| abstract | - I woke up to the sound of a crackling fire. My head felt like a million tiny miners were using a million tiny jackhammers on the inside. "Gah...That hurts...," I mumbled. Slowly, painfully, I opened my eyes. I found myself in a small cave, laying on a makeshift bed of leaves. There was a fire in the center of the cave, giving off a peaceful, comforting heat. On the other side of the fire was another bed of leaves. Scattered around the cave floor were a few satchels, a wooden spear with a stone head, and what looked like the skeletal remains of a large King crab. The entrance of the cave made up the wall to my left, and I could see that it was nighttime. Next to my leaf-bed was a bowl filled with exotic-looking berries and a pitcher of water. "What in the...?" I asked myself as I sat up, which involved a brief moment where I ended up almost throwing up. "Oorgh," I moaned, clenching my stomach. It was weird, though; my entire being felt totally messed up. I looked down, but I was totally freaked out by what I saw. My stomach was whitish-grey and my whole body looked stubbier and rather bulky. Not to mention blue, and I had a tail with a little light grey spike near the end. My feet had four sharp claws on them, and my arms were tiny with two short claws on them. I quickly reached for the pitcher of water and looked at my reflection. My head was huge, with a ruff of white spikes around my neck. There were two small, light grey, triangular horns on the ridges above my eyes. Two fang-like bits were on each side of my upper jaw, and my eyes were big, a semicircular shape, and red, as opposed to the perfectly round, blue eyes that I used to have. In fact, I looked a lot like... "A Tyrunt?!?" I gasped. "I'm a Tyrunt?!? How---what---why am I a Tyrunt?!?" I leaned against the wall of the cave and tried to collect myself, breathing heavily. Ok, so obviously that voice in the void-thing had done something to me that made me transform into a Tyrunt---a Shiny one, by the looks of myself. And apparently, after I passed out, someone had found me and brought me to this cave. Just then, I heard footsteps outside of the cave. I flattened myself against the wall, not like that would do me any good. After all, a bright blue Tyrunt flattened against a cave wall is bound to be more noticeable than, say, a Sandslash flattened against a mountain of sand. I tried to remember what moves Tyrunts could use as the footsteps came closer. Earthquake; that would work, as long as whatever-it-was couldn't fly or levitate. Dragon Claw; I don't think that would be much use, what with my teeny little arms. Ancient Power; maybe. I could see a silhouette approaching. It didn't look very big, but you never know. I mean, Shuckles aren't that big, but they can deal the most damage out of any Pokémon under certain circumstances. As the silhouette got closer, I saw that it looked sort of like a small Archaeopteryx, so it must've been an Archen. As the Archen got closer, I realized that it was oddly colored: it had a gold beak and claws, and the feathers on its body were purple. The feathers on its head and the end of its wings were silver, as was the spade on the end of its tail. The ruff of feathers around its tail and neck were green, and its eyes were bright yellow, like a real reptile's. The Archen stepped into the cave, and I noticed that it was carrying a bundle of sticks. "Oh, you're awake," said the Archen in a friendly voice. He sounded like he was around my age. "Who are you?" I asked him. "Screech Boulderwing," answered the Archen, tossing the sticks he was carrying into the fire. "How about you?" At that moment, I had a brief moment of panic. I couldn't remember my name! Well, not my real one anyway. The only name that I could remember was Fang. "Um...Fang...err...Sharptooth. Yeah, yeah that's it," I said. "Fang Sharptooth?" asked Screech. "Hmm. How come I've never heard of you?" "Eh?" "Around these parts, everyone knows about everyone," Screech explained. "The nearby town isn't that big, but it's one of the continent's main hubs of keeping track of the population. As a result, whenever a newborn Pokémon is named, they have to go to one of the Population-Keepers and get their names registered. I went over the list yesterday, and there was no mention of a 'Fang Sharptooth' anywhere." "Um...I traveled from another continent?" I tried desperately. "Cut the jokes, 'Fang'," said Screech in a serious manner. "Ok, fine," I said. I told Screech everything I could remember about my past life. I told him about the car crash that killed my parents, the years that I spent living in the abandoned orphanage, the long, lonely days when all I could do was play the Pokémon games that I had left. When I finished, Screech curiously raised an eyebrow, which was weird because I don't remember Archens having eyebrows. "You mean to tell me," he said slowly, "that you're from an alternate universe where 'humans' are the dominant species, where us Pokémon are nothing more than pixels in a video game, and you're here only because you fell asleep and ended up in a weird void thing where a mysterious voice asked you bizarre questions and then turned you into a Shiny Tyrunt?" "Uh...yeah..." "Ok then." "Wait, you believe me?" "Of course I do." Screech ruffled his feathers. "I mean, when you grow up in a world populated by magical creatures, you tend to believe crazy things. Except for that part about humans dominating your world, I guess. In this world, humans went extinct several thousands of years ago in the Great War." Screech looked at the entrance of the cave. "Well, it's getting late," he said. "We should get some sleep." He walked over to the other leaf-bed and curled up on it. "Good night, Fang," he said. And then he went to sleep, right there and then. I lay awake for a while longer, wondering about what Screech had said. Humans had gone extinct in this world? In some kind of war? So was I the first human to enter Pokémon form, or were there others who were simply keeping it a secret? Although my head was filled with questions, I managed to fall into a deep sleep without dreams.
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