Act 1: Chapter 1

Act 1: Chapter 1

"She really likes you, you know."

Lee groans, setting the bloody bucket in his gloved hand down and wiping at his sweaty forehead. Behind him, the staff door to the lion exhibit closes with a pair of clicks. "I know Makiri is pissed. Don't rub it in."

The first voice laughs, deep and hearty. "Well, can't dem to love you all da time, can you? Lovely Lady Makiri likes her routine, and you broke her big rule of not changin'. Mommy Mara's scent all over ya ain't helping either. Lady Makiri be thinkin' you're cheaten on her."

Lee looks up to the tall speaker.

Before him is a large african man with a shaved head, beaming smile, and eyes sparkling with mirth. He's clad in the same khaki bush trekking outfit that most animal handlers in the Columbus Zoo use as a uniform, Lee included. On his belt is a radio (currently turned off as to not spook the lions) and on his right breast pocket is a nametag reading "Aasir".

Lee runs a glove-clad hand through his sweaty hair with a sigh. "I know. With how David called out so suddenly someone had to check up on the tigers, and I drew the short straw. Mara's in heat again and is real cuddly with anything even vaguely smelling male. She walked up to me without an ounce of aggression."

Aasir nods and hums, scratching his stubble covered chin. "Yah, no wonder Lady Makiri was givin' you da stinkeye den. Smellin' anodda female, one jonesin' for cubs no less, on any of her handlers gunna make her mad."

The shorter man grimaces. He had to carefully maneuver in the enclosure as to not let Makiri, the eldest lioness, be downwind of himself. The other lions gladly approached for their admittedly late lunch with Makiri trailing behind, already knowing none of the foolish younglings would eat her share. By the time Lee realized the wind had shifted, the old lioness had already gone silent and was maneuvering into his blindspot. Lee bid a steady retreat, as running would make her chase, and it gave him enough time to see the fury in her eyes.

If she caught him, Lee would have been dead.

Harsh is the realization that any animal could turn on you.

"Think you can cover the lions alone for a few days so Makiri can cool off?"

Aasir nods with a chuckle. "Dats fine. Deh boys at deh reptile house gunna need some extra hands anyway. Dey be setting up a spider exhibit while new rattlers be shipped in. Lions, old Aasir can do. Now spiders?" He drops his grin and shudders. "Can't do spiders. No. Dem beady eyes and crawly legs and hooked fangs be hauntin' my dreams," he says, rubbing his arms as if to ward off a chill.

"Heh, suit yourself," Lee says with a shrug. "Any idea when that's going down?"

Aasir pulls his phone from his pocket and checks the time. "Threeish? Dey getting the buggers in and set up in da back while de enclosures be converted for dem."

"Enough time to catch some lunch and a nap in the supply closet. Nice." Lee thinks with a grin, turning towards the exit to the visitor area.

"And don't be sleepin' in da admin closet. Miss Jonesy knows."

Lee stops. "I said that aloud, didn't I?"

"It's a bad habit you got." Lee didn't even need to turn to know Aasir was smiling. The man just laughs when Lee keeps walking.

Lee steps out into the visitor area, barely avoiding a kid that runs by with an exhausted mom trailing behind. He looks around and takes in the throngs of people in the Zoo today.

Everyone is crowded by the fence of the lion exhibit, watching with gasps and exclamations broken up by the beeping of cellphone cams as the lions eat. Young, old, man, and woman alike watch raptly, and thankfully no one has the gall to try and throw things into the enclosure this time.

Just yesterday a pizza crust thrown by some brat managed to bean poor cub Sefu in the eye, and both himself and Aasir rushed out to the culprit. Lee isn't terribly intimidating, only being of average height and build, but even an indignant mom quickly caves to a large african man so angry that he accidentally slips back into his native Swahili. The family and bawling child left without needing an escort out.

Respecting the animals isn't that hard, is it?

Either way, today seems to be going just fine, making Lee smile as everyone points and gushes over cubs Sefu and Zuberi fighting over a rib bone.

The man continues on, gliding through the Saturday crowd with practiced ease back toward the main admin office and towards his much-needed lunch. One or twice he's stopped by a zoo guest for directions, and he gives them out almost without noticing, knowing where everything is by heart. As he walks, Lee runs a hand across his forehead and speeds up, hoping to get out of the beating late-summer sun soon.

Lee slips into the gift shop near the front of the Zoo and walks along the wall to a door marked "Employees only." With a swipe of his keycard, the door opens with a 'click!' and lets him back into the admin office.

Inside the small lounge area, a few staff, animal keepers, security, and even an on-site cop mill about, talking in small groups or seated at one of the small tables eating lunch. In the corner of the room, an old TV with the news perpetually playing fills the background. Lee promptly ignores all of that and makes a beeline for the shared fridge, snatching a tupperware container of pasta from it before finding a table for himself.

Lee pulls his phone out as he brings a forkful of food to his mouth, clicking on his GBA emulator to continue his modded Pokemon Emerald run. Not too much was added. Simply a randomized starter and all first three gens available in the wild.

Beating the first gym leader Roxanne, a Rock-type specialist, with a Vulpix as a starter was a gigantic pain though. Will-o-Wisp and Confuse Ray really earned their place in Vulpix's moveset after that. The Vulpix has stellar IVs and even has the hidden ability Drought, so it's too bad her lax nature means a special defense reduction. She would have made a good wall. 'That's alright though,' Lee thinks. 'I can still build a good team around her.' He marks the little fox with a heart in the box system.

With the first gym beaten, Lee took one last look around Rustboro and talked with every NPC before heading to the next route.

A chair across the table squeaks as someone sits down. "Still a big Pokemon fan, eh?"

Lee looks up as he finishes his last bite of lunch, seeing fellow keeper and member of the reptile house, Marcy, sit down with him.

Lee nods, pausing his game to address her. "Now and forever. The only thing I like more than Pokemon is actual animals. Broke my heart as a kid when my dick brother said they were real only for Ma to tell me they aren't."

Marcy snorts and grins. "He wouldn't be a proper brother if he didn't mess with you."

"True, and I busted his favorite GI Joe as revenge," Lee quips, making Marcy laugh. "So what brings you over to my lonely little table?"

The woman collects herself. "Aasir told me over the radio one of your lions thinks you're cheating on her, so you need a break from there for a few days. Want to help set up an arachnid exhibit in the meantime?"

"It's not my fault Mara felt like rubbing up on me..." Lee grumbles. "But yes, I was actually about to call you once I was done here to ask just that. Thanks for saving me the trouble."

"Of course."

Both zookeepers stand, Lee pocketing his phone, then stop as tornado sirens begin to sound out in the distance, their wails echoing across the whole zoo hauntingly. Under the wailing of the sirens is the audible panic of several of the louder, more skittish animals. Everyone else in the lounge likewise looks bewildered. One glance out the window shows that the sky is clear and blue, as a summer day should be. Even the fickle weather of Ohio can't shift that fast.

"The hell is going on?" Another keeper asks no one particular.

"Dunno. Some kind of malfunction?" A gift shop cashier finishing her lunch suggests.

"Someone must have broken something big then." Someone near the back of the room chimes.

More sirens echo in from the not-so-distant city of Columbus, the capital of Ohio and one of the largest cities in the United States. The extra sirens mix with the closer ones, forming an unnerving din. Then from the north even more sirens cry out from the city of Delaware.

The confusion gripping the room slowly turns to worry.

"Alright, it's one thing for our sirens to fuck up, but both Columbus and Delaware going at once?" Lee says, pulling out his phone. "What is going on?"

Then he gets an answer he didn't want.

All at once, every cellphone in the room screams out alarm tones at maximum volume. Several people flinch and a few bite back screams from the unexpected scare. The message flashing on each one is infinitely more damning than any frightening alarm tone.

PRESIDENTIAL ALERT ISSUED.

TAKE SHELTER NOW AND TUNE INTO OFFICIAL NEWS STATIONS FOR MORE DETAIL.

All eyes fly to the TV in the corner.

"-rising tension may mean disaster for negotiations. Back to you, Tom.", ``the anchorwoman says as the news shifts to a smiling man with a weather map behind him Before he can get a single word in, the screen suddenly goes black.

Everyone watching waits, coiled with tension.

After several seconds, the TV screams out with the chilling screech of the E.B.S. After several screeches, a synthesized voice begins to speak with an eerie calm. "This message is transmitted by the order of the president and Department of Homeland Security. At approximately 12:37PM EST, The North American Aerospace Defense Command detected incoming Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. These missiles are believed to be carrying nuclear warheads of unknown yield. Known targeted cities include Washington DC, New York NY, Dallas TX, San Francisco CA, Seattle WA, Pittsburgh PA, Chicago IL-"

The TV rattles off more cities in it's monotone. The longer it goes on, the more hope begins rising in the room.

"Jesus fuck this is unreal, but if there is anything good about Ohio it's how irrelevant we are. Why waste a nuke here?" Lee thinks to himself, trying vainly to steady his heart rate. "There is nothing worth nuking. Oh my fucking god I can't believe the crazies on /pol/ were right."

"-Phoenix AZ, and Columbus OH."

"...What!?"

A deathly stillness grips the entire room. Just outside, screams overtake the sirens.

"If you are located within 100 to 200 miles of any of the listed locations," the TV drones on, "take shelter immediately. Warhead impact is estimated to be in the next 30 to 45 minutes. Keep a radio and tune into local emergency channels. If you do not know your local emergency channels, look them up now. Internet service cannot be guaranteed after impact. Shelter in place and do not move until an all-clear is given. A location underground is optimal. Failure to follow these instructions may lead to injury or death. This message will repeat."

Lee looks around at his thunderstruck co-workers, but can't hear a word of their frantic yelling over his heart pounding in his own ears and the growing screaming outside. He falls backward, his back hitting the wall and letting him slump to the floor. "Absolutely nowhere in the zoo can stand a nuclear blast," he whispers to himself. "We're going to die. We're actually going to die."

The man frantically takes out his phone and hits the first contact inside, his mother. He holds the phone up to his ear, but only hears "All circuits are busy. Please try again later" before it can ring out even once. With a growl, he calls again, again, and again...

"All circuits are busy. Please try again later."

"Fuck! Did EVERYONE have the same idea?!"

Lee raises his arm and almost dashes the smartphone across the ground, but controls his temper at the last moment with a deep, heaving breath. He drops the now useless device into his pocket and grips his head in his hands, tears of both fear and frustration stinging his eyes. "Fuck fuck fuck..."

He raises his head, seeing everyone else isn't coping much better. Most fill the room with screams and muttered prayers asking God to save them. One poor intern has the cashier girl in a deathgrip of a hug, crying large, ugly tears as the shell shocked girl rubs his back absently. Several of the keepers slip out the door, probably to go see their animals one last time.

BANG!

Everyone jumps and screams.

Lee stares at the slumped form of the on-site police officer. He's wide-eyed and bleeding from a hole in the side of his cranium, his Glock pistol held in limp fingers. The wall to his side is painted a morbid red. The man's mouth opens and closes several times before his eyes unfocus and he goes limp.

Lee quashes the temptation to take the gun and follow the man into the afterlife.

Someone else, an older man in overalls with a tool belt picks up the gun and drops the magazine, looking at with the shaky hands. "There's sixteen more bullets if anyone wants to go on their own terms..." he says quietly, placing the gun on a table after putting the magazine back in.

Again, Lee finds himself smiling. "Thank you both again. I won't forget you."

Both Pokemon actually smile. Taillow spreads its wings and Zigzagoon turns to leave.

"Wait!"

The Pokemon halt and look at Lee, Zigzagoon with curiosity and Taillow with suspicion.

"Can you..." he stops, almost feeling foolish. "Can you tell me where the nearest human settlement is? I'm.. not really from around here."

Taillow rolls its eyes. "Tailllllow," it says, sounding condescending. Nonetheless, the small bird flits up to a branch and points it's beak to the east. It then takes flight and vanishes into the forest.

Zigzagoon is quick to follow, but not before throwing a quick "Goon!" over its shoulder.

Once again, Lee is alone.

The zookeeper pushes away the mental breakdown that desperately wants out and starts walking east at a slow pace. No matter what happened, he needs to find other people to help him and hope he doesn't stumble into a nuclear crater. As he walks, Lee takes stock of himself.

"I'm hurt, tired, lost, have zero supplies, and I'm probably hallucinating" He closes his eyes and sighs. "At least those berries worked."

Lee pats down his pockets, finding everything where it should be. His radio is still on his belt, but it only takes one look to see that it's chassis is cracked down the middle and the innards look live they've been microwaved, he observes with a groan. His folding knife and wallet is in his back pocket. His phone somehow survived, albeit with a cracked screen, but then...

As Lee was putting his phone back, his finger runs over something cool, metal, and spherical at the bottom of his pocket. Curious, he wraps his fingers around it and pulls the tiny sphere out. In his hand is a pokeball, shrunken into it traveling form.

"No fucking way."

He presses the button several times, watching mystified as the ball grows and shrinks over and over before his eyes. "Did Taillow or Zigzagoon sneak this onto me?" he asks no one, tossing the ball up and down, only for it to slip from his fingers and fall to the ground.

The ball bounces once then snaps open with a flash of energy, making Lee jump back with a yelp. The energy collects to a single point and forms a small, quadrupedal figure before fading, leaving a creature behind.

Brown eyes blink and look up at the gobsmacked human. An ear with a little heart mark flicks.

Before him stands a Vulpix. His Vulpix.

"Oh. Shit."

The first thing Vulpix does once her ball opens is take a deep breath of air.

The scents of the forest, the dirt, the trees, the water, the grass and mingle in her nose, telling her countless things about her surroundings before she can even blink the stars from her vision. She remembers an incredible victory over the Rock-type gym leader, where her own trainer commanded her like a professional. He and her working in tandem led the entire other team to ruin.

A young Fire type demolishing a team of experienced Rock types. Alone. Power never mattered overly much to her, but such explosive growth appealed to a much more primal part of her Pokemon psyche. A part she could not and would not deny.

Her human was never the affectionate sort, and would keep her in her ball most of the time. With a flare of her budding psychic powers, Vulpix scans for her opponent as her vision clears, but finds naught but her trainer.

Curious.

After a few seconds that seem like an eternity, Vulpix's vision adjusts from the sudden flash of her own materialization, and before her stands... a human who isn't her trainer. He's taller different in the face, clad in unusual, tattered clothes,... and coated in injuries.

But this human's psychic signature feels just like her trainer. Exactly like him. She knows there is no such thing as a perfect psychic spoof. It can't be done. Vulpix wars with herself, fighting the desire to try and comfort her trainer(?) over his injuries and the logical side of her that says to wait and be wary of tricks.

And things... look different. Sharper. Dare she say more detailed? Strange happenings are abound.

Vulpix blinks and looks around, not recognizing anything. With a flick of her ear, she sits and waits, content with having her trainer(?) lead the conversation.

Lee blanks out.

Before him is the crux of his latest team, looking at him coolly with at least some level of recognition. Actual recognition, as in she knows who he is. Somehow. He takes out his phone and boots up his emulator for Pokemon Emerald. On starting up, he opens his pokemon menu.

And it's empty. His Vulpix, his only Pokemon, is missing.

The game promptly freezes and crashes.

He puts the phone away, thinking over the implications.

Again, he falls back into his training and crouches down slowly, Vulpix's eyes watching carefully. Lee hesitates for a minute with Vulpix just watching, before he finally takes a deep breath and begins "Vulpix? I know this is going to sound really stupid, but what is the last thing you remember?"

Vulpix tilts her head, carefully regarding him with her chocolate eyes. The little vulpine then looks around and spies a small rock sticking up from the ground. She trots to the rock, then breathes a short tongue of flame onto it before giving it a little kick, knocking it over.

This sudden appearance of the flame makes Lee go still, but he snaps himself back to reality a second later. "So our victory over Roxanne?"

Vulpix simply nods.

Again Lee stops to think. "Alrighty girl. Lets walk-n-talk. We want to get to a town before nightfall and I've got a lot of things to cover. I urge you to listen to me until the end."

The little fox responds with a demure "Vul..." and stands to follow.

Lee stands himself and stretches his limbs with a held back yawn. The energy given to him by that Oran is beginning to fade. He starts his leisurely pace east again with Vulpix easily falling in step to his left. As they walk, he mulls over his explanation.

"How does one explain... well, all this shit to a superpowered animal without getting killed?" The zookeeper wonders with a sigh. "Or, do I even need to explain it?" He wonders, thinking back to some of the older Dex entries for Vulpix and Ninetails. "Ninetails is explicitly said to have mind control powers in one of the gen III Dexs. That means some way to connect minds together. Could Vulpix have a lesser form of that ability?" The man then starts second guessing himself. "Do I really want to let her into my head? Sure, I can say I know how psychic powers work from the show, but this isn't the show. At least I don't think. If I don't though, then everything I say is going to sound crazy. 'Hey, I dunno how either of us got here, but I was in a fiery holocaust and I'm sure you were in a video game before that.' Even in a world as wack as Pokemon, that's weird."

"Vulpix?" Lee asks, looking down at her. "I'll be honest, I don't quite know how to explain what exactly happened. It's... kind of unbelievable. So much so that I almost don't believe it. I know your line has some level of psychic power. Can I possibly show you the memories?"

"Excluding some parts, of course. I can't scar my only Pokemon."

Vulpix looks up and regards Lee with some surprise in her eyes. She stops and jumps to Lee's shoulders with a deft hop, taking care to drape herself over his right shoulder and to keep her tails away from his burns. Lee and Vulpix lock eyes less than an inch away, and her large chocolate eyes begin to glow a dark red.

Lee gulps and brings his daily life in the zoo to the forefront, showing Vulpix what he did for a living, then shifted to his phone.

He can FEEL Vulpix looking over his mental shoulder into the memory of the phone screen, where a perfect digital copy of herself was. He could feel the countless questions bubbling in her, but she remained silent. He shifted his mind to his trainer avatar, then back to himself, correcting her image of him.

Finally, he shifts the memory to the very tail end of... his death?

The alarm that shoots through Vulpix nearly makes him stumble.

A flash, then pain. Unearthly pain.

Fire.

Fire.

FIRE.

SKIN BOILING

FLESH MELTING

BONES SPLINTERING.

TURN.

TO.

ASH.

"...!"

Lee snaps out of the short flashback, his chest heaving and the sensation of burning. He looks to his right shoulder, seeing the horrified face of Vulpix.

"No. She saw everything." The man feels himself go cold, like a lump of ice was dumped into his stomach. "Why the fuck did I think this was a good idea?! Jesus fuck man try to think things through!"

The fox takes shaky breaths and fights back tears in an unnervingly human display as a pitiful whine builds in her throat. She pins her ears back and looks away.

Lee keeps her pokeball pocketed. If she runs, then he has no right to pursue. He'll break the ball and free her.

For a long moment, man and fox stand there. Then Lee jumps when a cold nose nuzzles into his neck. "V-Vulpix?"

Vulpix meets his eyes with hers, but stays nuzzled to his neck.

"You're," the man stops and thinks over his words. "You're not going to run and leave? I won't stop you."

The fox bares her teeth and growls as pure offense flashes across her whole face. Merely suggesting she leave seems to make her almost enraged. Her body heats up before she suddenly stops and lets it cool down again.

Lee gulps and turns away, holding up a hand in surrender. "L-Look. I was just saying. If you don't want to, then that's fine too. I'm more than happy to have you."

With those words, Vulpix visibly calms and huffs, holding her head high as she steadily meets her trainer's gaze. "Vulpix. Vul, pix." she says firmly. It's easily interpreted as 'I am not leaving. Don't ask again.'

Despite all the day's great misfortunes, Lee feels a little of that childish excitement from earlier return. Here he is, with a Pokemon of his own!

The time to cry and mourn is later. For now wonder can have the front seat.