New Story Idea (Patreon)

I know this isn't why you joined my Patreon but as the people who have been following my work for the longest time I want your opinion on this.

Below is my story's title, synopsis, book cover, and first chapter. Tell me what you think about all of it.

Cultivating Pokémon

Synopsis:

Our story is the tale of two souls: The first of a young man who dreamt of flying, reborn as a monster; the other of a young girl coming into her own, wanting to experience all her world has to offer.

She wishes to cultivate a team of champions while he tries to come to terms with his new life, neither of which will be easy, but at least they will try together.

Follow the pair as they meet one another and journey across her world… taking on one gym at a time.

**********

If the title, cover art, and description were too vague, this is a Pokémon fanfiction.

After reading Borne of Caution, which I highly recommend you read if you like Pokémon, I thought it would be fun to try writing one for myself.

I'll primarily be drawing from the anime and games, but I'll be tweaking it to make it original.

Please give it a chance, and thank you in advance.

**********

Chapter 1: Dying Before He Can Jump

It was do or die for Ryan; he only had one chance at success. One chance at glory!

If he failed here, he would never live it down!

"Uno!" Ryan shouted as he slammed his second to last card down onto his parent's dining room table.

"If you scratch the surface, I'm having you pay for it to be resurfaced," Ryan's father, Jack Henderson, warned his son, but anyone could see by his grin that he was only joking. Mostly joking.

“Tired of losing again?” Ryan smugly gloated over his father. He had won the last two games and was close to winning the third.

“You haven’t won yet, brat,” Jack grumbled, throwing down one of the cars in his hand passing the turn off to his wife, Angela.

"Now, boys, take it down a notch. It's just a game." Ever the peacekeeper, with a smile on her face, Elizbeth Henderson lightly scolded Ryan, her youngest child, along with her overly competitive husband, as she threw down her own card into the mix.

“Sorry, Mom, but that's kind of hard to do when you are… WINNING!" Ryan shouted as he threw his last card down onto the table, securing himself yet another victory.

“Dang it!” Jack Henderson angrily slams his fists onto the table in defeat.

Being the sore winner that he was, Ryan took a moment to further to solidify his victory over his father, “Carful, you might have to have it resurfaced.” Ryan felt it was only poetic that he used his fathers' previous words against him.

This scene wasn’t anything new at the Henderson residence. Ryan and his family had always played card games whenever they visited each other, and every one of them besides his mother would get super competitive with each other. The arguing and gloating were simply a Henderson tradition at this point.

"One more game." Ryan's father, Jack, quickly demanded, not about to let his youngest son get the better of him in his own house.

"I would love to beat you for the fourth time, but I think it's about time I get going. Some of us have to work tomorrow." Ryan dramatically pushes himself away from the table and stands up from his chair, cockily making eye contact with his father the entire time.

Ryan’s parents were both retired, but not exactly by choice. Ryan’s father was once a fire chief down at the local station. Four years ago, a beam fell on top of him while clearing out a burning building. His fellow firefighters rescued Jack, but sadly he didn’t come out of the accident unscathed.

He had fractured his spine and since has had multiple surgeries for pinched nerves along with a slew of other health problems. Doctors say it was a miracle that he escaped what he did without being paralyzed, but they warned one bad fall could land him in a bed forever.

With so much at stake, Jack had to hang up his uniform for good. He still helped with fundraisers and other events down at the station, but his working days were over. That had been a hard time for the Henderson’s.

Ryan’s older brother and sister flew in from out of state when it happened, but they couldn’t stay forever; they had their own lives and families after all. Plus, Ryan’s father was a proud man and would sooner see himself in the ground before he let his children spend their days worrying over him.

Still, it went unsaid that someone would have to stay home with Jack should the unspeakable happen when no one was around. So, Angela Henderson did the only thing she could do; she gave up her job teaching to stay home with her husband. Both had more than decent pensions, and with Jack claiming disability, the two of them got along just fine.

Unwilling to let his accident turn into a mental block, Jack insisted the family didn’t dance around the issue and not to hold back the trash-talking as they always did. Now four years later, cracking jokes about his father's unemployment had become a bit of a dark inside joke for the family.

"Yeah, I bet I can still work twice as hard as you," Jack rose to meet Ryan's challenge, although a bit slower to get up than his son.

“I’m sure you could,” Ryan smiled at his dad, secretly happy to still see that his father’s competitive spirit was still alive and well.

Ryan was the only one of Jack and Angela’s children who still lived close by, so he made it a point to visit his parents at least every couple of weeks or so. He had moved out the year before his father’s accident to the neighboring town over the hills, where he got a job at a credit union. It wasn't a glamorous job by any means, but he liked it, and being a bank teller paid his bills.

"And don't forget it," Jack shuffled his way around the table over to his son and wrapped him in a bone-crunching hug. "You sure you can't stay for one more game; what about a game of phase 10?”

“No way,” Ryan pulled away from his father. Phase 10 was his father's favorite game, and if Ryan agreed to stay for a round, it meant he would be staying for at least three. He was in line for an assistant manager position at his bank, and even if he lived relatively close by, he couldn’t risk staying for too long.

"Are you sure it's ok to drive?" Ryan's mom asked him as she moved in to give him her son a goodbye hug. “It was raining pretty bad.”

Pretty bad was putting it mildly; it poured all day yesterday to the point Ryan opted to stay the night at his parent's place rather than chance driving home in it, and for a good reason. California had been locked in a drought the last few years, so when meteorologists said an atmospheric river the likes of which people hadn’t seen in decades was to dump over twelve inches of water across the arid state, Ryan, like most, was happy for the news. That was until it started to rain.

Twelve inches turned into fifteen, and then fifteen turned into nineteen; needles to say flood warnings were issued. If it rained any more, it would've broken a state record.

But thankfully, the warnings were overly cautious. Other than a few clogged drain pipes, the downpour was harmless. And thanks to it, California came out of the storm more reinvigorated than it had been in a long time.

The sun was out, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. A permanent rainbow stretched across the horizon, looking like something out of a fairytale. The brown hills would turn green in a few days, making an already beautiful sight all that grander.

“I’ll be fine,” Ryan reassured his mom. “I’m taking the mountain pass home, so I won’t need to deal with any of the highways. I promise I’ll drive slowly. I’m a big boy; I can take care of myself.”

“It doesn’t matter how old you are,” Angela refused to let her baby boy go that easily. “Just because you’re twenty-five doesn’t mean I’m going to stop worrying about everything you do. The same goes for your older brother and sister too. You’ll realize this if you ever start a family of your own.”

Ryan could only smile at his mom; he and his siblings had been adults for a while now, and their mom still treated them like they were teenagers. Ryan's elder brother Marcus turned twenty-eight this year; he graduated culinary school five years ago and lived with his fiancé up in Washington. Then there was the boy’s older sister Jessica, she was twenty-nine and just gave birth to Ryan’s first niece last year.

“Stop codling the boy, Angie. He said he would be careful. Have faith in him." Jack reached over and offered a supportive shoulder to his wife.

Angela took one look at her husband before giving him a playful shove. “Don’t act like you aren’t also worried about him. I seem to recall a certain someone insisting he stay the night just as much as I was.”

"That was then; this is now." Jack tries to project an air of confidence, but Ryan and Angela both know that was just dad speak for, 'I'm right, so don’t question it.’

Ignoring her husband and his foolish actions, Angela turns her attention back to her son. "Be extra careful driving. And get a haircut when you get back home." Angela brushes a stray strand of hair behind her boy's ear. "You'll never get a promotion with sloppy hair.”

"I'll get right on that." Ryan gives his mom another quick hug before separating from her and making his way over to his parent's front door. He didn't have a bag with him, considering he hadn't planned to stay the night, so he didn't need to worry about forgetting anything.

Jack and Angela walk their son out the front door and over to his beat-up ford ranger. The truck's faded blue paint glistened in the sunshine, making it look slightly less terrible than it was. Ryan didn't care that his car was old; he got a great deal on it, and he took care of it ran like it was a brand new car straight off the lot.

Ryan's collogues at the bank heckled him for his vehicle choice, but Ryan was raised to use something until it broke. Until old blue spontaneously combusted on him, Ryan would hold off worrying about spending his hard-earned money on a new car.

As Ryan opened his truck’s door, he felt his pocket vibrate. Fishing out his phone, he pulled up the text message he had just received as he slid into his driver’s side seat.

There was a tap on his window, so Ryan manually rolled down his window to face his stern-faced mother. “You better not be looking at that while you’re driving.” Ryan's mother stood there, staring daggers at him and the device in his hand.

“Just checking a message from David before I hop on the road." Ryan quickly scans the message before letting out a small sigh and putting the device into driving mode.

Happy to see Ryan following her directions, his mother switched gears and asked what David wanted, which made her boy sigh.

David was Ryan’s one true friend and had been since they met in high school. While Ryan was the withdrawn type, David was the socialite. Anyone who saw the two together would probably ask why the boys were friends considering their massive personality difference, but the answer was relatively simple, the two of them balanced each other out.

Ryan kept David grounded and kept him from trying some of his more asinine ideas while David pulled Ryan out of his shell. Even today, Ryan was David's voice of reason, though as of late, he couldn't help but want to agree with his best friend’s questionable decisions.

"You know how I told you David got his piolets license recently?" While Ryan got a job at a bank as a cashier, his friend David got a job at the nearby airfield where he apprenticed as an airplane mechanic.

“Oh, does he want to take you up?” Angela’s guess was close but not quite what was troubling Ryan.

“No, he already got me to go flying with him; this is something different."

With her curiosity growing, Ryan's mom leans in through the window of his truck, waiting for her son to spit it out.

“He’s trying to get me to go skydiving,” Ryan bites the proverbial bullet and tells his parents.

“That sounds fun,” Ryan’s dad remarks with a chuckle. “Are you going?”

“Absolutely not!” Angela cuts off her husband. “Ryan is not jumping out of a plane!”

Jack initially chuckles at his wife’s panicked look but quickly covers it up with a cough when she sends him a death glare that meant business.

With her husband silenced, Angela rounds her son. “Why would you possibly want to jump out of a plane?”

“I didn’t say I want to,” Ryan cowers in his seat, defending himself. “I merely said David was trying to get me to go, not that I was going.”

“Right, well don’t,” Ryan’s mother fixes him with a stare that left no room for discussion. “And tell David if he wants to kill himself, he could do it all on his own. Honestly, that boy!”

Ryan nodded to his mother with a strained smile that he'd do just that before blowing her a kiss and saying his final goodbyes to his parents. Both of them waved to him as he backed his truck down their driveway, finally heading home.

From his parent’s house to his apartment, it was only a forty-five-minute drive for Ryan. His parents lived on the edge of town, and once you made it into the hills, traffic was pretty much nonexistent. It was technically quicker to take the freeway, but for an extra five minutes of diving, not only did you not have to deal with the chance of traffic, but the backroad’s scenery was a lot nicer as well, a significant plus in Ryan's book. That, and he wanted a few extra minutes to think, and a pleasant drive was just what he needed.

With his old car stereo playing in the background, Ryan thought of his mom's reaction to him mentioning skydiving. It made sense that she wouldn’t want Ryan to risk himself like that. It was already a miracle that her husband could still walk; she probably saw no reason for her children to endanger themselves on something as pointless as jumping out of a plane.

Letting out another sigh, Ryan inwardly apologized to his mother. He had lied to her and said he didn’t want to go skydiving when in reality, it had been something he'd dreamed about for years. David didn’t need to offer to take Ryan up in his small plane; Ryan had begged him to. As soon as David had his piolets license, it was Ryan who went with him on his first flight without having an instructor overseeing him.

Ryan had never felt more alive than he did up in that plane. He wished he could share his excitement with his family, but no matter how he saw it, it would only give his mother a heart attack. The only reason Ryan had even told his parents the contents of David’s text was to gauge their reaction to the idea, and just as he expected, his mother disapproved.

“So now what?” Ryan asked himself as he drove up the winding roads into the hills. Did he go with his friend and tell his parents after the fact, or should he just not say anything at all?

It had taken weeks for Ryan to build up the courage even to consider going skydiving with his friend. But now that he’d already convinced himself that he had to go, it was all Ryan could think about.

One of David’s pilot friends at the airfield owned his own skydiving business, and he agreed to take David and a few of his friends up for half price, a deal in and of itself.

Ryan knew his father would forgive him for going without saying anything, but his mother was the kind of person who got mad when people ignored her advice. And though Ryan hated to be called it, he was a mamma’s boy at heart.

But he really-

Really, really, really wanted to go.

Ryan slowed his car around a particularly tight turn and looked up at the sky for guidance, despite not being that religious. Instead of a message from above, what greeted him was an endless sea of blue that tugged at his heartstrings. And in that moment, he knew he needed to take his friend up on his offer. You only live once, after all.

Ryan was sure about it, surer than anything in his life leading up to this point. He would sail through that gorgeous sky; he would fly.

Yes, he would do it. Of course, Ryan would apologize to his mother the next time he saw her, but he was going skydiving.

In fact, before he got cold feet, while his emotions were still in the clouds, Ryan pulled off the road the next safe chance he got. He parked at a larger bend in the road and fished out his phone. Ryan vibrated with excitement as he sent a simple text message to his buddy David.

-I’m in.-

As soon as he sent it, Ryan's emotions started to settle, and he began to question if he was doing the right thing or not.

No, this is my life. I can’t live it according to what others say, even if that person is my mom, Ryan thought to himself.

No backing out now.

But then, as if the heavens were mocking Ryan’s resolve, his truck started to shake. The 2000 Ford Ranger wasn’t experiencing Engen problems; no, it was the ground under the car that was shaking.

Ryan’s mind immediately jumped to earthquake, only this area of California wasn’t known for major tremors, certainly not anything like this. Holding on to his steering wheel for dear life, Ryan found himself praying for the shaking to stop.

The shaking didn't stop; it only got worse.

And then, all at once, Ryan felt his stomach drop. He felt like he was falling; no, he was falling!

Ryan and his truck were cartwheeling down the hill, followed by a wave of wet dirt and rock. The rumbling wasn’t an earthquake; it was the side of the hill giving way.

Everything happened quickly after that, from Ryan's truck's windows shattering under the weight of the earth slamming into it to the whiplash Ryan received as his truck barrel-rolled countless times in quick succession.

If there was one concession given to Ryan, it was that he hit his head on his steering wheel as the truck was buried under an avalanche of debris.

He wasn’t conscious as he was buried alive. He felt no pain as his life was cut short.

It was the excessive rain the night before that did it. Ryan didn’t know it, but the base of the bend he parked on was washed out the night before. It would’ve collapsed on its own if left alone, but the added weight of Ryan’s truck was too much for the hillside to bear.

In the end, it was simply bad luck, a one in a million possibility, but it had happened. Ryan Henderson had died in a freak mudslide.

His family and best friend would weep for him, California lawmakers would use his death to justify more infostructure spending, the world moved on with one less soul in it.

And yet…

As one world lost a soul, another would gain one.

**********

Ryan struggled in a prison of darkness. He twisted and turned, trashing about, but nothing helped, nothing changed, he couldn’t move anything.

What is this place?

Am I still alive? I don’t think I should be alive. Ryan couldn't make heads or tails of his situation. Everything was pitch-black, and yet Ryan could sense himself drifting, moving, through the endless sea of nothingness around him.

It all felt weird, because though he could feel his body, it wasn't there. It was like Ryan was looking at a cloudy outline of what his body used to be, a phantom of his former self, a being without true substance.

I’m sure I died; Ryan mentally reassured himself with a morbid finality for the hundredth time since he woke up in the void. His mother had always told him to try and stay positive, but no matter how Ryan looked at it, he was sure he died in that landslide.

If I hadn't stopped there. If I had just stayed with my parents. Thoughts like those continued to plague Ryan as he drifted. Since he appeared in this purgatory of a void, he'd been left to his thoughts, thoughts that continued to grow darker than the void around him the longer he stayed there.

Ryan's mind was spinning in circles, but his thoughts would always eventually drift back towards his friends and family. He would never be able to hug his parents again, never be able to tell his siblings how much he loved them. He would never see his niece grow up.

Ryan was sure he must be dead because if he weren't, he would surely be crying right now. But, sadly, Ryan could only feel a growing sense of emptiness as he further spiraled down into the abyss of despair.

I wonder if that girl I had plans with next weekend will think I stood her up? Will she find out that I died; would she mourn me? Ryan had kept his dating life private despite his mom constantly harassing him about it, not wanting to introduce any of his girlfriends to his parents until he was in a more serious relationship. Now he wished he had brought Amy with him to see his parents, it would've been a weird first date, but at least his parents would've known he’d been meeting people.

I should’ve talked to my siblings more. I should’ve taken David up on his offer to go skydiving sooner.

And that’s how Ryan spent his time, thinking about all the things he’d never get to do and all the people he’ll never be able to see again.

Stuck in his misery, Ryan quickly lost track of time, but it felt like an eternity. And that is how Ryan stayed-

That is until he felt a subtle change in the space around him.

It started small, a tremor if you will, small enough it almost didn't register to his diminished senses.

The void he was floating in began to shift and change, and it wasn’t just the void either, but Ryan as well. The void was closing in on him, violently smashing his consciousness back together.

One minute Ryan was wallowing in self-pity; the next, it felt like two giant hands had come together, forcing everything that remained of Ryan back together.

And the light. A blinding golden light had replaced the void around Ryan.

But something wasn’t right.

Ryan could feel his body shifting, almost as if he were a ball of clay being sculpted by forces his mind couldn't possibly comprehend.

What is this? Ryan confusingly screamed in his mind, wishing he had vocal cords again or that someone could explain what the hell was happening to him.

With each passing second, he felt himself being molded into something new… something that wasn't human.

Then then the light intensified-

There was a loud cracking noise-

Then the world settled around Ryan, and suddenly his various senses returned to him. His heart pounded in his chest as he desperately tried to suck in as much air into his lungs as he could.

Ryan was alive, but something was off.

Everything felt wrong!

The world around him was a canvas of washed-out grays. The air itself tasted strangely stagnant to Ryan as his tastebuds kicked in for the first time in what felt like forever. He was standing on an uneven rocky floor with similar walls all around him.

Ryan was in a cave. Why was he in a cave!?

In his panicked state, Ryan had to reassure himself this wasn’t some weird dream, so he took a hesitant step forward only to trip over a pair of narrow feet. As he tumbled to the stony ground, on instinct, Ryan tried to brace himself with his arms, only for a pair of purple wings to shoot out in front of him instead.

The wings acted as a poor brace for Ryan’s new awkwardly shaped body, and soon he found himself crashing face-first into the hard ground below, wincing in pain as he landed on his sensitive new appendages.

Owwww, that really hurt! What’s going on with my body? My head feels like it weighs a ton. If this was a dream, it was the most realistic dream Ryan had ever experienced.

Groaning to himself, Ryan slowly turned his enormous head, so his face was no longer buried in the dusty cave floor. But as Ryan shifts his larger than normal head, he can't keep his heartbeat from skyrocketing even further as he glances at what used to be his left arm. The leather wing looks like something a bat would have, and that isn't even touching on the fact that it's two shades of purple.

The longer Ryan gawked at his new limb, the more conscious he became of its muscles and the fact that there were two talons that he previously missed in all the chaos. Then, trying to flex what was once his fingers, Ryan watched wide-eyed as the two talons shakily curled and bent in on themselves.

Alright, I can work with this, Ryan tells himself, trying and failing to get a hold of his emotions. Finally, managing to angle his nails against the ground, he pushes with all his might, carefully flipping himself over onto his back.

Shakily, Ryan held his new wings out before him as he lay motionless on the cave floor.

I’m some sort of monster! Ryan let out a panicked scream.

“EEEEEEEeeeeeeee!!!”

But what escaped from Ryan's new mouth was anything but a human's scream. The noise he produced could only be described as the loudest high-pitched shriek Ryan had ever heard in his life, something akin to a thousand nails being dragged across a chalkboard.

It was a [Screech].

The sound waves echoed off the cavern’s walls, amplifying Ryan’s panicked [Screech] further, but for some reason, the loud sound didn’t hurt his ears. If anything, the longer Ryan listened to the ringing in his ears, the clearer he could picture the cave around him in his head.

The map wasn't huge, but at least Ryan could vaguely tell what was around him. I’m using echolocation, Ryan realized.

Being able to use echolocation would’ve typically warranted some shock from Ryan, but the ability to use sound to see his surroundings wasn’t the only thing he was experiencing at the moment. Ryan could feel his [Screech]reverberating out of his throat, but it wasn’t just his lungs feeding his scream. There was a fire in his chest; that was the only way Ryan could describe what he was feeling. And as Ryan screamed, the fire seemed to bleed into his voice. It was amplifying it, making it stronger.

The fire wasn’t just amplifying his [Screech] either; it also allowed him to scream for much longer than what should’ve been possible. But as he wailed, the fire was shrinking, and when it was reduced to half of what it started as it stopped feeding into his wails, and Ryan was forced to take a breath finally.

What the hell was that?! Ryan thought as he panted, but he wasn’t given any time to ponder his question before the cave started to shake.

Fearing he might have caused some sort of cave-in, Ryan tries to scramble back to his feet, only for his new body to refuse to move as he wanted it to.

But as someone who previously died in a landslide, Ryan didn’t let his new body hold him back from trying to flee. He managed to stand on his new feet with a lot of effort but immediately had trouble balancing himself due to the shaking. His new wings caught the air better than his human arms ever could, so each time he flailed them to try to balance himself out, they would inadvertently drag him in the opposite direction, forcing Ryan to flail more and overcompensate.

Ryan quickly realized that he would need to crawl out if he wanted to escape but which way was out? Did the passageway to his left lead to freedom, or did the right? His echolocation only mapped out a part of his surroundings, and he would need to make a choice and make it quick.

Then, right as he was about to start crawling down the left tunnel, as suddenly as the shaking had started, it stopped, and with it, so did Ryan’s fears of being buried alive again.

Ryan let out an audible sigh that sounded loud in the quiet cave, but his relief was premature because a pile of rocks started to shift on the opposite side of the small cavern he was in.

Stone fists burst out of the rock pile; fists attached to boulders with eyes.

“Geo!”

“Geo!”

“Geo!”

“Graveler!”

Three rock monsters growl in anger at Ryan as they hoist themselves out of the loose rubble, followed by a much bigger rock monster behind them. The largest of the monsters was the most attention-grabbing with four bulky arms that stood nearly three times taller than Ryan, sporting narrow menacing eyes that seemed to lock onto him instantly.

The three smaller boulder monsters each varied in size, but they were slightly bigger than Ryan and shared the same grey exterior as the larger beast. While the three relatively smaller living boulders growled menacingly at him, the big one leered down at Ryan, scanning him with its piercing eyes.

Ryan probably would've been cowering in fear before the stony creatures if he wasn't staring at them in disbelief.

Ryan had seen these monsters before. Well, not in real life, of course, but in the games he played as a kid. It had been almost a decade since Ryan had picked up his last Pokémon game, and yet he could clearly remember the names of the monsters in front of him, having been in every Pokémon game he'd ever played.

That’s a graveler and three geodude! Those were real-life Pokémon!

It suddenly clicked to Ryan; the cracking noise, his new body, he'd died and been reborn as a Pokémon! He'd hatched from an egg!

Sadly, Ryan wasn’t given a chance to fully digest this new revelation before the three geodude started hopping in his direction. The rock Pokémon used their strong arms to propel themselves forward, making loud thudding noises each time they landed on the cavern floor.

The fear finally dawned on Ryan at the worst possible time. Although he used to joke with David and his male coworkers about how he would defend himself if the bank had ever been robed, those sentiments apparently didn’t transfer over to angry rock monsters. Ryan’s fight or flight reflexes were nonexistent as he froze in front of the charging Pokémon. The sound they made as they moved reminded him eerily of the rockslide that previously claimed his life.

When the geodude were only a few feet away from him, just a few inches from reaching distance, Ryan finally snapped out of his stupor, but by then, there was nothing he could do. Shutting his eyes and raising his new wings to his face like a shield, Ryan cowered on the cavern floor, fully expecting to be ripped apart by the angry Pokémon.

But just as the goedude reached for a trembling Ryan, a gravelly voice thundered over their angry growls, “Wait!”

Ryan could hear and feel the ground under him tremble as the three rock Pokémon skid to a sudden stop at the abrupt shout, but he was too scared to glance up at the three Pokémon that were surely standing right in front of him, lest he accidentally angers them more than he already had. Ryan quickly came up with a plan to make himself as small as possible and thank his lucky stars that someone was nearby willing to help him.

“Why?!”

“Loud!”

“Intruder!”

Three hoarse voices right in front of Ryan immediately complain to Ryan’s mystery hero, each sounding extremely frustrated.

They sounded so close to Ryan, so close that they could only be-

Ryan tentatively peeked out from behind his leather wings, hoping a bunch of humans had somehow replaced the angry mob of Pokémon before him.

But there were no humans, just three geodudes facing and complaining to one big graveler that at some point had gotten much closer to Ryan.

“Why? Why? Why?” The three echoed over one another, demanding an answer from what Ryan thought must be their de facto leader.

Ryan watched wide-eyed as the graveler responded to the three Pokémon by raising its hands and swiftly delivering a karate-chop-like strike to each of the complaining geodude, silencing them all.

“No harm. Baby,” the graveler proclaimed in broken English, using its one free hand to point at a still cowering Ryan.

"Baby?" The largest of the geodudes uses its hands to turn its stony body around to study Ryan again. While the Pokémon argued, Ryan thought his brain must be short-circuiting because he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

They’re talking; they’re really talking! Ryan's mind couldn't keep up with the shocking turn of events. Not only was he reincarnated as a Pokémon, but for some reason, the Pokémon could speak English!

“Yes. Baby,” the graveler said firmly.

Wait, that wasn’t English. Now that Ryan was starting to focus on what the Pokémon were saying, he could hear the difference in their voices. They were talking by repeating their names, just like in the anime Ryan watched as a kid. Only somehow Ryan understood the meaning behind their weird speech patterns, almost like he had some sort of translation function built into his mind. Which meant… he could try and speak to them, reason with them perhaps.

“E,” Ryan tried to say excuse me in the most nonthreateningly way he could, but after that [Screech] earlier and the fact that he’d yet to try and say anything with his new vocal cords, all Ryan could do is start coughing up a lung.

Ryan’s coughing attracted the attention of the arguing Pokémon, the rest of the four turning to watch him as he stumbled to catch his breath. His throat was raw, and if that wasn't bad enough, it was at that moment that Ryan's empty stomach decided to make itself known. Even with all his hacking and coughing, Ryan's stomach growled loud enough for all to hear.

“Hungry?” The graveler rumbles before pushing past the three smaller living boulders.

Between having the large rock Pokémon quickly approaching him and struggling to breathe, Ryan panicked as the graveler reached out to grab him, not having heard her question. The Pokémon’s hands looked massive to Ryan, and he could only picture them crushing him as they drew closer.

Time slowed as those four colossal hands closed in on Ryan; he didn't want to die again! In that moment, when Ryan's emotions were running wild, he felt it. The fire in his chest was moving again, surging. The fire in his chest moved as if it had a life of its own, traveling up through his core and into his throat, but it didn't stop there. The fire moved into Ryan’s mouth and fused with his teeth.

There was a whisper in Ryan’s ear, instinct if you will, that told Ryan to bite into Graveler’s arm. Bite and don’t let go. So, he did just that—Ryan bit with everything he had.

The graveler didn’t so much as flinch as Ryan tried to bury his fangs into one of its hands, but it did pause in reaching for him. Ryan tried to bite as hard as he could, but even with his new sharp teeth, he couldn't break past Graveler's stone skin.

Ryan may have been in a frenzied state, but on some level, his mind realized what he was doing was pointless. The graveler would shake him off any moment now and would be the end of him.

Just as Ryan was about to resign himself to fate, he felt the fire in his teeth move again. Whatever purpose the energy in his teeth had, it wasn’t over yet. It was then the voice in the back of Ryan's mind decided to whisper to him again, and this time it said push!

Green light started to emit from Ryan’s teeth as the energy was forced from his fangs. Ryan didn’t know how he was doing what he was doing, but that didn’t stop him from doing it. Like venom, Ryan’s energy pierced Graveler’s unbreachable skin and dug into the Pokémon.

Now, [Absorb], his instincts screamed.

Ryan pulled back on the energy that he still seemed to have control over.

Bubbles of soft green light rose up out of Graveler’s arm and rushed towards Ryan’s mouth. The energy hit him like a brick to the face. Whatever Ryan absorbed didn't go back into the fire in his chest, but it did diffuse around his body. His muscles unclenched, and suddenly he was wide awake. It felt like he had just chugged a dozen Red Bulls in quick succession.

The high didn't last long, though. Ryan could feel the energy he absorbed leaking out of his body. It was invisible to the naked eye, but he could feel it seeping out of his skin. His body just couldn’t contain it.

Should I try to absorb more?

It was then Ryan remembered that he’d been in the middle of biting Graveler. While he was lost in thought, his teeth were still latched onto its arm.

Why am I? It took him a second to process it, but it slowly dawned on Ryan what he had just done. He had attacked a monster three times his size. But if that’s the case, why am I still alive?

Slowly, Ryan opened his mouth and backed away from the hand he was biting. Off to the side, the three geodude looked ready to lunge at him again, and the only thing stopping them was-

Ryan looked up at the graveler, who was just standing there, watching him. It didn’t attack him when he bit it, even though it surely could’ve.

With slow movements, Graveler brought its arm up and looked at the spot where Ryan had bit it. It was faint, but the area was a slightly paler grey than the rest of its body. Ryan’s attack had managed to hurt the rock Pokémon without ever breaking its skin.

Graveler proceeded to shake out its arm like someone would do if they were trying to clear away an itch.

Ryan and Graveler's eyes then met, and to Ryan’s shock, the Pokémon smiled down at him without a hint of malice. “Ok, safe now,” the Pokémon spoke in its rumbly voice. Ryan wasn’t sure if it was his ears playing tricks on him, they were different now after all, but even though the Graveler’s voice was extremely coarse, Ryan couldn’t help but think it had a subtle feminine undertone to it.

Graveler then twisted its body to the side because its face was on its torso and addressed the three angry geodude. “Baby, scared.”

“Hurt, you,” the largest one growled, staring past graveler at Ryan with rage in its eyes.

“Fine,” the graveler replied in a surprisingly soft tone, holding her arm out for the three to see. And it was a she; Ryan could see that now.

The graveler wasn’t ruling over these geodudes; no, Ryan could recognize a family when he saw one. So it was no wonder the three smaller rock Pokémon were staring daggers at him; he had just attacked their mom.

A knot started to form in Ryan's stomach as the situation continued to become more apparent to him. Despite her rough exterior, Ryan could now see the tenderness behind Graveler’s eyes. Even after he attacked her, wounded her, she was still trying to calm down her children and keep them from attacking him.

She wasn’t trying to hurt him earlier when he was choking; she was trying to help him. And he attacked her for it. He used [Absorb] on her. Ryan then remembered [Absorb] was a grass move. It had been a long time since he played a Pokémon game, but he still remembered Graveler was a rock and ground type; grass moves were super effective against her.

How much damage did he do to her? He had just hatched, so he couldn't be that strong-

Could he?

Ryan felt tears in his eyes; his emotions were boiling over after being suppressed in the void for so long. His earlier fear was mixing with the guilt he was now feeling.

Ryan tried to wipe the tears from his face, but he hadn’t yet gotten the hang of his new appendages. All he could do was claw at his face with his talons which only served to upset him more.

It was then that Ryan felt the fire in his chest move for the third time. The energy was pooling in his throat again, about to empower another [Screech] he was desperately trying to hold back.

But just as Ryan felt he couldn’t hold back his screams anymore, two large tender hands carefully picked him up off the floor.

Graveler held Ryan close to her and started to rock him in a practiced manner. Ryan’s energy that was seconds away from erupting immediately calmed down before returning to his chest. He still felt terrible about his actions and wanted to apologize, but his strength was rapidly leaving his body. From dying, to being reborn in a new world, to his encounter with real-life Pokémon, Ryan was drained mentally and physically. Even the fire in his chest was only a fraction of what it was when he hatched minutes ago.

Ryan had a few guesses as to what that fire might be, but he struggled to keep his eyes open.

As he passed out, Ryan used the last of his energy to mumble one word in his new language quietly-

“Sorry.”

**********

Graveler smiled down at the baby in her arms as he passed out. There was nothing he needed to be sorry for. He might not be her child, but Graveler would never leave a defenseless newborn on their own.

Her three children were still sending angry glances at the baby in her arms, but she wouldn’t hold that against them. They were young and right to be territorial.

Graveler herself might not have been so nice if the child’s parents were here with it. And that was the one thing that was bothering Graveler; this was her cave; she had dug it out herself many seasons ago. She and her children knew every inch of it and would’ve noticed a pregnant female of any species if they tried to enter. Graveler had defended her home from intruders countless times before, and no one would’ve been able to lay an egg here without her knowing.

And yet, the baby in her arms spoke differently. How had she missed an egg so close to their nest? It was almost like it had appeared out of nowhere.

She had heard his egg crack upon his hatching, but he had started using [Screech] before Graveler, and her children could even remove themselves from their nest. Graveler had thought it might have been an attack, so she used [Magnitude] until she saw it was only a defenseless baby.

He was healthy at least; she could still feel the stinging in her arm from where he attacked her. Graveler hated grass moves; the zoobat and goldbat use the same thing whenever they try to muscle in on her territory. She might have let the annoyances share her cave with her and her children if they weren’t such gluttons. Graveler was strong enough to survive an [Absorb]or two, her children not so much. Her eldest might, but not the other two.

The point was, Graveler knew zoobats, and the child in her arms was not one. He resembled them, but his shape was different, and he had eyes. Zoobats didn't get eyes until they evolved into goldbats.

It stumped Graveler; not only did he appear out of nowhere, but he was a Pokémon she had never run into before. As a veteran of these hills, Graveler liked to think she knew every Pokémon that called the surroundings home.

The child in her arms baffled Graveler.

But then again, his species didn't matter to her. She had seen what happens to parentless babies before. Some like her were lucky and grew strong, but most never survived a week.

If the child’s parents came back to claim him, Graveler would freely give him up. But until then, she would look after him.

“Sleep,” Graveler motioned for her agitated children to return to their nest.

The three showed their displeasure by growling lowly, but in the end, the three started hopping back over to the pile of boulders Graveler and her children called home.

Graveler would wait for the three of them to fall asleep before she left the cave for a bit. She had to make sure his little one’s parents weren’t hiding nearby, and if they weren't, she'd need to gather some berries for when he woke up—chances where he couldn’t survive off the surrounding rocks like graveler and her children could.

Then again, her babies enjoyed berries too. So maybe if she gathered enough for everyone, it would help them worm up to the baby quicker. That sounded like an excellent idea to Graveler.

Carefully, Graveler shuffled over to her nest, mindful not to wake the baby in her arms, where she closed her eyes so her children would go to sleep.

She would take care of them, all four of them.

**********

7,650 words!

Yeah, you stuck around until the end. Thanks for giving my second story a shot. I decided to try different things with this one, from cutting back on the game mechanics to focusing more on writing in the third person. Pretty much the exact opposite of my other work.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below, and don't hesitate to point out any grammatical mistakes.

Thanks again, and as always, stay safe.