‘Yugi. Yugi wake up.’
“Yami? What’s...” Yugi trailed off as he opened his eyes and looked around blearily, only to blink and rub his eyes and take a second look. “Where are we?” He asked as he slipped out of bed and gazed around at the room.
It certainly wasn’t his. He didn’t have a computer in his room, nor did he own a TV for his room, though he did, now, have a SoaringSky, the latest of Kaiba’s home consoles, but it was in the living room, not his bedroom, not to mention that this room was decorated in a completely different manner.
‘I don’t know.’ Yami’s admittance didn’t reassure Yugi, who slipped out of bed clothes that were not his own and into the clothes on the chair that seemed to fit, even if they weren’t his, hoping that whoever they belonged to wouldn’t mind and leaving the scarf and hat behind.
“The last thing I remember was turning on that game I got for Christmas.” Yugi said as Yami appeared in spirit form and considered what his hikari was wearing, “Then you said something, but I didn’t catch it and we were here.”
‘I felt Shadow Magic when you turned the game on.’ Yami informed him, feeling a little frustrated, ‘But you were already under whatever spell was on it and I barely managed to hold on to your mind tightly enough to get dragged here with you.’
“Sorry...”
‘You couldn’t have known that the game was a trap.’ Yugi sensed reassurance from the Pharaoh, ‘Just be careful until we know what we’ve been dragged into.’
Yugi nodded. Before he could say anything else the sound of footsteps caused Yami to vanish back into the Puzzle and Yugi to wheel around to face the staircase.
A blonde that Yugi had never seen before in his life darted up the stairs dressed in some rather odd clothes and practically bellowed, “There you are?”
To which Yugi replied with a very conversational, “Huh?”
“Don’t tell me you missed the TV show!” The blonde continued, moving over and pulling him over to the TV, flicking through the channels to see if there was a repeat of it somewhere, “Professor Rowan was on. He’s a really important Pokémon Researcher. He knows a lot about Pokémon. I bet he has a load too.”
“I guess.” Yugi pulled his arm out of the blonde’s grip and, sensing Yami’s irritation, sent reassurance over the link, hoping that this kid wouldn’t do anything else to aggravate the Pharaoh.
“I bet, if we ask, he’d give us some Pokémon.” The blonde grinned excitably, before getting distracted by the PC in the corner.
‘I doubt it.’ Yami snorted over the link, ‘Considering how protective Jamie is of her Pokémon I doubt this Professor will give up them to just anyone.’
“Yami, I think...” A thought occurred to Yugi, but he didn’t get to finish it before he was interrupted by the blonde.
“Where was I?” He asked, leaving the PC alone and invading Yugi’s personal space again, “Oh right, right! We’re going to see Professor Rowan and get some Pokémon. I’ll be waiting outside. Ok Yugi? If you’re late, I’m fining you Y10,000,000.” And with that the blonde shot back down the stairs again.
“Who...?” Yugi blinked.
‘More importantly how does he know your name?’ Yami appeared again, scowling in the direction the blonde had gone. ‘What was it you were going to say, Yugi?’
“I think I know what’s happened.” Yugi sent, Yami’s question snapping him out of his confusion, “You said the magic was linked to the game right?” Yugi sensed the mental equivalent of a nod, “I think we’re inside Pocket Monsters Sinnoh.”
‘Why?’ It wasn’t disbelief Yugi sensed from his dark side, but curiosity as to how Yugi had come to that conclusion.
“Joey told me that Professor Rowan is the head of the Pokémon Researchers in Sinnoh.” Yugi replied, thinking while trying not to wonder if the blonde would really charge them ten million yen if they were ‘late’. “And the present we received was the Sinnoh version of Kaiba Corp’s Pocket Monsters games. We can’t be in the real Sinnoh because we weren’t anywhere near any Rends and we already know that any Rends around the Game Shop are around Mt. Coronet in Jamie’s world so we wouldn’t be here, we’d be on top of some mountain if we had. Besides Joey mentioned that there’s a rival in every game that appears to know you from the very start and I’m guessing he’s the one for Sinnoh.”
‘Well reasoned.’ Yami sent, frustrated. ‘But you know what that means don’t you?’
“Someone booby trapped the game.” Yugi sent, worried, “And we’re now in a Shadow Game.”
‘And we don’t know the rules.’
That last worried Yugi more than anything else. They couldn’t know what they had to do to escape the game if they didn’t know what the rules were and what they were supposed to be doing...
The PC in the corner bleeped at them, causing Yugi to turn to look at it. If this was a video game then there would be some instructions lying around somewhere in order to help the players new to it. The information on the PC was completely useless and the poster on the wall wasn’t much better.
“Guess we have to learn as we go...”Yugi let out a nervous laugh.
‘Be confident, Yugi. We’ll get out of here.’ Yami promised his hikari as Yugi grabbed the backpack in the corner and headed downstairs, though he wasn’t sure of the fact either.
Almost instantly a woman pounced on them. “Yugi! Jun already left!” She said, as if she had the right to scold them.
‘Well at least we know the blonde’s name now.’ Yami sent as the woman continued, going on about the fact that ‘Jun’ had seemed in a hurry, before settling back down in front of the TV.
Yugi went to leave, only to be stopped again as he opened the door.
“Oh Yugi, don’t go into the tall grass. Wild Pokémon might attack you. It would be ok if you had your own Pokémon, but you don’t so... well, take care sweety.”
At her words Yugi checked his belt, only to remember that this wasn’t his belt and his Pokeballs and his deck were in the Game Shop in the real world.
Yugi felt almost naked without his deck. He hadn’t been without it since his match with Kaiba, back before Death T and, though he had the Puzzle and was grateful for its presence, since without it he wouldn’t have Yami here with him, the lack of his deck made him more nervous than he had been before.
“Bye bye Yugi.” The woman waved cheerily at him.
Yugi left.
It was dark and cold outside. Snow peppered the trees, though they were no type of tree that Yugi had seen before, and lay thick on the ground. The village pond looked slightly frozen and the small amount of houses around suggested that not many people lived there. The sign in the centre of the village said “Twinleaf Town” but it looked a lot smaller than any town Yugi had seen. He supposed that Kaiba’s employees hadn’t wanted to program huge cities of people into the games, so they’d taken short cuts.
Yugi tried to hold a conversation with the townsfolk, but they didn’t seem interested in saying much, though one did mention that Pokémon and people could be friends if you worked hard enough at it and another told him that Jun was looking for him and that he’d popped home.
Not that Yugi knew which house belonged to the blonde, there were a few homes around and all of them looked the same. How he was supposed to work out which one was Jun’s was beyond him.
Until he noticed the mailboxes.
Feeling like a complete idiot, Yugi checked each one until he found one that said ‘Jun’s House’ making Yugi wonder if anyone else lived there or whether he had a surname at all, and headed for the door, only to be knocked off of his feet when Jun came charging out the door and crashed into him.
“Oh, hey Yugi.” The blonde said with a goofy grin, “Hey! I’m going to see Professor Rowan! You should come too! And quickly!” Jun started to rush off, paused at Yugi’s tentative call and darted back again, “Oh jeeze! Forgot something!”
And with that he disappeared inside again.
“Should I follow?” Yugi asked his dark half, completely confused by the way this whole thing was progressing.
‘Since nothing else seems to be happening around here and we still can’t leave town.’ Yugi looked around the corner, only to see the guy guarding the entrance to town still stood there, watching him. ‘I’m guessing we don’t have a choice.’
Yugi entered the building, whose lay out was very similar to the one he’d woken up in, and was ushered upstairs by the woman that Yugi guessed was Jun’s mum, to find the boy who was supposed to be his friend up there sorting out what he was taking with him.
“Jun?” Yugi asked tentatively, causing the blonde to jump.
“Oh hey Yugi! I’ll be waiting on the road! It’s a Y10,000,000 fine if you’re late!” The blonde vanished again, leaving Yugi stood, rather confused, alone in Jun’s room.
‘You know,’ Yami sounded amused, ‘He’s actually quite amusing to watch.’
“You would think that.” Yugi sent back, heading down and out, still wondering where Jun had gone and where they’d run into him next.
The guy guarding the town entrance was gone when Yugi exited the house, so they guessed, correctly, that that was where they were supposed to be heading, exiting town and, once again running into Jun. “Too slow!” The blonde crowed, looking amused, “Alright, let’s go to Rowan’s lab.”
Jun started dragging Yugi towards the tall grass but Yugi dug his heels in. No way was he going in there without a Pokémon.
“What?” Jun looked confused.
“We shouldn’t go in there.” Yugi pointed out, wishing he had Vulpix or Persian with him.
“Wild Pokémon live in tall grass, right?” Jun asked. “It doesn’t matter that we don’t have any Pokémon.” He continued when Yugi nodded, “Trust me on this one, I have an idea.”
Yami, who’d taken over when Jun had attempted to pull Yugi into the grass again, yanked his arm out of the blonde’s grip and gave him a sceptical look. He knew the sort of tone Jun was using rather well, it was rather similar to the tone Joey took before he came up with a bad idea. “Go on.” The Pharaoh said, ill amused.
“Don’t be like that Yugi.” Jun looked hurt, “All we have to do is dash through the grass and the wild Pokémon will never catch up to us.”
“No way.” Yami shook his head, sensing Yugi’s concern and having run into enough Pokémon to know better than to try something as insane as that.
“How about I go first?” Jun asked, backing up and not waiting for an answer before he shouted, “Here I go!” And went to leg it into the long grass.
“HOLD IT!”
Jun stumbled and fell over at the loud bellow from behind them. Yami wheeled around to face the person who’d shouted only to find a rather irate looking old man storming towards them.
“Neither of you appear to have a Pokémon with you.” The man ranted, “So why were you going into the tall grass?”
“I wasn’t planning to.” Yami commented when Jun seemed, for the first time, dumb struck.
“Very wise of you.” The old man said, nodding, before turning to Jun, “And you, young man?”
“Hey... Yugi?” Jun asked, “This old guy... It’s Professor Rowan... I think... What’re you doing here?” He asked the Pokémon Professor.
Rowan ignored him, merely turned around and started talking to himself about Pokémon and how the boys lives would change if they had their own Pokémon. Jun gave Yami a nervous smile.
When the Professor turned back to them, he had an odd expression on his face. “You two, you truely love Pokémon, do you?” He asked. Yami objected to being lumped in with Jun who seemed like a bit of a moron but, at Yugi’s request and because his other self did really care about all the Pokémon that he helped Joey look after, answered yes to Rowan’s question.
“Are you certain?” Rowan asked, prompting Jun to go off on one about no matter how many times he asked, he would get the same answer.
“You? A reckless kid who would try to enter tall grass without a Pokémon of your own and drag your friend in with you?” It wasn’t really a question, but Jun nodded anyway. “I worry what a boy like you would do with a Pokémon.”
“Uh... well...” Some of the wind left Jun’s sails. “Well then forget about me, but give a Pokémon to my friend here.” Jun indicated Yami, who gave him an amused look. “It was me who tried to go in the tall grass after all...”
The Professor looked surprised. “How big of you.” He thought for a moment, then nodded, “Very well, then. I will entrust the pair of you with Pokémon. However, you must promise me that you will never recklessly endanger yourselves again.”
Jun agreed readily enough but luckily Rowan got distracted before he could drag an agreement out of Yami, who knew full well that there was likely to be some dangerous situations in their future if they wanted to get out of here. The Professor turned around to look for someone or something.
A girl caught up with them. She was probably around Jun’s age with bluey black hair and an exasperated look on her face, “Professor Rowan. You left your briefcase at the lake.” She informed the old Professor before looking at the two properly, “Oh? Is something wrong here?” She asked, concern and protectiveness obvious.
“Ah there it is.” Rowan ignored her, “Hikari, nice work.” Yami started at the girl’s name and she gave him a small smile. “What I was about to do was entrust these two with their own Pokémon.” He informed her.
“Pardon!?” Hikari sounded shocked. “Those Pokémon are hard to replace. Are you sure about giving them away?”
Yami let control slip back to Yugi, more than willing to let Yugi pick their first Pokémon if they had a choice, as long as it wasn’t another trouble causing feline, while Rowan told Hikari why he was willing to let the Pokémon he had with him go to them. “Go on.” Rowan looked at them once he’d finished, “Open the briefcase and choose a Pokémon.”
“Really?” Jun looked like he was going to explode from joy. “I’m so happy that I can’t keep a straight face!” Then Jun surprised Yami by turning to Yugi and letting him pick first.
Yugi opened the briefcase carefully, only to find tons of paperwork and three Pokeballs.
“What...?” Yugi asked, looking up as his hand hovered over the Pokeball to his far left.
“That one’s a Turtwig.” Rowan told him. “The one in the middle is a Chimchar and the one on the right’s a Piplup.”
Turtwig was a grass type, Yugi knew because of Terra, Jamie’s Torterra, but he wasn’t sure of the other two and wished he’d paid more attention to the lessons Jamie had been giving Joey before she’d left.
“May I see them?” Yugi asked, hoping Rowan wouldn’t get offended.
Hikari looked amused and flipped open her Pokedex, showing him pictures of what the three young Pokémon looked like.
Seeing the pictures helped Yugi make up his mind and he picked up the Pokeball belonging to the water type Penguin Pokémon, Piplup and Jun swiftly chose the Turtwig. Something about that set off warning bells in Yugi’s head, but Rowan was talking again before Yugi could work out why.
“Very well! Both of you have chosen a good Pokémon, it seems. Now listen well. The Pokémon you have been entrusted with are unfamiliar to this world. In that regard they’re much like you.” The way Rowan looked at Yugi made the hikari rather uncomfortable. “As fellow newcomers to the world, I hope you’ll do well together. If you have any trouble, come see me at my lab in Sandgem Town.”
With that Rowan and Hikari left.
“Huh.” Jun spoke once they were gone. “That Professor was really nice. He seemed a lot scarier on TV.” It didn’t take long for Jun to go hyper again, “Hey! We both have Pokémon now. There’s only one thing to do, right? Are you up for this?”
“Huh?”
“I’ve always wanted to say this, the time has come. Yugi! I challenge you to a battle!”
Jun sent out his Turtwig and Yugi switched with Yami who sent out Piplup.
“Piplup... uhhh...” Yami hesitated, realising he didn’t know what moves Piplup could learn. “Attack!”
The Penguin Pokémon looked confused for a moment before slapping the Turtwig with its flipper. The Turtwig headbutted the water type and this continued for a while before, eventually the Turtwig fell over.
Jun looked incredibly put out, as he recalled his Pokémon, that he could have been beaten, and handed over Y500.
“You don’t have to give me...” Yugi offered it back, having taken over to pat the Piplup on the head before he recalled it.
“It’s a rule.” Jun shook his head, “Defeated Pokémon Trainers have to fork over half their cash.”
“That’s harsh...”
‘Now we know where Jamie gets all her cash from.’ Yami snorted in reply.
“Whew, let’s go home.” Jun said, looking more like he wanted to get out of there, “I’m beat after that battle. My Pokémon needs rest too. See ya, Yugi.” With that Jun disappeared back into the village, leaving a rather confused Yugi unsure what he was supposed to do now.
‘Piplup could use a rest.’ Yami interjected, ‘Perhaps we should emulate him for now. We can leave town at any time now we have a Pokémon.’
Yugi nodded and headed back into town, heading for the house that was supposedly his. He caught a few hours of sleep, then headed downstairs, noting that Piplup seemed healthier again now.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, the woman who Yugi guessed was supposed to be the player’s mother was waiting for him and, noting his concerned look, asked what was wrong.
Yugi hesitated in saying anything, unsure how much to tell the NPC considering this was a Shadow Game, finally deciding on everything, considering that he might get more information from a character that was, supposedly, his mother then he would from anyone else.
So he explained about getting a Pokémon and battling Jun and that he had no idea about what the rules were on keeping Pokémon or what he was supposed to be doing.
“I suggest that, before you do anything else, you go and thank Professor Rowan.” ‘Mom’ replied, “Tall grass should be less of a problem now.” She sighed, “As regards to rules...” Her voice changed from the nice polite tone she’d been using before, to the arrogant, sarcastic voice of Bakura, making Yugi back up slightly warily but she didn’t attack, only continued to talk, “If you want out of here, little Yugi, you’re going to have to complete the Trainer’s Challenge and defeat the Elite Four, without losing a single battle.”
“What?” Yugi paled slightly and Yami surged to the fore, furious.
“Bakura!” The Pharaoh snarled.
“Your hikari was the one who walked into my trap.” The woman, currently possessed by Bakura, shrugged, “Now I’m just fulfilling my part as the caller of this game by informing you of the rules. You may use any item within the game and you may use Pokémon Centres, however if you lose just one battle, you’ll lose a lot more than just half your cash.” The Tomb Robber sounded far too amused by this, “You’ll be able to use your Pokedex to tell you what your Pokémon know, attackwise, and what they’re trying to learn, but let me assure you the only way out of this Shadow Game is victory over the League Champion.”
“I don’t have a Pokedex.” Yami let out a low growl.
“Oh you will, and just so you know, I put your Dragonwing on charge so that it won’t go flat so you don’t have that to worry about. After all I don’t know what would happen to my prize if the doorway into the Shadow Game shut forever.”
“Prize? You’re after the Millennium Puzzle!”
“I assumed it didn’t have to be said.” FemBakura said with a shrug. “I think that’s enough explaining for now, you’ve seen Jamie in battle often enough to know how to command Pokémon in battle so I think, on that note I’ll depart.”
With that the woman slumped, only not hitting the ground because Yugi seized control and darted forward to catch her.
“Yugi?” The woman asked weakly, looking around confused.
When Yugi nodded, she pushed herself away. “I think I’ll go to bed. I must be more tired than I thought. There’s a brand new pair of running shoes by the door for you. I hope they fit.” She headed upstairs, confusing Yugi, who had only seen one bedroom up there, but didn’t question it as he put the, well fitting, running shoes on. “Well, at least we know what we have to do now.” Yugi commented waiting for the inevitable Yami explosion.
‘When I get my hands on that Tomb Robber...’ Yami snarled, ‘He’s going to wish he’d never been born.’
“In the mean time we’d better get going. If we’re supposed to defeat the Pokémon League in order to get out of here, we’re going to need more than just Piplup.”
When Yami sent his agreement, Yugi left town, only to run into Jun once again.
“Too slow! Yugi, I’m sick of waiting! I’m going to see Professor Rowan so I can thank him properly. So I had this great idea, listen up, ok?”
Yugi nodded, almost certain it wouldn’t be a great idea considering his ‘great idea’ from, Yugi guessed since the sun was now up, yesterday.
“You know that lake where we always play at? You know how they say a legendary Pokémon lives there? You guessed it! Let’s catch that Pokémon. That’ll make Professor Rowan happy, I’m sure of that!”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.” Yugi told the blonde Trainer, “After all Piplup and Turtwig are only young, I don’t know if they’re ready to face a legendary Pokémon.”
“It’s ok, Yugi. Me and you together, we’ve got nothing to fear!” Jun half followed, half pushed Yugi in the direction he wanted him to go and Yami took over and would have put his foot down about this, had Jun not ‘accidently’ pushed too hard and sent them both tumbling down the hill to the entrance to the lake.
“Even if I was willing to go along with your stupid plan, which I’m not,” Yami sent a death glare Jun’s way, causing the blonde to back off about a foot, “We don’t have any Pokeballs.” Yami pointed out.
“Sorry, scary Yugi.” Jun apologised hastily, watching him warily. “I forgot. Could we at least check it out?”
“You know about me?” Yami asked, caught off guard.
“Of course, I’ve known Yugi for how long?” The blonde asked, with a cheeky grin, “Are the pair of you feeling alright? You’ve been acting a little strange.”
“We’re fine.” Yami waved it off; unsure whether this was a facet of the Shadow Game kicking in or whether Kaiba’s game designers had actually made the main hero schizophrenic. Neither would have surprised him by this point.
“Ok.” Jun looked like he wasn’t sure he believed Yami, but got distracted again, “So, lake?” He asked.
Yami sighed. “Fine, but we’re not going to attack the legendary Pokémon if we see it. Got it?”
“Fine, fine.” Jun half sulked as they entered the lake clearing.
There was an odd man there mumbling to himself with spikey blue hair who got startled when they approached and left almost immediately. Yami did catch one thing though. The man’s name had been Cyrus and he’d been wearing a top with the Galactic logo on it.
Yami darted after him, but the man had vanished.
“Yugi!” Jun caught up to him, “What’s wrong?”
“That man...”
“He was kind of odd, wasn’t he?” Jun nodded sagely. “Hey, I had a thought. Maybe we should go and see Rowan about Pokeballs. He did say for us to go and see him if we needed anything...”
“True.” Yami allowed.
“I’ll race you.” Jun grinned and ran off ahead.
“Does he ever stop running?” Yami asked the world in general. His only answer was Yugi’s giggling over the link.
“Let me take the lead?” Yugi asked, nudging slightly.
‘I don’t know, Yugi, this is a Shadow Game...’
“We’re only in danger while we’re in battle.” Yugi pointed out, “We can take it in turns. This is going to be a long game and if we take it in turns, neither of us should get bored.”
‘If you start to feel tired, let me take over, alright?’
Yugi sent the mental equivalent of a nod and Yami, hesitantly, relinquished control. Yugi sent reassurance over the link when he didn’t feel the painful, heavy pressure that he had when he’d been fighting Pegasus, and headed in the direction that Jun had gone.
