Himura

(04/03)

I look around the cave and begin to run away as fast as I can into a tunnel. There is a literal war starting and I don’t have the pokemon to fight it. Blaze is barely a few months old. It is a miracle that he matured so much, usually pokemon take a few months after they are born to be battle ready. Bolt is probably not much older than Blaze too as they are both growing around the same relative rate.

As I run past two Geodudes smashing into each other, the Alakazam sends me another message.

“Human! Sorry for the last message, panic consumed. I can teleport but not to any safe place. It is like there is some sort of barrier limiting my range.” He explains to me calmly.

“So, how far can you teleport?” I ask him telepathically as we are still connected.

“Around halfway to the exit.”

“Can’t you take the people there and we run the rest of the way?”

“Almost every single one of the rescued humans is unable to move on their own. Something was forcing them to be able to keep going near that stone.”

“Can’t you just walk outside the barrier?”

“One of the humans is unconscious because he tried, I don’t have the luxury to try myself, I am constantly moving around with the humans to keep them safe. The tunnels are devolving into extreme chaos.”

“Any idea where the origin of the barrier is? Maybe we can remove it somehow.”

“It is in the tunnel below. The really deep ones. I have never been there so I can’t teleport there.

“...Alright, alright. Try to keep those people safe.” Me and my fucking consience!

“I will do my best, please try to keep yourself safe.”

—--

I go back to the place where the thing was being dug up and try to look for a tunnel going down among the various ones around the place. The two alpha pokemon are going at each other full force and shaping things around. Various members of the Team Paradox are trying to keep the smaller pokemon in check but there is a literal mountain of pokemon after them, there is a limit to how much they can do.

I walk around slowly, trying to keep myself out of fights. Most if not all pokemon here are way above the strongest pokemon I ever fought with my team so far. I could probably take on one of them but after that I would be in deep trouble.

After what felt like hours I finally reached the side tunnel that looks to be going down instead of up. I follow it down, running from any pokemon I find fighting along the way. It takes a lot of trial and error as I look into the side tunnels of the tunnel I was, trying to find a path going to the direction I came but going down. I believe that whatever that place was that was keeping this strange barrier around would be guarded so I went to the places where I found the strongest pokemons using my ability to measure their strength.

After two hours of non-stop running and hiding I finally reached somewhere. I love pokemon but they are terrifying when you let them. So many corpses along the way. I can’t help but think on how an actual war would turn out, with people involved.

At the end of this tunnel there was a strange machine. It looked like a giant pokeball if you looked at it from a distance. Near it there was a corpse of a Team Paradox member, a few of his pokemon along with the ones of a few wild pokemon. The pokemon that were still alive were trying to break the machine.

“Grave!” A Graveler said as he turned to me, not immediately attacking me.

“I am here to break that thing. I don’t want to fight you.” I say as calmly as I can as I point to the machine. I also keep my hands up to show that I have nothing to hide. My pokeballs are unlocked so my pokemon don’t need me to let them out in case of emergency.

“Grave!” The Graveler takes a moment to look at me and then I think he commands the other pokemon around to let me pass. I nod and slowly approach the machine.

Machines in the pokemon world don’t always follow the logical design I had glimpses from my past life and this was no different. This is something that I instinctively know is something that should be in fiction. The machine has no buttons, cables and floats so digging under it is a no go as the pokemon around found the hard way. I climb on top of it to check the top but I find nothing.

“Bolt, come out.” I say, asking for Bolt. He quickly leaves his pokeball.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Pichu!” He says, energetically.

“Bolt, try to shock this machine just a little.”

“Pichu!” He says as he walks towards the strange machine, touches it and sends a small shock. The machine shakes.

“...Hey, Graveler. I think it would be for the best if you and your friends didn’t stay here.” I say to the Graveler. He looks at me for a moment in confusion but then a Sandslash comes near him, says something and the Graveler commands every pokemon there to leave. As they begin to leave the area, I take a look at the Team Paradox member. It feels strange but I loot him. If he was just someone who died I would just put his body in my bag. There is actually a function for it in case of emergencies. I can only carry two bodies but it is two bodies more than I a normal person would be able to.

He has no trainer ID but he has cash strangely enough. Around $10000 which is a good sum. All his pokeballs are broken but his pokeball belt isn’t and it looks way nicer than mine. It is a strange white belt that looked way cooler than mine. Once I took it, the rest of him glitched out of reality and vanished.

“New owner detected. Please state your name.” An electronic voice from the belt said.

“Himura?” I said without really thinking.

“DNA, voice and name registered. Information not previously found in the database! Conclusion: Not part of Team Paradox. Resetting and re-registering the user for safety. Is the user a member of a team?”

“Like Team Paradox or Team Rocket? No.”

“Registration complete. Security Belt MK-XV is now yours. Any of your pokemon previously in a pokeball stored in this belt will be unable to be snagged and your pokeballs cannot be removed from this belt without express permission. User not registered with a Team, all the other functions are offline. Have a nice day.” The voice says before turning off. I quickly put on the belt, I don’t know what is going on but I will not look a given Ponyta in the mouth. After making sure all my pokemon are protected by the belt I send out Bolt again.

“Alright bud. Use the strongest Thundershock you can on that thing and run towards me. I don’t want to see what happens after, from up close.”

“Pichu!” He says as he charges itself. “PIIIIIIIIICHUUUUUUUUUUUUU!” He shouts releasing a lot of electricity. The machine shakes violently, sending stone chips everywhere. Bolt runs towards me and I put him in his pokeball before dashing out of the tunnel. Around 3 minutes later a big explosion happened and I am pretty sure the entire mountain shook a little. I took a moment to breathe, it had to be that thing.

“HUMAN! RUN!” The Alazakam suddenly shouts in my mind as I feel the mountain open behind me.

—--

Team Paradox Grunt Leader

“You fucking piece of shit! I am going to kill you!” I say as I finally find the stupid kid that sent everything into chaos. “Steelix! Fuck him up!” I shout as I command the Alpha Steelix to go after the kid. Fuck that Golem! The others already took the stone but we still need to clean this place before leaving. If I don’t get a promotion after this someone is going to pay!

“Shit! Run!” The boy shouts to all the pokemon before they all begin to scatter.

“After him!” I command the Steelix as I am mounted on him. The boy tries to go into a tunnel but my Steelix just digs through the mountain to intercept him. Above everything, he needs to go.

“Flash!” He shouts, a Pichu appearing in front of him. A flash of light hits my and Steelix’s eyes, dazzling us for a moment.

“Rock Slide!” I command the Steelix. Even if we can’t see, as long enough rocks fall, it is bound to hit him. After a minute we recover our vision and we look around, not finding his body. We follow the tunnel at high speeds, finding him along with other pokemon running away.

“Fucking dammit!” I hear the kid swear as we catch up with him.

“Stop running away! Don’t make this harder than it needs to be!”

“Fuck you!” He shouts at me.

“Rock Throw!” I command the Steelix. A big rock forms and shoots from his mouth. I see the boy barely dodging out of the way as he dove to the side.

“What 's wrong? Couldn’t fight against someone at your level and decided to fight a little kid?” The kid taunted the Steelix. The steel snake got clearly angry with that comment.

“Big words for someone who is going to become a smear on the walls. Steelix, Iron Head.” I say as the Steelix dashes forward, energy gathering in his head.

“Asura! Low Kick!” The kid shouts.

“What!?” I say in confusion as something hits the Steelix and I feel both of us just dismantling towards the ground. It takes a full minute before the Steelix is back up and I am not blocked by him again.

As the Steelix finishes recovering the boy is gone from my sight but there aren’t many tunnels he can have gone to. It doesn’t take even a minute for me to find his trail.

Once we are just behind him again I feel the ground shake and from above us that damn Alpha Golem appears.

“Dammit! Steelix, deal with this pest once and for all and then follow after me!” I say as I begin to follow the boy on foot. I also sent out two of my pokemon. A Golbat to detect and keep other pokemon away and a Mightyena to attack if necessary. The boy is fast but he still is just a kid, I can follow him no problem.

I follow him. He occasionally sends one of his pokemon out to attack us but very quickly takes them back. I have no idea how long I pursued him. Every time I get closer he does something to stop us. Collapsing tunnels, diving into holes at random, attacking my pokemon when they are trying to clear the way of other pokemon. How in hell does that kid manage to just slip past so many pokemon? Even ours? I have to return my Golbat and send out a Zubat I just began to train because he was getting too tired. Also, that damn Steelix is still fighting the Golem. The mountain is shaking non-stop.

After various twists and turns inside this cheesed mountain that is now so full of holes because the pokemon are digging non stop as they fight, I finally corner him.

“Nowhere to run now!” I say as I approach him with my pokemon ready.

“Took the words out of my mouth.” He says, confidently.

“What?”

“Fire Blast!” Is the last thing I hear before an explosion hits my back. The world turns dark as I hear the sound of a pokemon returning to a pokeball. My body burns and stones begin to crush my body before I lose consciousness.