AUTHOR NOTE: This story was first published on 07/09/2008 on deviantART. I'm well aware that this first chapter sucks, in fact it's difficult for me to re-read it without cringing. Nevertheless, if you can manage to force yourself past these first few chapters, the story picks up. ^-^;
***
"Yo, Dude! Hey, wait up! Dude!"
Dan Fawcett, ready to turn the corner on his walk home from school, paused after hearing his best friend Luke's call.
"Would it kill you to call me by name, even once?" He asked sarcastically as his friend tried to straighten his breath.
"You're going…huff…the wrong…huff…way, man…" Luke gasped, doubled over in such a position that his glasses seemed only a few seconds away from slipping off his nose.
"I'm pretty sure my house is in this direction," noted Dan dryly as his friend got up and brushed a hand through his short red hair absentmindedly; this was a habit of Luke's that irritated his family to no end.
"You're not going to your house, you're going to mine," Luke said in a cocky voice that still hinted of wheeziness.
"Luke," began Dan exasperatedly, "you're a great guy and all, but this is Friday! The weekend! I got stuff I need to do, important stuff! I don't have time to fool around at your place."
"Ha!" returned his friend with a dramatic air. "No 'stuff' you could possibly think of could ever trump what I've got to show you! Remember that thing I've been working on in my basement?"
"That weird machine you're making that's supposed to play GBA games in 3D?"
"The very one!"
"You're such a nerd, Luke."
"Well, I'll have you know that this 'nerd' finished his project last night and wants you to be there for the maiden voyage!"
"And why exactly is my presence necessary?"
"I'm using your Pokemon Leafgreen cartridge as the test subject!" said Luke as he rummaged through Dan's backpack, fishing out the game from beneath a pile of textbooks.
Waving his newfound prize in front of Dan's irritated face triumphantly, Luke taunted his friend, saying, "The guy who keeps a pokemon game with no system to play it in his backpack twenty-four-seven calls ME a nerd, huh?!"
"Give it back," Dan said with a scowl.
"I'll give it back if you promise to come check it out!"
"Give it back or I'll break your spine," growled Dan. "I'm bigger than you and you know it would only take about three seconds."
"Oh, you say that threat whenever I do anything, so I know you don't mean it. Come on, you know you'll love it! You'll finally get to see all your beloved Pokemon in glorious 3D!"
"I can always do that with Battle Revolution."
"Oh, but you and I both know that Battle Revolution sucks! Besides, does Battle Revolution allow you to see Professor Oak in three synthesized dimensions?"
"Not exactly what I'd call a selling point," muttered Dan, changing his walk to the direction of Luke's house, signifying his friend's victory in the argument.
"Oh yeah! I win every time!" cheered Luke, handing his friend back his game.
After walking and making idle chatter for a few minutes, Luke suddenly got a devilish grin on his face and said, "Oh, I forgot to mention, my sister will be especially happy you're coming over."
"Your sister?" asked Dan with incredulity. "What does she have to do with anything?"
"Oh, nothing much, she just has a crush on you."
"MISSY?! That's disgusting! Your sister's like what, twelve?"
"Fifteen."
"Well, whatever, that still makes her two years younger than me. What does she see in me, anyways? I've only ever said like two words to her!"
"I honestly don't know," teased Luke. "Maybe it's your hairdo."
Dan scowled as his hand instinctively tried to flatten his hair, as it always did whenever somebody brought it up. Easily Dan's least favorite aspect about his appearance, Dan's unruly brown hair always managed to stay messy and tangled no matter how many attempts would be made to straighten it out with a comb or hairgel.
"You're a jerk, Luke, you know that?" he said with venom.
"Oh, I know full well. And, I BASK in that knowledge," Luke taunted as they arrived at his house.
Luke's parents weren't home, so Luke told his friend to wait in the basement while he called upstairs for his sister.
"HEY, MISSY!" he screamed up the staircase. "I'M GONNA FIRE UP THAT THING I'VE BEEN BUILDING!! WANNA COME CHECK IT OUT?"
She yelled back that she'd be down in a few minutes.
"Does she have to come down?" pleaded Dan, thinking of all the discomfort and awkwardness that would come from being in the same room as a younger teenager with a crush on him.
"Oh, definitely. She wouldn't stop making snide comments about how I was wasting my time and whatnot, so she wouldn't miss a chance to see my failure in action! Or, so she thinks. I'm gonna laugh in her face when my machine works perfectly. Here, hand me that Pokemon game. Oh, and you can help yourself to a can of pop, too, they're in that fridge in the corner."
Dan got out some soda while his friend tinkered with the large machine in the corner.
"Oh yeah," muttered Luke to himself, "If this works out I'm pretty much guaranteed a job at Nintendo."
"That's funny," noted Dan, "I keep finding myself with the thought that if word of this ever got back to Nintendo, they'd hand you your ass on a legal platter."
"Oh, I completely agree," came a feminine voice down the stairs as Missy made her appearance. Luke didn't even glance up or make a snappy comeback, and thanks to what Luke told Dan on their way over to the house, Dan tried his best to avoid eye contact, though he still caught a glimpse of her tall stature and long, dark hair out of the corner of his eye.
"So, brother," noted Missy in a cheerfully mocking tone, "looks like it's finally time for the trial by fire, huh?"
"You may laugh," said Luke with pride, "until you see…THIS!!" And he flipped the switch.
Absolutely nothing happened.
Missy gave a series of barely stifled laughs behind her hand while Dan couldn't help but take a sip of his soda before sarcastically noting, "Nice."
"But," whined Luke, "but…oh! Duh!" He exclaimed suddenly. "I was so excited last night that I took the projector's screen upstairs and decided to clean it! Be right back!"
And with that, he was gone.
"What a dork." Observed Missy as her brother vanished.
"Um, uh, yeah," agreed Dan tentatively, not wanting to get drawn into a conversation with her.
"I can't believe he has nothing better to do than spend his days making a projector and his nights cleaning the stupid parts in anticipation," she continued, railing against her brother.
"Uh-huh," Dan replied, trying--and failing--to make his role in this conversation nonchalant.
"Hey, what's up with you? From what I've seen of you, you're a lot more talkative than this," Missy said curiously as she noticed Dan's odd behavior.
"Well, it's just that, um, well, you're brother told me on the way over here."
"Told you…what, exactly?" she asked with confusion.
"He told me that you have a, um, a crush on me."
There was a moment of awkward silence before Missy said, in a seething voice, "Oh, I'm going to kill him."
"Listen," began Dan, "it's okay, it's just--"
"But I DON'T!!" she interrupted.
"You…don't?" he asked in a somewhat hurt manner.
"No, I don't!" she responded exasperatedly. "That two-timing, conniving freak! I can't believe he lied to you and said I have a crush!
"Um," she said, suddenly shifting gears after realizing that she could possibly be dealing Dan's self-esteem a blow, "not that you're not, y'know, handsome or, uh, likeable. It's just that I don't really think that I've ever really felt anything that could really be called, y'know, a crush. But I don't mean that--"
"Yeah, I get it," said Dan, trying to ease the mutual embarrassment, "I should have realized Luke was lying, he does that sort of thing all the time. It's no big deal, really."
"Oh, okay," said Missy with relief and still obvious embarrassment. "Hey," she said, trying to change the conversation, "is that machine still running?"
"Yeah. Do you think it's okay for my game to still be in there? What if it breaks?"
"Oh, Luke," said Missy exasperatedly, shaking her head, "he spends his time making geeky stuff like this, and then forgets the lens and leaves it alone while still running even though it's missing a crucial part. Not to mention he gets his kicks out of telling blatant lies to people and watching their reactions. It's stuff like this that makes me think he's never going to attract any sort of lady as a friend."
Dan had been drinking some pop when he heard this, and couldn't help but laugh, spraying the soda out of his mouth in a guffaw.
"Ex-Excuse me," he said embarrassedly, "I didn't mean that to happen."
"It's no trouble…" began Missy before an odd sizzing sound interrupted her. The two teens turned and looked at the source of the sounds: exposed wiring coming out from the walls, which had been sprayed with soda when Dan had laughed. The wiring was making strange sounds, and Luke's machine was humming and some lights were flickering oddly.
"I think you broke it," said Missy in a nervous voice.
"I didn't mean to!" returned Dan angrily.
However, suddenly the odd sounds stopped as the ceiling light went out, and the refrigerator stopped making its hum. Luke's machine was making more noise than ever.
"It's sucking up the power!" realized Missy.
Suddenly, the machine stopped making noise and shot out a beam of light that concentrated into a brilliant, hovering sphere of pure white.
"HEY, GUYS, WHAT HAPPENED?" cried Luke from upstairs.
"YOU HAVE TO COME CHECK THIS OUT, MAN!" yelled back Dan. "IT'S WORKING!!!"
As he heard Luke shambling about upstairs (no doubt hurriedly collecting other missing components) Missy began tentatively walking toward the shining orb.
"Hey," asked Dan cautiously, "you sure you should be doing that?"
"It's just a projection, isn't it?" she returned. "Just a hologram." And she reached out her finger and touched it.
The sphere seemed to shrink for a moment, before an encompassing light shot out of it. Missy and Dan were nearly blinded by it, and both felt their bodies being sort of sucked inwards. As light danced up the basement steps, Luke dropped all his equipment. "To hell with this," he muttered, "I'm missing it!" And he rushed towards the stairs, only to see from the top of the staircase that the entire basement was filled with a bizarre illumination; there was a loud sucking sound, as one would hear from a vacuum, and barely audible over that were the yells of Dan and Missy. The light seemed to get brighter, and the sound louder, until it stopped.
Rushing down the stairs, Luke began yelling, "Hey! Hey! Are you guys alright?" But he stopped when he opened the basement door.
Neither Dan nor Missy could be seen.
---
After the light subsided, Dan's vision was still blurred, but he could see a myriad of color playing about in the corners of his eyes. His body felt very queasy, as though he had just gotten off a roller coaster, and he felt his consciousness slipping...slipping…slipping…
---
Missy was in such pain she would surely have chosen to lose consciousness if the choice was presented to her. After touching the light, she had been pulled inwards, and when it was gone, she too found herself in a multicolored plane. What is this? she found herself wondering, until a sudden shiver racked her entire body, followed by a bout of stinging pain. "Ow !" she said--or, at least, attempted to say: her voice came out as a high, melodious growl. What on earth? she wondered as she put her hand up to her throat, only to find that her hand had become a sort of paw covered in very dark grey fur.
Suddenly, patches of fur seemed to erupt from her skin wherever the pain was. Letting out a series of fearful growls as her body morphed from human to small and feral, Missy closed her eyes as the colors around her seemed to dance even faster in such speed it was almost nauseating. She could feel herself being pulled and twisted almost inside out, and when it seemed to be over, she was so small she was lost in her shirt, until her clothing seemed to burn away. Then she opened her eyes and found that the colors were gone, but below her a floor that looked as though it were made of concrete seemed to loom up at her. Missy quickly closed her eyes again and braced for impact, but when she seemed to stop falling, she opened her eyes tentatively and found she was standing unharmed on the concrete.
Now that her immediate safety was confirmed, Missy's agenda turned to examining what changes had been wrought on her body. Turning about, Missy soon realized she was on all fours (her feet and hands all turned to paws) and her body was almost entirely covered in dark, stormy grey fur, except at the end of her tail (since when did she have a tail?) and in a mane-like bushel of fur about her neck, where it was a pale silver.
Suddenly, she caught a familiar scent, which disoriented her. When…when did I start recognizing things by scent? she found herself wondering. She soon identified the scent as belonging to Dan; he was around the corner in a hallway.
"Dan? DAN!" she yelled, sprinting over to him (too worried to care that she was still going on all fours, or that her yells had come out as "Vee! Eevee!")
"Are you alright?" she asked as she nudged him with her new nose, trying to stir him. "Get up!" Now, however, she noticed her odd manner of speech. And, she found herself wondering, Why isn't HE all furry? Realizing that he wasn't waking up any time soon, she looked around at her new surroundings.
She seemed to be in a lab of some sort, with odd instruments constructed of sinister metal and glass about her. However, the lab appeared to have been abandoned for some time; many of the machines showed signs of disuse and rust, there was dust and grime all over the floor, and the wall paper was peeling. The wall itself was crumbling in some spots.
"What kind of place is this?" Missy asked herself.
"'This place' happens to be my home," came a rumbling reply from behind her. Missy turned about, aware of a sudden pungency assailing her sense of smell, to catch view of what appeared to be an animate pile of purple slime with eyeballs.
"Well now, little Eevee," gurgled the creature, "aren't you something special, eh?"
"What do you mean?!" asked Missy, aware that she and the creature were having a conversation by repeating the same sounds over and over. She kept on saying "Vee! Eevee vee!" Her converser's vocabulary seemed to be even more limited, as he had only said, "Muk! Muk muk muk MUK muk! Muk muk!"
"What do I mean?" returned back the thing with a chuckle. "What I mean is that where most Eevee are brown, you are grey…and, where most Eevee are white, you are silver! Or, has this trainer of yours isolated you from the rest of your species, so that you don't know just how unique you are, eh? I wouldn't blame him: he must prize you a whole lot, thanks to that unique coloration."
Trainer? she thought in confusion. And then, realization stuck her like a train. Trainer…Eevee…isn't 'Eevee' a kind of pokemon? It is! I'm sure it is! And wasn't the game Luke was testing a pokemon game? I'm sure it was! This body…I've become a pokemon!
The Muk seemed startled when the Eevee he was addressing suddenly collapsed and started crying. "HEY! What's wrong, eh? What're you crying about?"
"I-I don't want to b-be a pokemon! This isn't happening!" came Missy's sobbing voice from the racking furry body.
"You don't want to be a…pokemon?!" The Muk was obviously not understanding what was going on. "Well, what DO you want to be, eh? A human? Talk about an identity crisis!"
"SHUT UP!!" came Missy's sobbing voice, her emotions flowing from sadness to angry denial. "Just SHUT UP, you walking pile of smelly waste!"
There was a tense moment of silence before the Muk responded with anger. "Pile…of smelly…WASTE?!? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU'RE TALKING TO!?"
"SHUT UP!!" yelled back Missy, getting to her feet. "You stupid, smelly, ugly, THING!! You're not even REAL!"
"NOT REAL, EH?!" roared the Muk, not realizing Missy was only insulting him to have something to take out her emotions on. "WELL, TELL ME HOW FAKE YOU THINK THIS IS!!" And he lunged at her, intending to smash her into the wall. Missy gave a sort of gasp and jumped to the side, astounded at her newfound agility and reflexes. The Muk hit the wall with a mighty splat.
Dan began stirring. As he sat up, clasping his aching head, he noticed something. "Hey, look," he said in a befuddled state, "a Muk and an Eevee. I think they're fighting. Is that Eevee shiny? No…shiny Eevee are silver and white, but this one is grey and silver…" Suddenly his head cleared as he realized the ramifications of what he was seeing for the first time. "OH MY GOD!!" He screamed. "A MUK AND AN EEVEE!!"
Dan! Thought Missy as she heard his voice. He's awake! The momentary pause she took was all the Muk needed to fling a sizeable ball of sludge at her, sending her careening into the wall.
"HAH!" Yelled the Muk in triumph. "NOW WHO'S NOT REAL, EH?! EH?!"
Missy got to her feet angrily, and made a dash, sending her skull into her gloating opponent's stomach. The Muk let out an "Oof!" as Missy ran to take another position. How did I know where to hit? she wondered. And, how am I still fighting? I just got thrown into the wall! If I was still human, that could have knocked me out or even killed me! But now that I'm smaller, I can shrug it off like it was no big deal?! What happened to me?
The Muk regained his composure and began throwing volley after volley of sludge at his opponent. As Missy was forced to back into a corner, defeat seemed inevitable. Dan, who had been watching the fight with enthusiasm, realized he didn't want the little Eevee to get hurt. "Hey!" he yelled, shakily getting to his feet. "Leave the Eevee alone!"
The Muk turned around and stared at him, wildness in it's eyes. "Muk MUK muk muk MUK muk muk?" ("So, you don't want me to hurt her, eh?") it asked the human. "MUK! Muk muk MUK muk MUUUUUUUUUUKKKKKK!" ("Fine! I'll just aim for you instead!")
As the pile of slime lunged towards Dan, he realized how foolish his comment had been. He turned to run, but his legs were still weak, and he collapsed. As the Muk got closer, he braced himself for a lot of pain, when suddenly an enormous ball of fire shot out of nowhere and slammed into the wild pokemon's back, collapsing it.
"Hit it again, Ruby!" Called a commanding voice. The order was followed by another ball of flame, hurting the Muk even more. "Good! And now, for the coup de grace!" And a Great Ball flew out of nowhere and hit the Muk, capturing it in no time flat.
Both Dan and Missy looked in awe at the Ponyta who appeared from down the hall and the large man accompanying her. He was tall and bald, with a prominent mustache and sunglasses. He wore a dirty-looking lab coat. As the man picked up the Great Ball, Dan--still seated on the ground--spoke in an awe-filled voice. "Good lord," he said with wonder, "you're Blaine!"
Blaine? wondered Missy, shakily trotting out of the slime-filled corner. Who's Blaine?
The scientist/Gym Leader turned to Dan and gave the boy a cocky smile. "Right you are, m'boy," he said with a laugh, "right you are!"