Io | Pokémon

"I'm Io." My eyes stay on the ring as I talk to her. I wasn't terribly comfortable with talking to scantily clad women under normal circumstances, and if what she told me was right, the ring felt a lot more important than her. Still, I offered her a meaningless smile. "I'm a mythology and folklore professor, with a minor in history. I suppose you got pretty lucky with who found you. Almost as lucky as I did."

She put a hand on my shoulder. I would have pushed it away, but I was still looking for some sort of author making on the ring that I must have missed the first time. "Guess it was about time for me to be found by someone looking for power. Can't remember how long it had been." She brushed my hair away from my face. "Are you sure you're not a model on your spare time, too?"

"Quite positive that I've rejected all offers, but thank you for asking." I took a step to the right and readjusted my hair. "My hobbies are reading about real crime and raising up my adorable Pokémon. The good looks are solely for the off chance that I fancy entering a contest."

"I understood most of the words you said there, but I'm going to need you to slow down. What's a Pokémon?" I stared at her, waiting for the punchline. Her face simply adopted a deeper look of confusion. "Is that something really important around here?"

I had no real clue of how to explain it to her. How could there be worlds without Pokémon? What was there instead? Could civilized people exist there? "They are very much a vital element of our daily lives. I'm baffled that you don't have them."

"Well, why don't you show me one?" She asked, and I couldn't deny that it was a good idea. I had Porygon Z's Pokéball in my belt, as I always did in case of emergency, but I preferred to not reveal my weapon until she could be trusted. Instead, I asked her to walk me to my patio, where two adorable critters are playing under the watchful eye of a larger one.

"You see the one with the round body, blue scales and pointy teeth? That's a Gible. The slim orange one with a pale yellow underside and cheeks is Buizel, and the quadrupedal with silky white fur is my Absol. I also have a Snorunt, but I keep her on her Pokéball during days like these, since it's too hot for her." I point towards the single tall tree in the garden. "And Gliscor is currently sleeping there, with her tail hooked to her favorite branch."

Regina was clearly awed by what she saw. It now felt to me like there were Pokémon in her world, or at least creatures that were very similar to them, but that had a different name. "I've never seen animals like these before, they're amazing." She declared.

"Curious, the term 'animal' here is sometimes used for Pokémon too, but scientifically speaking its the name of creatures that went extinct at the same time that the numbers of Pokémon boomed. Something to the reverse of it must have happened in your world." I lean over the railing that separated the grassy areas from the hard floor. "Now that I've begun clearing your doubts, will you repay the favor?"

"I'm not sure what part of my presentation you didn't get, since you seem to be a very smart woman, but go ahead." She got irritatingly close to me, but I had bigger priorities than asking for personal space.

"Is it really true what you say that this could achieve? Can I really use this to bend others to my will, as I see fit? What does that make of you, if we are bonded enough for you to have called me your 'master'? Are you my assistant, my servant, or my ****?" I should not be letting my hopes up. I had made that mistake in the past. I needed to remind myself that Team Galactic also seemed like a shortcut in my journey, and that ended with me needing to burn all evidence, send those bellow me in suicide missions, and leave my hometown behind.

"You really had been thinking of ways to do that before, weren't you?" She prodded, but I remained silent. "You are my master, so you're the one who decides what I am to you. You might as well be the one who decides what I am, period. You could change anything about me, from my name to my face, or even my breasts." She poked one of them with a nail, a cheap trick to get me to look at them. It succeeded. "And yes, the Reality Ring will allow you to do all of that, but only to women. You'll have to rely on your looks to get men to do your biding. Tough, for the record, your looks would work on me just as effectively." She patted my back. "Mind sharing with a friend what was your previous plan to conquer the world?"

"I dunno, might still need to use it. Gay men exist, don't they?" Credit where it was due, it certainly took a special kind of person to get me in a joking mood. "There exists a Legendary Pokémon, called Darkai. I figured that I could use his skills to put everyone else to sleep, and use his powers to hypnotize the world." I hit my nails against the wood. "It feels like a shallow victory, honestly."

"Don't say that just yet. The ring needs proper training to use, you can't overwhelm people's spirits from the get go, unless you want to play a dangerous game of roulette on what curse will afflict you for it. It's less than permanent for female ringmasters, but not that far off either." Regina put an arm around my shoulder, and I didn't even feel annoyed by it. "Why don't you we go back inside? You could teach me all about history, legends, and what hotties you're planning to seduce."

I liked that plan. "Sure." I put an arm around her waist as I waved goodbye to my little angels, who finally noticed us and were surprised to see me with a new friend, and we walked towards my living room.