War and Peace: A Pokémon meets Silent Service Fic.


Lieutenant Commander Robert Clarkson turned his head from side to side, familiarizing himself with the dockside area where the Killifish was moored. His first impression of Fuchsia City was of its normalcy, which was simultaneously comforting and slightly disturbing. The shipyard the group entered could easily have been dropped out of the sky from Pearl Harbor or Fremantle, complete with flashes from welding arcs, grease-covered fitters, and containers stacked high alongside dry cargo ships. The area they had moored up at was somewhat cleaner and less industrialized, obviously being set up to impress arriving crews.

However, it was this same innocuous setting that raised his suspicion. This was not supposed to be normal. They were lost in unknown territory after sailing into a combat zone. Everything up to the port officer's arrival on the motor launch had only served to heighten his suspicions, but her demeanor had been friendly and polite. The Killifish had been given a berthing slot and allowed to dock without even a formal inspection or customs arrangement. It was as if they were sailing into their home port, but by her own admission Officer Jenny had never seen a ship like his submarine!

Clarkson shook his head, smiling ruefully to himself. He was probably trying to think this through too hard. If anything, most of the incongruity came from the fact that from all appearances, Fuchsia City was at peace with the world. To a man who had only known war patrol after war patrol for almost four years, the idea that he could be in a place where there was no war felt as distinctly alien as the weight of the loaded Colt automatic tucked into his reefer would have felt in 1941.

The park next to the docks was small, but obviously well-tended and decidedly picturesque. A small lighthouse further down the seawall marked the base of the harbor's protective seawall. The main lights of the city were in the opposite direction, though, so Clarkson headed that way with DiCamaro and Betts following. They saw several street signs written in plain English with conventional Roman lettering directing them towards the city center.

As they moved out of the harbor area towards the more urban parts of the town, Clarkson distilled the purpose of his exploration down to several key points. First of all, would it be safe to let Killifish's crew out into town? Rowdy sailors could prove dangerous both to themselves and to others, and Clarkson was leery of offending Fuchsia's population through the antics of the hard-drinking, hard-partying submariners. Furthermore, Clarkson still didn't know what the local currency was, or how the crew would be able to enjoy themselves without some way to pay for their entertainment.

Secondly, and most importantly for the mission, he had to figure out where they were. If they were anywhere near where their last navigational fix had put them, they shouldn't have been able to find an English-speaking, friendly country for several thousand miles—yet they had found one anyways. Clarkson and Millunzi had been unable to locate a country named Kanto anywhere on their charts, though the notation on the charts of the Japanese coast did mention an area with that name. However, there was no Fuchsia City listed on those charts, leaving both officers thoroughly stumped.

Once he had determined their location—if he could determine it, Clarkson thought grimly—he would report the anomaly they had encountered and request instructions. If he was unable to contact ComSubPac or ComSubSoWestPac, then…well, he really wasn't sure.

The sun had passed overhead, Clarkson guessing that the local time was about two hours past noon, by the time the group had entered the main part of the city. The three sailors found themselves subject to stares from most of the passersby on account of their strange uniforms, but the glances were curious rather than suspicious.

"Would you look at that!" Betts exclaimed.

Clarkson turned from the sign advertising the local library to follow the torpedoman's pointing finger. Several dozen yards down the street, a young man was walking side-by-side with an enormous birdlike creature. Standing over four feet tall, the avian appeared vaguely similar to photos he'd seen of ostriches—but it has two heads! Two! The heads turned his direction, with one opening its beak to ape his unmasked astonishment.

"What the hell is it?" Clarkson asked no one in particular, his eyes never leaving the impossible creature.

"I haven't got a clue," DiCamaro whispered in identical amazement. "Is…is it a bird?"

The avian extended two stubby wings that had been hidden under the orange down of its body and flapped them, hopping up from the sidewalk for a second before landing again. The young man walking next to the creature smiled and laughed, noticing their stares. "Sorry, Doduo just likes to show off sometimes. He's a bit of a prima donna."

The three sailors walked closer, still not quite believing. Clarkson pulled his eyes from the bird to look at the man who had addressed them. "You say it's called doe-duo? A Doduo?"

"That's right," the man said, looking at them with more curiosity. "Are you not from around here?" he asked.

"Not really," DiCamaro admitted, still distracted by the otherworldly creature. Betts reached forward with a hand as if to touch the bird, but one of the heads snapped forward and pecked him.

"Ouch!" the petty officer exclaimed, yanking his arm back immediately. The young man sighed. "I'm sorry; he's a little unfriendly sometimes." Looking down at the Doduo, he scolded it. "Listen, Doduo, you know you can't just peck strangers. It's not nice."

One of the bird's heads drooped in apparent acquiescence, but the other kept its gaze firmly locked on the offending torpedoman. Likewise, Betts didn't take his eyes from the creature until it and the young man were well past them on the street. "Damn freak show," he muttered, wincing and holding his bleeding hand.

Clarkson motioned for the other two sailors to circle in. "Did any of you find that just a bit unbelievable?" he asked. "I mean, I expected a different language or food, or something. Not four-foot-tall two-headed birds that attack people." He shook his head. 'What's next?"

"I saw you looking at that library sign earlier," DiCamaro said. "If this country is really inhabited by giant two-headed birds, and we aren't just all bat-shit crazy, we might be able to find out about them there."

Clarkson nodded, looking to Betts. "How's the hand?" he asked. "You need anything?"

"No," the younger man replied. "I'll be alright; it's not bad. The bleeding has almost stopped." Shaking the hand vigorously, he motioned them on.

Fortunately, they were able to reach the library without further incident. "We'll split up," Clarkson announced, "and meet up here in, say, an hour. Try to learn as much about this place as possible, and we'll compare notes."

888

Clarkson's first stop was the library's reference desk. "Excuse me," he asked the young woman behind the desk, "But I was wondering if you could help me. I'm from a ship that just pulled in, and I'm not familiar with the, uh…local wildlife, so to speak. Is there any information here about them?"

The woman smiled as if he was joking, but after she realized he was indeed serious, she pointed to a section of the library. "That's our Pokémon information section," she told him in a cheery voice. "You should be able to find out anything you need about the Pokémon in the Fuchsia City region. There is also a section on trainer information if you need it."

Clarkson nodded. "Pokémon…uh, got it." Wondering how he had just made a fool of himself, he turned and walked over to the indicated section. Picking out the first book, he quickly returned it for being too technical—written in miniscule type; it looked more like his submarine qualification papers than a useful reference.

Wandering down the aisle, he finally selected a smaller book titled The World of Pokémon. The brightly-colored illustrations and simple language marked it as a children's book, but the submarine officer figured he was as good as a child in this country anyways. Taking a seat on a low bench, he turned over the first page.

It took him only a few moments of flipping through the book to realize he wasn't even that far.

"My God," he murmured softly, suppressing a whistle. The book was literally filled with descriptions of otherworldly monsters, residents of science fiction brought to life. What was even more surprising was that, by the tone of the writing, these monsters were commonplace, an everyday sight. And apparently, the giant bird they had seen was one of the small ones.

Clarkson could understand why Officer Jenny hadn't batted an eye at the Killifish. Compared to something like this 'Charizard' creature, his submarine must have looked mundane. To guard against his simply being confused or reading fiction, he opened another book. And another. It was all real…

A commotion from the front of the library made him look up. Anthony DiCamaro was bounding towards him, wild-eyed. The lieutenant skidded to a halt, slightly out of breath.

"Robbie, you're not going to believe this," DiCamaro said. "I was up towards the front of the library when I saw another of those weird animals walking through the window. Then this guy raises a red-and-white ball, about this big"—he used his hands to indicate a softball-sized sphere—"and this red beam of light shoots out and hits the animal. It starts glowing red, and then it disappeared!" The lieutenant paused to let it sink it. "I couldn't believe what I just saw, so I went outside and asked the guy how he did it. And then he throws the ball on the ground and out popped the thing again." He shook his head. "The guy laughed and said something about how it was strange I had never seen it before."

Clarkson handed him the first book he had picked up. "Read." Standing back up, he started to look around for Betts as DiCamaro paged through the book. Standing on his toes to look over the shelves, he spied the petty officer's blond hair in the current events section and dragged an enthralled DiCamaro behind him.

Betts held up a colorful magazine at their approach. "I asked the desk what was going on with the War," he said. "She looked confused, then told me to look for Team Rocket in the periodicals section. There's nothing about Japan or the War here." He shook the magazine. "All that's in this section seems to be about mythical animals. It's like they have an obsession with them."

"They're not mythical," Clarkson responded, not quite wanting to believe the words himself. "Everything you read is real. I don't know how, but I've seen too much to call it coincidence."

"That can't be right," Betts responded. "Some of these animals can't exist. They just can't."

Clarkson sighed. "For the past few days, all I've been hearing is how things can't exist, or can't happen. How did we disappear from the middle of the Pacific?" He ticked off each point on his fingers. "Why can't we contact Pearl harbor, or anyone else? How could night turn into day? Why can't we find a chart of our position, or take a celestial fix? How can impossible creatures exist?"

He shook his head. "I can't tell you how or why, for any of those. I don't know. But the fact is that every single one of those things has happened in the past two days. We've seen them with our own eyes."

For once, the two sailors were silent. Both seemed to consider his words for a long time. Finally Betts cleared his throat.

"Sir, if what you say is true, and all this is real, then we can't be on Earth."

The submarine commander nodded. "That's right. As crazy as it sounds, that's the only conclusion the evidence supports. Wherever that cloud thing—or portal, whatever it was—took us, I think it's safe to say we're no longer on Earth."

"But they speak English!" the torpedoman exclaimed. "If we're in a different world, then why do they speak English—hell, why are there humans? And why is it so much like the Earth we know?"

"I'm not sure," Clarkson said, "But think about this. What if we weren't the first ones to come here? If other people from Earth came here, they would speak languages from Earth. Given that the land seems to be Earth-like, they would try to live like they had on Earth. And while there may be humans here, there sure as hell are aliens!"

He raised a hand to forestall further comments. "Let's try a little experiment." He led them over to the reference desk and again addressed the woman there. "Excuse me, miss, but I'm going to ask a couple of questions you might think are dumb or strange. Please just answer them."

The woman frowned in confusion. "Okay?" she said hesitantly.

He raised a finger. "What is the name of this world, this planet, whatever?"

She looked at him as if he was certifiably insane. "Earth, of course."

Before Betts or DiCamaro could say anything, Clarkson cut them off with a gesture. "And how far are we from Japan?"

"What is Japan?"

"How about North America?" Clarkson pressed. "Europe? Africa? Any of those ring a bell?"

Thoroughly flustered, the woman could only shake her head.

"You've never heard of those places, have you?" Clarkson asked quietly. "In fact, you're thinking I'm possibly crazy." He paused. "That's quite all right; I'm close to thinking the same thing myself."

He turned to the other two submariners, his face utterly unreadable. "We're going back to the ship."

888

"You heard her; she said we were on Earth!"

DiCamaro and Betts struggled to keep up with their commander as Clarkson walked swiftly back towards the Killifish. The two sailors were alarmed and puzzled at his sudden change of behavior.

"Of course she would say that," he answered, an edge of disgust in his voice. "She thinks she's on Earth."

"What!"

Clarkson turned abruptly to face them. "She really thinks she is on Earth. Think about it. If you were transported here without warning—without the ability to discover more about your surroundings—you would assume, like we did, that you were still on Earth." He shook his head. "We could be on Earth, too, past or future or something. But we are not on Earth, as it is, or was, or will be in 1945."

"So what do we do?" DiCamaro asked, taken aback at the outburst.

"We get the hell out of here," Clarkson answered, turning around and resuming walking. "We go back to where the portal was and find it." He looked over his shoulder at them. "I don't know about the two of you, but I want to back home. My Earth, not this place. And the faster we get back to where we were, the more likely I think it is that we'll find that portal."

Within twenty minutes, they were within sight of the Killifish. Clarkson gave orders as he walked. "DiCamaro, station the maneuvering watch as soon as you get aboard, and get those diesels warm. I want to be underway in less than an hour. Betts, tell it straight to the crew and tell them we're going home."

"Yessir." Both men, energized by their captain's fervor, rushed to prepare the submarine for getting underway.

As they ran across the brow, several of the security motor launches they had seen earlier cast off from the pier and moved out of the harbor at high speed, their propellers turning the seawater to white foam behind them. Clarkson thought he saw a glimpse of Officer Jenny's blue uniform among the crewers, and wondered who she was after this time.

Taking his place on the bridge after quickly briefing the officers, he surveyed his crew's work as hasty preparations were made to get underway. Within minutes, the roar of the Killifish's four Fairbanks-Morse diesels was clearly audible, and the initial belch of black smoke from the exhaust faded to a nearly invisible grey plume.

"Single up all lines," Clarkson ordered with the bullhorn. On the deck of the submarine, his sailors removed extra lines and turns from the deck cleats, leaving one part of rope between the submarine and the dock.

Turning around, Clarkson started to make a 360 degree scan of his surrounding prior to casting off, but a flash of light out to sea caught his gaze. Raising his binoculars to his eyes, he saw what could only be described as a battle underway scarcely a mile distant from the pier. The security launches were circling frantically around a moving blue stalk sticking out of the water. Even as he watched, blast of energy shot upwards from the launches, striking the stalk, which thrashed about before returning the fire with a red blast of its own. A brilliant explosion lit up the horizon as the blast touched off the patrol boat's fuel tank, sending pieces of the craft high into the air.

"My God…" Clarkson realized with terrifying clarity that the "stalk" was actually another one of the monsters, the "Pokémon" he had read about. And it was destroying the launches with ease.

Crack! The sound of the explosion finally reached the submarine, catching the attention of the line handlers. Jaws dropped at the sight; underway preparations forgotten.

Clarkson then made a decision which would alter forever their fates. "Cast off all lines! Battle surface! Man Battle Stations Gun Action!"

Working frantically, the line handlers threw off the heavy lines, clearing the submarine's deck. From the hatch, Clarkson heard the sounds of boots on steel over the sound of the general alarm as crewers ran hurriedly to their battle stations. Harvey Bennett was up the conning tower latter in the space of five seconds, the machine gun crews right behind him. Aft of the sail, five sailors scrambled out of the aft gun hatch and quickly began making the five-inch gun ready for action.

With a steady hand, Clarkson guided the submarine into the main channel out of the harbor. "Robbie, what's the situation?" Bennett asked, trying to understand the skipper's sudden change in demeanor.

"Take a look." Clarkson pointed out at the wreck of the launch. One of the other patrol boats was dead in the water and had flames rising from its decks, and the sea monster was moving closer into shore.

"What in the hell..?" Bennett exclaimed. "What is that?"

"Don't ask," Clarkson muttered darkly. "Just one more nightmare brought to life."

"You want to fight it?" the executive officer asked incredulously.

Clarkson shook his head. "Not if I can help it, but that thing has sunk at least one boat and another is about to go down. I'm not going to see them drown when we have ability to help."

With the opposed-piston diesels running at maximum revolutions, the submarine's speed quickly rose to twenty knots, and within five minutes they were in sight of the first boat's wreckage. Several of the crewers were in the water, thrashing about and trying to hold onto debris. When they sighted the submarine, they began waving their arms in desperation.

Clarkson steered the Killifish in, slowing to bare steerageway and having the gun crews drag the waterlogged survivors aboard. They threw lines to the survivors, pulling them to the edge of the hull where strong hands lifted them aboard. One of the shipwrecked mariners was the officer they had met before.

Ignoring the requests of the other sailors to follow them below, she climbed up the coning tower, her hair plastered to her head and neck and a bleeding cut across her right cheek. "Captain Clarkson!" she exclaimed, remembering his name. "We need to head back in and get more trainers to help. That Gyarados has to be stopped!"

"It's called a Gyarados?" Clarkson asked. "Why do you need to stop it?"

"Something has enraged it," she gasped Jenny. "It will attack the town. Only Koga can stop it now."

"Does it have a weak spot?" Clarkson asked.

Jenny blinked in surprise. "It's very strong against most kinds of Pokémon," she answered. "Very little can stop it. It defeated all of my trainers. That's why we need Koga, he's very strong and skilled."

The submarine captain pointed to her revolver. "How's it take to lead?"

She shook her head. "It wouldn't even feel this."

"Well, I bet I can do better," Clarkson muttered. "Hard left rudder! All ahead flank!"

The Killifish knifed around in the water, turning back at the monstrosity. The Gyarados has come to within a quarter-mile of shore; it was opening its mouth and firing off red beams of energy towards the beach.

"Mr. Clarkson, I must insist you take me back to shore to warn Koga!" Officer Jenny protested once it became clear Clarkson was heading straight for the monster. "You can't fight the Gyarados without strong Pokémon, it's too powerful!"

"We'll see about that," the submariner replied. "Manning, give him a burst!"

"Yes, sir!" The sailor manning the forward anti-air machine gun tightened down on the trigger, sending a ripple of twenty-millimeter shells into the beast's side. The Gyarados howled in pain and turned from the shore, bright crimson fluid spilling from the pattern of holes along its thin body. Roaring in pain and anger, the leviathan began chasing after the submarine, its powerful body moving in sine curves to propel it forward.

Clarkson ordered a hard turn to the right, moving at right angles away from the creature. The order came not a moment too soon—with a combination wail and roar, the sea monster snapped its head forward, vomiting gigajoules of coherent energy from its mouth in a ruby beam. The blast smote the water behind the submarine, sending up an enormous steam cloud as well as a ten foot wave in all directions.

"Brace for impact!" Clarkson yelled. The sailors manning the deck guns held on for dear life as the monstrous wave smashed into the submarine, battering it as if the 300-foot vessel a was a child's toy in a bathtub. Clarkson lost his balance and smashed into the side of the bridge as the Killifish listed more than thirty degrees to port. Instantly, all reason evaporated in his brain and he took a second to recover, wondering just what he had gotten himself into. He heard shouts of shock and pain from below as the sailors inside were tossed around by the force of the impact.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, the submarine righted itself and Clarkson ordered another hard turn to starboard. The crew manning the deck gun had managed to recover from the wave, so Clarkson gave the order to open up. "Fire at will! All guns!"

The impossibly loud sound of the five inch gun made his ears ring, but the result was all he could have hoped for. The armor-piercing shell struck the Gyarados high-up on its neck, blasting clean through the creature's armored flesh and leaving a gaping red hole flowing with brilliant arterial blood.

Amazingly, the monster remained upright instead of being instantly killed. The creature's head tracked the submarine again, this time spraying a three-foot diameter jet of water at the submarine. The spray swept along the aft deck, sending the five inch gun crew flying into the water, screaming.

Clarkson reversed his turn, trying to lure the creature away from the men in the water. The Gyarados follow them eagerly, letting off indiscriminate blasts of water and energy which scattered around the submarine, sending up geysers of water that soaked the bridge in sheets of spray. The Killifish was tossed about by the impacts, shuddering so violently Clarkson wondered if the ship would tear itself apart. Clarkson had never experienced such a shelling, and gripped the bridge railing until his knuckles were white. Again and again, his machine gunners fired at the Gyarados, wounding it grievously, but the creature did not die. In stead it raged on, letting loose even more frenzied blasts all around.

The submarine captain was at the point of wondering whether it could be killed when an accurate burst of gunfire from one of his anti-air weapons caught the Gyarados full in the face. The creature's head exploded into a mass of bloody pulp, and with a final, defiant roar, the serpentine body sank back into the ocean.

Clarkson nearly collapsed on the spot out of sheer exhaustion, panting. It was all he could do to order the boat back towards the gun crew in the water before darkness overtook him and he passed out on the bridge.

His last thought was a happy one, though. He had taken on this new world…and won.