Chapter Text
Authors Note - Chapter One.
This will usually be at the end of the chapters, but I wanted to ensure that I put this in first. (See footer for upload frequency as the story is prewritten)
This is a grounded Pokémon story focused on survival rather than power fantasy.
Nash isn’t a chosen one. There’s no hidden destiny and no master plan, just bad luck, no money, and the need to keep going anyway.
Progress is slow and every choice carries risk. Pokémon are powerful companions, but they don’t fix structural problems like debt, housing, or burnout. They only change how those problems are faced.
Thanks for your time, lets get to it.
CHAPTER ONE START
The sky was overcast, and I swear the clouds were threatening me. I was just waiting for it to rain. Because the world would kick me when I was down.
I wasn't about to hand the world a straight line like 'could be worse.'
I knew it would take it as a goddamned challenge.
The slight caw overhead brought my attention up to the flock of Pidove and Tranquill that were turning south back towards Mistralton City. I didn't blame them. I was already regretting my decision to go north instead of east or south. At the time, it hadn't seemed to matter.
Oh, everyone has the thought.
Pokémon's wonderful! I'd love to be there!
Ever heard the old joke?
Would you like to live in your favourite fictional universe?
Star Trek, yes.
Pokémon, yes.
Dungeons and Dragons, yes.
Warhammer 40k, fuck no.
Well, jokes on me now.
Because I'd take Warhammer 40k over this.
At least the Tyranids had the common damned courtesy to make it quick. I swear, if it got me out of here, I’d fist fight a lictor buck ass naked.
Six months.
I'd been here six months, and it had all been downhill.
Couldn't hide my arrival; it flashed into existence right in front of a Pokémon Centre. In nothing but my jammies, a tub of ice cream, and a spoon firmly in hand from my midnight fridge raid. The police officer who'd just stepped out looked very freaked out seeing me; that may have been one of the few bright spots so far.
Then, of course, came my panic attack at realising that 'oh shit, oh shit that's a Growlithe.' Then my brain went into overdrive, cataloguing all the different, supposedly imaginary, creatures around me. I thought I must be having a mental breakdown or a psychotic break.
Stress from work. Dad dead. Died a couple of years back, didn't ever really deal with my feelings on that. Just jammed them down. The current economic crisis. Then, apparently, I used up all my brains bandwidth because I passed out.
I woke up two days later and was shuffled almost immediately into a meeting with local law enforcement. Which quickly became a meeting with the Unovan Bureau of Investigation. Then I got handballed again and made to wait four days under, admittedly quite polite, house arrest.
After that came the meeting with the Department of Unovan Security. Which had been more like twelve meetings, including a full brain scan by an actual Psychic with the help of their partner Pokémon called Reuniclus.
Which freaked me right the hell out.
But I was not given the chance to refuse.
According to the DUS and the lawyer I had been assigned, I was currently a 'threat to the continued safety of Unova.' As such, they waived the normal protocols forbidding psychic interrogation for cases less than murder. They'd only done it once. Apparently, doing so was extremely dangerous to the person doing the brain scan thing.
I was assured I was in no danger.
Still not sure, I believed that.
The actual Psychic was a nice enough guy. We talked, waiting for the medical professional to come in before he could start. Apparently, the other reason this wasn't used more often was that someone with a disciplined enough mind could actually create false memories for them to find. Which is why psychic testimony on anything could only be used as circumstantial evidence at best, legally speaking.
Because, of course, that was a thing.
Also terrifying.
They were mildly disturbed by what they pulled out of my mind and even more frustrated. I didn't blame them. I barely touched Pokémon as a game series in the last ten years, minus a small shot at Sun and Moon through an emulator, and even then, I wasn't really paying attention. Just something for my hands to do while I listened to an audiobook. I hadn't even seen an episode of the anime since what I was fairly certain was pre-2005.
I took some malicious joy in their suffering.
Giovanni, the leader of Team Rocket, would have been useful information if it hadn't been found out almost fifteen years ago and halfway around the world.
My meta-knowledge from the games was even more frustrating for them. Given that I had no concept of the timeline and who the bad guys were, in most cases.
Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza would fight at some point due to some crazy people and environmentalist reasons. There may or may not be a meteor and an alien involved.
Some guy would summon Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina at some point for reasons I didn't remember at a place I didn't know. I was also uncertain if he had any actual control over the situation or not.
Everything else they got out of me was stuff I learned from cultural osmosis or because a friend of mine played every Pokémon game religiously.
Someone somewhere was an arsehole and a bad father. While his adoptive child N, his real name started with Natural, not sure what the rest was, but I knew it was stupid, was probably an actual moron. N was, possibly, the Hero of Ideals or maybe Truth.
Some weird guy with red hair who was very obviously unstable was going to kill a whole bunch of people using an 'ultimate weapon' of some kind. Also, there was an actual immortal running around.
That one made people sit up and take notice.
Finally, some stick lady that people were relentlessly thirsty for was obsessed with Ultra Beasts and also possibly a contestant for worst parent in the world.
I was left alone for a few days after that.
Then my case officer with the DUS thanked me for my time. Like I was given a choice in that matter. Then handballed off to the Unovan Department of Immigration to sort out. My state-appointed lawyer was moved out, and a new one moved in. It was, mostly, a smooth process overall.
Apparently, now that they were sure I was not a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, I had access to more information. I was what they called a Faller, apparently, people randomly turning up while rare was not unheard of. Though it was certainly more common in other parts of the world. They also usually moved across time, not dimensions.
Still, there was an actual form I had to fill out for it; the guy handing it to me was almost unnervingly giddy. Like he'd been waiting for his whole life since finding out this form existed to hand it to someone.
Glad to help.
I think.
Weirdo.
It took three weeks on top to get my paperwork sorted out. Thankfully, while cross-dimensional asylum was apparently a nightmare of paperwork, most of the information they needed was already on file. I was granted a limited Asylum-Visa to Unova, valid for the next three years, after which I would need to apply for permanent residency or citizenship.
Travel to other regions needed specific paperwork, and if my request for travel was denied by the Unovan government. Should I choose to go anyway, I would be liable for fines and possible dissolution of my Asylum-Visa.
It was all very dry and clinical.
I also got a small thank you card from the Pokémon League for my 'contributions to the study and understanding of the proposed Fairy Type'. There was a chance, albeit a small one, that I was cited in a study somewhere. I asked the Pokémon League representative who delivered it if, instead of thanks, I could be given money instead.
I got a polite laugh and a firm no.
I tossed the card as soon as she left the room.
After it was all over, they gave me the bureaucratic equivalent of a smack on the bum and punted me out into Castelia City. With three weeks in the local hostel prepaid and their 'best wishes.'
I had no job.
Little understanding of the Unovan Economy.
And no idea what to do next.
Worse still, Unova was right at the start of a recession. So most of the blue-collar work, not taken by Pokemon anyway, that I usually would have used to survive, were downsizing. Which meant getting a job was damn near impossible.
Three weeks had passed, and the hostel wanted more money. The meagre amount I was managing to scrape together from the little gig work I could pick up. Even when combined with my Job-Seeker and Immigration Integration payment I received bi-weekly, valid for one year, didn't let me stay.
Instead, I drifted from shelter to shelter. Luckily, it was summer when I arrived, being technically homeless really didn't do it for me, but I didn't have a lot of choices.
I'm sure that most people, hell, myself included, would assume that if they were in Pokemon they would be a trainer, collect a team, and become Champion.
Great dream.
Probably not going to happen.
The economics alone put that dream in the ground for me. One baseline Pokeball, one, cost between twenty-five and thirty thousand dollars. To put that in perspective, a full week in a hostel would be about sixty-five thousand, and the equivalent of a large McDonald's meal was twenty three hundred.
I got fifty-five thousand biweekly from my welfare payments and could usually pull in another few thousand from random gigs around the city. It only took me a few days to fully appreciate the problem. Even assuming I could afford a pokeball and find a Pokémon willing to work with me, I would have just doubled, maybe even tripled, my food costs.
I had a brief, glorious dream of making money off battling. Unfortunately, that was a game mechanic. While some people did bet on the outcomes of matches, the payout was astonishingly small. Maybe enough to buy a small meal at one of the local fast food chains, nowhere near enough to offset all the other costs.
The only people making money off of Pokémon battles were the Ace Trainers, Gym Leaders, Elite Four, and the Champion. Even then, it was mostly through sponsorships. The Pokémon League was a weird mix of UFC and NGO. Sure, the Champion may have no official power to set policy, but they were also likely your region's biggest military asset and, as such, had a hell of a say in a lot.
Thankfully their hadn't been a war in this part of the world for over a hundred years.
Maybe if I'd chosen a different paths when I was younger, I'd be better off. But I'd been a blue-collar worker for twelve years, and there was no changing that now. Two years unemployed and a failed degree. Seven years in kitchens and five as a truck driver. In the middle of a recession, it's hard to find any work, let alone work like that.
Eventually, more people needed to head to the shelters. The recession lost people's homes, jobs, and made life harder. Food got more expensive even as luxuries I couldn't afford came down. Soon enough, it was hard enough to get more than a night a week in a shelter. I couldn't find a single Hostel with a bed, and Hotels were right out on price alone.
So I went and grabbed a tent, sleeping bag, and small camp stove. Nothing fancy, the tent and bag weren't rated for sub-zero temperatures or the like. But it was warm and kept the wind out for the most part. So I called it a win.
Eventually, I got sick of Castelia and did the only thing that made sense: I picked up and left. I mean, I was homeless and had a tent. I could go wherever, so long as I made a weekly call in the Unovan Job-Seeker Agency.
So far, I'd made my way through Nimbasa City, Driftveil, and Mistralton City. I liked all of them about as much as I liked Castelia.
Which was to say not at all.
So here I was six months later.
The world was no longer strange, mysterious, and majestic.
It was just there.
With all of its disappointment completely intact.
I was north west of Mistralton City. Carrying what I'd managed to cobble together of a life stuffed into a secondhand hiking backpack. Aching legs, small bank account, a constant simmering undertone of deeply wanting someone to give me a reason to pick a fight.
I'd yelled at the sky, insulted God, Arceus, Mew, and everything else I could think of, trying to get them to send me home or strike me down.
Nothing.
So here I was trudging ever forward. Roughly thirty kilometres a day. Now, with the sun going down, I was looking for a place to sleep. Thankfully, I probably had two, maybe three hours' worth of daylight left. I did not want to be trying to set up in the dark.
I found a place almost an hour and a half later. Only about two hundred meters off the trail I'd been following. The sign called it Wawaka Lake, so at least the name was somewhat funny.
No one else was at the lake. I didn't see any camping prohibited signs. I probably would have ignored them if I did. Still, I'd take no neighbours. The people of Unova were friendly, but they could talk, and I hadn't been good company for months, if ever.
Then again, maybe I shouldn't be surprised, it was the first week of Autumn after all. And it got damned cold at night. The Pokémon League was starting wrap up; anyone who hadn't defeated whoever was the Icirrus City gym leader yet would be on the main routes.
Thankfully, my tent didn't take long to set up. It was my single most expensive purchase to date at twenty thousand. But it was lightweight, barely eight hundred grams. I changed out of my increasingly abused sneakers, I was not looking forward to replacing those, another upcoming big expense, and into a pair of sandals.
It was practically dark by the time I finished my setup, and I got my small stove going.
Ideally, I would have liked to have set a fire.
Propane and propane accessories were not free.
However, that was getting harder and harder to do as the weather got colder. I threw a water purification tablet into each canteen; they were one of the few things I could call cheap. A packet of one hundred for only twenty-three hundred?
Yes please!
The freeze-dried meal I pulled out was something I was less than looking forward to. I was, mostly due to personal squick factor, a partial vegetarian in this new world. I don't care that it was acceptable for humans and Pokémon to eat other Pokémon.
It weirded me out.
Thankfully, there were still some animals in this world that were not of the pocket monster variety, mostly bugs, some fish. The fish prices were usually a hell of a lot more than I could afford.
So I bit the bullet and made freeze-dried chickpea curry. While that was busy re-hydrating, I made myself one of my few luxuries I could afford.
Cheri and Mago berry tea.
I wasn't a tea person before I can here, still wasn't really, but I for just over the price of two medium sized sodas, I could buy eighty tea bags. They were also a hell of a lot lighter to carry. It would take a few minutes, but the end was a spicy-sweet tea.
A good way to end the day, I may be homeless, angry, aching, and cold. But.....I'm sure there's supposed to be a bright side ending to that, but for the life of me, I can't think of it.
I took a deep sip of the tea after a few minutes, a little early. Then grabbed the curry and wolfed it down like a starving man. Which I only technically wasn't. I also wasn't rich enough to afford three freeze-dried meals a day. So mostly relied on a filling breakfast, powdered milk, granola, and raisins. Then some snacks, which was just a few handfuls of granola with raisins.
I took a long sip of the tea, spicy-sweet, and let out a long sigh.
“Kip.”
My spine went ramrod straight immediately.
Pokémon were usually, not inherently, dangerous unless you went out of your way to annoy them. Even a Ursaring would usually give you a chance to turn around and walk away before it took you off the census.
Of course, you met a mama Ursaring, or most big mama Pokémon for that matter, and all bets were off.
But for the most part Pokemon didn't just tear humans in half. Not without a good reason anyway. Of course, that didn't mean that one wouldn't decide they just didn't like your face and obliterate you.
The cry came from near the water's edge, and small plodding steps came closer. I tensed as the figure entered the radius of my propane fire. It was blue, mostly, with small orange fins next to its mouth, which was drawn back in a small guileless smile, a blue fin proudly on its head.
My brain timed out for a moment. I had researched what Pokémon lived around here and their usual behaviour patterns at the Pokémon Center back in Mistralton.
I had been expecting all kinds of things.
Several dozen types of flyers. Even Cubchoo, that article had a warning attached next to it. Cubchoo down here were likely only just exploring away from their family groups. There was every likelihood that if you saw one, there was a Beartic nearby you didn't.
As such, treat a Cubchoo like seeing a Teddiursa; do not approach. If the Cubchoo approaches you, be nice. If you want to catch the Cubchoo, do not do so by battle; talk to it. And if at any moment you hear what sounds like a deep reverberating growl from nearby, leave. If that growl comes from behind you, put your head between your knees and kiss your arse goodbye.
Which is why I was utterly confused by what I was seeing. We spoke at the same time, with what I could only call an inquisitive greeting, and me in complete stupification.
“Mudkip!?” I looked down at what I knew was a native of Hoenn. They looked back up at me guilelessly and continued to plod forward.
“Mudkip.” They said again.
“Nice to meet you?” replied, my voice lilting up at the end. I examined the small Pokémon. It looked almost a little too small. Barely bigger than my forearm. Waddling up to my leg, Mudkip stopped. Pokémon were smart, smarter than the animals on Earth. This one, though, was far too comfortable around me. Either it was a trainer Pokemon or it didn't think it had a reason to be afraid.
“Mudkip.” They said again, looking at the cup in my hand.
“You...you want my tea?”
“Mudkip!” I blinked twice and placed the cup down. The small Pokémon nodded at me with a smile and began slurping.
“You're welcome,” I said, slowly processing. I looked out into the night.
“Anyone there!?” I raised my voice to carry without yelling. No one answered. The Mudkip looked up, then went straight back to finishing off what was left of my tea. No one came forward, not so much as a peep.
“Kip, Mudkip.” I looked back down as they slapped the cup around, a little tea now drained completely. They looked up at me with wide eyes and a smile. I sighed; they reminded me of a puppy for some reason.
“Would you like some more?”
“Mudkip!” I took that as a yes. It took a few minutes to make the tea and let it cool enough that the small mudfish wouldn't burn itself. I had to explain 'fire hot ouch' to a small creature that could actually understand me.
What the hell was my life?
“Anyone? There is a small Mudkip here if you're looking!” I called again, not really expecting an answer. I sighed as Mudkip finished off the tea and gave a wide yawn, plodding up to my leg and settling in close, closing its eyes.
“Mudkip.” They let out quietly. I blinked several time brain catching up to events. I rubbed my forehead to stave off an upcoming headache. Mudkip twitched a little as its breath began to settle into sleep. I reacted like I would if the small Pokémon had been a puppy. Placing a hand on the Pokémon's head and gently petting. The twitches subsided, and Mudkip let out a contented sigh as it fully slipped into sleep.
I couldn't help the smile on my face. I liked Mudkip. Easily my favourite starter and not just because Swampert was a damned juggernaut. I let the tightness in my shoulders relax and sighed. Eyes closing, I really did need to jump into the tent and get some sleep. I'd move, but much like if a cat was on my chest, I was afraid I would wake Mudkip up if I moved.
Something shifted to my left.
Something big.
A deep rumble came out of its chest. I opened my eyes slowly. No sudden moves. Head turning to come face-to-face with a very unimpressed-looking visitor. Yellow eyes regarded me dispassionately.
“Perrt.” Now I knew why the Mudkip had looked so small. Because it was a newborn or at least only a few months old at best. Big Mama Swampert looked at me, and I drew in a very deep, very slow breath. I had no desire to be completely obliterated by an angry Mama that could manipulate water and shatter boulders on a whim.
I slowly raised my left hand and pointed over to my side. Swampert moved slowly, eyes roving around my small campsite. Until she saw Mudkip, her dispassionate eyes relaxed slightly as she looked around a bit more.
“No pokeballs.” I kept my voice low. Both because Mudkip was asleep and, more importantly, because being loud could be construed as being a threat. Big Mama regarded me and snagged my backpack on a single large finger, placing it on the other side of Mudkip, and pointed at the ground.
“Swampert,” She rumbled lowly.
I did not relish the idea of repacking my gear.
I liked the idea of being turned into chunky salsa even less.
Slowly but surely, I cleared every pocket, placing all items on the ground and repacking them. Once I was finished, Big Mama, never taking her eyes off me, went to investigate my tent. Giving a small chuff, she turned to fully face me again.
With extremely tender care, she picked up the sleeping Mudkip and cradled them in one arm. Looking at me, she blinked slowly and then nodded.
“How long can I stay?” That didn't feel like a get out and don't come back, but I was not going to push my luck if I could avoid it. Swampert blinked slowly again, and her eyes narrowed as if considering. Before holding up two fingers.
“Two days.”
“Perrt.” Big Mama nodded.
“I'll be gone by the afternoon of day three.” At the latest, frankly, once my heart had stopped trying to shatter my ribs, I may just pack up and run. If I could convince my aching legs to do so. She nodded again and wandered off into the night, barely making a sound, slipping into the water. I looked at the sky and felt a strong need to piss myself.
“What a fucking day.”
Chapter One End.
Thanks for reading.
Release Schedule
Until Chapter 4: Tuesdays and Fridays
After Chapter 4: Fridays only, until completion
I’m based in Australia (GMT+8), so posting times may fall on different days depending on your time zone.
This story is fully written in advance. All chapters will be released publicly and for free on schedule.
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If you've enjoyed this story, please check out my other work, Feast For Worms.
Thanks again for reading.