I laid there, wheezing. Pain radiated through my body . My lungs refused to work in tandem with eachother, constantly fighting eachother for the congested airways. My eyes refused to focus, burning harshly as I cracked them open. Argh, why am I in so much pain? I tried to roll onto my stomach, but the entire action spun my head.
. . .
Shit, why does this hurt so much? I whimpered in pain-at least I thought I did. I couldn't really hear much of anything at the moment. There was some sort of muffled sound, but I couldn't make anything of it. And really? I don't care what it is. It probably doesn't matter! Just let me be miserable in peace!
. . . . a . . . e . . ce . do..?
5 more minutes! That's all I ask! All I want is 5 minutes of silence! I'M JUST trying to soak in my personal hell!
"GET UP!" This shrill shriek was followed by another round of pain, though thankfully it was a bit more dull. None the less, it was still more pain, and yet more reasons to ignore this annoying noise. Defiantly, I groaned at them, attempting to roll on my stomach again.
My throat started to sting and I felt something escape my mouth. A vague warm and sour sensation met my tongue, and a horrendous stench began to make its way into my nostrils. It takes me a few moments to notice, but I think. . . No, I'm pretty sure my stomach is also emptier, now. Great.
I didn't get a chance to let my thoughts gather, as my brain was interrupted by a 3rd wave of pain, this time fairly sharp. It was on my neck, I think. This one caused my eyes to briefly open, only to shut once more at the blinding light. Still too bright... I tried to voice my protest, but even in my disorientated state, I could tell it was just a nonsensical moan.
"We need y-you to get out of here!" The high pitched voice found itself accompanied with an uncomfortably warm sensation on my neck. Wait a minute, were they BITING MY NECK!?  I tried to protest this action, but the words just didn't come out properly, and I found my tongue lazily bashing itself against something sharp in my mouth. I began to feel a scraping sensation across most of my body. I tried to flail around, but my limbs were just so heavy, and my legs felt completely bound together. It was useless, so I gave up. I cracked my left eye open, forcing it to adjust to the blinding light. There was no way in hell I wasn't going to get answers about my situation.
I could finally make a few things out about my situation. There was a white thing attached to my face, which ended with a bulbous pink thing. I'll put a pin in that, I'm more interested in At eye level, I could see some trees, with some bright orange bark. Their leaves seemed to be leafy. Best way I can describe it. Outside of the bark, the trees looked like any old deciduous. Looking down a bit, I could see a very basic flat-bladed grass. The grass was a discolored gold, and very patchy. Looking down, I could see more of a blue mesh that looked quite a lot like a fin.
. . .
Wait a minute, that's where my legs should be! And that must be my nose! What the hell! WHAT THE HELL!? I'm going to puke again! There was some muttering behind me, but I couldn't make it out, on account of my struggling to breathe! No! Snap out of it! I need to approach this rationally! There's got to be a simple explaination for this. I shut my eye tight, and focused on steadying my breathing.
"Golly, you're h-heavy..." Now that I was a bit calmer, I could pick up a few things I didn't notice before. The voice from before had a stutter, and was clearly more feminine. That'd certainly explain the grating pitch. They didn't seem particularly confident in themselves.
I tried to loll tongue. Sure enough, the sharp things were still there. I guess those are my teeth now. I then tried to move my lips around, and discovered that with great concentration, I could get something to happen. I'm not sure what that thing was, but it certainly felt like I was pursing my lips. I'll call that progress! I just needed to check my vocal chords, which I tested by humming a few tones. It seemed to work, even if I couldn't hold a tone properly, and it felt difficult.
With the basics out of the way, I feel more confident about trying to speak again. Taking a deep breath in, I tried my hand at it. "WheEere?"
The singular word took a lot of effort to escape my throat, and came out drawn out, with a hopefully mild voice crack in the middle. It was all I could muster, and honestly, it felt like a good question.
"Ohthanktheheavens, youcans-speak, I-I was worried it was..." She trailed off. I gave her a second or two to respond before trying the question again. Thankfully, I didn't need to repeat myself, as she started back up, "I'm s-sorry but it's just not safe here. I-I don't know why you were out here, but..."
She took a shaky breath, using the break from speaking to pull as hard as she could. Cracking my eye open again, I could assess that I was barely even a paperweight. It was hard to tell, on account of the trees all looking the same, but I don't think I'm where I was not too long ago. The dirt patches look different, at least.
"There's danger a-afoot around here. There's a c-cave not far from here, I'm taking you t-there," continued her sentence, with some strain. A cave? I suppose somewhere safe would be nice, especially if she's right. Which did beg the question, what kind of danger was there out here? I'm not human anymore, I could guess that much. However, without a mirror, or some sort of confirmation from my savior, I wouldn't know what I was. The foliage didn't look familiar, I haven't seen anyone else, and come to think of it, I haven't seen my savior either.
Wait, what if they're not my savior? What if they want to kill me!?
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The trek wasn't very long, length wise. In terms of time it took to get here? The Popplio I grabbed wasn't exactly cooperative.
Something after my response to his question just caused him to start flailing and screaming things. I eventually had to tell him to shut up before I killed him myself. I wouldn't. I simply couldn't. Construct, evil Pokemon, or feral, it didn't matter, I had too much sympathy for all of them. Thankfully, he wasn't willing to take his chances with my teeth so close to his windpipe. He didn't completely stop, but it got very quiet, and chose not to flail for the most of the remaining trip.
I managed to set him up near a small pool of water, hoping it would comfort him. He didn't seem very comfortable. I may be a fire type, but even I could recognize that pool was pitiful. I could probably boil it away in only a few minutes. Unfortunately, it was all that he could get around here, not without being in serious risk. They were quick to twist themselves around to face me, their eyes immediately filling with recognition. His gaze bore into my skull almost immediately. I fought to maintain eye contact.
"You're," he started at a reasonable volume. "You're a Fennekin! And..! And..!" I jumped at the exclaimation, not expecting the brutal assault of my ear drums. Yes, it was true, I was one, but did he have to shout it at the top of his lungs? "And you're sparkly! Oh, oh, are you a shiny?!"
"Y-yes, I am one, and you're a P-Popplio. Is," I had to take a deep breath to keep my composure. "I-Is that a problem?" Maybe he just had something against Fennekin, or maybe he hated fire types! What if-
"Well yeah, I'm in the PMD world!"
Excuse me?
"I mean, god... FUCKING damn it I'm in the PMD world! I don't believe this at all!" What exactly was he yammering about? I tried to get something out, ask it, but all that came out was a stammering. He looked away, eyes gleaming with some level of excitement.
"Okay! Okay," he took a deep breath to calm down. He muttered something, before piping up again. "That must mean I'm a Pokemon. I mean, obviously that's the case, PMD and all, and also my legs are fused, but which one?" He looked at me expectantly.
He didn't know what Pokemon he was? That's very odd, he should know what he is. Did that fall give him brain damage? That would explain his complete lack of awareness to, well, just about anything. Maybe he was captured by the constructs, but with sheer luck, managed to get free? That'd be nice. A hope that once the constructs get you, even if you have to lose a part of yourself, you at least aren't permanently ruined.
I looked at him with some confusion. "You're a... A-a Popplio. I already said t-that." He looked at me with sheer bewilderment, before facepaw-er, face... finning? He flinched at the action, hitting his snout rather hard. He then turned away, continuing to use his fin to hide his face.
"Oh, uhm... Sorry," he spoke, now with an air of embarassment. I guess his thoughts tuned me out. He must have a really loud brain, that's got to be it. I envy that, I wish I could think when someone else was talking. "So, I have another question for you."
Another question? "I guess I can provide an answer. W-what is your question?" If he doesn't remember anything because of brain damage, then I suspect we're going to be playing 20 questions for a while. It would be rude not to let him get answers, I think.
"How are," he started, pausing for a moment. He seemed to be weighing something internally, judging by his flipper tap. He certainly was an animated Pokemon, that's for sure. He finished his sentence, continuing with "humans viewed around here?"
Humans? What in the world? Why is he interesteed in that? I would think, even with brain damage, he'd know about it. Maybe he was a worse case than I thought. He turned to me, the expectant gleam back in his eyes. "H-Humans? They're not well liked around here," I spoke with practically no conviction. "I-it's said that a long, long time ago, a vindictive human made the constructs to h-hunt Pokemon down." I could see as my words struck him down emotionally, one syllable at a time. In a sadistic kind of way, it made me feel just a little better about myself.
"Oh, I see," he spoke, a frown on his face and an irrevocable sadness in his voice. Oh no, I've really done it now, haven't I? I didn't mean to make him feel that bad! I just wanted to be truthful! "Thank you for telling me this, I really appreciate it. I do have another though. What's a construct?" He sheepishly grinned at me as he watched my panic turn to unadulterated confusion.
"O-oh, I'm, e-erm," I trailed off, not sure how to explain this to the poor Popplio. "They're like metallic Pokemon, and have been c-corrupted with, uhm," I struggled to get out.
"You know what? Just tell me later. Hopefully you'll be able to boil the threat down for me. Do you mind me asking your name?" I was appreciative that he understood that I wasn't going to be able to explain this to him in a meaningful capacity. Relaxing a little, I gathered my thoughts.
"My name i-is Scintilla." He maintained composure for all of 3 seconds before breaking out giggling, causing me to furrow my eyebrows. "What's so funny?"
"Sorry, sorry, it's just that I know," he trailed off. "Nevermind, my name is Preston. It's a pleasure to meet you, Scintilla." He stuck his fin out for a second, before suddenly retracting. 'Preston?' That's an odd name for sure. If I were him, I'd be giggling at THAT.
"U-uh, the same to you." At this point, I could put two and two together, and figured out that he wasn't brain damaged at all. He was hiding something for sure, and I hoped to get to the bottom of it.At least he was finally showing some manners. Maybe it wouldn't be all bad to try to get to the bottom of this.