~~~ Chapter 72 - Germination ~~~

Liam Brian flinched awake. That muggy Los Angeles morning air wasn't what roused him, no. It was, instead, an itch that grew on his body, becoming more and more irritable. Not the edibles he'd had from the night before, he usually kept those to a pretty banal faire.

Still, even groggy as he rolled around on his bed, he knew better than to scratch something that itched as much as he did now. He rolled over, the bedding peeling with him. That wasn't good. He didn't feel that sweaty. In fact, he felt like he was dry.

The third feeling that hit him was the extra diversity in smells in the air. They weren't new smells, necessarily, but he could tell… that old street taco from the other day he'd left sitting out on the counter. That sweet smell of orange juice, un-made morning teas.

And a myriad more.

While Liam couldn't place exactly which smells were which, many of them threatened nausea if he paid too much attention. A mix of growing up on a farm and also living in a large metropolis with millions of people didn't do much to curate an appreciation for the sense, so he was already used to ignoring smells, having long considered them to be the world forcing tastes on you without your consent.

No, what actually got him up was a strange, noisy sensation around his face and extremities that he hadn't felt before. It wasn't like a limb fell asleep, but the feelings were comparable. He rolled over onto his belly and used all fours to push himself up. His comforter came with, stubbornly attaching itself to him and not wanting to let go.

It was a strange morning routine to get up this way. His previous partner would even complain that it woke her up. But moving all four limbs and stretching before hopping onto the floor helped to register to the brain and the body that it was time to be awake, that just climbing out of bed normally didn't.

This morning, when he opened his eyes, his vision was incredibly clear. No need for glasses. There was also a spot of black in the center of his face, and he wasn't as far off from the bed like he was used to. And that perpetual static that once littered his vision like analog television was also gone.

He hopped off his bed, letting out a shrill yelp as he was greeted by a strange pain behind him, now pulsating through some of the static. Not only did he not jump off the bed, he'd landed on a limb he'd never had before. (Not that waking up as another species was such a common experience for him that not having a tail would be noteworthy)

Liam fell backwards, landing on his back, the pain of the action pushing away any further thought of sleep. All shrugged off now, he inspected this new appendage.

It (and all of the skin that Liam could see, for that matter) was membraneous, yet scaly. He also noticed that his bed was soaking wet. He also noticed, however, the urge to continue lying down in bed— he was awake now and not tired, of course, but the idea of sitting in the water provided a certain magnetism.

The kind of impulse that he'd long ago precommit to avoiding. At least until he knew exactly how to manage the alien impulses.

The new limb, obviously, was a tail. Almost as wide and thick as he was after being turned into a new species, and it was long enough that it even extended out past his face. The kind of powerful tail that just begged to be swimming in a river or the sea.

Internally, he iterated over each new sense or feeling he'd never had before, as well as the feeling of an extra limb that was missing before this. The smells of the city threatened to overwhelm him, and the headache made moving hard.

Liam knew from the color of his skin and the state of his bed what he most likely was, and would have smirked if he was human still. Several variants of "Hey, did you know?" trickling through his brain. He didn't smirk, but not because he didn't feel like smirking.

The real problem was that he had work and needed to figure out how to call off before anything else. Oh, and he didn't have the facial muscles for smirking the way humans did. His smirks would be quite scrungy, but he didn't have a mirror to check.

Unfortunately, there were quite a few problems that came with the reality of waking up as a pokemon. But those problems were okay, multiple plans were already forming. He'd had a lot of time and fun planning and come up with contingencies for similar scenarios in the past.

Glancing out the window of his inner city flat, it was still dark out, though the growing rumble and increasing amount of fumes in the air indicated that soon, the metropolis would again be bustling with activity. Not that it ever stopped.

The first test was vocalizing—"Veeeaaaa," He said. His mouth didn't contort the way he expected, and most of the noise came from the back of his throat. No, he would not be able to physically call out.

Even if he could form words, he would have to convince the other person on the phone that he was who he said he was. But not being able to form words was a serious handicap. Not because talking was so great, but because humans centered their evaluations of intelligence around speech itself.

It would be months at best until a reputable researcher would be able to "properly" vet his intelligence level without speech. Still, there were contingencies.

Liam was, of course, assuming he was still physically male. There was no rule that if you swapped species that you actually kept your sex organs. He'd check on that later. Adopting neopronouns might work, but it didn't matter if he couldn't even communicate.

He used "he" because the effort of swapping was more than the lack of identity he naturally had that could be conveyed by such a swap.

More carefully the second time, he hopped off his bed, accounting for the fact that his tail was at least the same length as his body. The pops in the carpet when he landed told him more than he wanted. His claws were … not blunt, if short. With some tests, they were retractable, but when walking, at least on the fuzzy carpet, it really did help to use them for grip.

Walking was suspiciously easy on all fours. Changing from plantigrade to digitigrade and his haunches being an entirely different structure than before.

It was, frankly, entirely wrong how easy it was. He'd investigate later, but he would have expected at least some learning curve in the actual act of locomotion. Just because fantasy and sci-fi writers glossed over it didn't mean getting new structures of your limbs should be easy!

Something to investigate later.

The door of his room was shut. And he still needed to call out of work. Sitting up on his haunches was difficult, and the push to stand on two legs stretched muscles in an unnatural way.

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Which was fine, as he settled back, pushing his phone off his night stand. He could feel the electricity on the touchscreen. Popping open his phone and pulling up his boss wasn't much hassle, but it was the touchscreen keyboard that really threw him off.

Even though his phone was waterproof, there was a very light trace of either oil or water across the screen with each press of his paw. Eventually, it caused the keyboard to infinitely spam. The growing "Uuuuuuuuiioooooihhgfdssssssseeere" in the message window was not ideal.

Holding out a claw, he hit the button on the side of the phone, turning the screen off and stopping the repeating text. Putting that aside, Liam went to the next most reliable option—his desktop work computer.

The door handle was higher than he was, standing on all fours, but it wasn't more than three feet off the ground. His tail did a good job supporting his weight. The rest of the flat was tile at least, so he wouldn't be soaking the carpet any more.

Opening the door with mucus-covered paws was difficult, but with a slight groan the knob bent, his claws managed to wrap around the knob, and at full extension locked together. The door slid open and he was free. He hadn't felt like he'd used that much strength, and yet still managed to turn his round door knob into something that was, well, no longer round.

Oh well, the landlord was a jerk anyway and would probably not be giving him his deposit back, even before he woke up as a vaporeon.

To an onlooker, the newly-minted vaporeon looked like a cat not sure how to cross the minefield of plastic cups laid out between them and the treat. Stepping out onto the tile was yet another set of strange sensations. The claws did not tap out for grip, but the paw pads ever-so-slightly resisted each step.

It made a kind of sense— why wouldn't a water type cat-fox-fish hybrid covered in mucus have utility pads for rocky terrain?

He entered his living room, where his desk was positioned. From there, he could also see the clock in his kitchen. 7 AM. He didn't need to log in until nine, so he had some time, but it was best to get things squared away ASAP to avoid complications.

Climbing into the chair was awkward, as he tried avoiding either clawing into the fabric or hopping into it, which would send it careening across the room. But he did. With some well-placed paw pads, he pulled his chair into position and with a wiggle of the mouse, the screen came on.

Click. click. click. Went to his keyboard as he typed in his password. The typing was agonizingly slow- forced to use his claws to type or he'd hit multiple keys at once. Not that his paw pads were very large, but the entire paw was large and dripping mucus which he wanted to avoid getting on his computer as much as possible.

He did have a pair of accessibility controllers that he had experimented with for accessibility-oriented game development, but they were neither wired up nor configured as keyboard assistants. Nor did he know how well they would handle being covered in his body's mucus/oils.

With a click, he was logged in, and greeted by the company slack. Moving the mouse was easy enough, though his arm really wasn't built for high-precision movements.

It was his teams' slack channel. At least it was a Thursday, so he had until Monday. He turned off his work PC once he posted that he was sick and wouldn't be in that day or the next.

That done, Liam went to his personal laptop and another hour later, managed to message his brother and mother and a few people he deemed weird enough to handle the information. Without fingers, responding was incredibly tedious, and he made sure to let everyone he messaged know that he was going to need help.

The next problem was food and water. Not that his fridge wasn't stocked, but what was a vaporeon's diet? And was his body amenable to the fluoride they added? To say nothing of pH compatibility. He was at least seven feet long including the tail, which was considerable mass.

Fishing around his fridge, it was the fish that caught his eyes. And nose.

Surprise.

Milk and veggies didn't interest him as much, though the eggs were alluring enough. Carnivore diet. Expensive, but doable, especially if he managed to move out into the wilds or at least a property with a river or stream nearby.

Water? Well, that was more complicated. Food was risky, but it was straightforwardly sensible that he'd be able to eat fish and meat generally. This was suggested by using his tongue to check his teeth- no mashers, all sharp, carnivorous teeth and forward-facing eyes. Predatory.

Hopping off the desk and up onto the kitchen counter, he knocked over the bottle of soap into the sink. Ignoring that, he flipped on the tap water. He could, in fact, taste the fluoride.

And it was gross.

Not revolting, at least.

Whatever deity or force caused him in particular to wake up as a pokemon would have to be a real asshole to just leave him out to dry in that regard. There were ways of dealing with the logistics of getting oceanic-pH water into his flat and they would be incredibly annoying.

Being able to drink tap-water in the interim was a huge life-saver.

Fish were a lot more sensitive to even minor changes in pH, so it was worth being careful. But given the persistent itch that was gnawing at him, and it seemingly going down slightly with even a few licks of water, it had been worth the risk. At least at the start.

He wandered back to the living room. Curling up and napping while listening to the noise of the news was immensely appealing.

His brain liked the idea of napping in a warm, moist spot quite a lot. Unfortunately for his brain, Liam didn't have cable. And his radio was an ancient crank-or-solar-powered. Not something he wanted to mess with. And no news networks were willing to stream their content 24/7 online for free. Navigating MORE computer was a no-go.

He could force it, but chewing on the two-foot diameter log in the corner of his living room was beginning to look increasingly more interesting than sitting in front of a computer screen and claw-typing. The news didn't have a lot going on that actually interested him, but if others had also turned into pokemon, it wouldn't be long until he heard news of it.

Sitting at the computer and refreshing reddit was not appealing. He could send a message in an online chat with some always-online friends, at least.

A puff of annoyance, he circled and curled up into himself on a particularly warm patch of tile, the concern fading into the background as Liam recanted everything he knew. Normally, the mental checklist when his brain wasn't cooperating looked something like this:

1. Have I drank water?

2. Have I taken meds/coffee?

3. Have I eaten?

4. Am I clean?

5. Is the area around me clean?

6. Have I listened to music?

7. Have I exercised?

8. Have I socialized?

9. Have I slept?

Socializing would be difficult. At least until a nearby friend who met his own level of weirdness came by, as would eating more. Coffee and meds were both right out.

Listening to music was met, internally, with a level of uncaring that was non-typical. Clearly, his brain and therefore preferences, had shifted, and possibly were shifting, but it was going to be important to figure out exactly what had changed if he was going to navigate the next few weeks.

Given the increasing appeal of chewing into the log or the thought of blasting something with a water gun, he might have to add "Have I beaten up a log or an opponent" to the list. Actually, eh. He could lump it under exercise.

His family would all handle the changes well enough, at least when the logistics around actual communication were figured out.

Though if his brain tired as fast as it did while using the computer, he'd need to entirely reorder his life. So long as he could maintain autonomy and get paid jobs, there were jobs that a vaporeon could do which would be incredibly valuable- for example, hunting down invasive carp.

He just needed to figure out how to position himself in the system. To that end, a plan began to form.

~~~