Machamp Side Story

>You were awoken rudely, as always, by the screeches of a digital alarm clock, its cries harsh and grating compared to the more dulcet tones produced by your phone when you set an alarm.
>You needed it.
>The phone was always too quiet and you usually just slept through it, which made this piece of kit, antiquated though it might have been, an absolute necessity for you.
>Or perhaps you were just a hipster in denial...
>Either way, you blearily reached out to silence the racket, again as always, blissfully unaware in the moment that this would be you and the alarm clock's final moment together.
>You didn't entirely perceive what happened at first.
>You just heard cracking plastic, a faint metallic tinkling, and then the inevitably louder than one would think it should be impact of a small, hard object cratering into the floor.
>Peering groggily over the edge of the bed, you saw your alarm clock in pieces.
>The casing was completely smashed in, and more pieces had broken off and skittered away after it had hit the floor.
>Part of the electronics inside were visible, even giving off a tiny amount of magic smoke before the apparently damaged battery finally sparked and failed completely.
>You were still half-asleep, and so couldn't muster the proper amount of anger, shock, or upset for such a situation.
>Weird, you weren't normally THIS out of it when you woke up, much less when things were falling down and going boom like that.
>Trying in some way to make sense of what was going on and maybe wake yourself up properly, you slowly reached out with both right arms toward the shattered remnants.
>Both... right arms...?
>Your breathing began to quiver as both hands turned over to show the palms, fingers flexing and unflexing in perfect unison at your unconscious command.
>You tried lifting your left hand into view.
>Left hands.
>Same thing.
>Two hands.
>Moving as one.
>Grey.
>You stumbled heedlessly out of bed, foggy brain lagging, the gears in your head not really turning like gears should, but moreso spinning freely like hamster wheels, totally unable to make sense of what was happening to you.
>The remains of the alarm clock crunched heedlessly underfoot.
>Trembling fingers eased gently around the wood of the door (you were immensely glad in that moment that you liked to sleep with it slightly ajar), only for both of your hands to rip it open almost faster than you could see, the crunch of the doorknob smashing through the plasterboard and the hinges squealing in protest making you wince.
>In hindsight you'd go on to reflect that a doorstop would've been a good investment long ago, but you couldn't think about that right now.
>You couldn't think about much of anything.
>You were almost on autopilot.
>It carried you to the bathroom.
>Your gaze reflexively averted as you stepped tentatively over the threshold.
>You starred at your hands again.
>All four of them.
>Part of you didn't want to see - the rest knew you had to.
>Why were you so groggy?
>Part of you wanted it to be because you were drugged - the rest knew it wasn't true.
>Slowly, very slowly, your eyes traced upwards, taking in every inch of the pedestal on which the sink rested. The lip. The drain. The taps.
>Your gaze awkwardly hovered on the wall between the sink and the mirror for a moment.
>You snapped your head the rest of the way up all at once.
>Red eyes that were currently boggling at the sight before you.
>Head ridges.
>An almost beak-like mouth.
>The second set of arms disappearing into shoulders that were almost behind your head.
>Nothing on but black briefs and a wrestling belt.
>Finally, you started to process, actually accepting that these visual inputs were accurate (if still unclear on accepting their implications) allowing you to languidly begin to wave the fog away.
>You'd seen the news reports, of course.
>It was all anyone at work could talk about.
>You hadn't seen a Pokemon in person yet, but several co-workers alleged that they had.
>You'd even reflected on how funny it was that life could just sort of carry on as normal in the midst of all this.
>And now, here you were... a community college nobody with a crappy job and crappier prospects...
>Like this.
>Like that girl. What was that Pokemon called again...?
>You liked the series just fine, you guessed, but it wasn't as if you were a superfan or anything - hadn't played one in a long time.
>It didn't FEEL like a monkey's paw situation... it wasn't like you'd ASKED for this...
>And yet...
>Slowly, you raised both right hands. You only wanted one, but couldn't seem to will the second to co-operate.
>Tentative. Shaking a little. You touched your reflection in the mirror. Ran your fingers down the glass.
>You swallowed. You tilted your head at yourself a little.
>Then, to nobody's greater surprise than your own, you smiled a bit.
>Heh...
>Man, you were really, REALLY glad your roommates both had early starts today...

----------

>Well, you weren't freaking out.
>There was still another hole in the wall now, though.
>You were pulled away from pensively gazing at yourself by a rumbling stomach. The more things changed...
>You'd kind of sauntered heedlessly towards the kitchen, both pairs of arms outstretched and gaze languidly drifting between them.
>Your thoughts still came sluggishly, but you noticed how your eye was drawn almost inexorably to each upper arm.
>An opinion on at least one aspect of this situation was just starting to solidify when you noticed one of your hands had clipped something on a side table.
>You managed to reel back in time to prevent anything from crashing to the floor, but then you heard a distressing crunch and felt resistance against the opposite hand that quickly abated.
>Reluctantly, you turned.
>Sure enough, your hand was straight through the damn wall.
>Sighing, more out of sympathy for your poor, poor wallet than anything else, you retrieved the offending appendage and curled your hands in front of you as best you could the rest of the way.
>You handled getting a kitchen cupboard open gingerly.
>Having to do everything with two hands at once made things difficult.
>You managed it without breaking anything else, though.
>Then you got a bit ahead of yourself in your excitement at seeing the box of cereal.
>The cardboard crumpled under your grip. The bag exploded like Popeye's spinach and sent cereal in every direction.
>You could only grimace and flinch away, not wanting crumbs in your eyes.
>Why had everything in here been made so fragile?
>A Machamp would sure never build anything so sloppy!
>...what?
>You shook your head. Food first.
>Glancing awkwardly from side-to-side, you shrugged, then tilted your head back, lifted the half-ruined box over your head, and allowed whatever remained inside to pour into your wide open mouth.
>Might've still been a whole pound in there, but you held the whole lot in your mouth and chewed it like it was nothing.
>Your new face scrunched up a bit - it tasted like chemicals and stale cardboard.
>Well, more than usual.
>But it'd do for now. Barely.
>Milk. You needed it.
>You opened the fridge extremely, EXTREMELY carefully. If you damaged THAT there'd be Hell to pay.
>Getting the milk out wasn't TOO bad provided you employed utmost concentration, but getting the cap off felt like an exercise in theoretical physics.
>Probably why milk wound up dented, knocked over, and poured out over the counter.
>Probably why it wound up further poured all over the floor as you hastened to get the carton back upright and tip what remained down your throat before it was all wasted.
>Cold. Fresh. Only a mild bite of some sort of artificial sick.
>And then you slipped over on the milk and now soggy cereal covering the floor.
>It didn't really hurt, but by the time your world stopped spinning you noted that the back of your head WAS through one of the lower cupboard doors now, your head resting against a freshly dented saucepan.
>Great.
>It was at that point, starring up at the ceiling feeling VERY sorry for yourself indeed, that you came to a decision.
>You weren't moving until you figure out how to make each arm move on its own.
>All four arms lifted up in front of you and you starred at them.
>You considered them, every single inch of each positively rippling with newfound muscle.
>That half-formed thought from before finally solidified.
>You thought about what you looked like before... how you'd known your body to let you down on the job...
>Yeah, okay, the muscles were pretty epic.
>Being as clumsy and destructive as Dumbo on a bender? Not epic.
>Still, you couldn't help but wonder what they could REALLY do...
>But you were gonna have to get control over them first.

----------

>You sat there for hours, maybe days.
>Okay, it probably wasn't that long, but it sure felt like it.
>Maybe your old body had been down with sitting still, but this one wanted to move, to act... to LIFT...
>Although it didn't help that you spent as much time starring at your new muscles as you spent figuring out how to make the arms move independently.
>It felt narcissistic and it kind of contradicted your newfound desire to be in motion, but it was hard not to admire yourself compared to what you were before.
>There was something oddly natural about it - preening felt somehow intrinsic, like food or sleep.
>And all that while stewing in failure and slowly spoiling milk - you could only imagine how much more you'd enjoy it in actually GOOD circumstances.
>Anyway, it turned out the problem with your new arms was kind of the opposite of phantom limb.
>At first, your brain was only really registering your lower arms and the new upper ones were just along for the ride.
>It took intense, conscious effort to begin to change that.
>Starring intently at your upper right hand, you must have flexed and unflexed the fingers in perfect unison with the lower dozens of times before you saw even the slightest, nigh-imperceptible desynchronization.
>Only sheer need... maybe even full-blown desperation... had kept you going that long, but like everything, the first step was the hardest.
>With each desynchronized motion, the lower arm lagged the upper arm's movement more and more. Almost unconsciously, your focus began to drift. To split.
>Your lower arm moved in the opposite direction to the upper.
>You tried it with your left arms.
>It only took one dozen tries this time.
>You wiggled the fingers like Baymax.
>You made finger guns and made your four hands shoot at each other.
>It was like a snowball rolling downhill, every success at integrating these new appendages building momentum.
>Things shifted at some point. Clicked.
>Right around the time you were able to make the upper hand punch the palm of the lower hand on the opposite side.
>Almost like these "new" limbs had, in fact, always been there.
>Well, they HAD always been there.
>...umm, no?
>You shook your head.
>Alright, you couldn't stay here anymore - inaction was messing with your head.
>Or at least that's what you told yourself.
>You made to find your enormous, two-toed feet.
>Ironically, your improved but imperfect control over your arms actually made this more difficult.
>Having to adjust for the subtle shifts in your center of gravity from all four limbs moving independently of each other, plus the slippery floor, saw you spill forwards.
>You didn't shatter the countertop upon slamming all four of your hands into it, but you were quite sure that wasn't GOOD for it.
>It was a bit of a fight to get back to the bathroom while staying upright.
>You almost crashed into something again when you got distracted tilting your upper right forearm up and down, watching the muscles flex instead of where you were going.
>But you made it back in front of the mirror without further incident.
>You saw yourself for the first time.
>Not merely seeing, or tentatively accepting, but actually LOOKING.
>Actually admiring.
>Every inch of swole, toned frame.
>Every subtle movement of cut, perfect muscle.
>You couldn't help it - you flexed all four of your biceps.
>A rush like you'd never felt before.
>Not just confidence, but radiating power - an inner light that made you somehow weightless and yet immovable at the same time.
>Like you could punch through a wall.
>No, a mountain!
>Already intoxicated by this feeling, you tried something more advanced.
>You swung your lower arms down, making the fists meet in front of your abdomen, and stretched your upper arms far above your head at the same time, one upper hand grabbing the other upper arm's wrist.
>It wasn't truly at the same time - you sort of had to awkwardly will one action and then the other right after.
>Still getting used to this.
>The effect was the same though - that feeling of inner power shining even stronger, bathing you in the warmth of something you'd never felt before - complete and total self-assurance.
>Wait, no, you'd totally felt this before!
>...no you hadn't.
>Whatever. You turned sideways a bit and curled your lower arm tight in front of yourself.
>You gave yourself a smug wink.
>Oooh, you LIKED that...
>The only reason you stopped wasn't out of any fear that things might be getting TOO narcissistic, but because of a sudden, intractable revelation - something you couldn't THINK of resisting because every fibre of your new being was screaming it at you.
"I'e GOH-A 'ehh umunn a-oww kih!"
>The revelation that you couldn't make half the sounds the English language with this beak-like mouth (in hindsight that definitely hadn't helped the milk situation either) came at the exact same time you unthinkingly hammered your fists on the vanity in your excitement and the throes of a decision made, the tremendous bang of something giving way the thing to shake you from your self-aggrandizing stupor and actually bring you back to reality.
>Your reaction both to the linguistic revelation and to the massive crack now running through the vanity top (fortunately, the basin itself appeared as if it would still run and hold water. Small victories) was one and the same...
>Well, THAT wasn't good...