Chapter 4

  “Baruto-kun, where is my star-piece?”

  One of the reasons Zuqimori brought me back to the laboratory area was to ask about his missing star-piece. Apparently, the thing was inside the sealed glass jar chamber where I had suddenly spawned after that flash of light in my room back in Thunder Bay. He said that it was an extremely rare artefact, and the only reason Brightstar SOS had worked at all.

  “You eat it?”

  I shrug. “The only thing I remember is my room shaking, and then a bright flash… and then I was inside the glass…”

  Zuqimori isn’t satisfied with the answer, but hey, welcome to the club. If anyone had the right to demand answers, it was me.

  “Is this really the Pokémon world from the games I played?”

  Zuqimori glances at me with his shattered glasses. He looks a little dumb, to be honest. He mutters something in Japanese and walks over to one of the work desks, sliding open a drawer.

  He tosses something at me, and I catch it.

  “… What…” It’s a Poké-Ball. Jesus. An actual Poké-Ball. Red on top, white on the bottom. Central button. Much lighter than I expected but sturdy-feeling all the same. The material looks like carbon fiber, but it’s cool to the touch, like metal. I spend a whole minute inspecting it, handling it like a Rubik’s Cube. Unlike the ones I saw growing up, this one also has a button on the top, hardly visible as it doesn’t jut out and is the same shade of red as the rest of the upper half, but definitely noticeable if you look closely.

  My heart beats like a drum when my eyes fall to Misdreavus, floating idly close to Zuqimori.

  If this is really a Poké-Ball, and that is really a Misdreavus… and this is really the Pokémon world… then…

  Timidly, I point the Poké-Ball at Misdreavus, but nothing happens. I press the inconspicuous button on top, which the index finger naturally rests on, and the ball vibrates. Misdreavus turns to look at me for the briefest moment before it turns completely into a pink, fluorescent blob of light and shoots straight towards me.

  I duck, dropping the Poké-Ball, but see the light that is Misdreavus be absorbed into it in the blink of an eye.

  “Eh!” Zuqimori exclaims.

  “Sorry!” I say, fumbling for the Poké-Ball.

  “I don’t put Missy in ball – ever!”

  “Sorry!” I grab the thing and notice that there is a ring of white light around the central button. I press it, thinking it will release Misdreavus, but instead, the Poké-Ball shrinks down to the size of a golf ball! Wow!

  “Release her, Amerikan!”

  “I-I’m trying!”

  I press the central button again and the Poké-Ball grows back to fill my palm. The feeling is so uncanny and oddly satisfying.

  “You don’t know to use?” Zuqimori asks, exasperated. “You play until 2007, but never see how to use Pokémon-Ball?” He then mutters something in Japanese.

  “They never explain it in the games or the show! They just throw them and point them!”

  Zuqimori shakes his head. “Satoshi is always lazy bastard,” he says to himself. “Release Missy, Amerikan! Press top button!”

  I do as he says and nothing happens.

  “Guh!” He slaps his forehead. “Throw!”

  I react to his words too late. The Poké-Ball opens my palm with surprising force, and a burst of the same pink, neon light comes out with a reverberating noise that sounds like a bunch of stretching rubber bands.

  “Yiaahhhh!!!” Misdreavus doesn’t seem happy, wailing and flying through me several times, until I drop to my knees from the sheer discomfort of having something visible pass through your body.

  “Missy! Missy!” It takes some effort, but Zuqimori eventually calms her down.

  “Garuvantura. Say it.”

  “Galvantula?” Yeah, I knew the thing was familiar.

  “Tsk… GarlVernTyulerR,” Zuiqimori mocks, in his best imitation of American English. I ignore the jibe; I’m way more interested in the Pokémon before me. Up close, it actually looks kind of cute. The dog-sized, yellow-furred arachnid has these large, innocent-looking, unassuming eyes that do wonders for soothing the anxiety I had towards it. It only has four proper legs, six if you count the tiny ones below its head. I thought those little things were its mandibles.

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  There’s also something oddly comforting about it. I can’t place my finger on it, but I’ve just seemed to have taken a quick liking to it. Misdreavus, on the other hand, is now giving me the cold shoulder, but it’s not like I mind. I also find her slightly unnerving.

  “Does it like being touched?” I ask.

  Zuqimori is smiling. “Please…” He ushers me to do so.

  Suddenly, I don’t feel so keen on doing it. Zuqimori has this whole aura of being a nasty practical joker that just rings alarm bells in my brain.

  But damnit, there’s just something about the way Galvantula is looking at me. It doesn’t seem wary of me in the slightest.

  I reach out for its head, and it narrows the two main eyes – the other four small ones remain open and unblinking. I pull back my hand, unsure, but Zuqimori clicks his tongue impatiently. “Touch!”

  I look at him and back at Galvantula, whose eyes are wide open again, and reach out once more. When its eyes begin to narrow, and its head begins tilting towards my hand, I realize that it is just a reflex action, very much like a dog or cat does when you pet its head.

  A few inches before my hand touches – *ZAP!*

  A flash of light winks in the small gap between the arachnid Pokémon and my hand, and Zuqimori jerks away, laughing. I flinch hard enough to fall back on my ass.

  “Wahahaaa!” Zuqimori goes.

  “Weehihiii!” Misdreavus harmonizes in her tiny voice.

  I’m just sitting there, looking at Galvantula, who doesn’t move but in fact looks quite pleased, its tiny front arms moving back and forth like a dog’s wagging tail.

  Zuqimori is soon upon me, clasping my shoulders and shaking me lightly.

  “No pain, right? No pain?”

  I look at the hand I reached out with, half expecting to see a burn, or a bruise, or something. It’s hard to see with Zuqimori shaking me, but he’s right – no pain.

  “Baruto-kun!” He helps me up. “You feel pain?”

  “No…” I’m so perplexed, but Zuqimori doesn’t care. He says, “Good!” and slaps my back before darting several meters away.

  “Garuvan! Jyuumanboruto! Amerikajin o nerae!”

  I shoot him a look and with instinctual trepidation, I hold out my hands towards Galvantula. “No! W-wait!”

  Tiny arcs of electricity are already dancing upon Galvantula’s fur. The spider’s tiny arms straighten out, pointing directly at me.

  *K-K-KRAK!* Its whole body flashes with blue, searing light and a bolt cracks through the air between us. I shut my eyes hard and yell out.

  The noise upon my ear drums is tickling, like the sound headphones make when you plug them into faulty jacks. When seconds pass and I feel nothing but fine, I open my eyes to the blue neon of Galvantula’s lightning, surrounding every inch of my body. The lab coat I’m wearing starts crinkling up like foil and soon, patches start opening all over it. It’s burning. Now there’s pain.

  I flail at the burning fabric, desperately trying to take it off.

  Zuqimori seems to realize what’s happening and shouts something a few moments before the lights die out, leaving me topless and with arcs of electricity flickering and tickling my skin.

  Besides a few tiny burns on my chest and arms, I feel fine considering.

  “I forget about the clothes… Sorry, Baruto-kun.”

  I can feel my hair standing on end, and it bobs when I snap my head toward him.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  He first gave me a lecture about the sort of language I was to use around him. He seemed quite offended at my “disgraceful mouth” and that in Japan, youngsters never spoke like that around their seniors. I told him that he should have warned me first, but he didn’t see the logic in that, since he already knew about this certain new ‘quirk’ of mine. He had seen it and performed a few experiments prior, while I had been unconscious.

  I felt a little violated, thinking of just how many things had occurred whilst I was knocked out and butt-naked, but it was better not to know.

  There were two more reasons he had brought me to the laboratory.

  The second had just been demonstrated.

  I was somehow impervious to all manner of electricity.

  Immune.

  “Even against normal lightning… from like, a storm?”

  Zuqimori hesitates for a moment, tonguing at his cheek in thought. “Do you want to test?”

  I didn’t.

  The third reason was language. Not my potty mouth, but the actual language we spoke.

  “Listen close, Baruto-kun. I will now speak the main language of this warld…”

  He cleared his throat and looked me in the eye.

  “My name is Tajiri Sugimori, pleased to meet you,” he says in what sounds but doesn’t sound like English.

  Cue the headache. Slowly, my brain cramps at the alien sound of Zuqimori sounding like anything else but a bat-shit crazy Japanese nut. He sounds perfectly fluent. I know it isn’t English – but its like my brain brute-forced every syllable he uttered into flawlessly legible words.

  I put a hand to my temple and whimper a moan.

  “You better get used to it, Bartholomew, because this what everyone in this damn world speaks. You see, the God of this world…” He begins his speech, but I’m now clutching my head, feeling too dizzy to stand, so I sit on the floor, wincing, and I hear the tiny cackling of Misdreavus, rejoicing at my state. Nasty.

  Zuqimori switches back to his Japanglish. “Oe, oe, Baruto-kun. I’m so, so serious now, you need to practice this language, OK?”

  His normal speech comes as a relief, and the brain cramp begins to ease off.

  “Why does it feel so… bad?”

  “Because you are not from this warld, Amerikan. It happen to me as well, but within few more days or a week, you will be OK.”

  Galvantula chitters something and its eyes close happily as it crawls over to me.

  “Garuvan like you so, so much, it is very strange…”

  I get to my feet and dust my baggy jeans off.

  “We will practice every day, Baruto-kun! Pokémon will not understand your Amerikan unless you teach it to them, and it took me almost one year to teach Missy the numbers from one to ten in Japanese. One year!”

  A year… I wasn’t sure just how long he thought I’d be staying here, and I was honestly worried about finding out, but there was just one thing pulling my thoughts back to Thunder Bay.

  “Can I call my mother? Send her a message or something? Let her know… ?”

  Zuqimori’s expression fills me with dread. It is a soft smile, the tender look of someone with knowledge gives to the innocent. There is no malice, or jest, or impatience on his face, just compassion.

  “Baruto-kun…” He lifts his hands, open palms to the ceiling like a resigned man. “I’m here for twenty-SIX years… My wife, my daughter… my dog… my hamtaro…”

  A knot forms in my throat at the thought that I’ll never see the only family I have ever again. More for her sake than for mine. Like I said, she must have been one nasty human being in a past life to end up with a corpse for a husband, and a …

  … Oh well… I’m sorry mom. Don’t take it too hard, please.

  Zuqimori sighs and walks over to me, reaching above slightly to put an arm around me. He jabs at a roll of skin on my ribs. “Do not worry, Baruto-kun. Satoshi and Ken will pay in this life or the next, and we will meet our loved ones in the next life, or maybe never again…”

  He gives another heavy sigh and taps me on the back. “Come on, fatty, you are in Pokémon warld!” he says cheerfully, shoving me along. “Let us find pokémon for you – because Garuvan is not for you!”

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