Start Game 1.1
June 21st, 2022
I pinched the bridge of my nose, holding back the growing headache I was dealing with. Once that was done my attention shifted to the handsome man facing me from the opposite side of the table, who wore a grey coat over a black undershirt and black dress shoes. A member of the international police named Tedesco from the looks of it.
He had a Gallade, the impossible creature looking quite real in every aspect. I was very focused on examining it, this was a new and effectively alien species we were talking about after all. His species was a lot odder in person, and resembled humans more closely than I would expect. But there was a fae quality, just off enough to trigger the uncanny valley effect. Apparently their weird legs were actually pants, and I could quite easily see the firm muscles of his arms and chest.
So is that green upper body also clothing or skin?
You know what I don’t care right now, I’m being stared down by a Pokemon. Life stopped making sense three hours ago. I could see the sharp blades that were an extension of his elbows, easily sharp enough to cut someone.
Then again as a pokemon, Gallade was more than capable of killing me, not that he would mind you. Pokemon were dangerous, but this was a trainer’s pocket monster not a wild one I had pissed off somehow.
“So could you clear up what you’re going to do with me?” I asked, ignoring the twitch on Gallade’s face as he very carefully pressed against my mind, like a chimp checking for bugs.
The Agent was oddly familiar though, with his features dark hair, blue eyes and distinctive outfit. He seemed to be at least half a decade older than me, but telling age wasn’t a science.
Or at least not a science I was knowledgeable in.
The agent nodded. “It’s not everyday a Faller appears in the Tohoku region,” he pointed out along with a tilt of his head. “Even rarer is one who’s memory hasn’t been scrambled by the Twisted Shadow.”
Was the Twisted Shadow another name for Ultraspace?
“Well there’s not much I can really do about that, I just woke up here.” I shrugged my shoulders despite the panic I should be feeling.
Probably shock.
And…
“To be fair, I don’t remember the journey so there’s at least some memory loss there.” I added some facts, hoping to distract myself from the uncanny valley of Gallade.
He harrumphed and I rolled my eyes at the pokemon. The man sighed. “Some of our sensors picked up the primessential energy signature common to transdimensional space, along with something more exotic that might account for your lack of memory loss.”
Primessential?
“So what’s the usual protocol with Fallers?” I wasn’t the first one and I certainly wouldn't be the last with how strange this realm of spacetime was. “Especially even weirder one’s like myself.”
They absolutely knew about my whole deal with pokemon being fictional and coming from a world with only creatures similar to domestics… whatever the hell that meant from what my previous interrogators had mentioned.
“Typically they send agents like myself to help acclimate them to their new home, though in recent years we have figured out how to navigate parallel realities after the incident in Alola, and the energy signature of your arrival was recorded for nine hours…”
“So there’s a good chance they can find my world among potentially infinite numbers of universes, wonderful.” I was being a bit rude but I was freaking out internally at the sudden disruption of my entire life.
He winced and acknowledged my point. “But it can be done, even if it’s going to take some time. Months in the best case, two to three years in the worst.” That was a long time but it was a much better alternative than decades. “You’ll also have to fill out some documents to establish yourself as a resident of Tohoku and then Nihoh.”
“Nihoh… like Nihon?” I blinked at the name of the country we were in. “That would include Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh?”
The man took my reply in stride. “Ahh, this is from the battle simulators of your world then?” He replied brightly, folding his hands together with a placid grin. “But you’re forgetting Almia, Fiore, Ferrum and Oblivia. Nihoh isn’t a big country, but it’s a rather well known one.”
So I was basically in alt!Japan, which made sense since their Kanto had the same name and geography as our Kanto.
“My world has a similar country, the nation of Japan or Nihon, or Nippon as well,” I shrugged my sore shoulders. “There’s a few countries similar to some of your regions, like Kalos and France, the United Kingdom and Galar. We have the United States but…” that was like three different regions.
“Ahh… the United States of Risland, I believe you were familiar with Unova and Orre correct? And Alola seceded from Risland over three hundred years ago,” he continued before I could open my mouth to ask.
I had learned more about the World of Pokemon in five minutes than I had in fifteen years of playing the games.
“So you’ve squeezed everything you can out of me, and I’ll need to spend time on paperwork. Where am I going to be staying?” Why had his aura changed?
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The man smiled, and I was suddenly very, very afraid.
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June 22nd, 2022
Ishigama Town was a modest urbanized settlement, with a population comparable to that of Coronado back home. Thirty five thousand people and who knows how many pokemon living within the town and its numerous spaces of both greenery and concrete. Might be off there…
Also very few cars, which sounds bad until you realize the town was built to be a walkable community from the get-go so I wasn’t going to have to walk more than a few minutes to get to anywhere important. Plus they did have a public transportation system that could zip you around pretty fast, from the looks of things anyway.
Turns out agent Tedesco had decided to house me in a nifty building nestled right next to the town’s Pokemon professor. One, Professor Sophia Laven. A tan woman of Galarian descent who appeared to be in her mid forties and wore a heavy awkward lab coat and semi-formal clothing that always seemed to be burnt or ripped or electrified.
The lab itself was very grand, large enough to house dozens upon dozens of Pokemon, and from what I could tell actually housed a number of pokemon from the region.
I had been offered a room, and then passed out from exhaustion and then woken from an anxiety riddled mess. Which was why at this second I was laying back on my bed, on my second day on this version of the Pokemon World. Fortunately I had been allowed a cheap smartphone with an internet connection, so I was busy browsing the internet for information on this world.
This… world appeared a lot less interconnected than my world, likely due to the isolation and partitioning caused by living in a world full of magical monsters. From what I had read it was only in the last thousand or so years that people had the opportunity to really form civilizations after the Era of Warlords had come to a gradual close.
And then was followed up by the Age of Exploration, so not much better if more limited in scale. Even so I had read up on a few of the regions and international organizations that exist here.
The United States of Risland for example was a union of multiple regions scattered across a distorted North America. Unova though was gigantic, as if New York had superimposed itself over and consumed the eastern states with the exception of Florida and adjacent states. Nine hundred thousand square miles of territory, millions upon millions of people, and larger than Kalos in scale. ‘Florida+company’ was a state known as Florum that had a lot of regional variants of Unova Pokemon.
Risland wasn’t so much a country as a confederation, and communication between them varied a lot… which explains how people keep discovering new pokémon. It takes time and effort to disseminate information, and time to set up cross-travel and understanding. There were definitely a few regions that sounded like California and Texas, the Greater Orre region which encompassed Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. Though something called the Orre Devastation War had done grave damage to the ecosystem as a whole.
I should get up. But I don’t want to.
“Brandon!” A voice called out.
I did so with a sigh, and knew I couldn’t stay shut away in this room.
I cleared out my ear, making sure I hadn’t misheard his proposal on the behalf of Professor Laven.
“A sponsored trainer, how does that work? And why?” I wasn’t anything special outside my status as a Faller and while I played pokemon that was very different from being able to take care of living, breathing beings with their own needs and dreams.
The agent smiled placidly as he laid back on his sofa with a prim air. “Well there’s generally a registration process to become a pokemon trainer, a sponsor for the Gym Challenge, and requirements to fulfill to be accepted. Luckily you’re more than old enough, most people tend to become gym circuit trainers at fourteen or older though it’s eleven in Alola.”
Huh… “So kids don’t generally become trainers?”
He made a so-so gesture with his right hand. “They can get a license to become a trainer but can’t enter gym circuits, and can accept challenges from trainers, and go to trainer school at the same time.”
So three years of prepping before they go off to catch monsters, neat.
“Huh… neat.” I said.
He coughed and continued. “As for why? Professor Laven specializes in the energy waveforms emitted by pokemon. Aura, Infinity Energy, Type Energy, Primessential Wavelengths.” Tedesco lightly tapped his chest with nervous energy. “You were positively saturated in Type Energy, and the spacetime rift seems to be the source. Plus she’s curious to see how an outsider can shake things up.”
That sounded more like she wanted to dissect me…
“I’m not much of a trainer though, I might know about this world but it doesn’t remotely make me viable as a trainer.”
Tedesco simply raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have to be a champion-level trainer, you just need to provide a perspective on pokemon that the Professor hasn’t seen before. And it can add more data to the investigation of your appearance in our world.”
“I’ll strongly consider it, though that’s more to do because I’m curious on what pokemon are actually like from a scientific standpoint.” He looked skeptical, and I sighed. “I thought it was self-evident that I’m interested in pokemon in general too. Just didn’t feel like mentioning the obvious.” He blinked. “Of course if I want to register as a trainer we probably should have done that with the notary who gave me the needed documentation.”
Tedesco grinned mysteriously. “My apologies, I was focused on my work and it failed to occur to me. The process is going to take a few days and if you do want to become a trainer you’re going to need to study a lot about pokemon.”
I nodded, pondering quietly on that idea as I scanned the area around the city hall. It was surrounded by greenery, and was clearly built with both humans and pokemon in mind. I could see starly of various sizes sitting along power lines and resting on the edge of buildings or taking sips out of bird baths and ponds.
“Is there any other reason besides those?”
He sighed and nodded. “She’s noticed you’re giving off an interesting amount of Aura.”
I blinked. “I’m giving off the same kind of energy as Pokemon?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly? Aura is a wave inherent to everything that has life, and everyone uses it even if only subconsciously. It’s actually very important for pokemon trainers.” The agent looking oddly melancholy. “But you came from a world without pokemon. Having an aura at all is pretty strange to begin with, and it’s a smart idea to keep an eye on it.”
Fair point.
“I…” I took a while to add to my reply, as my mind raced to generate answers. This was a world of Pokemon, magical creatures with impossible powers and centuries spent unraveling their secrets.
I wanted to go home, but I refused to sit around moping and feeling useless again. And pokemon were key to traveling realities, so many of them messed with dimensions and alternate universes. Kirlia allowed glimpses of alternate realities, Stantler can open portals to other woods and across dimensions, there were a lot of possibilities.
I had to try.
“I’ll probably need some time to adjust, but sure why not?
What could go wrong?