Arceus, the creator and caretaker of all pokemon, made a mistake. Somewhere down the line, throughout multiple different possibilities and never ending branching outcomes something got through. It was understandable that even one so powerful could miss a small, almost insignificant moment. But that one moment was all it took.
In an undiscovered region on Pokerra, a small wormhole opened and out scorched a piece of liquid metal, flying many times the speed of sound.
The crazed master of antimatter, Giratina, spread her lips wider and wider until black and red teeth split her face open. A mad joker smile, all teeth.
Families and travellers came to see the legendary pokemon statue. Old stories described it pulling continents together, creating all the regions of pokemon. The massive ‘to-scale’ statue of Regigigas cracked, drawing surprised shouts from young and old tourists alike.
Mewtwo, even through his slow and foggy mind, felt reality shudder. All he could feel was the armor. No touch, no taste, no smell, only his powerful mind could peer out into the world. His life was about orders, and follow orders he would.
The controller of the vacuum, Palkia, bolted up from its resting place, surrounded by twisting ribbons of dimensions being borne and destroyed. Its eyes bulged and said the pokemon equivalent of “Oh shit.”, then vanished.
Dialga watched, powerless to intervene as the time streams collided and fused into a singular. Straining with the last of its controllable power, pulled something that could help Pokerra.
According to the scientists' machines monitoring it, A dinner plate sized red orb stopped absorbing particles for precisely 3.141599 seconds. One of these scientists suddenly craved a good steak and cheese pie.
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Terra
2029
3 years post “MACH XXX”
2142 hours
Last Bastion ‘Immovable Object’ CCMD
Subject: Final Terraforce CMD Audio Recording”
START OF AUDIO RECORDING-—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
– 6 minutes 32 seconds till end of recording –
Recon unit 168 – “TerraCMD this is Recon 168 over. CMD this is Recon. All units incoming, terminators on route T-minus 5 minutes. SOS I say again SOS. Relay msg over.”
Major General of the tenth star Wollad Comgetsom – “Roger Recon, keep us posted. Conrad, get those guns firing NOW, I want the 30’s to know pain. PEOPLE if we don't stop them here, no one else can or will. This is do or die.”
All Command Staff – “Yes SIR!”
Captain of the Steel Cannon 121st Conrad Conner – “Sir, they are coming hot and fast. Somehow they found our fortress. HEATAN shells loaded, Cannons are locked…. FIRING NOW. 5 seconds till impact. All twenty Cannons firing.”
Major General of the tenth star Wollad Comgetsom – “Good, keep 'em firing at all costs. I want every last man and woman to give these bastards hell. Get all platoons to update every minute. This is our Helms deep people, do not let it fall.”
Recon unit 168 – “TerraCMD this is Recon 168 over. CMD this is Recon, one in the chamber. We have eyeballs. Fuck fuck …..uck, new siege models incoming. …………. Assigned new name: Scorpion………… Class. Cannon fire effective. Way, way too many. Millions of Raptor Class and Cyanara Class………….. Two Whale Class assigning high prio, laser pointer on target. ……………..Oh no, Reap………. Class I say again ……….eaper Class right on us. It's been a pleasure CMD. Ram them a new one for usaaaarrrrhrhrhghghghh…………………….”
– Silence in the command room follows for 5.48 seconds –
Lieutenant of the First Wing Roger Doug Vuxten – “Sir, 30’s groups six, nine and twenty are breaching the first line. Fighters on intercept. Defenses will hold, Warfather give us courage. Whale Class producing more as we speak. Target Lock…. HEATAN Missles away.”
Captain of the Steel Cannon 121st Conrad Conner – “Sir, AOEAN shells loaded in Cannons one through five. Firing for effect. Anti-LGHT flares away for the damn reapers, we will smash them.”
– 3 minutes 6 seconds till end of recording –
Lieutenant of the First Wing Roger Doug Vuxten – “SIR, Missiles effective, both Whale Class destroyed. SITUATION CHANGE! Destroyer Class inbound, they must have picked up the death scream through our stealth field. Sir missiles are at full effect, but there are too many.”
Unknown Command staff – “Sir they are coming through defense point 32 “killjoy”. Defenses have failed. They will be right on top of us.”
Captain of the Steel Cannon 121st Conrad Conner – “Sir, Cannons eight through 19 are down, they have breached the main forcefield. We cannot fire on friendlies. Re-assigning targets out into the swarm. *sharp intake of breath* There are thousands, I can see the red lights from here.”
Major General of the tenth star Wollad Comgetsom – “I hear you all, give it everything. Give them pain, show them humanity cornered is not yet defeated. Make them bleed metal for every piece of ground they take.”
– 1 minute 1 second till end of recording –
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Captain of the Steel Cannon 121st Conrad Conner – “Sir, last Cannon just went silent, it has been an honor serving under you. Warfather give us strength for what is to come.”
Major General of the tenth star Wollad Comgetsom – “To you as well Conrad, to all of you in fact. I could not be more proud to meet the end with all of you. However they will also meet the end. Roger, show them hell. I will record a final message for the troops.”
Lieutenant of the First Wing Roger Doug Vuxten – “Sir, to honor all who have fallen in the face of this threat. *pressing sound* It was a pleasure everyone, SPEED away.”
END OF AUDIO RECORDING–—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Terra
2029
3 year post “MACH XXX”
1936 hours
Last Bastion 'Immovable Object’ FOB 2A
Private of the Iron Hammer 1st Battalion Ron Roach
Ron was sitting in camp having a smoke, looking out into the sky as the sun pitched below the horizon. Big green trucks rolled by, flanked and manned by people in uniform. He ignored the high pitched whine of drones as they launched into the sky, controllers hungry for targets. A radio in the tent behind him crackled a steady stream of updates and movements to the war plan. “Update and move on, check those bodies for canisters and clusters.” “That nanovirus got the world sideways and fucked.” He mused. Ron had lost people to the virus. Mom, bro, Dad, everyone. All taken by what the boys called “MACH XXX”. An experiment gone wrong of course. It Started after a nanobot built plane going MACH 30 in atmosphere suddenly lost control and crashed into the Panama canal. Tensions around the world had already been high and this led to the perfect excuse. “Accidental” targeted crashes of automated planes drastically increased in number, effectively kicking off World War 3. But that was the entree. No one knew at the time but something funky happens to automated machinery when it goes that fast. Scientists later claimed friction and vibration blah blah disrupted signal blah corrupted code. This was the MACH XXX and that crash site was named 0 point. The start of good ol’ “grey goo”. The smoking man was driven out of his musings by one of his brothers. “Oi Roach, get some sleep. Next shift in 10 minutes and I'll cover the handover”. “Cheers mate, next one's on me.” So saying, Ron got up, gave the dap and went to bed.
He awoke to gunfire, screaming and the ground shaking to the thud of artillery shells. Scrambling for his gun and pack, opened the tent flap to pure chaos. But what stuck out the most were the red lights. Sinister in all but name, the 30’s would only turn them on when they found people to hunt. Ron loaded the mag and breached a round in while hopping up onto the barricade.
Thousands of small liquid metal, raptor-like chassis sprinted from the tree line, jaws open and red eyes flashing. People from all walks of life fired away, trapped with nowhere else to retreat. He saw a young man, barely out of his twenties firing a heavy Anti-Nanite machine gun. An old woman tossing grenades like they were fruit from a fruit basket. Even one of the last surviving canines, mounted a gatling gun harness. All peoples of all races, colours, ethnicities and cultures made one final stand here on the Last Bastion. People were already firing into the red lights, unleashing everything they had. Ron mowed down tens, hundreds, thousands as his weapon hummed away. But they just kept on coming, a never ending tide of red eyes and liquid metal crashing against the walls. He knew they would never stop, couldn’t stop until the last of biological life was eradicated from Earth. Screaming war cries spread out into the night, but sound wouldn't hold back metal for long.
An explosion of corrosive metal erupted to his right and the wall was breached, showering everyone near it in an acidic like substance that ate away anything it touched. Ron’s weapon stopped barking, the substance not hitting him but getting all over his weapon. Slinging it and drawing his AN vibro-knife, he shouted “George, Samantha, we need to hold that breach NOW or everyone dies.” Both the young man and the fruit woman nodded while he rushed the breach. Whistling for attention, “Here pup, come help out your buddies.” As the dog joined him, the minigun, already steaming from heat. He slammed the knife into the head of one raptor as it raced through the breach, dropping as the knife fried and disabled its functions. The minigun tore through others and grenades went off stemming the tide to a trickle. But thousands more were coming, he knew it, the others knew it and they were fucked.
Bigger ones started stomping out of the treeline, shaped similar to scorpions but the size of a bus and all metal. They fired projectiles of angry nanites that slammed through people and defences alike. Ron saw one impact George and melted as the nanites ate him and the gun alive. Just before all hope was lost, the huge camp speakers blasted out a message. “To all those that still fight, thank you for your service. MACH 30 has now overrun the last bastion ‘Immovable Object’ and central command with it. For your own sake save one in the chamber. This is TerraCMD releasing all SPEED nukes. Victory or Death, Either is fine. Over and Out.” Ron grinned through his teeth facing down the scorpion. “At least the ‘terminators’ are coming with us.” He said, stroking the dog behind the ears. The man watched, equipped with his dead service rifle, a knife and his pack as the world went white, grinning all the while. “Come get some, scum.”
Ron felt a weight settle around his soul, then he was weightless, almost as if every cell in his body was dragged through something. Nausea overtook him as a sucking feeling pulled and pulled. Something eventually broke and with the sound of shattering glass, Ron was dragged into darkness. He tried to look around while free falling but only the darkness and wind said hello. He stopped screaming after the first hour of falling into nothing and actually had time to think. “I wonder if anyone survived SPEED. No, no way, the Earth would now be a molten hellscape, hot enough to boil the atmosphere.” The lack of anything actually put his mind somewhat at ease. But the hours passed and he finally gave into fate. “At least I went down fighting for what I believe in, more than I could have asked for.” He slipped consciousness as the darkness whistled by.
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Ron woke to a face full of sand and wet lapping against his boots. The Sun baked down on the area, merciless without nearby shade. He eyed the area, wiping and coughing out water and sand in the process. He was lying down on a black sand beach, sprawled out in full green camo, still with his rifle slung and pack attached to his back. “Where the actual fuck am I?” hysteria spiking as more of his brain came online and arrived at similar conclusions. “Where is the lava? Why is there atmosphere? Where is the devastation?” A chill crawled up his spine. “Did the nukes fail?” SPEED wasn't just a nuke, he knew. They were cutting edge technology to help humans crawl back from the brink of defeat. An ace in the sleeve. A final gambit. The sublight propulsion extreme edge drive, like the name suggested, was the newest generation rocket engine turned weapon. It was basically a planet cracker and moved much faster than any observed MACH 30 model.”How could it have been intercepted? Hundreds had been made in preparation.” Ron sighed, questions to be answered later he supposed, now it was time to get moving. Groaning and slowly standing he made his way further down the beach. “I need to find a river as soon as possible, without water I’ll dehydrate before I can even worry about existential questions.”
After a good two or three hours of walking under the massive fireball, he eventually came upon a large estuary and decided to follow it inland. He walked an extra hour inland to search for a clearing or trees to set up his tent or hammock. Sure enough a spot was found reasonably close to the river with a small clearing snugly fitting his one-man tent. Strangely, he hadn't seen any wildlife since arriving at this place, only a few odd looking fish in the river. “At least food won't be a serious issue, I thought I wouldn't ever fish again when the 30’s devoured the oceans.”
The sun was dipping low and so Ron settled down for bed, having automatically laid out his mat and sleeping bag with the pack blocking one flap of the entrance. “This subtropical forest must be full of all sorts of creepy crawlies, glad I have the mossie net.”
Oh how both right and wrong Ron would be.
As he lay down and removed the sun-dried uniform, something in a pocket drew his attention. It wasn't his knife, that was already under the pillow and his phone was already fried from the white flash. No, this was sphere shaped and bulbous comparatively. Digging and removing it, his eyes narrowed from a mix of suspicion and confusion. “A pokeball?” he said out loud, almost disbelieving. It was unlike any model he'd ever seen in any game or media. It was pure jett black, perfectly smooth metal with red light pulsing from the seams. Then a thought hit him like a lightning bolt, throwing the ball away in panic and surprise. He knew what that metal was. Ron had been fighting it for years. Same texture, same color and the same light. “The 30’s made it through with me?” However, before horror could even spread across Ron's face, a blinding red flash took up the tent as a pure white basketball was revealed. White Gas lazily streamed off it like opening a freezer during a hot day.
“G-g-ggg-gg” the ball began. “The floating ball talked?!?” He hissed, already forgetting about the previous issue. And two glowing blue eyes opened and locked straight onto him. A wicked, ghastly looking grin spread across its face almost looking playful. After an already long day of staggering loss and exhausting revelations Ron despondently accepted the Gastly for what it was. “What a way to start my journey.” he muttered, now addressing the pokemon in question, asked “Are you my starter?”
END OF CHAPTER ONE