I stretched out my hand for the thousandth time, trying to ease the jerking, twitching motion out of my movements. It extended outwards, and then trembled terribly as some of the voices asked me to move it to the right, or left, or grab the pokedex and read up on the world (for the thousandth time). But, the few were drowned out by the many, and my hand stayed on track.
It was taking a lot of getting used to, but I was confident that I could manage it, in time. Slowly, one step at a time, I eased my way to the edge of the city, where the Pokemon hid. They didn't bother the average person, but the armband and pokeballs seemed to attract them like flies to honey. I could see them, the slight rustling of the grass that could hide any number of vicious creatures… I shuddered and tried to tighten the grip on the pokeball I was told contained a very rare Pokemon that had been being studied at the lab. However, the voices had other ideas for my hand, and began to move towards the Pokedex, my pockets, anything they could think of.
Finally all of us came to agreement, and we stepped the last few feet towards the confines of town. My leg was almost in the air when I heard the cold voice beside me.
"Well, Red, so you made it out of the city at last. Only took you what, six hours?"
I remembered the drawling, arrogant voice from training. Gary, the other test subject, who had run off without receiving the hookup to the rest of our world.
I turned on my heel so abruptly I almost fell over, my head cocked to one side as I surveyed him. He leaned lazily against a tree to my right, tossing a Pokeball up and down in his hand while grinning at me. There was no twitching in his smooth movements, no voices shouting obscenities in his ears…
"Looks like I was right to get out of that experiment when I could," he said, watching me as I staggered slightly over, got halfway through shouting at him before my mouth closed on my tongue, the hand with the pokeball doing something between a rude gesture and itching my nose. "It wouldn't help to be the Pokemon champion if you turn into a drooling vegetable in the process!"
I took a deep breath and took control of my own mouth with difficulty. "We work together. We have thousands of people to help out whenever we need it. You have no one."
The effect of my words was somewhat ruined by my feet going in opposite directions, spilling me onto the ground.
He paused in tossing his pokeball and surveyed me on the ground, a cold smile on his face that didn't reach his eyes.
"I have no one, do I?" he said quietly, pushing himself smoothly off the tree to tower over me. "Maybe I have no friends, but I do not need them. Not when I have servants."
He pressed a button on the pokeball and dropped it to his feet. It opened and a stream of bright lights filled the air around the spot for a few seconds, condensing slowly into a creature.
"Maybe I don't have nice little voices in my head, giving bad advice and lies," he hissed, as the shape formed itself into a large turtle, standing on two powerful legs. It had the same cold eyes as its master. "Maybe I don't have the blessing of Pallet Town, for all that's worth. But the will of this Pokemon is mine."
On an unseen command, the large turtle began moving forwards towards my prone body, growling as low as a wolfhound.
"And soon, I will have yours."
"RUN!"
The voices in my head shouted in unison, so loud they drowned out the sound of the world around me. I tried to stagger to my feet, but my legs wouldn't stay still long enough to support my weight. I collapsed again, and watched between blades of grass as the turtle moved far faster than any turtle had a right to move, roaring soundlessly as it pounded through the grass towards me.
"RUN!"
I couldn't think, I couldn't hear, I could barely breathe. The voices were too strong…
"RUN!"
"RUN!"
"RUN!"
"RUN!"
And there, amidst the storm of screams of terror and fear, the sound of the dream of Pokemon Champion collapsing around me, I heard one more voice join into the chorus in my mind, brighter than any of the others around it.
"FIGHT!"
And the sound returned to the world, the voices fell to the backdrop, the world cleared immediately. And I realized that the voice had been my own.