For a time that could have been a second or a billion years, there was nothing. Not the peaceful, empty blackness of sleep, but a profound and absolute un-ness. The fainted Ditto was a concept without form, a thought without a mind, adrift in the silent, timeless void between realities. It was a mote of data floating in a cosmic recycle bin, flagged for permanent deletion but never quite processed. There was no sensation, no awareness, only the faintest echo of a consciousness that had once existed.
Then, the void, which had been static for an eternity, shuddered.
A ripple of profound wrongness tore through the nothingness, not a sound or a light, but a vibration in the very fabric of non-existence. Far away, yet all around, reality was being unmade. Timelines were being pruned, a cosmic reset initiated by two divine entities trying to cover their tracks. The void became a drain, and the fainted Ditto, a forgotten piece of debris, was caught in the current.
It was pulled, dragged, and then violently sucked into a maelstrom of raw potential and collapsing paradoxes. Shards of broken time and slivers of alternate spaces scraped against its inert form. It was a chaotic, agonizing flush through the plumbing of the universe.
A pinprick of light appeared, rapidly expanding into a searing, green-and-blue tear in the chaos. The Ditto was unceremoniously spat out of the vortex like a wad of gum. For a brief moment, it tumbled through a sky it couldn't see, over a world it couldn't feel, before gravity reasserted its claim.
The impact was a wet, heavy thwump as the pink blob slammed into soft, yielding earth, burying itself half a foot deep from the sheer momentum.
And then, stillness.
The world moved on around the inert, semi-conscious meteorite. The sun baked the earth above it. Rains soaked it, turning the dirt around it to mud. A season began to turn, the vibrant green leaves of summer slowly crisping at the edges. Deep within the inert mass, a single, infinitesimal point of health struggled to form, the natural regeneration of its body working at a pace that was glacial even by geological standards. For months it lay there, a forgotten anomaly in a freshly rebooted world.
Until, finally, after an eternity in the void and months in the dirt, a single, agonizing spark of awareness returned.
__
Consciousness returned to me in slow, disorienting waves.
First came the light—dappled golden-green, filtering through leaves. Then the sounds—chirping, rustling, the distant cry of what was unmistakably a Pidgey. And finally, the sensation—cool earth beneath me, the faint prickle of grass, and the unmistakable, unholy feeling of being half-buried in dirt.
"What… the… fuck."
I tried to move.
"AGH—FUCK—OW—"
Every inch of my gelatinous body screamed in protest. It felt like I'd been run over by a Snorlax, then left to dry in the sun for a week. My form was sluggish, unresponsive, as if my very cells had forgotten how to be a Ditto.
"Okay. Okay. Breathe. Or… whatever the hell Dittos do."
I forced myself to stay still, focusing on the world around me instead.
I was in a forest. A thick one. Moss-covered trees towered overhead, their canopies weaving together into a natural ceiling. A Weedle inched along a branch above me, blissfully unaware of the existential crisis happening below.
"So. Not a dream."
The crushing weight of that realization hit me harder than Dialga's Roar of Time.
"I'm still a fucking Ditto."
And then came the real question:
"HOW THE FUCK AM I ALIVE?!"
The last thing I'd seen was that damned [Ditto has fainted] message. I'd been vaporized. Reduced to subatomic confetti by two gods throwing a tantrum. There was no way—
A familiar blue screen flickered to life in front of me.
[Ditto - Level 0] [HP: 1/48] [PP: 100/100] [Status: Near-Fainted, Exhausted] [Moves Learned: Transform] [Battle Logs]
I stared at the screen, my mind grinding like a busted hard drive trying to process what I was seeing.
"What the fuck do you mean, 'Near-Fainted'? I was annihilated! Reduced to ash! There was nothing near about it—"
Wait. Hold up. Let me think about this rationally for a second.
Level 0. HP and PP displayed like some RPG status screen. Battle Logs. This whole setup... it's like I'm living inside a Pokemon game. But that doesn't make sense because I clearly remember getting trampled in what was definitely the movie—the Alamos Town thing with Palkia and Dialga going at each other's throats.
But then again, during that whole clusterfuck, I kept getting those blue screens. The move learning notifications, the status updates... Hell, even when I transformed into discount Palkia, it felt exactly like watching a Pokemon evolve on screen, just with way more cosmic horror involved.
My furious mental rant was cut short as my focus landed on the last option on the screen.
[Battle Logs]
Oh? Maybe this'll give me some answers.
Curiosity, that bastard of a cat-killer, was stronger than my rage. With a mental nudge, a "click" that felt like flexing a muscle I didn't have, I selected it. A new screen scrolled into view, a clinical, emotionless play-by-play of my own near-death experience.
[Battle Log: Alamos Town Incident] [Event Start]
[A wild Office Worker's Heavy Boot appeared!]
[Office Worker's Heavy Boot used Stomp!] [It's super effective!] [Ditto lost 0.01 HP!]
[A wild Jogger's Sneaker appeared!] [Jogger's Sneaker used Quick Attack!] [Ditto lost 0.005 HP!]
[A wild Tauros's Hoof appeared!] [Tauros's Hoof used Stomp!] [A critical hit!] [Ditto lost 0.02 HP!]
...
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
The system had logged every single footstep as a separate battle encounter. Every boot, sneaker, and hoof that had used my squishy form as a doormat was catalogued with the same clinical precision as a gym battle. It was like watching the world's most depressing speedrun of "How many ways can a Ditto get disrespected?"
I kept scrolling, skimming through dozens more entries of pedestrian-based violence until I reached the good stuff.
[User has been afflicted by Status Effect: [Overwhelming Horniness] via [Auspicious Skirt Draft]. Duration: 12 seconds. Effect: [Terror] temporarily suppressed. Morale +100.]
"Hah! Even the system acknowledged the divine panty shot," I chuckled, feeling a brief spark of pride in my moment of cultured appreciation.
The logs went one and on..User struck by collateral damage from [Falling Debris]. Damage: 3...User struck by collateral shockwave from [Palkia's Roar... No damage... User has been displaced...User struck by collateral shockwave from [Roar of Time]....User slammed into [Lamppost].
Dammit, did it have to record these things in such detail!? [User Patience is critically low!] [User's [Rage] meter has reached maximum capacity.]
[Move Learned: Transform]
And there it was. The moment everything went to shit.
[User has activated [Transform]. Target: [Palkia - Lv ???]] [WARNING: Disparity between User Level (0) and Target Level (???) is critical. Transformation will be unstable.]
[Result: Stats have been randomized. Form integrity is compromised. Learned moves are restricted to User's equivalent level.] [Move Learned (Palkia Form): Scary Face (10 PP)] [HP and PP remain unchanged.]
"Level zero trying to copy a max-level legendary," I muttered. "No wonder I looked like Palkia's inbred cousin. It's like trying to run Crysis on a calculator."
The logs continued documenting my brief, catastrophic career as a bootleg space god:
[User (Palkia Form) used Awkward Step Back!]
[Building (Office Complex, 5-Story) has fainted!]
[Civilian Casualties: 12, Pokémon Casualties: 3]
[No challenge was issued. No EXP or currency will be awarded.]
[User (Palkia Form) used Tail Whip (Unintentional)!]
[Building (Residential Block) has fainted!]
[Street Vendor Cart (Snacks) has fainted!]
[Egg (Mystery) has been defeated!]
"Wait, an egg?!" My gelatinous form rippled in horror. "Who brings an egg to an apocalypse?!"
[User (Palkia Form) used Clumsy Wing Flap!] [Effect: Micro-Hurricane!] [Roof Sections x7 have fainted!] [Stray Meowth has been defeated!] [Old Man (Bystander) has been defeated!]
... [Additional collateral damage entries: 47] ...
And then, the pièce de résistance.
[User (Palkia Form) used Unbalanced Stumble!]
[Collision Detected: Space-Time Tower A!]
[Space-Time Tower A has fainted!]
[Passive Ability [Cosmic Domino Effect] triggered!]
[Space-Time Tower B has fainted!]
[User has successfully performed [Assisted Gravity-Based Homicide] on [Chosen One - Ash], [Contest Hopeful - Dawn], [Pikachu], [Piplup], and [Misc. Party Members]. All targets have fainted.]
I stared at that line for a long moment.
"Fainted," I said slowly. "Not 'killed.' Not 'crushed into paste.' Fainted."
A thought was forming in my head. A really, really important thought.
"In the games, Pokemon don't die. They just faint. Pop them in a Pokemon Center, hit them with a Revive, and boom—good as new."
But wait. That was definitely the movie scenario I'd been dropped into, not a game. I'd seen Ash and the gang get pancaked by several tons of falling architecture. There was no way that was just "fainting."
...Right?
[Enemy Palkia and Enemy Dialga enraged!]
[Enemy Palkia used [Spacial Rend]!]
[Enemy Dialga used [Roar of Time]!]
[Combined attack effectiveness: It's not very effective...]
"Not very effective?!" I sputtered. "They fucking erased me from existence!"
[User struck by enemy Palkia's [Spacial Rend]. Damage: 48,932,441 (Overkill)]
[User struck by enemy Dialga's [Roar of Time]. Damage: 51,067,558 (Overkill)]
[User HP has been reduced to 0.] [User has fainted!]
[You have lost the battle...]
[Battle Lost!] [You have lost 690 Pokédollars as a penalty!]
[Current Balance: -690 Pokédollars.]
[WARNING: User is in debt!]
My non-existent eye twitched. "What? Money? You drop me into a nightmare dimension, get me splattered by gods, and you have the absolute gall to charge me for the privilege?"
But that wasn't the important part. The important part was staring me right in my metaphorical face.
"I took over ninety-nine million damage," I said slowly, my voice a whisper of awe and horror. "And my HP only went from 48 to 0."
...
...
"Holy shit. I'm running on game mechanics!"
___
Funny thing, I thought that powerstone ranking gets reset every monday midnight, and I am sure thats was how it was 4-5 months ago.
I had put the chapter on schedule posting for 9th midnight, thinking that today was 9th. Well, today I was double confused, and then I saw that today is just Sunday? Talk about being dazed.
I just saw that this chapter wasn't uploaded even till now, so I pushed it rn. You can expect another chapter later today (like in 2-3 hours) as this was for yesterday.
I am also thinking of making this a weekly update type of book with 3000-4000 word per chapter type of book as I foolishly started publishing 2 fanfics at the same time. The daily grind is just too much yikes. What do you guys think?