My eyes snapped open and my body quickly stood up, causing a blanket and a pillow to fly off me.

I looked side to side, slowly breathing, my eyes analyzing every corner of the room I was in.

Room, I'm in a room. I realized.

There's light around me and there are no trees or pokemon in sight. I'm standing on top of a bed and I wore what appears to be an oversized white robe.

There's a desk beside the bed, containing all the stuff I brought. A camera, some money, a flashlight and a phone.

I frowned when I saw the lack of any pokeballs. Where's Ralts?!

Jumping off the bed, I went towards the desk and rummaged it in an attempt to find my pokeballls. Opening each drawer and reopening them again to see if I had missed it but there was nothing. I didn't find any pokeball.

I could hear my heart beating and my breath started to quicken. I tapped my fingers on top of the drawer and tried to think through this.

"Okay...." I took a breath, "I think I'm inside a hospital or in some person's home? They probably healed us and Ralts is just in another room, probably checking to see if he was okay."

"Or maybe Ralts is just outside with the girl an-" I widened my eyes.

The girl! What happened to her!?

There was a click and my attention was caught, a door had opened and someone entered.

"Seems like you've finally awakened." A black haired guy, wearing a blue scrub said.

They stared at me and then looked at the floor, seeing the thrown blanket and pillow then their head moved to my stuff, all having fallen over due to my aggressive rummaging.

For a moment I didn't know what to do, I'm kneeling on the floor, with my hand on top of the desk, staring at the guy without moving or talking.

Then my brain finally stopped lagging and I stood up

"Uh s-sorry for the mess" I said.

The guy shook their head and smiled at me "It's alright, it's normal to panic after seeing yourself in an unfamiliar room."

I nodded and the guy walked closer.

"Sooo." I said, elongating the word on purpose to give me time to think, "Can you tell me where the heck am I?"

The guy picked up the fallen blanket and pillow, putting them back in the bed.

"You're in a hospital." They said.

I was right.

"You passed out due to exhaustion and you've inhaled a lot of smoke, plus you've endured multiple teleport drawbacks and suffered severe ear damage."

Wait my ear!

"How can I still hear when I'm sure I couldn't hear before!?" I questioned the guy.

"That's what you call modern medicine!" They grinned.

"Your eardrums were ruptured so we had to graft some Ditto cells into your eardrums to repair it with the consent of your guardian of course."

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

My brows furrowed. "My guardian? I don't believe you guys know my guardian."

"Your pokemon helped us to contact them." The guy said then paused, seemingly hesitating a little before saying.

"I didn't expect your guardian to be—"

"Ralts! Do you know where Ralts is!?" I said before he can finish his sentence.

"Oh Ralts is staying with your guardian along with the girl you came along with. They're doing fine."

I let out a breath as I heard that, feeling like a heavy weight has been lifted off me.

"That's good to hear." I smiled.

It seems like the girl is fine as well. Teacher should be able to take care of both of them.

Finally relieved, I let myself sit on the bed and ask the guy another question.

"By the way, how long was I out and what's your name...?"

The guy noticed my mood had improved and their smile widened "My name's Marsh and you have been passed out for too long. It's only been nine hours."

Nine hours? I guess you could call that short but guessing by the time I left for Mt. Pyre which is at noon and spending a whole afternoon there, it might be in the middle of the night

"Mind if I look over you and ask some questions?" Marsh asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Sure." I nodded, having no reason to refuse and let them do their job

Marsh moved closer to me, putting two fingers on my wrist and looked all over me, making sure to spend several seconds more on looking to see my ears.

"Is your breathing okay?"

"Normal."

"Does your ears still hurt?"

"A little...' I admitted.

"Hmm guess their ears are still adjusting to the Ditto cells." They muttered to themselves and proceeded to ask me a couple more questions and check a couple of things.

Finally, after a while they finished and decided to ask me something less health related.

"I heard this was all caused by a Chingling, how did you manage that! I heard they're pretty rare and hard to find."

"I don't know, I was just roaming around aimlessly and heard something ringing in the distance so I followed it and then ended up coming face to face with a Ninetales and that seemed to attract Chingling to us."

The nurse's face shifted when I mentioned Ninetales, their smile turning into a scowl.

"Ugh invasive vixens."

I frowned. "What do you mean? Aren't Ninetales normally on Mt. Pyre"

The nurse's face shifted again when he noticed he was scowling and quickly changed it to a smile again, he hummed "Well they were brought to Mt. Pyre as a conservation effort."

Immediately, I find something wrong in that sentence but before I could point it out, Marsh continued

"Why chose Mt. Pyre that is full of flammable plants and not in a volcano or some place more suitable? Not sure but I think the lore keepers of Mt. Pyre wanted one as a guardian since Ninetales are considered as somewhat spiritual and mystical."

"Lore keepers?"

"They're a group of people, that kept two legendary artifacts, proclaiming it to be belonging from Arceus's angels!" Thy shouted.

"And oh, they also keep the graveyard clean."

The grandma! So she was a lore keeper, why had she and her fellow lore keepers decided to keep Ninetales there. Is it really because they wanted one for the aesthetic? I motioned for Marsh to continue.

"They were monitored heavily at first because some people raised concerns about it but some Ninetales managed to escape from their sight and quickly took over the whole mountain." He sighed.

"Took over? How come they aren't all captured again, why do they just leave them alone? That doesn't make sense."

"We did do that but after capturing a lot of them, they started to adapt and get all sneaky."

"Huh then couldn't a psychic easily locat—" I started to speak but midway through, I realized I said something wrong.

"The mountains are filled with a lot of ghosts and dark types, the energies interfere with psychics ability to search things plus Ninetales is like a pseudo psychic, they seem to have a lot of weird tricks and can do things only a psychic type."

I was reminded of my stare contest with Ninetales and I turned quiet. That does seem like something a fire type can't do.

Teacher did mention something about pseudo psychics, saying they were a scam and only used as a label by people for pokemon whose powers were strange and doesn't fit in the standard classifications we used.

Marsh continued. "Though thanks to you, we've managed to find one. They're still being treated at a pokemon center having suffered the same things as you but after that, they'll be transferred into a new location."

"I see" I said for a while before asking the man again.

"By the way, what happened to the girl's pokemon, I didn't hear you mention them."

"They're recovering well despite having their hearing damage very badly, they'll be better in no time!"

Wait a moment, this was the time for me to know what kind of pokemon they are.

"Can I ask what pokemon they are?"

Marsh's eyebrows raised a bit at my question. "Hm you didn't know? Their a Sableye"

Huh.

"Not a name I'm familiar with" I said.

The nurse tilted his head "You're a trainer aren't you? Surely you've heard of that pokemon before."

"My pokemon knowledge is rather limited, my teacher is a psychic type specialist so I mainly know more about psychic types than any other pokemon."

"Your teacher? Oh is your guardian your teacher? I mean it has to be right?"

"Yeah." I answered, "They're way too obsessed with psychic types though and not even bothering to teach me about all the other types! I had to learn those from their children!"

Marsh chuckled

"Well anyway, Sableye is a pretty rare and has an even rarer typing, being one of the only two pokemon to have a dark/ghost typing. You can only find them in caves as they like to hide from the light, even going as far as to cover their whole body in shadows."

That explains how they can control the shadows around them, they hate light so much, they'd learn how to use literal shadows to hide from it. Though I doubt it's really all that effective at shielding them from it.

Although if Marsh said they were pretty rare I wonder how the girl came to find them?

Marsh coughed, bringing my attention to him "I've checked you up and you don't seem to have any concerning issues and you seem to be alright but you can't leave yet, a doctor is needed to check you up to ensure you're actually fine."

He looked at his wrist, gazing at the watch that rests on top of it. "It's currently 1 am so it's best you try to get some rest, well do all that tomorrow."

"Have a good night, goodbye!" Marsh waved at me and exited himself.

As they went out of the door, I let out a huge breath and let my body fully relax in the bed.

Despite passing out for several hours and my mind feeling rather clear, my body's exhausted.

Does passing out not equate to sleep? Are they not the same? Isn't the only difference is that sleeping is done intentionally while the other is not? I shook my head.

Though now that my mind is clear, I can remember how stupid I was, going to Mt. Pyre underprepared, deciding to leave the graveyard and explore the mountain instead despite the warning of that old lady about ghosts.

Well not one violent ghost did appear, only a screaming ball of death, a mischievous little shadow gremlin and a flaming fox that can make you feel uncomfortable with a gaze.

She probably let me go in as she saw that I was a trainer but during that time I wasn't thinking of letting out Ralts at all.

Speaking of Ralts, now that we're out of danger, how am I gonna apologize to him.

I groaned and buried my head with a pillow. I really messed up this time all due to the fact that I can't handle taking a single critique.

Well whatever, it's a future me problem, for now I'm going back to sleep.