A hospital room met his eyes as he woke up, past 12 PM of course.
As he slowly took in the events of last night, a smile appeared on the human's face and a sigh of relief could be heard. However, as he turned to his left, no curtain was there anymore, and most importantly, no Lucario was to be found. Only a note was left, placed on the table next to his bed, with a phone number and a clumsily drawn outline of a dog head on it, that he found adorable.
Thomas put his pair of jeans back on and pressed the button above his bed, signalling to the hospital team he was awake. About three minutes later, a doctor he hadn't seen yet appeared to greet him.
"Hello, there. Thomas, is that right?" The drowsy human nodded. "Great. Are you feeling alright?"
"Yeah, I am, thanks."
"Good to hear. So, the team went to check your exam results again and found nothing of importance, and while that's good news, that means we have no explanation for your memory loss. Did anything get back to you during the night?"
"I'm afraid not…"
"Ah, too bad." The doctor thought for a moment. "Do you happen to remember about somebody that can take you home and check on you? You may remember more things if you're surrounded by someone you spent time with."
"Yeah, absolutely. I've got a friend, Luke, can't remember his last name. He should be able to let me stay at his place for a while."
"Perfect. Do you have his phone number? I'll give him a call and arrange your pickup."
He sneakily bends the part of the note with the Lucario face to hide it from view, and hands it to the doctor.
"Thanks. Have you already told him about your situation?"
The human nods again.
"Great! I'll tell him to get here as soon as he can. Do you need any help pack-" A quick glance at the room made him notice the lack of any personal effect. "Sorry, scratch that. He'll come up to your room directly, okay? The staff will get him to take care of the administrative stuff for you."
The human smiles, nods one last time, and gets up to shake the doctor's hand as he takes his leave.
About an hour later, a familiar blue and black face came through the door.
"Good afternoon, I trust you slept well?"
"Yeah, for sure. Thanks so much again for all the help, Luke. Can't stress enough how much I'm grateful for what you did."
"Once again, my pleasure – I've hardly seen anyone be so happy to deal with a Pokémon; even the staff seemed surprised at me being your 'emergency contact'. You ready to go?"
"For sure!"
The two head out to the parking lot, in the highest floor of the basement. While in the escalator, the Lucario started telling Thomas about trivia surrounding this very hospital: Castelia City was apparently so crammed the architect couldn't fit all rooms inside the building's upper floors, and they had to build more rooms in the basement, making this hospital the first "vertical" one in the world.
Thomas loved hearing even completely random facts about Castelia – having lived in a city all his life, it seemed to him so familiar, yet the small differences with his world made it worth asking questions for the whole ride back to Luke's house.
The Lucario happily obliged, while occasionally reminding the human of his pledge to tell him about his world.
Eventually, the two arrived. As the Pokémon parked the car, Thomas unbuckled his seat belt and opened the door.
He lifted his head up, and took a good look at the house he was going to live in for an unknown amount of time. It was a perfect copy of an American-style single-family home, just like he'd seen in movies and TV shows back in his home country in Europe.
Luke gave the human a tour of the house, with him taking the opportunity to look in detail at how the Lucario decorated his home. He'd been living alone for a while for sure – no traces of photos with another Lucario of his age, and he didn't mention a boyfriend or girlfriend once either. Picture of him with his family were placed around the house, all looking absolutely adorable in Thomas' opinion.
The human found the choice of furniture to be quite tasteful: it features a mix of old, modern, American and foreign designs, giving Luke's house a style that he loves.
Overall, he was more than happy to live here, would it be for a few weeks or, dared he say it, a bit longer, should he not find any other place for himself. That's definitely the sole reason why he'd want to stay.
As the Pokémon finished touring his own house, the two sat on the couch in the living room, in front of a big flat-screen TV. Clearly, Luke wasn't doing bad financially – that was a relief, as Thomas understood sentient Pokémon were undervalued on the job market compared to humans. "Seems like someone (else) understood their true value.", he joked. At least, he wouldn't feel like too much of a leech on him.
"So, Thomas, how do you like this place?"
"It's wonderful, really! I love how you decorated it, man, it's really beautiful."
The Lucario seemed to blush a bit. "Heh, I'm glad. Hey, you're probably super hungry by now! I've got some stuff in the fridge, want to take a look with me?"
Indeed, while the human was too concentrated on everything else to pay attention to his body, it still required food. He chose the pork sauté, recommended by his newfound friend.
As the Pokémon turned on the stove to heat it up, the human headed to the shower room, nearly forgetting about him not having any clothes to put on. Luke was definitely way smaller than him and had spikes coming out of his chest, so it definitely wouldn't be possible for him to use any of his clothes.
As he went back down the stairs, the Lucario seemed to realize that himself, as he offered to shut down the stove and take a quick trip to a nearby clothes shop to grab a t-shirt, new pants, some underwear along with a pair of PJs to sleep into. The human gladly accepted and went along with him, thankful once again for his host's generosity.
About 20 minutes later, lunch was served. The Lucario did manage to use knifes and forks, something most members of his species gave up on learning. Thomas loved the sauté and complimented his host on it, even as he said it was bought at a nearby takeaway.
When the two finished, they sat back down on the couch, with the human expecting to get bombarded with questions. It indeed didn't take long before it began, with the most important one coming first:
"How?"
"I-I'm sorry, I don't actually know… I went to sleep in my place and randomly woke up in a street in the middle of Castelia! I have no explanation as to why either."
"Hmm… Well, you seemed more or less unphased with what happened. I'd have expected just about anyone to panic, but you stayed calm. Did you already know you were coming here?"
"Close. Let's say, I… wished to come to a world like this."
"Like this?"
"Yeah, just about anything different from our world, but with creatures either living with humans, or having built a society without any. This place definitely fits the bill, and I already knew about its existence. In my world, it's a video game."
The Lucario had to do a double take. "Wait, what?! You... you just dropped this like that? A video game?! What kind? Do you have it on you?"
"Yeah, sorry, didn't know how to put it... Yes, video games, with its main series based off training Pokémon and climbing to the top, battling the Champion. There are also spin off series, like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon where humans aren't there at all, and you're turned in a Pokémon, um... should you not be one already. I got an emulator with Pokémon White loaded if you want to try it, I played a game of it yest- oh."
The shocked Lucario tilted his head.
"Unova is the region Black and White are in."
The Lucario's mouth stayed slightly agape for a moment.
"So, you're telling me that you've played a... a 'Pokémon game', went to bed, and woke up here. That's..."
"Well, I doubt it has anything to do with it, but.. It's nuts, yeah, I know."
The Lucario tried to focus. "Wait, what about me? If we're going all in on prophecy stuff, did I meet you in game or something?"
"Uhh... As far as I can remember, there aren't any Lucarios you can talk to in the game, and I don't have any on my team. Sorry."
"Well, I guess it was worth a shot. So, wait, what's your world like compared to ours?"
"Well, in many regards, it's just like here! Some places geographically look the same as regions here, we have cities and the associated countryside... One big downside to our world is that there aren't any Pokémon at all, or any animal truly capable of communicating with voice, or with telepathy like you do with me. Less diversity is less friends to make."
Speaking of telepathy, the human just realized how weird it would be for others to hear him talk to a silent Pokémon. Oh well.
As the human finishes speaking and rests back down on the couch, Luke suddenly gives him a pat on the shoulder. "Well, you sure made a new friend today!"
The two laughed for a good second at the cheesiness of the line.
Luke took a look at the time displayed on the TV tuner, and jumped up while apologizing. "Oh, I completely forgot... I have to go and buy groceries for dinner. Care to join me?"