“Goo goo...g-gaa gaa"...fuck, these baby vocal chords are really pissing me off. The orphanage caretaker smiled at my baby sounding antics and went back to cleaning. Oh yeah, my parents are dead, don't worry though, I only have the one memory of my mother.

  I wouldn't even know what my dad looked like if it weren't for the picture I managed to snag from the incident report while the detective was dropping me off at the orphanage I currently live in. Pretty cool looking guy, rocky brown hair and a permanent determined look in his eyes, good jawline too, if what I saw was correct, I'm goona be a looker when I grow up.

  It was a pokemon tide, a massive gathering of disgruntled pokemon that ravaged human populations, they could be caused by many thing, pollution, arguments between wild populations, over-catching of certain species or simply bad luck, and lucky me that the hospital was right at the edge of the city the beasts were attacking from.

  My father was an advanced level trainer, I'd come to learn, which while not exceptional, was rare, so while he assembled the other trainers that happened to be there and didn't book it during the flood announcement, my mother barricaded the room with some doctors and waited.

  Apparently the tide lasted only a few hours, though a few may be putting things the wrong way, as any amount of time stranded in a building surrounded by hundreds of magical and homicidal monsters is too much, though they were being pushed back by some trainer reinforcements, some managed to make it inside the hospital and began systematically slaughtering everyone inside, the room I was in got hit pretty much last but my mother still ended up dying due to jumping in from of a poison jab from a skuntank that was meant for me.

  Anyway, it’s been a few weeks since I was popped into this odd poke-world and I have made many discoveries and also several times as many questions.

  Firstly, pokemon are real, duh, but like, it's so cool! I was watching the TV the other night after the caretaker forgot to turn it off and there was a real pokemon battle!

  Like moves and all! I was amazed, It was a match between a charizard and an aggron and let me tell ya, it was the shit!

  The aggron used stone edge to start, creating an obstacle between the two while charizard seemed to glow in a vibrant orange light, then aggron stomped its foot down and the whole arena shook, then a cascade of rocks flowed out of seemingly nowhere right above charizard, charizard responded by dashing suddenly to the side and flying towards aggron, charizard did manage to dodge while aggron started glowing in grey light, I’m guessing some sort of defense up move, and started barreling towards the airborne charizard like an overexcited puppy, but this puppy weighs 800 pounds and packs a pretty mean head smash if the sound of the impact when it hit charizard is anything to go by.

  But somehow the charizard planted its feet in the ground and pushed the aggron back! I saw the charizard’s neck glow in a bright orange and knew this was over, after a few seconds of stalemate the charizard released an attack that I could only describe as apocalyptic, a quarter of the goddamn arena burst into flames after it opened its searing maw, the flame at the center looked to be blue, blue flame from a normal charizard somehow!

  But as the flames sputtered out, there was not a fainted aggron but a pristine one, I saw a hexagonal circular shield fading away around aggron, the metal monster seeming like he had just gotten a full spa and massage, I’m joking of course, it looked a little worse for wear but even I, a literal baby could tell it was completely fine, and by the look of the charizard huffing and puffing in exhaustion, it did not look completely fine, the trainers on either side shouted something, it was hard to hear through the TV because of the deafening cheering that the crowd was outputting, and both of the arms and tail of the charizard were suddenly covered in semi-transparent green scales as it weaved into the aggron’s reach to dish out some hits with what I was certain was a dragon claw+dragon tail combo, but the aggron had a surprise again, suddenly, both of its arms erupted into arcing yellow electricity as it too wound up for some close combat action. Both of them managed to block each other's strikes for a few bouts as they began to bring out some of their tricks.

  Both gained about 20 meters of distance as they charged up for something, aggron lifted one leg and stomped on the ground, the arena shook, and then it did it again, and again, while I was utterly baffled at how much power these pokemon were able to put in their strikes to shake a 10,000 spectator arena with just a stomp, the very air itself around the charizard started glowing and misting like someone had just gotten out of a hot shower, then it suddenly burst into flames, glared straight at the aggron and leaped at it with reckless abandon, flames dancing around it as it charged, flare blitz I’m sure!.

  Though aggron did not stay idle, it’s stomps seemed to be having some effect as the charizard’s charge was buffeted after every heavy step but it kept on running, when it seemed like aggron finally realised that its stomps wouldn’t be enough, it began banging on its own armour with its arms, the impact of the strikes reverberating across the arena, then after it had seemingly gotten tired of beating itself to near death it started glowing in a brighter orange than even the glowing charizard, it was illuminating half the fucking arena on its own, no fire necessary!

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  But as aggron finished its…whatever that was, the charizard plunged its shoulder straight into aggron’s battered chest, aggron was actually lifted off of its feet and several meters back and into the air.

  And just like as they were slowing down, charizard grabbed the aggron as they were both still reeling from smashing together at 40 miles an hour, and started to glow a dull red, he beat his wings and shot into the sky, then to my complete shock, he did a flying motherfucking suplex! Aggron was launched to the ground with enough power to penetrate the reinforced arena floor, landing it in a crater 5 feet deep and wide.

  As I was about to add charizard to my list of pokemon I need to get my hands on, I heard the crowd collectively shout in surprise as aggron climbed out of the crater! As he did I noticed blood dripping out of its mouth, real blood from a pokemon!

  This is my chance to explain what I’ve come to learn about pokemon battling so far, typically, pokemon are shown as being unable to bleed or even get significantly injured, apart from Gary's raticate for some reason, anyway that's not the way it works here, pokemon here cycle the energy that they share types with around their body, this is what allows them to do impossible things for their mass and natural strength, it also allows them to use moves, and it gives them a kind of passive shield from injuries depending on their strength. It's for this reason that a pokemon that is much weaker than another simply cannot damage them, but the gap must be quite large for that to happen and this is discounting stat boosting moves and super effective hits.

  I digress, but this passive shield can hold up to superhuman levels of punishment, too bad pokemon eat superhumans for breakfast, but once it breaks the pokemon has a natural instinct to enter a catatonic, coma-like state where they remain unconscious until it recovers, this is when a pokemon would usually faint.

  But pokemon trained by…pokemon trainers, little on the nose for me but it’s workable, are made to push past their limits and fight until they can’t anymore, though this runs the risk of severe injury, and in the worst cases a pokemon can even die in an official battle, though the killing trainer is rarely held responsible surprisingly, as some pokemon simply don’t want to give up, and some trainers are the same.

  Once a pokemon is deemed unable to continue, the match is supposed to end, though if the pokemon is attacked beyond that, there is normally a strong psychic type on the side that steps in to stop permanent injuries, though this becomes impossible at later trainer ranks as there simply isn’t a psychic pokemon on hand that is strong enough to stop them.

  These psychic types are also responsible for making sure that the audience doesn’t keel over before the match is done through the use of psychic barriers across the whole field, through some technology bullshit, they can concentrate psychic energy into a solid and cover the field, it also extends underground by the way.

  Anyway, back to the battle, science Kane out! Oh wait, I forgot to mention my name! Well for the record it’s Kane, pretty cool I know, I was stoked when I finally started understanding the words the caretakers were throwing around, also, last name Sterling, I’m gonna get all the bitches for sure!

  Back to the battle but actually this time!

  The aggron looked like it had gotten hit by 30 ten ton trucks at once, armour dented and one of its arms hanging limply at its side, but it didn’t give up yet.

  It slumped to the ground, though not out of defeat simply out of necessity, it bit down on the arena floor and gripped in with its one working hand while bracing its legs as hard as it could. This seemed to be a good tell as to its next move, not that i knew, but the charizard’s trainer shouted out with utmost urgency “FLY UP AND INTO EVASIVE MANOUVERS!”, he had real heat in his voice but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what that aggron was doing.

  That was until the aggron roared like a lion with balls the size of a city block as it tore a 10 foot tall and wide chunk out of the ground!

  I knew where this was going, and if my rhyperior from my arceus playthrough was anything to go by, charizard might as well surrender now, as the camera panned to the aggron’s trainer who was grinning like he’d just won a million dollars, he shouted, with palpable excitement

  “Aggron, give ‘em the rock wrecker!!!”, and aggron roared in response before throwing what must’ve been at least ten tons of rock and steel like a goddamn softball and right into the charizard's flying body, the rock ball splintered and shattered after it hit the charizard, falling to the ground like heavy rain.

  And just like the rocks, charizard was also falling, nosediving, certainly not by choice, right into the ground, but before he could get hit by the mighty forces of gravity, there was a red beam and charizard was recalled to a normal pokeball in its trainer’s hand, he gave the pokeball a proud look, and pocketed it to make his way onto the field to accept his loss.

  While the aggron’s trainer jumped and hollered out to aggron who was stood stock still, and upon closer inspection via the cameras, was knocked out cold on his feet with a manic grin on its face. After the aggron was balled and both pokemon were handed off to a nurse Joy on the fieldside, both trainers shook hands and the crowd went wild.

  Even now, several weeks after watching that match, I couldn’t believe that pokemon were capable of things like that, lugging around 10 tons like it were air and going from perfectly still to upwards of 50 mph in less than a second, it just beggars belief.

  All I can really do is wait to grow up, I can barely even move my head and flail my limbs right now, so I guess I'll just be spending most of my time sleeping in a crib for the time being, *sigh*, like I haven't had enough of that already.

  But now I can’t wait until I can get a pokemon of my own, I guess I’ll just settle for picking up some excess knowledge as I wait to attend school or something and hopefully sneak a pokemon from the wild or somehow.