Amber [Paras] - Open Field Near A Cave
Various users of Sufficient Velocity were browsing on their phone/laptop/computer/etc when they noticed a strange icon on their home screens. It seemed to resemble a pokeball, much like the Pokemon Go app, but there was something...off about it, they couldn't quite put their fingers on it though. There was no form of name or description for the app either, and it was definitely not something they could remember installing themselves. After a few tense seconds of staring and wondering at the mystery-app, it opened. The device's screen turned black, as the world around it began to fade from view. The last image seen before blacking out was the flash of the word 'Help'.
"Hey!" A distant voice murmurs.
"Wake up!" A closer voice says.
"What are you guys doing!?" A voice yells.
"Get up!" Ten pairs of eyes open at that moment. Those eyes belong to a Ralts, Nidoran, albino Vulpix, Litwick, Mimikyu, Goomy, Zorua, Hawlucha, Wooper, and Paras, all laying in an open field near a cave. Of those twenty eyes, few were likely displaying calm at that moment. Those twenty eyes see a Yanma fluttering around, a Venipede staring, a Carvanha somehow upright on land, and an annoyed looking Torchic.
"Why would you all take a group nap right next to a dungeon of wild pokemon?!" it asks angrily. Or...you think it does, you could swear all it's saying is "Torchic" in various ways, but that's the message you got.
Even before they fully stirred to the call of this unfamiliar voice, they were dimly aware of the deep, yearning and the dull pain reverberating through their entire body. It almost made them stir faster, feeling something strange had happened. But before they could fully rise to alertness something seemed to push the concern aside, dulling their senses and filling them with a detached calmness. It was a strange sensation, almost too intimate, a presence closer than anything they'd ever felt before, and enough to make them feel like something was horribly wrong.
Sleep. Came the sensation again, more forcibly this time. They tried to feel for wherever it was coming from, and became suddenly aware of another tiny presence nearby. But they quickly realized this couldn't have been the source of it. It was a presence so faint as to barely be there at all, as if it had grown resigned to this strange situation they found themselves in now too. A sense of alarm started to well up in them, but quickly this sensation too dimmed and they felt suddenly forcibly relaxed, feeling a strange sent of comfort they hadn't felt in a very long time. As if they were surrounded by pleasant company they could trust to take care of all their concerns and they could simply rest at their own leisure.
Memories seemed to flit through their mind quickly as they relaxed into the sensation, completely unbidden. Mostly of their relatively normal life, old memories they was deeply familiar with and didn't normally think about. As unusual as the sudden reminiscing was, the strange calm had engulfed them so completely in their hazy state that they didn't stop to wonder just what was going on. Nor did they grown concerned as the memories slowly started to shift further away from their mind, as if they were being drawn slowly somewhere else one by one, beyond their reach. No, the they felt perfectly fine basking entirely in this strange calmness in full knowledge that all their possible concerns would be fully taken care of without them.
But even with this knowledge, it was still somewhat disconcerting for them when their eyes were suddenly forced open against their will. They were drawn quickly to focus on the Orange bird before them, one that seemed so very familiar. A memory suddenly came to their mind again, this one called by their own recollection, and they recalled this particular creature as called a Torchick, something that held a very deep meaning to them. But that memory too was suddenly moved beyond their reach as the calming sensation engulfed them again.
And before they could attempt to recall just why this creature was so familiar, their eyes suddenly flitted around at the rest of the figures before them, far too quickly for them to get a gauge of what it was they were supposed to be looking at. They probably would have panicked, but they quickly realized that this must be a dream. There was no other possible explanation for the completely baffling sights before them, nor this strange detachment they felt from their own body. They saw red claws through eyes that were seemingly so far away as if they weren't actually her own, and they quickly realized the claws were their own, effectively their hands, which they were sure hadn't been the case before.
It felt like rather than being a part of this body they was a detached presence riding atop it, but at the same time intermixed within as if they were connected in some strange state of Symbiosis. Or Parasitism, they supposed. The only thing they could liken it to was the strange detachment they had only ever felt in a dream before, so there really could have been no other explanation. There was no way any of this could have been real.
As more and more memories seemed to come unbidden to they, they quickly realized that even as they flitted through their mind, they couldn't seem to latch onto details. Even who they were escaped them, a sensation that they had only ever felt before in their dreams. So it made sense at least.
As their gaze suddenly shifted to a gouge in a nearby tree leaking resin that appeared to entrap a bug, the word amber seemed to come to their mind at least. And unlike their other thoughts, this one didn't seem to get drawn away beyond their reach, as something in front of their face rustled a bit looking at the scene of the bug getting entrapped.
They didn't know why this thought unlike the others lingered, but it brought to mind something incredibly familiar from their past that escaped them. But the word Amber kept lingering in their mind as their gaze remained transfixed on the insect getting engulfed. Had that been their name, Amber? It didn't seem wrong at least. And from what they could recall, that had been a female's name hadn't it? Had they been female before? They weren't sure, but in this dream at least it would have to do for the time being, as Amber finally settled on this sense of being in her dream.
Now on a bit firmer footing with herself, Amber felt a bit more connected to what was going on, but still felt it best go with the flow for now. Her mental state was helped along by the strange state of calmness, knowing none of this truly mattered in this dream. She went along for the ride as she felt the tiny presence suddenly jerk to attention as if forced into motion by something else. She took note of more legs than she was used to suddenly being forced into motion with no input from her, shifting their body quickly away from the red bird and another strange candle creature she took notice of. The word Litwick came to mind for the briefest instant before that faded away too.
The pain that seemed to linger throughout her incredibly distant body dulled as their strange form drew closer to the white fox creature and stunted green creature, their cooler bodies seeming to dull the strange sensation of pain that seemed to linger through them constantly. The words Vulpix and Larvitar came to her mind as she heard them speak as if from somewhere so very far away, asking question in alarm she'd probably be asking herself if any of this were important.
As other the figures panicked around her, her strange sense of calmness grew stronger so she only watched on bemused as they started to react as the haze of sleep seemed to lift from them even as it seemed to only engulf her all the more. She watched on as her distant eyes seemed to linger on the bird creature that suddenly leaped up into the air. She felt like she wasn't nearly familiar enough with this particular one to remember the name of it off hand, but she couldn't say for sure whether that was because she never learned it properly, or because her own memories were quickly growing beyond her reach as she felt herself falling into a deeper sleep than the one she was currently in.
They finally drew their gaze away from the creature, glanced at the strange paper bag looking figure with a black claw reaching out from under it's costume like body, Mimikyu her dazed minded noted before the word itself quickly felt unfamiliar to her an instant later. Then next moment however their attention was draw to a strange, slime like creature that suddenly started to laugh to himself. He was a little further away from the rest, close to the entrance to a large cave that seemed of great interest to their body, and they immediately seemed to draw their notice much more clearly than the rest of the group that seemed to leave them uneasy.
The tiny presence she'd noticed before was forcibly jerked into motion again, though oddly it appeared bigger than it had been before. A moment later the strange appendage of theirs she supposed was effectively their mouth was forced into a similar motion to before in a movement she'd started to recognize as salivating. In addition to the pain that lingered in her body, it seemed the deep yearning in their body that reverberated almost as much as the dull pain that resounded throughout them and seemed to grow worse under this sunlight as actually their hunger.
Though now that Amber lingered on the sensation more, she came to realize it actually wasn't a hunger. No it as more akin to a deep, all consuming thirst.
Feast. A voice suddenly came from a third, larger presence she'd not been aware of before. As she tried to discern where the voice had come from, that calming sensation engulfed her again, drawing her notice forcibly away from where it had originated. More and more memories had flickered through her mind unbidden before shifting away again beyond reach. But it was thanks to this unnatural development that her mind finally latched onto something that drew her awareness to full attention.
She'd been wrong before, Amber realized, as her might caught onto something that seemed alarming enough to fully cut through the haziness engulfing her. But she still had the sense of self to notice something important. That tiny, resigned presence she'd noticed before hadn't changed at all since she'd become aware of it. It, connected far closer to the body than she was, so much so that she suspected their body actually belonged to it, was still the same as it had been from the start.
It was still forced to move to the whims of something else, as it was doing now, as they carefully drew closer and closer to the slime like creature that she couldn't recognize. With the way they were moving, as if they were trying to avoid the attention of the group so they could draw up to the strange gooey creature unnoticed. It seemed like they would attempt to drag it into the darkness of the cavern before the others would notice.
But none of that mattered she realized, not at the moment, not if she didn't wake up from what was going on now. Because she'd been wrong, it wasn't the tiny presence that had changed. It was her instead. All along, ever since she'd awoken, and maybe even from before then, it had been her presence changing. That presence that made up her sense of sense in this strange body had been slowly growing smaller the entire time.
It was this thought that slowly started to lift the haze from her mind as her attention focused on the third presence much larger presence within her. It too was seemingly detached from this body that it seemed they both were riding in, and it had been slowly growing as she'd awoken. Right now it seemed too focused on the outside world to notice she'd finally wrestled free of it's strange control over her. Too focused on the outside world through stolen eyes to realize that she was now free to strike back.
Before their body could finish sneaking up behind the gooey creature, Amber reached out to the tiny presence that she was sure made up their actual body. She had little idea what she was doing, and though she wished she could be gentler to the poor enslaved entity, she also knew that if she took to long it was possible the third presence would harm the otherwise seemingly peaceful slime and who knew what else. So for her first time, she had no choice but to be a little rough.
I'm Sorry. She thought out to the presence. She wasn't sure if it could hear her or not, but Amber was sure she'd somehow alerted the third presence to her newfound alertness, because immediately before she could take control, it suddenly tensed up, trying to stop her.
A great hiss rose from their strange insect like lips as their entire body started to shake violently as the two of them dueled for control. A claw lashed out, falling too short of the gooey creature they'd been attempting to ambush thanks to Amber jerking their legs back at the last second, throwing them back away from the group at large. They rolled around on the grass for a few moments as the struggled continued, looking for all the world like they were having some sort of seizure.
Submit! Came the third presence, and from it she could sense the sheer amount of control it had over this body having enslaved it for so very long. She became aware that she'd taken the form of a presence this entity had consumed to take sole control of this enslaved body. How the presence that was their body had been enslaved for so long, forced solely to allow this entity to move that it barely had any presence at all any more. She could even sense the amount of strength it had gained from consuming her presence as well since she'd awoken, taking memories, knowledge, and other things she couldn't gain a true sense of all to grow it's own strength and force her to submit to it so it could gain greater power still.
And yet in the end, even with all it had managed to take from her, all the skill it had at controlling other beings, and all the familiarity it had with this form they both now rode, it didn't matter. Because her human mind was so much more vast than it could ever hope to be.
"Get Out." She said through their clenched insect like mouth as she turned the tide in their mental struggle. Stirred to alertness, even as much damage as she had been dealt in ways that she would probably never fully realize, it didn't take much time for her to figure out how to wrestle it's control away from the tiny presence and take full control of their body. She gained a grim satisfaction as the presence suddenly felt a true sense of fear, before she finally pushed it back even further, deep into its own core, before she finally fully crushed it under her will.
Exhausted now, Amber glanced at the crowd she'd been watching before in her hazy state. She still felt a strange sense of familiarity, like she knew what several of these creatures were somehow, but the memories eluded her grasp. A strange unease filled her, wondering just how much she'd lost while she'd been half asleep, and if she'd ever get it back. But she quickly pushed it aside. She'd have time to worry later.
She eased up on the tiny presence that still lingered within them, trying to coax it to respond to her. But the damage it had been dealt for so long had been long lasting, she wasn't sure if it ever could recover. A sobering thought given the damage she'd taken herself. Resigning herself to her situation for the moment, she coaxed the entity to look at her back. She saw two mushrooms there. The right one she sensed was hers, it had apparently been whithered for a while now, having been consumed and dead since it had been killed, but appeared to slowly be gaining complexion again.
On the left side however was the one that made up the third presence, which was now slowly withering itself. Amber thought on it a moment but quickly took this as a good thing.
"Good Riddance." She said aloud, coaxing the tiny presence to speak seemingly on instinct. A small part of her hoped that the action meant the enslaved presence had given some of it's input too, but she realized it was a fleeting hope.
She shifted their gaze to the group before slowly rising to her insect like feet. She turned her gaze the the slime creature she'd been about to attack first. "Er, sorry. I apparently didn't wake up alone and wasn't in control for a bit there. I think the other one was trying to eat you. I think I have it under control now."
Turning to the broader group at large, she gave a small nod to them. "And, er, sorry for acting weird. Things got a bit hairy in there for a bit, and I think I may have lost more than a few memories. I, uh, think my name is Amber? And unless I'm mistaken I'm pretty sure this isn't my original body. Anyone else here in a similar situation?"
