Leo counted his blessings – most of which were laid out before him.
First and foremost was a pocketknife; a small flip-blade with an inch long blade which would be his most important possession in the coming days.
Second was the plastic water bottle he had; it would be good to have a container like that, be it for water or something else.
Third was his backpack; the heavy duty green canvas was waterproofed, and, in a pinch, he could dissect it to use as bandages or the like.
Fourth was the small pack of matches he had apparently left buried in the deepest depths of his pack and only found now, when he dumped most everything else out.
Everything else in there was trash – some college papers, folders, the like.
They could be used for kindling but wouldn’t do much else in his current predicament.
That wasn’t to say his blessings ended there, however.
His fifth and sixth blessings weren’t physical objects.
Fifth was his location.
Tall pine trees rose around him and mountains loomed on either side of the green valley he sat in the middle of, a river gently flowing off to his right.
Leo sucked in a deep breath, appreciating the scent of pine, and listened to the wind as it rustled the trees.
He was a mountain boy through and through.
And though his wilderness survival skills may be a little rusty thanks to college and work taking up most of his time in the past few years, he was certain that he could at least survive here.
It’d take a little bit of work, some trial and error to get his skills back up to snuff, but it was certainly doable.
Which led him to his sixth blessing, which also doubled as a problem.
He was not alone.
At least, I wasn’t alone, Leo thought acidly.
It had been a rollercoaster of a day.
First, he got magically transported to a swirling tunnel of void and stars thanks to a literal hole in the sky, which had been utterly terrifying but at least he had company.
His good friend Jack had been transported with him, and while it wasn’t ideal in any way, Leo was glad for the company.
It would keep him from losing his mind, at least, as they floated through a literal void of space, somehow without dying.
That was until a massive bat made of sky and stars came out of literally nowhere, snatched the two up, and flew through yet another hole in the sky.
To top it off the bat was sentient and spoke to Leo telepathically, which wasn’t strange at all and totally didn’t freak Leo out, having another voice in his head, and had promised to take the two to where they were meant to be.
Apparently that meant dumping Leo in the middle of a forest, and whisking Jack off to who-knows-where.
Which led him to his next problem; he wasn’t on Earth anymore.
Taking a deep breath Leo closed his eyes, then looked up and glared at the pink face that stared at him.
“Sloooow?” It asked, cocking its head to the side, blank eyes staring directly at him.
Leo frowned even harder.
Slowpoke.
The bat – who he figured had to be Lunala, there was nothing else that fit the description – had dropped him into the middle of a Slowpoke herd.
He was surrounded by the things, dozens of pink blobs of fat lounging around the river, dipping their tails in the water and occasionally swishing them side to side.
He even spotted a few Slowbro slowly swimming about in the placid waters, their splashes adding to the peaceful ambiance of the forest.
Leo was sure there was some sort of implied insult here, what with the whole where you’re meant to be line.
So his biggest problem wasn’t that he was alone in a forest with no idea of his general location or the location of any sort of civilization, but that he was in a completely foreign world; the world of pokemon.
Oh sure, he knew enough about pokémon as a long-time fan, but there was a truly massive difference between game mechanics and reality.
How did attacks work?
How did pokémon behave?
Were they as intelligent as portrayed in the anime, or were they closer to the animals back home?
There was very little he knew and only so much he could figure out without simply experiencing it firsthand.
Which could be mighty dangerous.
And to top it all off Leo was far, far shorter now.
Everything just seemed bigger, and he had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t because everything was bigger in this world.
He was almost certain that it was because he had gotten shorter – his hands looked smaller and softer too, the hands of a child – which, if he’d read enough fanfiction to come up with an idea of what that meant, was not good news.
Either he had regressed in age, or had a new body, both of which came with a whole slew of existential/philosophical issues that he, quite frankly, did not have the luxury to worry about right now.
His first order of business was just to survive.
“Ok, my first order of business is fresh water,” Leo muttered to himself, standing and looking towards the river.
Another problem was that he had no way to boil water, ensuring it was safe to drink.
He supposed he could try his luck with the river water, figuring that it most likely didn’t have the problems many of Earth’s rivers had with pollution, but did he really want to risk getting giardia?
He wasn’t sure he had much of a choice.
Leo swallowed heavily at the thought of getting sick out here.
It would be a death sentence, so long as he didn’t have a proper food and water supply and –
“NO,” Leo chided himself, shaking his head to clear it of all thoughts.
“Don’t think like that, it’ll do you no good.
You can’t control what’s going to happen, so roll with it.
Focus on the next steps; food and shelter.” His nervousness did not leave despite his pep talk, the emotion bubbling in his stomach even as he tried to ignore it, but now he was refocused.
Moving with purpose, Leo bent and stuffed all his things into his backpack before standing and stretching, slinging said backpack over his shoulders.
Glancing around, he made a note of his location relative to the two mountains the river wound between, picking out key features so he could make his way back to the Slowpoke herd.
It would be pretty simple, all told.
The valley wasn’t that wide, and the mountains fairly steep – Leo wouldn’t be climbing up them in the near future.
Besides, if nothing else, he understood that the Slowpoke were docile and, if his hunch was correct, they may be able to provide him with some food.
Slowpoke tails were edible, right?
He remembered that from the games, even if it had been frowned upon.
At least, that’s what the games led you to believe when Team Rocket was hunting Slowpoke tails.
And so, he started off marching into the woods confidently and cautiously, trying his hardest to keep his wits about him.
He would survive this, no matter how insane the situation was.
He just had to take things one step at a time.
Leo figured out pretty quickly that sticking next to the Slowpoke herd as they headed downstream was a great idea.
Mainly because they provided a steady source of food in the form of fish – mainly Magikarp and Goldeen of varying sizes.
For whatever reason the fish seemed to flock to their tails whenever the Slowpoke would dip them in the river, biting the tips and allowing the Slowpoke to fish them up with relative ease.
It was easy enough to snatch a few of the fish away from the slow pokemon, the harder part was cooking them.
“C’mon, work already,” he hissed in frustration, rubbing his hands together as fast as he could, trying his hardest to get the stick he was holding to create enough friction to create sparks and ignite his kindling.
It had already been three days since he’d been dumped into this world, and Leo was getting frustrated.
He didn’t have the strength anymore to reliably use the hand drill method, and he’d never really practiced it too much in the first place.
His matches weren’t unlimited, he had at most twenty of the things left, so before he ran out he wanted to have an alternative method of starting a fire, which had led to his current activity.
“I miss my survival kit,” Leo grumbled, setting down the stick and rubbing his face.
He’d had at least five different ways to start a fire in his survival kit back home, plus a whole bunch of other necessities, and just thinking about having that kit right now made him…well, he wasn’t sure how he felt.
Nostalgic?
Sentimental?
Like he wanted to cry because he had left his entire world behind?
Like death was a very real possibility right now?
All of the above and more, most likely.