Today was the day.
It was Monday, and today, John would be entering Obelisk High… as a student. Being honest, he was incredibly nervous about this, but on the other nub, he was curious how a school would be for Pokémon.
From what he had seen while hidden on the Vulpix’s head, there were vastly different subjects compared to a human school. It was a bit exciting to him honestly… after all, the teachers and some students were already better than the ones in his previous school.
“Are you ready John? This is going to be your first day of school in this world!” Claire stated, already wearing her uniform and backpack.
John cracked a small smile while looking aside. “I’ll admit… I’m a bit antsy for this…”
They waited outside the house along with Elsa, knowing the bus would arrive shortly. Elsa scoffed. “Let it be known you little peasant, that if you ever cross my way… I won’t hesitate to turn your life in that school into an icy hell.” The ice Vulpix glared at the Joltik menacingly. “Understood?”
John waved the glare off unfazed. “Yeah, sure, whatever, not like I was planning on that anyways.” After the bathroom incident, he saw Elsa as nothing more than a slutty annoyance rather than an actual threat. Sure, ice powers were terrifying as fuck, but putting those powers on a creature like Elsa? That makes it even less intimidating than usual. He remembered being terrified of Elsa in the initial days of his new life, but now, he just felt annoyed by her more than anything. “Besides, it’s not like I would even wanna talk to you.”
That response made Claire snicker a little and made her twin huff in annoyance while looking away. “Glad you understand your position, bug.”
John wanted to shoot a little string shot at her just to be a little bitch, but decided not to. He wouldn’t succumb to the dark side that the ice fox currently is. After all, with great (disgusting) powers, comes great responsibility.
After waiting a little while, the bus finally came. Asher stopped in front of the Ninetales’s house and looked at the three students. “Good morning kids!”
“Good morning Asher!” Claire responded with a wave of her paw.
“Morning.” Elsa replied with her usual tone.
The Koraidon pressed the button to open the door and noticed the Joltik between the twins. “Oh, hello there little guy. I think I heard from the staff, you’re the new student, right?”
“John, my name is John.” The Joltik said as he felt a little bit intimidated by the lizard in front of him. It looked quite muscular…
“Nice to meet ’cha! Name’s Asher! Don’t be intimidated, I’m a nice Pokémon with a big heart.” The Koraidon said as he tapped the wheel-looking sac on his chest while the twins entered the bus. He formed a grin. “Hop on, buddy.”
John slowly nodded and jumped onto the stairs of the bus and followed Claire towards her seat in the back. He saw Elsa sitting in another seat with her friends. The trio were staring daggers at him. With that, he quickly caught up to Claire who sat beside Amy and Taro. John jumped onto Claire’s head while she greeted the Pokémon. “Hey, guys!”
“Morning Claire, Hi John!” The Shaymin replied with a wave of her paw.
“Hi, you two!” Taro beamed with his own wave. “We heard that you were in the hospital Claire, are you alright? Are you still hurt?”
The Vulpix waved it off with a smile. “Don’t worry guys, I’m fine.” She sighed. “Although… there’s a lot of things we need to catch up on…” The trip to the school usually took around 20 minutes after the twins entered the bus, so Claire figured she could fill them in on what she had learned in the meantime. She COULD have told John earlier about the Corrupted Pokémon but… her mind was somewhere else with human stuff and whatnot. “So um… while in the hospital… some detective came to ask me about why I got injured.”
“Yeah, how did you get injured?” Amy asked, a bit concerned.
“Well… when I was going back to get John… I encountered one of those odd Pokémon that keep appearing on the news…” Amy and Taro’s eyes widened at that. “Don’t worry guys, this one was… a bit more creepy but less powerful than the others for some reason.”
“What did it look like…?” Taro asked with a frown.
Claire thought back on the Charmander, that crazy ethereal look it had made Claire flinch a little just at the thought. “Well… it looked like some kind of skeletal Charmander with ghost flames… I think it was some kind of ghost type. If I remember correctly, it used Will-o-Wisp.”
“That’s how you got hurt then?” The hedgehog asked while tilting her head.
The Vulpix shook her head. “No… there was another Pokémon. This time a normal one… it was a… Ceruledge if I remember correctly. He slashed me across the chest.” She said as she pointed at her scar. “Next thing I knew, I was in the hospital.”
Taro and Amy looked at themselves while John looked down at Claire. “Did any of those weirdos say anything important?” The Joltik asked.
“Not that I can recall… no. The Charmander only said dumb stuff while the Ceruledge called it pathetic for being easily beaten then dipped.”
Taro crossed his arms. “Do you think that Ceruledge might be involved with the weird Pokémon?”
“I think he is.” Claire sighed and looked around, she saw that the Beedrill student was leaning closer to them, most likely eavesdropping. “Hey, are you eavesdropping on us?!” She called out and the Beedrill flinched at the sight of being discovered.
The others looked at the Beedrill and John let out a scared squeak before scuttling behind Claire. “Not the bee, not the bee, not the bee!” John muttered.
The Beedrill in question leaned back in his seat while whistling, looking out the window innocently. Claire huffed and jumped to the seat next to the Beedrill. The bug with a red scarf looked at Claire, smiling with fake obliviousness. “Hey Claire, how you doing cutie.” He said with a smirk.
“Don’t play dumb with me, what have you heard?” Claire asked while narrowing her eyes.
The Beedrill grimaced before sighing. “Fine…” He adjusted his scarf. “Well… I heard everything.” He smirked as Claire was a bit taken back by that. “Look cutie, I’m not gonna tell anyone what I heard as long as…” He put one of his drills on the side of the fox’s head and leaned his head towards her. “You become my girl.”
Claire stayed silent as Taro tried butting in, however a bad feeling coming from Claire held him back. Amy looked at Taro a little confused. “Why aren’t you helping her?”
“Well um…” Suddenly, Amy got her answer as the Beedrill started to fly without flapping his wings, a purple outline surrounding him. “What the…?”
The Beedrill started flailing in midair. “Hey, what’s this-” He looked into Claire’s eyes, which were now fully purple. “Hey, hey! I-I said it as a joke girl, ch-chill-“ Suddenly, he was flung back to his seat hard with a telekinetic pull.
“Woah, what the hell is happening!?” John asked in shock as other students started looking at the commotion in the back of the bus. He then jumped on Claire’s head, tapping it. “Claire, what are you doing?!”
The Vulpix’s eyes returned to normal as she looked around a bit confused. “Huh…? What happened?” She then looked at the top of her head. “John, what happened?”
John was a bit surprised by the reaction. “You… you seriously don’t remember using literal telekinesis on the bee? Are you for real?”
“Huh…? When did that happen…?” Claire asked confused as she looked at the Beedrill in the seat who was groaning. Claire leaned closer to him “Uh… are you okay?”
The bug looked at Claire and flinched, leaning backward trying to get away from the Vulpix. “Hey, hey, I get your point! N-no need to do it again!” He leaned against the wall of the bus while Claire tilted her head. “Please spare me…!”
Claire just tilted her head a bit confused. “Uh… okay…?” She walked back to her seat along with John and saw Taro and Amy watching her in confusion. “Uh… something wrong guys?”
Taro and Amy looked at each other before looking at Claire again. “Um… do you remember going towards that Beedrill?” Claire nodded. “You remember him flirting with you?” Claire hesitantly nodded. “Do you remember um… using some psychic move on him?”
Claire tilted her head. “What are you guys talking about? I probably must’ve just blacked out because of the flirting. I can’t learn Psychic this early!”
The Togedemaru and Shaymin looked unsure but they shrugged it off with a sigh. “Well… if you say so…” Amy said looking aside before looking back at Claire. “So um… something else happened?”
“Well, in the hospital…” Claire began, thinking back on her time at the hospital. “There was that detective guy I talked about… he told me some info about those weird Pokémon. Apparently…” She looked around to see if anyone was eavesdropping again, even checking the Beedrill again to see if he would hear anything. She turned to the others again and said in a low voice. “Those weird Pokémon are called Corrupted Pokémon.”
“And like… what’s the difference between those and other variants of Pokémon?” John asked. “Your family is a perfect example of that…”
“Well… it seems that all of those “Corrupted Pokémon”, as Claire said, can’t be reasoned and will attack if provoked…” Taro said as he brought out his phone. “At least, that’s what it said on the news…”
“Although…” Claire looked away, remembering the Scizor’s warning. “I don’t know if I should tell you guys this, since… it might put you all in danger… especially John.”
Amy smiled. “Don’t worry Claire, whatever it is, we can keep it a secret if it bothers you that much.”
“Yeah!” Taro whispered back. “Don’t worry, we will be fine, it doesn’t hurt telling at least your friends about it.”
John mentally disagreed with that statement but decided to agree since he was curious about what it was that Claire wanted to say. “Well, whatever it is that you want to say, I’m sure that it won’t hurt.”
Claire thought about it and sighed. The Vulpix lowered her voice even more for this. “So… the detective made a theory and… he might be right…” She hesitated a little as she looked around for possible unwanted Pokémon in this conversation. She looked back at her friends. “The Corrupted Pokémon might be humans-turned-Pokémon…”
The spider, hedgehog, and mouse let out a silent “WHAT!?”, judging by their shocked expressions. “Are you serious…?” Amy said a little shocked.
Claire nodded. “John… remember that Charmander we bumped into when we were on the way to Taro’s house? He called us… monsters right?” John thought back and nodded, after all, Charmander was one of the few Pokémon he remembered correctly. “Well… that skeletal Charmander also did the same and kept calling me a monster…”
The Joltik’s eyes widened at that realization. Why would a random Pokémon call every Pokémon around them monsters for no reason? Because… they might not be Pokémon in the first place. “No way… then that Charmander was… a human…?” John was a bit in disbelief about missing the chance to actually talk to someone from his world in the flesh. However, more pressing issues were on his mind at the moment. “Wait… does that mean… the kidnappings are involved in this?”
Claire tilted her head. “You… knew about the human kidnappings?”
John rubbed the back of his head. “Well um… I did… courtesy of your parents.”
“Oh… well, that cuts more of the explanation then…”
Taro decided to speak up at that moment. “But wait… why would someone want to kidnap humans and turn them into… those things…?”
They stopped to think about it, however, no one came to an exact conclusion as they shook their heads. John spoke again with a groan. “Let’s just focus on being students for now… I don’t wanna start my first day with a headache…”
“You’re right.” Amy agreed. “These topics will only take away our concentration from classes, so let’s think about those another time.”
Claire and Taro agreed as well. In any case, the Scizor was right, they shouldn’t think about it too much, it’s best to just leave it for the authorities to handle it… however, Claire couldn’t stop thinking about it all the way to school, worried that John was in grave danger.
----------------------------------------
The bus finally arrived at the destination. After they departed, the students went into an open assembly hall of some kind, where Pokémon were standing in lines. There were four lines of students, and John was standing in the same line as Claire and her friends, so he assumed he was in the right line since he was supposed to be in Claire’s class.
The lines were in order of height, from the shortest to the tallest in each class. So of course, the Joltik was the first in the line. While the teachers weren’t there, the students were chatting with each other, so John took the opportunity to see the students beside him. On his left, there was a pink furry balloon with nubs, feet, ears, and a little hair between their big eyes. He recognized it as a Jigglypuff. The only reason he recognized what Pokémon they were was because of a couple of games of Smash Bros Ultimate he played with one of his friends, he remembered the character being really easy to deal with while still being a little annoying.
The Joltik then looked to the left to see a- no, two Pokémon he did not recognize this time. It looked like a pair of white cartoonish mice, they stood on two feet, had mitten-like hands, a face that looked bland with dot-like eyes, and… no mouth? He would’ve thought they were plushies if it wasn’t for the fact that they were breathing. ‘Wow, from all the other species I’ve seen, these are, by far, the least intimidating ones.’
Suddenly, both mice instantly cocked their head towards John’s direction, making the Joltik flinch. The mice spoke without opening their mouths, completing each other’s sentences like they were one being, although each body had a different voice. “What an interesting soul we got here.” “So similar, yet so different from us.” “We know your greatest fear.” “We know your greatest desire.” Then, they spoke in unison. “Will you let us be your friend, little bug? Will you let us know your darkest secrets?”
John instantly looked away, his opinion of the mice had completely changed. Nope, he was not dealing with the twins from The Shining in Pokémon form, he already had enough to deal with. He looked back in front of him and saw the director getting in front of the lines. He made sure to thank the gods of this world for getting him out of this situation.
“Good morning students!” The Blacephalon said while doing a twirl and throwing his hands in the air. After a little bit of silence, he said it again. “I said… good MORNING students!” The students replied with a “Good morning Mr. Piero!”, all at the same time. The Ultra Beast cleared his throat. “Today marks the third week of your school cycle. Hope you study hard as life does not get easier, so you shall become the best of the best!” The director said with a spin of the head. “As always, to the weekly motto! Pokémon who don’t study…”
“Will end up in the wilds all muddy!” The kids finished while John pretended to say it to them.
“Great students!” He said with another head spin. “Now to your classes, you go!”
The director disappeared with an explosion of his head and confetti covering the students' view for a second. After that display, the students went to their classes. But John noticed something was off, they weren’t going to their classroom, and the class with The Shinin- the creepy mice were following them. The Joltik went to Claire and jumped on her head. “Hey Claire, where are we going?”
“Oh yeah, you don’t know that yet.” The Vulpix said in realization. “Today’s P.E. class and we have to join classes with the 9th grade.”
“I’m gonna be honest with you…” John looked behind and spotted the same white mice among other Pokémon, looking at him with an unreadable and creepy expression. He looked back to Claire’s head. “I’m getting a really bad feeling about the mice.”
“Mice…?”
“You know, the… uh… twin white mouse Pokémon.”
The fox let out an “Oooh” of realization. “That’s Popo and Nana. Their species are called Tandemaus. They might seem creepy at times… but trust me, they aren’t that bad. They’re actually nice!” The Vulpix said with a smile.
John looked back again at the Tandemaus just to be sure. However, he immediately regretted the idea once he saw that the mice were smiling at him with a terrifying grin, showing a large front tooth along with sharp teeth that covered the entire front of the mouth. John immediately looked back forwards, a massive shiver running through his body. ‘I… really am gonna have nightmares about them… aren’t I?’
After trying to shake off his horror movie PTSD, John realized they arrived at a field that looked like a soccer field without goals. Around the grass field, there looked to be a track field. Beside the field, there were two pools of different sizes from one another. In the middle of the soccer field, there was a white humanoid rabbit Pokémon with its arms crossed. They seemed to be wearing some orange shorts- wait a second, that is part of their body, it was just some thicker patch of fur, like their feet that looked like socks. “There you are!” The rabbit said with a raspy female voice. “Good morning students!”
“Morning Ms. Cristiane!” The students replied.
The kids got in the middle of the field with the Cinderace. She put a paw on her hip with a smile. “Let’s start with the usual first!” Before she could start, she remembered one thing. “Oh yes, I forgot! We have a new student! Would you please come in front so you can introduce yourself to not only one class but TWO classes?” The new student sighed as he hopped off of the fire Vulpix’s head and walked in front of the teacher. She looked down. “Oh wow, I didn’t know the student was gonna be one of these.” She said as some Pokémon started whispering to themselves.
“What is a little critter doing here?”
“Are they sure that’s the new student and not some stowaway?”
“Geez, that director starts accepting anyone to this school, I guess he isn’t only crazy in looks.”
“It is the perfect soul, is it not?” “Yes, it is.” “We wonder if we play with them for eternity.”
The teacher shouted. “Alright kids, settle down!” She picked up the Joltik and raised it to an elevated level. “Could you tell a little about yourself?”
“Uh… alright…” John looked at the students and felt a tinge of nostalgia… bad nostalgia on the first day of a new school. He was starting to become a little nervous about all of this. “Um… my name is John and uh… um…” What should he say in this situation? Definitely not revealing his true identity right there, and definitely not talking about the bug fear that he somehow still has… he started to think of an alternative story. “I’m a really smart Joltik that… sometimes thinks outside the box and… knows a lot about computers. Yeah…” Some of the students tilted their heads in confusion. Shit, did he mess up? Did that lie just sounded unbelievable? Or worse, gave huge hints to discover that he’s human-
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“My what a prodigy we have among your kind! You must be really special then!” Cristiane said while putting the Joltik down on the ground again, who immediately went back to Claire. “Let’s see if I’m forgetting something more… oh!” The bunny looked towards the fire fox. “Claire, try to take it easy today. Your parents called earlier saying you just left the hospital. So don’t go too hard today, understood?”
Claire sighed while looking away. “Understood…”
“Alright, now let’s truly begin the morning stretches!”
After a bit of stretching, the Cinderace went to a small room next to the fields and returned while carrying a sac. She opened the sac and dumped its contents on the field, red balls. The balls bounced slightly around the field. John was mentally panicking when he saw those balls. ‘Please don’t be what I’m thinking, please let it be another thing…”
“Alright class, today we’re going to try something different!” Cristiane grabbed one of the red balls with her foot and kicked it up, catching it with her hand. “Let’s play a human activity: Dodgeball!”
‘Nooooo!’ The Joltik thought as memories of a barrage of balls flying directly towards him passed through his mind. Now imagine that barrage of balls going towards him as a bug! He would absolutely get squashed by the force of the balls! “I’m not gonna survive this…”
“The rules are simple! There are two teams. Your objective is to hit the opposing Pokémon of the other team with a ball! The Pokémon that gets hit… gets eliminated!” The Cinderace started throwing the ball upwards. “The team who eliminates the entire adversary team wins. Simple right?” She stops throwing the ball, looking at the students who nodded. With that, she continued. “There are ways to avoid being eliminated. One: you can grab the ball before it falls on the ground. Two: you can block a ball with another ball if you have one on your hand or paw.”
“Woah, this game sounds amazing!” Claire said, her tails wagging with excitement. John looked unamused at the Vulpix.
“Heh, glad you are getting excited! Fun fact! If you grab the ball, the opponent who threw it gets eliminated, and a teammate who was previously hit gets back on the field.”
“Wow, I can’t wait to see what I can do!” Taro said, throwing a fist in the air.
“It’s clearly obvious who will be the best in this game.” Elsa said, stepping forwards with her friends behind her. “Teacher, enough explaining and starting the game.”
While the other Vulpix, a Shaymin, a Togedemaru, and a Joltik looked at Elsa with an unamused face, the Cinderace chuckled. “Alright, I’ll separate the teams.” The Cinderace ordered the students to stand in the middle line of the field and then she started separating the teams.
While John was paying attention, he didn’t notice Popo and Nana beside him, only after the two poked him. He jumped as he silently shouted while looking at the two. “Hello.” “Little bug.” “Let our souls intertwine with yours.” “So we shall annihilate the enemy.” They opened their mouths again, revealing their sharp teeth as they spoke in unison. “And make the weak and incapable a sacrifice for our egos to grow beyond these mortal vessels.”
John stammered as he shook in fear. “W-w-well… I don’t think… think… that our souls combined or uh… whatever will do us any good in this game. I-I uh… I’m not known to be good at this… at these types of games… besides, how would you know we’re on the same team-”
“John, you’re with the B team, Popo, and Nana are with John too!” Cristiane stated.
John looked back at the bunny teacher in shock before looking back at the Tandemaus, who held a creepy smile right on his face. John couldn’t help but scream a little. “Let us depart.” “To the warzone.” “Friend!”
“HeyheyheyheyHEY!” John tried protesting before the mice grabbed him and carried him over to a side of the field and placed him carefully on the ground. John looked back at them, seeing that the smile was gone. “Uh… thanks… I guess…”
“Friend is thankful for us.” “It makes us feel excited.” They looked at each other. “This soul might be the perfect candidate.” “However, we shall use this game as a test.” “A test to see if this interesting soul is capable enough as a sacrifice.” They looked back at John with a menacing look. “For the Great One.”
“Aha… um… cool…” John took several steps away from Popo and Nana and took his opportunity to look at his current teammates.
It seemed that Claire and Amy got into his current team, which was good at least. The skull dog also seemed to get into his team, what was his name? Cerb… Cerberus…? John didn’t remember, but he could tell that he was really excited about this game by just looking at his face. The other teammates he didn’t recognize, however. One looked like a blue bipedal otter with white whiskers and two shells on their legs. Another one looked like a black and blue feline with a star-shaped tail, the black fur acting like some sort of facial hair. His last teammate was some sort of grass creature with a red and blue rose for hands. ‘How is someone like that gonna grab the ball? Heck, how will Claire and Amy grab a ball? How am I gonna grab a ball!? … Unless…'
The Joltik looked at the opponent team. Apparently, Elsa and her cat goons managed to stick together. Unfortunately, Taro was with them as well, oh well, typical start for a normal game of dodgeball when the teacher chooses the teams. It’s always the people you dislike get their friends and your friends get on the opposing team. He guessed that was a multiversal thing. Still on the opposing team, there were more Pokémon John had never seen before. Some type of kung-fu looking yellow and pinkish feline, a yellow and orange chicken Pokémon that looked a bit humanoid, a floating blueish black ghostly figure with some red gems on their neck and flowing red hair tips, and a vulpine humanoid orange and yellow Pokémon with a big fluffy tail, fur coming out of the ears, looking like braids and a wooden stick poking out of their tail.
Well… this was going to be a crazy match, John was sure. But if he could do this trick to snag a quick elimination…
“Hey, Johnny bug!” The Joltik looked at the source of the voice and saw Elsa looking at him with a malicious grin along with her friends. “Prepare to be the first eliminated.” She chuckled.
John just ignored her with a roll of his eyes. ‘What if I am not the first eliminated, huh? What are you gonna do, bitch?’
He saw the teacher had already put the balls in the middle of the field. “Alright, everyone. Remember, you can only eliminate someone with physical balls understood? Don’t go making other kinds of balls like Energy Balls, Shadow Balls, or any balls. Is that clear?” The students nodded as the Cinderace pulled out a whistle. “Then let’s begin!”
The sound of a whistle surrounded the whole field, and with that, the match finally started. John, from a distance, shot a string of silk at one of the balls and latched onto it. The Joltik spun the ball around and released the ball, throwing directly at the Combusken who was caught off guard. The ball hit them and with that, the fire chicken was eliminated. John grinned. “Yes!”
“Way to go John!” Claire said while wagging her tails.
The Tandemaus just put a hand on their chins. “Hm…” “Adequate.”
“What!?” Elsa exclaimed in disbelief, she then turned to the teacher. “Ms. Cristiane, John cheated! He used his moves!”
The Cinderace just smiled while crossing her arms and replied. “Well, I said you can only use the balls to eliminate someone. And little John used the ball to eliminate another player, so it’s all good. After all, I didn’t really ban moves in general.”
The Braixen then spoke next. “So you mean this is allowed?” She pulled out her stick from her tail and it glowed with a purple aura. One of the balls started floating with a purple outline around it and suddenly was launched at the Dewott. Luckily the blue otter dodged with a roll to the side. Meanwhile, the Braixen looked back at Cristiane while resting her stick on her shoulder. “That kinda looks unfair to me.”
“Well, that’s the fun part of the game, you have to put your dodging skills to the test!” She said with a smile. “It ain’t called Dodgeball for nothing, right?”
The Dewott huffed as he grabbed the ball. “Well, if that’s the case…” He then threw it upwards and grabbed one of his shells. “Then let’s show these fools what we got!” He then hit the ball with the flat part of the shell like a baseball bat, launching the ball towards the Mienfoo. The Mienfoo grabbed the ball while shifting into a martial art pose. The Dewott looked on in astonishment before looking down, dejectedly. “Aw, man…” He said as he walked out of the field.
Claire rushed to the middle of the field and grabbed a ball with her forepaws. She started standing on her hind legs and tried launching the ball towards her sister, although the throwing power wasn’t that great. ‘Wait, Claire can do that?’ John thought as he saw the display.
The ice Vulpix jumped out of the way. “Cindy!”
“Understood!” The Purrloin ran to grab another ball from the middle of the field. She turned to Amy. “Hey grass rat, eat this!” The Purrloin chucked the ball at the Shaymin, who wasn’t paying attention and got hit.
Claire fell on all fours and turned to the hedgehog. “Amy!”
Amy looked at the ball bouncing back to the Purrloin and sighed. “I’m sorry guys, I’m not really good at this…” She said with a sheepish smile and went out of the field.
John and Claire felt a little bit of pity for her, but then they looked at each other and nodded with determination. They looked back to the Purrloin while other small wars involving balls were happening in the field. “It’s time to squash you, puny bug!” The Purrloin said as she chucked the ball directly to the Joltik.
“John, dodge!” Claire shouted to the Joltik.
There was no way he could dodge in time, even with his fast jumps. So he shot another string of silk that wrapped around the ball and pulled it towards him. He tried his best to grab the big ball with his forenubs and put the ball on top of him. But man was the ball heavy. It felt like a part of his exoskeleton cracked when he grabbed the ball. But hey, at least one cat was eliminated. “I… I did it!”
Claire saw the Purrloin sighing and leaving the field. She grinned as she turned to John. “Nice catch, John!”
“Hell yes! It seems my new senses really work for somethi- ACK!” His gloating came to a stop once John was hit by a really fast ball, making him fly back a little bit while dropping his own ball. Damn, did it hurt. He was sure that a normal bug getting hit by a ball like that would probably die. However, this was not his world and Pokémon have a dummy thick resistance to basically anything. Although, it felt like all of his insides got crushed and rebuilt in the span of a second. “Ugh… I feel like I’m gonna vomit…”
“John!” Claire shouted to her friend and looked at the attacker to see a Combusken returning from a throwing position. Oh yeah, the Mienfoo caught the ball earlier, didn’t he? “Hey, at least be more careful while throwing a ball at him!”
The Combusken scratched his head in shame. “Jeez, I’m sorry…”
The Joltik got up groaning and looked at Claire. “I’m fine Claire… that just hurt a bit more than I was expecting…” With that, Amy was back in the game while John left the field, leaving him to spectate the match. “Hit them all gang! I’m trusting you!”
The Cinderace gave the Joltik a curious side-eye before looking back at the field, seeing Taro picking up a ball and trying to hit Popo and Nana. However, the mice couple just jumped over the ball. “Friend has been annihilated.” “Let us revive his soul back into the zone of conflict.” They started grinning as they picked up a ball that was a bit dirty with silk. “Let us sacrifice the enemy!”
Taro, a little confused about what the Tandemaus said, tilted his head in confusion before rolling out of the way of a fastball thrown by the pair of mice. “Woah… what speed…”
Popo and Nana pointed at the opposite side of the court while their backs and arms touched like they were as one. “Prepare your souls opposing vessels. We shall make you necessary sacrifices for the revival of our different soul and remarkable vessel.” A ball was launched at them by the Braixen, however, they simply just dodged by splitting up and uniting again. “Pathetic attempt.” “Fiery soul, now.” “It is our turn.”
With a blink of an eye, they already had grabbed the ball, and with another blink, they were already returning to the front lines of combat. They launched the ball together, aiming at the Misdriveous who didn’t notice in time and got hit by the ball at almost the speed of a bullet. “Ngh!” She grunted as her levitation faltered a little. “Dammit…” She angrily floated off the field while gritting her teeth.
The Tandemaus looked at each other. “The dead soul is eliminated.” “Next, we shall revive the soul of friend.” They slowly looked back at the other side of the field. “While also bringing nightmares unimaginable to the Pokémon mind towards the enemy.”
“Jeez… they literally came out of a horror movie…” John said to himself as he watched the game.
“Heh, are you really that scared of them?” John looked to the source of the voice, and it was the Dewott sitting beside him. “I mean, true, they are a little creepy with the way they talk… and sharp teeth that their species isn’t known to have…” John agreed about that one. “Nonetheless, it’s not like they actually sacrifice someone… at least, not that I know of…”
John sighed. “Thanks for the reassurance…”
They suddenly heard a whistle and turned to the Cinderace. “John, you’re up again.”
“Huh?” John focused back in the game and saw that Popo and Nana were holding a ball, that looked like the Braixen had thrown with her psychic powers. “Damn… they’re good…”
Suddenly, the pair of Pokémon instantly cocked their heads towards John, making him flinch again. “It is your turn friend.” “We have sacrificed the enemy’s soul for the revival of yours.” They tilted their heads. “Are you proud of us, friend?”
John gulped and walked back on the field slowly, making sure to be a good distance away from them. “Thanks, guys…” He said sheepishly before he looked to the other side of the field. The enemy team was losing greatly. While he wasn’t focused on the game, it seemed that the yellow fox, the ghostly figure, the purple cat, and somehow the long-tailed cat were already eliminated. ‘Damn, how did the mice do it in such a short time…'
John looked back at the Tandemaus, who was in his face again, making him flinch again and take a step back. “Together, we shall do wonderful things for the team.” “Let us unleash our inner demons to annihilate the souls of the enemy.” “We shall strike their souls when they least expect it.” “We shall finish the job once and for all.” They offered the balls in their hands to John while speaking together in unison. “And make the biggest sacrifice known to Pokémon kind!”
John put the ball on his back and sheepishly laughed as he stepped back, just in time to avoid a ball coming his way. He turned to see who threw the ball, and it was none other than Elsa, standing on her hind legs. “You little peasant… if my loyal friends couldn’t take care of you… I’ll do it myself!” Unlike Claire who went back on all fours after throwing the ball, Elsa started running on two legs, like a Riolu with only her paw pads touching the ground, to grab another ball.
“How are you walking like that!? That’s not possible!” John said flabbergasted at the fox running on two legs. He looked at Claire while pointing at her ice counterpart. “How is she doing that!?”
Claire sheepishly shrugged. “Oops… I forgot to tell you that she could do that…”
“Can literally every being here have the option of walking on two legs?!”
The ice Vulpix maliciously grinned as she picked up the ball. “Foolish bug…” She looked at the Joltik with a mischievous smirk. “Unlike Claire over there… I spent a good portion of my life training my legs, on top of being the prettiest Pokémon there is, for situations like these! After all, princesses in the past all walked on two legs, so I must carry on their legacy.” She put a foot on the and a foot on the back, making the perfect position to throw the ball. “Take this, pathetic bug!” She then threw the ball at John.
The small spider dodged the incoming ball while the ball on his back went into the air. He covered the ball with silk again and held it with his mouth like a ball with a chain. Meanwhile, Elsa ran to grab another red ball as John chucked the ball directly in her direction. However, she was lucky and managed to grab the ball in time with her claws and blocked the other ball. “Dammit!” John muttered under his breath as the Braixen entered the field once again.
Elsa looked at the yellow fox with the wand and grinned. “Nice to see you again Vix, let’s beat some fools together, right?”
“For sure.” Vix said as she grabbed her wand again and started to levitate a ball towards Elsa, dropping it on her hands as the ice Vulpix handed the other ball to the Braixen. She grinned. “There you go.”
“Much appreciated my loyal benefactor.” Elsa said as she ran and threw the ball at John again.
The Joltik braced for impact. However, Claire jumped in front of him, letting herself get hit by the ball. “Claire…?”
The fire fox looked back at John with a sheepish smile. “I just didn’t want to see you get eliminated again.” She grinned. “Go get ‘em!”
John sighed. “Alright, I’ll try my best.” The fire Vulpix nodded and left the field. John looked at his team and noticed one major flaw in one of his previous statements about the enemy team losing. It appeared that they were the ones losing instead, with 4 teammates left. Him, Popo and Nana, and Amy.
The Tandemaus looked at John. “Good job of surviving this far, friend.” “We have managed to erase four souls of the enemy team.” The Joltik blinked and they were now in front of him, he let out a small squeak. “We shall need your assistance for total annihilation. The results of this test shall come after the match. Let us see if you are worthy of having a meeting with the Great One.”
‘Hope I fail immediately…' John then looked at Elsa, who started focusing on hitting Amy. ‘Although… I still want to teach that brat a lesson…' John looked back at the Tandemaus. “Yeah… let’s do this.”
“Understood.” “Let us commence.” Both mice nodded along with John.
The Joltik grabbed a ball in the distance with his silk and brought it closer to him. Meanwhile, the Tandemaus went to grab another ball at a fast speed. The mice saw Amy, dodging a ball thrown by Elsa, but immediately getting hit by another ball that came from the Mienfoo. She sighed and left the field, it was only Popo, Nana, and John now.
The Joltik threw the ball at the unsuspecting Mienfoo, who was caught off guard after throwing the ball at the Shaymin. He left the field as well. Now, there were only 4 left on the battlefield. “It is time to prove once and for all, why you are a pathetic freak of nature…” Elsa said while glaring at John with a ball in her hand.
“Oh, it’s on bwitch!” John said muffled with Silk in his mouth.
The Braixen meanwhile, was twirling her stick wand while levitating a ball. “Let’s see how bad you mess this up little mice.” She chuckled.
“Your soul shall suffer.” “Your soul shall serve as a great sacrifice, not for the Great One.” They smiled with their sharp teeth, making the Braixen flinch in shock. “But to our own satisfaction.”
“Let’s do this!” Elsa and John said in unison as the Ice fox threw the ball at John. Luckily, John didn’t focus on attacking so he dodged with ease and threw the ball at Elsa. Unfortunately, she ducked under the ball, even letting her tails fall to not get hit. They instantly went to grab other balls to throw, meanwhile, the Tandemaus threw the ball at Vix with a lot of speed. On instinct, she stopped the ball with her telekinesis.
Christiane whistled and pointed at the Braixen. “Using moves to block balls is illegal. For that, you are out.”
“What!?” Vix turned to the Cinderace with surprise on her face. “But I haven’t heard you say that before we started the match!”
The Cinderace put her paws on her hips. “Well, I did say that you can block balls WITH another ball. I didn’t say the same with powers.”
The Braixen left the field, fuming. She looked back at Popo and Nana who were smiling creepily. She heard them saying together something that made her whole body shiver. “We hope that you do not mind a sudden visit while asleep.” She looked forwards again and started walking faster.
Meanwhile, Elsa and John were “fighting for their lives”. They were grabbing and throwing balls towards each other like their superiority over each other depended on it… which it did. John would latch silk onto the balls and throw them towards the Vulpix like he was David throwing rocks at Goliath, which would kinda fit given the context. Close shots were being delivered left and right, John was dodging them rather easily given his smaller size, while Elsa was dodging like a bipedal creature would.
Popo and Nana were watching how the war was playing out. They even sat on the floor as they calmly watched the match. “The ice soul is giving friend some trouble.” “That is good.” “This ordeal shall prove the worth he has to be in the sight of the Great One.”
Elsa noticed John panting a little bit and grinned. “What’s wrong peasant? Not much stamina left? And I thought bugs were never seen tired when they flee.” Elsa regally laughed as she threw another ball at John who managed to dodge, almost getting hit.
“I may not have exercised a lot lately… but I’ll not go down that easily!” John looked to the ball that the ice Vulpix just threw and launched a string of silk onto it, latching on the ball. This time, John spun around with his full body, getting some speed and force for his final stand! After a couple of spins, he threw the ball towards Elsa, launching at a moderate speed. The ball flew until it hit Elsa’s snout. “Yes!”
However, after the impact, the ball stayed in the air for a small moment, and while recovering from the hit, Elsa managed to grab the ball with her claws. From an expression that seemed to be gritting her teeth, it quickly turned to a grin as she slowly chuckled. “More like yes for me…”
John stared with his mouth visibly open. He mumbled to himself. “You gotta be shitting me…”
“I would admit of you being a worthy opponent… but nope! You’re still a useless peasant and will always be!” She regally laughed as she put a paw on her side. However, she didn’t account for a ball hitting directly at her stomach, making her stumble and falling on her butt on the ground. “What the hell was that…?”
“It is over.” The Tandemaus said while slowly walking to John. “Congratulations friend.” “You have passed the test.”
“It’s not over yet!” Elsa protested, pissed off at the mice. She looked towards the Braixen. “Vix, come over here and finish the job!”
The bipedal vulpine looked a bit nervously at the menacing pair of mice and she looked at the Ice Vulpix sheepishly. “Well um… I don’t think I need to… the game is already over…”
“What are you saying!?” Elsa replied madly as she walked on all fours towards the fire type. “Get back there destroy those stupid peasants!”
“And get a death sentence with them? No thanks…” Vix looked at the teacher. “Cristiane, the match is over, the other team won.”
“WHAT!?”
“Alright then!” The Cinderace whistled and pointed to the winning side of the field. “The winner is Team B!”
“We… we won…?” John tilted his head. “We actually won?”
“We did it John!” Claire beamed as she ran towards John. Once she reached him, she started jumping in place. “We won the game! And you basically carried the whole team along with Popo and Nana!”
The Joltik meekly tried to protest. “H-hey! I just did some eliminations and that’s it. The real MVPs of the game are-“ John turned to look at the Tandemaus, however, they were nowhere to be found. “The mice… and they’re gone… great…”
“Who’s gone?” Asked the grass hedgehog as she approached.
The greenish spider looked at the Shaymin. “The... Tandemice? Maus?” He groaned. “Popo and Nana.”
“Ah, them. Well… they walked away while no one was paying attention to them.” Amy sheepishly chuckled. “Well… ALMOST no one it seemed.”
“Ah, I see…” John thought that this was basically a normal thing for creatures like them.
“But anyways, congratulations John! You did great in that match!”
John blushed and looked aside. “Well, thanks I guess.” He looked back at her with a smile. “You did well as well.”
Amy looked aside with a frown. “No… I really wasn’t that good… no, I think I was the worst of the match.”
“Well, you weren’t in my opinion!” Taro said as he got walked to the group. “Besides, you weren’t even the first eliminated.” He looked at John with a grin. “Besides, anyone would get caught off guard by a Joltik doing that at the beginning of the match.”
John rubbed the top of his head. “Hehe… I hope the chicken isn’t too pissed about that…”
“Anyway guys, let’s prepare for the other P.E. activities, the class is not over yet.” Claire explained and the other three nodded. Although something was very clear for John. He did not want another match of dodgeball.
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A pair of Tandemaus entered the school’s male restroom. Some people may see this and ask themselves, “How would two mice of different genders, that are always together, enter a separated gender public bathroom?” The answer to that is simple. Tandemaus do not care. They will enter any bathroom available to them no matter the gender to do their business. However, these specific mice had another type of business to do in a bathroom.
Popo and Nana jumped on a sink and looked at the oval-shaped mirror above the small sink. “It is time.” “To call upon the Great One.” They took hold of each other hands and lifted them in the air as they spoke in unison. “O Great One, heed our calling! For we want you to show your majestic form, and bathe in its splendor! We call upon thee O Great One to appear in this mirror and communicate with us!”
Suddenly the reflection of the mirror faded to a pitch black as a black tar-like substance started pouring out of the mirror. And from the darkness of the mirror, a giant red eye could be seen looking around and then looking directly at the pair of mice. A deep and ethereal voice reverberated through the mirror. “Hello again… Popo and Nana. What exciting news do you bring me today?”
There could be seen the excitement in their doll-like faces. “Great One!” “We have come to inform you about something you shall really like!”
The giant narrowed. “And what would that be little mice?”
They made a wide smile filled with sharp teeth. “We have found the perfect soul to sacrifice for you!”