A Changed Perspective
He laughed.
She had come to her father, presented her true self that she had so long hidden, and he just laughed in her face.
It was all she could do to run away, away from all the awful people who so horribly judged her for not fitting into the mold she was assigned, and escape to the forest just to the east of town. She had heard stories since she was a kid of children playing in the forest only to never return, but she didn't care. She didn't want to return to her father who would never understand her. She wondered if the kids in the stories were similar, escaping and being far happier wherever they were.
From this escape, she found herself sitting on a log in the middle of the Lostlorn Forest, her clothes slightly torn from forcing herself through the trees. She looked at her skirt and made a mental note to sew up the tear later. She took out her pokéball containing the closest friend she had, her partner Eevee, reminiscing back to catching her with her late mother back in Castelia. She pressed the button on the ball and, in a familiar flash of light, her partner and friend emerged.
"Hi Eevee..." she said, scooping up her friend in her arms and cuddling her. Sensing her distress, the eevee nuzzled up close to her trainer, softly purring against her chest. They cuddled wordlessly for a while, comforting each other with simple presence. The trainer always was comforted when she was able to be with her closest friend, and, even in this situation, there was no exception. It was quite a while before she set her partner down next to her and began to talk.
"I don't know what I'm gonna do, Eevee. My dad's..." the trainer sighed. "He'll never accept who I am, I can't just deal with that."
She looked over at her partner, who was curled up on the log and staring intently at her.
"Sometimes I wish I could be like you, always able to be happy even in times like this. I wish I could just get away sometimes, you know?"
The eevee looked up at her and nodded in response, nudging closer to her leg and the pets her trainer offered.
"Thank you, Eevee. I'm so glad I have you." the trainer said, pausing before continuing. "I guess we can just hang out here while I figure out what to do. You should go ahead and get a drink from the river, I'm sure you're thirsty, little 'vee."
Her partner licked her hand before running off, and the trainer climbed off the log to lay down on the ground and consider her situation. It slowly dawned on her that she had ran here without any prep at all, no food besides a couple granola bars she always kept in her bag. She had no idea how to survive in the wild like this, and, with this consideration, her anxiety started to kick in. She briefly considered that her father wouldn't be too angry if she went home and apologized, before quickly dismissing the idea.
"No, I can't do that to myself. I'd rather starve out here than have to live a lie with him."
Maybe she could try to do the gym challenge? No, she couldn't bear to subject her little 'Vee to the fighting. She kept running through different possibilities in her mind, all failing at some core idea of hers, until she realized she was yawning. Maybe a little nap would help her think, if she could just shut her eyes...
"Eevee? Vee vee?"
The trainer awakened to her partner's bean toes prodding at her cheek, opening her eyes to look.
"Hey Vee... Must've fallen asleep." She said, having a glance around to see a reddish light filtering through the trees and a long shadow cast beside her.
"Wow, it's already sunset." The trainer sleepily observed, "must've slept longer than I really meant..."
"Vee vee eevee vee!" her eevee excitedly said, gesturing above her with her head. The trainer looked up where she gestured, and what she saw jolted her right awake.
"A Z-z-zoroark?" the trainer nervously stammered out. She had heard the myths about zoroark luring errant trainers who wandered on their territory into deep illusions as punishment for their incursion, but those were just legends... right? These assertions of the stories' mythological nature did nothing to calm the nervous trainer. She slowly started to sit up, trying not to startle the zoroark.
"H-hi..." she stuttered as she spoke, an awkward attempt at a wave completing the nervous vibe, "a-am I bothering you?"
The dark pokémon shook its head in response. "Good, it understands me".
"I'm s-sorry for coming into your forest, though," she was still stammering as she spoke, "it's been a rough day."
The zoroark nodded, and the trainer got the strong impression that the pokémon really got her feelings.
"Would you like me to go? I can find somewhere else to rest if you want!" she hurriedly spat out, anxious energy bleeding into her speech.
The pokémon calmly shook its head, calming at least some of the trainer's worries.
"Why are you trying to talk to me then?" she curiously asked with a slight hint of her anxiety still audible. To this, the zoroark gestured at the little eevee and nodded.
"My partner brought you to me?"
"Eevee!" Vee nodded happily, having hopped on her trainer's lap without her noticing.
"That's... why?" the trainer confusedly asked.
To this, the zoroark simply gestured to its side, where the trainer saw... herself? She was briefly startled before reminding herself of the illusory powers that zoroark were so well known for. The trainer looked at her duplicate, seeing her be clearly nervous, but attempting to put on a brave face.
"So it's... me?" The dark pokémon nodded before the illusion continued, and the trainer saw before her very eyes her copy's body slowly shifting, hands into legs, ears to the top of her head, until, in front of her, was a zorua, who was looking far more confident and happy in her new form. The original trainer glanced back at the zoroark confused, and noticed its body language was... questioning, perhaps? It took her a moment to get the gears turning in her head to realize what the pokémon meant.
"You want to... transform me? You're able to do that?"
The zoroark smiled warmly and nodded at the trainer, before returning to its inquisitive body language.
"I-" she was about to say 'I couldn't give up being human,' but could she? All the humans she had known in her life were either awful, exclusionary people or otherwise just gone. She hadn't really had much of a human life even before she ran away from home, barely managing to make herself stay alive, let alone be more 'functional'. Realizing that she didn't really have much to lose, the trainer inquired further with the pokémon.
"So you'd just... make me a zorua, right? And you'd care for me, help me learn the ropes of the new body, right?"
The zoroark nodded, returning to a comfortingly warm smile.
"And what of Vee?" the trainer asked, petting her partner, "Would she be able to be with us too?". She received yet another warm nod in response.
The trainer took a moment to ponder, her important questions answered affirmatively. She... honestly kind of liked the idea of being a pokémon, and really, the zoroark sort of reminded her of her mother, especially with its warm smile. The trainer also had vague memories of having dreamed of being a zorua playing with her eevee in a forest in the past, and that kind of felt like a sign right about now.
"O-okay," she nodded softly, "I think I want this. H-how would we start?"
The zoroark gestured to indicate that she should get up, and the trainer softly set her partner down next to her before following the direction, being quickly pulled into a hug by the motherly creature in front of her. She only noticed now that the zoroark was a bit shorter than her, and this would have caused a bout of dysphoria if it were not for her immediate distraction from the point by the zoroark poking at her tail.
"Wait," she thought, "I don't have a tail."
The trainer quickly turned her head around to look, only to find a distinctly zorua-like tail sticking out over the hem of her skirt, filling her with a bunch of confusing emotions all at once. She looked back at the zoroark to see it snickering slightly at her confusion, and put together that it was something the zoroark did... right? Her pondering was interrupted yet again by the zoroark lightly tugging on the new tail.
The trainer would have been annoyed at the apparent mischief given the chance, but almost as soon as her newfound tail was tugged, she was far too distracted by the shifting of her body to care. She was surrounded by a purple glow that expanded out from the tail, and with it, her haunches shifted to be far more accommodating of the new appendage; her legs shortening and her feet shifting into cute little paws right out of her shoes and socks. The transformation then continued up her body, with a warmth that she'd later recognize as fur growing with it, and her upper torso shrunk to fit the expanding changes. Similar to before, her arms shrunk up into her shirt sleeves, with her hands becoming paws just like her hind legs.
The final component, however, was the most confusing of the sensations. Her neck quickly erupted with a fur that she finally was able to somewhat see in her peripheral vision, and the change continued as her head shifted alongside it, her face pushing forward into a muzzle with a cute button nose and ears slowly growing and being placed atop her head. The final cherry on top, however, was the bright red tuft that grew on her head, concluding the confusing sensations of the transformation.
This transformation had, however long as it had felt for the newly-minted zorua, only taken but a second in time, and, finding herself tangled in her shirt in midair, the zorua gracelessly fell to the ground into the pile of clothes she had left behind. She did not worry long, however, as she soon found herself being scooped out of the clothes by the zoroark who she had previously stood taller than, now very aware of her smaller size and yet... comforted by the zoroark's hold.
"Meema!" the new zorua found herself exclaiming almost on instinct, showing off autonomically her retained ability to speak.
"Be calm, child, you are safe here." the zorua found herself understanding the zoroark's meaning, being softly soothed by the motherly tone.
She looked around at the forest around her, the changed perspective wholly shifting how she viewed it. "It's... all so big now."
"Yes, little one. You shall become used to it in time." Zoroark continued as she softly rocked the transformed trainer back and forth.
Zorua looked down as Meema rocked her back and forth and saw...
"Oh, Vee!" the zorua excitedly hopped out of Zoroark's arms, jumping down to snuggle close with her old partner.
"You look so happy!" Vee warmly said as she snuggled into her old trainer's new neck floof. They snuggled in silence for a while after, Zoroark warmly standing above them, before she spoke up.
"I suggest we return to my den, as the hour is late." Vee and Zorua nodded, before hopping into Zoroark's open arms. And, to the ex-trainer, as much as she only knew the full extent of the desire now, being softly next to her partner in Meema's arms had been what she really wanted. She even pondered for a bit why she even feared being lost in these woods in the first place, before the gentle bounce of Zoroark's stride dreamily quieted her thoughts. And, as she drifted to sleep, for the first time in what felt like ages, she was truly, blissfully, happy.