"Hello, darkness my old friend…" Zoey sang to herself, as she started to wake up from her unwanted slumber. Her entire body felt like it had been hit by a truck, which was pretty appropriate, given how she had climbed up a tree and the branch underneath her just randomly decided it could not carry her weight and gave in. The fall had been pretty short, but in all honesty, Zoey herself was surprised that she could still crack jokes like that, after taking a fall like that. By all accounts, she should have at least a concussion or something, maybe a broken bone or two. However, all she could feel were her limbs being sore, as well as having a massive headache.

"That sure hit the spot…" she grumbled. Opening her eyes, she could see it was still daytime, meaning that at least she hadn't missed her curfew as of yet. Ever since a particular incident, where she went missing for months, her parents were rather overbearing on a lot of things. It had taken a lot of convincing and bribery in order to be allowed to go outside on her own for longer than ten minutes.

("I guess I better get up before it gets too late. Ow, it hurts. A lot.") she thought to herself, as she rolled around until she was lying on her stomach. In that position, she slowly put the ends of her four limbs on the ground and pressed herself away from it. However, she experienced a mild case of motion sickness, what with the world seemingly moving on its own around her. She needed to stay in this position for a couple of seconds until her brain recalibrated itself. Now with the world, as it should be, she attempted to get up on her legs, only for the girl to lose balance and fall straight on her stomach, with her arms outstretched.

"Ow…" she complained loudly. "What's up with that?" she asked no one in particular. looking straight ahead, the girl could see her arms from the corners of her vision. Only she found that there appeared to be something awfully wrong about that particular set of limbs. She looked over at them and found it completely covered in brown fur. Bending it a little, she found out that the supposed "arm" did not end up in a hand, as it should be, but rather a paw. The same went for the other one.

"Huh? What?" Getting ever so slightly agitated, she jumped up on all fours. Strangely enough, her back did not complain being in this position at all. It even seemed to be comfortable. And she soon found out why. Looking down on herself, Zoey found out that the only piece of clothing she was wearing was a grey scarf, with a turquoise and pink star on it. The rest of her body was covered in brown fur. Looking back on herself, she confirmed on what she had already seen. She was covered in fur, had now two sets of legs and a tail. The tail was covered in brown fur just like the rest of her body, but it ended up in a white tip.

"Say what?!" she exclaimed, jumping in place. "I'm a Pokémon?! I'm an eevee?! AGAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN?!" she shouted on top of her lungs. She looked around frantically and in a slightly panicked state. She was at the edge of some kind of forest, with a walking path right next to her. She could hear a waterfall nearby, but neither saw nor heard another Pokémon. This, however, was the least of her concerns. Being turned into a Pokémon wasn't that high on her priority list either. Her parents worrying about her was a close second to what had really put the girl midway into panic mode. Namely-

"WHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!"

A sudden scream nearby halted her train of thought with a loud screech, as if someone had hit the breaks on the said train very hard. Reacting to the scream, Zoey, now an eevee again, spun around and immediately spotted the source of the scream. About a hundred meters in front of her, she could make out a Pokémon, a small one, walking backward away from a lake. This lake also turned out to be the source of the waterfall sound, as the waterfall was on the other end of the lake. Looking harder, Zoey could identify the Pokémon at the lake. It was a cyndaquill, a hedgehog-like Pokémon, only instead of spikes, it had fire on its back. Well, the fire by this one appeared to be turned off for some reason. Then again, the fire on those things was usually only on, when they were angry or found themselves in a combat situation.

Watching further, Zoey could see that the fire-type appeared to be distraught. He or she (she couldn't tell at this distance) was looking around frantically and then all of the sudden decided to inspect its entire body. He or she looked down on themselves, inspected their "hand-paws", raised a "foot-paw", looked underneath, sniffed... okay, things were getting a little gross now.

("What's the kid doing? He's kinda acting weird. Where are their parents?")

Zoey looked down, contemplating. On the one hand, she just reentered the world of the Pokémon and like last time, it had been completely out of the blue. She had yet to completely digest the situation she found herself in, but it appeared like last time, she wouldn't be able to adjust properly to the situation.

"Ahh!"

The scream once again turned Zoey's attention to the cyndaquill, who was not alone anymore. Indeed, there were three Beheeyem straight up attacking the fire-type.

"What the fuck?!" Zoey exclaimed in surprise and anger. "They're attacking a child!"

The Beheeyem managed to land two more blows on the poor child, before it decided to ran away, namely in the direction of Zoey. The poor dear almost crashed into her, almost. He, Zoey could now make out the signs that showed a Pokémon's gender, managed to hit the metaphorical breaks and stop right in front of the former human. The girl barely glanced at the fire-type, since the three aggressive psychic-types were following the cyndaquill quickly. Zoey couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"I'm not even five minutes back..." she growled and straight up jumped over the child. The cyndaquill crouched on reflex. The eevee landed behind the fire-type without even touching the boy. The only thing he felt was the wind, which followed after Zoey had landed behind him. The fire-type turned around just in time to see his attackers arrive at the scene.

"Hey!" Zoey shouted angrily. "What do you think you're doing, attacking a child?!" she shouted, baring her fangs. ("Beheeyem, psychic-type, three of them and I have no idea what kind of attacks they learn. Oh, and do I know how to use actual attacks?")

The three Beheeyem looked at each other and blinked with some weird blinking lights attached to their arms. After a few blinks, all of them nodded and then formed a half-circle in front of Zoey.

"All or nothing," the girl told herself and then sprinted towards the next best enemy, which turned out to be the right Beheeyem. He had been preparing some kind of attack, however, Zoey's shoulder hit the guy faster than he could even blink. With the Quick Attack successfully executed, Zoey landed on the ground. A small explosion occurred behind her, distracting the eevee. She turned her head around towards where the smoke was rising, only to get hit by a Psybeam. Zoey cringed when she felt the multicolored attack hitting her sides, but didn't do much else. In fact, she turned her head around and got hit in the chest with a multi-colored attack, but it didn't do much either.

"Huh...? That... barely hurt..." the girl wondered aloud. Once again distracted, the Beheeyem, which she had knocked down earlier, got back up and headbutted the normal-type. Zoey's paws rubbed over the ground, getting ever so slightly hot, but once again, nothing else happened.

"Right, fight first, thinking later," the girl told herself and jumped at the next best psychic-type. Two more Psybeams missed her before she managed to dig her teeth into the grey skin of one of the levitating psychic-types. It tasted awful, to say the least. However, seeing as Bite was a dark-move, it proved to be super effective against the Beheeyem. This was shown by its screams of pain and how it quickly tried to shake Zoey off. The former human all too happily let go, just in time as it turned out because both other Beheeyem decided at this point to shoot two more Psybeams. They were quite flustered when they accidentally hit their ally and send him flying into the nearby lake. Zoey didn't notice this. Having received multiple hits already, she didn't allow herself to be distracted again. Old instincts from with herself began to make themselves known again. Zoey opened her mouth, dark energy gathering in front of it. It was like gathering spit for a big spit. Only this spit formed into a Shadow Ball.

"Taaaake, THIS!" she shouted and shot the ball at Beheeyem number 2. Said psychic-type tried to block or even repel the attack with his own Psybeam, however, the Shadow Ball proved to be the stronger attack this time. The beam-lights were repelled by the ball of dark energy ball, which didn't even slow down in the slightest. It hit the Pokémon straight in the face and shot it towards a nearby tree. The tree shook and lost some leaves. The psychic-type slipped down the bark and ungracefully landed on the ground, a few pitiful flashes of light escaping out of its arms.

The third and last Beheeyem blinked angrily and fired yet another Psybeam against Zoey. She tried to dodge via jumping sideways, but her shoulder got hit anyways. It felt like someone had hit her with a slightly warm metal-rod and didn't even hit her hard. ("It... really doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would.")

"Let's try thiiiiiiiiiis!" she shouted with an open mouth. Literal stars came flying out of it and towards the aggressive Pokémon. The Beheeyem managed to dodge and used something else for a change. The eyes of the Beheeyem turned blue and out of nowhere, Zoey could feel a massive headache overcoming her.

"Ow, owowowowowow! Stop it!" she screamed and tried to tackle the enemy, but was way off with her aim, due to the pain she was experiencing. It also didn't help that this Beheeyem turned out to be smarter than the other two and decided to fly into the air while keeping the Confusion coming. Zoey growled and tried to hit her enemy with Swift again, but due to the Beheeyem flying so high at this point, it had more than enough time to react in time and dodge the attack. However, that didn't mean it could see attacks coming from behind. Out of nowhere, multiple small fires hit the levitating psychic-type, not really hurting it, but distracting it. Zoey too looked down for a moment, her headache slowly disappearing and saw that it was the young cyndaquill, using Ember. Smirking to the child, the eevee raised her head, aimed and shot another Swift attack on the Beheeyem, which was currently busy trying to shoot a Psybeam at the poor kid. The attack dissipated into nothing, as soon as the enemy psychic-type got hit by the normal type attack. Zoey smirked in satisfaction as she heard the Beheeyem scream and blink in pain at the same time, as he or she (that one was even harder than Pokémon genders, in general, were already) fell out of the sky and slammed into the ground, causing a dust cloud to rise into the sky.

Zoey took the moment of peace to take a breath and looked down on her right paw. She raised it as if it were a hand and "balled" it, more or less, into a "fist". ("It's like I have never stopped being a Pokémon. Like my level or something carried over.") Shaking her head, Zoey quickly ran over to the downed Pokémon, only to be taken by surprise as it slammed her out of the way, and "ran" for the high hills. A splashing sound indicated the other Beheeyem escaping from the lake and taking its leave as well. As for the third one, it was actually way ahead of the other two.

"Hey, get back here!" Zoey shouted, running a few steps after them, but quickly realized she would never catch up to them. "Damn, I hate it when they run away!" she shouted, slamming her paw to the ground. "Stupid bad guys, how am I supposed to make them suffer if they keep running away?" the former human complained, letting out a huff. The cyndaquill behind her took a careful step backward. Letting out an annoyed sigh, Zoey turned around towards the child.

"Are you alright little guy?" she asked to which for some reason the cyndaquill jumped backward in surprise.

"Whoa, whoa, calm down. I'm not going to hurt you," Zoey tried to calm the Pokémon down. She lowered her head, in order to be at eye level with the cyndaquill and gave the child a worried look. Being so close to his face, she could hear him breathing and he was breathing fast. His tiny heart must be racing a mile per minute or so. "There, there, don't worry. The bad Pokémon are gone. They won't hurt you anymore." That appeared to do the trick. The fire-type calmed down considerably but was still slightly agitated. Zoey found this hardly surprising.

"Are you feeling alright?"

The Pokémon nodded hesitantly.

"That's good to hear." Zoey could also not find any obvious injuries on the child. From the looks of things those three Beheeyem probably thought it would be fun to bully the poor child. "I'm Zoey," the eevee introduced herself. "What's your name?"

"My... name?" the cyndaquill asked, sounding distressed. "I... I am Cid."

"Cid?" Zoey repeated. ("Now that's a name you don't hear every day. Straight out of Final Fantasy. Hey, wait a moment, come to think of it, this is the first Pokémon I have met that doesn't refer to itself by its own species. I guess nicknames aren't as uncommon as I thought.")

"What an unusual name. I thought for sure your name would be cyndaquill." Zoey laughed out loud. "But I guess I'm hardly one to talk. I'd get pretty miffed if everyone just kept calling me "Eevee". It gets kind of confusing if there is more than one of you around, huh?"

Cid just nodded slowly.

"Alright, so do you live anywhere nearby?" the eevee asked, looking around for any sign of a town. There was a road, a small one, but from what she remembered, Pokémon generally build everything smaller.

"Um... no," Cid shook his head.

"No?" Zoey repeated. "So, are you and your parents going through the countryside or something?" the female Pokémon asked, to which she received another headshake from the fire-type.

("Not that either? Okay, I'm out of ideas.")

"The truth is..." Cid spoke meekly "I am a human."

"SAY, WHAT?!" Zoey exclaimed, looking at the tiny fire-type in shock. Said Pokémon cowered down at her suddenly raising her voice, but Zoey was in too much of a shock to care at the moment.

("He's a human too?! What in Arceus name is going on here?!")

"Back up, back up!" Zoey suddenly shouted. "You're a human?!" Cid looked up from his crouching position and nodded. "Okay..." the eevee breathed out, trying to keep her volume under control. "Supposedly, I believe you, how are you a Pokémon, when you're supposed to be a human?"

"I-I don't know," Cid sniffled "I-I just woke up here and then those Pokémon attacked me! I don't remember anything. Not my home, my family, friends... I...I...I only have my name."

Seeing as the poor child was about to break down, Zoey quickly wrapped her forelegs around Cid and pulled him into her chest. She could feel her fur getting ever so slightly soaked by the tears which had already streamed out of the child's eyes. The female former human stroked a circle around his back with her paw, trying to calm the poor child down. He sniffled a couple of more times, but luckily Zoey seemed to have reacted in time to prevent a breakdown.

"Shh, there, there. Everything is going to be alright," Zoey spoke in a soft voice. "We're going to sort everything out." ("Okay, let's recap. I'm less than five minutes here, have been dragged into a fight, found another human that has been turned into a Pokémon, this one being a child and quite frankly, I am the one who wants to cry! Urrgh, at least I have all of my memories this time! The thing is, I need to figure out what to do now. I have no money, no food and this child is definitely not going to survive on his own, especially if Pokémon are still as territorial as I remember them to be.")

Eventually, Cid completely calmed down and simply nuzzled into Zoey's chest. The former girl actually found this behavior quite cute coming from the child. It didn't help that cyndaquills were cute in general. The two of them cuddled a little more until eventually Zoey broke the hug and gave Cid a gentle smile. "Okay look, I don't pretend to have any idea what is going. Those three just attacking you out of nowhere, you saying you're a human," Zoey took in a deep breath "but obviously SOMETHING is up. I don't think you're faking the amnesia story. I mean, I can't think of any reason for you to fake it."

("Gosh, I'm so unconvincing. How come I trusted Pikachu from the get-go when he just believed my story like that? Oh yeah, I didn't. I just rolled with the punches the first couple of days.")

Cid looked at Zoey, seemingly feeling at least a little better. ("Well, it looks like he thinks he can trust me. Probably just because I saved him right now.")

"Alright then," Zoey got up and stretched her back a little. "I suggest we get a move on before those three decide to come back with some friends." Zoey motioned with her head towards the way the Beheeyem had taken, causing Cid to shiver.

"O-Ok," he nodded.

"Right. Let's go the other way and... huh?" Zoey had just taken a couple of steps when she noticed something brown sticking out from behind a rock. Cid watched as the female eevee crouched down and pulled the brown thing out from behind the rock. This thing turned out to be a small bag pack, with a leather strap. "Huh, will you look at that."

"It's... a bag?" Cid spoke up quietly. He looked a little surprised when Zoey just opened the thing and went through its contents. "Whoop! Looks like we hit the jackpot!" Zoey shouted cheerfully. "Apples, Oran Berries and... sticks?" She pulled one stick out of the bag, carrying it in her mouth. After spitting it on the ground, the female former human inspected the piece of wood for a little bit and decided to put it back into the bag for the moment.

"Well, I guess this belongs to us now."

"W-what?!" Cid shouted, looking distressed. "B-but! Doesn't this belong to someone?" he pointed out.

"Probably the Beheeyem," Zoey waved off. "Don't feel bad about it. They attacked you for no reason. This will teach them a lesson."

"B-but... won't we get into trouble?" he asked.

"Trouble? If those guys show their faces ever again, they're the ones who'll be in trouble," was Zoey's reply. "Alright, let's go." Zoey walked up ahead, expecting the cyndaquill to follow her, which he did. He had a worried expression on his face, but the eevee ignored it in favor of getting her thoughts in line.

("Why did these Beheeyem attack Cid? And why did Cid get turned into a Pokémon? Well considering last time I got turned into a Pokémon it was to save the world of the Pokémon. Does that mean the world is in danger again? But wait. Let's assume the two of us have been sent here to save the world again. Why is my memory intact and his not? Arrgh, why can't I be eased into the situation, instead of me just randomly being thrown in?! Seriously! Anyway, for now, I think I'll keep quiet about my human origin. I should probably tell Cid to keep quiet as well, even if it is just to avoid others thinking that he escaped the mental clinic.")

Unaware of her internal ramblings, Cid was trotting right behind Zoey, the eevee. He found it surprisingly easy to walk in his new form, but he wasn't one to complain about the convenience. He was, however, feeling a little bit conflicted about Zoey. On the one hand, he was glad that she was helping him out, especially against those three Pokémon. On the other hand, she came over to him as a little... odd. It was just that she had believed him having amnesia without any proof. Plus she seemingly just shrugged off the comment about him being an actual human. Last, but not least, she just took a bag that obviously didn't belong to her and was carrying it, as if it had always belonged to her. She was even rummaging through its contents one more time, right this very moment as they followed the trail.

"Hmm... oh hey, they even left us their money," she mumbled just loud enough for Cid to hear, although that obviously had not been her intention. "Should get us around for a while." The thing was, for the time being, Cid had no choice but to rely on her, especially since he had still to fully wrap his head around the fact that he actually was a Pokémon. A great part of him thought or hoped that this was all just one weird dream and he would wake up soon in his old body.

Both former humans found themselves brought out of their respective train of thought when they noticed a Doduo running their way. The Pokémon stopped right in front of them, each of its respective heads glaring at the two Pokémon.

"What are you doing here?" the left head asked Cid.

"This is my running path. Get lost!" the second head shouted at Zoey.

"Hey there, chill out," Zoey spoke in a normal tone. "We're just passing by. We'll be out of your way in no time."

"No! You won't go any further!" Doduo shouted, now both heads glaring at Zoey. "Get lost or I'll make you."

"M-maybe we should listen to him..." Cid suggested to which Zoey couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"What's your problem? If you're so fond of your path, we won't even step-" But this was as far as far Zoey came. The Pokémon apparently had a short fuse and decided now was the right time to attack. It came running at Zoey, ready to peck her eyes out. Cid screamed in surprise, but Zoey was not impressed at all. She just opened her mouth and immediately stars flew out of it, hitting the doduo all over. The not-flying flying-type stumbled backward and hit the ground.

"Aahh... oww..." Doduo moaned his feathers in complete disarray.

"Weren't things supposed to be different by now?" the eevee asked, looking at the downed Pokémon.

"W-w-why did he attack?" Cid asked in a stutter. He subconsciously walked closer to eevee, until he touched her leg. Zoey let out a sigh, as she wrapped her leg around the cyndaquill. "These so-called..." wild Pokémon" are... they're weird in my opinion, okay? They get angry over the smallest of things, like stepping into their territory or being a grass-type or being an eevee, the list is endless, really." Another sigh escaped her lips. "It's pretty common to just knock them out. They'll eventually get up again and go on about their daily business, whatever they do out here."

"That's... not very nice," Cid commented, holding his head down.

"But, you know, it's still weird that he attacked just like that," Zoey commented, tilting her head.

"Really?" Cid asked, looking up at the eevee.

"Yeah, you see, a couple of years ago, there were a lot of catastrophes going on. Storms, forests set on fire, urgh, just thinking about it gives me the chills." Zoey shuddered involuntarily. "A lot of Pokémon grew really agitated during that time. But, as I said, that was years ago. It should all be back to normal by now." The eevee shook her head. "Maybe, I'm over thinking things. This guy here probably just had a bad day or something. Let's go."

But Cid didn't move an inch. Instead, he looked worriedly at the Doduo. "Will he really be okay?"

Zoey stopped in her advance and turned around. ("Wow, someone is a softy.") She smiled warmly and nodded. "Don't worry. Us Pokémon, we're really resilient creatures. He'll be up and running in no time, I can assure you that." With that being said, Zoey continued on her way. Cid the now cyndaquill gave Doduo one last look, before he ran after the normal-type until he caught up with her.

Still, despite what Zoey had said, she kept her guard up. After all, not only bothered Arceus to bring one but two humans into the Pokémon World this time. It didn't take a genius to figure out that shit was hitting the metaphorical fan somewhere in some way.

For ten minutes nothing really worth mentioning happened. The two former humans saw a flock of pidgeys flying overhead at one point, but none of the flying types paid the two ground-bound Pokémon any mind. Afterwards, however, they found themselves lucky, as they found an Oran Berry Tree right in front of them, with some ripe berries lying on the ground just waiting to be picked up.

"Oran Berries!" Zoey exclaimed. "My favorite!"

"Oran Berries?" Cid asked, looking expectantly at Zoey. The eevee looked down at the cyndaquill with a bright smile. "Oran Berries are really sweet, you can't just love them. But, not only are they tasty, they're really useful to make medicine. Even eating them as they are, they can give you back a lot of strength and increase the rate at which your wounds heal."

"Wow." The former male human looked with awe at the tree.

"Yup, yup! Come on! Let's grab as many of those things as we can carry!"

Cid appeared to be very eager in helping Zoey putting as many berries as possible into the bag, which resulted in only five being added to their stock. The two stuck to the ones they found on the ground since none of them had any means of getting up to the branches. Plus, most of the berries on the tree were still green, as such inedible.

"Well, I guess it is spring, so it does make sense," Zoey commented. ("Spring... yeah. I was getting ready for Christmas back at home.")

The duo continued on after the berries had been stashed away in the bag. Despite it being spring, Zoey found that the weather appeared to be particularly warm in these parts. Of course, she had yet to have a chance to get a look at a map and deduce from that where she actually was. But from what memories she had of the last time in this world, this definitely wasn't tiny woods.

As the two Pokémon came close to a particularly large tree, Zoey noticed something in the upper right corner of her vision. Looking up, she easily identified as to what was ever so slightly out of place. She stopped all of the sudden, causing Cid to halt as well.

"Look up." Zoey motioned towards one of the branches with her head. Cid looked up and became starry-eyed when he saw what the eevee had spotted.

"That's a huge acorn," the cyndaquill said in awe, to which Zoey had to giggle.

"Silly, that's not an acorn. That's a Seedot, a Pokémon."

"Wha- what?!" Cid exclaimed in surprise.

"Shh." Zoey chided softly. "It's sleeping," she explained.

The male Pokémon looked up again and tried to listen. And indeed, with both of them being quiet and not even the wind making a sound, he could hear tiny snores coming from up and above.

"Seedots absorb nutrients and water from the trees they hang from. They get heavier and heavier until they fall off. Some of them use this ability to play pranks or ambush enemies. Of course, since it is asleep, we could go for first blood."

Cid looked at Zoey aghast at the mere suggestion, while she just gave him an innocent smile. "Of course, doing this would make us no better than the Beheeyem." The cyndaquill let out an audible sigh of relief when he heard that they wouldn't attack them.

"Generally speaking," the eevee went on "I personally find it better to not attack any sleeping Pokémon, even if you know that they'll attack you in return. It saves you a lot of energy. By the way, I still need to thank you for your Ember earlier. It really helped me out against the last Beheeyem."

"Uh...uh... you're welcome," Cid replied meekly. "And... thank you. For saving me."

"Aw, no problem, cutie." Cid blushed and looked away at the girly compliment he just got.

"Let's go, before we accidentally wake him up."

XXX

In the meantime, a couple of miles away from the former humans, the Beheeyem were currently busy with cowering away from their boss.

"What do you mean, he got help?!" the boss shouted on top of his lungs.

"I-it's like we said," Number 1 spoke with a trembling voice. "The human got help from an eevee."

"An eevee? Are you three honestly telling me that you couldn't handle one tiny eevee?!" the boss shouted on top of his lungs.

"S-s-she was really strong," Number 2 explained.

"A-a-and we still weren't feeling too well from the f-f-f-fight with the human," Number 3 argued.

"Aaah! You three! I don't know why I keep you three around! So! Where did they go?!"

"S-s-serene Village," all three answered, hugging each other closely.

"Serene Village?" the boss repeated, crossing his arms. "There is no eevee living in Serene Village! Tch, great. Looks like we got a change of plans on our hands. You three! Stay away from Serene Village, until I say otherwise. The eevee might just get the authorities on your case. As for me, well, I guess it's time to improvise."

XXX

"Hot, hot, HOT!" the cottonee scream, as it burned from the ember attack Cid hit it with. It jumped in a circle for a couple of seconds, until its thoughts became coherent enough to jump into the nearby river.

"Ahh..." with the fire extinguished, the cottonee floated blissfully away. And the entire time Zoey had been laughing her ass off.

"Hahaha, oh man. This totally made my day." The eevee needed to wipe a tear away from her face, she was laughing that hard.

"I-I didn't mean to hurt it," Cid protested. "I-it, she just surprised me and I-"

"You reacted," Zoey finished, still snickering a little. "She wanted to ambush you and you simply reacted and defended yourself. There's no need to feel bad, she got what was coming to her."

Cid slumped down on his rump. "I still feel bad. I don't want to hurt anybody..."

The eevee resisted the urge to flinch, knowing that sadly this was a pipe dream, even in the Pokémon World. And given that Cid was probably here in order to fight some big, bad entity or something. Or maybe he was just destined to go to Rayquaza and point with his finger towards the next best meteor about to crash on the planet. Yeah, on hindsight, that had been an anticlimactic ending.

"Cid..." Zoey put a paw on his back. "Our world isn't perfect. No one forces you to fight (except whoever decided a child of all things would be a good candidate as the savior of the world), but sadly not every fight is unavoidable."

In response, the cyndaquill looked even more crestfallen. Zoey sighed, not sure how to handle this situation. Fighting came to her at this point naturally. This point was proven once more when a Bisofank came storming into their direction. Cid screamed as soon as he saw the normal-type coming closer. Zoey almost scoffed and countered with a Quick Attack, resulting in her head butting against the Bisofank's. The massive afro, although it carried the awesomeness bonus, didn't protect the bearer in the slightest and to the surprise of both Bisofank and Cid, the bull-like Pokémon found himself lying on the ground with a massive headache.

"H-how...?! Ow..."

Zoey didn't bother answering the Bisofank's question. If her attacks were enough to fight legendaries, a Pokémon that had a bit more hair than usual was certainly no problem for her. Indeed, so far, only the Beheeyem managed to even land some attacks on her. All the other Pokémon she and Cid had encountered so far, they had either left alone or probably thought about getting a life insurance.

"Let's talk somewhere else," Zoey not suggested, but ordered. Cid just nodded, dumbfounded after seeing how the smaller eevee easily managed to beat the much bigger Pokémon with just one hit.

"And, if you don't want to fight, then don't. I'll take everyone on."

"A-are you sure?" the former male human asked, but eevee didn't give him an answer. She was way too focused on protecting the Pokémon who wasn't ready to fight back as of yet. Hopefully, she could change this given time. And if not, she might just take on the big evil herself.

XXX

The forest the two former humans traversed through turned out to be a rather small one. They were just at the edge of the forest when the two suddenly found a very peculiar sight. A bunch of pidgeys was sitting on the lower branches and glared down at the normal and fire-type. Cid almost immediately hid behind Zoey.

"W-w-why are they staring at us?" Cid asked fearfully.

Truth to be told, the experienced eevee didn't have an immediate answer, but she quickly found one, by looking past the birds.

"They're protecting their nests."

"Huh?" Cid ever so slowly, looked up from behind Zoey and after squirming his already squirmed eyes, he could make out one or two not so well hidden birds nest.

"Let's go around. I don't want to accidentally hurt any children."

Zoey guided Cid a wide way around the trees, which the flock used as breeding grounds. This caused them to finally leave the forest with a five-minute delay. But once they actually were outside, Cid suddenly found the need to support himself on the nearest tree. Looking down on him, Zoey saw that he was breathing heavily and even his tongue stuck out.

"Need a break?"

"Y-yes..." Cid answered and fell on his behind. A growl escaped his stomach, making Zoey realize that she herself hadn't had something to eat for quite some time. Sitting down herself, the eevee took two apples out of the bag and placed one in front of Cid.

"Eat up," she ordered the fire-type, which he was all too happy to comply. Bits and pieces of the apple flew all around the place and into Zoey's fur, as he devoured the fruit in front of him. The former female human didn't mind. It was like watching a puppy video eating a meal. With that in mind, she started munching on her own apple. For a while, the two just sat there at the outer edges of the forest they just traversed through. Zoey was eating at a much slower pace, as multiple things went through her head at once. Listing them all up would take a while, but what stood out the most was her former team.

Was Stardust still around? Did the team disband after she left this world? Did they miss her? Or did they hate her for not telling them anything? But most importantly: what became of her partner?

The eevee looked down on her scarf, melancholy written over her face. She grabbed with a paw beneath the cloth and unclipped the old rescue badge that was attached to the thing. Taking it out, she was surprised that in her absence her team had increased to the Gold Rank. Although she guessed, the committee simply saw it fit to award Stardust with that honor, after they had saved the world from destruction. Smiling sadly, she safely clipped the thing back under her scarf. After she did so, she noticed that Cid was already finished with his apple, while she was only halfway done.

"Want another apple?" she asked, to which Cid shook his head.

"Zoey... what is that thing?" he asked, pointing at her scarf. The eevee guessed he meant the badge underneath her scarf.

"Just a little present I got from a friend," she lied, not wanting to speak about Rescue Teams, especially her own team now. Heck, she was most likely no longer officially registered.

"A present."

"Mhmm," Zoey nodded. She stood up and stretched her legs. "We'll rest up here for a bit before we continue," she told the former human, sitting down again after stretching every limb individually. "In the meantime, how about we have a little talk? You said you're actually a human?"