| May POV |
By the time I make it back to the hotel, my legs are sore, my brain is fried, and I'm 90% sure Roxanne slipped me a teacher's life lesson disguised as casual conversation.
The key clicks in the door, and I step into—
"Okayokayokay it's fine, it's probably not a threat. Or a death trap. Or a Rocket recon letter laced with invisible poison. Probably."
Rio.
Pacing.
Muttering.
Circling the room like a particularly fluffy yellow Roomba on the verge of a breakdown.
Torchic lying beak first on her bed— snoring into a pillow burrito—but Ralts is floating silently in the corner like a kid trying to decide whether to call a nurse or get popcorn.
"Uh..." I shut the door. "Everything okay?"
Rio freezes mid-step. Slowly turns to face me. His eyes are a little too wide.
"You're back!" he says in a voice that is way too chipper to be natural. "Ha ha. Wow. So good. So timely."
"Uh-huh." I eye him suspiciously. "You're sweating. You don't sweat."
"Evolution panic sweat," he blurts. "New phenomenon. Totally real. Google it."
I set my bag down. "Rio. What happened?"
He hesitates, then pulls a slightly crumpled envelope from the nightstand and hands it to me with the kind of gravity normally reserved for cursed objects in horror movies.
I blink.
"Meeting, Tomorrow. – R"
"…Cryptic," I say.
"Ominous!" Rio yells, throwing his arms up.
"It might just be a local gym sponsor or something?"
Rio paces again. "Or Team Rocket. Or a war god. Or a Team Rocket war god. Do you understand how many evil people have names starting with R?!"
I raise an eyebrow. "Do you not?"
He opens his mouth, then closes it. Ralts quietly gives him a 6.5 out of 10 for the panic performance.
"Okay," I say, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Let's break this down. One: it was slid under our door. So someone knows where we're staying."
"Which is already stalker behavior!"
"Two," I continue, "they signed with an initial. That's… yeah, admittedly sketchy. But three: there's no threat. No demands. No weird blood sigils. So maybe don't have a psychic aneurysm just yet."
Rio takes a deep breath. "You're being very calm about this."
"I'm choosing to believe it's not an evil plot until proven otherwise."
"…How? How do you do that?"
"Therapy. Also, Torchic."
The firebird snorts in her sleep. Ralts pulls the blanket tighter around her.
I glance back at the letter. "Okay, so what's our move?"
"We go," Rio says immediately. "We scout. We observe from a distance. If it's evil, we bail. If it's Team Rocket, we burn the building down and flee the region."
"…No plan where we just talk to them first?"
Rio pauses, then gives me a look. "You think I'm going to let you walk into a mystery ambush alone?"
I grin. "Who said you'd be alone?"
He stares at me, clearly trying not to get emotional.
Ralts coughs. "Anyway, I vote we stake out the meeting site first."
"Agreed," I say. "Where is it?"
We all stare at the envelope.
"…There's no location," Rio whispers.
A long pause.
"…OH COME ON!"
| Rio POV |
After about fifteen minutes of muttering, pacing, and nearly throwing myself out the window to escape the crushing ambiguity of a single letter, May does something dangerous. She says:
"Let's… take five."
And somehow… I agree.
Not because I'm calm. I'm not calm. I'm barely functioning. But May has this aura. Like she's got plot armor and a schedule, and if I mess with either, the universe will slap me.
So I sit.
Torchic's still asleep in a spiral of blanket fluff, her beak twitching as she dreams of violence and breadcrumbs. Ralts floats over and boops me on the forehead like she's clocking me out for a break shift. Then she drapes herself over myshoulder like an elegant shawl and zones out.
And me?
I pull up my status screen.
Despite all the struggles I still have a Pokémon themed gamer system, it'd be a cold day in Giratina's realm before I give up completely because of a cute letter written in glitter ink.
[Level Up! Lv. 10 ➔ Lv. 11]
[New moves unlocked: Boogie Woogie, Mach punch]
[Name:] Rio
[Race:] Riolu (Evolution pending)
[Nature:] Adamant
[Abilities:]
Inner Focus (prevents flinching)
Prankster (priority to status moves)
Anticipation (senses foe's move)
[Level:] 11
[Move Set:] Hidden
[Stats:]
HP: 53
Attack: 89
Defense: 56
Sp. Atk: 45
Sp. Def: 50
Speed: 100
[Items:] Wishful Baton
Normal badge
Beastite
(New) Rock badge: Boosts all rock type moves and reduces rock type damage, bonus stats after eating dirt.
Random item ticket
I stare at the notification like it just kicked me in the chest. Twice. With steel-toed boots.
Mach Punch? Cool. Fast, solid, classic fighting-type opener. Makes sense with my Speed stat and my general lifestyle of solving problems with fists.
But...
Boogie Woogie?
"Err… What?" I whisper aloud, squinting like it'll suddenly turn into Bulk Up or something sane.
[Move Info: Boogie Woogie]
Type: ???Category: StatusEffect: Instantly swaps the positions of any two chosen targets within the area of effect. Priority +1Flavor Text: "Clap and switch."Note: Origin unknown. Move classified as [Extra-System].
I blink. Slowly.
Clap and switch.
Clap and switch.
No. No way.
"...That's not a Pokémon move," I mutter. "That's Todo's move."
From Jujutsu Kaisen. From anime. From fictional nonsense I used to watch while eating ramen in another life.
This is real.
I just unlocked Boogie. Freaking. Woogie.
I raise my paws and clap experimentally.
Nothing happens, except making the rest of the team look at me like I'm going crazy, they're not wrong.
Okay, no energy burn. Maybe it only works in combat. Or when it wants to. Like a diva. Like me.
And that's when the intrusive thoughts start spiraling in:
Does this mean I can get Ten Shadows?
Can I manifest Rika?
Where's my Infinity? Gimme my Gojo eyes, damn it!
Can I Domain Expand?!
What is Team Rocket in front of a Malevolent Shrine?! Just budget villains with zero defense.
My brain is doing 500 backflips a minute.
I clutch my face. "Okay. Calm down. You're not Megumi. You're not Todo. You're not Gojo—"
Pause.
"…But I am Besto Friendo material."
There's a long silence in the room. May gives me a look from across the bed, like she just knows I'm mentally spiraling into fictional delusions again. Ralts tilts her head, intrigued but not alarmed. Torchic just mutters "breadsticks…" and rolls over.
Okay. Okay. Focus.
I open my move set again. Mach Punch was a win, especially with divergent fist which I have yet to burry into someone's stomach. Boogie Woogie? Wild card. Absolute chaos. Could be the game-changer I never knew I needed.
It's official:
The system is no longer just Pokémon.
It's bleeding. Pulling from other worlds. Other rules. Other... genres.
Which means?
I either hit the jackpot…
Or I'm about to be isekai'd again, but this time into a multiversal fighting tournament where the prize is "not having my universe destroyed"
...
"...Okay, five minutes over," I mutter. "Back to existential panic."
Word count: 1195
Hm, maybe you could become Gojo after all...
MC: Yay!
But you honestly feel more like Yuji, so maybe stick to throwing hands.
MC: Awww