Into Their World AU

[Kinfin]

"Unfortunately, I don't get the luxury of the option. I think if you have to, you'll be able to defend yourself, and that's good. You know, when the time comes to leave Hearthome, perhaps I should accompany you, and any fiends you might have. It just might benefit us both, if you'd have my accompaniment." Ran smiled softly.

[Kloud]

"Alright." Shelby nodded to Ricky. "I guess you can come along with me and Daichi, if you want to, Dylan. I'm gonna head on over to make some Poffins. I've always wondered how they taste, you know? I've collected a few berries, and all..." She walked out of the park, figuring that Dylan would follow if he wanted to come with. She took down the path leading to the Poffin house, not saying much. I'm not even sure what to think anymore. What's real? What isn't? She sighed. Does it matter...? Everyone seems so real. At this point, I just want to get home. Do I even need to worry about it?

[Tuxedo Mask]

Ian looked the group of people. "Anyway, I'll be at the Poffin House if any of you guys want to team up. Nice seeing you all. But first, I gotta take care of something." Ian walked away from the group towards the pond where Allison was still sitting. Currently, she was pushing her wet hair out of her face. When she looked up, Ian was standing in front of her on the ground, his hand stretched forward to help her up. "Are you okay?" Ian asked her.

Allison just looked at him with an angry look on her face. She didn't say anything.

"Oh that's right." Ian said, reaching into his bag. He took out the poke ball containing her Bronzor. "You dropped this on the other side of Mt. Coronet." Allison slowly stood up and grabbed the poke ball. Now that she wasn't moving, Ian got a good look at her. She was definitely younger than him, appearing to be 13 or 14. Her entire body was soaked, water still dripping off her face. Wait, that's not from her hair.Is she....She's crying. He was correct. Allison had started to tear up. Ian backed up, unsure what he did to make this girl start crying. Before he could even say anything, she recalled a pokemon that was hiding behind a nearby tree and took off again towards the exit. "What a weird girl." Ian said to Grotle. "C'mon. I want to get to that Poffin House. I found a lot of Oran Berries and I intend to use them." He went straight to the exit.

[RIIKYUUUN~<3]

Richie returned Ran's smile with a big teethy grin, "Of course!" He seemed beyond elated to her that someone else wanted to accompany him, rather than him asking, "I actually have a friend in this city, not sure where he is, though, I'm sure he'd be fine with another party member if he hasn't already left with someone else."

[Tuxedo Mask]

Allison was sitting by herself in the pokemon center, multiple blankets wrapped around her body. Prinplup, having came out of it's poke ball was sitting next to her. Allison had stopped crying, but her eyes were still red. "He's such a jerk." She said to herself. "How am I supposed to beat him if he keeps helping me out? It's not fair." Prinplup pat her back, trying to cheer his trainer up.

***

Ian finally arrived at the Poffin House. He thought about finding Richie first, but decided to get making the poffins out of the way .He was anxious to start, but he needed to prepare. He had plenty of Oran Berries, and they were the only ones he needed to make what he was planning to make. But that didn't mean he should waste his ingredients. He wanted to make enough for his plan, and still have enough Oran berries left over in case he or his pokemon needed one. "Well than, let's get started." Ian said to himself.

[lightball20]

Calming down after the thing disappeared Michael he needed to start catching up to everyone, and train his pokemon. Stronger pokemon could fight that thing off better right? Quickly he went to pickup the bicycle and headed out quickly powering through cycling road and beating all the trainers on it before he stopped to look back at the grass below it. Pulling up his pokedex Michael looked through the pokemon avaliable and saw that Gligar was avaliable.

Shrugging he decided to take a detor. He always seemed to catch up to everyone else when they got ahead of him. Everyone must be going slow talking to each other. Heading out he traverses through the grass battling pokemon untill he finally comes upon a Gligar. Managing to easily lower its health he quickly captures it, naming the Gligar, Sting, as he healed it before deciding to travel out to Wayward Cave. "I think this thing had Earthquake in it somewhere and that will be a very good move to teach you Sting." He grins at the bat flying beside him.

Exiting a little while later Michael grinned wiping the dirt off himself as he stretched a bit being back out in the sun before he hopped onto his bike and traveled through the grass heading down to Route 207 and then on to traveling through Mt. Coronet before finally exiting onto Route 208. "The speed they were going before I should be able to catch up to them when we reach the Great Marsh. No way they advance past there without stopping to explore it." He grins as he heals his pokemon a bit more before heading on to beat the trainers between the Mountain and Hearthome, before finally entering the central city of Sinnoh.

[Kinfin]

As the sun began to set, time seemed to slow to a crawl, everyone, NPC, player, Pokemon, was at an ant's pace. Throughout Hearthome, an announcement was made from outside the game

"This is an Automated message. Multiple Anomalies have detected. Please Proceed to the emergency exit located in the Hall of Fame."

To the NPCs who had no idea what that meant, the message made no sense. They thought it was a prank of some sort and ignored it. But to the beta testers and those who knew better, this meant trouble.

[Scarlet Spider]

Aryeh heard the announcement from the game.  It was as if the sky was talking to him, which was kind of weird.  Aryeh thought about this for a moment, coming to the conclusion that the glowing virus thing he encountered must be the anomalies that were detected.  Perhaps that meant the game's programmers were handling the situation and would remove it before it caused more damage.  Eterna City already had a big hole in it from those things in addition to rubble everywhere.  Still, the whole thing seemed fishy and not in the Magikarp sense.  Being a Beta Tester meant dealing with potential glitches and such.  Only now, Aryeh realised the danger that could come with that.  The attack from that entity hurt and who knows how that would affect his real body.  In the virtual world, he felt real but he knew really that his true form existed out in the real world.  How closely were they connected?

Allana had heard the message, which pretty much cemented the truth that everything she knew was fake.  She ran over to where Aryeh was, asking him what was going on.

"I assume it's that glowing virus" Aryeh told her "Still, I'm worried for the safety of everybody here.  I don't want the game to break while we are all in it.  Plus, people like you have become real sentient beings and I believe should get treated right."

"You come from a world with the knowledge to beat that thing, add that to Pokémon who have the power to ennact the strategies and I think you Beta Testers as you call yourselves could protect this world" Allana smiled, feeling a little bit happier; it was clear that despite being what real people might consider a robot, Aryeh still cared.

"The question is, what am I going to do about you?" asked Aryeh "I got my third badge to get and I presume you do as well?"

"That's correct.  Maybe, we could travel together..."

"Befriending a person from this world is hard, because one day I'll have to leave.  That voice said the exit is in the Hall of Fame which means once I win, I have to go home."

"Cross that bridge when you come to it" said Allana "From what that voice was saying, looks like you have to win else you are stuck here."

"Yeah... it said it's the emergency exit and if the anomalies means they have to repair the game..."

"Then that means they've presumably shut part of it down to keep your body safe" finished Allana.

"So yup, it appears there won't be a break for me.  I have to win the game now if I want to get back to my body."

"So where does that leave me?  I'm a living thing, I know I am.  I don't want to be affected by these anomalies and from what we know, I can't go through the emergency exit in the Hall of Fame."

"Ok... we'll travel together and as you said, cross the bridge later.  I hope it means this world can be fixed.  We are dealing with new lives here and I don't want to see this world destroyed by anybody, especially not that virus."

"We have to be ready then" said Allana "You win the Gyms to inch towards the exit and I'll win too in order to keep up with you."

"Sounds like a plan, let's go to the Gym.  It's getting dark but I like to stay up late.  Ghost Trainers do as well so it's time for Gym night."

"Wait, I had an idea!  You said you said a Haunter, right?"

"I do" said Aryeh.

"Well I have a Kadabra.  If we do a trade and trade back, it'll make them evolve into Gengar and Alakazam.  That'll make them fast enough to do the well in the Gym tonight!"

"Awesome!" Aryeh agreed.

"Let's get back in the Pokémon Center and go to the trading post, we'll do the swap and then we can enter the Gym."

[Kloud]

Dusk was approaching, and the announcement brought to Shelby a sense of panic. She took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. "Alright, Dylan, Daichi. It looks like there's no time for nonsense." Her voice was shaky. "Show of hands, who understood the message?" She had to know who she was escaping with, and at this point, she wasn't sure how she felt about AIs. She did know, however, that she didn't have time to be held back, by anyone. If either or both of them were real, she'd escape this world with them.

I'm not saying a word more until I know if either of these two are real.

[Kinfin]

Both Daichi and Dylan rose their hands.

"If this thing's freaking out, I think we gotta get things in gear. Let's boggie!" Dylan said, urgent but peppy.

"I-i hope I don't get in the way..." Daichi acted very pessimistic about himself. After all, he lost to Gardenia.

"Oh, wait, we gotta take down the gym here first, don't we? I mean, I think we could put it off, but... it's your choice." Dylan didn't want to get ahead of himself. Afterall, he basically just signed himself off as Shelby's bodyguard.
_____________________

"Well, this is a development. And after all that work they put in to a damage repair system. Must be serious... by the way, boy. I don't think I ever caught your name. Mine is Ran. When we leave the city, are we heading south toward Pastoria or West to Veilstone. We could go either way."

[lightball20]

Michael stopped dead in his tracks just as he was exiting the pokemon center as he heard the message. "What the fuck?!" He yelled out staring up in the sky angrily as he heard the message. That thing that had attacked him had happened at least 12 hours ago. So why were they just announcing there was a problem now!? And even more why couldn't they log everyone out right away why leave them in the world?

Looking around he tries to find other testers to see if it was just something relating to himself and Aryeh since they had met the error or if everyone heard the message.

[Scarlet Spider]

Aryeh and Allana placed the Pokéballs for Gengar and Kadabra on opposite ends of the trading device.  It was cool for Aryeh to see the way trading worked in the virtual world.  The two Pokéballs moved across the length of the machine, meeting in the middle and then going past eachother to the other end.  Both of them picked up the Pokéballs of their temporary new Pokémon and pressed the button, sending out Haunter and Kadabra.  The two Pokémon quickly began to brightly glow white and the evolution began.  Standing there was now Gengar and Alakazam.  The two trainers recalled the Pokémon and traded back, having the Pokémon be back with their original owner.  Now that they were done, it was time to enter the Gym.

The Gym was dark, but Aryeh and Allana were provided with lights to see with as they navigated the maze.  Along the way were a few trainers that they battled.  Aryeh fought Youngster Donny's Gastly and Drifloon.  Grotle used Bite on the Gastly, taking it down quickly and getting it some valuable EXP.  Aryeh then switched to Cranidos who needed EXP too.  Cranidos used Pursuit on the Drifloon.  Needless to say, despite Ghost Types being awesome; Aryeh had the advantage with his Dark Type moves and the nearing debut of Gengar.  Allana's Golbat had Bite too which was helpful against Lass Molly's Misdreavus.  Aryeh's Grotle then defeated two Drifloons from the next trainer.  Allana was doing very well with Golbat despite this being one of the first times she had used it, almost as if she had done it for much longer.  The next trainer had a two Gastlys and Haunter which despite barraging Golbat with Night Shade, the bat Pokémon was able to Bite them out of the game.  Unexpectedly, Golbat began to glow.  It had evolved into Crobat.

"But that makes no sense..." said Allana "Crobat evolves through happiness and I've barely used this guy!  It's treating me as if I've always been its trainer.  It was with that Mars chick though... this is really odd."

Allana healed up her Crobat with some Potions and the two trainers made their way through the rest of the maze.  Aryeh focused on levelling up his Cranidos.  He was going to save Gengar for the Gym battle at full health.  Finally, the two trainers made it to the Gym Leader - Fantina.

"Ohohoho!! Finally, you have arrived! Since I came to this country, always I try to learn new things. They hold Contests in this city? I say to myself, enfin, I will excel. That's why I dress this way. C'est une performance! Also I study Pokémon very much. I have come to be Gym Leader. And, uh, so it shall be that you challenge me. But I shall win. That's what a Gym Leader does, non?" said Fantina.

"You can go first Aryeh" smiled Allana "It's more important that you win the badges."

"Thank you" said Aryeh "Let's get this show on the road!  Come on out Grotle!"

Fantina sent out her first Pokémon which was Duskull.  Duskull hit first thanks to Shadow Sneak.  Grotle responded with Bite.  Duskull was still up though and used Will-O-Wisp which burned Grotle.  Grotle's Attack was lowered but one more Bite would be enough to take out the Duskull.  Duskull fainted and Aryeh recalled his Grotle for good measure, sending out his Cranidos.  Fantina sent out Haunter and ordered it to use Sucker Punch, anticipating the attack from Cranidos and punching it across the room.  Cranidos got up and charged towards Haunter, using its newly learned Assurance thanks to the training it had received in the Gym.  Haunter used Hypnosis to try to put Cranidos to sleep but the move had bad accuracy and missed.  Cranidos confidently used Assurance again and defeated the Haunter.

"Oh, heavens. What is this? Is this my final Pokémon?" gasped Fantina, sending out her last Pokémon - Mismagius.

"I on the other hand have more up my sleeve" said Aryeh, recalling his Cranidos and sending out the big guns "My first fully evolved Pokémon!  Come on out my vintage!  Gengar!"

Gengar left the Pokéball in a ghostly mist, surrounding the Mismagius.  Gengar started off by using Payback which despite going first was still good due to being Super Effective.  Unfortunately Mismagius survived on low health.  Fantina used this as the opportunity to show why Gym Leaders are the worst and used her turn to give the Ghost Type a Super Potion!  Aryeh facepalmed and told Gengar to attack again with Shadow Punch.  It wasn't at the level where it learned Shadow Ball just yet, so it had to rely on the Physical Attacks which it didn't particularly excel at but the Super Effectiveness of the attack would be enough for sure!  Shadow Punch did more damage than Payback which was enough to put it over the edge.  Mismagius was struck with by the ghostly punch and fainted.  Gengar had won the battle for Aryeh.

"I am dumbfounded! So very, very strong! You, your Pokémon, so strong! Your power is admirable! I shall honor it with this Gym Badge!  Three Gym Badges... But you must not forget this. There are many other trainers. Strong Trainers, too. There are many more in Sinnoh. Have patience! You must become stronger, one at a time" Fantina said as she handed Aryeh his third badge.

The Pokéball with Grotle began to glow and Grotle came out of the Pokéball.  It was Lv32 now and it was evolving!  Aryeh was now the owner of the mighty Torterra.  However, it was not time for it to battle yet as now it was time for Allana to step up and battle Fantina.  Fantina quickly healed up Pokémon and prepared to battle again.

[Scarlet Spider]

((going to bed in a few minutes so gonna double post since nobody else is posting and this is a natural end for the day for the characters))

Allana sent out her first Pokémon which was Roselia to face Fantina's Duskull.  Roselia was her weakest levelled Pokémon but good enough to fight the Duskull.  Duskull went first with Shadow Sneak.  Roselia used Giga Drain and got its health back, following up with Leech Seed to continue to drain health.  Duskull used Will-O-Wisp and burned the Roselia but thanks to Leech Seed the two things cancelled eachother out.  Roselia used Giga Drain again, prompting Duskull to use Pursuit.  One more Giga Drain and Duskull was down.  Allana recalled her Roselia now that the thing it was seeding from was gone but still had its burn.  She sent out her recently evolved Alakazam to face Fantina's next Pokémon - Haunter.  Alakazam used Psybeam, doing lots of damage on the Poison Type Haunter.  Haunter still had a bit of health though and used Shadow Claw which knocked Alakazam back.  Alakazam was on really low health but had just enough drive yet to use Psybeam one last time and defeat Haunter.  Fantina was down to just Mismagius now.  Allana recalled Alakazam and sent out her Roselia to Leech Seed the Mismagius and wittle it down ready for Crobat to finish it off.  Mismagius used Shadow Ball which blew Roselia back hard.  Roselia used its last move wisely to use Stun Spore and paralyse the Mismagius.  With its Speed lowered, Mismagius was in a sufficient position to be defeated.  Mismagius used Magical Leaf to take out Roselia's last bit of HP.  Allana sent out Crobat who easily outsped and used Bite.  Mismagius used Psybeam which took a lot out of Crobat.  Crobat used Bite again.  This had done it!  Mismagius was out.  Allana had won.

Fantina handed Allana her third Gym Badge.  Allana high fived her new friend Aryeh.  For a moment she forgot that the whole thing was a virtual world.  Then that information hit her hard again, but she realised if she kept being the best Trainer she could be, she would be able to focus on that and feel better.  The two Trainers left the Gym and went back to the Pokémon Center and checked in for the night.

[Tuxedo Mask]

Ian was in the middle of making his seventh poffin when he heard the strange message. "Anomalies? What's that all about?" Ian asked himself. The other people in the Poffin House weren't at all concerned with the message that seemingly came from nowhere, but Ian knew better. The message wasn't for the AI. It was for the players. He finished up the last poffin and left the house. It was already getting dark. "I need to find Richie. He said he wanted to go to the Pokemon Center but that was a while ago. Where else could he have gone? He wasn't at the Poffin House or Amity Square." Ian thought for a minute. "Maybe the Chapel?" Ian took off, trying to find his way to the Chapel. Behind him, Allison, still wrapped in a blanket watched from behind a corner as Ian ran down the street.

[Kinfin]

As Ian approached, Ran made not of both him and the girl behind him.

Well, she's a young one. Not a preference, but something to keep in mind I suppose...
________________________

"You know what, before anything else, we should go to the Gym." Dylan spoke up. "I bet we could talk Fontina into a double battle or something. Just lemme see what I have supply wise and... what the hell? How'd this end up in here?" Dylan produced a teal stone from his backpack. "Musta gotten caught in my bag whenever I fell in that river. You want it?"