Pokemon belongs to Nintendo
~~~~~~

Jared tried to keep up with the rest of the group, but his legs had begun to cramp. On top of that, they were ignoring him when he called out that they needed to stop at a shady spot – which Mark, who was leading, led everyone right on through even though he clearly heard Jared. “Guys!” he called again, but they still ignored him. He looked off to the side for a moment, surveying the irradiated remains of a city. They were too far away from the city for any contamination that might still be present to affect them, the group, by unspoken agreement, stayed well clear of it, and, for that matter, pretty much every city. As far as they knew, it was like that all over the world. Rainclouds were starting to gather, but the nukes fell so long ago that there was no appreciable risk of the rain being radioactive. Or, at least, not too radioactive.



* * * * * *



“What’s this?” Topaz asked himself, visually tracing a pattern on the side of a large, imposing-looking rock. He knew this Mystery Dungeon well, had been to its summit many times, but that pattern was never there, much less the huge rock. He crept a little closer, unsure if it was some kind of trap. The Ninetales had gone through every kind of trap that was documented, plus a few poorly-known ones, and there was absolutely nothing about this that suggested that it was indeed a trap. He crept closer still, and suddenly the word gateway jumped into his head. The subtle greenish tint in his eyes, for a brief moment, almost totally overrode the normal rich red. He shut his eyes momentarily and shook his head. Then the pattern, though it hadn’t changed, seemed to be beckoning to him even more. “Fine,” he said, stepping closer still, and gently placing a single paw on the rock. The pattern, at once, began to glow a brilliant whitish-yellow. The glow became brighter and brighter, ultimately forcing Topaz to look away.

Then, very suddenly, the glow stopped, and a faint whirring sound became audible on the other side of the rock. Topaz cautiously trotted around to see what was causing it and saw what could only be described as strange. “Oh,” he said. “Gateway.” It was almost like a giant, irregular prism was there, suspended in the air, and through it the sky seemed to be mostly overcast, even though, all around him, it was a clear midday sky.



* * * * * *



At the top of the mountain, Mark sat on top of a large, imposing-looking rock. “Come on, you guys! Hurry up!”

Myron, the closest, bellowed back from about thirty meters away, “or maybe you should slow down! We’re getting really spread out back here!”

“Just hurry up,” Mark spat.

Eventually, the group gathered back up at the mountain’s summit. Mark was joined first by Myron, then Michael, then Maxwell, and then, finally, Jared, who was on the brink of collapsing from exhaustion.

“Took you long enough, Jared,” Mark said. “And don’t you dare bring up the dehydration or heat excuses.” Jared, who was in fact dehydrated, cramping, and on the verge of overheating, shot him a dirty look. Just then, a faint whirring sound made itself known on the side of the rock that was opposite Jared. “Maxwell, go check it out,” Mark ordered.

“But I haven’t even-” before he could finish telling Mark that he wasn’t done setting up his tent, Mark repeated the order. “Fine,” he muttered. He came around the rock, homing in on the sound, only to find… nothing. The sound was coming from nothing. “There’s nothing here.”

“Look again, because obviously something’s there.”

“Come see for yourself, Mark. There’s-”

“Look. Again.”

“Look for it yourself!” Maxwell snapped. “There’s nothing here!”

At that moment, a powerful something pulled the five of them and their tents and equipment, with great force, all towards the point where the sound was coming from.



* * * * * *



Topaz tilted his head a little, trying to make sense of what he was pretty sure were voices, but they were so distorted that he couldn’t even tell how many there were. Eventually, he lost interest and started to dig through his bag. He took out an apple, and was just about to start eating it when, suddenly, something large and heavy slammed into him, knocked him on his side, and came to rest on top of him. He let out a pained howl as he tried to get whatever it was off of him, and it eventually did get off, but seemingly by itself. He tried to stand up, but-

“Mark, no!” Somebody shouted. “That’s a…!”

“Stupid fox thing!” Somebody else yelled, and Topaz felt a powerful kick to his side. Then he felt something trying to pull his topaz-brown-tipped, cobalt-blue scarf off. The Ninetales managed to get a look at what it was – a human, in this world, no, multiple humans! Topaz, in a bout of mixed anger and disgust, used his favorite move, Psychic, and the human was violently slammed against the rock. Wherever the other humans came from, they started to scatter. But not the one called Mark. Topaz turned away from him, assuming that he was stunned by the impact, only to feel him grabbing one of his tails and trying to pull him by it a few seconds later. “Give me that!” The human added, reaching again for his scarf. “You shouldn’t be wearing that, you ani-”

Mark was thrown back again as he yelped. Topaz turned around to see that the human had developed a whitish glow around his arms, and it was spreading. Oh, Topaz was going to enjoy this.

“What did you do!?” the human shrieked. Already, his skin was turning dark purple, and his arms were becoming shorter and tapered towards his hands - which were rapidly melting away into his arms until there was nothing left of them but three short, stubby fingers. “What did you do!?” he repeated with a more demanding tone. As he started to shrink, his head and torso began to pull together into a single, rounded mass, as that which had happened to his arms and hands began to happen to his legs and feet.

“You shouldn’t have pulled my tail,” was all Topaz said, and very darkly so.

As Mark was swallowed by his shirt, his face moved to the front of what used to be his torso, his mouth forcing into a broad, never-closing smile. His pupils and irises merged into tiny black dots, while the whites of his eyes turned a pale red. His ears reformed as spikes protruding from his body, and a short tail emerged from behind him. Again, he shouted, “what did you do!?” Instead of clawing his way out of his now-far-too-large shirt, the new Gengar phased through it, and seemed completely horrified. Then Mark’s gaze slid off to Topaz’s side and came to rest on a bush, from which one of the other humans was whimpering, terrified of everything that had just happened. “I’ll deal with you later, Jared.” His eyes fixed onto Topaz, full of rage. Then he charged – or at least he tried to, but Topaz’s eyes started to glow brilliantly, as did Mark’s form.

“You don’t need to deal with anyone but yourself.” With that, Topaz psychically threw Mark away, over the cliff, and out of sight. And then he turned his attention towards whomever was hiding in the bush. Whomever was there, coincidentally, pulled one of its limbs down, but immediately let it back into place when they saw Topaz approaching. He could hear this human muttering “I’m not here, I’m not here, I’m not here,” under his breath. He suddenly stood up and tried to run away as Topaz got close, but only managed three-and-a-half strides before he fell flat on his face. His feet – which had already become small, orange, two-toed hooves, flew right out of his hiking boots. That same orange coloration, which was from very short fur, was spreading up his legs, which were becoming short and stubby. His entire body was becoming smaller and rounder as the orange fur spread across it, and he cried out in fear.

“S-stop this!” Jared pled, before being overcome by painful spasms.

“I am not doing this,” Topaz said, “humans just cannot exist in this world. And I cannot stop this, so don’t ask again, for it is futile.”

“But… it… hurts…” his pants fell off, now being far too large, revealing that the fur around his waist and hips had turned black, and a thin, curly tail with a reddish sphere at the end was forming. His torso, now barrel-shaped, was swallowed by the fur, as his arms began to turn into forelegs roughly the same as his hind ones, but the hooves were black. His head rounded as well and retracted just enough that his neck was erased. His eyes enlarged as his body finished shrinking, while his nose and mouth pulled out into a thick, short snout, and the fur from his broad, flat nose up to and between the upper edges of his eyes turned yellow, while everything else from the lower corners of the yellow strip, sloping upwards and circling around his scalp, turned black. Finally, his ears, now atop his head, lengthened a great deal and gained an elliptical shape. Jared, now a Tepig, lost consciousness and collapsed onto his side, half-hidden by his shirt.

Topaz gently eased the little Tepig out of his shirt, trying not to be bothered by the other, scattered cries of agony. “Welcome to your new life,” he whispered to him.