“So many humans,” Fay muttered with awe.

People in Jubilife City were considerate enough to walk around the gazing Pokémon, otherwise, she would have bumped into a lot of people staring up at the sky like that.

However, the people of this city were very kind.

The fact that my Pokémon looked cute also did a lot to help that.

Jubilife had not changed a lot, not that I expected it to.

Okay, I kind of did expect this place to get wrecked because of a bullshit reason that was somehow my fault. But no, it still stood.

There was one sign warning people not to look into a mirror too long in a certain street, no idea what that was about, something about a ghost maybe? But that was the only thing in this city that had really changed.

Luna managed to be surprised by the city a second time, despite having seen it not that long ago.

Big billboards were still advertising for the upcoming battle between Cynthia and some rando I’ve never heard about.

I still had the tickets but honestly, I couldn’t care less about that.

Dark clouds hung over the city as if a storm was coming, but strangely it wasn’t raining yet so I figured we had some time to discover the city before we went to a Pokémon Center.

At least it would give Fay a chance to see a real city for the first time in her life.

Big buildings loomed over us like giants reaching for the sky while cars and people moved around them like small ants in a colony, every single one of them heading towards their own destination.

It was quite entertaining to see her be that amazed, not that the city wasn’t a sight to behold but after a few days of scouting the entire city, looking for a teleporting criminal, the landscape had begun to blend together.

“How many humans live in this city?” Fay asked without looking at me, instead, her gaze was locked on to a big statue.

The statue itself was grand and beautiful. It depicted two Pokémon frozen in a battle. They seemed to be intertwined in their duel, neither of them having an advantage on the other.

Underneath the bronze statue was written:

Space and Time met once,

Through them, we’re all immortalized

In smaller letters, it was written that the statue was gifted to the city by Clifford Industries.

Ominous connections aside, Sinnoh really loves their Legendaries, despite the lack of evidence that they actually exist.

Of course, I know they do and I planned on meeting them.

The town the movie takes place in, Alamos Town, does exist. If my predictions were correct then shit would go down there after Ash gets his second Gym badge.

“I actually don’t know,” I answered Fay’s question, “My guess would be around 400,000 but that’s a wild guess.”

Fay stared at me like I was crazy.

“It’s a big city.” I shrugged.

{Smelly} Luna muttered and saliva dripped down my face.

I quickly placed Luna down and she stretched out.

An invisible radar had suddenly activated and Luna pointed me into a random direction.

Luna led the way and quickly we found a food stall that sold warm waffles.

Big red eyes stared at me, Luna innocently pointed at the guy baking waffles.

I could argue that we had dinner only an hour ago, but my stomach got the better of me. I bought three of them and went back to the statue.

A nice green park surrounded it with a lot of places for people to relax, benches and picnic tables were placed all over the place.

Most people had decided to stay inside, either because of the weather forecast or because of the time which led to this place looking a bit creepy.

Only a handful of people had come outside, most of them seemed to be minding their own business anyway.

We sat down at a wooden picnic table and I handed Luna her waffle.

She attacked it immediately, devouring it like she had been starving for days.

“Here’s yours.” I offered Fay one but she shook her head.

“Thank you, but I don't need it,” She politely denied.

She always refused extras and only accepted the bare minimum. It was saddening to see her refuse it but there was not a lot I could do about it.

“If you don’t want it you could give it to me.” A girl’s voice suddenly whispered into my ear.

I jumped from my seat and turned around, my eyes wide, and my heart racing.

Fay skidded away from me like a cat, claws out and all.

Luna just straight up disappeared.

Behind us stood a purple-haired girl.

“Oh hi Chelsea,” I spat out.

Chelsea was laughing out loud, a few people gave us curious glances which made it even worse.

She wore a black shirt and a black skirt, underneath it she wore a pair of heavy boots.

“Yo- Your FACE!” She managed to say between her laughing streaks, “That was amazing.”

My glare only seemed to amuse her even more so I gave up on that and directed it at Luna.

She had teleported back to her previous and resumed nabbing the waffle as if Chelsea hadn’t scared the shit out of her.

“Seriously, you’re the one with an emotion radar?” I deadpanned.

Luna pointed towards her half-eaten waffle and gave me the big eyes again, {So tasty.}

Fay’s claws disappeared and she relaxed.

“Who is this individual? You seem to know her?”

Chelsea stopped laughing and jumped over the backrest and sat down next to me, still grinning ear to ear.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Sup Chelsea, this is Fay,” I managed to say, trying to make it seem like I hadn’t been that scared.

I pointed at the blue Riolu, Fay still looked at Chelsea like she could explode any minute. I empathize with her, Chelsea was kinda intense.

“Fay, this is Chelsea, I stayed at her hospital and she is a fucking ninja.”

Chelsea gave me a smug smile. “Funny seeing you here. Honestly, I didn't expect to see you in this city.”

Luna gave Chelsea a wave and teleported the waffle Fay had refused into Chelsea’s hand. The purple-haired girl grinned at Luna, “Aaaww, thanks!”

“A ninja?” Fay perked up, “Really?”

I meant it as a joke but Fay was looking at Chelsea with renewed interest.

“She’s not a ninja.” I sighed. “She just loves sneaking and creeping around.”

“I don’t sneak around…” Chelsea mumbled, still chewing, “You were simply not expecting me.”

“I want to learn it anyway,” Fay insisted, sitting on the table again.

“No seriously,” I glared at Chelsea, “Where did you learn to sneak like that?”

“Simple,” Chelsea swallowed, “Avoid making a sound and stay out of sight, really hard to do.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s all there is to it.”

I felt rather skeptical about it, Chelsea was simply way too good at it. Perhaps she could teach it to me, it would have been very useful when I went up against Crimson. Just have to make sure Fay doesn’t catch wind of it otherwise she might get ideas about becoming a ninja assassin.

“Talking about sneaking,” Chelsea paused to take a bite, “You shouldn't be the one to speak, Mister ‘I sneak around and shoot criminals’, seems like you still haven’t lost your violent tendencies since your stay.”

I rolled my eyes.

Chelsea grinned, “Seriously, Crimson’s entire Fibula got splintered, they had to cut him open twice to remove all the individual pieces of bone.”

{Good for him} Luna said.

She was beaming and the smile would have been creepy if it wasn’t for the fact that syrup was all over her face.

“You did what?” Fay questioned.

“Crimson, a criminal who stole my shiz, I took it back and had to shoot him in the leg,” I quickly explained.

“So, do you actually understand Riolu or are you making educated guesses?” Chelsea glanced suspiciously at Fay. “There had been no reports of a declining mental state, I might need to change that.”

Deciding that the cat was out of the bag, I nodded. “Yeah, I can understand Fay, no idea why. Weird as hell.”

And hey, I wasn’t even lying.

Chelsea tapped her chin thoughtfully, “Mmm, shouldn’t be out of the ordinary for you.” She accepted that rather quickly.

“Why do I only hear about it now?” Fay asked, annoyed, still taking a keen interest in my encounter with Crimson.

“First off, Crimson deserved that shot, he tried to shoot me first. Second,” I turned to Chelsea. “How the fuck do you know that?”

“Hylla told me,” Chelsea waved it away, “She allowed me to see the medical reports.”

“Huh, talking about information leaks.”

Chelsea ignored my statement and went on. “Hylla told me what you did, it caught us both by surprise. I mean who goes around to chase a teleporting criminal?”

I shrugged, “Crimson was a one-trick pony, besides, her Charizard and my Ralts helped as well.”

Luna nodded. {Easy.}

“So. Hylla’s still working on the Snatchers thingy?” I asked, trying to derail the conversation from the Crimson subject. Fay seemed to be interested and I definitely don’t want to give her ideas.

“Nah,” Chelsea said, “She has been put onto a different operation. Doesn’t stop her from complaining about it.”

Hylla hadn’t called me which meant it had at least nothing to do with me for once.

“What’s it about?” I asked.

Chelsea let out an annoyed sigh, “A pack of canines moved in from Kanto, the special thing about them is that they have a taste for human flesh, really nasty, so Sinnoh wants them gone. Problem is, according to Hylla, Kanto is less than helpful regarding information.”

I blinked, “Seriously? Why have I never heard about that?”

“Duh,” Chelsea said, “To prevent panic they try to keep it hush-hush, once people find out the Fangs are in town they freak out. So yeah, a nightmare case.” She said it like she was enjoying a true crime drama.

“Wow,” I said, again reevaluating my place in this universe. “That sucks.”

“Yup.” Chelsea took a final bite from her waffle. “So besides Crimson, how’s your journey going?”

“Pretty good.” I admitted, “I have two Pokémon and one Gym badge.”

“You beat Roark right?” Chelsea frowned, “That means you’re going to Gardenia next, right?”

“Yes,” I answered, “Shouldn’t be a challenge. After all, I managed to beat Roark with only Luna.”

Luna nodded eagerly and slammed her two fists together. {Victory!}

“Well, it makes sense for you I guess.” Chelsea said, sounding a bit surprised but she was still trying to mask it.

“Yup,” I answered, “Anyway, wanna battle?”

Chelsea gave me a grin, “impatient, aren’t we?”

I was. I wanted to test Fay’s strength against someone around her level. Fay had taken her loss in the last battle badly, despite the obvious difference in experience.

Also, I had a faint hope that Fay might befriend Chelsea’s Pokémon and give her some sort of emotional anchor.

Luna wasn’t really friend material and Fay still treated me like an acquaintance at best.

“You still have Chimchar right?”

Chelsea nodded, “Yup, got three more new Pokémon who joined my team,”

She eyed Luna, “Your Ralts is still doing crazy stuff?”

Luna gave Chelsea two thumbs up.

I looked up, determining whether it was going to rain or not. The wind had picked up and the sun would set soon.

“We can have our battle right now?” I suggested.

The park was pretty empty so we wouldn’t be bothering any people.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Chelsea threw up two Pokéballs, they opened midair and two white streaks shot out of them.

A small monkey landed on the table and did a flip, its tail was on fire and I was concerned that the wooden picnic table would catch fire but luckily it did not. Again, weird forces made sure that the laws of physics were conveniently ignored.

A second creature appeared next to him, this one wasn’t standing on the table but rather floating above it.

The air grew colder.

The creature in question was weird in all the wrong ways. It had a weirdly shaped purple body which had a thin layer of transparent purple smoke constantly covering it.

“You already know Chimchar,” Chelsea said with pride, “but I present to you, Haunter, my newest addition. My other two Pokémon are still recovering from a fight so they’ll have to do it for now.”

Chimchar gave Chelsea a confident salute and smiled.

The Haunter fixed its gaze on me. The ghost slowly floated towards me and saying I felt a bit freaked out by it was an understatement.

Cold air surrounded it, or was it just my imagination?

As I was staring into its eyes, images began to flash through my head, shapes and colors I had never seen.

I saw a city, broken into pieces. I saw a light in the sky and I heard a voice talking to me.

Then it was gone.

A beam brushed past Haunter and it retreated. Like I was watching TV the visions stopped and I was left feeling slightly dazed.

“RaRalts!” Luna warned the Haunter, her eyes glowing red with anger.

Haunter retreated and shot me a weird look, after that it grinned at me which looked pretty freaky.

“So you got a Haunter?” I deadpanned, still feeling a bit freaked out.

“Sorry,” Chelsea muttered, “He loves messing with strangers, he didn’t shock you that much.”

“Nevermind it,” I said, quickly, “I have never seen a Haunter before.”

Chelsea nodded, “I caught this one late at night, he spooked me really bad.”

I gave the Haunter a good look.

A fucking Ghost Pokémon, yeah this definitely doesn’t fit a single physics model in my old universe.

Considering I don’t even have a Ghost Pokémon to experiment with I can only make educated guesses.

My current theory was that Aura is basically the soul of a living being, through said soul Pokémon and some humans can do shiz like breaking the laws of physics.

Pokémon obviously have stronger Aura than humans, or at least I think, perhaps it's like in Undertale where a powerful soul can do bullshit things. Like persisting after death, maybe Ghost Pokémon are just lingering remains of one’s Aura that was really determined to come back and reshape itself into a new body. After all, willpower was a real factor regarding Pokémon strength.

Of course this was all a theory on my part, a ghost theory!

“You think you two can do one last battle for today?” I asked Luna and Fay.

Luna gave me a smug smile, {Always.}

Fay only gave me a silent nod.

I was about to suggest moving when my eyes picked on something.

“Say Chelsea,” I asked, “Do I have a tracker?”

“No…?” Chelsea said, she followed my line of sight.

Not far away from us was a blond boy jogging on the path, he was wearing a blue tracksuit and counting out loud, “1 and 2 and 3 and 1…”

He was followed by a Piplup that ran after him.

The fact that he was jogging outside, despite the dark clouds above us, was a sign of his determination, or madness.

I immediately recognized him. His yellow hair really made him stand out.

“Perhaps we can do a three way battle?” I thought out loud, “That should be interesting.”

“Why?” Chelsea asked, “You know him.”

“Well that’s Barry, he also claimed the title of ‘being my rival’.”