Searching Far and Wide - 1 (Patreon)

Starting Point I

‘Where the fuck am I?’ was the first thing Pierce thought when he woke up. Why? Because he was pretty sure that he’d woken up in a bedroll and he’d only slept in one as a child around fifteen years prior or something. He also didn’t remember going camping lately or anything that would end with him in such a place.

With that surprise, Pierce woke up pretty quickly, for once.

Looking around only brought more confusion to his mind, which hadn’t even finished waking up yet. ‘Why am I in a tent?’ Pierce thought, frowning and rubbing his eyes. ‘I’m pretty sure that I’ve never even made plans that would lead to me drinking or anything so… what the fuck is going on?’

Half-asleep, he dragged himself out of the bedroll. Next to him was a backpack and a set of clothes. None of them were familiar to him at all, which was only adding to an already growing sense of dread. Hesitantly, he dressed himself with those clothes – he’d apologize later to whoever they belonged to, but he refused to go around in pajamas –, which fit perfectly. Black boots, black cargo pants, a plain white t-shirt and a dark gray hoodie. Lots of things that fit entirely too well, in his opinion.

Shaking his head, he pushed questions for later as he moved outside the tent.

‘A forest, because why not, right?’ Pierce thought, his previous annoyance slowly turning into fear. There were only trees as far as he could see and that definitely made the nervousness he was already feeling reach new levels. He felt his face pale and his hands start shaking.

‘Ok, it’s ok,’ he told himself, gulping down the knot in his throat before taking a deep breath in. ‘Let’s just think this over, ok? This is fine. I just gotta figure out where I am and how to… get… back…’ he trailed off as his eyes found something rather peculiar hanging from a tree branch.

There, attached to what seemed to be a thread of some kind, was a brownish yellow shell-like thing the size of his chest. ‘What even is that?’ he wondered, staring at it as if that would reveal the thing’s secrets. Which it did, actually, because it took him barely a second to realize that the black spots on it were eyes. How did he know? Well, because the thing rotated the smallest bit so that it was “facing” him and chirped something that didn’t sound very friendly, even if the sound was muffled by the shell.

The thing looked familiar to Pierce though, almost like he’d seen such a thing before.

‘But what…?’

Another chirping sound got his attention then, mainly because it wasn’t muffled by anything, and when he turned, he froze. There was a caterpillar-like thing climbing up the side of a tree. Brownish with a horn protruding from its forehead and some pink on the front of its “face” and on its legs. Pierce would recognize that thing anywhere.

‘A weedle?’ he thought, eyes wide. Slowly turning towards the thing that had been hanging from the tree, it suddenly made much more sense. ‘A kakuna…’

‘What the fuck?!’

Looking around for some sign of sense, Pierce was instead met with the exact opposite. In the distance, he saw a few pidgey flying in the sky. Further away he saw a caterpie crawling on a tree branch upside down. And in between the woods, he was pretty sure he caught a glimpse of a butterfree.

‘This is happening, huh?’ he thought to himself, his shoulders sagging. As a last resort, he pinched his own arm, grimacing as he felt the spike of pain. More because of what it meant than how it felt. ‘This is really happening…’ he repeated.

Then he turned to the kakuna.

“You wouldn’t happen to know what happened, right? Didn’t see anything?” Pierce asked, receiving what sounded like a remarkably aggressive chirping sound from the thing. “Didn’t think so…” he mumbled.

Sighing, he ran his fingers through his black hair, trying to gather his thoughts. How had this happened? He had no idea. He remembered something about interdimensional travel being a thing in the series, maybe, probably. Something about wormholes and Lunala? Was that the name of that legendary? Pierce didn’t know. He wasn’t a Pokemon expert, that was for sure.

Where even was he? The short answer to that was the Pokemon world, probably. The long answer though, that was the one he struggled with. Judging by the pokemon he was seeing around, it was probably Kanto, or Johto maybe, but he didn’t know that much about the latter to be sure. And quite honestly, if he could just wake up in the pokemon world, then what stopped him from being in one that was different from the series? An alternative universe or something of the sort?

Maybe more pressingly, he thought, what was he going to do now? That was probably the most important question at the moment. He needed an answer to that one. Everything else he could try to figure out later. For the moment, as he tried to come up with an answer, he needed a way to make sure he was safe. He remembered some pokemon entries that were less than reassuring, after all. Last thing he wanted was for one of those to catch him off guard.

With that in mind, his eyes trailed towards the tent he’d woken up in. ‘The backpack,’ he remembered then. Was it possible it held some clues? Maybe, probably, possibly, hopefully? Getting inside it once more, he looked for the bag and checked inside. Instantly, the first thing he found was a note sitting on top of the contents of the thing.

I’m sorry for your loss. Hopefully, you’ll be able to make a life where you are.

-A

Pierce could only blink at the words. That… That wasn’t what he’d been expecting.

‘Sorry for your loss? What does it mean? Nobody died or any… thing?...’ As he started thinking about it, however, he paused. He tried to remember better. He knew there were no plans of going anywhere before he appeared in the forest. No party or meeting with friends to get drunk, no trip anywhere near a forest. He’d been in the city, studying as usual.

He was on his way back home and…

It was getting dark outside. He remembered shouting and fear. He remembered pain and red… lots of red. He remembered the feeling of the ground against his back and the sight of the moon over him. He remembered…

He remembered dying.

‘Hopefully you’ll be able to make a life where you are,’ the note read as he looked back at it, his vision blurring as tears formed in his eyes. ‘I died…?’ he thought, disbelieving. Despite the hazy memories, he knew that was a fact. It fit, it made sense and that pain, what little he remembered of the whole thing…

It felt so real.

‘I died,’ he thought again, taking a deep breath in before letting it out slowly. He closed his eyes, his hand clenching into a fist balling the note inside it. In the privacy of his own mind, he tried to recall his family, his friends, his life and all the things he probably would never see again. ‘Just like that… huh?’ he chuckled weakly, feeling the energy leave his body. That was it, huh? That was how his life ended. One moment he was fine and the next… Done. Finished. The end.

He gulped, eyes focusing on the backpack.

With shaky hands, he came back to what he was doing. ‘Push it aside, you can have a breakdown when you aren’t in the middle of a forest,’ Pierce told himself. It was what he’d always done with trouble. Push it away to deal with later. Procrastination had worked well whenever he had to deal with stuff that felt a little too much for him.

This certainly fit that criteria, he was sure.

‘The fuck is up with this?’ he couldn’t help but wonder when he actually took a look at the contents of the backpack. There was entirely too little stuff there. Hell, the bag was entirely too small for camping of all things.

The contents of the thing were only a few notebooks, a pencil case that seemed to be only half full, a kit that seemed to combine silverware and very simplistic cookware into one and two cubes. Those later ones called his attention rather strongly, but before checking those, he pulled the notebooks. ‘Blank,’ he noted with some bitterness as he checked them. He’d half expected to find some notes or something there. ‘Actually…’ he paused, bringing his hands to his face. ‘I’m myself, right? Is there a mirror in here?’

There wasn’t, as far as he could tell, but the eating kit or whatever the thing was called had a plate that was reflective enough. Taking it and dreadfully peeking at his face, he let out a sigh that was almost explosive. ‘Oh thank God… er, Arceus? ROB? Whatever,’ he thought, putting down the thing in a moment of relief. The last thing he needed was to think he’d screwed some poor bastard over by taking over their body.

‘Now, what’s up with this?’ he wondered as he checked over the cubes he’d noticed before. They weren’t plastic, as he’d thought before. No, they were metal. Which metal was anyone’s guess, but the thing that interested him the most was a square button they had on one side. It reminded him of a cubic pokeball, in a way. They were even the same size as what he guessed an expanded one would be. ‘Minecraft-style though,’ He thought with a weak smile before looking the thing over a little more. It was mostly a dull gray, but it did have some pale green lines on it that only heightened the similarity to a pokeball. ‘Devon,’ He read on the underside. ‘Wasn’t that one of the corporations around?’

He was half tempted to press the button and figure out what those cubes were for. There was a little detail that made him hesitate though. ‘If they look so much like pokeballs… What if they work similarly?’ he wondered as he looked at the things. What if he pressed it and something came out in a beam of red? Probably not a pokemon, he supposed, but something else? The design was a little too on the nose to be a coincidence, in his opinion.

He didn’t remember anything like that from the show or the games though…

Curiouser and curiouser.

Taking the backpack and everything it contained out, he spared a glance around to make sure nothing had creeped up on him while he was distracted. He’d died once and he’d rather not do so again, if at all possible. Before turning to the cube once more, he glanced towards the kakuna that was hanging not so far away from him. Pierce got the distinct impression that it was looking at him, but it was difficult to tell, considering it didn’t move and its eyes were completely black.

‘So, let’s see,’ he mused, focusing back on the cubes. Taking one up and moving a little away from the rest of the things, trees included, he decided to press the button and be done with it. If the things had just been there inside the backpack, they couldn’t be anything bad, right?

Thus, he set the cube on his palm, button facing away from him, and activated the thing.

“The hell-?!” he exclaimed when the thing didn’t open as he’d expected. Instead, it grew in size, like it was a balloon being inflated. Not only did it do that though, but it also got heavier and heavier the bigger it got. To the point that Pierce could only drop the thing to the ground. “What the fuck?” he mumbled as he looked at the cube that was now the size of a nightstand.

Then the thing clicked and the top part of the… ‘Pokecube?’ he tentatively named the thing. The upper part seemed to have opened the smallest bit, like a lock had been released. Hesitantly pulling it up some more, Pierce realized that it worked like a chest of some kind. And inside…

‘Well, some good news, at last,’ he thought, relieved. The thing was filled with food and water. He didn’t know how long it all would last him, but knowing that he had something like that was great. ‘Pokemon kibble too, huh?’ he noticed, picking up one of the bags. The cube seemed filled half with water, a quarter of human food and a quarter of pokemon food… ‘There was another cube though, right?’ he remembered, eyes darting towards the backpack he’d settled next to the tent.

Slowly and carefully, he closed the cube. When it clicked and he was about to press the button again, the thing shrunk back down by itself. ‘Well, that’s how it works, I guess,’ he thought to himself, looking at the cube, confused. Picking it up, he moved to check the other one.

‘Huh, this one has blue instead of green lines,’ Pierce noted as he picked the second up. ‘Clothes, toiletries, camping equipment and space for the tent, I assume,’ he listed to himself as he enlarged and opened the second cube/chest. ‘Well, things are much better than I’d thought they were,’ he added as he closed it and picked it up once it shrunk back down.

‘Well, this gives a reason to why everyone could just travel the world with a small backpack and be perfectly fine, huh?’ he noticed.

“Things are looking up, buddy,” Pierce said, smiling towards the hanging kakuna. “Not very friendly, are you?” he asked when the thing aggressively chirped something at him. Then his grin froze on his face. ‘Wait, can’t these things… use attacking moves? Maybe I should just… not?’

Turning away from the cocoon pokemon, Pierce considered his situation and his resources. ‘What do I do now, should I move or stay here? No, staying is a bad idea. But in which direction do I go towards?’ he mused as he looked around. The forest looked about the same in all directions, if he was honest.

‘Maybe…’ he thought, trailing off as he looked up at the sky. ‘These pokemon mean I should be in Kanto, theoretically. Weedle, caterpie and pidgey also means I should be somewhere in the early routes, right?’ He mused, not entirely sure and mostly doing guesswork. It was what he had though, and he had to make due with that.

He frowned, trying to remember what the Kanto map looked like.

‘Fairly sure the early routes were on the West, if I move North East… Maybe I’ll get somewhere?’ It wasn’t an accurate plan, he knew that much. ‘Better than no plan at all though,’ He mused nervously.

“Gotta check how the sun is moving… Does it even work the same way here? It’d be annoying if it’s the other way around in this world or something like that,” He muttered under his break as he looked up. His musings were interrupted though, when he heard something hit the forest floor to his side. Turning instantly, he was met with…

A weedle, twisting and turning as it seemed to have fallen on its back. From a tree, was Pierce’s guess. He chuckled lightly. ‘God, for a second I thought something was coming for me.’

“You alright there, little one,” he asked, walking up and making the worm/caterpillar or whatever freeze. Behind him, he heard the kakuna chittering louder than it had so far. “Let me give you a hand, yeah?” he said softly, picking up the thing from the sides. It was… smooth, actually. Difficult to explain, but the thing was adorable enough that he didn’t mind touching it.

He was very careful that the horn never came even close to him though. Adorable or not, he’d have dropped it instantly if it tried to sting him. He wasn’t that suicidal, no sir.

“There we go,” Pierce said as he helped the thing to a nearby tree trunk as high as he could manage. “Careful next time, yeah?” he told it with a grin as the thing got its hold and started climbing on its own. It chirped something at him, which he liked to think was a grateful statement. “Don’t mention it,” he waved off.

Pierce had the distinct feeling that the kakuna was glaring at him when he moved back to the tent.

“What? I didn’t do anything, man,” he protested, only to get a very aggressive response. “Er, sorry, woman?” He tried, getting a low chitter that he would swear was grumbling. “Anyway, I’m not gonna do anything. I don’t know why you are so aggressive, geez.”

He only got more “grumbling” after that.

“So, I know I’m probably very annoying to you and all, but do you mind if I stay here for a bit? I wanna check how the sun moves before deciding on a direction to go away and stop bothering you,” Pierce asked. The kakuna hadn’t tried to shoot him with anything just yet, which he guessed was a good sign, but he also didn’t want to push his luck, if he was honest. “I’ll that as a yes,” he said then with a chuckle when the cocoon grumbled some more.

He heard a familiar sound then.

“Again, buddy?” he asked, turning towards the weedle on the ground. “You know what? You want some kibble?” The worm froze then before its head snapped towards him and Pierce would swear that the thing was trying to give him the puppy dog eyes.

He laughed.

‘Well, things could be worse, huh?’ he thought, his smile turning the slightest bit bitter as he moved to pick up the bug type.

[}-o-{]

“So, how long are you gonna be like that?” Pierce asked the kakuna, sitting against a tree to the side of the “campment”.

It’d already been a few hours and he’d checked how the sun moved. However, he’d decided that it was better to just stay where he was for the day. It was already getting late, after all. It was unfortunate, but at least he’d have the whole day to move after the night was over. It’d be much more productive, in a way, since he could take down the tent and travel a little more than he’d have if he started in the middle of the day.

“Must be scary, to be stuck there,” Pierce added then, finger tapping a notebook he’d set on his lap. He’d picked it up to… Well, the original idea had been to write about his life but… He didn’t know how safe that would be, even if he really wanted to keep a physical record to remember things by, even if he had nothing else.

The kakuna, meanwhile, responded by literally beaming. As in, its cocoon/body shone white for a moment, as if a sheen washed over it. He almost thought it was evolving, but it lasted maybe half a second at best, surprisingly. After that, a purple light appeared in front of where Pierce guessed would be a mouth or something and from there it shot needle-like things that flew quite a bit before curving until they hit the ground.

“Harden and… Poison Sting, I think the other one is?” Pierce guessed out loud. He was no pokemon expert, he could tell you that. He could recognize most of them by appearance, especially in the early regions, but as for move sets? No sir, not at all. “Well, that’s cool,” he mumbled, still looking at where the needles had fallen. “Good thing I didn’t annoy you too much, huh?”

The kakuna chittered something and it sounded a lot more friendly than before, that was for sure. Or maybe the thing was just mocking him. Regardless, it wasn’t angry, or grumpy, which he took as a win. ‘Progress,’ Pierce celebrated internally. Then, his eyes moved to the side, where the other pokemon rested. He’d given the weedle a handful of pokemon kibbles from the green cube and it’d promptly fallen asleep soon after eating them all.

The clicking sound of one of the bug types… “talking” for lack of a better word, got Pierce’s attention then. Especially because it wasn't the kakuna and the weedle was obviously still asleep so… ‘Welp, what do we have here?’ he thought, seeing another of the brownish worms not so far away.

“Hey there, little one,” he greeted with a wave. “Need anything?”

Instead of an answer, Pierce saw the little warm crawl closer towards him. Thus, he simply stared at the little thing as it went about going… wherever its destination was, he supposed. Slowly circled around where he’d been sitting and then… It pointed with its horn-thing.

“Ah, food, huh?” Pierce realized, noticing that it was signaling towards the other weedle. Getting an enthusiastic cheer in response, he chuckled. “Sure, I have some…” he trailed off then, looking around to see if there were more. Had this one seen him feed the other and come? It’d be troublesome if a bunch of them came for food.

Granted, he wasn’t going to eat that himself but there was a chance that he’d have to feed something in order to keep himself safe.

“I don’t have that much though, so if there’s any more of you around, I can’t feed you all,” he said loudly, mostly so that if there were other worms around they’d know what was up. With a shake of his head, he brought out the green cube once more and did much as he’d done with the first weedle. “Here you go.”

The thing chittered adorably for a second before starting to eat.

“You guys are too cute,” Pierce grumbled as he stored the cube back in his backpack. “You’ll leave me with no food at this rate.”

The kakuna chirped something that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

“Oh, shut up,” he snapped without any heat in his voice. “Anyway, I guess I could try to draw or something, to pass the time and…” he trailed off then as a buzz reached his ears. It sounded far away, but strong. “Is that a beedrill?” he asked, looking around warily. He got no response from the kakuna, but the weedle that was awake didn’t look very concerned which was mildly reassuring.

Then he heard the same sound come from much closer. With his head moving to the sides and his eyes darting all over the place, he eventually found the source of the sound. ‘Please, let it be friendly,’ he thought to himself as he saw a beedrill flying towards him. It wasn’t moving slowly either, which only added to his fear.

“Uh, hi?” Pierce greeted, nervously bringing a hand up. The thing floated there, arm-stingers raised menacingly as it swayed up and down. “Look, I don’t want to cause trouble or anything, I swear.”

The weedle on the ground chirped something and the beedrill replied in kind. Pierce, meanwhile, could only be a spectator in the strange conversation and pray that the little worm was telling the wasp or bee or whatever that he was friendly. The kakuna joined then after a few exchanges and whatever she said gave the other two pause. That was a little more concerning, since Pierce didn’t think the cocoon pokemon liked him much.

Regardless, the beedrill chittered something before turning back towards him “telling” him something and flying away.

“Ah… Well, that was… Thanks for vouching for me, guys… I think,” he said hesitantly, feeling much like he had when he’d been abroad and hadn’t been able to understand a word people said. When the weedle chirped something that sounded friendly to him, he supposed the thing had actually gone well and the beedrill hadn’t gone to look for friends to sting him to death. “Well worth that food, huh?” he mumbled as he relaxed against the tree.

The kakuna chose that moment to chitter something at him.

“Thank you too. I know you don’t like me much, so I really appreciate it. That could have gone… badly, I bet,” he said, leaning his head against the tree. Now that the fear had loosened its grip on him, his body was left feeling weak. ‘The adrenaline going away? Something else?’ he mused, taking deep breaths to calm himself down.

The cocoon pokemon “said” something else to him.

“Remind me to give you some food if you get out of there before I leave, yeah?” he said with a half-smile.

Pierce was no pokemon speech expert, evidently, but he was pretty sure that what followed was a “you better”.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Yes, I’m doing something very dumb and starting another story. Before any confusion arises and such, I’ll say this: This isn’t a replacement for GoS. There’s a different story that will take that slot. This is a third story that will be updated weekly… Or so I hope. I won’t give you guys any guarantees. It’s important to leave it clear that I might put this on hiatus if I feel like it gets hard to keep to the new schedule, or I might change it to an update every other week or something like that. We’ll see, but I wanted you guys to know how things stand.

Anyway, yes, Pokemon story and such. I’ve been holding votes in my discord channel for stories to work on whenever I have time for it after being done with the main stories. This is a story that was one of the ones that won the most, and thus got the most chapters. With that in mind, I decided that it was as good an idea as any other to promote it to main story.

As for the actual story notes, I’ll try to get a happy medium between the overly realistic, grim dark pokemon stories and the silliness of the anime and such fics. I don’t know how good a job I’ll do at it, but I’ll give it my best shot. Besides that… Well, I hope you guys like this new story, that is all.

And on that note, I also hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What do you think will be the first pokemon that our boy, Pierce, will get?

See you.

PS: This was supposed to come out like, fifteen minutes ago, but for some reason it seems I failed to hit the post button or the site screwed me over. Each equally as likely, I think. Sadge.