Arc 1: Otherworldly Roots
Four
"While I don't like these, here you need them to blend in."
Hikari handed Joseph some pokeballs. While Joseph did not know exactly how she acquired them, he had a hunch that they were a byproduct of her spies throughout the regions of the Alliance.
"Thank you," Joseph replied.
Hikari and Joseph were in an airship that camouflaged with the sky itself. While it was not perfect, from a distance no one would notice anything off with the sky.
Hikari then pointed, "This ship is something we acquired from a notorious pokemon hunter, J. After her death, we were able to salvage this for ourselves."
Joseph was impressed. If the continuity was mostly the same as the shows, her ship was supposed to be at the bottom of Lake Valor. Retrieving this piece of technology was no small feat.
"That is interesting," Joseph replied, "So how much longer until we reach the destination?"
Hikari looked at her watch for a few seconds.
"By the looks of things, we should arrive at the location in no longer than 3 minutes."
Joseph gripped the handle for his whip sword on his belt. This weapon was his lifeline in the unfamiliar land he was about to land in. He knew Caesar was on a mission so he couldn't see Joseph off. However, his not being around made Joseph feel a little lonely. Caesar was the person Joseph made the closest bond with after all.
Hikari then looked at a screen over their seats, "Joseph, get ready. We have arrived at the Pokemon Village. Once you land, you will be mostly on your own."
Joseph attempted to look brave, however some fear was shown in his eyes, "Hikari, I want to thank you for your hospitality back at Fiore. I hope we can meet again later."
Hikari nodded and watched Joseph strap on the jumpsuit given to him. Once Joseph finished putting it on, red lights started showing in the passenger area. These lights indicated that the floor was about to open up and send Joseph into the Alliance.
"Joseph," Hikari saluted, "I wish you luck in climbing the ranks"
Hikari then paused before continuing, "I expect to hear from you whenever you can."
Joseph saluted back while smirking a little, "You bet! Once this ends, you, me, and Caesar should get some fancy dinner."
Hikari gave a thumbs up, "That won't be for a while though!"
Just then, the floor opened up.
"Good luck Joseph!" Hikari once again stated.
XxXxXxX
Zossie was on the underside of the airship. She then noticed the floor opening up and saw Joseph drop through. In turn, Zossie turned off the magnets enabling her to stick to the airship and drop as well, making her best effort to propel herself out of Joseph's vision while keeping him in hers at the same time.
She fell for quite a bit until she saw a familiar sight–an Ultra Wormhole opening. And it opened right next to Joseph's fall.
"One of these openings here? Now?"
Zossie was confused about how convenient the timing of this was until she saw what came through it.
A small bipedal, white Ultra Beast appeared through the portal. It had three spikes on its head with one of them being a large needle.
"The starter of Ultra Megalopolis?!"
Zossie knew this species of pokemon well. She even had one herself. It was a poipole. Children in Ultra Megalopolis were often given one as their first pokemon. However, this one was white and orange rather than purple and pink.
"Dulse interferes in the weirdest ways."
This poipole was supposed to be one of the poipoles given to the newest batch of trainers. However, this one in particular refused to accept any of the children of Ultra Megalopolis as its trainer. Which led to it being stuck at the HQ in Ultra Megalopolis. However, from the looks of it, Dulse sent it through to help Joseph. Zossie had been giving Dulse consistent updates on Joseph's progress. This led to Dulse taking an even higher interest in Joseph and he started devising ways to help Joseph without making any connection between him and the Ultra Recon Squad.
Just then, Zossie safely landed near a bush, which she hid behind, and watched Joseph once again, streaming his actions over to Ultra Megalopolis.
She witnessed Joseph watching the poipole intensely. It was flying around him.
"So…I am in the Kalos region I presume. But this is a shiny poipole. Why did it appear right as I was falling? The timing was too good to be a coincidence."
Joseph then reached over to the poipole, "Hey little guy, do you want to help me become both the best at Pokemon battles and also take down the Alliance? Wait, you probably do not know what the Alliance is huh? Well, do you want to help regardless? I'll explain to you later if you join.
Zossie saw the poipole start spinning upside down as if it were a top. This behavior contrasted with the way it acted back at Ultra Megalopolis. Zossie then saw a bright flash.
"So this is how pokeballs work huh? Well, I don't want to keep this little guy trapped. I think I just throw it?"
Joseph then threw the pokeball up and the poipole once again appeared out of it.
"Hey, I kinda wanna give you a nickname. How does uh…OH, how does Tusk sound?"
The poipole started spinning happily.
"Well Tusk, welcome! Now, where should I go?"
Zossie continued following Joseph and Tusk. It seemed while Joseph did not notice her presence, Tusk definitely did. She would have to conceal herself better later.
XxXxXxX
Getting off her plane, Kahili officially entered the Kalos region. She swung her golf club onto her shoulder and looked at the scenery. There were spritzee and fletchling flying around, children running about in the city of Lumiose, and one of Kahili's friends waving at her.
"Yo! Kahili! Over here!"
A blonde woman wearing a white tank top was pointing her camera over towards Kahili. This was Santalune City's gym leader–Viola. The two of them met back during a golf tournament where Viola was helping her sister get pictures for the article.
Kahili jogged over to Viola, "It has been a while hasn't it?"
"It has. I would never have expected you to suddenly choose to leave your position as an Elite Four member to once go on an adventure."
Viola was fully in the right to be surprised. Being a member of the Elite Four was a huge honor. So, one leaving it would be a cause for discussion.
"I feel as if a turning point is approaching us. Say, Viola, have you heard any interesting news? Namely anything regarding a strange person?"
Viola's eyes closed to ponder until she recalled something one of her fellow gym leaders mentioned earlier that day.
"Yeah actually. Wulfric recently ran into a guy playing with a poipole of all pokemon. He said that the person wanted to take on the gym challenge. So, he is on his way over here to meet with Professor Sycamore to get his pokedex and register for the league."
Hearing the name poipole immediately set off alarms in Kahili's mind. While poipole have become more common in recent years, it was still extremely rare and typically had intervention from the Ultra Recon Squad. Her intuition coming to Kalos was right–no. It was not just her intuition, but rather fate itself seemed to intervene. It was too much of a coincidence for both her and the mysterious man to be in the same city at the same time. Knowing this, Kahili made one request to Viola.
"Hey, can you take me to Professor Sycamore's lab?"
"Yeah, sure!"
XxXxXxX
Joseph was sitting as a passenger princess in Wulfric's car. The events leading to him getting picked up and driven to Professor Sycamore's lab were surprising to keep it mild.
After landing, Joseph caught a poipole, who he named Tusk. However, Wulfric was watching the event unfold. It turned out that this Wulfric, just like in the XY games, liked going to the Pokemon Village whenever he could. And somehow one thing led to another and Joseph ended up en route to Sycamore's lab.
"Hahahaha, we are almost there," said Wulfric, "I don't really know why but I have high hopes for you. Maybe you can turn the entire League upside down!"
Joseph looked at Wulfric. The man seemed overly cheerful and overly trustworthy to a kid he just met. However, the fact that everything was coming together so easily meant one of three things: Joseph was already discovered, the League system and the people working there wanted some kind of change, or it was simply fate intervening.
Especially in this world where God has been seen and proof of his impacts have been seen, fate being a playing force was not something out of the question. However, if Arceus was the same as he appeared in the show, then he would not be omnipotent and could make mistakes.
The car Joseph and Wulffic were in slowed down and parallel parked in front of a grand building. The doors were open and a man wearing a white coat walked out with his arms wide open, welcoming the two.
"Why hello there! I am Professor Sycamore and welcome to the world of Pokemon!"
XxXxXxX
Caesar drove on his motorbike. A few hours earlier he had landed in the Orre region and was working his way over to the Pokemon HQ Lab. His goal was to meet up with Professor Krane and spread awareness about Joseph's existence.
In the process of getting to the lab, a sandile jumped out of the sand and engaged Caesar.
"Oh come on man! Can't you burrow back down? I'm a little busy here."
The sandile refusing to back down jumped over at Caesar.
While he didn't have any pokemon to his name, he did have skills in combat. Swiftly Caesar brandished a baton and slammed the sandile on the head with a satisfying crunch sound.
The sandile would not have died to that as pokemon were beasts of nature, however, it realized that continuing to fight Caesar would be pointless–it knew that Caesar would win no matter what. It glared at Caesar before burrowing back into the ground.
Putting his baton away, Caesar continued over towards the Lab, facing little to no resistance from the wild pokemon on the way over.
The automatic doors opened to the lab and Caesar stepped in. A few people in lab coats turned around to look at him but went back to work soon after. After he passed through some more gates, Caesar eyed the head scientist of the lab–Professor Krane.
The professor turned around and scratched his brown hair while smiling a little.
"So Caesar my friend! What brings you here?"
Caesar looked over at Krane with a toothy smile, revealing his golden grills, etched into them were the words, "Go! Go! Zeppeli."
"I think you were informed enough by Hikari on why I am here."
Krane nodded while gazing around his lab.
"Yeah, a man named Joseph appeared from an Ultra Wormhole right? And you guys are now thinking he is some messiah who will make everything better for us? Pardon me for seeming a little negative, but this seems too good to be true doesn't it?"
Caesar grimaced and ground his teeth. His frustration was not coming from Krane being brash, but rather how logical his argument seemed. It was not unheard of for people to appear from alternate worlds, just extremely uncommon. One instance was with a woman named Anabel, who paired up with Looker and the Ultra Guardians of the Aether Foundation to help prevent instances of people slipping dimensions and being unable to return.
Therefore, why would Joseph seem special at all? If anything, the actions of Hikari and her squad were putting unnecessary stress on Joseph. After all, Joseph was never really given a choice to help the people of Fiore. It was all dumped onto him by Hikari, and then further imposed by Caesar. It was then Caesar realized a critical flaw with the way he acted towards Joseph.
He never treated Joseph as a fellow human, but rather as a savior…no, not even that. He treated Joseph more like a soldier. A soldier of a kamikaze squad.
Caesar averted his gaze downward, "Shit. I may have made an irreparable mistake."
XxXxXxX
Keys clacked aggressively as Solana looked more into recent news articles from the Alliance. There was one headline that stood out to her the most, and she had to dig into it as much as she could. It read as the following: After 15 long years, Wulfric finally sponsored a trainer for the Gym Challenge!
When she first saw the headline, Solana did not make much of it. Well, that was until she saw the picture associated with the article. It was a picture of Joseph posing awkwardly with a poipole floating on his right and a pokedex being shown off in his left hand.
Due to the nature of Joseph's mission, Solana received little to no information about it from Hikari. All she knew was Joseph was to infiltrate the Alliance, but she did not know any other details about it.
Soon after, a quiet knock was heard on Solana's door.
"Come in," she replied.
After being permitted to enter, Lunick entered Solana's room. He had a troubled look on his face.
Solana, not being completely ignorant of emotions, questioned Lunick head-on.
"Hey. Lunick. Is something the matter?"
Lunick quickly looked behind him before bringing his face close to Solana's ear, "You have seen the article right? The one about Joseph?"
Hearing that, Solana pointed to her laptop monitor where it showed the article on Joseph, "Yeah. I have."
Lunick then pulled out a USB drive from his pocket and plugged it into Solana's laptop. Upon opening it, there was a single file on it. One picture. It was the same one as in the headline. However, it included parts that were cropped out in the article.
He then pointed to a person in the crowd. A person, who if not looking for directly, no one would notice her.
Following Lunick's finger, Solana widened her eyes.
"What is the meaning of this?" she hastily questioned.
Lunick looked directly into Solana's eyes, "It seems Joseph is being tailed by people from Ultra Megalopolis. For what reason? We are still not sure."
The person in the picture was none other than Zossie. The girl who was following Joseph and sending his every move to the higher-ups at Ultra Megalopolis.
Hey, sorry for the late update. College started and I am moving n shit so it was a little busy. Anyway that's the chapter, cya later.