Hi! This is Simon, former Glitch Researcher with Devon Corp and former Glitch Researcher with Silph Co. Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog!
I have presently relocated to Glitch City. If you are. Trying to reach me for something related to Devon Corp or our Trainer Fly trials
Don't
Anyway, this blog is dedicated to community outreach and general information and awareness about Glitch Pokemon of the Hoenn region.
And I'm Jo!! I'm a co-contributor on this blog! You'll see me around whenever Simon is busy or just can't talk right now. I'm just an intern so go easy on me!
Glitch pokemon are a vital and important part of all ecosystems across every region. I'll be detailing any research done here, and updating about how life is going.
(Art by @ghostgirlcara)
Here's my profile if you're interested in that-
Name- Simon
Age- 30
Pronouns- he/him
Region- Hoenn Glitch City
Pokemon team
Gilligan- Pelipper ♀️
Zee- Kadabra ♀️
Ember- Pyroar ♂️
Rascal- 94
Æther- ���ゥ��� (E3)
Mimic- ????? 00c
Enkidu- Riolu (bird type)
As for Jo her info is here-
Name- Jo
Age- 19
Pronouns- She/her
Region- Hoenn
Pokemon team
Catty- Delcatty
Lylia- Missingno.✨️
Query- - (Dash)
Lucky- Skitty
I have a few close friends on this site. @made-this-blog-to-poke-my-rival is my rival and best friend, �aver, and @professorzzazz is my other dearest and closest friend. My other most cherished companions are @ladyzee-oddityhunter , @whisperingwinters and @roseberryboo .
Please feel free to reach out! This is an open forum blog, so I'm always happy to hear from you. Un...less you're from a self proclaimed "Evil Team". I'll still hear from you, but I'll be less happy about it.
(OOC info under the cut)
Hey this is Pichu, Mod for this blog. Here's all the info you should know before interacting.
-I am an adult Mod. Open for any kind of Roleplay (high stakes/casual/whatever) (Just no NSFW, mod and mun both not interested.)
-This is a Pokemon IRL blogs with very high likelihood of unreality themes. As such there will be post editing, deletion, and corruption present in specific plotlines. All posts that have a possibility of being altered at any point in the future will be tagged for Unreality with #tw unreality.
-This blog is using a "Glitch Pokemon Are Real Pokemon" AU, so any pokemon that has shown up as a glitch in game is considered a real creature by this blog.
-Due to the nature of glitch pokemon being technically non-canon please let me know if you do not want to interact with this aspect of the blog during RP.
-Simon is a civilian/NPC aligned character on the good side of the morality spectrum. Please note that opinions of the muse do not necessarily represent the opinions of the mun and vice versa.
PAST ARC INFO (TO BE ADDED)-
BIG ARC LIST PART 1
BIG ARC LIST PART 2
CURRENT ARC INFO- TMtrainer Arc
A bitfire at the Glitch City lab causes unforseen consequences in PT town.
ADDITIONAL INFO-
Simon has a backstory written on AO3 and a hidden 6th pokemon that is rarely if ever mentioned on blog that being the pokemon below:
Q�◣�� ( https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Q_◣) - A Kantonian glitch pokemon that followed Simon from his last job at Silph by hiding in his party. It is a Cancel Button pokemon given form, and as such has the innate ability to delete data. It tends to mostly delete Simon's data. Simon DOES NOT use this Pokemon in battle, as this pokemon can tamper with memories and is considered unsafe to train or battle with. It is also incompatible with Pokemon storage systems.
If you are interested in backstory I have a short rundown here:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Reading is not required at all for blog interaction, but there for anyone who wants it.
Spent yesterday with the Lost Faller's Society taking part in their recent Achievement Festival.
I'm not a faller in any capacity. But it was nice to see everyone, particularly Gordo and Gerald. And I had some extremely insightful conversation with Gerald in the mean time.
I really need to follow up with him more. He's always engaging to talk to. And his research is fascinating.
Anyway today I'm on my way back to the city. Might help Jon out with some cleaning at some point. Help put things together after... everything.
Picking up pieces is really the best we can do sometimes.
what are some things you like or think are cool about cats?
Oh, like catmon?
Well, Glitch City actually has an abundance of catmon. We believe a majority of them come from a common ancestor, shared with Meowth. The 250 cats are of course the closest to that, those being ▶️A, .PkMn, PkMnPkMnT, 4h, and PkMn (C5). But other cat-like glitch pokemon exist as well, such as
a the squid cat and Z ゥwhich shares a good deal of attributes with Persian, leading us to believe it may also share a common ancestor with the 250s.
Incidentally
a is the only one of these mentioned that cannot learn the move Payday, as Z ゥlearns it via TM.
potentially grim use case for it is uh, quantum immortality of sorts. If you were to get a room quantum entangled (or large object with several positions in a variety of locations) and go in it, and in position a, b, c, d, ect, a fire went off that would of killed you if you were actually there (had you not escaped into the room), then your body will be found in those areas in several positions it could appear in while the room is at those places.
But if let’s say at position g there was no fire, then you would “survive” as long as you stay in the room. If you were then to leave you could just die on the spot depending on where the room is, or later on when it moves to another place. So now whenever someone enters the room they will always find you in there, as long as there is a possibility you stay in it that is.
so that’s probably something that should be kept in mind while testing. Also I was wrong about cameras themselves stopping it, has to be a conscious observer to pin a possibility. You can look at a picture or video of it to pin it in place, don’t know how that works if multiple people are observing it in multiple positions at the same time though.
Hm... so I brought this back to the lab the other day... this was a point of speculation among the physics team, but (obviously) testing it ourselves wasn't really a possibility.
Also thanks for the tip about the cameras. We had started a setup trying to work around not being able to record visually. That... actually helps quite a bit with the research here.
so how’s being a catboy been if you’ve done more of that?
I've been wearing the bracelet on and off. Actually I've kept it on quite a lot if I'm being honest.
I like the way it feels to have a tail sometimes. Sometimes I completely forget that I'm wearing the thing actually. And nobody at the lab seems to mind!
Pelipper mail! 3 boxes, 2 of which are seemingly empty! The 3rd has a large purple rock in it which disappears when unobserved!
behold! A Quantum Rock, this rock is quantumly entangled into 3 positions, each of which have been moved into one of those boxes. When it goes unobserved it will choose another position to appear at, but if anything is observing it, it will not move. Cameras and such do count as observers. If you want to move it somewhere else make sure you move each of its positions/ keep them all in the same area so you don’t lose any of its positions.
you can use it to “teleport” objects if they are attached to or on it, within reason (don’t expect it to move things that are bigger than it) and it can even be used to “teleport” people as well! Just make sure it’s completely dark or have all observers close their eyes and it will move to another position!
((Outer Wilds reference))
Okay this is absolutely going to the physics department. But I can already see the potential uses for this.
Essentially a method of instant teleportation between two points. That's fascinating...
I'm going to have to observe this further. Or ah-.. rather not observe it?
TWs for kidnapping, loss of agency, unreality, cosmic horror, arachnophobia]
(Scenes cowritten with @star-aether )
She hadn't expected it to speak.
T4ra stands, suddenly mute before this towering creature. It's voice booms, and shakes the very core of her, the strength of it speaking nearly enough to throw her from her feet.
In Glitch City there were eight known pokemon cataloged at over 80 feet tall, that qualified in the Surge Protector's handbook for the classification of "massive". One lived only in the Between Biome. Another within a PC that was not allowed on any circumstances to leave it. Two were common birds in the RB biome, one a Ghost that feared its shadow, one a great fire serpent, and one a giant creature veiled in a dense black mist with a deadly song.
She'd met all but one in person, had stared up more times than she could count into the vast forms of those massive pokemon. She knew they must have seen her as little more than a speck on the ground. She knew the sight of their giant eyes squinting to focus on what little of her they could make out. She knew how little effort it would take for one of them to simply crush her and move along without another thought.
And yet, none of them made her feel quite as small as the being that now towered above her.
"Hello?" She calls back to it in a tiny, shivering voice that must have sounded to it like like more than breath upon the wind.
"Hello? I'm lost. Do you know how I can get home?"
A brazen thing to ask.
But T4ra had never gotten anywhere without being a little bold.
"I SEE YOUR PATH.",
Even though it's voice boomed, it spoke patient. Measured. The sign of something that watched and waited. Something that was familiar with her.
"BUT YOU KNOW.",
Blink.
The way it's unproportionately beady eyes closed and opened and looked town at T4ra, not even needing to squint.
It was almost cute.
"RITUALS CAN N OT GO UN COMPLE TED. OR IT MAY TEAR Y OU APAR T .",
…Oh.
"YOU UNDERSTAND?"
Oh…
T4ra shivers.. she hadn't wanted this any of this. She hadn't wanted to enter the void, to shape the fabric of reality with her movements, her actions, herself. None of this had been her will, though the actions had been conducted by her hand.
But the will didn't matter, did it?
All that mattered now was that she was here, brimming with the inertia of a ritual that remained unfinished.
And no clue what might happen if she allowed it to remain unclosed.
"I understand."
She says, bowing her head. In this world there were rules. Immutable lines that needed to be followed or risk disaster. To break a rule was always to risk something going horribly, horribly wrong. And the rule she now found herself so close to breaking was one written at the very base of the universe. The fabric upon which all else was founded.
T4ra could not break this rule.
"What do I need to do?" She asks.
She could feel her hands rise up, cupped into the air. It wasn't forced. It wasn't commanded.
Just a reaction. To receive something.
It sparkled like a gemstone in the pitch black nothing. Something placed into her hand.
A crystalline pomegranate aril.
And one simple request alongside it.
"F E E D ."
T4ra stares into the palm of her cupped hands.
It looked like a gem. Glistening. But the smell was sweet in spite of its heavy, smooth texture.
Her hands tremble at the weight of it. Such a small thing when compared to the rest of her.
And yet. She could feel it's meaning. Her hands still trembled with pent up inertia. It was more than she could bare to shoulder on her own.
She raises the aril to her lips. And she swallows it, shutting her eyes as she consumes it.
….and suddenly, that inertia had a path.
T4ra could feel the tug of the strings pulling her along across reality. The place she has been sent to. The ritual she was meant to complete.
T4ra's attack stat lowered!
Her fight was over.
T4ra's attack stat lowered!
All she needed to do was follow.
T4ra's attack stat lowered!
Then, she can finally, finally go home.
But first…
"D O YOU HAVE QU E STIONS ?"
She feels her feet shuffle forwards.
Did she have questions.
How could she not?
She stares up at the creature that loomed above her once more. A Mythical pokemon?
A god?
A berry?
"What are you?" are the first words out of her mouth.
The feel heavy on her tongue as she speaks. Like the air quivered before her when she spoke again.
"I. AM.",
The air quivered with energy.
"ZA苦RO.",
As it speaks this name, something in the world shifts.
"I AM T HE PAIN YOU HAVE F ELT"
But in spite of that the ache is sapped away from her down to a dull prod of her muscles. There throbbing pressure in her head she didn't even notice until it was gone.
"ALL T H IS TIME. AND YOU BROUGHT. YOUR PAIN . TO ME. FOR ME.",
The smooth stone of its shell gleamed with some kind of renewed sheen.
"THANK YOU. BUT THAT IS JUST ONE HALF."
ZA苦RO
The name trembles in T4ra's mind. It had taken her pain, just like it said. Taken and consumed all the strife she'd endured. She felt no lighter, no freer, she'd still endured all of it, but the relief was still welcome.
It was probably all that was saving her.
Another thought tugs at her, one that sticks in her throat and twists within it.
"What was all of this for?" she asks, "What did I do back there?"
"A FLAG. WAS ATTEMPTED TO BE CREATED. TO CREATE.",
That's what she was grabbing.
"GON BEI SAN NEEDED IT. TO CREATE. TO CREATE."
Gonbei-san…
The name strikes fear into her heart again. She'd felt the flag. Felt it in her hands. She'd been so close to giving him exactly what he wanted.
She couldn't-.. could she?
But she couldn't back away.
"I don't want him to have it." She admits, "How do I reverse this? How do I stop him?!"
"N OT NOW.,
The words tremored the reality around them.
"I AM SORRY. BUT THEY MUST WI N F O R NOW. "
"The tower must be stacked for it to fall, T4ra. They must stack and fall. Stack and fall."
….. Three more arils filled her palms.
And the space around her felt dangerous. Her eyes were puffy and uncomfortable just having looked at the massive god for so long.
"QUESTIONS ARE OVER. TAKE THESE. HOLD THEM TIGHT. JUST ONE WILL BRING SOMEONE BETWEEN THE FRAMES TO ME.",
That tug. The tug to complete the ritual pulled stronger than ever. She needs to leave. She needs to leave now.
"BUT IT CAN NOT BE YOU.",
The massive god's eyes closed as the world trembles.
"Goodbye T4ra. I will be watching. Always. Tiptoe across the thread of fate and do not fall and you will never see me again. It will be good."
And it was just like that that she was back on the bike, back in the dark.
As if she'd never lost her place in the Void, or found Za苦ro looming within that strange sector of the code.
But the pain is gone. And in her hands still lay the three glinting arils.
She pockets them. She knows where to go now. And exactly what to do. She stands once more before the precipice. And this time as she reaches.
It is the whole of creation that flashes before her eyes, rippling with the stripes of a surge.
Her hand closes around the flag pole. And this time she grips it.
And in an instant everything goes white.
It was all so bright to her light starved eyes. She blinks tears and fog from her eyes as she finds herself standing once more inside a pokemon center.
Everyone within sits frozen in time. Staring into space as if they'd been placed into the world as sculptures.
T4ra takes off her Poketch, and types a pattern into her Dot Artist application that she hands to the nurse behind the counter.
She smiles, that same, knowing, understanding smile that every Nurse Joy seemed to have mastered. Her hands flicker as she pulls from behind the desk a Manaphy egg and places it in T4ra's arms.
"We hope to see you again." She says.
With those words the pokecenter shifts, walls melting around her. Reality had been bent for the creation of this egg and now she was falling…
Falling…
Falling.
The last thing T4ra sees is a clear sky at dusk from Route 215, lying upon soft grass that she could finally see and feel beneath her.
She trembles, and holds the egg as close to her chest as she could, but her vision was swimming. And a figure in black was approaching from the her periphery.
There truly was no escaping it.
"Well done, very well done." The voice says with a laugh.
"Gonbei-san extends to you his gratitude."
That was the last thing T4ra heard before the world went black.
TWs for kidnapping, loss of agency, unreality, cosmic horror, arachnophobia]
(Scenes cowritten with @star-aether )
Not even an echo.
There was not even anything out there to bounce her voice back.
She was well and truly-
"………..leave me….!"
Her voice bounced back after all. It was quiet. Faint. But she heard it.
Even with how much her soul ached and muscles screamed and mind yearned for this to all be over…
If there's something out here, there's a chance for her.
She can't just be another tragedy.
She hears it first.
Something out there, just real enough for her voice to bounce back off of. It was faint. So faint it only spoke back to her in whispers.
A chance.
There was a chance.
Another surge of energy fills her. The rebounding energy of her unfulfilled steps propel her as she begins to ride West.
Just west. No number.
As she rides she passes once more into the mystery zone. She feels the incorporeal state of her body as the air begins to wash through her.
She feels the bump of her bike as it passes over the nothing that lay before her.
And then, the Void Changes.
Ripples of water spring out from around the wheels of her bike as they turn, as she presses further through the abyss. Her reflection ripples by her like a ghost, momentarily visible in the reflecting pool below her before she rides out of sight.
A ghost of her, passing beneath.
She watches as the pools slowly turn from clear, to red beneath her.
The air smells almost sweet.
Rippling in visage of red, her ghost cycled on through the puddles.
Puddles that slowly grew longer.
Seas of red she crossed.
The fragrant smell of fresh, tantalizing fruit growing, almost assaulting T4ra's senses after the eternal ride she went on due to that damn Joltik. Now she rides on her own and-
Her tire caught on something.
T4ra's bike upturned, and she was cast into the water below. Sweet, but it burned at her mouth and eyes.
T4ra splutters.
The fall was by now one of the least awful things to happen to her today.
Today? How long had it been.
But she was so thirsty. Even though it burns, she plunges her cupped hands into the water, kneeling down with her back arched.
She raises her cupped hands to her lips and she takes a long, long drink.
Drinking of the red, sweet water that still burned her mouth.. it satiated any thirst she had, washed down the bitter taste of all the horrid events of this day.
This… Day?
Week? Month? Whatever.
She had something. Finally something. Red stained her grey skin. Her clothes. Marking her with what looked like blood.
… She swears she can hear the echo of footsteps as she drinks.
And if she turns toward them.
She may see a path.
A path carved in footsteps of red.
Hundreds. Thousands. Thousands of footprints of red stained the obvious road ahead.
Her mouth burned, but the sensation of the liquid running down her throat brought more relief than she'd felt in…
How long…
She didn't know. It hurts her head to try to think.
She wipes her reddened hands upon her shirt, long streaks of red marring the stark grey and white of her Surge Protector's uniform. The corners of her mouth drip with that heavy crimson.
And she walks.
Her stark red footprints stain crimson her path as so, so many had walked before her.
She presses forward. Inertia. After coming so far, so long, how could she not take another step. Whatever buzzes within her now wills her forward.
Was it really that she couldn't stop now?
Or was it more that she couldn't bring herself to want to stop anymore.
Was lay before her had been written in the steps she'd already walked. If there was any path now to walk it was forward. Ever forward. Always forward.
So she walked.
She follows those footsteps of all those before her.
And all at once she gains the feeling she has gone way too deep. Deeper than anyone should ever have gone.
At the sides of the road, in blinked…
Mountains.
Mountains of objects.
Junk, it seems.
Keepsakes. The closer T4ra looked, she noticed everything was well loved. There were poffin cases. There were bug nets. There were fishing rods. There were stuffed animals. There were all sorts of trinkets and good luck charms.
There were trainer ids and badge cases. Pokedexes. Phones. Poketches. Other devices. All from different time periods leading up to the modern age.
They lined the road of a thousand crimson steps like grave markers.
And T4ra can see the thing the road led to in the distance, slowly coming into focus. It was massive. Utterly massive even for glitch city standards.
T4ra walks among the Graves. Keepsakes, unmarked graves, an endless trail that payed homage to all who had walked before her.
And all who might still walk after.
The thing she sees in the distance… a pokemon? No.. it couldn't be. She'd never seen a pokemon like that before.
It was massive, on par with the walking mountains of the Between biome that explorers knew only by the numbers which defined them.
She was so far away from Mew's creation now, that she didn't know what to call this any more.
As she approaches, it looms above her, a speck before its vast being that none the less seemed to be staring down straight into her.
And so shaking and does all that she can think to do.
She drops to her knees, staining them further red beneath her, and she bends her head in reverence and prayer to the being that loomed before her.
She passes the objects. Each and every one passes her by. Badge cases. Bikes. TM cases. Even a single pokeball, at the very edge of where the line of grave markers stop and the road of red continues onward.
Up, up, up.
To a vast and sleeping god of every word unsaid.
Of every scream and shout that was trapped inside her head.
Of the burning pain and agony that fills her and those before.
It was a creature of suffering, with riches at its core
and
it speaks to her. in a way. It's voice and it's stare feels so familiar.
"HEL L O.",
Its "voice" creaked and crackled much like the one that had came from her unseen puppet master.. but it spoke kinder. Softer. Of course it could all just be T4ra imagining the tone. She has heard no one else in such a long time since the stranger cut out that hearing this thing "speak" could just feel like a mercy.
Others had claimed the void stared back and they were right, it seems.
TWs for kidnapping, loss of agency, unreality, cosmic horror, arachnophobia]
Didn't expect to wake up after that. At least not in one piece. She'd experienced surges like this one before from afar, the aftermath of them. She knew how readily they tore people asunder. Ripped through every piece of them, corrupted their name, destroyed their physical bodies.
She lays in silence, in stillness, for a full five seconds that feels like an eternity, and for those five second she was certain, she was certain, that she was dead.
With a jolt her eyes snap open. She gasps, sitting up, stunned that her body could still move well enough to right her. She looks down at her hands. Her arms were tingling, her entire body felt light, but somehow she was still alive. Still together. Still in possession of all of her limbs.
The surge had passed right through her. All that energy entering her body, passing through the items in her bag…
And becoming something else in the process.
She shivers.
"Very good." she can hear the voice applauding her, "Well done, well done. You are so, so very close now."
T4ra says nothing. She can see the void spreading out before her still. Nothing had changed about that. Something awful had been channeled through her and for the life of her, she couldn't tell what it was.
Maybe she never would.
"You are so very close to being done. Only a few more steps to go. You can do this, of course."
T4ra doesn't have the will to protest any more. Her throat was dry, head swimming as she stared at the void ahead.
How much more to go? How much more of this could she possibly do?
"Five thousand, two hundred and seventy nine, south." The voice says.
T4ra nearly staggers.
That far? How could she possibly go that far? With her body so spent, so exhausted, she couldn't possibly.
She staggers forward. It isn't willpower anymore, it's the lack of any will to resist any longer. Her eyes unfocus as she gets on her bike and rides.
Five thousand, two hundred and seventy nine steps south.
Her tired eyes could barely comprehend the flashes of the outside world passing by her before it was gone again, replaced by miles upon miles of darkness once again.
By the end of it she's worn ragged. Her body only moves because of the firing of her nerves, pushing a spent body forwards that otherwise had no will to move. Even the Joltik was starting to seem tired.
The Four hundred and fifteen west feels like almost nothing in comparison. And then at last.
There is a silence.
It is as if they were considering what next had to be done. Until at last a voice comes through once more.
"Open the application on your dex to view your party, and then immediately close it." the voice instructs, "After this move one south, and wait."
The voice seems to crackle as it speaks. Something had changed since the surge had gone off. Was it a fault in their connection, or just her hearing.
She doesn't hesitate in following those commands. It's all she can think to do, mind too exhausted to protest.
She sees a Noctowl. An overworld pokemon she'd seen in passing but otherwise had no connection to. She closes it, and steps south.
"Let the Countdown Begin!"
A voice echoes through the void. It bounces through the air with the air of an announcer, though it doesn't seem to belong to anyone.
T4ra can't help but wonder…
The countdown to what?
"Three."
"Two"
"One"
"Start!"
She takes off almost instantly.
One north and 100 paces West. She didn't know what she was traveling towards with such energy, but suddenly she felt its pull.
She couldn't help it.
She knew where to go.
She opens the party menu again, and closes it. One West, one south. She could hear the sound of the sea now.
A Lighthouse?
She opens her pokedex again.
Machoke in front.
A step west and again.
Cacturne in front.
Another step west and. She stops for a moment.
She could feel it beating against her heart.
She stands there for a moment, a long moment, hands trembling.
She didn't know what that was, what hand had guided her towards those actions. It had not been the voice. It hadn't been anyone she could see or hear.
But she could feel the inertia. Her hands upon the precipice, all that built up energy from the surge she'd set off before gathering in and around her.
She could almost feel it within her hands. Almost reach out and grab it.
She just had to-…
She reaches. There was a flash as she pushed her hand into the aether, watching as it bent and twisted before her, the static rippling through her as she closes a hand.
Around the flagpole.
For just a split second she'd felt it, held it in her hands, an item that so closely knit itself with the fabric of reality, so close within her grasp and yet.
She pulls back nothing.
Silence.
Darkness.
It had been right there, what happened?
She remains there for a long time. A long time in silence before she hears a whisper on the other end.
"Why isn't it working? What happened? The input was perfect, why didn't it work?"
"There is a 20% chance of failure even if everything is done correctly sir."
A sigh, and a click, and then, static and silence.
"Hello!?" T4ra shouts.
There were no more inputs from the Joltik. It just clung uselessly to her neck now, no longer bothering to influence her movements.
"Wait- don't leave me-!" she shouts, "How do I get out!?"
She looks around. Unending silence is all that answers her from the void.
"Don't leave me here! Please don't leave me!!!"
Her cries ripple through the endless black that surrounds her and nothing but the uncaring dark bounces back to meet her.
TWs for kidnapping, loss of agency, unreality, cosmic horror, arachnophobia]
Two hundred fourteen west.
It really didn't seem to end did it. After her second awakening all hope that this could possibly be a dream had faded. She was still here, still out of bounds, still out of control, still this.
She'd lost the will to cry about it any more. Surrendered to the rhythm of her bike treads bouncing along mountain paths that didn't exist.
It was better than the silence.
Sometimes, that was all it was, that deep cool silence that rang in her ears. There were moments where even if she did have complete control of her body, she knew it would do her no good anyway. This place had an energy to it, a pulse that kept her locked to her task, hands locked to the handlebars of that bike, ever aimed in a straight line. Sometimes, it felt like every fiber in her, every inch of the fabric that made up the universe, was pulling her forward.
Towards something. Towards…
She didn't want to know.
She didn't want the answer to whatever question this place was asking. She didn't want to hear it.
She knew without a doubt the answer would be pulled from her lips whether she wanted it or not.
Four hundred and seventy nine steps south.
She wasn't prepared to see lights. Lights up ahead in the distance, gleaming out of nowhere, out of the dark. It looked like a set of three simple pinpricks rising out of the dark, all aligned in a row. And impossibility from within a world so devoid of light that the concept itself felt precious.
She was afraid if she took her eyes off them, they'd vanish in an instant.
As she moves forward she feels an impact. A wall? She reaches out and feels the concrete, still invisible to her light starved eyes.
Until she blinks.
A wall.
A building?
She recognized the smooth, white concrete. The familiar red roofing.
A pokemon Center.
What was a Pokemon Center doing in the void?
T4ra doesn't have it in her to ask, and her voice still can make no sound.
"Go inside." comes the command.
Inside? She couldn't the wall was solid!
Until it wasn't, until she found herself slipping easy past the barrier, past the hitbox of the wall and arrived inside behind the counter.
A desk attendant with light brown hair smiles at her as she approaches the desk from the wrong side, seeming somehow unbothered by the fact that she'd just entered through the wall behind her, and was currently on the wrong side of her desk.
"Good evening. Welcome to the Union Room." she says with a smile that feels.
Blank.
This wasn't a person. There was no Pokemon Center in the middle of the void. Where was she!? And who was the woman staring uncaringly at her haggard form?
An Echo?
A spirit?
"Would you like to enter? Please, come this way."
T4ra doesn't have the will in her to say no, or the control over her actions to call for help. The door behind her opens as she beckons her towards it, holding the passage way open with that same permanent smile, ever hospitable.
Eyes unseeing.
What lay beyond the passage she opened wasn't a Union Room. It looked like a passage back into the void. What choice did she really have?
Here went nothing.
But as T4ra steps forward she finds no ground to support her on the other side. Instead of another path, another endless walkway into the abyss, the finds the world slips from beneath her.
And she falls.
And Falls.
And Falls.
The pokemon center draws further and further away from her as she plummets away from that impossible place.
And vanishes once more into the inky deep.
She must have fallen for a long time. Judging by the pain in her arm when she awoke, the spinning of her head.
Everything hurt, at least a little, but she could tell where she'd absorbed the brunt of the impact.
She groans a little as she gets back to her feet. She must have lost consciousness while she was falling. Either that or hit her head hard enough upon impact to forget what it had been like. But her body certainly remembered.
"Sixty Four south."
T4ra grits her teeth. More. It was always more.
"Gn-.. no!" she manages to grit from between her teeth, "Don't-… want to-…"
There's a laugh from over the coms.
"And here I thought you'd understand by now the point you've reached now." the voice says.
It strikes a chilling cord through her.
"There isn't any going back now. Not unless you want to be consumed by this place. I promised you that you'd get out safe and sound if you followed our commands, and so far you've done beautifully. It would be a shame to ruin it now, now wouldn't it?"
Another jolt runs down T4ra's spine. She couldn't have fought back if she wanted to.
It was only sixty four steps down now. Practically nothing compared to the walk she'd taken to the lost Pokemon Center.
Now she knew what the tales were really trying to warn her about.
After just one step to the west she stops again. For a while, a long while, no new command comes through. Until at last the voice speaks once again.
"You will find an escape rope within your bag." The voice says, "Use it."
She is almost too terrified to disobey at this point. She opens her bag, and there sitting right at the top, sat an escape rope, piled atop an abundance of paralyze heals.
She doesn't question it.
She knows well enough that she still doesn't want to know what the answer is.
Instead she just obeys and slowly but surely, the abra fur lined rope lowly pulls her towards the light of day once more.
Out? Was she out? It looked as though she was. The streets of Jubilife City greet her as she finds herself, now once again outside.
She blinks. The light of day feels harsh against her eyes. Was she out? Was she really out?
Feeling the wind against her face once more felt like bliss. Her throat constricts. She could have cried if she had any more tears.
But her body still moves despite her commands. In a daze, her addled mind seizes on the moment.
Help, she could get help!
She sees herself approaching a Pokemon Center and as she does, she steels herself. She draws a breath, and the moment she walks through those doors.
T4ra starts to scream. She cries for help, her voice breaking as shocks ripple through her throat to silence her but as she looks up.
Nobody turns.
Not even the Nurse Joy stationed behind the counter seems to see her. They aren't immobile, not like the echo of an attendant she'd seen at the lost center.
It was as if nobody there could see her at all. As if she wasn't even there.
"No no wait!" she cries as she feels herself beginning to move again, "Help please I need help! Please, one of you has to hear me!!"
Her voice doesn't even echo.
And nobody turns.
She boots up the PC in the corner, and an image flashes before her aching, light sensative eyes. She barely sees the image before her, only hearing snippets of the conversation around her.
None of them even bother to look at her.
She shuts off the PC and finds herself moving towards the stairs now, almost too dejected to try to resist any longer. As she reaches the top floor of the Pokemon Center the hope had drained from her. Nobody came. Nobody even turned to watch her.
She turns as she reaches the top, and walks towards the wall, and just as she'd feared all along, she slips right through.
And steps out once again into the depths of the void. Her throat aches, tears streaming once more freely down her face.
"No more-.." she begs, "Please. let me stop."
"Do not worry. We are almost done for now."
The voice comes again.
Somehow that sends a colder shiver down T4ra's spine than anything else she'd seen.
What did the end mean for her?
Why did he say 'done for now'.
There wasn't time to think on it now. She moves four steps west, and then eighteen steps south and then…
"Poketch App #14. Engage the link search application."
Her hand trembles. She can feel it, the upwelling of corrupted energy within the device now strapped to her wrist.
She'd gone too far. They'd broken something. In her walk through the void she'd touched something crucial, something fundimental.
And now the energy that had gathered here. Arbitrary actions under the right circumstances resulted in unexpected outcomes. A surge was building.
A big one.
The kind of surge that tore people apart, that leveled buildings. And she was about to set one off so close to the very fabric of reality.
"No-.." she breathes, "No, please you can't-.."
This was what she was supposed to be preventing. Her breath quickens as her hand hovers over the watch face.
"Please no-…"
This was everything that ran antithetical to her being. T4ra always followed the rules. She knew them like an encyclopedia that lived in her mind. She'd given so much of herself to protecting people from disasters, from catastrophe that lurked in so many actions anyone else would dismiss as arbitrary.
She was going to cause a surge.
And she didn't know what it would do.
"Please no-!"
The application chimes as it begins its search.
And she feels the quiet rippling of reality breaking apart. She watches it tear before her eyes. White and blue lines scar the endless black, rippling through her. She can feel it rush through her body, threatening at once to tear her apart.
She feels it exhale through her like a rush of air.
Her body fills with light.
And she no longer knew if she was rising or falling.
TWs for kidnapping, loss of agency, unreality, cosmic horror, arachnophobia]
[1][2]
T4ra woke to darkness. Not the narrow darkness of a darkened room, locked and suffocating and concealed. It was darkness that promised an utter absence of anything. An abyss. The vastness of space.
It was deep, and cold, and endless, and she knew she knew that even though she was so so far away from everything she'd ever known.
She was closer than she'd ever thought she could be to everything. Her voice didn't travel when she shouted and yet it echoed. somehow. She felt the sickening swirl of vertigo spinning her round though she remained firmly in place. On the ground? Was there ground? It didn't feel like she was standing on anything, but somehow it didn't feel like she was falling either, no terminal velocity forced the air from her lungs, or made her hair stand on end.
What did was the static.
The Joltik.
Still on her it was still on her!
She tries to scream, reaching back to try to grab it.
Her hand halts before she can touch its course fur, or its sharp mechanical appendages.
The cry that tears from her throat is one half in frustration and half in pained terror. What was going to happen to her now!? Her breath is coming in short gasps, two toned pings punctuating the silence around her as she tries to soothe herself.
There had to be a way out, T4ra. There was always a way through. Surge Protector's handbook Section 31 A, said to always keep your wits when in an unfamiliar scenerio.
It was only now that she noticed the building that loomed before her. One of Jubilife's corporate buildings. She was standing outside of it, but from within she could see the inner walls like the cutout of a doll's house. People were moving within it, speaking to each other, working, walking past as if she wasn't there.
"HELP! PLEASE SOMEONE HELP!!*"
T4ra screams at the top of her lungs to try and get their attention, but not a single person turns from within the building. It was as if she was locked behind a one way mirror that only allowed her to see in
She screams anyway, as if they could hear, as if she could raise a fist to pound upon the glass.
When she does instead she hears a voice in her ear. Her goggles were gone, she realized, replaced with an earpiece firmly affixed to her head opposite the Joltik.
"Ah, good. You're awake." A voice addresses her.
Its cadence is thick with static, but she could hear the mocking grin behind it.
She didn't even have to ask. She knew.
Gonbei-san.
"I was so hoping you would wake soon. There's much for you to do for us, you know. I would be most grateful for you to listen to all I say."
"What-!? Why are yo- HRK -!"
Another jolt interrupts anything she could have hoped to say. She's left gasping, quietly trying to stifle her shaking breaths.
It took everything in her not to cry.
"You are precisely the person I need to execute this exploit. You have been given everything that you will need to be successful, and if you follow these steps precisely, youwill* succeed. I am trusting that I have chosen well in choosing you."
"I-.. don't want to-…"
Another jolt cuts her off, but worse than the pain is the scratchy sound of laughing in her ear.
"Oh, but you do. Once you have succeeded you will be able to return to your life and your region with no strings attached. As long as you perform all of this correctly. If you cannot then.. well I can't guarantee what will happen to you."
"Now. One South, Sixteen east."
T4ra feels cold. With that damned bug on her neck still what could she do? Her body had already begun to move itself, forced forward against her will. One step south, and then turning east, she could see that last scrap of anything real drawing further away into the void.
And then the wind stopped
She wasn't sure how she knew what was different when she stepped over. Maybe it was that the footsteps that once had echoed behind her emulating the press of soft grass had vanished. Maybe it was because she could no longer hear the sound of her own breathing.
She and Simon hadn't spoken much about the Mystery Zone. All she really knew was that the guy was a wreck from it, but she'd heard the rumors.
Someone had made a tale and named it after hearing. A place of infinite space, with no sound, no wind, no way to know if walking forward won you any progress save the fatigue in your limbs. And the ringing of silence in your ears.
They said Decamarks resided within that void, but what filtered between the frames here had no tail or face or event horizon. There was no Mew down here to guide her.
The voice rings in her ear piece again.
"You'll now need to ride the bike provided." the voice commands, "North, four hundred and thirty steps."
Four hundred? T4ra's heart sinks as her body obeys.
Into that ink black infinity. She can feel what lays ahead giving way to nothing. It didn't feel like she was riding on a flat surface, but she couldn't tell if she was riding up or down either. Did those directions exist here.
Gonbei-san said north. Did north exist?
It was getting harder to think louder than the commands. As she rides through that windless abyss, feeling the lack of any air against her face and feeling that buzzing darkness closing around her.
She counts the steps she must have ridden. She has nothing else that she can do, her mind a prisoner of a body she no longer controlled.
She doesn't lose track.
After the 447th step she would have taken her mind had started to numb as it strained to take in the darkness around her. Was she even afraid any more? What was she doing here?
Abruptly she stops. On the 447th step.
"One west."
It was almost a relief to hear a voice again. Or was it imagined? She doesn't have the time to wonder before she rides a single tile to her left, and a mist washes over her.
For a moment it felt damp, the light mist of fog and the smell of sod and soil hitting her harder than her senses should have been able to stand. After all that nothing it was a relief to feel something, anything upon her face.
She goes to take a breath. It is almost relief.
Almost.
Until the voice comes once again.
"And now, to sleep."
What?
T4ra tenses for a second. What kind of command was that? She gives a start before the Joltik on her ear latches tighter onto her skull. The shock it delivers doesn't hurt, not really, or at least she doesn't have the capacity to feel it before she's on the ground.
TWs for kidnapping, loss of agency, unreality, cosmic horror, arachnophobia]
[1]
It was the second time out to Sinnoh in too little time. T4ra was exhausted. Everyone was exhausted, but T4ra was fielding it quietly.
You could only watch your friends wear down over a course of several months so long without starting to feel the looming despair mounting.
But it wasn't the end of the world. Not yet anyway, and T4ra needed to make sure nobody ended it early through one harebrained scheme or another.
When she touches down, it was just Ria who greeted her, her cheerful demeanor easily matching her bright outfit and braids.
"Sorry!!" she greets her first.
…. must run in the family.
"It's alright." T4ra assures her, "That pokemon you saw. You didn't see where it went did you?"
Ria flushes a bit, biting her lip.
"Well you said to look away." she admits.
Ah-…
T4ra sighs.
"It's fine, don't worry. You stay here, I'll find it."
T4ra sighs. The audacity of some people, bringing Glitch Pokemon out of the City with no knowledge at all about how to keep them. Her heart still ached for the poor -PkMn she'd encountered under Hayden's "care".
She shakes her head. Focus. If there was a visually toxic glitch pokemon on the loose she needed to find it fast. She slips her goggles on over her eyes and starts to scan the area.
Her search doesn't take long.
A bright red patch in the middle of route 215, easily standing out against the stretching greenery that dotted the route. And at the center, a comedically tiny catlike pokemon, barely two feet tall, with its two tails contentedly waving in the air.
T4ra could have laughed out loud.
"Oh c'mere you." she says with a chuckle, retrieving a heavyball from her bag.
.PkMn were only two feet tall. And they weighed over two thousand pounds on their own. It would be an easy catch. She pulls back her arm to toss the pokeball, anticipating an almost guaranteed catch.
When from the corner of her eye, she spots it.
At first she was sure she was seeing things. Green? What was that green amid a red tint? She looks back and all at once, a flash, something blinding.
Or it would have been. If her goggles hadn't caught the sudden burst. She turns, vision darkened for a second as she goes to grab a pokeball from her belt.
And she stops.
The feeling of something, small, furry, crawling up the small of her back catches her attention. She bristles. She'd felt that sensation plenty of times, the tiny legs of a Glitch City Joltik skittering up her back, though, the sensation felt off.
Was it.. heavier than normal?
When she reaches back to pull it off her shirt her hand freezes mid air, as a jolt of electricity bristles down her spine, for a moment, paralyzing her, stopping her hand where it was.
"You little-!"
She goes to reach for it again, and again her hand stops the split second it gets close. Another jolt, and then another when she tries to reach again for one of the Pokeballs at her belt. Not random paralysis. This was motivated, a tactical jolt to her nervous system every time she tried to move, traveling directly through her spine.
And it was crawling higher, nearly to her neck. Only now could she feel the cold metal extensions implanted upon its light, bristling body.
"What th- AUGH"
A shock delivered straight to her throat caused her larynx to spasm, throat constricting. She finds herself gasping when at last.
She hears the crunch of dress shoes upon the grass behind her.
"Try not to make too much noise."
It speaks with a sneer that she can practically hear on its voice.
T4ra gasps. She opens her mouth to try to wheeze out a question, a protest anything but another jolt of electricity cuts her short.
It was traveling further now, pressing against the base of her head, over her ear.
"No-" she manages to squeak out through her still spasming vocal chords, "No - please"
Glitch City didn't need another tragedy.
But it was too much of a struggle to say any more, nor was it possible to stay upright.
Try as she might to fight it off, she couldn't move her arms.
Not until she heard a command come from behind her.
"Up straight."
An electric impulse buzzes in her ear and she finds herself moving before she could think. It hurt. Her limbs buzz as she's forced into position, eyes wild, confused.
She tries to look around at the figure giving the commands, but her eyes stay stuck straight, clenched in a rictus she couldn't will to move.
"Place each pokeball you possess on the ground in front of you."
She does it. Her movements are stiff, but perfectly controlled. She doesn't jerk or pitch. In fact, it's just as practiced as any of her careful motions had ever been. Only the sound of her heavy breathing related the intensity of her struggle to regain control of herself.
Anything.
Anything.
Tears start to flood her eyes behind her goggles, the only window to her otherwise masked pain now invisible to any passers by.
She wants so badly to scream. Worse still when she sees Ria, passing straight by her on the entrance to the route.
"Hey Tara!" she calls.
She didn't even know her name, not really.
She couldn't scream back as she walks on oblivious, separated by a row of trees that worked just well enough to obscure her from view.
"Good work."
A pair of hands shove into her arms a new set of pokemon. A new party. Her captor was positioned right in front of her, and yet she couldn't lift her head to look.
who do you think would win? 1 billions Pyroars or 1 of every Animal?
You mean like from the game Animals?
One billion Pyroars is kind of hard to conceptualize... but I also don't actually KNOW how many Animals there are. I haven't really kept up with the series much after the first generation...
There's only 1025~ of them and honestly the most powerful they have in the lore is like. Alpaca. I think Tiger is doing pretty well in competitive stats, as is Formerly Extinct Weasel and Formerly Extinct Bear, but like. They don't beat the pyroar. No way
Hm... that's true, but we probably have to take into account what their physical attributes might look like in the real world rather than just stats as well...
Do you think there are any Animals with visualtoxins or Audiotoxins? That could take out quite a few Pyroar I think..
