Crap! I Reincarnated as a Pokemon! Chapter 1

A Pokemon Fanfiction

I feel squishy. What is this?

I don’t remember how I got here, but it’s dark and tight. I was surrounded from head to toe by some sort of barrier. I’m all cramped in here. I need to get out! I stretch out my arm and the walls break. There’s light outside. These walls aren’t so tough. I kick out my feet and the walls break below too. This is easy.

I stretch out completely and feel the shell around me crack. I’m covered in goo and… fur? What is going on?

I shook the last bit of eggshell off my head. I could see now. I was under a huge tree with numerous branches jutting out, thick boughs reaching the ground and then climbing back up towards the sky. Dead leaves covered the base of the tree, and the egg I hatched out of was covered in them. A nest of some sort.  I wasn’t sure, but I could smell many more all around, buried in the dead leaves.

There were no other creatures nearby. No mother creature. I took a second to look myself over. I have three, dark brown toes on each foot, and now I have four of them. I used to only need two, right? I can’t see my face, but as I sit back on my cream colored poofy tail, and raise my forepaws to my face, I feel a snout, like a dog. I bring them higher and feel a set of floppy ears, then I bring them lower and find an almost collar of hard something and fur around my neck.

It feels like stone. But is it a part of my body? Well, I’m a dog now. Didn’t see this coming. I must have died in that car accident. That’s all I can remember. What was I doing anyway? I was in a hurry. I remember that much. . .

The day I died, I remember waking up to my messy dorm room. I’d always had a hard time keeping things tidy. I suppose it was typical for a young man who didn’t have a clue in life. That wasn’t entirely true.

I was an accomplished gamer. I’d won many prizes playing Starcraft II, Magic the Gathering, and League of Legends. I’d traveled all over the world competing in tournaments and placing almost always in the top four. It was nice. But now I had to go to college.

My parents told me if I wanted to be someone I had to go to college. And though I sort of liked what I was studying, I didn’t really feel like myself. It was a lot of pressure getting all these assignments turned in on time. And most of the work I didn’t agree with. How necessary was this homework?

I was learning game design. I did like drawing and talking about games, but I really wasn’t the best at it. I was terrible at coding. I was better at playing. After a year of constant studying, I got better, but things just got harder, for my mental state mostly.

It was harder to get out of bed. I remember the alarm going off the morning before I died. It was like any other day. I couldn’t get out of bed. So, I stared at my phone for an hour before I pushed myself up. I felt greasy. It had been a while since I’d taken a shower. I just didn’t care. Nothing made sense to me anymore. What was the point in taking a shower?

I just swiped some deodorant on, pulled on some clothes that I had lying around, and managed to get my stuff together for class.

No time for breakfast. My stomach gurgled in disapproval. I really need to shave. I will shower and shave after classes.

My first class was Game Theory that day. I like this class because I get to see Jasmine LeBlanc. She was this super cute Japanese girl in my class. Second-generation Japanese, as she would say. I found her fascinating because she changed her hairstyle once a month. This month she’d gotten her hair cut short and dyed green with black tips and spiked up all over her head. She was so sexy. With black eyeliner and lipstick and a formal emo look, she was my dream girl.

That day she was wearing a green T-shirt with a silver snake on it. Slytherin House. A black blazer on top. Black short pants and black suspenders, ankle socks and black chucks. She sat near the front. I sat near the back. I liked looking at her from afar. I didn’t have the guts to talk to her. Her grades were amazing. I just didn’t have it in me. . .

“Dude, you need to wash your clothes,” said a student sitting next to me.

He was a friend named Errol Spencer. He knew about my past as a successful gamer, and we enjoyed talking about games. He still played. I felt like I didn’t have time. I spent a good portion of time studying in the library. . . or tried to study. I got caught up in my phone, on social media. I’m really not good at school. I never was.

“Laundry is this weekend,” I said.

“It’s Monday, dude. Are you still depressed?” he said.

“I’ve never seen a doctor, so. . .”

Was I depressed? I had no motivation. Didn’t sleep well. Had a hard time focusing. I don’t know. I just felt overwhelmed by everyone’s expectations.

“Dude, if you keep this up, you won’t be attracting any of these cute gamer girls. After class, we’re fixing you up.”

I laughed. “I’m a lost cause, man.”

“Dude, you were TazManiac! You won all sorts of games 2 years ago.”

“I lost my edge, man. I’m just a student now.”

“Well, if you’re looking to get your edge back, tonight, Blackwell Dorm is having a Magic the Gathering Tournament. Seriously. I know you don’t game anymore, but we need to get you out of this. People are afraid you’re going to kill yourself.”

“Why do you care? That’s my decision.”

“You’re not serious, are you? If you say something like that again, I’m telling the teacher.”

“Dude, I don’t have any Magic cards on me. They’re all at home, two hours away.”

“We can get you some new ones. A starter deck and some packs. Hell, I have cards I don’t use. You can go through them. Seriously. I want you to come out of your room and hang out tonight. In fact, this thing is going on all week.”

I hadn’t played Magic in a long time. It was tempting. Something to break me out of my shut-in habit. Maybe meet some people. I wasn’t a big fan of people. They always had some expectations they expected you to meet.

“Plus, Jasmine will be there. You guys could play together.”

Errol smiled. He knew I had a huge crush on her. And he almost always used her as a way to get me to do anything. I’d been a pretty stalwart in my ‘No’s’ lately, something I was proud of because I hate being manipulated. But I was lonely. I was tired of trying to do things I hated. At least I enjoyed Magic. I could actually meet people and maybe have fun. I hadn’t had fun in almost a year and a half now.

“I want you to know first and foremost that I am not going because of Jasmine,” I said. “There’s no way she and I will meet. I haven’t played in a while. If she’s any good, she’ll probably be at the top and I’ll lose somewhere in the beginning.”

“You got to try man.”

“I’m doing this for fun. Not because of anything else.”

“I got you. Just please take a shower and change your clothes.”

I smiled. “No promises.”

The tournament started at 7:00 pm and ended at 10:00 pm. After classes, and many disapproving faces of my peers (probably because I smelled), I got home and showered, cleaned up my room, got all my laundry in a bag and took it to the machines down the hall to start washing. Then I was off to the nearest game store to make a deck.

Walmart or any of those box chain stores were nice, but if I went to a game shop, I had the chance of digging through their singles and finding something good. The thing about starter decks, which are full, playable 60 card decks, is that they are not as powerful as the decks of REAL gamers. I cannot stress that enough. I was going to pick the best starter deck they had, figure out what was missing or what could make it better, and then dig through their singles to see what I could find. It was a crapshoot. Worst-case scenario, I’d play the starter deck.

This is just so I can get out of my funk. I don’t want to be depressed anymore. I want to have friends. Like I used to.

I sat in my car before I turned over the ignition. I always had to give myself a pep talk these days. Either when I was in bed or anywhere else. I just wish I could find my purpose or some sort of meaning. Would I ever be happy?

I started the car and navigated with the help of my phone’s GPS to the nearest game shop. It wasn’t far, about 5 miles from the school. I went inside and was excited for the first time in my life. I hadn’t been surrounded by so many games in a long time. I made my way to the Magic the Gathering section and started perusing. My strategy was to look for a Blue-White deck.

Blue, White was a combination that not a lot of players played because it was mean. Blue cards had a lot of counter effects, preventing players from getting their cards down. White had protection. Together, they were an annoying combination. I had to consider, however, that in a school full of gamers there would have to be at least one. I found a Blue White deck I liked and bought it. Then I took a seat at one of the tables and unboxed the deck. It was decent, about what I expected from one of these. But the next question was where do I want to take it? What was my win con? Do I just want to be annoying? You don’t make many friends by being annoying, but that’s why you play Blue: to be annoying.

I did a little online research on my phone and figured out the best cards to add and take out. I dug through the boxes of singles to find what I wanted. They had only a couple of them. It was a crapshoot. I bought those cards and retook my seat.

“You’re really focused hard on that,” said the game store cashier.

I smiled. “Got to make it tournament worthy.”

“You know, I have some rare cards behind the counter if you’d like to look. Some mythics as well.”

I hadn’t thought about that. Of course, he didn’t have the good stuff on the floor for people to pocket. I got up from my seat and proceeded to where he was standing. He didn’t have what I was looking for, but he did have a very interesting card that I could use. It would take my deck in a whole other direction, but this is what I loved about this game. With so many cards the combinations were endless. It was invigorating. I was beginning to feel like my old self again.

I hope I can make this feeling last for a while.

I purchased that card and went back to the boxes. Bought some more and I was fairly satisfied with what I got. I let the cashier take a look. He was curious, and I was slightly proud. Felt like showing off a little.

“I think your mana base is off a bit.”

I sunk a little.

“But I have a couple of decent cards back here that can fix that. Also, I would recommend this card as well.”

He pulled out a white angel card. It was just an uncommon, but I could tell why he chose it. It would be perfect in this deck.

“I’m kind of low on money,” I said sheepishly.

“Well tell you what, I bet there are some cards there you didn’t use, right? Sell those back to me and let’s see where we’re at.”

I handed him five cards, three uncommons and 2 commons. They were not very expensive. I had little faith I could cover the difference.

“Hmmm. Well, I can’t give you land to fix your mana, but if you have $5, I’ll trade you the angel for those five. Deal?”

He was ripping himself off. I can’t believe this man was willing to do that.

“Are you sure?” I was excited. I hadn’t been treated with much kindness lately. Most treated me with disdain. . .

“Yeah. Just make sure you come back here. We have Magic tournaments all the time.”

“I will! Thank you so much!” I grabbed my purchases and hastily went out the door. I needed to leave quickly before I started to cry. I’m going to do my best to clean myself up, study hard, and find time to hang out with Errol and play games. I need this to get back on track.

I left the parking lot and was on my way back to school. I had to remember to get my laundry out and in the dryer. I also wanted to get some food. I checked my clock on the dashboard. It was 6:30. I didn’t have a lot of time. I pressed the gas pedal hard. I didn’t want to be late, and honestly, I preferred being early, so I didn’t miss anything. Traffic was bad. It was rush hour. There was a red light ahead. I imagined it turning green, hoping that by doing so it would change. I heard a loud honk somewhere in the distance, but I kept my eye on the light. It changed. I pressed the gas pedal again to race through that light and onward.

CRASH!

That’s right. I got t-boned by a semi that didn’t stop on red. Jackass! Wow. I spent a lot of time making a fantastic deck that I’ll never get to play. That’s depressing.

I looked around. The world here looked brighter. The grass was green, greener than I’d seen in a long time. It felt cool under my toepads. It may be weird being a dog or whatever, but this place seemed nice. I looked up at the tree. It was massive with branches sprawled all over the ground, close enough for me to jump up and up from branch to branch and scale to the top.

At this point I had no idea where I was, or what I was; I also had no clue what I needed to do next. Gaming college hadn’t prepared me for days like this. From the top of the tree, I’d probably be able to see a town, not that that did me much good in my current form. But also, maybe I could find water; I’d probably need that eventually along with food.

I dashed up the branches and climbed as high as I could. The tree seemed to be very old, judging by how big it was, and incredibly tall. I made it pretty far up and I could see forever. There did seem to be a town nearby, but it was nothing like the cities from my old world. It looked rather small, maybe only one hundred people? I was always bad at math. There seemed to be a mountain in one direction and a river in another. I felt my toepads losing their grip on the thin branches as I craned my neck from side to side; it was inevitable: I was about to fall. I ducked down and tried to regain my grip, but these feet were not made for climbing trees. I tumbled down the branches until I fell into a nest. I scrambled to my feet, making sure that I didn’t disturb any eggs or babies. Luckily it was empty, however, I heard a cry from above as I got my wits back.

There was a giant bird circling overhead, screeching. I could understand it perfectly.

“How fortuitous! A dumb animal has fallen into my nest, after a fruitless day of hunting. I shall eat well tonight!”

I gulped. I hadn’t even considered anything trying to eat me. What the heck was I going to do with a giant bird trying to eat me?

I didn’t have time to think, the bird dove into the tree with such speed and agility that it looked like it just passed through the branches. It landed on a branch in front of the nest and began to step towards me and the nest. It was a pidgeot. It was a real pidgeot from the Pokemon games, and it was going to peck me to death and eat me!

 

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