-Kyle-
"Kyle. Kyle, wake up. Please."
His eyes crack open, and he attempts to look up at the pleading voice. His head, so very heavy, stays where it's at. He wonders what happened. There's a tight grip on his upper arm, and the wall he's leaning against is shaking.
"Can this thing go any faster? We need to get to the Center now!"
Someone starts yelling about knot speeds, and he realizes he's on a boat. That accounts for the shaking. Now why does his neck hurt so much?
"I don't care about any UB-whatever! Run past it and get us there. Now."
Ultra Beasts, right. Those weird alien things. Bizarre Jellicent looking creatures that appeared all of sudden. At the Aether Foundation headquarters.
It comes back to him all at once. The kids—Selene and Helios—had asked him to come to Aether Paradise with them. Something had felt off, they said.
His own instincts had begun screaming the moment he stepped foot on the island. Something off couldn't even begin to describe the feeling. Then that Lusamine woman had opened a portal and—
Oh. He'd been eaten by an alien.
He had shoved the kids out of the way of the bizarre creature only to get wrapped up in the world's worst hug. After that, he remembers overwhelming fear and nothing else.
Not his fear but the alien's. Somehow their senses had fused together, and the Ultra Beast had been so utterly afraid.
He feels kind of bad for it.
Not too much though, his neck is killing him. Also, Jace sounds like one moment away from a panic attack. Nothing had dissuaded the man from accompanying them, citing that a professional pokemon healer was exactly the person they needed to bring.
He wonders whether Jace regrets ever stepping foot on the island. He wonders if it was his friend who freed him from the beast or if it was the kids.
He wonders when the boat will finally stop moving. His stomach's not feeling too well.
"We can't outrun it! Two Fallers are too good for it to pass up!" A stranger's voice barks out.
What's a Faller, he silently questions, and why are they being chased?
"Aren't you supposed to be from an agency that deals with these things specifically?" Jace asks accusingly.
"That doesn't mean I can fight it!" Says the ever helpful stranger.
"You know what? Fine! I'll slow it down," Jace exclaims.
The grip on his arm disappears, and he can make out a hand reaching for a pokeball around his waist. It's a struggle, but he manages to grab the hand before it can take off with his Arcanine.
"Just me, Kyle," Jace tells him lowly. "I need to borrow your pokemon."
It takes a moment before he connects the words to the hand in his grip. He squeezes once before letting go. He trusts Jace with any of his pokemon.
Jace grabs his Arcanine, whispers something he can't catch, and disappears from his limited sight. His eyes close against his will, and he almost falls asleep without his friend's presence keeping him awake.
"Chansey, Arcanine, Fire Blast!"
An ungodly screech jolts him back to alertness. Jace keeps calling out for Fire Blast, and the air starts getting so hot, he's starting to sweat.
That is an insane amount of fire.
He eventually falls back into unconsciousness after a silence settles in with a nice breeze. It's no big deal. Jace is there after all.
He dreams of a world under the sea. Strange creatures roam around the distorted world, and the air is oppressing. He's not scared though; it feels like home.
He wakes up to a white ceiling and the sound of pokemon barking in the distance. He feels like he tried to have a fistfight with Snorlax and lost badly.
He vaguely recalls that might actually be the case. His pokemon hadn't taken his capture by alien very well, and Snorlax has quite the temper with anyone that jeopardizes the food source.
"Kyle!"
"Jace?" He turns his head, wincing at the pain.
The man, holding a food tray, stares at him from the doorway as if seeing a ghost. He checks to make sure he didn't actually turn into a Yamask.
"What's up?" He asks upon finding nothing out of the ordinary.
"You idiot!" Jace screeches with food tray trembling and in danger of spilling.
He makes a face at the accusation. Isn't screaming at patients illegal or something?
"Why didn't you dodge? Why did you let it get you?" Jace questions, turning around to slam the tray onto a counter.
He considers the past events while staring at Jace's back. He replays everything he said and did. He can honestly say he couldn't do any better.
"Those things had reach with their tentacles," he eventually says, "and I was more worried about throwing the kids to safety."
He examines the quivering form of his best friend. He needs to know what happened afterwards, but it's going to be hard. Not so much for him as it will be for Jace.
"What happened after that?" He asks gently.
"What do you think?" Jace snaps, turning to face him. "You fused with that thing, your Snorlax held you off while the kids ran into a portal that led to who-knows-where, and I was left to wonder if you were going to kill me or if I had to kill you!"
Seems about right, he thinks while rubbing his stomach. The alien had been terrified for good reason. Giga Impact was not fun to be on the other end of.
"Just when I was about to get serious, the kids came back with this weird pokemon, somehow unfused you, and we were sent tumbling into a portal," Jace tells him.
Jace, rubbing eyes tiredly, falls silent, and he knows there's more to this story than being rescued and getting to a hospital. He looks around for his pokemon when the man makes no move to speak. Alarm sets in when he sees no pokeball in sight.
"My pokemon?" His neck screams in agony as he twists it to keep searching.
"They're right here," Jace says, picking up a backpack off the floor, "even Snorlax, thank goodness."
A new set of alarm bells go off at that statement. Jace sets the backpack down, and he stares at the needle in his arm. For a moment, he sees white tentacles.
"What happened after we went through the portal?" He asks slowly.
Jace doesn't answer him. His neck hurts, as does everything else, and he's starting to wonder if the alien is actually the one responsible for the pain. He gives the man a pointed glare until Jace breaks.
"We fell," Jace whispers.
He almost regrets asking when Jace's face morphs into a devastated expression. His fingers curl into the thin blanket around him, and he waits quietly.
"We fell over the ocean. A woman's Pelipper caught me," Jace chokes, "but not you. You hit the water."
"Her Seel retrieved you," Jace continues after a long moment, "and I had to give you CPR. I think I cracked your ribs. Then that thing showed up—"
"Thing?" He interrupts.
"I don't know how to describe it!" Jace says, throwing his hands up. "It was a weird rocket plant-thing that chased the boat. Another Ultra Beast, supposedly. I had to borrow your pokemon—"
He remembers that part.
"—and I blasted it until it left us alone. Then we got you to a hospital where you've been unconscious for a week. I almost thought you weren't going to wake up, but you weren't in a coma—"
He holds up a hand and attempts to stop the oncoming tirade.
"Well, I'm awake now," and in a lot of pain, he adds mentally, "so could you skip to what you haven't said yet?"
Because Jace is on the verge of a breakdown, and it's not about him as much as that hurts to admit. What could be worse than best friends being eaten by aliens, rescued, almost killed again, and then unconscious in a hospital?
"We're in a world that's nearly identical to our own with no way back," Jace blurts out. "We have no money, house, or family. We don't exist here."
Ah, he thinks, that would do it.