cashew | Pokévengers - Repost - Chapter the Second

Edited and pared down some of Chapter 2 in Pokévengers. Have about 10K more words for the re-write this NaNo. It meant a lot of the old plot points had to be cut to fit in with the new stuff.

Poké-cast this chapter

Steve:
Shiny Braviary

Wanda:
Delphox

Natasha:
Shiny Aromatise

Clint:
Decidueye

Previously on Pokévengers...
Chapter the First

"Was I supposed to know what you meant by that?" Steve asked as he followed Natasha's lead. Wanda was peering curiously at the colorful straw thatched huts that encircled the village center.

"Well, maybe not you," Natasha corrected as she made a bee-line for one of the most distant huts. "But, it certainly meant something to Clint."

"Clint's here, too?" Steve asked unnecessarily. Natasha's lazy glance his way told him just how useless she found his question. Chastised, Steve amended his question, asking sheepishly, "So what does it mean?"

"I think I'll let Clint answer it himself," Natasha said in lieu of an answer. Then she added self-deprecatingly, "It still doesn't make all that much sense to me."

It didn't take long to arrive at their destination. The hut's door opened to a single room that was decorated with a surprising amount of modern amenities. A woven rug lay in the center of the room. Across the back of the bowed walls hung a few paintings. Four circular glass windows rested equidistant along the circumference of the room, allowing light into the hut from all angles. Under one of the windows furthest from the door was a round cushion that presumably served as the bed for the occupant.

On said bed was what Steve would have assumed to be an owl if not for the fact that its feathers were made of leaves. He stared wonderingly at the thing when the leafy owl opened its eyes and greeted in Clint's voice, "Hey, Nat."

"Clint, what is going on?" Steve interjected before Natasha could return the greeting. His manners, which were abrupt in the best of times, was nonexistent now. His mother would have been aghast, but then again, she didn't get turned into a bird.

"Hey Cap," Clint greeted without answering his question. Then he looked Steve up and down before adding, "Wow, very appropriate."

"Natasha said you can tell us what's going on," Steve said, ignoring the nonsensical comment.

"Well, sort of, more like a hunch," Clint prevaricated and Steve resisted the urge to snort at him.

Thankfully, Clint didn't drag it out and explained, "Far as I can tell, we're in a world that bears an uncanny resemblance to a video game that my kids played. It's called Pokemon. See, the premise of the game is that you collected these little monsters that you can carry with you in your pockets, hence the name, and—"

"Clint," Steve interrupted before Clint could get distracted with unnecessary details, "this place? Where is this place?"

"Right. Well, best I can figure, either we are in a dimension that was designed to be similar to a children's game or we're actually in the game world of Pokemon," Clint summarized.

The explanation left Steve more confused than before and he looked sideways at Wanda to see if she was faring any better. Her silent shrug in response indicated otherwise.

Wishing he had hands just so he could at least rub his head in frustration, Steve asked, "Are you saying that we're in a game?"

"Or at least a world that greatly resembles a game," Clint clarified. "There are some differences between the game and this world, of course. For one, the Pokemon don't say the same thing over and over again."

"Pokemon, is that what these creatures are?" Steve asked, zeroing in on the keyword.

"Well, that's what the game calls them. Not sure if that's what they're still called here," said Clint.

"So, did this Pokemon game ever show you how to get out of this place?"

"Nah, my kids never made it that far," Clint sighed. "Too be honest, I'm not sure how much the game could serve as a general guide. Things are already different just by having us here."

"And we haven't seen any exploration committees," Natasha added, finally breaking her silence. When Steve looked at her blankly, she elaborated, "It's a thing that happened in the games."

Steve and Wanda raised their eyebrows with skepticism.

Natasha shrugged and forged on with her explanation, "So far, the only thing we've been able to get out of the locals is that there's a shop to the east that sells food and another shop to the south that sells things that aren't food."

"So, what we do now?" Wanda asked.

"We figure out how we got here and how we can leave," Steve answered.

When Natasha and Clint nodded in agreement, Steve continued, "If we can't get more information from the locals, then we look further. Clint, are there any hints from the game that can help us?"

"Well," Clint dragged out the word as he thought, one talon reaching up to scratch at the side of his body in concentration. "I don't really remember much, it was mostly my kids that played it, you know. But they did mention something about mountains and legendary Pokemon. Maybe that's a place to start?"

"Good enough," Steve agreed. Pulling on what confidence he could, he ordered, "We'll drop by the shop in the south to see if there's anything resembling a map. If not, we'll start surveying the terrain around town starting tomorrow morning. For now, let's stock up on provisions for traveling, which I assume will have to be on foot."

"Or wing," Clint joined in with a grin-like tilt to his beak.

Steve resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the childish wordplay.

"And where will we stay?" Wanda asked. Gesturing to the single roomed hut, she added, "We can't all sleep here."

"Follow me," Natasha responded as she moved toward the door. Turning around to address Steve, she ordered, "You stay here."

Steve nodded dumbly as he watched the two women walk out of the hut.

"My roost is your roost," Clint told Steve with his wings wide spread.

This time, Steve didn't resist the urge to roll his eyes.

"Steve," Natasha greeted them the next morning, not bothering to knock as she came into their hut with Wanda tagging behind her. "It turns out that Wanda was able to get some more information from the locals."

"I could sense their thoughts," Wanda explained, "unlike the Poke-a-mon we saw in the caves. They are wary of us and seem to think of us as a threat."

"And it's not because we're strangers," Natasha added.

"Yes, they know we are humans," Wanda agreed.

"Which means there has to be humans around," Clint said.

"So did you read anything that can help us find them?" Steve asked Wanda.

"No. I could not make out any more details. There was too much fear, it clouds the thoughts," Wanda answered. Then, after a pause, she added, "But I think it would be best to start in the mountains."

"Any specific reason?" Steve asked.

"No, just a hunch."

"Your hunches have been pretty good so far," Steve said. "We can start by trying our luck out at the nearest mountain range. If we don't find anything, we'll need to figure out how to fund a longer expedition to get across it."

"Well, if we're heading into a dungeon, then I hope you got us plenty of berries," Clint said.

Once again, Steve found himself out of his depth.

The confusion must have been obvious as Clint explained, "The game. That's what it calls these areas, a dungeon. It's meant to be explored and can earn us rewards."

The explanation helped Steve not at all. Given Wanda's equally perplexed expression, Steve was pretty sure it wasn't some new millenium slang that he hadn't caught up on, but rather Clint's esoteric game jargon that was confusing.

"Haven't you played any video games since you woke up?" Clint bemoaned.

Steve shrugged. He hadn't, of course. A few SHIELD agents had once tried to lend him their games, but all the shooting had put him off immediately. He'd already fought a war before coming into the 21st century. He didn't need to relive it.

"Ugh, fine. In these games, the explorable areas are usually filled with hostile enemies. You need to buy some healing items, because they're designed as a battle of attrition. And in Pokemon games, those healing items are usually berries."

Steve nodded as he took mental notes of Clint's more laymen explanation. Unfortunately, a problem was immediately apparent.

"Where do we get money?"

"Oh my god," Clint finally moaned. Then, after a dramatic flop onto the floor, he said into the rug, "We'll go to the Mystical Forest. If we're lucky, we'll find some money in the dungeon."

As it turns out, Mystical Forest was an aptly descriptive name. The first thing Steve noticed about the region was that the plant life seemed to be abnormally active.

"Is it just me or are those odd radish looking plants walking?" Steve asked as he stared at the aforementioned odd radish plants marching in a row across the small dirt path.

Clint carried their bag of apples while Wanda took point, relying on her instinctive senses to lead. Natasha kept to their six, leaving Steve to waddle in the middle. He had thought briefly of trying to fly, especially given the more open area in the woods as opposed to the claustrophobic encasement of the cave, but since Clint seemed perfectly happy ignoring his wings, Steve decided to stay on terra firma.

"Those are Oddish, a type of plant Pokemon," Clint expounded as though those words meant anything to the rest of the party.

"I thought Pokemon were the animal creatures?" Steve asked.

"Nah, they're monsters. Pocket monsters," Clint clarified. "That means they can look like anything. I mean, look at Natasha, does she look like an animal to you?"

Natasha responded by slapping Clint across the back of his leafy head with her short forelimb after an impressive vertical leap. Steve wisely kept his beak shut.

"Ow," Clint complained.

"It's not like I chose to look like this," Natasha grumbled at the same time. "And you still haven't told me what the hell I am."

"I told you, there's like over 900 of these critters. How the hell am I supposed to remember all of their names?" Clint moaned. "It's bad enough I can name even 151 of them."

Steve briefly wondered at the oddly specific number before Clint elaborated, "The game started with 151 Pokemon and I got sucked into memorizing all of them. They released more Pokemon with every new sequel. Things got a little crazy 20 years later."

"This Poke-a-mon game has sequels?" Wanda asked, disbelieving.

She had stopped leading the team and was looking a little disconcerted. Steve silently agreed that a video game based on collecting absurdly designed monsters seemed rather eccentric to warrant sequels. Much less 20 years worth of them.

"It's an entire multimedia franchise," Clint confirmed, then added as an aside, "I can't believe SHIELD didn't make you learn about Pokemon. How can you know about Doctor Who and not know about Pokemon? The franchise defined an entire generation. Even the presidential candidates knew about Pokemon."

"Wait, I thought you said your kids played this game," Natasha interjected suddenly, apropos of nothing. "You never said you played them, too."

"Well, I played the flagship games. My kids played the spin-offs," Clint explained.

Steve, Wanda and Natasha gave him identical blank stares of incomprehension.

Clint sighed and clarified, "It's like how you have the main Star Wars movies with the episode numbers and then there's the movies that don't really fit into the main storyline, but are kind of told as one-off side stories, like Rogue One. Only, in this case, it's video games. The games I played are the numbered episodes and the games my kids played are the Rogue Ones."

Steve shuddered internally at the mention of Star Wars. Even with the help of the internet and his superhuman reading speed, the sheer volume of information associated with the search term "Star Wars" had prevented him from going down his list of "things to catch up on in the 21st century" for months. Had it not been for the forcible hospitalization Bucky foisted onto him and Sam's resulting bedside vigil, Steve was certain he would still not have listened to the full soundtrack of Troubleman.

What happened to regular movies that ended once you walked out of the theaters? Steve had wondered during his furious internet binge on all things Star Wars. It seemed as if there was a never ending supply of expansive story that spread into not only more movies, but also novels, musicals, and video games.

Just the reminder of the franchise made Steve weary with exhaustion.

Meanwhile, Clint was still energetically explaining the more subtle differences between the flagship and spin-off games of Pokemon to an increasingly dazed looking Wanda. Natasha, Steve noticed, had peeled off from their group and was lagging behind several paces, possibly trying to tune out Clint's growing enthusiasm.

Slowing his own footsteps, Steve fell in line with Natasha.

Quietly, so as not to disrupt the gesticulating Clint, Steve asked Natasha, "Did you do that on purpose?"

Natasha graced him with an unreadable look. Instead of answering his question, she said, "I'm pretty sure we're being followed."

"Shouldn't we let the others know?"

"I don't want them tipping off our tail," Natasha said. Then immediately admonished, "Don't look."

Steve snapped his face forward, trying his best to act as though he was not aware that they were being followed. It reminded him uncomfortably of his and Natasha's run from the STRIKE team just a few years ago.

"Who is it?" Steve asked as he fought the urge to look over his shoulder.

"Not sure. Might not even be a who," Natasha answered as she lengthened her stride as much as her new legs allowed. "It might be just another Pokemon."

"But why would it be following us? I thought Wanda said they were afraid of us."

"You mean you don't think these creatures are capable of assassinating us," Natasha corrected as she discretely tilted her head, trying to catch a glimpse of their pursuer.

Turning back to Steve, she continued, "Don't let their cute appearance fool you, Rogers. They're called 'monsters' for a reason."

"I don't understand," Steve confessed. He was struck by the urge to rub the back of his neck in frustration and felt an intense longing for his human arms. He settled for rustling his wings instead. "Why would they want to assassinate us? We haven't done anything suspicious."

"Somehow they knew we're humans stuck in a Pokemon body in a world where humans don't seem to exist. Neither Clint nor I have said anything about being human, and you and Wanda barely talked to any of them. How would they know?"

"That's what we're going to find out, isn't it?" Steve asked.

The question of how humans fit into this world, why they have not seen any humans at all despite their existence being familiar to the world's denizens, and where the source of animosity rests were all core to their ultimate goal of finding a way to leave this world and return to their own.

As Steve pondered the conundrum, he noticed what must have caught Natasha's attention earlier: the sound of footsteps just slightly off beat from their small group. Before Steve could respond or formulate a plan, the decision was taken out of his metaphorical hands when a pair of razor sharp leaves flew out of Clint's foliage of feathers and whizzed past his head, barely missing his cheeks.

At the same time, behind Steve a squeaky voice yelled, "Heil Hydra!" that quickly tapered into a distressed cry.

He and Natasha turned just in time to see an oblong, yellow creature fall from midair and slam into the ground.

"What is it?" Steve asked as the four companions crowded around the twitching body. From where he stood, Steve thought it rather resembled a platypus.

"It's a Psyduck," Clint said, which wasn't much of an answer.

"It's not human," Wanda added.

"It yelled 'Heil Hydra' didn't it?" was Natasha's question, which raised Steve's hackles.

"How the hell did Hydra get here? And if it's not human, how is it still part of Hydra?" Steve wondered as they continued to stand and stare, unmoving, at the fainted Pokemon.

"We should take it in for questioning," Natasha opined, her relatively tiny paws cracking in a familiar manner.

"Where are we going to hold it?" Clint asked.

If the Psyduck was indeed involved with Hydra, it may prove dangerous to the residents of Pokemon Square. Even if the Hydra of this world does not resemble the Hydra of their own, it is still highly probable that any organization that is named after a mythical monster would be up to no good. Unless...

"Clint, does 'hydra' mean something different in Pokemon games?" Steve asked, just to make sure.

"Nothing that I can think of," Clint replied after a thoughtful pause. "But, it's not like this world is identical to the game either."

Still, better safe than sorry, Steve thought.

Steve looked up from where he had been watching the prone body and caught Wanda's gaze. As their eyes met, he asked, "Can you pick up on anything else from its mind?"

"Not when its unconscious," Wanda answered with a shrug.

"We can't just leave it out here and we can't take it back. What now, Steve?" Natasha asked.

"Man, if we had a Pokeball things would be so much easier," Clint complained before Steve could answer.

Once again, the three humans who did not play the Pokemon games were left staring at Clint in confusion.

He took in their boggled expressions and explained, "There are these balls that you can throw at weak Pokemon and it captures them. Then you can store the balls in a computer and pull them out when you need to use the Pokemon inside."

A growing sense of horror crawled along Steve's spine as Clint finished.

It must have shown on his face, because Clint amended, "It's totally voluntary. The Pokemon wants to join you after you've whittled down its health with other Pokemon."

"That's not helping, Clint," Natasha admonished in Steve's steed, as Steve was still trying to digest the thought of a children's game built on the systematic enslavement of sapient creatures for the purposes of battle.

Finally, Steve decided, "We're not putting it in a Pokeball."

No one raised any objections.

"We're in a forest, there's got to be vines or something we can use as rope," Steve said.

Immediately, the others jumped to action and, between the four of them, they were able to scrounge up enough plant fiber to twist into a makeshift length of rope, which Steve used to tie up the Psyduck. The effort took longer than it should have, as Steve found himself vacillating between trying to use his talons and trying to use his wings. Wanda and Natasha pitched in after the first aborted attempt, while Clint stood by, on guard, clutching at their bag full of food with one clawed feet.

Finally, their would be attacker was tied up and the four settled to wait for the Psyduck to come back to consciousness. As the sun descended near the horizon, the Pokemon began to stir.

Stepping back from their prisoner, Steve and Clint made room for Natasha to begin her interrogation. Beside them, Wanda also watched closely for a chance to grab any relevant information from the Pokemon's mind.

"Who are you?" Natasha did not waste time getting to the point.

It wasn't her usual style, but Steve trusted Natasha had a better grasp of this kind of operation than he would.

"Heil Hydra!"

The response surprised Steve not at all. The only Hydra operative that had ever been cooperative in his experience had been Zola, and that turned out to be a ruse, too.

Meanwhile, Natasha continued to interrogate.

"What is Hydra?"

"Hydra is order. Heil Hydra!"

"And who leads Hydra?"

"The Red Octillery. Heil Hydra!"

"I swear, I am going to cut out its tongue if I hear 'Heil Hydra' one more time," Clint muttered underneath his breath.

Instead of agreeing, which Steve did, he turned to Wanda and whispered, "Are you picking up anything?"

"Only an image," she whispered back in a low voice.

Bending over, she placed the tip of her stick into the ground and drew in the dirt a rough circular shape with eight curled limbs radiating from the lower half.

"I think that's pretty definitive. What do you think, Cap?"

Steve nodded his assent. It was unmistakable that this Hydra was if not identical then at least similar to the Hydra of old. The fanaticism of the Pokemon was also eerily familiar.

A sudden scream dragged Steve, Wanda, and Clint's attention from their huddled whispers back to the interrogation at hand. While they had been conferring among themselves, Natasha had done something to their prisoner who was now lying supine on the ground, clearly knocked out for the count.

"Nat, what happened?"

Natasha took time to dust herself before she answered, "I've heard enough 'Heil Hydra's for the rest of my life. I also found out that the organization known as Hydra has appeared somewhere between 50 to 70 years ago. And I've found out that their leader is a Pokemon called 'Octillery', which might mean something to Clint."

Clint shook his head at the name, then quickly added, "There aren't evil Pokemon in the games and Octillery wasn't a popular Pokemon. It never got that much attention, especially in the spin-off games. It also wasn't cute enough to sell toys the way the mascot Pokemon were, so there's very little lore surrounding—"

"Okay, we get the idea," Steve cut him off before Clint could get too far on the tangent and bury their current lead.

Turning back to Natasha, Steve asked, "How much do you want to bet this leader Octillery is the reason the locals are wary of humans?"

"You think Hydra's leader is also human," Natasha surmised. "Why?"

"Besides the fact that this world seemed to be composed of talking monsters, what struck you as the most odd?" Steve questioned back.

Natasha mulled it over before answering, "The society is post-scarcity, yet there is a currency based economy with a universal currency that is generated through gathering rather than controlled by a central minting process."

"Which means there's nothing generating artificial demand," Steve agreed as he picked up when Natasha stopped. "There's no government or institution in this world, but somehow there is an organization based on the concept of political domination. That's a concept that we have, but it's completely foreign to this world. The most likely explanation then is that someone like us brought it in."

"But how?" Wanda asked. "We do not even know how we arrived here. How could Hydra intentionally do it?"

"If we can remember what happened before we got sent here, then maybe we'll be able to answer that question," Steve told Wanda. "In the mean time, we hunt down Hydra and find out what they want."

"So, what do we do now?" Clint asked. "I mean, Cap, we're only four people—Pokemon, and there's no saying how many goons Hydra has."

"Clint's right," Natasha agreed, "we're still new in this world and Hydra had 70 years to build up their power."

Steve opened his mouth to object, but Natasha preempted his protest. "We're distrusted here and we don't have resources. All we have is a bag full of berries and these Pokemon bodies. But Hydra is after us, the Psyduck makes that point perfectly clear. Even if we don't go looking for Hydra, they're coming to us. Let's stick to fortifying our base and play defensive until we can get more information."

Steve had to concede that Natasha was talking sense. Despite his friends' misgivings, Steve was still capable of recognizing a suicidal course of action and avoiding it appropriately.

"You're right," Steve finally breathed out, to which Clint and Natasha let out an audible sigh of relief.

Steve glared at them for the low opinion they held regarding his impulse control, but could not put any real heat behind the disapproval.

"We'll stay on defensive and build up our base, which means we need to find one first."

Clint piped up again, confidence brimming as the topic shifted back into his area of expertise. "Don't worry, Steve, leave it up to me. I've got this."

Without further ado, Clint turned to lead the team out of the forest and back into town.

As they walked, Wanda brought herself abreast Steve and offered, "You're not the only one that has a score to settle with Hydra."

Steve nodded in thanks for her moral support.