In the southern part of Sinnoh, surrounded by hills, fields, and forests, there was a high school.

East Pastoria High was its name, and it boasted several good programs for high schoolers in the Pastoria City area. It was a very large school, with roughly two thousand students. Some of these students found the environment rather overwhelming, since it was so big. Others did not; they loved the large environment.

However, the school did have very good counseling services for those who ended up needing them. This turned out to be a very large number, and the students would often seek out the help of said counselors whenever they had some sort of issue, either with another student, coursework, or life in general.

In one of the many classrooms in the junior wing, a young man sat at a desk, doodling on a sheet of paper he had taken from the back of the room. He was still paying attention, though; indeed, this was a way that he helped himself to pay attention to the teacher's lecture.

Lance Grant brushed some of his hair backwards, getting his bangs out of his eyes. On days in early summer like this one, they could become quite annoying; that was one annoyance that he did not need.

Mr. Ayer, their teacher, was writing some formulas on the board at present. He was giving a lecture about exponential growth, and how one calculated the amount of growth there had been.

"Lance?" Mr. Ayer announced, trying to make sure that his student was paying attention. Very often, he'd use one of his students as an example in one of his problems, so that he could make sure that they were listening.

"Yes" the boy replied. "What is it?"

"If Lance invests one hundred dollars in the bank, and it gives him four percent interest a year for five years, compounding yearly, how do we solve that?"

Most of the students sat at their seats, simply picking their nails, not knowing how to respond to such a question. This made it clear to Mr. Ayer that they may not have been paying attention to his lecture.

"Well, we actually have an equation that we can use to test that out. The formula is A equals P times the quantity of one plus one over N, to the power of N times T. In this equation, P is the starting amount, A is the answer, N is the rate of increase, and T is the number of years. You could also use T as twelve if the interest is compounding monthly".

Lance was, unlike he sometimes was, fully absorbed in the teacher's lecture today. He was finding it quite interesting, hanging onto Mr. Ayer's every word. He wished that the same could sometimes be said of the other students, but you couldn't always get everything you wanted.

"Yes...that's the way it goes. So, using the formula, we'll find that Lance has a total of $121.67 by the end of the five years. It does add up over time".

Behind himself, Lance could tell that the class clown, Xavier Whitacre, was busy making paper airplanes. Xavier, after he finished making a plane, would toss it towards the recycling bin, hoping to land it there.

The fact that there were several paper airplanes already littering the floor space already around the recycling bin betrayed that he hadn't been very successful at it.

"Let's see...if the interest is compounding continuously, at every instant, there is a different formula, the PERT formula. It's PE to the power of RT, where P is the starting amount, E is the mathematical constant, R is the rate of change, and T is the amount of time used".

There was more of the sound of a paper plane being made, and then the sound of it being thrown and whooshing through the air.

The plane hit the wall before doing a nosedive into the bin. It was very much audible, even though it had hit the wall fairly gently, all things considered.

Mr. Ayer turned around, looking very irritable indeed. Xavier was laughing now; he'd just succeeded at annoying the teacher, which, anyone who knew him was aware, was his main goal in life.

"Xavier, knock it off!" the teacher said angrily. The student who had been named did not appear fazed by this, as he kept on smiling.

"Back to mathematics...let's see here…".

Mr. Ayer kept going on and on about various mathematical formulas, but Lance paid him no heed.

He had begun to become aware of a pain in his chest area. Nothing was there, but it almost felt as though a baby elephant were sitting on him. He'd heard that this was what it felt like when a person's heart was slowing down, or something like that.

It's nothing, he told himself. If it was something, I would know.

Lance tried to go back to paying attention to his teacher; after all, his GPA was at stake here. Focusing was the most important thing for him to do right now.

"And the half-life of carbon is 5,730 years, so we punch that into the equation and get this ridiculously small number…".

The discomfort in his chest hadn't gone away, and Lance was still finding it very difficult to focus on his teacher. It wasn't as though he was normally the type to be unable to pay attention in class, but today things felt different.

I KNOW something bad is about to happen, he told himself. This pain is probably a good indicator of that.

The more he thought about it, the more clear it became to him that it was indeed pain he was dealing with, not merely discomfort. The pain in his chest felt quite sharp.

He needed to do some investigating.

Raising his hand, he asked, "Mr. Ayer?"

The math teacher turned to face Lance. "Yes, Lance?"

"May I please use the restroom?"

Mr. Ayer nodded, and Lance got up from his chair and headed over to the bathroom. He had no intention of using the toilet, though.

The reason he'd asked was so that he could have a look in the mirror. He remembered reading a book one time about a high school student who had transformed into a Lucario. Chest pain had been one of the first symptoms.

Lance walked into the boy's bathroom and looked into the mirror. Thankfully, there was nobody else in there, so he could have at least a small amount of privacy.

An 18-year-old boy looked back at him. A tall, broad-shouldered, 18-year-old boy. He had wavy, fluffy light brown hair and eyes the color of the ocean. Lance Grant scowled into the mirror, and the boy scowled back.

Okay, he thought. I still LOOK the same. But what changes could be taking place inside of me? Somehow, I get the feeling that something's up, or else I wouldn't be feeling this way.

With nothing better to do, he walked back towards class, feeling incredibly apprehensive, as though he were walking on pins and needles. The song "Pins and Needles" by Billy Talonflame played in his head, but he dismissed it. This wasn't a situation like that. He wasn't doing anything dangerous.

So why does it feel like I'm doing something dangerous?, he thought. I'm not. So it's ridiculous. So put a sock in it, Lance.

The teacher kept droning on and on about exponential growth functions, but Lance couldn't have cared less. All he wanted to know was what this all meant. Was he going to turn into a Lucario or something like that?

Soon, math class had ended, and he was very grateful to be able to get up again. The pain had subsided at this point, and he was able to focus a little more on the task at hand, something he was very much grateful for. He didn't think that he would have been able to handle another minute of the chest pain.

He arrived in English class, which had some of the same students as his math class, but not all of the same students. Of course, in high school, that was the way it was.

Thank Arceus I'll be done with junior year soon. Today's June 13, right? Yes, it was my birthday yesterday. I'm eighteen now.

At this moment, the presents he had gotten for his birthday had been all but forgotten. The uncomfortable feelings in his chest area had kind of pushed them out of his mind, and he didn't want to think about his presents anymore.

Or do I?, he thought. It might help distract me from this.

The teacher, Mrs. Weed, began talking about some of the best literature of the 1920s, but Lance didn't really care. He was focused on right now, the year 201X, the minute that he was in pain.

As she was handing out a packet for the current chapter they were reading, the pain suddenly became more acute. Lance didn't know why this was, and he didn't particularly want to. He went back to reading about the chapter, and why the characters in the story had behaved a certain way.

His chest acted up again; it was a searing pain. It felt as though a white-hot knife were being inserted from his thorax and pushing out through his chest. After groaning and howling in pain, all the other students looked over at him, expressions of worry on their faces.

Lance suddenly felt pain in his legs. It wasn't quite as excruciating as what he was feeling in his chest, but it was still pretty bad. He could feel his bones moving.

They're not breaking, they're MOVING, he told himself. That's the difference.

He hadn't crashed his legs into anything, nor had anything come down on them. It appeared, at least to Lance, like nothing had happened to make him be in so much pain.

And then he saw his pants move upwards, before they ripped. His legs were growing, but only slightly.

Suddenly, the pain in his chest went from "very painful" to "excruciatingly painful". Lance was now gasping for air, and he wondered if he was having a heart attack.

He felt his hair recede, to be replaced by two large black blobs. Of course, it wouldn't be until later that he knew that they were black. Lance felt something sharp in his rear end, and he knew that he must have been growing a tail.

Speaking of his chest, the pain was now absolutely unbearable. For a few moments, he might have blacked out from the sheer intensity of it. Then, however, it became a little duller (but not by very much) as something stuck through his shirt.

"Ouch" he said vaguely, not knowing what else to say.

The other students started laughing. Those who had brought iPhones, iPads, or any other devices that contained cameras were snapping pictures, probably sending to their friends on Facebook, Snapchat, or whatever other social media sites one could think of.

It was highly embarrassing for Lance. He turned over to look at his friend Michael, and saw that even he was laughing. Now that Michael was laughing, Lance knew that things were bad.

Looking at his hands, he saw that they had become paws. A small spike rose out of each one, shaped rather like a cone.

He suspected what he had become, but he wasn't completely sure yet. He'd have to get some confirmation soon.

Lance raised his paw. "Yes?" Mrs. Weed asked him.

"May I please use the restroom?" he asked again. Hopefully, nobody would look at him weirdly. Perhaps I should have waited until a few minutes later!, he thought, feeling absolutely desperate.

"Yes, but hurry. I'm in the middle of a lesson right now".

Again, the other students were laughing, but Lance paid them no mind. All he was determined to do was to see where this was going to go, because maybe, just maybe, it wasn't what he thought it was.

But he found the possibility of that quite remote. He knew the signs. He'd seen every sign of it but his face; it was time to see that side of it as well.

Bounding towards the bathroom as quickly as he could, he was once again grateful that nobody else was in the hallway. It would be weird to see a creature like him running through the hallway like a madman. Certainly, it would attract a lot of unwanted attention.

After he had walked into the bathroom, he looked at himself in the mirror. It wasn't the sight he had expected to see when he had first left for school this morning, but he wasn't surprised anymore.

Staring back at him was now a large, bipedal Pokemon with two black blobs next to its ears. Like a mask, there was black fur across the middle of its face, and its eyes were oval in shape. It looked extremely forbidding indeed, particularly with its large chest spike sticking out of its shirt.

Lance peeled off the shirt that he was wearing. Below it, there was nothing but fur in a tan color.

He had transformed into a Lucario, just the way he had expected.

He didn't know how long he stood in front of that mirror, completely and totally captivated by his new appearance, before he decided to leave the bathroom. It wouldn't do to be out of class for too long...or would it?

I really don't like them staring at me like that, Lance said to himself. It should be a no-brainer. It really should be. Why should I stay at school?

He got the feeling, however, that he shouldn't get behind in his education, even if he had transformed into a Lucario.

As soon as he stepped out of the bathroom, he saw a woman standing near him. A very familiar woman.

It was Mrs. Fox, the school nurse. "Lance Grant?"

"Yes?" Lance replied.

"I suppose that the rumors are true after all" Mrs. Fox replied. "I had heard that you had transformed into a Lucario. Would you mind coming into my office in order to see what's going on?"

"No".

She led Lance into her office, which wasn't that far from the boy's room. "So...what happened? Do you know?"

Lance was feeling quite irritable at this point. "I really don't. All I know is that I was sitting in class, and then my chest started hurting really badly".

"How badly, though?" Mrs. Fox asked him. "This is important".

"Felt like a knife was being driven through my chest. Of course, come to think of it, that's not that surprising; I've got this nice chest spike to show for it".

"Indeed you do" the nurse replied. "Do you mind if I take some of your blood to test at the local hospital? Or do you want to go there yourself?"

That wasn't a hard question. The last thing Lance wanted was to go out in public as a Lucario, and risk getting stared at and judged by millions of people.

Then again, he thought to himself, millions of people are already going to know about it. It's not as though an eighteen-year-old student just transforms into a Lucario every single day.

Still, it was too big of a risk to take.

"Let's do it here" he said. "Take some blood from me. If you don't mind me asking, what are you going to test it for?"

"We're going to use the test to see what kinds of abnormalities there may be in your blood" she replied. "If there is some factor that causes a person to transform into a Pokemon, that would be news to me, but who knows? There might just be one".

Lance shivered at the possibility. If a lot more people were going to transform into Pokemon...that couldn't be good, could it?"

"Anyway...hold still" Mrs. Fox said, grabbing a needle out of her cabinet. "You're not afraid of needles, are you?"

The boy-turned-Lucario shook his head. He was used to getting shots at the doctor's office; how could this be any different?

The answer: It wasn't. After a quick pinch, and some of his blood going into the needle, it was over. That was, indeed, how Lance got through all of the times that he had to draw blood for an exam, or get a vaccination; remind himself that the pain would be very much temporary.

"Okay" Mrs. Fox said. "I'll send this vial of blood to the hospital's laboratory for testing. You should probably go back to class. Or would you rather go home?"

That was a very hard decision for Lance. On one hand, he didn't particularly like the idea of going back to class and exposing himself to everyone else. On the other hand, the only way to deal with the problem long-term would be to face it head-on.

And, in general, he preferred permanent solutions to temporary ones.

"I'm going back to class" he said.

It's SnowLucario here with a new TF story! This one combines some ideas that I've had for a while, and I wanted to put into writing. I will work on this in conjunction with the Lucas's Adventure franchise. If you enjoyed this chapter, I hope you will check that story out and help me get it to 100 reviews. I also hope you might review this story as well, to tell me what you thought of it.

Until then, I'll see you next time.