Hacked! 13.5

Meanwhile, in the Kalos region, a young trainer named Stanley Delroi entered a Pokemon Center. His journey had made him a lean young man, and he had picked up the habit of stuffing his messy, light brown hair beneath a Pancham cap. He had his usual team - Greninja, Talonflame, Tyrantrum, Tentacruel, and Lucario - plus one more that he had just acquired. An Ultra Ball danced in his hand before he placed the sphere on the round pillar beneath the metallic cone of the transport tube.

Stanley clicked in the box of his PC. He had just caught Moltres, a mythical bird of fire that looked somewhat like a needle-beaked Fearow cloaked in flames, and intended to keep the bird hidden away as opposed to using it in battle. Perhaps it would replace Talonflame in the near future. For now, however, Moltres was going in a box of his rarest Pokemon: a golden fox cloaked in a red "robe;" a Zangoose with blue slash marks across its chest instead of red; an Absol with Absolite; a Solrock that looked as though it had been dipped red and gold in the sun; a strange mammal with armored legs and a spiked, turtle-like shell; finally, his original, blue frog of a Greninja, "Froglegs." He called this his "box of treasures."

The trainer's eyes sparkled as his Moltres transferred into the PC. The Ultra Ball containing Moltres broke itself up into green lines of light. They darted into the cone above like moths to flame. Stanley watched a beam of light suck his Moltres into the metal canister, then into the transport tu-

Bzzt.

The screen went dark. Stanley's face went from its giddy smile to a bug-eyed expression of shock.

"W-what?!"

Stanley tried flicking the switches on the PC on and off; nothing worked. He thought it might just be the monitor; flicking those switches did nothing. No, it was not just the screen, Stanley realized; all the lights in the Pokemon Center had gone black.

"No..." he muttered, flipping a few switches. It was, of course, an exercise in futility. That did not stop him from flipping more and more switches. "Nonononono!"

A nurse with red hair curled into large donuts at the sides of her head rushed over to him. She was one of the millions of "Joys" employed in Pokemon Centers across the Kalos region. Near the foot of her light blue uniform was a pink, rabbit-like creature with dangling tendrils coming from its folded ears.

"I'm so sorry about the power outage," she said with a bow. The Audino at her side took a polite bow as well. "Rest assured we will try to get everything back up and running as soon as possible. In fact, the backup power should be kicking in anytime now."

As if by magic, the back of the Pokemon Center flickered to life. Tube by tube of fluorescent lighting zapped itself on. The round machine on which trainers put their Poke Balls lit up with blue light. It looked as if everything had returned to normal.

The computer did not. While everything else ran as usual, the public computer in the Pokemon Center still had a black screen. The nurse looked at Stanley worriedly as he went over to the computer and pressed the "on" switch.

There was nothing. Not even a beep.

"What about my Moltres?" Stanley asked. Beads of sweat ran down the sides of his face. He had chased that thing for days on end before finally cornering it in a cave by the sea. He did not know what happened to data-glitched Pokemon, and did not want to think about what a computer error would do to something so precious.

"Well, if it went into the transport tube, it should be fine," she replied. "I'll call our technician. Don't you worry; whatever you sent over will be all right."

Stanley's heart beat like a Butterfree's wings as Nurse Joy dialed a number. A thought about his Moltres occupied every second. Would it really be OK? What if being frozen in transport left it permanently injured? He could not stop worrying about his new bird.

After what felt like an eternity but was more likely only ten minutes, a bright yellow van pulled up alongside the Lumiose City Pokemon Center. It had an outline of a Raichu - a long-tailed rodent with a lightning bolt adorning the tail's tip - running atop the letters of "Someone's PC Repair." The slogan, "We'll fix your computer so fast, you won't know who did it!" was stamped in blue letters beneath the name.

One of the yellow doors cracked open. Out came a pudgy, middle-aged man wearing thick glasses on his messy-haired head. A patch with "Bill" written on it in cursive was plastered onto his yellow uniform. A bulging gut produced round seam between his bright yellow top and worn jean bottoms.

Stanley grimaced. This guy looked like one of the Pokemaniacs he saw in caves. Maybe this was what they did after ten years. The trainer silently wondered if this guy still had his pet Grimer.

"Hello, miss Joy. You called?"

"Yes," the nurse said. "Everything else in the building is working, but-"

"The computer won't start," Stanley stated. He was trying to be as calm as possible. "I was trying to transfer a Moltres…sir." He still hesitated to call the greasy-haired nerd "sir."

"Well, let's see what we have, then," Bill said.

The obese mechanic began looking the computer over. Stanley had never given a thought to what a computer looked like from behind until he saw the metal panels for himself. Some had ventilation for fans, but nothing moved. With a "hmm," Bill proceeded to start his work.

The first things Bill did were obvious. He flipped the switch on and off, just like Stanley had. He unplugged everything, including the internet cable, then plugged it back in. There was still nothing.

"Strange," he said. "Ol' girl must be on her way out, or it's a factory defect…has this ever happened before?" Joy shook her head. "Puzzling."

Suddenly, without warning, the computer decided to come back to life. Sparks flew from the back end, flying here and there like a spastic Pichu's cheeks. The screen flickered on and off in odd, pixelated stripes. Goodness knew where that Moltres was now.

"Aaah!" Joy screamed. The sparks nearly scorched her uniform. She had her hands and arms held over her face to shield herself from the stray electricity as she moved back a few feet.

"Are you still sure my Moltres will be OK?" Stanley yelled over the hissing unit.

"You have a Moltres? Lucky boy!" Bill shouted over the hissing. Louder pops sounded from the PC's tower. Chips of plastic flew off as if a baby Pokemon was trying to break its way out from within. The more it rattled, the more Stanley thought there was a hyperactive Pichu inside.

Finally, the fireworks stopped erupting from the computer. The screen went dark as a Murkrow's feathers. The only three people in the Pokemon Center could only look at the pile of scrap metal and plastic with black smoke trailing upward. The Audino peeked out from behind the counter, checking if the coast was clear.

"Well, not sure what to do now," Bill admitted. "Sorry, kid-"

"Stanley," Stanley interjected.

"Right, Stanley…your Moltres is on the internet, now. It'll probably remain stuck in cyberspace until you access your box again," Bill explained.

Joy looked at the smoldering machine. As Bill and Stanley discussed the precise mechanics of transporting Pokemon over the internet, she pondered how much it would take to replace the computer. The smell of computer chips singed by overheating (Joy did not even know they had a smell until that moment) tickled her nose.

"A-choo!" she sneezed. The smell only got stronger when Joy rubbed her nose. She would have asked how that could be if her nose had not started pointing straight out into a long, gold-furred muzzle.

"W-what?!" she gasped. Her nose had become cold and wet in a matter of seconds, and had taken her now teeth, fur, and tongue along for a ride in front of her face. Her eyes went wide, as did her ears, which slowly molded themselves into triangles.

Bill had something similar going on. When he turned to face Joy, his stubble had fluffed into an off-white mustache. Joy also noticed his shirt bulging into some sort of rounded, hard shell. Four additional spikes on the carapace made his shirt burst open like an overloaded shopping bag once they grew to full.

Bill suddenly turned. His now-exposed chest quickly covered itself in white fur. The rest of his bulk, meanwhile, hardened with creamy chitin. His mouth was wide open as three of his five fingers thickened with tough, brown nails, and the others receded into the white plating on his arms.

"Whatever's wrong with that PC, I don't even think the other Bill could fix it!" he exclaimed.

"The other Bill?" Stanley asked. "What other Billlll…." His last few words were slurred by a sudden, rapid expansion of his tongue. He could feel the skin beneath his shirt turning slimy. What he could see of his torso was already blue with a white underbelly. His own legs got skinnier and skinnier, very much like his own Greninja's. Stanley grimaced; as much as he had liked Froglegs, he did not want to be a frog.

"Yeah, some guy in Kanto has my nnaaauuught!" Bill howled. His face had suddenly poked out into a pointed, furry snout, tipped with a pink nose that looked almost adorable on the hulking hedgehog. A sudden, loud shrip!, and white plating shredded Bill's jeans. The tennis shoes were the last thing to go, revealing thick, sturdy brown claws as they exploded. A useless, but still armored tail poked out from beneath Bill's carapace, and the change was complete.

Meanwhile, Joy was having a hard time dealing with her fully-vulpine head. Her crazy donuts of bright red hair became undone, paving the way for a new, bizarre hairstyle: an explosion of red-orange fur, sculpted in triangles and located in her growing, triangular ears. She held a hand in front of her face; it quickly curled into a three-fingered paw covered in black fur.

Those claws ran through her new forest of ear hair as a long, furry tail swished out of her rear. She felt the "robe" of a Delphox puffing her uniform up before a mass of red fur finally erupted, complete with fluffy "sleeves" and two fiery marks on her knees. She winced as her delicate, ladylike feet grew short, black fur, becoming pawlike as her hands had. She knew that Delphox could grasp sticks; maybe she could still type, if only the computer decided to work.

"Gre!" Stanley croaked. He slapped a three-fingered, webbed hand over his mouth. He was slender enough to keep his shirt on, but a single step of those spindly legs and his shorts were on the floor. His thighs bulged, now free of any confines. The Moltres was the least of his worries; he let out an agonizing croak as three finlike projections adorned the sides of his face, with the third forming a crest on his dewdrop-shaped head.

The three looked at each other. Somehow, thanks to a glitching computer, they had become the three final forms of the "Starter" Pokemon of the Kalos region. They were shocked, sure, but not entirely out of options. Still, being Pokemon, they could only say their names in strange, unintelligible sentences.

"[I can probably still write with these paws,]" Joy observed, flexing the three fingers on her right hand. "[We aren't completely out of ways to tell people what happened.]"

Bill the Chesnaught looked at her incredulously. "[What would we tell them? That the comp went on the fritz and we got turned into Pokemon?]"

"[Sorry, again,]" Stanley croaked. He could not help but feel that the whole thing had been his fault. He had been using the PC when it died, and even after it had, he could not stop whining about his Moltres. He felt disgusting, and it had nothing to do with him becoming a poisonous frog. As if knowing something was wrong, the Audino behind the counter hopped over to him, and began nuzzling his leg.

There was no way for them to know that the broken PC had not been random. It was a side-effect from a world that they would never see, even though it was ever so slightly connected to their own. All they could do was hope that everything got set back to how it had been before.