That old pokémon cartoon should be studied. It had the strangest property to it. It seemed no matter how many episodes they watched, no matter how loud the voice actors were, that none of Roger, Jay, nor Nova could remember even a single thing about what they'd just seen.
The humans could only listen as Nova provided the necessary observations.
"If it was up to me, I'd peck those Team Rockets' brains out."
"Why do they just say their species' names over and over? That's stupid!"
"Like I'd let a little kid tell me what to do."
This was fun for everyone until it got kinda sad. By the time they finished a fourth episode, Nova was in shock.
"Why would they make this about humans anyway?"
When she didn't get a response from the humans, Nova continued. How could these dumb creatures get so many things wrong? What an absolute mess!
"My family worked their tail feathers off to get where they were, but we're gonna give all the credit for any pokémon's success to the people telling them what moves they gotta do?"
She stomped around on the blanket, the fleece piled up in different places on the coffee table as Nova paced the tiny space.
She clicked her beak and posited, "Do you really think I wouldn't know when to use a gust attack?"
The humans that had been asked this rhetorical were on the couch, having paused the show to listen to Nova. Roger just stared at the ranting bird as Jay sunk into his seat.
"I don't even know what a gust is," Roger answered with a shrug.
Nova ruffled her feathers. "Exactly!" She glared at the young pokémon trainers paused on the screen. "At least you guys get it. These ones here are weirdos."
"I was worried you wouldn't exactly enjoy the…" Jay gulped. "I thought you'd think the portrayal would be kind of inaccurate."
Seeing Jay nervous, Nova slowed herself, letting her anger subside as she hopped over the armrest of the couch.
"Sorry," she said, giving Jay a little smile in her eyes. "I mean, I guess it's kinda cool that we get a whole show in a world where we don't exist. I guess we're kinda popular, huh?"
Roger nodded. "There's some decent money been made from it."
"Money?" Nova asked, startled. "For what?"
Jay elbowed his roommate and added, "I wouldn't worry about it. Point is, a lot of people know about pokémon, which is why we're gonna keep things here for now."
Hearing that, as he rubbed his side, Roger pointed out, "And that's why I'm still trying to figure out exactly how you got here."
"Trust me," Nova said, fluttering back over to the table. "I'm trying too."
An awkward silence fell over the trio. It was getting late in the evening, and in spite of all the unanswered questions that hung over their heads, Jay gave a yawn.
"I'm gonna get some sleep," Jay said with a deep breath and a stretch as he stood up and headed toward the restroom on the far side of the living area. "You guys should do the same. We'll all research some stuff tomorrow."
"Sounds good," Roger said, turning off the television. He didn't move, however.
Nova watched as the shorter human closed the bathroom door. Over the sound of running water, she turned to the taller one, who had a question ready.
"So what does your family do?"
Nova tilted her head, surprised to hear such a personal question from the human. "It's a business," she answered as she settled into the blanket. She had to admit, it sure was comfortable. "Tailoring."
Roger thought for a moment. Hand on his chin, he knew he needed a shave. "I didn't think pokémon wrote clothes."
"Scarves, headbands, capes, stuff like that."
"Oh. Okay."
They both sighed, desperately searching for a decent topic of conversation that had nothing to do with reality warping or interdimensional travel.
There was nothing.
By the time Jay had gotten out of the shower and brushed his teeth, Roger was already in his room, doing the same in the personal bathroom that he was somehow allowed to have in his bedroom, but not Jay. Go figure that with whoever slapped together these apartments.
Anyway, he saw an exasperated Nova trying to rest her eyes.
"You can take the couch, if you want," Jay said, nodding at the ratty, green piece of furniture in question as he held his towel tight around his waist.
"I'm not worried about it," Nova grumbled, her eyes shut as she recounted her day's events, however limited they were.
Jay could only stand there as he said, "Oh. Okay."
After a pause, he turned out the lights as he went to his room.
Eventually, they all went to bed, no dreams to be had.
I couldn't let them have any.
Roger McKay wasn't much of a breakfast man. He was happy to have a cup of coffee and a read through the news in the morning. Unfortunately, this morning he was scrolling through pictures of anime critters on his phone as he finished his second cup.
"This is ridiculous," he grumbled, groggy in his blue t-shirt and gray university sweatpants.
Jason Dubilier and Nova the Pidgey ignored the grumpy man on the couch as they pored over search results on Jason's laptop. They shared a bowl of granola on the carpet as Jay sat pretzel legged on the floor in his white robe that he wore over his white tank top and black boxers with the little gray lollipops on them.
Nova, pecking at the bowl, wore nothing but her jewelry. It tingled against her ankle as she ate.
"At least your food's good," she said with her beak full.
Roger mumbled, "I'll take that as a 'thank you.'"
She continued to ignore him as she read the results of Jay's latest search.
When one takes the time to search online for 'pokémon in real life,' they don't get much in the way of practicality. There are some illustrations, online roleplaying forums, a few pieces of abysmal fan fiction, but nothing useful. Just a bunch of nerds and geeks and dorks doing what works for them, which is really not what Nova needed right now. She needed a breakthrough.
All she had was a headache.
"Man, you humans are obsessed with us," she said, reading the description for a piece of fan fiction where a human male performed a series of unspeakable acts to a revolving door of eevees and their evolved forms.
"I assure you," Roger said as he compared a drawing of a pidgey pulled up on his phone to the definite article. (Nova was far angrier, her prominent brow more furrowed.) "It's a very vocal minority."
"There are strange people online," Jay elaborated, quickly scrolling past some more unsavory tales. "I'm gonna try something else."
'Pokémon reality warping' was never a phrase Jay thought he'd have to look up during college, but life was funny like that. He ended up with quite a few of the same results, scrolling past them, lest he relive the trauma. It was only when he spotted an unlicked link that he stopped.
It was an old forum. He assumed it was another roleplaying thing, but a second glance gave him another pause. This was something interesting, at least more interesting than just another child's drawing.
"I really don't understand what we're hoping to get here," Roger said with a sigh as he set aside his phone and sat back in his seat. "We'd be better off chatting with a physicist than trying to find anything ourselves. This just isn't a thing that happens."
Jay shook his head. "There's someone here saying this happens all the time."
Nova read the forum post's title with wide eyes. "Pokémon as a Pocket Dimension." This had to be something! If it was nothing, then she'd have spent the last two and a half hours wasting her time with two weird humans. She didn't need that.
With a surprisingly graceful flow, Roger got out of his seat to look at what Jay had found now. He stood behind his roommate, looking over his shoulder.
For his part, Jay wasn't sure at all what to make of it. Still, he read for the class a post by the user steamedjeans.
Pokémon as a Pocket Dimension
Good evening, Mystery Dungeon Fans. What I'm about to share will be surprising, I know it. Many of you will call me crazy, which I know I am, but that doesn't make me less right.
If you could open your minds for a few paragraphs, consider this: the property of dimensions, both in time and in space, relates that anything that can be dreamt up by our mortal minds can exist beyond the scope of our limited perception of existence. Let me take that and put it in simpler terms. If you think it, it can be, but in another dimension. Therefore, and here comes the fun part, if we are willing to believe that a world of pokémon is out there, then it simply is. That's an undeniable fact, but one that I know will take a lot more work to convince anyone of.
Then if I must, then I will.
A dimension within a dimension. A pocket dimension is a smaller existence, one just outside our perception, only in the periphery. A box to keep secret and safe. If we adjust our gazes just right, with a bit of work, we can bring it into being. The work required? I do not yet know for sure, but I've done my research, and I have plenty to show for it.
So many of us on this forum imagine ourselves being transported to the world of pokémon, our very beings transforming to fit its parameters. I think that in itself is the problem. Instead of trying to fit a being from a larger space into a smaller one, what if we could just take a being from a smaller world and bring it into ours? Put simply, there would be so much more room for it to breathe. Knowing this, I think that instead of trying to go to the world of Pokémon, that we need to bring the world of Pokémon to us.
Do you not believe this is possible? Have you not read the many real life stories of individuals with barren minds and lost identities, each searching our world for meaning? These are people who found themselves in our dimension by accident. What if, then, these people were in fact pokémon before they got here? Dimension hopping has a strange habit of giving us the forms needed to suit that dimension's space and time.
What I'm proposing, then, is a bit of groupthink from willing volunteers. If enough of us are able to conjure up the right ideas for bringing a Pocket Monster Dimension to us, then I know we could do great things.
Who's with me?
Roger was unimpressed.
"This guy's crazy," he said with a smirk, twirling his finger around his ear.
"But he knows about Mystery Dungeons!" Nova chirped, practically hopping in place, nearly knocking over the granola. "You guys didn't even know about those."
"There's a lot of Pokémon stuff we don't know," Jay noted, reading the post again for himself.
"Text me that shit. I gotta read the replies," Roger said as he looked out the window next to the bathroom, the window looking over the town. A pair of regular birds sat beyond the parked cars, resting on a tree of falling autumn across the street.
Lilac, New York wasn't exactly the most prosperous place in the state. You'd have trouble finding it on any map, but the sleepy little upstate town had a university and enough natural beauty to draw plenty of travelers to its limits. Still, as the finches flew away when they saw Roger, the young man thought about how he couldn't wait to get back to the city. He scratched his face, realizing he still needed to shave. Or did he? Would the world end if he had a beard? With a sigh, Roger made it back to the couch as he poked at the link Jay had texted him.
Seeing that Roger got what he needed, Jay read the original post one more time. Nova joined in. It was all way too good and all so idiotic to be true.
The comments made that much clear.
This is fake, right? You're joking?
Can the mods please delete this?
If you're recruiting for an RP, you picked the wrong forum.
Yet it was the believers that got Roger's attention.
Pokémon reality warping? Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
Sign me up!
Sounds like fun. Where do we go for this?
Roger didn't even try to hold back his derisive tone, his eyes shining when he saw another link. "They have their own chat room." Unfortunately, the link didn't work, and any attempt to find another one was fruitless. "Well, they did, anyway."
Jay was less enthused by all this. Shaking his head, he stated, "I don't think we should be making fun of anyone just trying to have fun."
Nova's excitement, quick as it came into being, died a slow, painful death as she realized all this was only more humans being weird about pokémon again. Oh, well…
Putting his phone down on the couch, Roger couldn't help but once more acknowledge the pearl around Nova's ankle. It only seemed to shine more brilliantly every time he looked at it.
"So that's a pearl of wisdom, right?" he asked, already knowing the answer, ignoring the disappointment plain on Nova's face. "What does it do, give you magic powers?"
Nova was embarrassed when she took a bit too long to realize the human was talking to her. "Oh! It's not… it's ceremonial, but it's still important! My town needs it. For stuff."
Jay raised an eye, looking up from his laptop to ponder the pearl. He briefly locked eyes with Roger before the pearl caught his attention again, multiple shimmering colors captured upon its smooth surface.
Roger was incredulous.
"Way you were talking, you made it sound like a powerful artifact. It's just a knick knack? A trinket?"
"A doodad?" Jay added with a giggle, smiling a soft smile that contrasted greatly with Roger's sardonic gaze.
Nova puffed up at the teasing. "It has power! Just not, like, a lot. But they're cool, and shiny."
"A lot of useless things are cool and shiny," Roger noted, going back to looking at his phone, swinging his legs where he sat.
Jay noticed the oddness of the gesture, but categorized it as his roommate being his usual cynical self. He cracked his knuckles, his fingers stiff from all the typing.
"So unless we actually talk to a physicist, I'm stuck?" Nova, in the bargaining stage of her grief, asked the humans.
Roger shook his head, "That was kind of a joke there, Nova."
Nova narrowed her eyes. "Funny. Here I was hoping you'd take my being miles, or like, I dunno, lightyears away from home a bit more seriously."
"You watched a cartoon with us!"
"That was your idea!"
Jay listened to his groggy, grumpy roommate argue with a talking video game bird. He looked around the living room for a moment. A dusty television screen. A sink full of dishes. A trash can that desperately needed to be emptied. Messy, cheap, and depressing. The place wasn't exactly welcoming, but then again, neither were they.
As he scratched at his ear, he wondered exactly what he and Roger could do for Nova until they had better answers, and how they had done so far.
Could have been better, could've been worse.
