Lane stared back at Mew, expecting her to vanish any moment. His whole life he'd been searching for her, ignoring the chorus of voices insisting that he was doomed to fail.
But something about her smile was no longer reassuring. Her teeth were small—there was nothing overtly intimidating about her, really. She could've perched on his hand without too much difficulty, if she was anything as light as she looked.
"Not many humans come out this way," Mew went on, circling slowly around him. She never got within arm's reach, occasionally seeming to lose interest and look around at his camp instead. "I didn't think you were intelligent enough to be worth my time. But you can appreciate my looks, even if your imitation is unsatisfactory. Have no fear, human. I will make it easier."
"You'll… what?" Lane reached for his phone again by reflex, and had to pull his hand back. Mew still hadn't given him permission to film her, and without a Pokémon there was no chance he could fight her. "I don't understand."
"You will." She floated up to Lane's head, close enough that he froze completely still. This wasn't the first time something dangerous had been close to him, though in the past he'd always had Elisa near enough to help.
Mew licked him. He felt the rough tongue against his skin, a touch of moisture, then… he was falling.
Lane squealed in surprise, reaching out to catch himself. But he hadn't actually left his chair. Suddenly there was thick fabric on every side, pressing him down, restricting his movements.
It was worse than when the tent had collapsed. Arceus, where had all that weight come from? "Help!" he squealed, his voice sounding more pathetic to his own ears than it ever had. "Mew? Anyone?"
"I'm still here," Mew said. Actually said this time, he could hear a distinct direction to it. Just above him, muffled by the fresh mountain of cotton she'd created to imprison him. "Just… catching my breath. You found your way into that jacket on your own, I'm sure you can find your way out again."
He was in darkness, except for a faint sliver of orange firelight glowing through… the hood of his jacket? His arms and legs felt completely wrong, particularly his feet—but it was either get crushed to death or crawl to safety. It wasn't really much of a choice.
Lane squirmed towards the light, feeling the strange sensations growing stronger as he did. He felt distinctly naked, yet hairy. His fingers were numb, yet when he flexed them something slipped out from inside, catching briefly on the fabric. Worst of all was the impossible feeling that his body had been pulled, and that something fleshy was dragging along through the cloth behind him, long enough to confuse him every time he focused on it.
Finally he emerged, climbing out onto something pink like a conquering hero. He knew it instantly when he saw it, even with its colors stained mostly orange by the campfire. His mew jacket, spreading out around him larger than a king-size comforter.
"They tell me I don't know what I'm doing," Mew said, floating down from above him. Something was wrong with her too—she was huge. Bigger than Lopunny, as big as those Pokémon that high-level trainers could ride.
"You can't take anything seriously, Mew. You barely know your powers, shouldn't you be doing more, Mew? Take that!" She reached down, with an arm thicker than Lane's, poking him right in the chest. "That is what a mew looks like, kitten. Take note of the proportions. Pointed ears, not rounded."
She touched his head, and one of Lane's ears twitched at the contact, pressing flat. It moved without thought from him, a reflex.
"Tail is about twice as long as your body." As mew said it, something yanked behind Lane's back, pulling until it was in front of him. "Compare the pink to that jacket. It's a paler, more subdued. Less slowpoke, and more Firstborn, kay?"
With each touch, every second mew was close to him, Lane's mind rebelled. What he was sensing just couldn't be true. He was himself, and anything implying he might be sitting comfortably in the center of a gigantic tree-stump thirty feet off the ground was obviously just an illusion. The little pink-furred thing he saw when he looked down couldn't be his body, he was obviously still feeling his jacket.
He tried to stand up, his legs shaking under the effort. Despite feeling so incredibly small compared to everything around him, his body simultaneously felt as though he was still crushed under an incredible weight. Or maybe he was just made of lead?
For a few terrible seconds nothing happened at all, until he managed to wiggle his paws under him and push. He rolled sideways, past the fake tail and over the edge of the stump.
Air blurred past his face, and he caught several terrifying glimpses of a pointed rock rushing up to meet him. "Help! I don't wanna die, ple—"
He wasn't falling anymore, but held still in the air, an inch above the rock. For a second his body was frozen, stretched feet kicking out wildly behind him.
Then he dropped, smacking down onto the rock before sliding into the mud with a splat.
"I was almost impressed with you, kitten." Mew's voice echoed from above him, hanging over the edge of the stump without actually touching it. "I wouldn't call it flying, but… that was two whole seconds of airtime. Not bad."
Lane didn't sink very far into the mud the way he might've expected, though a few seconds of squirming had covered almost every part of his soft pink fur with slimy brown. He tried to stand again, but after a few seconds of struggling he just settled for rolling onto his back and glaring up at her.
"Is this what you did to the Cinnabar Institute expedition? Shrink them down into something small and pathetic until they gave up?" Wasn't there some rumor about the Saffron gym leader doing something similar?
Mew drifted down towards him, though her fall was purposeful and controlled, and she never got close to the mud. "Alright kitten, I'm not impressed anymore. I walked you through it so slowly, and you still don't understand?"
Lane had been listening to every word. I told her I wanted to look like her. My jacket wasn't good enough. His eyes widened. He thought about it, and his tail moved to obey, twisting around in front of him. It didn't seem to quite feel gravity like the rest of him, and was also the only part of his fur that was still pink instead of brown.
He'd seen tails just like it on every piece of mew merchandise he'd ever bought. He'd sewn one himself, though the proportions were apparently wrong.
"Not shrunk," he said, though he'd already known it was more than that. "You made me… like you."
She giggled, and suddenly Lane was lifting up into the air in front of her. He was completely out of control, but floating even an inch felt like the crushing weight on his lungs was lifted. He twisted in the air until he was vertical, looking back at her. Though whether Mew had done that, or he had, Lane couldn't say. "And the first thing you did was ruin it. Pink, not brown. I'll have to do something about that."
They blurred into motion, and in seconds the camp was terrifyingly far away. He kicked out with oversized feet, wrapping little paws around his chest. "Mew, stop! My camp's back there!"
Lane was completely out of his own control, dragged along just below mew. Somehow her oversized presence felt far more protective than frightening, and he rolled until he was looking up at her, and not the fall that would certainly break his neck.
Please don't drop me Arceus please don't drop me…
"I won't," she said, as smoothly as though he'd just asked her. "I know you're new at all this, but try and think critically for a few seconds. I fully reconstructed that frail, pitiful body into the highest form of natural life. We levitate in our sleep, kitten. Anyway, you already caught yourself once. If I let go, it would only be for training purposes. So don't tempt me."
He didn't tempt her, and fell silent again as they flew. They didn't stay airborne for all that long—soon black stone walls rose around them. They'd gone into one of the buildings, though Lane hadn't been watching to see which one.
A faint pink glow appeared around Mew, illuminating the hallway around them. It looked like roughly what Lane would've expected from the abandoned and overgrown city, with some stone furniture surviving and anything made of wood or other fragile materials rotting into nondescript piles. A thin layer of lichen covered the walls and floors in places, and his ears twitched at the sounds of scurrying paws further on.
He started to fight in her invisible grip, as the mud on his fur started to dry. He reached down to scrape some of it off his chest, but his little paws couldn't do much. How did cats clean themselves? "I get it," Lane finally said.
"I was wrong to intrude on your territory, Mew. I should've realized that you were a powerful legendary that didn't want to be disturbed. You would've come to us if you wanted to talk. I promise I've learned my lesson. You can change me back, and I'll pack up and leave right now. You'll never hear from me again."
They flew on, as though Mew hadn't heard him. They dropped down suddenly, into a shaft that seemed to go on forever. Moonlight streamed in from overhead, a feeble glow that grew further and further away. They passed between stone spikes, past a disturbing flash of what he was sure had to be human bones.
"Did you hear me?" he asked, a little louder. He meant himself to sound brave and defiant, but even to his own ears it came off as tiny and pathetic. Just like his body, his voice had changed, becoming high-pitched and childish. The squeaking came automatically.
"I said I'm sorry! I'll delete every photo of this place. I'll lie and say I never saw you. I'll take it to the grave. Just… stop whatever you're doing, please."
Mew froze dead in the air, holding him with her. She lifted him until he hung right in front of her, legs dangling precariously over nothing. The glow around her faded until Lane seemed to be floating in an ocean of blackness, with only Mew's glowing eyes visible "Is that what you think I'm doing?"
She flew right up to him, meeting his eyes. "Human bodies are such simple machines. If I wanted you to go, I could've done it a thousand ways. I could've implanted false memories of something on the other side of the world, desperate for you. I could've made you terrified of something you'd seen in Starfall. I could've made you sick enough that you ejected fluids from both ends until you fled in desperation."
She touched one paw to Lane's forehead, pushing him downward. "Make you gone, that's easy. Make you me, though… even he couldn't do that. I think I'll bring one of those camera-cubes, so I can save the look on his face when he sees I made you."
Lane opened his mouth to object, but Mew didn't seem interested in hearing it. The force that had been holding him in the air vanished abruptly, and he dropped like a fuzzy pink rock, trailing his tail behind him as he fell.