[Chapter Size: 2000 Words]
"Urghh..."
In the middle of a deserted beach, a pained groan could be heard over the sound of the waves. The beach was paradise-like, resembling a beautiful painting, with no sign of human life, except for the one who let out the groan.
Lying on the sand at the shoreline was a young boy who appeared to be around eleven or twelve years old. Sunburns were scattered across his youthful face, which, despite his age, already hinted at the handsome man he would become. The wind blew through his oddly-colored hair, a strange mix of light blue and dark blue tones.
"Urghhh!" the boy groaned in pain, furrowing his brow. His eyes twitched, as if he were about to wake up.
"Shit!" he cursed as he opened his eyes. The sunlight irritated them, and he quickly raised a hand to shield them. Squinting, he blinked several times, trying to adjust to the brightness.
Looking around, he didn't recognize where he was. Panic began to set in. He sat up quickly, only to be overwhelmed by a sharp pain.
"Fuck! That hurts!"
Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm himself and began observing his surroundings. He could feel the sand slipping through his fingers. With that breath, he also caught the scent of the ocean.
Beyond the beach, he spotted a dense, tropical-looking forest. Strange sounds echoed from within it. Looking up, he saw birds flying in the sky, but he couldn't identify them, his eyes still hadn't fully recovered.
Closer to the water were scattered fragments of what looked like a once-small caravel. The most prominent piece was what seemed to have been the ship's prow, and what stood out most about it was a sculpture.
It was a sculpture of a giant sea serpent with a wide open mouth, carved into red wood. It was terrifying to look at. Its fierce eyes seemed almost alive, filled with a rage that felt nearly tangible.
The boy's legs trembled, but he managed to stand.
Staggering, he walked toward the figurehead. Once in front of it, he reached out with his right hand and gently touched the sculpture. Feeling the texture of the wood with his fingertips, he muttered in confusion.
"Shiny Gyarados…"
Still puzzled, he turned to look out at the sea, just as a sharp pain shot through his head.
"Aaaahhh...!"
He screamed, clutching his head in agony.
Suddenly, two waves of memories crashed into him.
First, his real memories. He remembered his name, Arthur, Arthur Lewyn. A high school student and an avid RPG gamer.
He could remember everything now, especially his love for the Pokémon franchise. He had played every game, even the trading card game. Pokémon had been part of his childhood, bringing him countless joyful memories.
Thinking back, Arthur smiled softly, until he froze as one memory surfaced.
Arthur remembered: he had died.
It had been a day like any other. After school, he said goodbye to his friends and went to one of his favorite shops to buy a booster pack from the new Journey Together collection. He bought a box, waved goodbye to the shopkeeper with a smile, and put on his headphones. Deciding to take a shortcut through the park, he couldn't resist the urge to open a pack.
As he neared the end of the park, with his favorite song playing and all his attention on the booster in his hands, he didn't hear the people shouting at him.
As he flipped through the cards, he saw it, N's Zoroark, one of the cards he wanted most. The Master of Illusions had always been one of his favorite Pokémon.
He remembered the joy of pulling it, but even more vividly, he remembered the pain that followed. Focused on the cards and deaf to the world thanks to his music, he hadn't noticed the out-of-control truck speeding toward him.
With a deafening crash, his body was thrown into the air.
In that moment, for Arthur, the world seemed to slow down, as if he were watching everything in slow motion. He saw it all: people screaming, a man turning his eyes away from the crash, old Mrs. Jenkins clutching her head in shock, and even the younger kids on their way home from school frozen in horror.
'So… this is what dying feels like?'
Arthur thought as he flew through the air, thrown by the impact.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his cards scattered across the ground. His gaze fixated on the iconic Poké Ball design always printed on the back of the cards, and he couldn't help but think.
'It would be amazing to see that world with my own eyes, just once.'
Then came the darkness.
And he woke up on that beach, thirsty and with his entire body aching.
"How strange..." Pushing aside the hair stuck to his face, he noticed the color of his hair.
"These aren't my hair." He murmured, wondering why it had changed. His original hair had been a light brown. Then he remembered, he had died. So, this must be reincarnation, which would explain the situation, this clearly wasn't his old body.
And considering the figurehead shaped like a Shiny Gyarados, this had to be the Pokémon world.
That theory was confirmed by the second wave of memories.
The former owner of this body had been an orphan from ancient Johto, also named Art. A poor child struggling to survive, he had worked hard to save up some money and eventually bought fishing tools and built a small raft to fish out at sea. He lived in a small coastal village that was part of the Kingdom of Crysna.
According to Art's memories, Crysna was a coastal kingdom located where the city of Olivine would one day stand. He had already fished at sea a few times with some success, earning enough money to fill his belly. One day, while fishing, he noticed a red ship approaching. He paid it no mind at first and started paddling away to get out of its path.
But when he looked up again, he saw that the ship had changed course and was heading straight for him. Now alert, Art squinted and focused on the approaching vessel. It was entirely made of red wood, giving it a blood-soaked appearance. On its prow was the carved image of a massive beast, something Art had seen before while fishing. Every time he had spotted one of those figureheads in the past, he gave up on fishing for the day.
The great and fearsome Gyarados, as the elder fishermen of the village called it. When one of those was near the coast, no one dared go out to sea. They symbolized the destruction of their small boats. As poor fishermen, they didn't own any Monsters to help them fend off such sea terrors. Only knights and nobles had access to such creatures; they weren't something one could find in a small fishing village tucked away in a remote corner of Crysna.
The more he stared at the ship, the more afraid he became. His fear grew worse when he noticed the tattered flag waving atop the mast, a dark, weathered banner, black with a white skull that resembled a Pokémon's head. With each wave of the wind, the ominous aura from the flag grew stronger. Every flutter made Art's bones tremble, because he knew what it meant. Everyone in the village knew.
A black flag meant chaos, destruction, and loss.
It meant pirates had arrived.
They were something the Kingdom of Crysna, as a coastal nation, had tried to deal with. But like a contagious disease, some always survived and spread, forming new crews over time.
Art had always dreamed of taming one of those Monsters he saw in the sea from time to time. The great sailors of the kingdom always had one. That was his dream, to tame a sea monster and become a sailor himself. He wanted to explore the world, visit new lands, discover new cultures, like the traveling merchants who sometimes stopped by the village.
But all those dreams and desires vanished from Art's mind the moment he saw the pirate ship. All that remained was the instinct to survive. He jammed his fishing rod into the raft, grabbed his paddle, and rowed with all his might, clinging to the faint hope of escape.
But it didn't work.
The pirate ship caught up with him. He was captured and locked in one of the ship's cells. From the pirates' conversations, he learned they intended to sell him as a slave in a distant region.
Art wanted to fight, to look for a chance to escape, but he never got one. These pirates had Monsters with them. He saw at least fifteen of them aboard the ship, and out of those, four, including the captain, had Monsters under their command.
Of the four monsters he managed to see, one was nothing more than a giant red shadow, gliding beneath the sea surface alongside the ship. It never revealed itself while Art was being taken aboard. Another was a slender bird with mostly white feathers, accented by blue on its wings and tail tip. It also had a long, sharp beak colored orange and black. It seemed to circle above the ship, scanning for prey, either for itself or for the pirates to plunder.
The other two belonged to the same species, some sort of dancing plant creatures. They weren't very large, only about the size of a child, and wore what looked like plant-like hats, though Art didn't recognize the species. From his cell, Art could hear the pirates playing music while shouting at the plant monsters to keep dancing. This became a nightly routine as the pirates continued their voyage across the high seas.
And Art could feel it, he was drifting farther and farther from his homeland.
But that wasn't the worst part.
As they neared their destination, the continent of Hoenn, the pirates made a critical mistake. They sailed into a place they shouldn't have. They crossed paths with a wild pack of the same species as the beast that gave the ship its name: the Blood Gyarados.
They ran into a group of Gyarados.
Every sailor knows that such an encounter is a death sentence for a ship.
Art watched the entire event unfold through a crack in his cell wall, the same crack he used to pass the time while waiting for his fate.
The captain and the other monster tamers on board tried to fight back. The Gyarados were furious, enraged by the humans trespassing into their new territory. The pirates held out for a while, with the captain acting as the main force in the battle while the others provided support. Massive waves rocked the ship, stirred up by the sheer force of the monsters' attacks. Some attacks struck the ship directly, as the wild Gyarados mistook it for a rival attempting to claim their territory.
It was an intense battle, as Arthur now remembered from Art's memories. The captain's red Gyarados fought two of the wild ones head-on, unleashing what Arthur recognized as Hydro Pump, blasting one of them in the face and sending it flying.
But the captain couldn't protect the ship. It was eventually surrounded and torn to pieces. The captain and a few surviving crew members climbed onto the back of his red Gyarados and fled, pursued by the remaining Gyarados who were still able to fight.
Art's body was pulled to shore by the tides.
And that gave Arthur the opportunity to reincarnate into it.
Walking closer to the sea, he took a deep breath, feeling excitement bubble in his chest. Even if this wasn't the exact Pokémon world he had known, it was still the Pokémon world. And now, he had the chance to fulfill a dream he had once held, to become a Pokémon Trainer.
"RUMMM."
But first, he needed to find something to eat.
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I'll post the first ten chapters here before I start posting them on Patreon. As for my other novel, I've thought a lot about it and decided to rewrite it. Of course, I'll still keep the hacker-in-the-Pokémon-world theme, but this time with better writing and structure. Well… at least I'll try. Haha.
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