Lending my help to Arceus's effort to split the universe in two apparently didn't require anything but my consent, and I can't help but think it was more a test than actual help. Immediately after Washu spoke to me I felt my willpower drain to the point I nearly lost consciousness. I slumped forward, and Mew landed softly on the ground before me. The rest of the pokémon in the room went still or sat down with the exception of Ember, who was still snoring beside me. It looked like the entire world was shaking, but I couldn't feel anything other than a strange sensation in my inner ear.
For a moment everything just stopped. There was no sound. My eyes wouldn't move. I couldn't inhale or exhale. I couldn't even panic. I felt numb, and seconds stretched into minutes. Time crashed back into the room like a train, and everything was suddenly MORE. Light was too bright, sound was too loud, and I could feel the minds of those around me like shining beacons in the darkness. I stretched my awareness as I'd done many times before, but even my awareness of other minds had been enhanced. And everything was bigger. Again. It's funny how I didn't even notice that I'd grown up during the stupid montage, but now it was glaringly obvious that I was tiny again. Oh. I was also furry.
Apparently I was a vulpix now. I had paws, and flexing them revealed a set of razor-sharp claws. I'd basically just escaped from having to make an awful choice due to a combination of pragmatism and rules I had to obey in order to see my wife again.
I was abruptly, and quite rudely, surrounded by zubats. I instinctively started roasting them with fire breath and whacking them with my new tails, but I was so tired from the whole world-splitting-thing that I wasn't going to be able to hold this for long. Thankfully, I had Ember. Dear, sweet Ember and her fire-breath. The smell of cooked zubat had become disturbingly attractive since I started this Jump. My mouth was watering. I glanced at Mew to see if it'd mind if I tasted one, only to be met with a reproachful look. Ember was busy chewing on one of the zubats which made me a little jealous, so I resolved not to try one until it left. It was delicious.
Learning to transform into other shapes took surprisingly little time. Annoying Mew by turning into its twin, thus circumventing the "we won't change you into a mew" thing was amazing. He probably knew I would do that anyway, but it was fun. Learning to use my aura to reinforce and speed up my body so I could pick up a boulder even in that form was even better. Spending the next two years watching as the pokémon around me became more and more wary of my presence was awful.
I still had Ember, and I did learn to understand what she and the other pokémon were saying at least. Mew trusted me to a certain extent and was willing to train with or teach me, but was difficult to pin down. The pink cat-thing didn't want to stay in one place! It was always flying off when I wanted a lesson, which I thought was quite rude. While the stupid cat-thing wasn't watching I experimented with smaller shifts like changing my fur and eye color, then my size, and finally turning into normal animals and even plants.
I pulled the "I'm a tree!" joke and got a chuckle from a few of the less distrustful pokémon, but earned a little more hate from the grass-types. Ember and I made adorable twins, and she taught me how to make my roar really intimidating and the dreaded puppy-dog-eyes attack. One of the few times Mew came back, it taught me how to use an all-purpose barrier move that was just plain better than the ones I'd been using previously. There was something about not being a proper mew if I couldn't surround myself in a pink bubble in there, so I turned mine to look like transparent glass as soon as the cat-thing left out of spite. On the bright side, I discovered that Mew's paws functioned like hands with two fingers and a thumb.
I spent the rest of the Jump upgrading my old pokéballs, sparring with Ember, and exploring. That meant I got to witness something spectacular only about a week before it was time to leave. My little Ember evolved into a nine-tails! I was friends with a kitsuné! So many fluffy tails to snuggle into! I was so busy grooming her and admiring her new form I almost forget to learn how to change into one. Almost.
Appearing in the circle of darkness again was honestly a relief. I glanced around and spotted Ember immediately behind me, sniffing the ground and being generally curious. We'd talked about what to expect, and aside from me still being a mew it wasn't anything different. Speaking of which, a quick transformation and I was human again. I hadn't been able to do that before the Jump ended, and this one didn't feel like it required any effort. Maybe that was because it was switching between my base form and an alternate form, so it was a Jump power instead of a real Pokémon ability? Regardless, I was me again and Ember was excited to see the form I'd had in my first life. I saw Washu appear at the edge of the shadows with a smirk on her face, but she gave Ember a few minutes to calm down.
"That was spectacular," she said as she stepped into the light. "If you'd actually been trying to derail the plot I would have clapped, but since you weren't I'll just say good job. You might not have found that Jump entertaining, but I loved it."
"Thanks?" I sent back at her telepathically, only to get a poke in the brain.
"You can use your mouth again, idiot," she admonished me with a smile. And she was right! I could talk again! It was liberating, knowing I had a fully-functional voice again. I looked back at her, and she dramatically snapped her fingers. In the distance a set of lights turned on, illuminating the inside wall of what was obviously a warehouse. More lights turned on in sequence lighting up the entire room we were standing in, which was nearly the size of a football field.
"Twenty thousand square feet, and it's all yours. Welcome to your Cosmic Warehouse! Now that you've completed the first jump you get to decorate this place and choose Body Mod options."
I blinked, then remembered. The cosmic warehouse was a storage/living area that would come with me through the entire Jump-chain, and would hopefully allow me to store all the stuff I hoard- collected. The stuff I collected. Body Mod was a series of enhancements that I could buy and apply to whatever form I was in at the time. Washu waved a hand, and a semi-transparent screen appeared in front of me with options for the Warehouse. There were only one hundred choice points to spend, but everything looked pretty cheap. I planned to be on the move a lot in the next Jump since I didn't like the idea of anyone from the Abyss being able to find me easily, so housing and utilities were a must.
Shelving was free, and apparently covered any available area I didn't fill with something else or need for walking. Electricity, plumbing, heat, and air-conditioning cost thirty choice points all-together. A force wall to prevent people from following me into the Warehouse was another twenty points. That left fifty points, and there was no way I was using a key or trying to find a door to get in. That meant I had to purchase the Portal option for thirty more points, but left me ten points shy of being able to purchase the Link option that would enable me to use the portals to fast travel. Meh. I had teleportation and flight, and I needed a place to actually live in here. Housing for the last twenty choice points it was. Since Ember could come with me in one of my modified PokéBalls and I had all the stuff needed to feed and groom her in my bag (including a variety of seeds to grow fruit and berries native to the PokéVerse), that should be plenty.
Washu quirked an eyebrow at me when I hit the option to finalize my purchases, then waved her hand. A fairly spacious home appeared in one corner, the warehouse door disappeared, electrical outlets appeared along the walls, I heard the sound of a fan starting, and finally shelves appeared in neat rows to occupy the remaining free space. The screen in front of me changed to show my options for upgrading my body, with six hundred choice points. Knowing that I was going into an Asian society I picked the light build so that I wouldn't stand out. Metavore was the easiest choice I'd ever made, allowing me to retain my fitness and appearance no matter what I ate as long as there was enough of it for only one hundred points.
I hit a bit of a snag looking at the rest of the options. I was trying to become a shapeshifter and was going to end up with video game stats, so Strength and Endurance would advance on their own and might change based on the body I was in. Being able to lift a particular amount as an ant or something similar would be great, but my stats would do almost the same thing if I trained them enough. Speed would probably turn out the same way, and I already had all the explicitly named benefits of the Dexterity modifiers from Pokémon's Parkour/Free Running benefit.
If I wanted to get the maximum benefit from this, I needed to take one of the body type options that came with additional bonuses. It should ideally contribute to Appeal, Shape, or Sense rather than any of the other basic stats. That left the Charmer and Bestial body types, and I was close enough to a furry already. No thanks. Selecting Charmer got me two free ranks in Appeal and Shape and a full three free ranks in Endowed at the cost of another one hundred points. Reading the description of Endowed was deeply disturbing. Three extra cup sizes or six extra inches to my package? I'm so I glad I negotiated to be able to turn these on and off. I could just imagine appearing as an eleven year old with horse or melon-sized genitals in a future jump. With the remaining four hundred points I could purchase eight ranks of stat boosts, so I went ahead and dumped everything into Appeal, Shape, and Sense. I would now always have flawless skin, a perfectly appealing body shape, and absurd visual, auditory, and olfactory senses. Absurd to the point of being able to see infrared and ultraviolet light, hear outside extra high and low frequency sounds, and smell things like a bloodhound [1]. I hit the button to finalize the purchase.
"Last one," Washu said with a gleam in her eyes. "For this one I've selected some stuff that you have to take, as per our agreement." The screen changed. My age was locked at twenty-two years old, and my background was locked as Player Two. That was apparently the only reasonable way to purchase all of The Gamer abilities, but it also said something about mandatory drawbacks. I scrolled down to them and nearly fell over. That was bad. Really bad. Apparently I was going to lose all of my previous powers for the duration of the Jump except for BodyMod and an empty copy of my Warehouse. I'd have made slightly different choices if I'd known that, like banking my Warehouse points. Would it just remove any items I left there, or would it mean the Warehouse was literally as empty as when I hadn't purchased anything? Would it even have shelves? Lighting? At least I could still Portal into it, but this had me a little worried. It meant I couldn't easily use it as a fallback location.
Great. I'd also have all my friends, companions, loved ones, etc drift away from me without them realizing it was happening. Some of them would even leave town. I might end up needing that given my some of the other drawbacks, but I hoped Ember was unaffected. I didn't think she officially counted as a companion, but I'd ask. The drawback was locked in anyway. Ah, there was what I was afraid of. Someone in the Abyss will be after me the whole jump, no matter how many of them I beat, dissuaded, or even killed. The Abyss in general would only be only peripherally aware of me, but there was always going to be at least one nutjob after my head for Washu-knows-what. Oh, and Gaia would target me with even worse luck than she did everyone else if I did anything unnatural to attract attention to myself from the normal folk. Gazed Into the Abyss, Abyss Gazed Back, and Disproportionate Retribution were going to get me killed.
Getting back to the perks, I tried to look on the bright side. There were all the Gamer abilities of course, and Instant Dungeon. That left me with four hundred choice points to spend. I went ahead and grabbed Legal Tender to get me started as my first 100cp gear purchase. That would be especially useful since it refilled at the start of every Jump that had a South Korea, and I could modify the type of currency using the inventory system. Money Through Gaming sounded like a nice way to make a living, so I picked it up as my first 100cp perk, then the complementary Gamer's Collection again for 50cp since it was discounted. That would get me a laptop, a handheld system, and a bunch of games for both along with a four to one time ratio while playing. If I played different games in one-hour intervals that should mean four times the income from playing games per hour.
I still had two hundred points. I could bank them, but... I tabbed back over to the Body Mod menu and picked up Ever-Cleansed for one hundred points, then banked the remaining hundred. I didn't like being dirty, and now I would always be clean and body-odor free. Before I hit complete I also switched back to the Pokémon Trainer jump and elected to keep both Silenced and Swarmed, but turned them off for now. They might be useful in later jumps if I wanted to negotiate with Washu. I was about to hit the finalize button when it occurred to me I'd forgotten something.
"Miss Washu?" I called. "Is it really necessary to touch the Gamer interface windows or call out my powers? Shouldn't I just be able to interface with the whole thing mentally? I'm going for a stealth run here since you made me such a target, and yelling about how I'm about to start sneaking or casting an invisibility spell just seems stupid."
"I wondered if you'd catch that," she replied. "I'd already planned to waive that requirement if you asked about it, since a few of your alternates have argued me around to it. Yes: you can interface with it manually or mentally. It's not god-like power if you have to shout the name of your technique, after all. Also, it's in the gameplay settings and Han Jee-Han does it unconsciously with the Inventory window all the time."
"Alright, then. Let's do this terrifying thing!" I recalled Ember to her (upgraded) PokéBall and hit the finalize button. Everything went dark.
[1]: This is one of those places where Jump-chan's doc differs from the posted one. The last two levels of Sense felt poorly worded and thought out to me.
Edited for corrections pointed out by johnworm and a couple of things I caught when going over it again. Thanks!