Alexander walked with a Pokedex in one hand and a Pokeball in another.
This alone was something that should have been
impossible.
He was walking through the woods. Woods that his Pokegear identified as
Petalburg Woods. Something that was
also supposed to be impossible. The trees around him were full of life. The setting sun looked beautiful as if to mock his fatigue and the pokemon around him chirped, growled, snarled and chittered as if to remind him to study them.
The insects were the part that jarred him the most. Each Wurmple was utterly massive. Longer than his forearm with the shortest ones and as long as his leg in the case of the one he had seen spinning a cocoon around it. Alexander had swiftly moved away from that specimen.
The only saving grace was that they seemed to occupy themselves eating the leaves that were scattered on the forest floor.
The Poochyena was not so kind. Those annoyances moved in small packs of five and seemed to lounge around for now, but every step towards dusk had more packs reveal themselves. The canine pokemon weren't very brave. Alexander had intimidated some of them by standing his ground, but they felt
wrong to his new senses.
It was something he should have expected. His Pokedex had informed him of all the species that lived in the forest. The Pokegear had told him he was a day away from Rustboro deep inside the woods away from the normal tracks used by travellers and he
knew that the canines were Dark-types.
It had not prepared him for the empty feeling they represented when he used his Psychic powers to track them. The dissonance between seeing them there and his psychic powers
insisting that nothing existed there was incredibly jarring.
Alexander pulled out his Pokegear. Made sure he was on the right track and winced at the realization that he would need
another day at the very least to get out of this place. He was no longer as panicked as before, but fear was rising within him.
He needed food and water.
The human closed his eyes and focused on his senses. All of them. Even the new psychic ones and reached out telepathically. Within a second the nonsensical sounds of miscellaneous pokemon were converted into something understandable. He ignored it. Instead, he used their senses and confirmed the second thing he had drawn out his gear to confirm.
There was a river nearby and he couldn't feel the presence of any massive predators nearby. No Mightyena. No Gyarados under the water.
Alexander cursed the bastard who had thrown him here with no food or water. He walked carefully. Irritated that the dwindling sunlight was slowly ensuring that Poochyena ambushes would become inevitable and praying to a God he didn't believe in.
He reached the water safely. Studied the surrounding area nearly a meter away from the river bank. Ignored the squelching noises his shoes making with every step on the mud and reached out with his power.
Telekinesis was hard to describe. It was not like holding onto something with his hand. If anything, it was akin to
demanding that reality alter the position of something. The strangest part of this total mess was that his power
worked and was so easy to use. The implication that his body and mind and probably soul had been warped before being thrown into another world was terrifying.
He hesitated for a moment. Sure that germs and such would end up killing him. Who knew what type of super-parasites and bacteria existed here? Then he grimaced and took a small sip. Directing a thin stream of water into his mouth. Ignoring the slightly odd taste and savouring the cool feeling moving down his throat.
He had levitated at least 2 litres of water.
It took him less than ten seconds to drain it all.
The relief was short-lived. Alexander heard a loud vicious chirp and low-growls.
The growls were familiar. He knew for certain that there had been around 2-4 Poocheyena making those sounds. He opened his backpack after putting it on the floor. Glad that its weight didn't seem to change, no matter how much stuff he put into it.
A Tardis-like bag with impossible carrying capacity meant nothing if it was too dense to move.
He concentrated and telekinetically lifted two rocks that were larger than his head. Then another two and then another two.
Alexander set them to orbit around him and carefully prowled through the forest.
The sun had set completely at this point. Darkness ruled the forest now, giving it a very different feel from before.
He relaxed when he saw a burst of orange light to the left of him.
Alexander was curious. A fire-type attack was not something common to the forest, though if he went by the games Poocheyena could learn fire-fang.
He wasn't curious enough to
risk his life by going there. The human walked away, keeping the rocks orbiting while doing his best to multi-task by using his telepathic senses to be aware of the pokemon around him. Especially the panicked fire-user surrounded by voids to his senses.
It still caught him off guard when the pokemon ran and chirped. Alexander repositioned himself immediately. He moved away from the trees and the sloth pokemon sleeping within them. Made sure that there were no Shroomish or Wurmple on the ground and prepared his weapons.
He knew that they could kill Zigzagoon with ease. A single stone could crush its head like a gruesome watermelon.
Alexander struggled with the acid rising in his throat as a clear-cut image of the beast dying rose through his mind. The enhanced memory he had somehow got alongside the psychic powers making the memory nauseatingly vivid. He could still almost
smell the blood-
The sound of a snarl and a blazing fire dragged him from his memories.
It stunned him to realize that the pokemon he was telepathically tracking was a
Torchic. It looked much bigger than he had expected. The colour in the orange light of the bird's flame made it obvious that it was the Hoenn starter.
Suspicions rose. This bird should be here according to both his knowledge of the games
and the Pokedex. He ignored them and threw two of his rocks at the Dark-Types chasing the injured fire-type.
Alexander was under no illusions. He didn't expect the fire-type to aid him or be pleased with his support. It was simple, pragmatism. The bird was injured and could be sensed psychically. The pack of four could not.
The cuts across its body and the careful way it moved was an obvious sign that it was the lesser threat.
The pack had seen better days. Torchic was more impressive than Alexander had assumed. One of their numbers had a massive gash across his face. His eye was a ruin and his snout was probably incapable of smelling anything other than its blood. His respect for Torchic's talons increased. Another was limping and the other two had burns. The smell of charred flesh filled the clearing.
The iron scent of blood followed as a stone dropped on them and crushed the two who had been burnt.
No chance of survival. They fell immediately.
The other two howled. Torchic didn't hesitate. A series of small fireballs burst from his beak. They hit with incredible precision. The Poocheyena survived, but one of their faces had been reduced to a ruin.
Alexander crushing its skull with the same rock that had killed its packmate was mercy.
The last one ran. Or at least he tried to.
Torchic ran behind him. Faster, thanks to being less injured, and blasted him viciously with a much more powerful blast of fire. The scent of burned hair and flesh immediately multiplied.
Alexander realized abruptly that his heart was beating faster than ever before. He took a deep breath and focused on the Torchic who was staring at him.
It chirped. Alexander had the absurd feeling that he had received a thank you. Then, the bird began to burn and eat the flesh of it's defeated, opponents. Nausea rose as the smell intensified. His stomach turned. Reminding him, he had not eaten in hours.
He wondered what it said about him that the burned flesh was a little tempting. Alexander shook it off. Eating a Dark Type was as stupid as he could be.
The dimensionally displaced human slipped away. His senses trained on the dangerous fire-type. Stones at the ready. He wondered if Rock was super effective to fire in this world.
******************************************
Alexander started. He focused on the rustling leaves. His psychic senses flared to the maximum. It gave him a mind-numbing headache. Worse, there was nothing there.
It had been the wind but was the wind controlled by a pokemon?
He sighed and tried to relax. Alexander was sitting against his backpack, which had been braced against a fairly massive boulder that he had moved into place. He had been trying to sleep. He had tried to meditate to rest but found that he
couldn't.
He was exhausted.
The powers he had were the only blessing that had. It had kept him safe, but the cost was fatigue different from anything he had ever felt before. It wasn't physical exhaustion. It wasn't the exhaustion he got because of studying or doing something mentally strenuous. Alexander felt like he was stretching a muscle or thinking in a way that was both natural and utterly novel.
He stared at the clear night sky. It was beautiful.
Anya would have loved to see it and mother would probably have pointed out constellations for them to see.
A Dustox flying far above him ruined the view.
He laughed. Winced as the sound travelled far in the mostly silent forest and sighed. Alexander had fantasized about going to the pokemon world and becoming a trainer. About becoming a champion and defeating the gym leaders. Of raising epic pokemon like Garchomps and Tyranitars.
His imaginary worlds had never considered things like hunger. That he had nowhere to sleep. That he had no one to ask for help. Or that it would take a being that was probably a God to Alexander to pull off the transition to another world and warp him enough to make him healthier, smarter and with
superpowers.
Alexander stood up as he felt a familiar mental signature slowly approach him. He picked up his bag, ready to run at a moment's notice. The massive boulder behind him floated. As did several smaller stones that Alexander had scattered around the clearing.
He wouldn't need them. Unlike the Poocheyena he could use his powers on the Fire Type directly. Even if it was harder to effect pokemon compared to inanimate objects. They almost seemed to be slippery when it came to telekinetically twisting them.
To his surprise, the Torchic stopped in plain sight. It was dragging a Poocheeyena that had been roasted almost beyond recognition and chirped cheerfully upon finding him. Alexander blinked when he realized that he
knew that Torchic had greeted him.
Wishful thinking or psychic powers?
"Hello Torchic," he said, trying to look harmless even as he focused despite the headache, "How may I help you?"
He wondered if this was being stupid. Even
if Torchic could understand human languages why would he know
English?
The bird chirped. Alexander started, "You wanted to give me a part of the food we fought for," he asked, uncertain if he was going mad. The nod from the Torchic made him feel insane.
But he had been telekinetically doing things and telepathically finding pokemon for hours now. Disbelief had long since been beaten out of him.
"Thank you," said Alexander, trying to keep his tone earnest, "but I don't know if it's safe for me to eat a Dark Type. I'm a psychic."
The bird looked sheepish and ate the Poochyena.
It seemed to have forgotten about Alexander completely. The human didn't sit down or relax until the fire-type left with a cheerful goodbye. The psychic relaxed and let the rocks fall. He winced at the thump sound they made and then sat down. His aching muscles thanked him even as the hungry part of him
screamed that eating that charred meat might have been a good idea.
He pulled out the Pokegear. Promised that he would reach Rustburo tomorrow and eat
something there.
Alexander carefully didn't think about
how he would get the food. He had some plans but his lack of history in this world might ruin all his ideas. A glance at the bag had him feel reluctantly grateful at the tools he had.
He hoped that a Pokeball for a couple of meals was a decent possibility.
Another familiar chirp half an hour later broke the daze he had fallen into. Alexander stared at the multitude of berries that Torchic had managed to drag. They were kept on a large leaf that Torchic was pulling using his beak.
"Thank you," he said, hesitant when the bird stood in front of him and pointed at the berries with its wings.
The preening Torchic made his pleasure with Alexander's gratitude obvious. The psychic had no idea where the bird had found the berries. He'd been looking for them since the Pokedex had confirmed that most types were safe for humans to consume but they were surprisingly rare and the Pokedex only had a smattering of information on berries that were safe for humans to consume.
It was not a wilderness guide.
Alexander hesitated. Then gathered his courage and patted the Torchic on his head, ready to run and telekinetically push the bird away. Torchic chirped and leaned into his touch before running off.
He shook his head and took a bite out of an Oran Berry. The juicy sweetness was better than anything he had ever tasted. He spotted the Torchic hiding badly behind a branch. Studying him as he picked up the next one and guzzled it down.
Alexander didn't stop until he ate half of it. Paused and then reluctantly put the rest in his bag.
He had no idea when he would get another meal. He crushed his demanding stomach.
"Thank you," he said, grateful beyond words. Torchic seemed surprised if flattered and ran away after a quick nod. He had never expected a wild animal to be kind and capable of understanding debt, but that was his foolishness.
This was the World of Pokemon and for the first time, it felt like it.
