"I choose… Deerling." The grass type's eyes went wide at my declaration, while both Houndour and Rockruff recoiled slightly and whined softly. After a second, Rockruff purposefully returned to Tammy's side and Houndour hesitantly followed.

"Oh don't worry you two. I'm certain you'll have trainers by the end of the day as well," the professor assured as she scratched the two Pokemon on the head. "I'll return you both for now so that I can get Thomas and Deerling set up." Within a few seconds, the two Pokemon were back in their Pokeballs and Tammy busied herself with something at her desk.

Meanwhile, Deerling had still barely moved and I was trying to do the same in order to not startle the seemingly skittish Pokemon. "Don't worry," I said softly, "I think we're going to get along just fine." The grass type hesitantly nodded and I couldn't help but grin at the sight.

"Out of curiosity, what made you choose Deerling?" The professor interjected as she made her way back over to Deerling and me. She was carrying a small gift bag in one hand and held it out to me when she got closer.

"I'm not really sure," I admitted while I accepted the bag and pondered her question. Part of the reason had simply been that Houndour had seemed a little too energetic, but that shouldn't have been a deal-breaker for me. Granted, I'd never really been much of a dog person so maybe that was all there was to it. "I guess it was just a gut feeling that Deerling was the right choice," I added hesitantly.

Surprisingly, Tammy smiled at my reply. "That's as good of an answer as any. Listening to your instincts is vital as a trainer and will take you far." She paused to nod at the gift bag that I was holding, "In there is Deerling's Pokeball, a Poryphone, and five more Pokeballs to help get you started."

I peered into the bag and confirmed that there were six small red and white balls along with what looked like a red and blue smartphone. I wasn't sure what a Poryphone was, though I assumed I'd be able to figure it out on my own so I lowered the bag to my side and simply thanked the professor.

"No problem at all. Do you have any questions before you leave?"

I had more questions than I could count, but it didn't seem like it would be a good idea to ask any of them considering that 'how are Pokemon real' and 'why am I here' currently topped the list. Pushing the extraordinary questions out of the way, I simply asked, "Is there anything I can help you with?" I quickly tried to clarify when Tammy gave me a curious look, "I mean with your research. Is there anything I could do out there that would help?" If I was being honest, the reason behind my question was only partially a genuine desire to help. Despite the wonder of being in a world with Pokemon, I still wanted to return home and it seemed likely that the best way to do that would likely be to investigate anything strange.

"Well aren't you sweet," Tammy gushed to my embarrassment and slight guilt. "I don't have anything at the moment, but I'll keep your offer in mind. For now, you'll be helping me by just going out there and training and catching new Pokemon." She quickly caught herself and clarified, "That said, you should only catch a Pokemon if you're sure that they'll be a good fit for you and the rest of your team. I don't need the data that badly."

I slowly nodded as I considered her instructions. When playing Pokemon games, I'd never had issues swapping around the Pokemon on my team after a new catch or catching something and then permanently boxing it. That had been fine when a Pokemon was nothing except bits on a cartridge, but it made sense that there would be a lot more to think about now. "I'll keep that in mind," I promised.

The professor paused for a second before she continued thoughtfully, "If you're still looking to help out, I would suggest checking in with the DNR. They always have projects going that they need volunteers for."

"DNR, got it," I replied. It wasn't quite what I was looking for, but it would be a decent backup plan if I couldn't come with any other leads.

"If that's all, then I'll let you go. I'm sure you're eager to get started and it seems that I need to do some preparations for when the others arrive."

"Uh, I think that's it," I replied. I had briefly considered if I had any other questions, but ultimately decided that there was nothing urgent. Besides, I didn't want to overstay my welcome. I glanced down to check on Deerling and was mildly surprised to see that the Pokemon had shifted to my side while I had been talking with Tammy. I looked back up at the professor and sincerely added, "Thanks for everything."

"Of course. Do you need me to show you out?"

I shook my head, "Nah, I'm good." I didn't want to inconvenience the professor anymore and definitely didn't want to get pulled into another unwanted conversation about whatever had happened yesterday. I turned towards the door that we had come through and slowly opened it, then quickly added, "Have a good one."

"You too, and good luck!" Tammy said from behind me as Deerling and I walked through the doorway. I let out a relieved sigh when it clicked close behind me and glanced back down at Deerling. The grass type's focus seemed split between staring at the long hallway and looking at me curiously, but when it noticed my attention stared back up at me.

"Well, I guess we should get going," I said mostly to myself and had to remind myself not to be surprised when I saw Deerling reply with a hesitant nod. Talking to an intelligent deer was definitely not something that I was used to, but it seemed that it was my new reality. After an incredulous shake of my head, I began walking back towards the front entrance and a second later I heard the clicking sounds of Deerling's hooves on the tile as it slowly followed me. I had to check my pace a couple of times to make sure that I didn't get too far ahead of the small Pokemon, but after a couple of minutes, we made our way back to the still-empty lobby. Once I had thanked the receptionist for wishing me luck, we went outside and stood uncertainly at the top of the stairs.

"Now what?" I said softly as Deerling and I took in the sight of the city. My goal in coming to the lab had simply been to get information and I'd ended up with a Pokemon along with even more questions. I probably shouldn't have been surprised at this point, but why had the contents of my wallet changed? By my reckoning, at this point the only things that had made the transfer intact were the shorts and t-shirt that I was currently wearing. I supposed that I should be glad that there apparently wasn't a dress code for receiving your first Pokemon since I was underdressed by any reasonable metric.

My train of thought reminded me about the Deerling at my side and I saw that my new Pokemon seemed just as overwhelmed as me. It was standing almost flush with my legs and its head whipped towards the sound of people's voices, revving motors, and various other things in the city. Curiously, I asked, "Is this your first time out in the city?"

"Deee…" the grass type softly whined, which I decided to take as a yes.

"Well, let's go sit down somewhere and we can get our bearings," I said as I looked around for a nearby bench. I couldn't see any nearby but did spot that there were several tables outside of the library across the street. I slowly made my way down the steps, once again making sure that I wasn't getting too far ahead of Deerling, and then crossed the street once a quick check confirmed that there were no buses coming. Not looking before crossing the street had gotten me into this mess and I certainly wasn't eager to repeat that mistake.

After I'd helped Deerling settle into one of the chairs, I sat down in the adjacent one and turned my attention to the bag that the professor had given me. I emptied the gift bag's contents on the table and began my first challenge as a Pokemon trainer: telling which of the six Pokeballs in front of me was Deerling's. All six of the small red and white spheres were identical to my untrained eye and I was afraid of accidentally breaking one by doing something wrong. After a few seconds of pondering the puzzle in front of me, I curiously asked, "Hey Deerling, do you know which one of these is yours?"

The grass type turned its attention away from peering through the library's glass windows towards me and replied, "Deee!" Choosing one of the Pokeballs at random, I picked it up and held it out to Deerling who immediately responded by softly responding, "Liing." On the fourth Pokeball, I finally got another 'Deee' so I quickly set that Pokeball aside and put the other five into my backpack. After a moment's hesitation, I dropped the empty gift bag in there as well. I couldn't imagine it being useful in the future, but it seemed like it would be a waste to just throw it away when I had so few possessions.

I turned my attention to the remaining Pokeball on the table and once again tried and failed to discern any difference between this one and the others. From what I could remember from the show and games, trainers normally kept their Pokeballs in a tote bag or on a belt, but since I had neither, I decided to simply put Deerling's Pokeball into my pocket for now. Finally, I picked up the Poryphone and pressed the power button after taking a moment to find it on the unusual device. It immediately whirred to life and I was greeted with the familiar look of a smartphone home screen. The usual phone, messaging, maps, and contacts apps were there along with one that was labeled Pokemon, which I immediately opened.

Once the app loaded, the screen displayed a single section with data about Deerling, but I was immediately disappointed by the lack of useful information. I'd expected it to include things like nature, level, ability, moves, and maybe even IVs and EVs, but the only listings were for species, type, and gender. While learning that Deerling was male was good knowledge to have, the Pokemon app looked like it was completely worthless otherwise.

Frustrated, I exited out and stared at my reflection in the home screen trying to figure out what I should do next. Even though I had a Pokemon now, I still had no leads on what to do next other than a vague idea of helping out the DNR with volunteer work. I supposed that Pokemon gyms were probably a thing here, but it didn't seem likely that challenging them would give me any clues on how to get home any faster. That said, I had no other ideas so I opened up the maps app and after a second a zoomed-out view of the entire state appeared on the phone with a small marker on Minneapolis.

I was about to enter 'Pokemon gyms' into the search bar but suddenly had a different idea. Holding the Poryphone in my left hand, I dug into my pocket with my other and retrieved my wallet to reference my ID. I quickly typed in the unfamiliar address that was listed on my ID and watched expectantly as the map zoomed in on the north metro. When the animation had finished, it marked a house on the western side of Blaine that was the only house on its street. Seeing the location on a map didn't mean any more to me than the address by itself had, but I decided that I still needed to check it out. Even though my name and age were different, I had documentation that suggested that me, or some version of me, belonged here. That must mean that my parents, or some version of them, were here as well. Maybe they could help me make sense of what had happened to me.

Without thinking about it anymore, I pressed the button to calculate the route and grunted in annoyance at the result. A four-hour walk was about what I had expected, but I still wasn't happy about it. Granted, I didn't have any other options since I didn't have a car or even know how to drive one, and I doubted there would be any buses heading out of the city considering it was still a couple of hours before noon. I technically could try to take a taxi, but that didn't seem like a good idea when I didn't know how much money I had. I had noted that there were a decent number of bills in my wallet with fairly high denominations but without any reference for prices that didn't mean much. After all, in the Pokemon games a lemonade cost about three hundred if I remembered correctly.

Resigned to my new task, I pulled myself to my feet and smiled when Deerling's head immediately swiveled towards me. He had been so quiet while I'd been checking out the Poryphone that I'd almost forgotten that he was sitting next to me. "You think you're up for a walk? I've got something that I need to go check out." Deerling nodded at the question, then slowly extracted himself from his seated position and made the short jump back to the ground. I stuffed the Poryphone into my left pocket and put my backpack back on. I would need the phone later for more precise directions, but for now, all we were doing was heading due north.

Since we first needed to cross back over the river, I set off east back towards the Stone Arch Bridge while making sure that I wasn't getting more than a couple of steps ahead of Deerling. Even with the time he'd had to observe the city, Deerling's wide eyes made me think he was still fairly nervous, so I kept my pace slow hoping that he wouldn't feel rushed. While we retraced my earlier steps, this time I tried to pay less attention to the Pokemon and more to the city around me. The general architecture seemed to be more or less the same as the Minneapolis that I was used to, though the buildings were certainly shorter. Despite that, the skyway connecting much of downtown was still intact and even seemed expanded compared to what I remembered.

We reached the bridge about fifteen minutes after leaving the library and after I gave him a few reassurances, Deerling cautiously walked onto the bridge with me. The bridge was already much more crowded than it had been on my initial crossing as it was filled with other pedestrians and cyclists. The extra crowd meant that we were forced to walk on the far-right side of the bridge, which Deerling did not appreciate. If he walked on my left he was surrounded by strangers and being on my right meant that he had to stare at the rushing water far below us.

"We'll be on the other side soon," I promised the clearly uncomfortable Pokemon, but my reassurances didn't seem to help very much. After a few seconds, I added, "We'll be in a forest as soon as we finish crossing." This news was much better received and after glancing down at the river one last time, Deerling set his eyes forward and purposefully strolled down the bridge at my side.

Looking at the passing people and Pokemon, I started to notice an unexpected trend among the humans in this world. Either hair dye was wildly popular or the range of natural hair colors was far wider than what I was used to. In addition to the expected colors, I also saw people with various shades of red, blue, orange, and green, the last of which made me realize that I had spotted Officer Jenny again. I briefly considered stopping to thank her for the directions but decided against it. It was entirely possible that she had already forgotten about me or that this was a different Officer Jenny, and I didn't want to deal with the awkward conversation that would arise from either situation.

When we eventually made it through the crowd and reached the northern side of the river, both Deerling and I sighed in relief. "You good to keep going or do you want to rest for a bit?" I asked the Pokemon and was immediately answered when he pranced towards the trailhead that was a short distance away from the end of the bridge. When he reached the start of the three trails, he turned back towards me with a questioning look. "The center one," I called out as I increased my pace to catch up. I hadn't noticed the trails when I was looking at the map earlier, but that seemed like a safe bet since we were heading due north.

As we walked on the trail, Deerling stayed about fifteen feet ahead of me, though I could tell from the twitching of his ears that he was making sure that I was still following. Otherwise, he seemed completely at ease in the forest as he confidently continued down the dirt trail. On the other hand, my unease had simply transferred from being surrounded by strangers to being worried about us being attacked by wild Pokemon. As with my earlier travel through this forest, I could hear the sounds of Pokemon all around us and suddenly I couldn't think about anything except the start of the gen three games when Professor Birch is attacked by a Poochyena.

Fifteen worry-filled minutes later, we emerged from the treeline and onto a small residential road. Surprisingly, the houses were fairly spread out which was not what I would have expected this close to downtown. In this part of the cities, I was used to seeing the houses basically on top of each other with little room for a yard, but here the space between the houses was what I would have expected to see in the outer suburbs. I pushed aside my thoughts on population density when I spotted the continuation of the trail on the other side of the road. I would have enough time to consider things like that once I'd arrived at my destination and seen my parents.

Deerling stuck close to my side as we crossed the road but once again pulled ahead of me once we were on the lightly-forested trail. As we continued to walk, I slowly relaxed from the nervous state that I had been in earlier. Just because I knew there were wild Pokemon around didn't mean that they were necessarily aggressive. In fact, I supposed that it would have been odd if we were attacked this close to a major city since Pokemon that lived around here would definitely be used to people.

We ended up having to cross a few smaller roads on our route, until about an hour and a half after leaving Minneapolis we came to a large road. After a few seconds of looking and being unable to find the continuation of the path, I pulled out my Poryphone and remapped the directions while Deerling waited patiently by my side. I was immediately disheartened when the map did load, as it looked like we had barely gone a third of the way to my parent's house.

Seeing that the rest of the route was mostly walking alongside roads rather than taking pedestrian paths didn't improve my mood. Thankfully, the road we were currently on at least had a sidewalk so we wouldn't have to walk on the shoulder. From looking at the map, we could technically continue our path due north by cutting cross-country, but I didn't want to get in trouble for accidentally walking through someone's backyard.

"You good to keep going?" I asked Deerling since he had slowed down a little over the last ten minutes. Before the grass type could respond, a car whizzed past and Deerling jumped back in surprise. Trying to be reassuring, I continued, "It's fine if not. I could return you and go the rest of the way on my own." I somewhat hoped that he would agree since the walk would take a lot longer if Deerling was surprised by every car that passed us. It was something he would have to get used to eventually, but right now I was more concerned with reaching our destination. There would be time enough for that once I'd seen my parents and we had a bit more stability.

Thankfully, Deerling agreed with an emphatic nod after another car went past, so I retrieved his Pokeball from my pocket before realizing that I didn't actually know how the small devices worked. Granted, considering that it was a smooth ball with a single button on the front, I figured that there was only one way that they could work. I softly pressed the button with my thumb, causing a red beam of light to shoot out of the ball and engulf Deerling. Within a second, both the light and Deerling had vanished and when I looked back at the Pokeball I could see Deerling staring back at me from inside.

I had planned to put the Pokeball back into my pocket after returning Deerling, but now that I knew he could see out of it, that didn't seem like the best plan. If our positions had been reversed, I definitely wouldn't want to be stuck in a small ball within a dark pocket. Now that I had looked at the Pokeball more closely, I realized that it didn't have anything to affix it to bags or belts as I'd previously assumed. I experimentally pressed the back of the Pokeball near the bottom of my t-shirt and was surprised when it stuck. I tried removing and adhering the Pokeball a few more times until I was satisfied that it wouldn't fall off, then moved onto the sidewalk and started heading north again. I certainly didn't understand how Pokeballs worked, but figuring that out wasn't a priority right now.

The rest of my journey was almost indistinguishable from the long walks that I would do back home, apart from the occasional glimpse or sound of a Pokemon. It seemed that wild Pokemon kept their distance from cars and as a result, I saw little evidence of them since I stayed on or near roads the entire time. The sky was completely clear of clouds so it was a little warm in the sun though thankfully the temperature wasn't high enough that it was a problem. During the walk, I passed a few small parks and made sure to get water at their drinking fountains, but otherwise I continued heading north without any interruptions.

When I felt that I was starting to get close, I pulled out my Poryphone and was pleased to see that I only had another twenty minutes to go. I was about six blocks east of where I needed to be, but otherwise following the roads going out of the cities for the last couple of hours had served me well. I kept the phone in my left hand for easy reference as I eagerly completed the last leg of my journey. Despite my weariness from walking for so long, I was able to increase my pace to a slow jog that I was somehow able to maintain until I reached the neighborhood that my parents' house was in.

Similar to all of the other houses that I'd seen today, the homes here were about the same size as what I was used to, but they had absolutely massive yards in comparison. I'd always been able to avoid the chore of mowing the lawn back home and hoped that the trend would continue here. Oddly, I didn't see any other people as I moved through the neighborhood, though it was obvious that all of the houses were occupied judging from their well-maintained lawns and front gardens. Ultimately, I decided that it didn't matter and figured that the neighborhood's inhabitants must either be inside or on a day trip for the holiday.

When I finally turned onto the road that my parents' house was on, I almost tripped in shock at the sight. In stark contrast to the rest of the neighborhood, this road was riddled with potholes and the yard was overgrown with tall grass. There was a single blue house at the end of the street, but even from a distance I could see it had boards over the windows. Any thoughts of exhaustion immediately left my head as I broke into a sprint and charged towards the front of the house.

I barely noticed the broken mailbox in front of the house. I ignored the massive cracks in the driveway. I didn't stop to look at the rotting wooden boards that made up the front patio. I raced past everything and continuously mashed my finger against the doorbell. When I realized that I couldn't hear any sound from the doorbell, I switched to loudly knocking on the front door. After almost a full minute of pounding my fist on the door, my legs finally gave out and I slowly sunk to my knees in front of the abandoned house.

I had been wrong. My parents weren't here.

I was alone.


A/N: Sorry to those of you who were rooting for Houndour and Rockruff, but Deerling was always the plan as there's some particularly fun stuff that I can do with Deerling. On that note, thank you so much to every who reviewed/favorited/followed, I'm incredibly grateful for the initial reception you guys gave. Also, thanks again to krazykz for betaing. Next up is Chapter 3: Rival One.