In a random alleyway of a city, a tear in space suddenly formed out of nowhere, releasing purple sparks as the tear grew in size. After the tear grew to a size where a large dog could pass through, some creatures came out from it. First, came two near identical mice that looked like dolls; followed by an orange fox with six tails with a yellow tick-like creature in her head; a round, spiky and gray rodent; and a white hedgehog with grassy needles on her back.
The six Pokémon looked around as the portal disappeared behind them, it was cloudy as well. “Is… is this it?” The Shaymin asked while looking at a trash can and the vandalized walls with some symbols she didn’t recognize.
“Um…” John hesitated as he analyzed his surroundings. It looked like a normal alleyway, and those graffiti symbols… he wasn’t sure about those. “I… don’t know. I think we need to find a street before I can come to con-”
Suddenly, Popo and Nana cocked their heads towards the trash can in front of them and made their claws of darkness appear, pointing them to the trash can. “We can feel non-sentient souls in there.” “Is it a dungeon Pokémon?”
The other Pokémon, besides John, got on their guards before the Joltik shouted as he realized something. “W-wait a second!” Team Net looked at John with confusion. He pointed at the trash can which was now shaking a bit. “If it’s my world, then that means something really harmless would come out of that bin.”
Claire had a worried expression. “If you say so… can you test it?”
The Joltik nodded before releasing an Electro Whip from his mouth, whipping at the bin. And as he suspected, three gray-furred critters came out of the bin by lifting the lid a little to jump out of it. The Pokémon flinched at the speed that the rats left the scene but immediately calmed down. “Uh… the heck was that?” Taro was the first one to ask.
John nodded in confirmation before muttering to himself. “It is my world…” He then snapped back to them and responded. “Ah, uh… those were rats and they are creatures called uh… animals.”
“Animals?” Claire asked while tilting her head.
The human-turned-Joltik sighed. This was gonna be so damn weird to explain to creatures that look like actual animals… well some of them… Popo and Nana looked more like dolls rather than anything else. “Well uh… how do I explain it…” John rubbed the top of his head. “So basically… some of them act as uh… dungeon Pokémon, purely on instinct. Some are docile, some are not, however, the thing that differentiates you- uh… dungeon Pokémon from them is that they don’t have magic. No fire, no electricity, no telekinesis, nothing. They can only bite or scratch… depending on the animal.”
“So… what can those rats do?” Taro asked. It honestly felt a bit ironic for John to hear that coming from him.
“Well uh… they are… rodents that normally live in alleyways like this to just eat trash people leave since… humans kinda consider them a plague.” No need for sugarcoating anymore, they were about to learn the hard way if he didn’t outright explain it now.
The Tandemaus tilted their heads. “That feels a bit insulting.” “Why is it like that?”
It was really hard for the Joltik to say all of this, hesitation in explaining it all to actual sentient rodents felt that it would spark some sort of resentment between them and humans. “Um… it’s kinda a rough history… you see, there was an event hundreds of years ago where a massive plague called the bubonic plague was killing a lot of humans because the virus was kinda lethal at the time. And the main form of spreading was rats that were carrying the virus within them. Once a human was bitten by one, their fate was sealed. And it made it worse that it was spreading like crazy at the time.”
“Oh my goodness…” Amy let out, a bit shocked by the information. “Is uh… everything okay now? Is the plague gone?”
John shook his head. “No, but like... the virus is on the brink of extinction now of how far medical advancements are now. But still… that event in history left uh… quite a wound in humanity regarding rats.”
Taro looked aside, a bit worried. “I see…”
Claire put a paw on her chin and asked. “Wait, if rodent animals exist here… how many types of animals exist in this world?”
John simply responded. “A lot… I just know that. There are too many species and subspecies and there are more to be discovered.”
Claire’s eyes glistened in wonder. “That’s awesome! I can’t wait to see them all!”
John sighed, knowing that was an impossibility. “Anyways… let’s just explore around for a moment. There was a reason I wanted to come here as well.”
Team Net nodded and started walking, but Claire just felt compelled to ask as they walked around the hallway aimlessly. “So… what’s the reason you wanted to come here? Was it homesickness?”
John looked away a bit ashamed. “A bit of that as well… but the true reason I wanted to come here was to check the effects caused by the appearance of real Pokémon on the internet.”
“Oh yeah… you said that Pokémon were only fiction in your world, right?” Amy asked, a bit unsure of how there could be a world where Pokémon are only seen as myths.
John nodded. “Yeah, so it would cause quite the commotion if the entire world knows that Pokémon are real. Like… everything would change in a matter of minutes.”
“Interesting.” Popo mused. “It is just the expected reaction when a civilization meets something beyond their comprehension.” Nana added before both mice turned to John. “Does your civilization think of us as eldritch monstrosities?”
John looked away, a bit scared to answer that. But he had to stop sugarcoating, and this was the best time to answer before the eventual encounter with civilization. “Alright look… most people see Pokémon as cute and unique, sure… but what really scares people the most is the fact you have magic elements. I’ve seen a post on Twitter related to Pokémon once, calling them satanic or something of that type.” They tilted their head at the unknown word to them. John just sighed. “Something akin to a demon.” They must at least know that word, right?
Taro looked away. “Holy shit… people would freak out if they ever saw us walking on the streets then…”
“Yeah, but every person is different, so who knows… speaking of which.” John jumped out of Claire’s head and landed in front of them. “If we ever get spotted by a human we need to make a bit of acting to not make them suspicious of us.”
“But how should we know what to do to drive them away?” Taro asked, putting a paw on his chin.
“Simple, given your bodies, you can easily disguise yourselves as other things.” The Joltik pointed at Claire first. “You could easily pretend to be a dog.”
At that, Claire immediately raised a paw. “What’s a dog?”
John sighed, he forgot that he has to explain what some animals are. “Well um… a dog is another animal. More docile towards humans, and kinda territorial with other animals… I’ll show you a video of one when we’re back. However, what you should do when you’re spotted is this.” John sat on the ground, trying to imitate the sitting position of a dog. “Just sit normally while panting with your tongue out. Yes, it’s weird, but it should do the trick, understood?”
Claire saluted with a smile. “Yep, understood!”
“Alright.” John then pointed at Taro while still sitting. “Since you curl into a ball, you can look like a normal ball, simple as that.”
The Togedemaru nodded. “Alright, I should be able to do this easily.”
The greenish spider nodded before looking at Amy and pointing at her. “Amy, I think if you face away from a person, they might mistake you for a clump of grass sprouting from the concrete.”
“Um… oddly specific but alright, I feel like that’s easy to do.” Amy said while nodding her head.
John nodded. “Alright… next is- Eek!”
Popo and Nana were in John's face, looking menacingly at him. “And what should we do if a human found us, friend?”
“U-um…” John regained his composure after thinking for a little bit. “You… you should just sit idly like you normally do without moving a muscle… then they would think that you’re a doll… a creepy or a cute one depending on the person.”
The Tandemaus backed away from the Joltik and nodded. “Yes.” “That is an acceptable form of deception.” “We shall not disappoint.”
John nodded before the Vulpix asked a question. “So… what would be your disguise John?”
John put a nub on his chin before looking aside. “I guess I didn’t really think much about it…” He then looked back at Claire before jumping on her head. “Since I’m that small, I can use you as a cover, and probably see me as some weird sort of headwear for you.”
“Alright then!” Claire said ecstatically, already getting a bit anxious about finally meeting humans in the flesh while not being separated by a screen.
“Claire… your tails are wagging…” Amy pointed it out to the Vulpix who had just realized it. “Are you sure you won’t like… scare them off for being a bit too excited?”
Ah, that’s right. Claire’s fangirling problem was something that John had forgotten about for a moment. That could really put a dent in his plan of disguise. Even with everyone that knew her obsession with humans was a bit too much, Claire argued back. “Don’t worry guys, I can control it.” She said with a sheepish smile.
John frowned at that statement. “Are you… ABSOLUTELY sure about that? You can’t break the disguise no matter what, you know that, right?”
“I know, I know. I promise that I’ll do my best to pretend to be a dog, alright?” She reassured before smiling.
John couldn’t help but sigh. “Alright, I’m counting on you, on ALL of you, alright?” The rest of the Pokémon nodded before they continued moving forward again, walking aimlessly through the alleyways. It almost felt like a Mystery Dungeon due to the fact that it felt like a really tight labyrinth. But they already knew it wasn’t one due to the fact that there wasn’t any of the usual dungeon stuff in it; random items, dungeon Pokémon, or anything of the type.
Instead, there were only backdoors that led into buildings, cardboard boxes with some glass bottles in them, some pipes that leaked some water; trash cans littered around everywhere, smelling as bad as they looked, making the Pokémon (except Popo, Nana, and John) cover their snouts at the smell. “Smells like a Garbodor…!” Amy complained. “What do you guys eat for the leftovers to be this bad?”
John sighed. “It’s not just leftover foods we put to waste. Much like you guys, we throw in the trash a lot of stuff as well. This is just the amalgamate of smells combined to be this bad.”
The Pokémon figured that was a solid explanation so they moved on from that. After a couple of seconds of walking around. They saw what looked to be a sidewalk next to a concrete road. Even though it wasn’t sunny and was almost sunset, there was a bit more brightness coming from the street, meaning they were at the exit of the alleyway. There could even be seen a car passing by the streets in the distance, going so fast that they only could catch a glimpse of it. “What was that!?” Claire asked, a bit surprised.
John felt another sense of familiarity wash over him once he realized what that was, making him smile a little. “That’s a car, this world’s version of one.”
“Wait, the cars here don’t float?” Taro asked, a bit confused.
The Joltik explained. “Nope, since Pokémon don’t exist in this world, no magic to help here. We use the basic wheels to make our cars move properly… along with some other complex machinery that doesn’t require a living being.” He then looked at the end of the alleyway, the dripping sounds from pipes were getting rather annoying, so he wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. “Anyways, let’s just go, the sooner we find the necessary information, the better.”
They nodded before walking again… until they spotted a figure around their height entering the alleyway. The Pokémon stopped in their tracks upon spotting a gray-furred feline creature walking in their direction slowly. John immediately flinched once he realized what it was and what was about to happen once it saw him.
Claire asked the currently shaking Joltik. “Oh, what’s that John?”
John hesitated to speak. It’s not like he was scared of the cat eating him, he knew he could defend himself pretty easily from that. But what he was worrying about was the fact that the cat attacked and the others were forced to retaliate. If that were to happen… a spiral of events so bad would occur next that he dreaded to think about it further. “Um… that’s a cat. A brief explanation… they are really territorial when living in some place, hunt everything that’s way smaller than them and that moves, and uh… run from everything that is bigger than them and seem like a threat.”
“They remind me a lot of Meowth in mystery dungeons…” Taro admitted as they eyed the feline “Can they only bite and scratch like other animals?”
“Yeah, but um… they might see you guys as an enemy and get defensive…” John sighed. “Alright, whatever you do, no moves, understood?”
“Aww.” “Just when we were about to do a wonderful sacrifice with it.” Popo and Nana said in disappointment.
John blurted out. “Not that too!”
It was then that the cat finally got in front of them, up close and personal with the Pokémon. The feline just stared at the Pokémon while they just stared back, waiting for some kind of reaction. The cat then took careful steps towards Claire, the Vulpix tensing up a little bit. It was noticeable that Claire was taller than the feline, not by much though. The cat leaned forwards to Claire a little, sniffing her for a second before backing away. It then looked to its side and spotted an empty cardboard box, going towards the box. The gray-furred feline then got in the box and lay there.
John sighed in relief, it seemed nothing had gone wrong this time. ‘Man, cats are still unpredictable as ever…’
“So uh… what was that?” Claire asked as she looked at John.
“Uh… I dunno, probably just sniffing for any food on you or something.” He was still relieved that the cat didn’t notice he was there.
“You were right… they did act like some dungeon ‘mons.” Taro mused before turning to John. “Are there more docile animals than like… the aggressive sorts?”
“As I said before, there are too many animals, so I wouldn’t know. But keep in mind that the more docile animals are kept in cities like this, so the chance of an aggressive one appearing here is the lowest probability possible.”
Amy sighed. “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about any combat for the time being.”
“True.” John said before they started walking to the exit of the alleyway. And then… they were finally out. The Pokémon looked around in wonder as they scanned their surroundings. Tall rectangular buildings, all glued to one another, was what caught their attention first, with these rectangular doors and garage doors, and rectangular shaped windows on them, was truly a whiplash in architecture they weren’t expecting for houses… because it was almost the same for them in the big cities like in Xander Cage City.
They focused next on the streets around them. It seemed they were in a residential area, with some of the non-floating cars parked around the place, with some strange poles around the sidewalk.
Next… they saw actual humans.
There were four of them on the opposite sidewalk, seemingly a group of teenage girls casually talking about some indistinct topic, one of them in a wheelchair. Team Net stopped peeking and emerged from the alleyway. They wanted to say something, a lot of things actually, but they just couldn’t find the first topic they wanted to talk about first. It was until Claire spoke first. “Humans…” The rest of the group looked at her, who had a stunned expression on her face. “Humans in the flesh…” Her expression was slowly but surely morphing into a slightly anxious smile. “Actual humans in front of me…” Her tails were starting to wag a bit.
“Uh… Claire…” John said, trying to grab the Vulpix’s attention by waving a nub in front of her eyes. She then snapped out of her state. “Please don’t lose control right now, we talked about this, remember?”
“U-um… yeah, sorry…” She said with a whimper.
Taro put a hand on her back. “Don’t worry Claire, at least you’re controlling it!” He then looked back at the humans. “But man… seeing humans this clearly now, I didn’t know they could be so tall!”
John looked at the Togedemaru with an unamused expression. “No, we’re just smaller than them. Those are like… an average size for them.”
“So that is how the saviors of the Pokémon world used to look like on their original vessels…” Popo mused. “We cannot wait to test all of their strengths…” Nana continued. “All of their weaknesses…” “And all of their fears!”
Amy looked at the Tandemaus. “Please don’t, if humans already fear us, imagine you go do something like that.”
The Joltik nodded. “It might potentially start a war if Pokémon ever decide to come to this world…”
“Let’s not think about that!” The Vulpix said. “Let’s walk around, there might be some information around this neighborhood!”
The rest of the group nodded and turned to the side, with the intention of just walking until they found something. However, their plans were stopped when they spotted a human child with short and curly black hair, wearing overalls and a Nike sweatshirt, along with black and white shoes. The child also wore a bandage eyepatch on his left eye and was, of course, taller than them.
They stayed in silence as they stared at each other. However, Claire eventually whispered to John. “D-did… did he hear everything…?”
John whispered back, his body completely frozen as his heart rate spiked a little bit. “I… I don’t know…” He knew that he was way shorter than a human, but he didn’t know that he would feel like the protagonist from Attack on Titan (hopefully it doesn’t come to that). John subtly looked to the side to see Taro curled up looking like a ball, Amy turned around while shaking a bit nervously, and Popo and Nana just sat on the ground with their usual emotionless expression. ‘You’re kidding…’
The boy then spoke up. “I… I KNEW IT WAS REAL!” He shouted (thankfully only for themselves) as he picked up Claire and lifted her up in the air, along with John on her head. Looking at the child a bit further, it looked like it was between six to eight years old.
The Vulpix had a mix of surprise and confusion in her expression. Why was this human lifting her up in the air with glee? After the surprised reaction, Claire realized something… she was being carried by a human. Not just a fake one made by her fantasies, but an actual one in its original form. Her tails started wagging slowly as her muzzle slowly morphed into a smile. “A… a…”
John whispered as he realized what was about to happen. “Claire! Don’t!” The rest of the group started to look at what was happening. The Shaymin and the Togedemaru had a fearful look on the scene while the Tandemaus just looked at the scene with no expression as usual.
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However, she couldn’t resist it. She immediately squealed in sheer excitement as her tails started wagging faster. “A HUMAN!!!”
John flinched at the pitch of that. It was like an actual mouse screaming for the whole neighborhood to hear. Thankfully, it was just an exaggeration, it wasn’t actually that loud besides the squeal. However, that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the disguise was completely, utterly, destroyed! John wasn’t even mad, he knew that they would get found out at some point… but this quickly? John muttered to himself in disappointment. “Claire…”
The kid tilted his head in confusion. “Ya can speak?” The kid’s eyes started glistening as he slowly gasped. “No way! A talking Pokémon!”
The rest of Team Net watched the scene and John, Taro, and Amy let out in confusion. “Huh-?”
“You’re one of the humans that know what Pokémon is, right?” Claire asked, her tails wagging even faster.
“Of course, I know! I love watching the cartoon and playing Pokémon GO! You’re… Vulpix, right?” The child asked while tilting his head.
Claire responded happily. “Yep! My name is Claire and I’m a Vulpix!”
The kid smiled in excitement. “That’s awesome! My name is Mike, nice to meet ya!”
“Amazing to meet YOU!” Claire responded with a bit more excitement than needed.
Amy looked at Taro and whispered to him. “I don’t like where this is going…”
“Don’t worry, it’s just a child.” Taro whispered back while glancing at the human before looking back at Amy, pretending to be curled. “I’ve seen human children while on the internet with John before, basically the same as children in our world. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”
The twin mice spoke next, without moving a muscle. “In case you have forgotten.” “Whenever there are children…” “The mother or father is always nearby.”
The Tandemaus subtly motioned for the figure approaching them. Making Taro and Amy flinch slightly before going back into their disguised position. “Shit!” Taro cursed under his breath.
Meanwhile, Mike and Claire continued to talk after the human put the fire fox on the ground. “Hey, where’s your trainer?”
“Trainer? What do you mean by that?” Claire asked, a bit confused.
Meanwhile the Joltik facepalmed. ‘Dammit, I forgot about the trainer thing in the games and shows!’
Suddenly, a female voice came from behind the boy. “There you are!” The Pokémon looked behind the boy to find a woman with long curly hair, wearing a jean jacket, an orange shirt, and a black skirt. She approached the boy and crossed her arms. “Don’t go leaving like that without warning me! I know we’re close to home but still…”
John was starting to shake a little. ‘No! Not a parent!’
“Sorry ma…” He said while looking down a bit ashamed, before perking up. “But ma, look!” He then pointed at Claire who was still excitedly wagging her tail. “It’s a Pokémon! An actual Pokémon!”
The woman then looked at Claire (although not noticing John on her head), staring at the Vulpix before eventually saying. “... the hell…?”
John mentally panicked, almost failing to control his shaking and trying to stop the thoughts of everything going to shit in a matter of seconds. ‘Claire, for the love of fuck, keep this pose and don’t say a fucking word!’
“Uh… what kinda fox is this? And why is it here?” The mother asked. Meanwhile, John sighed in relief since the Vulpix managed to hold it.
“Mom, I’m telling you! It’s a real Pokémon! It can even speak!” Mike protested.
Unfortunately for Team Net, Claire couldn’t resist and spoke. “Yes, I can speak, see!?” That caught the woman by surprise and she flinched. “Hi! My name is Claire and I’m a Vulpix! Nice to meet you!”
John, completely fed up with the entire situation, couldn’t help but just shout really loudly. “Fuck!”
A wave of emotions flew over the woman’s face before turning into a terrified expression as she realized the reality of the situation. She shouted as she grabbed the arm of her son as she started pulling him away. “Mike! Get the hell away from those things!”
The boy tried to protest as he was being dragged away. “B-but ma…!”
John decided there was no need to hide it anymore, so he shouted back as they were getting further away. “Yeah! Get the hell away from us, just don’t call the cops!” He then muttered aside.”Dammit… the stealth plan is already ruined.”
After the humans got a bit far away, Claire stopped wagging her tails as her smile dropped, realizing what she had just done. “Oh, my Arceus… I ruined everything, didn’t I?” She looked down with a whimper. “I’m so bad at controlling my obsession…”
John sighed while the rest of the group stopped pretending. “Look, Claire, don’t blame yourself for this. One way or another, we would’ve been discovered.” He then looked at the other Pokémon. “Let’s just get out of here.”
The Pokémon nodded before starting to walk away, Claire still sulking a bit. It wasn’t even one step that they took that they heard a noise from the other side of the street. “Shit!”
The group turned to the side to find a man with a blue cap, a rather thick coat, and some jeans. It seemed that he was crouched down to grab a certain object... “Is that a cell phone…?” Claire asked.
“Shit! He was about to record us!” John blurted out as he realized. “Let’s get the hell outta here, guys!” With that, they quickly get out of there before the guy could record them for long.
“Dammit…” The man said before seeing them go. But he could use the small glimpse of footage he got to post it online. Suddenly, he felt something crawl on his legs, making him look down. He saw a white doll-like mouse that was hanging on his leg. “What the…?”
It then looked at him and suddenly spoke. “No evidence.” It suddenly jumped out of the human's leg and showed its claws coming out of its mitten-like hand, slashing the phone while ruining the entire screen before disappearing with a puff of smoke.
The man became stunned after what had happened and fell on his butt, completely speechless on what just happened.
Meanwhile, the team stopped running on the corner of the street, hiding under a parked car. It seemed they stopped near a cafe called Caffe Moda, which was on the corner of another block. After panting for a bit, Taro asked. “Did we manage to get away from him?”
“Yes we did.” Popo responded. “We do not have to worry about any evidence about us.” Nana reassured before the mice looked at themselves and nodded in unison. “No witnesses allowed.”
John sighed in relief before he looked around. “At least this street isn't that crowded.” The Joltik then noticed the name of the street on a pole with a sign. “Natoma St. huh…?”
“Do you know this place, John?” Claire asked, receiving a shake of the head from the spider.
“We still need to find some clues…” Amy said before looking around for a bit before spotting the cafe across the street. “Maybe that place has some. It is one of those places where people go to eat snacks, right?”
John nodded. “Yes. I’d uh… be against going there, but we clearly have no other options honestly… maybe we can overhear some conversations there…”
Taro asked. “But won’t going on a big group like this gather attention? I know we’re small, but still…”
“I can go.” Amy offered and the others turned to her. “I uh…” She looked away in embarrassment. “I kinda have a hobby of overhearing people’s conversations…”
Ah, a gossip girl, that was the thing John needed for this specific scenario. “No objections here!” John said immediately. “Please, gather as much information as you can without getting spotted, alright?”
Taro looked at her in concern. “Are you gonna be alright though?”
Amy nodded. “I’ll be alright. I’m the smallest of the group besides John. He knows how to maneuver you guys around here, I can handle myself in a cafe.”
“If you say so…” Claire said a bit nervous but immediately perked up with a smile. “We’re counting on you, alright?”
The Shaymin nodded before turning away from them and leaving from below the car. She crossed the street and stuck close to the black-painted wall of the cafe. “Alright Amy… you can do this…” She now regretted not having an Invisify Orb with her, this would be the perfect opportunity to use one right now.
Complaining came later, she had a job to do. It was going to be hard, seeing that the cafe was on the corner of a block that had a crossing, so people could spot her easily. What was worse than that, is that the other street was more crowded than Natomi Street, with more cars passing by on the multi section street. But fortunately, the front door of the building was open, so she could slip into it completely unnoticed.
Amy ran to the extreme right of the building and hid behind some humans who didn’t notice her. After looking at her surroundings, she stuck close to the wall of the building again, eyeing the entrance to see if anyone would leave the place. The Shaymin’s caution was proven right, as a human with a black suit and suitcase left the building after some seconds.
‘Now!’ She took the opportunity and slipped right past the doors, her paw pads making almost no noise whatsoever as she went to the very corner of the cafe. Inside, she looked around and saw a lot of things that made her let out a quiet “Wow…”. Lights were hanging up from the ceiling, freezers were cooling some unknown beverages, some delicious-looking pastries were on the counter at the back of the building, and some humans were eating on the clean-looking tables as well.
She shook her head, she couldn’t be there for long, she needed to find some interesting gossip. She crawled quietly towards one of the tables, going under it. Fortunately, it was one of the tables where she could hear some humans talking. Even though she could only see some legs, she could hear two female voices.
“-Like I was saying, don’t let that guy take control of everything you do. You gotta assert some dominance!”
“I try to… but everything I do is like… I dunno, I just mess up somehow, and I feel so dependent on him…”
“I keep telling ya T, if you let him in control for too long, he literally might start controlling yourself at some point-”
Interesting conversation, but not what Amy was looking for. ‘Onto the next one.’ She left the table and hid behind a small stand of candy that was next to the counter. This time, she could hear one female voice and one male voice.
“Hey, since it’s almost time for closin’, do you wanna come to my house today? I got a new game that you might like, just sayin’.”
“Nah, my mom needs help again. My dad had another one of those temporary shutdowns and he was taken to the hospital.”
“Man… have the doctors figured out what those shutdowns are about yet? I don’t remember those bein’ normal.”
“Not yet, the doctors don’t even know what that is in the first place. We tried to get something out of dad, but he said nothing about it for all I know-”
Also an interesting topic, but not what she was looking for. She scanned for any more humans that looked like they were having any interesting conversations, but it didn’t seem like they were. The Shaymin sighed and went under another table, scanning her surroundings to see if she could leave the place safely.
However, another voice called her attention and she turned to look at a TV attached to a wall. It seems it was displaying a news channel called ABC and had a male spokesperson behind a desk. “Good Evening, we have some breaking news to go over today.” A headline appeared that said. “ A bizarre new Twitter owner.” before the spokesperson continued. “The social media known as Twitter has a new owner, who goes by the name of Alice Mishima.”
Amy’s needles went up while she whispered. “What?!”
“Alice is the owner of an underdog technology corporation called Asuri, which claims to be composed entirely of the famous creatures called Pokémon.” The screen changed to screenshots of Alice’s Twitter account posts. “Some of her posts show photos of creatures of various shapes and forms in an office. Twitter users claim those pictures to be heavily edited, however, when specialists went to analyze the pictures, they found no traces of photo editing software used in the pictures.”
‘Alright, I have enough info, I have to tell the others!’ Amy thought before getting out of the table and leaving the cafe. Thankfully, everyone in there seemed to be focused on the TV rather than a white blur.
Even though she couldn’t hear it anymore, the spokesperson continued as the camera changed to him. “The previous owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, has yet to make a statement about this situation. However, his whereabouts are unknown, his last sighting was him leaving Twitter Headquarters yesterday. Our team has tried to contact Alice Mishima for answers, but still no response from her or any of her employees. Meanwhile, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are looking into the matter of who this mysterious company is and why they stole their brand. Alice’s plans for Twitter are unknown, but some users of the site are somewhat grateful for a new owner due to some recent changes to the site and-”
Meanwhile, the Shaymin ran by humans who could only see her as a green and white blur before she made her way back to the car where the others were, seemingly discussing some things before Amy came back. John asked first. “Alright, did you find any useful info?”
Amy looked away and sighed. “Yep… and it’s bad news.”
Claire tilted her head in confusion. “What happened?”
The grass hedgehog looked back at them and spat it out. “Asuri has total control over Twitter now.”
The rest of the team (except for Popo and Nana) blurted out. “WHAT!?”
Amy nodded then explained. “I’ve seen on a news channel, the humans are becoming suspicious that Pokémon might be real because of Alice’s posts. Some of her posts included pictures of her and some other Asuri employees as well…”
John looked down as a rush of thoughts started to go over his head, muttering to himself. “This is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad-”
“Friend.” John stopped muttering to look at the twin mice. “Exaggerated panic is not the right option at the moment.” “The right option is to plan ahead.” “So friend… what are your plans for this situation?”
John slowly raised his head and looked and started thinking about it. The mice were right, it was no time to panic, it was time to come up with a plan. John sighed and looked back at the Tandemaus. “I don’t have any plans for now, but I’ll think about it more clearly later. I think this info was enough for now.” He then turned to Amy with a smile on his fuzz. “Thanks, Amy.”
The Shaymin smiled back with a slight blush on her face. “You’re welcome.”
John nodded. “Alright guys, I think it’s time to go home.”
The rest of the group nodded and, one after another, they left from under the car. Once they were out, they realized that it had started to rain a little, with small droplets falling on their fur. Taro, not caring about the rain, grinned as he looked at the twin mice. “Alright guys, fire up the portal!”
The Tandemaus nodded as their mitten hands started glowing with a dark purple aura.
“Put yo damn hands in the air!”
A shout could be heard a small distance away from Team Net. The group of Pokémon turned around and they saw a rather not welcoming sight. A bald man with a red mask covering his entire face was pointing a pistol at another man who seemed to be shaking in fear as he slowly put his hands up.
The Pokémon looked confused at what was happening. “What is happening? What is that in his hands?” Claire asked, a bit confused. “I’m getting bad vibes from that guy…” However, she noticed that John wasn’t responding. “John…?”
The small Joltik was frozen by looking at that scene. Not because of fear, no, but because of the anger that was slowly starting to build up inside of him. He died in one of these scenarios, he took a bullet to the chest because he tried to fight back, even knowing full well he couldn’t. Now look at where he ended up, in the body of what was one of his most hated things in his old life. What now? Should he leave that defenseless person on his own wits? What if that person tried to retaliate? No, he couldn’t let the same thing happen to another person when he COULD do something about it this time!
Amy looked at John, a little concerned. “John… are you alright?”
Suddenly, the Joltik launched a strand of silk onto one of the buildings to the side and slingshotted himself onto it. “John!” Claire called out as she saw the Joltik slingshot himself from the building to a car next to the scene, the rain making it a little more difficult for locomotion. The group of Pokémon ran after John, however, the robber diverted his attention to the Pokémon.
“The hell are those?!” He asked before aiming the gun at one of the members. Suddenly, a strand of silk attached itself to the gun. “Wha-!”
Before the man had any time to register, John pulled the strand of silk, taking the gun out of the man’s hand, and making an accidental shot on the floor in front of Popo and Nana. The Pokémon screamed and flinched from the shot, their sensible eardrums being blasted by an extremely loud sound. Except the twin mice who just stared ahead before staring at the small hole in front of them. “What an interesting instrument.” “We shall take note of what it does for experimentation later.”
After recovering from the loud bang, Taro, with a shocked face, looked at the Tandemaus. “Uh, yeah, NO!”
Meanwhile, the masked man was completely stunned by what had just occurred. “What the… wha-”
John threw the gun away and looked with a pissed look at the man. “I’m not gonna let you hurt ANYONE!” John said before jumping on the man's face, letting an instinct control his actions as he skittled toward the man's neck and bit it, letting an electrical current be transferred toward the man's face.
The man screamed as it tried to take the greenish tick off of him. He managed to grab John and throw him close to the others, jerking back while putting a hand on the spot where he was bitten. Sparks of electricity were running throughout his body, making him stutter a bit while also making his limbs tremble. “W-what the f-fuck is happenin’..!?” He looked back at John and the others with a bit of difficulty. “What in the actual hell is going on here…” He said as he started backing away from them and his victim. He saw some people coming towards the scene, so he ran away after almost tripping.
John panted a little bit before sighing in relief. He then looked back at the man who had fainted during the whole scene. “At least nothing bad happened…”
Claire looked at John a bit in concern. She started to ask. “John… what was-”
“Um, guys…?” Amy called their attention, making the others look in the direction she was looking. “We have a problem…”
There were a lot of humans coming to the scene, not only from that side but a lot of sides, there were even some people watching from the windows of the houses. That gunshot must’ve really called the attention of everyone. “Shit!” John turned to Popo and Nana. “You two, we need the portal now!”
The Tandemaus nodded and created another X-shaped tear in space in front of them while John jumped on Claire’s head. “Let us leave!”
The rest of Team Net nodded before entering the portal in a rush. After crossing to the other side, the portal closed behind them. They were back at the Distortion World, panting from everything that just happened, without really having any breaks. “Welp…” Taro began. “That went south SUPER fast.”
“Think of the bright side…” Claire said after a few pants. “At least we got the info, right?”
“Yeah… at least that part is done…” John said after he stretched a little bit. “Next part is trying to find out what to do about Asuri… but that’s for later. Let’s just go home for now.”
Amy and Taro said in unison. “Agreed.”
The Vulpix mentally agreed as well, however… something didn’t sit well with her, lots of things actually. Why did John suddenly have a reaction to that scene? What did that human have on his hand, and why was it looked so dangerous? And why did John attack a human!? She just had to ask... “John…?”
John hesitated for a second before whispering. “We’ll talk later, let’s just go home for now.”
“Alright…”
“If you all wish to not cross the Hollow Forest again.” “Join your hand with ours and we shall take you back to where we entered.” The Tandemaus offered as they extended their small hands to them.
“Oh yes please!” Taro said gladly as he took Popo’s hand.
“At least we don’t have to fight any glitch Pokémon this time…” Amy mused as she touched Nana.
Claire nodded before touching Popo while John jumped out of her head and touched Nana’s tail. “Close your eyes…” The rest of Team Net closed their eyes and, soon enough, they felt a tingling feeling in their stomachs for a second. “Open your eyes.” The group opened their eyes and saw that they were back in the place where they entered the Distortion World.
“Oh wow… you weren’t kidding.” John said a little freaked out about this. Well, he faintly remembers the battle against MissingNo.’s failed soldier the Tandemaus using some kind of teleport ability. But actually experiencing it first-hand was kinda bone-chilling.
The mice turned to John. “Why would we lie about that, friend?” “Is it something so unbelievable for you to comprehend?”
John looked aside. “Uh… yeah, it kinda is.”
“You shall learn in due time to comprehend that everything is possible in this plane of existence.” “The process shall be faster if you fully convert yourself to the will of the Great One!” “But that comes later.” “For now…” They turned away and made another X-shaped portal in an instant. They turned to the rest of Team Net. “Let us go home.”
Team Net hopped on the portal after the mice as the portal closed behind them.
----------------------------------------
Project Wonderland was going as planned.
Alice was in her office, looking at the computer in front of her, watching some of the posts on Twitter. She had just recently not only taken control of an entire social media but also got the money necessary to bribe anyone she wanted in that world! Well, the bribing part wouldn’t work without a little bit of threatening, after all, she knew how they worked. They fear the unknown, they fear being powerless, and they absolutely fear being weak and not in control.
They would take anything to be in power, and now she has what she needs to overpower any small fry that threatens to be on her way. Now all that’s left is to get the ones in power in that world for her side… “Isn’t this wonderful Hoops?” Alice asked Hoopa, who was floating beside her. “At this rate, our plans will have a status of completion much faster than anticipated!”
The floating genie looked away. “Yeah… I guess…”
“Oh come on, don’t be such a downer! This is a good thing!” She then motioned a paw toward the computer. “Look at the feedback we’ve been receiving, it’s so clear that they want this!”
Hoopa looked at the screen with a frown and saw the many responses that were going on Twitter. Most of them were glad that the previous owner was gone, however, some were a little skeptical about it but supported it nonetheless. “They don’t even know what your plans are, are they that stupid?”
“It’s not stupidity, it’s called desperation.” The Meowscarada grinned. “They wanted the previous owner gone so badly that they wanted anyone to step in to save them all. I am basically their savior.” She chuckled.
Hoopa scratched their chin while looking at some posts. “Uh… does the term “furry” means savior as well?”
Alice tilted her head as she looked back at the screen. “Ah…” She shrugged. “Just a small side effect of someone like me taking the throne, nothing too big.”
“If you say so…”
Suddenly, there was a knock on her door, waking up the three-headed black-furred canine Pokémon on the side of the room, mostly obscured by the shadows... “Excuse me, miss. I need to show you something really important…”
The feline recognized that voice. It was Nixie, a Ribombee that she put to monitor the news channels on the human world. “Come in.”
The fairy bee entered the office, flapping her wings while carrying a tablet. “Excuse me for the sudden entrance, there’s something really important that you need to see.”
Alice tilted her head. What could that be? Did something change all of a sudden in the human world? “Show it to me.” She said while resting her head on her paws.
Nixie nodded and went to the front of the desk. She showed her tablet, displaying a paused video on the news channel. The fairy pressed the play button and the female newsperson started speaking. “Moving onto our next headline. Mysterious creatures have been spotted near a cafe in the city of San Francisco, California.” The screen changed to shaky phone footage of six Pokémon looking around before a small greenish blur that was with the Pokémon said something indistinct. A pair of twin mice nodded and suddenly created a portal that all of the creatures went through. “These creatures were spotted after the sound of a gunshot was heard. No one knew what had happened there, however, there was a middle-aged man lying unconscious on the street. He seemed to have no injuries but was sent to the hospital either way-”
Alice paused the video and replayed part of the footage where the Pokémon could be seen. What was the meaning of this? Who were those Pokémon and why were they in the human world? How did they even get there? “... is there something other than this?”
The Ribombee nodded. “Although with no concrete evidence this time, our sources found a human on the internet who claims he saw some eldritch dragon monster on the top of a building, along with some greenish blur that said dragon carried. It happened around the early hours of the morning. That is all.”
The Meowscarada recomposed herself with a deep breath and responded. “Alright then, thank you for telling me. Please pass this video to me so I can analyze it further later. You are dismissed.”
Nixie bowed before fluttering out of the office, making the three-headed Lycanroc go back to sleep. Hoopa was clearly confused about all of this. “How…? I thought only Palkia, Necrozma, and I were the only ones that could travel through different universes.”
“I thought so too…” Alice leaned in on Hoopa with a menacing face. “Have you perhaps lied to me…?”
Hoopa angrily responded back. “No, I didn’t! If I did know I wouldn’t have been so surprised about this info!”
She stayed silent for a moment before leaning back on her chair. “You may be right…” But that doesn’t answer the question, who are those Pokémon and what are their goals? Unless one of them is a human they had no reason to go to the human world.
But that still wouldn’t make sense… every human that comes to this world has their memories wiped, the only thing they always remember is their name and the fact that they are a human, not that they live in a different world altogether. Even though they would get their memories back later, she would've discovered one way or another and dealt with them! Then why are those Pokémon there-
Wait a second… some of those Pokémon were wearing scent blocker uniforms, even from the shaky footage she could tell that. Every school in the Fire continent must have those for female Pokémon. So that means those Pokémon are in a school… and that certainly means… “Well… they won’t be a problem for long.” Alice mischievously grinned and chuckled. “In less than two weeks we’ll meet for sure and I’ll get my answers…”