The mudkip nicknamed 'Cool Bro' by siblings twirls around in place, enjoying the features of the dark world that he had found himself in.

There is no ground below, no skies above, nothing to the left and right, just an endless ever-consuming darkness. There he floats, somehow suspended in this void by an invisible and incomprehensible force.

'Weeeeeeee~" his twirling evolves into outrageously speedy spinning as he gets faster and faster, adding more and more momentum to the already fun activity until he is nothing more than a blur.

That is until a quake runs through his tiny blue body, the development startling him out of his joyful stupor.

'Wait, wait. This is enough to disrupt the field!?'

In his panic Cool bro tries to grab at something with his nubby little claws, but there are no physical objects in this void other than his very own body.

'I cant stoooOoOOP!!!'

The inevitable happens. A bright flash envelops the mudkip, the sudden increase in light blinding the eyes that had attuned themselves to the darkness. It's as if a giant hand had enveloped him, gentle but at the same time unyielding in its handling of the mudfish, dragging him out of the dark world against his will.

And then all at once everything regains color. He can see the clouds, the trees and grass, feel the breeze of the winds and the heat of the sun. The beautiful sounds of nature all present themselves for him to listen to.

There's only one tiny little problem for the young mudkip. The momentum that he'd built up inside of the dark world had remained.

"Whoaaaaaaaaaaahhh!" Cool bro shouts out in shock and surprise, spinning like a top on the grassy soil. The earth below him parts as he performs the same action a power drill would, except on a much larger scale. Dirt and mud are flung around in every direction as he sinks down into a hole of his own making, only the large fin on his head sticking out when he stops. He would have laughed at the cartoonishness of his situation if he had been an outward observer.

A woman's frightened gasp resounds through the surroundings and into the forest around them.

"Are you alright!?"

Two hands envelop Cool bro, dragging him up high. Air rushes past his blue scaly skin before he comes to meet with the two rose colored eyes examining him from top to bottom.

"Yes I'm alright. I just span around a lot inside the ball." Cool bro tells the woman in embarrassment. He's well aware that she's only hearing a series of 'mudkips' and 'muds', not being able to understand him. 'Though this is a little bit awkward' his focus shifts to the chunks of mud and grass all over her body. Her hair, her clothes and half her face have ugly splashes of brown covering them.

"Phew" the woman breathes out a sigh of relief, not caring the least bit about the dirt "Seriously, it's been only half a day. If word got out that a national pokemon put under my care got injured it would be the end of me." She speaks to herself before kneeling down, letting the mudfish pokemon leap out of her hands. Cool Bro is given a pat on the head despite the fact that he is the one at fault in this situation. The red and white ball the woman had thrown to the ground in her shock, the one that is the origin of the dark world and where cool bro had been 'stored' inside before the light had taken him, is then carefully examined.

"Is the pokeball defective?" She scrutinizes the object, turning it left and right, opening it and checking its insides. Looking for any damage present, the tiniest of cracks and blemishes, yet the efforts do not bear any fruit.

The reason why the Mudkip had been forced out of his pokeball, spinning like a Hitmontop all the while? While plainly evident to 'Cool Bro' it was a complete mystery to her. One thing is for certain though, she will not be returning him back inside, instead the red and white ball is promptly stored in her backpack.

"I can take care of that problem once I return to the school but until then…" her attention once more returns to the blue pokemon, finding him awkwardly standing in place with a half opened mouth, his beady black eyes staring at her.

"Hey there! I don't know if you remember me, we met in the glade about a month ago. We even spent a bit of time playing around" She is of course referring to the place where all the mudkip had grown up.

Her words do cause a reaction, a spark of recognition flashing through cool bros eyes.

'Oooh, I do remember that. She was that sundress lady, other than Rohan and his wife she's the only other human I've seen in this world' he checks her out from top to bottom. her getup seems to have barely changed. 'Still wearing that white sundress, well maybe not so white anymore after it got muddied up. Everything seems to check out, reddish-pink eyes, long black hair… So she's the one who was chosen by Rohan to transport us to our trainers?' Leaving the glade had been an inevitability that the transmigrator had been more than aware of ever since coming to the world of pokemon. His status as a starter pokemon had been clear in his mind and if the pokemon anime and games were anything to go off of it had only been a question of when he'd get balled up and distributed among the new generation of young trainers.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Well…

That day had been today, apparently. Rohan had notified them two weeks ago that they'd be getting sent away, it's just that the exact day of it happening hadn't been clear, the man himself also not knowing.

It had caused a small riot at the time, the very notion of being separated from their trusted and well known friends and playmates being downright infuriating to the young mudkips. But the old man had experience in such matters. Rohan and his Gardevoir had managed to calm the mudkip's eight other siblings easily enough, and then proceeded to 'capture' them inside pokeballs. The intentions being to acclimate them to the foreign and quite frankly scary environment.

So here he is now.

A hand is extended his way.

"Why don't we travel the rest of the way with you being held in my hands? How does that sound?" Her voice is clear and honest.

'She's probably scared of putting me in there again for fear of the spin machine happening again' a slight smile tugs on the mudkips lips at the thought, one that the woman misinterprets as agreement.

"Sure" he speaks out loud, holding out a paw and touching her fingers. To the woman's senses the sound only comes out as a 'mud'.

"Great!" She exclaims, getting a hold of him and hauling him up until he's securely held close to her chest. "We're almost at the outskirts of Rustboro city so the journey should not take too long. Maybe an hour more." She explains to him as she begins walking.

'Rustboro city? That sounds really familiar…' a question mark floats over the mudkips head. 'It's been more than a decade since I watched the anime, the part that involves Hoenn I mean, though some of the later seasons and games did also become hella boring, causing me to drop out.'

Cool bro suppresses a sigh of exasperation

'If I knew I would have gotten thrown into the pokemon world out of nowhere I would have brushed up on my knowledge. As it is, I know less than the average fan did.'

"Are you interested in learning about Rustboro?" The red eyed woman asks him, as if reading his mind.

=========================

"Mud" she hears the little mudkip exclaim.

'So cute' her free hand removes a chunk of grass from her hair. 'Still, I'll have to contact the Hatchery and tell Rohan that one of the pokeballs was defective.' How it was possible for a defective pokeball to exist in this day and age, with automation and Porygon regularly inspecting the products and conducting quality control, was beyond her. Yet the dirt covering her body should be proof enough.

'I've been through worse, especially when exploring Meteor Falls. But then again I was wearing proper gear back then, not my favorite dress' a frown forms for a half second before she moves on.

"Let's see then. Where to start about the city" she speaks out loud, noting how the Mudkip has ceased wiggling in her grip and managed to find a more comfortable position to listen.

'I should start off with something simple, the only thing they've known up until now has been their glade' she gently drags her fingers over the cool blue head

"One of the things you'll be most interested in is probably the fact that Rustboro is a port city, one that connects to the oceans no less. Have you ever been told about them?"

There's the shaking of a head.

"Well, the most important matter about the oceans is their sheer size. Millions of times larger than the pond you and your siblings had grown it. It is a giant sprawling mass of blue extending far, farther than your eye can see. And it is also the home of a great number of water pokemon like yourself." She taps him on the nose, causing him to sneeze.

'Whoops' she smiles.

"Simple words won't do the ocean justice, but I promise to you that it will be a sight to behold. I'm certain that you and your trainer will spend a wide stretch of time there, playing and battling. Oh, speaking of your trainer, he has quite the affluent family."

That seems to grab the mudkips attention, immediately making him perk up, raising his head to look at her, light bouncing off of his black eyes.

'Ooh? So he's more interested in who he'll be spending his time with. Of course he is' she nods to herself.

"I won't tell you too much about them now, wouldn't you wish for their personal introduction instead of me spoiling the surprise… though I suppose that I can spill a little bit of information"

The concept of a 'restaurant' is promptly explained as she'd obviously assumed that the Mudkip does not know what the word means…

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=================

'So my trainer's mother owns a successful restaurant chain? One that mainly caters to pokemon' 'Cool bro' tries to rack his brain for any information about pokemon restaurants but comes up short.

'Yeah, my knowledge was low as is, and then you want me to remember such a nische detail? Hell I can't remember a single restaurant Ash and the gang had been to in all the seasons of Pokemon. Brock had always been there to cook for everyone when he hadn't been off to woo some unsuspecting girl. Let's not forget that I don't even know if I'm even in the same dimension as those characters. Is this world based off of the games, the anime? Both?' Idly he tries to half ignore half listen to the chatter happening above his head.

The nameless woman had not stopped talking ever since she picked him up. That would not have been a bad thing, having someone fill the big voids in his knowledge would have been great… if she was treating him like the grown human being that used to be. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. He's a Mudkip, one that is less than a year old at that.

Meaning that she'd been talking to him in child speak. Using simple words with simple meanings and assuming that he knows nothing of the world.

Which, to be fair, he shouldn't.

But the fact that she had to explain what a restaurant is… it had dealt a powerful blow to his psyche. Just the eye rolling he wants to perform would be enough to spin the eyeballs out of his sockets.

The information that she'd been giving him has been… useless. Apart from the fact that the mother of his supposed trainer owns a restaurant chain.

And that Rustboro is a port town… once again, his knowledge is at rock bottom. Only then had he remembered that it is the place where the first gym fight takes place, in the games at least.

The view had also not been very interesting. While the two of them had been steadily moving through the forest it sure had not felt like it. In front, to the left and right and behind them, there had only been trees.

Not a single pokemon in sight, not a Swellow to fly over them, not a Nincada or a Silcoon in their path to go around. Nothing.

It isn't until an hour later that there is a development. Powerlines are the first sign of human civilization that they encounter, swiftly followed by houses and roads.

"We're almost there, do you see that building over there?" She points with her free hand to the entirely too cool-looking structure, just barely poking out from the tree line. It has a blocky design, having been constructed with some sort of a polished black stone instead of concrete. Little else could be seen from where they're standing since they are still halfway into the forest, there being no clear line separating it from the city.

"That's the Rustboro trainer school right there. It is where you and your siblings will be spending the night"