“So… yeah, I’ve been completely lost since I got here.” I finish my story-slash-explanation.

Weaver just sits there, dumbfounded. Onaga had moved next to her during my little story-time, but she noticed the pikachu and she’s now checking on the pichu. “Why would you need to bring them in here?” I hear her ask them.

Weaver finally snaps out of it. “That story is completely unbelievable. I’m all for it.” She says, now looking genuinely thoughtful rather than dramatically-thoughtful. “That does explain some things. Like why you lied about Unova.”

Wait, she knew that? "Sorry, it was the region I remembered best," I say sheepishly.

She waves a hand, “After the rest of it I thought you were trying not to talk about dying. But I- You- Only- what did you call them? 'Video games' about pokemon? Noth- No living pokemon?”

"There were shows and movies, I just… didn't watch most of them," I say.

“Wow.” She states. Then she just stares into space for a long moment. “You should probably go see the human town.” She eventually says.

Ha! I- Ah shit. "Eh, I've liked it out here so far, everyone I've met has been friendly. And I mean…" I trail off from the look she's giving me. "Okay, I've been stalling. It honestly is nice out here, but I just- I don't know what to do! I'm dead. I'm not too proud to admit that I'm scared of being caught. And you have no idea how…" I stop, my thoughts blurring together. I need to calm down.

“I’ve been caught before.” She admits, almost flippantly. “You can break your way out if you’re strong enough…” She glances at Onaga, who is still trying to puzzle out the pikachu. Before she looks back at me, “From what I understand, most trainers are actually… maybe not nice, but at least not bad. It’s just that the ones who come here are usually awful because they need to be breaking the law to do it.” She says.

"That doesn't fill me with confidence," I tell her.

She laughs, “Well, there are rangers here. And they will protect you, all of us-” She stops. “I’m a ranger now…” She whispers, seemingly to herself. Then she recovers, “Okay, well it’s not just us. There are bases all over Almia and everyone in them is dedicated to protecting the pokemon here.”

I sigh, “I’ll fly over tonight, okay?” I decide. She nods, seeming happy at that.

Onaga walks out of the bedroom, stalling further conversation. She checks outside, then walks over to check the clothes that she left by the fire. It seems they're still wet, as she just sighs and grabs her radio.

"Katie, I'm at the misdreavus' cabin and there's a family of pikachu that have been edged out of their territory. Could you add a thorough population survey to the quest list?" She speaks into the boxy device.

“kínn anò, priötàti?" A female voice chirps from the radio. Well, that’s a new language.

“Medium, possibly high if there’s nothing else on there.” She answers before she starts rearranging her clothes, ignoring the radio’s response. “Ten minutes, Weaver.” She says, now seemingly taking an inventory.

“I’ll be ready.” She tells the human. Then to me, “Promise me I’ll see you in town tonight?”

I've done a lot of sighing today, so I stop myself before I do it again. "You will," I promise her.

***

I’m still dragging my feet, in a manner of speaking. Slowly drifting down the packed dirt paths through the woods. There are several things on my mind at the moment, one of which is something I just didn’t have the nerve to say to Weaver earlier. I don’t just like it here. Despite the circumstances, once I settled in I realized that I'm so much… happier. Sure, I find myself bored at times and my thoughts drift to things I’d rather they didn’t, but overall I really am happy so far. That just makes my gnawing guilt about my old friends worse though.

I will see them again. That I’ve decided, even if I don’t know how yet.

I've been staying below the trees, admiring the seemingly well-tended- No, don’t be an idiot Charlie, the trees are tended to, even if not by humans. I even watched Leaf do it for a few hours… Anyway, I’ve come to a split in the path. Rising above the canopy of leaves I make sure my sense of direction is still correct. It is, so I descend and continue floating down one path, North-East now.

I’m not far out, maybe a mile to go. I started once the sun was well into setting, but that can't have been more than an hour and a half ago. I think the town… I just realized I don't know if I'm headed for a town or a city. Weaver had said town but that could mean a range of things, depending on how the translation works.

I think the town is about six miles from my cabin. Flying at full speed it would only take me a few minutes to go from one to the other, especially since I’d be taking a straight line. Fuck I’m still nervous about this, just need to suck it up and dive in. Yep, that’s why I’m taking one of the slowest routes I can.

…Oh, that's a field. I drift out of the trees and into farmland of some kind, the lack of light not impeding my view. Segmented Fields stretch out before me. Beyond those, I can see the city. Definitely too large to be called a town by definition.

I’ll get to it when I get to it, let’s look at these farms. I… don’t know a lot about farming, shit. I can only distract myself so much with this. Very few of the fields have anything green on them, and the two that do I have no idea what’s growing in them.

Drifting through the field I also spot an almost flooded plot.

…Fine, I’ll head for the city.

I reach the city way too fast for my liking, though I do see a friendly face when I arrive. Weaver is leaning against a strangely rounded brick building, she's wearing a black shoulder belt along with the hat now, and holding a map.

“I’m glad you actually came.” She says, holding the map out, “Here, so you're not asking me for directions all night.”

Grasping the map carefully in a psychic hold, I open it and take a look. Yep, gibberish. Also a tourist map, clearly emphasizing local attractions.

“You know I can’t read this, right?” I tell her.

She facepalms, “Ugh, fine, gimme that.” She exaggerates, plucking the map out of the air while pulling her other hand down her face. Then she smiles, “Didn’t even cross my mind that you couldn’t read. Is that a new thing or…?” She hangs the question.

“I can read English and Spanish just fine, but I don’t think those are used here," I say.

She nods, “Ah, got it. It isn’t too hard to learn LSL, Sinnohan’s a bit weirder though.” She explains, beginning to walk into the city. “Can you eat normal food? Sorry, that just occurred to me.” She asks, looking back at me.

"I can eat berries, so maybe," I say distractedly. Weaver might have nodded at that, but I'm too busy looking around.

The buildings, all ranging from one to five stories, are mostly almost domed as opposed to the gabled design of my cabin, and I'm pretty sure the entire surface of every roof I see is solar panels. The walls of the buildings are more diverse however, Some are brick, some are shiplap, others are stucco, and I can see one that looks like logs. And I’m getting the impression that a lot of places are small businesses and that the owners might even live where they work. Many of the buildings are also strangely rounded at the corners, but if the walls are as thick as the ones in my cabin that could partially explain it.

The street we’re on isn’t pavement or asphalt. It’s alternating pale and red brick set down in an angular back-and-forth arrow pattern. Street lamps are set intermittently along the buildings, and the street as a whole seems odd to me until I realize what’s off about it. There are no sidewalks, there are no cars at all, either. However, I do see a set of rails going across an intersection several buildings down, white paint clearly denoting a minimum safe distance.

Even farther down, I can see a small island in the middle of the road, three trees with a bench inside a green pool of grass. And I can see more of them beyond it.

Something else eats at me for a bit before I notice the absence. There are no power lines, which is honestly interesting to see in a place without towering buildings. Granted, I bet pokemon make it easy to fix something underground without some of the time-consuming processes we had to deal with.

Also distributed solar power probably helps a bit.

And… Hmm, looking at the street-level windows, I'm fairly certain we're in a commerce district. So, this is where the money moves.

“You're looking awfully hard at some of the buildings, Smokey.” Says Weaver as we pass what is definitely a hotel. “Something on your mind?” She asks, curious.

"I was- It's about what I did before, putting buildings together," I say, looking around some more. "I think you have better civil architecture," I state.

She shrugs, “If you say so. You’d know I guess.”

She took my being from another world a little too well earlier, so I need to ask her something. “Do you really believe me? About where I’m from, I mean.” I ask.

She frowns, “I think so? You’re not lying at least.” She says. Then shrugs again, “Seems weird, but I can believe it.” Then she turns to me and grins, “Just means I have an extra special friend now.”

This has to be part of the strange outlooks I noticed most pokemon have. Is it because of the powers? Weaver has apparently lived with humans for years, so I don’t think it’s about upbringing. Hmm… maybe it’s just different brains, the more plant-y grass-types do seem-

“Hey, snap out of it. We’re here.” Weaver interrupts my thoughts as she steps into one of the buildings with lights on. A diner, judging by the window decoration. The door jingles.

“You brought me into the city to eat?” I ask her. “You know I don’t need food, right?” I poke, as I simply pass through the glass door.

This looks like a mid-classic diner, with rough, vaguely colored wood walls, black-white tiled floor, dim and colorful lighting, mostly booth and bar seating, and an actual bar. The well-dressed woman behind it raises an eyebrow when she sees us, but she otherwise doesn't react.

“Ryuko gave me some money to celebrate my ‘ascension to ranger-hood,’ I figured I might as well spend it with another friend.” She tells me, before rolling her eyes, “I don’t know what else I’ll spend it on right now.”

“Oh, are you customers…” A middle-aged man sitting in a booth against the far wall trails off as his eyes land on me. "Oh Swords, I- '' He's interrupted by Weaver.

“We’re paying customers.” She says, pulling something out of a pocket on her belt. An ID, huh.

“Ah.” Says the man, standing and edging his way towards us, eyes flicking to me several times. When he reaches Weaver he takes the card and inspects a moment. “R- right, thank you for your dedication. My name is Daniel and I’ll be your waiter tonight…” He trails off as he looks at me again, then at the door to what is presumably the kitchen, then to the bartender. “Sorry. Seat yourselves anywhere. I assume you can read, Miss Weaver?” Weaver nods. “Excellent, give me just a moment to get your menus.”

The man heads for the back, perhaps a bit faster than necessary. Well, I’ve already filled up, and we haven’t even sat down yet. That is some good service.

Actually, how late is it? This place has a bar—even if it is empty right now—so it would be open later than a normal diner… Glancing around I do see a—thankfully analog—wall clock. Only eight-fifty? …I guess it is early spring.

Should I be questioning why the clock is the same here? Even if the numbers are different. Is the calendar the same too? How does that even-

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Do you normally just get distracted like that?” Asks Weaver as she pokes me, before shrugging, “Eh, you probably have your reasons.” She then moves to a high-chaired bar against the window and I follow her. “Did you see his face though?” She asks as she hops, literally, onto a stool.

I glance at the stools for a moment before deciding to just float over one. “I didn’t need to see it, I could taste it. He really was afraid of me, but it dropped off when you showed him your ID.” I inform her.

“Yeah, having any kind of ranger around tends to calm people down.” She says as Daniel returns with the menus.

“Anything to drink while you decide on your order?” He asks while placing the plastic-covered sheets of paper in front of us.

“Miltank-milk," Is Weaver's immediate response, poking the third line of a section on her menu. Looking at me she says, “You really should try it, it’s great.”

“Uh, sure, miltank-milk," I say, poking the same line on my menu with one arm. I just realized something, I haven't felt thirsty since I woke up and I never noticed, damn. Am I unobservant?

“Two milks,” He says, jotting something down with a pad and pen I could swear he didn’t have a moment ago. “Anything to start you off? Bread-rolls? Salad?” Weaver and I both shake our heads. “Great! I’ll have your drinks in a jiffy.” He says before walking off.

"You've got that look again," Weaver says teasingly as she inspects her menu.

"This is going to be the first time I've tried to drink something since I died," I tell her.

She looks thoughtful at that, “Huh. I haven’t really put much thought into what that would have been like. Does that make me a bad friend?” She asks.

I snort, “Nah, you’ve been great so far.”

The door jingles open. Weaver and I look to find out who our fellow late diners are. It’s the teen girl and her father from yesterday.

“-orry it took so long sweetie, I wasn’t expecting everyone to be out this soon.” The father says, clearly trying to console his daughter.

"It's fine, Dad, we got them. I'm just hungry…" She too trails off when she sees me, though instead of fear she's radiating excitement. "Oh, hi! Uh, would you mind a picture now?" She asks me. Really?

Although from the looks of them, they aren't rich people with money to burn, they're probably trying to make the most of a trip that had to be saved for and planned out in advance.

Weaver and I exchange a glance, but her look just says I'm on my own. I'm not in a bad mood this time, so why not? "Sure," I say, nodding to the teen.

She winces? "Yeah… uh, think you could pose a bit? No- not that you need to! I was just asking." She stammers a bit, but she really is happy right now. Also, I think a bit confused about something?

I smirk, doing my best casual lean against the bar while still floating. “Like this?” I say.

“Y- yeah, just like that!” She beams, pulling a camera out of her bag. She readies it for a second.

“Excuse me for a moment.”Says Daniel reappearing with our drinks. “I can see you’re in the middle of something, so I’ll come back to take your orders. And I’ll have your menus once you’re seated.” He says the last part to the father-daughter pair before vanishing into the back again.

There’s a ‘clack’ as he leaves. And the girl, looking a bit sheepish now, asks, “Do you think I could get one more with both of us in it?” She’s looking down, eyes going back and forth over nothing.

"Sure, one more," I tell her. She looks up, smiling, then hands the camera off to her father, who looks a bit confused for some reason.

“Thank you! Um, do you think you could look scarier for this one?” I shrug, spreading my arms and my cloud while putting on what would normally be a friendly smile. “Oh. Uh, yeah that’s good.” She says a little shakily.

“Why haven’t you shown me that yet?” Asks Weaver. “That’s a great look for you Smokey, you should do it all the time.”

The girl twitches, but assumes a double-thumbs-up pose in front of me, facing the camera. Her father is faster than her with the camera and after another ‘clack’ she’s walking back to him.

They start heading for a far booth as the girl says, “Thanks for the pictures Mis- Smokey!” before they sit down. Daniel appears before them immediately after.

Settling back above my seat, it takes a moment for her words to parse. Wait, “Did she…?” I hesitate.

"I think so, yeah," Weaver says. “Cool.”

“How?” I ask her.

Are there humans who can understand us?

“No clue. Never met one who could, myself.” She helpfully answers, before sipping her drink and turning back to her menu. “Any idea what you’re going to order?” Wha- How is she so blasé about this? Is this normal? Fuck, it must be if she’s so casual about it.

I look at the menu myself. None of the food is pictured, making me sigh. "Whatever you recommend, I still can't read this," I tell her.

"Mushroom burger with potato puffs sound good?" She asks, pointing to the line on the menu. "I'm getting the tofu fry, myself."

"Sure, sounds good," I reply. Then I actually look at my drink, it's creamy looking, nothing like the watery skim-variety Abby always insisted on whenever…

…did I get taken on a date?

I’m not going to be stupid enough to let that hang over me the whole time. So I ask, “Weaver, is this a date?”

She looks confused for a moment before holding up a finger. Then she lowers it, "No? Not if I understand what a date is." Thank fuck! As nice and objectively cute as she is, I don't find her attractive.

And oh boy am I not ready for that line of thought yet. I’m honestly hoping I never have to deal with it, really.

“Is this a human thing or a you thing?” She asks.

“A me thing, I think. I was just reminded of several dates my… former girlfriend and I went on,” I explain, before sipping my drink. Wow, it’s really good, very creamy, and still somewhat sweet. "You were right about the drink," I tell her.

“Of course, I have a very refined taste for human food. Only the best goes in here.” She says, slapping her belly.

“Fried tofu?” I ask her, raising an eyebrow.

“Indeed.” She intones gravely, nodding her head. “Only the best.”

“What-” I stop, thinking about my question for a moment. “What do weavile normally eat?” I ask her.

She blows a raspberry at that, leaning back a bit. "Well, that depends, outside of human space?" She chomps her teeth, "Meat. Anything a pack could take down I guess. Here though…" She starts tapping her chin, "A lot of eggs, fish, and tofu, along with some vegetables. Though Ryuko warned me against corn and most fruit for some reason, but they aren't appetizing anyway, so yeah.” She shrugs.

Corn? “Did she say it was poisonous to you? The corn?” I have to ask her.

“No… it had something to do with my health.” She responds. “I’m not quite sure, I was only kind of paying attention. I’m pretty happy it got a lot easier for me to focus when I evolved, and thumbs! You know I… You okay?”

“I’m… mildly freaking out," I admit. “I hadn’t thought of what might change when- If? I evolve,” I tell her. “You just made me realize how much could change, it’s a lot to think about, and I’ve already changed bodies once. Really, I’m still getting used to this one, and the thought of doing it again is making me feel a bit terrified.” Not to mention how she said it got easier for her to focus, and I don’t know if I want to think about the implications right now.

“It’s a good thing misdreavus don’t evolve then.” She smirks, and then her face blanks again. "Or… they do, don't they?" She looks at me, “You wouldn’t be thinking about it if they don’t. What do you become?” She asks me, now with an odd look on her face.

Oh, uh, What was it called again? Mis-something… mismanus… mismagnus? No… "Mismagius? I think," I answer. "I'm pretty sure that's it, if I'm remembering right, I might need to find a pointy hat and a robe if I evolve.”

Weaver blinks, “Huh, why do I feel like I’ve heard that name before…”

Before we can continue our conversation, Daniel appears. “Would you like to order now, do you need help deciding, or would you like a few more minutes to decide?” He asks politely.

Weaver’s face shifts into a smile before she points at a line on her menu. I, in turn, point to the one she said was a burger, very glad to have a distraction from my thoughts.

***

The food was delicious, even if it didn’t actually fill me up. I think… I might have been denying myself certain pleasures without noticing. Sure, I don’t need to eat normal food but the only emotion I’ve found that actually tastes good is fear. And yeah, I don’t need to drink anything, but there are some good drinks out there. It actually has me wondering if I can nap to take the edge off sometimes.

There aren’t a lot of places open this late, but Weaver and I wander around for a bit. Of the very few humans we see, most try to leave the moment they see me. Although I do spot Guy-Number-Five in a crowd leaving a bar, he steers the whole group away from us.

I hadn’t noticed the cats earlier. Well, cat-like-pokemon, meowth, glameow, and even a shinx I’ve noticed darting around. There aren’t a lot of them, but they are prowling around. And meowth just looks like a bipedal cat with a gold coin on its head, I don’t know why, but that threw me for a loop.

The city does have different districts. There’s a small industrial zone on the North side, though we don’t go there. Farther South is where the farms really are, and we spend a bit walking through fields there. And right in the middle of the city is clearly where the people live, along with a few office towers and a train station that heads North one way and East the other.

I am so jealous of the people here. There’s no real sprawl, everything is easily reached on foot in two hours at most. Even if we’d been moving at human speeds we would have been able to see the whole city in two, maybe three hours tops due to the tram system.

“I need to get some sleep soon.” Weaver yawns, leaning back against the chimney on the farmhouse we’re on top of. “You feeling better about being around humans yet?”

“Yeah. But it’s not like I…” I pause. Does she need to know? “I wasn’t in a great place before. And it took coming here to realize it.” I make myself fall onto the roof, considering my next words. “I’m so much happier here and it hasn’t even been two weeks. I don’t know what it is about this world, but it just… feels better than my old one ever did. Not that I think this one’s perfect, obviously, just… better.” I sigh, “Maybe it’s just the lack of ‘The Grind’ making me feel like that, but I can’t say there aren’t things I miss though.” Or maybe… Was I depressed?

Looking back through my memories, I notice small things that I didn’t when I was still… Alive? Whatever, but I think I can safely say I was. Also, Again with my memories being weirdly sharp at times-

Weaver breaks me out of my thoughts again, “I can’t say anything about that, I have no idea what your old world is like. But if you think this one’s better then I believe you,” Weaver says into the distance. Then smirking, “This one has me, of course it’s better.” We share a chuckle, though mine is a bit weaker.

“You know, I had a friend just like you, before. You two would have got along like a house on fire,” I tell my new friend. “She was great, taught me exactly how to handle someone like you.” I sigh, “She really was the best friend you could ask for…”

"Oh yeah? Do you really think she got you ready for me? What if I started following you around, randomly saying embarrassing things about you?”

“She’s done that to me before.” I deadpan.

“Really?” Weaver says, a look of pure disappointment on her face. “That’s amazing.” She finishes, chuckling and smiling brightly before she stands up and stretches, “I’m going to head to the base now, I’ve got a human to cuddle. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I have some things I’d like to do, but they’re mostly just learning things. Marshal said she’d be checking on me, so I have that to look forward to tomorrow. I might just keep looking around the city for a while.” I shrug.

She nods, “Cool, I’ll see you when I see you, Smokey.” She says, leaping to the ground and racing away. I’d say she’s fast, but that’s slower than I saw from her earlier.

She never showed me where she lives, did she? Meh, whatever.

Deciding to get a move on myself, I fade out. It just tends to make flying around easier. As I turn to start floating for the city I stop as my eyes move over a slightly off patch of the void. Fading back in, I see a murkrow watching me with their head cocked. We stare at each other for a minute before they sniff and hop back into an open window.

Huh. Okay then. Repeating my previous actions, I start drifting towards the city again. They definitely have grass-types working on these fields, a lot. The few plants that are there have a tiny but definite ____ glow to them. That has to help feed a lot of people. I wonder if this world has rampant hunger, the way my old one did?

When did I start thinking of it as my old world?

Fuck, that’s going to haunt me. …And that’s not distracting me enough, shit.

It was definitely at some point tonight, I know that much. Is it wrong though? I’ve been honest enough with myself to know I like it here, a lot more than there. It was probably seeing more of the people—the humans—that did it. Forcing me to acknowledge their reality. Being able to open up to Weaver helped as well, not needing to keep bottling so many of my thoughts inside.

It still feels surreal though, thinking of it like that. It feels like I should feel some kind of loss at that, but I just… don’t. ‘My old world.’ Again it just feels so odd, excitement, wonder, …and some fear. But the free, open joy I feel just makes it all the stranger.

Well, that's that I suppose, No point in stressing over it. As I reach the edge of the city proper again I can see that yes, people are sleeping above many of the businesses in the commerce district, and there are quite a few people still awake too. I'd been mostly ignoring the emotional soup that was around us when Weaver was showing me around, but that's a bit harder now that I don't have her to distract me.

Humans shed a lot of emotions, even when sleeping, it seems. And now that I’m in the not-space I can see there’s practically a monsoon of them bearing down on me. I’m doing my best to tune the tastes out, but I can tell at least a few people nearby are having nightmares.

Looking around at the people themselves, most of them are that same dim gray, though some are a bit brighter, a bit closer to white than gray. I do notice a few with small streaks of color, a flicker or two of ____ or ____. There’s even one with a much larger streak of the same ____ color as Marshal. But it’s when the third hotel comes into view that I notice a much bigger anomaly.

It almost looks like something twisted the not-light around one of the rooms, but I can still see a solid black shape inside, obvious against the blinding, multicolored form next to it.

My curiosity wars with caution for a moment before caution wins. I… think I’ll just fly home now, that room alone is enough to max out my freaky-quota for the night.