[Multi-Quest] The Pokémon Apocalypse

Dear Reader,

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Additionally, if you want to add your own spin on the story, I encourage you to write it up and submit it: most likely I will approve it. However, if you are not making it a standard "Quest" story be sure to give warning in the title...

A lot of the world building will happen on the forums. If you want to participate in that copy the link below to reach the thread for it...

https://forum.chyoa.com/threads/multi-quest-the-pokémon-apocalypse.1198/

Thank you all very much, and enjoy the stories!

This story takes place in an alternate universe very close in meta-dimensional phase to our own. In this world, at the start of our story, it is officially October 30th, 2016. At the precise moment that the first light of true dawn touches the highest spire of the Forbidden City in Beijing, (Which marked the exact location of the prime meridian in pre-western China, the oldest human Civilization still in existence...) billions of rays of mysterious energy appear at the edge of the atmosphere and quickly descend to touch 80% of all humans and 20% of all plants, animals, and self-contained/fully-interconnected Machines. Smaller, universally black, rays touch half to all of certain classes of items, including soft drinks, juice bottles, vitamins/probiotic capsules/herbal or mineral supplements, DVDs/CDs, Audio Tape Cartridges, the players for the same, certain fossils and minerals. These rays pass through solids, liquids, and gasses with equal ease, unerringly striking their target. Those people and things they touch are engulfed by a corescating aura of the same color, and in a few agonizing seconds CHANGED...

Almost at random, but each in some way relating to the nature of what they were before, they become either Pokémon (including several new types), items from the Pokémon games, or "Trainers", who are effectively human, but look like an unuterably advanced 3D cartoon of a person. (Usually looking very similar to who they were before, but sometimes based on a character from the shows, movies, or games...)

Within hours the world is in utter chaos. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are now Pokémon, a Yungoos in Trumps case and a Jynx in Hillary's. With both Presidential candidates unable to speak in human language, and no longer HUMAN, the presidential race is in freefall, but that's just the first few seconds.

The command structure of the entire WORLD is in chaos: not one major country emerges with its Head Of State unchanged...

In Great Britain for example: out of the leaders of government only Prince William, Princess Kate, and a few members of parliament remain even humanoid, and Princess Kate is now a 'Trainer' version of herself. The Queen is a now a Female Nidoran, her Husband, Prince Philip, is now a Lickitung. Prince Charles has had the misfortune to become a Tyrunt while his wife Camilla has become a Skorupi, thus ensuring they will never have children, even though everyone who has changed into a Pokémon appears to now be new hatched chronologically, (though not mentally...) according to the "Pokédex" app* that has been mysteriously installed on every cell phone with a camera on earth.
*(Which also appears to now be integral to every phones' O.S. and take up only a single megabyte of data... Additionally, any working mobile phone that couldn't support it is strangely transformed into a gen1 style Pokédex from the cartoon...)

All this is discovered in the first minute but it all will get far worse before it gets better. You see, not only do people have the forms of Pokémon, but also their reality warping powers. Everyone starts as a level one member of the lowest evolution of their species, but as they fight they can level up! However, while Pokémon are tougher than any 'mortal' animal, this is not the bloodless children's story of the games and shows: blows that can shatter rock can also break bone, A Honedge's blade will kill if it decapitated the foe, and people do not survive crashing to earth after being thrown hundreds of miles through the air by a Gyaridos 'Dragon Rage'... This is bad, but not the worst of it.

One 'Move' in particular is disastrous: Earthquake. The fissures it leaves in the ground, while not as destructive as true earthquakes leaving similar rents in the earth, are dangerous enough in any advanced nation. Powerlines snapped and toppled, gas lines severed and leaking: combine the two and fires rage in many major population centers.

Meanwhile, with the police in shambles, looting runs rampant within minutes. Store owners defend themselves with Pokémon abilities: that are oftentimes lethal against unchanged humans...

It truly is; The Pokémon Apocalypse...