“Please, you have to save her! My baby!”

Miles woke up to the hysterical cries of a woman. His vision was blurry and body lethargic. He tried to turn his head towards the source of the commotion, but Miles might as well be encased in lead with how unresponsive his body was.

“Am I… dying?” He thought.

The last thing he remembered was a flash of light and the loud honking of a truck. Then it was just pain, a whole load of excruciating pain until his mind fell into the void.

“Chansey!” Cried an incredibly chipper but determined voice.

Followed by the steady voice of another woman. “We’ll do our best, ma’am. But please, you have to leave the room to allow us the space to work.”

“Chansey? Isn’t that the name of a Pokemon?”

Miles strained to force his eyes open, his curiosity getting the better of him. His exertion was accompanied by the increasingly distressed beeping of a machine.

“The patient’s beginning to wake,” said the second woman, her voice tinged with concern. “Hurry, Chansey! Put her back to sleep.”

The last thing Miles remembered before he lost consciousness again was hurried footsteps, a round, pink silhouette looking over him, and a soothing melody lulling him back to sleep.

***

When Miles next woke up, he found himself in a space enclosed by glass. He tried looking around, but found it incredibly hard to move his head. He then pushed down on the soft bed to try and prop himself up, but was lacking in strength.

“Why are my hands so small?” He wondered, as he raised his hands up towards his face.

“She’s awake!” Exclaimed a loud voice to Miles’s side. “Quick, call somebody over!”

Miles forced himself to turn, and saw a disheveled looking woman on the other side of his glass confinement. The woman’s eyes were puffy and red, looking like she had spent an entire day crying.

To her side was a stoic looking man, one arm around her shoulders. But despite his calmer demeanor, Miles could make out the red veins in his eyes. The man was clearly equally as upset, but chose to hold it in for the sake of his partner.

“Nina, my baby girl… Thank Arceus for their mercy.”

Miles was taken aback by the woman praying to a Pokemon of all things. “Did grief scramble her brains or something? Also, who’s Nina?”

As he opened his mouth to speak, Miles found that his underdeveloped larynx was barely capable of making cooing noises. It also did not help that his throat felt like sandpaper.

“Wait… Am I Nina? Did my soul possess a freaking baby or something?!” Miles was starting to panic, and that panic translated into the distressed cries of a child.

The woman, presumably Nina’s mother, started panicking alongside her child. She urged her husband to go seek help, practically pushing the poor man out the door.

“It’s ok, baby girl. Mommy’s right here. You’ll be alright… Everything will be alright. Daddy’ll be back with help soon.” assured the woman. She tried to reach out to hold her child but was foiled by the glass case in her way. The woman frowned, and decided to start singing a lullaby instead.

The soothing voice of Miles’s apparent mother helped to relieve some of his distress. Somewhere deep inside of him, he recognised the song and her voice. Most likely, residual memories of his new body.

“Oh god… Did I kill an infant?” Any thoughts about his newfound circumstances were completely overwritten by the realization that he might have potentially displaced the life of another human being.

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The cries of the baby stopped as Miles took on a more somber mood.

Not long after, a woman with pink hair in a nurse’s attire accompanied by Chansey, the pokemon, entered the room.

“I wasn’t dreaming. That really was a freaking Chansey!”

Miles stared in wide eyed amazement at the cheerful pink blob bouncing around with its little fins beside the nurse. He was so enamored that he continued starring even as the nurse opened the glass case and began examining his body.

“Good news, Mrs Jones. Rest assured that Nina is in good health and will likely make full recovery over the next week or so.” said the nurse at the conclusion of her exam.

Overwhelmed by relief, the woman named Mrs Jones, threw herself into her husband’s embrace and began sobbing. In return, her husband held her tight, gently caressing his wife’s back. His eyes also began to water as tears trickled out.

Miles was in utter confusion. Somehow he had died and was reincarnated in a world where Pokemon existed. He had no idea what was going on, but it was a relief to know that his new parents were loving people.

***

“Pika. Pika Pi!”

“To think the day would come where I get to interact with an honest to goodness, real life Pikachu!” thought Miles, or rather, he should really start identifying as Nina instead. And for that matter, come to terms with his new gender as well.

Pikachu was the Pokemon belonging to Nina’s father. The iconic electric mouse wasn’t a trained battler like the anime, but more of a domestic pet who kept Nina’s housewife mother company while her husband was at work.

Miles, now Nina, spent the last few days trying to come to terms with her new life. She still hadn’t gotten over the fact that she might have somehow stolen the body of the original Nina, but ultimately decided to set such morbid thoughts aside in favor of trying to learn more about this strange new world.

It turned out that Nina, who was three years old, could speak, if only barely. “Pi..kachu!” Exclaimed the unassuming baby, much to the amusement of the yellow mouse.

Pikachu leaned close to her trainer’s child and began nuzzling Nina with her cheek, eliciting giggles from the babe due to how tingly she felt. Pikachu was an Electric type after all.

“Pikachu, no!” scolded Nina’s mother. “No sparkles until Nina gets discharged. We don’t want to risk any complications during her recovery now do we?”

Pikachu wilted at her admonishment, much to Nina’s disappointment.

If there was anything that Nina had learned since her awakening, it was that Leanette Jones, her new mother, was incredibly overbearing. There were times where Nurse Joy had to practically drag her out of the hospital because she had overstayed past visiting hours. Not to mention how neurotic she could get with Nina’s care, almost coming to blows with one of the nurses at some point.

Nina sighed at her mother’s quirks, desperately hoping that this was just a temporary phase, and that the woman would calm down once her child recovers.

Speaking of, Nina still hadn’t learned what happened to her to warrant intensive care. The adults around her were very careful not to discuss any details in her presence. All she knew was that it was some sort of incident related to wild pokemon.

“Knock, knock… It’s feeding time, Nina.”

A nurse entered the room with a tray in hand. It was time for Nina’s favorite part of her stay in the hospital. Nina was only fed Miltank milk during the first couple of days, which by the way, tasted like regular milk but pinkish in hue.

But, once the doctors determined that It was safe for Nina to consume solids, they began feeding her Chansey eggs instead to aid in her recovery.

Chansey’s eggs were unlike anything that Nina had ever tasted before. She knew from her past life playing the pokemon games that Chansey’s eggs were high in nutritional value and were beneficial for restoring health. But none of the in-game Pokedex entries mentioned how heavenly it tasted.

The eggs had just the right amount of sweetness and savouriness and it was the most delicious thing that Nina had ever eaten in all of her two lives. One of the nurses mentioned at some point that the flavor of Chansey’s eggs change depending on who’s consuming it to perfectly fit their palate. It was pure magic, and had Nina not tasted it herself, she wouldn’t have believed that such a thing even existed.

Leanette held her daughter while the nurse sat adjacent to her with a plastic spoon to feed Nina the mashed up eggs. Meanwhile, Nina tried her best to avoid spilling any of the pokemon equivalent of ambrosia, taking her time to savor the delectable flavors dancing on her tongue.

“Maybe getting hit by a wayward truck was the best thing to happen to me after all,” mused Nina.

***

Nina’s eyes sparkled at the sight beyond the tram carriage. It turns out that she had been reincarnated in Cerulean City, one of the larger cities in the Kanto region, best known as where Misty’s gym was located. But unlike how it was depicted in the games or the anime, the Cerulean City before her eyes was a bonafide metropolis, with towering skyscrapers and futuristic looking architecture.

She knew that the Pokemon world was quite advanced in terms of its development, but never in Nina’s wildest imagination would she picture something like this.

Unlike her previous life, where cities were just tightly packed concrete and steel. Buildings in this new world were individually distinct, favoring elegant curves and eccentric shapes. Their unnaturally white and polished material glistened in the sun.

Interspersed throughout the urban landscape was an abundance of nature; trees, bushes, waterways, and even rooftop gardens can be seen on most buildings. Overall, the city felt organic, and vibrant with life.

“Welcome home!” Exclaimed Leanette.

The Jones family lived in a quaint little apartment near the northern side of the city. The space had a cozy lived-in feel; framed pictures of her family decorated the shelves, and an open partition separated the kitchen from the living room containing a TV and a couple of simple looking sofas.

“Pika pi.” Pikachu jumped off Patrick Jones’s shoulder and ran off to a worn down looking bean bag by the corner, diving into its embrace and snuggling up to it, looking comfy and content.

Nina’s new father had taken the day off from work to pick her up from the hospital. She had only known him for a week, but his calming presence, juxtaposed to Leanette’s anxiety riddled self, served as an invaluable bulwark for Nina. She could not even begin to express how much she appreciated Patrick.

If Nina had her way, she would be crawling all around her new home to explore the space, maybe even spend some time playing with Pikachu. But instead, her helpless three year old body was carried into a colorfully decorated baby room and confined behind a crib, much to Nina’s chagrin.

“I swear, once I grow up, I’m gonna go on a journey and explore the world with my Pokemon. And there’s nothing that Leanette can do to stop me.”

After steeling her resolve, Nina succumbed to the drowsiness that is so common among children her age, and drifted off into sleep.