Brett stood at the crossroads. He smiled at the sound of that thought. He was literally at the crossroads. All around him were plains as far as the eye could see. From his best estimation, he was somewhere in North Kansas. The fields were dead in the middle of the winter, but still tall. A small gas station was at the crossroad he was standing at. He had already raided the gas station of everything thing left.
It had been only two weeks since the start of this debacle, but already the world seemed so much emptier. He had left his home ten days ago, for it had been hit hard fast. His parents died on the first day, his sister on the third. He hadn't been able to protect them back then. He had no desire to stay in his own in Arkansas. Those lonely hills were infested with pokemon now. At first it was smaller ones, like Caterpies and Weedles. They were annoying, really, but not dangerous. Then, by the end of the night, the entire town was infested with monsters. Tropius, Exeggutor, and Venusaur overran the town and killed almost everybody.
Then Groudon appeared. He cared nothing of anybody, not even the pokemon, and wiped out nearly everything, leaving the town in ashes. Only he and a few others had survived. He had nothing left in that town. There was no food, no supplies, barely any houses, and a raging legendary beast roaming his home town. So, a day after the attack, after his last relative died, he packed up what he had left and left his home to move north.
He carried a shotgun, not for protection against the monsters, but mainly for protection against other humans. People might be savage in a world like this, especially if catastrophes like the one in his town had happened everywhere else. Therefore, protection would be good to have.
Brett moved north, out of Arkansas and into Missouri. Not a lot had happened at first, at least not until he crossed the boarders. Arkansas was always a fairly non-populated place before the attacks, so it was even more so now. Most of the pokemon he ran into were not hostile, but the ones he noticed were always far away, so he never had much trouble staying out of trouble.
Two days into Missouri he ran into his first attack. A hostile Donphan attacked him. For five minutes he avoided attacks, an overwhelming feat in itself, before his savior finally came. A beautiful, Golden Persian came to his rescue and took down the Donphan. It was then Brett began to realize what had happened, or what was just beginning.
The next day Hitmonlee had found him, and he fully understood what had happened. Well, not fully, but enough to realize that this was somehow connected to his online game. He was happy with the pokemon he had on there, and felt much better since he had found them. They partially filled an unspeakable gap that had broken open only a few days ago.
So the next week Brett had spent walking north. He made it through Missouri with only a few attacks, but his new partners handled them with ease. Now he sat at a gas station in Northern Kansas, Hitmonlee by his side, Persian out scouting the area. He had plenty of supplies now, and was debating where to go next. Persian had been out awhile, and Brett was getting bored, so he decided to go inside the gas station and look around again. Most of the stuff was taken, but the store seemed in surprisingly good shape. He went around the back rooms of the store. The supply room was empty. Brett noticed the power box in the back, and strolled over to the box. He looked inside the box. All the switches were off, so he flipped them out of curiosity. Surprisingly, the power switched on, and the sounds of machines fired up. Apparently everything in the world wasn't in ruin, Brett thought.
"Urgent news from the capital." He heard from the front room.
Brett ran back into the front room. The T.V. was on.
"President Obama has hired a team of experts to this crisis, and they have successfully discovered the cause of the problem. We now bring you to a special announcement from a private military base by the experts who have discovered the root of the problem."
Brett stood wide eyed as the T.V. rolled. A younger man stood in front of a series of microphones. Obama stood behind him, along with another man.
"Hello, America, and whoever else may be watching. My name is Andrew, though, as of now, that is not important. You all know of the crisis on us all, and what I am about to tell you is going to be hard to believe, but I beg you to believe it."
The man on T.V. stopped, coughed, and continued on. He seemed so nervous, but completely serious.
"The name more important for me right now would be the one I go by on the internet, more importantly the website known as TPPC."
Now Brett was completely in attention. "I knew it..." he managed to mumble.
"I am Shrimpy, the administrator of the site." He continued. "The website is designed to be an online pokemon experience. I wouldn't expect you to believe everything I am going to say, but perhaps the experience the world has experienced in the past two weeks have been enough to convince you. Two weeks ago, I opened up the website and attempted to put a new program into the site. Needless to say, the program went wrong, and all of this has happened."
Brett continued to watch. Persian walked in behind him and took his place beside Brett.
"The program was a virus, nicknamed the GOD code. It is programmed in a sense that it is allowed to do what it wants, override any security, and think on its own. I won't say I know how this has happened, but the virus has taken over networks all across the world and used it to generate this mass of pokemon. It's only goal is to terminate in any way it can find, and, because the program was entered into my website, it took the form of pokemon."
This was starting to get interesting.
"However, there is something the program cannot do." He pulled up a small box. "Inside this hard drive is the memory, the only memory, of the login data for the website members. Without this, the virus cannot get back into the system and take over the user's pokemon. It can only make its own, new pokemon. Because of this, we still have a fighting chance. TPPC users, if any of you have experienced pokemon, YOUR pokemon on the website, coming to you and fighting by your side, this is not a coincidence. They are your pokemon, just as they are programmed to be yours, and they will fight for you. They have a link with you. These are our only hope. With these, we can fight the hostile pokemon that this virus is creating, the ones that are destroying our civilization."
Brett looked over at Persian, then outside to Hitmonlee standing watch. "This is surreal. But this means that you guys are part of me, right?"
Persian looked up at Brett and purred softly. Brett smiled, probably for the first time in weeks.
"So, I'm asking all of you out there, anybody who plays TPPC, so travel here. If we ban together, we can fight. Please, come to New York, and help us."
The power went off again right after that. Brett treated it nonchalantly and walked outside. For the first time, he knew what he was supposed to do. He only hoped other trainers heard the message.
He walked back over to Hitmonlee, who was standing and watching over the plains.
"Anything, buddy?" Brett asked.
Hitmonlee pointed out into the plains. A humanoid figure was approaching, walking down the road with a small, dark figure by their side. Brett waited until the figure got closer before he drew any weapons or ordered his pokemon to be on guard.
By the time they were close enough, he knew there would be no need.
The figure was a young man, around the same age as Brett, and he was smiling. Beside him walked a black Jolteon.
At last both figures stopped and stared at each other. It took almost a minute before somebody spoke.
"Erik Bodo." Brett said confidently. "The ever-so infamous Bodolicious."
Bodo smiled. "And you must be Brett. Or should I say, Noble?"
They walked up to each other and shook hands.
"So," Bodo said. "What's the plan?"
Brett smiled. "Well, I've got a lot to explain, but, to cut it short, we're going to New York."
Across the plains and rivers, back in Cleveland, Kim sat inside with Lawnbuddha and Blackfire as Shrimpy walked off the pedestal from giving his speech.
"This all makes a lot more sense now. Still can't really believe what's happening." Lawn said.
"Yea. But we've seen the pokemon. They listen and love us. We should go." Kim said. She had grown accustomed to being with Lawn and Blackfire over the past three days. They lived here, in what was left of Cleveland, inside an apartment complex downtown. This was not their original home, but the building was stout, so Lawn decided to move here after the attacks had started. They were both really nice, and Kim had grown comfortable with them.
"You tell the truth. And, saying as how we have nothing else really to do besides sit here and rot, I say we go!" Lawn replied.
"I'm up for it!" Princess Blackfire expressed very openly.
"Of course you are. You don't know what danger is, silly girl." Her father replied.
Lawn stood up and walked into the kitchen. "Well, it's early in the day, so what do you guys say we pack up and get going? I want to get out of the city by nightfall. So pack your bags and let's head out!"
Kim nodded and stood up. At least she had a purpose now. Without another word, she left to help pack.
Shrimpy sighed. "That's over. I'm so happy."
Deimos laughed. "Oh, come on. It can't be that bad."
Shrimpy turned around and looked at Deimos. "You have no idea."
"I would have ended the speech with something idiotic. It's the end of the world. Might as well go out doing something memorable." Deimos replied.
"Well, next time there is a dramatic, emergency meeting or worldwide announcement, I will for sure let you give it." Shrimpy commented.
"Deal."
They walked out of the room. "I'm just hoping people heard the speech. We're gonna need a lot of help to fix this problem."