A Winkle in Reality

[HankPankylol]

Hello, and welcome to my first story. Fair warning, the first section is kinda heavy and dense, but it gets easier to read.


I've already posted the first 20 chapters of this on other sites, so I'll just post one a day until we catch up, and then go back to one a week.

Disclaimer: Pokémon is the property of Nintendo and Game Freak. I don't own shit.

---

Colors swirled around him in an endless kaleidoscope, each one distinct and yet perfectly blended into the next. Hues that humans had never known teased the edge of his sanity as they flashed in a random pattern, while the complete lack of change threatened to drive him insane.


Land floated by him, great chunks of earth as big as continents and as small as pebbles drifted aimlessly. Trees grew from the clouds while rivers flowed upwards and then started to do loops around themselves. Oceans hung like spheres midair as forest fires raged within them, consuming the planets and stars that dotted them. Fish-like beings walked the land as bird shaped entities swam through the dirt.


It wasn't a world of logic and sense. Consistency here was a crime of the highest order. Up wasn't down and south didn't mean north. Up was purple and directions tasted like mint, gravity was ever shifting and time meant nothing, yet everything at the same time.


He didn't belong there, in that lawless realm. He could feel his soul reject it, the very essence of his being conflicting with his surroundings. He was a being of law and order.


He did not belong there.


The others knew it too. They would poke and prod him, brushing against him and disappearing when he turned his attention to them. Shapeless beings that were mere clouds of vapor, jabbing him with solid limbs, fang filled grins on blank, expressionless faces. They lurked in the corners of his vision, whispering into his ears the sweetest and most foul things he could imagine in languages he didn't understand. One, twelve, twenty, five, combining and splitting without issue. They were there every second of every day, yet left him alone for years at a time.


Larger presences teased the edge of his existence, absorbing everything in their path as they swept through nothing and everything. They fused and divided, a harmony of millions and no more than one, leaving new in their wake to come and bother him.


It was a game to them. Bother the new guy. Bully the outsider. See how much the only solid thing they had ever met could take before it tore into pieces much like themselves.


Though to be fair, he presumed that he was the most interesting, and uninteresting, thing that had happened to that place of chaos in a long, and short, time.


Years passed in seconds, minutes took decades. His resistance was faltering. Little by little, his soul's reluctance to be there faded. Increasingly, acceptance set in.


He wasn't born there. He wasn't made to exist in such a place. A being of congruence couldn't last in a place that prided itself on dissent.


Something had to give. And he was so much lesser than a whole universe.


As the Miasma of randomness seeped into the crevices of his soul, tempting and threatening, the endless feeling of something breathing on his neck halted. For a brief moment and eternity, everything stopped. Movement, space, and even time ceased frolicking about as they pleased and the reality held its breath.


A weight descended upon him.


Cold and heat had long stopped mattering to him. Lifetimes, or millennia, of temperatures of all kinds had numbed him. Neither did gravity bother him after so long with a black hole crushing his feet while his head felt like it was laying on the moon. Only the constant tries to change him even registered.


But he felt the pressure. The Miasma had coerced and beckoned, but the pressure didn't care. It hadn't come to lure him. It didn't matter that he was close to giving in. It wasn't concerned with the fact that in a timeless place like the Randomness, his transformation was guaranteed and was essentially finished.


He was an outsider. And outsiders did not belong.


He barely noticed that he was completely alone for the first time since his arrival, all of his tormentors and playmates having vanished. The pressure kept rising, the weight upon his soul increasing. It felt like sinking deep into the ocean, deep under the waves to a place where life wasn't meant to exist. His form was made of glass as tons and tons pushed down onto every inch of him, his lungs quivering to draw breath, the air thick with power. Like oil it spread throughout his body, assessing him, judging him.


Rejecting him.


A shadow that stretched from horizon to horizon wavered in place as if hidden behind a mist. Gleaming talons disappeared and reappeared throughout the shadow with no set location. Great sheets of darkness rose from its back as wings, giant pinions the size of skies blocking his view as the mere presence sent crystalline fractures through his mind.


Crimson eyes larger than his body hovered before him as his limbs cracked from the strain, every fiber of his being screaming in protest of being so near the incarnation of the Randomness they had been cast into. It was ITs world, ITs very existence that had permeated the realm, ITs will that held Nothing, yet Everything together. IT had built a dimension away from the sickening solidity of the Material World, forced an entire world into existence through sheer force of will and raw power.


And IT hated him for bringing the stench with him.


Fangs the size of buildings flashed as a crooked tear in the Shadow opened to reveal a mouth. A roar that made his cells cry in anguish ripped from the god in front of him as IT lurched towards him, hatred shining in ITs gaze and maw opening wide as IT swallowed him in one bite, teeth ripping through him as he let out a scream and-


-shot up with enough force that I overextended and tipped ass over end, face planting into the dirt. Sand filled my mouth as I sputtered, the last bit of the scream splutering out my throat. Coughing, I pushed off the ground again and made it into a sitting position, heart thundering in my ears.


"What the fuck!?"


I patted down my body as the phantom pain of being devoured alive pulsed through me, but there was nothing. There were no wounds or puncture holes as wide as my torso.


I was alive.


"Hehe", a chuckle broke past my lips as I stared at my clean, non-mutilated flesh.


"Hehe. HahahahaHaHaHaHAHAHAHAHAHA!"


Much more gracefully I jumped back on my feet, managing to stay upright.


"YEEEEEAAAH! FUCK YOU! FUUUUUUCK YOOOOOU, YOU SHADOW BITCH! HAHAHA!" I spread my arms wide while tilting my head back, letting the beautiful, steady, consistent warmth of the baking sun soak through my bones. "YOU THINK YOU CAN EAT ME!? ME!? SUCK MY FUCKING DICK, YOU FORMLESS PUSSY! HAHAHA! I HOPE YOU LIKE THE TASTE OF AIR, DIPSHIT! EAT MY FUCKING ASS! I'M THE FUCKING GREATEST, I'M IMMORTAL, I'M, I'm, I'm-" Panting as the edge of the adrenaline rush from my close call started to settle, I took in my surroundings.


Sand.


And a lot of it.


As in, only sand. Everywhere.


"I'm in the fucking desert."


Why was I in the desert?

---

Sand covered my foot and tried to swallow the entire leg as I put my weight on it. The loose surface shifted beneath my bare toes, threatening to send me back down the way I came. Sweat ran down my face like bullets, darkening the sand for a second before it disappeared as I threw my right leg forward, barely keeping my balance.


Left.


Right.


The sun above only seemed to get hotter and hotter as I finally crested the dune I was climbing, heavy pants heaving from my chest as my knees collapsed. The grains burned my skin as I looked out from my new vantage point.


And what a sight it was.


"AAAAARRGHH!" It didn't fucking end. No matter how far I walked. No matter how many hills I climbed or what direction I tried.


It.


Was.


Just.


More.


Sand.


"COME ON!" The yell tore at my dry throat, but I was so far past caring. My forehead met the burning hell substance that had proven the bane of my existence as I tilted forward, struggling to regain my breath. I didn't understand. It wasn't fucking fair. I survived a different dimension. I got eaten by a fuck-off huge shadow monster, and this was what I earned? Actual, unending, hell?


"I miss the Random. I want to go back." I moaned, uncaring for the shit that got in my mouth. I could already hear the cracking and crunching every time I moved my jaw and felt the rocks between my teeth. It was in my ears and in my nose, it scorched my feet with every step, and I was pretty sure it was multiplying inside my asshole. It had been so nice at first. Sure, it had been warm, but unlike the Random, it was a consistent type of heat and much milder than the extremes I had been used to. The sand had been annoying even then, yet the sheer joy of expecting something, and then getting it, had kept me on a high for what felt like hours.


Until it didn't.


Consistency meant lack of variation. After days, or millennia, of nothing but change, it sounded great in theory. But then you got warm. And then even warmer. You started sweating. Your mouth dried out and your throat became parched. Your vision started blurring and a headache started pounding, your thoughts felt wooly and your skin burned. The occasional breeze no longer offered relief and soon you start longing for the sensation of having your fingers flash frozen while your palms boil.


The beings inhabiting that other place might have had a point.


Rules sucked.


The unrelenting heat beat down on my already sunburned back as I pressed my forehead to my clenched fists before me. Everything hurt. I had even thought about drinking my own piss, just to get some relief, but either the Random World left no urine in the body upon exit, or the hellscape I found myself in had taken that from me as well.


I-... I couldn't keep going. Not forever. Not like that.


"Please… Please. Not like this…"


I closed my eyes as I ignored the aching of my lungs, forcing them to take in deep, slow breaths. My thighs screamed as I forced them under me. A loud, drawn out groan left my lips as I fought to get back up, only for a cramp in my calf to send me right back down. A scream rang out and if there had been any liquid left in my body, I would've cried.


"COME OOONN! COM-.. COme On… Please…"


Second try had me back on my feet. However, a glance at the ceaseless arid landscape in front of me made me want to just sit down for the last time. What was the point of trying if the goal was impossible? I was clearly in the middle of the desert and too far in to make it out on foot. Why make the last moments of my life ones of pain and struggle?


I would forever deny that I let out a whimper as I took a halting step forward.


"Right… Left…"


I survived being thrown into a completely different dimension that was by its very nature hostile to my existence. I made it through the denizens of said dimension using me as a stress ball, poking, and prodding, and stretching, and throwing. I lived through being a chew toy for a giant, spooky, halloween dragon thing.


I refused to lay down for fucking heat.


Time and distance blurred. I would look up to see where the next dune would be, only to find myself halfway up it. I would follow what I was sure was a straight line, keeping the sun on my left side after it started coming down from its zenith, and stumble upon my own footprints going perpendicular. My ears rang and shadows danced across my eyes.


"Ri-Right… Lef…"


And all the while Satan's ballsack hung in the sky, slowly turning me into beef jerky.


Or pork jerky?


Human jerky.


I giggled to myself as I crawled up the last part of the non-stop hills. I was slowly losing my mind. I could feel my grip on sanity slipping. Shit was suddenly so funny. Everything made me laugh, even the most nonsensical bullshit my boiling brain threw at me. Black spots in my vision had turned into full-on hallucinations. I was certain I had seen some of my friends and bullies from the Random floating by me, making faces, yet they all faded within a couple of seconds. Cackles filled my ears, yet there was no mouth to make them. Fuck, I could even see an oasis from my new vantage point, perched like a dying bird of prey on a burial mound of sand.


I giggled again.


I am going to die. The defeatist thoughts of earlier had turned into a bone deep certainty and somewhere in my fading mind, I knew that my brain was pushing as many feel-good drugs as possible to send me out on a dream.


Without realising it, I had shifted to lying fully on my front, cheek pressed into the stupid miniature rocks that had proven to be my doom. Still, I couldn't be too hard on myself. I tried. I really, really tried. I gave it everything I fucking had and yes, it wasn't enough, but I-


-My head shot up like a marionette on a string. My eyes rolled around and blacked out entirely at times, but I finally managed to focus enough to make out a rough outline.


The oasis was still there. A little oval lake with two palm trees next to each other on the shore. A couple of small bushes further out looking to be on the verge of death.


My head fell back down as I took a couple of deep breaths. Twice had I seen a lake, and twice it had been false. I don't think I have ever been more disappointed than when the handful of water literally turned into sand in my mouth.


A second look.


Still there.


Slowly to start and gradually picking up speed, my forearms dragged me forward. Soon my feet were kicking to get me standing, but my eagerness was my downfall. A wrong movement sent me rolling down the side of the dune, sand and dust struggling to find a surface on my body to cling to that wasn't already completely covered. I put out my hand to try and brake, yet that was the one time the cursed fucking sand I found myself in wanted to act like a solid, launching me into a handstand that only succeeded in taking me from rolling sideways to ass over end.


"FUCK, FU-argh, cough, AH, SHIT, FUCK, AWWW!"


Spewing a random assortment of swear words and noises of pain, I finally arrived at the bottom. Springing back up with an energy I hadn't felt in hours, I locked eyes with the swaying palm trees in the distance, barely peeking out over, you fucking guessed it, another sand dune. Although a small one.


And most importantly, the oasis was still there.


I had either finally truly lost my mind, or that shit was real.


Taking off in a stumbling gait, I immediately had to course correct as my wobbly knees wanted me to go to the right, but there was no fucking way I was giving up now.


I had wandered aimlessly for the better part of a day, at least. With a target in sight, I would keep going forever.


"Left. Rig-Right.. Left. Right. Left.."


If asked afterwards, I would not be able to say how long the distance was. Based upon my first view of it, the oasis seemed to be half-an-hour's walk away, if not more. Yet I felt like I teleported. One moment I'm fantasizing about the water I'm about to have, nearly getting hard just from the thought of it, and next thing I know, I'm walking onto some large rocks at the shore.


Not that I noticed.


SPLASH!


It felt like electricity as I was submerged in the cool liquid. Every nerve in my body jumped and panicked at the sudden shift, and for a single point in time, I hung frozen, suspended weightlessly as my mind blanked. For just a couple of seconds, the world stood still in a way that I'd never experienced in either of the


two worlds I'd been to.


Stillness.


Peace.


And then it restarted.


Water filled my unprepared lungs as I inhaled in shock. My legs kicked in panic as I began drowning, my arms flailing around for something to latch onto. Finally, one of my feet hit the bottom and I realised that I could stand up.


I let out a huge gasp as I erupted from the four feet deep water, lungs begging for oxygen. Three big gulps of air and I was down under, greedily sucking in water. Ice spread in my body as it finally got the cool down it so desperately needed. More and more H2O was forced down my throat in an attempt to make up for lost time, my head seemingly becoming clearer with each swallow. Again and again I broke off to suck down air and then shove my head down like a demented ostrich.


Before long my stomach protested the rapid intake and sent it back up. The violent streams of nearly pure water that fired from my mouth had me calming down a little.


After it stopped, anyway.


Dragging myself into a shallower part, my next drinks were slower. Each sip was enjoyed for the life providing act that it was. Full and almost thinking clearly, I laid back to float and soak for a minute.


I sighed.


"That was way too fucking close. No more. I'm so fucking done."


A bird let out a cry as I floated around. How long I spent there was impossible to tell.


The sun actually felt comfortable while in the water and for the first time since I could remember, I was actually feeling good.


Unfortunately, that also let my brain catch back up and begin churning.


Letting out another sigh, I sat up in the water and took a glance at the sky. It was on its way down. It would be night time soon.


Night time, my brain helpfully supplied, was as bad, if not worse, than day time in a desert.


Which meant I had to move.


The bird squawked again as I struggled with that world-ending thought. Slowly turning my head, I let my lifeless gaze rest on the offender.


I blinked.


Drifting on top of the water was a small white bird with a enormous head that was at least as large as its torso. Its wings were long and straight, with a v-shaped dent at the end. A blue band wrapped around each one, with each of the three tail feathers having the same. The eyes were thin slits that apathetically looked back at me with barely noticeable black pupils. Its beak was long and yellow, turning black halfway and ending with a hook shape that cracked open.


"Wuack!"


My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head as I stared even harder.


Nope. It was real. Or I had gone so far around the bend that there was no way back.


Because that was definitely a Pokémon.


As if hearing my thoughts, the wingull squacked again.


"Wuack!"


Presented with a mind-breaking realisation, I fell back on what was quickly becoming my favourite words.


"What. The. Fuck."


That apparently offended the wingull as it puffed up its small chest and raised its wings in challenge. It might have been intimidating if its head had been smaller, but it just ended up looking like a particularly vicious stuffed toy. Slightly more scary was the gush of pressurized water that it launched straight at my chest.


"Wha-", was all the protest I had the time for before I felt like a donkey kicked me center mass. My feet left the lake bed and I went sliding backwards across the surface, ending with a backflip that had water rush into my nose and fill my lungs.


Again. Except, this time I was in the deeper part, where my feet couldn't touch the bottom even without panic.


As I hacked and coughed both from the liquid drowning me and the impact, while flailing back towards the shallows, I heard that fucking bird fly above me, chirping with what I swear was laughter.


"Wuack wuack wuack wuack!"


Smart of it to run. If I had gotten my hands on it, we would have found out if that big fucking head could have fit UP ITS ASS!


"Fucking bitch-ass bird… Thinks it's funny… Better fucking run…" I grumbled as I caught my breath, my random flailing turning into actually swimming. The attack had sent me further than I'd thought, almost to the center of the oasis. That had to be at least 15 feet and the leftover ache guaranteed a bruise later.


Which, to be fair, was a minor punishment for being hit with something containing that much force.


Very minor, in fact. I had already been submerged to the waist, so what I presume was a Water Gun, had pushed me through all that water, and it only stung a little? It should've cracked a couple of ribs if nothing else.


Nothing made sense anymore.


And as if the universe wanted to prove a point, once I got semi-solid ground beneath my feet again, my left foot landed on a large, loose rock that sent me falling back.


Again.


That was the straw that broke the camel's back.


"AAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHH! FUCKING SHIIIIIT! FUCK YOU! FUCK EVERYTHING! FUCKING BIRDS, FUCKING ROCKS, FUCKING SAND! FUCKING, FUCK… AAAAARRRRGHHHH!"


It was not my first outburst of the day, but it was the most petulant. I kicked and punched the water around me like a child, screaming every curse word that I knew, and inventing several new ones. It was just too much. First I was basically tortured for an undetermined amount of time, then I almost died in the desert, found out that I'm apparantly in a fictional fucking universe, and then, and fucking then, I almost drown.


Not once.


Not twice.


BUT THREE FUCKING TIMES!


AND I GOT ATTACKED BY A DUMBASS, BUBBLEHEAD, FIRE HYDRANT BIRD!


"ARRRGHH!", I cried my fury to the heavens as my foot hit the same smooth rock as it did earlier. A primal urge to hit and throw shit consumed me as I ripped the blue and white, oval stone from the lakebed and gripped it both hands above my head before throwing it as hard as I could. The rock spun as it travelled, fatter in one end than the other. The blue and white cloud markings twinkled with the last clinging droplets as it hit the blue surface with a splash and disappeared into the depths.


My eyes lingered on the ripples it left with its passing, panting with fury.


"Fuck." I swore and dove after it.


That was not a rock.


The object had hit at an angle, so finding it took a second. Luckily I had thrown it sideways along the shore so the water wasn't too deep. When I found it, I dragged both it and my tired, sore corpus back onto land and took a seat to look the thing over, feet resting in the water to sooth the blisters.


On closer inspection, there was a faint scale pattern to what was now unmistakable an egg. The entire thing was as large as my head, yet oddly light. Not quite like it was hollow, but much lighter than I would've thought something that size should've been.


It was also most definitely a Pokémon egg.


I sighed as I rested my head against the egg. There was no getting around it now.


Somehow, I was in the Pokémon world, a universe that was only supposed to exist in anime and video games.


Which meant that the Randomness I floated in earlier was likely the Distorted World, and the fuck-off big shadow that chewed me up and spit me back out was Giratina.


Which in turn made me one lucky bastard.


I sighed again as I raised my head and looked emptily at the reflection of my knees.


It wasn't the worst thing in the world. I was a fan of Pokémon and knew a fair amount about the franchise. I had played all the games and consumed a great amount of content based on it, though my knowledge of the anime was sparse, so even if the details didn't match precisely, I at least had a decent grasp of the basics. In addition, for a world full of giant physics and biology defying monsters, terrorist groups under every fucking rock, and living gods that controlled the fundamental forces of creation, Pokémon was portrayed as a pretty nice place. Sure, said terrorists had no problem beating up kids, but they were hilariously incompetent at it. The Legendary Pokémon could usually be reasoned with as well, and the average Pokémon seemed to be roughly on par with humans, intelligence wise.


Compared to shit like Marvel, Warhammer, Skyrim, or other death worlds, it was practically paradise.


So, if I had to be transported to a fictional universe, there weren't many better ones.


In theory.


Because that Water Gun had hurt. So had staying in the Distorted World. Pokémon were cute behind a screen and the thought of training super powered animals sounded cool. Traveling across the regions, making friends, saving the world, and catching them all was a great dream.


But living it? Having to interact with monsters that could kill me literally by thinking about it, and not having plot armor? Assholes messing with Legendary Pokémon that control Time and Space? Fucking God!?


That was a very different matter. Not that there was much I could do about it, and to be honest, I realised I wasn't anywhere logical a long, or short, time ago. I didn't even know how I got there, much less how to get back to my world.


My world.


My eyes locked with their reflection and I saw myself for the first time since waking up.


Thick, messy red hair hung down in spikes, covering my forehead, white highlights occasionally intermingling. Almond shaped amethyst eyes sat above a petite nose and were framed by high, aristocratic cheekbones. Full red lips rounded everything out. I looked like an anime character, but a damn hot one if I had to say so myself.


Or, I would look like a damn hot anime character in a few years, as I currently appeared to be around 10 years old.


Between the bangs I saw the lightly tan skin wrinkle a bit.


Had I always been 10? I felt like I was older than that. Maybe not by a huge amount, but definitely older, and I recalled several birthdays…


Huh.


Had I ever had a birthday party?


Purple orbs narrowed in the reflection.


Did I ever have a family?


Come to think of it.


"What's my name?"

---

Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoyed. If you REALLY liked it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 3 chapters ahead.