Chapter Text
“Flight CG 302 to Heathrow is now boarding group six.”
Tim stood up with a groan, which he took as a bad sign. If he was already sore from sitting in an uncomfortable airport seat for an hour, he didn’t want to think about how he would feel at the end of the trip. He reluctantly joined the line for boarding the plane and a mere ten minutes later he was once again sitting down, with this seat being his home for the next seven and a half hours. The one upside was that Tim had managed to book himself a window seat instead of the dreaded middle seat.
After the standard safety announcement by one of the flight attendants, the plane finally took off. Tim scrolled through the movie options on the screen in front of him but ended up just putting in his headphones to listen to his music when nothing appealed to him. In case there would be any crying kids on the flight, he’d bought earbuds that had the highest rating for noise cancelation. The flight attendants brought dinner not too long after that, and Tim was pleasantly surprised by the in-flight meal. It turned out that everything he’d heard about bad airline food wasn’t a universal rule.
After dinner had finished, the lights in the plane were dimmed and Tim tried to get himself comfortable in the seat to try to get some rest. He’d never gone on a flight that warranted sleeping on the plane before and hoped that he’d be able to fall asleep. The last thing he wanted to do was arrive in London dead on his feet. He’d booked his flight so that he’d have a full buffer day before the Pokemon International Championship started, but he also didn’t want to have to spend that entire day trying to fix his sleep schedule. He’d much rather have that day to explore, meet his fellow competitors, and get some last-minute practice in with his deck. Tim felt fairly confident with the Charizard deck that was in his backpack, but more practice never hurt.
Tim changed the music to something more quiet and soothing and closed his eyes. However, he had a hard time calming down enough to fall asleep as his thoughts kept flitting between different ideas of how the weekend would go. He didn’t have any illusions about winning the entire thing, but he hoped that he would at least make it to day two of the competition. If he was really lucky, maybe he would do well enough to end up on stream as one of the featured matches. That would be something to brag about to his friends back home. Though if Tim was being honest, that would probably earn him more confused looks than anything else.
With a slight smile, Tim finally drifted off to sleep with dreams full of shuffling cards.
Hours later, Tim’s awakening was much less calming as he awoke to a sudden lurch. At first, he tried to ignore the sudden turbulence and fall back to sleep, only for his sleep-addled brain to slowly realize that something was off. It took a second or two for him to realize what was wrong, namely that he was lying on his side. It didn’t immediately register given that’s how he normally slept, but it shouldn’t have been possible while sitting in an airplane seat.
With a confused grunt, Tim opened his eyes, only to immediately close them again in discomfort. Instead of the dimmed lights of the airplane cabin, there were bright fluorescent lights above him. He slowly tried opening them again and rolled over onto his back. The action was unexpectedly painful as he realized the surface he was lying on was much firmer than even the most uncomfortable airline seat should be. The movement also caused his earbuds to pop out, revealing that there were the sounds of yelling around him.
“-aller!”
“-one get the gym leader!”
“And the nurse!”
The shouting jolted him fully awake. Tim tried to sit up, only for an older woman to appear above him with a worried look on her face. “Don’t move dear. Let’s get you checked out and make sure nothing is broken from your fall.”
If Tim hadn’t already been starting to panic, the woman’s words would have pushed him over. “Fall?” He almost sat up but managed to stop himself in case she was right. He didn’t feel hurt, but something bad had happened while he’d been sleeping and he had no idea what. “What happened to the plane?”
The woman’s concerned face took on a twinge of uncertainty at Tim’s question. After a second of hesitation, she said, “I’m sure your plane is fine dear. You just… well, someone else can explain things better than me. The nurse will be here in a jiffy so just hold tight.” She gave Tim another slightly strained smile before backing away.
“Wait!” He called, but she didn’t stop and slipped out of his line of sight. Tim wanted to follow her, but given what she had said, he was still hesitant to move. Nothing hurt too bad and he was pretty sure that he could wiggle his fingers and toes, but he had heard that sometimes you could get so hurt that you couldn’t feel it. Or maybe that was just for burns?
To try to put that thought out of his mind, Tim turned his attention upward again and found the source of the bright lights that he’d seen after waking up. The sky was almost completely hidden by giant trees that loomed above him with massive branches. There was no break in the branches, which further confused Tim about how he’d gotten here, but he was too distracted by what was on the branches to think about that. While it should have been dark given how the branches were blocking out the sun, the area was lit up by massive luminous mushrooms. Tim narrowed his eyes to try to look closer at the impossible mushrooms only to get distracted when something flitted at the edge of his vision.
Was that…?
Before Tim could take a closer look at the small shape that had run across the branches, he heard another woman’s voice, though she sounded much younger. She also sounded more than a little annoyed. “You all just let him lie in the dirt?!” There were some half-hearted excuses that were swiftly cut off. “I don’t want to hear it! Clear out!”
There were more noises around Tim as the onlookers left until the woman finally entered his field of view. She looked about the same age as him, and notably, she was wearing what was clearly a Nurse Joy cosplay, making him wonder if he had somehow arrived at the Pokemon competition after all. “I’m so sorry about them. Living here gives people odd ideas about helping and debts…” She trailed off and winced. “Now I’m doing it. How do you feel? Does anything hurt?”
“I feel fine, just sore. Somehow.” Tim answered. He decided that he’d had enough of lying on the ground and used his arms to sit up slightly. “Please, can you tell me what’s going on?”
The Nurse Joy cosplayer pursed her lips. “I’m not the one who should be doing this, but I can’t leave you hanging. Tell me, do you know what a Faller is?”
Tim blinked at the odd question then slowly shook his head. “It sounds… familiar, but no.”
“Do you know what Pokemon are?”
“I mean, yeah, I was going to a competition for Pokemon, but what does that have to do w-” Tim cut himself off when the cosplayer reached behind her back and gently pushed something that had been hiding behind her long skirt. He wanted to call what came out from behind her as a prop for her cosplay, but something about it made it impossible to deny that it was a living creature. Standing two feet tall, its body was half white and half dark purple, and there were two horns coming out of its head that looked somewhat like pigtails. It took Tim a second to place the name of it, but when he did, he managed to stammer, “An… Indeedee?”
The Pokemon dipped its body down slightly in what looked almost like a curtsey. Baffled, Tim turned back to the cosplayer and found that she was giving him a sad smile. “Welcome to Galar.”
“Galar? The… Pokemon region?” Tim managed. When the nurse nodded, Tim hesitated a second and then pinched himself hard. He winced at the pain and sat dumbly in the dirt when he didn’t wake up from the odd dream.
The nurse gave Tim another small smile and she reached out her arm to help him up. “Let's get you cleaned up at least and we can figure out wha-”
“Oh good, our Faller is up. That makes things easier.”
A young man’s voice interrupted the nurse, and both of them turned toward the speaker. He had weirdly poofy white hair and his clothes were even odder as they were covered with alternating stripes of blue and pink. He looked vaguely familiar, but Tim couldn’t place him. Feeling lost, Tim looked up at the nurse and found that she was giving the newcomer a frosty look. “So good of you to join us, Gym Leader Bede.”
Tim had heard his name before and while he wasn’t sure, he thought he remembered him being one of the rivals in Sword and Shield. At least he thought that was the case. It would have been impossible to not know Marnie given her infamy in the TCG, but the Bede card must have been not nearly as good since Tim couldn’t even remember what it did off the top of his head. The gym leader shrugged in response to the nurse’s comment. “I was busy. It seems you have things in hand anyway.” He turned his gaze toward Tim, who got the impression that he was being looked down on in every sense of the word. “Do you know what a Pokemon is?”
“Yeah, but-” Tim managed but was quickly cut off again by Bede snapping his fingers.
“Excellent! Then we can wrap this up quickly. How do you feel about the Ralts line?”
Tim slowly staggered to his feet on his own as he tried to think about how to answer the abrupt question. The nurse was so busy glaring at Bede that she had apparently forgotten about helping Tim up. “They’re… strong?” He finally said. Gardevoir decks had lost a decent number of tools with the recent rotation, but the archetype still seemed competitive.
That earned Tim the slightest of smiles from Bede. “An acceptable answer. As it happens I currently have some Ralts eggs that are soon to hatch. I’ll give you one to get you started as a trainer. If you’re sufficiently skilled, you might manage to make it to Kabu before this year’s circuit ends.”
It took Tim several seconds to catch up with what Bede had said. When he did, he quickly waved his hands in front of him. “Woah, hold on. What? I don’t want to be a Pokemon trainer. I don’t even know what’s going on!”
Bede’s smile vanished instantly and was replaced by a look of utmost bafflement. When Tim looked over at the nurse for support, he found that even she was giving him a mildly confused stare. She quickly recovered and returned to glaring at Bede. “Gym Leader Bede! You cannot simply give him a Pokemon egg and be absolved from your responsibilities!”
Bede didn’t answer for a couple of seconds, taking time to run his hand through his hair in clear annoyance. “Look. I have a match starting soon. Bring him to the Center and I’ll help deal with it later.”
The nurse’s glare only grew in intensity. “Fine. But you’re not off the hook!” Bede gave an annoyed shake of his head before smartly turning on his heels to start heading toward the large stadium-looking building that was at the end of the road. Tim and the nurse watched him go for several seconds before the nurse turned her attention back to Tim and her expression instantly softened. “I’m so sorry about him. Well, for everything really. I haven’t even asked your name yet.”
“It’s Tim. And I don’t care, just can you please explain what’s going on?”
The nurse gave him a comforting smile. “Of course, Tim. Why don’t we go back to the Pokemon Center and I’ll try to explain on the way?” Tim thought he heard her mutter something under her breath about that being Bede’s responsibility but ignored that and gave her a nod. With the nurse and Indeedee leading the way a half step ahead, the three of them began walking down the dirt path away from the stadium. The nurse was silent for several long seconds before she shook her head slightly. “I’m afraid I don’t really know how to explain it. You’re not in your own world any longer, but you probably gathered that from the,” she paused for a second before finishing her sentence. “Pokemon.”
Tim nodded slowly. “Yeah, but… how? Why?”
The nurse shrugged helplessly. “Maybe someone knows, but I’ve never heard an explanation. Just that it’s possible, and well, it happens often enough that there’s a term for it. Fallers.”
Not standing a chance at being able to understand how he had gone on an interdimensional jaunt, Tim’s mind moved to a much more immediate concern. “And what happens to… Fallers?” He asked with more than a little trepidation. He was pretty sure that if someone from another dimension was brought to his world, they’d be shipped off to some government black site, never to be seen again.
“Nothing bad,” the nurse quickly said with a reassuring smile, and Tim let himself relax marginally. “Usually… well, usually they’re given a Pokemon and then go on a journey. The ones that are already familiar with Pokemon at least.” She gave him an appraising look. “I’ll be honest, I think you’re one of the few Fallers I’ve heard of that hasn’t jumped at the chance.”
Feeling a bit defensive, Tim said, “I like Pokemon. Just not the same way that other people do, I guess.” He looked down at Indeedee curiously as he spoke, and something must have alerted the psychic type to the attention it was getting since it turned to shyly look back at him. “I mean, I guess I’m not fully against the idea, but…”
When he trailed off, the nurse quickly spoke up. “Oh no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like I was pressuring you or anything!”
“No, it’s fine, it’s just… a lot.”
She relaxed and gave Tim a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure it is.” She then made a show of looking around to see if anyone else was nearby before her smile took on a more playful note. In a mock-whisper, she added, “It’s actually a bit refreshing to meet someone, Faller or not, that doesn’t have Pokemon battles as the main thing on their mind.”
Tim weakly returned her smile. “I guess you would have a different opinion on battling than most people.”
The nurse considered his statement for a few seconds. “Yes and no. I still enjoy watching a match where everyone is giving it their all on the pitch, and I would never discourage someone, Pokemon or human, from following their dreams. But being a gym challenger is far from the safest occupation, and I’m much more aware of that than most.” Her expression had turned serious as she spoke, but her smile returned as she halted in front of a large building with a red roof. “Speaking of, here we are. Let’s go in and get you settled.”
The nurse pushed open the somewhat intricate-looking double doors and gestured Tim forward. He paused for a second, momentarily blinded by the bright inside lights, and then stepped inside. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the room looked similar to the waiting room of a hospital ER. The room’s only occupant was a teenage girl sitting behind the reception desk who perked up when they entered. “Welcome back Nurse Joy!” The receptionist said, then gave Tim a curious look. “Is he…?”
The entire time that they’d been talking, Tim had been uncertain about asking for the nurse’s name. Though it had been many years since he’d watched the show as a kid, he remembered that all of the nurses had pink hair and were called Joy, but that was something he’d just written off as a way to make things easier for kids. To hear that was really the case was incredibly weird and somehow as unnerving as anything else that he’d seen. Unaware of Tim’s minor crisis, Joy stepped forward and smiled lightly. “Yes, this is Tim. Tim, this is Ellie, my intern here at the Center.”
Ellie gave Tim a shy smile, which he hesitantly returned. Despite everything, he wanted to be polite and said, “It’s nice to meet you.”
Her smile grew slightly and she opened her mouth, but Joy quickly cut her off. “Let’s hold off on any questions for now. Why don’t you make sure that there’s a room ready for Tim to use? He’ll be staying with us for a while, I think.” While Ellie snapped her mouth shut and reluctantly stood to go down one of the room’s adjoining hallways, Joy turned back to Tim looking apologetic. “If that’s alright with you. I don’t want to assume anything.”
“It’s… fine,” Tim managed. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to go. Right?” Even though he had a feeling he knew what the answer would be, he couldn’t help but have a hopeful twinge to his question.
“I’m sure the league would be happy to help you if you do want to go somewhere else, but in terms of going back to your world… I’m sorry.”
Tim hung his head. He’d wanted a fun weekend of competition and meeting other people. There was always the possibility of something going wrong with international travel, but permanently ending up in another world was more than what was imaginable. He slowly looked back up at Joy and almost flinched at the overwhelming sadness and pity he saw in her eyes. “Can I… go lie down for a bit?”
“Of course,” Joy said kindly. “Let’s see what Ellie set up for you and you can rest.”
Tim shuffled after Joy as she led him down the hallway that Ellie had gone down. The Center’s intern was just leaving one of the rooms as they entered, and she quickly backed up to clear the doorway. “All ready for you!” She cheerfully said, though her expression drooped with the weak ‘thanks’ that Tim gave. He barely noticed the small Cleffa standing at her side as he stepped inside the room.
The room turned out to be practically identical to almost every hotel room Tim had ever stayed in, with a bed, a small TV, an attached bathroom, and practically nothing else. “You get some rest and we’ll have dinner for you when you’re hungry,” Joy said, then quietly closed the door before Tim could mutter another thanks.
Alone, Tim flopped back on the bed. Belatedly, he remembered that his back was probably covered in dirt from when he’d been lying on the ground but couldn’t bring himself to care. He had expected to be stuck lying there with his thoughts, but in the end, he was too overwhelmed and mentally exhausted to do anything but drift off to sleep.
When Tim woke up a few hours later, he felt… well, not better, but refreshed. While it was still impossible to process what had happened, he could at least start thinking about how he should approach things. But, as he was reminded by his rumbling stomach, he needed food first. Tim rolled out of bed and slowly opened the door to head back out into the hallway.
Joy had replaced Ellie behind the main desk and she sat up when she noticed him reenter the lobby. “Hi Tim, how are you feeling?” she asked with a cautious, yet friendly, smile.
“Better. I think,” Tim said with a slight shrug. Joy nodded affably, and Tim tried to think of something else to say, only for his stomach to loudly growl again. When the nurse giggled lightly, Tim flushed. “Uh, did you mention dinner before?”
“Of course,” Joy answered, immediately regaining her composure and pointing down the hallway on the other side of the lobby. “There’s a small cafeteria down there. Do you like curry? Indeedee makes a brilliant pot.”
Tim couldn’t help but chuckle. “Is it a Spicy Seasoned Curry?” Joy tilted her head slightly at the question, and Tim quickly continued before she could ask. “Sorry, just a dumb joke. Curry sounds great.”
While she still looked a little confused, Joy pressed on. “Great! Why don’t you take a seat down there and Indeedee will bring a plate out for you right away.”
After giving Joy a quick thanks, Tim followed her directions to come into a small cafeteria that was completely unoccupied. As he sat down in the seat closest to the entrance, he wondered where all of the trainers were. It had been a long time since he’d watched the show or played the games, but he’d always gotten the impression that Pokemon Centers were jam-packed with trainers on any given day. He wondered if he’d ended up in some backwater town. The dirt roads certainly gave credence to the idea, but it didn’t quite square with the presence of a gym leader and a massive stadium.
He was still ruminating on the question when Indeedee came into the room carrying a tray that looked much bigger than the short Pokemon should be handling. Tim was halfway up in his seat to help it when he noticed that Indeedee wasn’t actually carrying the tray, it was floating in the air a few inches ahead of the Pokemon. Surprised by the casual display, Tim just stayed in place as Indeedee walked the last couple of feet toward him and lightly placed the tray on the table.
After delivering the tray of food, the Pokemon took a step back and looked at Tim with what he thought was curiosity. He belatedly realized he was still mostly out of his seat, and sat back down. “Uh, thanks.” Indeedee gave Tim another approximation of a curtsey before turning around and heading back through the door it had come from.
Still a bit shocked at having seen psychic powers, Tim finally turned his attention to the tray of food that had been brought out. As Joy had said, the tray was mostly taken up by a large plate of curry, but what drew Tim’s attention was the glass filled with an unusually bright blue beverage. He gave it a somewhat suspicious look until he noticed that there was a helpful note behind the glass labeled ‘Rawst Berry Juice.’ A tentative sip revealed that the juice was a little bitter but not overpoweringly so, and still tasty. The curry was likewise delicious, and while it was a bit spicier than his usual preference, he felt like that was probably his own fault.
One plate of curry later, Tim was surprised to find that he was feeling pretty decent. He was still more than a bit overwhelmed by suddenly finding himself in the Pokemon world, but he could at least start thinking about what he should do about it. The fact that people arriving, but not leaving, the world was a known quantity meant that he was likely stuck. He had a feeling that his unfinished math major wouldn’t do him much good given the existence of incredibly intelligent Pokemon, or even ones that could live in machines.
Which meant that he needed to do something else.
While the easy answer was to become a Pokemon trainer, practically nothing about the idea appealed to him. Planning and adapting for battles was the only thing that seemed like it would be interesting, but without a large roster of Pokemon, something else he didn’t think he wanted, his options there would be limited. He thought for a bit longer before realizing he’d completely skipped over something obvious. He quickly bused his tray of dishes and headed back to the Center’s lobby.
Joy spoke up the moment Tim reentered the room. “How was your meal?”
Tim had been ready to ask his question and was a bit thrown off by receiving one. “Really good. Can you thank Indeedee for me?”
“Of course, I’m so glad to hear that.”
“Thanks. Uh, are there any card shops in… town?” As he spoke, Tim belatedly realized he didn’t even know the name of where he had ended up.
“Card shop?” Joy asked with a tilt of her head. “Do you mean like greeting cards?”
“No, like trading cards.”
“Oh! Trainer league cards? I think people sometimes trade those, but I don’t think there’s any shops for them.”
Tim got an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach that he was pretty sure wasn’t the curry settling badly. “I mean cards that you use for a game. You know, buying cards to build a deck and play against someone else’s?”
Tim’s feeling only got worse as Joy hummed thoughtfully for a few seconds. Eventually, she shook her head slightly and gave him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything like that. I know a few card games with a deck, but nothing where you build it.” When Tim winced, she looked even more concerned. “Why do you ask?”
Tim sighed and shrugged as the feeling of despondence returned. “I was looking for something familiar to what I know. Other people play the games or watch the show, but the card game has always been what interested me the most about Pokemon. That’s the competition I was on my way to when I ended up here.” He punctuated his sentence by vaguely gesturing around the Center.
“I see,” Joy said thoughtfully. “Could you show me? I’m sure I could find some playing cards, or even notecards, that you could write on.”
Tim paused and considered. He was confident in his ability to teach the card game, since it wasn’t a terribly difficult one to learn. The toughest part of making what were essentially proxies would be remembering cards well enough to be able to write them up given the amount of text and exact numbers on each card. Tim doubted that he would have been able to faithfully recreate cards at any other time, but with all the playtesting he’d been doing over the previous month while preparing for EUIC, he thought he had a chance.
“I guess I can give it a try,” he eventually said.
Joy smiled brightly and practically jumped out of her seat. “I’ll find some notecards and a pen for you right away!” She turned to go into the Center’s backroom behind the front desk but paused in the doorway to look back at Tim. “Do you need anything else for your game?”
“We don’t need them, but dice if you have them. Six siders would be ideal but anything works.”
Joy gave him a quick nod and bustled into the backroom to begin her search. While she was gone, Tim sat down in one of the chairs in the lobby and slowly began to get excited by the idea. For how much he knew the Pokemon world revolved around, well, Pokemon, it was shocking to find out that they didn’t have a card game for the creatures. Sure, he doubted most people would find it as exciting as battling, but he was sure that there would still be people who would latch onto a game of strategy. Plus, he was sure that considering the more personal relationship people here had to have with Pokemon, it would give them an even stronger attachment to the game than what people at home had.
A few minutes later, Joy bustled back into the lobby with her arms laden with supplies. Tim gave her a grateful thanks and began to get to work, grabbing a pen and writing on the top of the first notecard.
Charizard ex.