Chapter Text
The pokeball was both significantly larger and smaller than Arin would have ever expected. It was somewhere between the size of a dodge ball and a baseball, its diameter roughly the entire length of his palm. Lightweight, brushed metal settled into his grip, the bright red top glinting in the early noon sun. It felt far more durable than the plastic toy pokeballs back home. In fact, it felt like what he would imagine they would if they were real.
Which was a really big if.
Dan seemed exasperated with Arin’s insistence that this was, and would remain, nothing more than a dream. Arin wasn’t about to admit it outright, but he was starting to have his doubts. Maybe it had been a fluke that everyone had given him the same answers about his map. Maybe it hadn’t. The reality of the situation was that things weren’t adding up. It made him feel better, though; repeating it over and over to himself like a mantra was the only thing balancing the creeping dread in his stomach.
He just wished the pokeball didn’t feel so real.
“How long do you think the hike to Jubilife is?” Dan asked him as they went. Arin frowned at their map.
It was impossible to read, covered in squiggles that vaguely resembled the different Japanese lettering systems but definitely were not Japanese. In the map’s legend was some kind of ruler or gauge, but even what he assumed were numbers made little to no sense to him. It had been so long since he’d played Diamond and Pearl or even their remakes; was Route 218 long? He didn’t remember it being too bad. But then, he didn’t remember anything too unique about it, either. Maybe some water. Maybe some berries. Grass everywhere, like any other route in the series.
“It’s, uh… well, it’s certainly some kind of distance away,” he answered, and Dan let out a half-hearted laugh.
“So we’ll make some kind of time if we just keep marching, huh?” he teased.
It was better than anything else. They barely had money, just some USD that Minoru told them was worthless and the spare change he’d offered them. They didn’t have a car and couldn’t call an Uber, and even if they did or could, they wouldn’t be able to figure out the directions to get anywhere. And they weren’t even in a region with a Ride Pokemon! Why couldn’t they have woken up in Alola? Kalos? Hell, he’d have been happy riding Miraidon and Koraidon through Paldea. But no: they were stuck in Sinnoh, the objectively worst region. He hated it.
And he missed Suzy.
That was the worst of everything, the thing that made the dread in his stomach more than a passing wave. He wanted this to be a dream so that when his eyes shot open and he was covered in a cold sweat, he could turn into her comfort and know that they were both home and safe. Instead he found himself faced with the possibility that she was home alone waiting for the coastal search team to return to her with the only news they could possibly deliver: that they never found his body. The thought of her mourning him was not something he was prepared to deal with. He would break if he let it settle for too long.
So it was a dream, and Sinnoh sucked.
On the other hand, he had a pokemon. Or, well, technically he supposed he was sharing a pokemon with Dan. But it counted. It definitely counted. His own pokemon. He preoccupied himself with the pokeball as they walked. It felt real as real could be. What was in it? What did the universe or his dreams see fit to provide him? Briefly, he entertained the thought of a charizard, a gyarados, or maybe one of their pokemon from their FireRed playthrough—he could go on adventures with Buntd or MR. MART. Or maybe it would be something entirely random. He supposed he could let whatever it was out now, but why ruin the surprise?
“We still must be right up along the coast,” Dan mused aloud. He was peering up through the trees to either side of them, and overhead wingull swooped and cawed on the lazy summer winds. Their presence hadn’t calmed for a single minute; from the moment they woke up, to their time in Canalave, and now into the wilderness east of the city, the birds circled omnipresent overhead. No matter how thick the trees were, they could hear the pokemons’ cries and catch glimpses of white feathers soaring on the warm summer winds.
The trees, of course, were still different as could be.
Arin’s attention wavered from the pokeball, landing on the pine needles and dark foliage around them. They were leaves, that was certain. Normal-looking in every way, and still so immensely foreign that he wasn’t sure what to make of them. He caught more flashes of movement in upper branches, and the trees and shrubs rustled as they left the noise of Canalave further and further behind. His brain said squirrels. Raccoons. But they weren’t. Couldn’t be. It was too big to be a squirrel. He spotted the white and electric-blue fur of a pachirisu in the shade of the woods.
The sudden wash of grief was overwhelming. The anxiety and mourning of separation began to claw at him, threatening to set off the demon in his chest that would claw into his lungs and sap his breath and his sanity in a sudden, shaky breakdown. His eyes snapped back to the mountain. Keep walking. They had to keep walking. It was just a dream. An adventure that would fade by the morning.
His eyes didn’t only settle on Mt. Coronet’s steep, distant peaks; they shifted again to the path ahead, where the trees were beginning to thin out. True to Dan’s observations, they were closer to the coast than Arin had expected. At some point beyond the trees, the shoreline had turned sharply inland again, the smell of ocean brine permeating the air as the sound of waves grew closer and closer. As it did, grass began to encroach on their path, shorter at first, then taller, until eventually it grew into a knee-high sea of its own.
He tried to be excited about it.
“Dude,” he said aloud, “we’re about to have our first pokemon battle! How amazing is that?”
“What?” They stopped at the edge of the tall grass, and as Arin eagerly fingered the pokeball, Dan eyed the path skeptically. That’s just how Pokemon was, after all. You take one step into anything remotely resembling a plant and fifteen rattata and at least one zubat would jump you for all the beans in your pocket. “I dunno, man. Maybe we shouldn’t be jumping straight into battles.”
“Oh, come on,” Arin countered. “We have to go through the grass one way or another. Don’t be a chicken. That Minoru guy wouldn’t have given us a pokemon if he didn’t expect us to battle with it.” Which was probably true. Probably. Arin assumed Minoru had acted in good faith, but who was really to say? Maybe this was some prolonged, slow-motion mugging, and he would steal the pokeball back and also all their money once whatever was in the bushes knocked them all out. But probably not. It seemed like an awful lot of work. Dan heaved an exaggerated sigh, his mouth pulling into a frown.
“Alright,” he groused, “but I don’t have to like it. Just… don’t go looking for trouble, okay?” It was a decent enough compromise. Arin nodded, and pokeball in hand, he pressed forward.
The grass was scratchy and rough, not at all what he’d expected. It wasn’t dry enough to cut them, but he was instantly grateful he’d been wearing pants and sneakers to film in. With the way the vibrantly green weeds snagged at his clothes, he expected he would have left with a nasty rash, otherwise. He tried to move through it all slowly, shuffling forward at an angle while he used his arms to push large swathes of the grass aside. He didn’t hear much rustling, only their own slow movements inching forward bit by bit. The wind stirred and blew through the trees. Before he knew it, they reached the other side, and absolutely nothing had happened.
“Oh, good,” Dan breathed his relief, “I was terrified something was actually going to jump out at us.”
“Come on, man, where’s your sense of adventure?” Arin teased him. “If we’re in the Pokemon world we’re gonna battle something eventually. I mean, what else are we supposed to do with this thing?” He held the pokeball up for emphasis.
Almost immediately a harsh jet of water, pressure like a fire hose turned loose, whipped through the air and smacked the pokeball straight out of his hand. Dan screamed.
Whirling towards the direction of the sudden onslaught, it was immediately clear who the culprit was. Its face was blunt and round, its chestnut-color fur still slick with salty seawater. Twin tails were curled upward, and what must have been air sacks in the vague outline of a life vest were puffed up huge along its body in a threat display, beady black eyes lasered in on the two of them like it was deciding whose throat to bite first.
“What the f*ck is that thing?!” Dan demanded, rigid with his eyes blown wide. Arin didn’t answer, freezing up just the same as the pokemon took a single, defensive step forward, baring its small, sharp teeth. Slowly, they each tried to take a surreptitious step back. The pokemon didn’t budge, its massive tails twitching. So far so good. They could back up just a bit more, maybe. Put some distance between them. Once the pokemon wandered off he could scoop up the pokeball and they could try again another day. They exchanged glances; neither spoke, but Arin could tell he and Dan were on the same page. Another step. A hundred Pokedex entries—no, four hundred nineteen Pokedex entries specifically—blew through his head. Too big and angry to be a buizel. A floatzel? Definitely.
A branch cracked under Dan’s sneaker.
The floatzel snarled and leaped at them, with each step water rushing up from the ground to gather around its body like a pressurized wave and propel it further, faster, harder, straight at his best friend.
Adrenaline was their godsend, these days.
Arin pivoted on his heel and lunged, sliding roughly on the dirt and grass like a baseball player desperately attempting to claim Third. The pokeball had been caught in a crevice between two rocks, and he felt his skin scrape against the rough, gritty surface as he clenched the aluminum in his palm long enough to throw himself to the side and fling it with a mighty roar.
The sound was familiar, like a cold bowl of Cookie Crisp in milk on an early Saturday morning. It cracked and hummed with energy as the pokeball split open and a red beam of light, brighter than anything he had seen in his life, arced into the air like lightning in a thunderstorm. The end of the beam grew in its mass, from a speck to something larger. Rounder. Something… friend-shaped.
The floatzel was mid-leap when the mass of energy blazed into its path, and the two collided head-on as the pokemon—their pokemon—materialized fully, coat glittering in the summer sun. Floatzel rebounded, landing in the middle of the path with a snarl. Their pokemon landed, just outside of Arin’s periphery, with a light thump in the dirt.
“What… what is that?” Dan cried, sounding more and more aggravated every second. Arin shoved himself to his feet, hurriedly turning as the excitement leapt into his chest.
Small and round, their pokemon stood at hardly a foot, long white snout turning a cotton-candy-blue nose upwards eagerly towards its opponent. Its short, taupe-grey fur bristled, another sparkling glimmer cascading over its body. Its feet were small, but bubblegum-pink stripes wound up its form to massive forepaws that ended in three wicked-looking claws.
“Oh my god, it’s a drilbur!” Arin exclaimed. He wracked his brain—had he ever used a drilbur? Probably not. It was cute, but not his style. What moves did drilbur learn again?
Floatzel’s lips curled back into a snarl, its tails twisting and writhing in agitation as its focus zeroed in on their drilbur. Floatzel was evolved, drilbur wasn’t, so it could probably out-speed them. Wasn’t drilbur Steel-type, or something? Maybe Ground? It was a mole after all, and it had those huge claws….
Play it cool , said the voice in Arin’s head, dig under it and smack it in the belly. Maybe it’ll run away.
“Drilbur!” he said urgently, and their drilbur flung its forepaws up, spreading it claws in a threat display of its own. Floatzel lunged again. “Use Dig!” Their drilbur pulled itself even taller, puffing up, then swung its arms in a great arc. It swung the rest of its body, too. Yup. Just swung right around. And then it bolted. “Drilbur??” Arin called after it.
Floatzel gave chase and their drilbur squealed in terror, booking it towards the treeline. Swearing, Arin turned himself around looking for their drilbur’s pokeball.
“I’ve got it!” Dan shouted to him. He rushed forward, holding it high over his head. “What do I—I mean, how does it even—?”
“Point it and press the button! Press the button! HURRY!” Arin shouted back. Dan fussed with the pokeball, turning it in his hands to find the button, then awkwardly thrust it out to point it towards their retreating pokemon’s back. He hit the button. The red energy crackled through the air again, arcing towards the trees. Their drilbur hit the dirt, diving under a particularly gnarled set of roots. The beam hit the tree and bounced off, dissipating like the most disappointing light show this side of the region. Dumbfounded, Arin turned an accusatory stare towards Dan, whose jaw hung open as he watched the floatzel throw itself at the tree roots and claw at their poor, defenseless pokemon.
“Oh,” Dan finally snarked, “like that’s my fault!”
“It’s got one button on it, dude!” Arin dragged his hands through his hair, pushing it out of his face in a desperate attempt to calm the rapid beat of his heart. There had to be something they could do. Their drilbur was trapped. Trapped. This was one hell of a stress dream. “Okay. Okay, okay, okay, we just need to distract it—”
“Oh, yeah, ‘we,’” snorted Dan. Arin ignored him.
“—just long enough so one of us can go over and get our drilbur into the pokeball.” He looked this way and that, taking deeper breaths as he searched for something, anything, that he could use to catch the floatzel’s attention. Rock? Stick? Stick. Big stick. There were branches all over the ground, and one was particularly long and thick. Arin snatched it up and turned to Dan.
“I’m gonna hit it with the stick!” he cried. “Dan, save Drilbur!”
“Wait, Arin—!”
Arin did not wait. Arin hit the floatzel with his stick. Ran right up, swung the thing around like he was f*cking Goku. Cracked it right on the floatzel’s head, loud, echoing. It would have put a man down for the count. Maybe a dog. But the floatzel? Nah. Snarling like a rabid beast, the pokemon rounded on him.
“Hah!” he shouted at it, brandishing the stick. He took a little hop back. Floatzel took a massive lunge forward. Its claws snagged the cuffs of his pants as he tried to dodge out of the way. “Dan! Dan, get the f*cking drilbur!”
“Oh my god, Arin, you’re such an idiot!” Dan yelled back at him, but he was already running towards the base of the tree. Arin shouted at the Floatzel again; Dan threw himself onto his stomach, half-diving under the tree roots. There were the sounds of a struggle, Dan grunting and yelping, and floatzel went to turn around, so Arin smacked it with the stick again. Floatzel swiped with one paw, swiped with the other, and as Arin reeled his arms back to deliver another blow, the pokemon sucked in a huge breath and spat another pressurized, concentrated stream of water that caught him in the face and chest and knocked him straight off his feet. In a fraction of a second, it had blasted him back harshly into the trunk of another tree, and stars exploded in front of his eyes as his skull impacted with a thunk. The burst of water calmed; Arin slid down to his ass, dazed.
“OH GOD!” he heard Dan scream. When his gaze cleared, it was to see his friend half-scrambled up a tree of his own, legs flailing wildly as his feet scraped for purchase. Blinking confusedly, Arin watched the floatzel nip at his heels as he pulled himself up to sit on a thick branch, hugging tightly to the trunk with wild eyes. Oh good. Dan was safe. “Arin!” But was drilbur safe? Arin shook his head. “ARIN!” Dan was yelling at him. Stupid Dan, all pessimistic and sh*t. He was supposed to be Not So Grump, not Grumpy Grumpy Grump. “ARIN f*ckING RUN!”
The shouting shocked him straight back into lucidity; the floatzel had given up on Dan. It charged at him again. Swearing, Arin scrambled to his feet and turned towards his tree. There was a branch thick enough just barely outside of his reach—if he stretched—a little higher—stretch, stretch, stretch—hop—yes! His biceps screamed, his pecks screamed, his core screamed, but goddamn if he didn’t pull himself up to the branch with the speed and vigor to win a gold medal. Breathing heavily, he watched the growling floatzel scratch at the tree trunk, gouging the bark with his claws as it tried to scrabble up after him. Floatzel couldn’t climb, could they? But by the way this one eased off, began to pace and circle their little clearing, probably not. Not this one, anyways. Arin let out a long breath, tension beginning to ease from his shoulders.
“I hate everything about this,” Dan called from across the clearing. He watched the floatzel like a hawk, leaning heavily against his tree. In his free arm he held Drilbur, who clung pathetically to him like a scared toddler to their parent. Its eyes were huge and wet, and its little nose twitched sadly as it looked this way and that as though it was searching for something.
“Driiiil!” their pokemon cried mournfully, its voice tiny and wobbly, “driiiiillll!!!” Dan winced, one eye cringing closed, but he only held more strongly to their safe haven. The floatzel continued to pace underneath their perches.
“What the f*ck is with this thing?” Arin groused. “It won’t leave us alone!”
“Well gee, Arin, I wonder if one of us did something that pissed it off,” Dan deadpanned.
“You know what?” Arin snapped back at him. “I’m not loving your tone right now, buster. I’m trying to take you on a magical pokemon adventure, so maybe you can lose the f*cking sass.”
“I don’t want to go on a magical pokemon adventure, Arin, I want to go home.”
“Well if you want to go home, you have to go on the magical pokemon adventure, that’s how this whole thing f*cking works.”
“So you admit this isn’t a dream, then.”
Arin puffed up, but this time didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His face fell, breaking into desperation, a moment later, Dan’s expression mirrored his.
“Driiiil! Driiiiiiil!” Drilbur cried, punctuating the sudden gap in their argument.
It continued to cry even when Dan shifted awkwardly on the spot, offering a much softer “sorry, Big Cat,” as an apology.
“I shouldn’t take it out on you,” he continued. “This whole thing is a mess.”
“No,” Arin sighed, “no, you’re right. It’s crazy. I mean… it can’t be real. Right? It can’t. But it is. It feels real.” The floatzel’s pacing eased until the pokemon stood in place, casting wary looks between the two of them. It wasn’t ready to leave; he wondered how long until it grew bored of them. “If it is a dream, that means we wake up home safe, you know? That maybe the storm didn’t happen, that Suzy won’t…. I mean, I don’t want her to be….”
“I know,” Dan comforted him, “I know. She won’t be. Ash won’t be. Either it’s a dream and we’ll wake up… or it’s not, and we’ll find our way back.”
The floatzel finally settled down, sitting alert as it waited for either of them to try climbing back down. Their only option was to try and wait it out. Let it wander away or fall asleep, then climb down as quietly as they could and marathon-sprint to the other end of the route.
So they sat and waited as Drilbur continued to cry for something that would never come.
Unbeknownst to the two ill-fortuned internet funny men, they were not alone with the floatzel in the woods. High overhead, obfuscated by tree canopies, a pokemon most certainly not native to Sinnoh rode along the thermal winds, its huge eyes watching their pathetic excuse for a pokemon battle intently. A seasoned trainer would have recognized the outsider easily enough: the xatu’s bright green plumage and long red head-crest was a dead giveaway, even in the densely wooded mountains cradling Canalave. Trained to spot the miraculous glimmer at even these heights, while the pokemon slipped Arin and Dan’s notice, it certainly noticed them; or rather, it noticed their drilbur.
Their shiny drilbur, that is.
The xatu didn’t shriek or cry or dive bomb or approach them in any way. It stayed long enough to watch the scramble; long enough to confirm as the drilbur’s coat sparkled and glimmered with its every movement. Then, silent save for the ruffle of feathers on the lazy summer wind, it circled around and descended to its trainer’s camp.
“Tengu!” its trainer greeted as it landed neatly next to their single battered tent, “there’s my guy. Hungry, killer?” He took one of the finneon they were roasting on spits over the campfire, tossing it for Tengu to extend his long neck out in a flash and snap the fish up mid-air. His trainer laughed. “Attaboy. Anything good for us, this morning?”
Tengu was not a pokemon for leading anyone through a prolonged game of charades. Honking at his trainer, the xatu merely unfolded its mighty five-foot wingspan and curled its neck, pressing the crest of his head to his trainer’s. The trainer’s eyes rolled back; their minds met. Tengu showed him, vivid memories flashing between them. In seconds, they were exactly on the same page.
“Ohohoho, sh*t,” laughed Tengu’s trainer. “What a prize. Bet we’d make a f*ckin’ mint off that back home.” Tengu pulled away, neck folding back as he pulled his head and wings back close to his body. His trainer turned back towards the tent, where their two companions were busy packing their things back up for the day. “Hey! One of you jackasses get out here and make sure our food don’t burn, yeah? Tengu’n I are gonna see about picking up our meal ticket.”
Tengu could feel the eagerness radiating from his trainer’s psyche. It was infectious, and the xatu’s emotions began to bubble and roil. Its feathers puffed, its wicked-looking talons scraped eagerly at the dirt and grass underfoot. The command came through the connection the pokemon cultivated through their minds. Flapping his gorgeous red-and-black-striped white wings, Tengu shoved off the ground and took to the skies, leading the first of the poachers on towards the treasure trove that all but fallen miraculously into their laps.
