She lands in a well-stocked alchemical laboratory near... what might be a shockingly humanlike pokemon, or might be a startlingly pokemon-like human, with sweeping zubatlike wings and a pair of impressive horns. This entity fixes her with a stare as her feet touch the ground, and every muscle below her chin freezes in place.

"Good. Needle!"

A more elongated, slightly less humanoid pokemon straightens at the sound. "Yes, mistress!"

"Retrieve the gatecrawler."

The pokemon salutes, then teleports away.

"Uh, hi."

The entity nods pleasantly, and Lucy finds her body moving without her input, removing her shirt and sitting in a reclining chair. "Good evening. I apologize for the rudeness of my summons... among other things."

"Wait, that was on purpose? Why?"

"I had need of a subject meeting certain criteria. You were the nearest that I could straightforwardly access."

She picks up a small knife with a blade that is difficult to look at directly.

"...and for what it's worth, I am sorry about this," she says quietly.

Aw, fuck. 

With her muscles frozen, there really isn't much she can do about this. 

"Please leave my pokémon alone."

"Don't worry," she murmurs. "This will only hurt you."

But it does, a great deal.

Well, that was incredibly awful. But--it is a comfort, the promise that she was the only one hurt.

"You did well," whispers the stranger-mother-demon.

And then

The first thing she sees, after the mirror-snake 'mon, is cracked and barren earth. She's being hurried along on a stretcher.

Her chest hurts a great deal.

A cold, metal-covered hand touches her forehead and a strange man says something. Her chest hurts a little bit less.

"Help," she croaks. 

"We will," the man growls. "Someone get Terendelev! You there, boy!"

"But I'm busy enjoying your fine festival! All of this medical drama is rather spoiling the occasion, isn't it? Couldn't this poor soul be carted off to, oh, I don't know... an infirmary? Or some accommodating ditch?"

"Enough," says a calm feminine voice. "Let me through."

Heal. It's like being running face-first into a wall, except it isn't like that at all, because Lucy wasn't moving and it doesn't hurt, it does the opposite of hurt. It heals. But it's closer to running face-first into a wall than it should be, given all of that.

Lucy's chest still hurts, but only in the dull, throbbing way of an old scar before a storm. Something one could live with.

She levers herself up cautiously, one hand pressed against her throbbing chest and one hovering over the segment of her belt with her pokeballs on it. 

"Where am I?"

"You're in the city of Kenabres," the woman says. "Everyone, let's give her some air? Go back to the festival, enjoy yourselves – I'm including you in that, Hulrun – easy, there, don't rush it." She offers a steadying arm.

She takes the arm. "I don't recognize the name Kenabres, I'm sorry. What region is that in? I ran into--I don't know, a pokemon I didn't recognize, presumably with Teleport...?"

"We're in the region of the Worldwound, which was once Sarkoris. You say you were teleported by some kind of magical beast? I'm sorry, your translation spell isn't catching the specific word."

"Teleport? The Move? Do you not have that? I mean, I don't know for sure that's what happened..." Worldwound is an incredibly ominous name but then again the world nearly ends ever other year or so so maybe it's fine. 

"No, that other word. 'Pokemon.'"

"Living things that move around and aren't human? Move around volitionally, I mean, not, like, trees waving in the wind."

"...that is a very broad category, but I suppose it's a coherent one. What did this Pokemon look like?"

"Sort of snakey, with a flat reflective face."

"Hmm. I don't recognize it offhand... the parsimonious explanation is that it's some kind of demon, but parsimony will have you right nine times and eaten the tenth." She sighs. "I'll do some research, on that and on why your chest wound might have been so reluctant to heal. I think you should stay within city limits for at least the next day, in case it opens back up; would you like to stay at the barracks, or an inn room?"

"What's a barracks?"