First of all: the former two-hundred-word HIATUS announcement that used to be here, published on New Years' Day, has been summarised in the AN at the bottom.

Also: New fic (currently a one-shot) of a generic Multicross!Minecraft!SI that's on low priority, but if you have ideas for settings that fill the criteria listed within, send me a review on it with (some effort put into it,) a decent explanation of the plot, and the overarching 'power level'/benefit to be had from introducing Minecraft resources. I have little idea where to go with it, so some feedback and suggestions from my reader-base wouldn't go amiss, and I've got at least one more Chapter planned out.

To the third, and now first, reviewer: yes, you did indeed get responded too. If the review has obvious effort put into it (i.e. more than twenty words), it's probably worth my time to at least note it separate from the story, as I do here. It's certainly not like I'm overloaded with them so early into my 'career'.

Some perspective and advice for writing a Chain, offered because you give the most effort in reviews and clearly have some interest, despite not having uploaded anything yourself: the accompanying fic I'm working on, 'JumpChain - The Hard-Core Journey', is basically just 'what I'd actually do if I was in this situation' and not 'what makes for a good story'. The first ten Jumps will be: Infamous, to fill the 'QuickSilver quota' and get used to the idea of having superpowers 'safely'; Prototype for insanely-versatile biokinetic powers and Consumption; Hellsing (and the old Hellsing Jump as a Supplement) for the 'soul devouring' Perk; FullMetal Alchemist (and the old FMA Jump as a Supplement) to become a soul-powered Homunculus; Animorphs for willpower/anti-mind-control Perks, and to take memories and copy/combine physical forms without needing to kill/infect 'good guys'; Dragon Ball Multiverse (and the SpaceBattles Dragon Ball Z Jump as a Supplement) for the most overpowered end-of-Z bullshit you can get (Kaioken, Potential Unlock, Ghost Warriors, etc); Empowered for the extremely-versatile chronokinesis, general Biokinesis, inorganic shapeshifting, regeneration/homeostasis and anti-'Superpower' abilities; and then the Mass Effect Jump, all four Doom Jumps, and both Supreme Commander Jumps: to have an automatic planet-conquering force when they need it, and to finish up QuickSilver's Jumps.

The goal of that SI is not to be 'overpowered', per se, but simply to have enough power on a planet-busting/cosmic scale that they don't have to worry about being ganked when they least expect it. Being OP comes about as a result of convenience, and there's… really no way to consistently avoid that on a JumpChain, unless you do what you suggested and run everything on pseudo-Gauntlet rules, or use the Universal Drawback Supplement for 'You Needed Worthy Opponents' and the like. But, I propose to you, that JumpChain is not about the relative disparity in power between you and the locals. JumpChain, is about you. There is certainly room for JumpChain's where the perspective comes from character's who aren't the Jumper (there's a Worm CYOAv1 fic, A Prison Of Glass, that has a similar 'theme' of the SI being bullshit-broken and everyone around them reacting to their actions, rather than the relatively-boring/straightforward SI themselves), but in the vast majority of cases, JumpChain is about being a whole bunch of fixfic's awkwardly slapped together, often with no overarching plot or threat to the protagonist, beyond what they set themselves up for in 'extra-Chain rules' and Drawbacks.

Rather than focussing on the fight-scenes, which some people are good at (see MrZoat's With This Ring, now on QQ due to realpolitik) and which I am not, it should be seen as an opportunity to examine your own morality, and the reactions of the characters within. There aren't many other ways to run through a 'vanilla' JumpChain, and the Life Experience Supplement I developed was mostly just to involve the mechanics into the story at a more-than-surface level, but there's a lot of opportunity in following those threads. Think of the Jumper as changing every setting they visit into a single Genre: maybe they only go to one-world settings, use Supreme Commander to shit on everything that's even remotely a threat, and turn it into a Soap Opera or a 'Superhero' Thriller genre, since there's no other conflict except what you make, or against the SI in the form of vigilantism; maybe they're the DILLIGAF type who just tour the worlds and shit on people at random to satisfy their own hedonistic tendencies, wish-fulfilment on one side and Horror on the others who get stomped, mind-controlled, or even raped if the Jumper is the really fucked-up type. Maybe they're a chaotic 'fuck everything up to see what happens' type, maybe they're a 'fixfic' type, maybe they're a 'background/stealth support' type, maybe they're a 'shipper' type, maybe they're a 'fighting/sparring' type, whatever, but the only variable in a Jump is the Jumper. So if you want to do a JumpChain, you have to live with having all the broken bullshit of 'every setting ever', and you have to find a way to make that overarching story interesting regardless. For instance, the UDS offers Perk Drawbacks like 'Slot-O-Matic', and Origin Drawbacks like 'Start At The Beginning', 'Stronger Imprint', and 'Cannot Into Drop'.

I have a separate idea I've barely worked on for a Post-Chain Jumper who's chosen to visit a given Jump as their 'last' Jump before QS's Dragon Ball (or an appropriate EndJump), and they follow the above ideas at random depending on what they feel like. Maybe they set up a worldwide 'anti-crime' field just to see fate screwing over almost the entire population of a mostly-'normal' setting due to their white lies and blue-collar crimes. Maybe they insert their background in a good position to romance Ryuko and Satsuki from Kill La Kill simultaneously. Maybe they give out free superpowers in Marvel's Civil War saga just to fuck with both established systems. Either way, it's a good opportunity to be cracky.

And therein lies the secret to success: to not fret about it too much. Shit's going to get really unbalanced no matter how much you slow yourself down, but as long as the Author creates a motivation for the Jumper not to routinely cross the Godzilla Threshold, the rest is easy. 'The Never-Ending Journey' will, after the first ten-to-fifteen Jumps, slow down dramatically due to the SI taking a hands-off approach as the scale of the Omniverse comes into focus; or (by using Jump-chan as an excuse) I'll start adding limitations that force the Jumper out of their comfort zone and back into the thick of things. Probably the former, this is the first fic I've ever published and I'm not looking to make it too insanely long (though there will probably be the occasional bonus chapter after the 'Epilogue', as new additions come to me over the years), but as long as I follow the 'secret to success', and don't take the lack of plot or the quality of the writing too seriously, I can just coast along as I see fit and it'll all work itself out sooner or later.

I would suggest, for the sake of your SI's, that killing 'yourself' is never the answer (unless you've got a Thanatos Gambit to render the point moot). Being inhuman might sound scary, but take it from someone who's seen a lot of what 'people' get up to when they get together: being 'human' isn't always what it's cracked up to be. The IRL shitshow we've all presided over the last two years is an excellent reminder of that. But hey, I support euthanasia, so you do Fictional!You, I suppose.

To the second reviewer: Your shit is 'wak-ker', wanker. Or it would be, if you had anything on your profile. Try writing something before you read at least four chapters into my story and then throw out… what I think is an insult, but I'm honestly not sure? Thanks for inflating my review statistics to draw in more viewers, though. I'll put it to good use.

To the third reviewer: That particular style of 'thought-speech' is lifted straight from the Animorphs, with two minor alterations: Katherine Applegate used 'lesser than ()' and 'greater than ()' symbols, but I have to use a form of brackets because FFN refuses to keep the symbols even when I edit them back in post-upload. Not sure why, but Chapter Sixteen is still a shambles because I can't edit in line-stops, and I still haven't been given a response through email as to why, so I'm assuming that the mods give even less of a shit than I do as opposed to all the ad revenue we bring in and don't get a cut of. Also, I have a 'generic thought-speech' that functions as a universal language, the only difference being that it's bolded to indicate a justification for Pokemon-Human communication, despite the fact that Pokemon almost certainly don't speak English, especially the Japanese ones, but it's so inconsistent across the franchise that I'm bending the rules slightly in this 'Generic' Pokemon setting that could justifiably go either way.

In hindsight, I might go back and edit the earlier chapters one day to double-check that I actually gave the narrative and in-universe reasons that I came up with this: that I wanted to make it clear that the language barrier was going to be a slight problem 'for the time being'; and that Legendaries should have a way to universally-communicate. The wonderfully-generic availability of Aura comes to the rescue of the narrative again (which is why Zekrom "also talks 'out loud' in bold", if anyone's wondering why that is)!

To the fourth reviewer: …I'm, honestly not sure how this is 'reddit' morality, or how Evan is demonstrating Transvestite tendencies, within the first two Chapters. Would you mind making a slightly-more comprehensive review about that? Is it her nickname, the gender-neutral one the SI gave her, just because he didn't want to call her Eve like a basic bitch? I'm actually genuinely curious about the specifics of your viewpoint, because I only have a vague idea of what you're talking about, and I can't give a proper counterpoint without fully understanding what you're decrying.

Also, it's Canon that certain Pokemon, like Gallade, Froslass and Salazzle, can only evolve in certain ways depending on their gender, so it's both possible and probable that Evan will end up as a differently-gendered Pokemon of another species at some point, same for the Protagonist depending on Perks that require the user be fe/male and the like. If that's a problem for you, then why are you reading a JumpChain fanfic in the first place, where these sorts of things are likely going to come up fairly often?


Pokemon: Hoenn; City Life50 (Fortree); Actual Starter: Eevee (Shiny50); Freerunning; Swarmed+100 (100)

Priority: Physical Fitness100; Survival Training100; Master Ball*3100; HM Collection50; Rebreather50; Psionics300; Savant600; Blend In300; Egg Move4 (Flail, Wish, Stored Power, Synchronoise)200; Combat Training100; Aura600; Champ In The Making300 (2800)


-Day 2931, Afternoon-

By some miracle, I did not have to spend most of the rest of the day helping the IPF process everyone. Partly because I'd used two Z-Moves within an hour of each other (and had several witnesses to that effect), and partly because… in real life, a giant subterranean structure exploding out of the ground and damaging areas associated with political power? That definitely crosses some lines with the federal police. Maybe not full-on terrorism charges, but as we'd already established, the five Sages were internationally wanted. Something Ryoku seemed certain wouldn't matter, that 'America would never extradite them at their ages', but I wasn't holding my breath either way.

Instead, I let my feet carry myself, with Evan by my side and 'my' Legendaries resting inside their Pokeballs, down to N's room. I hadn't seen him leave, but he'd been passed over as a 'too-young-to-prosecute patsy', and while his room's door was being flanked by two officers, he and his sisters were free to quietly do 'whatever' inside without being monitored.

Not actually sure leaving him actively unobserved was smart, he did have a Zekrom after all, but… well, I think he deserved a cooldown period after what he'd just experienced. I gave him a solid five minutes to hug it all out of his system before I knocked on the door and came face to face with Anthea. "Afternoon, Miss. May I speak to your brother?"

"You… wait, how do you know we're related?" Despite not making any aggressive moves, her hand remained under her sleeve holding a shrunked Pokeball. Gardevoir or Gothitelle?

Ah, it's not like it matters. "You're one of two women N has chosen to speak to in private, you're not wearing a Plasma uniform, and N mentioned having sisters a while ago."

"Fair enough. And you're the man who has been working to change N's mind, the same one who defeated Zekrom just now?"

"Indeed. Agent Bourne, International Police."

"Very well." She turned around and walked back into the room. "N, we have a visitor."

He'd clearly heard our conversation and prepared himself for me, breaking off his discussion with Concordia. "Jason."

"N." I greeted him in a more subdued manner. "I'm rather tired of the last two days' events, and I'm about to return home to Hoenn for a well-deserved break. Before I do so, I have a Pokemon that belongs to you." I promptly underarm-tossed Genesect back to him. Turning a wildly-out-of-touch Legendary into a Companion… no, I don't see that ending well.

N seemed… I'd like to say 'understandably-shocked', but with how often I'd done stuff like this recently, you'd think he'd be a little more hardened to my actions now. "!-you're just returning Genesect to me, a prehistoric Legendary equipped with cybernetic enhancements, with no strings attached?"

"I'm not the one who made him, I don't know how to take care of him, and while I can probably learn that from them telepathically with moderate difficulty, you told me that you were planning to take responsibility for all the actions of Team Plasma. Seems to me that this is a good place for you to start."

"…you're not wrong. Thank you, Jason." He paused, then continued. "Truth be told, I was considering offering you a Trade: Genesect for Zekrom."

…huh. Am I interested in adding Zekrom to my party? I suppose so… "...have you discussed that with him?"

"Not yet. He's still unconscious, or… possibly refusing to talk to me, it's hard to tell. But even so... I am, no longer certain that I am worthy of Zekrom. I have failed to uphold my ideals, mostly because they were established on false premises, and right now..." N paused again, thinking his next words over carefully. "Right now, I think it is more important to establish the truth. So then, I propose a different trade: Zekrom for Reshiram's White Stone."

That… well… "...I mean, I can't awaken them, so that seems like a pretty good deal for me, but what about you? Are you prepared to give up the Legend who chose you for their opposing force? Maybe things didn't go the way you hoped they would, but you can always find another cause to serve, or make one yourself. That anti-abuse charity I mentioned..."

"Perhaps in the future, I will seek him out again. For now, I need to speak to the officers in charge of this raid. After everything Ghetsis pushed me to do... both I and the people of Unova deserve to know the truth of Team Plasma. If there are more members who used Team Plasma as a cover to conceal their mistreatment of Pokemon, like Bianca's Munna, then I want them to be exposed and face justice." He closed his eyes for a moment, then reopened them with resolve. "And... it might be foolish, but I am personally responsible for a great deal of Team Plasma's actions. I plan to turn myself in, to provide testimony against my father and possibly even the other Sages. They may have my best interests in mind, but if the accusations I overheard the guards discussing outside are true, then I cannot abide by their crimes. And if they aren't, I'd like them to be exonerated. Either way, we all deserve the best the justice system has to offer, whatever that may be."

"...I, don't know what to say about that, but I wholeheartedly support you forging your own path for some time, free from the influences of others. If your knowledge of the world is lacking, there are plenty of other countries for you to visit and cultures for you to learn from." And I'm hoping that gentle nudge keeps you from tossing yourself in a cell, because that's not going to help anything, but I can't say that out loud, can I. "Speaking of your offered trade, while I feel it a little unbalanced, I don't plan to keep Zekrom if he rejects me, and I imagine my Lugia will be quite miffed if I turn down the opportunity to potentially free another Legendary, so I suppose it's a fair enough offer."

"I'm glad you agree." He held out his hand, which I shook almost immediately. "Where do you plan to go from here, after… this?"

"After my vacation… I'll certainly return to training for whenever the next national threat inevitably crops up, but I'm hopeful that whatever comes next won't be for some time. I've been involved in some sort of national-or-greater-scale threat roughly once every three years since I started my Pokemon journey, and I'd like to enjoy my break while I can." Do Magma/Aqua and Galactic count if I thwarted them before their plots built up momentum? Yes, I'm counting both of those. "And, you? Other than possibly a cell?"

He descended into thought for only a moment. "I think the Alola region would be a good start. A part of America that Plasma almost certainly has no footholds in, where I can see how Trainers live in a less industrialised environment. And," he tacked on the end, briefly showing how tired he was. "I think a vacation is in order for all of us."

I couldn't agree more. This had certainly been the most stressful of my 'Team takedowns', though still not as dangerous as the Radio Tower incident.


-Day 2932, Noon-

Unfortunately, I had had to spend about an hour giving a brief rundown of events to Looker, my 'contact' who had been with me most of the way, while being recorded for archival and analysis purposes. On the flip side, N was willing to corroborate my testimony, and Looker was at least passingly-knowledgeable in American law. Not as an actual attorney, just from the osmosis of working within a massive worldwide law enforcement agency, but he was nevertheless able to convince N that his attempts to get himself implicated, assuming he took the Legal Oath seriously, would struggle on several key points: the fact that his age was unclear due to having being abandoned in the wilderness as a child; the fact that his entire upbringing (including his education) was at the hands of internationally-wanted criminals; and the fact that he had genuinely believed that Team Plasma wasn't committing crimes outside of their stated goal (saving Pokemon from abusive Trainers); among other things, like his relation to his older 'sisters' and their potential 'grooming' of him, and the fact that he technically hadn't held any power (or directly participated in any 'official' activities in Team Plasma's name) in his organisation until literal days earlier.

By the time I excused himself, he'd transitioned (with almost-sleazy seamlessness) from suggesting he turn himself into temporary protective custody as a witness against just about everyone in Team Plasma, into a recruitment pitch for 'official IPF-sanctioned courses' given his status as owning a Genesect (and possibly a Zekrom) and his 'unique talent'. Given how often being able to speak to someone's Pokemon could be useful in gathering evidence, I took the opportunity to tell him that he was in good hands and finally leave.

The rest of the day had consisted of leftovers in my Secret Base's fridge, and passing out in my bed with Evan on top of me. Suffice to say, I slept until midday, when I found Marshadow had joined Evan by lying against my back, having fallen asleep staring at the doorframe while Lugia tried not to giggle too loudly at him. But I gave him a break for being on edge and completely exhausted at the same time. I knew that feeling well: even with superhuman health, the aftermath of two Z-Moves in a row was something I felt for days.

But it didn't leave me non-functional, just intermittently-narcoleptic, so I was able to force down two cups of coffee and send out Zekrom (with his permission, courtesy of a telepathic poke from Lugia) for a semi-normal talk with me and the rest of the team about where we stood. Before I crashed in an hour or two, anyway.

"So." I started outside my Route 120 Secret Base, Lugia bathing in the pond while the rest of us sans Zekrom reclined on some glass 'Fancy Deck Chairs' (thank you, Glass Workshop's organically-growing selection of furniture). "You may be wondering why you're here in Japan."

"Somewhat. I heard your discussion with N, but I was… not particularly attentive at the time." He admitted in a subdued tone, splaying his legs in front of him and his tail behind.

"Okay, I'll go over a quick summary of it to confirm we're all on the same page." I took a swig of my homemade Leppa, Oran, Pinap and Passho Berry smoothie as I did my best to recall our exact words. "I sought out N while he was speaking to his sisters to return Genesect, who I felt and still feel is more his Pokemon and his responsibility than mine. He responded with an offer to trade you, if not for Genesect, then for Reshiram's White Stone."

"I recall that much." He confirmed. "Ironically, he was somewhat correct that his loss of confidence and self-righteousness means that he is no longer a perfect match for me. But even so, even with his stated intent to abandon his previous ideals and commune with Reshiram to establish new ones, I still wish to speak with him directly before finalising his decision. Perhaps I cannot assuage his discomfort, but I would like to at least make the attempt." Then his gaze sharpened on me. "Do you intend to challenge my intent to depart, or will you hold fast to your earlier oath?"

"If you want to leave, trying to force you to stay does nothing but hurt my own position. What would even be the point?" I slowly shook my head a few times. "I wouldn't mind having you as part of my team, but there's a lot of caveats to that, and you're your own Legendary who likely has some ancient responsibilities of your own to fulfil, now you've awakened in the modern day. If you want to seek N out and discuss his change of heart with him, I will respect your decision. Maybe you'll come back, maybe I'll find another who wants a place at our side. But while the future is uncertain, my conviction not to enslave others is not."

He seemed to accept that with a more-confident nod. "I am glad to hear that. You are both wise enough to choose your battles, and motivated in reaching your ultimate goals, whatever they may be, and if you maintain that moral fortitude then perhaps you could be worthy of my presence too, one day. But if you should desire to wield me in combat, then you must first understand that I represent not just my Trainer's ideals, but also the innate desire for an ideal world: to shift a world closer to an ideal state, rather than simply filling it with the ideals of my Chosen, as N once suggested. And while you possess a good heart, you seem to have no major political ambitions for me to support."

I chuckled, "Not sure my 'motivation' is coming through right now, but I'm glad to hear I meet your standards for 'colonial-age hero'." Then I set down my empty glass and moved onto my other smoothie, a blend of Occa, Rawst, and Nanab, with a touch of Liechi to offset the other Berries' bitterness. "Damn, these are good. Sure you don't want one?"

"No, thank you, the Pamtre's are plenty. Besides, I plan to leave soon, and flying on a full stomach is never a good idea." He politely declined.

"Fair enough. That being said, I'm in a rather… unique situation when it comes to politics, let alone running for a political office." I broadcast a [Lugia, you'll want to hear this.] to interrupt her decimation of the Watmel 'vines' at the head of the pond, drawing her head and neck over to us instead while the pink juices dripped down her lower jaw, and I took a good sip while I tried to figure out how to best phrase this… "Just after my twenty-fifth birthday, I was abruptly dropped into a pitch-black void with only a floating monolith covered in choices for company. On concluding my examination and accepting some of them, I was then summoned to this world in the reincarnated form of a teenager, with new parents and a retroactive history of living in Fortree City my whole life (the forest village just north of here), with only my memories to prove I was also an adult from another world. I'm assuming you two are at least vaguely familiar with the Ultra Wormholes that have been plaguing Alola for some time?"

"Vaguely indeed, they were extremely rare in my time." He turned to his fellow mainland-North-American Legendary. "Lugia?"

[They've definitely become more common in the last two hundred years.] She confirmed on my behalf. [The humans who research them have determined that they lead to a 'void between worlds', where the laws of physics begin to break down and other Wormholes can be accessed more easily. Alola has suffered an especially-large number of them though, so Marshadow is probably more knowledgeable on the Ultra Beasts that come through them than I am.]

"Not as much as you'd think." He sat up from where he laid. "The human population has a lot of people dedicated to pushing them back, and finding out how to deal with them without needing the aid of Legendaries like me and the Tapu's. I've fought a few varieties over the last century and especially in the last decade, that's when they've been getting more prevalent, but you sound like you know just as much about the Wormholes themselves as I do. The Ultra Beasts are pretty tough, though: they get stronger for every Pokemon they knock out, they start out on the same level as lesser Legendaries, and something about them makes it really hard to catch them with Pokeballs."

"Then it seems fortunate that Jason's previous world was never preyed upon by them." Zekrom shrugged it off. "I was aware that the Wormholes could be used to travel through time at random, though there were understandably-few who survived such a process and remained credible witnesses. The idea of travelling between universes is unsettling, especially given Giratina's possible reaction, but if you've been here for… how long?"

"Eight years. Supposedly after the next two, I'll be sent to a different universe again for another decade-long stay, though I'm only assuming that for the time being. Given that I haven't had any form of contact with a being claiming responsibility for my transposition, I'm not yet sure if there is one, or I'm caught up in some kind of automatic system."

"Then it seems unlikely that any whose domains are being trespassed upon, are going to raise objections to your living on our world now." "Do you actually desire to be sent to another world, and away from this one?"

"I should be given the option of staying once my time is up, so to speak, but I don't know yet. Even if I was… I have to be honest: while I haven't minded experiencing the world of Pokemon, moving on means more supernatural powers to build on, and the eventual promise of the power to freely travel between universes like this one. I might have a good heart, but if power like that is on the table, I can't pretend that I don't want it. The sheer number of good deeds I could perform, and the other worlds I can tour and explore…"

"Ah." He nodded knowingly. "I cannot say I understand where you come from personally, my power vastly exceeds that of most humans and has never been found wanting, but I am not blind to the tribulations of the more, fragile inhabitants of this world. Still, this only exacerbates my desire not to follow you: I cannot simply leave my nation in its current state for centuries more."

"That's not as much of a problem as you might think: it's specified that as long as you continue your journey, the flow of time in your previously-visited worlds and your homeworld is effectively at a standstill. I don't know the minimum amount of power required to accomplish this, but I could end up visiting over a thousand worlds with various sub-realms and the like, so I'm fairly confident they wouldn't have made that statement if they couldn't back it up. Why bother lying about such a thing?"

"Because it entices you to continue visiting other worlds, and presumably derives some benefit from you doing so." He pointed out. "If you cannot return to a world to check…"

"…hmm. I'm fairly sure there is an option to do exactly that in some circumstances, but while it's supposed to be for this entity's amusement, there probably is some caveat that provides them with a more tangible benefit. Even so," I ultimately shrugged it off. "one of the available settings has a counterpart here in the form of a video game, Dragon Ball, and the idea of being able to create new planets and blow away stars is a pretty big deal by most fictional standards. It will certainly give me more political power a lot quicker than running a grassroots campaign every time I travel."

"Then I will look forward to your return. I still owe one of you a rematch, after all." He plainly smiled for the first time since I'd met him.

"Your funeral." I snorted, then pulled myself upright and pulled out his Timer Ball. "Here, you want to take your Pokeball with you?"

He paused. "I, am not sure what the point would be."

"Peace of mind, partly. As long as you're registered to a Pokeball, you can't be caught by anyone else. And if you're determined to rejoin N's party, doing so without a Pokeball would make any sort of public appearance a very conspicuous one." Then again, I think he might be one of those people who enjoy the attention… "Or, you can always destroy it so you don't have a vulnerability that could be stolen from either one of us at any moment. I doubt anyone who tried to steal you with it would succeed in the first place, and even if they did you'd probably 'have words' with them as soon as they sent you out, but either way, I want these sorts of choices that affect you to be in your hands."

"Hm… you have a point." He held out his hand, and I levitated it over. "I can certainly see why you have attracted so much attention from my peers."

"…um, no?" I corrected him. "Lugia was saved from some kind of mad science experiment, and Marshadow tried to stalk me when I was asking a Celebi how to purify her."

"…the former is annoying to hear, I will have to investigate what other madness the criminal element has gotten up to during my slumber. But nevertheless, if they chose to assist you after being caught, then clearly you are deserving of their attention." He turned away and spread his wings. "As you may be mine, one day. Until then, Jason."

Thankfully, he didn't engage the afterburner that was his tail until he was well into the air. Then we all watched him rocket off into the distance for a few seconds, vaguely in the direction of North America, in silence that I quickly broke. "I suppose he understands flight well enough to find North America regardless of where he sets off from, but he probably should have asked me what N's last known location was. Not that it would have helped much by now, but I'm kinda curious how he plans to find him."

[He'll probably just crisscross the landmass until he attracts enough attention to draw him out.] Lugia pointed out, as she went back to grinding thoughtfully through a Watmel. [It would take a while, but news about Zekrom's return and sightings of one of the Tao Trio will spread like wildfire over there.]

"Makes sense." That choice of words, on the other hand… better include Evan for this. […'over there', as opposed to 'back home'?]

[] She paused and let an 'audible' silence drag on for almost two seconds before she swallowed and quietly 'mumbled'. […well, I don't really live there anymore, and it's been… at first, the training was a bit nerve-wracking, but you let me learn at my own pace and you helped me where you could. And outside of that, it's been nice to have some consistent company for the first time in over a century, and to have a place to relax and tour the world from and do… all kinds of interesting activities. We even freed a Legendary from their self-imposed slumber and possibly saved North America at the same time. These 'secret bases' in Hoenn are more my home than an empty undersea cave off the coast of Orre.]

I'd have liked a little longer to think my reply over, but I didn't want the silence to become deafening. [I'm… not going to make light of your admission with an 'I wuv you too' crack at your expense despite the temptation, but in all seriousness, I'm very glad to hear that you've enjoyed your time with me and Evan.] I telekinetically 'looped a one-armed hug' around her neck. [Is that also a suggestion that you'd like to travel with us to wherever my Sponsor leads me?]

[…I… yes. Yes, I would.] She firmed her resolved 'tone'. [I don't know what awaits you, but I'd like to at least pay you back for all the help you've given me. And, y'know, not go back to my lonely old life at the bottom of the sea.]

[Well, I certainly won't begrudge you for that.] I gave the impression of a 'nod'. [But just so we're clear, you don't 'owe' me for that. If you feel like you do, and you want to pay off that debt for your own sake, or it's just because you want to stay with us, that's totally fine. But don't feel like you 'have' to do anything for us just because we're nice to you, okay? I'm not gonna pretend I don't want you with us for your awesome psychic powers, but I value you as a comrade first and one of 'my' Pokemon second, and… I can't help it if you 'feel' like you have to follow us to pay me back, but you don't have to 'think' that I expect that of you, okay?]

[…okay.] The huge smile in her 'voice' was a bit hard to pick up, but the faint tail-wagging under the lake's surface told me everything.

[Okay. Good.] I ended the hug and turned to 'my' other pseudo-god. [And how about you, Marshadow? Have you changed your mind about joining us at all?]

"I'd like to ask a few more questions first. And I'd like to stay with you and experience your company for some time, before I make any big decisions." "But thus far, you've been very respectful and very accommodating to us, and shown a great deal of bravery and kindness both in stopping Team Plasma. You even let Zekrom leave of his own accord and offered him his Pokeball, I thought you'd at least ask him to stay."

[If he's not interested in joining, then he's not interested. I'm not going to actively insist on someone coming along with us unless it's of their own accord, and they make their choice of their own initiative without being nagged. A single prompt is fine, but I don't want to pressure anyone after how well things have gone thus far.]

"Then yes, I think I still would like to go with you. I just want to know some more first. For starters: when you first broached this topic, you implied that you didn't know whether or not there was someone behind your 'travelling', and just now, you sounded like this was common knowledge to yourself. Where did this change of mind come from?"

[…I probably should have explained a little further at the time, but we'd only just met and I didn't know where either of you stood.] Right, let's go over the basics. [While I was in that void I mentioned, the 'monolith' explicitly referenced a god of some kind who was 'sponsoring' me to 'Jump' across a 'Chain' of different settings, akin to a series of text-based 'choose your own adventure' writing prompts explicitly called 'JumpChain' in my original world. I was never actually spoken to by anyone while I was there or since, but Pokemon was a vaguely-similar fictional setting in my original world, and if the transition between 'settings' follows the same rules as JumpChain, I should gain access to an extremely-wide variety of locales and a few useful 'supplements', like a Cosmic Warehouse to store things between Jumps and live in if all else fails. I'm assuming that when that happens, if anyone is sponsoring me and this isn't some kind of automated system, they'll at least check in with me now that I've survived my first decade in another world.]

"…okay, that answers a few more of my questions like 'where are we going to stay', but how exactly do we fit into this 'JumpChain'?"

[Well, Pokemon are a special variation of 'Followers'…]

What followed was a very-similar explanation to the one I'd given Evan a few years ago, minus a few differing questions and an interruption by the Golbat Swarm. Honestly, they'd been so mind-numbingly consistent that I hadn't even noticed when the number of second-stages began outnumbering their weaker counterparts, and I had long given up trying to figure out how they'd managed to evolve without ever Fainting one of my Pokemon. It did make me wonder if they were following me around and terrorising the local Wild Pokemon in the process, but frankly, I was beyond the point of caring. Then more smoothies all around, a Cologne Massage for Evan (for Teleport services), Lugia (for using Skiablast), and Marshadow (because he was curious what it was like, and like Lugia preferred the weaker Scents' and enjoyed it more than he wanted to admit), dinner in the Western Base, and finally, an early bed time with two Pokemon who actually could fit on the second bed I'd long-ago slotted in next to mine, and one who had an entire pillow fort to snuggle into at the foot of the bed. Really have to get that external shelter set up for her: she might be totally okay with the rain and the cold, and she hadn't had any panic attacks or severe nightmares (where she needed someone to mentally talk to right then and there), but she still wanted some kind of outdoors enclosure, and my schedule was now clear for quite a while...


AN: So. It's been seven and a half months. Where've I been? I'm writing this close to midnight on the fifteenth of January, and barely have a paragraph, so what happened this time?

The family emergency has turned into three-to-six months of physiotherapy, but the injured family member is recovering and will be better in due time. On a surprisingly-unrelated note, I'm also now on anti-depressants to handle my constant lack of energy and focus, and while I'm still in the jittery-restless phase, I'm lucky enough to have avoided the more serious side effects, and I now have the motivation to actually do stuff all day and get onto my chores. And play (and be upset by the pay-to-win of) Hearthstone, I suppose.

Unfortunately, there are a number of other things I need to do. I had to get a P1 license by March or pay $182 for another learner license in the interim, which I'd really rather not. I also have to attend a number of other medical appointments, including a cortisone injection in my left wrist which should, theoretically, finally fix the tendonitis at the cost of leaving me not writing for a week (or at least, not writing at anything approaching a reasonable rate with only one hand), get a booster shot for the somehow-still-ongoing pandemic, and receive my final Allergen Immunotherapy shot next month. But don't feel too bad for me, I have plenty of free time, just… not much motivation to write for this fic specifically.

So what have I been writing? Other than a few plot ideal for other things which are still very early stages: I've done a little for this fic's companion, an identical concept but without taking Pokemon Jumps due to the free (immortal) Companions; I've started writing a bit for two short JumpChains revolving around only DC/Marvel settings, the latter getting more attention because the former would be a partial retread of the yet-to-be-finished With This Ring, and because it takes place from the AlexWilder!SI's perspective, and even with the nigh-limitlessness of JumpChain bullshit, Marvel is still a hell of a setting. But, well, actually following the Marvel's "floating timeline" requires the reading of a frankly obnoxious number of comics, so that's kind of flickered out. I even started work on an SI using the Lewd Worm CYOAv1, inspired by wanting to do more with the Tar-God idea than that one fic I briefly saw on QQ, which… well, it's kind of hard to work with such an idea without discussing sex at an uncomfortable length, let alone posting it somewhere other than QQ.

The majority has gone to a Worm fic not based on an explicit CYOA, where the SI has a number of incredibly-versatile Animorph-based powers (which I'm deliberately misleading you about, because I might publish it eventually), enough to be classified as a natural S-Class threat, but that's also in fairly-early stages, so…

A week later, I return post-Cortisone and still recovering, and frankly, the simple truth is that I've been so busy with so much guff and assorted nonsense, that my desire to write (and more specifically for this fic) has dwindled. Not that I plan to stop, but things are just… all over the place right now. I have a driver's license to earn, I have weight to lose, I have other fics I want to write, I have to support the injured family member, and I'm still at least a week away from having a 'good' hand that I feel confident writing with.

Four and a half months into my dry spell, I've been focussing on a Digimon Quest: Infamy recursive fanfic, but the calc slows things down a lot even though I enjoy it, and I'm not sure I should publish something recursive without checking in with the original author first, which I don't particularly care to do. On the other hand, things have finally eased up a bit, and I'm pulling myself away from Hearthstone Battlegrounds to actually make some progress on this, as promised in my last post. I'm also going to try and get out a second chapter of the Minecraft fic I've only just started, but we'll see how that goes. Either way, while I'm continuing to write for these fics, don't expect them to come out nearly as quickly as they used to, and definitely not as consistently. I'm about to go back into online schooling, and while the two remaining Units should not involve co-operating with other students, I don't trust something not to go wrong or be unnecessarily stressful as a result of someone else's bollocking-up.

And five and a half months past my last upload, my current plan is thus: get out another Chapter or two by the 18th of July, my most-likely next enrolment period, and wrap up the first Jump. There's only two more Chapters planned for this setting anyway, a Slice of Life taking place right before the end of the Jump, and an in-character discussion of the Jumper system with his new Companions followed by his selecting of his next (Pokemon Ranger) Jump, which will have far fewer Chapters due to its more compressed format (mostly just getting to know their new Starter, interactions between his Team, and dealing with a preset new list of game-Canon threats). That being said, I have to actually watch a playthrough of those side-games, or straight-up play them myself, so don't expect the next Chapter.

And on the 1st of June, I'm finally ready to upload this shitshow once I pulled myself away from my Shield Hero fic, and the Generic!Multicross!Minecraft!SI I published the first Chapter of last year (which I'm also working on, I swear, it's just hard to come up with interaction logic between Minecraft's mechanics and other settings without ripping off Goshujin-sama to Yuku Isekai Survival, though I am glad I was recommended it, it gave my ideas a lot of refinement). I enjoy responding to your reviews, even the shit ones, so feel free to leave one and if it's even slightly-intelligent, I'll probably mention you in the next Chapter, whenever that comes.

(PS: Future updates announcing more HIATUS periods will be at the bottom of a prepared Chapter, just so I don't have to agonise over whether or not the new Chapter replacing the HIATUS announcement is actually being announced to the viewers.)

Date of Chapter 17 Upload/final Edit: 2022, June 1st. Final Edit: June 3rd.