Whirlipede, Watchog, and Eelektrik

When it came to fanfiction, he rather liked stories in which someone from the normal world got sucked into a fictional world. It didn't matter which world, really; could be from a movie, a TV series, a book, or a video game. It was just interesting to see what a normal person would do in these weird worlds. But if it was going to happen to him, he wanted it to be something cool where he could be someone powerful, like Halo or God of War. Not his kid sister's dumb Pokemon game.

But that's exactly where he had ended up.

"Joe, you need to do some Pokemon observations in the wild," a man in a lab coat and glasses told him. "If you want to get your Trainer's license, there's a certain amount of observation hours you need to do." He handed over a clipboard with a few sheets of lined paper and a pen attached with a chain.

"At night?" he asked. Not that he was tired, but it was strange that with as cautious as they were, this guy was telling him to go out in the dark.

"Just keep a flashlight and one of the night-vision goggles, and don't go into the tall grass," the scientist stereotype guy said.

"Fine," he said, taking it. At first, the people here had thought he was crazy in claiming that this was a fictional world, not where he was from. And he had thought he was crazy too. But after a few weeks of 'therapy', Joe decided that he needed to go along with the 'hit my head' explanation and they decided that he needed to do some work to get better. Because of this, he was assigned to be a lab assistant until he qualified to be a Trainer and could... well, go do something else. What that was he didn't know.

He thought it was all silly. Why did he need qualifications? All his sister had to do was turn on the game. And it wasn't like this was a dangerous place. As far as he'd seen, Pokemon were cute happy creatures who liked to beat each other up for fun and wouldn't turn on people. Also, it made for a dumb anime. And the time he'd been forced to spend here hadn't changed his mind.

At least if he was allowed to leave this weirdly small 'city', then he could find a way to get back home. Nothing here gave him any hints and the place he had appeared was out in the wild. And they wouldn't let him go out in the grass without his own Pokemon. Ridiculous.

Joe walked out of town, to the route that led to the next town over. Due to ledges and tall grass, he couldn't get to that other town yet, at least when he kept with their rules. But he should be able to make his observations here. He found a spot just outside of one of the grassy plots where there was a spiky purple-ish rock. That would be good; he sat there.

And then the center of the rock opened up, revealed a single black eye. It looked over at him, then narrowed. A rattling hiss came from it.

Snorting, he sat down. "What's it to you, rock? It's a free country and I can sit where I want." He remembered there being rock-like Pokemon, so this was probably one of them. Geodud, or something like that.

The spiky rock looked at him for a while longer, still hissing. Then it rolled off to sit at the edge of the grass. Turning around so that its other side was to him, it continued to watch him.

"I bet you have a cute face behind that spiky exterior," Joe said. No Pokemon could be threatening, not with what he'd seen his sister use. Whenever he got around to getting his own and traveling, he'd probably go with a dog-like Pokemon. He could deal with cute if it was a dog.

Looking around, he saw a yellow and red glow in the grass. Fire? Unfortunately not. While it did shift occasionally, it didn't behave like fire in any other way. He put on the night-vision goggles and looked over at the glow. It was, as suspected, another Pokemon. This one was tall and furry, with a fluffy tail end, small legs, and freaky large eyes. Both its eyes and its belly showed that bright glow while it stood there, watching the area around it.

"Stupid idea if you ask me," he muttered. Having glowing fur at night time? Only in a world like this where nothing could really hurt anything else. If that thing was in the real world, it would be eaten in minutes by wolves and coyotes.

The tall furry Pokemon stayed where it was, turning its head and occasionally twitching its tail without bending or curling it. The round spiky Pokemon sat at the edge of the grass, watching him. And he sat watching these two while wearing night-vision goggles. That was all that happened for the next hour.

"This is stupid." He made his notes as detailed as possible, repeating enough to show how bored he was doing this dumb observation. But they'd probably praise him for doing a thorough job like the cheerful optimists they all were.

As he paused thinking about what insignificant detail to go into next, he noticed that the tall furry one began to flash its lights faster. It was watching a part of the grass intently. Joe watched (for lack of anything better to do) and saw when a giant snake reared up and lunged for the furry prairie dog thing. No, that wasn't a snake. That was some sort of land eel, with yellow circles flashing on its murky skin. Then it fired a large spark at the glowing prairie dog.

It jumped out of the way, biting the eel's fin and ripping a chunk of it out. Joe wasn't sure he was seeing things right. Had it really done that? But as the land eel, turned around and growled, it seemed to be real. There was a portion of its back fin gone now, bleeding even. The land eel bared its teeth, then fired a spark at the prairie dog again. As the smell of burnt fur hit Joe's nose, he saw the eel bite off the fluffy end of the prairie dog's tail.

Wait... this was how Pokemon actually behaved?

Then there was a brilliant flash from the prairie dog, briefly blinding Joe and the land eel. With a pattering of paws, the prairie dog ran away from the scene. The land eel made a grumbling sound when it realized this. After sniffing the air, it headed towards the round spiky Pokemon. The rock-thing decided that Joe was less of a threat now and turned its attention to the land eel. It fired one of its spikes at the eel.

"It was horrible," Joe told the scientist guy. "That rock thing gored the eel right through, but it kept trying to eat it."

"A Whirlipede," he said. "And it's not a Rock type; it's Bug and Poison. Odd that you should have seen an Eelektrik around here. There aren't many reports of them being here, although Pokemon do tend to migrate. The, um, what you call 'prairie dog' is a Watchog, very common in these lands. Make sure to get their proper names in."

"But they were trying to kill each other," Joe said. He could handle violent and gory games; they weren't real and the blood spatter made it thrilling. But to see animals rip into each other like that, it made him feel sick. Maybe it was better that he hadn't fallen into one of his more violent games... or maybe this one was more violent than he realized.

"That was just normal predatory behaviors," the scientist guy said. "Wild Pokemon will do that, but tame Pokemon get these instincts inhibited so that they're less destructive. The observation report looks good so far, but you may wish to cut out the repetition before turning it in the finals." with that, he handed the clipboard with its written records back.

"I have got to find a way back home soon," Joe muttered to himself. He'd take an ordinary Earth day over this any time.

…

Watchog White entry: They make the patterns on their bodies shine in order to threaten predators. Keen eyesight lets them see in the dark.

Whirlipede B2/W2 entry: Storing energy for evolution, it sits. But, when predators approach, it moves to stab them with poison spikes.

Eelektrik White entry: These Pokemon have a big appetite. When they spot their prey, they attack it and paralyze it with electricity.

Something I don't think POS has covered yet: getting stuck in a game. Of course, I've written so many that I might be missing one!

I've seen some talk that Pokemon has gotten darker with the Unova Pokemon descriptions. And with this... yeah, I'd have to agree. Maybe it has to do with the older protagonists. But I know an eight year old who plays Pokemon (we trade sometimes) and she hardly notices the dark stuff. Pretty nice to have that older player bonus.