Chapter 1 - Awakening

The moment my alarm clock began to ring – a generous description, considering that the noise I programmed it with was a mix of radio garble, static, and high pitch beeping that came together to punch my adrenaline button right in the face –, my hand was out to silence it.

I didn't want to be awake. My bed was comfortable, the room was warm, and my motivation was low, considering that yesterday…

Yesterday.

The gears of my brain slowly sped up from their initial clunky crawl as I kept reaching for what it was about yesterday that I – oh, yeah.

Yesterday, I'd died. Not in the hyperbolic sense of being dead on my feet or absolutely done with the world, but in the most literal, most serious sense of 'dead' there was. Kind of hard to be anything else after a thirty pound icicle turns your brainpan into chunky salsa.

Yet here I was, not dead and – if the ability to have a headache was any indication – not headless.

The gears did a little more turning before pulling up another piece of the story.

Right, after the whole dying horribly thing – really, what was I expecting after the series of unfortunate events called 'my life'–, there was a creepy cosmic being with a taste for leonine contracts and making tiny mortals suffer for its entertainment. And, moron that I am, I took its deal.

I slammed my face into my pillow a few times as if to punish what brain cells I had left. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And now I had two sets of memories trying to figure out which ones were going to play the part of alpha dog, a process that was currently doing nothing more than giving me a headache and no immediate answers as to where I was – home? Not home? – or what I was supposed to be doing outside of obeying the orders of the alarm clock to rise and fucking shine.

Then, like divine intervention, something small and winged flew over me to land on the headboard of my bed and distract me from the pain of thinking.

"Whrr?"

What – Leven.

A fresh set of memories clicked into place. My first and so far only Pokémon. I'd started bothering my mom about getting me a starter when I was eight, two years before I'd legally – and wow, did it say something that the age limit was one of the few laws enforced in Orre – be able to have one that wasn't under co-ownership with an adult. The intent had been to get a Litten but some mix-up in the order forms had seen me get the Flying/Grass-type Rowlet. After that, I'd simply been too excited to have a Pokémon partner of my own to pay any mind to the mistake.

Probably better off that way. Litten's hairballs were supposed to be flammable which, considering my tendency towards clutter and leaving dirty clothes where I threw them, would probably have meant multiple unintentional incendiary incidents within the first year alone.

I reached over to scratch Leven's head, the Owl Pokémon chuffing and whirring with pleasure as I found the good spots. As I let my arm fall back under the command of gravity, my fingers brushed the smooth leaves of the Rowlet's 'bowtie' and my mouth twisted up in a smile.

And there was one of the two reasons why I'd named my starter after the Eleventh Doctor. The other was the cheap pun of associating an owl with Doctor Who. At least some things weren't entirely different, even if inclusion of Pokémon changed a good number of the plots.

It was hard to think that something so cute had the potential to evolve into a feathered Grass/Ghost Robin Hood… after the obligate dorky middle phase. Of course, it wasn't like I couldn't say humans were that different in that regard, what with that mess known as 'puberty' thrown into the mix.

And of course, I'd be thrown back into that shark pit again.

"Why am I even awake?" I asked Leven.

"Finally decided to join the living?" someone asked from the door.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose. I didn't know that voice.

How couldn't I know that voice?

Why didn't I hear my door opening?

It was open already. It's almost always open.

I never slept with my door open. It wasn't safe.

Why – I closed off my internal debate in favor of turning to look at the 'intruder'.

My mother leaned on the doorframe, her mouth twisted up in a familiar shit eating grin. After all, it was the same one I wore whenever I saw something funny or I thought I'd done something clever and when it was set in a face that was only a few degrees different than my own, it was little different from looking in the mirror. "You're ridiculous, you know that?" she said, toeing bits of discarded laundry out of her way as she walked over to me. "You going to clean this room up anytime this century?"

"Probably not," I admitted, tearing my mind's eye away from the image of everything higher than her mouth just being gone to focus on my immediate surroundings. Her death wasn't real – yes it was, it just wasn't here –, this mess was. I'd never been able to maintain cleanliness for very long and most of my 'clean-ups' were mass purges of things that I just couldn't justify keeping around anymore.

In my past life, it was just one aspect of my character my dad loved to bring up as evidence of my worthlessness – despite his own areas of influence in the house being just as bad or worse –, taking photos of my room as a way of 'shaming' me into taking action. In this life, my mom took it in good stride, only asking that I keep my laundry circulating and fire hazards to a minimum. "Y'need anything?"

"What, I can't just be glad to see my favorite daughter's face first thing in the morning?" my mom asked as she sat down on the edge of my bed. "Of course, that's a little bit of a trick, what with all that hair exploding everywhere."

I let my face slam down into my pillow again. "I'm your only daughter, and you're mocking my pain."

"Excuse you, all my patients inform me that my bedside manner is impeccable," she shot back with a laugh. "Anyway, you did get a couple calls in overnight."

No surprises there, what with me being just about the only local repair person. There wasn't much call for another in a village of twenty-five or so people, especially when half of them could do most of the fixes themselves. "Old Lady Myers?" I guessed without lifting my head. She was one of my regular 'customers', to the point where I might have suspected her constant stream of technical failures was just an excuse to have a young person around to fuss over, seeing as her actual grandkids never bothered to visit.

"Washing machine this time," my mother confirmed. "And apparently the wind farm's output has been fluctuating badly over the last few days and Daniel wants a second opinion what might be going wrong."

Hmn. That sounded like it could be fairly interesting, along with coming with a decent bit of dosh on the side, even if it would probably require going to the top of those windmills at some point in the process. "I'll take a shower and get going then."

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

Uh… was I forgetting something? I couldn't –

"Breakfast?" my mom supplied for me, her tone laden with exaggerated exasperation. "You know, the most important meal of the day, that vital part of your metabolic process that keeps your body fueled and your grouchiness at a minimum?"

Oh yeah. "We got hash browns?" I asked.

"Probably. You want some bacon with that?"

My stomach growled, giving me a good evaluation for how empty it was. "Protein's always a good idea."

"Vegetables are too but I don't ever hear your stomach growling for those."

"Because Brussel sprouts and collard greens are evil, Mom."

I could feel her shaking her head in amusement despite not looking at her. "Seventeen years old and you still act like such a kid."

I raised my fist towards the ceiling, which must have made quite the image considering the rest of me was still lying face down in crumpled comforter with nothing but boxer shorts and an oversized T-shirt on. "Best method to attaining and maintaining eternal youth."

"Yeah, yeah. Breakfast will be ready in ten, Peter Pan. Second stair to the right and straight on 'til the kitchen," she said as she departed, the sound of her feet going down the stairs an unmissable and easy going rhythm.

I sighed and Leven whrred at me, even going so far as to gently peck me when I failed to respond to verbal cues.

"Go ahead and go downstairs," I told him with a lazy wave of my hand, only realizing as after that I'd come within inches of smacking him off of his perch. Shit, still not all the way awake. "Early bird gets the worm… or the bacon, in this case. I gotta freshen up first."

As the sound of almost silent wings whooshed out of my room, I pulled myself upright and out of bed. Pawing through the piles of my clothes, I finally managed to pick out some pieces that didn't have any obvious stains or particularly funky smells before I scooted over to my bathroom.

It was significantly less messy than my room, as towels tended to get removed and washed before mildew could set in, but there was still a sense of the haphazard around it; bottles of various grooming essentials clustered all around the counter, hairbrushes and combs piled around the curve of the sink, and discolorations from god knows what – it wasn't hair dye, this me had never taken that up – soaked into the enamel of the counter and the glass of the mirror above it.

And there, in that smudged and discolored mirror, was me.

The face in the mirror was younger, though not by much. It hadn't taken long for me to figure out that I'd been 'blessed' with one of those faces that failed to age at a rate that people expected. Pleasant enough for people old enough to still get some respect despite the harmless mistake, utter hell for the twenty-three year old woman still getting carded for every goddamn thing because people thought she was seventeen.

'I am seventeen,' the me from this world said at that thought, like something in my observation is inherently insulting.

'Good for you,' I replied with a similar heat; diplomacy had always been hit-and-miss where I was concerned and teenagers were one of my standard 'miss' zones, even when they're technically 'me'. 'I'm twenty-three and sick of being condescended to.'

I pushed a hand back through my hair, watching the waves of brown sink and puff back up again in their natural defiance of any and all authority, including gravity and hairpins. Dammit, I'd forgotten how much of this stuff there'd been back when I'd been wearing it long. It was bad enough in Michigan where, even if the weather tended to make it explode, the hair at least kept my head warm in the winter. Here, in a region that was half desert and as hot as some outer circle of hell, it was impossible to tell where I'd gotten the idea that this much hair was a practical lifestyle choice.

And of course there wouldn't be any scissors or razors in my bathroom that I could use to chop it down to a reasonable length. Why would there be? I'd never fucked around with shaving after the Safety Razor Incident – a common event in both universes apparently – and hadn't bothered with DIY haircuts until I was an adult living disability check to disability check in an economy where a haircut could run anywhere from ten to thirty dollars.

…well, at least in this life, I'd figured out the secrets of shampoo and conditioner because even though my hair was as thick as it ever was, it wasn't nearly as frizzed as I remembered it being in my first life, though part of that I might have been able to attribute to Orre's general dryness. Despite its many – and did I mean 'many' – flaws, excessive humidity was not among them.

"Maybe you should stop admiring yourself in the mirror and take your fucking shower," I growled at my reflection, the mirrored frustration serving as the final push to resuming my morning routine.

I quickly stepped out of my 'pajamas' and into the shower, twisting the head away from me until the water got to temperatures above freezing. Everything I needed – shampoo, conditioner, and generic bar of soap – were within easy reach and the rubber mat on the floor would keep me from slipping and dying like a chump.

Not that that was my primary concern, even as my hands busied themselves with the process of washing my various parts. My initial annoyance with my hair was quickly replaced by bigger concerns, good and bad, as I finally got my first proper look at my 'new' body.

I'd never been healthy in my first life. Poor nutrition and overwork seasoned with physical abuse, general neglect, and the intermittent near death experience tended to leave marks on a body, even without the consideration of scar tissue, which I had in spades anyway. By the time I died, the only thing I really had going for me was my immune system and my brain and out of those two things, my brain, riddled with neuroses and mental illness as it was, only counted as a half point in my favor. I lived with chronic pain, poor circulation, a bad back, early onset arthritis – though thankfully not rheumatoid –, joints that would literally throw themselves out of socket for a half hour or so before popping themselves back into place, and the ability to stay upright for a half hour before having to take a three hour lie down.

Now, I had a body that was not only pain free but obviously athletic and more than capable of pulling stunts that bordered on superhuman. Run for hours, climb any tree – or convenient cliff –, fist fight wild superpowered animals... it was ridiculous how close to Captain America I suddenly was.

For the me that hadn't made a habit of limping their way home on a daily basis, the surprise wasn't nearly so pleasant.

You see, the thing about having horrible things happen to you all the time is that those horrible things tend to leave horrible scars and now the collection that had been one of the defining characteristics of my first life was on full display here.

It's not like there hadn't been any scars before, but they were the small kind that you picked up as a fact of living. Accidentally cutting yourself peeling potatoes or learning a valuable lesson about manhandling anything with teeth, stuff like that.

Most of the ones that I'd had in my first life weren't small or 'normal'. They were the kind that scared the hell out of people, especially when they got an idea of how far they really went and how they got to be there in the first place. The long straight slashes that screamed 'scalpel' sliding across the skin of my torso, the stretches of pockmarks and acne scar craters covering my back and the outsides of my arms like a mockery of the moon's face, discolored patches on my elbows and knees from too many bad falls on too many rough surfaces… all of it was me and proof of what I could survive, right down to the almost subtle dimples that marked where a bullet had gone in and almost come out of my body.

After all of that, the friction scar from that same bullet was barely an afterthought, even if it was the first thing anyone would see of my past damage. Almost everything else could be covered up – and would be, because I'd gotten out of the habit of showing skin by the time I finished elementary school, even as the scars faded into their final forms – subtle, compared to the angry red-pink inflammation they'd started out as, but still present and permanent.

'How'd you get those scars?' they always asked, and because that was always the thing people asked and because my father had drilled the story into my head, I'd spill the same story.

'My mommy tried to kill my daddy but shot me by accident. Then she killed herself.'

The last point would be accompanied by my hand – always the right, always in the same movement – rising up to my temple, my fingers curled in the shape of a gun before I'd imitate the noise and the jerk of recoil. That's how it went almost every single time unless I really concentrated on keeping my hands down. Maybe it was some sort of phantom memory, like the image of my mother without the top of her head, twisted into a proper nightmare by time and trauma.

It wasn't really a wonder I didn't have many friends growing up with that as one of my usual opening statements. Nobody wanted to play with damaged goods, particularly if the kid in question didn't have the money to make it worthwhile. Eventually, I learned to just stop talking to people.

The sharp tak of a bar of soap hitting tile brought me back to reality and the task at hand. I had things to do today, things that didn't involve brooding over old wounds.

I finished rinsing myself off and stepped out into the steamy bathroom, grabbing a towel as I hit the switch for the overhead fan that would suck up the excess moisture before it started doing any real damage.

The clothes were relatively ordinary; black cargo pants, a basic black T-shirt, a red track jacket that could zip up far enough to cover just about all of my scars and provide enough color to keep me from completely looking like a drowned goth cat for the rest of the day… all that was left after that was to grab my bag, boots, hat, and Pokéball belt, though I doubted the latter would be seeing much use outside of keeping Leven close at hand. It wasn't like Orre was crawling with wild Pokémon, after all, and the chances that I would be running into one felt low.

Stepping out of my room suddenly presented another trippy moment.

The house was very much like the one I'd known as a child in my first life; kinda dingy and mismatched thanks to the various additions put on over the decades' long course of its creation – though I hoped this one had skipped over the lead piping, broken walls, and masking tape electrical wiring my dad's farmhouse had featured – and securely in the area of 'retro', with several different aesthetic styles shoved into any given room and 70's shag carpet that managed to make camouflage look camp. The drywall was covered in patterns that drew maps of new worlds in the imagination and the wood – railing, paneling, and first story floors – had been worn to a silky smooth, if slightly warped, finish by the constant movement of hands, feet, and god knowns what over the course of years. The place smelled like dirt road dust, dried mud, animal fur, and human sweat with other elements sneaking in where they could around the edges, like the smell of mothballs and my mother's favored fabric softener coming from the linen closet.

All of that was home and, for the first time in what seemed like years, I felt like I fit. This was my place, where I'd grown my bones and found my personality in earthy sepia tones and hand-me-down clothes, not some all-white cookie cutter apartment or too sleek modern affair that looked like it came out of a magazine and made me feel like I was invading someone else's territory.

Following the sound of sizzling, I poked my head into the kitchen. Another remix on an old and familiar setting, right down to the pea green floral wallpaper that peaked out around the edges of wooden cupboards and paneling. My mother had her back to me, her whole attention focused on the skillet in front of her, giving me a chance to stare at her without scrutiny.

She was shorter than me – one of the handful of hard facts I'd known about her in my first life was that she was 5'3", just like her mother before her – with the same thick, dark brown hair that refused to stick to any kind of styling that didn't feature hairpins or a pair of scissors, though hers was cut a lot shorter than my hair currently was and beginning to pick up grey strands that gave away her age. If she turned around, the resemblance would only intensify; the eyes, the nose, the mouth… everything except the cheekbones, the eyebrows, and the age lines would be almost exactly the same and even the short haircuts I'd started to favor before my death recalled her own.

An orange-furred Lycanroc – Konah, same name and same role as my childhood dog, if not the same coloring – was sitting patently at her side, tail wagging as each new piece of bacon was pulled from the skillet. Occasionally, one of the bits would find itself thrown in that direction and the Pokémon would bounce up to snatch it out of the air with a snap of its jaws. Leven was significantly less involved, seemingly content to sit on the back of one of the bar chairs lined up along the closest side of the island, soaking up the smell of bacon and… that wasn't the smell of frying potato.

"Well, it turns out we're all out of hash browns," my mom said, turning away from the stove with fry pan in hand and a sheepish smile on her face. "So I guess you're just going to have to settle for pancakes."

"I'll endeavor to survive," I said with a roll of my eyes as I made my way to the appliances, pouring some milk from the fridge into a mug. I heated up the milk in the microwave and, after mixing in the hot cocoa mix, added a shot of black coffee. Another quick twist of the spoon to make sure everything was distributed good and –

The mug disappeared from in front of me before I could even think about picking it up, leaving me to slowly turn and stare at my mom, who offered me nothing but a cheeky smile before she took a sip. "This is good," she said, taking another sip.

Deception. Disgrace. "That was mine," I complained.

"It's not like it took you more than two minutes to make it."

True, but it was the principle of the thing; you just don't steal someone else's food. Shelving the argument – it was just a cup of coffee, not like I was starving to death –, I grabbed another mug, repeating the process so that my stupid brain would stop hissing its grievance over the stolen food, and then grabbed the breakfast plate my mom had put together for me, eating as fast as I could without choking or dropping any of my food. I made sure to send a few bits of bacon in the direction of the Pokémon, though Leven seemed fairly content to let Konah have the majority of my offerings.

Maybe my Rowlet was a vegetarian? I snorted at the idea, both of a Grass-type shunning meat and of an entirely plant based food chain.

Soon enough, I'd cleared my plate and rinsed it clean of most of the debris. "I'll be back around lunch," I said as I ran to the door to slip on my boots. Grabbing my bag and hat, I held out my arm for Leven to perch on.

"Alright, Leven, let's go!"

As far as hometowns went, Chrysoprase wasn't so bad. It wasn't particularly crowded – not that many towns in Orre were, considering the general lack of interest in anything that wasn't Phenac City or that mess of a metropolis known colloquially as Neo Gateon – and, while it wasn't big enough to show up on most atlases of the region, it did have access to reliable wells and a near total absence of crime. And considering that this was the region with two major criminal teams and a sum total of ten cops to handle them, that statement was one hell of an endorsement.

It had started out as a mining town, like almost every other town in Orre. Semi-precious gemstones, mostly in the feldspar and quartz ranges, which included chalcedony, moonstone, agate, vermarine, onyx – not the Pokémon, though a few were rumored to have taken up residence in the caverns since their close –, sunstone, jasper, aventurine, and, yes, chrysoprase. Let it never be said that the common man is good at naming shit.

Given that there wasn't much call for those things in Orre – not much of a market for pretty rocks in a desert hellhole after all – and there weren't any direct trade routes to Unova or Kalos to offer incentive for increased output, Chrysoprase had never had a 'boom town' phase. Perhaps that's how we dodged ending up like Pyrite Town, which was a smashing success of capitalism until the demand for stone and ore faded away, leaving nothing behind but the rusted ruins of equipment, a massive underground city, and suddenly jobless miners who couldn't afford to move to a more prosperous region.

Our mines were still there if one cared to explore them, the winding tunnels and caverns full of crystals of every conceivable size, some of them even acting as natural support beams for the ceiling. There was allegedly a crystalline Onix hiding in there somewhere, but I'd never seen it during any of my visits and none of the adults that said they had could give anything more than an anecdote. Still, there were regional variants and Shinies in existence, so there wasn't any real reason to discount its existence out of hand. It would show itself to whoever it wanted to in the end, I supposed.

Outside of that, it was just a scattered collection of houses and small businesses connected by dirt roads and history. The Pokémon Center where my mom worked wasn't nearly half the size of one that a person would see in a proper city and the stores tended to be of a mom-and-pop nature, but it was enough for our needs and generally, everything worked out just fine for everyone.

I pulled up to Old Lady Myers' house, taking only the token amount of time to appreciate its cozy look – had it been painted pastel pink to begin with or had age bleached the color down from a far brighter hue? – as I parked my motorcycle and recalled Leven to his Pokéball. The Rowlet didn't need to be out for this and, barring the revelation of anything truly catastrophic being caught up in the innards of whatever appliance was busted today, it would only take a few minutes to fix. Then, I'd be off to the wind farm to grapple with whatever the hell was going wrong with our repurposed electrical generators, because the last thing we needed was a blackout.

Washing machine. Had to be the one piece of equipment the old woman had that required I climb on top of it so I could then climb in it to get at whatever the hell had gone wrong this time around. Bad enough that I was practically hanging upside down, but the smell of wet socks and Spring Fresh detergent was suffocating in this small space.

Still, the fact that I was half holding my breath didn't slow my hands down as they rooted around for the culprit. Eventually, I touched something that wasn't plastic or metal.

"These yours?" I asked as I pulled myself out of the machine, a pair of dripping Go-Goggles clenched in my fist. How or why the damn thing had gotten into the washing machine was beyond me, but at least they hadn't been damaged by their trip around the spin cycle… though, considering that they were made to survive sandstorms without a scratch, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised by the lack of damage.

"Ah! So that's where those darn things went to!" Mrs. Myers exclaimed before curling one of her hands under her chin. "Of course, I couldn't say why I have them in the first place. Not like I go anywhere," she mused. "You might as well take them. Little bonus."

I tried not to let my painfully fake smile fall as I put away my tools and my prize. I didn't care if I was fishing Gold Nuggets out of her dishwasher every other week; the headaches still wouldn't be worth it. "Please try to keep track of these sort of things in the future please," I requested as I left her house.

I had the feeling that she would purposefully ignore my request, but at least I'd tried.

The wind farm was less aggravating, if only because there was a puzzle more involved than 'what's stuck in your washing machine this time' to figure out. Though, I'd probably enjoy said puzzle more if I wasn't trying to solve it while standing on a rusted platform over thirty feet above the ground. That Leven was enjoying a bit of updraft assisted soaring instead of being an immediate source of comfort – not that my starter was in much of a position to do anything in the event that I did fall – didn't particularly help either.

"I can't see anything wrong with the motors," I yelled over the wind as I pocketed the penlight I'd been using to look around the inside of the wind turbine, shutting the cover with a 'clang' that made me regret being born. "And everything looked fine down below."

"So that leaves the problem somewhere between the farm and the town's transformer," Daniel agreed as he activated the lift, the electrical motor humming as we were lowered back down to the wonderful, wonderful ground. "Somewhere in the caves you think?"

The 'caves' in question were really just a bit of convenient tunnel; dark, confined, stable, and dry enough to make it easier just the thread the necessary wires through there rather than dig up a trench to lay the wires going to town in. There were a few passages that wound off into dead ends and the threat of wild Pokémon kept it from feeling entirely safe, but it was still easier just to move things through there rather than dig a new tunnel to achieve the same end.

"Probably. Might be some rocks fell or a Pokémon got to gnawing on the wires," I said as I hopped off the lift. "You want me to take a look?"

"Yeah, that's fine. If there are any Pokémon in there, they'll probably be Ground or Rock-type, which leaves my Luxray and lil' Ticker out to sea," he said, lifting his hat just high enough so I could see the Shiny Joltik nestled in the frizzy mess Daniel called his hair. "You'll call me when you figure it out, yeah?"

"Of course. Probably just be a bit of rock fall or something pinching the wires," I replied as I grabbed my bag from where I'd laid it down next to the base of the wind mill, Leven finally swooping down to rest on my shoulder again.

"Be careful down there," he called after me. "You only have Leven to rely on after all."

I twisted around to flash Daniel a confident grin. "Hey, if you can't rely on your starter, who can you rely on?"

From past knowledge, I knew that this cave wasn't particularly dangerous. While there wasn't anything in the way of ambient light once you got a certain distance from the entrance, there weren't any pitfalls and the general lack of Pokémon in Orre meant that there wasn't much chance of being attacked.

Even so, there was an ominous feeling crawling down my back. The thing that had brought me back to life and sent me this world had wanted a show. Adventure and intrigue, it had said, not slice of life. Even if this was the 'tutorial level', there was no reason to think that I was somehow in a safe position.

"Worst comes to worse," I told myself as I slipped into the darkness and began gathering my Aura into my hand, lighting it up light a torch. "I can always punch my problems in the face."

Most of them, anyway, I added mentally as daylight disappeared behind me, leaving me with nothing but eerie blue flames and my Aura sense to guide my way.

Speaking as the kid who'd lived under lights out rules roughly on par with the average prison, using Aura as a flashlight was maybe fifteen percent better than trying to navigate a dark house via the backlight of a handheld video game system… though considering that that particular incident had led to the discovery of human teeth – baby teeth, sure, but not baby teeth belonging to the only child in the house – exploring a pitch black cave that was potentially home to an intelligent superpowered wild animal wasn't the creepiest situation I'd ever willingly thrown myself into.

The job itself hadn't been bad so far. The electrical lines had been slightly damaged, but it was nothing a bit of electrical tape and Repel couldn't fix.

Teeth marks had proven the existence of our guilty party, though I didn't know enough about the subject to get an exact identity. Something with teeth, at least. Sharp ones set in a relatively small mouth. Beyond that –

Wait.

I stopped. Leven wasn't flying right now and even if he had been, his wings were built for silence. Meaning that the faint flapping I was hearing – leathery, not feathered – was coming from something else.

I slowly reached my free hand behind me to pull an empty Pokéball off of my belt before increasing the brightness of my Aura 'flashlight', catching the site of a batlike shape ducking behind a stalactite.

Zubat. Of course it would be a fucking Zubat.

Biting down my frustration, I called out. "Hey! You can't go messing with those wires!"

Let it never be said that I could speak Pokémon. My skills were largely of a technical bent and my Aura training had cut off before I'd learned anything truly earthshattering, but pulling a Doctor Doolittle wasn't within either of those broad categories regardless of my skill levels in either and I was no N Harmonia.

On the other hand, I wasn't stupid enough to think that Pokémon couldn't understand me. The fact that training was so easy – when it came to understanding commands at least, no word on the actual obedience – was just proof of that. Besides, it never hurt to show respect, regardless of the relative intelligence of the other party. I'd learned that lesson a long time ago with cats.

"You're a Flying-type, I can hear your wings," I continued, looking around the ceiling for any movement. In the highly probable event of the highly probable Zubat deciding to attack, I'd rather it not have the advantage of surprise. "You should know that messing with electricity isn't good for your health. I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

There was a soft chittering from above – and behind me, matched to the location of those leathery wings, which drew a frown from me.

That cry wasn't right for a Zubat. Zubats were screechy things. Woobat?

Before I could mentally tick through the list of Bat Pokémon I knew of, a pale fuzzy shape throw itself down from the ceiling at my head, smothering my face with downy fur as claws dug into my hat and hair. I may or may not have screamed; it was hard to tell given the situation.

"Chchchcht," the facehugger squeaked in response as Leven started batting the newcomer around with his wings, whrring and chuffing the whole way.

Finally getting the twin panics of 'can't see' and 'can't breathe' under control so I wasn't reaching to tear the obviously terrified Pokémon off of me, I reached up to touch it. "Can you get off of my face, please?" I asked calmly, though what with my face being covered and me trying not to get a taste of whatever the mystery Pokémon had last rolled in, it probably came out more like a mumbly "Ken you get off amah fiss, plise?"

That must have been clear enough, because the death grip loosened as my latest guest climbed up to sit on the top of my head, allowing blessed oxygen to finally reach my lungs.

Due to my freak out disturbing my concentration, my Aura light had gone out, leaving me back in that complete darkness and I doubted that I'd be able to just turn it on again without spooking my latest headpet.

So that left identification by touch.

"Well then, little buddy," I said soothingly as I felt my way to a bit of rock high enough to use as a seat. "Is it okay if I touch you?"

There wasn't any noise of protest, so I slowly raised my hands up over my head to feel out my new friend. The fur was fluffy and downy soft, but the ears were a point of interest; instead of being separate units, they were fused in the center.

"Hmm, not a Zubat."

I'd already figured that out from both the cry and the fur, but something about taking it slow like this felt right, like playing out a game of hide and seek with a small child that hadn't picked a good spot.

"Chriit."

I felt down along the curve of its head, tracing the relatively smooth lines of its nose. No heart-shape. "Not a Woobat or a Swoobat either…"

"Cht."

"So by the process of elimination, that means you're a Noibat!" I finally declared, drawing a pleased chitter from the little fuzz ball. There we go. "Well, unless there are some other species of Bat Pokémon I don't know about. Wouldn't be surprised."

The Noibat squeaked happily as I stood back up and reignited my hand. Cute new friend aside, I still had a job to do.

"You're kind of far away from home, aren't you?" I asked as I followed the line, patching up the few damaged areas. The little bat hadn't come very far this way, apparently content with the section where I had found it. Probably because it was close enough to one of the exits that bugs would fly in to serve as a food source. "Must be very scary, being all alone in a strange place."

"Chiiit."

Mmmn. I hadn't even got a decent look at the Pokémon yet and I was well on my way to being hopelessly attached. "You could come with me if you like. I know a professor that could help you get home if you wanted," I offered. "But if you wanted to stay with me, I have a few empty Pokéballs on hand…"

Small claws dug through my hat and into my scalp, drawing a wince from me. Small but pointy. Something to consider the next time I felt like carrying Pokémon around on my body.

"Not right away. You can think about it while I finish up this job. Could even take you home and get you something to eat."

The Noibat's grip loosened as it made an inquisitive chitter.

"Pokéblocks, kibble, fruit, and beans. Plenty of eats to choose from," I promised as I sprayed the last of my Repel on a particularly exposed cluster of wires. The return of ambient lighting promised a nearby exit and I was just about ready to be done with this entire project, even if I technically needed to run back to the wind farm to give Daniel my evaluation and collect my motorcycle. "It's about time for my lunch too, y'know."

After suffering a few laughs from Daniel – "Only you could go into a cave to fix the wiring and come out with a baby Dragon-type." –, I headed back home for lunch, Leven flying overhead while the Noibat clung to my back, wide yellow eyes taking in the scenery around us.

Walking in the door with a basic knock and confirmation that it was, in fact, I who had returned, I slipped into the kitchen where my mom was trading bits of her salad and sandwich with Konah, the Lycanroc sitting in what could only be described as the most dignified display of begging possible.

Her face lit up as she saw the Pokémon clinging to my back. "Oh my goodness! What an adorable little Noibat! Where'd you find it?" she asked as she stepped around to my back to get a better look at my chittering load.

"You'd be amazed what you can find in caves these days," I quipped as my mother picked up the Noibat and started looking it over, intermixing medical evaluation with unprofessional appreciation while Konah gave the interloper and then me a studying look.

"Seems to be in fairly good shape, if a little on the skinny side…" The Noibat squeaked and my mom fed it a grape tomato, setting the Pokémon down on the table to give me her whole attention. "I couldn't tell you much more than that without giving an official examination but I don't think there's much beyond that to worry about."

"Cht!"

"Rwowl!" Konah replied loudly, sending the Noibat sprawling back on its butt before it came scrambling to me, squeaking at speeds that told me that I was being snitched to.

The rapid-fire chirping cut off as I held up a ripe pear and the Pokémon sank its fangs into the fruit, happily abandoning any thoughts of villainous Lycanrocs in favor of food.

"See?" my mom said. "Plenty of energy. And the friendliness is a good sign too; means that it probably wasn't a case of abuse or abandonment that brought her here in the first place." She looked at me again. "So what do you plan to do next?"

I shrugged as I fished some fruit for myself out of the fridge. "Thought I'd call Professor Acacia and get his opinion. Give the little guy –"

"Girl."

"– some options besides me or trying to scrape by in the local caves on her lonesome," I finished before popping a grape into my mouth.

"Well, my break's just about over now, but if you want my two cents," my mom said, giving the Noibat's fur a final ruffle and getting a happy squeak for her trouble. "I think your little friend is adorable and I have no problem with her becoming part of the family if she wants to."

The Noibat chirred happily at that before returning to its fruit, picking every scrap of it she could from it until all that was left was the core and the stem.

Mom gave me one last wave before she went out the door, likely going around back to the garage/stable where I kept my motorcycle and she kept her Mudsdale, Boxer, when he wasn't in his ball. While it was technically possible to walk to the Pokémon Center from our house without too much difficulty, both of us preferred riding in our respective styles.

She'd been an equestrian in my last life, doing competitions – I couldn't list all the ones that she'd done, only that she had gotten at least one trophy and a good collection of ribbons and there had been photos of her both doing barrel jumps and riding sidesaddle in a flouncy white Victorian dress – and spending all the time she could around horses until she simply didn't have the means to take care of one anymore. That my mom hadn't had to do the same in this one was… heartening, I guess. At the very least it was a piece of happiness she hadn't had the first time around, even if her Mudsdale wasn't exactly the 'dressage'-type.

I shook my head clear of the memories. I had to finish lunch and call Professor Acacia like I said I would. But first… I pulled an empty Pokéball free of my belt and set it on the table.

"Now, I realize that I said I was giving you options. This is just me laying out the option of joining my team… well, team of two at the moment…" I trailed off, only to be interrupted by the sound of the Pokéball activating. The ball wriggled once before giving the tone signal of a successful capture.

"That was… painless," I muttered, picking the ball up to look at it before releasing my newest Pokémon. She blinked at the kitchen around her, apparently not expecting to be out of the ball again so quickly.

"I just wanted to ask if you liked 'Barbara' for a nickname," I explained, roughly one second before I got a face full of plush purple fluff as my Noibat launched herself at me.

I'd take that and the excited chattering that followed as a 'yes'.

Author's Notes

Edited 5/2/2018. Reuploaded 6/20/2018 because I can't remember if I fixed anything else on the document since then.

Sorry about not doing anything for so long. Stuff – writer's block, adult responsibilities, pets being shits at inconvenient times… – happens. I've also been doing a lot of plotting on other stories that take place later in the series, though those won't be seeing the light of day until more research can be done and some other junk actually gets finished along with editing existing works to be more in-line with the internal continuity I've been building up and up to scratch to my evolving standards.

Anyway, this is the Pokémon Orre Adventures rewrite, which will completely replace Orre Adventures the moment I catch up to all its plot points (though this may take some time as this one features better pacing). This time, I've done a bit more plotting ahead – though probably not as much as I should have – and getting my world-building notes in order, usually by grafting some similarly obscure and underdeveloped regions into my Orre, along with taping its map to the edges of Kalos and Unova.

A lot of stuff is still in the sketchy stage, but that's what planning is all about; taking the sketch and filling it out. The edits will serve to do that.

To those of you not familiar with the setting, Orre is the region featured in the third-generation Gamecube games Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, which I am casually awaiting Nintendo to announce remakes of for the 3DS and/or Nintendo Switch.

No rush.

To those of you familiar with the first version of this story; the broad strokes will be the same. Given that there was a sum total of two major events in that version and I've already changed up several points, including creating an original town for the sake of Orre being more than three population centers and the odd hole in the ground, that's not saying a lot. The creation of OCs to fill the background and expanding existing characters will also serve the same purpose. With regards to the editing - it's a bit like a limited rewrite and I'm going over chapters to fix the flow and improve word choice, along with smoothing over continuity errors. It's also a way to break writer's block.

If you're a little unclear on what the background is for this fic, I recommend reading the 'Chains Adventurous Prelude' that I uploaded and updated some time ago. It's a one-shot, but it does provide the set up for the rest of the series and introduces you to both the main character and … well either 'reoccurring nuisance', 'overarching villain', or 'characterized plot device' works, I guess.

Nicknamed Pokemon are usually named after something preexisting, either in a pop culture or personal reference. EX: Leven being named after the Eleventh Doctor, Barbara being named after Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl, Konah being named after my childhood dog… Boxer specifically is named after the workhorse from Animal Farm.

Chrysoprase is a gemstone, specifically a variety of chalcedony. It usually comes in apple green, but there's some variety in the colors it comes in. Its value is based on its color rather than any pattern to the stone itself.