Chapter 1
"And that's why I think we should all drink coffee instead of tea!" An obnoxious young adult declared from the head of a long table. His rectangular silver framed glasses covered the blue eyes that scanned the room of other adults and teenagers. When nobody said anything, he sighed and ran a hand through short, honey blond hair, taking care not to touch the cowlick standing up stubbornly; defying gravity. "You guys don't like my idea?" He asked, northern United States accent ringing out in an annoying manner.
"Your ideas don't make any sense," another male spoke up. He was older, his dark blond hair messy and bushy eyebrows taking up nearly half his forehead. This man spoke with a posh English accent and his emerald eyes glared into the American's soul, as if cursing the boy.
Yet another man spoke up, "Alfred Jones, representation of the United States of America, I do reckon that you ain't even had real tea. Real tea ain't that stuff from teabags you buy at the nearest Wal-Mart." He was not as young as the first but not as old as the second who had spoken. He had dirty blond hair cut in a similar fashion to the younger, and a similar cowlick, though his bangs and cowlick were opposite the American. His own blue eyes were several shades darker than Alfred's and his glasses were rounded, not rectangular. His speech was highlighted with a rather prominent southern United States accent. "And I'm pretty sure that all of us nations here would appreciate it if you shut your yap."
"You're not even a nation anymore, why are you here?" Alfred growled, resting his hands on the table.
"Pardon me city boy," the Southerner responded with a smirk.
"'City boy'?" The Northern man snarled, "I bet you couldn't last one day on my turf in the north, Connor Jones, former Confederate States of America and ex-nation that shouldn't even be here!" Elsewhere in the room, an albino snorted at the last part of Alfred's sentence.
"Nor would I want to be. I don't want your Yankee filth on me. I like my pure sunshine, golden wheat fields and meadow larks. Boy you probably inhaled too much pollution if you thought I'd ever make my home in a dirty city where the sunlight is marred by smog." The older replied smoothly.
"That's enough you two," the Englishman cut in before the situation got out of hand.
Childish mutters of "Racist rebel" and "Ignorant Yankee" floated into the room before the pair of brothers quieted down, Alfred taking his seat again.
On this particular day, a world meeting was the event of interest; though the people attending weren't governors or politicians or even the heads of countries. The attendants weren't even people. Sure, they looked like people, but they really weren't. All the attendants in the room save for the maids lined against the walls of the room waiting for any requests, were personified nations. From sea to shining sea, every nation on the planet earth had a personified representative. From the smallest nations like Liechtenstein and Seychelles to the largest nations like Russia and Canada, the beings in the room represented their respective country. Their personalities and appearances based off major stereotypes of that country and that country's people. Even micronations such as Wy and Sealand had personifications.
In order to protect these personifications, each nation had been given a 'human name' to conceal their real identities and blend in with the human species. Arthur Kirkland, the personification of England, growled at the two American brothers. Germany's personification, Ludwig, had had enough of this foolishness for today and dismissed everyone from the meeting, stating a continuation was to take place the next day. Alfred gave a joyful yelp and bolted from the meeting hall. "Stupid…brother…" Connor sighed and got up to follow after his younger sibling reluctantly.
A cheerful voice called out to him, "Hey Connor!" The owner of the voice had bright brown, almost amber, eyes and dark brown hair.
Connor nodded to the personification of Mexico, "Hola Pablo."
"Kiku wanted to see us in the park by the fountain after the meeting. He's already gone there and I assume that's why Alfred sprinted off so enthusiastically." The older nation grinned.
"Is it just the three of us?" Connor inquired.
"No, no, there are several others of us involved in this. Kiku wanted to talk to us about beta testing a new game he's made." Pablo replied, "Now hurry up! Let's not keep him and the others waiting!" He then grabbed Connor's hand and tugged the ex-nation out of a now hardly occupied meeting room to the park.
Once arriving in the sunny park, a large group of the duo's fellow nations were assembled, chatting and catching up with each other on peaceful terms. Connor noticed Arthur was there with his three other brothers who represented Wales, Scotland, and North Ireland. They were Owen Kirkland, a dark brown haired spontaneous individual, Alastair Kirkland, a fiery red haired Scotsman, and Caley Kirkland, a rather reserved freckled light blond Irishman. Their other sibling who represented Ireland was nowhere to be found. Connor and Alfred's younger brother, Matthew Williams, was standing off to the side chatting with Gilbert, Ludwig's older brother. Matthew represented Canada and was a quiet person with soft blond hair and indigo eyes. Gilbert represented Prussia and had a case of albinism; his ruby red eyes, snowy white hair and pale white skin proved it. Ludwig was present as well. His blond hair was slicked back in its usual manner and ocean blue eyes swept over the crowd.
At Ludwig's side was a bright, bouncy Italian; Veniziano Vargas, who represented north Italy. His eyes were closed in their usual manner but when they were open, revealed shining, curious gold-ish eyes. He had auburn hair and a silly curl of hair that branched off his head to his left. Standing beside Veniziano stood his older brother Lovino Vargas, who seemed to be a dark copy of Veniziano. Lovino had much darker auburn hair though his eyes were almost as yellow as a cat's, though paler. Lovino was also a rather big grump and always cursed up a storm, especially around the personification of Spain. Speaking of the devil, Connor noted the Spaniard was standing too close to him for comfort. Connor shivered and shifted closer to Pablo. Antonio Carriedo was Spain's representative, a cheery caramel brown haired man with deep jade green eyes. Connor and Antonio hardly got along and the ex-nation was about to warn Antonio of being too close when a flirtatious blond Frenchman with stubble wandered over and slung an arm over Antonio's shoulder. The Frenchman was none other than France's personification, Francis Bonnefoy. Those were only some of the nations, Connor didn't recognize the others.
A soft call for attention was heard and the group quieted down to turn their attention to a Japanese man with short black hair and glistening brown eyes. "Hello everyone," he started, "I'm glad to see you have all accepted my request to beta test this new game. I have asked all of you individually because you have all expressed a keen liking to the Pokémon games and series." Hushed chattering broke out and the Japanese man waited for them to settle down again. "With the release of our newest Pokémon generation growing old, our programmers have been developing a virtual reality world of Pokémon."
"Cool!" Alfred shouted, "So what do we do, Kiku? Pop on some virtual helmets or what?"
"The glasses, game cartridge and disc I'm about to give you all are to be put in any version of a Nintendo DS and you use the Wireless Connection. Simply put the disc into your DVD player, computer, or laptop and activate the Wireless Connection, then put on your glasses. We've been designing glasses that are comfortable to both those who do and don't wear glasses. Once you put the glasses on and the connection is strong, you all end up in the virtual reality world of Pokémon.
"The first time you enter you'll be in a vast blue-ish green space and you'll be prompted to enter your full name, date of birth, and gender. The game then analyzes you and your personality with a scanner and decides what trainer class you belong in and when you make it through this process, your trainer card will be in your backpack. The system also goes through the several hundred Pokémon in the catalog though we have only programmed it up to Generation Five, the Unova generation. You play through as a normal Pokémon trainer would and you can meet other real players and NPC's in this game. The path you follow depends entirely on your trainer card in the beginning when you first start. There is no changing it and everything is purely by chance and fate." Kiku explained briefly.
The group buzzed with excitement until Kiku raised his hand for silence, "A word of caution, though; the danger is very real. Criminal organizations are a serious threat and some Pokémon attacks are extremely deadly. You won't die in reality, but its game over if your character dies in the game and you'll have to restart."
"So how do we log out? Save the game and continue later?" Somebody spoke out.
"Like most Pokémon games, you'll find a journal in your bag when you want to save and quit, everybody gets a Pokedex regardless of what your trainer class is, a PalPad to register any real life people you meet, and you'll start with 5 Poke Balls, 3 Great Balls, and 1 Ultra Ball, along with your partner Pokémon. Everybody gets a PC card so you can store Pokémon in your PC. As usual, you are only permitted to carry six Pokémon in your active team at a time." Kiku rattled off easily, as if he had everything planned out perfectly.
"And what if somebody steals your PC card and your Pokémon?" Alfred blurted out.
Kiku gave a small look, "Then it is your responsibility as a trainer to get that item and your Pokémon back. We've been working hard to ensure that the Pokémon interact with players as much as they do NPC's. Some of our earlier beta testers have even found that they forget they're in a virtual world, they claim it's like they've been in the Pokémon world their entire life. Which, I'm not sure, may or may not be a dangerous thing; it's hard to tell so early in the game."
After some more questions, answers, and prompting, Kiku handed out the little packages to everyone present, and most departed as the sun began to sink behind the trees. Some stayed behind to chat excitedly about the new game and guessing what partner Pokémon they would get. "Hey, Artie, we should totally travel in a group together in the Pokémon world!" Alfred slung an arm across the British nation's shoulder and the smaller man grunted.
"No thanks, I would much rather travel alone…" Arthur muttered and removed Alfred's arm from his shoulders and backing away. He only ended up bumping into Francis.
"Of course, he would prefer traveling with me instead of you any day," Francis grinned at Alfred, wrapping his arms around Arthur's waist.
"Sod off, frog!" Arthur shouted and elbowed the Frenchman in the gut. Francis gasped at the sudden attack and released Arthur, wrapping his arms around himself. The Englishman snarled, "As if I would ever want to travel with either of you!"
"You wound me, cher…" Francis faked a hurt look and Alfred looked genuinely offended.
"Fine, I'm traveling with my brothers then!" Alfred said childishly.
Connor sent a deadly glare towards his younger brother, "Actually, Al, Gilbert and Pablo and I have decided to travel as a group already."
Alfred frowned, "I would have thought Gilbert would be traveling with Francis and Antonio… Well then, it will be me and Matthew! I'm hearing no excuses, Mattie!"
The Canadian just nodded and gave a soft remark, "We should be headed for the airport now. Our flight leaves in about 3 hours and it takes a while to get to the airport…" The two Americans nodded and bade farewell to the remaining nations. Summoning a taxi and a quick Spanish exchange with the driver, the trio was off.