A/N: Welcome to Acclimatised Universe, a large scale Pokeumans work with both literature and art! The version of this story with art can be viewed on my deviantart account at NotAnExistingUserMum (link's on my profile). You can find other Pokeumans stories at the Pokeumans group on dA, and we'd love to see you there.

When reading, please remember that this story is a Pokeumans AU and so there are some differences between it and your normal Pokeumans story. If you are new to Pokeumans, don't worry - this story is stand-alone.

Edit 15/4/2019 - If you are going to review this, then I thank you and welcome your insight! You should probably know that I capitalize my pokemon names in this story only because of the AU world I write for - in the canon story my story is based off (over on dA), the pokemon names are actually capitalized (as is the word 'pokemon' - it's because all the names have been trademarked in that universe and now explicitly belong to a company). I know it's not the right grammar, but I do need my story to comply with the rules in that group (one of which is the capitalization) and there is some in-world justification, so please do understand this. I have written other Pokemon fics where the names are not capitalized, which should be uploaded once I'm over the new user submission limit.

Similarly, aaaaall the deviations this story takes from the games are coming from the fact this is not a Pokemon story, it's Pokeumans and it has to abide by the rules of that 'verse.

With that explained...

The last normal morning Tyler had went something like this.

He woke up from a dream that meant nothing in particular, and lay in bed 'til ten simply because he could. His parents were messing around in the kitchen downstairs – breakfast had likely come and gone – and as it was a Saturday, the sounds of the big game were already starting up. Rugby, most likely. Tyler had never been a fan of the big holograms running around the house kicking a translucent ball, but his dad loved it, and what his dad said went when it came to what the family got to watch as entertainment. At least it wasn't one of those horror simulations with all the jumpscares tracked to your eye motions, Tyler had yet to meet anyone who had made it through one of those alive.

With a yawn, Tyler let his gaze trail around the room, which was mostly shades of firetruck red, because that happened to be his favourite colour and he wasn't about to let anyone tell him otherwise. It used to be an attic, and his prized poster collection was plastered across the low, strangely angled ceiling, with at least twenty different awesome players glaring down at him. (Tyler chose to take the glaring as very encouraging, rather than lowkey terrifying.) In the highest corner stood his trophy cabinet, from when spelling bees were something that actually mattered, though the prize of it had to be a small silver medal from that one time he'd almost won a chess match against his neighbour, Piper Lee.

He still thought about her, sometimes. What had happened to her since she'd found her Pokemon spirit guide? Had she gone to a PKU academy, or a PKE one? Tyler heard the PoKemon University was more about learning Pokemon customs and history, whereas those under the Psycho Kinetic Exploration banner got to pursue their dreams of gaming at the top tier relentlessly and use their spirits all the time to help them play. Piper would definitely go with PKE if she was given the chance, he just knew it.

The holoband started vibrating on his bedside table, finally motivating Tyler just enough to sit up in bed, though only because he didn't want it to upset the large pile of posters he'd been meaning to put up for the last week. He'd recently gotten his hands on some signed copies of Leon Rex – a flamboyant armoured fellow whose armour was somewhere between Aslan and Incineroar, a very nice design armour-wise and definitely one of Tyler's favourites as far as the Spirit Warriors team went. A mighty man who fought between worlds and could win any game he and his Pokemon companion put their minds to, that was Leon. His Pokemon was no slouch, either!

Honest! Brave! Mustacheful! Loyal friendship for forever! Actually having friends! Fantastic stuff, but significantly less fantastic on the floor, and the bleating band was threatening to upset the pile. So, Tyler finally picked up the holoband and put it on.

"Hi there, Coolkid 241!" A fluffy creature, about the size of a Pomeranian but a little more cat-like (Tyler did like cats, shame they went extinct with everything else) hopped out of his wrist and landed on the floor, brushing against his legs and yet never touching them at all. "Feed me! Walk me! Keep me happy!" Its fuzzy red cheeks sparked; he'd programmed in a definite resemblance to Pikachu with the yellow and red fur, but couldn't help the cat model the app came with. "You have no calendar appointments today."

"Thanks, Chu." His pet didn't need food or a walk, though it demanded both of course. He'd be impressed with the sincerity of the animal simulator, if it wasn't somewhat annoying at times – Tyler couldn't change the username he'd entered when he was about twelve, for instance, so he was Coolkid 241 forever more. "I can play with you, how about that?" And he pressed the play button on the wristband; the designers presumably thought it was funny, hooking the play command up to a music-play button. Ha, ha, multifunctionality. Ha.

"Feed me!" Chu replied gloomily, but chased after the holographic ball all the same, phasing through his bedroom wall. Tyler felt a slight pang of guilt for some reason, watching that, and almost wondered if he should name it, before he gave up on that and went back to staring at the ceiling.

Life in the early 2000s must have been boring, huh. They didn't have any of these awesome people-and-Pokemon stars. It was just dumb luck that some explosion or something had ripped through the stratosphere and in fact the spirit world, unleashing Pokemon - Pokemon that were somehow connected to particular humans. Like, there was a cool heritage thing or something, and honestly Tyler didn't understand most of it, because he didn't go to an academy… but it had to be pretty awesome. Hell, just having a friend would be pretty awesome. Tyler seemed to be drawn to people who were good at games, and those kinds of people almost invariably ended up collapsing and being pronounced as having found their partner, and then of course rushed off to one of the two big academies.

He'd held Piper's hand until the last minute, and almost felt bad about it.

PKU or PKE? What would he pick? They seemed to have similar goals, they both taught people, and yet they seemed to really compete. Tyler had been to one of the local tournaments, and it was pretty savage, even if nobody had played the money-and-a-knife game. Hell, maybe it was even more savage than that! He gripped the covers, recalling the gory sight as vividly as he dared. The Feraligatr-spirit had simply taken the other guy and smashed him right into a wall. What if Piper someday-

"You have no calendar appointments today. Walk me! Feed me! Keep me happy!"

Same shit, different order. Chu needed an upgrade, but he couldn't afford the latest app yet. Tyler shuddered, tried to ignore the cold sweat, and pressed play again. This time, the holographic ball pretended to bounce off the walls, and the little pet charged up the walls, across the ceiling, all over the place. It even barked a few times, like a real dog, trying to distract Tyler. And when that didn't work, it sat on his lap. "Your heart rate appears to have sped up, Coolkid241. Trembling has been detected. Therapy mode activated."

"Gee, thanks", Tyler muttered, though he could barely speak; it felt like his throat was closing up already, and his hands were trembling, and good golly he'd deteriorated fast. With a very shaky effort, he reached for the pill bottle on the bedside table. The holographer wristband had a cylinder full of quetiapine and a long needle, but Tyler did prefer the oral dose so long as he could actually take it.

Aaaand he dropped it. "Shit!"

"Swearing detected. Please refrain from swearing as it will raise your blood pressure. Your parents have been notified." And a split second later, a sharp jab in his wrist; the band was doing its work, as much as he disliked aforementioned work.

Tyler just put his head in his hands in response, and tried to stay still. Panic attacks had been coming to him more and more frequently lately, probably because he had more and more disappearing friends to think about, to the point where the stupid therapy pet app had been installed on his holoband.

"It's going to be okay."

Well, that just made his blood boil! Ray. Jordan. And Piper, all of them gone. And all those kids he'd known back in primary school. Anyone who was a gamer, at all relatable- "Why can't I go?"

Dammit, his parents would have heard that. He hadn't meant to say that. But the drugs worked quickly; he was floating away. It was becoming difficult to care about this, or that, or anything at all.

"Because you do not have a spirit", the pet replied. "I'm here to help."

Tyler would normally have pointed out that was a terrible choice of stock phrase, but he couldn't quite care about that either.

"Another panic attack! That's it. I'm making an appointment with Dr. Gravey now."

There was no stopping Tyler's mother once she was on the warpath – red-heads really could be ferocious, and the not-caring bit of the drugs hadn't quite worn off yet, so Tyler just slumped over at the kitchen table while she jabbed at a numbered holographic pad. "Dr. Gravey… Dr. Gravey…"

That was their local psychiatrist. Tyler had been desperate not to see him, of course. Seeing a specialist for an anxiety disorder was, to him, as good as admitting you had a serious problem with worrying, and that was like saying you were medically, scientifically, a complete coward. He'd never get to go to an academy like that.

Maybe he should run away. He almost considered it, but he wasn't properly dressed yet, so running away would be a terrible idea. And if he tried to get dressed now, his parents would likely be watching what he was up to, so he wouldn't be able to take anything useful with him, so he wouldn't survive at all. Stupid idea. His heart was banging in his chest at the mere thought of, say, going outside without his gas mask.

"Your heart rate appears to have sped up, Coolkid241. Trembling has been detected. Therapy mode activated."

The voice came from under the table, where the pet was currently doing some sort of weird in-between-the-legs licking stuff. Realism taken too far, most likely. Tyler scowled in its general direction, and his mother looked positively thunderous. "See? You definitely have some sort of anxiety. You are going, whether you like it or not."

"Going?"

She blinked, like she'd said something that at some point was doable, but not anymore. Little wonder – before she'd had Tyler, he was pretty sure she'd held a license, like most people in her generation. Maybe she'd simply assumed they were going to spent thirty or forty minutes driving some sort of car into the city to see someone.

But why bother with that when with a quick call and a few minutes wait, the good doctor himself could be sitting in their dining room?

"Tyler!" the shrink shouted. He had a lot of weight on him, which was probably why he only did calls, and he was still wearing a jogging suit. He had to be rich, someone from a place with clean air and space to run. Lucky bastard, though he likely didn't take advantage of it much. Despite the athletic garb, Tyler had to wonder if he ever moved from the armchair, since on closer inspection… yep, it had wheels. Motorised. "I've heard you're not feeling so good today?"

The words cut through his inspection, and they hurt about as much as that implied. Yeah, but… I-I'll be fine." Said as if he wasn't still in his pajamas and holding his head. Bloody medication.

"Nonsense, your vitals definitely show signs of anxiety." Dr. Gravey nodded, all stern and solemn and a little bit wobbly as he pulled out a tablet and pen to write everything down. A rugby player charged through his sizeable midriff, followed by a ball, and Tyler's mom headed to the loungeroom to yell at his dad about it. Something about that behaviour being inappropriate with a visitor here.

"And what's this, a history… You've been having panic attacks weekly for the last four years? Tell me, what do you think caused the first one?"

"D-Don't diagnose me. It'll ruin my life." Tyler clenched a fist, in part out of frustration and in part because he was bracing for the needle. Surely Dr. Gravey was going to diagnose him, and surely he was going to be sedated for it! And he only had four cylinders in his wristband. Two to go, then a costly replacement. "I won't be considered for any decent jobs if people know I've got a stupid anxiety. I'll never get to go to an academy!"

The doctor leaned forwards, round chin in round hand. The chair creaked. "If you want to avoid getting a label, you're going to need to tell me what happened the first time you felt like this. April fourth, 2038. Four years ago is the first one your holoband recorded, correct?"

Tyler swallowed. Stared at the floor. "Fine, so I had this friend at school. Ray Lawley."

"You were close?"

"Yeah, very. We played a lot of… games and stuff together. Sports. He liked sports. Basketball was his favourite. I think he even played it outside once, for a school championship. In a real court." It was hard to talk about the guy, really, after all the forgetting he'd tried to do. Eyes as green as his own, like broken bottle glass smoothed by the sea. Ray had always joked that they were like brothers, because they both had green eyes and used too much gel in their dark hair. Ray was the older one, though, so twice little Tyler's height and blessed with long arms that could seemingly reach anything he wanted. He could reach the basketball hoop, if he jumped.

At least the doctor seemed to pick up on Tyler's general need to move on and away from Ray, or at least he got straight to the point with it. "And something happened to him?"

"Yeah, he collapsed. We were just playing, and he… It was a spirit. One had found him." If he wasn't already a bit sedated from earlier, Tyler would surely be in tears by this point. Even just thinking about Ray with his too-beautiful eyes rolled back in his head made him want to throw up. And now he felt like throwing up! Great!

"Your heart rate appears to have sped up, Coolkid241. Trembling has been detected. Therapy mode activated." The holographic pet climbed up onto Tyler's lap, and it was all he could do not to instinctively try to pet it. Chu was pretty cute, after all.

Please ignore it. Please ignore it.

Thankfully, Dr. Gravey did. "And you usually feel anxious when you think about the spirits?"

"N-no. Just… people collapsing. Losing friends."

The doctor nodded at that. Wrote something down. Please, let that not be a label. "Does it feel like everyone you make friends with ends up collapsing and getting a spirit?"

What a weirdly specific question. "Uh… yeah? It feels… a lot like that. Like I just have a knack for making friends with… for…" The doctor was smiling. Ah, that couldn't be good. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, no, nothing wrong. I'm just pleased my hunch with you was right." He coughed, as though slightly embarrassed by his own display of ego there. "Could you tell me about another time you've had this panic? Something more recent…"

What a weird doctor, unless it was normal for them to be so pleased with themselves. It actually looked like Dr. Gravey had puffed up several inches, which was a bit disconcerting. "Right. W-well, there was I guess… Jordan?"

Tyler regretted saying that as soon as he did, but he'd committed to at least thinking about Jordan, and so he did. Not so much a friend as a competitor, and yet the smaller guy had always seemed to treat Tyler with respect, even as Jordan thrashed him in the trading card game of the month. That was a great game! I enjoyed playing that! You almost had me there!

There was something about Jordan that was so delicate, and Tyler had felt a horrible lurch when he first saw Jordan, well, being straight. Like even though they'd never been a thing, they'd been more than that. Like beautiful things with big adorable eyes needed to be protected from weird girls who liked Naruto. Nobody liked that old anime stuff these days! It was 2042, for crying out loud-

"And Jordan was a friend, too?"

"No!" Tyler said, then remembered to lower his voice. "I mean… no. He was this little genius – I mean, he was really short – and he was really good at card games. I competed with him a lot, until this time when I… actually made finals… and…"

"He collapsed."

Tyler nodded, and they sat in silence for a while. He tried his best not to cry, and the doctor wrote a few more notes before he spoke again.

"Well, you'll have to be tested, but it seems to me that your own spirit's been trying to contact you! And your body is just panicking every time it tries. Spirits often make attempts to connect in the presence of other spirits." Dr. Gravey lifted his tablet again, if only because Tyler was refusing all eye contact by this point. He was too surprised to do anything besides think, really.

"Did you have a choice of academy?"

Where Piper would have gone. He needed to go there-

"Academy?!" And his mother came storming back in, this time with his dad in tow. The doctor somehow managed to look happy about this, maybe because he was right, or at least thought he was (and to be fair, Tyler desperately hoped he was). "What academy?"