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Siarl felt like he was tumbling through space. This was a weird dream that he was having. He felt his stomach lurch before finally everything went black again. Siarl awoke to the sound of a rooster crowing. He slowly got up and looked around at the cornfield he was lying in. This was odd, his family didn’t grow corn, where could he be?
He stood up and began walking around and shouting for his family, “Mom? Dad? Vidar? Anyone?” He kept walking around the field before suddenly bumping into an older looking boy with red hair in an afro who was running through. The impact knocked him onto the ground.
“Whoops, sorry about that kid, didn’t see you there,” he said awkwardly as he offered his hand to pull Siarl back up to his feet. “Name’s Flint, what’s yours?” he asked.
“Siarl, nice to meet you Flint,” he replied as he dusted himself off.
“That accent, you must be from Galar. How are you enjoying your time in Sinnoh?” Flint asked excitedly as Siarl looked at him confused.
“What? I don’t know what that is,” Siarl scratched his head as he tried to figure out what Galar and Sinnoh are. “I’m from Scotland, though I don’t know what this place is.”
“Strange, I could have sworn… Anyway, you wanna battle?”
“Battle? What do you mean?” Siarl asked as he nervously held his wand against his side in case of an attack.
Flint reached into his belt and pulled out a Pokeball. “Monferno, I choose you.” He threw out the Pokeball and Monferno popped out with a cry.
“What kind of magical creature is that, and where did it come from?” Siarl asked, stunned as he took a step back.
“You’re kidding right…. How do you not know what a Pokemon is? What planet are you from?”
“Earth, same as you I’m assuming.”
“Monferno return.” Flint said with a disappointed sigh as the Monferno disappeared back into its Pokeball. “Man, and you got me all amped up too.”
“Sorry, I just don’t really know what you’re talking about,” Siarl shrugged as he kept looking around, “Where exactly are we?” Suddenly the two boys heard the sound of a woman screaming and suddenly they were both on the ground as the woman had fallen on top of them from the sky. She quickly got up and looked at them in a panic.
“Je suis désolé, vous allez bien?” She asked nervously as she saw the two boys get up. She was a blonde who was wearing very tattered clothing.
“Sorry, ma’am, I don’t speak French. Do you speak english?” Siarl asked politely as he dusted himself off once more.
“Oui, Sorry about what happened, are you two all right?” She asked again now that they can understand her.
“Not the first time someone fell on top of me,” Siarl joked, trying to play off the pain he felt from it.
“Owww, that really hurt!” Flint said finally as he rubbed his back.
“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened. One moment I was scrubbing the floors and the next moment I was flying through the air.” The girl said.
“Happens to the best of us,” Siarl chuckled nervously. “What happened to your robes?”
“Oh, that, it’s nothing, just my stepmom getting angry at me again. No big deal.” She said as she grabbed the hem of her robes and pulled it in towards her.
“Reparo.” Siarl pointed his wand out to the blonde girl’s robes and suddenly, the tatters repaired themselves and her dress appeared good as new.
“Are you a fairy?” the blonde girl asked bewildered. Siarl didn’t respond though, he just stared off into the distance as he waited for the Ministry to arrive because of his usage of underage magic. He was confused when nobody arrived.
“Whatcha looking at?” Flint asked as he squinted at him.
“They’re not arriving?” Siarl asked with a stunned expression. “How can that be?” He swished his wand. “Lumos,” his wand tip became illuminated as he hoped for a Ministry Official to arrive. When nobody came his movements became more desperate. “Incendio” He shot a large column of flame out into the air which caused both the blonde girl and Flint to dive down.
“Siarl? What exactly are you doing, and why did your stick shoot out fire?” Flint asked nervously as Siarl put down the wand with a disappointed sigh.
“I was trying to get someone to take us home, but… I don’t think they’re gonna come,” he said with a sigh, “To answer your earlier question miss…”
“Cinderella, please just call me Cinderella.” The blonde said kindly.
“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Cinderella. I am not a fairy, though I can see why you would think I was,” Siarl responded with a chuckle, “and Flint, this isn’t a stick, it’s my wand.”
“Oh, so you’re a wizard then?” asked Flint a little mockingly.
“Yeah, well, at least on my Mum’s side. Dad’s a muggle, er… meaning non-wizard. It’s a long story,” Siarl said as he began walking off, “Anyway, we’re probably gonna need to keep moving if we want any hope of finding a way out of here.”
They kept walking and talking about where they came from originally. “Do you have any of those Pokémon with you now?” Cinderella asked intrigued.
“Yep, I’ve got my team with me right now,” Flint said with a smile, “Wanna see a demonstration?”
“Sure. That would be lovely,” Cinderella responded. Flint raised a Pokeball and threw down his Monferno.
“Oh, it’s the monkey again.” Siarl said as Cinderella approached it.
“Hello, how are you doing?” Cinderella spoke to the pokemon.
“Fern-Ferno-Mon” The Pokemon responded.
“That's nice to hear.” Cinderella smiled as if she could understand it. The two boys looked at her confused as she held a full fledged conversation with Flint’s Monferno.
“So, you understand what he’s saying?” asked Flint, scratching his head.
“You don’t? I guess Pokemon are a lot more similar to animals than humans.” she said with a shrug.
“So you can talk to animals. Interesting,” Siarl replied as they kept walking.
“Hmm? Oh, yes I can. I think we might be getting to the end of this corn field,” Cinderella replied as they found themselves on the edge of a bridge leading to a city. The trio begin crossing to see if they can find help on the other side. What they didn’t know was that under the entrance of the bridge was a sensor.
Agent Marlo was sitting in her office. She was analyzing the computer screen. The Eastern bridge had detected three people crossing. What was strange, was each of them also triggered the same alarm. Entry 1: Male, Age 14, 486172727920506f74746572. Entry 2: Male, Age 16, 506f6bc3a96d6f6e. Entry 3: Female, Age 19, 43696e646572656c6c61.
She went to grab her phone. “Mr. President, I just picked up 3 temporal disturbances coming in from the Old City. It appears to be three teenagers, all unrelated. How should I proceed?”
“Welcome them to the city yourself and monitor them up close for now. We don’t know if they are a threat yet, and they are still very young.”
“As you wish Mr. President. They should be entering New Lafayette now.” She adjusted her gloves and rushed down from her 7th floor office.
The trio had arrived on the other side of the bridge and began walking through the streets when they spotted an ice cream parlor.
“Man, if only we had money. I want ice cream now.” Siarl sighed as he looked longingly at the cold ice cream.
“Sorry Siarl, we’re gonna have to keep moving till we can figure out where we are.” Cinderella responded as she kept pressing on.
As they walked, a black car pulled up towards them and stopped. The door opened and a blonde woman in a black suit stepped out. “Excellent. The three of you haven’t gone too far inside the city before I got to you. What are your names?”
“Yo, uhh who’s the lady in the suit?” Flint asked as he backed away nervously.
“My apologies if my appearance is intimidating. My name is Marlo, I’m here to welcome you to New Lafayette.” She extended a gloved hand to the three of them.
“Well, you know what would make me feel welcome?” asked Siarl with a sly smile.
Siarl ate his ice cream cone with a giggle as the trio were riding in Agent Marlo’s car the other two had gotten ice creams of their own seeing as they were already there.
Cinderella began speaking,“So you’re saying we’re from different…?”
“Timelines, that is correct. As for how you three arrived at this one, I was hoping you could shed some light on it.”
“I kinda just woke up here. Didn’t realize anything was strange until I bumped into Siarl,” Flint said with a shrug.
“Same thing but backwards for me,” Siarl said, “Thought I had accidentally ended up in the neighbor’s farm.”
“I… fell… Right on top of the two of them.” Siarl saw that Cinderella rubbed her right shoulder out of embarrassment.
“It’s ok, it wasn’t your fault.” Siarl said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“Oh, right. Yeah, you’re right.” She smiled, but didn’t feel reassured. Siarl didn’t notice this and went back to his ice cream. Marlo saw this in the mirror and knew she’d have to discuss this further in private.
“We are almost at the apartment you’ll be staying in.” Marlo said as she pulled into a parking lot. “Rest up, there. Siarl, Flint, you two will begin school tomorrow. Cinderella, I’ll help you find somewhere to work.”
“School? What do you mean school?” Flint asked terrified suddenly.
“Well, your education needs to continue doesn’t it? Therefore, I have already filled out the paperwork to enroll you into New Lafayette High. Oh, but you will need to take a math placement exam to make sure you don’t retread old material.” Marlo said as she parked the car.
“Hmmm, how much is what we learned in Middle school necessary on this exam?” Siarl asked.
“I’m guessing you had a different middle school experience than normal?”
“You could say that, yes.” He nodded. “My dad homeschooled me some things though.”
“Good luck you two!” She smiled as she handed them their tests and pencils.
The two boys sat down and performed their tests, Flint having a much harder time of it than Siarl was, but both boys were definitely struggling with some of the later concepts. Cinderella on the other hand was trying out the new phone device that Marlo had given her.
Through playing around on the phone a bit, she discovered Instagram. She asked Marlo who was rather eager to show her how the app worked. She created her account and decided to try posting a selfie like everyone else did. She captioned it with a little hello and set her phone down in order to do some cooking.
Queen Grimhilde was relaxing on her balcony. She had adjusted well to this future she found herself in. She was the head of a famous modeling agency and she had millions of followers on instagram. She took a glass of Rosé wine and took a selfie of herself as she drank from it. She smiled as she posted the selfie to her insta.
“Magic mirror in my hand, who’s the fairest in all the land?” She finished typing up her caption and watched as thousands of commenters rushed to adore her. She smiled as she scrolled down the comment section to see all sorts of accounts replying with “You”, “Slay Queen”, or “Preach”.
However, there was one response among them that stuck out like a sore thumb. Some random account replying with the name “Cinderella” and a link to another post. “Just who is this Cinderella?” She asked herself as she clicked on the link. When she saw the post she sighed with relief. Her post had only gotten about 20 likes and she didn't even look like she was trying to look good. She smiled to herself. That account was just trying to promote a new user, nothing to worry about. She put down her phone and just relaxed as the sun shined down on her.