Chapter One

A Different Dimension

Bounce.

The medium sized yellow and blue ball bounced on the roof. After two quick bounces, it came back to its sender, who was standing only a few feet away.

Whack.

The ball collided with the forearms of a young female individual. It soared high into the air, exactly where she had intended it to.

Whisp.

After getting the ball under control with her first hit, the teen sent it flying upwards with the tips of her fingers. A perfect set, she thought proudly to herself.

Wham.

The open palm of her hand collided with the ball and sent it soaring onto the roof. She clenched her fists in happiness, for it had a been a perfect spike. Seconds later, though, the ball rolled over the top of the roof and came down on the other side of her house.

"Son of a biscuit!" She exclaimed with an aggravated tone. She let out an exasperated sigh and began walking to the backside of her house. This was the only downside of playing volleyball on the side of her house's roof.

She approached the corner of her house with a rather sulky expression on her face. She took a mental note to perhaps not hit the ball with such forcefulness next time. She turned to her right around the bend with her eyes set toward the backyard, but she saw something out of the corner of her eye that made her double take.

The teen looked over towards the cluster of trees that were close her house. She saw a flash of unnatural bright green which immediately piqued her curiosity. Forgetting about her volleyball, she began walking towards the barbed wire fence that acted as a boundary between her home and the forest-like area. She crossed over it carefully, and then stepped into the foliage on the other side.

She began to lightly jog down the slope that led into the forest, and nearly tripped over a stick that had been lying in the tall grass at the base of the hill. She swore under her breath, but eventually recovered and began trekking over the general area where she thought she had seen the flash of green. It had been near the eastern end of the mini-forest. The cluster of trees were spaced fairly close to each other near the west side of the area where she entered, but they thinned out as you walked towards the middle. The entire area was fenced in, and on the north side you could see a corral that could be used to contain cattle when needed. On the southern side you could see a gravel road that leads up to a medium sized home, which just so happened to be on the west side of the forested area. The eastern side of the mini-forest was a pasture that the teen's family would often put calves and their mothers during the winter season.

After making it over to the eastern side of the area, where the trees began to grow more closely together again, she looked around for what had caught her eye.

At first she saw nothing. She searched around the large trunks of the elm and cottonwood trees, and saw nothing. She looked under aging logs and tree branches, but still couldn't find what had caught her attention. Disappointed, she sighed and decided that she should probably give up her search and go back up to her yard to work on her volleyball skills again, when she realized that there was a place that she hadn't looked.

Carefully approaching the northeast corner of the fenced in area, she looked at what she was surrounded with. Ages ago, children had used the area as a sort of hangout. They had brought old stoves, pans, pots, chairs, tables, and other miscellaneous items to play with, and had left most of what they had used in the forest. The old wooden chairs were nothing but splintered pieces of wood now, for they had decomposed long ago. However, most of the metal pots and pans had remained, and the stove had also maintained its figure. Of course, they were very rusted and chipped, but they were still tangible and solid.

Cautiously, the girl looked behind one of the old stoves. She was disappointed to find nothing behind it. She then turned to the other stove, and looked behind it. She kneeled down, but yet again, nothing was there.

I must be going crazy, she thought to herself. She sighed once again and stood up. However, once at her full height, she stumbled backwards in a mixture of fear, amazement, and disbelief.

Behind the side of the stove where the teen had first looked was sitting a living creature that she had never seen before, at least in person. It was trembling in fear, and the poor creature's eyes were filled with tears.

For a few moments, the girl and the creature simply stared at each other. The girl was trying to take in what she was seeing and make sense of it. The creature, on the other hand, was utterly terrified of the situation it was in. It had no idea whatsoever as to what was already happening to it, and to make matters worse, it had run into a person.

After a while, the teen finally chose to extend an arm to the creature. It simply sat there and stared at her with its teary eyes full of confusion and fear. When her hand nearly reached the creature's head, it cocked its head and made a noise that sent shivers down the girl's spine. It was not a menacing sound, and it had not been a horrific sound. As a matter of fact, it had been a sweet, gentle sound. It was the sound of a creature that was indeed, confused and lost. But the sound was so familiar, and completely unnatural to the girl's world that it chilled her to the bone.

It had been a chirping, trill-ish sound. "Ca…Nnaa?" It repeated. After recovering from her initial shock of it all, the girl set her hand on the creatures head. It felt smooth, but also soft and squishy, like the way a caterpillar feels. It had a thin layer of fuzz on it, and it felt surprisingly pleasant. When she finally summoned the courage to do so, she proceeded to ask the creature a vital question that she was certain she already knew the answer to.

"A-Are you a... a Caterpie?" She asked, her voice shaky. The little green caterpillar like creature nodded its head, and then the girl asked it another question. "So... does that mean... you're a P-Pokemon?"

The Caterpie looked at her as if she had grown an extra head. Of course I'm a Caterpie, and of course I'm a Pokemon, the little creature thought to itself in a confused manor, she's so strange. She looks like the people that I used to see every once in a while back in the forest, but she's so much stranger and dense. Come on! How does she not even know what a Pokemon is? Doesn't she live in a Pokemon World, just like the rest of us?

Seeing the Caterpie's bewildered expression, she asked her question again.

"So, are you a Pokemon or not?" This time the Caterpie answered with a quick nod of its head and a simply 'Ca.'

Now it was the girls turn to stare at it. She looked over all of its features. Of course, there was that bright green that had caught her attention. It was the base color for the top side of its body. The underside was a whitish color, but could also have been considered a very light gray. And of course, there were the pale yellow rings that were on each segment of the Pokemon's body. Its eyes were black, but were surrounded with darker yellow rings. By now, the little caterpillar-like Pokemon had stopped sobbing, but its eyes still showed how lost and confused it felt.

She made her decision. This was a Caterpie, and it was a Pokemon. But how could this be? She knew she lived in a world where there was nothing but animals that couldn't do anything but fight each other using tooth and claw. They had no special abilities. They couldn't breathe fire, they couldn't evolve... they were nothing more than simple, non-complex animals, at least when compared to a Pokemon.

"How... How are you here? What are you doing here?" She inquired the little bug Pokemon. It blinked at her, as if to tell her that it honestly didn't know for sure. She sighed with disbelief. She knew that a Pokemon couldn't just appear out of thin air. Maybe, perhaps, it didn't even know what it was talking about when it had indicated that it was a Pokemon.

"So... If you're a Pokemon, Caterpie, why don't you show me your string shot on that tree over there?" She pointed towards a large tree that had been providing shade for them in the intense July heat.

The Caterpie shook its head. Doesn't she know anything at all? I can't just use my string shot attack for just anyone. They have to have a justified reason, and she obviously isn't my train- The green bug was interrupted by girl asking something else from it.

"Hehhh," she sighed, "Maybe... What if I help you? If you can prove to me that you're a Pokemon by using one of your attacks, perhaps I can help you get back to... wherever it is you came from. Sound good?"

The Pokemon still looked skeptical. How can I even begin to trust this person? She doesn't even know what a Pokemon is, for crying out loud! But... perhaps she could help me. Maybe she knows where I am... All I've seen since I've been in this strange place are things that look like smaller versions of Pidgey, and I can't communicate with them. Everything here looks so odd... Nothing is defined by lines, and everything is so... Realistic? It's so abnormal and different I cannot even find the correct words to describe it.

After a bit of reluctance, the Caterpie took a deep breath, and when it exhaled, sticky strings came out of its mouth. The girl was absolutely shocked by the sight. She hadn't seen anything like it before in her life. It appeared to be giant strings of spider web. In a sense, it mildly disturbed her. After the little green bug was done, it turned and looked at her, expecting her to say something.

At first she stared in awe at what had just taken place in from of her. How... how did it do that? She contemplated to herself. After a bout of thinking, she couldn't reach a logical explanation so she instead tried talking to the Caterpie again.

"Okay, so you have my trust. I believe that you are a Pokemon, and that you are, in fact, a Caterpie. What I don't understand, though, is how you're able to be here... How exactly did you get here? Things simply don't add up, for this is a place full of animals that don't possess strange powers like the uh, Pokemon from wherever you came from." She asked the basic questions that she had wanted to ask it. There were so many things that she needed to know about what was going on, but she had to remember that this was a Caterpie. If it was anything like it was said to be, it probably wouldn't be able to process what she asked it, let alone anything else that she wished to know.

The little green Pokemon cocked its head to the side, appearing to be very thoughtful. It really hadn't thought about that first question. How had it gotten here? The last thing it had remembered was going back to the tree that was hidden from every other Pokemon in her forest other than it and its best friend. They called this tree home, and normally, nothing extraordinary happened there. Up until today, that is. Now that the Caterpie thought about it, the last thing it remembered was crawling up the tree and into its nest. After that, the memory was vague. She sort of remembered the feeling of falling, but only briefly. She then recalled blacking out for a short amount of time before awaking to this strange place. This was where her memory got better. She remembered running around one of the trees like a Torchic with its head cut off, before spotting the girl walking towards where it was, which was when it disappeared behind a small metal object it had spotted. Other than that, she couldn't remember much. She tried to use gestures to explain to the teen what she had believed had happened.

She motioned for the girl to follow with its tail, and then brought her over to the tree it had believed was the one it had woken up near. It ran around it a few times, and then the girl examined it. She walked slowly around it, while letting her hand gently drag across the rough bark. She circled it several times, sliding her hand across it at various heights each time. After concluding that nothing special was going to happen, she looked towards the small green bug.

"Are you suggesting that a tree may have something to do with your arrival here?" She inquired, and the Caterpie answered by nodding its head vigorously. "I see. So... do you know which tree for sure might be associated with your presence here?" The little Pokemon shook her head, with an unsure look in its eyes. The girl understood, so she tried to be positive and optimistic about the situation.

"Perhaps we just have to try touching all of the trees over in this area. If we can't find anything, I suppose we can say that the way you got here is not tangible, and we may have to look for another answer. You look over by those trees," she motioned towards the trees to the far south, "and I'll look around these trees." She pointed to the few large trees that were already close to them. The Caterpie crawled over to its designated searching area, and began to wriggle around some of the trees. Meanwhile, the teen moved over to where she said she would search and began to run her hands along the trunks of the trees.

The first tree she tried was an aging cottonwood. Its bark had fallen off, and the smooth wood was exposed. She tenderly moved her hand along the wood and circled the tree several times. She sighed and gave herself a sideways frown. She decided to try the tree farthest to her left, which was the one closest to the trees she had told the Caterpie to go check. This one was a younger tree, and had plenty of thick bark on it. Yet again, she tried this tree, but still had no luck finding anything. She worked with two more trees before coming back to the one in the middle of her group. By this time, yhe Caterpie had finished checking the trees it had been ordered to check, and had come back to help the girl.

"No luck?" She asked the Caterpie.

"Ca-Pie." It shook its head sadly. Perhaps they would never find the way back to where it had come from.

The girl sighed. "Well... there still is one tree I haven't tried. Why don't you help me check it?" The little Pokemon perked up a little bit at her words and moved over to the tree the girl was standing by. The little Pokemon slithered up the side of the tree. This tree was medium sized, and it had all of its bark still attached to it. This made it easier for Caterpie to grip, and it began to crawl around the vertical sides of the tree.

The girl, on the other hand, had a tougher time with bark. It was much easier for her to let her hand gently slide over the surface of wood rather than bark, but she didn't really have much of a choice. She circled the tree at its lowest point at first, and then circled the highest point. At the same time, the little green bug Pokemon would circle wherever the girl was not; when she circled the low part, it circled the high part. They both circled their respective areas a few time before both of them moved down the middle of the trunk. The Caterpie was on the northern side of the tree, and the teen was on the southern side of it. The little Pokemon went to its right, and the girl went to her left. They almost crossed paths on the sunnier, western side of the tree, but they both moved just in time to keep their bodies from touching. They both continued to circle the tree, and then they encountered each other on the shadier, eastern side of the tree again. However, the girl failed to move her hand away from the Pokemon, and it ended up slithering onto her hand.

What happened next was bizarre.

It was like a portion of the tree had been turned to a jelly-like substance. At the touch of their bodies, an area about three feet tall and two feet wide had transformed into a strange, purple vortex. It had flecks of darker purple in it, and it appeared to be slowly swirling inwards. It took on this new appearance, and then almost as quickly as it had appeared, changed back into the barky side of the tree.

The girl was dumbfounded, to say the least. The Caterpie looked mortified, and had jumped away from the area as soon as it had transformed. It looked at the girl with huge, scared eyes. She looked back at it with fear reflecting in her own eyes. They continued looking at each other for a brief moment, before the girl turned her attention back to where the strange jelly-like vortex had been only seconds ago. She cautiously held out her hand and then proceeded to poke it. As it had before, it turned into a strange purple vortex, but as soon as the teen removed her hand, it faded back into the bark of the tree. The Caterpie cast a sideways glance at the girl before taking a jab at the strange sight with one of its forelegs. Yet again, it repeated the same process as before. However, since the little Caterpie had been sitting above the vortex the entire time, it began to quickly fall into it.

"Ca-Pieeee! Piiiii! CaNyaaa! Piiiiii!" The little Pokemon squealed as it was sucked into the strange purple area.

"Caterpie! No!" The girl screamed. She grabbed onto Caterpie's tail with her left hand. She tried to pull Caterpie out of the vortex, but she was instead sucked in herself, right behind the little green Pokemon. She took a deep breath, and allowed herself to be pulled into the portal along with the Caterpie.

Author's Notes: Yay. So as you've seen, this story has an OC in it. Trust me, we will only be centering around her for a few chapters so that I can introduce you to the main plot. Also, she WILL be around for practically the entire story. So, I really hope you like her so far. In the author's notes at the end of every chapter, I will post the word count. I know this chapter was fairly short, but I will try to make them longer in the future.

For my updating schedule: I will update on Fridays, unless I say otherwise. If I miss a Friday, I'll either update early Saturday or just wait until the next Friday, if this makes sense.

I'm a new writer, and I would really appreciate it if you could leave me some constructive criticism. If you see any reoccurring mistakes that I make, PLEASE tell me so that I can correct them. It can be anything from grammar, spelling, or over usage of a word.

Thank you for taking your time to read my work.

Word Count: 3,202 Words