Blue Skies and Silver Linings

Prologue:
The Place I Called Home

Disclaimer: I do not own the series Pokémon. Like, at all. It and all its respectable characters are © to Game Freak and Satoshi Tajiri and all that entail. However, all writing contents and semi-plots here are © to me; unless it is stated otherwise. All shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this chapter are all © to their respective owners, I do not own them.

Summary: The old gods are not kind. They are not benevolent. They do not discriminate, nor do they pick favourites. When a young woman is pulled into the world of Pokémon as a result of their warring natures, she must adjust quickly for her own survival or risk being swept up in the tides that threaten to crush her into submission. A very loose Alpha Sapphire Nuzlocke run; Hoenn-centric with mentions and nods towards other regions made.

Notes: Hello one, hello all! Welcome to Blue Skies and Silver Linings! This is but a humble yet very loose Nuzlocke adaption of Alpha Sapphire. It's a somewhat meta self-insert that involves a member of the armed forces being brought into the world of Pokémon.

I found my time, but I lost my youth
I played the game but forgot the clues
You can't evict me, my life is still there
Now that I've lost my home, I could go anywhere
-"The Place I Called Home" by Hudson Taylor

"Jesus fuck. With all this crazy weather shit going on, it makes me think it's the end of the fucking world or the zombie apocalypse is on its fucking way or some shit. What d'ya think, Sergeant?"

Lance Corporal Hammond was sitting at one of the old desks that had been donated by a local shelter; the unit was still so new that the funding for even the simplest of office supplies such as desks or chairs or even a box of pens was still tied up in all kinds of funding red tape. Getting it untangled and the funding from the overseeing higher command available was taking longer than expected and causing all amounts of grief from the Commanding Officer downwards. And shit rolled downhill, so if the CO was complaining, then the lowliest of the unit often got piled under a mountain of shit.

Such was the ways of the Marine Corps.

Fortunately, that didn't happen as often if those junior Marines had any good leadership protecting them.

From another donated desk in the empty warehouse-turned-office-space, Corporal Whitehall laughed like a hyena, leaning back with his hands laced behind his head, teeth flashing as he grinned at the ceiling of the mezzanine above them. Sheltered beneath the alcove of the raised platform, they could see everything—from the security cage that was currently locked, to the twin bay doors behind the cage, to the barren walls that were awaiting pallet containers that could store away their unit's future gear. The only true-blue office space that had four walls and a door was off-limits for the time being.

That was mostly due in part to the fact that no one in the compound had a viable key for the office, so locking it at the end of the day was out of the question. And the fledgling tech support of the unit were struggling to get even the simplest of phone connections implemented in the office, never mind the harrowing journey to get an internet connection that was to come afterwards.

Everything was turning digital in the Marine Corps.

The one thing that wasn't turning completely digital, however, was the ages-old verbal bitching and moaning.

Every Marine was good at that, face-to-face, person-to-person and it never got old. It was practically a tradition, as old as the Marine Corps' legacy itself.

"Hell, if anyone's prepared for that kind of shit, it'd be us, right? Semper Gumby and all that shit."

Another round of laughter from the several others sharing the space sounded off, bouncing off walls and all around them. There were five individuals stuffed behind donated desks from the local Good Will: Lance Corporal Hammond, Corporal Whitehall, Sergeant Montoya, Sergeant Renaux, and Sergeant Hawkins.

Sergeant Hawkins was the only female in the fledgling unit.

A few more raucous jokes were passed back and forth between them all, just shooting the shit to avoid the day's work. Skating to avoid work was an art, and just about every Marine knew how to do it. The jokes soon took a turn back towards bitching and moaning. They began to bemoan their shitty new work detail, the conditions they had to work in, the lack of funding and supplies and entertainment beyond in town. They mentioned their old units, and how they had everything they needed and better work conditions. They were half-lies.

Everyone had their gripes about their last unit. There wasn't a soul that didn't. Looking back on it in hindsight, however, made the heart fond for something that was a few steps better than where they were now.

All in all, Sergeant Hawkins was reminded of her first duty station in North Carolina. The only source of entertainment in the town next to base was the movie theater. Sure, there had been a few bars and a more convenient movie theater that served alcohol for those who were of age on base—but it had been at the cost of being recognized and chewed out by other Marines who were also there to catch a movie. At least in town for her, no one could tell she was a Marine with her hair down and no uniform on. It wasn't so easy for the guys, who were easily recognized just by their haircuts alone.

The town she currently worked in was almost an hour away from the closest base, where she and the others were forced to bed down in. But the town surrounding her place of work had similar venues as her first duty station did. There was only one local bar, aptly and perhaps a smidge ironically named The Watering Hole; a Marcus Majestic branch-off theater down the street from The Watering Hole that was locally nicknamed The Pic Flicks; a Piggly Wiggly grocery store; a barber and hair salon shop in the shopping strip next to that called Hair Done Right; a Chinese delivery food place called The Wong Place; two tailor shops whose names escaped her; a small vet clinic; and lastly a little pet store called Big Al's that sold both pet supplies and pets. That was all down the main street of the town.

Further on down the road, there was a few local credit unions, a Well's Fargo, a small library, a nail salon, a Domino's pizza place that was booming with business, an antique shop, and a Walmart sat at the very edge of the town. The same military base that was nearly an hour away was shared with their fellow service members from the other branches. Primarily, it was an army base, but there were those from other branches that lived there as well.

The town surrounding the base, therefore, was a hodgepodge haven for these members, who simply crawled about through every place of business and then some.

The one good thing that Sergeant Hawkins could say about the commute was that it was mostly clear the entire way through. The worst thing about the commute was that it was nearly an hour away. A downside to this was that Corporal Whitehall and Lance Corporal Hammond didn't have cars of their own. One had lost their means of transport to an unworthy engine death and the other had just transferred in from schooling. The Marine Corps, in all its wisdom, denied all those who went through their job schooling the means to maintain their own transport.

In layman's terms, the Marine Corps treats its own members like children, no matter how old they were.

It was really insulting, to be honest.

That soon became the next topic that was broached, and by then, Sergeant Hawkins was tuning out Corporal Whitehall and Lance Corporal Hammond and Sergeants Montoya and Renaux as they barreled on through another series of plans for the weekend. Well, plans that hopefully wouldn't be derailed for the third weekend in a row. The work never seemed to cease, and it was beginning to take its toll.

"—so far, word hasn't come down that we're coming in and by now we'd know if we were, so I think I can make it to this guy's house that's selling a nice Ram, only got about sixty-thousand miles on it, no accidents—he just wants to upgrade and get rid of what he's got, ya know? You think you still got time to take me down to his place, Sergeant Renaux?"

"I dunno, man. My girl's flying in to see me for the weekend, and we're working on finding a place for when she moves out here for good. We were actually gonna go look for a place together closer to this area, ya know?"

"Oh, nice. When's she coming in?"

"Tomorrow at noon. Might need to find someone else to take ya. Hey, Sergeant Hawkins!"

At that point, Sergeant Hawkins was actually finding herself drifting into actual work—and being the only supply person on deck, it put the responsibilities of supply admin, supply clerk, supply warehouseman, and supply chief all wrapped into one giant supply package that was then heaped on her shoulders. Too fucking bad all the codes to order anything for the unit have yet to be approved by higher headquarters…

When she realized she was being called, she had a series of faces turned toward her, looking quite amused at her spacing out.

"What?" She finally grumbled back.

"You think you can take our little Lance Coolie out this weekend looking for his fabled vehicle of fortune? I'm sure you're tired of driving him to work every other morning, same as us."

"It would be nice if he got his own ride," she remarked wistfully, before frowning. "You sure Gunny Hendrix hasn't given us the 'you're coming in this weekend' word yet?"

"Haven't heard shit," Sergeant Montoya grinned. "Usually we hear by now. It's looking hopeful we got time to ourselves for the first time in weeks."

"Sweet. All right, yeah. Hammond, when d'ya gotta meet the guy and where?"

"It's out in a place called Nadine or something, about forty minutes from base. Say, weren't you working on getting BAH to live closer to work?"

Sergeant Hawkins stretched in her seat, leaning as far back as her office chair would allow without tipping over completely. Her boot banded trousers popped off her boot and she reached down to fix it back into place. "Yeah, but it's like pulling wisdom teeth without any painkillers and a pair of rusty pliers. There's all these technicalities that're getting in the way. Like not being married or having kids. S'all kinds of bullshit. None of us should be forced to live nearly an hour away on a base that's for the fucking army. Ya know how many looks I get alone from those limp-dicked assholes? Either they hate my guts, think I'm screwing someone to get where I want to go, or they get all mushy and wanna 'hang out' which is just code for them that boils down to 'let's fuck'. It's fucking annoying. I bet they just wanna put in a big ole notch in their belt that says they fucked a female Marine, the dickweeds."

There were sympathetic mumbles all around from the others, and they relayed much the same—minus the vibes that someone wanted to fuck them or thought that they themselves needed to screw someone to get anywhere in their careers. It was one of the few things that, as a female Marine, she more or less faced on her own. Especially in such a small demographic such as this unit. Sergeant Hawkins's own grievances sprang forth a well of similar complaints from the others as they relayed their own battles at escaping the base to strike out on their own. They did, however, report a minor success that their words of woe were being heard by their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Thieme, and that he was working on a work around for that obstruction.

Things began to wind down and just in time for Gunnery Sergeant Hendrix to come waltzing into their domain to pass word for the day.

"Good news, Marines—I talked it out with the CO, and we've caught a break. No need to come in tomorrow. The weekend is yours to do with what you will…just don't do anything stupid. If you do, please fucking call me. I don't care if it's in the middle of the day or the middle of the night, I'd rather chew your ass out than to be in the morgue, identifying your body on a cold slab."

"That's dark, Gunny," Corporal Whitehall remarked with a guffaw. Gunny Hendrix snorted as he crossed his bulging and muscled arms over his broad chest.

"Well, it's true. I would prefer not to chew your asses out, but I'd rather do that than have you guys die. And please, if you're gonna get wasted, be fucking responsible. Don't drink and drive. Have a designated driver, go with a buddy, get a cab or an Uber. Just don't drink to get shit-faced blackout drunk, all right? We got enough DUIs in the Marine Corps as it is, don't throw your body onto the burning pile. And if you're gonna have sex, wrap it up for god's sakes. Don't get a stripper pregnant and then try to marry her the very next day, you're gonna hate life."

"You speaking from experience, Gunny?" Sergeant Hawkins queried with a poorly-concealed grin.

"Not my own, but I knew a guy who did that. He pretty much lost everything in the divorce."

"Jesus," Sergeant Hawkins muttered, her smile disappearing with a sympathetic cluck of the tongue.

"Yeah, so there's that. Be smart this weekend and don't do any stupid shit, is all I'm asking." Gunny Hendrix took a breath and untangled his arms to clap his hands together. "Okay, that's it. That's your safety brief. Start cleaning up and when you're done, just give me a quick holler before you guys head home. Be safe, have a good weekend, I'll see you guys Monday, bright and early, same time as always for PT."

"Rah, Gunny."

With that said, he left the warehouse floor. The door had barely closed before everyone was already on their feet, cleaning up their area, taking out the trash, closing down their computers, stowing away their ID cards. The back office, which was mostly being used for storage in lieu of being an actual office, doubled as a changing room. The guys went in first, quickly changing into street clothes, as Marine Corps regulations dictated they couldn't go running around town or stopping for gas in uniform.

As the others began to trickle out, Sergeant Hawkins snuck in to quickly change into the clothes she had come into work with: a pair of jeans, steel-toed boots, a plain black tank top and a red plaid button up shirt over that. It was comfy and well-worn, and by god, it was nice out. The weather was holding out, but any day now, she'd expected a cold-snap to hit them and she'd have to break out the winter clothing. She wasn't looking forward to that quite yet.

As she was locking up the warehouse, Lance Corporal Hammond was waiting for her outside.

"You sure you don't mind taking me to see that truck, Sergeant? I can ask Sergeant Montoya—"

"Nah, it's fine. I didn't have plans this weekend, other than playing some video games."

She motioned for him to walk with her and he did so, falling into step alongside her.

"What games you got, Sergeant?"

"I've got quite a few. Right now, I've been playing Far Cry 4, but I've been wanting to get back into Assassin's Creed Black Flag." Truthfully, she still wasn't sure. Her schedule has been rather helter-skelter as of lately due to the last several weekends they've all been working. She's been behind in quite a few games, and yet, she kept returning to games of familiarity, games that she was beginning to know by heart. She might just play some Pokémon while she was at it, just to shake things up a bit. Those were always a series of comfort, no matter how new or old they were.

"Ooh, nice. Hey, have you played that Horizon Zero Dawn game yet?"

"Played it, beat it, working through the DLC. I ain't got much else to do these days at the bricks. Actually, I might just go for broke and play Uncharted: The Lost Legacy again."

"How was that? As good as Uncharted 4?" Lance Corporal Hammond continued, excitement bubbling in his voice.

"Damn good. Naughty Dog does some fucking amazing work. Can't wait for The Last of Us Part II. Speaking of which, I've also been on the Dying Light bandwagon for a while now. Can't believe I was putting it off on playing it."

It was indeed one of the better zombie-slaying games out there. Perhaps not the best, but it had its charms, especially in the parkour mechanics department. She still had a strange yet special place in her heart for the developer's previous title, Dead Island, however. She was still holding out the hope that the sequel would one day be released.

"Whaaaaaat? You play that? You should add me, we should hit the multiplayer together!"

"Maybe I'll take you up on that, but I'm more of a solo campaign kinda person. And I'm kinda gearing up towards the new Assassin's Creed game that's coming out next month or so." Sergeant Hawkins replied noncommittally. She was, in fact, rather opposed to multiplayer options in games. It wasn't her scene, and she didn't feel like feeding fuel to the fire when it came to creeps screaming obscenities at her.

"Oh yeah, the Egyptian assassin game. Oh, there's another game, what was it I wanted to ask…have you played the new Resident Evil game yet?"

"I'm catatonic from that game, it was amazing and terrifying all at once, and I loved-slash-hated it. It sadly reminds me of a horror game we'll never get though. Silent Hills. But we're getting Death Stranding! Hopefully next year…along with Kingdom-fucking-Hearts-III."

"Oooohhhh yeah."

There was another round of good-natured nattering passed between them as they traversed across the street from the warehouse to the administrative building. They stopped inside to give their goodbyes to Gunny Hendrix inside, before traversing back outside to the front that led to a fenced-in parking lot. Lance Corporal Hammond parted ways with Sergeant Hawkins after that, pattering off across the lot to where Sergeant Montoya and Corporal Whitehall was waiting for him. Sergeant Hawkins sidled up to her own vehicle, an old classic Chevy Camaro. Its gunmetal grey finish gleamed like a beetle carapace, but she noted it was going to need to hit the carwash one of these days and soon. Unlocking the door, she slid into the bucket seat, slipped the key into the ignition and gunned the engine as soon as her foot pushed on the clutch.

She frowned at the faint spluttering complaint the engine coughed at her and eyeballed the dash.

Nothing wrong with the fluids, not that I can see. RPMs aren't that great, though. I better check, just in case.

She cut the engine and popped the hood, settling in to hover over the block of metal and rubber tubing. She checked the oil first and clucked her tongue at how low it was.

That wouldn't make it cough like that, not where it should purr. I should probably go see the mechanic by base tomorrow before taking Hammond out to see that truck. I have a feeling it's gonna be a long drive out.

After getting everything resettled and the hood shut, Sergeant Hawkins reignited the engine and took off back the way she had come earlier that morning, back to base, and back to her barracks room. The entire ride over, she kept the radio tuned to a local classic rock station and kept a keen ear out for any news concerning weather or animal anomalies to watch out for. She certainly didn't feel like running into a horde of rabid raccoons or zombie deer anytime soon, thanks very much.

The one thing she appreciated about the particular block of barracks rooms on the floor she resided in: she was the only female sergeant that rated a room to herself. There were two other females that worked in the administrative building next to her warehouse, both of which also had to live at the same barracks as Sergeant Hawkins did. Both of them were Lance Corporals. They didn't rate a room to themselves and had to room with one another. That was just one slight advantageous bounty that came with the rank on her collar.

And, not to mention, the army barracks room was…nice. Nicer than the last Marine barracks she had last resided in. But only by a partial margin. She was tired of living in any series of barracks, period. Field day was a nightmare, considering she had to clean her room under the watchful eyes of someone that wasn't even from her own unit. It was irritating being eyeballed like she was a deplorable little child with sticky fingers that needed to clean up her mess or suffer the consequences of losing all privileges for an undetermined length of time. She was a twenty-seven-year-old woman, she wasn't a little girl.

But, she realized in bitter hindsight, it was what she signed up for, and it was what came with the territory and the job. She had no rights to complain when she had willingly signed herself up for it. It was also one of the major factors that was fueling her fire to get the hell out of dodge and into her own place and preferably closer to work. She had her eye on a few rental properties, and some of them were even pet friendly. She just wasn't sure if she was wanting a dog, a cat, a reptile of some sort, or a bird just yet.

Maybe a cockatiel, she thought wistfully as she climbed the four flights of stairs, dragging her military-issued pack with her uniform and quite a few other things in it. Or maybe a German Shepherd. Oh, but I really do want a little kitten, too. But maybe I should adopt. Older cats need love too.

It was only a matter of getting through the hoops necessary to allow her to rate BAH for her duty station. There was a special circle in hell for people who profited and enjoyed people's suffering. And Sergeant Hawkins was most certain that those people worked at IPAC in higher headquarters.

The key hanging out with her car keys was loosed from her pockets and struck home in the lock. Her room was dark, but a flick of the light switch made it livelier. A poster of the Indominus Rex hanging in a frame above her bed greeted her, along with several pieces of commissioned art from favoured artists, and a few collectible statues and Funko Pop figurines from some favourite games and movies. A few binders, sketchbooks, and art portfolios filled with her own art—completed and works-in-progress alike—sat on her bed, right where she had left them earlier that morning.

It was a small collection, but it made her smile and feel less like she was trapped in a tiny room not of her choosing and in a place she could actually kind of look forward to coming back to. Like a hotel room she got to decorate—within reason by Marine Corps standards, that was.

She got her phone out and immediately plugged it into the charger and took long enough to start up a segment of news from her preferred online news station. It wasn't a newly started company, but she had only just recently discovered it and found it to be more refreshing than the mainstream media as of late. They weren't insane like Alex Jones, nor were they dishonest and aimed to sound like a propaganda machination whilst still masquerading themselves "journalists". Propagandists weren't journalists, they were merely trying to sell an ideal or a punchline rather than trying to tell the truth. It was difficult to listen to this particular station while she shared space with multiple others, especially those who preferred mainstream media.

But that was neither here nor there.

She was alone in her barracks room, where she could sprawl out and do whatever she wanted with considerable freedom with few restrictions.

As Sergeant Hawkins puttered around her barracks room, she felt herself deflating after the long day she just had. Her muscles were sore from the full week of PT. Her head was starting to burn with the oncoming promise of a massive cluster headache. Her stomach was growling and churning in on itself, demanding food.

She turned to the decently sized television on its stand and it winked to life after Sergeant Hawkins clicked its respectable remote. She started up the PlayStation 4 and as it booted up, she went to rummage in the fridge, and made a face at the leftovers and frozen ready meals inside. She had no stomach for any of them and pondered the idea of either ordering in (for the fourth time this week), going down to the chow hall (an unappetizing idea due to the overwhelming company there), or heading out to one of the restaurants on base or in town (that meant going back out and it's been a long enough day as it was).

In the end, she fell to the grudging decision that she wanted to do nothing more than to relax, so delivery it was. The town around base was larger than the town close to work, but it was filled with army personnel, large and small, all over. Around work? Not so much. It was almost like being back at home in California. People more or less gawked at her stupidly and in awe when she said she was a Marine and wondered aloud how a tiny little thing like her could do something so challenging, so difficult. It was made even more awkward when they thanked her for her service. What was she supposed to say? You're welcome? It's a pleasure?

She usually found it easier to change the subject and move on with the conversation. Or end it as quickly as possible. Either way was fine with her. She tuned in and out of each news segment as it continued playing, but at the sudden filtering of screaming, she jolted like a bolt of lightning had struck her down and scrambled for her phone to turn the volume down. She stopped, however, at the sight of the picture frozen on her phone.

Slowly, she traced her finger to rewind the video, and started it back at the beginning. The news anchor briefly recalled all the information on the matter before letting the clip play: it was out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and there were pods of whales in the distance, opposite of where the person recording was standing. They were speaking another language, and briefly, the camera swung to include another man on a fishing vessel. She could see lines dangling from a winch, perhaps the one that pulled up and dropped the nets. The boat suddenly rocked violently, sending everyone sprawling to the boat's deck. The cameraman tried to get up, went sprawling back down again. Someone else got in the frame, pulling themselves up using the railing and almost instantly screamed, flinging himself away when something came jutting up after him on the railing.

A triangular nose was briefly seen before it went away. Sergeant Hawkins' heart skipped.

A shark, she thought quizzically. The cameraman trundled closer, panting heavily as the wind blew hard, drowning out nearly all other sound. The camera was pointed over the railing, and immediately, the triangular nose came into view. At first, Sergeant Hawkins thought it was a Great White given the shape of the skull and jutting jaws and the iconic triangular-shaped teeth.

But the colours are all wrong, she thought as she watched those jaws jut out and snap at the fishing net dangling below the waters alongside the boat. Her heart skipped again, and her hands grew clammy and sweaty all at once at the sight of a bright yellow star emblazoned across the deep turquoise-coloured head of the shark. She was more surprised by the crimson eyes, just before they rolled back as the shark took another snap at the fish trapped in netting. Blood churned from the wounded and trapped fish, mixing into the water. The shark thrashed, trying to tear the net with its teeth to get at an easy meal. Another shape, just beneath the surface, came into view and the shark with the star on its head and the crimson eyes dove down to greet its competition with a powerful flick of its tail. The video ended shortly after, and the video returned to the news studio with its anchors.

Sergeant Hawkins replayed the clip, noting it was barely a minute, but it felt like an hour had passed each time she watched it, again and again and again. It was mesmerizing, terrifying, exhilarating all at once. Marine biology was a passing fancy of hers, and she found sharks especially fascinating. From the horrific-looking deep sea goblin shark with its pointed nose and long-extending pair of jaws to the unique land-walking epaulette shark that could temporarily shut its organs down in order to survive outside water, they were a predatory species she loved to learn about.

However, she had never seen a shark with a bright star on its head like that before.

Except…except in one place, but that thought was as ridiculous as it was impossible. Fictional creatures didn't exactly exist, as tempting as the idea was. Entertaining the idea was ludicrous. She'd sooner believe that carcharodon megalodon existed at the bottom of the Mariana Trench than believe that a fictional species of shark existed. She would sooner believe that Nessie of the Loch Ness existed than to believe a pocket monster existed.

She turned off the video and settled in to order food instead, finding her hunger outweighing her thirst to solve the mysterious shark species on the video. She was sure she'd hear about this video in days to come on FaceBook from some clickbait science blog and experts would probably identify it soon enough.

When food was ordered, Sergeant Hawkins began to peruse both her digital and her physical library of games, indecisiveness ruling over her. She hadn't thought about it much on the drive in. She had been more engrossed by the series of news stories in between rock songs. Most of them had been about the fluctuating, dangerous series of weather abnormalities plaguing the world—snow in the middle of an Arizona summer day, a flash of Caribbean-style summer heat in Antarctica, so on and forth. Now she wished she had at least thought on what to occupy her, distract her when she got back to her room.

It was all a political hot mess these days, and by technical regulations set in place, she wasn't allowed to have an outward and outspoken opinion about any of it to the public. It wouldn't look good for a member of the armed forced to speak ill of their country's leader…even if she thought him a fucking moron and a horrible man-child who has entertained too much attention on his nonsense caught in so many scandals and collusion plots on a daily basis, it was ridiculous.

But that was neither here nor there at the moment. Out of desperation for something to do other than sit and wait for food, she went fishing for her Gameboy 3DS and clicked it on, turning on the only game in the cartridge without really looking, and began that instead. The opening sequence for Pokémon Alpha Sapphire came onto the screen, the music building to an airy crescendo as it progressed through to the end. She opened up her game, then stared at it in silent panic. She had no game saved.

She stared at it some more, trying to stuff down her dread and indignance.

I could have sworn I was playing this just the other day and I had a Blaziken already…

She went rummaging for her tin of Pokémon cartridge games, her heart beginning to patter a bit faster in her chest. Please don't tell me I restarted my fucking game—aha! Here's…another cartridge of Alpha Sapphire?

"What in the actual fuck…?"

She had two copies of Alpha Sapphire. That boggled her for a long, hard moment. She couldn't remember for nearly a minute why she had two copies and it began to drive her nuts as she stared at the game cartridge until it hit her like a semi-truck. She had an extra cartridge because she had thought she'd lost her first one when she had first moved out here. She'd ordered a second copy, and the day before the second was due to arrive, she had found the first. Needless to say, she wasn't going to complain, but she hadn't played on the extra Alpha Sapphire, not once.

A few minutes after that dilemma had settled, her food arrived, piping hot and fresh from the oven. She dug in as soon as she was able, enjoying the melted cheese and sizzling sting of pepperoni on her pizza. At last decided that she wanted to be a pirate assassin instead of a pokémon trainer for the evening, and put on Assassin's Creed Black Flag, raring to get through the world of the Caribbean. An envious part of her wanted to visit those crystalline blue waters and enjoy the powdery white beaches, the balmy weather, the gorgeous local life…when it had once been like that.

Nowadays, the Caribbean and the Bahamas all seemed to be plagued with more storms and hurricanes, even outside of the usual season they usually operated under. Not many people visited anymore, and apparently, the economy in several of the island nations have begun to tank. Some were currently on the verge of filing for country-wide bankruptcy, since tourism seemed to have been a huge percentage of income for them, and with storms tearing at their already fragile infrastructure apart repeatedly, it was wearing them down to the point of no return.

Playing video games was as close as she was going to get to a vacation in faraway, exotic places these days.

Just as she finished eating and got ready to play, the skies above opened up with a sudden booming peal of thunder and began pouring rain down on the barracks rooftops.

It was cool and dark where she lay. It wasn't too unusual. She was in the Midwest, after all, and lately there have been a series of cold snaps cropping up out of nowhere in her part of the country, right in the middle of summer to boot. She had kept her winter clothes together with her summer clothes close at hand, just in case. One never knew what was going to hit them: hot summer rays or cold wintry flurries.

The rain had made it cooler still over the course of the night, but she hadn't changed out of her jeans or tank top quite yet and had thrown on an oversized black hoodie instead. It had been sufficient enough that she must have fallen asleep in it, but now it wasn't adequate to keep the cold at bay.

She shivered and attempted to burrow further into the material of her jacket, but it futile. She needed a blanket. Blindly, she groped with her foot in search of her covers but came up empty and instead her foot collided with something…else. Something solid and unyielding. She groaned in tired dismay, kicking off from the object and pushing further up to get away from the offending obstacle. Rolling to her side, she let off another groan, feeling her side and back twinge in protest. Her body already ached from the amount of training she and the others had done for morning P.T. nearly every day this week before work. Now she had all weekend to relax and rest before starting all over again come Monday…

It was a vicious cycle, but she couldn't complain. Not to her superior's faces, that is. Bitching it out to her co-workers, however, was an entirely different story altogether. And considering she's had surgery twice already on her left hip, being in a state of constant discomfort, and often pain, there was some well-earned sympathy to be had.

Pains and twinges aside, she was more or less still concerned for the cold rather than where she was laying. It was beginning to burrow its way deeper into her bones and she curled inward in hopes of warming herself. It worked, for a short while, until it came creeping back. It didn't help much that what she was sleeping on was uncomfortable, and what exposed skin she had was sticking to the material beneath her. It almost reminded her of her parents' leather couch back home…

Sergeant Hawkins inhaled sharply, her heart giving a sudden and unexpected jolt in her chest. Her lungs squeezed violently, as though the wind had been knocked out of her and she struggled to take in another breath as she bolted upright with a strangled gasp. Bewilderment took over as she craned her head left and then right, her heart still thundering away, her lungs still struggling to intake another full breath.

She stared, not quite taking in what she was seeing. She wasn't even sure what she was looking at. The room was spacious, yet not too large—perhaps a sitting room or a living room—and it was dark still, but the coming dawn was softening the room from coal black to slate grey.

As her eyes adjusted, she could make out shapes in the room: a love seat across from her; a coffee table centered between that and the couch she was on; a small dining table perfect for four cozied up to a corner of the room with the cushioned chairs tucked in neatly; a window to her right; and a television set sat on a long and low entertainment center off to her left.

Curtains were drawn to block out the light of the sun, but they were thin enough that the room was lightening considerably as the minutes ticked by. The front door was further down to the right of the curtained window. In the corners and everywhere else, tucked away from the open space of the room, there were boxes. Some open, some not, and most of them neatly arranged to avoid being trodden or tripped over. Other than those mild eyesores, the room was sparsely decorated and tidily arranged. Sergeant Hawkins took in short, quick breathes through her nose, unaware her hands were shaking until she tried to rake her hair back and mussed it all instead. Shakily, she swung her legs over the edge of the couch, taking her time in standing up.

Her bare feet touched cool hardwood flooring and she swallowed thickly past the growing lump in her throat. The most obvious of questions arose to the front of her thoughts: Where was she? How did she get there? Where was 'here'?

Once she managed to gather enough of herself, she assuaged her anxiety and immediately began to look around for a lamp, a light switch on the wall, anything to illuminate the room. She needed to find her phone first. Find out where she was, call someone to come get her, and after that…she'd cross that bridge when she got to it.

She began running through a mental checklist of events leading up to her day previously: she woke up early, got ready for PT, showered afterwards, got dressed for work, attempted to get the ball rolling for the newly stood up company in the morning, got blockaded by higher headquarters decisions (or lack thereof) on several items and the list was only growing, had a meeting with her superiors before lunch, dicked around with everyone in the afternoon until they were released, came back to her room, got dinner, played games…

Went to sleep.

Woke up here.

She was hyper alert to the scene now. She needed to leave. Now.

Sergeant Hawkins moved to sidestep past the lane between couch and coffee table and instead nearly tripped over a bulging object in her path. She stumbled, arms pinwheeling about as she tried to circumvent falling over and dashed forward a few steps before managing to correct herself. Heart rate hiking up into yet another marathon race, she gasped, eyes wide and searching in bewilderment for the offending object. She felt her heart jump from her chest all the way up into her throat at the sight.

It was her pack.

She began reaching for it, just as the doorknob to the front door swung open, and framed by the halo of early morning light, a man stood in the doorway.

For one breathless moment, they stood frozen in time, staring at one another. She was terrified to breathe and thought, I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming, this is a dream. I'm not really here.

So she held her breath, trying to will herself back in her bed at the barracks, to awaken under her pile of cozy blankets and comforter, to feel the early morning chill that accompanied the hours before dawn. Her head began to swim and she relented in taking a long exhale.

The moment was shattered when she moved, her shoulders dipping and her arms pressing closer to her body. Or perhaps the man had moved, his legs shifting into a fighting stance, shoulders stooping forward, as though he was ready to charge her. She wasn't sure.

All Sergeant Hawkins knew, in the second that the spell between them was broken, a sudden trill and spark of radiant light burst forth in the room, blinding her with its brilliance. Before it had even faded, she heard an authoritative command bellowed, and suddenly, she was thrown to the floor, pinned by something heavy, hairy, and horrifying all at once.

"I dare ya t' fight back. Please, make me day by doin' so."

When her head stopped flaring with pain and her vision settled, she could see through the murky grey shadows cloaking the room, what was pinning her down. At first, the only impression she got were teeth hovering too close to her face, sitting in a grinning mouth set in a face surrounded by rough white fur. Not human, she immediately deduced, and that terrified her the most. Eyes glinted in the mercurial atmosphere, glaring down at her as the not-human face scrunched into a snarl, flashing those teeth at her again. As more details began piecing themselves together, her brain came to a grinding halt as she stared, wide-eyed, frozen. She was seeing it, but she wasn't quite believing it, even as she kept gawking, dumbfounded into absolute silence.

It was a goddamn pokémon.

Some terminology and facts that you might appreciate!

Semper Gumby: "always flexible"; this is a play on the Marines' motto of Semper Fidielis, "Always Faithful"

Rah: Shortened version of "Oohrah". Only Marines say "Oohrah". Not soldiers. Not airmen. Not sailors. Only Marines. If Marines are depicted in media as saying anything else, the writers are wrong and should have done a quick fucking Google search, because it literally takes less than ten seconds to find this shit out. (It really pisses us off. It does.)

Gunny: Short for "Gunnery Sergeant", which is an E-7 on the enlisted half of the rank scale. They are more or less head honchos of their respective areas, although they could also be second-in-command for their immediate work force to, say, a Master Sergeant or First Sergeant (both are an E-8, but have respective differences in work and leadership roles) or a Sergeant Major or Master Gunnery Sergeant (both are an E-9, and again, have respective differences). There's more technicalities than all that, but I won't get into it any further than this for now.

P.T.: Physical training. Exercise, in other words. Utilized on a "by command's discretion" on how much time is devoted to it per week and what time of day it is to be executed at, but PT is generally mandatory in order to maintain peak physical conditions that are demanded of the Marine Corps.

IPAC: Stands for "Installation Personnel Administration Center. The people who work there are the ones you go to when submitting changes in your personal life that require paperwork. New marriages, divorces, birth of children, filing taxes, change of duty stations, things of this nature. It's to accommodate and benefit Marines and their families, their units, and whatnot—but sometimes, those people just love pulling last-minute bullshit to thwart your attempts at bettering your life with the most simplest of skills: bureaucratic incompetence. Mainly, your incompetence (and their own via communication omissions, such as failing to mention what is needed to be filled out, and making people redo paperwork over and over AND OVER AGAIN.) Only they seem to know the arcane ways of filling out the paperwork properly and only they seem aware of the newest and latest editions of paperwork needing to be filled out. Got an outdated edition? Fuck off, better go get the new stuff and start all over again.

BAH: Basic Allowance Housing. Essentially, an allowance of extra money afforded to military members who live in housing off base, and it's based on the average pricing for homes in the zip code area closest to base. Those who live on base housing also rate BAH—but they never see it in their paychecks because base automatically takes it out to pay for rent of housing on base. The caveat to that detail is that only married Marines or Marines with children in their custody rate BAH. Some exceptions to that rule are case-by-case (such as living near a base that isn't a Marine base while on special duty, such as some of my guys from my last, real-life unit). They lived off the Naval base after a while in the barracks, managed to snag BAH for their cases, and eventually got married, thus earning their additional pay for having a dependent (spouses, children, and family members that you may care for count as dependents.)

Some notes on the uniforms as well...

Marine Corps uniform regulations dictate that while in cammies (the desert or woodlands utilities uniforms) a Marine cannot wander around town doing whatever business they want, such as grocery shopping or getting gas (the exception being of course, if you live on a base and these facilities are available on base). Outside base, you need to be in approved civilian attire, or in an approved military uniform that is allowed to be utilized for stuff out in town. This is mainly for security reasons and to reduce the risk of painting a bullseye target on a Marine's back and making them a target. This is also why you'll most likely never see a Marine in uniform boarding an airplane like, say, a member of the army. We, as an entire branch, view it as unprofessional and just plain nasty. It's just our collective hive mind opinion.

Seriously, ask any Marine what they think of an army member walking around in their cammies in public off base, they'll say it's nasty. The higher-ranking officials are especially vocal about this.

They're also vocal against Marines putting their hands in their pockets, because apparently, Chesty Puller is rolling in his grave on the matter, even though we all know Chesty Puller wouldn't give a fuuuuuuck what you do with your hands, especially in cold weather.