In the world of Pokemon, the land of magical creatures, adventure, and a concerning amount of world ending scenarios- sits a girl in her room.
Hair spit in pink and blue, she lazily kicks around while laying in bed, posters of electric pokemon litter her brightly colored room.
"I'm so boooooorrrreeeddd"
Rolling around in bed, she scrolls through PokeTwitch for anything interesting to watch. As a streamer herself, Iono knows that the market is very… amateur. Aside from her and maybe one other channel, every stream is just talking and pokemon battling.
Sure, she's guilty of doing the same thing, but as a gym leader she has a certain level of standards for her craft.
So most content feels unfinished, and painfully amateur.
Out of pure curiosity, she sorts the page by viewers, maybe there's some kid playing around with their mom's Rotom phone, streaming to nobody just for fun.
But then that's when she sees it.
A stream that started not long ago, from an official user (they have a checkmark near their username) called "Joshua Abrams".
The title of the stream is simply called "Day 1".
"...ooookay"
She's hooked.
Tapping on the stream, the first thing she notices is the absurdly high quality of it. There's no overlay, or any typical streaming stuff, just the empty chat in the bottom left.
The second thing she noticed is the camera placement, it seems to hover, is it a drone? There's no noise proving that, and the way it follows is too smooth to be operated manually.
"Is this an ad for a movie or something?"
Then there's what's actually happening on screen.
A young man, wearing a nondescript black hoodie and jeans, with a mop of black hair and white- almost golden eyes.
He's in… a Pokecenter?
Strange, why is it in the middle of nowhere? Iono knows that Pokecenters are mandatory in all towns and cities, no matter how small as enforced by the Pokemon League.
But here? There's nothing but grass and stuff.
And it looks… worn down.
"Hmmm…" She taps her chin.
Casting her screen to her TV, she grabs a pillow to prop her head on and watches along.
"I'll stick around for a bit!"
…
Joshua pushes through the shattered glass doors and stumbles into the main lobby. Old and decrepit white tile worn with age line the ground, the walls are littered with cracks, vegetation, and cobwebs. It looks almost like a hospital, with patterned walls and a professional looking counter standing at the front.
There's a design on the floor, at the center of the room.
It makes Joshua pause for a bit.
"Is that a pokeball?..."
It's been a while since he's played any of the games, but it's hard to see this as anything other than a pokeball, even with it being faded.
Was this some kind of… fan thing? He isn't sure what they're called, but it's when someone makes a recreation of something in a show.
But why here?
Regardless, it looks abandoned, and it is the only building he could see in the plains, so what much else could a man do than explore it?
The main room is… remarkably empty. Old pamphlets he found under the counter are too weathered to be legible, and the small drawers are empty aside from the occasional office tool.
But as he rummages through the drawers, he notices something. A strange aura surrounding an old stapler he sat to the side to move out of the way. It has the same, familiar pale gold hue as the strange boxes that greeted him earlier. It doesn't seem to be casting any light, like his brain is merely conjuring it up.
The screen appears again.
[DISMANTLE: Plastic (3), Metal (1)]
"..."
Not too sure what to make of it, he tries touching the box, only for nothing to happen as his hand phases through.
Then he tries confirming it verbally.
"Yes"