Time passed Alex as he made his way out of the city. He normally enjoyed walks, but this one was simply excruciating. He had been walking for what seemed to him like hours, staring only at the ground in front of him. He simply let his feet take him down the usual path he took with his car to get home and tried to ignore the rest of his surroundings if he could avoid it. Alex took a deep breath and decided to try and use this time of relative peace to gather his thoughts. 'So... I'm a mew, huh. And it looks like a good chunk of the rest of the world are pokemon too. And apparently, not only are we pokemon, but we have their powers too. It's still just completely unbelievable this is actually happening. And yet...' Alex, up until this point, had been trying to ignore his surroundings, but he let himself gaze upon the highway at all of the motionless cars, just trying to make sense of the scene before him. Every single vehicle was completely motionless, which was nothing new for this particular highway, but then Alex had to note how eerily silent everything was as well. A lot of the vehicles seemed to be in more than serviceable condition, but couldn't move due to being boxed in by wrecks on either side. '...and yet how else could something like this happen?'
Alex briefly glanced around at the surrounding buildings, almost trying to convince himself that something else caused the massive gridlock. Something he could at least make sense of and that had a rational explanation. An earthquake, a hurricane, anything. Even an attack of some sort. And yet the buildings seemed to be in perfect condition... well, perfect enough for a city as large as Austin. No signs of a natural disaster either. This really is for real...
Alex cut himself off this troubling thought process, and once again forced his gaze down to the ground in front of him and continued to press onward. 'I guess at some point I need to teach myself how to defend myself. If this is indeed permanent, I need to adapt to this new society in any way I can. The sooner the better. These... urf, these next couple months are going to be incredibly dangerous. Thankfully mew can learn almost any move in existence if the games are reliable enough to go by.' That last thought caused Alex to stop in his tracks.
...
'Actually, that's a good point. If humans have the ability to turn into pokemon at will, then what rules apply to us? Do we follow anime or game logic more?' Alex pondered that question for a moment, then waved it off and kept walking. 'Fuck it, not an important enough question to answer right away.'
Alex sighed and walked down the exit ramp that took him to his part of town. 'I just hope Dad and Cassie are okay.' Alex instinctively pulled out his phone. No new alerts... and it was also on 9% battery life. Alex bit the bottom of his lip. 'Fuck, you are kidding me- no wait, I'm sure they're fine. I'll just check in on the office and then if they aren't there, I'll head home, plug my phone in, and wait for Dad to get back to me. They'll be fine.' Alex wasn't sure if he even believed himself, but he slipped the phone back into his pocket and continued onward.
Alex stepped up to a large office building. His dad's place of work. If Alex was going to find him anywhere today, it would be here. He took a quick breath silently hoping to himself he'd find him, and walked inside. There seemed to be no one in the lobby. Thankfully, he already knew what floor his dad's office was in, having visited him once before. Alex made a quick elevator trip up to the 7th floor and saw two men, a skinny one with blonde hair and a slightly larger one with black hair and a mustache and beard, sitting on the elevator side bench with a very distressed small black haired woman.
Alex walked up to them, half wondering if this was a good time, but he shoved those thoughts aside. This was for family. "Um.. excuse me?" The two men looked up immediately, as did the woman after a brief delay. Alex shifted slightly, feeling very uncomfortable at the moment. "Do uh... do you guys happen to know if a 'Nathaniel Lawrence' is here right now?"
"No, he left yesterday very soon after the multiple car accidents. Are you his son?" The blonde haired man asked.
Alex gave a small grunt of frustration. Oh well. He figured it was a long shot anyway. He just had to check. "Yea, I am. I was stuck downtown overnight and had to walk all the way over here on foot. I found my mom downtown, but neither of us has seen Dad or my sister, and we're just a bit worried as all..."
The bearded man smiled a bit and spoke up. "I wouldn't worry about it. Your dad wasn't on the road when it happened, and he knows how to take care of himself. He mentioned he was going to get your sister, actually. He said something about her having a sleepover last night even before things went sideways."
Alex couldn't help but smile a bit. "Oh good... not gonna lie, that eases my worries a bit. Thanks." The response from the two men were completely lost on Alex, however, as he took a closer look at the woman. She gave Alex a halfhearted smile, but she was visibly trembling and sitting as if she wanted to curl up by herself. "Are you okay, miss? No one you know got hurt, did they?" Alex couldn't stop himself from asking.
"H-huh? Oh, no no, nothing like that. I'm sure my family is all fine. I'm just... stressed by the whole thing. An office building isn't the best place to spend the night, but.. w-well what are you gonna do when you can't get anywhere? Haha..."
Alex narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. Something felt wrong with the way she said that. Alex felt like she was telling the truth, but not the full truth. Then it hit him and Alex's gaze softened. "You turned into one of them, didn't you."
The woman visibly flinched and her gaze shot up to meet Alex's, as if she were being accused of a horrific crime. "Wh-what do you mean? One of them, what do- what's 'one of them'?!" She practically shouted.
Alex flinched at her sudden outburst, but then looked away for the briefest of moments, pursing his lips, and gave a calm exhale. Bingo. "You aren't the only one. I don't know if you guys had a chance to hear, but a massive group of the world's population had turned into them too. That's what caused the accidents to begin with."
The two men beside the woman looked surprised, but Alex was mostly concerned about the woman for the moment. He saw multiple emotions running through her all at once, but the one he was able to see most, he could easily relate to. Relief. She wasn't the only one. Before she could say anything, however, the bearded man spoke up first. "H-hang on, you're saying that she isn't the only one? And the traffic accidents aren't cuz of that explosion?"
Alex nodded to confirm the man's thoughts. "She isn't. The creatures-" Alex blinked. "Wait, what? What explosion?"
The man gave Alex a funny look. "You know, the big explosion that sounded like a mix of a bomb going off and glass shattering? I'm pretty sure it was loud enough that everyone in the Austin area would've heard it."
It took Alex opening his mouth, closing it again, and glancing at the outside windows, for him to find the words to respond with. "What... huh? I didn't hear anything like that! This is the first I'm hearing of something like this!"
The three looked at each other and the woman found the words to speak again. "You didn't hear anything? It happened right after I... um... transformed..." The woman immediately lost whatever confidence she had in speaking and shied away again at the last few spoken words.
Alex raised an eyebrow. "Really? Huh, well I was indoors at the time and had a couple layers of wall in between me and the outside, so I guess that's why I didn't hear it." 'That and I was kinda... distracted. Actually, I guess that explains why Nick and Preston said nothing about it. They must've been pretty distracted too. Assuming they had even heard it to begin with.'
Alex sighed and pressed on. "Well anyway, no you're not the only one. Far from it. My coworker actually turned into one of those creatures too. And, mmph, my explanation of them is going to be absolutely absurd and goes way beyond the scope of possibility, but you're gonna have to trust me on this one, because as crazy as it sounds, it's the truth."
"Kid, I witnessed my best friend turn into some weird alien thing that I didn't recognize at all yesterday. I'm pretty sure I'd be willing to listen to anything at this point," The blond haired man blurted out. The woman meekly nodded in agreement.
Alex sighed again. "I'm not sure how much I believe that after I tell you what's going on, but there isn't going to be much else I can say to prepare you for this, so... here goes. Are any of you familiar with the video game Pokemon?"
The bearded man gave Alex a funny look for a few moments, as if to study his face, before he responded. "Only by name. My kids play it sometimes." No response from the other two people.
"Well a pokemon is a super powered creature that you battle with in those games, and they have lots of unique elemental powers. And that's exactly what the people of the world have turned into. Pokemon."
The three just stared at Alex blankly for a few seconds, then the bearded man spoke up. "So uh... you're saying she turned into something from a children's video game?"
Alex shrugged sheepishly and nodded. "Well, yea."
"Like Pikachu?"
"Probably not her specifically, but yea."
"And Charizard."
"Yup."
All three people just stared at Alex for several moments before glancing at each other with mixed emotions, ranging from disbelief, to doubt, to shock. After a couple more moments, the bearded man shook his head and pinched his eyebrows in exasperation before speaking up again. "Somebody is pulling my leg here and I can't tell if it's you or God."
"Look, I can prove it," Alex claimed while swiftly pulling out his phone, "Describe what she looked like when she transformed and I'll look it up."
The woman flinched again slightly, but no one seemed to notice when the blonde haired man spoke up. "How are you gonna do that? There's no internet anywhere right now."
"I have a pokemon database app on my phone. I don't need internet for it," Alex responded quickly unlocking his phone and tapping on a pokedex icon. He glanced briefly at the battery again. Six percent. Alex pursed his lips again, but he pressed onward.
The blond haired man stood with his index finger up and his mouth open for a moment, then just gave a quick defeated scoff. "Of course you do. Okay sure. She turned into a really small white humanish shaped thing with a green bowl cut and a couple of red... half circles? Horns? Spikes? What would you even call those?"
Alex only thought for a couple of seconds and smiled. That was a very easy description. There are definitely worse things to turn into. Alex tapped the pokemon's icon on his app and zoomed in on a picture of it. "This it?"
The blond haired man's eyes widened, but they were nothing compared to how bright the woman's eyes lit up. "That's it! What is it? Is it dangerous? Please tell me!" the woman shouted, seeming to have found all the confidence in the world again.
Alex got startled by her sudden bursts of energy, but did his best to keep a neutral expression and calm demeanor for her sake. "This creature is called a ralts. It's the first form of a line of pokemon that specializes in psychic and fairy energy. The first form is pretty weak, but they have the potential to become super powerful non-physical attackers. Non physical meaning they use beams, energy balls, long distance stuff, if any amount of the game's data is correct in this bizarre scenario."
Alex paused, but the three sets of eyes seemed to be pleading him to continue. Alex thought about any relevant information that would be useful to her. "So... since raltss specialize in psychic and fairy energy, that means that while you're a pokemon, you're gonna be strong against some things, but also weak against others. If you for some reason find yourself in a dangerous situation in your pokemon form, you ought to avoid all forms of steel energy, ghost energy, and poison energy. Those types in particular will harm you a lot. However, if you find yourself going against dragon, fighting, or other psychic energy, that won't harm you as much. Or at all, in the case of the dragon type.
"In my personal opinion, I think ralts may be one of the better ones to turn into if you were going to transform into a pokemon. Bipedal, excellent power potential if you ever need to defend yourself, can fight from a distance... I know it doesn't seem like it, but you have quite a few things going for you."
The woman seemed like she wanted to be happy and optimistic, but Alex could tell there were just too many emotions running through her head. The bearded man spoke up in her stead. "That's all well and good, but what if she doesn't want to turn into that thing again at all? If it were me, I'd want to know how to just completely get rid of it."
Alex bit his lip. Of course he had the answer right there, but he couldn't just outright say it. "Well, ahm... I don't have a solid certain answer there. Aside from knowing what everyone is, I'm completely lost just like everyone else. But I have noticed something. Tell me, what were your thoughts running through your head at the time you turned back?"
The shifted in discomfort. "Well I... I don't know. I was just so glad I wasn't stuck as that thing anymore. I-I think I was just afraid that I wasn't ever going to be the same again. I mean, wouldn't you be?"
Alex nodded. "No, I totally agree with you. I'd be freaking out too. But that's just it. I think..," Alex briefly trailed off, trying to figure out how he could put the words together to describe what was going on. "I've noticed that the pokemon I've seen turn back into human form were under emotional distress, specifically related to them not knowing if they're gonna turn back or not. I've seen that first hand with my coworker just yesterday, in fact. This is just a guess, but I think that if there was the possinility of you turning back into a pokemon, you'd have to actually want it first." Alex tensed up, hoping that they would accept Alex's explanation without questioning his unusually highly astute observations.
The three looked at each other, processing the new information. Then the woman spoke up again, this time with a touch more confidence and hope in her voice. "So... don't worry about it and it won't happen? That sounds too simple and good to be true though," she said in a tone that almost sounded pleading.
Alex shrugged. "Maybe it is, but I took a good long walk here first from my coworker's apartment, then from downtown. I've seen multiple pokemon turning back into humans, but I've yet to see a single human turn into a pokemon outside of that very first incident. I'm pretty confident I'm on the right track."
The woman looked down for a few seconds before taking a deep breath. She started to stand up, along with the two men by her side. "Alright... Mike, Travis, I need to get back home. I hope you guys are able to get back safely too, whenever you decide to head out," she pressed the elevator button as she spoke.
One of the elevator doors instantly opened. "Be careful getting home, Kristi," the blonde haired man spoke.
"I will. Promise. And you," she turned her attention to Alex, "um... you are...?"
"Alex."
"Right. Thank you, Alex. That helped me more than you can imagine. Be safe getting home," she said before stepping in the elevator, letting the doors shut her in.
Alex looked back and forth between the elevator and the two men. "Was she... not with you?"
The bearded man walked off to a nearby water fountain and the blonde man responded. "Nah. She was just here because she was worried that she was in danger or she WAS the danger because she turned into a... pokey-man. Ugh, that's still really freakin weird. But nah, we're just here cuz we live all the way in South Austin and we don't realistically have a way to get there in a day, and all the hotels weren't taking any more visitors."
Alex grimaced. "Eugh, yikes, I'm sorry to hear. Speaking of I probably need to keep on going, myself. I guess since my dad left a while ago, there's no point in me staying," Alex said as he pressed the elevator button.
"Yea. Hey, be careful getting home. You seem to know about the whole pokey-man thing, but whatever caused those explosions could still be out there."
Alex nodded nervously. "I-I'll keep that in mind. Thank you." The elevator opened up and Alex pressed the ground floor button. As the elevator carried him down, Alex felt unease creeping up on him all over again. 'Okay, I at least have some handle on the whole pokemon situation, but now there's supposedly a massive explosion that happened along with it? And I thought enough was on my plate already. What could we possibly be in for now?' Alex let that last question hang in his head for a long time, as he nervously realized he had no answer.
((Hey guys, sorry about the more uneventful chapter, but it was kinda necessary in my opinion to A) set up some more plot, and B) give a little more world building. I promise next chapter will have a little more going on, including some more Mew action. As always, any comments or constructive criticism is appreciated!)