video / text

[thatwasours]

{ VIDEO }

 

[a man in his late thirties comes onto the feed. his bag is open next to him with the contents ruffled through, and there's an open Pokéball on the ground. the lower left sleeve of his trenchcoat is also leaking blood from what looks like puncture marks (a bite wound?) and is slightly singed, but he doesn't appear to be paying it much mind.]

 

I read the handbook, but there's one thing I'm not getting. These creatures-- Pokémon --are they pets, or are they weapons? The information here contradicts itself. It says here that friendship is an important part of raising the things, but as far as I'm aware, you don't usually make nice with animals you're teaching to cockfight.

 

And what kind of anarchistic society is this that the person with the strongest Pokemon wins every possible interpersonal conflict? All right, so it's not that different from most third-world countries, or your average political standoff, but seeing that kind of thing on an individual, culturally-encouraged level is a little disturbing. [he lets out a snort of disapproval.] Might makes right, I guess.
 
 

 

 

{ TEXT, LOCKED TO SELF AT 30% }

 

LOVE DETERRENCE

 

[the clumsy, highly experimental nature of the lock makes it fairly obvious that this is someone trying to work out how to filter and hack.]

Comments

[video]

[solas_ion]

Eh--it's a little of both, to answer your first question. [Lancer shrugged his shoulders, tilting his head to one side as he tried to evaluate where Kaz was coming from. It wasn't often he saw newcomers taking things quite this seriously.]

As for the second... [Another shrug.] Can't help you with that. The place's always run pretty well, tell ya the truth.

[thatwasours]

It's all right. You've still helped a lot-- I've got a better picture of what's going on here, now.

[okay, well, not a good one, but as good of one as he's going to get until he does some digging of his own, probably.]

[but he smiles a little at the fact that Naoya's from Japan.]

Really. What part? I grew up in Yokosuka, not far from the base.

[crouching_sin]

Good. And ah... I was living Aoyama, though I was working in Shinagawa. I'm a programmer by trade.

[thatwasours]

[a long-suffering sigh]

I don't even like kids, but that sounds like the sort of thing someone should be doing something about.

Not that they'd cooperate. Anything that's dangerous attracts kids like flies, all of them trying to prove they aren't kids anymore.

[thedifferencebetween]

I started keeping a list of all the things that somebody should be doing something about around here, but I ran out of paper on my third day.

There's no government. There's no political infrastructure at all. The entire defense department is a clone army of some hot chick. Everything revolves around these animals. Weapons apparently don't exist.

I'd say it's a cover for something, but it's the stupidest friggin' cover anybody could think of. And not like it's so stupid it's genius because nobody would ever suspect, it's just stupid.

And suspicious.

Really suspicious.

[thatwasours]

I didn't know programming had become an actual career outside the military and PFs. Sure, computers are becoming affordable for civilian businesses, but...

What do you program? Something to automate industrial work?

[read: I haven't been in a first world country for at least five years and it's still 1984 in my world]

[thatwasours]

Thanks, I'd appreciate it. Not sure I'd be able to catch the thing by myself.

We can talk over the details of how it's even possible for animals to do this later-- I'll meet you at the center of town.

[he pauses for a long second, and adds, in a bitter, pained tone]

Don't count on it taking as long as usual. Somehow, I got prosthetics like yours on the way here.

[crouching_sin]

... It's 2009 in my world. Computers are quite common - in fact...

[He tilts over and grabs his COMP off of his desk, holding it up to show Kaz.]

This has a computer chip inside of it. It's what I programmed for. Normally, they're used for games and email - electronic mail - but my program was... different. It's called the Demon Summoning App - 'app' being short for 'application', which is another word for a program.

[thatwasours]

And everybody has a military-grade weapon. How is this place not an active war zone? If there's no government, who does the defense department listen to? Are there laws? What good is a defense department anyway, if the only military power available to them is just as available to everyone else?

[these aren't even real questions at this point so much as a continued expression of disbelief.]

What do you mean, 'suspicious'? In the sense that there has to be some underlying structure to this that isn't readily apparent?

[thedifferencebetween]

Or like a hundred of them. Because why not?

Bingo, cupcake. We should be picking our way around the fresh corpses daily, but nobody seems to actually die. Don't even get me started on the economy, there's no way it should work the way it does.

Oh, and the ledges only go one way, so even the laws of physics don't work right.

Nothing should work, but it does.

[thatwasours]

I'm guessing that thing isn't worth anywhere near what it would cost R&D to make it back home. I had something a little bit like it made for field operations but that was... three million, easy.

[he smiles a little and shakes his head. it's nice to see military-created things not being used as tools for war.]

Games and personal communication. Really. So what makes your app different?

[because there's no way the Demon Summoning App is exactly what it says on the tin, right?]

LOCKED, 20%

[thatwasours]

[and at this point in the conversation, Kaz attempts to lock it. badly, considering he's got limited experience with computer things, but this is the sort of conversation he'd rather have privately.]

What do you mean, nobody dies? Aren't there all kinds of accidental deaths happening because of the monsters?

Not to tinhat, but this is beginning to sound like whatever we're inhabiting isn't actually reality. If everything here is a simulation, nothing would have to operate by logic. But if this is reality, or another branch of it, anyway, why would whoever's behind the curtain go to such lengths to make everything seem like it shouldn't work? It doesn't make sense.

[video]

[thatwasours]

That's what I'm getting at. Even if these things have a natural drive to fight, how do you raise something to be both a weapon and a pet? You'd have to be both its master and its friend, hold both the carrot and the stick.

[crouching_sin]

No, not even remotely. About fifteen thousand yen, last I checked. Which would be... something between a hundred fifty and two hundred dollars.

[He smirks a little bit. So it wasn't obvious?]

It uses raw emotional energy and a digital drawing tool to create summoning circles and bring forth demons to make contracts with. This is something I was commissioned to make, mind. Demons were going to be breaking through anyway, and the group wanted their members to at least have a fighting chance of surviving. And what better to fight demons than with demons? ... A bit like a Pokemon battle, but much more deadly.

1/2

[thatwasours]

Demons.

[several seconds of disbelieving silence]

2/2

[thatwasours]

Guess I don't have a whole lot of stones to throw, with everything that's happening here.

So training creatures to kill isn't new to you, I'm assuming?

Private

[thedifferencebetween]

Here, lemme get that.

[That attempt at locking the conversation is almost cute, as far as Jack's concerned.]

The ECHO tech here's pretty archaic, but once you get the hang of it... of course, I'm a computer genius, so I've got an advantage.

Anyway, no, it's...I dunno. Some people say it just doesn't happen, some people say you just...come back. I'm more inclined to believe the latter, it's not like every major tech company in the universe hasn't been working toward it since digistruction was a thing. we just haven't done it. Yet. But maybe they have here, this place is entirely off the grid.

I've thought about the simulation angle, but it doesn't add up. Consciousness and senses can be tricked, but the base brain....it is not stupid. It knows. And eventually it starts giving the eyes and ears and the dumb, easily tricked part of the brain little signs and signals that nothing's real.

No, I think if anything is going on - I'm not ruling out that this is just a really friggin messed up planet - it's more likely something's fucking with us. Some powerful alien with a crappy sense of humor.

[crouching_sin]

It's not, but Pokemon seem less interested in killing, generally, than demons.

There's also the fact that Pokemon is a video game in my world.

[video]

[solas_ion]

Ain't that hard, really. They're a lot more intelligent than even your above-average wolfhound. So all you really gotta do is be strict without being a complete bastard, and most cases you can manage pretty well with that.

[thatwasours]

That explains a lot.

[Pokemon. Pocket... monsters...]

It's a children's game, isn't it?

[cardboard_boss]

[You won't have to catch anything by yourself. How would you do it anyway?]

Yeah. Sounds good.

[Meet up in New Bark town centre? Yep, good plan.]

Huh? Who gave you them?

[Snake's surprised. Genuinely. How would Kaz deal with this? Since he refused prosthetics back at Mother base, since he wanted to feel the pain the dead soldiers went through.]

[crouching_sin]

It is. Marketed all over.

[thatwasours]

All right. That's...

[he doesn't say what, exactly, that is, and just takes a deep breath. wow, this place is a trip.]

So. You mentioned demons. How does the app work, exactly? Are demons purely physical beings, or are they something else?

[thatwasours]

I don't know. Someone with a sick sense of humor.

[the answer is snapped, harsher than he means. so, the answer to 'how is Kaz dealing with having prosthetics that he refused in favor of wallowing in self-pity' is, seemingly, with a great deal of anger and bitterness. but the scenery in the background of the video seems to be moving along at a healthy pace as Kaz stalks towards the center of town, so the new leg must work pretty well.]

They were here when I woke up. I don't have my old leg, or my cane, or I'd have taken the leg off already.

Once I catch the damn mutt, I'm throwing the arm in my bag.

[thatwasours]

Being a complete bastard seems like it'd be a quicker path to making the most efficient fighter.

I haven't seen a lot of dogfights, but the way I understood it was that you don't leave any room for kindness in them, or they'll hesitate.