Growing Up in a New World

The morning sun was shining down through the leaves, the birds were singing… and I was still a Marill. It wasn’t a dream, then…

Were Tyler and mom okay? Where were they? Are they here? Tyler was just a little kid, and I didn't even know if he was with mom or not.

Bandit, who had recently awoken, had been asleep in the tree above me, leaving the thunder stone hidden in the leaves.

“What should we do today?” I asked.

“Try reasoning with the locals?” he replied. “Easier said than done…”

“We’ve already established that those locals are scared of us, so no,” I said. “So how about… oh! We need to defend ourselves in this forest. Know any moves?”

Bandit leaped up, turned around in the air, and hit me with his tail as he fell back down.

“What was that for?” I exclaimed.

“Well, you asked me if I knew any moves.”

“Fair enough… let me go next!”

I leaped towards Bandit, trying to strike him with my tail, and ended up landing on the ground face-first instead.

“That all you got?” Bandit snarked. This made me angry, in a competitive sort of way.

Focus… focus… what else can a Marill like me do? Oh, yes!

I took a deep breath, and released a spiral of water from my mouth. Bandit tried to dodge it, but failed, and ended up hitting a tree.

“It’s not very effective…” he muttered. “Anyway, fair enough… for a beginner.”

“Coming from you?”

“Touché.”

I paused for a moment. “Anyway… uh… there’s something I’ve been worried about,” I said, slowly.

“What is it?” Bandit looked more confused than concerned.

“I have a family, and… I’m not sure where they are, if they’re even here. They definitely won’t even recognise me…”

“Though luck,” Bandit snarked, climbing back up the tree.

“Listen, Bandit,” I said, slightly angry, in a serious way, “this may be some kind of joke to you, but it isn’t to me.”

Bandit stopped climbing the tree, though he still held onto the trunk. “Hey, calm down!”

“True, but please be more considerate in the future. Anyway… what do we do today?”

“Get to know this forest? Easier said than done…”

Suddenly, a shadowy figure leaped down from the trees. Their yellow eyes and sharp claws were rather intimidating. Bandit was so shocked by their arrival that he fell of the tree trunk, while I readied myself to attack.

“Whoa! Calm down!” the shadowy figure said. “Don’t think I’m going to steal something from you just because I’m a Sneasel!”

“Sorry,” I said. “But what are you doing here, no offence?”

“None taken,” said the Sneasel, who went to lean against a tree. “Anyway, name’s Ivory. I was just looking for Pidgey eggs, when I overheard you two talking about where to go. Seriously, though, I could barely find any Pidgey eggs, just a lot of rubbish tiny ones…”

“So, Ivory,” Bandit said. I could tell from his voice that he was already starting to get along with Ivory more than me. “Know your way around this place?”

Ivory looked uncertain. “Sort of. We woke up in this forest, met this other Sneasel claiming to be a human, saw a group of annoyingly territorial Nuz–”

“Wait… a Sneasel claiming to be a human?” I asked. So I wasn’t the only one!

“Yeah,” said Ivory. “My group and I woke up, and we came across this other Sneasel who was really confused by anything. He said he was a human, we didn’t believe him, but we let him join us. Poor guy must’ve had a hard life.”

“Thing is…” I said, hesitating, because I wasn’t sure how Ivory would react, “You probably won’t believe this, but I’m a human too.”

“Or was,” Bandit added.

“No way,” said Ivory. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“I’m not lying!” I exclaimed. “And I’ve already been through this whole proving thing.”

“Whatever the case, I’ll be on my way,” said Ivory, before leaping away, into the trees.

Later that day, Bandit and I were exploring the forest, slowly and cautiously, since we might as well get used to our new home for the next who-knows-how-long. Marill weren’t built to climb trees, so Bandit followed me on the ground so we didn’t get separated. He also made sure to bring the thunder stone with him. Unlike yesterday, we weren’t trying to get anywhere in particular, and kept a mental note of where we were this morning.

This exploration made me realize how much better my hearing was as a Marill. I could hear the stream we followed yesterday in the distance, and the faint voices of Pokémon all around. A Staraptor flew above the forest, as if he was patrolling it.

Of course, this journey also made me realize that this forest was rather boring, in comparison to places I’d seen pictures of. Besides a few flowers, almost all of the plants were aspen trees, and it was very bright for a forest. I’d occasionally see one of those locals come in, wary of the Pokémon, as if they were helping out the forest in some way. It only made that city of oak trees look even more out of place.

Eventually, I came across a clearing in the forest. In the clearing was a whole group of Pikachu; some were gathering berries (that I’d never seen before), while some were looking out into the forest from the high trees. One of the lookout Pikachu, with a heart-shaped tail, leaped down, and talked to us.

“Hiya! I’ve never seen you two before!” she exclaimed. “Are you lost?”

“No, not really,” I replied. “We’re just trying to get used to this forest.”

“I can help! For starters, if a Pokémon gets mad at you for trespassing on their territory, don’t attack them. That’ll make the problem worse. Just run. Works for me!” The Pikachu grinned, as if she was proud of getting into trouble. “Also,” she added, “these trees are really weird. The bark is all slippery, and the branches are too small. I much prefer Santalune Forest over this place.”

“So you’re from… Kalos, then? What do you think of this place?” I asked.

“I don’t like it at all. Confused Pokémon could attack at any moment, the trees all look the same, and these berries taste funny.” She looked around, as if she’d heard something. “By the way, my name’s Rainy. Who are you?”

“Well, I’m Bandit, and this is my awesome sidekick Jasper!” I was annoyed by Bandit calling me his sidekick, but I didn’t say anything.

“Jasper?” asked Rainy, scratching her ear. “That’s a human name!” She sounded like she was accusing me of something.

“Long story,” I quickly replied.

“Fair enough,” she said. “It’s only a name.”

Rainy’s ears picked up again. I heard a distant roaring sound of some sort, which was coming closer every second. The air was heating up.

“RUN!” several of the Pikachu shouted at once.

I didn’t look back; I ran away from the forest fire as fast as I could, which wasn’t very. I didn’t even look to see where Bandit or Rainy were. I was a Water-type, sure, but I couldn’t put out a fire of this scale on my own.

As I ran, trees collapsed and Pokémon fled. The flames spread so quickly that I could barely see in front of myself. I couldn’t even find the stream anywhere. I hoped that the Azumarill was okay.

I noticed that the Staraptor from earlier was rescuing some Pokémon. I called for help, but my voice was drowned out by the roaring of the fire.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally made it to the city of oak trees. This part of the forest was a lot less dense, so there was less chance of the fire spreading here. But what had caused it?

I looked around. A lot of the locals were gathered around, and there were plenty of Pokémon I recognised too. The Azumarill, Ivory, along with four other Sneasel, Rainy, and… Coco? But there was someone missing.

Bandit.

I couldn’t leave him… I couldn’t leave him… What to do… what to do…

“Water-types! WATER-TYPES!” I shouted. Several Pokémon, including the Azumarill, turned towards me, but I was largely drowned out by all of the commotion. “I NEED YOUR HELP! THIS FIRE WON’T PUT ITSELF OUT!”

“He’s right,” said the Azumarill. “LISTEN, EVERYONE!” A lot more Pokémon were paying attention now. “This Marill has something important to say!” I then started telling everyone who was interested what to do. I told those who could fly, or were fireproof, to look for anyone who was trapped, while those who knew Water-type moves would put out the fire.

“Um… there’s a friend of mine trapped in there,” I mumbled.

“That Treecko? I’m sure someone will find him.”

“Bandit. His name is Bandit. And I’ve got to find him! He’s my friend!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s dangerous for a child like you to go into a fire like that.”

I wanted to argue with her, but she had a very good point. I may be a Water-type, but I was a very inexperienced one.

The Azumarill leaped into the air and blasted a jet of high-pressure water from her mouth, dousing several trees at once. I copied her with my weak water attack, which only put out a few leaves. I noticed Ivory and the other Sneasel trying to use ice to put out the fire, to little success.

Still, at least we were trying…

The search-and-rescue went on for what felt like hours. Even after most of the fire was gone, Pokémon were still being rescued. But there was still now sign of Bandit.

As evening approached, a Fletchinder nervously fluttered overhead, panicked.

“It’s all my fault… my fault… my FAULT!” they stuttered, guiltily.

After a moment, one of the local dark-brown-Stantler-Deerling-whatevers, a young male, decided to talk to the Fletchinder.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, with genuine empathy in his voice.

“I-I got scared… and I accidentally burned a branch… which spread to the whole forest… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

There was a lot of murmuring in the crowd about how “this bird was dangerous”, and why that kid was talking to it, or that the bird could talk in the first place.

The kid in question stopped to think for a moment. “While it’s true the damage has been done, and you should be responsible for your own actions… it was an accident, wasn’t it?” The crowd gasped.

“R-really…?”

“Ilex!” someone in the crowd shouted. “You can’t possibly be trying to sympathise with something... that MONSTER that destroyed the aspen forest, right?”

“QUIET!” Ilex (I assumed that was his name) shouted, which sounded rather jarring. “While it’s true that these guys that arrived yesterday CAN be dangerous, they’re not all scary! Yesterday, I met this doe, Flora, and then was chased by some wooden guys. After they’d chased us for a while, we learned that they were just confused, lost, and thought this place was their territory. Speaking of which, Flora, are you here?”

“I am,” a Deerling (who was definitely a Deerling, not one of the locals) said in the crowd.

“And the fact that these creatures, monsters, whatever you want to call them,” Ilex continued, “helped save the forest, and saved each other regardless of species… they can’t all be bad, can they?”

“Th-thank you…” said the Fletchinder.

“Come to think of it,” said one of the not-Pokémon in the crowd, “I think I saw one of those weasel things guiding a fawn out of the forest.”

“True, true,” someone, presumably the “fawn” in question, spoke up. “I was scared of him at first, but he said he was as lost as I was.” A Sneasel, who definitely wasn’t Ivory, looked incredibly awed and overjoyed.

I smiled. Despite the fact that the forest had been almost completely destroyed, there was still hope. Plus, I helped to save it… but it wasn’t just me. It was everyone.

"It'll take time for the forest to heal, but... your organisation skills really helped us out," the Azumarill said later that day, with a smile.

In the middle of the night, I was finally reunited with Bandit. It turns out that he dropped his thunder stone, and got trapped under a branch trying to pick it back up. He was rescued by that Staraptor, who said his name was Keith, and that he was from some place called Almia. I vaguely remembered hearing about Almia. Apparently, there was a lot of rangers there.

As for Bandit, he didn’t get to keep the thunder stone. He seemed a bit disappointed, but he was glad that he made it out alive.

It took me a while to fall asleep by the roots of one of the oak trees that night, with Bandit nearby. As I fell asleep, I remembered that I saw Coco earlier… was my family here as well?