Chapter Text
He could have blamed the pitch-black of the moonless night, which made it difficult to see. He could have blamed the sharp wind, which stung his eyes and made it difficult to activate his quirk. He could have blamed it on the fact that he hadn’t expected someone to actually notice him, considering so few people see him on the rooftops.
But, truthfully, even with all those things, he could have made it. He could have dodged the hit. The real reason he failed, in combination with these other factors, was because he was tired. His day had been an unusually busy one, since the school year was starting soon. He’d had to help plan out classes, he went to a meeting with Nedzu (who went on and on about off-brand philosophical concepts), he'd had to do an exceptional amount of paperwork, and then some of other underground heroes needed him for a raid outside his usual patrol hours.
Well, soon enough, it’d added up to a 15-hour workday, on a day he’d barely gotten any sleep the night before.
Aizawa briefly considered going straight home, but he decided he couldn’t. Back when he first started teaching, he'd promised himself that he wouldn’t let a second job affect his heroics career. While that was a long time ago, he still hated skipping patrols just because he felt burnt out. Aizawa knew that deciding based on that was irrational, but he still did it.
Later, when a villain turned their quirk on him, a bright glow in the dark night, he activated his Erasure just seconds too late because his reflexes were seconds too slow and he knew it was because he was just too tired…
He knew it was his own fault. But at this point, it was too late, and all Aizawa could do was hope it wasn't something lethal.
“Let’s see how you enjoy spending a year somewhere else, hero!” The villain’s voice was distant, and his howling laughter sounded tinny in Aizawa’s ears. Shouta felt his legs weaken. He stumbled and fell, dark spots in his vision. A searing pain in his back, and everything went black.
“Oh wow! It’s Petalburg City!”
It sounded like a child’s voice. Aizawa peeled his eyes open, still feeling horribly disoriented. He was in… a forest? The sun was high and bright in the sky. Daytime already? Had he slept that long?
“Pikachu, our first battle in the Hoenn region is coming up!”
“Hey Ash, wait up, please!”
Two children. They sounded okay, but he should check on them, just in case... and figure out where he was. Aizawa tried to stagger to his feet, but he slipped and fell. Something felt wrong about his body. He couldn’t move his arms and legs right. He tried to yell, “Hey!”, to get someone’s attention, but the sound he made was a loud yowling that he could scarcely believe came from his own throat.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know, Ash. Maybe a wild Pokemon?”
“Pika!”
“Oh, Pikachu, you know where it came from?”
There was a rustling of bushes and through them bounded a strange yellow creature. It was bright yellow with brown stripes, a zig-zag tail and little red circles on its cheeks. Aizawa did a double take. He was used to seeing some pretty strange quirks, but this was obviously not a human. A quirk manifestation? A quirked animal?
He tried to get up again. It was easier to do when he didn’t think about it, when he didn’t think about how strange his limbs felt. Moving was difficult but by relying on muscle memory, he managed to get himself on his feet. He wobbled.
The yellow creature tilted its head curiously at him. “Pika?”
“Mrrr.” His attempt to speak created an embarrassing sort of rumbling meow. There was more rustling, the sound of people traipsing through the underbrush. “Pikachu, did you find him? Oh, look!”
Aizawa looked up at him and relaxed. It was definitely the human child he heard earlier, with a blue shirt and a red baseball cap. “Purrrl,” Aizawa said. He winced. That wasn’t what he meant to say, but at least it wasn’t a meow. Another person made their way through the trees, a girl with a red bandana. “It’s a Pokemon!” the boy told her excitedly.
Pokemon? Aizawa thought, confused. Whatever. Obviously something was up with his speech, so he was probably concussed. Maybe he could get these kids to get him some medical attention. He took a few steps towards them but he fell over, his body still not obeying them. He struggled to get up again, to no avail.
“Oh!” the boy said, looking at him closer. “Do you think it’s hurt?”
“I think it’s sick!” the girl said, looking worried. “I don’t see any injuries but it looks like it’s having a hard time moving.”
The boy’s face morphed into one of determination. “Then let’s get it to the Pokemon center!”
Pokemon center? Is that a medical facility? Are they calling me an ‘it’? I have… so many questions… “Purrr,” Aizawa protested when the boy started picking him up.
“Don’t worry! Soon you’ll be good as new!” the boy promised. As the boy lifted him, Aizawa felt a wave of nausea, and he felt himself losing consciousness again.
He woke up in a room with bright lights, white walls and a sterile smell. A hospital. That boded well for Aizawa. It meant someone had given him medical care, whatever the quirk was that hit him. He was probably going to be okay. He tried to get up, but he was having problems dealing with his limbs again. They weren’t the length he expected and his skin felt… strange.
With a little practice, Aizawa finally managed to get to his feet and walk laps around the room. Finally. I can walk. His muscles were a little sore, but he would manage. He trotted over to the door of the room and his eyes caught on a mirror. At his reflection, his eyes widened.
Looking back at him in the mirror was a cat. It was a small purple cat, with cream-colored patches and strange pinkish fur near its eyes, along with a hooked tail. The cat stood on two legs in the mirror.
Experimentally, he opened his mouth. The cat in the mirror opened its mouth, showing two sharp fangs. In shock, he made a horrible screeching noise that really did sound like a dying cat. Aizawa took a deep breath. The quirk. Of course. This must be its effect. It turned me into this.
That meant Aizawa was in luck. Transformation quirks that affect other people are very rare and usually don’t last long… it will likely wear off on its own very soon. And if it doesn’t, there are many different people who have quirks that are able to reverse this type of thing…
After going through that line of thought, he felt much calmer. So that’s why he’d been feeling so out-of-it, why he couldn’t speak, why the kids had been calling him an it. They’d probably thought he was just some weird-looking injured cat. He huffed in amusement. At least it wasn’t a traumatic brain injury. Glancing in the mirror again, he wagged the purple hooked tail, watching the tail in the mirror follow its movements. Now that he was focused on it, he could feel the extra limb.
He walked around a little more. He could walk on two legs, oddly enough for a cat, but once he got used to it a little, he was faster running around on four. He glanced down at his paws, the first two of which were purple and the second two of which were cream-colored. What odd patching… purple fur? And I can stand on two legs? Can I even be called a proper cat? Or did they turn me into something else?
The door to his right opened to reveal a woman in a nurse’s uniform with bright pink hair. Aizawa startled at the creek, his ears flattening instinctively. “Don’t be afraid,” the nurse said soothingly. “I’m here to heal you, got it? You’re looking much better.”
So this was the nurse in charge of his case. Aizawa blinked at her.
“Ah, good. May I look you over? Don’t bite me, now.”
Aizawa sat down on the floor and gave a nod. The nurse smiled. She poked and prodded at him a little more, with some instruments he recognized and others not. At the end of it, she hooked her stethoscope around her neck and said, “I give you a clean bill of health.”
Except for being the cat thing, I suppose. Aizawa got up and walked (the more he did it the easier it was) out the door, glancing around. The ‘hospital’ was rather small, probably just a local clinic. He walked into the lobby, noticing the boy and girl from earlier sitting in waiting room chairs. When the boy saw him, his eyes lit up. “You’re okay!” He rushed over to Aizawa.
“He looks healthy! He should be fine from now on,” the nurse assured.
“Thanks, Nurse Joy!” the boy said. Nurse Joy, then.
“Ash, what kind of Pokemon is he?” the girl asked. So the boy’s name is Ash…
“I’ll get out my Pokedex, May.” And the girl’s name is May.
The infernal yellow creature was still sitting on the boy’s shoulder. He had no idea what that was. Maybe another victim of the villain’s quirk? Ash fumbled and got out a red-colored device, one that looked almost like a cell phone, and pointed it at him.
“Purrloin, the Devious Pokemon. Purrloin fools people into letting their guard down so it can steal their possessions. When angered, it uses its claws to fight back,” the strange device said.
The hell? “A Purrloin? Aw yeah! That’s so cool!” Ash proclaimed, crouching down.
“Ash, what if it steals from you?” May began, but Ash had already started petting Aizawa. This kid looks like he's ten, of course I’m not going to steal from him… Aizawa grimaced, but didn't oppose Ash petting him. He needed some kind of show of good faith, he was pretty sure, though to be honest he had absolutely no idea what was going on.
“Look, he likes me!” Ash said, grinning at May. He turned back to Aizawa. “We’re going to go to the gym! Do you wanna come with us?!”
Aizawa glanced at the nurse, who had already started doing something else. Was he just allowed to leave? Were they going to contact his emergency contact (Yamada Hizashi, Present Mic) or were they going to just set him loose? Did they even know who he was?
Probably not. They’d shown no indication that they had his ID or knew he worked for UA. They also showed surprisingly little concern over the fact he was under a quirk. Maybe it wore off really fast and that’s why they weren’t concerned? Regardless, the best course of action was probably to look around town and try to find a way to contact Nedzu, or at least just hang around until the quirk wore off.
Aizawa nodded at Ash, who cheered in response. “All right!”
“It is really cute,” May said, consideringly.
The three of them started walking in the direction of the gym. All the while, Ash and May chattered about ‘Purrloin’. Was that what they were calling him? ‘Purloin’ as in ‘to steal’? Why did everyone think he was a thief? Meanwhile, the little yellow creature was trying to interact with him somehow. It had bounded down from Ash’s shoulder and ran alongside him. “Pika pika!” It said.
“Purrr?” Aizawa said experimentally.
“Pika-chu!” the creature said.
Suddenly, the yellow thing bounced back on Ash’s shoulder as they arrived at a large building with a wooden ceiling. “You ready Pikachu? Let’s give it our best shot!” Ash said. So the yellow thing is ‘Pikachu’? And it can only say its name?
“Hello? I’m Ash, I’m from Pallet Town! I’d like a battle!” Ash declared. He paused a moment. “Uh, is anybody here?”
“Could you please keep it down? I’m right in the middle of watching a video of the Silver Conference.” The kid that stepped forward was younger than Ash, dressed in green, with glasses. Aizawa would put his age around 7.
“Oh, I’m sorry kid,” Ash said sheepishly. Then, the green kid got exceedingly excited, shouting about how Ash had ‘competed in the Silver League Conference’ but ‘lost in the second round.’ Ash seemed annoyed at the mention of losing. Meanwhile, Aizawa had never felt more lost in the conversation. What was the Silver League? What was he competing in? What was a ‘Charizard’ and a ‘Blaziken’?
“That’s it, I don’t want to talk about this any more!” Ash loudly exclaimed. “Get the gym leader, that’s who I came to see!”
The green kid puffed out his chest. “That’s me!”
Ash was skeptical, so the green kid challenged him to some kind of battle. Then, May poked her head through the widow. “Hi Max, what’s going on here?” she said.
“Uh, hi there sis.”
“Your sister?!”
So this kid is Max and he’s May’s younger brother. Interesting.
A few minutes later, everyone was having proper introductions. May introduced her parents, Norman and Caroline, explaining that Max was her little brother.
“My dad is the real leader of the Petalburg Gym!” Max said.
Ash seemed like he was completely in-the-dark about the fact that May was related to the people who ran the Petalburg Gym, but the parents were thankful that Ash walked her home, or something. “Now who’s that little guy right there?” Caroline said, pointing to Aizawa, who was sitting on the ground near Ash.
“That’s Purrloin! We ran into him on the way to Petalburg City! He was sick, so we brought him to the Pokemon center!”
“Oh, is he part of your team?” Caroline asked.
Ash looked a little bummed out. “No…” Wanting to cheer him up, Aizawa gave Ash's leg a pat with his paw. He almost meowed in complaint when Ash started scratching behind his ears, but it felt nice enough that he didn’t bother.
“He seems fond of you,” Norman noted. “But be careful, Purrloin can be difficult to handle even for experienced trainers,” he cautioned.
“Don’t worry!” Ash said. “Purrloin seems really nice.”
What do they mean by trainer?
Then, her two parents started asking May about what ‘Pokemon’ she got from the professor. She brought out a strange red-and-white ball and clicked the button in the center. “Come on out… Torchic!”
There was a brief glow and out of it popped a little orange bird. “Torchic!” the orange bird tweeted.
Alright, what the hell.
Aizawa could ignore the getting-turned-into-a-cat thing. He could ignore the constant talk of battles and ‘Pokemon’ and ‘Pokedexes’ and just call it regional dialect. He could even ignore the yellow rodent (Pikachu??) that was sitting on Ash’s lap, call it a quirked animal or something.
He could NOT ignore the way that orange bird had just popped out of that ball and how everyone was treating it like it was normal.
Something was horribly wrong with this situation, and he had to find out what.