Pokémon Generico [P][C]

[Hahex and Oshawott]

As Luke walked around the fencing along the park, he considered what had happened to him so far. Strange radio broadcasts, sudden changes in the sky and the mysterious disappearance of what seemed to be everyone other than him. He focused on the last point. The main question is, has everyone in the world disappeared or is it only a local phenomenon? Where did they all go off to?

Had they all died then surely there'd be at least bodies or something left. The dead don't walk, after all. Luke pushed away thoughts of zombies to the back of his head, but still held on to it there, just in case. Otherwise, there was little other remotely plausible explanation as to what could have happened. It also doesn't explain the differences of all vehicles in the road. Had everyone for some reason spontaneously decided to drive off to somewhere, then surely there'd be traffic for miles. Luke had been out the day before running errands for his parents, and certainly saw the majority of cars on the road as he came back in. He didn't hear his family leave in the evening, but even then he saw his mother at about 9 pm the previous night. At the very most, they had to be three to four hours away by car. That's enough to get a fair distance away from the house. But considering the congestion that all the missing cars would create...

No, Luke couldn't make sense of the situation. Perhaps he was merely dreaming, but everything certainly seemed real so-

His train of thought was interrupted by shouting coming from the park.
Other people? I might not be on my own after all. Wait, Mark?

He broke into a small sprint towards the gate, and turned in. He almost slipped on a damp patch on the pavement as he swerved in, and stopped to balance himself. There was a noise to his side as he slowed down, and Luke looked to see if he dropped anything from his pockets. He only kicked over a rock in his haste, but he still found himself with his hands in his pockets. It grasped around the device from his kitchen. Luke took it out to check how long it took him to walk over. But of course, the screen no longer displayed the time any more. He found that out when he checked it half way down the road outside his home. It showed a map with a black cross in the centre, with several different coloured dots surrounding it. As he walked down, he figured that it was displaying some sort of map, and the purple dot seemed to indicate his own marker, as it moved at roughly the same time and direction he did.

At the moment, the black and orange dots were the only ones in close proximity to the cross.
Then, the other dots must also correspond to other people. That's what seems to be the case at the moment, but I shouldn't rush to conclusions.
He put the device back into his pocket and moved on, slightly more carefully this time, but still with urgency. The cross seemed to point towards the centre of the park, so he continued walking in that direction.

Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light and Luke felt a wave of heat wash over him. In the direction where the life came from was a man, perhaps a little older than himself. But more noticeable was what was next to him. Some sort of red, slug-looking monster that almost looked like it was made from lava itself. A vague "Eeuugh" sound came from the man as he looked in panic.

Luke walked towards the slug and the man, choosing to open a conversation with his first human contact of the day with, "Excuse me."

As he walked over, he noticed another ginger guy to the other side of a weirdly short tree. He seemed to be pre-occupied with a strange fluffy ball of cotton candy((EDIT: I'm an idiot ;_;)) clam licking his face.

He sighed to himself, mentally.
This day only gets stranger and stranger.

[Danatales]

It took Toby a minute to even realize he was being approached. He was focused on the.....thing in front of him. It was some kind of animal, he was guessing, but nothing like he'd ever encountered before. The heat billowing off of it was tremendous, which made sense, seeing as it looked to be made entirely of...lava? Well, except for its eyes, its bulbous golden eyes with tiny little pupils staring right at him and blinking slightly off from each other. It looked to be glowing red hot, bits of its lava body dripping onto the already scorched grass.

It was disgusting.

"Ohhhh my God!" Toby finally figured out how to make words again, shaking his head a few times as if this were a dream and he was going to wake up and this flaming slug wasn't going to be in front of him. Alas, this was reality and the abomination was still there. Blinking at him, as if expecting something. Toby spat his smoke onto the ground and snuffed it out with his foot. This isn't real. This...I'm so high right now. That's it. I took every last thing in my stash last night. Only reasonable explanation.

Just then, Toby realized someone was watching him, and he whirled around just as the person spoke out a single "Excuse me." Eyes wide, it took Toby a moment to calm himself back down. He examined the boy speaking to him, craning his neck up a little to meet the taller boy's eyes. He was a skinny type, super short hair, fairly average looking. Toby noted he didn't have any bizarre abominations on him, unlike the man a few paces away from them, with that weird purple thing licking his face. He shuddered.

After a moment, Toby felt a tinge of irritation go through him. Who was this guy? Couldn't he see Toby was having a dilemma of his own? He looked down at the orange device still in his hand, still displaying an image on the screen. To his surprise he spied a small purple dot right next to his orange one. He looked back up at the other boy.

"...You have one of these?" he asked after a minute, holding up the device. As he did so, the lava slug chose that moment to become slowly creeping over towards him, leaving a wake of burned earth after it. Toby glanced over, saw it, and yelped, rocketing backwards, "H-hey! GeT THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!" He snorted and moved back about a foot, watching as the slug blinked at him and paused, before tilting its head in a remarkable inquisitive gesture.

Breathing quickly, Toby looked at the other boy again, "These...machine...watch things. You have one too?"

[Wolstenholme]

Checo was still running as he neared the park, his eyes still darting around to see if there were other people around. There wasn't any sign of life as such until Checo had almost found the centre of the park. He did a double take as he looked at the two figures and the two strange creatures in front of them. The body language of the two, men, he assumed, was odd - they seemed to be in fear or feeling disgusted at the creatures before them.

Checo got a closer look at the men from behind a tree, they were standing around what seemed to be the sapling of a tree. He was unsure whether to investigate further as this would inevitably mean standing up his friends. But that was just it: where were they? Where were all of the other people? Was this a joke? Checo presumed that because he had been asked to come to this park then he was probably going to have to go through the nightmare ordeal that the other two men - they could have easily been described as boys too, they were, like Checo, in between.

If his friends had disappeared like all of the other people then it wouldn't matter if Checo stood them up. As one of the other boys held up a similar device to the one he'd shoved into his bag, his suspicions that he was meant to be here and that he and the others might be the only humans left were confirmed. Checo stepped towards the boys, the creatures and the sapling. Checo was unsure what he could say to help at this moment, it was such a peculiar scene.

Finally he settled for not saying anything. He flashed the group a look at his watch before stowing it away again and circling the tree. That was the interesting part because when Checo was half way around a bulbous yellow blob formed on the plant which then turned into something different. Within a second of it forming it had dropped off and split open. A little yellow... Sack man?? Plopped out. "Oh!" Checo exclaimed, clearly he was allowed to have his own little nightmare too.

[Shaymin]

Just where exactly was everyone? His gran wouldn't have left without telling him first. She would have gone up and shouted at him before booting his ass out of bed. But she hadn't done. As Quinn left the house, he hazarded a look up and down the usually busy road. There were no children playing outside, none of their parents were sat in their gardens drinking and smoking. Something was up.

He looked at the note again. The park was some walk away. Digging through the piled up rubbish in the garden, he pulled out his bike. He hadn't ridden it in some years, not since he was a hell of a lot smaller, anyway. He jumped on it and tested himself with a few circuits around the road, nosily looking in to all of the houses. They were all empty. Not even the neighbours angsty dog jumped and barked at him. Weird.

What was weirder was the entire way to the park was just as empty. No music, no talking, no laughter, no sounds of cars or planes or helicopters overhead. No people yelling for a taxi, no sticky, whiny children, no dogs barking, no birds singing. Had something wiped everyone out? No. There weren't even any bodies. No gross smell like at the butchers. How positively strange.

Quinn was half expecting to be knocked over when he decided it was a good idea to go along one of the busiest roads but it was as quiet as it ever was. Was he dead? Cursed to live an afterlife in the quiet of the city when he had wished it to be quiet. He didn't like it this quiet. There had been no signs of anyone else at all. Maybe he was dreaming, still asleep. Yeah, that sounded about right.

He slowed down as he neared the park, hearing voices. And screaming. Oh God, had a murderer lured him and others to this place to kill them? Dropping his bike, he snuck up to a bush and peeked over it. There were four, five kids maybe, and then there were those strangely coloured animals. No murderer. No knife or axe or gun or anything else capable of slicing his head off or ending his life in a jiffy. The strange animals seemed to be hounding the others and Quinn spotted the funny looking tree. It looked just as pathetic as he did.

Then the watch in his pocket started to beep. He pulled it out and looked at the map now on it - there was a white dot about where he was, and other coloured dots where the others were, and some more dots were arriving. He stepped out from behind the bush and awkwardly made his entrance with a meek "Hello," before looking at the sapling. A small white blob was growing before his eyes until it was larger than his palm, with a circle of silver around it's middle.

It dropped off of the tree and opened and Quinn had to shield his pathetic eyes. When he looked again, a strange cloud was floating in front of him, except it had eyes. And not the kind that children said clouds had. It also had a mouth and small feet and a tail and it floated around him excitedly. "What. What the even." Quinn watched the strange cloud float around his head as it started to jabber, making noises he never expected a floaty cloud creature to make. Yep, he definitely had to be asleep.

[Hahex and Oshawott]

There was a strange moment of silence as the man gave a look of irritation. It's not like Luke would've wanted to have anything to with him in ordinary circumstances. Even though he seemed older, he was still shorter and stockier. But the worst past was the smell of tobacco wrapping around him. Honestly, that sort of reaction was what Luke expected from most people, which is why he mostly kept to himself. But these were certainly extraordinary circumstances.

"...You have one of these things?" the dark skinned man said at last, holding out his own orange device, identical to the one Luke found on his kitchen table.

Of course, when he said man, there was no way that the person opposite Luke could be much older than himself. The other guy with the clam also didn't seem to be much older.

As Luke was about to reply, his conversation partner became startled by the strange slug thing, as it moved towards him.
"H-hey! GeT THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!" he shouted, while jumping about a feet away from it. It seemed the sudden heatwave was originating from the direction of the thing. Makes sense that he wouldn't want to be near it. At the same time, he could've just plain ran away from it completely, so does the fact that he didn't reveal some inquisitive nature? Probably not, it's more likely that he thought that this is the only place where any other human contact would appear, based on the device in his hand. 

Panting, he asked again, "These...machine...watch things. You have one too?"

Luke saw him checking the screen after he called over, so he must've seen his dot edging towards his orange one. The colour of the devices seem to correspond with the colour of the dots.

"Uh, yes. Mine's right here."
He took out his own device from his pocket, and presented it.
"I found it on a table in my house the morning. I'm guessing that it shows some sort of map, and that small tree over there would be this black cross here?"

Before the dark skinned slug tamer could respond, there was another glow. Luke turned round. It seemed that some others had joined them while they were talking. A tall ginger man with glasses was staring with wide eyes at a floating sphere of what seemed to be cotton candy, and another man with a goatee and moustache had a strange fat yellow sack thing. Perhaps those strange Pokémon looking creatures originated somehow from the tree. The strangely coloured fruits that hung on the tree, then, weren't fruit at all.

[Danatales]

As soon as Toby saw the other young man take a similar device out and show him, he felt some kind of relief wash over him. He wasn't the only one, then. Weird things were happening to others, just like him. The other boy continued, explaining that he'd found the device, a purple one as opposed to Toby's orange one, on a table in his house. Toby nodded, all the while watching out of the corner of his eye at the flaming slug next to him. Thankfully, it hadn't' advanced any closer, but it still watched him with those huge, golden eyes.   

"Yeah, we're...we're the dots. The tree's the X" Toby looked down at his range device, noted more dots getting closer, surrounding the tree. Looking back up, he saw these two new arrivals, another young ginger man with glasses and a shorter, stockier boy, one who almost reminded him a bit of himself, with a goatee and fair hair. The former appeared to be dealing with...cotton candy? A cloud? What the hell was that thing? The latter had some kind of yellow sumo wrestler...thing with him, and both boys appeared to be in their own states of confusion.

Toby blinked, taking it all in. He thought he heard the ginger with glasses say hello at one point. Looking between him and the other boy, the one who showed him his purple device, he sucked in a breath. He felt the heat of the slug next to him, pulsing into his leg.

"Dude, this is so weird," he said, finally, not directed at either of them. He ran his thick fingers through his hair, bugging his eyes. "This is really, really weird."

[Sebastian Moran]

After a brief struggle with the shellfish thing, Ruben settled for holding it at arm's length. It jittered about in his hands, threatening to wriggle free, but he did his best to hold on. At least it didn't seem to be trying to hurt him in any way after all, and it didn't really seem right to drop it or throw it away. 
 
He turned his head, glancing over at the other people who had gathered around. Luckily most of them seemed to be to preoccupied with the rainbow assortment of monsters to have commented on his B-movie-actress scream from before. And at least he wasn't completely alone in the world after all, although nobody else looked particularly confident about what was happening. The words "weird" and "what" were background noise by this point.
 
Still holding the purple shell critter out in front of him, Ruben carefully turned to get a proper look at the others, narrowly avoiding stepping on the black watch-machine that he'd dropped in his surprise. He ignored it for the time being, as it hadn't done anything yet other than make the situation worse. At least the creature he'd been saddled with wasn't setting fire to anything. 

"Look," Ruben said to nobody in particular, "Whatever this is, I didn't agree to it. Someone just tell me how to make it stop, and what the hell I'm supposed to do with this. Shouldn't it be in water or something?" Preferably a safe distance away. Even if it wasn't out to hurt him, the licking was creeping him out.
 

[Hahex and Oshawott]

At this point, Luke could hazard a guess and probably assume that the strange collection of creatures that had formed around him probably originated from the small tree in the middle of the park. The question was whether or not he wanted to chance inspecting the tree and unleashing another monster into the suddenly vacant world. The person he was talking to had a lost, confused expression as he mumbled to himself. There probably weren't any answers to dig out of him; he'd only know as much as Luke did.

Luke stuck on his glasses from his pocket to get a clearer view of the bush, while maintaining a comfortable distance. Certainly, they were not fruit hanging from it at all. The spheres had a decidedly metallic sheen to them, and each featured two colours, split between the top half and bottom half. Only four of them hung now, the others lied near the feet of the things that emerged from them. At this point, one might have imagined they had a choice about picking a sphere, but Luke didn't even consider that as an option in the first place. What was currently out seemed like enough of a handful as it is, without any further additions from himself. He had half a mind to just turn around and walk back home, but then his own survival would probably be better in a group. Still, a group of men and monster didn't seem to appea-

"Ah, that's just great. Looks like none of us even get a choice about this or not," Luke said, in response to the appearance of a purple balloon with small beady eyes and a yellow cross over its mouth. There was a little white fluff atop it's head, and small yellow hearts dangling from its wiry black arms.

Luke braced himself in anticipation for the worst, but the balloon seemed to only float up and down a little. That is, until it attempted to grab Luke's hair and tug at it.
"Hey, cut that out it hurts!"
The boy attempted to swat away the balloon that looked to steal it away, but it somehow managed to dodge Luke's wild flailing. Fortunately, the purple blob respected its liberator's wishes and eventually relented.
I suppose it could be worse. At least this thing isn't burning a hole in the side of my trousers. Luke thought to himself. Of course, this was in reference to chubby gentleman and his lava slug.

[The Shrub Dragon]

((I apologise for breaking the flow of the RP, but as I've indicated on Loz's RP as well, school has started up and I have extra-curricular activities from Monday to Wednesday so please don't assume I've dropped out if I don't post until Thursday or Friday))

[Danatales]

Toby had to huff a laugh when he heard the complained of the ginger man a few paces away, the one with the purple clam-like monstrosity. "Bro, I don't think it's going to stop," he called at the uncomfortable young man, "Because if it was, I'd certainly be trying to get rid of this...eeughh, thing." he jabbed a sneaker towards the boiling lava slug, who blinked at Toby expectantly. After a moment, the rubber on the edge of Toby's sneaker nearly began to bubble from the extreme heat, making the chubby man yelp and step back.

He looked around again, saw the boy he'd been conversing with was now dealing with a floating...balloon type thing? It was almost cute. He rolled his eyes and grumbled. "UGH! You should consider yourself lucky." By now he was growling at nearly everyone else who had approached the bizarre little tree, "At least you didn't get stuck with this. What even is this?! It keeps LOOKING AT ME?!?"

The fiery slug blinked its wide eyes erratically.

[Hahex and Oshawott]

"Sure I suppose it could be worse."
After it's initial cheek, the balloon had started to behave itself a little more. Luke stopped poking it to take a glance at the slug after his new 'companion''s latest exclamation. He had a feeling that the slug and the clam seemed vaguely familiar, and that feeling was cemented when he saw the balls that hung from the tree. The watch device, the balls and these creatures seemed to point to a reasonable conclusion.

It took Luke a while to realize, since it had been so long, but he had in fact seen all of these elements before, in what could be described as a different world. Not in a vague sci-fi sense but more of an artistic way, perhaps. In his lifetime, Luke hadn't indulged in a wide variety of entertaining media. But there was one thing that he treasured: a Game Boy with a copy of Pokemon Gold. He once betted it with his brother for his novelty giant pen, and even won the bet. His brother cried about it afterwards, and Luke gave him the Game Boy out of pity. This had all happened a long time ago, but for some reason, the memory stuck with him and with it, memories of the game itself.

The device he found in the main room was a Pokéwatch, a kind of smartphone for budding Pokemon trainers that had a map, radio, watch and phone rolled into one. This was back in 2001, so such an idea was fairly cool at the time. The tree carried Poke Balls on them. These were spherical, metallic devices used for catching and storing the elusive monsters that roamed the wild grass. And the creatures roaming around, burning the soles of sneakers and tasting the faces of delicious humans, well they must be the Pokemon.

At least that's what Luke thought. There was always the possibility that his memory was faulty, for example. Maybe he was only thinking this because of some sub-concious wish fulfilment to live in the game. Or perhaps the strange punchbag and candy floss thing weren't Pokemon, rendering his theory obsolete. Luke didn't really want to be called out on being wrong either. At best, he would probably develop a reputation as a sort of nerd, which wasn't totally incorrect, that played a ton of Pokemon, which would be. The various stigmas that was associated with that sort of person wasn't one that Luke particularly wanted to accumulate, especially when initial impressions with potentially the last people in the country were on the line. The podgy guy seemed to have a bit of a temper, as well, and Luke didn't want to somehow get in a fight with him by being wrong about something like this.

But at the same time, he seemed fairly confident in his conclusion. The problem now was to somehow phrase it in a way that allowed a degree of error. Boldly claiming "It's a Slugma, a Pokemon from 2001" wouldn't work at all in this situation. Instead, something like "I think it's a Slugma" was a little better. But it then needs de-compacting, in the form of "What's a slugma?" or the dreaded, "You what, mate?"

"I think it's a Pokemon," then, works a little nicer. But it still retains the initial problem, where it keeps the dreaded nerd stigma and the like (Actually, it's possible that that stigma is impossible to avoid. After all, Luke still recognised it as a Pokemon, no matter how he phrased it). Shifting the subject of the statement to somewhat spread the recognition was then necessary. Luke needed to bring the lava slug's owner onto the same level as him. The simplest way to do this, would be to then rephrase the statement, not as a personal statement, but an enquiry into the other's opinion on the matter. Thus, "Do you think it's a Pokemon?" is created.

Throw in some vague ambiguities, and the phrase is almost complete. "Do you think it's, I don't know, some kind of Pokemon?" Is that too much? It would depend heavily on how the "I don't know" is phrased. Luke didn't have time to think it through properly, twenty seconds had already passed since the question was raised. He would have to wing it.

"Do you think it's uhh..." Luke stalled for what he thought was perhaps just a shade too long, but in reality was only a second really, "some kind of Pokemon?"

Dammit, still too specific. Throw in some more vague words at the end.

"type thing?"