AN the First, Last, and maybe Only:
First, yes, this is a fic I've been working on for a while. As far as I know it's 100% original on plot and ideas as far as Pokemon or any other fanfic, really. It may as well be 100% original- aside from definitely being in the Pokemon 'verse. There WILL be recognizable areas, people, and Pokemon.
HOWEVER, a few things to note:

1) This fic has two 'worlds' in it. One is the 'real world' set about 200 years in our future. MegaCities (as in Mega City Tokyo, among other examples I could give) are now the norm, and the world is a far darker, grittier place- the wealth divide being the foremost difference. It's only gotten wider.

2) The second world is "Kanto", and parts will be recognizable from the games, movies, and shows, but it's also 'X years in the future' and is a bit of a reboot as well. Why, exactly, that's the case will (or should) become clear as the fic continues. There is an in-world reason for it.

3) This fic is NOT FOR CHILDREN. It contains lots of things that children should not be involved in or see. Same goes for adults who are sensitive to such things. In other words, THERE ARE TRIGGERING SITUATIONS AND SCENES AND TOPICS throughout this fic, and I will not (probably) think to note them in every chapter. So consider yourself warned. Those warnings include: Sexuality, drug and alcohol use (and some abuse), nonconsent, dubious consent, underaged sex (within some reason), sexuality between Pokemon, sexuality between Pokemon and humans, character and Pokemon death, abuse, and violence.

4) Team Rocket, the primary 'villains' in Kanto, have both good and bad about them... but the rank and file will generally be terrible, horrible folks who deserve worse happening to them. Much of the 'bad' (trigger warnings above) will be coming from them- but not ALL of it will. The characters in this fic are nuanced, and neither morally 100% heroic or villainous. Even the 'NPCs' designed to be villains... and especially not the 'players'.

5) This story is NOT an Isekai! While I do have some resemblance to the main male lead (in that I'm male and caucasian), our similarities otherwise end at a martyr complex (a 'saving people thing' in some fandoms). So don't expect to much of that.

6) This story IS a Harem fic! The male lead is one of FOUR leads total, the other three of which will (eventually) end up with our MC. There are twists and turns along the way, of course, but expect that harem life- with M/F, M/F/F, and M/F/F/F, but also M/F/F/Other, and F/F, F/F/Other, and, of course, some Pokemon thrown in there in various ways, too. Sexuality is a large part of being 'human', and the 'players and npcs' in this fic are, in the end, as human as can be. Many of the Pokemon are, too, as far as sentience and sexuality go.

... Almost done. Promise. Support me on PAT(R) SLASH KajaWilder (NSFW filter must be off) for more of this, plus images too. This will be one of my less-frequently-updated stories here, but there will be lots more there soon. :)
That's enough out of me. Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Winner!

A young man, exhausted from a twelve-hour workday, climbed the stairs into the town home far outside Pacific Mega-City where he cared for his wealthy but elderly father, glad that the hired help had taken care, as usual, to bring in any packages while they did their own part to take care of the modest dwelling and his father's health during the day. He was tall, fit from hours of manual labor from his own low position in his father's company, where he worked as a loader for the automated, self-driven shipping vehicles that kept the sprawling city, population one-point-six billion (give or take) alive and functional these days. His father, a shipping magnate who had inherited the company from his own father before the young man's birth, had turned it from a large land-transport company into the Mega-City wide shipping conglomerate that kept Pacific's wealthy and poor alike fed, clothed, and supplied with whatever nick knack was popular that day.

But even though his family was one of the wealthiest in the whole City, this particular family was determined not to flaunt their wealth too much. It was for that reason alone that the young man in question, at a newly-minted eighteen, would be spending a year of his working career at each level of the company before he rose to take it over from his father, though he would still inherit the controlling shares on his father's death.

The contract was iron-clad, just like they'd both wanted it. Inherited wealth was no excuse not to learn the value of a good day's work: a family value they all shared, ingrained from very early on in their lives, right up there with 'get what you pay for', and 'don't abuse the help- they keep you alive'.

"I'm home," he called quietly, and moved up the stairs of the darkened house to glance in on his father's room. The holo-screen was on, as it always was, with the sound very low, hovering directly over his father's bed, though the old man's sunken eyes were closed, the last wisps of white hair limp on the bed. He breathed slowly and evenly, assisted in part by an oxygen filter and compression system, but only partially. His father was old, in his mid-hundreds, but with modern medicine that wasn't that much of a stretch. He still worked every day, though he mostly did so from home.

His next stop was that of the hired help who had been one of Alex's earliest friends, nearly a sister to him, though she was a few years older. Her own mother and father had been the family's driver and housekeeper, while Cora herself had been 'paid' as a friend while both grew up.

Now in her early twenties, the woman was clad in her usual night-wear of flannel pajamas, with a cup of tea or maybe hot chocolate in one hand, an old-fashioned paper book in the other, while she reclined in a soft chair with her feet up on her well-made bed.

He had, of course, a crush on the girl he'd grown up with for years, but in recent times that had faded into a vague sense of general lack and loneliness that pervaded much of the young man's life. The deaths of their mothers, in the same car accident that crippled her father, who had been driving, had driven a wedge between them that he didn't know would ever heal, though he wanted it to in some undefined way.

"Evening, Cora," he murmured, letting his eyes roam her shapely body for a moment as he spoke, lingering on her soft lips as she looked up and gave a little smile.

"Hi, Alex. Just getting home?"

He nodded, giving a little smile, "Ten months, three weeks, and one day left at the bottom of the barrel. Good book?"

"Read it a few times, so yes," she said quietly, stretching, "Your dad still asleep?"

"Yeah. Anyway, good night."

"Oh- you had a package arrive. It was small, so I put it in your bedroom. Said it was from some company called Game Freak."

He blinked. That was a name he hadn't heard in a few years, not since he'd 'given up' on childish things and started studying to run his dad's company when he got a bit older. Not that he didn't still play plenty of games in his off time, but friends were few and far between, so they got old and lonely after a while. "Huh. Alright, well, maybe I'll read a little. Maybe."

"Don't stay up too late," she teased, taking a sip of her drink, "I remember just a few years ago you and Colt would stay up all night."

Colt, Cora's younger brother, was his same age. Now, she cared for both of them and his own father, the only real 'family' any of them had left, though only in Colton's case was it literal.

The last time he'd seen his old friend, though, he'd fallen in with a rather bad crowd, and he suspected the boy- he couldn't call him a man, even though Colt was the same age to the month- had gotten into some rather heavy chem use.

"Alright. Good night."

Upstairs, he found the disposable data-pad on his bed, just as well made as Cora's by the daytime staff, he suspected, and undressed, preparing himself for bed.

Clad in just his boxers, the young man flipped up his covers and sat down, only then reaching for the plastic and silicone device, his touch turning it on, and a swipe of his thumb across the key-pad telling the object he was the intended recipient.

Mr. Alexander Ward,

You have been randomly selected from a wide pool to participate in the beta-test of the newest installment of the Pokémon franchise, Pokémon: Truth and Lies, which is the thirty-seventh issue of the main game line. Using the SoNinten VR Ultra's proprietary new hardware, you are formally invited to embark on a completely new story-line using familiar characters and places from ages past in the Pokémon franchise, with favorites both new and old, in a tale of epic growth, love, and loss.

This is a limited time offer, and space is by invitation only. Should you choose to accept, you will be required to be at the Game Freak Studios, Suite 2214A45-C2 in the Sonoma District, by ten AM the day after this message is flagged as read (the current date, Friday, September 13, 2165). Failure to arrive at the intended destination by the appropriate time will result in your spot being given to the next available person on our list.

You will be compensated for your time and travel whether or not you accept the offer after arrival, and for any contract-based employment with Game Freak.

You have received this letter due to your response of "Yes," to the question, "I would like to be selected to participate in product testing by Game Freak and its subsidiaries," on Friday, March 13, 2161. If you believe you have received this message in error, please contact the Game Freak Internal Review Department.

Sincerely, Game Freak Research and Development Department, Pokémon Division design team TL.

This data-pad will self-erase and clear memory in: 13:31:24.

Alex put down the pad on his nightstand and spun in the bed, laying his head down before muttering, "Lights."

As they dimmed and shut off completely over the next minute, just as they'd been programmed to do, his mind raced. He hadn't played Pokémon in years, three at least, though the franchise was just as popular as it had ever been, with what his dad had casually mentioned was near seventy percent market share in casual-game youth, and a fair few adults who'd grown up playing the games, and still did so.

They've changed a bit over the years, though, he thought, as the times have. Still basically the same formula. Young kid to young-adult goes on a quest, fights some bad guys, catches Pokemon, beats gyms or challenges or trials or whatever, and then the big bad before becoming the area champion or something. At least, that's what they were like a few years ago. I doubt anything's changed, if the formula has stood strong for almost two centuries.

… Should I do it? Dad did say I can take time off if I need to, it just sets back my start date, and he's doing fine health-wise still. Got at least another decade in him. I don't know. It might be fun, at least to give myself a change of pace.

He was still rolling the idea over in his mind when the soft music that had risen while the lights dimmed lulled him to sleep.

"Elizabeth Berkman, you get back here this instant! I will not be having my daughter-"

The girl in question ran, ran as hard as she could, her backpack stuffed full with all she could carry, into the dark streets. It was unusual, in the Mendecino District, for enough street lights to be out for total darkness, and even the windows of the nearby houses were out.

This was intentional, the virus had been planted in the District's power-grid computers for just that purpose.

All so she could run.

Her narrow chest heaved as the girl of fifteen, maybe sixteen, ran, golden-blonde hair flying behind her, occasionally whipping against her cheek as she spun a corner on too-expensive shoes, her also too-expensive clothes rustling only slightly as she went.

If he catches me, I'm dead, I'm so dead!

Children's Detention Center was bad enough, and she'd already spent a year there in her short life. At her age, with the crime she'd just been caught committing, she would be heading to adult prison. For adult people, not just silly teenagers with a penchant for hacking and a little too much time on their hands.

If the Mega-City Security Patrol caught her, it would be bad indeed, and if her father caught her, they would.

So she ran, and ran some more, until her half-drunk father stumbled and fell, and she turned a corner from far enough ahead there was no way he could track her. Not with the locator-block I have on my 'phone and computer. Now I just have to find a place to crash before I get picked up by some gangsters and raped or something...

It took her, with the additional funds she'd swiped from her father on the way out the door, to secure a cab she wouldn't be taking to the east, into the far reaches of the Vegas District, while the slightly older stolen funds got her another hailed lift to her actual destination, deep in the heart of old Angels District, where the urban sprawl had been a century old and then some in her great-great-grandfather's time, well before the Mega Cities had developed and then incorporated.

She'd gotten her data-pad with the invitation to her eventual destination earlier that day, and it had taken less than six hours to plan and execute her heist, work out every detail she would need to get there, out from under her over-protective drunkard of a father and drug-addict, essentially absent mother's watch.

Faking the documents for her age was even easier, she'd done that years ago, and updated the photos just a week earlier out of habit, before she'd known the invitation was coming- she hadn't hacked into Game Freak's listing yet.

"VR games are sweet," Elle murmured as she sank into the hover-cab's back seat, the automated driver's cool, half-synthetic, half-living voice a familiar chatter as the AI filled the silence. At least, until she murmured, "Deactivate Chat Mode. I'll just take a nap until we get there. Notify me... fifteen minutes before we arrive."

"Yes, ma'am," the cab said, its own biometric scans disabled enough that it could not tell it was driving a minor far beyond the home District of her parents, far to the south, unknowingly aiding in her running away.

Hopefully, this time, for good.

The next morning, after a rather restless half-night's sleep in the swanky hotel room she'd rented, Elle stepped into the private office on the two-hundred-fortieth floor, near the very top, of the tall Game Freak building, and took the seat offered by the dark-haired woman with fashionable glasses and a well-cut suit that accented her full figure in all the best ways.

"Miss Berkman- you're younger than your photo suggested. I'm Maline Greengrass, the senior VP in charge of the Beta-test for Pokémon: Truth and Lies. I take it, since you're here, you are interested in joining the Beta?"

Elle nodded, grinning. She'd grown up, like so many had, with these games. They fascinated her, the other worlds, the amazing creatures... but she'd grown bored with the 'new' ones. Now, all that was new, of the full one-thousand-and-one Pokémon out there were the first four or five hundred, digital creatures she knew by sight and name in most cases, but very little about otherwise, because they were well before her time. Playing old emulators only got you so far, and these days, even the worst hardware was too new and fast to run the ancient games any more.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that, because you're one of our top-ranked candidates according to our research. As such, you've been selected to join an even more special test, if you're so inclined."

"What kind of test?" Elle asked.

The woman grinned, leaning in a little, "First, can you confirm you are over the age of consent?"

"Of course," the girl lied easily.

"Very well. You see, it's a bit more... adult-oriented than our other games."

Elle's cheeks pinked slightly, and she fought to keep down the blush. Like everyone these days aside from the hard-core religious folks, she'd seen her share of porn, but unlike many of the girls in her age-group, Elle hadn't actually done anything of the sort, partially due to her introverted nature, and partially because she'd been locked up for a year. "I... see."

Maline's smile widened, "To be perfectly blunt, I was against the idea at first, but the new hardware that SoNinten has come out with makes the whole thing almost entirely indistinguishable from real life. Even better, the nerve-stimulators don't just give basic impulses to your brain when you, for example, get hit in a game- you actually feel the right kind of pain, in the appropriate amounts. As well, of course, there is..."

Elle's grin was shaky, but she was still smiling as she asked, "Pleasure?"

"Exactly. Now, I've tried it myself, and even in the early days of the game's development, Truth and Lies was a triumph. I wouldn't hesitate- not once, and I'm not in PR- to call this the game of the century. It's truly ground-breaking in just how immersive it is, and our own alpha-test department frequently lost track of time from day one, with some of them actually developing health problems before the play-timer kicked them out because they were in so long. Of course, things are much safer now that we've got most of the bugs worked out."

"I'm not worried about that," Elle said, shaking her head, "Um... so like, how long will the test last?"

"Indefinitely, for you and the top candidates," Maline said, leaning back again and picking up a stylus, scrolling through the large data-pad window inset in her faux-wood desk, "which includes you. You see, we've reached out to and will be getting a pool of about a thousand people for the full beta, but the game is set to launch next year. All beta testing must be done by then. For the top hundred and fifty candidates, however, of which you are one, we are fully prepared to offer a permanent position in our delta-test department."
"Delta...? You mean, I'd be working for Game Freak like, permanently, and getting paid to keep testing the game?"

"Yes, in essence," the vice-president said, "let me be perfectly clear about this: we at Game Freak intend Truth and Lies to be the game going forward. Not just for youth, but people of all ages. To do that, we've put an incredible amount of resources and time toward developing this. You could almost call it an old-style MMO game, and it will function similarly, but set in the world of Pokémon. We have plans for at least sixty years worth of continuous game play. It will be, and is, the definitive, probably final game of the franchise, going forward. We want you to be part of that, up to and including your name being in the credits for those interested in looking."

For a moment, Elle felt a moment of panic. She'd used her real name, and she couldn't hack a woman's memory, not unless she had a new cyborg implant, and even then only the mechanical part. Heh, dad would never pick up a game like this, much less play it- he'd never see it anyway.

"Sure," she grinned again, leaning forward herself, "So when do I start?"

"You aren't going to ask about compensation?"

"Co- like, pay?"

Maline nodded, "Usually, yes."

Elle shrugged, her smile widening, "I'll take pay, sure. But let's be real- I love your company, and I love your games. Getting to play this one? It's a dream come true! Getting paid to play it? As long as I can afford a place to sleep and eat... I'm good."

The executive smiled in turn, "In that case, let me give you a brief tour, and I'll show you to your pod. I think you'll like what you'll see."

For the next hour, Elle tuned out most of the names, and the descriptions of how the device she'd be plugged into worked, her mind racing through the various Pokémon games she'd played, all four of them in the main series that had come out in her lifetime, and a couple of the older ones on emulators, too.

That is, until Maline lead her to a wide glass window, where a man a few years older than her with brown hair and a thick frame, arms heavy with wiry but not bulging muscle, was just laying down in a soft, hospital-style bed while a few techs in white robes or lab coats with the Game Freak logo on the chest and shoulder fixed various wires to him, and even more wireless sensors. "This was our first candidate to arrive," Maline murmured, "and my boss interviewed him personally, just like I did for you. You two will be the first players in the new world, aside from our own alpha-test team, who're now working on the beta. They will be the only in-world programmers, and their powers will be limited, but if you ever get yourself stuck and need help, don't hesitate to call on them with the verbal command interface, or the 'help' option in your HuD."

"I'm getting a HuD?"

"After a bit," Maline grinned, "I've only played a few hours myself, and just got my own, but I was fascinated by how it was implemented. I think you'll like it- very retro, but stylish. So... do you want to see your own room?"

"I'm... getting a room?"

"Well... are you going to want to stop playing after a few hours, or go for a day or two at a stretch?"

Elle's soft blue eyes widened, "A- A day or two? Fu- er, yes, I would!"

"Hah, well, follow me- you're just in this room here, one down."

The executive held open the door to allow her new employee to step into the pristine, almost hospital-sterile room first. There was a lavatory through a small doorway at the back, complete with a shower, and a kitchenette with a cupboard and mini fridge next to it, as well as a sink with a few simple dishes. "As you can see, we're trying to give all of you the best chance to get right back into the game if you need to take a break. Of course, we're also prepared to essentially put you on nutrient pills and life-support, given what our developers experienced early on. Now, a normal player would be paying by the hour, but as an employee, we're paying you by the hour. The more you are logged in, the more money you'll make, with bonuses for long stretches. Don't kill yourself doing it- if you start to feel physical ill, malnourished, dehydrated, or a disease makes itself known, there will be in-game flags. You will still feel it- the game doesn't override most of your body's responses to stimuli, only the external touch, taste, and sound are dampened, not removed entirely."

"Cool," Elle breathed, "So that explains the IV drip, I guess. Saline?"

Maline nodded, "You're quite educated. Yes, that's what it's for. Of course, that isn't the only bit of intrusion we allow unless you need to prevent it for medical reasons. Even your body's waste is now handled by nanobots while you're inside."

"Wow. That's expensive, isn't it?"

Maline shrugged, "For our best testers, it's worth it. Of course, in the game you might feel the urge, though less often than in the real world- you'll only feel it if the urge is great. At those times, you should void, and trust the machines to do the work, if you don't want to log out. So... ready to begin?"

The executive thought, for a moment, the golden-haired girl's smile would outshine the healthy, pseudo-sunlight that streamed from the overhead lights.