Chapter 21

For the first time since her transformation, Lane's sleep was dreamless and comfortable. She had a little trouble drifting off with Korina gone, but that was all. Nothing woke her too soon, and she might've slept well past the dawn if it wasn't for a nervous, buzzing voice that startled her from nearby.

"You two are really cute together and everything, but you really need to wake up."

Lane blinked, stirring abruptly to wakefulness. She'd never heard that voice before, with a subtle vibrating undertone. But there was only one person it could belong to. She'd shifted during the night, and was curled around Elisa's legs.

Maybe she should feel embarrassed about it.

Elisa woke more slowly, groaning and stretching out on her back. She blinked, then covered her chest with one paw. "Shit, look away Dominic. I somehow forgot my…" She trailed off, eyes finally focusing on him.

Dominic stood on a pair of delicate black legs, a few inches from them.

His wings were spread wide, probably to be as noticeable as possible. Like the two of them he was completely naked, though brown fluff grew around his neck like a scarf. "Sorry, that's all of us. We'll just have to deal with it until we escape."

He pointed up toward the doorway. "Looks like the legendary left an escape route open. Can one of you boost me up there? I can probably help you climb the rest of the…"

Lane lifted into the air in front of him, circling around once. "Guess you didn't wake up after she changed you."

His antennae twitched once atop his tiny yellow head. Annoyance?

"Yeah, so? I'm now one of a handful of people to be changed into a Pokémon.

If I… what I do remember… how small are we, exactly?"

Lane landed in front of him, balancing on her hindlegs as best she could.

But unlike for him, standing up like that took active effort. “Well, I'm a kitten.

I didn't get bigger, so just look at me and… use that? I think Elisa might be a foot, and we're both less than that."

Elisa struggled to her paws, touching the pokeball once for balance. Her eyes opened wide, and stayed that way. "Sounds right."

Korina made both of you into Pokémon that have an almost human shape. Was that on purpose?

"So let's get out of here!" Dominic said again. "She left us, so now's our chance! Do you think you could carry us when you fly, Lane? This prison has to have an exit."

"It's not a prison, it's a starship," Lane said. She reached out, resting one hand on Dominic's shoulder to press him down gently. "I know you're panicking, I was too. But we can't run away. Look at yourself in the mirror, you're a bug. Elisa's a kitten now too, and Korina's a dangerous legendary who probably only let you guys remember I exist because she knows I'd hate her otherwise."

"The mew says that when Lane figures out his powers, we don't have to be trapped anymore. We just have to hold out until then."

Dominic pulled away, his wings fluttering in agitation. "You're both going to go along with her? Lane I can at least sort of understand—you were obsessed over mew your whole life. Being one probably doesn't seem that bad.

But Elisa, come on! Do you really expect that legendary to do what she says?

Kidnapping and transforming people isn't what good people do.”

She never broke a promise to me before. Korina had said that her friends would keep their memories if they completed her stupid challenge, and they had. The only promises she did seem to break were the threats.

"It's a fucked-up situation, but I don't see another choice," Elisa said, resigned. "There is one person in the whole world who can change us back—

the mew. Maybe Lane will be able to do it, when he learns his powers. Or…"

She stopped, tilting her head to the side. "Her powers? Do you want me to switch pronouns?"

Lane shrugged. "I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I'm a mew.

Korina already said I could be a man when I'm human, the last time we talked about it. It's a little annoying to pee this way, but…" She blushed, paws folding across her chest. Why did Dominic have to stare like that?

"I thought you sounded funny," he finally said. If anything, his voice was higher than Lane's, but being so much smaller it just seemed to make sense.

How Lane could have a sense for what a Pokémon should sound like, she couldn't even imagine. "Are you two sure you don't want to escape?"

"I want to escape," Elisa said. "And the best way to do that is to wait for Lane to master enough of his Pokémon powers so he can be human again. In the meantime, we should take advantage."

She prodded Dominic's nearest wing. "I've seen ribombee fly before.

You'll never be able to do that again, you should enjoy it! All I get is this stupid short tail, and this… gnawing feeling that if I stop focusing for too long I'll explode. Which might be true, if I remember anything about espurr."

Dominic withdrew, folding his wings behind him. "Careful, those are delicate! And… sensitive." His antennae folded, and he glanced back at Lane.

"Is there somewhere to eat on this… starship?" Even without intending, the doubt was obvious in his voice. "I feel starving. Like I haven't eaten for weeks.

I don't mean to panic either of you, but I think I'll probably die if I go hungry until lunch."

He might. Who knows how much bugs have to eat? "Come with me. I'm…

pretty sure I can carry both of you. But you should try and figure out how those wings work as fast as you can, because Korina is probably going to make you come flying with us soon. She doesn't usually ask nicely."

"Great," Dominic began, but his words were cut short with an abrupt gasp as they were ripped right up into the air. Lane might mean them well, but she also didn't know what she was doing. Even moving as slowly as possible, she still scraped Elisa against the wall at first, and nearly bashed Dominic against the ceiling.

She would have, if the bug didn't start flapping his wings desperately, managing to push down and away on his own. Maybe there were some useful instincts down there, then.

I should probably just be grateful they still act like themselves. We're so small that being as smart as real people can't be easy.

"So we're just supposed to… wait? We hide in prison for weeks until Lane learns how to be a Pokémon. You seriously telling me you're okay with that, Elisa?"

She tensed, crossing her paws across her chest in a familiar yet animal gesture. "I'm not okay with it. But I honestly don't think the Pokémon cares

much about what we do, so long as we don't interfere with Lane. I didn't get all of it, but somehow she thinks we're dangerous, or… something?" She tilted her head to the side. "Sorry, there's a bomb in my head I'm trying to keep from going off. Forgive me if I lose my train of thought."

"What?" Dominic asked.

Lane didn't wait for the answer, and started pulling her friends along through the air. It wasn't easy—made even less so by the reminder of just how dangerous Elisa could be. "Espurr are powerful psychic-types," Lane explained, laying on her back as she floated so she could look at both her friends. "I think I saw some theories that they might be a close descendant of mew, which might explain why Korina picked them. They're also… dangerous."

"Yeah," Elisa grunted. "I've heard that part. Can confirm. So please don't piss me off, Dominic. It's my first day."

He said nothing else until they arrived at the empty mess hall. They touched down near the edge of the room, by the scattered tables. "Weird how so much of it is on the walls," Elisa muttered, wobbling a little as she passed between the tables and cushions. Strangely, it almost seemed like the right size for her. One of the results of being so similar to mew.

She stopped in front of the food dispenser, prodding it with a paw. The screen normally displayed unreadable text and a few basic buttons to Lane—

different ways to salt seaweed, and a few flavorless vitamin drinks.

The same language appeared for Elisa, but the options were… radically different. The little plates showed cuts of raw meat, seasoned berries, fish…

"How?" Lane flashed, and suddenly she was on the other side of the room, inches from the screen. "How'd you make it do that?"

Elisa stumbled away from her, gasping. Hey eyes began to glow, and blue light formed around her paws—then faded as quickly as it had come. "No," she said, shoving Lane back. "I love you too, kitten. But don't do the teleport thing, please. I'm not very good with jump scares."

"Teleport?" She tilted her head to the side, then glanced over her shoulder. She couldn't actually remember flying across the room, so maybe…

maybe she had? "Oh, that's…" great if I can figure out how to do it again.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to. I was just so excited by…" She touched one of the plates with meat, and the screen made an unhappy beeping sound. It emptied, replaced with the usual choices.

"That." She flicked a paw towards it, annoyed. "Does that look good to you? No. It's not."

Dominic finally reached them. He wasn't terribly fast on his tiny legs.

Obviously his body wasn't made to stumble around. If he didn't figure out how to fly soon, he might hurt himself. "Not to underplay how scary and horrible this is, but… have you stopped to think about what all this means?" He thumbed the screen, and it changed again. The plates were replaced with oversized flowers, petals open and contents exposed.

Dominic scanned them, then touched the most boring-looking of the lot, a plate of blue-white ones. The machine went to work, humming and churning.

After a few seconds the side of the machine opened, and a tray slid out onto a waiting tabletop. It matched the image almost perfectly, with half a dozen flowers settled in a circle.

"Mew stumbled into the ruins of an advanced society unknown to history," Dominic said, taking the tray in his delicate fingers. "Look at this. Food replication? From a protein source, or… maybe energy? Either one would be incredible."

"That doesn't look like food," Elisa said flatly. "That's a floral arrangement."

"And I'm a pollinator," Dominic argued, settling it down on a nearby table without missing a beat. "How much do you know about this place, Lane?

Have you been here the whole time you were missing?"

"Yeah." She hesitated, then leaned in close behind Elisa. "Do you think you could get two plates? You saw what I have to eat…"

She groaned, but didn't object. The machine didn't seem to care either, spitting out a pair of identical fish plates. They weren't raw, but only lightly seared for flavor. Lane's mouth started watering just looking at it.

"You have no idea how much I've been craving that," she said. "Just…

don't tell Korina, please. I'll have to wash it off before training."

"We won't," Elisa said, passing her the tray. Lane's paws didn't really work to carry it, but she could levitate it over to the table. "But you have to tell us what you've learned about… where we are."