Faller, Noun: Someone Experiencing Interesting Times - Chapter 1

One did not often wake up in an unfamiliar alleyway with no clue how they got there. At least, not without a splitting headache and the aftertaste of one’s poison of choice, or enjoying themselves an ice bath and some fresh surgical scars. But here Neil was, blessedly experiencing neither but dealing with a heat that said middle of summer instead of a nice early spring chill.

That, of course, still left him with the question of where in the almighty fuck he was. His surroundings were utterly useless. A simple, if well maintained, alleyway did not offer one many clues as to where one was. Sure, he could tell it wasn’t Barcelona simply through the lack of cyclopean brickwork but he wasn’t the sort of Geoguesser champ who could identify where in the world he was off of an alley wall’s mix of stonework and wood. His nose and ears, at least, told him he was somewhere tourist heavy. The rolling of suitcases, ooing and ahhing voices, the smell of sunscreen and bustle of busy terraces. Little wonder, with the sea breeze sneaking through the alley, coastal cities would be coastal cities.

Something to work with, at least. Which, speaking of, since no hobo about to jump him with either a hug or a shiv was in evidence he decided to take a moment to see what he had on him. For one were his interview clothes: White shirt, red tie, black vest and pants, nicely polished dress shoes. His hair was tied in its usual ponytail with a black bit of plastic and his metal-rimmed glasses were sitting comfortably on his nose. Nothing out of place, aside from his noise-cancelling headphones being around his neck instead of ears. His wallet and phone were there and intact, so were his keys with the little purple mushroom keychain he’d sawed in his alma mater over a decade ago.

This was useful, but also distressing, given he had been wearing his pajamas in his bed as of his last memory. Nothing to be done about it for now, though, so he just moseyed out of the alleyway and–

Was that a fucking Breloom?

To his right was a real life, four foot tall mushroom raptor creature was walking hand in hand with an old lady, the Pokemon guiding her through the streets with practiced familiarity. To his left, a little boy and a Skitty prancing through the streets as an amused Delcatty and Electrike watched from afar, sprawled loosely on the ground, watching their children vigilantly. Across the street, a Machop was carrying a teenage girl on his shoulders as they window-browsed, the girl’s legs wrapped in a cast. The Pokeballs arranged on her belt were his first clue as to her vocation. The confident grin on her face the second, but the way she carried herself with confidence and grace despite her obvious injuries was what truly cinched her as a Pokemon Trainer. The Machop carrying her without a shred of hesitation, almost as if predicting her commands before she had finished voicing them only drove that point further home.

Although he had to wonder what the fuck the brown-haired girl had gone through to end up with all those fresh scars. They were still red, so it had to be the same thing that’d snapped her right leg like a kitkat bar. She was sure making them work for her with that leather jacket and jeans combo, though.

Ripping his attention away from the main attraction, Neil fixed his attention on his surroundings, looking for any hint that might tell him where he was besides ‘Hoenn, probably’. Which was easier said than done when he had his childhood dreams playing out in front of him.

Now, he needed information and a heading. Which meant looking for an iconic red roof… although, of course, he wasn’t that lucky. There were some red roofs, sure, but none had the Pokemon Center shade. Similarly, Neil couldn’t find any of the traditional markings when his eyes dragged down to the buildings proper. A shop selling Gym Leader merchandise here, a sports and camping store there, a couple of seafood restaurants with something that smelled suspiciously like tourist-grade paella peppered around. Now that he looked closer, the place that trainer lady had been browsing in was… something he couldn’t quite place. The seemingly random assortment of screens indicated a shop dealing with technology, but that didn’t feel right. A Technical Machine shop, maybe? 

Actually.

“Excuse me, miss.” He said after crossing the street, getting close enough to the scarred brunette to talk without shouting, “Could you point me towards the Pokemon Center? I got pretty turned around, hehe…” A bashful chuckle and scratching at the base of his ponytail finished selling the whole thing.

The girl blinked, craning her neck around to take a look at the man who had stopped her, before she considered the question. The same moment she responded, Neil felt a weight settle in his right pocket, “Sure, I don’t mind. I was mostly killing time today anyway.” Pausing, the girl looked him up and down, “You don’t look like a Trainer, though. Why the Pokemon Center?”

“They’re the first stop for Trainers rolling into town, so they’re guaranteed to have some maps and info on the city. Good way to get situated real quick, ‘specially since they’re easy to spot and ask directions for.” The tall man chuckled, inclining his head towards the lady’s pokeball belt to highlight why he had asked her specifically. It also obfuscated how his hand lowered from his neck and hooked onto his pocket, thumb feeling for what was unmistakably a pokeball. Something in his gut forcefully told him it wasn’t empty. “Neil, by the way.”

“You’re a bit old to be getting lost, aren’t you?” The girl teased, the smile on her face no longer reaching her eyes as she considered Neil, “Shouldn’t you have a Rotom Phone, Poketch, or a myriad of other things that could let you navigate Lilycove though? It’s not like the GPS is a new invention, and they’re fairly affordable.”

Well, now he knew Rotom Phones were in wide distribution and that the city was called Lilycove. Good stuff, pity it came at the cost of some suspicion. Still, he could still swing this with some honest truth, just gussied up a little bit, “Haha, about that… I took a tumble and my phone didn’t end up all that happy about it.” It was all too easy to turn his panic at a near gaffe into something productive, waving his hands wildly as if to dispel the brewing misunderstanding, “Ah! Don’t get it wrong, it’s an old clunker, no Porygon or Rotom in it. I really ought to upgrade, but it was a gift y’know?”

To prove his point, he pulled out the rectangular hunk of tech, banking on smartphones not differing all that much visually. Half of the red paint had peeled away with years of use, and the transparent rubber cover had a yellow tint from how old it was. Nonetheless, the whole thing was clean and clearly well cared for. 

He sighed as he looked it over, running a thumb over the intact screen, “Still turns on and has all my stuff, but the bits handling connectivity are wrecked. No calls or map or anything else for me.”

Humming in consideration, the suspicion faded from her eyes as she nodded firmly to herself and pat her Machop on his shoulder, “Alright then, follow me.” With her piece stated, the Machop carrying the girl set off, fully expecting the human behind them to follow.

______________________________________________________________________________

Lilycove City was… odd. While not made of the cyclopean brick of an ancient city like Barcelona or Rome, the way the facades were carefully preserved like in his hometown spoke of age. He wasn’t sure what sort of history they had, the brickwork was unremarkable as it came, but he wouldn’t judge. Something to do with the abundance of planters, maybe, the city was even greener than his home. A tree, shrub or flowerpot every five steps at the most. 

Neil was rather more interested in the Pokemon really bringing life to the whole thing. There, a Machoke was dressed in vests and was helping unload styrofoam iceboxes from a van for a seafood restaurant. A few buildings down the street was a Hariyama in a hardhat using its massive hands to heap rubble from roadwork into a metal container, which was then lifted and carried away like it was nothing but a watercooler jug. Off to the side, a couple Absol in high visibility vests lounging on the sidewalk, one dozing off while the other watched attentively from a loaf position. Overhead, a few Wingull and Peliper carrying packages in their claws, while Swellow and Taillow darted between some of the shops, letters clutched on their beaks.

Then there were the Pokemon and Trainer duos roaming the streets with the air of cops, a certain weight of surety on their step for all they were relatively relaxed. So was their dress code, for that matter. Bright red vests and jackets with a green ‘L’ pinned on the left breast, with everything else being left to their discretion. The girl, who was still dancing around his oblique prods for her name, caught his look and cheerfully explained that they were A.C.E. Trainers. Apparently here to keep any scuffles from boiling over in the streets, both for the sake of the historical buildings and to keep them from congesting the traffic.

He even got to see it in action. A surgical clearing of the throat and a meaningful look made a pair of schoolgirls blush and pocket the pokeballs they had raised up, bowing in apology before scurrying off. Further down the road, Neil glimpsed an older gentleman leading a couple of metalheads in different band shirts around a corner. Headed for a proper battling field, if Neil were to guess.

It didn’t always work, though. Their journey was interrupted by one of those very events. Neil had not witnessed the beginnings, but he had witnessed one of the Ace Trainers step in and attempt to deescalate the situation brewing between two schoolgirls engaged in a heated argument amidst the street. The first was a girl with long chocolate brown hair tied up in a ponytail. The second, a girl with short black hair coming down to her shoulders. He couldn’t hear the words that the pair of girls were exchanging, but given the furious scowled etched across their faces, he didn’t exactly need to.

There would be no calming these two down. Not without intervention.

A quietly frustrated but firmly professional Ace stepped back and with a deft movement of their hand against their belt followed by a finger briefly touching the button at the center of a Pokeball, tossing out a Grumpig. As she manifested, the Pokemon nodded towards their trainer, clearly already understanding what they were supposed to do. Moments later, a barrier snapped into existence around the pair of argumentative schoolgirls, and each of them pulled out a Pokeball as the female ‘officer’ cleared her throat.

“This will be a one on one match to settle a major dispute. The dispute has been deemed urgent enough to resolve in-situ. If any wish to petition this for compensation, they may do so at the appropriate locations.” She began, clearly reciting a required series of statements from a script, “As the responding ACE Trainer, I will be refereeing this battle. Do either trainers have an objection to this?”

The question, rhetorical as it obviously was, was met with silence. Though Neil could only see the eyes of one of the pair, the obvious disgust and dislike in her eyes was more than enough to convince him that this dispute was serious. Serious enough to disrupt the daily lives of everyone around them.

Disrupt with a spectacle, sure, but it was still a disruption.

Speaking of spectacle, though, this was a perfect opportunity for him to test the waters some more. He fished out his pokeball with deft fingers and no fanfare whatsoever beyond a faint grimace at the sight of a Cherish Ball, all red and black and overly fancy. That’d get notice if anyone got a good look at it, which was why he was quick about tapping the front button like he’d seen the ACE Trainer do, keeping the hand holding the likely-magitech device next to his hip where he could stuff it back into his vest pocket with minimal motion.

It was almost a religious experience, watching the achingly familiar red light leap from the open ball, slowly yet rapidly forming into an iconic silhouette. His attention was immediately drawn to the false crocodilian mouth hanging from the back of her head, steel ‘fangs’ the size of fingers lined the inside, their metallic sheen shining in the dying light of day. Onyx scales lined the outside of the ‘mouth’, identical to a true crocodile’s lumpy armor except rendered in glossy black iron. His eyes were drawn to her face next, where yellow metallic fur framed a pair of crimson eyes filled with a gleam of intelligence took in her surroundings. 

His(!) Pokemon blinked slowly, her true face turning towards him as she let out an inquisitive chirp from her beaked mouth. It was an odd mix of the raygun sounds baby crocodiles made and a young girl’s high-pitched ‘hey!’, with no syllables of ‘Mawile’ mixed in whatsoever. Now that he thought about it, Neil hadn’t heard any Pokemon enunciate bits of their name while walking through the city.

“We got a battle to watch, partner.” The scruffy transmigrator said with a crooked grin, sliding seamlessly to a slav squat to be more on level with the knee-height dino, the pokeball disappearing into his pocket somewhere along the way. “‘Sides, I wanted to check on you, can’t imagine that tumble I took was pleasant from your spot in my pocket.”

Got an amused side-eye from his starter as she chuckled behind a dainty hand, perfectly conveying a knowing look despite her reptilian features. Dollars to donuts, the little lady was very much aware of what he actually meant with ‘tumble’ despite not having been present for it. Funny, that. 

“Heh, feeling like a million bucks I see.” Neil chuffed fondly, still more than a little high on the idea of having a starter. It meant that he moved to pat the steel fairy’s head, although he kept enough of his wits to telegraph the motion. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given what the fandom had begun to make of the starter-trainer bond, Mawile offered no protest and even leaned into the gesture. Given the pleased chirps she was making, her opinion on his magic fingers as they combed through the glossy steel fur and gently massaged her leathery scalp wasn’t exactly difficult to divine even if he couldn’t understand what she was saying.

“So you were a trainer!” His companion nodded to herself, still held within Machoke's arms, “A Mawile and a Cherish Ball, huh? Don’t see those all that often.”

“Got incredibly lucky, what can I say?” The suited man chuckled sheepishly, keeping his eyes locked on his starter to hide the split-second wince at his guide having spotted the notorious pokeball. Suspicion had definitely gone up, but hopefully only with the cagey trainer and her Pokemon, everyone else too entertained with the battle.

…Given Mawile’s smirk and the way she flicked her eyes side to side, he hadn’t been so lucky. Damn.