expected to see with her body this broken, instead being a fairly old-fashioned room, with clay walls and a stone floor. Everything seemed huge, the wooden door stretching up incredibly high towards a ceiling she couldn't see in her current position. Big beds of straw were lying along one of the walls, spaced consistently apart from one another. She seemed to be lying in one of them, which would explain the uneven texture. There was a window against that wall, too, she thought, but there didn't seem to be any light coming in through it. Or at least, none that she could see past the glowing orange light that seemed to be coming from directly above her.
She tried to move her body to identify the source of the light, which was futile. It did seem to flicker a little, so maybe it was some kind of candle or something? It did feel very warm as well, though, which was nice. She wasn't sure why it was nice; she just got the sense that it was.
After a few minutes, she heard a strange sound, like rock scraping against rock. She hoped it meant there was someone else here. Someone who could help her. Or maybe that was just her hope talking. Maybe there wasn't even a noise. She couldn’t trust her body anymore. How was she supposed to trust her senses?
Her eyes slightly focused on the door to the room as something pushed it open, then slid inside with that same, scraping sound.
Whatever it was looked familiar, too. She focused. It was pink and looked like coral. But, she wasn't underwater. And coral can't move.
Wait.
She knew what this was.
A word came to her. Sunnygo.
Was that correct? It seemed right, but… No, wait. She should be using a different name. She should be using…
Corsola! That was it. This was a Corsola. Water-type Pokémon, from Johto.
By this point, the Corsola had reached her, and seemed to be looking into her frightened eyes.
It gave a small smile. “I see you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
Chloe froze. It had just… spoken to her. Pokémon couldn’t speak. Or, they weren’t supposed to be able to! Not usually, at least, she was fairly sure.
But, had it spoken? She’d heard a faint sound like scraping rocks, a sound that couldn’t have been any kind of language she recognised. So it couldn't have been speech. And yet somehow, she understood it. That didn’t make any sense. Noises didn’t carry understandable meaning like that, not in the way words did. And the Corsola hadn't used words. But, she still understood.
A little shaken, she tried to reply, knowing her mouth wouldn’t be able to make the right shapes to form words, not on her first attempt. “What’s going on…?”
But now she had done it. She knew that what had come out of her mouth, what she had heard, was just a noise. A hiss. And yet… that hiss seemed to have communicated a sentence, words, tone, and all.
And an understandable sentence too, if the Corsola’s reply, spoken in that same, scraping manner, was anything to go by. “You are in the medical center of the Ceres Fishing Guild. My name is Corsola Cetus, and I am the healer here. One of our apprentices found you unconscious on the side of the road last night, and brought you here to receive care.”
Still a little dazed, Chloe was barely able to focus on the Corsola’s words, and let out a questioning hiss. “How can I understand you?”
“What do you mean?” the Corsola asked, conveying confusion and concern.
“I…” Chloe hesitated. “What’s wrong with my body?”
The Corsola blinked. “My examination didn’t suggest anything was wrong with your body. But, I’ve never had to treat a Helioptile before, and I don’t have any resources on hand that cover your species. Why, what feels wrong?”
Species? Did the Corsola think she was some kind of Pokémon, too? She didn't look like any Pokémon she'd seen before, but she hadn't gotten a very good look at her body. Wait, what did the Pokémon call her?
“Helioptile?” Chloe asked. The word sounded familiar, but not overly so.
“Yes,” the Corsola cautiously returned. “Your species.”
“I’m not…” she replied, trying to put her frustration into words. “I’m not a Helioptile. I’m a human. This isn’t my body!”
The Corsola paused. “A… human?”
Even past her headache, Chloe was able to pick up on the sense of confusion tied to how the Corsola said the word “human”, like it was unfamiliar to her. That didn’t seem like a good sign.
“Never mind,” she said, with a small sigh. “Can you tell me about Helioptile? What sort of Pokémon are they?”
“You don’t know?” the Corsola—Cetus, she remembered—asked, staring at her.
Out of habit, Chloe shook her head. The weights on either side bounced around uncomfortably, distracting her for a moment. At least that had pretty much been the motion she'd been trying for?
Fortunately, the gesture did seem to convey a negative. The Corsola's eyes closed for a moment, before opening again.
Cetus began, shifting slightly. “Well, Helioptile are very rare around here, so I don’t know much. As far as I know they mostly live in the desert. But… they’re lizards, so they’re ectotherms, of course."
The Corsola suddenly shifted forward slightly, gaze moving up to the light source above Chloe. "Oh, sorry if the heat lamp’s set too cool or too warm, by the way. I wasn’t sure what your preferred temperature range was, so I did slightly higher than our Guildmaster’s preferred. I… believe Helioptile are lightning types, at least? I don’t know much beyond that, sorry.”
So, she was a lizard. A lightning lizard. She assumed “lightning” probably meant electric type. It almost seemed cool, like something out of a story, or a fantasy. She felt like she probably would’ve dreamed about becoming a Pokémon when she was a kid. It felt like the type of thing kids would dream about. Though… she couldn’t actually remember what she did dream about as a kid.
And, as she thought more about it, she wasn’t sure she could remember being a kid. Or… anything about herself at all. She couldn’t remember what she looked like, save for her certainty that it hadn't been her current body. Her friends, her family, her home: nothing. Just her name, and that she was a human.
She still knew what things were. Which she supposed meant she remembered them, but she couldn’t remember how she knew them. She could list out the eighteen Pokémon types, and their strengths and weaknesses, but she didn’t have a clue why or how she knew that.
She tried desperately to remember something, anything of her past life. What she'd been doing before she woke up here. Where she'd grown up. Who her friends and family were. Something, anything tying her to something or someone else. But there was nothing.
She began to shake. She noticed she was breathing unevenly, too. She hadn't even noticed herself breathing before, but now that she had she was thinking about how that shouldn't be how her muscles moved when she breathed which was reminding her about how she was stuck in a body she didn't know, in a place she didn't know, with no memories of her past.
And this just made her panic more.
Cetus noticed this shift, instantly alert. “What’s wrong?”
“I… I don’t remember. I can’t remember anything,” she blurted out, through wide eyes.
“Uh, shh… It’s okay,” the Corsola said, in a somewhat soothing tone. “Look, do you at least remember your name.”
She nodded. “It’s Chloe.”
“Okay, Chloe,” Cetus said, looking down. “Look, I’m going to get you sent over to the hospital in a few hours. They’ll be able to take better care of you there, and they’ll have psychics who can take a look at your mind. How’s that sound?”
“Good…” Chloe said, a little calmer.
“Great,” Cetus replied, face much calmer, smiling again, though only faintly. “I don’t suppose you remember where you lost your tag, then?”
“Tag?” she asked.
The Corsola nodded, motioning to a faded blue band around one of her branches. “Something like this. Something you wear somewhere on your body to show you’re not wild. The colour shows how you’d prefer to be addressed. Is ‘she/her’ fine with you?”
“Oh, uh… Yeah, that’s fine,” Chloe said.
“Good; I know where the spare blue tags are kept,” Cetus responded with a small smile. “Let me go and get you one now. Would you like some breakfast?”
Chloe blinked. She wasn’t sure she could even stomach the thought of breakfast now. Everything was still so disorienting and she just needed a minute to think. “I… I’m fine.”
Cetus nodded. Her smile did make Chloe feel a little better. She'd almost find it reassuring if she wasn't so disconcerted.
“Okay. I’ll be back soon if you need anything,” the Corsola responded. “Rest up, in the meantime.”
Chloe nodded, and Cetus turned to go. As she was making her way out the door, Chloe gave a somewhat louder hiss. “Thank you.”
The Corsola turned back, with the same small smile. “Of course.”
She left the room, and Chloe closed her eyes, trying to let herself process everything. It was so much. She was a Pokémon, in a body she couldn’t move, in an unfamiliar place, maybe even an unfamiliar world given how Cetus didn’t seem to know what a human was, with no memories.
Chloe didn’t think she could ever get used to this strange way her body moved, how it felt. Sure, it might’ve been cool to be a Pokémon in theory, but it felt awful. Did she have to walk on four legs? How did that even work? If she was an electric type, did she have to worry about her internal electric charge? How would she use attacks? What if she accidentally shocked someone? She wanted to run away, and not have to think about any of this. She wanted to go home. She wanted to remember her home.
And this strange new world. She was pretty sure that, wherever she was from, she hadn’t heard of the "Ceres Fishing Guild" Cetus had mentioned. And she’d definitely never heard of this tag system. The term “healer” felt new, as well. There were nurses and doctors and stuff, but she was pretty sure there weren’t just Pokémon working these types of jobs. Was this world only inhabited by Pokémon? That seemed strange.
Her memories were gone, too. She couldn’t remember anything that had happened to her before this point. And for some reason, her heart sank in her chest, and she wanted to cry. Could she be sad for losing memories she didn't even remember having? Memories of things she didn't remember doing, people she didn't remember meeting? Who had she been? What had she done? Who did she care about? Had she lost someone important? The possibilities seemed almost scarier than the idea of knowing.
What had happened to her, though? Why was she a Pokémon? Why didn’t she have any of her memories? Had she died, and this was her reincarnation? That didn’t seem right, unless something had gone wrong. Did someone do this to her on purpose? Maybe she was a chosen hero sent here by a powerful deity to save this world of Pokémon. But that didn’t seem likely. More likely, she was sent here to be tormented by this awful, uncompromising body and her empty, useless mind.
Her head was still pounding. Cetus had distracted her from it briefly, but it was back in full force. Forcing her eyes shut, Chloe tried to get to sleep. Maybe then she wouldn’t have to think about any of this.
Here it is: the original Pokémon Mystery Dungeon (minus the Mystery Dungeons) fic I've been working on for a long while.
Feedback is appreciated, as is assistance on how to post stuff here. It's been a while since I've used a forum.
This will also be crossposted to FFN and AO3.
Feel free to follow this story on Tumblr: riversofasphodel.tumblr.com
Chapters should come out every two weeks.
2024/11/12: Chapter has been updated and re-edited.
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