He learned the shape of himself by accident.
The river narrowed briefly downstream, funneling the current through a shallow bend where the water thinned and slowed. Sunlight reached farther here, breaking through the surface in fractured ribbons that danced along the riverbed. Sediment settled more quickly, leaving pockets of clarity amid the murk.
He drifted into one of them while foraging, distracted by hunger and the careful calculations that now accompanied every movement.
That was when he saw it.
At first, he mistook the shape for another Pokémon hovering nearby—thin, wavering, distorted by the water's movement. A flick of instinctual alarm passed through him before his mind caught up.
The shape mirrored him.
He stilled, and so did it.
The realization came slowly, heavy with reluctance. He adjusted his fins, turning just enough to bring the image into better alignment. The surface of the water above reflected faintly, but it was the smooth stone beneath him that held the clearest image—a dull, warped mirror polished by years of current.
There was no denying it.
That was him.
He stared.
The image did not improve with familiarity. If anything, the longer he looked, the more details forced themselves into focus. Scales that should have been sleek were uneven, their coloration patchy and uninspired. His fins frayed at the edges, translucent in places where they had worn thin. His body looked… tired. As though it had been born already worn down.
Ugly.
The word surfaced unbidden, sharp and cruel.
He recoiled slightly, sending ripples across the stone. The reflection fractured, breaking his image into shimmering fragments that reassembled only when the water stilled again.
*This is what they see,* he realized. *This is what everyone sees.*
The trainers on the shore. The passing Pokémon. The world itself.
Not a creature worth stopping for.
A Feebas was not simply weak. It was symbolic. A living reminder that not all Pokémon were meant to inspire awe or admiration. Some existed only to fill space, to be obstacles or inconveniences, to be ignored until they were no longer in the way.
He felt something twist inside him—not pain, exactly, but a tightening that pulled inward on itself.
*I had a face once,* he thought.
The memory surfaced hazily. A mirror in a small room. Tired eyes. Features that were unremarkable, perhaps, but undeniably human. A face that belonged to someone who could be overlooked—but not dismissed outright.
This was different.
This body came pre-dismissed.
He lingered there longer than was wise, hovering just above the stone, watching the faint movements of the water distort and reshape his reflection. Each ripple exaggerated his flaws, stretching his thin body, warping his fins into grotesque angles.
*Stop,* he told himself.
But he couldn't.
The reflection became a fixation, a visual anchor for everything he feared he was becoming. If he accepted it too easily—if he stopped caring—would that be the moment his human self truly dissolved?
A sudden vibration in the water snapped him out of it.
Another Pokémon passed nearby, close enough that he felt the displacement of water brush against his side. A Goldeen, sleek and bright, its scales catching the light as it moved. It didn't look at him. It didn't need to. Its confidence radiated outward in every effortless motion.
Comparison was inevitable.
He pulled away from the reflective stone, retreating into deeper, darker water where the light thinned and images blurred. The relief was immediate—and unsettling.
*Hiding feels easier,* he noted grimly.
That frightened him more than the reflection had.
---
Later—when hunger drove him back toward the shallows—he encountered something else that forced him to see himself through unfamiliar eyes.
A cluster of Feebas had gathered near a submerged log, feeding silently. He joined them cautiously, keeping his movements small and unintrusive. For a while, nothing happened. The others scraped algae and drifted in lazy arcs, their awareness focused entirely on the present moment.
Then one of them brushed against him.
The contact was brief, accidental—but the reaction was immediate. The other Feebas startled, veering away sharply before settling again a short distance off. Its fins fluttered nervously, not with fear, but with something closer to irritation.
He felt it then.
Not emotion in the human sense, but an instinctual signal—a subtle pressure, a recognition of difference.
*They feel me,* he realized.
Not his thoughts. Not his memories.
His *will*.
Where the others moved without hesitation or doubt, he carried tension. Where they flowed with the current, he resisted it, questioned it. That resistance bled outward, faint but perceptible, like turbulence in otherwise calm water.
To them, he was the strange one.
The idea should have comforted him. Proof that he was still different, still *him*.
Instead, it isolated him further.
He drifted away from the group, choosing solitude over silent rejection. The river widened again, swallowing him in familiar murk. Here, the water felt heavier, more forgiving of stillness.
He let himself sink closer to the riverbed, resting without fully surrendering to rest.
Thoughts circled, slower now, dulled by fatigue and the constant low-level vigilance required to stay alive.
*If I stay like this,* he wondered, *what happens?*
There was no clear answer. Pokémon lived. Pokémon died. The river recycled everything eventually. Without a trainer, without intervention, he would likely remain here until something larger, faster, or more desperate ended him.
The thought did not terrify him the way it should have.
It exhausted him.
---
The human voices returned near dusk.
He sensed them before he heard them—sharp disturbances near the surface, irregular and intrusive. Lines dipped into the water again, accompanied by splashes and metallic clinks. He remained hidden this time, tucked beneath an overhang where shadow swallowed his outline.
"Nothing but Feebas here," someone complained above. "Why does this route even exist?"
"Just reel in and move on," another voice replied. "Not worth the time."
Laughter followed. Casual. Unconcerned.
He stayed where he was until the vibrations faded, until the water settled back into its usual rhythm.
The words lingered longer than the sound.
*Not worth the time.*
He replayed them over and over, testing them against his reflection, his body, his circumstances.
What did worth even mean here?
Power? Beauty? Usefulness to someone else?
By those measures, he had none.
And yet—he was still thinking. Still questioning. Still aware of the unfairness of it all.
That awareness had value, didn't it?
He drifted upward slightly, just enough to catch a faint reflection in the underside of the surface this time. The image was worse than before—distorted, broken by ripples—but he didn't look away.
"I see you," he thought, the words forming silently, directed at the warped shape that mirrored his movements.
It didn't change.
But neither did he look away.
Eventually, he turned from the reflection and swam back into the deeper channel, where the water pressed close and hid imperfections beneath shadow. As he moved, something settled within him—not acceptance, not yet, but a quiet, stubborn refusal.
He would not pretend this body was something it wasn't.
But he would not let the world decide that it was nothing.
The river flowed on, indifferent as ever, carrying silt, memory, and the faint outline of a Feebas who knew exactly how small he was—
And was not ready to disappear because of it.