Mayor
But there were other questions. Why another Pokémon universe? Or is this the same as the one I was in as a Vaporeon? That couldn't have been the case, not when he hadn't encountered a single anthropomorphic Pokémon while there. Are there humans here? Will there be nothing but other Lugias here? Am I the only one? As always, there was only one way to find out. He exited the bathroom and faced the big, blue front door. Without hesitation, he marched forward and opened it.
It was walking into a hotbed of color and noise, a flashbang to the senses after having been couped up for so long against his will. It forcibly made him recoil and squint his eyes. When they blinked open and came into focus, he saw the sprawling village he'd phased into. A dusty roundabout circled a signpost whose wooden arrows pointed about randomly. Orbiting the circle were several quaint houses like Jared's, albeit with their own designs and personalities unique to their neighbors. The ground swelled westward into a slope, evening out into another neighborhood of homes of similar size and distinctiveness. Is this supposed to be this realm's version of the town I was in? Is there an ocean on the other side of it? Is there any connection between them at all?
His train of thought was interrupted by the passing shadow of a bird. He looked up and caught a glimpse of an anthropomorphic silhouette, its body parallel to the ground with the wing-arms outstretched into a T-shape. With the sun high in the sky right above it, Jared shielded his eyes and tracked the flying creature as it went. The sun's afterimage had burned a fat blotch of blue into his retinas, but before the flying creature flew out of sight, he thought he recognized the colors and feather patterns of a Pidgeot.
“Hi, Mayor!”
Jared nearly jolted out of his skin. He blinked the afterimage out of his eyes and looked across the traffic circle to see someone standing in the front doorway of their home. It was a woman with cream colored fur across her body and a lithe cattail hovering behind her. She resembled a normal (that word had become very relative to Jared these past few weeks) cat woman he might've encountered in the other realms, but there gleamed a bright gold coin atop her forehead. Jared identified her as either a Meowth or a Persian.
Did she just call me Mayor? Is she even talking to me? She was looking right at him, waiting for a response, so apparently yes. Jared cleared his throat, unsure if he would even be able to talk. “Uhh, hi! How are you?” His voice sounded exactly like it had anywhere else. After his time in the other Pokémon universe as a Vaporeon he had grown used to pronouncing nothing but his species' name.
“Oh, I'm just fine! I'm headed out for foraging.” She stepped the rest of the way outside and closed the door behind her. “You have a nice day!”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 20 August 2025
The end (for now)