The sun was rising over Springfield, and as its rays peeked through the windows of 742 Evergreen Terrace, the occupant of one of those rooms silently cursed its presence. To 10-year-old Bart Simpson, sunlight meant morning, and morning meant... ugh... school. He didn't dare open his eyes, wanting desperately to sleep for just a little longer. He readjusted his pillow so it was blocking the sun's rays, and waited for the usual chirping of birds to soothe him back to sleep...
"TAILLOW! TAILLOW!"
Bart's eyes flew open and he bolted out of bed, part of him unsure if he had just heard what he thought he heard. He looked out his window, and sure enough, several dark blue birds were sitting on a tree branch outside. Those were Taillow- they were Pokémon! But Pokémon wasn't actually real- was it?
"Ay carumba!" Bart exclaimed.
A barking sound distracted Bart from the decidedly unusual sight- Santa's Little Helper, the Simpsons' greyhound, was looking up into the tree and barking at the new and unfamiliar birds. In response, the Taillow glanced down and flapped their wings, creating a powerful wind. Rather than try and fight the Whirlwind, Santa's Little Helper raced into his doghouse, at which point the Taillow stopped.
Just then, Bart could hear someone running into his room. "Bart! Bart!" exclaimed that someone. Turning around, Bart could see it was Lisa, his eight-year-old sister. She was still in her pajamas, her hair somehow still in its usual spiky shape even after she had just been sleeping, and she looked stunned. "What's going on? I looked out my window just now and I saw Snowball II chasing a Rattata!"
"I don't know!" replied Bart. "A bunch of Taillow just used Whirlwind on Santa's Little Helper! Somehow, Pokémon has become real!"
"How does something like that happen, though?" Lisa asked.
"I dunno," shrugged Bart. "Waste from the nuclear plant? Somebody gave God a Game Boy? Comic Book Guy freed a genie from a lamp? More importantly, who cares? Pokémon's real, and that's awesome!"
"But I dunno..." Lisa muttered. "I mean, in the games, you can catch and battle Pokémon, but now that they're real, wouldn't that be... kinda cruel?"
Bart rolled his eyes. "Lise, didn't you pay attention to Pokémon Black Version at all?" he asked. "Pokémon like being caught and used in battles."
"But we don't know that that carries over to real life-" began Lisa, but just then, a shrill shriek from outside the room interrupted them.
A large, heavy, bald man raced down the hall. "MAAAAAARGE!" screamed Homer. "There's a spider in the bathroom! This one's huge! I need to squish it, where are the photo albums?!"
As Bart and Lisa peeked into the hallway, they could hear their mother replying. "You are not using our family photo albums to squish a little spider," Marge Simpson was saying.
"No, I am not using them to squish a little spider!" protested Homer. "I am using them to squish the Godzilla of spiders!"
Bart and Lisa exchanged looks. "Ariados?" Bart said.
"Either that or Galvantula," replied Lisa. With that, the siblings raced to the bathroom, and sure enough, once they got there, Bart spotted a large red arachnid scuttling around on the ceiling on a number of yellow and purple legs. Two huge stingers adorned its body, one on its head and the other on its rear.
"Hah! I knew it was an Ariados," smirked Bart. "I win."
"Bart! It wasn't a contest," protested Lisa.
"Yeah, says the loser," Bart shot back.
"See?! See?!" Homer was saying. Bart and Lisa turned around to see their father, pointing at the Ariados on the ceiling and cringing timidly. Beside him stood their mother, Marge Simpson, complete with her blue hair done up in a ridiculously tall hairdo. She was staring at the Ariados, mouth agape, clearly not having expected an arachnid of such proportions.
"Wha- wh- what is that?" Marge finally managed to say.
"An Ariados," said Bart.
"An aria-what?"asked Homer.
"It's a kind of Pokémon," Lisa explained. "I don't know how to explain it, but Pokémon seems to have become real overnight."
"Oh, I doubt that," said Marge, shaking her head.
"Hey, tell that to bug-zilla up there," Homer added, pointing to the Ariados. "A spider that size, I'll believe anything at this point."
"Homer, you'll believe anything," said Marge. "Just last week, you thought the sky was falling."
"But it was falling!" Homer protested. "I went outside and chunks of it hit me in the head!"
"Those were chunks of hail! It was hailing!" argued Marge.
As Homer and Marge continued their debate about the previous week's hailstorm, Lisa walked over to the bathroom window and opened it. Almost immediately, the Ariados crawled out the window, at which point she slammed it shut. "Problem solved," Lisa announced.
"-because everybody knows that clouds are the sky's duct tape!" Homer was saying. He then noticed Lisa standing by the window, and more importantly, the lack of really big spiders in the bathroom. "Hmm? Lisa? Where'd that ariadoodle whatsit go?" he asked.
"It's called Ariados," Lisa corrected Homer. "And all I had to do was open the window and it crawled right out."
"Attagirl," smiled Homer. "Now what was that about your video games coming to life?"
~~~Fifteen minutes later~~~
"...And that's pretty much the gist of it," Lisa concluded. The family was seated around the kitchen table- all four of them, plus Maggie, Lisa's baby sister. Were it not for the blue bow in her hair and the pacifier ever-present in her mouth, Maggie would look exactly like a younger Lisa.
"...Wow," Homer said. "These Pokémons sound amazing! Can any of them shoot donuts?"
"No, Homer," sighed Bart. "There's one called Combee that makes honey, but that's as close as it gets." They had decided to not mention to Homer that there was a Pokémon that looked like it was made entirely out of cotton candy- it was agreed all around that Homer Simpson knowing that sort of thing couldn't possibly end well.
"D'oh!" groaned Homer. Before anything else could be said, however, Lisa had turned on the TV in their kitchen, to find a news report underway.
"Yes, it seems that overnight, hundreds of creatures known as Pokémon mysteriously came into existence," the reporter was saying. "These Pokémon originate from a Japanese video game series of the same name, and can be captured by the use of these spherical devices," he added, as he held up a red and white sphere, the two halves separated by a black band going around the middle. A white button was set into the band. "This is called a Poké Ball, and throwing one at a Pokémon makes it possible to catch it. To make things even more mysterious, residents of Springfield have reported finding these Poké Balls in their mailboxes, usually five per resident. This is Kent Brockman reporting-" he paused for a moment, exchanging muttered words with someone just offscreen, before turning back to the camera. "This just in- Mayor Quimby has just stated at a press conference that he deems the capture, raising, and battling of these Pokémon creatures to be completely legal." As he stated this, a picture came up on the screen of Mayor Joe Quimby standing behind a podium. On Quimby's shoulder sat a pink blob of a Pokémon with a simplistic smiley face.
"Woo-hoo!" Homer cheered.
"Sweet!" Bart grinned.
Lisa had already left the room, and just now, she re-entered with a large package in her hands. She placed it on the table and the family converged on it, brown paper flying in every direction. Once they backed off, they saw a pile of red and white spheres, just as Kent Brockman had reported. Eagerly, Bart, Lisa, and Homer each took a handful.
"Homer, shouldn't you be getting to work?" Marge reminded him.
"You're right, Marge," nodded Homer. "My workstation won't sleep at itself, after all!" Before Marge could object to what he had said, Homer was out the door and getting into his car.
"This is gonna be awesome," Bart grinned, looking at the Poké Balls he had nabbed.
"Mmm, I don't know," Marge said uncertainly. "Pokémon would just be more to clean up after, wouldn't they?"
"Mom, I know the perfect Pokémon for you," declared Lisa. "I saw one in the yard earlier, hopefully Snowball II hasn't eaten it..." With that, she led Marge out the back door.
Lisa and Marge looked around the backyard. Santa's Little Helper seemed to have gotten over the previous Taillow attack, and was sleeping peacefully in his doghouse... Snowball II, a cat with black fur, was snoozing by the door... and then, Lisa saw it- a light grey creature with a furry tail and large ears, wandering around on all fours.
"There, Mom!" Lisa said, pointing to the new creature. "That one's called a Minccino. They use their tails like brooms to clean anything dirty they find, so if anything, it should make your housework even easier."
"Huh. I like the sound of that!" Marge smiled. "OK, so how do I operate one of these?" she asked, looking down at the Poké Ball in her hand.
"Alright. First, you want to make sure it's at full size," Lisa explained. "See how it's the size of a ping-pong ball? Press the button." Marge did so, and immediately, a quiet whirring sound issued from the ball as it somehow expanded to the size of a baseball in her hand.
"Ooh!" Marge said, evidently impressed.
"OK, now throw it at the Minccino," Lisa instructed.
"Won't that hurt it?" Marge worried.
"Don't worry, Mom," Lisa reassured her. "If this works anything like the games, it won't hurt it at all."
"Alright... here goes nothing!" said Marge as she heaved the sphere at the wandering Normal-type. Her aim, thankfully, was dead-on, for the ball struck Minccino. At that instant, Minccino turned into a shapeless mass of red energy. At the same time, the ball split open along the black band, and the energy was sucked inside. The ball then snapped shut and fell to the ground.
"Did it work?" asked Marge.
"Wait," said Lisa, for the ball was shaking back and forth on the ground, a red light flashing on and off on the Poké Ball's button. This went on for several seconds, before the ball fell still and gave off a low-pitched ping. "Now it worked," smiled Lisa. "You just caught your first Pokémon, Mom!"
Happy about this, Marge walked over and picked up the Poké Ball containing her new Minccino. "Hmm... How do I get it out?" she asked Lisa.
"Just toss it into the air," replied Lisa. "And maybe tell it to come out, too, I think they can hear through them."
"Alright," nodded Marge, as she tossed the Poké Ball straight up into the air. "Minccino, come on out!" she said.
The ball split open in midair, and a blast of white energy spilled out. It formed itself into a familiar shape once it hit the ground, and the light faded, revealing Minccino once again. It glanced up at Marge curiously. "Cino?" it squeaked.
"Hello, Minccino," smiled Marge. "How'd you like to help me clean my house?"
Minccino smiled broadly. "Cino, cino!" it squealed. Wasting no time, it raced into the house through the still-open back door, and proceeded to dust off the kitchen table with its tail.
"Thanks for your help, Lisa," smiled Marge. "Are you going to catch a Pokémon, too?"
"Sure, maybe after school-" began Lisa, just as the phone rang.
Marge picked up the phone. "Hello? Yes? I see. Uh-huh... Uh-huh... Bart, I told you to get rid of that voice changing gizmo! Of course you're not Bart, of course, I'm sorry... OK, thank you."
"What was that about?" asked Bart, re-entering the kitchen.
"Your school called," explained Marge. "You have the day off."
"Woo-hoo!" cheered Bart and Lisa simultaneously.
~~~Meanwhile...~~~
"Mother, we've seen dozens of different Pokémon already!" grumbled Seymour Skinner. He was walking with his mother through a local park, in which numerous kinds of Pokémon were roaming around. As he spoke, a Bidoof was ambling past them. "I've had to cancel school for the day just because you can't decide on one you like."
"It's not my fault," Agnes Skinner retorted, folding her arms. "They're all profound disappointments, just like you! Now you're not going anywhere until you find me a Pokémon I like, Seymour!"
"Yes, mother..." groaned Seymour.