In the land of Kitakami, there was a legend. An epic tale of three brave and loyal Pokemon named, aptly enough, the Loyal Three, who had laid down their lives to protect the local village from a dangerous ogre. Granted, the townsfolk that had passed the legend down had missed a few important context points to the story, such as the fact that said 'Loyal Three' had actually been a pack of thieves that had robbed a man's house and killed him when he tried to defend his property, and the ogre was actually attacking the Loyal Three themselves and not the village, but history is often written by the winning side, or at least by whoever's still alive afterwards to write history at all.

Three Pokemon. Okidogi, the mighty mutt blessed with brute strength. Munkidori, the magnificent-minded monkey. And Fezendipiti, the beautiful but brutal bird, the not-so-pleasant pheasant. Each one 'gifted' with purple poisonous chains that enhanced their capabilities to grant them their deepest wishes: muscle, mind, and majesty. A blessing and a curse, bestowed upon them by a fourth poison Pokemon: the mythical Pecharunt.

Who they were now out to murder.

[WHERE WERE YOU?!] roared Okidogi, his veins bulging under his black and green fur. [We fought for you! Gave our lives for you! And what were you doing? Cowering and hiding in the shadows! You never even thought to come back for us, did you?]

Pecharunt drew back into its rounded shell, quivering like a jelly. [I-I-I thought you were dead!] it gasped, glancing desperately at its new companions. [This isn't what it looks like, I swear--!]

[Oh, it's exactly what it looks like,] Fezendipiti hissed, pointing at the three strange beings watching by Pecharunt's side. Not quite human, not quite Pokemon. [Just look at these three! You've got the big, tough green one--]

"My name's Surge!" yelled the tenrec. "And I'm right here!"

[--the tiny blue one--]

"And HIS name's Kitsunami!" Surge yelled as the little blue fennec fox cowered behind her.

[--and quite frankly, I don't even know where you found this pathetic knockoff version of me, but seriously, what is he WEARING?]

The platypus bristled. "Excuse me? EXCUSE ME? You've got literal toxic waste wrapped around you like a belt, and you DARE insult MY fashion sense?"

Munkidori turned to Surge. [I suppose you're going to tell us who he is?]

Surge shrugged. "Dr. Starline. Just the idea guy. No one cares."

Dr. Starline did not like this. "Respect your elders, young lady!"

Okidogi took a threatening step forward, swinging his toxic chain. [I see you've got yourself a new 'Loyal Three,'] he growled. [Well, let's see how long they stay buried once we're through with them!]

---

Yes, I'm well aware you have questions about all this. Pecharunt, the Loyal Three, how the Loyal Three died and why they're not still dead, what even is a Pokemon and how come we Mobians can talk to them while humans cannot... some of these questions, even I have yet to fully answer.

The events of Pecharunt's arrival on Mobius and what transpired afterwards are... complicated, to say the least. I shall try to explain as best I can. Suffice to say, it's Dr. Eggman's fault.

Because if he had never stolen my Warp Topaz, none of this would have even happened.

---

Eight hours earlier:

It was not a good day for Surge. Not that any day was a good day for Surge.

"All right already!" she groused at Dr. Starline. "I got through your stupid pit traps, the walls of fire, the buzzsaws and the swinging axes. Any more ridiculously convoluted tests you have to throw at me?"

If she was expecting any empathy out of the platypus (and she wasn't), she would have been sorely disappointed. He didn't even look up from his tablet. "Actually, I just need you to run to the store and get some peaches."

Which was of course the last thing Surge had expected him to say. "Wait, seriously? You want me to just rush out and buy some stupid fruit?"

This time he actually did look up. "I didn't say I expected you to pay for it."

Oh. Ohhhhhh. Leave it to Starline to turn a simple shopping trip into another dumb test.

"Stealing peaches? Seriously? This is another of your stupid tests, is it?" The tenrec loomed dangerously over Starline's head. "Well, you know what I think about your stupid tests?"

Starline briefly considered bringing out his hypno-glove and zapping her with another dose of compliance, but the batteries were running low and he didn't want to risk her remembering he'd tried. "Would you rather stay home and run another obstacle course instead?"

"Well... no, but--"

"Because if you're looking for a test more on your level, I've been developing a course with piranhas."

Surge had no idea what piranhas actually were. Some sort of ninja weapon, she figured. Either way, they didn't sound pleasant.

She groaned. "All right already. Grab the shopping bags, Kit, we're going for peaches."

---

The sounds were hazy at first, as if heard underwater. An older male, and a younger female. The language was human, but the voices speaking them seemed almost more like the cries of Pokemon.

"I sent you out for peaches, and you came back with... this?"

"I grabbed as many peaches as I could get before the shopkeep saw me! You're complaining about my work, get your own damn peaches!"

"Do NOT use that sort of language with ME, young lady!"

"Well, I'm not some errand-runner! I came to you because I... I... why DID I come to you?"

The older male sighed. "SLEEP."

Ironically, this was the point where Pecharunt fully woke up, and popped out of its shell.

It was hard to say who'd screamed louder -- Kit, who was generally skittish; Pecharunt, who had no idea where it was or what was happening or what sort of creatures it was with; or Dr. Starline, who would later insist that of course he hadn't screamed at all, what were you talking about, you saw nothing, SLEEP.

Suffice to say that Surge didn't stay asleep for very long. And when an angry tenrec with lightning powers gets a rude awakening, especially this tenrec, then there's gonna be a reckoning.

That 'reckoning' manifested as what Pecharunt would've interpreted as a Discharge attack, or what Starline would've called reckless abuse of his cybernetic enhancements.

From Pecharunt's perspective, it had done nothing wrong. All it did was wake up, find itself in an entirely unfamiliar environment surrounded by screaming aliens, scream itself from the sheer terror of it all, and then get attacked by an angry green monster for no apparent reason whatsoever. Given that its last memories before sealing itself away in its shell had also involved being attacked by an entirely different angry green monster, this was understandably traumatic.

It lashed back in the only way it could: a mochi launch.

Dr. Starline's bill was closed, so the poisonous mochi simply bounced off his head. Surge and Kit, however, soon found themselves with a mouthful of rice cake each. It wasn't bad rice cake either, and there were far worse things to be hit in the face with (as Starline's tests had unfortunately demonstrated), so that at least shut them up long enough for them to chew and swallow.

Big mistake.

Pecharunt was not an inherently malevolent Pokemon. Certainly its hands weren't exactly the cleanest, but from the very beginning it had only set out to please the people it cared most about, an elderly human couple that it had seen as its parents. However, that quest had ended with the deaths of its friends and a centuries-long power nap in the middle of the woods and now it was being screamed at and attacked by complete strangers for no clear reason whatsoever, so excuse it for being petulant, but there was going to be a reckoning for this.

Which was why it decided that it was going to have a bit of fun with its new 'friends.'

---

From Dr. Starline's perspective, it felt like something from a campy horror film. His two creations, Surge and Kit, enveloped in a dark purple aura with blank purple eyes, coming towards him with what he couldn't possibly imagine were benevolent intentions. Granted, they were both chanting "Mochi mochi!" and doing the chicken dance, so it was somewhat difficult to keep a straight face, but given he knew full well how powerful they both were, he wasn't about to just stand there and take whatever was coming to him.

Fortunately he knew enough to guess that this new round purple creature was clearly behind it all, so he took appropriate action. Raising his hypno-glove, he zapped the offending monster with a full blast of hypnosis.

"Let them go, RIGHT NOW!"

Pecharunt, being a Poison type, was particularly susceptible to this kind of attack. Whimpering in terror, it dropped its control over Surge and Kit, who collapsed on the floor with a dazed look in their no-longer-purple eyes.

Starline's eyes turned to the last mochi cake on the floor. Grabbing it with his gloved hand before Pecharunt could reclaim it, he quickly pulled out a specimen sample bag and slipped it inside. Whatever the blasted heck this thing had created, he was going to run tests and find out if it was anything he might reverse-engineer. A poison that induced a hypnotic effect in those that ingested it would be quite useful in the field... possibly even for continuing to 'condition' Surge and Kit for Operation Remaster.

Surge recovered quicker than Kit, grabbing Pecharunt's round body and threatening to drop-kick it. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO US, YOU PUTRID PEACH PIT?!"

Under normal circumstances, Starline would have chastised her for cursing. However, these were not normal circumstances in the slightest, and quite frankly, he wasn't sure whether he wanted to leave this peculiar creature to his enforcer's rabid rage or attempt to defuse the situation in order to at least have an intact corpse to study, if it came to that. He'd seen what Surge had done to the test badniks, and while he hadn't brought her live subjects to dispatch (yet), he couldn't imagine that they'd fare any better.

Pecharunt, of course, started wailing like a scared child, which was more or less what it was. [I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry please don't eat me Ms. Angry Person...]

Amazingly, this approach actually worked. "Ms. Angry Person?" Surge asked, confused. "My name's Surge! And why would I want to eat something that smells like it's been rotting in a forest for two hundred years?"

[Two hundred years?] Pecharunt asked. [Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no...]

When Pecharunt wakes up at Starline Base Sigma, the last thing it remembers is Ogerpon's rampage, and it panics. Surprisingly, the Mobians are able to understand it, and Dr. Starline takes advantage of Pecharunt's confusion to tell it that the ogre that killed its friends is being protected by Sonic, hoping to gain Pecharunt's help in destroying Sonic once and for all. Surge and Kit are surprised that Starline never told them this, and more than a little suspicious that they're 'learning' this just now, but Starline doesn't intend to let them know he's lying either.

Pecharunt is understandably skeptical of Surge and Kit being able to face Ogerpon, since they are clearly Electric and Water type respectively, and Ogerpon is a Grass type capable of wasting no less than four Poison types. Surge immediately takes offense to this, saying that she can easily beat 'a stupid tree monster.' Surge now has it in her head that she is going to fight Ogerpon and win, despite not having any idea whatsoever where or what Ogerpon actually is.

When Pecharunt realizes that it's not in its homeworld anymore, it panics, initially believing that it's died and gone to some weird afterlife. As the Starline 'family' realizes Pecharunt isn't from their homeworld, Starline speculates that Pecharunt's arrival in their world could've been a result of the Warp Topaz, and runs some 'tests' on Pecharunt to determine if this is the case. Naturally, this being Dr. Starline, he doesn't care if the 'tests' hurt Pecharunt. Unfortunately for the Starline family, these 'tests' are not quite as safe as Starline believed them to be, and they activate residual Warp Topaz energy on Pecharunt and warp the four of them all the way back to Kitakami, where Ogerpon and the Loyal Three are waiting to beat Pecharunt up. The Loyal Three are especially angry at seeing the Starline family, believing that Pecharunt 'replaced' them with new companions. Pecharunt, for its part, isn't happy about its former companions turning against it, especially given that they're hanging with Ogerpon now. And of course Surge wants to beat up Ogerpon because she thinks Ogerpon is with Sonic.

I don't want to 'canonize' who the player character is in this AU, so Ogerpon and the Loyal Three are currently being watched over by Carmine and Kieran, who are understandably surprised to see three new beings that look like Pokemon but talk and wear clothes like humans. (Kieran mentions them wearing 'funny clothes,' which Starline takes serious offense at. In fairness, their Mobian fashion is very different than the traditional Japanese clothes in Kitakami.) Of course, when Ogerpon hears that something very valuable and powerful has been stolen, her first instinct is to blame Pecharunt -- and that doesn't end well. Thankfully Starline is able to somewhat defuse the situation by explaining that the Warp Topaz likely warped Pecharunt to Mobius by accident, but there's still plenty of bad blood between Ogerpon and Pecharunt.

Surge, meanwhile, isn't happy to hear that Ogerpon has never met Sonic, and immediately rails on Starline for lying to her. Starline tries to save face, claiming that he'd believed from the intel he'd gathered that Ogerpon was with Sonic and that he's hardly infallible, but Surge definitely smells a rat and tells Starline he's fired and she and Kit will go find Sonic themselves. She then turns in her resignation by attacking Starline and Pecharunt directly, with Kit assisting; however, Pecharunt tries to calm them down by feeding them mind-control mochi, which unfortunately backfires into only making them more aggressive. Kieran, Carmine, Ogerpon, and the Loyal Three all assist in battling Surge and Kit, who soon realize they're vastly outnumbered and escape into the wild.

Starline starts to panic, realizing that his now even more unstable 'creations' could wreak havoc in this world, especially if they get their hands on the Warp Topaz before he can. This drives a wedge between Starline and Pecharunt, with Starline blaming Pecharunt for enhancing Surge and Kit with its mochi and Pecharunt heartbroken because it was only trying to help and now Starline hates it for that.

Perhaps Ogerpon has found the Warp Topaz and picked it up because she likes shiny things. Surge and Kit might take it from her, try to use it, and wind up somewhere in Ultra Space (possibly taking Ogerpon with them), meaning that Starline, Kieran, and Carmine have to figure out how to track them down to another dimension. This would mean a trip to Alola; I hope none of them get air sickness. (Maybe Starline gets air sickness.)