The Dream Realm

I woke up in a weird place, to say the least. It was a large arena, with an open ceiling. When I looked through it, there was nothing but a dark sky that was littered with stars. The stands of the arena, or rather, colosseum, were empty. And across from me was standing a group of people. They all seemed to be male. But after a few seconds, I realized who they were.

They were Red, Gold, Brendan, Lucas, Hilbert, Nate, Calem, Elio, Victor, and Rei from the pokemon games in my old world. They were all the male player characters. I could only wonder what they were doing here. Out of the group, Calem stepped forwards, and he began to speak.

"Hey, Black! I'm sure that you know I'm Calem. Nice to finally meet you!" he said. He spoke with a slight French accent. He stuck his hand out and began to walk forwards. For some reason, I walked forwards as well. As we met in the middle of the arena, we shook hands.

"Now, I'm sure you have questions. So go ahead and ask away!" he said.

"Uh, what is this place?" I asked.

"Well, none of us are exactly sure. We presume it's just a void of sorts to keep us out of your story."

"What do you mean, my story?"

"Simply put, you took our place. Instead of us being in the world of pokemon, you became the main character. Not that any of us hold a grudge against you, though. Red might, but that's just him. He doesn't speak very much."

And of course, Red had no response.

"Ooookay, but then why am I here? If this is a void to keep you out of my story, what am I doing here? Is there something I need to know about?"

"Well, yeah. I called you here to warn you about an upcoming event that could sway how your world works entirely."

"And what event is that exactly?"

"That guy Lysandre of Team Flare is gonna destroy the world," Nate said as he stepped forwards.

"Yeah, what he said," Calem replied.

"Okay, but I already knew that. I know what his plan is, and with the allies I have, I know I can stop it. So why bring me here?" I asked.

"That's true, you do have great allies. But remember, this is no longer a game. Rather, for you, it's the real world. Lysandre won't be so naive to just stop his plan because you beat him in a pokemon battle," Calem answered.

"Yeah, that's true. So what do you suggest I do, huh?"

"Train! All you can really do at the end of the day is train, so get to it!" Calem said, enthusiastically.

And with that, they began training me together. Not all out battles, but just training. It was rigorous, but worth it. While training, I asked a few more questions. As it turns out, the mask and hoodie that I found were planted by them. Which meant they did have a little bit of impact on the real world. However, they had no idea about the skateboard. Weird. But they did tell me that if I ever wanted or needed to talk to them, I could just put the hoodie on and go to sleep.

"Wait, what's with that message on the hoodie? And why'd you put it in Japanese?" I asked as I was sparring with Elio. His fighting style was quite unique, as it had a large amount of flow to it. I liked it.

"Oh, that? That's just what you say when you want to leave this place. None of us have ever said it, since there's nowhere for us to go. But for some reason, we all came here with the knowledge that if we ever wanted to leave, that's what we had to say," Brendan responded.

As I was training with them, I realized that time had to be passing. And that sooner or later, I had to leave. This made me frantic and almost say the phrase, but they reassured me. Since it's a void, time didn't pass. Which means that I could stay here as long as I wanted, without consequence. It was great!

That is, until Calem decided to ask me for a battle. A full-on, six-on-six, no holds barred battle. And naturally, I accepted without hesitation.