Setting the letter back down next to my egg’s shell, I headed towards the stream I heard. There was a slight rise, no more than a foot, and then a small slope leading down to the water. It was maybe fifty feet away from my egg, so I hope that means it is within the range of the protection. If something happens and I get stuck in the barrier for a bit, I would like to have access to the water.

I made my way slightly downstream to where the water pooled a bit, then looked down. While the water was slightly distorting the image, I could definitely make out the face of a mew, my face, leaning over the water.

I could also see that there was some residue from the hatching left on my body. I’d been so curious, and then hungry, that I’d ignored it until now. However, since my needs had been met it was time to take care of that.

Wading into the stream, I took a quick bath. It was a little cool, but not bad. It did mess with my fur though, making it flatten against my skin. Ugh, and I had no towels or anything to use to dry off. After I washed as thoroughly as I could, I had done my best to dry myself off, but still ended up looking like a wet cat.

I really needed to work out how to use my abilities. There had to be something in there to make life easier. If there wasn’t, I was going to take the hint the orb-god gave me and make my own. I’d always been impressed at how stupid some authors left their mage-type characters. Lifestyle magic was something any respectable magic user should be able to use to make their lives easier.

Spells, or moves I guess, like clean, wash, dry, ignite, breeze, summoning water, and playing with dirt to make and fill holes were things that I was determined to learn. Oh! And telekinesis! Since I theoretically have access to all the moves in this world, then I should be able to do what I want. Outside of specific attacks, I’ll probably treat my abilities more like magic than pokémon moves.

With that thought in mind, I found a clean-ish rock to sit down on and tried to do what every every magic user has to do. Find the source of their power. Closing my eyes, I looked inward, and…

Really?! It was that easy!? Maybe being reincarnated made it easier, but no sooner than I had reached for the power than it was available to me. I mean it wasn’t like it was large, but it was right there and ready to use.

I tried to use the power, and got promptly nauseous.

OK, note to self, don’t do it like that again. It seemed having easy access to the power did not mean that I could use it easily or without caution.

I had tried moving the power to make a ball of light in my hand, but it went very wrong. My second attempt went much better. Rather than gripping and pulling like I had, I coaxed a thread of power out of my core and through my body to my hand where I tried to push it out as I willed it to do what I wanted.

Nothing happened.

Again and again I tried, changing how I was doing things. More and more energy was wasted, and though I noticed it slowly recovering as time passed, but I spent it far faster than it returned to me.

The sun was setting when I finally just gave up and called out a move name as I tried using my energy.

“FLASH!”

A bright light illuminated the area that had been darkening as the sun eased its way down over the surrounding mountains. In front of me was a ball of light hovering a few feet above my head.

“Success! At last!”

I had hatched in the early afternoon, so it took me maybe a third of a day to figure out that one move… There were hundreds of moves listed in the games, and I was certain there were far more that weren’t since this was a real world and didn’t have the limitations of a game. Regardless, I really needed to figure out the trick to use my power however I wanted.

I yawned.

I’d figure that out later. For now, I needed to figure out where I’m going to sleep tonight.

Standing up, I made my way back to the my egg, the light following above me. The egg had been nested in a hollowed out tree stump, a decently sized one. Mews aren’t very large, so I should be able to fit in that stump easily enough, once the remains were cleaned up.

The stump wasn’t too high, which was good or I might have gotten injured when I’d hatched, so I climbed up and started pushing all of the egg bits out. It took a bit, and there was some dried liquid from the hatching, but it would have to do. The interior was somewhat spongy, so it made a good bed when I lay down.

As soon as I was on my back, I had to change my position. Yeah… I’ve got a tail now, and even with the cushioning of the rotting wood, it had NOT been comfortable to lay down on it. I curled up on my side, hugging my tail to me.

It wasn’t long before I fell asleep, ending the first day of my life in my new home.

---

I awoke in pain as I was suddenly stabbed… by the bright light of the sun peeking over the mountains around my little valley, and right into my eyes. Cursing, which came out as a cute little growl from my new mouth, I turned away from the light and sat up. I looked around in confusion for a moment before my brain fully engaged.

Yeah, it can sometimes take a bit to reboot after being in sleep mode for a while.

I climbed out of my ‘bed’ and took care of my morning business, ending in washing my face at the stream. Doing so had left me kinda embarrassed, though I have no clothes available to deal with the literal bare part. At least my fur covered everything.

Anyway… while using the toilet tree, freshly christened, I learned that I was physically a girl. SCORE! Not that it would matter in the end with my abilities, but that is one less problem as being born with male equipment would have made my life harder. Woot! No dysphoria!

Ahem… sorry. It just made me a wee bit euphoric.

Breakfast was more berries. The bush was loaded with them, and was larger than me, especially since as I mew, I am tiny. If I recall correctly, Mew was listed as being a bit over a foot tall, and I was a baby, so I was shorter.

Hunger and thirst sated, it was time to get back to figuring out how to do stuff. Rereading the letter, I noticed that this safe zone was time limited, so I needed to figure out how to protect myself, and I needed to do it fast.

I started off by testing some low level moves. Like Flash. Ones I knew the name of were generally easy to do, though some caused me problems, like dig.

I spent the energy on the move, but it had seemed like nothing happened. I was being an idiot. I’m only on my second day with this brain, so leave me alone. When I pulled my head out of the clouds, I tried actually digging, and it was rather easy, allowing me to move through the soil almost like water.

My favorite move I was able to do was telekinesis. It was also the only one so far I was able to do first thing without having to speak the name. It helped me figure out how to silent cast. Anyway… I could use telekinesis like it was second nature to me, allowing me to move stuff with ease. It was like I had an extra pair of hands, ones I could change the size of.

Besides being easy, it also helped me figure out how to do the floating thing mews are known for. No more walking for me… unless I wanted to… or ran out of energy. Now I could dart around in the air, and move far more quickly than walking would allow.

Only problem was it did take a good amount of energy, so I ended up walking anyway to save it for practicing other things.

I spent the next week practicing a bunch of moves that would let me fight safely outside of the safe zone. Being a psychic type pokémon, I had the greatest affinity for those types of moves, which made them easier to become familiar with, unfortunately most of them required a target to see if they worked. So most of the moves I practiced were from other elements.

Speaking of psychic moves… One I really wanted to test was Imprison. It made other pokémon unable to use any move the user knew. In the games it was a bit disappointing, but could work well if you took the time to set it up, since each pokémon could only know four moves at a time. In the real world though… well, I (theoretically) know every move, which means if I Imprison a pokémon, they shouldn’t be able to do anything outside of normal physical attacks, nothing that requires energy.

I mean in the real world there’s no way a pokémon wouldn’t be able to use tackle unless it’s unable to move, but if they put energy into it, making it a Move, it would just deal higher damage.

At least that’s my take on the whole physical attack thing. I ain’t gonna count on being able to cut off their moves will actually make them unable to attack. That’s just asking for trouble.

Anyway…

I’d been on the planet for a week, and had yet to meet another living thing with any intelligence. There were non-pokémon animals around, like bugs, but they lacked the ability to communicate or use energy like pokémon or humans.

It was time to risk venturing out of the safe zone that was my new home. Incidentally, I actually had made it a home, making a house by piling up rocks around my bed (tree stump) using some rock type moves like rock tomb and rock throw. I did almost break my bed though…

Mentally psyching myself up, I started walking. I didn’t head directly away from my home, but followed the meandering path of the stream. As long as I followed it, I wouldn’t risk getting lost.

After several minutes the air around me seemed to change. I’d been able to hear the calls of the wild pokémon since I was born, but hadn’t seen a single one. While I still couldn’t one, the calls surrounded me and I could start understanding what was being said. I had left the safe zone.

I looked around, particularly up since most seemed to come from a higher elevation, but their bodies were hidden behind the leaves and branches of the surrounding trees.

In case of trouble, I didn’t want to go too far from the barrier. The problem was what was being said.

Make no mistake, they saw me, but just I was scared, so too were they. After all, I’d come from the ‘dead zone.’ That’s what they called the barrier’s area. They thought I was a new danger to what had previously been a mostly safe area. Well they weren’t exactly wrong, but also not right. I could be very dangerous, but I didn’t want to be.

Pushing back my social anxiety, which didn’t get better with a new body unsurprisingly, I tried calling out to the hidden watchers.

“Mew, me-mew?” “(Umm, hello?)

The nearby voices all went silent for a moment before it got even louder.

“It can speak!”

“What is it though?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen one of them before”

“Do you think it’s safe?”

“Someone get big bro, he’ll know what to do.”

“I’ll go!”

“Be fast, who knows how long it will wait before getting angry.”

All this chatter and more filled the air, though much of it was lost amidst the overlapping voices. I also saw a brown form dart out of a tree and take off to the east, where I presume their big bro was found. I think it was a pidgy, but the quick glimpse before it was hidden behind the leaves didn’t let me confirm. Plus, this was a real world, so I wasn’t as certain I’d be able to tell what was what like I could, there was going to be variation.

One thing I did notice was that the flier stayed below the canopy of leaves instead of flying up into the clear air. It seems like it would be easier to fly up there instead of having to dodge around trees like this was Endor. Maybe it was related to the warning not to fly? I’d have to ask… if they let me.

As I waited, I tried asking some questions, but while the pidgys, and I could actually tell now after listening to them speak for a bit, spoke amongst themselves, they still refused to answer me.

It didn’t feel good. I’d been a social outcast once, and so far I was again.

At least I’d figured out how to tell them apart from their cries. I could understand what they were saying, but could also hear the species name that pokémon spoke when they talked underneath.

I didn’t want to waste my time, so as I waited I practiced. I’d gotten decent at using the premade moves available to me, but I had some other ideas to test.

Five minutes passed. Not surprising, it can take time to get to places.

Fifteen. OK, a little irritated, but whatever.

An hour. When is their big brother going to arrive? I could have attacked and hurt them before he had a chance to show up…

Finally, as the sun approached its zenith there was flapping of larger wings as a larger bird, a pidgeotto, appeared flying through the trees. It approached, but landed on a bare branch partways up a nearby tree.

All the pidgeys called out welcomes to it, but it waved those off.

“Did it do anything while you were waiting?”

“It attacked the ground!”

“Made lots of noise!”

“It was scary!”

“Uh, I think it was just practicing, like you do.”

“No way! It was trying to intimidate us!”

“You’re just too much of a coward.”

“No I’m n…”

“Enough!”

The pidgys shut up. Pidgeotto turned his head towards me.

“Who are you, and why are you here?”

Simple questions, and yet not so simple. But I’d planned for this and would give them a simple answer.

“I’m Telarynn, a mew. I hatched a week ago, so I don’t know much about the world. Can you teach me, big brother?”

The pidgeys raised a raucous call at my last two words. Apparently they didn’t like me calling their big brother that. I tried to put on a puzzled look as if I didn’t know why I couldn’t call someone by what seemed to be their name or title. Not sure how that worked given that I had no idea how to use mew body language correctly.

Pidgeotto raised his wing, waving them to silence.

“So you’re just a newborn. Do you know why we can’t go there?”

He pointed his wing towards my safe zone.

“Umm, I somehow know that the barrier was put there by my parent(?) to protect me while I get stronger, but I thought it just kept out those who threaten me, not everyone.”

“So if we don’t threaten you, we can enter?”

“Maybe?” My voice came out kind of timidly, after all, I had no idea how the thing worked. I didn’t make it.

He thought for a moment, then glided down from his perch. He was intimidating, and over three times my height. Scared, I huddled in on myself and took a step back towards the safety of the barrier.

Seeing my response he reassured me.

“I have no interest in harming you. I’m one of the guardians of this valley, so as long as you aren’t a threat, you’re safe with me.”

As he’d spoken, he stepped closer to the barrier, and then passed through like it wasn’t there. My attention was on what he’d said.

“Guardian?”

“Hmm, seems fine. It’s safe as long as you don’t hurt the child.” He called out to the flock before turning back to me. “Yes, a guardian. Do you know what this place is?”

“Only that it was a safe place to grow.”

“That’s mostly right. It’s not completely safe, but it’s better than the surroundings, as long as you don’t tempt fate.”

“Like flying? For some reason I have a bad feeling about that.”

“You can fly? But where are your wings? Whatever. Yes, flying too high is dangerous. There are some dangerous beings around that don’t like others flying in their territory, so you can’t fly too high. Even us guardians can’t protect you if you do. My friends and I try to maintain the peace of the valley so you younglings can grow before departing on your journeys. We also punish troublemakers, so just don’t.”

I nodded quickly, as there was a sharp glint in his eye.

The pidgys were cautiously trying the barrier that had kept them out of my domain. Finding it no longer impeded them, they flew through… all except one who crashed into the barrier. Seeing that, I raced back inside. If he bounced off, that meant he was hostile to me, right?

Pidgeotto seemed to have the same thought.

“You weren’t thinking of hurting the child, were you?”

“No not at all.”

It was obvious it was lying, given the way it was shaking under the larger bird’s stare. It backed off, giving an excuse about something to do, then flew away.

“Watch out for that one. He’s a bit of a bully.”

I nodded.

“Now if you’re a newborn, I’m sure you have lots of question.”