[Pokémon] November Echo Midnight (PG-13)

• This is indeed my first fan fiction. And yes, it is about Pokemon.
• Credit goes to diablo_200525 for the premise and cultural consultation.
• Yes, there is violence. You have been warned.
• Yes, constructive criticism is always welcome.

November Echo Midnight

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**Editor's Note: Editor's Notes are delineated by double asterisks.**
**This is teamVASIMR reporting. The story you are about to read is true, except most of the names have been changed for security reasons. For your own safety, we strongly recommend following privacy best practices as published by the Ponemon Institute.**

So here we are. As you know, my name is Ryan Peterson and I am a natural born Canadian citizen. Specifically, I'm from Oshawa, Ontario. Anyway, I guess I'll start a few hours before it happened.
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OSHAWA, ONTARIO 2008-03-30 18:30 EDT [2008-03-30 22:30 UTC]
Sunday evening

That evening, I was at the dinner table eating and having a pleasant conversation with my family. We had potatoes and beef. We ended on the subject of the economy and rising housing costs.

Anyway, after dinner and washing up my sister, Christina, fired up the Wii and we played Brawl for a few hours . Then she went to practice her viola and I played for another hour or so. (This was when Brawl just came out.)

Meanwhile in Japan, the stuff was happening. If you haven't heard about it yet, I suggest first watching the video our media team put together at:

**(Dead YouTube link)**

**The video, and the CCTV records it was compiled from have been removed from YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion and all the other video sites we have attempted to use. It seems ContentID or similar technology is being used to identify the footage. The records included numerous, high quality views of the event, many with audio. The contributor worked independently of our organization, and maintained anonymity even to us.**

**Raw footage from several of the more interesting views once was on YouTube and other places. The entire collection of footage used to be on Wikileaks, but these have also vanished without a trace, and our contacts within the organization deny it was ever there. We apologize, as we do not currently have the capacity to distribute it online. Informed persons may be able to obtain it by other means.**

**While we hope the uniqueness of the written word will keep us under the radar, search engine technology is constantly improving and it is only a matter of time before this too is found and removed. Already, we've had to change nearly all the names of significant people, things, and events. We ask you to copy this entire "fanfic" down and save it, as we do not know how long this will stay online. If this "fanfic" disappears, we ask you to keep it alive, rewriting it in your own words so as to avoid the search engines.**

**A contributor has written a detailed narrative of the events captured on said footage. The narrative was written primarily as a historical record. We realize the high information density may discourage casual reading. As an alternative, a 30% shorter abridged version is provided here.**

**Please note, processing of the long form has been delayed due to the recent flurry of search engine changes. We are also investigating the shutdown of one or more sites we post at.**

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KYOTO, JAPAN 2008-03-31 11:38 JST [2008-03-31 02:38 UTC]
Monday

Five figures, wearing snow-white bunny suits (the Intel kind, not the Easter kind) stood around a wheeled table in the middle of a brightly lit clean-room. The reflected glare from their immaculately clean clothing made them glow in the camera like angels. They backed away from the table, revealing the machine they had just completed. It looked almost like a microwave oven, except for certain peculiar differences: it had no power cord, and instead of the usual small plastic feet it stood on long legs of stacked ceramic discs, the same kind used to hold up high-voltage power lines.

The five figures pushed the table with the machine on it out of the room, into an airlock. Air rushed out of the clean-room into the airlock, ruffling their suits as the made their through the inner doorway. One closed the door, and then they removed their bunny suits and put them away. Underneath the suits they wore plain blue scrubs. They were typical-looking Japanese men. Four of them were probably in their late 20s-early 30s, while one was older, slightly greying, probably in his 40s or 50s. For brevity, we will from now on call him Al. One of the younger ones opened the door on the other side, and air again rushed out, preventing atmospheric dust from entering the airlock. Let's call him Bob.

They exited the airlock and went down a hallway, passing many doors and making several turns, finally entering a door leading into a large room. It was about the size of a basketball court. Against the walls were lab benches packed with electronic equipment, along with tables and chairs and other furniture, densely stacked together to create an open area in the middle of the room. The men pushed their table all the way to the centre of the open area.

Al smiled and said something. The four younger ones bowed lightly and said something in reply. Then Al led them out of the room. As they walked down the hall, one of the younger ones (let's call him Charlie) started saying something, sheepishly. Al just said something to the effect of "that's OK," and a flustered Charlie quickly excused himself and broke off from the group, heading for a door adorned with the universal symbol for "Men's Restroom."

The others continued down the hall to a security checkpoint. They lined up at the exit lane, and then walked through a metal detector, one at a time. The exit was protected by a heavy steel full height turnstile, which a guard (we'll call him Frank) controlled from a booth on its right, protected from would-be attackers by thick polycarbonate windows. He let them through the gate, one by one. To the right of the guard booth was another full height turnstile for entering, a metal detector, and another guard (call him George) standing outside. The security checkpoint completely walled off the facility from the outside world. After they all got through, they continued to the elevators, and went up to the ground floor. They went outside and headed down the street, and soon arrived at their destination, a small noodle restaurant. The four men got in line to order.

There was already a small crowd of people having lunch there, similarly dressed in blue scrubs. Several more were arriving and getting in line. Apparently, the company was very interested in what its employees did and said there, because I had several telephoto views of the restaurant to choose from, complete with audio. As the line advanced, the four men chatted with their coworkers. One of the younger men (call him Dean) made a joke to another (call him Ed), eliciting hearty guffaws. However, Al interrupted them, a worried look on his face. Dean and Ed immediately changed their expression, seeming to realize something, and Al got out of line and walked briskly back to their building, followed closely by the other three. He rushed to the elevators and hit the "down" button. They waited tensely for an elevator to arrive, and almost ran into the people getting out of the elevator when it did. The four of them apologized tersely, and rushed into the elevator.

"Ding!"

The four of them were out before the door was fully open. They walked quickly to the security checkpoint entrance lane, holding up their ID tags. Al shouted something at George (the security officer standing in front of the metal detector). He said something calmly but firmly in return, and the four men stopped. George proceeded to check Al's ID, and then allowed him through the metal detector. Al walked to the full height turnstile, and leaned with a hand on one of the heavy steel bars. It didn't move. George was starting to check the next man's ID, but Frank (the one in the booth) said something, which caused him to stop and hand the ID back. Al turned around, and walked back out past the metal detector. He spread his arms out and George scanned him with a wand. Finding nothing, he sent him back toward the turnstile. However, before Al could get even a few steps forward, Frank said something and again he had to turn back. Clearly exasperated now, he stood with his arms and legs spread out, and George scanned him with the wand again, this time much more slowly and carefully. Still finding nothing, he sent Al toward the entrance.

But Frank still didn't unlock the turnstile. He gave some more instructions, which made everybody look upset. Even George had an annoyed look on his face for a moment. Then he pulled out a box of blue gloves from his pack, and proceeded to perform enhanced pat-downs on them, one by one. Anyway when George was done they all rushed through the turnstile, and he went with them. Frank stayed in the booth, hung a sign in the window, and proceeded to lock up the checkpoint using the controls in the booth, a complicated set of keyholes and switches. A loud crash echoed down the hall, and he increased his already frantic pace with the locks, inserting, turning, and removing keys. He exited the booth itself and locked the door, then manually locked some more locks in the hubs of the turnstile gates themselves. More sounds of yelling and blows landing echoed through the hallway, and he hurried down after them.

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KYOTO, JAPAN 2008-03-31 11:48 JST [2008-03-31 02:48 UTC]

Charlie (the man who went to the bathroom) didn't wait long. As soon as the others' footsteps had disappeared down the hall, he emerged, carrying a brown briefcase. He headed back to the room with the microwave looking-machine, unlocking the door with a swipe of his card. He entered, closing the door behind him. Then he went straight for the microwave-looking-machine. He opened the door, and unceremoniously grabbed the contents of his briefcase by the handful and dumped them on the glass plate in the machine. I got a look at what he was putting in the machine: Game cartridges and DVDs. It looked like he had all the Pokemon games ever made, from Red/Green/Blue to Diamond/Pearl, in both Japanese and English language versions. I didn't get a good look at the DVDs though, because he had them all in a stack, but I'm guessing he had all the movies and perhaps TV episodes too.

He closed the door, and did something on the machine's touch screen. The display showed 7:00 and started counting down. He then wheeled the table to the back of the room, near a big screen TV. Then he went over to the other side of the room, and briskly piled up large pieces of equipment against the door. When the countdown reached 30 seconds, he stopped and grabbed a remote. He turned on the big screen TV and flipped through the channels. He settled on one playing the show starring that famous brown rectangular monster with a huge mouth.

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KYOTO, JAPAN 2008-03-31 11:58 JST [2008-03-31 02:58 UTC]

Al swiped his card through the door lock, and pushed. It moved less than a centimetre, and closed again. He said something, and the other four acknowledged.
"San!...Ni!...Ichi!"
He swiped his card, and at the same time, all five of them together pushed the door. There were loud crashes as some rather expensive-looking equipment hit the floor.
"San!...Ni!...Ichi!"
The door opened just wide enough, and they burst through, only to fall flat on their faces, piled up on each other as they tripped over a power cord that was suddenly pulled taut. George was on top of the pile, since he was last to come in. He quickly rolled off the pile, and barely got up in time as Charlie attacked him. Charlie was surprisingly good, and he kept George on the defensive despite a size disadvantage. The others got up, and Bob and Dean rushed to help George, but Charlie beat them down pretty badly. They were mere annoyances, barely distracting him from his rather spectacular fight with George.

Then a different sound filled the room: an electronic whine, steadily increasing in pitch and volume. A green glow began to emanate from the microwave-looking-machine, slowly growing in brightness. Al yelled something, and the three younger ones stopped trying to "help" George, and ran toward the big screen TV at the back of the room, giving the machine a wide berth. Charlie skilfully disengaged from his fight with the security officer and went after them.

A cheery flute duet emanated from the TV as a marble rolled down a wooden track.

Dean was first to reach the TV, and he climbed up the lab bench and ran his hand along the bottom, looking for the controls. However, there weren't any – the thing was completely flat. He reached behind, groping for wires to unplug. A rolling marble bounced off a deck of cards, knocking it over, and Charlie punched Dean in the head, hard, knocking him out. The marble dropped into the bed of a toy truck as Dean dropped limply off the bench and came to rest on the floor.

The others scattered, looking for the remote. Eventually, Bob found it, and Charlie went after him. Bob saw him coming, so he tossed the remote to the Al, fleeing from Charlie while George tried to catch up. Al tried the remote, but nothing happened. He opened the battery compartment, found it empty, and then tossed it to Ed, while running away from the approaching Charlie. Bob got a multimeter out from a cupboard, and pulled out its batteries. George did his best to get in Charlie's way. However, he had taken a lot of damage, and it was starting to show. He couldn't keep it up much longer.

Then Frank (the guard from the booth) arrived. He ran toward them, and then in one fluid movement pulled out a stun gun from his pocket and jabbed it into George's torso. He screamed, convulsed, and fell. Frank followed his movement with the stun gun, continuing to shock George even while he curled up in a ball on the floor. Al grabbed a chair and ran toward them, raising it over his head. But Frank reacted before he could bring it down on him. He withdrew the stun gun from his former colleague, handily caught the older man with it, and proceeded to shock him to the floor in the same way. The chair crashed harmlessly to the side.

Meanwhile, Ed reached Bob, passed him the remote, and turned around, assuming a fighting stance, legs bent and fists raised. He stared at Charlie as he approached, a mad look in his eyes. Charlie walked over and easily knocked him out with a few devastating hits. However, it bought enough time for Bob to run away and stuff the batteries into the remote. He pointed it at the TV, and pressed the power button. Nothing happened, because he was quite some distance from the TV. So he ran diagonally across the room, getting closer to the TV, while Charlie and Frank moved to intercept. Bob kept trying the remote, until he was rewarded by the TV turning off. But his triumph was short-lived.

The electrical arc of the stun gun glowed bright as Frank plunged it into Bob's shoulder. He screamed and doubled over, all his muscles tensing up at once. The big screen TV came back on, flipped through some menus, and then started cycling through non-Japanese channels. Frank removed the stun gun from Bob's shoulder. He dropped the remote and laid there in a crumpled heap. Charlie ran up and grabbed the remote. He pressed buttons on the remote in a panic, repeatedly bringing up the menu, but the TV seemed to have a mind of its own, going back out of the menu and flipping through the international channels. He then turned around, facing away from the TV so that the signal from the remote could not reach the TV. He then put the remote down on the nearest lab bench and got to work, wiggling out stuck buttons.

"...Well it means your property taxes are goin' up, likely waay up. Unfortunately, thanks to the superheated real estate market, and the end of the—"

Before he could finish pulling up all the stuck buttons, it happened. A crackling streamer of green lightning burst forth from the microwave-looking-machine and blasted right into the big screen TV. It grew rapidly, splitting into countless smaller, twisting tendrils of green light which began to fill up the room.

One reached Charlie, just as he pried up the last stuck button on the remote. He went "Ah-!" and slumped over the bench.

One reached Frank and he let out a short "Ah-!" and stumbled and fell. He struggled to crawl towards the door.

One reached the camera I was watching through and the video cut out.

There were other cameras available, but the only one that was still working and had any view of the situation was outside in the hall and facing the partially open door. Unfortunately, there was no line-of-sight into the room, and only a diffuse reflection of the green glow could be seen.

*blinks slowly like a chilled lizard*

I remember you...

Well, this is certainly intriguing, which is more than can be said for an awful lot of things. The presentation of the story as a factual event covered up by unknown powers and released underground is, while not exactly original, a good way to go with stories that head in the sort of direction that this one seems to be going in, and I think it's quite well-executed here.

Now, on to the fun less positive part.

Firstly, the beginning. It's interesting because we have no idea what's going on, yes - but the text is way too cluttered. You have adjectives and qualifiers everywhere; you define everything so precisely that the sentences end up awkward. Example:

Two of the figures held a three-sided metal cover. They carefully raised the cover over the device it was meant to protect. They precisely slid the cover down over the machine's rectangular body, sealing the cover over its foam rubber gaskets. It completely covered the top and sides of the machine. Tabs along its front edge locked into corresponding slots in the metal frame of the machine, while on the back, there were four screw holes that lined up neatly with those on the frame below. Another figure got to work, deftly inserting screws into the waiting holes, and precisely torquing them up with a small torque wrench.

Click to expand...

Apart from the fact that you've used the word 'cover' four times in three sentences there (and followed it up with the word 'covered'), there is an unnecessary and frankly rather tedious level of detail in this paragraph. Not every verb needs an adverb, and it'd be perfectly fine to say 'wrench' or 'small wrench' rather than 'small torque wrench'. Perhaps precision is what you want - but I think you've overdone it here.

Also, I know that the narrator is watching something on a screen, but it's almost as if they don't exist. I actually almost forgot that this was a first-person narrative until halfway through, when there was a sudden 'I'; this gets much better at the end, where you're not only recording what the narrator saw but his reaction to it. It's a minor thing, but it would be nice to see a little more narrator involvement, if only to show the reader that this is, in fact, someone's point of view.

Finally, and most irritatingly, the end of the chapter is weak. You end it with the line:

Nevertheless, it turned out to be critically important (more on that later).

Click to expand...

This does not strike me as a great line to end a chapter on, really. It doesn't have to be a cliffhanger every time, but it should leave me feeling that the chapter came to a close or that something interesting is about to happen, rather than that the story just petered out (which is the feeling I get here). Perhaps removing the 'more on that later' would help; alternatively, try ending the chapter on something slightly less mundane than someone watching TV, which isn't terribly exciting unless you're Virginia Woolf, in which case you'd spend eleven pages describing what the character felt about a commercial for tinned peaches.

Nevertheless, there's definitely something here. I look forward to future chapters with anticipation.

Thank you Cutlerine.

We do appreciate all critique and corrections. Please be patient if they are not immediately implemented, as even minor spelling changes must pass a battery of tests before they can be safely incorporated.

Please note the narrative was written primarily as a historical record. We realize the high information density may discourage casual reading. As an alternative, an abridged version is being drafted.

We agree that we did not end on a strong note. The split point has been moved to an earlier location.

Processing of the latter part of the narrative is nearly complete.

0.2


**Please note, processing of the long form has been delayed due to the recent flurry of search engine changes. We are also investigating the shutdown of one or more sites we post at.**

0.3

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OSHAWA, ONTARIO 2008-03-30 23:00 EDT [2008-03-31 03:00 UTC]
Sunday night

I turned the Wii off and changed the channel to watch the news on CTV. That's right. So after about 3 minutes the guy was talking about how our property taxes would be going way up, when screen went all blocky and then the whole thing just washed out to a fizzy green static, accompanied by a loud hiss. I really wanted to hear the rest so I walked over to the TV, smacked it, and tried adjusting it, but when I reached up towards the antenna –

"Ow!"

A greenish spark jumped from it to my hand and sent a shock down my arm. Then the hissing instantly stopped and the TV went completely dark. I kind of swore since the TV was now broken and it was probably my fault – I was really mad. But there was nothing I could do, so I went to bed.

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OSHAWA, ONTARIO 2008-03-31 07:35 EDT [2008-03-31 11:35 UTC]
Monday morning

So I woke up the next morning with a throbbing headache. I seriously considered not getting out of bed. But it was Monday and therefore a school day, so I forced myself out of bed and walked over to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and noticed my eye colour was different. It was purple. Purple! I thought I was imagining things because of the headache, so I ignored it and finished washing up. I got dressed and went downstairs, and started to eat breakfast.

"Good morning."

It was my dad.

"'ornindad," I mumbled.

I noticed too late my dad grabbing the remote and pressing the power button. I vaguely tried to think of an explanation/apology/something, but to my surprise the TV turned on and worked fine. So I just sat there silently eating my cereal. But then after a minute or so, the weather forecast came on and my dad tried to start a conversation about it.

"Looks like it's going to rain all day today eh?"

I tried to say something in reply, but all that came out was an awkward "uhh... yeh."

My mom just came in, and she immediately picked up on my condition. "Boy, somebody must've been playing games all night!"

"Mrmm."

"Well you need to be awake for school you know."

That was the cue for my sister to come running in and make a huge scene, trying to disturb me. So first she cupped her hands together and made loon calls – her specialty. She does them very realistically. Length, pitch, inflection – all perfect. Extensive practice while camping in the summer made sure of that. She learned all the different calls, and eventually held regular "conversations" with the loons. Anyway, she does it so often that we all got used to it. So I ignored her. She eventually stopped making loon calls, and switched over to car alarms. The annoying kind that plays six different kinds of sirens one after another. I was getting really tired of it, but didn't want to show it so I kept eating my cereal. But at the fourth kind of siren I closed my eyes, and pictured her being flung back upstairs. Well, "pictured" isn't really the right word for it, but that was what I thought I was doing at the time.

The first thing I noticed was the pitch of the alarm dropping like it does when a car is moving away from you (Doppler effect), so I opened my eyes, and would you happen to know, she was glowing purple, flying, and halfway on a parabolic trajectory into her room. She barely started to scream before it was punctuated by the impact.

o.0 - my reaction
O.0 - Mom's reaction
O.O - Dad's reaction
x.x - Sister's reaction

Luckily she landed in her bed so she wasn't seriously injured. Now I knew something was up, but I really wasn't up for any talking so I left the house before the speculation could start (Oh what I have no clue yet!). So as I walked to school, I began hearing all these voices of other people talking. It was getting louder and more irritating, so again closing my eyes, I "pictured" being in my sanctuary spot. Before you knew it, I vanished, and re-appeared at that spot!

So then I was my sanctuary spot wondering what's going on. At least the voices stopped so I could think without distraction. The first possibility I considered was a dream. So I checked some things I learned from a movie about lucid dreaming: I looked at my watch, but it was working fine. My hands also looked OK. I slapped myself and it hurt. Running out of reality checks, I considered other possibilities. OK now I know this idea is really stupid, but it made total sense at the time so here it is, for posterity:

I thought to myself, maybe I was abducted by aliens. That would explain everything. They probably put me in a holodeck and are observing my behaviour, Star Trek style.

I considered the things that happened today:

Broken TV working = Somebody didn't get the memo that it broke.
Headache and hearing other peoples' thoughts = Brain implant.
Sister levitating = Tractor beam. Or she's a hologram.
Teleportation = Beam me up Scotty! Or just the holodeck changing scenes.

Next, I thought about what I should do if it were true –

Well, I can't really do anything useful until I got more information, and anyway I shouldn't make others think I'm crazy in case it's wrong – wait, that's a better explanation.

I shuddered as I realized that I could possibly have a serious medical condition like a brain tumour or something, giving me a headache and hallucinations.

So I decided to call my mom, only to realize I forgot my phone at home. It also started raining, and I facepalmed because I forgot my umbrella too! Grrr. I took off my jacket and rearranged it to cover my head and my backpack. Then I left my sanctuary spot and walked the rest of the way to school. As I walked I felt the headache gradually getting better, so by the time I got to school, I decided not to worry about it.

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OSHAWA, ONTARIO 2008-03-31 12:00 EDT [2008-03-31 16:00 UTC]
Monday noon

School went by pretty much normally. But at lunch, I had an interesting conversation with my friends Jake and Kenny. But mostly Jake, because Kenny's kind of quiet. It started something like this:

Jake: "Nice contacts."

Me: "What?"

Jake: "Your purple contacts. Nice."

Me: "Wait, are my eyes purple?"

Jake: "Uh, yeah?"

Me: "Oh ****."

Jake: "Naw, naw it's fine. But what was the occasion?"

So then I basically told Jake about what happened in the morning (he's reasonably trustworthy since we're friends since kindergarten, and Kenny too since first grade), and then Jake presented his own theory.

Jake: "You know what, Ryan?"

Me: "What?"

Jake: "I have my own theory. Hold up your spork."

Me: "Why?"

Jake: "I have a theory, eh? Just do it."

Me: "OK, but this better be good."

I held up my plastic spork.

Jake: "Now picture it bending away from you."

I did, and the spork snapped.

The scoop part of the spork fell on my plate, and all three of us stared at it.

"There is no spork..." Jake whispered. Then he stared at his own spork with an excited look on his face.

"Come on, come on..."

Nothing happened.

"*****, I can't do it. Here, you try."

Jake held out his spork in front of me, and I snapped it for him, then I made the broken scoop part float in midair.

"Uh, OK... don't need to rub it in now," said Jake, grabbing the floating scoop. "Kenny? Your turn."

Kenny finally broke his silence.

"OK, let's see if this works!"

So Kenny held up his spork and stared at it. We waited silently for less than a minute but it felt like a long time. I noticed his eyes, which used to be hazel, were now dark brown.

"Nope. Fail." said Kenny at length, and returned his spork to its original task of transporting mashed potato to his mouth.

"Looks like brown contacts don't work," concluded Jake. "Hey Ryan, can I borrow your purple contacts?"

Me: "Jake, I don't think they're contacts."

Jake: "Eh, whatever. But here's my theory. Well this morning I was sore all over my back and shoulders and arms for no reason. And I sort of lost my voice. I think we're plugged into a Matrix sort of thing. And you got powers so you might be, like, the One or something. You should be careful in case the agents are after you."

"No wait," said Kenny, startling both of us. "Ryan can't be the One. If someone's the One they're not supposed to find that out until something really serious happens."

Me: "**** you Jake, you just ruined my chances to be the Chosen One. I hope you're proud of yourself."

So then Jake had his Matrix theory and I had my Star Trek theory, and we argued about which theory was better, each of us appealing to Kenny for his support while he remained adamantly neutral. Anyway we reached a stalemate as would always happen, so I changed the subject.

"We need new sporks."

"Yeah."

So we went back to the lunch room to get new sporks so we could finish eating. Kenny was already done so he threw away his plate in the trash can by the door as we went in.

After we were done eating I went to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror confirmed my eyes were purple, and I washed my hands and tried to remove contact lenses from my eyes. Of course there were no contacts to remove and I only ended up irritating myself. So I avoided making eye contact with people for the rest of the day. After school I wanted to discuss this more with Jake, but he pointed to his throat and shook his head. It was still drizzling a little but I walked home.

1.0

** Processing of the narrative numbered 1.0 is now complete. Please be sure to copy.**

**The narrative numbered 0.1 has been replaced by a 30% shorter abridged version, numbered 0.1a. Please note, reprocessing of the long form as an appendix has been delayed due to the recent flurry of search engine changes. We are also investigating the shutdown of one or more sites we post at. Please accept our sincere apologies for the long delay. We should be able to update more frequently from now on, barring further major search engine changes.**

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OSHAWA, ONTARIO 2008-03-31 23:00 EDT [2008-04-01 03:00 UTC]
Monday night

So a few minutes into the 11:00 news, a Japanese guy was talking, and somebody was translating what he was saying.

"For all those that turned the TV to CTV last night at 11:00pm to 11:30pm, you are all at risk of being zapped from the experiment. Those who were shocked may have been infected with Pokemon genes, or personalities."

It showed a room full of old Japanese men bowing.

"President Kenichi Sato has resigned to take responsibility for the mishap. The board of directors has promised to take no pay for the duration of the crisis."

~Crisis? This is awesome!~ I thought to myself. ~These guys should really be getting a promotion, a bonus, and a raise.~

Star Trek's cool and all, but Pokemon's better. I went on the computer and after a short search started reading up on Bulbapedia on the different new Pokemon, trying to find out which one I could be. There were 151 total when I last cared enough to know, but several new generations had come out since so I started from the end of the Pokedex and worked backwards. While reading I found out my speed was increasing, so I could read a lot faster than normal. After a few minutes I was limited mainly by the page loading speed. The website was really slow from everybody going on it at once. So after a while I just looked at the Psychic types, since it was obvious from the telekinetic abilities. It took until about midnight to go through the process of eliminating all the other Psychic types, and the only one left was the legendary Mewtwo, my favourite. But I couldn't be sure of my conclusion because of my obvious bias. So I went to bed.

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OSHAWA, ONTARIO 2008-04-01 07:43 EDT [2008-04-01 11:43 UTC]
Tuesday morning

I woke up the next day, feeling something different. It wasn't painful or anything like yesterday, just different. I noticed I now had a tail, and light purplish grey skin. Looking closer, it was actually a thin but dense covering of fine hairs.
"Hey, I'm a Mewtwo!" I said excitedly to myself. I stood up and walked to my door, taking in the different feel and balance. I tried moving my tail. Swish... It works! I got to the door and locked it so my sister couldn't come in and ruin the moment. My hands had changed, now having only three fingers each. Luckily the door lock was a big, easy to push button. Then I turned on my TV. The tiny buttons on my TV gave me some trouble, but then I "pictured" them pressing themselves, and managed to change the channel to the news.

"...and as of this morning, Watanabe has reported finding and capturing 128 of the 493 Pokemon."

The screen changed to a reporter in the field and he said, "I want to stress this, all Pokemon should be considered armed and dangerous. If you should see any, please do not approach or attempt to capture it yourself. Report any information to the police or contact Crime Stoppers at **phone number removed**."

A 1-800 number appeared on the screen and the female anchor read it twice. After that, she continued, "What worries me is the children, if you are a parent, please, please make sure they're going straight to school this morning."

"And come straight home," the male anchor added, "Don't be getting any ideas, because this isn't a game – this is real life, and getting burnt or frozen or electrocuted will very probably kill you."

I immediately panicked, "picturing" myself as me again. Wow the transformation was complete. My tail was gone and I had five fingers on each hand again. I went to the bathroom and checked myself in the mirror, and everything was back to normal.

So, so far I know I can:

- Use Psychic
- Teleport
- Change appearance

While eating breakfast I finally gathered the thought that, as long as I was myself, no one would suspect and report me. So I headed out the door and walked calmly down the street. I eventually reached the woods where I take a normal walk. It started raining again, but I remembered my umbrella this time. So I was walking along the woods when I heard a low, earnest squawk coming from above. I looked up, and staring down at me was a Pidgeotto in a tree. Having made eye contact, it pointed a wing at me, but in the process lost its balance and fell off the branch. It flapped its wings wildly for a moment, spraying me with water and blowing my umbrella inside out. It managed to recover mostly before hitting the ground, and landed.

I ran up to it and asked, "Are you OK?"

"Pidgeo," it said, nodding.

Then it made various gestures, all the while saying "pidgeo" over and over.

"Uh sorry," I apologized, "I have no idea what you're trying to tell me."

"Pidge pidgeo," it said, repeating the gestures again, this time very slowly and deliberately.

This was taking a long time, and I was getting nervous, considering what they said on the news. So I said, "Sorry, I still can't understand what you're trying to say. Look, let's go somewhere less out in the open, before somebody sees us."

The Pidgeotto nodded in agreement, and we headed into the woods. When we were far enough in so that it would be hard to see us from outside, we stopped, and the Pidgeotto tried communicating again. This time, I became aware of a faint voice, as if there was someone talking, far away. But I somehow knew it wasn't far away. In fact I sensed that it was coming from right in front of me, and I had been blocking it out all the while. I tuned in (didn't really know what I was doing) and suddenly I was hearing its thoughts loud and clear.

~Ryan, you dumb ****~
"Pidgeo, pidge pidgeoo!"

Only one person regularly talks to me like that.

"Jake, is that you?"

The Pidgeotto nodded.

~**** yeah it's me! (Man, what an idiot.)~

________________________________
OSHAWA, ONTARIO 2008-04-01 08:35 EDT [2008-04-01 12:35 UTC]
Tuesday morning

I wanted to make sure I wasn't just imagining things.

"Jake, I think I'm reading your mind. If you just called me an idiot, jump up and down on your right foot."

Jake tried to jump up and down on his right foot, but failed and rolled over on his side.

~Yeah and your mom...~
"Pidge pidgeo..."

He was trying to think of a comeback, but was too occupied with getting up and brushing the leaves out of his feathers.

~Eww, wet leaves,~ he thought, and flicked a bunch of them in my direction. I shielded my face with the remains of my umbrella.

"Hey, what was that for eh?!" I said while grabbing a fistful of leaves and tossing them at Jake. He blew them away with a flap of a wing.

~Ooh, are we escalating this? ARE WE ESCALATING THIS?!~
"Pidge pidgeo, pidgeo pidgeo!" said Jake, taking off and trying to hover. He drifted back and forth, almost hitting a tree.

~Wait, I almost got it.~
"Pidge pidgeo."

Jake steadied himself, and hovered in front of my face, bobbing up and down with each flap of his wings. Then, having proven his ability to hover, Jake landed.

~So Ryan, you know my parents hate Pokemon, eh?~

"Yeah."

Jake's parents really did hate Pokemon. One time I brought my Pokemon cards over, and his parents nearly threw a fit. His mom actually called my mom and lectured her for nearly half an hour about how they were degrading to society or something (she's an administrator at a local elementary school).

~Well they don't know I'm a Pidgeotto yet. So if you could just call my mom after school and let her know I'm staying over at your place...~

"Sure, I can do that. Wait, but what'll you do about school?"

That was a problem. If a student doesn't show up for classes at school (and didn't have an excused absence on file), an automated phone system would call home several times a day for about a week to inform the parents of the absence.

~OK then don't call my mom. But I can still stay at your house right?~

"I guess so..." I said, and paused to think for a moment. "I dunno how my family would react."

~Your parents are nice. Christina... I'm not too sure, but I'd rather risk it than stay here.~

"Fine, you can stay at my house. But how are you going to get there without being seen?"

~(What an idiot.) You can teleport, right?~

"Uh yeah I guess. But I never did it on purpose before. And I never brought anybody with me."

~Gotta start sometime. Just picture us in your room, eh? Oh wait, before you teleport, always turn off your phone so they can't track you.~

So I turned off my phone, and tried to "picture" us being in my room.

It took some effort, and I felt like something was wrong. I saw Jake glow and flicker unevenly. Panicking, I put all my effort into making sure Jake and I made it through in one piece.

Finally, we vanished and reappeared in my room.

~Holy **** you're a Mewtwo, eh?~
"Pidgeo pidgey pidgeo!"

"Mewmewmew—" I started to say, but I stopped because,

1: Jake burst into Pidgeotto laughter, and

2: I just found out why Mewtwo never used his actual voice. It sounded ridiculously girly.

So then I had to figure out how to talk telepathically. I waited until he stopped laughing.

~Hey Jake, can you hear me?~ I thought, trying to concentrate.

~What's the matter? 'Cat' got your tongue?~
"Pidgpidgeo, pipidgeo?"

"Mew." I said, which set him off again.

I tried to "picture" being myself again, but this time it eluded me, slipping away, tantalizingly out of reach. If you ever had a word on the tip of your tongue – you know that you know it, but just can't seem to get it right – that's sort of what it felt like. I figured I was tired from the teleportation, so I decided to head downstairs and grab a juice box from the fridge.

~Hey Jake, want some juice?~

~Yes please! (hunger, didn't eat breakfast)~
"Pidgeo."

I was about to deny Jake in response, but I felt the hunger behind his "Yes please" so I decided to get him a juice and something to eat. Now this was my first time walking down stairs, so I went very carefully, holding on to the railing to steady myself. I got the juice from the fridge, and turned around to head back up, but Jake was already waddling down the stairs, wings partly open and pushing against the railings for support. I stopped and put the juice boxes on the table.

~Jake, you want me to open it or…~

~Just stick the straw in. Wait, no, let me do it.~
"Pidgey pidgeo. Pigeo pidge."

I watched as Jake pulled out one of the chairs, hopped onto it, and started working on the juice box with his beak. Within a few minutes, he managed to extract the straw from its wrapper, and stick it in the juice box. He began to sip the juice through the straw in triumph.

~Haha, pwned.~ thought Jake at me.

I hadn't even started on mine. I tried to open mine, but my fat fingers wouldn't cooperate.

~Hint: Use Psychic.~
"Geo pidgeo." Jake suggested.

~I was just getting to that!~ I told him, and then I telekinetically opened the wrapper, pulled out the straw, and stuck it in. Then I levitated the juice box to a comfortable drinking level and enjoyed a refreshing 250 mL of 100% Apple Juice.

~You can use the refrigerator and microwave?~ I asked Jake, since he seemed determined to be able to do things himself.

~Sure, why not?~
"Pi pidgeo?" replied Jake, and he hopped off his chair and pushed it over to the refrigerator.

~Make yourself at home, there's juice, pizza pockets, hot pockets...just don't make a mess.~ I told him.

Jake opened the freezer, continuing to talk in Pidgeotto while he gingerly began pulling a box of pizza pockets out. ~Ryan, you should go to school. They will be using the attendance system to track down who got turned into Pokemon.~

~I'm going to be late…~

~I mean it. They're already going to be tipped off on my house, so don't make them come here.~ There was a lot of conviction in Jake's thought. ~Anyway you can teleport part of the way there.~

I headed back upstairs to grab my school stuff.

~Hurry up, man (well not man but), use Teleport.~

I as about to teleport to my room, but then I got the idea to try something new for a change. These past few days I had levitated apple juice, sporks, and my sister, so it was about time I tried levitating myself.

~Wait, I'm gonna try something else.~ I told Jake.

I gently kicked off the stairs and flew the rest of the way up. Then I stopped, turned, and floated over to my room. I wished I tried it earlier. It was. So. Easy. Easier than walking, and definitely easier than teleporting. I grabbed my school stuff, this time using Psychic, and flew back downstairs.

~About time you learned to fly.~
"Pidgeo pidgey pidgeo."

I was thinking, ~Teleporting that far is going to tire me out. I don't know if I can change back if I do that.~

~Can you change back now? Try changing back now.~
"Pidgey pidgeo pidgeo? Pidgpigi pidgeo."

So I tried. I concentrated and "pictured" myself as me again. But it wasn't quite there yet.

~C'mon, focus!~ I told myself. After a few seconds that felt like forever, something seemed to click, and I finally changed back to myself.

"Pidgeo?" said Jake.

"What?" I wasn't tuned in.

"Pidgeo."

"Huh?" I tried to tune in.

"Pidgeo. Pidgeo."
~... Ryan.~

"OK, I'm listening."

~Go! I'll lock the door.~
"Geo. Pidgey pidgeo."

"OK."

I slung my backpack on my shoulders and ran, slamming the door behind me.

Well, here we are again, and how this story has moved on.

I like it and all, but there are a few things that strike me as needing to be pointed out about it. Firstly, Ryan's reaction to realising he's turned into a Mewtwo. This is not normal in any sense of the word. He wouldn't be expecting it at all. He may even have forgotten what a Mewtwo actually is, since he evidently hasn't played Pokémon in many years. And yet his reaction goes like this:

I woke up the next day, feeling something different. It wasn't painful or anything like yesterday, just different. I noticed I now had a tail, and light purplish grey skin. Looking closer, it was actually a thin but dense covering of fine hairs.
"Hey, I'm a Mewtwo!" I said excitedly to myself. I stood up and walked to my door, taking in the different feel and balance. I tried moving my tail. Swish... It works!

Click to expand...

I can't help but feel underwhelmed. There's no way on earth that Ryan would be excited right away, even if he's already decided he must internally be a Mewtwo; he should've been scared, terrified - something like that. Afterwards, once the shock had subsided, then maybe he'd be excited. But not as soon as he realises he's changed. Alterations to the body, especially major ones and especially alterations to hands, can be really quite psychologically damaging; even if you're not going to aim for the total blowing of the mind that abrupt transformation into a Mewtwo would probably inflict on someone, I think you probably ought to include more of a shocked initial reaction before the excitement.

This also bothered me a little:

I immediately panicked, "picturing" myself as me again. Wow the transformation was complete. My tail was gone and I had five fingers on each hand again. I went to the bathroom and checked myself in the mirror, and everything was back to normal.

Click to expand...

I would've thought he would have panicked, scrambled for a solution, and then eventually decided to try and change his appearance. His first thought on panicking would not be picturing himself as normal again; panicky people don't do the logical thing - and besides, trying to alter your appearance with the power of your mind isn't the first thing that would occur to you, even if you had discovered you were telepathic.

Actually, the discovery that he was telepathic was oddly rushed through, as well.

Now I knew something was up, but I really wasn't up for any talking so I left the house before the speculation could start (Oh what I have no clue yet!).

Click to expand...

He just threw someone through the air with the power of his mind and he isn't up for any talking? This trumps any and all other situations in someone's mind. Ryan isn't just going to go 'Huh' and walk off to school after that's just happened. No one in their right mind would.

As a side note, that parenthetical comment there is a bit strange. Did you mean 'wait' instead of 'what'? It would make more sense if you did, although perhaps you mean 'what' the speculation would be about. Either way, it's a little clumsy.

Other than Ryan's reactions and his general believability as a character, there isn't much I can say about the story. You have an interesting premise and I like the way you're presenting it, in this pseudo-report format. I'd like to see more - but it is important that Ryan is a fully solid character. The way your story presents itself as fact makes it even more important than in a regular narrative.

I look forward to seeing more from you.

F.A.B.

**The following is solely the opinion of the teamVASIMR editorial board and does not represent the position or opinion of any other person or entity.**

Cutlerine, thank you for the reminder that our current audience may not be ready to believe our story. Over the years we have reported on so many strange things... We had grown accustomed to expecting the unexpected, and also came to expect the same of our usual audience.

That said, none of us thought to ask Ryan to explain his feelings immediately upon becoming a Pokemon – in-depth reporting on this information was not a priority considering the events that took place thereafter.

We will be sure to ask him about his feelings and conduct during these events the next time we are in contact. Unfortunately Ryan is a busy person, and it has been some time since we were last able to reach him. At this time we can only speculate.

We do know that "Mewtwo Strikes Back" was quite a hit in the region, and the Pokemon trading card game was also very popular during the late '90s to early 2000s, at least until it was banned in schools. We would expect any child of the '90s to retain detailed memories of these things, unless he/she was raised outside of the mainstream culture.

Regarding the grammatical issue: Although we carefully edit narratives for grammar, conservation of the unique voice of the writer is also a high priority, in addition to search and other processing concerns. As a consequence, we cannot change it at this time. Nevertheless, we are looking into it, and we do appreciate all critique and corrections so do not hesitate to point out any other issues.