Chapter Two: Litten Up



Benga's POV



I wasn't sure when I realized the Unown were speaking to me. In words. Not with a voice, but still with words. I heard them in my head, but not with my ears, if that makes sense? They were outside my head, but speaking inside it, somehow.



It's something like having ear mites, but without the pain and the scratching. Although the fear surging through my brain was almost worse.



What do you wish?



I turned and looked at Terra. She was terrified, frozen to her chair, only able to look on at the growing scene of chaos from the rising Unown. Whatever she had been expecting from her Unown tile set, it certainly wasn't this.



"I want to protect Terra!" I meowed.



If that is what you wish.



I felt a tingling feeling in my fur, and past it. I felt warmer -- no, hotter -- as my fur began to blacken and grow greasy. My whiskers grew thick and red, and my tabby stripes turned a bright red as well, forming bands around my legs. Strangest of all was the heat -- I felt as if set alight by a living flame, and yet it felt pleasant. Strong. Like this was what I was always meant to become.



What do YOU wish, Terra?



I turned to Terra, and realized something strange. She wasn't afraid anymore. She was smiling. Grinning, even. As if she'd been waiting to hear these words all her life.



"Take us with you," she said.



If that is what you wish.



---



I could probably make something up about the journey, say that it felt as if the world around us twisted and bent to bring us where we went, or that it felt like we were being sucked up by an enormous vacuum monster (which thankfully didn't happen, especially given that what was about to happen could have gone even worse).



In truth, the journey was barely perceptible. One moment we were in our house on Earth, the next minute we were elsewhere. If I'd blinked, I would have missed it.



Okay, maybe I did blink a little. There was something in my eyes.



At first it was hard to tell that we were Somewhere Else. The place looked a lot like home; specifically, the bedroom we had just been in. But the colors were different, sort of muted and muddy -- even to my eyes, and I'm told that humans can see more colors than cats can. Not sure why this is, but it just is. It smelled different, too, which is how I knew that we were Elsewhere and not back home.



This was the Interdream Zone, although I didn't know it at the time.



And then there was the fluff.



Fluff everywhere. Floating around, up and down, sometimes glowing slightly or changing color. It was something like clouds, if clouds were floating two feet away from you and were (according to Terra after the fact) some color that humans like to call 'pink.'



FLUFF!



Have I mentioned that I love fluff? Fluff is loads of fun! You can pounce on the fluff and rip up the fluff and play with the fluff and bat around the fluff and sometimes EAT THE FLUFF, and the more you play with it the more fluff there is because you can just rip apart the fluff and make MORE fluff. Fluff is fantastic!



So, okay, I'll admit that I wasn't fully listening when Terra shouted, "BENGA! Don't pounce on that cloud!"



Just as I pounced on that cloud.



I ripped into it, tore it up, and watched as brightly colored orbs scattered. Balls! I love balls! Forgetting the fluff for the moment, I chased after the balls, batting them around the room.



The Unown chittered around me, amused. Terra not so much. "Benga!" she yelled. "Stop that at once!"



I paused and turned towards her, realizing how pale she looked. (Relatively speaking. Some humans are always pale, but Terra's one of the darker-skinned ones.) I could smell the fear on her -- she was clearly harboring second thoughts on coming with the Unown.



"Don't attack the clouds!" she said sternly. "Wild Pokemon could be hiding in them!"



I gave her a look as if I understood, then charged headlong into the nearest cloud, claws out. No one tells me what to do.



I wasn't expecting anything alive to jump out of it.



---



"Hey! Leave Hoopa alone!"



I'm still not sure how a creature that size was hiding in a cloud that size, but it flung a shiny hula hoop over me, and somehow I was right next to it one moment and then halfway across the room the other.



The thing-that-had-flung-me looked very annoyed. "Why did you attack Hoopa?" it asked.



It was a small, strange creature, maybe as big as I was, with a large head with long curved horns, big green and yellow eyes, and a small ponytail. Its body was smaller than the head, with no arms or legs, just a ring around the waist (or what probably would have been the waist if it was a human) and a short tail. Oddly enough, a pair of things like stubby snakes floated at its sides, probably small pets compensating for the creature's lack of limbs. These 'snakes' had heads resembling mittened hands, and they worked like hands as well, handling a pair of rings that normally hung from the main creature's horns.



It took me a moment to recognize the name it had used for itself. Hoopa. Like the one in the movie. Believe it or not, it wasn't quite as easy to recognize in real life compared to the cartoon. Although part of it could have been that the colors in this place were somewhat off.



I meowed at Hoopa. It was about the best I could do.



Surprisingly, it understood. "Of course you didn't see Hoopa! Hoopa is hiding!" The thing turned to Terra and quickly lowered its voice. "You better hide, too! The Legendary Stupid Brothers are coming!"



"Legendary Stupid Brothers?" Terra asked, raising an eyebrow. (This is not an easy thing for humans to do at first, and it takes a lot of practice. I've watched Terra practice at home, and she's pretty good at it.)



Before Hoopa could answer, we heard a roar. A dark shape flew up to the window, and Hoopa darted back inside another cloud.



Terra quickly pressed herself against the wall, trying not to breathe too loudly. I hid under the bed, which was in the same place as Terra's bed. The Unown darted under with me, clearly intelligent enough to know that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.



The creature peered through the window. It had a green head with yellow eyes, but aside from that seemed almost human; it had thick white hair and a bushy mustache of the same color. Oddly enough, it also had horns, two thin ones. I wondered if everything in this strange, strange place had some sort of horns.



I could hear wingbeats outside, and the creature's head rose and fell with the wingbeats. What was this monster? A harpy? Terra told me a legend about harpies once. They were the personification of storm winds, half human, half bird, and the worst half of both. They were filthy, highly disagreeable creatures, but hadn't always been. They came from ancient Greek legends and clearly weren't supposed to actually exist.



Apparently nobody bothered to tell it that.



The creature growled a bit, sniffing at the window. I could hear Hoopa's heart beating from there, a mile a minute.



Then the creature flew back from the window.



Terra let out a breath she'd been holding in. "Well, that was terrifying," she whispered --



-- and then the thing charged straight through the wall.



---



It was HUGE. Four feet tall -- no, more like four and a half. Which doesn't sound THAT big to a human, except that this was very clearly a bird, and a bird with more murder on its mind than a flock of crows. Its wings were enormous, one terrible claw on each end, and on top of that, it was...



...how do I put this as... politely as possible?



The color of its chest feathers made it look like it was wearing a brassiere. (Which is something I'm familiar with because Terra changes her clothes in the same room I sleep in. Although that's not saying much. I sleep in every room. When you're a cat, everywhere is bed.)



This was funny for about half a second, and then we were terrified for our lives.



"Tornadus!" Terra yelled. (Another Pokemon I hadn't recognized, due to the anime not really fully communicating that this was a giant freaking death bird.) "Help me! Somebody help me!"



The Unown flew out from under the bed like a storm. Rock Electric Ice Rock Electric Ice, they hummed, sending out bursts of energy from their bodies to strike at the killer vulture.



Hoopa popped out from its cloud and quickly flew to the bedroom door, struggling with the doorknob. Terra quickly shook herself out of her panic and got the door for it. (It? I think it smelled like a she. Though I'm not that sure.)



I followed Terra like a streak of lightning, because it was either that or stay in the bedroom that was rapidly being destroyed by the giant green chicken. The three of us ran out the door, down the hall, down the stairs, and right into the living room, where --



-- holy crap. There was Something Else waiting for us!



I spied something blue. Blue, sharp-clawed, ten feet long, one wickedly sharp horn, an impossibly long tail of bowling balls, and the same happy smile as the killer turkey. It even had the same bras, if you can believe that. And it didn't look like it wanted a squeaky toy.



"Thundurus!" Terra yelled. Not really the best idea, because it drew the thing's attention to us.



A swarm of Unown flew past us, charging back at Thundurus. Rock Ice Rock Ice Rock Ice, they chirruped, pelting the Thundurus with energy. The monster roared, swinging its tail at the relentless horde of Unown, but they kept coming at it.



"They're coming for Hoopa!" Hoopa yelled, ducking behind Terra's back. (Which wasn't really all that nice for Terra.)



"Where do we go?" Terra yelled. "Tornadus upstairs, and Thundurus downstairs! We need to get out of here!"



I agreed, and so did the Unown. A whole group of them flew up around us, activating their mysterious power...



And at that very moment, Thundurus shot out a killer wave of electricity that pulsed through the entire living room.



Everybody screamed.



And the Unown made a serious mistake.