While Carlos hiked down the mountain he saw his “normal” TE trickle down. “Huh it’s either my stamina or tied to it.” Carlos mused. Some of his memory had started to come back while he was walking. Still completely disoriented but he pushed through, he had no choice.

  Although he was quite far from the Aerial battle. It was utterly brutal. Nothing like the anime he remembered. They were chomping into eachother, spitting blue and white flames, dodging and weaving, slicing arc’s of their claws wreathed in wide varieties of elements he couldn’t recognize from this distance.

  “They must be both made of steel.” He muttered. He couldn’t see everything clearly but quite a few viscous attacks that his mind registered as:

  ‘should have dismembered something’,

  didn’t do as such. O sure there was a painful screech or roar whenever a big hit or bite, crunch? Landed but they just kept going at it. Eventually the two separated and growled and roared at each-other

  “CHA Go ….RI yourself! Zard! This is zard! My mountain!” The massive fire lizard roared.

  ”Sala pfff a weak pathetic Sala wanabe dragon sala can make mence! No claim here! MEN begone!”

  “Ah so it’s called a salamence, good to know.” Carlos veered away from the ongoing verbal debate, and used the numerous rocks littering the mountains as cover. He took no chances. Two pissed of dragons, wanabe or not, was worse in his mind then a happy go lucky family of Tyranitars.

  after a while he began to pant and noted that half of the normal type energy he originally had, was draining fast, ever since it first popped up on that screen. He felt something dripping down his face and wiped it away, blood. “Fuck can’t stop now, not unless I want to test some fuckers sense of smell,” even with his piss poor human senses he could smell the blood in the air. He kept stumbling. Idly wondering why there were barely any Pokemon. Besides the two dragons, he saw none.

  He had to pace himself. The pounding in his head came back. It wasn’t painful yet but he could tell if he kept straining himself he would start feeling it.

  As time went on, making little progress, the pounding got worse and he found a big rock to sit on, to catch his breath.

  “Geo! Hey! Dude! Im sleeping here! Geo who sits down Dude!on someone’s face?”

  Carlos yelped, stumbled away and fell down. Luckily his thick clothing protected him from the jutting rocks.

  “Sorry man I’m new around here, I'm having trouble telling you apart from the actual rocks.” Carlos took a moment to observe the Geodude, it blended well into it’s environment, although he could see slight variations in contrast of the rocks and the rocky skin of the geodude, he made a mental note of it to prevent himself from making the same mistake. He took a quick looksie to see if there were more geodudes around but he was too tired to really pay attention.

  The geodude was way bigger then what the anime portrayed them as. He got up using his hands as legs and looked him over curiously and did a head tilt. “Geo Are you a-a hewmon? Dude I don’t think i’ve ever seen one. Geo not that I would, here in the boonies. dude Are you supposed Geo to leak? Is the red stuff.. blood?”

  Carlos was distracted for a moment by the huge amber eyes that seemed crystallized. It bordered a bit on the edge of uncanny valley. To him seeing a rock come alive was very alien, much more alien then the Tyranitars.

  “Yes I’m a hu-man and no I'm not supposed to leak. I was yeeted by arceus and fell down a hundred yards or so.”

  Carlos couldn’t be bothered to think of the possible consequences of him blabbing about possible multiverse theories with a stone with two arms. Now that he sat down and his adrenaline waned, he felt dizzy and didn’t know if he could get back up. His head started swaying.

  “Geo what could you possibly have done Dude. To piss off, praised be his name, Geo, Arceus?”

  Carlos heard the religious overtures in the Geodude’s voice and emotions, just like with the female? Tyranitar. Carlos had been to plenty of catholic masses to know what that sounded like.

  it triggered a wave of nostalgia, something to latch onto if ever so slight. “When in Rome…” he thought.

  ”I didn’t, praise be his name, piss off Arceus. My universe and your universe apparently collided and I fell through one of the cracks that formed because of it.”

  “The last thing Arceus, praised be his name, told me, was to go to the final resting place of a legendary trainer on that mountain over there”. Carlos put his head in his hands the dizziness due to blood loss, was beginning to overwhelm him.

  “Geo oh well that explains why you are here. Geodude Wait here. I will get someone to help you. If Arceus, Geo praised be his name, geo told you to go to that mountain, duuude then I and my kin are obligated to help you.” At that he nodded. “Geodude. This is the way.”

  With that he hopped off, Carlos wasn’t going to argue with the Geodude who so readily accepted his explanation. It felt like every time he brought up the name Arceus, it invoked a deus ex machina.

  “Yea no shit sherlock” Carlos muttered but a second later something else popped up

  “Huh, so now I know for sure, even first evo-Pokemon will turn me into a shitstain no problem”.

  Carlos had expected this, it was the absurd hp and energy difference however, that gave him real pause. It meant even a ‘simple’ geodude was multiple times stronger than him and to top it all off, outlast him a hundred times over by the looks of it.

  He watched the geodude get distracted by a particularly big rock, casually picking it up, crushed a part of it off and horked down the rubble, he imagined what those hands would do if they gripped Carlos’s head a bit too roughly. Squelch.

  “Ugh I hate having a vivid imagination.”

  With the Geodude disappearing around a big monolith of a stone that seemed artificially carved, Carlos sat in silence surrounded by a vast mountain range.

  His descend of the mountain had gotten him somewhat closer to the forrest line. Close enough that some trees grew here and there. He saw a big bird he recognized as a pidgey flying onto a tree branch, skittishly looking around. with a caterpie in it’s beak.

  The pidgey looked incredibly mundane, save for the fact that it’s talons and beak looked razor sharp. The caterpie’s dead visage was deep into uncanny valley. Carlos suddenly felt a lot of sympathy for Misty freaking out about bug pokemon. If a simple caterpie was this creepy he didn’t want to know what the grizzly bear sized spiders would look like.

  He tried to listen in on what the Pidgey was saying but it only emoted, food creature and danger, it seemed that as far as intelligence, they were on the lower end.

  Speaking of grizzly bears he actually saw a lone bear tumble out of the forest bleeding from multiple nasty looking gashes. A black blur and what looked like an anime slicing special effect, disconnected the head of the bear from its torso. A Yipping sound that reminded him of Hyenas came closer.

  “FOOD! FOOD! im STARVING! FOOD!”

  He couldn’t hear the typical pokemon name but he saw a whole pack of hyena looking creatures with their pups tear the bear to pieces. Their yellow and red eyes drew a stark contrast to their light grey/black fur.

  Carlos began to doze off, desperately he tried to stay awake, but the soft embrace of darkness overtook him.

  Even in his sleep he was tormented. In his nightmare he found himself in a courtroom. His “loving” wife telling a horrible story. A complete lie with facts taken out of context. The judge was eating it up. With terror in his heart, Carlos looked around for support, he saw his kids sitting in the public bench. Looking at him like he was a monster. Silently he pleaded with them not to believe it but he could tell it was too late. From a distance he saw himself screaming, screaming that he had never done anything his wife was accusing him of. The nightmare brought back the tearing he felt in his chest that day.

  The next thing he knew he woke up laying on a pile of massive red feathers. They felt warm to the touch. He sat up groggily and noted how incredibly toasty it was.

  It made him woozy but it felt nice. Especially after the icy cold winds out in the open. Halfway on a big mountain.

  He took some time to think, it frustrated him to no end, that his mind was so fragmented. only bits and random pieces. Like how he hated pineapple on pizza but not on cheeseburgers. God he was craving a cheeseburger now.

  He sighed after a while, shaking his head. His self doubt ate at him. “Had he really been such a piece of shit?“ he shook his head again. “No, the memory/dream seemed to revolve around one thing and one thing only, the intense sorrow and betrayal he felt in that moment. “No fuck that bitch, in a way this is good won’t need to bother trying to get back with her”.

  The moment he thought about his wife in that fashion another small memory cascade flooded his mind. Months, no years of struggling to maintain a marriage, making concessions after concessions only for her to complain he wasn’t the same guy after he had changed for her. “Change back” He clapped his face.

  Remembering that particular comment his wife had made, caused an intense spike of rage.

  He looked around for a distraction and noted that he was in a cave. The size of a decent bedroom. Very dimly lit. His eyes traced the source of light and it fell on a sleeping fiery molten rock, slug looking thing. It was about 3 feet in length. Each time it breathed it rumbled and let out smokey hot air.

  It was adorable, in an ugly sort of way. The way it slept peacefully next to a red hot glowing rock. He focused on the rock and it looked like it was made of crystal with flames slowly dancing inside.

  The peaceful scene put Carlos at ease for the first time since coming here. His stomach growled, his eyes teared up now that he was able to let it out, his lips trembled and he was glad no one was there to see it. Open and bare he felt, he had loved her so, so much. “13 years… fuck.”

  He looked around and found his bag and took some of the hardened jerky. While chewing and nothing else to do, He pulled up his stat screen, desperately trying to find something else to distract him.

  Even though he never played the Pokemon games, he had read quite a bit of the fanfic which he enjoyed a lot more than the actual cannon, which he described as: one dimensional friendship protagonist slop. He was weird like that, just thinking that, he could feel thousands of souls screaming out in rage. Sure cannon had great episodes here and there but those were sparse.

  Reading those fanfics had exposed him to the stats such as atk and sp-atk, type systems and he was curious as to what A/U/S stood for. He had a suspicion but he wanted to confirm.

  after a bit of fiddling a pop up screen came into his field of vision.

  Carlos took in the information and started fiddling again, eager to find out more. Everything was pretty self explanatory.

  Simple in theory but all of it combined, the picture became more complex. Attack made his punches and kicks hurt more, his defense absorbed, damage done with a 1 to 1 ratio, which told him that him punching the geodude he met, would result in a tickle session Not to mention he had no attack moves. His Taunt would lower the base defense stat by 1 in his case but taunting creatures 5 times stronger than him seemed a bad, bad idea.

  moves, it seemed could take up to 10% of your TE. That was then converted into an effect, base attack modified by A/U/S determined how strong the move would be.

  100TE stood for 100%. Him using taunt, a utility move, would take 6 *(.11*1.4) = resulting in a lowering of defense 0.9 rounded up to 1. And forced to only use offensive moves that dealt damage.

  Detect, a 6 second “utility buff”, would in his case increase his reflex and speed by 1.3 or 1. It wasn’t much but the text aluded that these moves could be trained to become cardinal moves, whatever that meant, no amount of prodding would tell him the meaning of “cardinal”.

  Reflex determined how much he could roll with the punches, react, to lessen or downright avoid taking damage. And speed determined his overall walking speed and how fast he could move and act in general.

  He also figured out that without his fighting and normal type energy, he would have died from the fall. No one on earth survived a 100 yard fall on his head.

  “Ash did though… couple of times in fact..”.

  Carlos vaguely recollected some scenes he had written of as comic relief.

  What had kept him alive from bleeding to death, was the fact that his pool of normal and fighting type energy, both tied to lifeforce, had fed him “lifeforce” or aura, to keep his physical body from going into shock and inevitably cardiac arrest.

  He didn’t know how close he had been but it had been close. He felt so much better it was freaky, albeit starving. He got up and did a bit of flexing, some pushups which were laughably easy. Only after a hundred did he get winded.

  Carlos remembered he had always worked on staying jacked even after real good home cooked food but this was definitely more than he was used to.

  He saw a reasonably large rock and went and picked it up. It was relatively easy, he estimated the rock to be about 300 pounds.

  “Definitely stronger than back on earth” he thought.

  He heard some scuttling behind him and turned around making eye contact with the fiery slug. Looking into it’s yellow hot eyes.

  After staring for a bit, his “system” pinged and let him know he was looking at a slugma a rock/fire type.

  “Sssssslu whoooo gmmmmmaaa, you? Mmmmaaa you awake?”

  Carlos sat down next to the slug and almost gave him a pat but held back. “My name is Carlos, and did you stay with me to keep me warm while I was asleep?”

  The slugma nodded. Carlos idly wondered if speed also included ability to speak and process. The slugma seemed to be friendly but definitely on the slower end.

  The slugma started slithering out of the room into the hall/tunnel connected to the room and started taking a left, he stopped and he looked back.

  “slug with me ma come”.

  Carlos answered with a chuckle, “Yes master yoda”

  The slugma tilted its head and smiled with its eyes closed in that typical anime fashion, “slug silly ma hewmon” and went back to slithering. Leading Carlos through a winding tunnel.

  Carlos kept chewing on the meat and crackers while following the slugma. It didn’t seem to matter how much he ate he was incredibly hungry.

  after a little while, and after repeatedly stopping himself from picking up the cute little slug, so he could move faster.

  The tunnel finally opened up in a large area.

  Not picking up the adorable ugly slug actually became agonizing at some point.

  “These pokemon are determined to get me killed one way or another” he muttered.

  Carlos was greeted by a truly fascinating sight. Multiple geodudes, gravelers, golems slugma and molten rock snails, which he assumed was slugma’s evolutionary form. All of varying sizes were eating rocks or molten stuff, placed on a sleekly carved out slate of heightened rock which served as a massive dining table. He even spotted a small onix that chattered away with child like energy.

  the table was wide enough to have 2 massive Pokemon. a huge Golem and a massive lava snail sitting together, each enjoying their meal of different types of rock. He estimated that the golem rivaled the female? Tyranitar in mass, albeit a bit stockier.

  it became more clear, the more pokemon he saw, that in this world, pokemon weren’t as much “pocket”, as they were “monstrous”.

  “Is it dinner time?” Carlos asked curiously as he looked down at the tiny slug. Yes he realized that a 3 feet slug in this world was tiny.

  The ‘tiny’ slug nodded and slithered to a spot at the massive dining table that conveniently had space for Carlos. he looked back at Carlos with that look of. “Come with me”.

  “GOOOLEM!! AH! BEHOLD! THE HERALD of ARCEUS GOO!! HAS AWOKEN! LEM!!”

  The massive Golem at the head of the table was now standing and speaking with a thunderous voice that shook the cave. He was joined by the other pokemon in cheers or hisses all roaring their excitement. Carlos simply trusted rock Pokemon to know their tunnels, the sound, causing the shaking of the room, was stupendous.

  Carlos held up his hands to which the room became quiet, way to fast for his liking.

  “Wow, wow, wow! not to rain on your parade but last time I checked. I’’m just an unlucky shmuck that got yeeted into a different verse!”

  To which the room just laughed. The giant snail hissed something into the Golem’s ear to which the Golem nodded and spoke again in that thunderous voice, although not as loud this time.

  ”GOOO did you not fall from the sky like a star?”

  Carlos nodded hesitantly. “Yes?”

  the room of rock and lava cheered excitedly at this.

  “LEM and do you not have the power of fighting, in defiance of the rulers of the sky, the oppressive Dragons?”

  ”you mean my fighting type?” Carlos asked.

  The golem nodded gravely.

  Carlos noted the Geodude that he met on the mountain was handwalking towards him , he didn’t know what it was, that made it possible for him to tell.

  The Golem continued.

  “GOO and do you not have the power to defy death itself? Even it’s guardians and shepherds!!!?? LEM!!!??”

  Carlos drew a blank and stared at the Golem.

  “He means your dark typing dude” The Geodude now standing next to him offered. To which Carlos hesitantly nodded. The crowd cheered.

  “GOOO and didn’t Arceus himself, HIS NAME BE PRAISED, not tell you to go to the holy sanctuary? LEM!!”

  ”The resting place of that trainer”, the Geodude said, “that place holds important religious significance to us Pokemon of this region.”

  Carlos resigned himself to the madness and nodded again. To which the golem cheered and thundered, whipping the room of rock and lava into a frenzy.

  Carlos checked out mentally, he wasn’t an atheist but this was way too much zealotry for his liking.

  “Geo Just go with it Dude, the boss likes geo his theatrical drama. Geo He only means about half of it. dude” The Geodude offered him a seat

  “GOO Now eat honored GUEST!! LEM!!”

  ”now this is more like that pokemon world I keep heard about” he thought to himself.

  a plate with a random assortment of massive berries and fruit was placed in front of him. He didn’t question it.

  Some of it was disgustingly sweet, some disgustingly sour, bitter spicy. All sorts of extreme flavors. He didn’t care, his stomach was a gaping maw, a black hole that consumed all. The room of pokemon was amused and started chatting amongst themselves.

  After he was done ravaging his plate he sat back idly wondering where the comfy chair he was sitting on, had come from.

  Still completely checked out mentally he made idle conversation with the various pokemon that came over and spoke to him with religious reverence and it wasn’t as creepy as he first thought it would be.

  It was uncomfortable but he fell into a rocky groove after a while. Carlos wasn’t too sure how long dinner lasted but after a while he was left alone with the little slugma, the Geodude and the Massive Golem that rumbled into his direction. He walked closer. His body was encased in a spherical shaped rock. Slates smooth to the touch, his arms and legs were stubby, but definitely not like the cartoonishly short. Thick frightening muscles under a dark sandy skin, “very dangerous over short distances”, Carlos mused.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  no matter how long he looked at the Golem the system didn’t let him know what level it was.

  ”Go so you got tossed into our little verse, lem by arceus himself you claim”.

  Carlos was a bit taken aback by the sudden suspicion in his voice. “So I take it you are not convinced?”

  ”Go O i believe you got tossed out of the sky. Lem Some of us have some affinity to psychic typing and they felt the ripple as keenly as you would feel my grip go.” He clenched his left fist to further make his point. He rumbled a sigh and plopped down.

  ”go I want to believe you, but many of this world are not as devout, many would take advantage of our generosity lem” . The golem searched Carlos’s face for signs of deceit or honesty.

  ”whatever I said to… geodude here”. Carlos waved at geodude. “Was the truth.”

  ”if you could indulge me and tell me everything from the beginning”.

  Carlos sighed but obliged. While he was telling his admittedly short story, the slugma slithered and crawled/climbed onto the golem’s shoulder. The golem didn’t seem to mind, chuckled and scratched it even. To which slugma responded with that anime smile with squinted eyes. When Carlos got to the part of sitting on Geodude’s face, the Golem looked at the Geodude with obvious scorn.

  Carlos didn’t know what to make of this golem. One second he was a fanatical zealot, the next he was a protective, cautious pragmatic leader. The serious undertones in their belief system, their faith, jarred with his view of pokemon. It wasn’t something that really came up in the games, anime, or hell even fanfics.

  After Carlos was done, the golem slowly rocked back and forth, rumbling in thought.

  ”Well even if I didn’t believe you, which I do, and it excites me, Geodude here.” another scornful look. “made sure that the persian is out of the cave”. He sighed. “Which is all sorts of rocky irony if you knew this lad longer then a day or two”

  The Geodude raised his hands in a shrug with his eyes closed in that typical anime ‘what can you do’ pose, seeing a geodude doing it was kinda funny.

  ”Hey I'm just as surprised as you boss, I always thought the prophecy was a load of salamence shite. Imagine my surprise when a bloody hewmon straight out of your sacred stone slates, sits on my face, while I take a beauty nap?”he rumbled a laugh. “it was a sandy revelation from Arceus himself I tell you.”

  Carlos shuffled uncomfortably, he didn’t know how to respond or act, standing at the center of pokemon religion, least of all as a significant figure.

  geodude rumbled a laugh and gave Carlos a slight shove. “Im just messing with you dude. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine making other mons and now hew-mons, uncomfortable with my faith, must be pretty overwhelming to know you fulfilled a thousand year prophecy.” At which he playfully wiggled his eyebrows and rumbled more laughter.

  The golem rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation.

  ”Well Carlos this only leaves us with guiding you to the sacred resting place and then you can be on your way.”

  Carlos looked at the golem. “Then what?”

  Golem shrugged, “then you will continue your survival. You will go on a journey you hewmons are so fond of. Arceus was pretty clear in your revelation about your continued survival, meaning that journey is not something I or my flock of rocks can help with. I say it’s pretty clear. Pay your respects to the old honored one and be on your way, back to your kin!”

  Carlos was a bit confused. “Isn’t my continued survival in your best interest? Between here and the next hewmon there must be at least a thousand hungry Pokemon. I’d wager my survival chances are… low.”

  Both geodude and Golem looked at him with blank stares, until a light went up in Golem’s mind. Slugma had dozed off and was sleeping soundly on top of Golem’s round carapace.

  “Ah it must be quite different in your universe. No except for weak animals, which even hewmons can beat, no mon in their right mind would eat a hewmon. Your blood gives off the worst stench to a pokemon you can imagine. Even to legendary mon’s with the strongest stomachs, too much ingestion of a human’s blood, is lethal. And no one has dared to exhume a hewmon’s body of blood and try a taste of its meat.”

  Geodude added. “Yea it was that stench that woke me up in the first place otherwise I might have slept straight through you sitting on my head.”

  Carlos felt oddly self aware at that. “You guys keep it well hidden, the fact we hu-mans smell so bad I mean.”

  Golem waved his hands/claws. “No no, not your body odor or sweat. Just your blood. Some of us older mon’s like to joke that mon’s in the old days let themselves get caught to safeguard humans from bleeding. Long term exposure, with the exception of dark and poison mon’s, will cause a deep depression and a sense of failure that we mon’s loathe amongst our number. The fairy and grass type are especially sensitive and vulnerable to it. It is theorized that this stress caused them to develop the healing moves.”

  Carlos felt his mouth twitch into a smirk. This was good ammo to have if he ever met a vain confrontational person.

  Suddenly something in the anime series made pragmatic sense, most evil-aligned people in this world would likely resort to poison and dark types for nefarious tasks. This wouldn’t just be an edgy trope. It made pragmatic sense.

  “you know it makes sense now why other Pokemon didn’t approach me.” Carlos mused out loud.

  Carlos pondered for a moment what it was that the lady tyranitar had told her hubby. If he had smelled as bad as golem made it out to be. That mega tyranitar must have smelled him a mile away, the dark ish aura he had observed on them like the dark aura he saw on those hyena pokemon. made it pretty clear, that was dark typing.

  That mega tyranitar from the sound of it, had belonged to such a nefarious criminal group. he didn’t get to think on it long. Golem clapped his hands.

  “Alright no time like the present! You have prodigious path to walk on! And you” he pointed at Geodude, “will guide him to it as punishment for sleeping out in the open, again. I told you a thousand times, the tyranitar fancy geodudes from time to time!”

  Geodude waved him off, Carlos started to get the impression this was some sort of hippie teenager chill and cool but still rebellious Geodude.

  ”I would have done so anyway! Im the one that found him. C’mon Carlos! Time to hop to it. I wager a full day of sleep is plenty for you to heal up!”

  Before Carlos could even get his bearings he was ushered out of the cave, idly he touched the part of his head that had bled. Wondering if he bled a little and that caused his expedient departure. Now that he was “healed up” as it were, walking down the mountain felt good, great even. Geodude made large jumping hops.

  Carlos started jogging to keep up. Whatever was going on he didn’t get winded not even after a half hour of jogging downwards. The trek up the sacred mountain was slightly different. Although still a lot easier then what it would have been back on earth.

  ”No wonder I was so hungry. having gone without food for a day. Back on earth my wounds and the exhaustion, would have taken months to recover from. This TE is something else.”

  ”Yea you were knocked out for a full 7 sun cycles. You gobbled down 3 days worth of super berries, usually reserved for our guardians. You don’t have TE back in your universe? Not even a drop?” Geodude asked curiously”.

  ”no nothing, not that anyone knew of. Wait! Whar do you mean 7 sun cycles? I was knocked out for a week?”

  Geodude clapped himself mid hop on the head. “Ow yea a week! I always mix that up with days. So how do pokemon’s use moves then?”

  ”There aren’t any Pokemon. I don’t think my world had an Arceus. Probably had a God. Yknow seems to be a thing for each universe. As to why no mons.. we humans lived without TE but were far weaker. I assume Pokemon wouldn’t be able to live or exist without TE? From what I can tell, you seem to use a bit of it to shape your rock… skin. Without TE. It would crack right?” Carlos shared his observation of watching Geodude hopping around.

  Geodude plopped down, looked at his hand flexing it. Then he picked up a rock with each hand. One he molded the other cracked once he put pressure on it. “Sacred dragonite balls! You are right, this never even occurred to me!”

  Carlos watched the Geodude have a small change of perspective on how his own universe worked. Many rocks paid the price.

  ”So what is the deal with you guys and the slugma and magcargo? How did that come to be?” That question had burned in Carlos mind but he wanted a leveled response and he felt geodude was his best choice.

  ”Ow there was some deal between ol’ timer bosses in the past long before Golem and Maggy took over. No one even remembers but we work together in our duties and it’s worked so far. Besides, molten rock is some serious gourmet that i cannot begin to describe, that burning sensation akin to spicy is something else completely.”

  He dropped his rocks and began hopping again and it didn’t take long for them to arrive.

  The mountain was cracked in the middle and they came to a stop at the entrance of a ravine. The passage was wide enough to comfortably walk through and on each side two statues were carved out. On one side a non descript man towering high, on the other side a pikachu of the same size as the man each holding out their left hand/paw forward in a stopping motion. The pikachu statue had some very recognizable features like the bolt tail and it’s halmark ears but also some marked differences. It was sleek, in a predatory way. Looking up Carlos estimated each statue carved out of the rockside was at least a 200 feet high. It was giving him vertigo to look up.

  ”Done paying your respects?” Geodude asked. Carlos nodded. His arrival in this world had constantly hit him with the reality of a completely different and alien world to the one he was used to and this was just another such an event. The sheer magnitude of it all was overwhelming.

  Geodude led him into the ravine, a serene silence, with the exception of some humming. Carlos spotted a couple of hovering swords, double swords and a sword and shield, creating a constant hum that reminded him of monks chanting.

  Geodude gave them a respectful berth. Carlos followed, gave a small bow and hurried after Geodude.

  “What were those?” He asked.

  ”honedge, doublade and aegislash. But these are quite different from their manipulative kin. They stand sigil to the old honored one, lamenting the loss of the previous age and guardians of the dead, you would do well not to accidentally desecrate the site, lest you suffer their wrath. I saw it once, a terrible sight.”

  There was respect but also a tone of caution, awe and for the first time a hint of fear in Geodude’s demeanor. Carlos nodded silently and they traveled the rest of the trek in reverent silence. Carlos had a small cascade of memories trigger.

  It reminded Carlos of the walk he had made from the parking lot, to stonehenge many, many years ago. Everything about that walk had stood out to him. Thousands of years of rich history seeped into the soil, vibrant enough, he could feel it, a stirring, something still alive after all the millennia. And here walking on complete foreign soil he felt that same stirring.

  the Ravine winded on. Never giving more then a hundred paces of vision.

  Geodude came to a stop to a massive tombstone but Carlos had his mind elsewhere. The entire place was scarred with deep gashes. Broken boulders, cracks in either side of the ravine, webbing in all directions. Whatever happened here many decades ago, it must have been a battle of epic proportions. His eyes inevitably landed on the tombstone, surprised he could actually read it.

  “Here lies Reid, dear friend and legendary trainer with his buddy for life, Clancy the Pikachu, strongest of his kin. I dedicate this place to all my fallen brothers and sisters in arms.”

  ”Golem (dad)”, Carlos finally understood the emotion,

  “told me he saw the final battle Reid fought, when he himself was but a tiny rock of a geodude.”

  Geodude’s voice was reverent, a glint sparkled in his eyes. In the short time Carlos spend time with this Geodude, he always heard a touch of humor in Geodude’s voice. Giving the impression he didn’t take his life, all that serious. Not with this.

  “This trainer Reid had tracked an aspect of the ghost dragon. An aspect powerful enough to suppress the 3 big birds of the sky and Reid fought it, till it was gone. Him and his team paid for it with their lives, with the exception of his charizard who with the help of our leaders of that time, erected this tombstone. Had Reid failed. The ghost dragon would have been able to fully manifest and the battle of the end times, the usurping of our world would have occurred.”

  Geodude shrugs. “That’s how the old man describes it at least, how much of it is true I don’t know but he made me vow to tell the story as such, word for word.”

  Carlos wasn’t sure what to do with this information. From what he remembered. This reminded him of Red the trainer, wasn’t ash a retelling of red’s story? He wasn’t sure, he never read the manga, or at least he didn’t think he did.

  Now he was faced with the grave of someone real. Someone who fought a battle so great, it could have meant the end of the world. And from the looks of it. No human had ever been aware of that fact.

  Save for a bunch of crazed religious geodude line pokemon and their buddies from the slugma line.

  He didn’t voice that thought though, in respect for them undoubtedly saving his life and honoring him with food and hospitality, genuine altruism and what he began to understand, respect for all things living. He simply stood there. Absorbing a small piece of forgotten history of this world.

  Geodude tapped him and motioned for him to follow. Carlos was lead back out. Passed the chanting honedge and past the statues. A bit further down there was a small non-descript shrine.

  geodude casually knocked it over. Revealing a rotten but still functional chest. He pulled it apart and pulled out some wrappings of thick cloth moldy on the outside but surprisingly preserved, what was on the inside.

  He laid it open and Carlos couldn’t surpress his gasp. There lay an old ugly and stiff, from the decades laying in rotten wood, belt. Designed to hold 6 pokeballs. 3 on each side.

  He knew instantly who this had belonged to. Everything so far had led up to this. For a moment he understood why these geodudes and their crazed golem daddy. And maggy the magcargo. Acted like they did.

  He couldn’t describe what he felt holding the old belt. Quietly he replaced his current belt. Geodude carefully lifted another flap revealing 3 basic pokeballs. Red and white. They were still in decent shape some scratches but otherwise fully functional.

  and lastly what could only be a badly banged up pokedex. It was a lot bigger then a smart phone. Especially when you folded it out. He noted a strip of solar panels at the top of the dex that he placed in the sun. After a minute or so, He clicked it on and it whirred into life. Geodude remained quiet giving him time to gather his bearing with the device.

  Carlos had to admit. Something about the barebones design, it’s functionality, it’s fallout-esque interface. had him geeking out. Everything about this piece of hardware screamed dependable, durable and he couldn’t quite place why that felt awesome and refreshing. The thing was damaged beyond belief and still it worked in defiance of all that was unholy.

  “Thank you, this means a lot to me.” His voice cracked with emotion.

  Geodude waved him off. “Don’t be dramatic. im glad all of this is finally over. Do you know what I was doing when you sat on my face?” Carlos shook his head.

  ”my official job is… well was ‘guardian sentinel. Watcher of the prophecy. Basically i was told to keep watch and witness your arrival. That was my job for the last 13 summers.”

  Geodude gave him an expression like that was supposed to explain it all. He rolled his eyes as Carlos apparently drew a blank.

  ”Im a lazy bum but do you have any idea how boring that was? No one to talk to except the occasional pidgey or caterpie.”

  Geodude Sighed, “I may have embellished your story when I first told my rockflock. Partially because i was so done with standing guard.”

  Carlos burst out laughing, all the stress and tension that had built up came loose.

  ”So you decided to give fate a little hand?”

  Geodude did that cheeky ‘what can you do?’ Pose again.

  They looked at eachother for a few seconds , before Geodude broke the silence. “isn’t this the part where you ask me to be your pokemon?”

  Carlos chuckled, “no, for 3 reasons, first you are lazy, second you strike me as a pacifist, third you seem adamant about your laziness, which means, me getting you to train, is always going to be an uphill battle and we will both end up resenting each other.”

  Geodude rumbled a chuckle, “good I would have smacked you upside down if you had bothered. Pacifist or not im still a mon, ive got standards yknow?” He replied cheekily while winking.

  Geodude took a moment to think. “You are a pipsqueak when it comes to strength. I advise you to catch mon’s of your own level or lower. Most mon’s listen to wisdom backed by strength and experience. Since you have fighting and dark typing, you would be better off catching a mon with that sort of typing as a first partner.”

  Carlos nodded, “any advice on what sort of mon’s I can keep a lookout for?”

  Geodude thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “These forests have packs of Mightyena and troupes of Primeape. There is a constant feud between the two, Mightyena are not native to these mountains but they are tricky, tenacious bastards that know how to stay alive.”

  ”They often clash, this means that after their many skirmishes you have a straggler here or there as a lone survivor. These stragglers usually end up dead. Both these mon’s depend on a pack or troupe and finding such stragglers should lead to you finding mon’s willing to join you, if only for a decent meal and basic companionship.”

  ”You might be able to find a lone tyrogue or machop but those are rather solitary and prefer the hermit life. Furthermore there are most likely some skunky’s or honchcrows but those tend to be tricky little shits and maaaybe Nuzleaf but don’t know how they handle the cold of these mountains or you for that matter.”

  Carlos nodded along. He recognized mankey and by process of elimination assumed the hyena looking creatures he saw ripping a bear apart, were poochyena/mightyena’s, the rest, he’d never heard of before. “Gotta see if that pokedex has some more info” he thought while thinking things over. Ruminating on what to do.

  Geodude tapped him to draw his attention. “One last thing, id advise to stay to the forests and valleys making your way back to your kin. It’s an unwritten rule, the higher you go on any mountain, the more powerful mon’s you will encounter. Most prefer their privacy. Also the forests have the TE fruits which you are gonna need if you wish to survive.”

  Carlos listened attentively, making sure to commit it all to memory. This was valuable information.

  “alright Carlos thats all Ive got. Good luck Dude” he held out one of his hands and Carlos shook it. Geodude squeezed a tad bit to hard and Carlos had to muster a bit of resolve not to flinch. Geodude looked a bit smug. “Just makin sure you’re made o’the sterner stuff” he winked. He got up saluted Carlos and turned around and hopped back to his mountain. “Cya Dude! If you ever have a good story to tell, be sure to visit!” Carlos watched him hop off, till he was back to being alone.

  He sighed. One the one hand he was nervous but on the other… now that he had his bearings, a bit better prepared, he felt like he could do it. He started walking and it didn’t take him long to stumble on a tree that had those TE fruits on them. Well just one and it was too damn high for him to get. The branches didn’t look like they would support his weight. He took a while to think and grabbed his rope with the grappling hook and after a frustrating 15 minutes of whipping the rope to unhook the hook on the multitude of branches, he finally managed to snag the fruit.

  It fell into his hands and Carlos looked around but he was alone. “Huh so some things do come easy”, he knocked on wood just to be sure.

  While he was munching on the sickly sweet fruit he saw his normal/fighting TE, go from one third to two third. After he munched about half of the colossal fruit, he wrapped it in some cloth and put it in his pack for later, he took some of the hard jerky and water to wash the nauseating flavor away.

  He was keenly aware that he would need to eat this stuff if he wanted to survive. However it did little to stave off the feeling of an empty stomach.

  While he was taking a break he saw a collection of random small bug Pokemon, pidgey’s, rattata’s, ferret and squirel like pokemon, who for the most part ignored him. Their conversations weren’t very riveting either. “Food”. “smell?” Or “Bad smell”. It seemed that not all pokemon had humanlike intelligence.

  A huge black bird with a wing span of at least 20 feet and with a feathery wide rimmed top hat of all things, flew over the TE tree and glided past it. Carlos spotted the birds agitation at the empty tree but the bird didn’t spot Carlos, as Carlos make himself scarce below the canopy. and the bird kept flying, screeching it’s name “Honchcrow!”

  ”honch-crow…oooooow as in honcho and crow” Carlos groaned at the bad pun and wondered if it was considered a pun in this world as well.

  He was just wondering if he should perhaps make camp, till he heard some loud sounds of a tree crashing down and now that he was paying attention, screeches and howls.

  some of it he recognized as the sounds those hyena pokemon made and he decided to get closer. He quickly checked the wind direction and chose to circle around so he had the wind in his face.

  by the time he managed to get closer he was met with a brutal sight. A large troupe of mankey led by a few primeape’s, he counted 15+, where battling a much smaller group of mightyena’s and poochyena. The fight seemed heavily favored towards the primeape line, who primarily used pokemon moves with a reddish tint to it that seemed to hurt the mightyena’s badly when they got hit or sometimes straight up kill the smaller poochyena’s.

  The hyena pokemon retaliated mostly with attacks that had a white glow to them. The few cases where a younger poochyena used a dark glowing attack, the angry monkeys barely seemed to feel it.

  The only thing that kept the hyena mon’s in the fight, was their superior speed. The biggest ones seemed to create small shockwaves as they moved so fast, it looked like teleporting to Carlos. Just as the primeape troupe closed in for a final rush to kill them all off, they got ambushed by 2 other Mightyena packs.

  Carlos shivered, he hadn’t heard or seen their approach and their sneak attack landed with brutal efficiency. The fight lasted for a good ten minutes longer but by the end, although the primeape’s were outnumbered 2 to 1, their type advantage and their ludicrous tenacity, resulted in a draw. Which meant each Pokemon involved, was dead or bleeding out from multiple injuries.

  Carlos had witnessed the mutual slaughter, the absolute hatred these Mon’s had for one another, for whatever reason.

  Carlos didn’t take any chances, he made no illusions for himself. Even the runt of these litters could take him down before breakfast.

  After a few minutes when he was sure of his relative safety, he got up and approached. His system was quick to point out if a pokemon was dying or dead. He kept looking until his eyes fell on a small Mankey that, although unconscious and bleeding. Didn’t have the “dying” tag. He grabbed a pokeball and tapped the mankey and a red light dematerialized the Pokemon.

  His heart pounded and both his innate arceus system and pokedex pinged him with the info.

  The arceus system asked if he wanted to supply the mankey in pokeball-stasis. With his normal and fighting TE and he clicked yes. Instantly regretting it, as it sucked almost half of his max of both out of his body straight into the pokeball. The hunger in his stomach became unbearable.

  ”fuck! warm me next time”. He grumbled. But the silver lining was that his pokemon was now recovering.

  he kept looking around until he checked the last body of a poochyena. It showed him “unconscious” no bleeding or any other nasty stuff. “Beggars can’t be chosers” he muttered and grabbed his second pokeball and the poochyena de-materialized.

  The arceus system didn’t ask him to supply TE. Both his Pokemon showed up on his pokedex that he now had in front of him. It’s system noted them down as recovering.

  Carlos wasn’t sure what to think but the hunger, went from unbearable to absolute agony. He looked around. Fresh corpses all around. He sighed.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers” he grabbed a big Mightyena and tried, to the best of his abilities, to skin it down for its meat. The quiet was unsettling. He wondered constantly if another mightyena pack would show up and sneak him to death but no such thing happened.

  He started gathering wood and after a while, with his matches, he got a nice fire going. He made a spit and cut a sleek piece of the mightyena’s meat, roasting it. He took a bite, it was flavorless, stringy and dry. The only thing that it had going for it was that it wasn’t chewy or hard, It was tender. Carlos kept roasting slices of meat and horking it down while it slowly got dark.

  “Wellsssss Sssshaa! issee the foooolllz gotsss themselvesss killlld l’ndit!”

  Carlos looked up and didn’t see anything until a sleek black salamander 5 feet in length, with light purple eyes came into the light of the fire. It was the gleeful sadistic smug look it had, that put Carlos on edge, its maw snapped into a nearby dead poochyena taking a bite. Chomping down, a thin tongue licked its maw as it slithered around with break neck speed.

  ”Whaddds sssaaa yous tsink bosss? Landit. Disss beessssa da ssstarsss hewmonss?

  The mon that Carlos was now able to identify as a salandit, whatever that meant, spoke to the darkness. Carlos looked intently. The hairs on his neck stood up straight as he heard a heavy slithering and a huge Arbok came into the light.

  It had a dead mightyena in it’s maw and did what snakes did, swallowed it whole. It smacked its chops. It’s fangs dripping with poison or venom, gleaned in the campfire. It took all of Carlos resolve not to scream like a little girl. He was experienced enough to know the look Arbok gave him, was of a creature not shy to commit atrocities.

  ”AR we Don’t often get hew-mon AR visitorsss BOK, greetingss sstar-child”

  Carlos put all his effort into giving the Arbok a casual smirk. “Greetings to you, mighty serpent, news travels fast around these parts it seems.” He wasn’t going to show weakness. He casually brushed his jacket to the side to reveal his beat up pokeballs. Trying to bluff.

  The Arbok hackled and slithered way to fast for Carlos liking, closer until his massive head was behind him and the arbok’s maw was close enough to his ear, for Carlos to smell its rank breath and it whispered.

  “Ar i donts tsink a mankey and barking PPUP, BOK will do yyou any good. But worry not!! cautiousss one.AR Ifff I were here to eatss you I woulds usssse a fffoooolish Grimersss BOK lifffe, to purify yourrrrr body of itssss bllloodd. Shi hi hi~~”

  it did its serpent chuckle, casually scooping up a bigger poochyena and swallowing it whole. Carlos sighed in resignation.

  “Llucky forr yyou i happenss to know, even an exxxhumed humans corsppse givesss me upssset sssstomach”.

  “Eating your trainer didn’t sit well with you huh?” Carlos asked casually following it with a dark chuckle.

  Arbok’s head flicked a 180 degrees in a blip. It looked genuinely surprised for a hot second till it hackled what Carlos assumed was how it laughed. The Salandit joined in.

  “My, my thatsss a Ffunny things to ssay. Are you offering??”

  “No thanks, besides an upset stomach for you, i don’t think we would get much out of such a partnership.” The fact the Arceus system still didn’t even confirm this was an Arbok told him this Mon was somewhere at the same level as the fanatic Golem. Not a good sign.

  and that Salandit was lvl 15 so no good there either.

  ”Hghrm… a pragmatic one. Well’s can’t ssay I don’t approve ofs yours thinking. Goodsbye sstar child me anddddnmy minions will ttake our leave nnnow.”

  Carlos snapped out of a haze and looked around Dark-black cat-like pokemon with sneaky grins and sharp claws. Grimers and muks were just about done cleaning up or dragging all the dead bodies away.

  They left Carlos alone, the silence did nothing to calm his nerves.

  “Weakness fucking sucks” Carlos grumbled to himself. He was just about done being at the mercy of whatever he met here in the wild.