A loud electronic beeping shook me awake. Still half asleep, I instinctively reached over and hit the snooze button on my alarm clock. Rubbing my eyes and sitting up, I let out a slight groan. Once I turned on the lamp and pushed away the covers, I heard a slight,
"Riii…" from across the room. It startled me at first, but then I remembered the events which unfolded during the night. The still unanswered questions that I'd thought up before suddenly came rushing back into my head.
"Morning, Riolu," I muttered, putting my glasses on, and throwing my legs over the side of the bed. Looking over to the top of the dresser, I saw Riolu huddled against the back wall, scared stiff. His eyes were focused on me and he was breathing hard. "Woah, woah. Are you alright?" He didn't move and responded with a tiny whimper. "Did... Did my alarm scare you?" He nodded slowly. "Aww, I'm sorry. But look, there's nothing to be afraid of." I moved to the side, revealing the clock behind me. He still didn't budge, eyes now transfixed on it. Seeing his reaction, I figured I would just let the situation pan out. "Look, I've got to be out at the bus stop in half an hour. Why don't you stay here while I get ready for school and wake up some more? I'll be right in the bathroom if you need me, okay?"
Then, it dawned on me. What if my mom and I were the only ones with Pokémon? Should I take Riolu to school, or leave him here?
I quickly changed into some black cargo shorts, my favorite blue t-shirt, and a plain gray zip-up sweatshirt before rushing to brush my teeth and comb my hair. Around 6:35, I walked into my mom's room, nearly running into Blastoise.
"Oh, good morning," I shyly replied; it smiled politely back at me. "Where's mom?"
"Over here, Lukas." Blastoise stepped to the side, revealing my mom in a fancy black work outfit. "What's up, honey?" she asked, carefully putting on mascara. Her hair was still wet from the shower.
"I need your advice about something," I questioned.
"Ask away; I'm all ears."
"Do you think I should take Riolu to school with me?" She paused and put down her tiny mascara brush.
"I... don't really know. I'm only now realizing that we might be the only people who have Pokémon. I feel like... I feel like it would be wise to leave him here, but..." She thought about it more while rummaging through her make-up drawer. Finally, she responded, "Take Riolu with you, but don't let him out of his Poké Ball. Then after school, you two can walk home on that forest path you like so! Just make sure to keep an eye out for people, of course."
"That works for me. Thanks, mom." As I turned around to head back to my room, I found Riolu in the doorway. I guess he'd finally mustered up enough courage to get past my alarm clock, but I could tell by his expression that he was still frightened. Bending down to meet him, I asked, "Hey, Riolu. Do you want to come to school with me?" Riolu looked confused at my request. "You can stay here, but you'll be home alone until 2:30-ish." As soon as I was done talking, I could immediately tell he didn't want to be by himself, so he quickly started to nod yes; I couldn't help letting out a chuckle. "Sweet. Oh, but just know that if you go with me, you'll probably have to stay in your Poké Ball for a while. I don't know how other people would react if they saw you." Riolu nodded his head yes again in agreement, glancing over his shoulder at the entrance to my room. Smiling, I stood back up and headed for my room to get his Poké Ball.
Once Riolu had returned to his ball, I grabbed my earbuds from my nightstand and headed to the back wall outlet where my phone was charging. Glancing over at my alarm clock, it was now 6:38, and I needed to leave as soon as possible to catch the bus. But as I approached my phone, I noticed something was different. It had the same shape and size of my smartphone, but it was now lined with red with white accents, the bottom of the device was rounded like a Poké Ball, and there was a shallow blue button in place of where the home button usually was. Confused and intrigued, I picked it up.
Holding down the power switch on the side like I normally did, the text, "Welcome to PokéNav v.2.0.1", eventually popped up. After a boot sequence, the screen showed a default lock screen and displayed the time as 6:39 AM. I briefly wondered how and when my phone had been replaced, but I mostly wanted to explore more of the strange new device. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time; if I didn't leave now, I'd definitely miss the bus. Dropping the PokéNav into my pocket next to Riolu's Poké Ball, I walked out of my room and loudly exclaimed,
"Bye mom, bye Blastoise!" From her room, I heard both Blastoise and mom say their goodbyes as I headed into the kitchen and out the front door.
I got to the bus stop at 6:43; I know this because I was back on my PokéNav as soon as I stepped outside. Now that I finally had some free time, I quickly glossed over the list of apps on the home screen. I counted two new ones- "Pokédex", and "Camera Scanner". I desperately wanted to check them out, but as I heard the sound of the bus coming up the hill, I turned the screen off and shoved the PokéNav back in my pocket, wishing the bus driver wasn't always on time.
I instinctively found a seat in the back row of the bus. Since I was always one of the last to get on, I was always stuck there. Once I was situated, I peeked my head out from my seat and looked down the aisle. Everything seemed normal; no one had their Pokémon out, and no one seemed to be playing on a PokéNav either. It was just a normal, boring Monday bus ride. Sitting back down, I pulled out my PokéNav again, setting my backpack on the edge of the seat closest to the aisle to hide from any nosy classmates.
I found that the Pokédex app had all 896 Pokémon registered, but strangely, only the entry for Riolu had any written data. The Camera Scanner app brought up a camera, and whenever I took a photo it would say in bold text on the screen, "No Pokémon Found." Swiping through the screens of apps again, I found that none were missing from my previous phone. To my surprise, even the Contacts app, Photos app, and Music app still had all my saved phone numbers, photos, and songs; the headphone jack at the bottom of the device even fit my earbuds.
But in almost no time, I felt the bus come to a stop and I realized we were parked in the front bus loop of the school. Disappointed that the ride had gone by so quickly, I unhappily slipped the PokéNav back into my pocket once more, put my backpack on, and got into the line to get off the bus.
Joining the silent crowd of students walking towards the front entrance of the school, I fiddled with Riolu's Poké Ball in my pocket. I suddenly longed to be able to do something together with him, but I was also eager to work towards answering the mystery of the sudden arrival of Pokémon. However, even after classes ended for the day, I'd still have to do homework until early evening, leaving only a couple hours at best. I briefly thought about skipping class, but there was no way I'd allow myself to do so (and my mother would kill me if she found out). With an annoyed sigh, I opened the doors to the school, wondering if I'd ever find the time. But as soon as I walked into the front foyer and saw the sights around me, my eyes lit up and my worries faded away.
All around me were people and Pokémon; one of the well-dressed math teachers came down the hallway with a Magneton hovering over his shoulder, a 10th grader I knew walked in beside me with a Pidove poking its head out from her pink backpack, and the principal strolled by with his Blissey by his side, adjusting his tie and confidently grinning at everyone who passed. One by one, students had the same realization as me and let their Pokémon out, excited to show their partners off to their friends. It was quite the sensory overload, but all I knew was that I was extremely happy; I wasn't the only one who had a Pokémon!
My first instinct was to check in with my friends. I ran down the hallway and turned right, heading to the library where we hung out before first period as fast as I could, weaving in between the equally amazed students and all kinds of Pokémon.
As I barged in through the library's entrance way, I was even more astonished. The room was nearly filled to the brim with all kinds of people and Pokémon happily mingling with each other, even in the back by the bookshelves. I walked slowly around the front rows of computers, jaw agape looking at the sights and sounds. My mind raced at a mile a minute thinking of all the doors Pokémon would open up both in and out of school.
I eventually arrived at the table where my friends and I usually hung out in the back corner of the library; luckily, nobody had taken it yet. Pulling out one of the chairs and sitting down, I started searching through the crowd for my friends.
Just then, a lone blue figure hopped up onto the table in front of me from seemingly nowhere. It came to stop right in front of me, the sound of its claws scratching on laminated wood breaking through the commotion. Its pointy teeth and blue scaly skin brought a name to my tongue.
"Wow, a real Totodile!" I naively exclaimed, eyes full of stars.
"Toto!" it cried, in a raspy, high pitched voice, hopping up and down happily. It then turned towards me and didn't hesitate to let a Water Gun out right in my face. The splash of weirdly warm water caught me off guard, and I recoiled backwards, tumbling hard down to the ground with a sizable thud.
"Ugh..." I mumbled, rolling away from the chair. An eruption of laughter came from the crowd around me, causing me to blush. I stood up slowly, embarrassed more than mad. I quickly sat the chair back upright and took a seat again, awkwardly awaiting the audience's attention to be pulled away again. In the meantime, Totodile continued to bounce up and down on the table, happy as could be.
After a couple seconds of nervous smiles and unpleasant stare downs, the coast was finally clear. I sighed in relief and took off my sweatshirt, setting it on top of my backpack; it was sopping wet.
"Totodile! Hey, Totodile! Where'd you go?" I heard someone shouting from the crowd right then. Hearing the voice, Totodile stopped jumping for joy and turned towards the source. From behind a bookshelf to the left, my best friend Cian came into view.
We'd been friends since I moved into town in the 6th grade; he was the first person I met who played the same video games as me, so we instantly hit it off. He was wearing the same thing he always did: a baggy black hoodie with a bit of his blonde hair protruding out from under the hood, as well as a pair of dark blue jeans.
Once he noticed Totodile on the table, he turned his gaze my way and we locked eyes.
"Luke?" I heard him say as he walked in closer. "Why are you…?" he questioned, putting two and two together. "Totodile!" Cian yelped, sounding surprisingly cross. "Did you do this?" Totodile's happy expression suddenly changed into a sad frown. He lowered his head in shame, knowing what it'd done was wrong. "Say that you're sorry, right now!" Totodile turned to me and let out a small,
"Dile." I smiled at him and said aloud,
"No worries, Totodile." Of course, my grin was more of a smirk, but it seemed to work, as Totodile beamed back at me and began jumping once again. Cian couldn't help but smile at his partner's reaction before pulling out a chair across from me and sitting down. Totodile then hopped down off the table and went to stand next to Cian, who turned to me with an apologetic look.
"Hey, uh, sorry about that," he said sincerely.
"No need to worry about it. It's fine," I replied, my cheeks still a little hot from the embarrassment.
"Well, I hope he learned his lesson," Cian added, pointing down to Totodile, who was excitedly watching the people and the Pokémon pass by.
"Where are Alec and Ethan? They're not with you?" I inquired, trying to move the conversation forwards.
"I think they're off doing their homework somewhere. Y'know how they always wait until the last minute." I scoffed and nodded, briefly recounting in my head what homework I had due today.
"Sooooo… How was your weekend?" Cian asked me after a short pause.
"Honestly, not that great. I had to work both days, and the pizza place was crazy busy yesterday. My legs are still killing me from standing for so long... Other than that, I guess it was okay," I replied with a sigh.
"That sucks. I'm glad my mom hasn't made me get a job yet," Cian added.
"It's a good way to get cash, but man, it sure is a pain in the ass sometimes. I swear that everyone in there has it out for me or something..."
"Yeah, that's what I don't like about it. I'd love the extra money, but it's too big a responsibility. Besides, I enjoy having plenty of time to do what I want. I mean, I did nothing all weekend, and I definitely prefer it that way. That is, until last night." Cian finished with a smirk, to which I replied back with a similar one. "Speaking of last night, what kind of Pokémon did you get?"
"Here, I'll show you!" I said, wondering why it took him so long to ask. I brought Riolu's Poké Ball out of my pocket and pressed the middle button, all the while keeping that same smirk smeared across my face. The ball resized in my hand and I held out my arm with the ball held tight inside. "You can come out now," I stated. There was a flash of light, and within an instant, Riolu stood in the middle of the table. Cian gasped.
"You got a Riolu?! No way!" Totodile hopped up on Cian's lap to get a look, and its eyes widened as it saw a new friend. Cian reached out to Riolu to say hello, but he was instantly frightened, being as shy as he was. It was definitely a combination of a stranger reaching out towards him and all the new sights and loud sounds of the crazy library. Before Cian could make contact, Riolu let out a small yelp and hopped off the table to hide under my chair, shuttering in fear while holding onto a chair leg.
"Hey, hey. It's going to be alright," I coaxed, leaning over to get face to face with him. "This is Cian and his Totodile; they're my friends. Why don't you come out here and greet them…?" Riolu clutched onto the chair leg even more as I reached down to console him. With a worried sigh, I added, "Alright, Riolu. Why don't you return to your Poké Ball and I'll let you come out later when there aren't as many people around?" Riolu nodded slowly, still shivering. I returned him to his Poké Ball with a red flash.
As I sat back up, Cian and Totodile both looked deeply confused by Riolu's sudden emotion change.
"What's wrong with Riolu?" Cian asked.
"I think he's shy. All last night and this morning he was super cautious and jumpy."
"...Well, why don't we go for a walk with our Pokémon sometime? We can show them around town and get to know each other better. I'm sure it would at least kinda help." I thought about it for a second, realizing it would be killing two birds with one stone. "When are you free next?" Cian asked again. I opened my mouth to reply, but a harsh voice arising from the crowd cut me off.
"You're nothing but a wimp!" Cian and I turned our attention to the table closest to the wall on our left to see the infamous Eliza tormenting a young, fancy dressed freshman boy. Eliza was everyone's favorite "13th grader", who was expected to graduate the year before, but was unsurprisingly back in full swing this semester, presumably due to failing grades. She always wore checkered flannel shirts with skinny jeans, had her hair in a ponytail, and sported a scar on her cheek that people always made fake origin stories about.
Rumor was that she had problems at home which ignited her attitude, but that was just the word on the wind. She'd even bullied me a couple times when I was younger because we rode the same bus to-and-from school, but who hadn't she been mean to? I bet everyone in the school had at least one story they could tell about Eliza messing with them in one way or another.
She was up close in the freshman's face, a Froakie beside her on top of the table trying to be just as intimidating as her. The freshman was pushed back into the chair, sweating nervously with a Poké Ball in hand.
"My Froakie could easily beat your Vanillite anytime. Don't go advertising that you have, 'the best Pokémon' if you can't back it up. Honestly, you freshmen are all bark and no bite. And don't let me catch you bragging again, or else we'll have another chat. Got it?"
As soon as she finished, Eliza's Froakie got into an arms-crossed, tough-guy look to push her point home. The freshman gulped and nodded yes slowly before Eliza bent back.
"Good," she grumbled before walking away, her Froakie bounding off the table and following close behind. Once the two of them had paraded out of sight into the crowd, the freshman relaxed and let out a sigh of relief. Cian then turned back to me and replied,
"That poor guy; Eliza is such a bully. Honestly, if that was me, I would have done something." He then paused and looked away. I think we both knew that if we were being bullied by Eliza, we wouldn't have the nerve or guts to fight back. Occasionally, I had daydreams of standing up to her (and the chaos that ensued because of it) from time to time during my most boring classes, but I never particularly wanted to see it become a reality. The whole school clearly felt the same way because no one ever interfered; even the teachers sometimes hesitated to stop her sometimes. Hopefully someday before I graduated high school, I would get to see someone end her mean streak.
Just then, the five minute warning bell rang.
"There's the bell. I've got to get going, so see you around! Hope Riolu gets over his shyness soon. Oh, and text me if you want to go for that walk!" Cian said, returning Totodile to his Poké Ball and turning around to head for the entrance.
"I'll let you know!" I called out to Cian as he was instantly lost in the sea of people. Once he was out of sight, I looked down at Riolu's Poké Ball in my hand. It was probably going to be quite the task to get him over his social anxiety, but I promised to myself that I wouldn't give up trying. After all, Riolu was my partner, even if we did just meet the night before. I smiled thinking about the meeting with Cian later in the week and shrunk the Poké Ball before slipping it back into my pocket. I then grabbed my bag and headed for the door to get to class.
Global Culinary was my first class of the day. We were supposed to be learning about cooking safety, but that never actually happened; everyone was still sharing their stories about how they got their Pokémon. My culinary teacher looked like she had been up all night, so she didn't bother trying to teach us anything. Next to her stood a Wigglytuff, who looked quite nervous and awkward. It glanced anxiously around the room, looking just as scared as Riolu had been. It got under my skin a little knowing the teacher probably couldn't care less about Pokémon coming to our world, but I tried not to dwell on it too much as I continued to converse with my classmates.
The next couple class periods were the same. There was no teaching, only Pokémon. Of course I was okay with it because this was the first time I could talk about Pokémon and not sound like a complete nerd. I spoke with people in every class, even with people I disliked or didn't know. No one could get enough of their Pokémon partners, and I was the exact same way. What was there not to love about them?
All morning, the principal made announcements through the PA system trying to force students into putting away their Pokémon. Teachers joined in too, rallying to start teaching. However, it was no use; there weren't any rules about Pokémon in school and everyone figured the pros of their new partners outweighed the cons of the punishment, so when teachers prompted students with detention, they just shrugged it off.
Eventually in the early afternoon, I made my way to Chemistry. After ten minutes of trying to teach, the teacher gave up and got into a "combat-ready" pose with his Sudowoodo in an attempt to get someone to battle them. For the rest of the class, time passed quickly as much of the same happened. Two minutes before the bell was supposed to ring, I grabbed my bag and stood up. I headed for the door when the familiar static clicking noise came from the PA system.
Oh boy, another public service announcement about putting away your Pokémon, I thought to myself.
"Attention all students and staff. We are investigating the power outage and are hoping to find the source as soon as possible. Please wait in your current class until the next announcement is made. That is all." There was another click and the voice went silent. Power outage? What power outage? The lights aren't even off in this room.
I wasn't the only one who thought this was strange, as people began to pile into the hallway to investigate. I followed the herd and pushed my way out into the halls, mainly just to leave class a little early.
Listening into the gossip among the crowd, it seemed that only certain sections of the school were without power. It was a little strange for the school to have a power outage, but not uncommon, especially since they'd just started the long-proposed construction on the cafeteria. Luckily, the science hallway was unaffected, hence why the power was still on in the chemistry room. But as I walked down the hallway, the lights flickered and turned off, leaving the part without windows pitch black. Fortunately, my next class was right down to the left, so I was able to make it safely to the room before there was any panic.
As I entered the math classroom, a hot, humid splash of air hit me. Although my school wasn't air conditioned, something about having no power made the temperature even hotter. It was now early October, and for some reason, the western New York weather stayed unusually hot. It was officially Autumn, but it seemed that mother nature wanted Summer to have one last hurrah before it disappeared for a year.
Sitting in the back of the classroom near the windows and ignoring the futile attempts my teacher was making to teach class, I was nearly dripping in sweat. I constantly glanced out the window to my left, watching the grass on the steep hill beside my school wave in the breeze, wishing that the immense heat would go away.
Not long into class, the clicking sound to the PA system sounded again, readying for another transmission. Surprisingly, everyone stopped talking and listened. However, no sound came out, and we were all just staring blankly at the circular speaker in the ceiling. After a short pause, people resumed their conversations, while the teacher continued her rally for everyone to stop talking and listen to her lesson.
"School will be shu-" suddenly came from the PA system. Some people were startled by the sudden announcement, while others looked puzzled as to where the sound had come from. Somehow, the power outage must have messed with the PA system too. "All teachers dismi... ents to the bus… oop, scho... is adj… orned for to... ay." The announcement clicked off, and there was a short pause. It only took people a second to realize what the announcement said.
"I think it said something about early dismissal," someone in the front row said.
"Let's get out of here!" two girls replied. Students in other classrooms were beginning to understand the message too and began making their way out into the halls as well. Of course all my classmates followed suit, crowding into the hallways all at once. The teacher, giving it one last try, again protested that,
"School wasn't cancelled," and that, "we needed to do our classwork." But everyone, including myself, had already left the classroom and were on their way home, overjoyed to be excused from school so suddenly.
Heeding my mother's advice from that morning, I decided to walk home instead of taking the bus. Even though my house wasn't too close to school, I kept thinking about how to help Riolu get over his nervousness. My conclusion was that the more I had Riolu out in the world, the friendlier he would get towards me and his surroundings.
Once we were out of school grounds, I took him out of his ball and we walked down the road's shoulder side-by-side to the forest-covered gravel path, which eventually led up to my neighborhood. Along the way, Riolu and I didn't say much. I attempted to make conversation with him a couple times, but I gave up quickly once I found that the language barrier and our combined social anxiety kept the talk short.
Finally feeling relief now that I wasn't stuck in those hot classrooms, I took pleasure in watching all the foliage dancing and swaying in an early Autumn breeze. The leaves on the forest trees were just starting to turn different colors, and there were even some small piles of them already gathering up at the stumps of the tallest trees. Taking a deep breath, the smell of the forest wafted into my nose for the first time in a while. Yep, everything here seemed to point to a normal New York Autumn. But as I looked closer into the details of the scenery, I noticed some differences.
Instead of squirrels climbing through branches and up trees, there were Patrats and the occasional Rattata. High up above the canopy of branches, the birds that soared through the air were replaced with Pidoves and Pidgeys. Underneath a bridge, Ducklett and Swanna were swimming on top of the clear water. What'd happened to all the animals? Had they all been changed into Pokémon too? If so, what else changed? And for what reason did all this happen… Just what was the cause?
An hour or two later, Riolu and I finally made it back to my mom's condo. Pulling my PokéNav out to check the time before we headed in, I found it was about 1:15 PM. I then slipped it back into my pocket and then beckoned for Riolu to follow me, more than ready to bask in the air conditioning. But as I was about to unlock the front door that separated the outside from the inside for security, I noticed that my keys were missing. Upon seeing this, a sense of dread loomed over me and I frantically searched through my backpack.
"They were here this morning…" I mumbled, tossing binders and papers around. Riolu looked worried that I was tearing up my belongings but did nothing to stop it. After a minute or two, I finally gave up. I must've left my keys in the house, and I hadn't noticed this morning; guess I was too involved in my PokéNav. Turning to Riolu while shoving the mess I'd made back into my bag, I propositioned,
"Hey, why don't we go to Hart's Woods, Riolu?" He had a puzzled look on his face, so I figured he'd need an explanation. "Hart's Woods is over there," I pointed Southwest behind some other buildings. "I go there for walks sometimes. We're going to have to wait until my mom gets home to go inside, so we might as well enjoy the outdoors as much as possible. Right?" He reluctantly nodded, obviously also tired from the walk home. Slipping my bag back on, I started walking towards Hart's Woods with Riolu right behind me.