Pokémon: A New Evolution (Chapter 3)

Chapter 3: Night of Fate

“Damn it!” Blaze screamed, her talons bursting into flame as she watched her trainer turned Pokémon run into the woods. "We need to stop him! He's gonna get himself killed!” Blaze turned to Rin and Sparks with a look of seething anger on her face. "What the hell are you two waiting for?” Sparks hung her head.

"We won't be able to stop him. We all know how Aaron and Zoey feel about each other." She gazed out from the cliff to the vast woodland below. "I'll bet Aaron would do just about anything for Zoey."

"Even getting himself killed," Rin said. "If his new instincts are anything like Zoey's, it could even be dangerous to try to restrain him."

"Nevertheless, we still follow him!" Blaze demanded, the flames increasing in volume and heat. "We need to be there to help if something bad happens." Even with their doubts, Rin and Sparks looked at each other and nodded.

"Fine." Rin spread her wings and dusted off, shooting off above forest. Blaze and Sparks charged after her, the darkness of the woods spreading over them.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A feral beast tore through the forest, running at speed that just weren’t possible before. He
vaulted over a fallen tree stump, not losing even a bit of his momentum. A wafting scent made his eyes dilate. Blood… The scent only increased his rage.

“If you even so much as touch her, I’ll kill you!” he roared, his eyes turning from a cool blue to bright crimson. If he would have had control, he would have noticed that he had ran past his original encampment in the valley of the mountain.

The smell of blood became more intense as he neared the bottom of the large cliff he had fallen off of. He snarled, baring his teeth as he shot down of the crevasse of the mountain.

Aaron rounded the corner and saw his best friend, the Pokémon who had been there since the beginning of his journey, fighting three giant Graveler at once. She had cuts all over her body, and they streamed blood out onto her grey and black fur. She was knelt down on the ground clutching her arm, which seemed to have taken the most punishment.

“Looks like she’s almost done,” one of the Graveler said, taking a few more steps toward his prey. “Get ready, boys. The meat’s gonna be tenderized tonight!” Zoey closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable. They didn’t notice the human-Pokémon hybrid behind them whose claws were pulsating with a dark power.

“Zoey!” Aaron screamed as he hurled himself at the Graveler, surprising the two others as he slashed the leader in the back. The Graveler cried out in pain as the dark energy tore through his outer shell, cutting into his soft flesh underneath. Zoey opened her eyes and saw the beast standing in front of her, ready to fight. Her eyes lit up with hope as the Graveler stood up.

“Argh! What the hell is that?” The Graveler demanded, his arms grasping for his open wound. His two friends sized up the attacker and looked with wide eyes and open mouths.

The feral beast had crouched low to the ground on all fours, his red eyes casting a deadly glare onto them. While the beast looked similar, the Graveler noticed the difference in anatomy compared to their prey, including the pair of breasts that were hanging low on the beast’s chest.

“Boss, I think it’s a Pokémon, but it kinda looks like a human. But also… not a human? I don’t know,” one of the Graveler tried to explain. The leader growled and faced the beast..

“I don’t care what it is. I want it dead! Get her, boys!” he bellowed.

“Come one step closer, and I’ll kill every one of you!” the beast screamed, before he felt a paw touch his shoulder. He looked up to see Zoey looking down at him with a determined smile.

“Mind if I give you a hand?” Zoey said, as she dropped in a battle stance matching Aaron’s own. “It’s been awhile since we’ve battled together,” she said as she looked into Aaron’s eyes. The rage in Aaron’s eyes faded as he stared back at Zoey, becoming their light blue again.

“Yeah. It has been some time.” The Graveler were slowly approaching, all twelve hands curled into fists. “We can handle these bozos, right?”

“We sure as hell are gonna try,” Zoey replied, getting ready for another fight.

“Not without us you aren’t!” A voice called out from the sky, causing all of the grounded Pokémon to look up. Blaze, Rin, and Sparks all landed around Aaron and Zoey, causing the Graveler to gasped in shock. Aaron jumped up with glee at his Pokémon’s arrival.

“Yes! Girls, I’m so glad you followed me. Fantastic timing by the way.” The leader of the Graveler’s eyes widened in realization.

“No way! That… thing is a trainer?!” he choked out fearfully. Blaze laughed heartily, flaring up her flames in the process.

“That’s right, bub. These are our friends, and we protect our own. If you don’t want to get hurt, you better beat it.” The leader took the opportunity and signaled to his friends.

“We’ll come back to get you, just you wait!” he said, as he and his lackeys curled into balls and rolled away.

“Don’t even try,” Rin called out.

“We’d kick your butts either way!” Sparks finished as they rolled around a corner and out of sight. Zoey sighed, with a grateful smile on her face.

“Good. I didn’t even have the energy left to keep fighting.” She gripped her arm and winced at the pain.

“But do you have the energy for this?” Zoey suddenly felt someone wrap their arms around her in a hug, but she knew exactly who it was. She wrapped her arms around Aaron and giggled softly as the other Pokémon did the same. The transformed human and his Pokémon spent just about a minute in the hug.

“This is our second group hug today,” Sparks said. “And you got to be in this one, Zoey!”

“Seriously, Zoey,” said Blaze. “You have no idea how scared we were. Did you see what happened to Aaron?” Zoey closed her eyes and nodded somberly.

“I know. I should have told you girls where I was going. I just had to see if I could find anything about what happened to you, Aaron.” He looked embarrassed for a moment. “And then I almost got myself killed too. I’m sorry.”

“All that matters is that we’re all together again,” Aaron said as the hug dispersed, but then he noticed that dark crevasse was much brighter than before. His Pokémon were staring at his mane in awe. “Huh? What’s going on?” He looked down and saw it.

He saw that his mane had a bangle in it just the same as Zoey’s, except it glowed with a bright light. On closer inspection, it had a very familiar pattern inside of it.

“Is that… my Keystone? What is it doing there?” As Aaron reached out a hand to touch it, Zoey realized what was happening and ran toward him.

“Don’t do that, it might…” But it was too late.

The stone started pulsating with all of the colors in the spectrum as Aaron’s eyes glowed pure white. The power from the stone raised Aaron from the ground, suspending him in the air as his Pokémon looked on in confusion and shock. The energy being put out was deafening and blinding, but Zoey kept watching. Aaron struggled against the energy, resisting as he curled up into a ball, before the light exploded outward, absorbing the four gathered Pokémon in the blast.

Unbeknownst to them, a small brown fox-like creature watched from around the corner before zipping back off into the forest unseen.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aaron woke with a start and opened his eyes. The first that he noticed was that he could feel something that was different from before. He looked down at himself, still seeing his curvy chest and fur all over. He sighed.

“That’s still the same,” he said a little dejectedly. “What just happened then?” He raised himself up to a sitting position. He noted that he was still in the crevasse, although the darkness confirmed that not much time had passed. “Hmm?” Aaron was surprised to see that his Pokémon were starting to stir as well.

He got up and walked over to Sparks, reaching for her arm to help her wake up, but he paused when he saw a familiar light glowing from the Keystone in his mane. But this time was different.

Aaron felt a new, bizarre feeling radiating through his being, chilling him to the bone. Every part of his body tingled as the stone glowed bright white light. Aaron turned to look at the Keystone and grimaced.

“What are you trying to tell me? Last time this happened you made me and my friends pass out.” He knew he shouldn’t touch it, all things considering, but the energy flowing through him made him curious, excited even. He reached his hand to the Keystone and touched it.

He could feel the same energy coursing through his body as he was once again lifted into the air. His eyes glowed bright white as the rest of his body started to follow suit. He could feel his body shifting and changing, the energy molding him to its whim. It didn’t hurt, but it certainly felt strange. Finally, the glowing subsided, lowering Aaron from the air. He landed gently on his feet and immediately noticed something was off.

He raised his hands to look at them and once again, his heart jumped in shock. His hands weren’t a Zoroark’s red claws and grey fur, but instead bright yellow. Aaron’s eyes widened when he realized he had lost even more fingers. His hand looked like a giant mitten, his fingers replaced with a stubby and pointy ending kind of resembling a flipper. He sighed in relief when he found that he still had his thumbs, so he wasn’t completely screwed on that front.

When he looked down at the rest of his body, he couldn’t help but blush at the sight of his new form. His chest and belly were covered with a thin layer of white fur, with the rest of his body being the same bright yellow as his hands. His feet looked very similar to his hands, ending in a short stubby white nail. The view also made him realized that his neck was slightly longer than before and was covered in three black rings of fur that went all the way around his neck.

He caught the sight of something shiny entering his view, making him turn his head to see a glowing red orb on the end of… something? He wasn’t sure what.

What the hell was that? Another stupid stone I have to worry about? Suddenly the orb moved closer to his face, sending an odd sensation down Aaron’s spine and surprising her too. She craned her neck around and gasped.

I have a tail, he thought. He did have a tail. A BIG tail. It was long and yellow, with the same black rings on his neck going all the way up to the end. It started very large at the base of his spine, but became smaller the further down the length of it. The large red orb was attached to the end of his tail, gleaming from the moonlight from the top of the crevasse. He hadn’t noticed that his own breathing had increased to almost hyperventilation levels.

He turned back forward, shutting his eyes hard. “Breath, Aaron, breath. This isn’t the first time this has happened. Just relax,” he said quietly. Let’s examine the situation, he thought. I grabbed Sparks’ hand, the Keystone started glowing, I touched the stone, I get turned from a human-Zoroark hybrid to a human-Ampharos hybrid. I think I got it, he concluded.

He had to check one more place. He ran his hands down her face, feeling the rounded cone shaped snout he now sported. His ears were similar in shape to his snout, being both pointed and rounded. As he was moving her hands away, he gasped when his hands impacted something between his ears. He looked up, managing to see a red shape at the top of his vision. A quick once over with his hands confirmed that he had a large red orb directly on his forehead that matched the one on his tail.

He found it odd that he could feel slight sensations of touch as he moved his hands around the orb. It felt like sort of like touching a tooth. Except, you know, on top of your head.

“This is too bizarre,” he said quietly to her herself, grimacing as he looked down at himself again. “There has to be a way to reverse this.”

“Ah!” a voice suddenly rang out, making Aaron jump in shock.

“What the?” Aaron looked down at the ground and saw Sparks staring at him with eyes the size of dinner plates. She shook softly as she pointed at Aaron.

“Wh-wh-why, do y-y-you, lo-lo-look, like me?” Sparks stuttered in fear. Aaron rolled his eyes.

“Sparks, it’s me.”

“Hmm?” Sparks stopped shaking, recognizing Aaron’s female voice which managed to survive the transformation. She stood and walked over to Aaron.

“What are you doing, Sparks?” Sparks said nothing as she circled around Aaron, examining every part of his new body. She poked and prodded several places, including his tail and the orbs he sported. Aaron blushed unconsciously, embarrassed at the attention he was getting. Finally Sparks stopped, standing in front of Aaron once again.

“I get it,” Sparks said, nodding. “You’re a hybrid of me now!” Aaron shrugged.

“I guess I am.”

“Also, you’re pretty hot. Did you know that your boobs got bigger?”

“SPARKS!”