Project Harudyne Series 1 - Pokemon Ageos Chronicles

Chapter 1: Ageos

Broad daylight. A mostly solid tan-colored dirt walkway slightly elevated from the rest of the ground, with an equally slightly downhill slope having light grass and flowers on the slope, and numerous forest trees on the even ground past it. The sun's rays shone down on the trees' leaves, providing shade to those under it.

A young human, looking about 17 years old, was laying down seemingly unconscious on the side of the walkway under the shade of a tree. Short light brown hair that was clean in the front and spiky in the back, regular old dark brown cloth shoes, and a light cloth long-sleeved dark green shirt with an odd emblem on its left shoulder area. The emblem was four wolf teeth - one top tooth on the far left with a bottom fang just slightly right of it, and the exact same on the right side but the the top tooth is right and the bottom tooth is left - surrounded by a darker shade of the shirt's color contained within a scratched up circle that was a brighter shade of the shirt's color. He also had a sheathed greatsword to the left of his arm with a rather unique star-shaped light orange guard and, judging by the sheath, an outer curve on one side of the blade's end and in inner curve on the other.

"N-Nnnngh..." The boy had seemingly been there for the past two or so hours, and was just now starting to regain his consciousness; squinting his rather light hazel eyes before slowly opening them. They looked quite serious and tough when fully opened. "What...Where...?" He slowly started to sit up and look around. "Where am I...? I-I don't remember any area in the game having this type of road before." He stood there staring at the road for a couple seconds, a few thoughts running through his mind. Then, deciding to look above him, he started to notice something...off about the world. "Hmm?" He reached his left arm up towards one of the tree branches and carefully pulled off a leaf to examine.

What he discovered after a couple seconds of staring at that leaf was that the graphics settings were set down a level or two from The World R:2; almost as if they were trying to return to the feel of the original The World VRMMORPG. The brunette boy, being so used to The World R:2's fixed graphics setting that couldn't be altered at all whatsoever, also noticed the same with his hand and sleeve. "Huh..What is this place? It doesn't look as photorealistic as The World R:2 does."

Then, a thought came to him. [! Wait. What about my character status?] Then, the boy swiped his right index finger downward, which brought up a column of icons to press; it was The World R:2's equivalent of a pause menu. From top to bottom, the options were: Inventory, Equipment, Status, Options, and Logout - which was strangely completely greyed out. He pondered this fact for a couple seconds before coming up with a plausible reason. "Hmm, might be because I'm not in a town. But...which way's a town? I'm here in this new area with no idea of where I am or where to go." But then he decided to check the other options. First, his equipment. Looking at the screen that popped up after he pressed the option, and then down over at where he was laying down at - specifically where his sword was, he then closed out of the window. "Seems my equipment wasn't altered. I barely ever wear armor anyway."

Next was his inventory. "What the? It's almost completely empty. I had a bunch of cooking ingredients for sis to use." What was there, however, were only 3 Poke Balls and 5000 Macca represented by the ћ symbol. "And there's this new type of currency. The old one's nowhere to be found." Finally, his character status. The brunette's level was completely reset from Level 78 all the way down to Level 1. His stats also showed this, with his highest stat being Strength at 21, which is pretty high for any Class at Level 1. His name was shown directly above his stats and character Class - Zakari Harudyne. He closed out of the window and the menu, and then leaned down to pick up his sword. And he almost grabbed the strap when all of a sudden...

"!" He sensed something in the bushes, and immediately pulled his arm away from his sword. Sure enough, whatever he sensed came out trying to headbutt his arm in an attempt to at least bruise it. The creature, a very much reptilian creature with quite a slim and slender green frame with cream underside, a yellow stripe going down its back to its three-pronged tail, large eyes surrounded by yellow markings, and two leaf-like yellow structures - seemingly representing some form of royalty. Zakari instantly recognized this creature from his various video games as a Snivy, the Grass-type starter of the Unova region. However, this Snivy had a feature that no other Snivy he had ever seen had. This one had a full head of green hair, which was considered shoulder-length to an ordinary human.

The wind then started to blow softly towards the human's right, his and the rather strange Snivy's hair waving along with it. "I'm impressed." Zakari showed a look of surprise with the Snivy began to speak. A Pokemon, as its species is considered a type of, being able to speak fluent English was quite the shock to him. But then the creature turned its head towards Zakari, revealing her smile to him. "You actually avoided my attack. Not many people would've had that level of reflexes. What gave me away?"

The brunette then eased himself back up. "I sensed an unknown presence right before you attacked. As for my reflexes, let's just say my lack of armor has always made me faster than the average player character." He sounded a little narcissistic when saying the second sentence.

The green-haired reptilian looked at the human in slight perplexity. "Player character? So you're from some video game?" it asked. Zakari confirmed after hearing her voice for a bit now, on top of her hair style and length, that the Snivy was a girl.

"Well, somewhat. This is actually my avatar from The World R:2, a popular Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role playing Game, or VRMMORPG, from my universe," Zakari responded. "My universe is a parallel, and rather boring, universe all things considered. I mostly play games to relax and have fun." The human then went back over to his sword to pick it up. "Unless it's The World R:2. Never really liked having a casual mentality in that game. It breaks the true immersion that a VR game is trying its best to portray." With his right hand holding the sheath's strep, Zakari put it around his torso while turning towards the Snivy. "Now then, wanna come along?"

It shrugged in response. "I guess it couldn't hurt. I've been a little bored lately, so this could be a fun experience." The reptile slowly started walking towards Zakari. "Name's Slitheren, by the way."

Just after Slitheren finished speaking, Zakari threw his left hand out open,like he was telling her to stop. "Wait." The Snivy looked surprised for a second, as she saw, approaching Zakari's hand, multiple odd lights gathering in front of it, forming together to materialize a round object, which Zakari then grabbed firmly. Slitheren continued to look surprised, but her expression was also mixed with one of awe. The brunette boy then readied his throwing stance. "Now, hold still."

The green reptile nodded, her expression not changing. Zakari then threw the Poke Ball straight at her, with enough power to send it flying at decent speeds due to his Strength. His aim true, the Ball's tip hit and bounced off Slitheren's head, making her flinch from the impact. "Oww!" But then she looked up at the Poke Ball, which had just opened up and surprised her a bit. But right after the Ball had opened, a red, almost lightning-like beam shot out from it and zapped the Snivy, turning her body completely red like the beam was. Then the beam, along with Slitheren, went back into the Poke Ball as it closed up and started to shake a bit, its tip glowing bright red. After about five or so seconds of soft shaking, it made a clicking sound and stopped shaking entirely, the tip's glow also slowly fading away.

Zakari smiled and walked over to the Poke Ball, picked it up, and tossed it back unp into the air. When he did, the Ball opened and ejected the same beam as it did earlier, only this time it was white. As the beam formed Slitheren's shape on Zakari's right shoulder, its white glow dispersed and revealed her. She had a slight red mark on her head from where the Poke Ball hit her. "That really hurt, you know." That was the first thing she said after she came out of her new home."But, how did you do that? You practically created that Poke Ball out of thin air." She was still confused and surprised by that.

"Oh. Easy." Zakari replied, opening up the menu. "In most RPGs, you have an inventory that can hold either a certain amount of or infinite items." The brown-haired boy went through the regular motions of selecting items in RPGs. "One way to materialize items for use is to go into your inventory, click on the item you wanna use, and press Use." As he pressed the use button, a Poke Ball materialized and floated in front of him. "However, if you don't use it within 30 seconds after you materialize it, it'll dematerialize and return to your inventory." Zakari then raised and opened his left hand up to his waist height. "That method is rather slow and inconvenient during battle, however. But, you can instead use your mind to access the inventory. Let's say I wanna materialize that exact same Poke Ball. Knowing that I still have at least one Poke Ball in my inventory, I can partially visualize the object in my head. Like this." Just then, the same multiple lights formed above his hand, materializing the Poke Ball. "I can also do the same to dematerialize it and return it to my inventory." Doing so, the Poke Ball reverted back to the lights that dispersed and dissipated. "But in order to use your mind, you have to regularly check your inventory to see what you have left."

"Interesting." Slitheren slowly began to understand Zakari's explanation. But then she shifted the topic. "Well regardless, you're now an official Pokemon Trainer." She then turned her eyes off to the distance. "Well, you would be. But you're missing one important item."

"Huh? What would that be?" Zakari asked.

Slitheren looked back over at him. "A Trainer ID." The brown-haired boy looked at her with confusion. "It's a type of license that shows that you have passed the official Pokemon Trainer exam and are a legal Trainer." Slitheren paused for a couple seconds. "I've been wandering around this route of the region for a while now, so I know what you have to do to be an official Trainer. If you ask me though, I think you'll be just fine without one. Buuut there are some guards in front of Shire Town east of here, and they weren't there until just a few days ago. They don't seem too fond of letting people leave nor enter town. Pretty boring, and extremely stupid."

"I see," Zakari casually responded as he started his walk east, but then stopped to look down and to his left and noticed a split in the road. He went over to that split, and saw a sign that said Emerald Forest right next to what appeared to be the forest's entrance. Zakari smirked, looking at the entrance. "Hmph. Strangely foreboding. I like this feeling."

The boy started to walk into the forest opening. But after only two steps... "Heeey! Waaait!" He stopped with a slightly surprised look on his face, and turned round a bit to see who was shouting at him. Who he saw was a middle-aged man who appeared to be a scientist of some form judging by his pure white lab coat and glasses. He also had green khaki pants on with a regular business belt around each loop, dark brown wedged business shoes, and a light grey collared polo shirt. His hair was slightly shorter than shoulder-length, and he had a very clean moustache. Both the hair and moustache color were bright grey to signify his age to Zakari alongside his aged voice. After examining his appearance, Zakari fully turned towards him. "Thank goodness I caught you at the last moment. That forest is too dangerous for a non-Trainer." The scientist then noticed the Snivy on Zakari's shoulder, and smiled and closed his eyes. "Slitheren. It seems you've found your Trainer today. But I'm curious; what's with that sword of yours? Most Trainers like you wouldn't carry weapons unless they were criminals."

But then he chuckled a bit. "Relax. I'm not accusing you of being a criminal. You don't have to state your reasons if you don't wish to. I understand." Then the grey-haired man gave a surprised look on his face. "Oh. Where are my manners? I forgot to introduce myself to you." He put his arms behind his back in a military-like fashion. "My name is Pear, but most people know me as the Pokemon Professor here in Ageos."

Zakari raised a brow to that last statement. "Ageos?" he asked.

"Yes. The Ageos Region, where we are now." Pear replied. "I guess if you want geography, we're about northwest of the Sinnoh Region and north of the Holon Region."

Zakari stood there for a second before opening his mouth again. "So you're saying that...I'm in the Pokemon World?"

Pear looked confused for a bit. "...W-Well, I think you'll wanna become an official Pokemon Trainer before you do anything else. But before that..." Pear raised his right hand and did some weird motions with his index finger. "Felios Delusec Heliof Micron!" Almost as if magic, Professor Pear's chant along with his finger motions created materializing lights that formed together into a peculiar device - mostly grey with a completely red Poke Ball design on the lower half with black outlines and a white center, and two trapezoid-shaped parts - one on each side of the design. There was also a small LED screen on the top, and what Zak could only assume was the power button to its left. When he grabbed the device and pressed that button, the device's backside raised itself with the spring-loaded mechanisms inside, slotting itself perfectly in line with the topside dimensions' edges. The backside also revealed a second LED screen, both screens lighting up and showing what Zakari recognized as a Snivy on the top screen and basic information on the bottom. It also generated a robotic voice out of its speakers.