Delta Dawn

“Hey, are you awake?”

I groaned. I was awake, but I wasn’t ready to get up yet. I wanted to stay in bed, not get woken up by—

Wait, whose voice was that?

“I heard that groan!” he continued, whoever he was. His voice sounded sort of raspy and undeniably bright. “You can hear me! C’mon, get up! A dungeon ain’t a good spot to sleep.”

Dungeon?

It was then I realized my bed felt very strange, and there was a wind blowing against me... almost like I was lying on the ground outside. In any case, I definitely wasn’t in my bedroom anymore. And my body felt wrong as I lay there on my belly, like I’d been crumpled up and deformed somehow. I opened my eyes, half-afraid to figure out what was going on.

I was startled to see an avian face filling my view. It was mere inches in front of me, staring at me with huge eyes, the pupils of which contained an electric blue core that seemed to literally glow. As soon as my own eyes opened, the bird chirped and hopped back, letting me see more of my surroundings. We were on a dry patch of land in some sort of marshy landscape. Green water, mud and dirt, and colossal mangroves with intertwining roots and branches spread all around us. The canopy blocked the sky, but beams of sunlight came down through the dark leaves. A faint layer of pale mist filled the humid air, along with unusual croaks, chirps, and buzzes. It definitely wasn’t the medieval underground prison I expected to see when I heard the word “dungeon”.

“Great!” the bird exclaimed. “You’re up! I was worried you were just ignoring me. People do that a lot.”

I stared at the talking bird. He had a mix of black, yellow, and pale blue feathers, plus webbed feet and a small beak. He was also massive, seemingly the same size as me. As I stared at him, a memory seemed to get jogged in my mind, and I remembered seeing this type of bird before. Well, not exactly a bird. He was a Wattrel. A Pokemon.

I blinked. What happened to me? How did I end up in this swamp? Why did I shrink to the size of a bird? Why was there a Pokemon talking to me? And again, why did my body feel so weird?

“Hey, uh... Are you doing alright?” the bird asked, leaning in close again. “You’re just kinda staring at me. Maybe you’re sick? Your leaves do look kinda wilty.”

My leav—okay, that was the last straw. It was time to start getting some answers.

“What happened?” I asked. I winced in the process. I got the words out without thinking, as if operating on instinct, but as I spoke, I realized my lips were rock hard and I didn’t feel any teeth. I pushed my tongue around in my mouth, confused and scared. Did I have a beak now? Had I shapeshifted into a bird like this Wattrel?

The bird cocked his head to the side. “I dunno what happened to you. I was just doing some training in here and found you all conked out on the ground. But if you’re asleep in a dungeon like this, I bet you stepped on a trap. Or maybe got knocked out by a feral.”

“Feral?” I asked, again grimacing at the strange sensation of talking in this new altered body. I really needed to take a look at myself, but for now, I was still groggy and couldn’t rise from the dirt. I just lay there on my belly and watched the Wattrel.

His head tilted even further, practically going 90 degrees and turning on its side. “Uh, yeah? Did those ferals hit your head when they knocked you out? Everyone knows what ferals are. Uh oh. Did you forget that? How much stuff did you forget? Where are you from? What’s your name? What’s my name? Wait, I just met you. You don’t know my name. How many feathers am I holding up? Wait, that won’t help us check your memory, will it...”

The bird was growing more anxious. And I wasn’t faring much better, because I realized I couldn’t answer the most significant of his questions.

“I don’t... I don’t know my name,” I murmured.

“Oh no!” squawked the Wattrel. “We gotta get you back to town right away! I dunno much about amnesia, but I’m sure we can find someone who can help you out. Maybe. We can ask around, at least. Hey, can you get up? We could go now if you’re able to walk. I’ll lead the way.”

Well, that was my cue. Time to start moving and see just how messed up my body had become. I attempted to push myself up off my belly, but all four limbs didn’t bend right, and they felt bizarrely short. I also couldn’t feel my hands or feet, as if my limbs just ended in stumps. I grunted as I strained and eventually stood up—on all fours, because my body refused to go vertical like a human should be. I tried looking at myself, but my neck didn’t bend enough. I focused on the Wattrel again, and decided to go ahead and ask the awkward question.

“This will sound weird,” I said, “but can you tell me what I am?”

The bird cocked his head again, but changed it up by tilting the other way this time. “Boy, you must’ve been hit super hard. You’re a Turtwig.”

I felt my heart skip a beat. I already knew I’d transformed, but it was still a shock to hear it spoken out loud. I wasn’t a human anymore. I was a Pokemon. In a dungeon. A mysterious situation, to be sure.

Wait a minute. The pieces were falling into place. I didn’t just turn into a Pokemon and wake up in another world. The talking bird, this dungeon, the mention of a town... Somehow, I’d been brought into the world of a video game: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. That meant Pokemon were civilized here, and there were no humans at all. At least there was no risk of being caught by a trainer. But the mystery dungeons had their own dangers. I knew that much from the single PMD game I’d played—wait, how did I remember that detail and not my own name?

I began combing through my memories, trying to find what else I’d forgotten. Of course, it was difficult to prove a negative, so who knew how many memories had been erased without my knowledge?

The whole time I thought this over, the bird kept looking at me, as if he were putting a puzzle together in his head as well. He gasped suddenly, and his eyes began glowing blue as excitement overtook him. “Hey, wait a minute! I’ve got a weird question too.” He slowly hopped closer and closer, gaze fixed on me. “I know you’re a Turtwig, but are you... secretly... a human?”

I paused just for a moment, wondering if it would be dangerous to reveal my true identity. But the bird seemed enthusiastic rather than suspicious or hostile, so I assumed he wouldn’t hate me if I told him the truth.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I fell asleep at home, and then woke up here. Somehow, I must have come to this other world and turned into a Pokemon.”

“I knew it!” the bird cried, hopping around and flapping his wings. “You suddenly woke up with missing memories, and you’re confused about being a Pokemon, and you don’t know anything about the world, and you’re really awkward in your body! Those are the telltale signs of being a human! So glad I finally got to meet one of you guys!”

“Really? Why?”

“Well, see, I grew up on this floating island called Thunderhead, and I wasn’t allowed to leave. But then I, uh... Let’s just say I was suddenly asked to leave and politely told to never ever come back again for the rest of my life on pain of death but the exact reason why that happened ain’t something you gotta know about so I’m just gonna skip over that and tell you that I’m honestly really enjoying being away from the island! I love learning about new places, and the Surface is full of cool stuff.”

I tried to keep up with his surprisingly rapid speech. I decided to file away the “pain of death” thing for later, and for now, I just replied, “You didn’t answer the question. Why do you want to meet a human?”

“I was gonna get to that point. The reason is cuz I like learning about new places, and the human world is a really big, totally new place! And if I could meet a human, I’d get to learn all about that place. Makes sense, right?”

“Right.”

The Wattrel paced around, his webbed feet slapping on the ground and his wings waving passionately as he spoke. “I keep hearing these stories from travelers coming from Capim Town. It sounds like an amazing place, full of giant trees that tower over you like... like towers! And get this: there’s this group called the Clover Guild in town, and it’s full of humans! Apparently, a lot of them have been showing up and gravitating over there for some reason. And there are so many crazy stories about the guild. I always wanted to visit them, but they’re on the other side of the continent, and I can’t make a trip over there. That’s a bummer, but hey! I got lucky, and a human came to me instead!”

“Well, I didn’t really come to you,” I pointed out. “Not on purpose. I just woke up here, randomly.”

“Did you?” the bird asked, with an unexpectedly serious tone in his voice. “Or were you sent here by fate? What are the odds a human and a Pokemon randomly bump into each other like this?”

“Uh, pretty low,” I admitted. “I can’t imagine that’s happened very often. Still, I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s fate or not. Either way, I’m stuck as a Pokemon in this world, and you’re the first person to find me, so... it would make sense for us to stay together. So I’ll take you up on your offer to guide me. At least until we get to the town and see if anyone can help me out, like you mentioned before.”

“Sure thing, new friend!” the Wattrel said. “But in exchange for me being your guide, you gotta tell me all about your world. Deal?”

“Deal,” I said. I awkwardly raised a front leg, running on autopilot as I tried to offer my hand for a handshake. I cringed and quickly lowered my handless foreleg.

The bird didn’t seem to mind my embarrassing mistake, and he simply turned and began hopping onward. “Follow me! And stay close. I’ll tell you how these dungeons work, and what you gotta watch out for. I’ll be the best teacher ever! Ha, those fogies on Thunderhead never thought I could teach, but they oughta look at me now. Maybe I’ll make you my apprentice, Turtwig! Oh, right—I guess I should just call you that, cuz you forgot your name. Wait! I never told you my name!”

The bird wheeled around and somehow curved his beak into a friendly smile. “The name’s Stormy,” he said.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” I said. “And thank you for helping me out. You know... You said you’re lucky you met a human, but to be honest, I’m lucky too—lucky the first Pokemon I met is so friendly.”

“Aw, stop it, you,” Stormy said. He waved a wing dismissively, but he was unable to hide the smile on his beak or the bright blue gleam in his eye. “Enough with the introductions and kind words and stuff. We got a dungeon to beat! Only way to get out of here is if we reach the end, so stick with me and we’ll be golden, partner.”

“Sure thing... partner,” I said. I couldn’t help but smile too. I murmured under my breath, “I like the sound of that.”

The bird was perhaps too energetic for my tastes, and I barely even knew him, but he was amiable, and it was definitely nice to have a partner in this new world. I wasn’t alone, and that made this situation more tolerable. I’d been taken away from my old life and thrown into a new one, but I didn’t have much going on in my old life anyway, so this could be a good change of pace. I’d been forced into an unfamiliar new body, but I was sure I could adjust to it over time... right? Besides, Stormy did have a point: exploring new places was interesting, and this Pokemon world was waiting to be explored.

My smile broadened, and I took a step to follow Stormy, ready to begin my new life. I instantly tripped and fell because walking on four legs is hard.

Part 2: https://rentry.org/cg-deltadawn2

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Pub: 31 Mar 2026 00:33 UTC

Edit: 02 Apr 2026 02:55 UTC

Views: 160