The Red Stripe

When Nathan woke up, it was to the soft sound of crying.

The first thing that hit him, even before he could open his eyes, was how weird the ground felt under his back. Wet blades of grass, the irregularities of the ground, and a pebble or two pressing against him–it all felt impossibly dulled or distorted as though there were some thick layers of clothes, unnaturally adherent to his bare skin, between him and the earth.

However, what really forced him back to his senses was a maddening pressure at the base of his back. It was like like someone, somehow, had managed to grasp his tailbone and was slightly flexing it, almost as to see how much it could bend without snapping from the rest of the spine. While not really painful, it was an extremely uncomfortable sensation. In his half-asleep state he reasoned it must have been just a tree root or a stone poking through the sand of the desert directly on the extremely sensitive bone through the thin layer of flesh that covered it.

Wait a minute... a tree root? Grass? In the desert? What the...

Memories of his last few hours flooded his mind with force; the travel, his clients, the sharp crack of the barrier breaking, Beatrix and everyone else passing out, and finally the taste of sand in his mouth as he fell to the ground.

After that, only a faraway, deep voice, and everything went dark.

What happened?

Nathan blinked a few times before succeeding in opening his eyes, and found himself looking up at the green foliage of a large tree.

Oookay, not in the desert anymore, that's for sure. Where am I?

Fighting back a light headache, he started pushing himself in a sitting position, but while doing so he noticed several odd things.

First, he couldn't feel anything clearly under his fingers, or even his fingers themselves. Not unlike his back, most of the sensitivity of his forearms was muffled. The only truly sensitive part left were the centres of his palms, that somehow felt bigger than they had been previously.

Second, slightly above where his ears were supposed to be, muscles that were everything but familiar were twitching like mad, reacting to every single little sound around, be it the chirping of a flying type or the creaking of a branch moved by the wind.

The last thing he noticed was that the more he straightened himself to take a sitting position, the more that annoying 'pulling' sensation at the base of his spine increased, until it became nothing short of unbearable. He absolutely needed to find out what was causing it and make it to stop.

As he looked down, his breathing came to a sudden halt.

He was sitting on a large, white, and bushy tail, poking from two equally as hairy and white legs, way shorter than they had been before, that ended in stubby paws with three little claws coming from each of them, always covered in white fur. As he shifted his weight a little, the tail joint was finally freed from his whole weight and the pressure he had felt disappeared, almost as if that tail was his own.

But there was no way that was possible.

Above said legs, in place of his clothes and familiar Pokéball belt, was a wide belly that shared the same hairiness and, mostly, color scheme. His eyes, that had become gradually wider with every passing second, followed a red stripe that criss-crossed over the body in a vaguely 'S' shaped pattern, from the right flank all the way to the left shoulder.

Attached to it was a long, hairy limb with the same color scheme: white for the most part while the forearm was red, the shade of the color the same of the stripe he had seen on the stomach. What really caught his eye, however, were the two great, jet-black claws, gleaming under the sunlight, poking from a stubby paw where his hand had been before.

When he tried to raise his hand, the paw answered.

When he flexed his fingers, the claws were the ones to move.

When he raised said paw to his eyes, he saw a pink, soft pad where his palm was supposed to be. Bringing it to his face, he felt no nose jutting out from his usually flat face, but a solid, short muzzle.

His whole body froze.

It couldn't be happening. He refused to believe it. It was a dream for sure. It had to be.

Suddenly, his lungs felt like they were about to burst and he released the breath he had forgotten he had been holding since he had first seen that tail. As he gulped down more and more air, he instinctively brought a hand to his neck.

As the familiar texture of his old neck warmer greeted him, and with it a cold, tiny shape, his breath got caught in his lungs once again.

He didn't even need to look at it to know what it was, as he had bared it on him everyday since he had left home. It was a little, metallic pin, shaped as his home town emblem, a five-petals flower with three little hexagons at its center. Together with the neckwarmer it was attached to, it had been his mother's last present for him before he had left home, almost ten years before. 'The pin is to remember you always have a home here', she had said, proud and worried at the same time, when he had left for his adventure.

'And the neckwarmer to avoid catching a cold' she had joked as the tears finally swelled in her eyes.

It had been the last time he had seen her.

This is real. Nathan realized as he caressed the warm cloth and the pin. During his travels, he had not got through every obstacle completely unscathed, nor had that pin that had almost become a part of him with time.

A nick on the first petal reminded him of that time he had fell in a quite deep ditch, during his second mission as a Galactic grunt. Back then, he still believed they were going to change the world, and he would have been a part of it. A familiar cold rage swelled in his stomach.

A scrape on the center made him shudder, as it was the proof of a battle he couldn't ever forget, when he and his fellows had battled, and eventually defeated, the powerful Willpower Pokémon at Lake Valor. When the enraged Legendary had flung him against the walls of the cave, he had thought he was going to die, but he had been saved by Satellite and Commander Saturn at the last second. He felt a little smile tug at his lips; not many people could claim to have battled a Legendary, and that was one of the few memories of his time with the Team he was still somehow proud of.

As he lingered on the crinkle on the fourth petal, he felt a spike of phantom pain on the right side of his chest, memento of when he had personally learned how brutal his Azure could be. It was from the time she had broken four of his ribs as he tried to restrain her from killing a Pokémon, several times her size, belonging to a young, enthusiast kid that had challenged him. Even if in the end her unlucky opponent had survived, she had crippled it so badly that at the time Nathan had doubted it could have ever battle again.

And so on, every nick or scrape on the little piece of metal was a mark left by one of his adventures, and as his hand, or paw, found them, the body remembered too every single one of them as it had always done.

By then, he couldn't deny it anymore. That alien body really was his own.

He had become a Zangoose.

"Sweet Shaymin..." he muttered looking vacantly at himself.

What exactly happened? How is this possible? Who... no! the now Normal-type Pokémon shook his head trying to suppress the endless series of doubts flooding his mind. He had more pressing matters to deal with at the moment.

Turning his head he looked all around himself to check his surroundings, but he saw only trees and plants, not even a single sign of the rest of his group. "Beatrix! Garz! Satellite! Can you hear me?" he shouted looking around if any of the released members of his team answered, but with no avail, the only result being every single little Flying-type in a radius of a half mile flying away for the sudden sound. "Mister Checker! Miss Sally! Aley! Is anyone here at all?"

When he received no answer once more, he growled in frustration and slowly pulled himself upright. Even without considering the absurdity of his actual state, the situation was still really bad. He was alone, had no idea where he or any member of his team was, his backpack with all his provisions had disappeared and even the family he was supposed to protect was missing.

His best shot, he reasoned, would have been finding some place set apart from the uniformity of the forest, the top of a hill, a particularly big tree or maybe even a settlement, and hope that the rest of the group would have been drawn to it too.

As he started walking away the bushes behind him rustled violently, as something hidden inside them started moving. Out of instinct he never had before, he tensed the muscles in his paws, forcing his claws to stretch out, and turned to face the moving undergrowth.

That, if he hadn't tripped on his own, new paws. Cursing under his breath he instinctively reached out to slow down the fall, but his now oversized arm reached all the way to the ground, allowing him to stop himself.

Some part of his mind remembered him that Zangoose were indeed quadrupedal Pokémon and walked on two only in rare occasion or when human-trained to do so, but his attention was soon drawn back to the rustling leaves. If hiding in there was some kind of territorial, enraged wild Pokémon, he was going to be in trouble, even if it was smaller than him, enough to hide in the relatively little bush.

The leaves directly in front of him started to shake, and all he could do was to brace himself and hope that the Pokémon about to emerge was not hostile.

The creature that shily poked its head from behind the branches, however, gave him pause.

Nathan actually had to squint his eyes a little to get a good look at it, so well its body covered in leaves blended with the vegetation. The only things that stood out were the two little auburn eyes staring at him, wet with tears, encased in a large head resembling a bulb with some long leaves sprouting from the tip. He quickly recognized it as a Petilil, a small Grass-type found almost solely in Unova, the only region where the prairies hadn't been overrun by the way too common mixed Grass and Poison types, more resistant than pure Grass-types like the Pokémon in front of him and with a critical typing advantage over them.

The specimen in front of him was rather small compared to the few he had seen, usually in possession of traveling trainers from the faraway region, meaning it was either really young or born weaker than the standard. From its behaviour, looking scaredly at him with its onion-like head hidden behind the faint repair of some leaves, Nathan decided it probably was the first case, as the curiosity it showed was a clear sign of young age.

By the way, Nathan reasoned that it also meant the little Pokémon probably didn't have ill intentions, and so allowed himself to relax.

That, before the little Pokémon spoke to him.

"W-who are you?"

Nathan looked at the little creature like it had just grown a second head, and not only for the fact that a Pokémon had just spoken to him and he had understood it. It was the voice. He knew that voice. Only a few hours before, he had been sure that it would have been an integral part of his future nightmares, so much it had grated on his nerves.

"M-miss Aley? Is that you?" he said with a voice only slightly above a whisper, completely stunned by the implications of what he was witnessing.

"H-how do you know my name?  Do you know w-where is m-m-mommy?" the little Petilil asked trying, and failing, to suppress the tears swelling in her eyes and the sobs wracking her voice. "I-I-I want mommy! Where is mommy? I-I-I-Uh... uuuuh."

As the Pokémon that Aley had, seemingly, become started weeping, alternating heart-breaking wails and choking sobs, Nathan recognized those soft cries as the ones that had woken him up, and found himself unsure about what to do.

On one hand, Aley's presence as a Pokémon not only forced him to think about his own transformation again, but it also entailed a whole new realm of implications and questions that needed further reasoning and thought. On the other, the little girl was clearly in dire help of some comfort, especially considered that she had been crying since even before he had woken up, but because of the fact that nor her parents nor Beatrix were there at the moment, that task fell on his shoulders, even if he had always been quite bad with kids.

No, scratch that, I have always been downright horrible with dealing with them... Maybe if I wait a moment she will calm down and stop... Yes, that sounds like a plan! Just let her blow off! Wait for it... wait... for...

"A-a-aaaah! I wanna mommyyyy! Mommyyy!"

Oh, damn you Beatrix, where are you? Dealing with children has always been your thing! Seeing that she was not going to stop anytime soon, he resigned himself to his fate and took an hesitant step towards the weeping Pokémon-kid. That stopped her wailing immediately, but in its place a look of utter fear took over the Petilil face as she retreated back in the brush, causing Nathan to stop once again.

Oh, right, she doesn't know who I am... And even if I told her she would probably be just too scared to listen to me... Okay, think, scared, distraught little girl, probably no really coherent thought in her head... Oh, c'mon, it's almost like having to deal with Monaghan just after I caught him all over again! Wait... I could act the same way... after all now she's a Pokémon too now, even of his same type...

Slowly, Nathan started to bend his knees and lower himself on the ground so to reduce the size gap between them without breaking eye contact, until he found himself on all fours, a position he even found strangely comfortable, and his head was held barely higher than Aley's one. Then, he just stood still, waiting for her to make her move.

After a few, interminable minutes, Aley started to inch away from the safety of the brush and approached him.

"Hi, Aley." he greeted her with the most calming tone he could muster despite the fact his patience was already starting to run thin, as attested by his tail lashing around.

"How... how do you know my name? W-who are you? W-where is my m-m-mommy?" If the girl still had lips, they would have been trembling by the end of her sentence.

"I am Nathan, do you remember me? Even if I'm a bit different, it's still me! Me and my Pokémon were accompanying you and your family through the desert, and we also talked a lot!" Technically, you were the only one to talk... for hours... non stop... Ugh, focus! "Look, I still have my neckwarmer, see?" Nathan said in the hope to get her to believe him quickly, so that he could start dealing with the more pressing matters, like finding out where they were. "I don't know where your mommy or your daddy are, but I want to find them too, so if you come with me we can do it a lot faster!" he finished with a smile, hoping that the mention of her parents would quickly persuade the small Grass-type.

"R-really? You will find my mommy and daddy?" Aley asked, her brown eyes filled with relief.

"Yes, really!" he nodded widening his smile to the point his mouth started to hurt, making Nathan doubt Zangooses even had the muscles necessary to smile like that and aggravating him further.

In that moment the little auburn eyes of the Grass-type started leaking with tears again, much to Nathan's chagrin. Oh, no! Why is she crying again? Did I say something wrong? What do

I- his thoughts came to an halt as the little Grass-type practically launched herself on his muzzle, clutching as hard as the little, cold stumps she had as limbs allowed, mumbling a confused mess of relieved thanks throught his fur.

"Whoa! Get off, get off!" he tried to shook her off while walking back, but he tripped on his own tail and fell to the side, finally managing to dislodge the Petilil. That seemed to calm her down and started looking up at the Zangoose, her eyes sparkling with relief. Nathan cheered internally as he slowly stood upright once again and allowed himself to relax. It really worked! I did it even without Bea helping me! In the end it really was as simple as dealing with a Pokémon! What was so hard about it?

Now that he was finally done there, Nathan could finally start thinking about the really important things. "Very well, Aley, shall we go?" he told her before starting walking away, his mind already running at full speed as he decided the best course of action to survive. Okay, first I need to find some water, and then hope someone of my team will find us... food is not really going to be a problem as forests like this are always full of berries and fruits in general and-

"Where are you going?" the Petilil voice from behind him stopped his train of thoughts and he turned his head just to see the girl still standing in the same spot he had left her.

"Uuuh, to find your parents, remember? Why aren't you coming?" Nathan asked perplexed. Why wasn't she following him?

"When are you going to give me a piggy ride?" Aley replied with a confused look.

"What? Why should I..." Nathan was getting really confused by the girl's request. Why should he do it? She could very well walk on her own legs, despite how stubby and short they were.

"Mom and dad always tell one of their Pokémon to give me one when we travel around." She replied as if it was the most obvious thing of the whole world, earning a little eye twitch from the Zangoose.

"I'm not one of your parents, and much less a Pokémon of theirs, Aley, and you could walk on your own, don't you think?" Nathan said more angrily than intended, unable to stop some of his pent-up irritation seep in his voice. As he realized it, he cringed and looked down at the girl again, finding her eyes already wet and, judging from how she trembled, just about to start crying all over again.

Oh no, not again! "Sorry Aley! I didn't mean it!" he tried to calm her down, not wanting to lose other precious time trying to get her stop screaming. "I will give you a ride, okay? Just don't cry, please!"

This seemed to calm the girl once again, and her mood made a total turnabout as she smiled without mouth, her eyes sparkling. "Really?" she asked.

"Just... just come here." Nathan replied as he tiredly slumped his shoulders and lowered himself to let the girl climb on him. Calming down that little, hysteric Petilil while trying to not freak out himself because of the situation was starting to tire him out, and he hadn't really done nothing useful yet.

The things I have to do... I just hope there will not be any further delaying problem, now... Nathan thought as the Petilil crawled all the way to his head, clinging to his ears for support. "Ready to go, Aley?" even if he couldn't see her, he felt her nod on the back of his head, and started walking once again.

I just hope that Garz, Bea and Satel are doing well... or are still together. At least I don't have to worry about Azure and the other two staying too long in their Pokéballs, it won't be long before she gets bored enough to break out, and brings the other with her. h thought. Even if he knew he couldn't do much about it and it was useless to get so worked up, he couldn't help to be worried about his team, or in Azure's case, about anyone so unlucky to cross her path. The Zangoose shook his head, no time for that, he needed to clear his mind, look forward and be completely focused on his task.

And so he managed to be, for whole five, long seconds.

"Mister Nathan..." Just by hearing Aley childish, pleading tone, Nathan sighed. He already knew he was not going to like this.

"...what is it now, Aley?" he asked.

"I'm thirsty... can I have some water?"

"We don't have any... I'm searching for it right now, just resist a little more, okay?"

"But I want it noooow!" she whined with a annoyingly high-pitched voice, so close to his ears they actually hurt.

Nathan sighed again, and slowly brought a paw on his face for good measure.

...I miss Beatrix.

Beatrix had known that this was not going to be a good day. At all.

She had felt it, the very moment her little master had released her from her Pokéball. As soon as she had found herself under the blinding light of that Arceus-damned sand pool, a familiar feeling gnawing in her guts, like having a newborn Caterpie crawling in her stomach, had told her there was something wrong. That was why, back there, she had kept flying even after her little master had called her and Garz back.

Whatever the problem was, wherever the danger was coming from, she would have spotted it from far away, earning precious time for Nathan and the rest of the team to prepare and deal with it.

It was the only thing she could do for him, after all. Her eyesight was the only one of her attributes that was not overshadowed by one of her friends. Mainly by Garz.

Sure, she loved the Gengar dearly, having the two of them been together in the actual party for the longest time, and he deeply cared for her too, even if he showed it in the rather... peculiar way typical of the Ghost-kin, but she couldn't deny that she also deeply envied him.

Not only he had been the first, true companion of Nathan, and thus his closest friend and Pokémon of choice, a bond she was jealous of, but he also outclassed her in battle prowess, speed and, thanks to his Levitate Ability, even in the one pride of her kin: flight itself. Hard to compete with someone that didn't even need to beat wings to stay afloat.

Well, truth to be told, Satellite had been with Nathan from even before the Gengar, and it had his same ability too, but it was way slower than both of them and never bonded with anyone, not even Nathan himself. She had been doubting for years the Steel-type could even really feel emotions to begin with. The Bronzong had always just been... there, obeying. Even her little master didn't really like it, but for some reason she didn't understand he kept it around.

And so she had watched. She had kept protecting the one she considered the closest thing to an hatchling of her own in the only way she really could, fighting back the light, bearing with the heat and ignoring the painful sand slipping through her feathers.

And she had still failed him.

She didn't even see what got her. A moment she was there, flying and watching, and the following she had woken up with a start on that roof, surprised to find herself asleep. The realization struck almost immediately. She had failed to protect him, and now she was alone, on the roof of some building, in an unfamiliar city in front of the ocean, far from the desert.

She didn't even know if Nathan and the others were still alive.

She looked down at the streets with little interest, as dozens of multicolored, weird Ponyta or Rapidash-like creatures, some even with wings, and several strange beings that looked like a mix of a Bird Pokémon and a Persian walked around in a busy fashion that reminded her of the human beings, but she couldn't bring herself to care about what they were, or where this place was.

All she could think about was that her little one could have been in danger, maybe already dead, it would have been her fault and, lost in an unknown place, she didn't even know how to help him.

A sudden sound of crashing glass, coming from some houses behind her and the roof she was sitting upon, gained her attention for a moment, before she shrugged it off. She just didn't feel like bothering about anything at the moment, so she also ignored the panicked, scared mess of voices that soon followed.

She couldn't however ignore the two bloody screams that came from that same direction.

The first thing she thought was that it was young. Whoever had screamed first, he must have been still in its early youth, barely older than an hatchling, and the pained shock that the voice carried felt incredibly wrong on such a young voice, to the point of making her feel sick. Before she could even realize it, she had lifted herself in air and had started fluttering in the direction the cries had come from, until she found herself on another roof, bordering a large plaza with dozens of those strange Ponyta and full of wooden stands.

What she saw made her blood freeze in her veins. A young Ponyta, a legit one, white with flaming hooves and all, was cowering against a wall at the edge of the square, but he was missing something. A part of his flaming mane had lit off. From his forehead halfway to his neck sickly tendrils of steam were lazily flowing upwards in place of the proud, roaring fire his kin was known for. Some feets in front of him one of the odd creatures, a brown, fireless Ponyta with wings and even some facial hairs, had dropped to the ground and was screaming through gritted teeth, one of his shoulders covered by a mess of burnt flesh and fur.

At his side, a bucket had fallen on the ground, still dripping water in a large puddle in front of it.

It didn't took much for her to understand what had transpired.

Whoever or whatever those creatures were, they had thrown a bucket full of water on the Ponyta, blowing out the fire on his head, and he had fought back with an attack of his own. Sure, during her life she had seen several Fire-types weathering way more powerful blast of water while fighting, she knew they could stand way worse than that. On a 'free' flame like that it would have been really painful, while not quite dangerous.

But that was true for weathered, full grown ones. They had done it to a defenseless, little child, unable to stand it.

She had no words to describe the look of utter horror, pain and confusion in the eyes of the Ponyta. Before that very moment, he had probably never been in a fight, and he had never known that kind of fear and pain. Beatrix could almost see shards of broken innocence in the boiling tears flowing from his eyes, and it killed her to see something like that.

Then she noticed that other of these odd beings, these ones wearing a metallic armor, had started slowly inching towards the Fire-type hatchling pointing at him long, sharp spears, held under a wing, in their mouth or floating around them in a strange shimmer. The Ponyta whimpered and uselessly tried to press himself further in the wall to get away from them as he coughed some smoke, the missing flames rendering him unable to breath fire properly.

Beatrix was not going to stand for this. She might have failed to protect her little master, but she was not going to fail this Ponyta hatchling too.

The spred her massive wings, and a loud shriek of vengeance later she took the air and dived on the armored monsters.

She was not going to fail again.