The current slammed into Guzzlord, and the Dragon-type energy around it came apart.
"Raikou?" Akiyama's eyes narrowed.
"Don't just stand there—move!" A bare-chested man threw an arm out in a wide gesture, shouting the warning up at him.
Raikou roared, and Electric Terrain crashed down across the ground. A road of condensed lightning rose up and caught Akiyama and Kadabra out of the air.
"Lay Confusion over it. We follow him."
Akiyama watched the man already sprinting away and gave the order fast.
Kadabra nodded, and violet Confusion sheathed the road of raw electricity.
Akiyama stepped onto it and ran, keeping pace with the man below.
Raikou stayed behind to hold Guzzlord alone, throwing off sprays of arcing light, barely managing to slow it down.
That Guzzlord was frighteningly strong.
The man stopped in front of a tent, and the lightning road ended there.
Gardevoir picked Akiyama up and jumped down.
"Where did you two come from?" the man asked, watching Akiyama climb out of her arms.
"Hello! My name is Miki Akiyama.. I honestly have no idea how we ended up here. You?"
He was genuinely curious about this guy.
A Raikou's Trainer?
Now that was interesting.
If Reika had been standing here, she'd have recognized the man in one look—that vagrant. Only decades younger.
"Miki? Never heard of it."
"My name is Junpei.. I've lived here my whole life."
He gave his name and nothing else.
"Seriously, never heard of us?" Akiyama gave him a skeptical look.
"No." Takemi shook his head.
Raikou came loping in from the wreckage, walked over unhurriedly, settled down at Takemi's feet, and started licking a forepaw.
"You should clear out of this area fast," Takemi said. "That Guzzlord is strong in a way you don't want to test."
"Yeah, well, we don't know how to get home." Akiyama laughed without much humor and pulled out the shard.
"That's—let me see." Junpei held out a hand and took it.
Akiyama didn't resist. He'd thought about this on the run over. There was no reason not to hand it over, and if the man wanted to take it by force there was nothing he could do about it anyway.
"I remember these. Five years back a kid came through here carrying one." Some of it was coming back to Junpei now.
He handed the shard back.
Akiyama took it. "Five years? Do you know how to get back?"
"When the energy inside it runs out, you'll go back on your own."
Akiyama bent his head and studied the fragment. The glow had dimmed—barely. A hair. You'd never catch it without looking hard.
"So what is this place?" he asked.
Guzzlord, Raikou. Nothing here added up.
"Come inside. We'll eat while I explain." Junpei ducked into the tent, talking as he went. "The way that guy put it, this is something like a parallel world to yours."
A parallel world?
Akiyama blinked, then accepted it.
In a world with Pokémon in it, what exactly was impossible?
Inside, he took stock of the place.
One plain wooden table—Junpei had clearly cut the trees and built it himself.
A bedroll on the ground, blanket folded square.
A wardrobe.
That was it. Nothing else.
Clearly one person living alone.
"You don't have anybody with you?" Akiyama asked.
Junpei was already at the table, poking through a bowl of chopped Berries. "Too dangerous around here. Can't let that Guzzlord wander far. I'm the only one who can keep an eye on him."
Or more accurately, Raikou was.
He scratched the head of the legendary incarnation of thunder, who at the moment was behaving exactly like a house cat.
"You want some?" It had clearly been a long time since Junpei had seen another human being. He was almost aggressively hospitable.
Akiyama got a bowl and chopsticks out of his backpack and took a portion.
He regretted it the second it hit his tongue.
This was just every kind of Berry chopped up and dumped together. Including several that tasted awful.
Kadabra caught the look on Akiyama's face and understood immediately.
Gengar flew over, grabbed a few pieces out of the bowl, and shoved them in his mouth.
Then he spat them right back out, stuck his tongue out, and started scraping at it with his claws like he could physically remove the flavor.
Junpei looked genuinely taken aback. "Is it that bad?"
"It's not... I mean. It's very... natural."
Akiyama had nowhere to go with that sentence.
"That other guy seemed happy enough eating it." Junpei scratched his head.
"Then that guy had nerves of solid steel." Akiyama gave up on being polite, set the bowl down, and started pulling the pot and his cold-stored ingredients out of his backpack.
"Is that—meat? From an animal?" Junpei sounded like he didn't believe his own eyes.
"Yeah. You guys don't have any?"
Junpei swallowed and shook his head. "Had it once when I was a kid. Never saw it again after that."
Even Raikou's eyes had locked onto the cuts of meat, shining.
"Things are that bad here?" Akiyama couldn't process it.
He looked at Junpei 's bare torso.
Could you really build abs like that without eating meat?
"People can't eat as fast as a Guzzlord can. Or Buzzwole, and the rest of them. If there were fewer of those, maybe we'd get some meat."
Junpei said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Akiyama nodded, then had Gardevoir light the fire and started cooking.
Having tasted the Berry mix, Gengar was now extremely invested in whatever Akiyama and Gardevoir were making.
Off to the side, Kadabra lifted the Berry pieces out of the bowl with Confusion and sorted them carefully in midair, dropping the decent ones back in and setting the flavor-killers aside.
Then he picked out the ones that would make Electric-type Energy Cubes.
By the time the steaks came off the heat and got seasoned, Kadabra's cubes were nearly finished.
"Try it," Akiyama said, offering Junpei the chopsticks.
He didn't need them. Junpei grabbed the meat with his bare hand, apparently indifferent to the fact that it was scalding.
"Good. Mmh. That's good."
Raikou watched with enormous, hungry eyes.
Kadabra floated an Energy Cube over to him.
Try it? he asked, psychically.
"Thank you."
Raikou's voice rang out inside the tent.
That was the instinct of a Legendary Pokémon—the ability to speak with humans directly.
To Akiyama it was mostly a novelty. Not shocking, exactly.
His Pokémon, on the other hand, were fascinated.
Raikou ate the Energy Cube, and his eyes went perfectly round.
This existed the whole time?
Kadabra felt like he was looking at his own past.
Watching that, Akiyama understood exactly what kind of life this world's Raikou had been living.
Junpei finished his portion and clearly wasn't satisfied.
He looked at the pot. There was more.
"I want that," he said, with zero preamble.
"It's yours." Akiyama fished the rest out and piled it on Junpei 's plate.
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