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April Tasks: A Life in Another World - Part 1

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"Mmmgh..."

What was this?

Ellie certainly never remembered the bed being this soft before. She was used to either the cold, hard cave floor where Joe's family lived, or some sort of random assortment of straw, not this strange, super-soft, fluffy stuff. Was it Amy? No, preposterous; Amy was a Jigglypuff, and even Jigglypuffs couldn't be everywhere at once. A colony of Jigglypuffs? This was getting ridiculous. Ellie decided, to heck with it, she might as well find out what the this stuff even was.

She pushed herself up to find that, yes, her head was on a pillow, though certainly not like any pillows she knew. More worrisome was the super-soft surface and blanket that was over her. And wait, was she wearing...? What the heck was she wearing, anyway? She never remembered wearing any accessories other than her brown messenger bag, so what was...?

In the faint light, she then caught sight of her hands. But there was something wrong with them...very wrong. They weren't white like they were supposed to be...and even more alarming, there were now five appendages on each of them.

She was extremely close to hyperventilating. What was going on in here? She could swear that she just fell asleep with Joe, Tori, and everyone else inside the cave where Joe's family lived. This strange, boxy-looking room certainly wasn't a cave. And did something mutate her hands?

The final straw came when she turned her head to the right and noticed another bed like hers, but there was someone else sleeping in it. It looked like this person had shiny Kirlia horns and hair, but beyond that, it was...it was...that's when it woke up.

"Ellie? Are you okay?" it mumbled. "You didn’t forget to do your homework again, did you...?"

As the figure stretched itself out, Ellie couldn't take this weirdness anymore.

"WHO THE HECK ARE YOU AND HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAAAAAAAAME!?"

In the midst of all her screaming, it took a while for Ellie to notice the person shaking her shoulders, trying to calm her down and get her attention. "Ellie! Ellie! It's me, Mira! You know...your SISTER? For these past 14 years?"

Ellie blinked. "...I have a sister?"

The slightly older-looking girl sighed. "Yes, Ellie. You have a SISTER. Wooooooooo~" She rolled her eyes and gesticulated dramatically, clearly in a mocking manner. Then she narrowed her eyes at Ellie and added, "You weren't doing drugs with your boyfriend last night again, were you?"

Right when Ellie opened her mouth to ask why this Mira would come to such a conclusion, it just occurred to her that, 1) either this was some wacko dream and she really was on drugs (which would only be possible if Lipless snuck her an Enigma Berry in her sleep), or 2) she had been somehow transported to an alternate universe in which she just replaced the person (also apparently named Ellie...) who originally owned this freaky new body she had now.

As soon as she had that thought, it was as if a voice in her hear shouted at her to stop acting like such a spaz and tell Mira straight. "No, Mira, and quit it with the drugs. Now if you can tell me what we're supposed to do today, it'd really, really help."

"Really, Ellie? Really? It's a Thursday. A school day. We're supposed to go to school!" Mira gave her supposed sister a suspicious look again. "You really should cut down on the drugs."

"School...?" Ellie asked, completely confused. "What's that?"

At this, Mira facepalmed herself. "Okay, I'm going to just assume that whatever drugs you took last night somehow wiped away your memory and left your brain with nothing. Let me explain it in a way you..."

She then glanced at the clock, which read 6:10 at this point. "Oh SNAP! The bus comes in like 20 minutes! Come on, come on, we gotta get ready!"

"What do you mean, get ready?"

Mira threw her arms in the air. "OH, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS—!"

And before Ellie knew it, stuff would go by in a blur, most of which she couldn't make out very well. Something about "getting dressed, eating breakfast (well, that she knew what it was, more or less), brushing her teeth, washing her face, and making sure all her homework was in her bag before rushing out of the house to the bus stop." Whatever all those meant. She also thought she heard the words, "Mom, Dad, see you later!" and a few respective voices from them, but was pushed out the door before she could get a good look at who was saying them.

Soon enough, Ellie was pulled by her sister all the way to what she called the "bus stop", which seemed to be a place at the corner where a bunch of other humanoid beings were gathered. None of them acted like they were Pokémon from before, though, making her wonder how exactly she came to be in this world in the first place.

Speaking of world, this place was WEIRD. There were one- and two-story building structures every several feet, and there were these hard, black big paths as well as small hard white paths, and on the big black ones were these metal-looking hulking...thingies. The white paths seemed reserved for people...well, the humanoids. Whatever they were.

As they neared the group of teenagers at the so-called "bus stop", Ellie noticed in particular a boy who stuck out from everyone else on account of the huge pair of white wings on his back. He had white, spiky hair and brilliant, golden eyes. What caught Ellie's eye the most, however, was the fact that this guy was staring right at her. Like...in a very creepy, expectant, way.

Mira giggled and bent down to Ellie's ear as they slowed down to a walk. "Say hi to your smoking hot boyfriend for me~" she whispered, before playfully pushing Ellie in the back very roughly...right in the direction of the guy.

It did not take long for Gabriel to notice Ellie timidly approaching him. At first, he wasn't sure why she was so hesitant. Yes, there was a bit of size difference between them, and his large wings had always made him look more imposing than he actually was, but she had gotten over that months ago.

However, he quickly remembered the big exam she had told him about the previous night. The one he had spent three hours tutoring her over. Poor girl. She was always so nervous about the littlest of things.

He quickly crossed the distance between the two of them before patting her on the shoulder.

"Hey, Elle Belle. No need to be so nervous," he said in the most calming voice he could muster. "You're going to do just fine!"

Without thinking, he quickly gave her a little peck on the cheek. Call it second nature to an individual of avian descent.

He noticed her blush much more than usual. Mira did too. The elder girl let out a soft giggle as her sister nearly fell over in her flustered state. Gabriel quickly caught her.

"...Everything alright, sweetie?"

"I—! Ah—I—I—uh..." Ellie's brain wanted to blurt out a million questions at once, like, "Who are you!? Whoever said you're my boyfriend!? What gives you the right to call me 'Elle Belle' and...and...and do that...!" Sadly, she was too flustered to even say anything. Plus, there were a bunch of other teens watching them and making snarky comments, given their facial expressions, and she didn't want to make any more of a scene than was necessary. Though she did realize that he was carrying her...

Right then, the other, mysterious side of her brain was shouting for her to, whatever she did, not freak out and ruin things for this guy, but Ellie had it up to here with this weird guy touching her like this. She decided to just ignore that stupid voice and wound her right hand back before lunging into an all-out slap at the guy's face.

In another world, one where he was a big, bulky, celestial owl with two feet on a tiny ballerina with the strength of a wet noodle, a slap across the face would not have made Gabriel flinch in the least. However, here where their strength and size were much more comparable, it actually did cause him to stumble back a foot. The older teenager immediately let go of Ellie, and when he was finally able to focus, he could only place his own much larger hand over the small mark she had made on his face.

"Ellie?" he asked softly, his golden eyes a bit sad and shaken at what had just happened.

"I...ah..." Though Ellie might have gotten a freaky new body overnight, she realized that her emotion sensors were still functioning, and she also realized she made a pretty big mistake. Her sister just stood there, frozen, surprised at what Ellie did, and the other teens had varying expressions of shock, disbelief, confusion, and even smugness, for one of them.

"Oooh, BURN! Sorry, Gabe, she got you!" One of them heartily chuckled as he smacked the guy in the back. At this, Ellie's eyes widened in shock.

"...Gabriel?"

She quickly ran up to him and tried to get a better look at his eyes, wincing when she saw the mark she had made on his face. "Gabriel...? Is that really you...?"

Before Gabriel could reply in his usual gentlemanly (albeit also obviously now shocked and concerned) manner, he winced in pain and quickly began messaging his temples, closing his golden eyes in the process. When he opened them only a second, they were harder and more analytical than usual.

The older teenager glanced around at his surroundings then the other gossiping individuals watching the entire scene and then finally to the two sisters. He looked rather confused the entire time, though in a completely different manner than when he had been slapped by his girlfriend. He stared at Ellie for about a minute before simply asking one question.

"Uh... Aren't you supposed to be green?"

"Green...?" Ellie looked back down at herself, confused. Was he wondering why her legs suddenly weren't green anymore? Why would he...?

Then her eyes widened as her emotion sensors clued her in to what just happened. "Ooooooh! Gabriel." She pointed to him stylishly. "Right. Um. Ahem. Yeah, my hair is totally green today! So! Anyway! I've got something I'd like to discuss." Her eyes then narrowed at everyone else, including her sister, before whispering to him in a low voice, "In PRIVATE, of course."

She walked a few paces away from the crowd, carrying Gabriel along by his back before turning to him. "You okay, Gabriel? This place is rather freaky, I know. How'd we get here, anyway?" she whispered.

"...First of all, Ellie, why do I feel like I was socked by a Sawk?" he whispered as he rubbed a hand against his cheek. He paused for a second when said sentence sank in, which made him swiftly look at his hands. "By Bandit's severed head! Since when have I had these things?"

The former Togekiss glanced at his new set of arms and then his pants covered legs. After that, he grasped his at his torso, and instead of grabbing a handful of white feathers, he had his grip clutched around a fancy brown flight jacket. The Angel couldn't help but whistle.

"I don't normally wear clothes, but these threads certainly are nice," he said in a hushed but amused voice. He glanced up at Ellie and said, "So what were we talking about? Oh, right. How did we get here? How did you get so tall? Why am I so handsome?"

He quickly gave an innocent shrug of his new set of humanoid shoulders.

"I have no idea. Last thing I recall is playing around with Metronome, but for the love of Arceus, that can't be the reason why we're here. It's not like I can tear holes into time-space... or... anything."

Lucifer casually placed an arm on Ellie's head and scratched his chin with the other one's hand. Funny how he had never had these new limbs before today but seemed to have no problem using them. It was practically like flying in his avian form. It just came natural.

"Well, that answers one question."

Ellie stopped and stared; her rage building by the second upon realizing that it was his fault that they were in this mess in the first place. "You...did...WHAT!?" she shouted before slapping him again, this time on the other cheek.

She then hissed in his ear (so that she didn't shout and make any more of a scene, but also so no one else in the nearby group would think she was nuts), "So basically, what you're saying is that BECAUSE of your Metronoming, both of us got sent to this...this...!" She gesticulated around the area. "...wacko universe, where we both end up as these tall, freaky things, and...heck, my dress is all weird now! And don't even get me started on these complicated shoes, and this school, and whatever other wacko things are here!? And the biggest problem? Just how the heck are we supposed to get back?"

"...And that answers another! Well, in all fairness, I probably deserved that one," the Togekiss grumbled as he rubbed his rubbed his other check. He gave Ellie a quick look over and shrugged. "I don't see the harm. You were always humanoid. So what if you have extra fingers and aren't green? Big deal."

He quickly shifted into a more serious demeanor.

"Besides, I clearly told you not to surprise me when I was experimenting! But nope. You wanted in on the action as always."

The former Togekiss winced as he heard a female 'eep' that didn't come from Ellie. He looked over his shoulder and saw another... Kirlia he supposed. Her coloring was a bit different than that of his slap-happy companion, but the resemblance was there. However, it mattered little.

"Do you mind? We're having a lover's quarrel here!" he hissed in false anger.

The other Kirlia, now redder than a Tomato Berry, quickly gave them their space.

"Anyway, don't worry about it, Ellie," said the Angel as he causally got his new fingers ready to snap. "I can take us home right now if you want."

"Well then, do it! Take us home already!" she hissed back, before grumbling, "I never said anything about wanting in on whatever the heck kind of action you were talking about, anyway," clearly not entirely grasping what Gabriel might or might not have meant. Her sister's embarrassed reaction pretty much confused it all for her.

The humanoid Togekiss snapped his fingers... and nothing happened.

"Huh. Must be tired. Too bad, so sad. I'll try again later," he cooed innocently, channeling his inner bird with little effort. If Ellie had been more observant and less angry with her companion, she might have noticed something fishy about the entire deed.

"Right..." Ellie huffed in frustration. "Fine then. Guess we'll have to 'survive'"—she spat the word out through gritted teeth— "until you somehow 'recharge'. Oh, goody."

Just then, everyone at the bus stop perked up as a great big long yellow vehicle came slowing down up to their location.

Mira timidly called over to them, "Uh, hey, Ellie? Gabriel? You guys done with your 'lover's quarrel' yet? The bus is coming!"

Ellie sighed again, but this time, looked a little more worried, in addition to annoyance. Great. Just great. Now they had to face this "bus" thing...whatever it was. The thing that supposedly takes them to "school", according to Mira. "I sure hope I don't die from whatever else is going to happen today..." she groaned.

"Ellie, this world is hardly dangerous. The readings I'm getting off these Pokémon are  pathetic. I might be out of Metronome juice, but I could easily Aura Sphere some heads into chunky salsa if need be," said the former Togekiss softly as he grasped his little companion's hand and began dragging her toward this "bus" thing.

"Well, um, okay...if you say so."

She was going to argue that him holding her hand like that would only confirm everyone's suspicions that they were "dating", but then she remembered that 1) Gabriel himself, at least the Togekiss she knew right here and now, didn't seem very aware of that fact, and 2) it would be okay if everyone already assumed they were dating based on what these bodies' previous owners were doing before. Of course, for her, the whole "playing along and blending in" gig certainly wouldn’t be easy at all.

But what could she do? She had no choice. All she could do was play along as best as she could. At the very least, as they walked toward the entrance of the scary-looking bus that all the other teens were filing into, that the very gesture of big, strong Gabriel holding her hand made her at least feel a little less apprehensive about what this really weird day would bring.



"Wow. This is a school? It looks more like a prison," remarked Lucifer in a most unimpressed voice as he observed all the bleak white halls and corridors and dead bricks surrounding them. Granted, the many colorful posters did go the extra mile to liven up the place a little.

The ex-snowy owl pounded his fist against a large metal container that was part of many that aligned the walls.

"I think I heard some girls call these things lockers. You can apparently store your stuff in there, and each student has one."

"They look like a pain in the butt to open, though..." added Ellie, gazing intently at how most of the students had to spin the lock around a certain number of times to open, and some even had so much trouble that they resorted to kicking the doors open. "Not sure if there's anything in here that I'd want to store in one of those things, anyway..."

She gestured to her brown messenger bag; the only recognizable accessory on her person, though it was enlarged to accommodate her increased height. Thinking over the contents that she checked over on the bus, she had found a few notebooks full of random notes in there, as well as her class schedule, pencils and papers, and a few tests with letters like D- and C+ on them...whatever those meant.

She also held up her left arm and gazed upon the large, metallic, strange device that encircled her forearm, something that she remembered Mira insisting that she always wore. "You have any idea what the heck this thing is, though?"

"Some kind of blade?" Lucifer guessed as he gave the strange device a look over.

Just then, a long shadow fell over the two.

"Hello, Miss Ellie! Good day to you! Looking pretty today, you are," declared a deep but very simple voice from behind the smaller green-haired girl. It had something of an accent, but it was hard for the two to peg.

"Whoa!" Ellie spun around to find the source of the voice and shadow, finding a dude even taller and more intimidating than Gabriel. She thought she heard that kind of voice and speech pattern before, but was currently drawing a blank on who it was. She stepped back, trying to keep a safe distance from him.

"Brown fur coat. Big bushy mustache. White and blue mask. Built like a Mamoswine. Huh. Twenty guesses who this is," mumbled Lucifer under his breath as he quickly placed himself between the lumbering newcomer and the much smaller Ellie.

"Oh! Hello to you too, Mr. Gabriel!" said the stranger with a jovial nod of his head.

"What have I told you about flirting with my girl, Earl?" said Lucifer as he tapped his fingers casually against one the lockers.

"Flirting?" inquired the largely built man as he tilted his head to the side. "But Mr. Gabriel! Yous told me to always compliment her when I sees her, you did!"

"Very good, Earl!" replied the Togekiss as he swiftly reached into Ellie's bag and produced a cookie. He quickly placed it in the humanoid Mamoswine's massive hands and said, "I was just testing you."

"...I knews it," chuckled Earl as he swallowed the entire cookie in one bite. As he licked his fingers, he added, "So what's the plan for today, Mr. Gabriel?"

Lucifer made a gesture for Ellie to follow them as he turned to his oldest friend in both worlds.

"Well, for starters, mind pointing to my first class?" the Angel asked casually as he slipped his hands into his flight jacket pockets. In a teasing voice that he knew Earl would totally miss but Ellie would completely know, he added, "I was slapped so hard this morning that I completely forgot."

Ellie's eyes widened. Huh, so this was the "Earl" that Gabriel always said he missed! But here, he wasn't a Mamoswine; he was the same oddly shaped humanoid like everyone else here was. She smiled, glad to see how well Earl and Gabriel really got along, even if this was a different Earl in a different universe.

"It's okay, Earl. Um...thanks for complimenting me, and stuff." To make the facade more realistic (or so she hoped would be), she hugged Gabriel's arm in what she hoped would convey affection. Inwardly, though, she sighed. She wasn't sure if she could get used to this "boyfriend/girlfriend" charade. And what if Bandit caught wind of this? Then she'd be in trouble for sure.

"Oh! I knows where it is, I do!" replied the Mamoswine thoughtfully. Upon hearing Ellie speaking up, he turned his massive frame to her and gave the Kirlia a small bow. "It's no problem, Miss Ellie."

Ellie followed the two of them, hoping that she could ask Earl about where all of her classes were, when suddenly, she noticed a guy with a Charmeleon head along one side of the lockers, looking nonchalant and bored. She gasped. This was Mike, wasn't it? The Rescuer leader who recently evolved, right? But she wasn't sure as to whether it was the same guy or this universe's version of him.

As they came up to him, she somewhat lagged behind, hoping to talk to him. "Mike! Hey there—!"

Without warning, the Charmeleon-headed guy snapped out of his bored look and shoved her by the shoulders, causing her to land flat on her back on the ground.

"HAH! Try to mess with me, punk!" He seemed to act like he had something to prove.

Ellie's eyes widened with shock as she tried to sit back up, trying to ignore the pain in her back. "Wha...Mike, what was...!?"

"It's MATT, you numbskull!" he shouted back as he kicked her in the jaw this time.

Well, attempted to anyway.

Before anyone could so much as blink, Lucifer was between Ellie and this "Matt" fellow and quickly batted away the blow with one of his wings.

"Wow. Trying to hit a freshman girl. How courageous," the ex-Togekiss snarked in a nearly dead voice as he started cracking his knuckles.

The much slower Earl lumbered over to Ellie's side as quickly as he could and offered the Kirlia one of his massive hands, asking her quietly, "Yous okay?"

"I...I think so. My back hurts a bit, but I hope I'll be fine…"

As she took Earl's hand and stood back up, she winced, and used her other hand to try and subdue the pain in her back. "I don't get it, though...why would Mike—I mean, Matt—" Then her emotion sensors twitched. "...Oh, now that's just weird. I mean, I know you don't want people to pick on you, but this is the wrong way of doing it."

Matt and Lucifer's increasingly heated conversation drowned out Ellie's words.

"Oh, so you got something to prove, Maddie?" said Lucifer as he took a step forward, causing "Matt" to take a step back. The height difference between the two young men was suddenly rather evident. Lucifer was the clear victor in size and build, though he seemed a bit... larger than he had been only moments ago. It was probably how he had his wings slightly flared.

"I—"

"Earl!" called Lucifer with a snap of his fingers.

Suddenly, the much larger Mamoswine was by his boss' side, the nice, innocent, and dumb look completely replaced by the powerful scowl his species was known for in the dimension hopper's home world.

"...Stuff him in his own locker," said Lucifer as he walked backwards to Ellie's side, a sinister grin across his face as Mike Matt went absolutely pale at the words.

Arms raised and ready to strike, the titan began to lumber forward toward his prey.

"...Mommy," whimpered the Charmeleon as he began to stumbled backwards in absolute terror as Earl's long shadow fell upon him like a flock of starving Manibuzz.

"Ellie, let's get to class," said Gabriel in a soft, comforting voice as he wrapped a wing around her side and began leading her away. Using his size and other free wing, he made sure that she was unable to see what was about to happen next.

"...Okay..." She clutched his side and buried her face in his jacket, hoping it would soften the impact on her emotion sensors that was sure to come. She told herself over and over again this was all for her sake, to make sure she didn't get hurt, because Gabriel cared about her like that.

They were luckily around the corner when a giant WHAM! resounded across the hallway.

To be continued...
NEXT PART>>>

This is a collab between me and *Cosmic-Gemini for the April Tasks of the group #PMD-Explorers, to...

-Shove Matt into a locker
-Find Principal Prosphora's sandwich ***COMPLETE***
-Duel Lexy and Caldera in a game of Po-ke-oh...and win
-Get Shroomsworth out of being punished by Ms. Merlot
-Sell Rare Candies to raise funds for the school's music program

Featuring my Ellie the Kirlia of Team Nighty Knights and his Gabriel Lucifer the Togekiss of Team Shadowstep.



Part 1 of 6. Whee, yet another task collab! But instead of focusing purely on our characters' high school selves, me and Cosmic have decided to take things one step further and explore what would happen if the souls of their PMD-E versions somehow got transported into the bodies of their high school versions. Wackiness and hijinks are sure to run amok, as well as some very serious reflections later on. And yes, this is canon to our teams' storylines.

Ellie actually does have a big sister named Mira in PMD-E, too. She happens to be a shiny Kirlia who's the star tightrope performer in the travelling circus, Cirque du Sashay.
© 2013 - 2024 Galactic-Rainbow
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MegaLCRO's avatar
After reading/ playing through so many stories involving people turning into Pokemon, it's kinda refreshing and intriguing to read a story that goes the other way, having a Pokemon turning into a human. Am I right?