Terry woke to the sound of a gunshot.
It wasn’t the first time in his life, but it was the first time it had been this close. He was still on the grass, he had no shirt, it’s tattered remains laying nearby. Something stunk. Some part of him was aware it was the body of the cat woman he had killed, but as distressing as that probably should have been it was nowhere near the most pressing thing he had to deal with.
The rabbit woman was up and clutching her ears a smoking gun sat at her feet. “Are you fucking retarded!” Terry roared as he stood up. The rabbit was too stunned to react as he snatched back his gun. “You’re gonna kill somebody! Keep your hands off my shit! Is that my knife?” All of his things had been taken out of his pocket as much as they were. He gathered up his weapons, his wallet and the berries. and got dressed while the rabbit watched.
His reality came back to him with the buzzing of flies as they started to settle on the cat. He was still here, wherever here was. He already had to fight one animal person, kill one animal person and the other…
The rabbit looked at him curiously. His little rant didn’t appear to do much to bother her. Compared to what she’d already been through today though he guessed he understood why. His hips still hurt from the way she fucked him, he was pretty sure nothing was broken, but he was gonna have some bruises. “Well, my uber is here so I’m ‘a head out. Peace.” Terry said as he kept moving. He had to find someone somewhere, someone who spoke English or at least wasn’t a fucking animal.
But the rabbit wasn’t going to leave him alone that easily and once it was clear he was leaving she started to follow. “Hey, I don’t know who or what the fuck you are, but you’re probably better off on your own.” Terry said. “You follow me back and someone’s probably gonna try to cut you open.”
“Mini?” The rabbit replied, not understanding.
“Just stay alright.” He said before holding out his hand. “Stay.”
The rabbit copied the gesture. “Top.”
“Right… so...” He started to move, but soon she was following him again. “Fuck.” He remembered the berries in his pocket. “You hungry or something? Here.” The rabbit took the berries and sniffed them as he tried to walk off again, but she didn’t eat them and this time she ran up and latched herself onto one of his arms. “Fucking really?!”
The rabbit just glared at him stubbornly and gave his arm a tight squeeze, enough to make him grimace. “Top.”
Terry returned the glare, but eventually gave in. Short of shooting her he probably couldn’t stop her and he should probably save his bullets for the things that wanted to kill him. “Fine, let’s go.”
Apparently Terry hadn’t slept too long. The sun was still high in the sky so it could only have been three or four hours he guessed. They were still had sunlight for the next two. The rabbit seemed content to follow him for the most part. Occasionally her ears would twitch or she would sniff the air and she’d try to pull him in a different direction. Terry was annoyed at first, but eventually realized that anything that worried her should probably worry him too.
When she wasn’t pulling him away from danger he’d try to start a conversation, but with the only responses being mini, top or mini-top things didn’t get very far. “You were able to make a lot more sounds when you were screaming for help earlier.” Terry muttered.
“Mini-Top?” Came the enlightening response.
The next time her ears twitched Terry stopped to take notice, but he didn’t have to listen with her. He saw the source of the sound flying down from the sky, landing on a nearby tree.
It was another bird girl, bigger than the one he saw before. This one looked about his size with brown and tan feathered wings in place of arms and pink talons replacing her feet. Her skin was tan and her hair was a mix of blonde and pink. A thick plume of tail feathers hung from over her hips. But the thing that drew Terry’s attention the most was her clothes. The simple black top and green skirt were the first signs of intelligent life he’d seen all day.
He only grew happier when she spoke. “Good afternoon sir, can I ask what you’re doing out here?”
“Top!”
The rabbit barked aggressively as she put herself between him and the bird.
Terry barely cared keeping his eye on the bird. “I am lost as shit, where the hell am I?”
“Well you’re about twenty miles away from the nearest route for starters.” The bird replied while eyeing the naked rabbit with confusion. “If you took the route south you’d be headed for Portville on the coast, but right now you’re closer to the northeast, heading towards Eden by way of New Vine-and you have no idea of where I’m talking about do you?”
Terry didn’t care it was that obvious. “No clue.”
“Riiight,” she said looking at him like he bumped his head. “Sir, can I ask where you’re from?”
“Rochester.” He replied proudly only to see her stare blankly. “New York?”
That got a response, but it was a pale face and it didn’t make him feel any more comfortable. “Sir, I think you need to come with me. My master is a ranger, if you ball your girl I can take you to see him. Wait you probably can’t ball her-“
“Yeah, I have no idea what that means.” Terry countered. “But before I follow your ass anywhere can you tell me what you are? What’s with all the fucking animal people?”
The bird winced. “It’s a long story and I’m probably not the best person to explain it. If you wait right here my master will probably be able to straighten this out. I’ll go get him. I’ll just be a few minutes.” She said as she flew off of the tree.
“Ay, wait!” Terry called after her, but she didn’t stop. She soared through the sky at what seemed like a hundred miles per hour and disappeared from sight.
“Mini,” The rabbit said proudly. She seemed confused throughout most of their conversation, but took the bird leaving as some kind of victory Terry thought.
“She’s coming back, hopefully.” Terry said as he took a seat on the ground. Though the longer he waited the less sure he was that he should. He didn’t recognize the fruit, he didn’t recognize the towns and he sure as hell didn’t recognize the people. This went beyond getting lost in the woods. He was pretty sure his ass wasn’t in Kansas anymore. He started to wonder if he was dreaming again, but this was a long fucking dream. So either he’d gone crazy or he had walked into some sci-fi bullshit.
He had no idea how anything worked here. Why was that bird calling some dude her master? Was it like a kung fu thing or a slavery thing? And what about the cat girl he shot to shit? Would that count as murder? Hell even if it didn’t she might be some kind of endangered species for all he knew and if the guy coming to meet him was some kind of park ranger he might have trouble.
He stood back upon heavy legs. Maybe he should leave, stick to tree cover so the bird bitch couldn’t spot him. He could head for the route, aim northeast towards this Eden place. His grandma would have liked the sound of it. Might be better to wander into town a stranger than get arrested out here right?
But before he could make up his mind the bird was back, this time holding a man in her talons. He was dressed in forest green pants and a matching jacket over a black shirt, heavy hiking boots on his feet. He would have blended into the forest well if not for his bright blue hair. Despite dying his hair like some punk white kid he looked older than Terry, at least thirty and stood almost as tall as him. Terry tried to see if he was carrying a weapon, but in his hands he only saw a first aid kit and a blanket and on his waist…
‘Is that a fucking pokeball?’
As if to answer his question the man plucked two of the balls from his belt and tossed them up. It had been years since Terry watched the show, but he remembered the familiar pop and the flash of light as something manifested in front of him. But rather than pokemon they were women, the most human women he’d seen all day. They were dressed similarly to the man, but traded pants for skirts, hell one of them didn’t even bother with shoes. She was a platinum blonde with brown eyes that stared right through him. The other girl looked just like nurse joy. The hair was cut short, but it was still bright pink and she had big blue eyes to go with it.
She grabbed the first aid kit from the man and started to approach him when the rabbit got in the way again, barking at the strangers. “Mini-Top!”
“Sir, can you calm your girl?” the man asked with that stern yet calm voice the cops normally gave you before you were about to get tazed or shot.
He wanted to say she wasn’t his, the last thing he needed was another motherfucker in his life starting fights that he got dragged into, but before he could the blonde spoke up. “He can’t control her, she’s just some feral that hopped on his dick. I can take care of her.
“Alright, pacify her and we’ll bringer her back with us.” The man said as he pulled out another pokeball.
The rabbit crouched and barked as the blonde moved forward. “Ay chill!” He called out to her, he didn’t rescue her just so she could get killed fighting the forest cops.
But he couldn’t call what happened next a fight. The blonde’s eyes began to glow bright blue and a similar light started to envelop the rabbit. She jumped forward fast and angry, but the lunge only brought her to the blonde’s feet as her limbs suddenly locked up. She lay struggling against whatever the hell was holding her until the blonde bent down to look in her eyes. The rabbits scream of protest became scared whimpers and the blonde turned to the man with a nod.
He threw a pokeball at her and she was sucked inside by a flash of red light. It wiggled a bit on the forest floor for a few seconds before going still. The blonde picked it up and tossed it back to the blue haired man who looked back at Terry. “Sir, my name is Ranger Johnson. If you would come with me I think we have some questions for each other.
Terry drank slow and heavy from the mug of hot chocolate. He’d been offered beer, but this was all fucked up enough for him without him getting drunk on top of it.
After a short checkup by Nurse Joy The blonde turned into a fucking centaur and gave him a ride back to the ranger’s base. An underground bunker with a camouflaged structure above to hide it from the animal women who filled the forest.
‘Pokegirls,’ he reminded himself. So apparently he was in another dimension, one that was like three-hundred years into the post-apocalypse. But instead of nukes or global warming or some shit, some horny cartoon villain unleashed a bunch of giant monsters and fuck-able Pokémon on the world. Never saw that shit in the book of Revelations. Also magic was real. He wondered what his grandma would have said about that. ‘Looks like all those years in church won’t add up to jack shit.’ It all seemed too fucking stupid to be real, but he’d seen it with his own eyes, hadn’t he?
“So how are you feeling?” Ranger Johnson asked from the other side of the table. Terry just glared at him. “Fair enough, I realize that this is a lot to take in.”
Terry didn’t want to take it in. “How do I go home?” The sooner he put this behind him the happier he’d be.
But the look the ranger gave him told him that wouldn’t be anytime soon. “Interdimensional travel is tricky stuff. I’m no mage, but from my understanding the odds of even surviving the trip are like a million to one, let alone getting where you actually mean to go. And since you have no idea how you got here in the first place…”
Terry winced, he wasn’t going tell the ranger that the last thing he remembered was breaking into some old man’s house. “So I’m just fucking stuck here?”
“I suppose you could head for High Haven, it’s the center of magical study in the league, if anyone could help you get back to where you came from it would be the Academy for the Arcane Arts. But before that we’ll head back to New Vine. The authorities there will give you a proper interview and provided they think you’re not going to destroy the world or something they’ll give you some credits to get you on your feet and maybe help you find a job. What’s your highest level of education?”
“High school.” Terry said bluntly, he didn’t feel like mentioning that he didn’t graduate.
“Any skills or training?”
“I can play the harmonica.”
“Previous workplace experience?” Terry might have said sales, but he didn’t feel like answering the follow up. “So not a lot of options, but you’re in your twenties and you survived taming a Mini-Top so you could definitely become a tamer.”
Johnson had mentioned that taming word before, but Terry didn’t really understand it. But in the current context… “You saying I should become a gigolo?”
Johnson laughed, he heard the bird, no, Tiffany laugh from another room too. Terry didn’t appreciate it, but the blue haired man ignored his glare until he calmed down. “Sorry, no. I mean maybe you could, but a tamer is basically someone who catches and tames wild pokegirls. Depending on the situation you may be expected to engage in military action too, but that’s stuff is pretty rare. I was a tamer for five years before I became as ranger and I was only involved in one All Call. Your main job would just be patrolling routes and cities to catch pokegirls.”
Terry summed it up. “So slave catcher and part time soldier?” The more he learned about the world the more his fears when Tiffany said master seemed to come true. It had been a stupid joke that pokemon were basically slaves in his world, but these pokegirls really were.
The ranger sighed. “Look Sir, things are different these days, different here. This isn’t about people wanting to own other people. Pokegirls need humans to stay sane. Otherwise they go feral and become a threat to themselves and others. You saw what a single Catgirl was capable of and there are pokegirls a lot more dangerous than her.”
Terry’s eyes widened. He didn’t tell them about the cat. “I don’t know-“
“Sir please, lying isn’t going to get you very far here. This pokemon show you watched as a kid, it had psychic types in it right? The principal exists in our world too. The girl you rode here was a Smartass, a psychic type pokegirl. She’s been reading your mind off and on since we met. I know about the Catgirl, I know what you remember of how you got here and I know about your criminal record. I also know about the gun and knife in your pants, which by the way, I need to confiscate those. You can hand them over to Sarah.”
Terry heard Sarah walk up behind him. He’d already seen her at the door and she was still every bit as fierce as when he met her, if not fiercer. Nearly seven feet tall with a mouth of razor sharp teeth and a body covered in scales, the T-Rex woman, the Deosaura only needed one look to get Terry to hand over the weapons.
“Smart, it would have taken a lot more than three bullets to take her down.”
“Pfft, he could have thirty and I’d still kick his ass.” Sarah said as she handed the weapon to the ranger.
“Be nice,” he chided her before turning back to Terry. “Sorry for not telling you sooner, but I have to look out for myself and my girls and it’s not like you were being honest either. If it makes you feel any better alternate universe New York is a bit outside of my jurisdiction so you’re off the hook for anything you did before you got here.”
Terry was still trying to wrap his mind around mind reading being real too, but he managed a nod and a question. “And the Catgirl?”
“Self-defense. There are rules when it comes to outright abuse of pokegirls, but no jury is gonna lock a man up for standing his ground against a feral. The only reason she wasn’t trying to eat you was because she was trying to eat the bunnygirl. Speaking of which, if you want to keep her you’re definitely going to want to be a tamer.”
“What makes you think I want the bitch?” Terry replied.
Johnson shrugged. “You’re the one who brought up slavery. Realistically she’s my property since I caught her,” Johnson said, making the man across the table glare, “but I don’t have any room for her in my harem and even if I did I’m too old to be taming ferals from scratch. I don’t know anyone who particularly needs a Mini-Top right now so I’d probably just sell her to a ranch. Could be a good life for her from there, could be a bad one. Neither of us would probably know how things turned out for her. But I’d hate to get between a guy and his first girl so if you want her I’d be willing to give her to you for free.”
“Pfft, I didn’t wake up no virgin today.”
“Not exactly what I meant, pokegirls are different, they bond to us and if you’re with one long enough you can bond to them too. The way things work here… the system isn’t perfect, but having a decent tamer can go a long way towards making it enjoyable for a pokegirl. You know my mom was a pokegirl, a Grand Mistress, she’s where I got my ‘punk white kid hair’ from.”
Terry frowned at that. “So what does that make you, a pokeboy?”
“That’s kind of a loaded term, I wouldn’t use it around some people, but basically yes. I don’t need taming and I’m certainly nowhere near as strong as most pokegirls, but I have a mimetic memory and a gift for training others and understanding their past training. You’ve done some boxing haven’t you?”
“A couple of years, it’s been a while since I worked a bag though.” Terry admitted.
“It shows on your knuckles your musculature suggested heavy upper body training too.” Johnson explained looking proud of himself. “But I’m getting distracted. When I was young I saw the shit people would give my mom at times and my father said the best thing I could do about it was love her, love my own pokegirls when I was older and raise kids that would love their girls too. That’s how we revolutionize the system.”
Terry didn’t like where this conversation was heading. “What’s all this love shit? I’m not looking to be a revolutionary man, I just wanna go home.”
“Fair enough,” the ranger shrugged. “But I can tell you right now, you’re probably not getting home without some pokegirls of your own. Just something to think about. You want more cocoa?”
Terry did, he spent the rest of the afternoon brooding over his chocolate and trying to find something to do in the bunker. There was no cable service out here, but they did have movies. Most of them blurred the line between porno though and Terry didn’t feel comfortable watching them with the ranger or his pokegirls over his shoulder. So he mostly just spent his time watching the strangers as they wrapped up their work. But this late into the day most of them were starting to settle down with some going above ground to keep watch or others going to bed. Terry noted the ranger giving bedroom eyes to a couple of girls before they followed him into one of the rooms and he was glad to discover the walls were thick.
He'd been given free range of the fridge so he did eventually decide to make good on the beer offer too. Tired as he was there was no way his brain would shut down without some booze with this much on his mind. When he entered the kitchen though he wasn’t alone. The bird, the Pidgeota, Tiffany was in there too.
“Oh, hi Sir.” She said with an awkward smile. Maybe she was just as freaked out to be near him as he was to be near her. The more he looked at her the more she seemed like someone just mashed a woman and a pidgeot together. “Did you need something?”
“Just a beer.”
“Help yourself.” She said as she opened the fridge with one of her talons.
Terry ignored her awkward hop backwards to open the door and took drink, the top coming off with an easy twist. He started to drink his nightcap, but hesitated. “Can I ask you something?”
The pokegirl blinked “Sure, Sir.”
“You’re fast, right? I mean I saw you earlier, but you’re probably the fastest pokegirl he owns?” He remembered Pidgeot’s being fast from the show.
Tiffany puffed out her chest confidently. “Well Alice can teleport so she’s a little faster over short distances, but otherwise yes. There’s not a lot of girls out there that can out race a Pidgeota.”
“Ok, so why don’t you just…” He stopped, remembering the psychic. If she was an Uncle Tom she could snitch and he didn’t know how the ranger would react to him asking these questions.
Still, Tiffany seemed to understand, wearing a knowing smile. “Run away? I mean it’s not like I don’t understand the thought. I was born human so this life, I mean it wasn’t completely unexpected, but it wasn’t a welcome change. But even if I flew off somewhere where would I go? If I just hid in the woods I’d eventually go feral and just live like a bird for the rest of my life. I suppose I could become an outlaw, just take what I need from passing tamers or sail the sees as a Limbec, but robbing and raping people is no way to live.”
Terry didn’t like how close the robbing statement hit to home, but given his current situation he couldn’t really argue. “Still isn’t there another country you could go to like Canada or something?”
“What you would call Canada is the Capital League now. I’d still be considered property there, wouldn’t be that much different. The Topaz league is honestly on the more progressive side of things. There’s laws against pokegirl abuse, you need good reason and government approval to request a level five, we celebrate Sadie Pokens, there’s even been talk of very near human pokegirls being able to become citizens. Doesn’t do me a lot of good obviously,” she said as she shrugged her wings, “but it’s a start. Besides I’ve been with Eric since I was a Pidgey, even if I could leave I wouldn’t. He’s always been good to me.” It was hard to say for certain, because he didn’t understand everything she said, but to Terry it just sounded like a lot of coping. “You’ll understand it eventually. You just need time to adjust, taking in the Mini-Top probably wouldn’t hurt either.” Tiffany said causing him to frown.
“You read minds too or is the other bitch in my head right now?”
“I have enhanced vision sir, six times better than that of a normal human.” She said neutrally while holding a feather up to her eyes. “It shows on your face even if you don’t want it to.”
She left the kitchen shortly after that and Terry retreated to the secondary bedroom they let him use. He guzzled down the beer and lay down on the bed and thought about his future. It had never really been clear, but it was never this foggy. On the one hand he’d been freed from a lot, freed from his shitty neighborhood and his shitty record. On the other hand, he’d been thrown into magical pokemon slavery hell. It was a bit of fucking monkey’s paw.
Terry thought about revolution. He was no hero, but he didn’t believe in slavery and how many stories had he seen where someone gets whisked to a faraway world and saves everyone? But those people usually had special powers or and in this world he seemed below average if anything. And even if he couldn’t be jailed for his past who would follow a thief, a pusher, a murderer? The only thing he’d probably achieve by rocking the boat was a death sentence.
He was going home; he’d head to High Haven beg some wizard to send him back he decided. That night he dreamt of home. He tossed in his sleep.