“Redditor. Redditor. Reddit ... Redditor. Tor.”

John blinked.

“What the fuck.”

John was staring at what was clearly a human. Brown hair, brown eyes, average height, t-shirt, pants, and tennis shoes. But clearly a human.

“Reddit. Redditor.”

John was knee-deep in the Underground Slums of Obsidian City. He had been slogging his way through the maze of corridors and sewers as he made his way through the rundown city.

There were trainers down here. Mostly street rats, some techies, and the odd youngster in a local gang. Their teams had mostly been experience farms for his Pokémon team. The trainers here used weak Pokémon. Grimers, Pidgeys, Rattatas, Mankeys, Poochyenas, and Stunkys. And so on.

Lower end Pokémon.

And they weren’t all that powerful in the hands of their trainers either. No TMs, randomized moves from their evolutionary lines, no EV training, the works.

Their trainers gave no real strategy that suggested they knew what they were doing, either. Most of them acted like tweakers or addicts. Attack, attack, attack, random utility debuff move here, status move there, but mostly attack moves every battle.

John slaughtered them wholesale.

John’s team was a full team of six although this far into his journey his team was not fully evolved. He enough variety in Pokémon typing, though.

Wiggytuff, Tyrunt, Metang, Staryu, Fletchinder, and his starter, Ivysaur.

He had cleared most of the trainers out from down here and was settling in to capture additional Pokémon. John would see what was worth leveling and what was worth only to help fill out his Pokedex.

But before him was this ... thing.

It was ready to rumble but the lack of actual “Pokémon” in the area was giving it confusion. John knew wild Pokémon avoided fighting humans so the lack of a target in front of it was giving John some time to think.

His Pokedex told John that this ... thing, was a legitimate Pokémon.

It said: “Redditor, the Toxic Little Shit Pokémon.”

“Redditors live inside, their faces figuratively glued to electronic screens. They don’t like to be disturbed and lash out when they can’t access the internet.

“Redditors are the first stage of a three-stage evolution line. They evolve to Twitteruser at level twenty-four and then Facebooker at level thirty-six.

“Redditors have low health, and defense values with above average special attack, average special defense and speed values.

“Redditors have the ability Emotional Immaturity Fallacy. Each attack of a different element causes the next damaging move it uses to have one point five times damage. This ability only activates once per five turns. The ability remembers which damage types triggered the effect and ignores that type after it is used.”

John blinked again.

What the fuck.

But Pokedex said it was a legit Pokémon.

John decided to test that theory. He threw a Poke Ball. Out popped his Metang. The Pokedex said Poison and Fighting. Steel is immune to poison moves and fighting damage will be made neutral from the combination of Steel and Psychic.

The Redditor produced a literal anime exclamation mark bubble upon recognizing Metang. It rushed to get in front of Metang as if it was a real Pokémon and not a human.

... And then battle music started.

“This day keeps getting weirder and weirder. That kind of shit is only supposed to happen in cartridge games!”

Battle officially started, though, John sighed.

Since the Redditor failed to make a first move, Metang would go first.

“Gigabyte! Use Thunder Punch!”

Metang rushed forward and put its fist into the wild Redditor’s solar plexus, dealing solid electrical damage. The Redditor recoiled as Metang moved back to its original position.