Everyone sat at the dinner table, except for a certain shiny Joltik who was getting their daily volts of electricity on the outlet of the wall. After finishing, he looked up to see what the foxes were eating… that looked like meat for sure… John hesitated to ask for some time before asking about it anyways. “So um… I got this question…” The Ninetales and Vulpix looked at him and he felt his heart drop for a second before getting the courage to speak again. “So… do carnivorous Pokémon like… eat other Pokémon?”
The two adults looked at themselves with a frown, debating if they should tell the small spider the truth or not… only for Claire to speak up anyway. “Well, we do. Only wild Pokémon that is.”
Huh… so that’s why the owl teacher threatened to eat him. “Ah… I see…” John said nervously as Izo and Reya sighed, relieved that the small bug didn’t freak out again.
“What? You scared that we might go hungry and try to grab a bite from you?” Elsa said before chuckling.
Her parents glared at her before Izo said. “Elsa…” She rolled her eyes and continued munching on the food in front of her.
Great, now he just had another thing to worry about, being wild and being on the bottom of the food chain to everyone, just great... “I uh… I think I’ll go to bed.” He said trying to not demonstrate any nervousness as he walked away from the wall towards the couch. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” The others, except for Elsa, said.
----------------------------------------
“If I remember correctly… I don’t think you’ll like the teacher of today’s class…” Claire whispered to John what was on her head.
“Why not?” John asked quietly, Claire’s fur muffled his voice.
“Well…”
“Hello, class.” A humanoid-looking ladybug, with their wings, closed behind the back of his head, levitated into the class. His body was fully black colored except for its feet, claws, and antennae that were yellow, and his red ladybug-looking carapace behind his body, eyes being cerulean blue and white.
The class replied. “Morning Mr. Xeno!”
“… Well… at least this one looks less bug than normal…” John muttered quietly. ‘I can… get used to it with no problems… at least this one doesn’t replicate the same fear of other bugs…'
The Orbeetle levitated to the teacher’s desk and kept floating in front of it. “I heard that this class went through a Mystery Dungeon yesterday, and all passed…” He started clapping his claws. “And to that, I say, congratulations. You, kids, have the exceptional potential to lead another generation toward greatness. I don’t believe I’ll be there to see it, but you can bet that one way or another, I shall be watching.”
“Thanks, Mr. Xeno!” Taro beamed with a grin.
“You’re welcome. Now that is not to say that you shall be alone on this journey, no. You will have technology at your disposal!” Suddenly, his carapace opened and the black dots on it began to glow purple. A tablet came out from behind glowing purple, it had the same logo as the computer in the Teacher’s Office… Asuri. “As your technology teacher, it makes me honored to say this.” He opened his arms excitedly. “Our school has been invited by Asuri themselves to visit their company!”
“Whaaaaaaat!?” The class blurted out.
“Asuri, as in like… the company that brought human technology to this world?” Taro asked in disbelief. “THAT Asuri?”
“Yep, the same one!” The tablet then started displaying a video. “This is the invite, dear students!”
The video displayed a green feline-looking Pokémon that appeared to be bipedal that was wearing some sort of dark green mask that had a green heart mark on her forehead. “Greetings dear students. My name is Alice, and I am the founder and CEO of Asuri Technology Industries, and I would like to invite you for a tour of our amazing gallery of technology advancements.” She bowed and the screen changed to a museum-like place, displaying various objects and devices. “This amazing building was the start of it all, the same place we Pokémon have built, with the help of humans, and technological advances to Pokémon kind, making our lives easier to live on this vast and cruel world.”
‘So that’s why the keyboard was in English… the computers were made with the help of humans…' John thought while the video still played.
“Hope you are excited to visit our wonderful and welcoming museum, see you soon! As someone brilliant said… the future of science is now!” She did a wink with a paw sign as the video ended.
Xeno then put away his tablet with his Psychic. “The trip shall take place two weeks from now. The Asuri museum stays in the big city, that’s right, you’re going to Xander Cage city!”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“YEEEEAAAHHH!!!” The class shouted in excitement as chatter began to rise among the classmates.
“Hm… Asuri huh…?” John whispered to himself while the class talked out loud. ‘Wonder if a human came up with that name… I do remember hearing that name somewhere before… it wasn’t in this world but where…?’
“Quiet down, quiet down class!” The bug teacher shouted as the whole class stopped chatting a second later. “Anyways, hope you prepare yourselves until then. But meanwhile, you have a class to attend. To the computer lab!” Xeno announced as he floated out of the classroom, quickly followed by the students.
“I can’t believe it! We’re actually visiting the most technologically advanced company on the continent!” Taro beamed with a grin. “Out of any school, we’ve been the one chosen for the tour?”
“Um… not to cut your excitement short…” John poked his head out of Claire’s fur after analyzing whether it was safe enough to show himself, he whispered. “But I think that video wasn’t directed to this school specifically, but other schools as well.”
“What makes you think that, John?” Amy whispered back asking.
“Because normally, invite videos like that would probably say the name of the specific location the video is directed.” John explained. “Say… what is the name of this school? I forgot.”
“It’s called Obelisk High.” Claire said. “Now that you mention it… she didn’t say the name exactly…”
“Which proves that not only this school is invited, but others as well.” John suggested. “So, don’t start feeling that special.”
“I got you, no worry.” The mouse rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.
In the computer lab, there was a large table that was attached to the wall, with computers that were lined up beside one another. There was a round table in the middle of the room that had no stools and the table was a bit higher to reach. The students were sitting at the lower table. Claire, Amy, and Taro were sitting together in a group as Elsa, Cindy, and Olivia were sitting in their own group, while Cerbera was sitting on his own, playing computer games while the teacher was unaware and paying attention to other students.
John was paying attention to how the computers worked, it worked the same as the ones in his world, strange as it seemed. What’s even more weird was that they ran on the Windows 10 engine. “No way…” John muttered quietly. ‘Alright, this Asuri company is just stealing shit from our world. Some CEO that cat lady is…' John thought with a grumpy expression, but it softened a second later. ‘Or maybe the humans just wanted to bring something from our world and thought that technology was what they needed. Eh, who cares, at least I know some things still are the same around here thankfully.’
He then saw the home screen of the computer, and his eyes immediately laid on a certain icon that was the pinnacle of familiarity that he couldn’t help but whisper out loud. “Google!?”
Claire heard the Joltik and whispered back. “Something wrong John?” Taro and Amy looked at the top of Claire’s head and John jumped from it and landed on the keyboard.
“Alright… I need to tell you, guys, something…” He whispered before turning to them and pointing back at the monitor with his forenubs. “This exact computer setup is the same one from my world.”
“Huh!? For real?” Taro asked and John nodded. “How though? I thought Asuri created Windows 10.”
“Unless they copied from humans from my world. Which seeing more closely…” He turned to face the monitor again… icons he recognized were on the screen. Word, PowerPoint, Excell, Internet Explorer (for some reason), and even a program called “Asuri Paint…?” John muttered. “Yeah… they literally copied everything.”
“Really…?” Amy asked in disbelief. “Even though they said on TV that everything was their inventions along with the help of the humans… unless they stole their ideas somehow?”
‘Were they just lying to Pokémon about the fact that they created tech when they in fact just rebranded human tech? Hm... I can’t be too sure yet…' John thought before shaking it away. “Anyways, let’s question that later, I wanna see something…” The Joltik walked up to the mouse (the PC one, not Taro) and tried to move it. It took a bit more effort since he basically was the size of one, but eventually, he got the mouse to the Google icon and clicked on it. He clicked on the guest account. The search engine loaded up and the famous Google interface loaded up, which made John smile a bit. “It didn’t change huh…” He turned to Claire, he was about to test something really weird. “Claire… could you perhaps type… Twitter?”
Claire tilted her head. “Why?”
“I want to test something… but wait… could you answer me when the internet you guys use was created?” John asked. There would be a problem with this logic if social media with this world was connected with his world. Unless…
“Well, the internet was created not long ago if I remember…” Claire answered but Taro finished for her.
“Actually it was created just a few weeks ago. I was actually following closely with the news about that.” He said that made John a little confused. “Although… something weird that I realized when I started using it is that… there were already millions of users in it.”
John felt a shiver run through his exoskeleton. “Holy shit… those were humans…”
“Wait a second… do you mean to tell me we might be talking with humans through the internet this whole time?!” Claire asked a bit too loud, making Xeno approach them.
“Is something wrong Claire?” The floating ladybug asked while crossing his arms.
“Oh, erm… it’s nothing Mr. Xeno, I think the…” She looked back at the computer, John was gone from their sight, but Claire knew where he hid. “I think the computer just glitched a little bit…”
“I see, remember, at the sight of any glitches, reboot the computer, understood?” Claire nodded. “Good. By the way, I couldn’t help but notice two things wrong. The first one is you accessing the web, what’s the first rule I told you about that?”
Claire sighed. “To never access the web… I’m sorry…” She clicked out of the Google tab.
“Good. Now to the second thing wrong, I’m really curious about the fact that about a certain bug in the system has managed to infiltrate the firewall of the school…”
Claire tilted her head. “What do you mean about-“
Suddenly, the black dots on the Orbeetle’s ladybug carapace turned purple and John started floating out of Claire’s fur and right into Xeno's claw. “This.”
Claire and her friends swallowed.
“Let’s talk about this outside, all three of you.”