Hi! This is an AU story. Please enjoy responsibly.

Chapter: Greetings

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Ah statistics, the fine art of manipulating and reading data in order to fool the masses. Supposedly, subjecting myself to that monotony for a few more months and passing the AP exam would've allowed me to exempt a class in college and saved me a few thousand dollars. The teacher, a woman dressed in a wool sweater covered in math symbols, droned out the solution to the mess on the projector. Her heavy handed writing spewed barely comprehensible scribbles that bled into each other. Even if I could have deciphered them, they would've been just on the wrong side of gibberish. My overburdened mind found itself wondering the room.

The stasis dragged a sigh out of me.

The painted white brick reflected the buzzing ceiling-light into every corner of the room. To my left, the hallway outside was laid bare through a vestigial window giving me a view of the sporadic forays into the bathrooms outside. Oak-Creed was built just after the civil rights era. Apparently, the plan was to use curtains to create any spaces that might be need but otherwise keep everything as large as possible to "open children's minds." They failed. Afterwards they erected walls haphazardly. I was freezing because the nearest heating vent was in the next room.

The chill of winter was barely hanging on. Everyone was trying to find the line between just enough and too little clothing. The girl in front of me was wearing a fleece sweater but let it hang off her right shoulder. Apparently, she thought it was her best feature because all of her tops revealed the same line of flesh. Personally, I disagreed as I glanced down to her low cut hot pants that hugged her ass tastefully enough to show the arching white line of her thong. She cleared her throat and her neck moved enough that it grabbed my attention. Before she could look back, I was staring at the teacher. Who was laughing as she made some puny math joke that would've made any sane person groan but drove the sycophants in the front row to giggles.

That was my monotonous life.

My head was propped on my hand watching the clock tick and tock. A growing pain behind my eyes was souring my attitude further. I gazed down the row to look at my fellow seniors. In an XY scale, they ranged from ugly to mind-numbingly pretty and intently listening to bored out of their skulls. For example, the guy seated to my right wasn't paying attention to the teacher and his wispy attempts at a beard were off-putting. Not that I was an Adonis myself.

Sensing my bored gaze, he silently pleaded me not to stare and returned his eyes to the Teacher.

I followed his gaze to the blue mess. Pain stabbed me in the brain. Something bounced to the edge of the desk. For a moment, the cogs of my mind couldn't fathom why the eraser was there. Then it caught up. I shook my hand a few times and gave it a quick squeeze to get the feeling back. Both times my pinky lagged behind the rest. I tried again and it barely twitched. It was annoying but there wasn't anything I could do about it. I looked up at the projector and scribbled the nonsense so I could decrypt it later.

I wasn't actually going to study it; senioritis had been setting in bad. It was March of my senior year and I was barely paying attention in any of my other classes. I was still scrapping up B's in all my other subjects though. Trying to focus on the wrinkled face of the squat teacher brought my eyes to more tempting sights: female soccer players. It showed in their muscled and tanned legs. They had sensual curves that they showed off every chance they got. Hence the short shorts in forty-degree weather. I knew it wasn't for me but I appreciated the sights. God, what I wouldn't have done to run my hands up those and hear her moans as I rubbed ever closer to her treasure. Her shirt was tight on her toned stomach that led up to; her head moved to look back.

I pried my eyes back to the smurf jizz.

Perhaps that was why I was failing? Another shock raced up my arm and hit my brain. I flinched and the pencil smacked the desk. Waves crashed up my arm. I took a deep breath and tried to ride it out. It didn't help in the slightest. The sound of the pencil brought the teachers attention. The torrent of pain became knives in my palm. Peering over her glasses and balancing the marker on her finger, the teacher said something.

She looked annoyed; blaming me for the agony that was distracting her class. I opened my mouth to retort but couldn't speak.

Then it was gone. The pain passed as quickly as it struck. My hand came unclenched but my lagging nerves caused me to smack the table. It was an intense horror to the guy next to me.

"Are you okay, Sean?" the teacher asked, repeating herself.

I stretched my shoulder and kept playing with my wrist. Thirty sets of anxious stares watched me pick my pencil back up. "Uh, yeah. I just, uh, my arm kinda fell asleep."

"You looked a little in pain dude," said the second soccer-chick.

I smiled again. "Oh, you know. It just kinda…!"

My throat obliterated any sound and cut off any air in my throat. I clawed at my throat trying to force through oxygen. The teacher came off her stool and moved towards me. Shock was written all over her face. It was not calming. The wires connecting my brain to my body were yanked out.

I smacked face first into my desk.

XXX

I was wedged into the bottom of a strange tube. The rough skin of my knees was scrapping against my forehead. The iPod white walls burned my eyes no matter where I looked. I shifted and barely moved, only the pain in my knees registered. Inching my way up into a standing position, I paid for it with a haze of black spots blotting out my vision. Leaning back on walls, my shoulders rolled forward. My head spun and in the end, I was still in a fucking white cylinder that was so small I couldn't stretch my hands out in front of me. I raised my arms to chase away the cramps; the plastic was an unpleasant shock to punch. So there I was, standing in a cylinder left only to contemplate why the hell I was standing in a cylinder and not in statistics contemplating why the hell I was in statistics.

A hissing sound interrupted my thoughts as the air rushed out through a new sliver in the wall. Just as the sharp edge registered on my fingertip, it peeled back in a shocked blink of my eyes.

Three tubes stacked in a pyramid were shoved in my face, each one housing coiling green patterns in their depths. Even as a humble person - borderline self-deprecating - there was one thing I could boast: I was calm. So staring down those three barrels didn't affect me. It was a toy more liable to shoot steaming water in my face than some energy bolt. Which would still hurt. I pressed against the wall and looked scared for the person holding the toy weapon. It was best to give her what she wanted. She was female, obviously so actually, but covered in armored plating that made her look like a transformer cosplay. A red visor even colored her hard stare.

"Ztand down, Mira," said a pretentious male voice.

"Yes, sir," she said and lowered her arm 'cannon.'

Following the voice, I poked my head out. It belonged to an older guy. He was dressed business casual with a blue sweater under a long white coat. A thick grey mustache contrasted his shiny head. He kept his chin up so he could stare down at me from over his nose. I glanced at the woman and took a tentative step out of the cylinder.

The gun was shoved back in my face. "Stop, now get back in the pod."

I put my hands up and let my annoyance show clearly. I couldn't stop myself. "Which one? Stop? Or get back in the pod?"

Three barrels stared back. "Guess."

I chose stop.

The scientist cleared his throat. "Zat iz enough you two. Mira, he can get out of ze gate."

I put my hands down and she backed away. She didn't lower her 'weapon' but stepped back to a more respectable distance.

"Zo, my friend, what iz your name?" he asked.

I returned his courteous smile but stole quick glances at the rest of the 'lab.' Numerous machines that crossed cassette players with server towers were against the walls. The entire place was the same iPod white. If not for the tapes, the server towers wouldn't have looked out of place in an IT office. Still, they looked vaguely familiar but I couldn't place it.

I smiled at him. "Weston Iscariot, please call me Iggy."

I was not going to use my real name.

He smiled back. "Ah, Iggy, zat'z a razer; unique nickname Wezton."

Behind him, a metallic white stair case led to a shadowy second floor. I could only decipher the vague shape of furniture beyond the guard rail. I shrugged. "Good nicknames are usually a little embarrassing. I'm sure you have a few."

He picked up on my hint with a nod of his head. "Ah, my apologiez, my name iz Professor Wanc and ziz iz my Gunvalkyrie, Mira."

"Professor Wank?" I pointed at him.

"Yes, Wanc," he said.

"And Mira." Hands shaped like pistols, I pointed at her and pressed my thumbs like a hammer.

She picked up on it and narrowed her eyes even further. The entire room looked the same as the first wall: sterile walls punctuated by giant servers. I guessed that we were both going to play the fake name game. I smiled and let out a breathy chuckle at the same time. "Well Professor, where am I? You couldn't have drugged me because I didn't consume anything and there are much prettier targets to abduct out of Oak-Creed then little ole' me."

He smiled and stalked around me like a shark. "Do you truly not know what happened to you?"

He moved behind Mira.

"I'm afraid not. So what happens to me now? Not murder, you could have done that already. Slave labor? Torture? Of course murder could still be on the table then," I pondered aloud.

He moved past his subordinate. Wires and power cables complicated his gait. He finally touched the cylinder I had emerged from. It was the center of the room and all of the wires connected it to the server towers. He chuckled. "All very good estimatez, but nozing zo barbaric I azzure you. We zimply reached acrozz ze cozmoz and here you are."

He made all of the grand motions as he said it. Including a nice plucking motion when it was called for. Given the fact that I was in a strange place with a couple of cosplayers, I reasoned that I should be civil to the man in charge. I was still leaning towards it being a Punk'd style show but I never got why people antagonized crazy kidnappers by calling them names and screaming at them.

"So where am I?" I finally asked.

"Littleroot Town," he said, clearing any confusion I had. His smile proved that he knew just how helpful he was being. Professor Wank was beginning to lose what little charm he had.

"Well, um, right. So where are the cameras?" I asked.

He stopped with an audible click of his heels and smiled at me. "Mizter Izcariot, you are no longer in your home world."

"Right," I said, stretching out the word. I tapped the metallic cylinder, smiled sarcastically, and made my own moves to circle the pair of actors. Mira leveled her 'gun' again and tracked my progress. I stopped with the stairs behind me. The room was a square bowl and those stairs were the only way out.

He sighed and grabbed something off his belt. Before I could recognize it, it was already in the air.

I turned and started running as hard as I could.

"Stop!" Mira screamed.

I ignored her and kept hauling towards the stairs. A green cloud exploded on my left. The opposite railing stung my back and I was able to watch the metal staircase melt away. The finish burnt off and revealed dark iron that sizzled like bacon. Back still throbbing, I glanced back as a new figure bounded towards me.

She was female and would've towered over me if we stood side by side. I had to keep moving but I couldn't. Instead of skin, she had dark black fur revealed by skimpy beach clothes. I followed a strip of brown up her stomach to a canine muzzle on her face. She was going to reach me. I needed to move! Back to the climb; the canine woman slammed into me and I hit with one last grasp for the top.

Her arms wrapped around me in a bear hug. Her forearms crushed my stomach and the stairs flew out of my reach. Wank strutted forward with Mira stalking behind him. Everything became a tumble of white and a blur of pain. I hit the ground and rolled until I stopped right at the foot of my captors. I couldn't regain my bearings. Mira had her, now much more dangerous, plasma guns pointing down at me. The green coils within glowed bright and the heat was still there from the shot she fired. I threw my hands up, choking down the lump in my throat.

My only thought was of resignation. Well, this was it.

I glanced over at Wank's smirk as he accepted the canine woman into his arms. She kissed him passionately, which he reciprocated with all the energy of a lecherous old man loaded on Viagra and caffeine. Mira blocked them out, staring down at me from over her weapon with perfect focus. He wrapped his arm around the canine girl and smirked.

"Zis world iz inhabited by creaturez we call pokégirlz. People and pokégirlz live togezer relatively peazefully, pokégirlz zupporting people. Zome people zimply keep pokégirlz az petz while ozerz uze zem in, zometimes phyzical, competitionz and az bodyguardz," he said.

"Pokégirls? Pets? Bodyguards? What?" I asked bewildered.

Mira's foot slammed into my head.

XXX

At ego tibi sermone isto Milesio varias fabulas conseram