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Chapter 1 - First Meeting (On the Beach at Dusk)

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This tale begins on a beach just before dusk; it lies secluded at the base of several low-lying cliffs, and not a sound can be heard except for the waves rolling in at even intervals. The sand is soft and warm from the day’s heat, and the sun glows orange just above the horizon, bathing the coastline in a wondrous golden light.

A small creature by the name of Robin hums a tune to himself as he walks down the slope towards the beach, a surfboard carried over his head with both forepaws. His lightning bolt-shaped tail waves enthusiastically behind him as he steps out onto the sand, delighted to find that the waves are even better down here than what he’d observed from atop the cliff.

“Oh, this’ll be good! It’s been ages since I got to surf waves like-”

His thought cut off abruptly as he spotted a strange lump in the sand, at the farthest edge of the incoming surf several body lengths away from himself. It was hard to make out what it was at this distance, though Robin could tell it was only just a little smaller than himself.

He continued to walk towards it at a slower pace, until he could finally discern what it was. He dropped his board as both paws went to cover his mouth, stifling a shrill yelp. It wasn’t an object laying in the sand...it was another pokemon.

Robin fell into a sprint, all caution thrown to the wind. He reached the other pokemon, a torchic by the looks of it, and quickly pulled them away from the water and onto drier ground. His sensitive ears twitched furiously as he listened for a pulse, or a breath, anything that would indicate this pokemon was still alive. His own racing heart was making it difficult to hear anything else, and the poor pikachu didn’t even want to begin thinking about what he’d have to do if the torchic didn’t, if they were actually-

There, a breath. It was shallow, hardly noticeable, but that was all he needed. Robin inhaled through his nose, held it, and let it go as he reigned in his racing thoughts. This pokemon was alive, but not in great shape - they would need his help.

Robin glanced all around, just to make sure there wasn’t someone else here he’d missed. No, they were both alone on this beach. It was up to him to step up and do the right thing.

Carefully, the nervous pikachu hoisted the torchic up onto his own back, wrapping his arms beneath their legs and allowing the limp body to lean into his own. Despite the fact that he’d found them laying in the surf, it seemed that their feathers were only a little damp, and being pressed up against them allowed him to feel the faint warmth emanating from their belly - an inner flame.

The torchic was much lighter than Robin himself, but carrying them all the way back up the hill to his home would still take a great deal of endurance. He started at a slow, steady pace across the sand, careful about where he placed his feet. He could do this, one step at a time.

“This is rescue team type of work,” Robin mused to himself. “If I can do this, then maybe I could-” He would once again not get to finish his thought as his passenger abruptly shifted their weight; Robin found himself teetering backwards as the torchic attempted to sit up.

“W-Woah! H-hey, are you awake up there?”

The torchic’s entire body suddenly tensed, panic-stricken, before they began to flap their wings and kick their legs in a bid to escape Robin’s grasp. They screamed, voice hoarse and their words incomprehensible, until he’d let go and tumbled forward out of their way.

Robin turned, seeing the bird scramble in the sand while their eyes darted in every direction, as if searching for more threats. Fear then turned to bewilderment as they took in the sight of the sand, and the sea, and the cliff face overhead, and then Robin, with his forepaws up and his tail lowered in a show of passivity.

“I-I-I’m not here to hurt you,” he stuttered, trying to calm his own anxiety as well as theirs. “I found you p-passed out over there and...um...”

Robin trailed off as the torchic’s attention shifted from him to their own body, which the bird suddenly took a great deal of focused interest in. They appeared...entirely unfamiliar with themselves.

The perplexed pokemon stared down at feet in the sand that were not her own. While she couldn’t completely conjure forth the image of what they were supposed to look like, it wasn’t hard to know that this was not it. The things she was standing on felt like twigs, lacking the stability she was used to, and each leg ended in a set of three long, slender claws in the front and a fourth digit sticking out the back where her heel was supposed to rest flat on the ground. These were bird feet, hardly human.

“I’m...a human,” she uttered, as if confirming the word to herself. “This...doesn’t feel right.”

She continued to inspect herself, awestruck and startled at the same time. In place of hands and arms she had claws and messy wings full of downy yellow feathers. Her body was shaped strangely, pitched forward rather than entirely upright, orange and feathered and incredibly tiny.

She was small, and lost, and alone in a way she couldn’t put words to.

“I’m...in the wrong body,” she choked. “I don’t know what I am-”

Robin had watched all of this, dazed by the torchic’s own confusion, but now he stepped forward with one paw outstretched to the frightened bird, putting on his most sympathetic look.

“Um, w-we can talk about it if you w-want,” he began tentatively. “I know we don’t know each other b-but...I want to help!”

The torchic looked about ready to collapse on the sand and cry as she vigorously nodded her head and grasped his paw with her own shaky claws. Robin tugged her forward. “Okay, let’s find somewhere to sit down first.”

Once he’d gotten the poor bird comfortably sat in the shade of a tree, Robin quickly dashed back to retrieve his board before returning. All the while, the earlier babblings of the disoriented torchic bounced around inside his head. None of it had made much sense, yet it piqued his interest.

By the time he came back, the young torchic had quieted down, and was watching him with an intense curiosity. Or, more specifically, it was his surfboard that had caught her eye.

“You...surf?”

“Yeah?”

“Ah.”

Robin sat down across from her, mindful to leave some space in between. They were both strangers to each other, after all, and Robin had already spooked the other significantly. He instinctively reached a paw behind his head.

“Um, sorry...about earlier, I mean,” he began. “I was just going to take you over to my place until you woke up.” He fidgeted with his tail and glanced away. “You seem to me like you’re in a rough spot.”

To his surprise, the torchic suddenly appeared much more cheerful and friendly, like he’d somehow won over her trust in that moment.

“It’s okay!” she replied with a voice bright enough to light up the sky and then some. “I was passed out, you just did what you thought was the best thing you could do!”

Robin, a little caught off guard but otherwise relieved, offered a smile in return. “Oh, well, glad to hear it...”

Without missing a beat, the torchic continued by introducing herself.

“I’m Sparky! What’s your name?”

There was no hesitation, not even a hint of uncertainty as she offered her own name to him, a complete stranger whom she’d only just met mere moments before. Robin couldn’t fathom the sheer amount of trust this torchic, Sparky, had just put into him. Perhaps because she had no one else to turn to? What circumstances put her in this position?

There was an uncomfortable silence that Robin was quickly growing aware of as he got lost in his own thoughts about the significance of what had just transpired. He needed to save face.

“Um! You can call me Pi- I mean, call me Robin.” He was stumbling over his own words, but thankfully Sparky didn’t seem too put off by it. She even complimented him!

“I like that name! It’s pretty,” she beamed. This only served to fluster Robin even more.

“I pi-picked it m-myself!” he blurted, feeling his cheeks immediately spark. Ohhh that was the dumbest thing I could’ve said, oh no-

“Well, you did a good job of it!” Sparky nodded confidently. “I picked mine too!”

Relief, once again. This whole interaction had been nothing but a rollercoaster for the poor pikachu thus far. He tried to relax his tense back and tail, to appear more at ease.

“O-okay...um, so I found you just laying out here. Did something happen to you? Are you lost?”

Sparky blinked and tilted her head ever so slightly as she considered the question. Robin could almost hear the gears turning behind those puzzled eyes.

“I...don’t remember,” she finally answered, deflating slightly. “I don’t know why...”

“Nothing at all? Not even like, before-before that?”

Once again, Sparky took a long moment to think on it, before solemnly shaking her head. “Nope...it’s all...empty. It feels...weird.”

Robin now had a sad torchic on his paws again, and was helpless to her plight. Maybe she got caught in a current and hit her head on a rock? Would that be strong enough to give someone total amnesia?

The pikachu’s ears suddenly perked up. “What about the stuff you started talking about right after you woke up?” He gestured errantly with his paws, trying to work out the wording of his next question. “Um...was what you said really true? Are you...actually a human?”

Sparky’s eyes immediately lit up. “Yeah! That’s something I remember! Of course it’s true!”

As if suddenly remembering what she’d woken up to, the once-more-chipper torchic wobbled onto her feet and clumsily found her way over to a nearby tide pool, with Robin in tow. She stared down at her reflection in the smooth surface of the water, previous distress about her new appearance now replaced with fascinated wonder.

“Wow, that’s weird.” She turned her head this way and that, observing each angle. “I have a beak! Humans don’t have those, y’know!”

Robin, once again, felt unsure of how to respond. He continued to watch as Sparky alternated between staring at her reflection and inspecting her own body. She seemed especially fixated by the long, feathered tail behind her, a feature which only now occurred to Robin was not the norm for any torchic he’d ever seen or heard of.

“I think I always wondered what it’d feel like to have a tail,” Sparky rambled on. “Humans don’t have these, either!” She paused her musings to look back at Robin. “Do you know what humans look like, Robin?”

The question snapped him back to attention. “Um! Kinda? There’s not a lot of drawings of them, and they’re usually really simple.” He tilted his head. “Wait...do you know what they look like?”

Sparky then looked sheepish. “Yeah!...I mean, it’s really fuzzy, my memory...I know they’re tall, and they walk on two legs and have two arms and...I don’t think they have fur?” The feather crest on her head fell slightly. “I’m not lying about any of this, I promise! Maybe I’ll remember more things, when my head’s better and-”

“I-It’s okay! I believe you!” Robin intervened. “You don’t seem like the type to pull a prank on me. Besides...” He smiled warmly, genuinely. “...you already put a lot of trust in me. I owe you as much.”

The sun was dipping below the horizon, and the sea shimmered and sparkled in hues of red, orange, and pink. Momentarily, both pokemon were caught up in it, strangers experiencing something beautiful together. It would be far from the last time they did so; rather, this was a new beginning for them both.