Prologue
Flying! I was going to fly and explore caves-! Then I remembered human-sized spiders existed here and irrationally glanced at the corners of the room. What was super-effective against bug types? Flying pokémon. Bird first, definitely.
My thoughts raced ahead, conjuring half-visions half-memories of Kalos, and I laughed aloud. None of this was real of course, couldn't be by like, the laws of nature. So I was going to enjoy every minute of it before waking up -or whatever- with pokémon!
A thrill rushed through me just thinking about it. Pokémon; smarter than earthly animals with cartoon abilities and super powers. I hadn't even seen one yet. I turned to stare out the window. Not even a mouse. Wait! I pressed my face against the pane. No...just the wind.
Then just across the street a rabbit dug itself out of a tunnel, right where I was looking, and slunk its head forward to peer out. "Ohmygod!" I tore out of the room I'd been sent to when I'd realized I was in the Pokémon world, or "having a fit" as the woman had termed it.
"Aly? What's wrong?"
I ignored the voice, cackling as I remembered there were no consequences.
"Alicia Bay! Where are you going?!" The concern in my new mom's voice sounded real. "What are you doing? Come here!" The shock was quickly converting to rage, but I kept moving. Sprinting down three flights of stairs and around the apartment building to the park at the center of town. I jerked around people on the sidewalk, giggling breathlessly at their surprised expressions.
Finally I made it to the park and dove for the fence line where I'd seen the opening. The pokémon wasn't there. I began to dig, scooping dirt with both hands to widen the hole.
"Aly!" My mom panted above me.
"What?" I finally addressed her. There was a pregnant pause where I could feel the rage building.
"What do you mean 'what?' Have you lost your mind?! What do you think you're doing, running out of the house like that and into the street!"
I looked up at her aggrieved. I needed to get rid of the parental drone of this...simulation? Fantasy? Whatever. "Calm down, I'm trying to catch a pokémon." That was something normal in a pokémon world, right? Her face said differently.
"What?"
My sigh was weighty and made her eyes bulge and her face redden. "You have...three seconds to stand at my side or-"
"I'm grounded?" I guessed, bored with the conversation. Ugh, why couldn't we skip this bit and get on with my dream? Story...? Hm.
She gapped for a second before getting a sharp look in her eye, then she threw her head back for a big laugh. I stared at her bewildered, what phrase could I say to get her off my back? The laugh continued on. People stared, I waited, eventually raising an eyebrow in question.
"Oh Aly, you got me!" She chortled. "Trying to catch a pokémon!" She helped me to my feet and brought me in for a squeeze. "It was good, longer setup than I would have given you credit for, but dashing into the street? A little much, honey."
I stared at her beaming face, she was somehow pulling off joy and admonishment. When I didn't respond her eyes tightened on my face. "Ah...ha ha," I forced out.
"I mean it, don't do that again."
"Okay?" She threw an arm around my shoulders and started for home. I glanced back at the hole but caught the eyes of curious people instead. I stopped myself before sighing gustily. Life of a main character people, what do you expect?
I waited for my new mom to fall asleep, biding my time as I watched the park for pokémon. I noted several flocks of birds settling into the sparse canopy and plotted the best way to get one. Hunger and dinner surprised me, it was just so...real. My new mom was an excellent cook, she made -get this- porkchops and mash potatoes...
Finally the hard working woman took a shower and went to bed. I'd been relieved when no husband had shown up, and volunteered to help clean the apartment before bed. I could tell it was routine by the absentminded way she went about it, plus the place was spotless. Finally I snuck out of the house to the park.
If these pokémon were anything like real birds they would be drowsy and half-blinded by nighttime. The last pokémon I remember seeing sleep were the pokémon of Alola cuddling with Entei in this one episode...Entei-! Oh, my God, it exist. It's alive somewhere in this world. The realization stunned me. I wandered the dark park, head full of legendaries, before I remembered to look for roosting birds.
White splotches on the sidewalk gave up a flock's favorite sleeping spot. I glanced up but it was too dark to see anything. I hadn't climbed a tree since I was a kid, but this was a kid's body so, what was the difference?
It was harder than I thought climbing the tree, irritatingly so. The bark was too rough, the trunk too vertical.
I wasn't three feet off the ground before the flock startled and burst off the branches. What the hell? Why was this so hard? Shouldn't everything be working out in this daydream? Coma trance...? Ugh.
It took me a good stretch of time to find another spot, but just like the first time the birds flew off. I saw live sparks sprinkling down, extinguishing midair, and cursed my luck. That was a fire one! That would have been awesome!
Frustrated, I dropped the two feet back to the ground and huffed, and heard a peep. Oh? I carefully looked around, gingerly twisting as slowly as possible. Sweet, tiny chirping directed my eyes to the tall grass. I sneaked as best I could, then stalled as I pictured what would happen. I'd be too slow and the bird would fly off, or I'd hesitate last minute and miss my chance.
I steeled myself and dived. There was a flurry of wing beats and panicked chirps but I scrambled after the pokémon until I grabbed feathers. "Stop struggling!" The fear of hurting it kept me from subduing it right away. It flapped hard but I had one wingtip along with one scaly foot, leaving it only one wing and one foot to fling dirt with.
Somehow sand made it directly in my eye and I almost let go. As a last resort I laid over it, squishing it. Two sad, drawn-out peeps signaled its distress, but it stayed still, or maybe I was crushing it too much. I tried rubbing the sand out of my eyes but didn't manage all of it. I grumbled as I reached a hand underneath for the bird. I was much more forceful in handling it this time and got a much better hold.
I kept trying to rub sand out of my eyes with my shoulders the whole way home, and somehow found the apartment through watery, gritty blinks. I was so tired, which was annoying. Why did this illusion...hallucination...? have to feel so real? I let it go in my room and the pidgey (even after years of not playing the games I recognized a pidgey) immediately fluttered about, circling the room.
My lips pursed as I considered what to do, but before I could decide, a wave of air slapped my face. The pidgey had landed on my bed and was flapping its wings furiously at me. "Whoa! Hey now..." I warned but the stiff squall was blowing everything off surfaces. Soon everything, including the bedspread was on the carpet, and I was pressed against the door. "That has to be 'gust' right? Pidgey?"
There was no answer. What no special ability to talk to pokémon in this...fanfiction? C'mon!
"Aly?!" Crap. My mom was trying the knob desperately. I eyed the pidgey on the bed, but it seemed as long I didn't move it wouldn't attack.
"Uh, hey! Nothing is wrong!" I answered her concern. "In fact something went horribly right!"
"Open the door. Now."
"I don't know...maybe I evolved?" I said innocently, trying for something that would sound normal in this world.
"No. Since when do you want to train pokémon? Who have you been talking to? What did you watch?"
My puffy eyes narrowed. "Nothing. Isn't it normal to train pokémon anymore?" She looked so confused, but I was seriously asking. What kind of pokémon world was this?
"You tried it at ten and hated it, so someone must have talked you into it. You tend to let people talk you into things, honey."
Huh, guess Aly was a follower. Too bad I wasn't, I'd have more friends probably. "...It's called inspiration. Why do you have to slap me down? You're suppose to support me."
"We don't have the money, Aly. We talked about this and you decided on trade school, remember?"
Shit. Of course my family wasn't rich. Would have been a nice change of pace. "What, I can't change my mind at...twelve?" Her face wrinkled in confusion. "Thirteen?"
"Fifteen. Let me check your head." She reached forward. "Does it hurt?"
"No." God, I was short. "I want to train pokémon, mom. I got bit by that bug finally. I'll make money from battles, isn't that like, a career? Like entrepreneurship?"
"It's not guaranteed. Trainers lose money just as much," she warned, sitting back to study me, baffled.
"Okay so I'll make a spreadsheet of priorities, overhead expenditures, whatever, and manage it like a cashflow. Besides, nothing is guaranteed." I threw all my limited business terminology at her.
Her head was tilted to the side as she watched and listened. This drone was much too attentive, where was the 'settings' menu?
"You've given this serious thought." Yeah, even played simulations. I suppressed a laugh.
"Yes, for a while now."
"But you've never trained anything before...I just don't know how you plan-"
"Mom, that's trainer stuff. I'll worry about that," I said, startling her.
Trainer stuff wasn't so cut and dry. I read the rule book and basically however your pokémon listened was up to you as long as they could be called off. I figured on a reward system that eventually phased into just praise, like with a dog. Pokémon were way smarter than animals anyway, or had intuition or something...I couldn't remember if they all understood human speech right away...I hoped they did like in the cartoons.
Turns out pokémon are really smart. It learned the command Gust in one day. Every time I approached, it attacked with the wind attack, I yelled Gust and tossed it a piece of fruit when it was over. After several of these I simply yelled 'Gust' and it did it again, and I gave it a treat. I tested it by randomly yelling other words but it wouldn't use that attack until I said 'Gust.'
The berries went a long way toward taming it too, I was petting it with one finger by the end of the same day.
I didn't have a pokéball for it still, so I wasn't letting it out of the room where it could get away. Pokéballs were two hundred pokédollars, which I assumed meant the same in normal dollars. Anyway, it was a lot, too much, so I was going to have to wait.
Laying a baseline for the pidgey and establishing a bond, meant staying in the apartment. I ended up lying a lot because I hadn't counted on Aly having friends. She did, it was annoying. I also ended up saying the pidgey had flown into the room that night instead of admitting to sneaking out and attacking a pokémon.
Needless to say there was a lot of guessing, lying and dodging that week, but by the end of it, Pidgey (I couldn't think of a name I wouldn't be embarrassed to shout out) had learned its name, Gust, Tackle, and that I wasn't going to hurt it. Not directly anyway, but it had to know what was coming...I mean, they were smart - surely they'd seen other pidgey battling.
I learned where I lived. Aquacorde Town, a settlement built around a large park in a river valley below the foothills of a mountain range. The main character of the games lived up there in a huge house, and I assumed I'd meet them at some point. So it was training time because I was going to be the main character of this story and take down Team...Magma? No, the giant dude?
Once Pidgey's basic training was completed I felt confident enough to take it out for some formal training.
It was all part of the program I'd come up with. Basic, Formal, Advanced, Mastery, and throughout each tier I'd find ways to do "informal training" where I would teach Pidgey more human language. I would also be testing each stage before moving on.
In the house Pidgey flew to me when called and stayed on my arm as I walked around. The test would be if it did it outside, I was pretty confident it would since we'd become friendly.
Route 2 was within sight of town, it was just over the stone bridge. There was waist-high grass in large patches all the way to the trees. We saw pokémon everywhere, I took my time studying each one, trying to remember stuff about them and compare them to their earthly counterparts.
Pidgey was very excited about being out, I kept it tucked to my chest with a hand on its back in case it spooked...or tried flying away. A caterpie wiggled at the edge of the tall grass and I figured it for a great, soft start.
"Ready Pidgey?" It nodded, already pinning the caterpillar with a sharp eye. I smiled, getting a human nod from a sentient bird was the highlight of my training so far. I loved the intelligent, two-way communication I'd always coveted with animals.
I sent Pidgey at the caterpie, it used Gust instead of the Tackle I asked for, and I covered my face as twigs, rocks, and whipping air pelted me. When I opened my eyes Pidgey was tearing pieces off the bulbous bug. "What are you doing?!" I ran up, as Pidgey stomped on the bug and tore off another chunk. It tossed back another beakful.
"Pidgey, get off! You won." I flapped my hands at it until it hopped off, chirping sharply. I wasn't a fan of bugs but I squatted down to poke it over with a stick, then realized it was dead. What the hell?! "You killed it-!" I jerked back, horrorful. Was I in a nuzlocke?! "I thought you were vegetarian!" Pigeons were! What was this, a horror film?
The pidgey hopped back on to the dead bug and pecked more pieces off. I scrambled backward, it was too gory up close. The shock threw several other details into perspective, like how I got hungry, thirsty, tired, parented, sweaty, and hurt normally. No, no...this wasn't real. I snored. It's fricking pokémon.
It hopped over to me when it was done gorging. There wasn't much left...I guess in comparison with a whole-ass caterpie I'd been starving it. "Hey...so, you're not a pigeon-equivalent..." I sighed heavily.
Things weren't going to be as simple as I thought, whatever this was; it was just as real as the earthly dimension.