“Well…” she began, leaving the rest of the sentence unfinished. Who knew what to say if and when they started picking out Pokémon they wanted to take care of? She was sorely hoping for either one of them to either take a liking to either a Ralts or a Rufflet, considering that they were her own companions for the past decade or so.

Either way, she wasn’t going to say anything if they so happened to choose a Pichu-line for one of their starter Pokémon. But she would still be eternally sad and dismayed because…

Wait, what?

Shaking her head, she then followed Josh’s line of sight before seeing said Cyndaquil, almost bailing. “Josh, no, you scared him away,” she was about to admonish, when something decided to make an appearance with a flash of red light. Landing in a graceful position in front of them was her Gardevoir, Momiji.

“Well, then. Don’t scare it, go after it!” and off the Gardevoir went, Teleporting briefly out of sight and reappearing close to where the Cyndaquil was, releasing a blast of Psychic energy. Not to be outmatched, the Fire-type squealed and fired back a Flame Wheel attack—that ended up hitting thin air, as the Gardevoir had vanished.

Another Teleporting stunt later, a second blast of rainbow-colored Psychic energy went straight for the Cyndaquil at close range, who attempted to retaliate with a Swift attack. The star-shaped projectiles peppered the taller Pokémon, but she was faster. A finisher in the form of a Moonblast hurled the small Fire-type back their way, skidding to a stop near her feet.

“Aw, come on Momo, no need to go so hard on this one,” she chastised the dual-type before dropping a vacant Pokéball on the passed-out Cyndaquil.

“Oh, you tease me,” she replied with a grin, crinkling her eyebrows in his direction as he turned to look at her. While it wasn’t that common for married couples to go out on dates anymore because either one or both parents were working, they still managed to find time between their kids and all that.

“Honestly? Best decision ever, moving back here. Right where it all began, don’t you think?” she muttered a few moments later, scooting over closer to him and sharing his body warmth. “You flatter me so much,” she added afterward, her cheeks turning a nice shade of red.

Either way, she was getting flustered.

“Do you… want to head back now? Or would you want to stay out some more and enjoy this private time we have before we go back home?” she asked after letting some silence pass between them. The wind was nice and nippy, the stars had come out in the night sky, and here they were, dancing on the ice to a quiet tune that only they could hear.

She was certainly not expecting the fanfare to catch her off-guard as the weapon wedged itself free from the rock, before she stared at the hilt in her hands.

Holy hellballs, what did I just do?! she thought in the back of her mind before she felt something settle atop her head, and then an in-game prompt flashed in front of her.

‘Choose a kingdom to rule over’.

There were several that had already been claimed, however, being a simple lady that she was, she decided… a finger hovered over the map in front of her, before she locked in her choice.

“I choose… Aurora.”

Why not be as normal as possible, then? At least she could get her kicks out of whatever spawned in there and decided to challenge her, or Josh, or hell, even Amor!

It wasn’t every day that the other two were in the presence of a queen, right?

She chuckled softly to herself as she sent an in-game message to Josh Dragomir to let him know that by technicality, they had a place to call their own inside Ransei.



she has made her choice: Aurora!

Rangers, and Mages.

That was it? That was the extent of the pool of victors so far?

She wondered if she could be the first Brawler to yank the sword out of the danged thing, because holy heck, players kept on trying and failing horribly to pull it out. Heck, even the winners from before were coming back to keep trying…

…so why not her?

After flinching slightly as the last player who tried to pull out the sword exploded into tiny bits of data, she braced herself for the inevitable, dawdling for a few more moments before finally reaching for the sword.

Try, and keep trying!

She watched in silent shock as he took a swing with the sword—she couldn’t call it a ‘blade’ necessarily, as it required the use of two hands to be able to hold aloft properly. The resounding THWACK echoed throughout the area, and she grinned.

“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” she remarked as the Wobbuffet dummy shook with what she estimated was an incredible force. “So, what attacks did you choose?” she asked a few moments later.

“Since obviously I went for Brawler, I had to choose a few moves that would go well with the martial-arts fighting style I’m sure you’re familiar with,” she added a few moments later as she took aim at the training dummy in front of her, catching it right in the face with a powerful axe kick.

“Whoa. I could never do that outside of this game,” she added a few moments later, a mischievous grin spreading across her face.



yeet

Okay, so in her case being a mother took up too much of her time, what with the twins wanting to figure out what “virtual reality” was and asking so many questions about it.

She wondered if Josh had managed to get way from the Inquisitive Duo in order to log into the game.

Unsurprised to see a lot of EXP points in her bar for not logging in, she flicked the pop-up away and warped to Valora, wondering if it was a good idea to try her luck against the sword in the rock. Rumor had it there was a female character who had managed to pull the sword out, but other than that…

Well, time to try again, right?

the last one gave me a nightmare and a half

Izumi: owo what’s this

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At least she was sure who she was going to report now when she got out of this sticky situation, no matter how dangerous it was. Gee, she should really travel around with her husband when she ventured out into these more dangerous areas…

Looking upward, she saw another incoming attack, and holy shit this was bad!

Why me?! What are you even going to get?! She thought, concentrating as she conjured up a sphere of auric energy and attempted to block the incoming attack from the skies—but leaving herself wide open instead for the other to hit her.

Gritting her teeth, she knew that whatever she was doing was futile, but there was no way she was going to give in to whatever they wanted. She was going to fight to the last bar of pixelated health!

Shit. Maybe she should have gotten Drain Punch…

“Look, I’m already ‘myself’ outside the game, now you want me to not change my look, not even a little, at least in here too?” she continued with a huff. “What else do you want me to do? Change my clothing into something a little more indecent or anything?”

Twirling around in front of him, she then pointed at the Wobbuffet dummies.

“Okay, so,” she continued, reading off from the interface floating in front of her, “…we’re supposed to test our chosen attacks on these dummies first before we can move out of here… let’s see you swing that sword, eh?”

Honestly she was waiting for him to reach for the sword strapped on his back and swing it around like a madman. “Come ooooon, who knows, you might get a motorcycle after this!” she added a few moments later, chuckling.



welp

The fact that one of the known in-game players had pulled out the sword first had incensed her. Was there like, anyone who was brave enough to challenge their rule? Like…

There was now a reason she was avoiding one of the kingdoms until someone else had managed to dethrone the ‘great pretender’ (as she called him in the back of her mind). Why did he have to hide behind a party of gankers just to lay a claim to fame?

Why not come out and fight like a man? Or a woman?!

Sighing, she watched the previous person explode into pixelated death before squaring her shoulders and preparing herself for a new attempt. Hopefully the next winner would be a woman…

Apparently someone had already gotten the prize…

…and rumor had it, it was one of those players who loved going around and ganking characters who were alone in the PK areas! Well, what was fair with that?!

While she didn’t know what the hell what the prize was, she sincerely hoped it was not a weapon—because if it was, then it would seriously imbalance the game, insane as it already was.

While she hadn’t memorized all the in-game names of the players who PK’d other characters for fun, she knew that they had to be stopped, somehow.

But how?

What was the ‘second place’ prize now?

Sighing, she walked up to the rock and began yanking out the handle—this one looked different…

“Oh no. Nononononononono. Not those nasty troublemakers. I swear! If you give them ANY form of a Pichu or Pikachu or Raichu line I will smite you,” she grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You know what those little rats do when I’m in the kitchen?! They always cause chaos and always run away before you can catch them in the act! What’s fair about that?!” she continued, letting out an annoyed huff. Catching the eye of a fire monkey nearby, she shook her head.

“Look, not a Pichu. They’re trouble incarnate,” she went on, her arms still crossed. As the Pansear wandered away, she let out another sigh. “You never seem to believe me when I tell you your little Pichu platoon always causes mayhem in the kitchen…”

Shaking her head once more, she wondered if he was going to see reason.

“We let them choose what they want to take care of, that’s that,” she added.