I held up my shaky hands towards the fireplace as I kept the rest of me still inside the same blanket I slept under back home. Apparently waking up on that roof made me feel colder than usual, especially with my feet for some reason.
When he noticed it, that professor guy had the baby dragon, Charmander I think was his name, guide me to this room and light the fireplace for me. The dragon was still in here too. He was eating some brown pellet-looking things from a bowl. A dog bowl.
It didn’t take me too long to know that I wasn’t in Equestria right now. But the jury was still out on whether I was in Sunset Shimmer’s world or not. I mean, her world had humans instead of ponies, but it looked nothing like this. Besides, I couldn’t see Canterlot High anywhere.
And then there was the weirdest part of it all. I was a human. Not a dog, not a dragon, but a human. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be though. After all, I would rather be a human than a dog any day. It wasn’t even that hard for me to figure out how to walk or use my hands considering that I was just a little taller compared to how I am as a dragon.
Still, it did feel a little weird to be in clothes. For some reason I had on a purple shirt without the sleeves and a pair of dark green sweatpants. At least they fit me well.
The door to the left of me started to open up as I brought my hands back under the blanket. And as I turned to look, I saw a lady with a lab coat similar to that professor guy’s walk in with a mug in one hand and a clipboard in the other.
“Hello there,” She gave me a friendly smile as she walked over besides where I was sitting. “Professor Sycamore said that this may help.”
Careful not to spill it, the lady handed me the coffee mug full of hot chocolate. Except, aside from just smelling like chocolate, I was able to sniff out some cinnamon in there too.
“Thanks!” I didn’t waste a second to start chugging it right away. Although after drinking nearly half of it down I finally gave myself a second to lick any excess chocolate off my lips.
She gave off a small chuckle. “I was going to warn you about it being hot, but I guess it doesn’t bother you.” I smiled at that. Unless it was ice cream, I only hated anything cold.
“My name is Sophie,” She introduced. “And as soon as you’re feeling better, Garchomp and I will get you home. So may I ask your full name?”
“My name’s Spike. And thanks for the hot chocolate.” With another sip, I was able to tell that there was apparently some extra creamer in it too.
“The Professor made it himself. He asked if I could bring it to you since he had to make a call.” She started writing something, but paused. “Um...What did you say your last name was?”
“Last name? I only have one.” She looked puzzled for a second before giving a nod and putting a line through whatever she was writing. “By the way, who’s Gar—”
From the hallway behind Sophie, I heard a few dull footsteps approaching.
Sophie heard them to and turned to see...Something come through the doorway. “Ah, there you are Garchomp. I take it Cosette took over in the bio-dome?”
“Gar.” It nodded before seeing me staring. “Garchomp.”
“A...A teenage dragon?” I put the chocolate down on the small table besides me and stood up, forgetting about my blanket as it folded onto the ground beneath me.
I turned towards Charmander, who was watching everything from the windowsill. “And there’s still a baby dragon here too...”
“Mander!” It jumped to its feet, glaring at me intensely.
“Thi...How are...Why are there…”
“Well, actually,” Sophie got my attention again. “Charmander’s a fire-type Pokémon.”
“Fire-type? Wait, you call dragons ‘Pokémon’ here?” I shook my head. Wrong question, I thought. “Where am I anyway?”
“Where?” She furrowed her brow. “Well, you’re in Professor Sycamore’s office right now.”
“No, I mean,” I looked out the window for a second and already I didn’t recognize any of the buildings. None of them looked like the ones around Canterlot High either. “Where are we? Like, uh, what town?”
“The town…?” She checked back over her clipboard, looking a little concerned. “Um...We’re in Lumiose if that’s what you mean.”
“Lumiose?” No matter what I tried remembering about Sunset’s world, I didn’t remember anything with that name. So I tried a different idea. “Okay, well do you know where Canterlot High is from here?”
“I’m guessing that’s a school, correct?” After seeing me nod, she kept quiet for a few moments. “Well, there are a few schools around Lumiose, but I don’t remember there being one by that name.”
By now I was starting to get worried. “What about a Carousel Boutique? Or Sugarcube Corner? Or Sweet Apple Acres?”
She furrowed her brow. “There are dozens of boutiques in Lumiose and I don’t have an idea what a ‘Sugarcube Corner’ is. Sweet Apple Acres though…” I broke out in a grin when she paused.
“Well, there aren’t any farms that grow apples specifically, but there might be a forest in Kalos that’s named after the apples that grow from it.” My smile fell right back down.
Sophie looked around the room hoping to avoid looking at me while she tried to think this all over. “Do you...Do you not live in Lumiose?”
I shook my head.
“...Well, you’re from Kalos, right?”
I shook my head again.
She took in a breath. “Well, then by any chance do you have any psychic-type Pokémon where you live?”
“A psychic-type?” What did that even mean? “Well, there’s Owlowiscious I guess, but he’s not a Pokémon...” I took the chance to sit back down as I tried to figure out what she meant.
She looked more and more confused with every answer I gave her. “Maybe it would be best if you spoke to Professor Sycamore after all.”
“Well then I guess my timing couldn’t be better.” All of us, Garchomp and Charmander included, turned to see Sycamore standing in the doorway. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Well, I thought that I’d be able to determine where Spike lived with a few questions, but I guess that idea won’t exactly work anymore. You see, Spike claims that he isn’t from the Kalos region.” Sophie handed the professor the clipboard and watched in silence as he looked over it himself. Not that there was much to look at.
I couldn’t really see his expression from behind the clipboard, so I could only hear the tone in his voice. “Is this true Spike?” He lowered the clipboard; finally revealing a serious expression on his face.
“Uh-huh,” I nodded along. “I’ve never even heard of Kalos or Lumiose before.”
Sycamore gave a slow nod as he returned the clipboard to Sophie. “In that case, could you tell me where you are from?”
“I...I um…” My throat felt tighter as I tried to tell him. It wasn’t really a matter of keeping Equestria a secret, instead, it was more a problem that he wouldn’t believe me.
Still, I fought through the feeling and swallowed the pain as best I could. “I...I live in Ponyville. It’s a town in Equestria.”
His frown deepened. “I’m guessing that this Equestria is a region, no?”
I shrugged awkwardly. “Uh…I guess you could call it that?”
Sycamore dragged a hand through his hair as he let out a sigh. “None of it seems to add up...”
“Th-Then what happens now?” I looked turned to Sophie. By this point, she looked as clueless as I did about what was coming next. And to be honest, that wasn’t making me feel any better.
“Well,” He walked over and took the opportunity to sit down in the other chair that was besides the fireplace. “For now, how about we start at the beginning? Can you remember anything that happened before you woke up this morning? Like last night for instance?”
I thought it over a little bit before taking another sip of my drink, emptying it entirely. “Yeah, I think I can do that. Uh...Could I have some more hot chocolate though?”
He started to chuckle. “I don’t see why not. In fact, I think I’d like some too.” He got right back up out of the chair, letting out a quiet sigh as he had just gotten comfortable. “Come on. We can talk on the way.”
I started grinning before standing up and bringing the mug along with me. I was warm enough now so I left the blanket where it was.
“By the way, is it alright if you tell your story to a couple friends of mine as well?” I hurried through the door and followed Sycamore down the hall.
Meanwhile, Sophie, Charmander, and Garchomp were all already going down the hallway in the opposite direction. I guess they had something else that they all had to do.
“Uh, sure, I guess that’s okay. Do you think they can help?” When I caught up to the professor, I saw a content smile on his face.
“I think so. They’re both in the Sinnoh region and I think they know more about what’s going on then either of us do. In fact,” he looked towards me with a cheerful smile on his face.
“I think they can explain exactly what’s happened.”
? ? ? POV
“Good afternoon passengers! I hope you’ve had a wonderful time flying with us. It’s been a long flight from Hoenn, but we have officially arrived in Lumiose City.”
“Woah…” Both of us looked out the window in awe at the city below us. It was even bigger than Mauville City!
“Your jaw’s open...” A joyful voice giggled from the back of my head as I could only shake my head in response.
“Could you blame me? It looks so cool!” The city was almost bigger than some of the islands back in Hoenn! The thought alone of walking through the streets made me dizzy!
“You have a point. I wonder where we should start...”
“Well,” I leaned back into my seat, looking towards the only member of my team that came with me to Kalos. “First thing’s first, we gotta find out where we can update the PokéNav.”
She sighed and held her head up with her hand. “Yay…”
“Oh come on Kirlia, lighten up,” I gave her a grin. “Once we do that, we’ll be able to finish everything else in time to head out to the first gym!”
She seemed to perk up at that. “Well, I guess that doesn’t sound too bad. Besides, maybe we’ll find someone else to join the team while we’re still here.”
“Exactly! After all, we promised the others that we’d get the best team we could get.” The best team excluding them of course.
“Excuse me,” Both of us turned to see one of the flight attendants standing beside our seats.
“Kirl?” Kirlia took this moment to speak as a normal Pokémon would as we both focused our attention on the attendant.
“We’ll be landing soon. I’m afraid I have to ask that you put on your seatbelts.” She gave a sad smile as if she were sorry for reminding us.
However, one look around the plan and we could see everyone else already in their seatbelts. So looking back to her, we both started to look embarrassed. “Oh, y-yeah. Sorry about that.”
She could only smile before quickly putting the seatbelt on around us. Since Kirlia was a small enough sized Pokémon, she had to stay with in my seat.
Airplanes were always pretty strict about that rule. As long as Pokémon were under three feet tall and weighed less than 200 lbs, they could share a seat with their trainer. Thankfully, the seats accommodated for this and we could both sit side by side under the same seatbelt.
“Thank you. Have a nice time in Kalos.” She gave a slight bow as she headed off to make sure everyone else had their seatbelts on securely.
“Yeah,” I looked down at Kirlia with a ready smile, which she returned. “We will.”
Spike's POV
“Well, that’s quite a story!” The lady exclaimed on the weird box thing. “And you’re sure that you don’t remember anything before that?”
“Nuh-uh…” I half-heartedly hid myself behind the third mug of hot chocolate as I sipped it down.
After the Professor had gotten me some more chocolate like he promised, he introduced me to these other two professors. At first I thought they were just pictures, so imagine my surprise when they started talking to me. And then my surprise when I spilled the second mug of hot chocolate.
“It’s actually rather peculiar.” An older man scratched his white sideburns in thought. “Tell me, did anything out of the ordinary happen before you appeared in Kalos?”
“Uh, n-not that I can think of…” I took another sip to keep from looking at the screen. Both of their pictures were side by side in the box and I could see a smaller picture towards the top that showed me what we looked like. Professor Sycamore was in the picture too. “It’s kind of hard to remember actually.”
“Well, could you walk us through it all?” The lady, who’s name was Juniper I think, asked me.
“Uh...Okay…” I gave a slow nod as I took one last sip of the hot cho—Aaaaand it’s gone.
After putting down the mug, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, thinking that it would be better than looking at the three professors staring back at me.
The only problem was that I didn’t know what exactly to do. I wasn’t lying when I told them that yesterday was hard to remember, but there was another problem too. I wasn’t from around here.
When Twilight and I first got back from Sunset’s world, Princess Celestia asked us not to tell anypony about it. It was already dangerous that both of us and all the girls knew about it...Apparently. I didn’t get why it was dangerous, and I forgot whether or not we even asked but we both promised not to tell.
Still, if they were gonna try to help me, I wanted to try and tell them something. So I focused back on trying to recall yesterday.
“Well, I remember that Twilight woke me up early because she needed some help with putting away all her books…”
“Twilight?” Professor Sycamore questioned.
“Yeah, Twilight. She’s a friend of mine. Anyways, she was up really late reading a bunch of books about...Actually, I don’t think I ever asked.” Not like I would’ve remembered anyway, Twilight’s always reading about something.
“Next, I ate some apple fritters for breakfast since Applejack gave us a bunch of leftovers from when she was teaching Applebloom how to make them.” Now that I remember perfectly. Those fritters were almost too burnt for me to eat.
“Applejack? Applebloom? I’m assuming they’re friends of yours as well?” The older professor asked.
“Yeah,” I nodded. I wasn’t telling them anything serious about my world by just talking about my friends. At least, I don’t think I was.
“After that, I just read some comics. Got in a staring contest with...Somepon—Someone. With. Someone.” After taking a quick glance on the screen, it didn’t look like any of them noticed what I almost said.
“Then it gets kind of fuzzy from there,” I went on. “Me and Twilight got out of...The house,” I lied. “And went around the town for some reason. Then we came back and…”
“And…?” The woman trailed off with me.
“And, that’s it.” I shrugged. “I can’t really think of anything else. The rest is kind of a...Pink blur?” I looked off to the side, confused from my own words.
“A pink. Blur?” The older man repeated, his expression hardening.
“Yeah. Or wait, maybe it was a flash? I-I can’t tell what it is really.” I wanted to say that it reminded me of Pinkie Pie, but they wouldn’t know who she is.
“Why a pink flash exactly?” The man persisted.
“Well...I don’t know,” I scratched the side of my head. “It’s kind of weird. It’s like some of the things I’m trying to remember from yesterday are just...Pink?” I didn’t know how to explain it. It was even more confusing the more I thought about it.
“...” Both of the professors on the screen had the same hardened expression on their face.
“Is there something wrong with that Professor Rowan?” Professor Sycamore seemed just as confused as I was.
“...Spike.” When the older professor, which name I had just found out was Rowan, looked back towards the screen it felt like he was staring at me as if he were actually here with me.
“Y-Yeah?”
“What day was yesterday?”
“It...Wait, what?”
“What day was yesterday?” Rowan repeated, his appearance unchanging.
“Uh...I-It was Saturday.” I looked at the other two professors and received two different answers. Professor Sycamore had furrowed his brow in confusion, but the lady had a look on her similar to the older man.
“As I thought,” He looked off to the side for a moment. “Professor Juniper, do you have your notes with you at the moment?”
“You mean the ones about Mt. Coronet? Yes, I have them right here.” I couldn’t she what she was doing, but I did hear the rustling of paper in the background.
“Wait a second, what’s going on? Is there something wrong?” I looked between the three of them, feeling just as confused as when I’m listening to one of Twilight’s lectures.
“Well that depends,” A voice from behind me, Sycamore’s voice, began. “Do you usually sleep for four to five days at a time?”
I gave him a double take. “N-No...Why do you ask?” I started to move around in my chair some more. My mouth started to feel dry too, and of course now I didn’t have anything left to drink.
“Because today’s Thursday.”
“Thursday?” How was it Thursday? I don’t sleep in that much. Sure there was that one time that I slept through a whole day, but five?
“Spike,” Professor Juniper regained my attention. “I know you said that you haven’t heard about Pokémon before, but I think that I should at least try to ask; have you ever heard of the names Dialga and Palkia?”
“Dialga and Palkia?” I juggled the two words around in my head for a little bit, but nothing came up. “What are they exactly?”
“Dialga and Palkia are known as Legendary Pokémon,” Rowan explained. “And more specifically, they are the masters of time and space.”
“Time and...Wait, do you think that it has something to do with me?”
They both stayed silent for a few seconds. They were still looking at the screen, but I don’t think they were looking at me specifically. And after a few more seconds of this, Rowan gave a random nod.
“Not only do we think that it has something to do with you," Juniper started with a somber look on her face. "But we're almost positive that it's much bigger than we know."
"Bigger how?" I started to squirm a bit in my seat, suddenly uncomfortable by the way I was sitting.
"Well," She held the syllable for a good two seconds. "We think that you might not be from around here."
I gave out a weak sigh. One that none of them seemed to pick up on. I couldn't tell why, but a part of me was kind of glad to hear that. Maybe it's because now I could try and explain everything a little better.
“And,” She continued, my eyes growing two times their size.
“And?” I questioned.
“And,” She repeated with a nod, making me hate that word even more. “If there are other people that were affected by this…” She paused, opening and closing her mouth repeatedly. She almost seemed more worried about this than I did.
“They might be spread out.” Rowan concluded with a stern tone. “Across Kalos at the very least.”
“I thought the pink pulse had originated from Sinnoh.” From behind me Professor Sycamore started raising mo—
“Pink pulse? Wait a second,” I whipped my head back to face the screen-thingy. “You guys saw it too? But how? I saw it from Ponyville.”
Rowan closed his eyes as if to try and shut us all out for a moment of silence. “I suppose that now it would be a good idea for us to tell you our part of the story.”
“Yeah. Good idea.” I started to lean back in my chair again, still caught up on what they said. That pink pulse was in this Sinnoh place and in Ponyville. Then I woke up in Lumiose or Kalos or whatever this town was called.
And then there’s the biggest problem of them all:
Where is everypony else?