Quest

[Colress]

All real players mentioned and events that happened with them are based off of real things that happened while I was Colress on the actual PMU game. Events have been modified to fit into the story, but the main events are captured. I"m sorry if I have someone"s gender wrong

Days were so peaceful after Team Plasma. I must say that I felt rather relieved when I heard from some of the Grunts that Mister Ghetsis had been defeated by a child named Nate. He was such an intriguing young man. The bonds he had with his Pokemon were unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

I never supported Team Plasma’s cause. I went along with it because it allowed me to do my research. I realize that’s rather terrible, but I didn’t expect Team Plasma to fail. I should’ve been smarter when Mister Ghetsis came to me and asked me to help him. What he described sounded sure to succeed! It provided me a way to do my research! I wasn’t thinking clearly. Does that mean I regret joining Team Plasma? No. Not at all, in truth.

After Team Plasma was defeated, the Grunts and I decided to disband it. Many went off to other places to start a new life. The Frigate was docked by the P2 Laboratory, and those still unsure of where to go from there, including myself, stayed. We lived at the Frigate and became sort of a little family. It was kind of nice, seeing how beforehand I didn’t have too many friends.

I didn’t stop my research. It was quite clear that such a ruthless and merciless idea like Team Plasma’s to bring out a Pokemon’s full power wouldn’t work. I did and still do believe that the real way to bring out a Pokemon’s power is through their bonds with them. That would be ideal. I simply have to prove that my theory is correct.

One day while on the Frigate, we decided to get rid of the machine that had once held Kyurem. We simply called it the K-Machine. There was no use for it. It was sort of a haunting memory for me as well. I did honestly feel bad for having to treat such a magnificent Pokemon in such a way, though I did get some interesting data.

In short, the K-Machine energized Kyurem. It then tapped this boosted power and channeled it into a form of energy we could use for, es, the ice cannon and to generically power the ship. The solar panels did enough for the Frigate nowadays, though.

The energy was stored in a compartment called the Heliox Panel. We all assumed it was drained by the time we decided to tear apart that K-Machine. I didn’t realize this at the time, but it wasn’t, making it unsafe to tear apart. But as I said, I hadn’t remembered that.

When the Heliox Panel was still in prototypes, Mister Ghetsis had acquired an exceedingly rare Pokemon by the named of Mew. He told me to use it to test the K-Machine. I said that the machine most likely wouldn’t work on a Psychic-type, but he insisted, so I did.

It worked just fine. There were no problems. However, the K-Machine seemed to have caused Mew a great deal of pain. This pain turned to rage and it ended up lashing out before breaking free. It destroyed most of the K-Machine except the Heliox Panel. I received quite the, how we’ll say, backlash from Mister Ghetsis for letting Mew go.

That prototyped Heliox Panel ended up getting attached to the official one. I had forgotten that it still contained Mew’s energy, and continued to fail to remember as we took apart the K-Machine. I started to take apart the Heliox Panel. When I reached that part of the Heliox Panel, the part with the prototype, I opened it, and Mew’s energy was released in quite the blast. It knocked me out entirely.

The next thing I knew, I woke up to an Eevee prodding me in the face with one of its paws. I was in some odd crossroads of the sort. There were woods to my left, a town north, and a large field to my right.

Just one small thing about this all, though. That Eevee was talking. I could understand what it was saying. Oh, and, I became an Abra.

My name is Colress. I used to be a scientist and a Pokemon researcher, but now, all I want to do is go home.

[Colress]

“Hey. Hey you there.”

The voice was irritating, to say the least.

“Wake up. Come on now, you have me worried! Get up!”

I forced my eyes to open and let out a groan of discontent. A relieved sigh came from behind him.

“You sure had me scared for you there!” the voice explained as it walked around me. I finally got a look at it, but only saw an Eevee. His tail was swishing happily and he smiled at me. That couldn’t have been who was talking.

Sure enough, it was. He said to me, “So are you all right, stranger?”

I didn’t answer and just stared at it. The Eevee had talked. I understood what it said. I was talking to a Pokemon. Pokemon don’t talk to people. We don’t know what they say.

“Hey, you don’t look so good,” he remarked. “You look like you’re seeing a pack of angry momma Ursarings!”

He paused then turned around out of fear. He relaxed some at seeing nothing and turned back to face me. He smiled and asked, “What’s your name?”

I tried to answer, but it just came out as a weak fumble of words. I stopped trying for a moment and took in a breath before managing to get out in a forced voice, “I’m Colress.”

“Colress?” the Eevee repeated. “That’s a weird name. Are you not from around here? You don’t see a lot of wild Abra. There’s a pack that serve for the dojo, but there aren’t any wild ones. Not that I know of, anyway.”

Why is he talking about Abra? I wondered before mustering up the energy to ask, “What is “here?””

“The region!” the Eevee explained. “The Exbel Region, of course!” He let out a laugh and said, “You’re weird. Are you from Winden or Tanren?”

I shook my head and corrected, “Unova.”

“What’s an… “Unova?” That’s a region?” the Eevee asked with a confused look. “I’ve never heard of it. Maybe Lark has. He knows a lot of weird places. He’s up in the town like usual, probably in his house. It looks like a Totodile. I suppose that’s because he is one.”

“And he can speak too?” I questioned. Talking was getting easier.

The Eevee nodded then said, “What kind of question is that?!”

I gave the Eevee a blank look and said, “You’re a Pokemon.”

“Well so are you!” he protested.

“I am not a Pokemon! I’m a human!”

The Eevee started to break down in laughter. I gave him a glare and snapped, “What?!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Humans aren’t real!” he cried out in his laughter, eventually falling over.

“Then look at me!” I requested. “I am a real, living humans.”

“You’re an Abra!” the Eevee said, rolling onto one of his sides.

What?

I raised my head some and managed to crane my neck to look at my collapsed body. In an instant, terror filled me. I didn’t see my own body, arms, and legs. They were, as the Eevee had said, an Abra’s.

“Oh boy,” the Eevee chuckled as he gathered himself, “you’re really weird! If all Pokemon in Unova are as weird as you, maybe I shouldn’t go there.”

“This can’t be reality,” I breathed, still trying to cope with the fact that I was turned into an Abra. I raised a shaking arm and looked over my hand. There was no way that could actually be me.

The Eevee twitched his tail some and sat next to me. He patted my head with a paw.

I forced myself to rise up to my feet. I collapsed at first, but was good the second time. I continued to stare at myself, taking careful, deep breaths.

The Eevee raised an eyebrow and asked, “You’re serious about being a human? Maybe you hit your head too hard on the ground or something.”

“I’m being serious,” I answered, looking up at the Eevee. “The last thing I remember is that I was taking apart the Heliox Panel of the K-Machine and it exploded, but I don’t see how that would cause me to turn into a Pokemon.”

“What are you even talking about?” the Eevee asked.

“Never mind,” I dismissed. “You don’t even know what Unova is. I can’t even attempt to explain the K-Machine to you.”

“All right,” he answered, his ears drooping some. He then decided, “So, I’ll play along with this and say you were once a human, Colress. I’ll pretend that you became a Pokemon somehow. What do you plan to do?”

“I need to get home,” I answered. “I need to find a way to do that.”

The Eevee’s ears twitched some. “I can’t help with that,” he said, “but maybe you should try going to the town and talking with Lark like I said earlier. See if he knows anything on this “Unova” you talked about. Maybe he can give you some answers.”

I nodded slowly, saying, “All right.”

“Good luck,” the Eevee said. “I’m off to Tiny Grotto.” He pointed to some woods to my left and explained, “Today’s the day I’m finally gonna conquer that dungeon. It’s always the boss that gets me. The town’s just north of here, by the way.” He smiled and began to walk away, saying, “I’m off!”

I called after the Eevee, “Wait!”

He turned around and asked, “Yes?”

“What’s your name? You never told me,” I explained.

“Oh.” His face lit up some. “I’m Eevee!”

I nodded a bit and said, “Thank you, Eevee. Good luck on this “Tiny Grotto.””

[Colress]

I stared with a sort of intimidation at a large entry gate that lead to town. It said simply, “Grassroot Town.”

How bad can it be? I wondered as I slowly walked through the gate.

The town was certainly buzzing. Pokemon were rushing about, talking with one another, using shops and services there, or simply relaxing. Some were even napping. There were Pokemon of all different kinds and types. Some were large and some were small. Some were intimidating and some looked a lot more welcoming.

I felt sort of anxious by the large crowd that was gathered near the front of the town. I had always been sort of edgy when it came to masses of people, but that was mostly out of fear of being recognized. Not too many would take kindly to seeing the former boss of Team Plasma roaming about their town, even though it was disbanded.

Now, though, I was edgy due to fear the the simple unknown. It’s not reassuring to suddenly wake up as a Pokemon then be forced to face not only something you incredibly dislike but have them all be Pokemon as well. It was just so odd. It was fascinating, but odd and rather scary, to be simple.

I began to walk to the right side of the path that crossed through the town, moving past a couple of shops where in one a Chimecho worked and the other containing an Electivire. However, as I was trying to leave, a Rhyperior that had been resting beside a table not far from the shop with an Electivire stopped me.

“Hello, are you new here?” she asked. Without waiting for me to respond, she shook my hand and said, “I’m Timaeus Testified, but you can just call me Tima. It’s nice to meet you. Would you be interested in joining my Guild?”

I managed to break in, “Your what?”

I knew very well what a Guild was. I wasn’t any sort of short in being knowledgeable. However, it sounded like it had some sort of unique meaning to the place. I wasn’t honestly all that interested in joining, but it sounded fascinating.

“Great!” Tima exclaimed. “Let’s go sign you up.” She hooked an arm around me and began to force me to walk with her to some building.

I ducked away and moved aside, saying, “No, but thank you.” I continued to hurry away, coming up to some tables that were beyond a place labeled “The Inn.” I glanced behind me to see if that Rhyperior was following, only to slam right into an Ursaring.

“Watch where you’re going!” the Ursaring barked, whipping around and looming over me.

I quickly said, “My apologies,” and tried to quickly leave the situation.

The Ursaring grabbed me by my arm, saying, “No,” and put me on the table. He then prompted, “Who are you? Who do you think you are, just ramming into me like that?!”

Calmly, I addressed, “My name is Colress. I was looking the oth-”

“Colress?!” the Ursaring repeated in a roar. “Like that lunatic scientist who wanted to destroy the world just to do some stupid research thing?!”

Those are the kind of rumors I have? I thought curiously. Why does he think I want to destroy the world?

The Ursaring grabbed me and shook me, shouting, “That’s you?!”

“That’s my name, yes,” I replied in a bit of a small voice.

Eyes of fury dug into me. The Ursaring’s claws dug harshly into my shoulders, but not enough to pierce the scales that covered my body. He snarled, “So you’ve come here now to get to us, huh?! Is that it?!”

“No!” I blurted out. I’d never been so terrified in my life. I quickly explained, “It was an accident! I just woke up south of here as-”

“Don’t lie to me!” the Ursaring roared. “You turned yourself into a Pokemon! I know you wanted to talk to Pokemon! You said so! You said you’d stop at nothing to get your answers! You said you’d let the whole world be destroyed!”

I flinched under the Ursaring’s words. What I couldn’t understand was how he knew that I’d said that. Yes, I had, but that was to Nate. No one else was in the room at the time. Not even any of our Pokemon were, not that he had an Ursaring or Teddiursa.

I took in a breath and mustered the courage to defend, “I said that if the world was destroyed in an approach like Team Plasma’s to bring out the true power of Pokemon, not just in general. You act like I even supported what they were doing.”

In a low growl, the Ursaring said, “You are the worst liar ever.”

“Hey! Palika!” called a sharp voice. “Stop harassing newcomers!”

We both looked over. A Totodile walked up, waving his hands.

“This isn’t any newcomer; this is Colress!” Palika defended.

The Totodile looked confused. He stared at me and asked, “What?”

In a much quieter voice, I explained, “My name is Colress.”

“Like that Team Plasma dude?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered and waited for another lashing.

He tilted his head. “Hmm… My name’s Lark.”

I felt a bit of relief when I heard that.

“Palika, I’ll talk to this guy,” Lark said. “Let him go.”

“He’s going to try and do something,” Palika accused. “I can’t let him go.”

In an amused tone, Lark assured, “I can handle him. Let him go.”

“… Fine,” Palika agreed grudgingly. He knocked me off the table with a hard shove, forcing me onto the ground beside Lark.

Lark helped me up as he said in a low voice, “Don’t mind Palika none. He’s got a short temper.” He then said in a louder tone, “Come with me, Colress, so we’re out of the way of everyone.”

“Go where, exactly?” I asked.

He shrugged, explaining as he began to walk off, “Just to my house. It’s not that far away.”

I nodded a bit, answering, “Very well,” before following.

[Colress]

I was escorted off to a Totodile building near the top left corner of the town. There, Lark brought me inside to a blue room. It had a large pool in the center with a table beside it. There was a bed near the back of the room as well as fire pits to light up the house when the day was over. There were some storage chests and pots as well as some bag of berries in the top left corner with a pile of firewood in the top right.

“Welcome to my place, dude,” Lark said as he sat me down at the table. It was basically a block of stone with some fancy carvings. Blue chairs were on either side of it. I sat down on the one closer to the door while Lark went to the opposite end.

“You have a nice home,” I complimented as I looked around. It was incredible to think that Pokemon built all of this. I had no idea that such things were even possible for them. It looked sturdy and well, as if it was built by humans for humans. It had incredible detail in it as well.

Smiling, Lark said, “Thanks. My dad and his friends built it. I just inherited it. It ain’t nothin’ too fancy. But anyways, I ain’t brought ya here so y’could admire my home. You say you’re Colress?”

I nodded a bit, insisting, “Yes. I am. I woke up in the middle of a crossroads just south of here as an Abra. The last thing I remember was being a human. A few of the people living on the Frigate with me as well as myself were taking apart a machine called the K-Machine, but it exploded on us. That’s the last thing I recall.”

“Sounds like a situation,” Lark replied. “Well, not everyone here knows who you or Team Plasma are, so don’t worry about everyone acting like Palika. But how’d ya end up here? Things ain’t makin’ a lotta sense here.”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I doubt the machine exploding could cause me to come here, nonetheless be a Pokemon. The most it could’ve done was just knocked me out. I don’t even know why the machine exploded. It used to hold energy, but it was all drained out when we decided to dismantle it.”

“Gimme some context here since I only know what the media pu’s out and they put out enough for people ta’get a basic understandin’ of things before they garble it all up with their lies and opinions and whatever. What’s the K-Machine you’s talkin’ 'bout?”

“The K-Machine, or Kyurem Machine, was the machine that held Kyurem,” I explained through my mind that was beginning to panic some to figure out what was going on. “It took energy from Kyurem and channeled it into a form that the Frigate could use. This energy was stored in a device called the Heliox Panel. I was taking apart the Heliox Panel with it was exploded. However, all of the energy that was stored in there was used up.”

“How are ya sure?” Lark asked. “I mean, that seems ta’be the only reason somethin’ like that woulda happened, y’know what I’m sayin’?”

“We were relying solely on it for quite a while in an effort to use it all up. I monitored the stored energy levels and kept using it without any help from the other energy source, the solar panels the Frigate has, until it was completely empty. Even then, I had the ship use it for a couple more days along with the solar panels to be sure.” I let out a sigh and said, “There’s no reason for it to have exploded. I just doesn’t make sense.”

Lark clicked his tongue some before questioning, “So whaddya plan ta’do now?”

“I need to find a way to get back to Unova,” I said. “Do you know what region this is?”

“This is Exbel. Winden is north of us and Tanren’s more’a’less ta’our right,” Lark shared before continuing, “but we’s a loooong way from Unova. You ain’t goin’ get there with ease. It ain’t even possible to fly there.”

“Marvelous,” I groaned sarcastically. “Is there anyone I could go to or anything like that?”

Lark shook his head, saying, “Not that I know of. However, since ya’s a Pokemon, ya’might as well get used ta’it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Did ya’see a forest ta’tha’left of the crossroads?” Lark asked.

I nodded, saying, “I met an Eevee who went there after we talked. It was called Tiny Grotto. … The forest, not the Eevee.”

“Yeah, try goin’ there,” he recommended. “It’ll help ya’learn how ta’just kinda… do stuff, like use moves an’stuff. ‘Cept as an Abra, I think ya’s only know Teleport. Ya’s goin’ figure it out though.”

Hesitantly, I asked, “Is it even safe?”

“Well, I mean i’is a mystery dungeon,” Lark recalled, “but it’s a pretty basic place.”

“What’s a mystery dungeon?” The term sounded a bit familiar.

Lark let out a bit of an amused huff of air, saying, “Oh right, ya ain’t got none in Unova. A mystery dungeon is a dungeon where every time ya’enter, tha’floors’a different. The floors ain’t the same between ‘em, either. Ya’can find items an’money an’stuff all on the ground. Howeva’, should ya faint in one, ya goin’ lose a bunch’a ya items an’ a lotta ya money, so don’t be too reckless with it. Also, wild Pokemon’ll come an’ attack ya ta’protect their territory or whateva it is. Sometimes ya’got bosses at the end’a tha dungeon, too. But they’s real fun!”

“All right…” I wasn’t exactly reassured, but at least I knew what to expect. “Is there anything else I should know?”

Lark shook his head. “Not tha’I can think of, but feel free ta’come by if ya ever need any help.”

I nodded, saying, “Thank you, Lark.”

“No problem, Colress.” He gave a grin.