Lukas enters the Pokemon Center and walks over to Nurse Joy to do the usual healing.

"Welcome to our Pokemon Center! Would you like me to heal your Pokemon back to perfect health?" Selecting YES she continues. " Okay I'll take your Pokemon for a few seconds."

Each pokeball is placed on the machine and the nostalgic tune plays while the pokeballs shine. "Thank you for waiting. We've restored your Pokemon to full health! We hope to see you soon." And I don't.

He walks towards the PC, opening the pokemon box when suddenly the door opens. taking his eyes off the Gameboy Advance and looking at who entered the staff room. A tall man with tan skin and wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, he's carrying a black tophat with purple stripes on his left hand and some papers on the other. "Why are you still here?"

Lukas takes a quick look at the time on the watch on his wrist and replies with a smirk. "Lunch break ends exactly at 2 PM Mart, I ain't leaving this room until 2 PM."

"How much you can do with two minutes left of your break?" Marks says as he approaches Lukas and hands over one of the papers in his hand to him.

"Pretty much nothing, but it's still valuable time." Taking a quick read on the script sends shivers down his spine, mainly the last part of it

"Alright, you know the drill, get on the stage, press the button a few times and pretend to be confused, then step on the trapdoor and you'll fall inside it with the most goofy villain scream you can make and later you'll climb up the hole. That's basically it for you today. I think it’ll be pretty easy for you." Mart says while he hands over the black and purple tophat to Lukas with a smirk.

Grumbling while putting his tophat on his head, Lukas retorts as he takes a small comb and starts messing with his mustache. “Who wrote that thing? I’ll personally punch that goddamn writer.”

“Don’t blame the writers, blame the CGI nerds.” Replies mark as heads to the exit door.”They said exactly this: ‘Don’t ask us to do something that can be done on stage’. To be honest they have a point, that’s useless extra work for them.” As he opens the door he looks at Lukas before leaving and says. “You have one minute or a few seconds left, cya later!”

Taking a last look at his Gameboy. On screen, The PC Box is open and it's filled with dozens of pokemon. Hmmmm... Ignoring the Mythical and the exclusive Pokemon of this game, I'll still need 12 Pokemon to technically finish the national?... Yeah 12. Lukas says to himself as a mental note. Turning off the screen and placing the Gameboy on the table, Lukas gets up and picks the walking cane on his side, takes a good look at himself, checking if his black and purple suit isn't messy or dirty and taking a last look at his watch, he walks towards the exit.

The door reveals the whole filming set, cameras, people carrying stuff, people with costumes getting into the stage filled with a green screen and some stuff for the actors to actually interact with. Lukas quickly goes to the stage and walks around the scenario, until he finds the trapdoor.

"Hey, has anyone checked if this is working properly?" He asks a staff member that was heading towards him while checking some papers on his hand.

"We forgot to do it before the break and the guy that was supposed to test it still hasn't come back." He picks a pen from his pocket and starts writing something.

"Did something happen to him?"Lukas replies as he pokes the trapdoor with his cane, just checking if it won't immediately fall apart once he stays on it.

"Apparently, but I didn't get much info on it." The staff member keeps writing and suddenly lets out a "Tch".

"Hmmm... Would it be a problem if I tested it myself?" Lukas asks, turning my gaze to him.

"Are you… sure about that?" He stops writing and turns his gaze at me with a raised eyebrow. “We can wait for him to come back.”

"Let's not waste time, it'll probably take a good while for him to get here and since I’m gonna fall on that anyways it would be good to get used to that."

The staff member just shrugs and looks behind himself and makes some hand signals."Alright, stand on it."

Lukas reluctantly stands on the trapdoor and after checking that he’s not gonna end up hitting his head on one of the edges, Lukas gives the staff member a thumbs up.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Alright. Trapdoor opening in three, two, one..." And it opens.

Lukas' heart stops for a second with the sudden lack of ground beneath me as he falls into the pit.

And he doesn’t stop falling.

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Pain.

A lot pain.

Even the slightest move sends a shockwave through Lukas body.

Only one thought roams his mind at this moment.

Did they forget to put something under the trapdoor?

He wasn't expecting to hit his head on the cold concrete floor and an extreme feeling of regret roams his mind.

Suddenly something gently touches his body, a warm feeling starts spreading through his skin. And that makes him finally open his eyes.

It was the sun.

Lukas turns my head around clearly confused and when he realizes, the pain is gone. He gets up, picks the walking cane that was lying right beside him and takes a good look at his surroundings while trying to understand what happened.

He was in a forest, with countless trees as far as the eye could see. The trees were very similar to each other, but he couldn't recognize them, although he felt a strange sense of familiarity with them.

The closest forest to the studio Lukas was working in was a few kilometers away from the city so it’s unlikely that I got dragged all the way there instead of… just going to the hospital.

Without many options, Lukas takes some dirt off his costume and just takes a random direction and starts walking, in the hopes of finding someone or something.

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After walking for a few minutes he notices something in the distance, a small clearing with a house in it. Approaching the clearing and getting a better view of what is inside, he sees that the house looks more like a warehouse, with a big garage door and a smaller one right on its side. There’s also some big tire tracks that lead into a dirt road.

Entering the clearing he notices something odd, the trees had grown in such a way that it created a ceiling with the canopy, even covering the roof of the Warehouse. I wonder if someone was involved in this or if it’s just nature doing its own thing.

Walking closer to the small door, he hears something. Two people are discussing something inside.

“...Tomorrow?! And we are gonna leave all of this shit here?! Are you crazy?!”

“We can’t stay here much longer, communications went dark about a week ago and no clients came here, something is up and it’s a matter of time until someone shows up.”

Oh… uuuh… It’s probably a good time to leave. Carefully, Lukas takes a few steps back and slowly walks away from the warehouse. As he turns to enter the woods again, a door creak can be heard.

An extremely uncomfortable silence takes the clearing, only the sound of the wind hitting the canopy can be heard. Finally the strangers say something.

“Hey, uh, you.” As Lukas hears steps getting closer, he raises his hands, letting the walking cane fall and takes a deep breath. “Oh uh… Turn to me and don’t try anything funny…”

Taking another deep breath, Lukas turns trying to keep the most neutral face he can, and it almost breaks completely in confusion with what he sees in front of him.

A man wearing completely black clothes and a cap, except for a few details, them being a big red R on the man’s shirt and a bunch of red and white round objects on their belt.

Pokeballs.

“Alright, first things first, who the hell are you?” The man says as places his hand on one of the pokeballs on his belt.

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A couple dozen meters away from the warehouse, two Rangers hide between some tree roots, getting stuff off their bags and constantly looking at their Ranger Pokétchs. One of them grabs one of his pokeballs and stares at it for a few seconds, untill his partner speaks up.

"Isn't Haunter supposed to be back here by now?" He asks."I promise that if he sidetracked again I will personally deal with him."

"Chill, he'll be back in a minute or two." Then suddenly, Haunter slowly crawls from the shadows with a wide smile."Hey buddy! We were talking about you, anything new?"

Haunter replies with a simple not. The Rangers look at each other before looking back at Haunter.

"Elaborate." Haunter nods again and quickly starts making gestures with his hands and his owner slowly shows a worried face.

Suddenly, his Pokétch rings, it was the other team. With a few quick taps on his Pokétch he answers the call.

"Ranger Umbreon, preparations for the crackdown with the International Police are ready, we request info on the Murkrow's nest; Over."

They look at each other for a second and he replies. "Copy; There is a new unidentified individual in the area."

The Pokétch goes silent for a few long seconds until finally, a reply came.

"Is there any Psychic Pokemon brought by him?" He looks at Haunter, that quickly replies with another gesture.

"No" And again, the Pokétch goes silent for a few seconds.

"Keep watch of the Murkrow's nest, the crackdown will be delayed for the time being; Over."

He looks at his Haunter for a few seconds. His pokemon nods and crawls back into the shadows.