I am Error

A Paradox Pokemon's Introductory
By Iron Valiant-anon

What I first remembered was that I found myself in a rambling spiral of questions. Why is it so dark? Why do my limbs feel so heavy? And why can't I feel anything? ...Why is my inner monologue more tinny and reverberating than I remember?

I thought I had finally succumbed to a stroke or fallen into a coma in my sleep after years of less than positive upkeep towards my health, both mental and physical. No one in the family was going to even realize this until the evening, when it was time for dinner, and checked in on my NEET-ass in the basement. What a way to go. I ultimately knew that I couldn't tolerate being stuck like this and began to struggle, trying to make anything happen other than utter stillness.

I remember working myself up to a panic as the void that I found myself in was suffocating me. I screamed silent screams and cried tearless cries as the blurring years of anxiety, depression, and self-pity came crashing down on me for what feels like the umpteenth time in my miserable life.

I continued thrashing around, slowly creeping myself through what felt like the ebbing tides of consciousness and unconsciousness as the inky blackness surrounding my senses began to slowly peel away. If I had to describe it, it kind of felt like that weird feeling you'd get after pressing down on your closed eyes while they're closed until you see a kaleidoscope of fuzz and colors in the blackness of your closed eyelids. There was maybe a hint of tinnitus and nausea there too. The human body wasn't doing me any favors.

...That's right, human body. I remember that exact thought being the right stimulus, shocking me to awareness. I was human, right? My vision filled with a blinding bloom of color like an old CRT monitor, showing before me the scene of an untamed wilderness. If this is some sort of prank, someone really went all out on this helmet I thought I was wearing. A garbled collection of glowing pink glyphs crossed my vision like schools of disorienting fish, with only one line of them really comprehensible to me.

*̸E̵M̵E̴R̷G̵E̶N̶C̵Y̵ ̵S̸Y̵S̵T̶E̷M̶ ̵R̶E̸F̸O̷R̶M̵A̸T̸ ̷C̴O̸M̴P̵L̵E̶T̵E̶,̵ ̴C̴R̴I̶T̷I̷C̸A̷L̵L̵Y̸ ̴D̵A̶M̴A̷G̴E̵D̷ ̴C̷O̴M̸P̶O̵N̴E̵N̶T̷S̷ ̸A̶N̷D̴ ̷P̵R̶O̷C̶E̴S̶S̸E̶S̵ ̷S̶E̴Q̴U̵E̷S̶T̵E̶R̸E̶D̸ ̴F̷O̸R̵ ̷F̷U̸T̷U̴R̴E̴ ̸E̷V̶A̵L̴U̶A̴T̵I̵O̵N̶

That's when I really started sobering up. This had to be a bad prank for some candid internet show. What the fuck did it mean by an emergency reformat? Was this some sort of virtual reality helmet stuck on me? I then recalled lying on the ground in a heap; my limbs didn't have any greater feeling in them anymore than when this first all started, save for a distant sense of pressure. It felt like my entire body was wrapped in several layers of concrete or plaster, weighing me down. I could finally hear the rustling of trees in the wind and the distant calls of what I figured were woodland creatures.

My first instinct after getting some feeling of mobility was to sit up and try to pry whatever this mess was off my head. I fought against the heaviness until I felt some fluidity in my movement and then started tugging at the sides of my head. I immediately realized that the dull lack of senses started veering on the edge of actual pain the more I pulled on myself. More of those symbols from earlier flashed by in response to a sudden instinct of self-preservation to stop trying to tear my literal head off. I felt the panic and anxiety boiling again as I pulled myself to my feet. Every little glance at my own body was quickly driving me up the wall as the scatterings of my mind did not accept the reality laid before me.

Shiny, dainty, white metal limbs with glowing pink fins that looked like they were designed by some sort of toy model kit company were tipped in little hands and covered in a black rubbery skin. A glowing pink protuberance in my chest hummed with energy. And I'm apparently wearing a metal-plated skirt with green interiors around my gangling, stalk-like legs. I knew this wasn't what I originally was. Whatever this is, it wasn't human. I wasn't taking this well at all.

I recall just bolting in a random direction the moment whatever constituted, as my nerves couldn't settle down from all this overwhelming information. I felt like I could run literally forever without exhaustion, probably to the edge of the world. I just kept running and running until I burst through the treeline into a clearing. I found myself standing in front of a collection of oddly colorful creatures that, judging by my vision, were not that much bigger than me. They were preoccupied with something before I suddenly emerged like a gaudy white, green, and pink beacon. They looked really familiar, but at the moment I was suffering from the onset of what could be described as ego death and felt like I had to kill something to justify everything that was happening to me right now. Pink reticles began to overlay the creatures, and feeds of information filled my senses. It looked like my body agreed with me.

Without a second thought, I dislodged the bladed protrusions off my forearms, and they combined into a large double-bladed implement that looked like the kind of weapon from a popular cartoon or video game, which I guess was fitting given the circumstances. I ran in, wielding the weapon like some sort of deranged cosplaying edgelord. Energy crackled throughout my form as my encroaching madness was channeled into aggression. With the first sound I could parse out of my alien form's 'mouth', I screamed out a single word.

"̸E̸R̵R̶O̸R̴!̶"̷

... I then distinctly remember whiffing the first swing of the unwieldly weapon and promptly getting beaned in the dome by like three of these pinata-looking fuckers with a flurry of blasts, swipes, and charges as they clanged, sizzled, and banged against my artificial form, shocking my senses with sharp pain before I blacked out once more.

I'm still wondering if death would have been preferable to what actually happened. I later found myself... rebooting, I guess, to a collection of the critters doting and obsessing over me while I lay in what felt like a very comfortable bed inside some rather quaint-looking building interiors surrounded by all sorts of bottles and supplies, which I was understandably tied down with plenty of rope to after I tried to skewer them in a rather embarassing suicidal fit of despair.

I could at least understand their language. I was told I was under the custody of some group called the Clover Guild in Capim Town. I tried to explain myself, and I could only repeatedly cry out a distorted "error" each time. Some of these little shits found this seemingly funny, while others looked at me with that 'oh no, it's retarded' gaze of forlornness and sympathy. I retreated into myself each time I was grilled for questioning after the fact, until they realized it was a futile effort. Eventually I was assigned under the watchful eye of a small bird-like critter named Archie, who took to my limited vocabulary and silence as a concession for her to talk to me about her time spent as a 'scrub tech', whatever that meant. It actually calmed me down a little despite not understanding a thing, and it took my mind off the situation.

After it was determined I wasn't actually a threat, I was released from my confines and returned the blades that were apparently a part of my body. This was with an understandably short leash, as I was on constant watch by at least some plushie-shaped member of this guild as I wandered around the building. Later, I was provided some chalk and a slate and tried to explain, to the best of my ability, my circumstances to a... cat, I think, who was described to me as the guild's master. I was quickly caught up to the fact that this trend of former humans showing up out of nowhere has been a thing for quite a while and that I was in a realm known as the Pokemon World, where several other humans transformed into these Pokemon like myself have arrived. At least, they only figured I was a Pokemon... I apparently defied a lot of the expectations of what one even is but superficially resembled something called a Gardevoir or a Gallade. I didn't initially grasp this comparison until much later, when I was finally given access to a mirror and reference; I still don't know if I like the twintail protrusions on my head.

I profusely apologized for how I initially acted. When I was asked for a name as they were clearing everything with me, whether in a fit of dark humor or just conceding to my circumstances, I put down the slate and spoke out with a defeated digitized groan.

"̸E̶r̴r̴o̷r̶.̶.̶.̸"̵