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The harsh cold of the Frosty Forest was brutal, unwavering, and most of all… well, freezing. Ivy the Eevee could feel her paw pads throbbing in pain as she walked through the dense snow. She desperately wished that there was another way through this forest, but just from a quick observation of her surroundings, gauging how dense the forest truly was, she knew that there was no chance of that.
The chance of anything going her way was well out of the picture.
That was apparent the moment she had awoken and found herself as a Pokemon, rather than a human. It was jarring, to put it lightly. Nearly all memories of her past life, just… ripped away from her, with no regard for how it’d affect her. Why, out of all nearly 8 billion humans that existed, was she chosen? Why should she have to suffer through this confusion? Did she do something wrong as a human? If she did, it surely wasn’t anything she could remember. She barely even remembered her own name, for goodness sake!
It wasn’t fair.
And to make matters worse, she couldn’t even live as a Pokemon in peace. From the very moment she was plopped into this world, she was told about some crisis with natural disasters, and then made to join a rescue team, with… Adoh. Her partner. She was a Torchic, and a rather feisty one. She’s likely the only thing keeping Ivy sane in this messed up situation.
The only one. Everything else sucked.
She and Adoh formed Team FireFluff. It may have been a slightly generic name, but they both thought it was cute. After forming the team, they went through a bunch of different rescues… all while getting little to no answers on her situation. As nice as everything was, she wanted to know how to turn back into a human.
That’s all she really wants.
She wants nothing else. Nothing to do with rescuing random strangers. Nothing to do with natural disasters. Nothing to do with random dreams of a Gardevior. Nothing to do with Ninetails or Zapdos or Xatu or Gengar or ANYTHING to do with…
…With Team ACT.
…Of which, she and Adoh, are currently running from.
She’s a fugitive.
…A criminal. And a framed one, at that. If she had done anything to Ninetails, she certainly would have remembered it. She would’ve remembered doing such an act. But no. Gengar had to make a public callout to everyone in Pokemon Square, making her out to be some sort of… awful person. If anyone was awful, it was HIM. She has nothing to do with the natural disasters. What could she, a lowly Eevee with no memory of anything before becoming a Pokemon, possibly have to do with natural disasters? It started happening before she even came here! Why couldn’t they recognize that? Are all of the Pokemon in Pokemon Square just that DENSE?
It’s not her fault that the world’s falling apart. It’s not HER fault that some idiot decided that touching the tails of some dumb Ninetails would be a good idea. It’s NOT HER FAULT that she’s been framed. IT’S NOT HER FAULT THAT SHE’S TURNED INTO A POKEMON!
NONE OF THIS IS HER FAULT!
“Ivy!” a voice suddenly yells, breaking her out of her thoughts. “Hey! Ivy!” It’s Adoh. She’s staring at her with such an intense gaze, like she’d just seen someone’s soul get sucked out of them.
“Wh- Huh?” Ivy mutters out, zoning back in. She’s still in the dense, cold forest. The snow under her is just as freezing as it was moments ago, almost more so. Her paw pads feel numb, and the skin underneath her bottom fur is so, so cold… Adoh is still looking at her, waiting intensely for some sort of response. “U-uh… Sorry… I kinda, zoned out a bit.”
“‘A bit’ might be a little bit of an understatement,” Adoh says matter-of-factly, narrowing her eyes. “Are… Are you feeling alright?”
“Y-Yeah!” Ivy quickly blurts out. “I just… I-I think all of this walking is starting to get to me.” She sits down on her behind, looking around with more care. The forest is seemingly less dense, and there’s a Kangaskhan rock behind them. “Where are we?”
“We’re at the entrance of the Mystery dungeon,” Adoh replies. “I was trying to tell you about it, but that’s when I noticed you just… staring out into space.” Adoh’s expression shifts, looking slightly warmer and more caring. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, I promise.” She lets out a sigh. motioning one of her forepaws up to her face. Looking down at it, it seems extremely discolored, closer to a blueish gray rather than the usual red/beige tint. It’s also somewhat cracked.
Adoh’s eyes widen. “Oh my gosh,” she says, sounding slightly panicked. “You’ve got frostbite.” She immediately kneels down, moving her beak closer to the frostbitten paw pad. “Here, hold them both out. I think I can help a little bit.”
Ivy does so, but looks at Adoh skeptically. “I-I don’t think that will help much.” She says. In an instant, Adoh breathes out a small constant flame, bombarding the pads with heat. As Adoh breathes the flame, her eyes flutter, focusing intently on heating the paw pads up. As Ivy watches, she feels a small heat growing on her face. As weird as it is, it’s somewhat… comforting, seeing her partner just help her out with something that’s… well, mundane, almost.
She feels her heart beat in her chest every so slightly faster.
Eventually, the numbness in her paw pads turns to a faint burning sensation… And then into a strong one. “Agh!” Ivy yelps out, instantly pulling her paw pads away from where Adoh is breathing the flame.
The Torchic looks up, giving a slight smile. “Burning now?” she asks. Ivy nods hastily. “Good. That means the numbness is starting to fade.” Adoh then drops the bag around her shoulder, flaps it open with her head, and pulls an Aspear Berry out of it with her beak.
Adoh motions her head down towards Ivy’ forepaws. Ivy follows her, holding them out again. The burning sensation is still present. Adoh holds her beak with the berry in it over Ivy’s forepaws, and begins to slowly smush its juices into the paw pads. “Is this supposed to help with the frostbite?” Adoh nods as she continues. The rubbing is uncomfortable. But, if it helps, then so be it, Ivy thinks. Adoh keeps going until eventually, the berry is completely gone.
“Kind of a clumsy way to do it, but it will definitely help,” Adoh says. She continues to speak as she puts her head into her bag. Ivy stares at her, unsure of what’s coming next. The Torchic pulls her head out of the bag, now with two random Scarfs in her beak. She places them on the ground.
“Put them around your paws,” Adoh says, looking up at Ivy. “It’ll help protect them from getting even colder.” Ivy does so, struggling only a little bit to wrap them around. When she’d first turned into a Pokemon, it was hard adjusting to not having any proper hands, but after this long, she’d somehow gotten used to it.
…She wasn’t used to everything else about being a Pokemon, though.
She finally gets them around her paws, and then places them down on the snow. It definitely isn’t as unbearably cold as before, but it’s still pretty uncomfortable. “I think I got it…” Ivy mutters out, looking down at her now covered paws.
“Good,” Adoh states. She turns around, heading for the dungeon entrance. “If there’s nothing else we need to do, I think we should be prepared for this dungeon.”
Ivy follows behind. The scarfs make it more awkward to walk around, but it definitely helps with the cold. “I-I don’t have anything else to do to prepare,” Ivy squeaks out. “I’ve got plenty of storage room in my own bag.” She looks back to the bag around her back, which has so far helped to give her a little bit of warmth.
“Great! C’mon let’s hurry! We don’t wanna get caught.” Adoh runs into the dungeon, passing through the dungeon entrance.
“Oh shoot, right,” In the small tender moment, Ivy had forgotten that she and Adoh were still on the run, so they really needed to pick up the pace.
As Ivy follows into the dungeon, she hopes that she’ll be able to stay focused and not let her thoughts get to her.
They’re in a battle. A rough one. In the middle of their dungeon exploration, some jerk of a Lairon decided to pop in and give them a rough time. Ivy was already on edge enough as it was, so for a Feral Dungeon Pokemon to show up and make her already frantically panicked mind even more overloaded…
It was almost too much to handle.
Right now, the Eevee was crouching down, waiting for the Lairon to strike. Adoh was at the other side of it, readying a Flame Charge. Ivy herself couldn’t really do much against the burly Rock type with many of her moves, so she resorted to giving Adoh a Helping Hand, powering up her moves.
“Flame Charge!” Adoh cries out, immediately enveloping herself in a ball of fire. The small but mighty Torchic was able to put a pretty decent dent in the health of the Lairon. It was starting to falter. Ivy now had a chance to strike. She just couldn’t mess this up…
Mess this up… I can’t… Not like everything else that I’ve already messed up, she thinks. Her own past track record is against her at this moment. In mostly every other rescue job she’d done, she hadn’t been that big of a team player. Most of the time, it was Adoh that carried her through most of their fights and battles, and this one was no different.
What could Ivy even do here? Use Quick Attack on it? No. Not strong enough. She could use Swift, which probably would’ve been enough to knock it out, but she’d only recently started to get the hang of the move. Can’t do that.
She looked to Adoh. The Torchic always seemed to have the confidence to do literally anything, even if it was misplaced. She was rather hasty, always rushing into things, but that’s part of the charm, right? Adoh just always knew what to do, and Ivy… Well, she felt… lost.
Her gaze falters. Even at this moment, she is so, so very lost. She’s a fugitive, running from Pokemon that want to eliminate her. Pokemon that she thought she could trust. Some trust, she thinks. The only one that seems to trust her is Adoh. But… why? What has Ivy done to earn that trust? She’s just been a huge hindrance to the team. If it weren’t for her, they wouldn’t be on the run. Adoh could be peacefully living her life, without the crutch that was tagging along with Ivy.
Ivy felt hopeless.
She glances back at Adoh. Ivy feels bad. What reason does the Torchic have to stick around with her? Ivy isn’t even any help in battles. She’s just some dumb human that got turned into a dumb Pokemon.
…She sees Adoh’s expression shift to pure panic, and before Ivy can process what it means, the Torchic screams, “Ivy! Watch out!” The Eevee turns back, seeing what’s coming her way. The Lairon is making a beeline for her. Ivy tries to move out of the way, but…
Her body refuses to move. She tries to get out of the way, but something prevents her from moving.
She’s completely frozen. Locked in place. Her confusion turns to utter dread.
In the next instant, the Lairon bashes its head against Ivy’s front side, and she’s sent flying. The Eevee rolls against the snowy ground, before stopping dead on with a tree behind her. Her body flails in the air, before falling down, going completely limp.
“IVY!” she hears Adoh scream out. Ivy can’t process anything else. Her eyes are clamped shut. Her head thankfully isn’t hurting, but her backside, where she hit the tree, absolutely aches. She musters up the strength to open her eyes ever so slightly. The Lairon is making a run for Ivy again. Please… Adoh, she meakly thinks.
Almost as if on cue, Adoh rushes in front of Ivy, her feathers ruffling in anger. She can’t see her face, but just based on how much they’re sticking up, she’s likely PISSED. There’s a pause. The Lairon stops, and then the next thing Ivy sees is a blinding red light. She shields her eyes. The flame that Adoh lets out is so strong, it’s almost breathtakingly horrifying.
In the next instant, the Lairon is gone, and the flames stop. In Ivy’s mind, Adoh just completely disintegrated the poor thing, but she knows that it’s just vanished, like every Feral Dungeon Pokemon.
Ivy can’t even process anything before Adoh turns around, looking at Ivy with pure horror. She half expected the Torchic to just start yelling at her for standing around like a total idiot, but Adoh was too nice for that. “A-Are you okay!?” the Torchic blurts out. “I-I saw that you weren’t moving, and I noticed you had that same look on your face like last time! Wh-What’s going on!?” Adoh seems so terribly concerned. It’s enough to make Ivy start crying.
She musters up the strength to stand. Her back’s killing her, but she has to say something. “I… I-I got lost. Frozen. Frozen in thought,” she mutters out, a tear falling from her face.
“It’s okay,” Adoh coos, giving an affirming nudge on Ivy’s forearm. “I just… I got really worried for a second.” Now Ivy’s both crying and blushing profusely. The warmth of Adoh’s feathers is enough to calm her down, soothing her overwhelmed senses.
“Adoh…” Ivy mutters. “Why… Why do you stick with me? Those Pokemon… They’re after me, not you. So… You… You shouldn’t…”
“Hey, stop that,” Adoh firmly states, making Ivy slightly recoil. “We’re a team. We have to stick together, no matter what.”
“But, Gengar-”
“Who gives a crap what Gengar thinks!?” Adoh yells, reverberating around the forest. “You matter more than whatever he says. I care about you, Ivy.”
Ivy sniffles, letting her last tear fall. She smiles. “I… Thank you. I think I needed to hear that.” The two Pokemon smile at each other.
A wind suddenly blows in the forest. They’ve been lingering for too long and need to get moving. They wordlessly look at each other, and nod. Adoh helps Ivy get moving again, and they both begin to make their way through the dungeon once again. Even if there's still a lot of questions that Ivy has, she doesn’t have to face any of them alone.
That’s the thought that counts the most.