Chapter Text
Part One: Solar Eclipse
The world was a terrible place.
If any pokemon ever tried to tell Catrin that the world in its current state was somehow salvageable, somehow well-intentioned, somehow not a complete affront to the gods above, he would sneer at them. No drunken fool could convince Catrin that this world was anything more than a cesspool, a still-watered pond choked with algae and garbage at the end of a muddy stream. It was a world that desperately needed hope, salvation, a sun to light the bleak, murky sky slowly suffocating it from above. But it hardly deserved even the smallest kindness. The world deserved to rot.
Catrin raced through the bushes like a scorbunny. The scraggly branches caught on his maroon cloak and grabbed desperately at his blue fur. But with despairing thoughts racing through his head and stinging his eyes, he could hardly keep his mind on the chase. He could hear them up ahead: the stomping footsteps, snapping twigs, deep guffaws bellowing out from the trees. Each noise was further ahead than the last; he was losing ground.
He spotted a grainy shadow up ahead, and a voice sang out. “Come and get us, little church boy!”
The comment distracted him for only a second, but it was enough. A root tripped and flung him to the ground. A chorus of shrieking laughter jumped out from every direction, as if he were surrounded. “Awww, are we going too fast for you? Do you wanna take a break and sing some hymns?”
Catrin bared his teeth, his face contorting in pain and rage. He cried out as tears of anger streamed through the fur of his cheeks. “Give it back!” His claws dug into the wet earth of the forest. “Just give back what you stole!”
The laughter that responded was a slap in the face. “Bwahahaha! You'll have to catch us first!” The silhouettes vanished into the dark, and the pounding of footsteps receded into the distance.
Catrin's muscles tensed to spring ahead and give chase, but pain held him still for a moment. His blackened heart twisted. Rage pressed against his rib cage and streamed through his arms. He let out a strangled scream and slashed his claws through the bark of a nearby tree. His fingers smarted, but he screamed again and slashed at the wood and kicked the trunk as hard as he could. He barely felt his ankle jolt in pain. Who cared? Who even cared?! The world was a rotten, disastrous place! Without a sun, it deserved to bleed out and die!
And really, that was all Catrin expected from that night. He expected the bandits would run off with his things, split the prize in Ragged Mountain up ahead, and go their separate ways all the richer. He expected a night of more pain, more suffering, more wishing for a dawn that wasn't coming and the cold, still death of this endless night. He expected to lose.
He did not expect a weight to land on his head and knock him unconscious.
The first thing she knew was a dream.
The dream was like floating in a clear sea. Sparkling lights drifted through the soft, colorful haze, and in that moment, she felt as though her body had shrugged off its earthly bounds and become wind. She was one with the rainbow, breathing in perfect sync with the mist around her. At peace. All was calm.
The voice that came wasn't an intrusion. It felt like something not earthly, like the voice of a star. The song of a bell. It connected with her.
“Might you be... a human?”
She wanted to answer its question, but her spirit didn't move to. It was as if speaking would break the tranquility of this soothing, drifting place. She wasn't even sure she could answer. Was she human? She certainly didn't feel human here. She felt like the air of the universe.
Without prompt, it spoke to her again. “If so, then please... I want you to save my world. You must...”
The voice faded away like a sigh on the wind. And suddenly, something cut through the fog. She jolted like it had cut through her. The faded pastel mists snapped into a vortex of dark purple. A scream barged through the haze.
“H-H-H-HELP!”
An image split through her head like a blunt ax. The void was so loud, dizzying, and painful that she could barely comprehend the vision. There was a munna in a red cloak, its eyes stretched wide with terror as it bolted through a tunnel of rock. A shadow was in pursuit, something hulking and monstrous that bashed its way after the pokemon. The munna came to a dead end and cowered under its hood as the shadow of the beast fell over it. From the shadow, six great wings spread wide, and it lunged.
The vision went black. The purple haze lurched away, and she was thrown from that spectral place like a passenger tossed out of a crashed car. Her body contorted and balked, like a gnarled hand had grabbed her and squeezed her into pus, and she sucked in a gulp of air for the first time. She felt different. Heavy. Something was wrong.
The second thing she knew was that she was falling.
Her brain was such a spinning mess that she could barely comprehend it. But the buffeting air, her spinning limbs, that awful roaring; she was falling. Her body broke into a feverish sweat. Her lungs heaved, but whether it be from the fall, the panic, or their own malfunction, there was no air to breathe. Tears leaked from her eyes. The ground lunged to meet her like the colossal beast of her dreams. Her body cringed. Something was still wrong!
SMACK!
You know the feeling of when you're in a panic, and then someone slaps you and things become clear for a second? That's what happened to her then, when she slammed into some unknown shape and slipped onto the ground. She felt wet, sloppy dirt under her back, and she twisted up her nose at the ringing in her ears. But... she was alive. That was good! And she wasn't hurt? Even better! Wait... but what the hell had just happened?
She scrambled to her feet, and the third thing she knew was her name was Elaine.
Right, Elaine. That was her name, of course it was! Had she forgotten that? She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath when she felt panic creeping into her head again. She hadn't forgotten her name, right? That wasn't just something people forget! People forget things like homework and the bus schedule and feeding their pet magikarp. Normal things! She huffed again, stamped her hooves in agitation, and- Wait... Since when did she have hooves?
“Ngh...”
Her whole body stiffened up like a scared purrloin. She'd thought she was alone, but something had saved her from splattering on the ground in an unflattering pile of Elaine, and if she remembered right, it had been something fuzzy. She took a mental note to be impressed at herself later for remembering such a tiny detail while quite literally falling from the sky and turned around to where the groan had come from. Her eyes were just barely open, and she couldn't see anything yet.
Elaine blinked the fuzziness out of her eyes, but it was still so dark she couldn't make a single thing. Had she gone blind?! Was it nighttime? She couldn't remember the last time she'd checked a clock, but she vaguely remembered watching Mewtube in bed with the lights off, so nighttime seemed like a safe bet. Slowly, she started to make out some shapes. Long, tall ones, like the legs of a giant galvantula standing above her. So, she wasn't blind. Nice! As her vision came back, she figured she was in a forest- definitely very odd since she'd been home in her apartment last she could remember. And they weren't pretty, little trees like the ones in Castelia Park. These were ancient, enormous things, the sort of tree you couldn't cut down without contracting some sort of lifelong forest curse. There were a few stars out in the murky, bruise colored sky. Weak, flickering little things. And on the ground a few feet away was an unconscious pokemon.
Oh!
Okay, it was coming together! She'd bounced off a pokemon that had graciously saved her life. Nice. It looked sort of large, like a big zangoose, and was slumped over unconscious on the forest floor. Sweating and chewing her lip, she tentatively crept over and gave the pokemon a kick. “H-hey! Are you okay?”
A groan, and the pokemon shifted. Cool, that was a good sign! She definitely didn't have the money to take this thing to a Pokemon Center. But as the pokemon twitched and shifted into an upright position, Elaine's eyes finally adjusted to the dark, and she realized it wasn't a zangoose at all, but in fact-
“A giant oshawott?!” Elaine scrambled back, eyes wide and mouth agape as she took in the bizarre spectacle before her. What in the dragon's name was this?! Oshawotts were little things! Trainers had them on their shoulders all the time! But this creature was taller than her, it must've been a good six feet! What idiot god had allowed this thing to come into the world?!
“Aaauuughhh...” And the weird got weirder. The oshawott rubbed its head, blinked its eyes, grit its teeth, and said, “What in the Sun's name... ?”
Elaine's entire body ran cold. She knew this was the part where she should scream, or take the Dragon's will into her own hands and kill it with fire, but she couldn't even move. And when the oshawott fixed its gaze on her and its face twisted with anger, her body flashed colder.
“Y-you!” It jumped to its feet- not without wincing- stormed up to her, and jabbed its paw at her nose. Its eyes flashed like the growlithes on the Castelia streets after you threw enough rocks at them. “Did you land on me?! I was in the middle of something! Do you have any idea what you've done?!”
Elaine tried to sputter out a word, but her brain felt like someone had dumped a bunch of purrloins in it and shaken it up. All that came out of her mouth was incomprehensible stuttering. The oshawott snarled. “Don't you have anything to say for yourself?!”
Elaine squeaked, “H-h-h-” The oshawott's big, navy blue ears turned upwards as she finally squealed out a question. “H-h- Y-you talk? Wh... ? H-how...?”
As if enraged by her stuttering, the oshawott yanked the hood of his cloak and roared. “For the SUN'S SAKE, if you were going to fall from the sky, you could have at least hit the ground instead of me and saved me the trouble! Where did you even come from?!”
Suddenly feeling very, very afraid, Elaine brought her legs closer to her body and hunched down. She'd already been scared, but this absolutely wasn't helping. She trembled, and her lips twisted up. “I'm s-sorry. I-I-I think I'm lost... I don't... I was in Castelia, I think? I...” She looked up at the dark sky. “I fell, didn't I?”
“Yes, and I have the bump to prove it,” the oshawott spat. It- he? Its voice was kinda boyish- took a step back so not to be right in her face. He was now looking at her less like a nuisance and more like a pitiable, lost kid. Though his eyes were still flashing, his snarl fell away. “I apologize. It's unbecoming of a member of the Church to behave this way. I'm just...” He started to move away. “Okay, normally, I'd be more willing to stay and assist you, but a very important parcel of mine was stolen. You've held me up long enough, Tepig!” The oshawott whirled around and started bounding into the underbrush on four legs, but he quickly skid to a halt. His ears and tail stood up straight, and he whirled around with eyes wide as saucers. “Tepig...”
“T-tepig?” Elaine asked. What was he talking about?
Oshawott approached her tentatively on all fours, his hackles raised. He stared at her like she was the giant, talking, church-going pokemon in a cloak. He scrunched his nose and curled his big, fluffy tail down onto his back. “I... You're a fire-type...”
Elaine stepped back. She was practically drenched in sweat. Why was it so hot? “I-I'm not any type? I mean, Steven says we should count as normal-types, but-”
Oshawott stepped up close, a little closer than Elaine appreciated, and scrutinized her like a diamond in a glass case. His eyes glittered. “I haven't seen a fire-type in years, not since... They say they're all gone.”
“I'm not a fire-ty-”
He spun away from her. “B-b-but it's impossible, a fire-type shouldn't be physically able to-”
“Oshawott, PLEASE!”
He jumped and spun around at her sudden shout. Elaine didn't appreciate that his cloak hit her in the nose as he spun, but she didn't bother to complain. She stormed up to him and thrust her nose at his face. “Stop saying I'm a fire-type! I'm human, you hear? Human! So stop saying that!”
She hadn't known what she'd expected Oshawott to say. An apology, maybe? But Oshawott simply gave her a grim, confused look and murmured, “No, you aren't.”
Something jolted in Elaine. She grit her teeth. “Y-yes, I am!”
“You're not! You're a tepig!” Oshawott sucked in a gasping breath and spat out a mouthful of water at their feet. Elaine jumped back and shivered. She did not get the appeal of water-types; every gosh darn attack looked like they were throwing up! But a puddle filled at their feet, and Oshawott gestured a paw towards it and crossed his arms. “Take a look if you don't believe me.”
Elaine hesitated. She knew what she looked like. Yeah, she was pretty ugly, but all her life, she could look in the mirror and at least know what to expect. Brown skin, browner hair, even browner freckles. Yeah, she was fat and her collarbones weren't symmetrical (Mom always said she was imagining that but she was NOT) and her eyebrows were a jungle, but it was her face. Her body. She'd rather see a hot mess in the mirror than something that wasn't even her.
Elaine looked in the puddle, but Elaine didn't look back. The face in the pond was the orange, black-spotted, red-nosed face of a tepig.
Her brain cracked into eight pieces. Elaine began to shudder, and hot and cold flashes raced through her body. Her head was spinning. “H-hey!” She heard Oshawott cry, but she couldn't even answer and stumbled instead, nearly lurching to the ground. She landed in something soft, and her head cleared for a moment to see Oshawott had caught her. His eyes were wide, as if her freaking out was making him freak out.
“Please don't panic, Tepig.”
He let her down to the ground gently, and Elaine curled in on herself. She was still shivering bad, and she felt feverish. She could feel every inch of her body and not in a good way. In a very, very bad way, like the feeling you got after getting home from the pediatrician that kept telling you to cut all the carbs out of your diet and go to the gym. The four stubby legs, the hooves, the big Dumbo ears, the snout, the curly-Q tail. She wanted to claw her own skin off, but she didn't even have nails anymore.
“You're still panicking,” Oshawott muttered. Tentatively, he crouched down next to her. Elaine figured it was supposed to be a comforting gesture, but the feel of his fur against her side was like durants crawling on her skin. “I know this is strange. Trust me, meeting a pokemon who claims to be a human-”
“I am a human!” she spat.
“- is one of the weirder parts of my day. But if you are a human, it would mean you're from another world, which...” He trailed off. His eyes widened, like an idea had struck him, and Oshawott gave her a strange, scrutinizing look. Looking cautious, he leaned over her. “Forgive me, I know this is immensely forward, but may I have permission to ask your name?”
She chewed on her lip. “M-my name's Elaine.”
For a long, inescapable moment, Oshawott stared at her. His eyes grew wider and wider, like white full moons, and his lips parted. Elaine shifted away from him, unsure if she should start running or not. But then, Oshawott's face broke into a wide, lip-splitting grin. His eyes sparkled with the light of a thousand suns, and he jumped to her so suddenly that Elaine yelped. “It's you!”
“M-m-me?” Elaine crouched low to the ground and backed away.
“You! You're the Savior! Ahahahaha, YES!” Oshawott bounced away and began to spring around the clearing like an overexcited buneary. Elaine had to scramble out of his way just to avoid getting smacked into. He giggled like a maniac; more laughter was spilling out of him than Elaine had thought he could hold. Finally, he stopped and bounded back up to her.
“You! Finally, finally, FINALLY, I've been waiting so long!” He grabbed her cheeks in his paws and pulled her face up an inch from his, scrutinizing her hard. “Smaller and a lot more patches than I expected, but what's it matter! You're here!” He tossed her aside, and as Elaine bit her lip and tried hard not to get offended at the lots of patches comment, he started to sniffle.
“Can you please tell me what you're talking about?” Elaine asked, rubbing her cheeks with her hooves. Sadly, it didn't do much for the soreness; the hooves just seemed to make it worse. “What Savior? What do you mean?”
“You're the Savior! You've been brought here to save the world, just as the Great Prophetess foretold!” Oshawott cheered. His teary eyes widened, like he'd realized something, and he suddenly bowed and touched his nose to the ground. “Forgive me for not even introducing myself! My name is Catrin. And as the first pokemon to meet you upon your arrival in the world, I suppose I...” His eyes widened even further, and a giddy little smile tugged at his lips. “I suppose that makes me your prophesized guide?”
Elaine backed away from him, huffed, and stamped her hooves on the ground. Dragon forbid, this pokemon was so frustrating! “I'm not a savior and I don't need a guide! I just need to go home! Can you please help me-”
Elaine and Catrin fell silent as a faint howl drifted in the air above them. Catrin looked up, his ears pricked, eyes alert, and Elaine shrank down. “I-i-is that an arcanine?”
Catrin snarled. Elaine didn't remember ever being scared of an oshawott, but up close, those white, razor sharp teeth were not cute. “Mightyena. But if we can hear them, that means they're still close!” He turned to face her and adjusted his dark red hood. “Savior, I need you to come with me! Those bandits stole my parcel that I need to retrieve, but once I do, I promise I'll explain everything. Your transformation, your destiny, all of it. Can you trust me just for a short while?”
Elaine hesitated. She did not trust Catrin, whether he was lying or not. He was pushy and self-absorbed, and her skin was still crawling from that patches comment. She didn't understand what he meant by the Savior or the pokemon world. She had no idea where she even was! How far from Castelia could she have gotten in just one night? All she wanted was to get home, preferably before morning because Mom would kill her if she missed school. But if Catrin really did have answers, maybe he could help her get home. She didn't like him at all, but it was worth a shot.
“Alright. I'll come with you, and I'll help you get your stuff back. But afterwards, answers. Okay?”
Catrin grinned. “Of course! I would never break a promise to you, Savior!” He turned to look at a looming shape above. Elaine hadn't seen it in the dark, but it looked like a mountain. “The howl sounded like it came from Ragged Mountain. Once we get there, those thieves won't know what hit them!” His cloak flapped like a bird's wing as he sprang off into the underbrush. “Follow me, Savior!”
Elaine didn't want to follow him. She'd rather do a lot of other things than follow him. But it couldn't hurt, right? She took a deep breath and coughed when smoke came up out of her lungs. Things really were different now...
But she had to suck it up for now. She just had to suck it up. So, Elaine puffed out her chest and followed Catrin into the night.