Larry woke up once again, as the calming warmth of healing cut out. He didn’t know exactly how much time had passed but could gleam that it wasn’t that long, at most 4-6 hours.

  Opening his eyes, Larry almost jumped back in surprise. He wasn’t in the clear white expanse of before, he was now in a beautiful mountain meadow, like something straight out of an alpine travel brochure.

  “Wha…the hell? What is it with me and being in new places every time I wake up these days?” Propping himself up on his arm, Larry didn’t feel any pain in his body anymore, so he took the liberty to look around the place.

  It was beautiful, he was situated on a small flat meadow that was broken up by a small channel of water, the stream was leisurely meandering its way down the hills. The meadow's grass was interspersed with a large variety of flowers and herbs. Green Hills crested and bounded in the distance, painted in a lush green the landscape sloped down and upwards.

  In the distance Larry could see a cozy-looking wooden cabin, beyond it further on the horizon the alpine mountains crested into the sky, pillars of rock breaking through the green landscape. The place had serene beauty and a peaceful atmosphere. A breeze swept over the meadow and the grass in the meadow, dotted with alpine herbs and flowers throughout, shook in the wind like the waves of an ocean.

  “Wow…” Larry was lost for words at the beautiful landscape in front of him, so he started walking. Bunk! Yet after just a few steps, his snout bounced against a pane of glass. “Ack!” Larry stumbled back onto the ground, nursing his nose, as he touched the wall in front of him with another, “I am still in a Pokeball, I guess…”

  Pokemon would probably go crazy if they were forced to live in some white expanse the whole time, it made a lot of sense that there would be a simulated environment inside. ‘Let's try this…’ Larry put his arms on the walls of the Pokeball and pressed, and the environment suddenly dulled and unsharpened, like he was unfocusing a camera before it turned back to the white expanse he’d been in before.

  He pushed a slight bit more and the white expanse turned back to color, as suddenly the inside of a room came into focus, it felt like he had shrunk, as he was sitting on top of a table in a round indent, inside the clear capsule of the Pokeball, ‘This is probably the healing machine, isn’t it?’

  The sound of the outside also suddenly piped back into the inside of the ball, as the sound of hospital machinery, a radio, and the quiet humming of Nurse Joy who was sitting at a table in front of a computer in the corner of the room became clear inside of a Pokeball.

  “Woah, this is far more high-tech than I expected…” Larry had assumed that the Pokemon world was somewhat close to his previous world regarding technological advancements, that only the stuff pertaining to Pokemon was somewhat advanced. Yet it turned out he had been wrong.

  A Pokeball was a living habitat for your Pokemon, not just a small device to more easily transport them. Pokemon practically shrunk down to fit the size of Pokeballs when they were recalled and it turned out that the insides of Pokeballs weren’t uncomfortable at all, they were like miniature enclosures that automatically transformed to your Pokemon’s wants. If he so wished he could freely transform the space on the inside to fit his needs and even have a sort of passthrough mode to find out what was going on on the outside.

  How the inside of his Pokeball transform into an alpine landscape during his sleep? He wasn’t entirely sure, but he wasn’t going to complain, as the place looked wonderful. Larry thought he might experiment further with that in the future, for now, he turned back to the habitat inside the Pokeball.

  The vista in front of him was still breathtaking, it felt like it had come straight out of a dream it was that perfect. Suddenly, an idea came to him. If it had managed to transform without his input into the perfect place of his dream, maybe it could somehow influence it to change. He scoffed at the idea, ‘Sure, it's all the futuristic high-tech machinery getting to my head…’

  A slight jolt surprised Larry and he realized that he was moving, he once again pressed the wall of the ball and the scenery melted away and into the interior of the Pokecenter back office. His ball was on top of a tray of Pokeballs, set on top of a table, away from the healing machine. In the corner of his eye, Larry saw the Nurse leave the room and walk out into a hallway, leaving the room entirely unoccupied. Her computer was still active on a lock screen of sorts and the door to the hallway was wide open.

  Larry pushed on the wall of the ball a little harder and he felt the ball deform just the slightest bit. With another push, Larry hyped himself up, ‘C’mon Larry, harder this time! Even Pikachu could do it in the first episode!’ The ball suddenly gave way with a loud and satisfying Clack! and Larry's view grew back to normal size.

  Materializing in a flash of light on the ground, Larry stumbled awkwardly and fell onto his stomach in the office, ‘Crap! Everyone probably heard that, that was super loud!’

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Stumbling to his feet, he looked around anxiously. A few seconds passed and when Larry didn’t hear anyone approach, he walked around the place, his stone-skinned feet clacked on the linoleum floor awkwardly. He leaned into the doorway and kept listening, when no sound came he made a break for it.

  ‘Freedom!’

  …

  Larry waddled along, his arms splayed out in a childish trot. His head whirled around every which way, inspecting the interior of the Pokecenter with scrutiny. It had been a literal lifetime since he’d been inside of human buildings, the one thing passing through his mind, was the sheer difference in size to his previous life.

  As it turned out the tunnels of Mt. Silver weren’t massive, rather, Larry was just tiny. His escape to freedom had found a roadblock, an impasse, you could say.

  “Nnrgh! C’mon!” Larry was up on his tip-toes, stretching to his absolute limits as he fought to reach up high above him. Between him and freedom stood an obstacle, one of the biggest hurdles of his life.

  He had managed to make it down a hallway until the sound of a self-closing door somewhere down the hallway made him panic. A doorhandle hung just out of his reach, using every single muscle in his body he stretched himself upwards in an attempt to reach the handle, but it wasn’t meant to be. No matter how much he stretched, he could not reach it.

  Looking around anxiously, Larry went through the options in his mind, ‘I could try digging, but this is concrete not earth and I don’t even know what floor I’m on and if I break through the door I’d just cause a panic, and probably get myself caught again…’

  Suddenly, the door opened, and a regular non-Joy Nurse smashed the door straight into his snout. Bomp!

  “Argh!” Larry stumbled backward and onto his butt, nursing his smarting nose as the Nurse cried out in surprise, “Eep! I’m sor-,” Before she realized who she was apologizing to, “Oh, what are you doing outside of your Pokeball?”

  Larry jumbled to his feet and lunged forward, ‘Make a break for it!’ The Nurse stepped to the side when she saw a Pokemon make its way towards her.

  The outside of the door opened into a larger hallway on whose end was a set of self-closing double doors. ‘I already got caught, it doesn’t matter!’ The time for subtlety was over so Larry tackled the set of double doors with his body.

  Bang! The doors wobbled awkwardly and jolted at the sudden shock, yet, they refused to budge and Larry jumbled to the ground in pain and confusion.

  Behind him, a set of legs came into view, the Nurse from before held his Pokeball in her hand, “Sorry, it's a pull door, not a push… Please, go back inside your ball for now.” The last thing Larry saw in a slurry of pain and confusion was the red laser of the Pokeball impact his view before he was back in the pristine alpine landscape.

  “Damn it!”

  …

  Bang!

  “What was that?” Valerie asked just a slightly bit too quickly.

  The Nurse Joy applying disinfectant to small cuts on her hands looked at her worriedly.

  “Relax, I’m not quite sure, but considering the number of people and Pokemon in the Center currently, it could be a lot of things.” She smiled reassuringly at the girl, “You and your dad have been through quite a lot today. Your injuries aren’t that bad, so you’ll be discharged today if you have a place to stay.”

  Valerie studied the floor, “I-I don’t think I do…”

  Nurse Joy quickly reassured the girl, “That's fine too, but you should go and discuss the situation with your father after he is out of the operation room. I think the officers already informed some of your relatives, so you should be able to go home with one of them for now. By the way, you dressed his burns pretty well, so his recovery shouldn’t take long!”

  She only nodded back meekly, so Joy continued her reassurance as she patted Valerie on her shoulder, “You’ve also still got that catch of yours to befriend, right? A trainer's first Pokemon is special, and what a first one it is!”

  “I didn’t catch it,” She mumbled into her hoodie, “I only got it here to get it healed.”

  “And you did a great job, Valerie!” Joy commended her, “Look, from the reports I saw about what happened, it's a miracle you even got out alive! Not many people get to be in the presence of legendary Pokemon and live to see the next day!”

  “The reporters are annoying.” Valerie countered as the Nurse prepared a band-aid for her cut.

  “I could guess so.”

  “And the Officers are annoying too.” She continued.

  “Mhm, they love their paperwork don’t they?” Joy applied the band-aid over the largest cut, patting it down carefully so it stayed.

  “Alright, that should be all for now!” She helped the girl off of the examination table and guided her to the door. Just as Nurse Joy was about to open the door for the girl, a knock resonated from the other side, making both of them jolt in surprise.

  Nurse Joy opened the door to see the stern face of the local Officer Jenny staring back at her, “Nurse Joy.”

  “Officer,” She bowed her head respectfully in greeting, “what can I do for you?”

  Her gaze lowered to Valerie, who looked up at the Officer with clear annoyance on her face, “We need some more information from Valerie here. Is her condition better now?”

  “She should be physically fine, right Valerie?” Nurse Joy urged the girl forward.

  “Yeah…I feel fine now. Thank you, Nurse Joy.” Valerie had enough etiquette to thank the woman who had just thrown her into another round of extensive questioning. If there was anything she wanted, it was to either see her dad right now or fall into a soft bed and pass out from exhaustion, but the officials had other ideas.

  Yet, the same words followed, Valerie internally sighed, “Please follow me. We have some more questions.”

  The Jenny led her along through the Center, probably the same private room they’d been in before. Along the way she caught the sight outside the window, the moon was high in the night sky. She had never been up this long if it wasn’t for a fun movie binge night with her dad.

  Valerie hoped he was alright.