And crow. For it is all you will be known for.

Be forewarned, the quality of this piece of writing may not live up the stellar standards that the writer normally maintains. Furthermore, be aware that the writer has not posted anything he particularly cares about to this site before.


Chapter 1. Welcome to reality.



AS I was walking all alane

I heard twa corbies making a mane:

The tane unto the tither did say,

'Whar sall we gang and dine the day?'




'—In behint yon auld fail dyke
        5
I wot there lies a new-slain knight;

And naebody kens that he lies there

But his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair.




'His hound is to the hunting gane,

His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
 10
His lady 's ta'en anither mate,

So we may mak our dinner sweet.




'Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,

And I'll pike out his bonny blue e'en:

Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair
 15
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare.




'Mony a one for him maks mane,

But nane sall ken whar he is gane:

O'er his white banes, when they are bare,

The wind sall blaw for evermair.'

The Twa Corbies- author unknown, traditional ballad.
 







I am flying in a void. A pure blue void. I am insignificant, impossibly small, impossibly small to even think of mastering the sky, but that is what I am doing;

I am flying. The sun is bursting behind me, scattering its rays of light like the blast of a gun, shooting out, coating everything in its errant golden glow.

I am defying gravity, this small form in the sky, a speck of black seen from the ground below me. Wind is passing beneath my wings as smooth as burbling brooks of water gently lapping away at small stones. My beak is strong, sharp, similar to the point of a dagger, bulbous, misshapen, yet perfect for its job.

I have talons as well. Little pointy things, perfect for grabbing at things and stealing, or maybe tearing. Or clutching at hands.

Black feathers touch everything about me like a darkened shroud. I am black, but I know I have red eyes. Red eyes like circles dancing in a sea of white. Like tiny gems set in tar. Or the light at the end of the tunnel. A star in the night.

Noble mars riding his chariot to war against the darkness surrounding it.

I’m a Murkrow. This should concern me, but it does not.

I am hungry. I descend from the sky, riding the wind like a river that I control the path of, at ease with my power and set myself down at a garden that seems purposefully placed just for me.

Within seconds, I tear into the tomatoes, hungrily devouring them. Juice runs down my beak; I'll clean it off later, it isn’t important at this moment, it can wait until after I’m finished.

Why would it be important? I own the world!

I have the skies at my call, I have all the ground I can see, I have a garden here for me. What better place would there be?

Is it really going to bother someone if I eat my fill, and then some more?

I don’t get the answer to the question before I wake up.

Heh.
----

I wake up. There’s an a deafeningly soft ticking noise in the room, the source being a small shining pocket watch on the light blue dresser next to the bed. It’s copper, and it is shining in the light that I…

Accidentally left on again. Dammit. Mom and dad are going to kill me if they find out I’m wasting electricity again. Whatever. I pick up my glasses (I’m blind without them) and yawn.

I move on from that, and tell myself I’ll turn the light off in a second. Instead of doing that, I rummage through the pile of chaos on my bed. Said chaos was my school stuff, slung across with all the errant care of someone who had something far better to look forward to, like youtube videos and an evening of junk food and generally going things not healthy.

Rummaging through it, I find a small hardcover note book. It’s a shade of dark green. I flip it open and read the first few entries out loud.

“Day one. I seriously can’t believe I’m doing this, but here’s my dream journal.” There’s a pause after. “Dreamed of the sun. Probably shouldn’t stare at it, but in my dream I did.”

I feel like laughing at that. I don’t, though.

Day 2: “Dreamed about flying in a perfectly blue sky. No idea what’s going on there, but I must’ve been making quite a bit of progress, felt like I was flying for hours. Make sure to check out dream `    books. Don’t make it too obvious why, though.”

I’m keeping this a secret for the time being. I feel ridiculous writing these things down, but it gives me a bit of a laugh, right?

“Day 8. Found something incredibly funny about something. Was in a corn field looking a scare crow. All the corn around it had been picked clean, and I found it absolutely hilarious. I guess a scarecrow doing a bad job is sort of funny.”

Makes me wonder how crows laugh. Probably a caw or something.

I write my newest dream down under day 12. “Was a murkrow. Was flying in a blue sky, felt rather small. Murkrow’s are rather small, though.”

Ah. Murkrows. Generation two, I think.

Generation two of pokemon, and if you don’t know what pokemon are, you’re either a generation older than I am, or have been living under a rock!

I stopped really having anything to do with pokemon after generation three, I really thought that diamond copy I had been given had no soul whatsoever in it. So I just avoided most of the new stuff. I couldn’t tell you what I thought of the fairy type, or whatever, despite my sister ranting about how it changes everything (which I found patently ridiculous, when she can’t even remember her pokemon type tables.)

Though, I guess the only reason that pokemon comes to mind is that it’s… I grab the pocket watch and marvel at the shiny on it. It needs a little bit of polishing…

Ignoring the fact that I don’t have any polish on me, I rub it against the messy bed sheets until it seems to shine even more.

It probably doesn’t. I pop it open and look at the time. 2:30. Damn.

Is it even worth it to go back to sleep now? “Ah, Kyle… Why do you keep waking up around this time?”

That’s my name. I’m Kyle Roy.

No Kilroy jokes, seriously, that was old in the last generation.

It turns out, it was indeed worth it to go back to sleep. I fell back into my bed, my fingers still wrapped around the pocket watch.

----

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

It’s saturday, my alarm isn’t set. The only reason I wake up is because the chain of the pocket watch is tickling at my fore arm. It’s a twitching little feeling, and I wrap my hands around it without opening my eyes.

Then I open my eyes, because it’s just a little bit dark outside and I’m awake again. The light has burnt out. Dang it. Maybe I can sneak one from the closet without my parents finding out?

Then, I realize that I’m not wearing my glasses, and the world outside of a few feet out isn’t an amorphous blur of color and shapes.

I reach over for my glasses more than a little confused. I put them on my face, nose buds against nose, and look through the glasses into the room. It’s a blur, more than anything else. Then I take them off. My vision is perfectly clear. I fumble around for a bit on what to do next about this weirdness, and shrug, setting my glasses back down on my bed. I’ll just go without them for now.

Maybe I’m still asleep? I flick open the watch and stare at it. 4:33. Two hours of sleep. Dammit… Normally, when I’m asleep, my clocks turn into gibberish and salvador dali paintings!

I stand up and stretch out. You know, hands over head, stretching out, popping out the cracks. “The hell…” I feel… a little lighter. You know, like my arms move a little faster when I did that.

I leap out of bed covers. I’m not quite freaking out now, but this is more than a little unnerving. I roll out of the bed after a moment, landing on all fours, before straightening up presently.

I can see perfectly fine without my glasses. This is… amazing, fantastic, terrific, implausible, impossible, awesome, terrifying, awesome, amazing, insert more adjectives here.

I rejoice for a moment, before falling to my hands and knees to search for a flashlight in the cluttered disaster area of my room. I find one, an artifact from a power outage a while back, and flick it on. It’s far easier to see. In fact, I think I can see better than I’ve ever been able to see before! Beyond the sight I could see with the glass lenses, I could now see the minute things, the little details, the specks of uneven paint in the wall.

Then I turn my flashlight to look into the mirror and I stop dead cold. Looking back at me, also stopped dead cold, is the face of my own body. Black hair, unkempt as hell, looking like I had spent the last 24 hours in a sauna slicked with grease, a nice face, smooth, maybe a little childish looking despite being 17…

and a pair of inhuman red eyes looking back at me. Little circle of red, surrounding a white pupil. Pure glassy white. Almost a comedic little thing, eyes looking like targets.

“... What the hell?!” I lean in close, almost dropping the flashlight. I try not to shine it directly into my eyes, but where I previously has brown, human eyes, now I have red eyes that look like I’m staring into one of the universe’s great truths.

or something like that. I’m good at english, but sometimes, the whole figurative language escapes me.

I close my eyes and set the flashlight evenly on the dresser beneath of the mirror. The next ten minutes consist of me looking at my eyes from every angle. No matter what I do, they stay the same foreign red eyes.

“... What in the world?”

Pros so far. I can see without my glasses.

Cons. I have freaky red eyes.

Conclusion? I’m staying in my room until I figure this out.

The flashlight bulb pops, illuminating the room for a brief second with the brightest light yet. I’m in darkness, aside from the slowly rising sun outside of my window; the very first part of the lightest day.

Not quite the dawn, really, but I’m getting concerned about my parents. While they are normally early enough to bed, they rise even earlier.

I flick open my watch again. 5:02.

Their alarms should’ve gone off by now. A lance of worry seeps through me. Is something wrong beyond my eyes?

I should point out at this point that I’ve always been a bit of a worry wart. Less because I could imagine something happening, and more than I had always had more than enough time to imagine something going horribly wrong. You’ll just have to pardon me for imagining that anything could possibly be wrong.

I look around for anything I can use, anything at all. I spy… a pair of sunglasses. I’m going to look absolutely ridiculous, and I won’t be able to see anything, but at least the eyes won’t be too visible.

Hell, maybe they left early to go to the store, and today will be any teenager’s dream; a day without talking to their parents?

Probably not.

Just to be sure, I poke open the shades upon the window of my room facing the driveway and look outside. There’s no car there.

They must’ve gone to the store early.

Yes, yes. This is what must’ve happened. I’m worried over nothing. Absolutely nothing. There is no need to worry about my parents leaving me all alone in a house without telling me. I’m a full grown teenager, I can make it without being informed of their every movement and
why am I so worried about this anyway?

I walk back to the bed and grab my phone off of the bed side table. I flick through the lock and flip through my contacts, not worried enough to enter it in manually.

I call my dad’s work phone. He has it on him at all times, just in case the plant he works for explodes or something ridiculous like that.

Two rings, and I can hear it inside of the house.

All right. Maybe I’m getting a little worked up over nothing. Maybe mom left without dad.  Yes. This is an explanation where I do not have to get worked up over anything.

Then it continues ringing. Nobody picks it up.

“Alright…” Okay. Maybe I do have reason.

Just to be sure, I call both of my mother’s cell phones. One for work, one for home. Both of them ring out without answer. I can hear them ringing in the other room, actually. I can hear a lot of things.

I’m very still, all of a sudden, because I hear the front door open with a slam, almost an explosion. The front yard is now occupied with a large number of vehicles, black vans, vans I’ve never seen before, to be honest, and an ocean of things I can’t even describe are marching up the house.

Then it flickers, like I’m not really seeing it. Like it’s not actually there. For a single brief moment, there’s just one van, with one driver.

I’m so busy staring out the window at the parade of individuals (Or lack thereof, I’m entranced by the flickering) that I don’t notice the hands behind me, wrapping cloth around my mouth, till I get a heated drag of the thick frothed chemical, and my eyes shut and my body falls like a cut puppet.

---

O'er his white banes, when they are bare,

The wind sall blaw for evermair.'

-----

I don’t wake up for awhile. My watch ticks somewhere nearby when I do. I’m groggy, my eyes don’t want to open at all. It’s hard to move. Almost impossible, actually. I ache from just about every inch, every pore. I’m miserable as you can imagine.

I soon pry my eyes open to see my predicament. My hands are itching horribly. I look down without using my neck to do so; I’m bound to the table. My errant eyes spy my hands, bound to the table as well, covered in a scattering of scales, like some idiot redneck had filled a shot gun up with glitter and fired it at me.

“...” My mouth is bound, of course, of course. I didn’t expect much different from this, it fit just about every cliche in the book. What’s next? Brain washing? Mind control? My mind races with the sheer multitude of possibilities!

Wires are running underneath of my bed clothes, wrapped around me, pinning me in place. I don’t think there is an Iv, I can’t feel one in my arms or legs, but it’s possible that they’ve just numbed it so I don’t even feel it.

No panic, though. I might finally get a real explanation from what the hell was happening, here.

Okay. That was a lie. Totally panicking, my heart beat is skyrocketing in my chest, thudding. My skin is already starting to get damp, clammy. Like always, I start to shiver.

Thud-thud. Tick. ThudTickthud.

The watch and my heart seem to be the same beat after a while, and nothing is happening. I don’t even know if they know I’m awake. I don’t even know who they are!  

I fiddle with my restraints fruitlessly for a few minutes. Nothing, no good, nothing at all. I can’t even move my neck more than an inch at a time.

Absolutely nothing to do here but listen to the watch. It’s almost relaxing, despite the restraints. I can almost convince myself that I don’t mind them, though the sweat slowly starting to wet the bed around me, and the fast pace heart beat now utterly outpacing the watch is telling to the contrary.

Apart from that, I’m perfectly alright with this.

Perfectly.

Alright.

GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!

Is what I try to say. Really, all I get out is. “MMMMMRRRRRFLFLFLLLF!!” Probably for the best. My mother would not have liked a single word of the other things I had to say about my current situation. Nor would she like any of the other words I wanted to say.

I stopp worrying about myself, right then, and start worrying about my parents. Have they been hurt? What if they had just left their stuff and gone out driving? What will they say when they go home and found everything torn apart?

What would that even-

“Hello, Kyle.”

And now there was a voice. I can’t see who.

“I have a bit of a proposition for you. Please.”

It’s an adult male, early 40s, perhaps, by the voice.

“As you may have noticed, Your eyes and arms are a little different than you remember. This is a symptom of a condition you are unfortunate enough to have been… ‘blessed’ with.” He speaks with an earnest tone, surprisingly. Barring his cliche, rehearsed dialogue, I find myself wanting to trust him.

“We were force to remove you from your home. We do not wish for wide spread knowledge of this condition to be known, and for good reason.” He walks towards my front. It’s… a surprisingly dashing man. My guess was off. This was clearly someone around 28-32 years old, brown hair, brown eyes.

“You are undergoing a transformation into a creature widely unknown to science… but not to the world.”

...What am I turning into?

“Mmmmff…” I agree.

He reaches forward and undoes the bindings on my mouth. “You are becoming a… dark bird, given the color of the scales on your wrist, and your eyes, and your sudden immunities to the psychic decoys I deploy around my base of command. I’d guess, a murkrow.”

A pokemon. A fricking pokemon. What the hell is this? Cut rate fanfiction? Bring on the mary sues and the massive shippings!

Enter in my cliche thoughts on JUST LIKE MY DREAM! I don’t say it out loud, though, or even react. “...A murkrow. Isn’t that like, a quarter of my size… and less than a tenth of my weight?”

“A twentieth, actually.” He replies, looking down at me, scrutinizing.

“Doesn’t that break the laws of physics? Conservation of mass?” Along with some other things.

“I don’t see why the conservation of mass concerns you more than the fact you are turning into a crow.” You know… he has a really good point there…

“Ah… Uh… Shock?”

“I’m sure. I’m Doctor King. I am currently developing a method to detect the energy associated with the transformations with growing precision…” I have no idea what he is talking about. “You have no idea what I am talking about.”

“No sir.” The sir is almost natural at this point. Dad’s ex military. He forces me to use sir and mam. He’s starting to bug me.

I feel a needle prick against my skin. “No matter. I don’t need you to understand. What I need you to understand is this. You’re on a time limit. Most succumb quickly. They forget who they are almost instantly, going with the flow of it. Don’t forget who you are, Kyle.” He’s really bugging me now. He isn’t making sense.

“What?”

“In about… 30 seconds, you’re going to be rescued. Have fun~” He waves at me and I recoil what little bit I can.

I’m bugged. I am beyond bugged. Angry, even. “...What?” Also confused. Perplexed, maybe.

I am confusion. My mind is a swarm of venomous vipers.

“Good bye.” Then the dashing brown haired man walked away and out of my sight. A door opens, then closes.

And I’m left in pure silence. Except for the tick tocking of the watch. It’s near by. Can’t imagine why they would ever do that. Really, are they worried about me going insane over here.

Tick.

Tick.

I count them.

Ten ticks.

I pause to try and think it over. ...Nothing. No idea at all.

Twenty ticks.

Thirty ticks.

My ears perk up the sound of something distant, far off exploding. Then another one. Then another one. Then another one.

The door disappears into tiny curls up metal as something large, with blades, suddenly flashing through. There’s a pulse, and my restraints dissolve into black, choking mist.

Then the.. thing… green, silver. Like… a gardevoir, except somehow actually male. Long blades, instead of elbows, green, silver, some stupid looking pink thing bulging out of his chest. It’s a guy. I know this, because it speaks. “YOU!”

“...Me.” I have no fucking clue what the fuck this thing is. ”...What the fuck are you?”

“Your rescuer.” This explains nothing.

“Okay. And what are you.”

The thing sighs. “I’m a gallade.”

“...A cosplaying gardevoir?” That what he looks like! He looks like a gardevoir TRYING to be male looking.

An alarm starting blaring and the gardevoir wanna be turned and glared at it. It turned into scrap metal in less than the time it took for another tick of the watch to go off. I lunge towards the noise. It’s just sitting on top of a counter. I grasp it, and slide it into my pants pocket.

It ticks.

The gardevoir (thingy) snaps its head to the side and glares at me like I am the bane of all things good and happy in the world. “What the hell are you supposed to be?

I open my mouth to answer. “I’m a-”

“Whatever.” He grabs my arm, thankfully without stabbing me, and envelops us both in energy. “Hold still. I’m teleporting out.”

He focuses…

…

…

Tick tick goes the watch.

Thud thud goes my heart.

“Um…”

The Gallade pushes me away. “You’re a dark type. Congratu-fucking-lations.” He turns and blasts open the door that the good doctor ran through. He beckons me.

I follow.

The hallway is surprisingly clean for this escape attempt. There’s no broken glass, no pieces of metal. Just me, running after a gallade thing.

Then the pokemon stops. This is really surreal, actually. Here I am, in a top secret facility, being led by a pokemon. “Right. Here’s where it gets a little dicey. Transport will be here… shortly…”

Transport. What?

He grunts and looks around. “The others will be showing up…” Within seconds, an elegantly flowing dress- Okay, it’s a gardevoir, beauty of the 3rd generation. She bows politely to me. It’s clearly a girl, especially when it speaks next. “I’ll assume that your group ran into transportation issues, Ez?” She asks the gallade.

“Loser face over here is a freaking dark type. Iz.”

I have the distinct feeling that more is happening here than I realize.

Then I realize. There are a few humans behind the flowing dress of the Gardevoir. One of them is stubbled with oddly orange scales.

Probably a charmander.

The rest just aren’t showing any signs.

Iz, the gardevoir, nods to Ez, the Gallade. “Fair enough. I’ll meet you back at the base with the rest of the newbies.”

Newbies. Probably newly infected.

Suddenly, the doctor’s words drift through my head. Most forget.

Am I destined to forget things? What’s even happening?

“What’s going on?”

“We-” The gallade motions at the gardevoir. “Are rescuing you and those other three from a group of lunatics out to destroy a significant portion of the population that has a chance of turning into a monster from another reality.”

“...What.”

“You heard me.” The gardevoir grabs the three humans into the fold of her dress and teleports.

“...WHAT.”

“Pokemon. Those things you like? Newsflash, kid. You’re one of them. Now get over yourself, As you may have noticed, we’re deep in enemy…”

The ground starts to shake. I look down at it. The concrete floor cracks, creaks, then buckles, and then two large insectoid looking horns poke up. Then a face.

Honest to god, I come close wet myself. It’s a big fucking bug. IT BUGS ME. Then it speaks.

“Sup.” It’s… mellow…

“He’s a scolipede.” Ez snaps. “Save the rest of your surely insipid questions for later.”

Insipid. That’s totally an insult. I know that. “...” I don’t say anything. I’ll wait for an explanation, and I’ll want for an explanation, and I will DEMAND an explanation, but later.

I’m turning into a pokemon. This is what the doctor said.
“Call me Charlie.” The giant bug thing says. It’s purple. Very… purple. I’d say incredibly purple, but not quite. Just extraordinarily purple.

“Charlie.” I mutter. “The giant bug is named Charlie.” I pause. “I’m Kyle.”

“Right. Now hold on.” Iz… or was it Ez, the gallade thing, warns me. Then he disappears in a flash of pink light.

Then the giant bug grabs me.

“Wait, what?!”

The giant bugs darts through the tunnel he had dug and moves with great speed… with me in it’s horrible looking grip, all the way through the tunnel system.

And it is a system. I spy blurs that look like old mines, salt fields, something that looks like coal, rock, chasms that seem to stretch to the bottom of the world itself, wooden mine carts- I stare at those blankly for a few seconds as we pass- Little bits of grit and dirt lashing about…

My skin is still damp from sweat, and the grit sticks to it almost painfully. Okay, it is painful. Not almost.

Very painful, actually. Tiny dagger of salt in wounds I didn’t know I had.

Then I suddenly see a thick cavern wall. Spires of rock, like the jaws of the earth approach us with dagger points.

My eyes water. The cave wall flickers, revealing the actuality of it; that there is a simple cave there.

Then Charlie, the giant bug monster, sets me gently down. I promptly run away from him, and he shakes his head. “Just wait a moment…”

The cave floor shifts beneath of me and splits open like an apple. Stairs fall down.

“...What the hell?!” I am so confused now. What the hell is actually happening? First there’s the doctor, then the crossdressing pokemon, then the giant bug, then the tunnels then the floor stairs. FLOOR STAIRS.

“All will be explained… shortly… Welcome to Epsilon Zeta! The underground base of resistance.”

“Resistance? To what?” Current and amperage.

“To the group you were just rescued from; the pokextinction.” It’s clear from their name exactly what they are after, but this entire thing is so surreal that I immediately resort to making fun of everything.

“That has got to be the single stupidest name I have ever heard of. Are you sure they aren’t the pokenstipation? Or the… um… Pokepinephrine? Or anything that doesn’t sound like a stupid teenager came up with it? The PKP? People killing pokemon?” I’m rambling now, but holy cow, Pokextinction sounds absolutely ridiculous. “And what the hell are you?”

“...A scolipede. Are you going to be like this forever?”

“Like what?”

“Ridiculous.” The insect rumbles a little.

“Hopefully not. I’ll have to wake up eventually.” I haven’t been in near enough pain for this to not be a dream. Maybe it is, actually? Would explain everything so far.

The watch ticks defiantly against my thigh. Tick. Tick. Tick. Makes me wonder if I can hear it in my sleep. If I listen close enough, maybe I can hear the sound of my heart as well.

The hair on the back of my neck prickle. “You’re not dreaming, you know.” I didn’t know that.

But I did, and acting like this was a dream was ridiculous, and I should stop it right then. Besides. This would definitely qualify as a nightmare.

The Scolipede gracefully starts to scurry down the stairs. I watch it, more than a little confused about how on earth the massive centipede thing manages anything gracefully, for a minute or so before it strikes me that I should probably follow it.

I do so. The floor stairs are actually quite smooth, and wide enough for a human to step on without risk of injury. I wonder how the fuck it got in the middle of a bloody mine, but I resolve to get answers when I get to the bottom of this.

I also got to the bottom of the stairs rather quickly.

The floor stairs shift up into the ceiling as I look around. I’m in a vaguely high school looking hallway. The area is lit up with those long tubey light things… Fluorescents. The floor is tiled.

Clearly, if I am dreaming, this is where I go to school and start to try to answer the teacher’s questions, only I’m naked and my tongue is running away from me.

If I’m not dreaming, it better not be a secret highschool for pokemon.

That would just be bloody ridiculous.

----


----

The journey through the hallways take surprisingly little time. The way is streamlined and clearly marked. I wonder just how big the place is to be a center of resistance…

Then the scolipede stops in front of a door and motions at it.

“...How do you get through doors, Charlie?”

He blinks at me. “I call up someone to teleport me in…”

“What about when there aren’t any people to do that?”

“....I wait…?” He sounds honestly confused.

I drop the subject and open the door…

Actually, I paused and looked at the door. It says headmaster on it. Please tell me this isn’t a high school for monsters...

I open the door…

Actually, I paused and turned to look back at the Scolipede. “Bye Charlie!” I figured I’d be polite.

I walk through the open door…

Actually, I look at the door. It’s… silverish. I get the feeling that it is made of silver, like, the really high quality stuff, though it looks to be in need of a good cleaning. The handle of the door is made to resemble a bent spoon. Odd little touch.

I walk through the open door for real this time and am greeted with… some sort of deformed cat thing.

An alakazam. I think those are cats, at any rate.

I get a really sinking suspicion about the nature of this base…

There’s silence. A lot of silence. I listen to the watch ticking at my thigh for a moment before talking. “...Um… Hi?”

“Ah… You must be a dark type. My apologies. I was attempting to contact you telepathically.” The head master said. “Please… refer to me as Alea.”

I know that looks like a girl’s name, but he pronounces it Ale-e-a. Ale, like the drink, e as in the fifth letter, uh.

“Alea?”

“Exactly. I am the head master of this station. Here, we teach those who have been blessed with these forms to control their powers, make new friends, and become better people.”

...THIS IS A BLOODY HIGHSCHOOL!?

“...this is a highscool, isn’t it?” Oh come on. I just got kidnapped. You can’t expect me to go back to highschool already. Isn’t there a law against that?

“Highschool is not the term I would use. Physical institute, perhaps. A learning institution. The place where you will be living for quite some time.” Live here? What about my home?

“Can’t you just give me the choice of red pill blue pill already? I want this to be a dream so I can wake up.” I reply, almost spitting it out. This is bloody unreal. This is the kind of horrible plot you would find on the back of a cereal box!

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Kyle.”

“THEN TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON!”

Alea sighs once. "Long ago, before the age of the humans, but right after the cretaceous period was the era of the Pokémon. Unlike the versions portrayed in the games you are more familiar with, they were the most intelligent species on the planet, even more than humans are today.”

“Um…”

“Wait until I am finished…”

“They adapted to any environment and smart enough to build advanced technologies using ordinary materials. These times were peaceful, and happy. Much later, the first humans evolved. The Pokémon were cautious around them, but realized that they were far less intelligent than they were.” I read between the lines. Like quite a few civilizations, they were stupid enough to believe themselves too might to fall. What made this new group any different?

My reality is now misanthropic. Fucking figures.

“But why would they…?” He shoots me another glare.

“The Pokémon had created a rock that could change them into humans. Under their human guises, most of them helped the humans gain knowledge and become more advanced. Some even started families with the humans. This went on for many years. Then humans became smarter and few millennia later and discovered the great powers of Pokémon and began to abuse them, holding them against their will and forcing them to use their abilities for the human's own selfish needs. One day, they rebelled. It was an all out war and many were injured and hurt. The Pokémon couldn't take it anymore, so they decided to leave. They destroyed any and all evidence of their existence, including their bones and fossils which thousands of Diglett and Dugtrio dug out.”

...dear god. They’re talking about pokemon in the billions. I try to picture earth covered in technicolor elemental animals and fail miserably.

“ Then they amplified Uxie's powers and wiped the memories of all the humans of the world so that they would never remember them. Arceus, Dialga, Palkia, Giratina and Celebi opened a giant portal to another dimension, and all Pokémon crossed to the other side. They did however leave a Mew behind to watch the humans to make sure they were truly forgotten. " I assume those are all powerful legendary pokemon, but again, I never gave much of a shit about pokemon after gen 3.

… That’s utter horse shit. “That’s utter horse shit.” I say as much.

Alea flares out a wave of psychic energy lifts me off the ground; I look down and realize that he’s lifting the tile I’m standing on. “Watch your language while you stay here, Kyle. I’m afraid that I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you quite often…”

I retort. “I’m sorry, but you’d be able to see that kind of gap in the fossil record. How on earth is it possible that you could manage to hide an entire kingdom of species from the rest of the world? You’d have to miss one or two pieces, let alone the… er, how many pokemon species are there?” This… this is utterly ridiculous. How… what… ugh...

“Quite a few.” Alea retorts to my retort, levelling a gaze to look at me. The tile I’m standing on drops back into the ground.

I suddenly am reminded of those rooms in Link to the Past where the tiles would try to kill you. I hope he doesn’t try to read my mind.

“Exactly. How do you hide all of that evidence?”

“Ground pokemon.” He replies, evenly.

“And how do you hide that evidence?”

“Groudon churned the earth.”

“But what about-”

“SILENCE!” He yells out, flashing his powers again. “Animals with elemental powers exist, and you’re questioning how they managed to tamper with the fossil record?! Let me assure you, they made sure to do an incredibly thorough job. And why are you doubting me? I arranged for you to be saved.”

...he has a good point…

“Now, if you will allow me to continue…” He sounds angry this time.

“...Yes sir…”

"Nothing happened until an event that some time ago started the Pokéumans.”

Pokeumans. That’s a horrible term. I’d go with the transformed, or the fossil fused, or anything… I should drop the subject and stop ridiculing it. I am turning into a bird with the power to shoot lasers, maybe my grasp on reason as it actually exists isn’t quite what I think it is.

I sit there, utterly stunned.  Maybe questioning everything isn’t the best thing to do. When in Oz, murder some witches… “... What was that event?”

I remain quiet after he glares at me for the last time.

After a moment, just to make sure I remain quiet, he calmly explains how a mad scientist managed to grab ahold of Mew’s DNA (Just like the first pokemon movie) and ended up accidentally unleashing a wave of energy which caused long dormant genes to awaken.

I desperately want to point out that that is not how genetics work, but then I realize that with the changing factor of pokemon, my science and rationality doesn’t even begin to start to explain everything.

Which makes me look like an utter dick to the headmaster, the person in charge of my life.

He then covers that the organization I was rescued from - “The pokextinction! They are utter scum bags which seek to stop people from transforming into Pokemon!”

...I’m pretty sure it is bad that I feel like I should be on that side instead. I mean, this has pretty much ruined my life, I’m sure.

“Um, not to interrupt, but my parents? They must be worried about me…”

“You have been replaced by one of the mad scientist’s clones. It will act the exact same as you would.” The watch ticks against my thigh as I listen. Tick. Tick. Tick.

“...YOU HONESTLY EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE THAT I AM TURNING INTO A POKEMON, MY LIFE HAS BEEN HIJACKED BY A CLONE, AND THAT…” I run out of things to shout about at that point, because there is no way I can say the words Pokextinction without laughing hysterically… both from how stupid it sounds and how real it is starting to get.

This is… really… real…

Something wet drips down my face. I’m crying. This isn’t fair. My life is ruined. My LIFE IS RUINED. And it doesn’t even make sense.

Alea sighs. He sighs. HE SIGHS. “Normally, I prove this through telepathy, but you’re dark typing prevents this…”

“Just…” I’m sobbing. Literally. I’m such an embarrassment.

“I give you my condolences, but you are suffering no more than everyone else. Please, keep that in mind. Everyone here went through the exact same thing.” He sounds so callous… but he’s right, isn’t he? I’m being so ridiculously silly now.

“May I explain the policy to you?”

“Policy…? Yeah… Sure.”

“All of those who languish in my base shall…” He starts to ramble about stuff I only half way pay attention to. I’m a little busy mourning my past life…

But then I realize. I don’t have to mourn it. All I have to do is escape from this damned place and I can go back to my home.

The watch ticks against my thigh. I can do that. I can break out of this place. I just need to figure out a way to get out of here… and they’ll never know the difference.

Besides. I won’t be able to make it here. This place is just… ridiculous is a word I’d use again to describe it, but I’m utterly terrified of what might happen to me here.

Dr. King said that most of those affected started to forget. Did he mean, they lost their senses? Their desires to return to their previous life? I’m not transformed yet, but I need… I need something to hold on to.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

I pick up the watch and grasp it greedily. This… this will work fine for a link.

But then again, Dr. King is the villain here.

Or …

Are my rescuers the villains?

----


'Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I'll pike out his bonny blue e'en:
Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare.