*Author's Notes: For starters, don't use my comment section to argue with each other. That's an easy way to get blocked. I will only give out a single warning (one in comments and another in your inbox) before blocking you. Second, I WILL be capitalizing Pokémon and species types (ex: his Charizard, or a wild Greninja) so don't bother telling me to change it or arguing "You wouldn't capitalize bird or mouse so why capitalize the Pokémon's name?". Finally, I'm doing this for fun. If you come in with the intent to simply put me down I will block you. If anything, leave constructive criticism or point out typos or grammatical errors and I will try to fix them in a timely manner. Other than that, I hope you enjoy this series.*
The screams and cries for help were deafening to Raven. Everywhere she looked there were people cowering in fear, running for their lives, or already dead. The sight of people her own age cradling the lifeless bodies of their friends and loved ones made her stomach churn. Focusing on the task at hand was about the only thing keeping her from losing the contents of her stomach all over the ground in front of her. Her Pokémon looked at her patiently as it awaited her command. A shuddering boom shook the area and snapped her out of her daze as a deep and impossibly loud cry rang out in a fierce challenge.
"PIIIIKKKKAAAA!" The Pokémon's roar reverberated throughout the area, dread and fear filling Raven and turning the blood in her veins to ice. The Pikachu's monstrous cry was echoed by its massive footsteps, each a thunderous impact that rumbled through the ground and threatened to knock everyone around off their feet.
Raven helped a younger girl to her feet, urging her to run for cover before turning back to the towering form. Other trainers had begun launching their attacks on the oversized electric mouse, some causing minor damage while others were the victims of the Pikachu's onslaught. Raven glanced down at her Pokémon, noting its eyes full of determination.
"Alright. Enough standing around. Let's go, Shaolin!"
One hour prior
Rebecca Vensler couldn't contain her excitement as she leapt from the bus and sprinted across the street and down the sidewalk, passing house after house until she arrived at her own. She fumbled with the keys for a moment, cursing as she dropped them. Adjusting her grip on the large box under her arm, she quickly bent down and grabbed them, finding the correct key before slamming it home into the keyhole. Moments later she pushed her way into the now-unlocked door and rushed for her room. Her parents wouldn't be home for another hour which gave her plenty of time to get set up and logged on.
A buzz from her pocket stalled her momentarily, forcing her to take her attention away from her prize. Answering her phone, she quickly hit the speaker button before dropping it onto her bed so that she could begin tearing into the box.
"What's up, Leo?" Rebecca asked as she tore the plastic wrap off of the box before opening the box with shaky fingers.
"Just got all set up and about to hop on. What about you?" The male voice replied from the other end, a hint of eagerness creeping into his words.
"Lucky. I just got home and am working on getting everything out of the box," she replied as she pulled cables from the inside and began plugging. "Why are there so many wires to connect?"
She could hear chuckling on the other end before Leo answered. "What did you expect? It's not just a VR setup. It's a DeepDive system. You'll actually be inside of the game… well, your mind will be anyways. All of those cables act as a neural link, sending signals wirelessly to your mind and making everything in-game seem as real as if you were standing there."
"Too much mumbo jumbo," Rebecca fussed as she plugged in the final piece. "There, done. I'm ready to jump on when you are."
Rebecca quickly jumped onto her bed, getting comfortable before slipping the DeepDive Headset on.
"On three," she heard Leo's voice from her phone. Blindly fumbling for it, she grabbed it and hovered her thumb over the End Call button.
"Three," she said excitedly, not even waiting for Leo to reply before hanging up, dropping the phone, and hitting the power button on the side of the headset. It felt as if she'd suddenly been lifted into the air by an invisible force. Moving her arms and legs, she realized she couldn't feel her bed anymore and realized that she was already deep into the DeepDive system. Before she knew it her body orientated itself so that was standing as a screen appeared before her.
A character customization screen stood before her ghostly body. She quickly began adjusting the settings, watching in awe as her skin appeared and began shifting colors as she slid the skin tone adjuster from pasty pale to a darker shade. She did her best to match her own skin tone, a soft caramel shade, before moving on to her hair. Having parents from both ends of the racial spectrum made for matching her real life hair rather difficult. Her dad's soft blond hair mixed with her mom's Ethiopian heritage made for a rather unique mix of curly yet somewhat straight dark brown hair. She ended up settling for a preset that matched as closely as possible before moving on.
The body customizer was nothing special, allowing her to adjust the height, weight, and overall build of her character all the while somehow managing to keep her avatar's design as similar to her own as possible. In the end, the avatar's body looked like her ideal version of herself, standing just a few inches taller and features seemingly styled out of marble by an expert hand. Finally, she selected the last tab and paused.
"R. A. V. E. N." Rebecca entered for the username, using portions of her first and last name. Hitting the 'Finalize' button, the area around her went dark. After a few moments a solitary light came on several feet in front of her, highlighting a glass bowl with countless slips of paper inside.
"Hello, Raven," a soft female voice announced from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. "Welcome to Pokémon Dimensions. Now that you have created your in-game avatar we humbly request that you select a single paper from the bowl in front of you to decide your starter Pokémon."
Raven, digital heart pounding deep in her chest, stepped forward. Her excitement caused her fingers to tremble as she reached into the bowl, digging and shifting until one particular slip of paper stood out from all of the rest. Grasping it eagerly, she pulled it out of the bowl, gasping as the slip began glowing before shifting into something bigger and rounder in her hand. As the glow faded Raven's breath caught in her lungs as she now stared at a shiny new Pokéball. Pressing the small silver button in the center caused the device to pop open and a flash of red energy to erupt forth.
Raven covered her eyes at the sudden flash of light. She had expected it, after having watched the show and played the games throughout the years, but it had startled her nonetheless. As the energy condensed into a solid being, Raven lowered her hands and marveled at the near three foot tall weasel-looking Pokémon that now stood in front of her.
"Mienfoo," the Pokémon greeted her, bowing at the waist respectfully. Raven gave a deep nod to return its polite gesture and smiled broadly at her Pokémon.
"Mienfoo, huh? How about we give you a proper name, one that'll make you stand out from the rest? Something like… Shaolin." Her Pokémon's eyes lit up, clearly excited at the name. Nodding its satisfaction with its new name Shaolin the Mienfoo beamed up at Raven, ready and willing to take on the world. "Shaolin it is then."
Raven hardly noticed as the lights all around them began to grow in intensity until both her and her Pokémon were blinded by it. As the light became softer and more bearable, Raven noticed sounds and voices. Blinking away her temporary blindness, Raven looked around excitedly, taking in the city area that now surrounded them. A portal gate stood behind her where others, having just finished getting set up like herself, began to flicker into existence with their own Pokémon starters. Raven quickly moved out of the way, Shaolin easily keeping up with her as they took up a spot not too far from where they had materialized.
"We gotta wait here for a bit," Raven said as she leaned up against the brick wall of a cafe, Shaolin mimicking her by doing the same. "I promised my friend, Leo, that we'd experience everything for the first time together."
Shaolin nodded his understanding, returning his gaze to the portal area to keep an eye out even though Raven was certain he had no idea who Leo was or what he looked like. It didn't take long, however. As Raven watched, a male avatar materialized from thin air in front of the portal gate. As he and his Pokémon blinked away their blindness they began looking around and his eyes immediately found Raven's. A massive dopey grin spread across his face as he bent down and picked up his Pokémon, easily carrying the tiny thing over to where Raven stood.
"You've lost a few pounds since I saw you at school," Raven observed, inspecting Leo's avatar. "Why change?"
"You're one to talk," Leo replied. "A few inches taller and your face is not quite the same. And your hair…."
The moment the words escaped his lips Leo was ducking and feigning fear as Raven began pounding on him with her fists, Shaolin cheering her on by throwing punches in the air.
"Okay, okay, I give! I was only teasing!" Leo laughed under the barrage.
"You. Know. How. I. Feel. About. My. Hair!" Raven roared playfully. Letting up on her assault she added, "Besides, the game didn't have an option to let me style it correctly so I'm stuck with the closest thing I could find."
"I was gonna say it looks nice," Leo admitted as he brushed off Raven's blows. "Oh, and it's 'Griffin' in-game, not Leo. And I'm being a total jerk. Let me introduce to you my starter, Oliver, Oli for short, the Ralts."
Oli leapt down from Griffin's arms, landing softly at his feet before studying both Raven and Shaolin and waving hello.
"Nice to meet you, Oli. This guy here is Shaolin the Mienfoo."
Shaolin stepped forward, studying Oli right back before giving it a quick and short nod in greeting.
Just then a resounding boom echoed from up the street, every head turning towards the sound excitedly.
"Crap! That's the opening of the Day One Ceremony!" Griffin said, noting the mob of people scrambling up the road towards what appeared to be a coliseum.
"Then we better hurry," Raven replied, gesturing down to Shaolin to hurry along. "We don't want to miss the event."
For how quickly the street became crowded as player after player and Pokémon after Pokémon swarmed the narrow cobbled path, Raven and Griffin made their way up to the coliseum without any hindrance. Within the walls of the stadium they found thousands upon thousands of players crammed in the stands, each excitedly waiting for the Opening Ceremony to begin. Raven and Griffin quickly found a few seats, squeezing in between a fellow player and his Kangaskhan and the aisle, allowing Shaolin and Oliver to sit on their laps so that they could still see the event unfold. Minutes ticked by with nothing happening, leaving Raven to wonder if maybe the day one traffic of players had simply bogged the servers down to a Shuckle's pace.
A boom similar to the one earlier sounded, spooking everyone and causing cheers to erupt and the stands to shake.
"WELCOME TRAINERS, ONE AND ALL," a voice erupted over the chorus of voices, "TO POKEMON DIMENSIONS!"
The lights all around dimmed, even the sky above seemed to darken, as a single digital figure taller than the stadium materialized in the center of the area. The figure was female in appearance, late twenties or early thirties if Raven had to guess, with an asymmetrical pixie-style haircut that had her natural red hair longer on the right. The white lab jacket she wore open, revealing her red blouse with black business-style skirt underneath. The whole ensemble left Raven open mouthed in awe.
Quickly shaking herself out of her infatuated state, as well as checking her chin in case she had drooled like half of the stadium was currently doing, Raven turned and elbowed Griffin in the ribs to snap him out of his own fanboy state.
"Dude, you're drooling," she informed him, laughing slightly as he quickly used his sleeve to wipe up any mess.
"Shut up. You just don't get it because you're a girl," Griffin replied, oblivious.
Raven rolled her eyes and crossed her arms irritatedly. 'Don't be mad,' she thought to herself. 'He doesn't know. At least it wasn't Professor Kukui or else I would have been teased for being just as bad.'
Carefully returning her gaze to the giant digital Pokémon Professor looming above them Raven began to listen as the classical Pokémon game introduction was performed.
"Hello trainers from all over the world, I am Professor Ada. Welcome to the online universe of Pokémon Dimensions. You'll find that all regions are available to visit and all Pokémon from every game as well as their variant forms are contained within. You'll face powerful foes and rivals from past games as well as new and exciting Team-z-z-z."
Raven's head tilted to the side in confusion as the gigantic projection began glitching. She thought it would only last a second before clearing up and continuing on, but Professor Ada had totally frozen. Her figure had begun to turn to static, distorting into something not human-looking. Something blocky in shape. Something not right.
"Mzzzzz-inginging. N-N-Noooo-o-o," the odd shape spewed through the speakers, its digital voice like a deep reverberating base.
"Missing what?" Griffin asked, turning to look at Raven as the stadium erupted in confused chatter. His question felt more like an answer as recognition struck Raven.
"MissinNo," she replied. "The Glitch Pokémon. You know, from generation one?"
"Oh, right," Griffin replied, returning his gaze to the fabled sprite. "Of all of the things I was expecting, this is furthest from it. Kinda cool if you ask me."
"I wasn't," Raven informed him just as a notification appeared in her HUD. "What the…."
A giant red exclamation mark surrounded by a red triangle took up her display and threatened to block her view. By the sounds of the crowd around her, others had begun receiving the warning symbol. Just then, an announcement blared over the speakers, drowning everyone out including MissinNo.
"Players, this is Mr. -kzzzzzt-, the developer of the game. Log out, NOW! If you cannot, -kzzzt- out of the -kzzzzzzzzt- immediately! You all -kzzzzt- great danger!"
Raven's menu screen was up in the blink of an eye and her fingers were quickly navigating every tab until she found the Settings. Down on the bottom was her player icon with the word 'Logout' beside it. She jabbed at the words over and over again, but the gray letters only buzzed angrily at her in return.
"Log. Out. Damn you!" Raven growled at the digital screen. Looking around she found others encountering the same issue as fear began to creep across their features. A tight grip on her arm had her spinning back to Griffin, his face expressing just as much terror.
"Rebecca, run!"
The use of her real name snapped her from her daze as Leo pulled her into the aisle and began the difficult trial of escaping the frenzied coliseum as players swarmed the stairs trying to escape. Raven and Griffin only made it up a few stairs before the swarm of people made it impossible to progress, and before she knew what was happening Griffin's grip on her arm was suddenly gone as a tidal wave of bodies struggled to surge forward.
"They're closed!"
"Locked?! But why?!"
"We can't get out!"
"REBECCA!"
It was no use as she felt herself being shoved back by those trying to go forward. Instead, Raven turned the other way, hoping to find an unnoticed exit. Shaolin leapt onto her shoulders, using her height to aid his own as he scanned the area.
"Mien! Foo! Foooo!" Shaolin cried, pointing down towards the coliseum floor. Sure enough, down right next to MissingNo's base, was another exit completely avoided by the swarm of players.
"Good eyes, bud!" Raven managed to shove her way into one of the now empty rows of seats, clambering over the backs of chairs as she made her way down. Hopping over the railing she landed with a thud, tumbling forward only for Shaolin to hop down gracefully to help her back to her feet. She was only ten rows up from the exit when a new digital announcement came over the speakers.
"RAID INCOMING. LEVEL FIFTEEN RAID BOSS INBOUND. ALL NON-COMBATANTS PLEASE VACATE THE AREA."
With the aisles clear of any players so close to MissingNo Raven had a much easier time descending the stairs, quickly making it to the exit tunnel in time to watch in horror as MissingNo began shifting, transforming into a new monstrosity. She didn't bother watching what it would become as she bolted into the tunnel, thanking her god for the daylight she could see at the end of the dark path. Running full force with Shaolin holding on around her neck for dear life, Raven barreled forward.
An invisible force blasted her from the front, sending her sprawling backwards. Sitting up, she rubbed where her head had hit the ground, wincing in pain as she glanced up to see a shimmering transparent wall in front of her. There was no way out. Behind her came screams from players as the Raid Battle began, thunder crashing so close she could feel the boom deep in her body as lightning electrified the air and made her hair stand on end. As the ground shook beneath her Raven struggled to her feet and made her way back to the entrance of the exit tunnel.
"If the only way out of here is to beat a Raid Boss, then so be it."
The screams and cries for help were deafening to Raven. Everywhere she looked there were people cowering in fear, running for their lives, or already dead. The sight of people her own age cradling the lifeless bodies of their friends and loved ones made her stomach churn. Focusing on the task at hand was about the only thing keeping her from losing the contents of her stomach all over the ground in front of her. Her Pokémon looked at her patiently as it awaited her command. A shuddering boom shook the area and snapped her out of her daze as a deep and impossibly loud cry rang out in a fierce challenge.
"PIIIIKKKKAAAA!" The Pokémon's roar reverberated throughout the area, dread and fear filling Raven and turning the blood in her veins to ice. The Pikachu's monstrous cry was echoed by its massive footsteps, each a thunderous impact that rumbled through the ground and threatened to knock everyone around off their feet.
Raven helped a younger girl to her feet, urging her to run for cover before turning back to the towering form. Other trainers had begun launching their attacks on the oversized electric mouse, some causing minor damage while others were the victims of the Pikachu's onslaught. Raven glanced down at her Pokémon, noting its eyes full of determination.
"Alright. Enough standing around. Let's go, Shaolin!"
Shaolin nodded its determination before focusing all of its attention on the massive Pikachu. Raven quickly pulled up her Pokémon's stats, taking note of its low level of five and the two simple moves it knew: Pound and Fake Out. Closing the menu she swallowed the lump that had formed, determined not to let this be the end.
"It'll have to do. Shaolin, let's start things off with Fake Out! See if you can stun it long enough to give us a chance!"
Shaolin the Mienfoo was next to her one moment and the next he was airborne, having leapt with a finesse that baffled Raven. The Pikachu, turning to greet the new adversary, was met with Shaolin's tiny fist in the gut like a tiny little bullet. Health meters appeared within Raven's HUD, annotating Shaolin's remaining health points as well as the Pikachu's. She scowled at how little damage Shaolin had caused, but she did her best not to let her displeasure show.
"Oli, Confusion!" Came a familiar voice from somewhere up above.
Raven spun, searching for Griffin only to see a tiny purple blast of psychic energy soar through the air to hit Pikachu, knocking it off balance.
Soon, attacks were being called out from all around. Raven realized that her action had fanned the flames of the remaining players, or at least a good handful of them, having stunned Pikachu just enough for everyone to regroup and counter-attack. She watched her HUD triumphantly as Pikachu's HP gauge quickly began to trickle down, causing her to cheer the other players on.
"That's it! Just a little more! C'mon Shaolin, let's help finish off this overgrown and overrated rodent. Use Pound!"
Shaolin never hesitated as it rushed in, dodging errant electrical blasts from Pikachu while adding its own martial arts assault into the mix. Several palm strikes followed by a spinning heel kick, nothing super effective but effective enough nonetheless to chip away at Pikachu's health.
"It's almost down," called out a male trainer Raven didn't recognize whose partner, a male Nidoran, layed on the ground as it struggled to raise.
"I say we go all out," Griffin called out in response. "It can't stop all of our combined attacks."
"Shut up then and attack!" Came a female voice from somewhere on the far side of Pikachu.
"Give it everything you got, Shaolin!" Raven cried out.
Attacks hit home from every single direction. With a guttural cry of anguish, the Raid Boss Pikachu began to sway on its feet. Its eyes glassed over as it began to fall, digitizing into nothingness before impacting the ground.
"RAID BOSS DEFEATED." The digital announcer's voice sounded over the cheers of players. "PREPARE FOR TELEPORTATION."
"Teleportation?" Raven repeated, confused. Shaolin had just returned to her side when them and everyone else still in the coliseum began to glow. A pulling sensation formed in her gut, as if someone or something was gripping her by her belt and pulling in every direction at once. Realization struck her and she glanced up in time to see Griffin standing at the ledge with Oli the Ralts cradled in his chest before blinking into empty air. As the tugging sensation intensified she reached out to where he stood just before she vanished as well. "Leo!"
Meanwhile in the real world.
"Somebody tell me what the hell happened!"
"We are still figuring that out, sir. So far all we can tell is that the system is being rewritten from inside the game."
"How the hell is that possible?"
"If I knew that I'd tell you. Until then the most I can give you is that this is bad. Whoever or whatever is doing this has already made it impossible for the players to log out. On top of that, we've had reports of… deaths…."
"What do you mean?"
"If a player loses a battle in the game, they die in real life. It's as if someone reprogrammed it into a sort of survival game. Kind of like…."
"A nuzlocke."