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The Seventh Anniversary Story Swap is over! We had three participants: Zdrmonster, Negrek, and The Walrein. Each of them wrote the first part of a story during the first half of the seventh anniversary event, which was then given to another author to complete in the second half. Following are all the stories written in the event:
It was yet another day in the carrer of the Poképals, Piplup and Chimchar have just completed another mission and got shafted with the typical Chatot paycheck cut. They step out of Wigglytuff's Guild when they encounter a familiar face...
"Hey, Piplup?" She looks like a Squirtle and wears a pink bow on her head, but had a shine on her face subtly hinting at something amiss about her.
Piplup is surprised. "What are you doing here, Blue Bubblo?" He rarely sees her travel over to the Grass Continent from her native Water Continent via Lapras or otherwise outside of urgent situations, but this didn't seem like one.
"I wanted to stay at the Wigglytuff Guild, I remember Guildmaster Wigglytuff saying she could do with studying a Ditto... Not sure why, though." Blue Bubblo looks confused about Wigglytuff's motives, but the Squirtle-transformed Ditto likely knows the Guildmaster will mean no harm.
"Huh, I guess I do remember the Guildmaster saying she wants to better fill out her book on how to properly suit various species of Pokémon for being Exploration Team members at the guild... Alright then, come on over!" Piplup says as he and Chimchar start leading Blue Bubblo inside.
As the three climb down into the second sublevel, Blue Bubblo starts reflecting on her origins and ponders on something. "Hey Chimchar, I know it's awkward to ask this right now, but do you notice any similarities between ourselves?"
Chimchar looks dumbfounded. "No? I mean, I'm a cool fire monkey and you're just a blobby shapeshifter pretending to be a Squirtle..."
Blue Bubblo stutters for a bit before regaining her gelatinose composure. "I mean in our personalities! You used to be quite timid like I was... and still kinda am, right?"
"HEY! AT LEAST I HAD-" Chimchar nearly screamed out, but Piplup interrupts him.
"No no, 'she's' got a point... You might've had the ambition to have the idea to form an exploration team with me when you found me on the beach, but weren't you scared off by Diglett's footprint detection thing before then?"
Chimchar is again confued. "Wait, how'd you know all of that before you even woke up as a Pokémon for the first time?"
Blue Bubblo shakes her 'Squirtle head,' "What I was just trying to ask is... What if we switched places, Chimchar? What if you're the one that walked up to Chronos Glaceon one day before he evolved from Eevee, and I was the one that found Piplup lying on the beach?"
"Would that really be possible? We're usually an entire continent apart..." Chimchar points out.
Blue Bubblo goes Ditto-faced. "I don't know... But do what-if scenarios need to make sense?"
Piplup thinks for a few moments... "No." But he starts wondering again! "...So what would that universe look like? It took a while from your earliest memory before you first took on your Squirtle form, would you even have a Squirtle form in that universe?"
Blue Bubblo scratches her 'head,' "Well, it could depend on any manner of factors. But for the sake of argument, let's say I were to grow up like Chimchar... Have this dream of joining the Wigglytuff Guild to be an awesome explorer while never building up the confidence to actuall do that dream!"
"Why do you sound so egotistical anyway? Aren't you supposed to just be a nervous Ditto that doesn't like being one?" Piplup shruged.
"Do I sound egotistical? Hehehe, I don't know..." Blue Bubblo admitted. "Well, it would be a bright and sunny day near Treasure Town..." As everything fades into her vision of potential events.
Hiding behind a pole, the Shiny Ditto nervously drips her glittery blue goo as she can't decide what to transform into.
"Oohh... I don't want them knowing I'm a Ditto, but what should I pretend to be?" 'She' holds onto photographs she's obtained of various form canidates, but keeps flipping through them. "Eevee are known for their evolutions, but are too Ditto-adjacent... A Zorua is too confident and tricky for me to impersonate effectively, and how would I fake the illusions?"
However, she manages to settle on one Pecha Scarf-wearing Chikorita.
"Chikorita! One's the leader of a famous Rescue Team from the Air Continent, I could just transform into a Shiny version of her!" She's clearly excited about this, as she becomes the yellow Shiny version of the Chikorita in the photograph right before running to step on the footprint sensor... But she loses confidence quickly.
"Oh, what if someone finds out? And am I really cut out for this exploration stuff anyway?" She slowly starts melting back into her true blue form. "I don't know... I don't know!"
"INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!" A Diglett pops up from the floor. "IT'S A DITTO, IT'S A DITTO!"
Blue Bubblo freezes in fear right before reforming into the Chikorita form, just to run off away from the Diglett.
Heigani Corphish looks at the Diglett with angry eyes. "Hey, I could clearly see it's just a Chikorita with my very own eyes!"
At the beach and back in her true form, Blue Bubblo pants as her dot eyes drift towards a Piplup lying on the floor. She gasps, what kind of Piplup dozes off here?! Could this be another Ditto? She resists the urge to instinctively transform into the Piplup as she shakes it a little, but disappointment follows when she finds out this Piplup isn't melting into goo and just lifts up his head covered in sand... However, there's something strange here.
"Where am I?" Piplup yawns out. Blue Bubblo could only stare at him, but now she's getting uncomfortable with her true self again...
"Excuse me, can I transform into you? I kinda don't like being a blob of blue goo..."
Instead of a yes or a no, all Blue Bubblo ended up hearing is a loud scream.
"A DITTO?!"
"Is that a yes, or a no?" Blue Bubblo's now VERY confused.
"YOU'RE A TALKING DITTO?! AM I DREAMING?!" Piplup stretches his face a little before clearly getting hurt by the snapback. "Nope, I felt that one..."
"...Maybe you really are a Ditto yourself, a real Piplup doesn't have this kind of memory loss!" Blue Bubblo doesn't know what the Piplup truly is now.
"YOU'RE REALLY TALKING, AND YOU'RE A POKéMON! ...And did you just say Piplup?"
Blue Bubblo nods. "So you don't know or at least remember you've transformed into a Piplup?"
"Why do you assume I'm a Ditto, Blue Ditto?"
"Actually, my name is Blue Bubblo! So are you a Mew then?" Blue Bubblo giggles at that impossibility.
"I AM NOT! I'M A HUMAN!"
"Woah... What's a human?" Blue Bubblo asks Piplup.
Zdrmonster
"Y-you--what do you mean?" The piplup's beak drops open in shock. "How can you not know what a human is?"
Blue Bubblo shrugs her chikorita-leaf. "I don't know, it's not like I know every pokémon out there. There's thousands, after all."
"A human isn't a pokémon! That's the whole point!"
"Not a pokémon?" Blue Bubblo imagines herself tilting her head, completely perplexed. "What do you mean? Like a rock, or... the ocean, or something?"
"No! Something alive, but not a pokémon. Humans kind of look like big infernapes without any fire. Oh, and no tail, either. Here, I'll show you."
The piplup sketches a stick figure in the sand with his flipper. Blue Bubblo inspects it critically. Something standing on two legs with two arms. Like an infernape without a tail or fire, just like piplup said.
"But if humans are alive, what makes them not pokémon?"
"We can't do attacks, and we don't have types, either!"
"So you're like pokémon... but worse?"
"No way! We're super smart and we can invent all kinds of things. That's why we're the ones who get to decide what to do!"
What did that mean? Blue Bubblo wasn't sure why her imaginary version of Piplup said that.
"Well, that's very interesting," she says. "It's nice to meet you, totally-not-a-piplup!" She holds her leaf forward for Piplup to shake. "I'm not really a chikorita, either," she adds in a loud whisper. "I'm actually a ditto pretending to be a chikorita!"
"Oh. That's nice." Piplup looks up and down the beach a moment. "Where are we, anyway?"
"This is Treasure Beach! I came down here because Team Skull stole my cool rock!" And then Blue Bubblo remembers: she doesn't have a cool rock, not even in her daydream. "I-I mean they found some cool rocks, and they aren't sharing them!"
"Oh?" The piplup gives her a puzzled look. "Well, that's too bad, I guess. If you don't mind, I'm going to go have a mental breakdown about being turned into a cute penguin."
"No! You can't do that! We're going to form a rescue team!"
"What's a rescue team?"
"It's a team of pokémon that helps out others! I've been looking for a partner to start one with for a while. And you can be that partner!"
"Why me? I literally just got here. Haven't you got any friends to do it with you?"
"Well... No. I-I mean, I have friends! Lots of friends, totally! But none of them want to join a rescue team with me."
"Why not? Is it dangerous?"
"Maybe a little."
"Are you not strong enough?"
"I'm totally strong! I'm a ditto! I can be any pokémon I want, even the strongest and scariest ones!"
"Hmmm." Piplup looks skeptical.
"Anyway, we're making a rescue team!" Blue Bubblo announces decisively. "And for our first mission, we're going to get one of those rocks from Team Skull!" She points her leaf towards Beachside Cave.
"How is stealing a rock going to help other people out?
"What?"
"You said rescue teams are supposed to help people out. How does stealing a rock from somebody else do that?"
"It's not stealing and it's a really important rock and come on, let's go already!" She wraps her leaf around Piplup's arm and drags the penguin towards Beachside Cave, despite his protests. Even Blue Bubblo can't imagine a world where a partner would happily agree to be on her team. She srunches up her false squirtle features and gets all the rest out in a rush.
"But we would still be friends and great rescuers and we'd go on lots of adventures and help find the time gears and everything! And then some other heroes could do the real scary bits, the end. And that's how it would go, if I were Piplup's partner instead!" Blue Bubblo announces, having reached the end of her thought experiment.
Chimchar leans against Piplup, head lolling, while his partner blinks sleepily. "Oh? Umm, cool!" Piplup says, poking his partner with a wing until he bolts upright with a snort.
"Weren't you listening?" Blue Bubblo asks, devastated. "What, is any story where I get to go on adventures automatically boring?"
"We never said anything like that!" Piplup says. "It was, umm, very interesting! Especially the part where I helped you find your cool rock."
"But I didn't have a cool--"
"Anyway, we'd better be going," Chichmar says. "Little Sentret got lost in the lower levels of Death Peak again, so we'd better get our rescue on ASAP."
"Why does she keep going off to play at Death Peak, anyway? That doesn't seem normal for a hatchling."
Chimchar grabs Piplup's wing and starts to tug her away. "Great catching up, Blue Bubblo! See you around!"
"Wait, but--but I wanted to ask--" But the legendary rescuers are gone.
Blue Bubblo slumps, her fingers and toes starting to run and ooze a bit at their tips. "Nobody ever wants to talk to me."
She never gets to go on cool adventures, or save people, or even have friends. What she needs is some human to inexplicably wash up on the beach and force her to have character development. And a different one than Piplup, apparently, since he doesn't like her even in her imagination. With a sigh, Blue Bubblo turns to make her way down to the beach. She has one last chance for Fate to answer her greatest wish before she has to head home to the Water Continent.
The sun is beginning to set by the time she makes it down to the water, the waves lighting up with red and orange and purple. As usual, the krabby were out blowing bubbles, which reflect the sunset in a dizzying array of hues.
And Blue Bubblo can't enjoy any of it. She sighs heavily and sits down in the sand, looking morosely out over the waves. Why can't anything cool and exciting and not too dangerous ever happen to her? "My very own partner," Blue Bubblo sighs to the wind. "That's all I want. Someone to go adventuring with."
But nothing answers her prayers. The beach remains as lonely as ever, and even the krabby seem to sense something off about her and scoot away down the beach. Finally Blue Bubblo gets up and stumbles back towards town, before it gets too dark.
It turns out Team Poképals are also on their way back to the Guild, a small Sentret following behind them. Another mission completed successfully, then. Blue Bubblo hangs back, not wanting to encounter the legendary heroes a second time today. Once was enough!
As she watches the little group make their way into Wigglytuff's Guild, though, the gears in Blue Bubblo's mind begin to turn. She's a ditto after all, isn't she? It doesn't seem right that she'd have so much trouble finding her way onto a rescue team. Her thought experiment this morning proves it. After all, she can dream about being in Chimchar's place, but why stop there?
--
Piplup yawns widely, reluctant as ever to greet the morning. Outside, the sun's nearly straight overhead. "Ugh, Chimchar! Why didn't you wake me up? I totally overslept!"
"Sorry, Piplup! I just wanted to get down to the job board first thing." Chimchar smiles, wide, and shows off the sheaf of job postings in his arms. "I made sure to pick us some good ones for today."
"Wow, all of those?" Piplup grabs a sheet and starts reading it. "You're feeling like a go-getter today, aren't you?"
"That's right! I'm ready for some adventuring. Now come on, let's go get breakfast!" Chimchar is out of the room before Piplup can even ask why he grabbed some Bronze-rank mission worth about 20P. Piplup stares after him, frowning. Something seems off about Chimchar. But what?
Blue Bubblo himself is already halfway down the hall, practically skipping with excitement. Finally, he's on a rescue team! He'll get to go on lots of adventures--not-too-scary adventures! Or he will, at least, for a while.
After all, it will take Chimchar at least a couple weeks to find his way back from the Water Continent.
There was never any question that Agénor would lead a pride someday. He was larger than any of the other litleo born in his season, and soon enough larger than those born the season before as well. He was strong but quiet, with a kind of languorous command that drew others towards him, a pride of sorts even before he'd grown into his mane.
When it came time for him to leave his family he traveled far, leaving behind the wildflower-dotten plains. He followed the call of some unknown power, a force that spoke to him on a level below hearing. Come seek greatness, it whispered, and Agénor obeyed.
This was how his pride came to the human-lands, with their narrow ravines between towering cliffs, meadows paved with cold stone and all manner of strange pokémon no pyroar had seen before. Even Agénor had been afraid, at first, at the sheer alien strangeness of the place, but he learned quickly that the place was full of prey, and even the strongest of its creatures, scaled beasts mantled in flame, towering pokémon of stone, couldn't hope to stand up to an entire pride of pyroar, not one led by one so clever and powerful as Agénor.
Agénor grew to love hunting in his city, the name the humans gave it, and his pride rapidly expanded. Agénor grew larger yet, until he towered over even the hunks of living ice that normally took three pyroar to fell. Even when the humans erected their glowing green fence, a marvel the hottest fire couldn't breach, his pride had continued to thrive in their circumscribed territory.
There humans saw to it there was enough to eat, and seemed determined to amuse Agénor as well.
His pride had driven other pokémon from the scruffy grass that covered most of their territory. Agénor suffered a few to remain on the outskirts, a source of pouncing entertainment and training for young litleo, and the rest lived high up at the top of a cliff even Agénor couldn't scale. He paced sometimes around its base, sending pulses of molten racing upwards to remind those above who really ruled this place, but those pokémon were of little concern so long as they stayed away from his pride.
They did, generally. It was the humans who made a habit of trespass. They strolled in with pokémon at their side, seemingly convinced they were masters of Agénor's own territory. His pride leapt on them without hesitation, and even the most confident trainer soon found themselves outmatched by six well-fed pyroar.
The humans ran, lava and dirt exploding beneath their feet, until they could run no farther. They climbed the cliff, using the strange cold vines only their fingers could grasp, and seemed to think themselves safe. Agénor's pride circled below and channeled heat up through the cliffside, and the humans fell down, and yelled, and collapsed. More than one seemed to think their green energy wall would protect them, staggering through the gate that opened only for humans, limping and bleeding. They paused to recover, the ground opened beneath their feet, and they, too, collapsed.
They came at night, when Agénor slept, and most of his pride with them. But humans were loud, and if their unwary tread woke even one pyroar, the pride would descend as usual with claws and flame. It was the same every time, and yet for Agénor, it never got old.
Agénor learned many angry noises in the humans' high-pitched, chattering language. They made entertaining screams when they fell from the cliff, especially, where seemed so many of them wanted to go. And Agénor enjoyed the way they trembled when he stood, and roared, and the pride encircled their new prey.
The humans were not entirely stupid. New ones kept coming to try their luck, but not a one thought to test Agénor's pride twice. Until, of course, one did.
Agénor's pride lay sunning themselves on a warm late-sprint day, made sluggish by full bellies and a peaceful morning. Even so, ears tipped forward and tails flicked with eager anticipation as a shadow appeared on the far side of the green gate.
Normally Agénor wouldn't even bother getting to his feet. His would deal with the intruder, and he would enjoy the entertainment. But when the human stepped through, their water-lizard lumbering behind, and Agénor recognized them, he was on his feet in an instant. His vision contracted into a red haze. His roar rumbled deep in his chest, calling all pyroar to attention.
This was new. This was *exciting*. And he would enjoy this human's screams.
Negrek
Drool driped from Agénor’s mouth and flash-vaporized from the heat of his mane. He charged forwards, intent on scoring the first blood against the human and their foul minions.
The human took a quick step backwards. Agénor smashed into the gate like a Pidgey colliding with overly-Windex(TM)’d glass. Pain washed over him.
“Sorry, kitty,” the lizard said. “Just wanted to get your attention! We’re not here to fight. My trainer asked me to translate a message for you.” Beside him, the human reached into the artificial Numel hump on their back and took out a white flag, waving it back and forth. “We surrender! From this moment on, no more humans will enter Wild Zone Seventeen!”
By this point, several of Agénor’s pridemates had reached the gate. “Wait, what? You can’t be serious!” Natalie protested. She wasn’t the largest or swiftest of the female pyroar, but was never afraid to make her opinions heard.
Agénor groaned and blinked away flash-vaporizing tears of pain. He sprang to his paws and snarled at the creatures on the other side of the green barrier. “Cowards! You’re really going to stop coming here just because we keep tearing the flesh from your body while savoring the sound of your screams!?”
“Yes, actually! You’ve killed so many humans, the Lumiose Council officially condemned this place!” The water-lizard’s face broke out into a broad, toothy grin. “Unfortunately for you, they condemned your pride to a slow death in the process. See, I’m afraid that humans were a linchpin in this little ecosystem of yours. Show them, Reynaud.” He nudged his trainer, prompting them to take out a Rotom Phone and hold it up to the barrier.
“Is that… the Bulbapedia page for Wild Zone Seventeen?” Natalie asked, squinting.
“Yes! Take a good look at the list of native Pokemon, kitties. Notice anything?”
Agénor shoved his pridemate aside and glared at the phone’s display. “Klefki, Lampent, Skarmory, Talonflame, Pyroar, Diggersby, Chespin, me, that one annoying Mawile we killed ages ago… that’s a perfectly balanced ecological community! What’s your point?”
“Oh, I guess you’ve never heard of the term ‘rabbit starvation’ before, have you? That’s okay, you’ll get to know it quite intimately soon enough! See, there’s absolutely no prey for you to eat here besides Diggersby. Klefki and Lampent are made of inorganic materials, Skarmory would give you iron poisoning, Talonflame are too quick and high-flying to catch, and Chespin are a kind of plant. But in addition to tasting like they dirt they live in, Diggersby are lean meat! They’re almost entirely protein, with little fat or sugar to speak of! You can’t survive on that kind of diet in the long term!”
“Wrong, fool!” Agénor bellowed. A low, guttural laugh rumbled out of him, prompting several other Pyroar to follow suit even though they had no idea what their pack leader was thinking. “You’ve fallen into the trap of assuming you can just do a one-to-one find/replace of Pokemon with their nearest animal equivalents and expect the same logic to still apply. But Diggersby aren’t therian mammals! They lay eggs – big, fatty eggs with lots of nutrients! We don’t need your stupid donut and galette fattened humans when we have eggs to eat!”
“Oh, really?” The water-lizard let out his own throaty chuckle. “Maybe you’d better take a look at Bulbapedia’s article on Legends: Z-A, then.” Beside him, the human tapped on the rotom phone for a few seconds and held it up again. “See this line in the ‘features’ section?”
Abilities, breeding, and Eggs are not featured in this game, the text read.
Agénor’s mane flared up like he was standing under a gasoline waterfall. “You’re telling me I’M THE ONLY MALE PYROAR IN A ZONE WITH FIVE TOTAL HOTTIES AND I DON’T EVEN GET TO MATE WITH ANY OF THEM!?” he roared. “IT’S THE FIRST CORE SERIES GAME TO NOT GET AN ‘E’ RATING AND THEY TOOK OUT BREEDING?”
“Yup! Also you’re going to die of protein poisoning.”
“Whoa, hold up a sec,” Natalie said. “If there’s no breeding, how come there are Litleo in our pride?”
“There aren’t,” the water-lizard said, and all the Litleo vanished in a poof of ludonarrative consistency.
“NOOOOOOO our cubs!” a female Pyroar wailed. “I’d do anything for my cubs, except prevent a boyfriend from murdering them all if I ever got a new one!”
“That’s all my trainer wanted to say. Smell you never, losers!” The human and their blue lizard-beast casually strolled away from Zone Seventeen, leaving behind a group of six disconcerted Pyroar.
All the female members of the pack crowded around Agénor. “What are we gonna do? I don’t wanna die of ‘rabbit starvation’! I don’t even think I could handle dying of regular starvation!”
“There’s no need to panic,” Agénor growled. “We’re hypercarnivores! Surely our metabolisms are adapted to handling a little extra protein-”
One Week Later
“Xerneas’ antlers, I feel like a Goldeen caught by a trainer who’s never heard of an ‘ammonia filter’ before!” Natalie moaned. The entire pride was lying around the grass of the wild zone in various states of distress, surrounded by piles of Diggersby bones and fur. Agénor was doing better than everyone else, enjoying the consequences of his alpha size and the three-quarters exponent in Kleiber’s law.
“Alright, maybe a little panic is appropriate,” Agénor said. He’d taken up position on a park bench overseeing the lawn to address his pridemates.
Mireille, the pack’s oldest female Pyroar, slowly flopped onto her side that was facing roughly in the direction of her pride leader. “Ugh, I’m too naseous to panic! This is all your fault, Agénor! If you hadn’t eaten so many humans-”
“However, our pride has gotten through hard times before! I’m sure if we all band together-”
“Like, when?” Natalie snapped. “We’ve had nothing but good times up until this very week! Nobody here has any clue how to deal with more adversity than getting a human bone stuck in your teeth!”
Agénor ignored her. “-we’ll not only survive this crisis, we’ll last until a DLC gives us the ability to breed and lay eggs again! Now, what are us Pyroar known for?”
“Uh, I dunno, strength?” Margaux the Pyroar said. She had no distinguishing features among the pride’s females, unless you counted not having any distinguishing features as a feature itself.
“We’re strong, true, but that wasn’t what I was thinking of. Anyone else?”
“We have manes that kinda look like striped toothpaste?” Anaïs suggested. She was the only female Pyroar whose name had an accent in it.
Agénor stamped a paw in frustration, breaking the armrest of the bench he was squeezed into. “No! Come on, this should be obvious!”
“Ooh, ooh, ooh, I’ve got it!” Natalie perked up, raising a paw. “The answer is that Pyroar aren’t known for anything, ‘cause whenever anyone thinks of a large cursorial fire-type, they always think of an Arcanine instead of us!”
“The answer is that we’re known for our intelligence and creative problem-solving ability.” Everyone stared at Agénor with blank expressions. “That’s right, we’re going to think our way out of this dilemma! Let’s all take a few minutes to brainstorm some solutions, then we’ll all share our ideas.”
“I think the only ‘storm’ that’s gonna happen in my brain is an ammonia seizure,” Mireille muttered. However, none of the Pyroar could come up with anything better to do, so they all started thinking away.
***
“Alright, that’s long enough!” Agénor declared. “Natalie, you always have something to say. What’s your idea?”
“Okay, so,” Natalie started. “I’ve got this plan I call the ‘Fatkins Diet’. Diggersby might be lean meat, but, like, they’re not all lean meat, right? They’ve got organs like livers and brains that have a lot of fat in them! If we only eat those parts of half the Diggersby we kill, it’ll balance our diet out.”
Agénor nodded thoughtfully. “Hmmm, not bad, not bad. We can start-”
“Wait, what’s a liver?” Margaux asked.
“Um, it’s the little thing that dangles in the back of your throat, right?”
“No, no, that has to be the kidney, because it’s about the size of a kidney bean,” Anaïs protested.
“Okay, but we can all agree that the brain is that weird pouch at the end of your large intestine, right?”
Margaux furrowed her brow. “That doesn’t sound right to me. I thought the brain was that gunk that gets caught between your toes sometimes?”
“No, that’s what the liver is, you fool!” Mireille snapped. “And as for brains, clearly none of you recognize them because I’m the only Pyroar here who’s got one!”
The whole pride quickly descended into bickering. Agénor groaned and rubbed his head. He could feel the first pangs of a protein toxicity headache starting to come on. “ENOUGH!” he roared at last. “Let’s just put the Fatkins Diet on the back burner and move onto someone else’s idea. Margaux, you’re up!”
She blinked. “Oh, right, my idea? It’s um, a little bit of a work in progress… See, I remember that the Bulbapedia page for Wild Zone Seventeen listed all of the fauna here, but it didn’t say anything about the flora! So, theoretically, there could be any kind of plant growing around here, right?”
“Well, I’d say that the local climate and soil quality puts some pretty heavy constraints on that, but go on,” Agénor said.
“Okay. So, I was thinking that if we could just find the right kind of vegetable, like a zucchini or a cucumber, then even though we can’t breed, we could sort of simulate-”
“That isn’t the problem we need to be solving right now!” Agénor hissed. “Anaïs, you go! And you better have something good!”
“Don’t worry, this idea is virtually guaranteed to work. So, obviously if it was possible to dig under that green barrier to get out of here, the Diggersby would’ve done it long ago. And if it was possible to go over it, then the Talonflame would’ve done that. But what if we could go through it?”
“How? Isn’t it like, invincible to everything?” Natalie said.
“Yes, but there’s a way around that! I’ve heard that if you can manage to wedge yourself into a corner at juuuuust the right angle, and with juuuuust the right velocity, then you can do something called ‘no-clipping’ and pass straight through solid walls!”
Agénor sighed. “That… seems improbable, but if you’re volunteering to test the idea, you can go ahead.”
“Wait, me?” Anaïs got up slowly and backed away from the rest of the pride, who were now looking at her expectantly. “I mean, I came up with the idea, so shouldn’t it be someone else’s job to test it?”
“Ah, but how would they understand the intricacies of exactly what angle and velocity to use? No, clearly only you can do this,” Mireille said. She pointed at a corner where the green zone barrier met the brick wall of a building. “That looks like a good spot, you should try there.”
“Um, well, if nobody else wants to volunteer… I mean, this could be a bit dangerous, so it’d be a great way to show off your bravery-”
“Just get on with it!” Agénor snapped. He shoved Anaïs in the direction of the corner.
“Okay, okay! I’ll do it! Just gotta get lined up real carefully, and-” Anaïs leaped at the intersection, twisting her body at a strangle angle at the last moment. WHAM! Her head collided against the brick wall. “Ughhhhhh… okay, that didn’t work.”
“Come on Annie, try again!” Natalie chirped. “Don’t give up so easily!”
“Alright, alright...” Anaïs took a few wobbly steps back, then thrust herself at the corner once more. BONK! Her skull rebounded off the green barrier this time.
“Try doing it with more velocity!” Mireille hollered.
“Okay, you know what?” Anaïs turned to face the pride, her striped-toothpaste mane flaring in anger. “If I get through this time, I am not coming back to save any of you!” She took a few steps backwards and concentrated until the black fog forming in her vision started to recede. “Focus… focus...” Her spine twitched this way and that as she rehearsed the exact motion needed. “… now!”
Sprinting towards the corner, Anaïs contorted her body into an unnatural angle as one front paw struck the building wall while another slapped against the zone gate. Her back legs flailed wildly, not finding any ground to purchase on, and then suddenly she was falling through the air. “Whoa-whoa-WAAAAAAAAAAAA!” she screamed. The Pyroar landed on a bile-yellow carpet in a tangle of limbs.
Anaïs sorted herself out and looked around. She was in an empty room with dingy yellow wallpaper, ringed by entrances to, apparently, yet more empty rooms. Flourescent lights hummed overhead. “H-hello? Anyone here?” she spoke. Her voice echoed in the unfurnished space.
***
“Now that we have one less competitor for food, I can reveal my plan,” Mireille remarked. The rest of the pride tore their gaze away from where Anaïs had vanished into thin air.
“You sound confident,” Agénor said.
“That’s because my idea will actually work! It’s simple: We can’t eat the Chespin here because they’re pure grass type, but Chespin evolve into Chesnaught, which are fighting-grass type. That means they’re not entirely plants, which means some parts of Chesnaught must be edible! All we have to do is power-level a Chespin until it evolves, and we can eat it!”
“Hmm… you know, that just might actually work! Let’s do it, everyone!” the pride leader declared.
Natalie bounded to her paws. “Woo, yeah! Go Mireille!”
The pride quickly located and encircled a hapless Chespin. “Um, hi guys,” he said. “I was just, uh, doing a bit of photosynthesis here, so if you could maybe step out of my view of the sun-”
“Chespin,” Agénor said, placing a paw on the Pokemon’s woody head. “Don’t you want to learn how to protect yourself from those awful Diggersby that are skulking about?”
“Er, I mean, it seems like you lions are doing a pretty good job of keeping their population down already! I’m kind of more worried about those Lampent, they’ve been getting stronger and stronger every time someone dies here, and-”
“Get the EXP share,” Agénor ordered. Mireille quickly went away and came back with a sinister-looking helmet comprised of metal straps studded with lightbulb-tipped spikes. It seemed like every trainer who’d entered the wild zone had one in their backpack. She proceeded to jam the device on the Chespin’s head while the others held him down.
“Now bury him in the part of the lawn that doesn’t get shadowed by those human dwellings!”
“Wait, what are you-” the Chespin protested as he was shoved into a hastily-dug hole. “...oh, hey, this is kind of nice, actually! All the Diggersby scraps that have soaked into the soil here sure have a lot of nitrogen-rich amino acids!”
After a lot of pointless skirmishing between pride members, the Chespin absorbed enough vicarious experience points to evolve, first into a rotund Quilladin that had the pride’s mouths watering already, and then into a beefy Chesnaught. “Wow, thanks guys! I feel great! Someone will have to update the Bulbapedia page for Wild Zone Seventeen, because there’s a new Pokemon around n-AAAAAAUGH!” The fully-evolved starter screamed as he was torched by five simultaneous five attacks. Agénor dragged his roasted body out of the hole.
“I get to eat him first! It was my idea!” Mireille immediately pounced on the corpse and bit into an arm, chewing voraciously.
“Well? How is it?” Margaux asked.
“It’s – it’s – BLECH!” Her pridemate stumbled away, spitting Chesnaught chunks out of her mouth. “Ugh, that’s even leaner meat than Diggersby! It’s nothing but cellulose and protein!”
“Hmmph, we sure did waste a lot of time and energy on that plan,” Agénor grumbled. “Who could’ve guessed that a fighting-type Pokemon would have more muscle than fat on their body? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one of the pride, Mireille!”
“You were the first Pokemon to approve of the idea!” Mireille shot back. “And where’s your great plan? You’re supposed to be the leader, you come up with something!”
“Yeah, she has a point, you know. You can’t just ask us to do all the intellectual heavy lifting!” Natalie said.
“Okay, okay, fine,” Agénor snapped. “I’ll think of a brilliant scheme to get us out of this conundrum, like I should have done in the first place instead of relying on you lot. Now, let me think...” He sat back on his haunches, staring into the clouds as he pondered, deep in thought. “Hmm… Hmm… HMMMMMMMMMM...”
“Hurry it up a bit, we’re rabbit-starving here!”
Finally, Agénor shifted to his feet. “Alright, got it! Everyone, come listen in!” The pride dutifully gathered around his alpha-sized form. “Now, I was thinking. Legends Z-A might not have poké dolls available to buy, but I assume that’s only because their effect wouldn’t make sense in the real-time combat paradigm, where there’s no easily delineated boundary between fighting and running away. But surely they still have to exist in this world, right? Those humans love their Pokemon merchandise, after all.”
“That’s true...” Margaux said.
“Right. And although poké dolls have always just been of Clefairy in the past, that has to be an abstraction, right? In reality, there must exist all kinds of poké dolls, some of every species, and in all different shapes and sizes, too.”
Natalie cocked her head. “Where are you going with this, Aggy?”
“This is it: If we can get our paws on poké dolls of the right species, like, say, Pyroar or Arcanine, and they’re of sufficient size, then – just maybe – even though we can’t breed, we could sort of simulate-”
“That’s not the problem we need to solve!” the rest of the pride chorused.
“It’s hopeless! How is it that none of us can come up with any workable ideas for how to save us!?” Mireille lamented.
It was then that Camille spoke up. She was the quiet one of the pride. “Actually, it’s simple. The solution has been staring us in the face this entire time.”
“You’re being ridiculous! If it was anything obvious, we would’ve thought of it a long time ago,” Agénor scoffed.
“Oh, I’m sure it’s something we’ve all been thinking lately. Everyone but you, that is.” Camille approached Agénor slowly, walking with a casual saunter. “There’s a nice source of non-Diggersby food right here for the taking. And it has exactly the right balance of nutrients a Pyroar needs in their body.” She bared her fangs. “A big, alpha-sized source.”
“Hey, you’re right! If Aggy can’t breed us, he can still feed us!” Natalie started to circle around to Agénor’s other side.
“Whoa, ladies, wait! I’m an alpha Pokemon!” Agénor protested, nervously stepping back towards a wall. “You forget, I have all kinds of combat bonuses! Doubled attack, doubled defense! Perfect IVs in at least three stats! Larger hurt-boxes on my attacks! So many bonuses I can’t even remember them all!”
“Yes, but the only important ones are doubled stats, and those only apply to wild alpha Pokemon,” Camille said. “And you’re anything but!”
“Nonsense! I’m wild to the core! I’ve killed countless humans in battle! Only wild pokemon can do that!” His tail bumped against hard bricks and cement.
“Oh, really? You’re clearly literate, judging by how quickly you read the line on that Bulbapedia page. You understand the function of tools like EXP Shares and poké dolls. You even reference arcane human concepts like ‘hurt-boxes’ and ‘therian mammals’! Face it, you’re a civil Pokemon, through and through!”
“Get him!” The four female members of the pride pounced on Agénor. They tore into him in a savage, carb-and-fat-seeking frenzy.
“Aaaargh! The pain!” Agénor wailed as his blood flash-vaporized upon exiting his body. “Surely only a deus ex machina can save me now!”
Suddenly, a large yellow hoop materialized in the air, and a little grey-and-pink Pokemon hovered through. “Did someone say ‘Hoopa’?” he said.
“What? No, I said ‘deus ex machina’-”
“Too bad, Hoopa time!” Hoopa pulled forth another ring from the one he’d come in from, then waved it around in the air. The ring rattled about and made a sound like water knocking on pipes in a house with old plumbing. And then-
A rain of donuts poured forth from the ring. Big, glazed donuts covered in all kinds of fattening frosting and sugary sprinkles. The pride ceased their mauling of Agénor to stare in wonder. “Here you go! Hoopa was only pretending to eat donuts to save little girl’s feelings, yes! But Hoopa is ghost and god! He has no metabolism like you puny fleshlings!”
Natalie bounded over and started stuffing the pastries into her face. “Oh my Hyperspace Mega Rayquaza, these are amazing!”
“I can feel my macronutrient balance returning to normal already!” Margaux said.
Camille thought a moment. “Hey Hoopa, as long as you’re deus-ex-machining, do you think you could get our cubs back for us?”
“Done! Try not to think too hard about where they come from when game doesn’t have eggs, yes!” All of the Litleo cubs re-appeared in a poof of ludonarrative dissonance. “And speaking of breeding...” Hoopa hovered close to Agénor and whispered in his ear. “You can use hole in donuts to help with your other problem, yes!”
“Everything is better forever now, yes! Hoopa is real hero of Lumiose!”
THE END
(shortly thereafter, the entire pride of Pyroar died of coronary artery disease)
(except for Anaïs, who had a long and fruitful career of eating humans who stumbled into the backrooms. She eventually got her own page on the backrooms wiki and a minor acting role in the upcoming movie directed by Kane Parsons. Afterwards she leveraged her minor celebrity into a succesful social media pressure campaign to get Wild Zone Seventeen re-opened to the human public. Anaïs currently has three Litleo and lives in a rustic cottage in the suburbs of Camphrier town, where she enjoys feeding on all the Pokemon in Route Five except for Gulpin and Bunnelby. She is working on a way to no-clip into the Pokemon Snap dimension.)
“Hey, Sentret, do you think A Coffin In Castelia would be located in the 500s, ‘Scalchop fighting techniques’? I mean, it has a murder in it and that’s the classification most related to violence, right?” Yanma asked. His bulging compound eyes had scanned every inch of the towering shelves on either side of him, but his novel was nowhere to be found.
Sentet popped out of the fortress of beanbag chairs she’d made to read her spy thriller in peace. “I dunno. Maybe it’s in the 300s, ‘Good Swimming Spots’ because Castelia’s a port city?”
“Hmm, good suggestion. I guess I’ll just have to check both.” Yanma took off, his wings turning into a blur. BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Sentret flinched as the dragonfly-esque Pokemon shot past her.
“Let’s see… is it here? No...” BUZZZZZZZ! “Over here? Nope...” BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! A Clefairy groaned and clutched at her ears as Yanma hovered directly over her to scan a high shelf. “Aha! Here it- oh, this is Coffee in Castelia. Some sort of romance novel, I guess?” Yanma shoved it back in, his mandibles leaving behind sizable dents in the paperback.
BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Teddiursa’s stack of photocopied anime club fliers went flying from the downgale as Yanma whooshed over him.
“Okay, maybe it’s in the 200s, ‘Fur Care Methods to Maintain Sleekness and Water-Resistance’ for some reason? I guess the detective is a Furfrou...” A Cutiefly desperately tried to get out of the way as Yanma approached. BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! He was too late, and Yanma’s whirlwind wake flung him into an involuntary barrel roll.
Seeing the carnage, a Dewott scowled and climbed over his desk. Bracing himself against the noise and wind, he made his way to the four-winged menace. “Um, excuse me, but if you need help, have you considered asking the librarian?”
“Oh! Sorry, I just hate to be a bother, you know?” Yanma rotated to face Dewott, his tail knocking over a carefully arranged book display in the process. “But if you wouldn’t mind, I’m looking for A Coffin In-”
“It’s in the 700s, ‘Shellfish Cookbooks’, since it’s a locked room mystery, so it’s about a door, and doors open and close just like clams and oysters do. Obviously,” Dewott huffed.
“Ah, got it. You know, I don’t think your ‘Dewott Decimal System’ is very intuitive. Have you considered maybe just organizing the books Unownically-”
“Excuse me, but my system provides all the information any reasonable Pokemon could ever need! And maybe you should consider all the disruption you’re causing to my beautiful library!”
Yanma clicked his mandibles in irritation. “Disruption? How have I been disrupting anything?”
“It’s all that incessant flying and buzzing around! It makes it impossible for any Pokemon to concentrate around here!” Dewott snapped. “Haven’t you ever thought of just walking to where you need to go!?”
“W- walking?” Yanma asked.
“Yes! You have six legs, so why don’t you try using them for a change?”
“But- but- I don’t even know if I know how to walk!”
“Well you’d better learn fast, because from now on, if I catch you flying in here again, you are banned from my library!” Dewott said, drawing a scalchop to dramatically gesture towards the exit.
“Ugh, fine...” Yanma’s incessant droning died off as he landed on the floor.
“Thank you! If you need something to help you learn how to walk, I’d suggest checking the 100s, ‘Basic Topics For Dumb Baby Oshawott’.” Dewott smirked and strolled back to his desk.
Hmmm… walking can’t be that hard, Yanma thought. After all, loads of Pokemon did it all the time, and with fewer legs than he had. His eyes captured the image of a Poochyena carrying a slobber-drenched book to the checkout. Ah, so that’s how it worked! You just had to lift up your legs one at a time, then set them back down again. He slowly raised his front right leg, then set it down. Next, the front-left leg. Then, the right middle leg. The left middle leg. Back left. Back right. Done! Except…
Somehow, all that perambulation had failed to move Yanma anywhere. He was still in the exact same spot where he landed. Okay, maybe he needed to try moving his legs in a different order? Starting from the back- Back right leg up. Back right leg down. Back-left up. Back-left down. Middle legs up. Middle legs down. Front up. Front down.
Yanma looked around. He appeared to have not moved an inch. He tilted his head back and forth to be sure, but the conclusion remained the same: he hadn’t gone anywhere. With increasing frustation, Yanma tried combination after combination of different leg orderings, but none of them seemed to work. “Ugh! Why is this so difficult!” he lamented.
A Swellow took note and swooped to perch on a nearby shelf. “Oh, are you doing that weird dance because you forgot how to fly?” she asked. “It’s easy! See, the trick is that you need to move your wings instead of your legs!”
“No, I know how to fly, it’s walking I don’t know how to do! I’ll be banned from the library if I fly in here again!”
“That’s also easy! The trick to dealing with being banned from the library is to only enter when Dewott’s on one of his bathroom breaks! He takes them like clockwork! The current one will end in ten sec- whoa, gotta go!” Swellow darted out of an open window.
“Hey, wait-” Yanma quickly observed that Dewott wasn’t at his desk, then flew after her. “You’re banned from the library?” he asked, buzzing alongside the rapidly retreating bird.
“Yeah, it turns out their ‘no eating Wurmple patrons’ policy is really harsh. But it’s no problem if you’re quick. Which it seems like you are!”
“I can’t live like that, though!” Yanma protested. “I’m a rule-abiding Pokemon! The thought of evading a ban makes my antenna-horns quiver! Please, can’t you just teach me how to walk? You know how, right?”
Swellow thought a moment. “I do know how! But what will you give me in return?”
The Walrein
A few moments later, Yanma gave Swellow a pack of twigs colored similarly to a Pecha Scarf. "Corsola Twigs?" She remarked, unsure of the gesture and the purpose of the twigs themselves.
"Erm, I thought you might need these for something in the future..." Yanma buzzed.
Swellow shrugged off the twigs. "Nevermind that, let's just give you that walking tutorial you so desperately need..." She said, lifting her right foot up and moving it forward.
"Hmm?" Yanma got back onto the ground and copied Swellow, moving a foot up, moving it forward, and then setting it back down.
"Alright! Now start repeating that movement on each of your legs and you'll be a walking Pokémon in no time!" Swellow boasted, watching her student walk for the first time.
"Wait, but wasn't this what I was just doing earlier?" Yanma confusingly asked.
"Not really, that dance I saw didn't have the most important part of walking. See, you MOVE your legs forward as you lift them up before putting them down! That part must've been what you were missing. Though to be fair, I'm not sure how you should effectively move your legs in a way that doesn't result in cramps..."
Yanma started walking, walking, and walking. He walked quite slow, but was subtly getting the hang of it. Tat... Tat... Tat... Tat... Tat...
Swellow perked up again, looking satisfied. "Well, don't I stand corrected? I guess that means my work is done!"
"Wait, you're going to leave so soon already? Haven't we just met?" Yanma asked.
Swellow nodded. "Well, you just wanted to learn how to walk. Don't know about you, but I have other things to do. Don't you want to use your new-found knowledge by walking back into that library?"
"Alright..." Yanma sighed, very slowly walking back to Dewott's library. Man, if only there was a way to just fly around without making those buzzing noises! Maybe he should borrow that walking book from that Dumb Baby Oshawott category as well... Erm, the 100s...
Back in the library, Ginji Torchic and Mudkip were looking in the 700s for a Minnie's Yoo-Hoo sheet music book. "What kind of Pokémon is Mickey supposed to be, anyway?" Ginji scrowled.
Before Mudkip could answer, Yanma showed up to once again look for "A Coffin in Castelia." Mudkip froze in fear as he looked at the bug, eyes widening. Meanwhile, Ginji was dumbfounded at why his partner would be so scared of some six-legged bug.
"A giant bug!" Mudkip whispered out in trembling fear, feeling like an ant about to be stepped on.
"It's just a Yanma, Mudkip! It's nothing really all that special." Ginji groaned at his cowardly partner, who often relies on him for many things.
"But it's BIGGER than me, so gosh darn big!" Mudkip shook in his imaginary boots as he continued to look at Yanma. "Like, it's twice my size!"
Ginji would've facepalmed if he had hands. "Let's just get that sheet music and ignore the giant bug, Chikorita's not gonna learn how to play Minnie's Yoo-Hoo without it." He got Mudkip to take the book, which had two 1920s-looking characters on the cover. They then walked off to check it out.
Yanma couldn't really reply, he was too busy trying to borrow his novel to provide a rebuttal to his 'scariness.' Tat... Tat... Tat... More slow walking can be heard as he got the book to check it out as well.
