victory_road | 2. Video

[Newt's second video to the feed is a lot different then her first. She's smiling for one thing. She also has two new pokemon next to her, a Cubone and and Absol. They're both very young and sticking very close to Newt. She waves at the camera. A little nervous still, but smiling.]

I've got two new pokemon now. This is Hudson

[She points the camera to the Cubone leaning against her. Not looking at the camera]

And this is Vasquez.

[A quick point to the Absol who is somehow glaring at the screen.]

They're both a little shy but that's okay. We're family now. Thank you Walter. I promise I'll take good care of them! I told Feathers to say hello to you for me when he left, too.

Um, I do have a question though. How do people decide what to name their pokemon? I named my two new ones after people who are ....gone now. I don't have that many names like that left that I want to use....so it's going to be harder to pick ones that fit them.

And....I'm not really good at picking names and I'll have to do that in the future...what do you guys do?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Newt suddenly looks a bit ...nervous.]

We only had one place on the moon I grew up on. The colony and ....I don't want to name any of them after that place. ....bad things happened there.

....I named my second pokemon after my doll, Casey. I liked her.

It's best not to give them a name attached to unpleasant memories, yes. They deserve better than that.

[A moon-related name would have been nice, but not if it means pain.]

Ah, but naming a Pokémon after your doll is an excellent idea! I don't suppose Casey is a Shuppet, by any chance?

[She might change her mind on the moon later, if she moves on further. Hadley's Hope though, that will probably always hold too many terrible memories.]

No, she's a Rattata. When we were camping, she came and tried to steal our food but I woke up and Ripley and I battled her and won. Only then I realized she was just hungry and scared. So I asked her to join me and Ripley. She's a lot braver now.

I named her Casey because I used to take my doll Casey with me when I went searching for food back home. She was only a head then so I could put her in my pocket and still get around easy in the vents.

She sounds like a wonderful companion. Even if she was scared, trying to steal from a human takes great courage, and so does travelling with someone who has defeated you.

[He can almost imagine it, a little Rattata bravely training to help her new friends.]

We sometimes receive gifts from home, you know. Perhaps you'll have the opportunity to travel with both Caseys at once, someday.

I told her that too. It's hard to steal food when you're afraid of the bigger things out there. She's really brave.

[Newt loves her.]

We get....gifts from home?

[That's new to her.]

I....I'd really like that. She was just a head after I lost her the first time. ....but I lost her again when ...I got taken by the aliens so....do you think I might still get her back? Even if she was lost at home?

And now that you are together, you can teach each other new ways to find food efficiently. Everyone wins from such a partnership.

[Except for the food, possibly.]

Once every two years or so, yes. Sometimes more often. I recovered a crystal I'd lost nearly twenty years earlier, finding a doll recently lost should not be an issue. ...I must warn you, however, that we never choose when we receive those gifts, or which gift we receive. It all depends in this world's whims.

I suppose so. I had to learn new ways to get food here. It was easier to just sneak out and take the food that people had in their homes but here that's stealing because they're not dead. Now I have to use money.

[It's confusing sometimes.]

Oh...that's a really long time.

[She's seven a year feels like forever.]

.....that's okay. I didn't think it gave us anything so if it does, anything that isn't evil that would be nice.

...Ah, yes, it is considered rather rude to steal food from living people. Luckily, money is extremely easy to obtain in this world, especially if you train a Meowth. And stores tend to offer more variety than homes.

[Still, the fact that she has to learn that here is rather alarming...]

I've yet to hear of someone receiving a harmful present. Besides, most dangerous items have difficulty existing here.

Yeah.....But sometimes you don't have a choice. I used to get food from my parents but then ....everyone died so I had to take the food stuff left over after the attacks.

[She lived in a ventilation shaft surrounded by monsters for weeks!]

They do? What do you mean?

That you managed to do so by yourself is impressive, even if you had no choice if you wished to survive. Considering those attacks managed to kill everyone around you, I imagine your surroundings were far from safe.

[He may be ever so slightly underestimating how unsafe they were.]

Not only are out weapons taken from us when we are brought here, but they cannot be bought or even decently crafted. The edges of blades dull far too quickly, and open displaying even basic wooden spears may get you arrested.

They were ....bad. I was the only person left on the moon....the monsters.....they killed or took everyone else to make more of themselves.

I had to hide in the ventilation ducts where they couldn't reach me or get me with their acid.

[Just ...a little.]

What about animals or monsters....or their...eggs?

[Make that a lot.]

And you had no weapons or magic to help you? No dagger to defend yourself, or even potions to take care of any wounds you might sustain? If you'd been too tall to fit in those ducts-

[He can't even think about it. Make more of themselves? Nothing good lies down that path.]

The only animals or monsters are the Pokémon. And the only eggs you'll find will either come from them or be edible. There's... no goblins to be found here, or malboros, or whatever it was that attacked your moon.

Magic doesn't exist in my world and even the people with guns died a lot. I had some band-aides I found in a first aid kit but it was all stuff I found when I went out to search for supplies.

They were aliens. Or ...xenomorphs I think one of the science marines called them.

[Which she doesn't know means alien.]

They came from eggs and get on your face and....then their baby bursts out of your chest and then grow bigger.

[She falls silent.]

They're really bad. Marines came to try and stop them but only three of them survived and two were hurt real bad.

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