victory_road | Event: The Reveal Glass

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Event: The Reveal Glass

Across the Pokémon world, characters may have spotted a falling star last night. Or at least, one would think that's what it was: a naturally occurring phenomenon, rather than a legendary artifact. Specifically, the Reveal Glass fell to earth during a fight among a group of legendaries started by the return of a long-lost family member. But it's probably best to leave them to handle all that themselves, while your characters deal with other consequences.

The Reveal Glass shattered upon impact, and the shards scattered throughout Kanto, Johto, and the Sevii Islands… And made their way into the hearts of your characters. But bleeding isn't the concern here. Instead, the impact will hit when a character first looks into any reflective service. An eerie feeling hits them as they're transported to the Mirror Dimension.

While this realm can be many different things for different characters, one thing is always true: It is a place of honesty, where true selves are revealed. Those struck by a shard will find themselves facing truths they are no longer able to hide, and now must accept. Fortunately enough, even those who haven't been struck will be able to enter the Mirror Dimension during this event via a reflective surface to offer help. By the end of the 29th, things will return to normal. Characters will be back in the usual Pokémon world and their hearts will be rid of the shards, but time is strange in the Mirror Dimension, and the experience may feel like it goes on far longer than a day. Or, maybe that's just the emotional exhaustion.

The Reveal Glass plot is here. You can swing by the event info post for additional details and FAQ, and play out your characters’ enforced therapy on this post. As with most VR events, this plot is entirely optional and your characters don't need to take part at all.

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Being uncomfortable isn't new to Boober Fraggle, he's felt that way for various reasons in all kinds of places, and sometimes it's just the place itself. But this has to be the worst case of he's ever experienced. Somehow, the room past the door strikes him as too neat. It's not something Boober ever thought possible, but as he creeps through - hoping to go unnoticed even though he's sure his more dull-clored fur (as fraggles go) must stand in stark contrast with this setting - that's how it feels. This room is bad in so many ways Boober never thought could be bad. Too clean, too plain, too stark... Too lonely.

There is one person here, and Boober recognizes him to a degree. He's seen him around. The big underground battle with Walking Wake, that island wedding Boober somehow also ended up at, with the ridiculous ice cream truck... He's not dangerous, but he does seem so tired, and busy. Although why is he even doing all this--

Boober freezes with a yelp when flowers start pouring out from a suitcase, and it seems to set off a chain reaction of chaos. Even once things return to normal - the creepy normal of this place, anyway - and he's no longer too startled to move, things feel more wrong than before.

He sees why all the work is being done, now. As pointless as it seems, it's what keeps the luggage closed-- And clearly that's crucial to do, because whatever just happened was far too much. But as admirable as the man's work is, there should be more people doing it if it's such a big deal! And though he knows he's too small to make a difference at this size, he doesn't see much choice. He moves further into the room and without a word to Shiro - though there are plenty of sounds of strain - starts pushing against a suitcase that's bigger than he is.

Of course, he was right, he can't move anything so heavy like this. But the other option was to watch and keep feel helpless as someone else did important work at their own expense. So what can he do but keep pushing?

"It's fine."

He says it mechanically. He says it as if he hasn't even noticed the how startled and unsure his new companion is. As if the only thing that matters is Boober trying to help. He doesn't even look over too closely, just a brief glance, before he hefts up a plastic tote. This one covered in stickers that look at home in a hospital.

"It's fine - just leave it. I'll handle it."

But for all his constant motion, all the weariness in every movement, there's a sort of concern in what he says. Don't worry about me, unsaid and hanging in the spaces between the lines.

Boober looks up at Shiro, taking note of the tone and detachment, but also the stickers on that tote. While no specific meaning is clear to him at a glance, he's done enough part-time work at Pokemon Centers - not to mention medical research about humans, on his own time - to recognize them as medical.

But while that kind of thing always catches his interest, he's too troubled by the stubborn refusal of help for his mind to linger very long. Frowning, he gives one more straining, fruitless attempt to push the suitcase for now. No good.

"You can't keep going, though... I get it. I don't like to stop important work either. But in the state you're in, you'll collapse soon." He looks around the room. Sure, he may be too small to help meaningfully, but surely there's other back-up. "You can't be the only... Someone else must be able to take over."

"No."

This time, it's pleading. Don't make him bring in something else - someone else. Don't ask him to do that. "It's my problem. I can't - "

He can't ask someone to shoulder what he won't. How could he? He's supposed to be dependable, strong. It's supposed to be safer here. Better - he should be better by now. Over all of this.

But he just keeps moving. Keeps sorting the boxes over and over to make sure nothing comes back out. Setting down the medical trunk, he moves on to one plastered in photos. People, their faces slightly blurred. A man in a mask. A young man making fingerguns with another in a headband. Two people in glasses who could be identical. A teen holding a Voltorb over his head. And more. So many more.

"It shouldn't be just yours, that doesn't make any sense! It can only work out that way for so long."

For all his fretting and fear, it doesn't take much for Boober's stubbornness to come out. And he's particularly stubborn about things that he doesn't see as making sense. But then one of the photos on that trunk, blurry though it is, catches his attention.

"Wait, that's Hunk."

Boober had never know him very well, but they'd talked on the network once or twice. He'd struck Boober as remarkably reasonable about things, more so than most others he knew here or back home, and it had left a very good impression. He hasn't seen him post anything in quite some time, though, and so simply assumed Hunk isn't here anymore.

"I said, it's fine-"

Everything stops.

As if some deity hit the PAUSE button. Everything stops, and Shiro included. Though he does turn, he does still breathe, and his face creases in silent confusion. The statement has derailed what's happening here, and for the better.

"You knew Hunk?" he asks. The faintest note of hope sneaks into the question.

Boober leans back as he looks up at Shiro, surprised by the sudden stillness. But after a moment's hesitation, he nods.

"Well, I mean, it's not like we were close. I don't remember ever meeting him in person, and I haven't seen him in a long time, so I figured he probably went home... But I like him a lot, I like that he's sensible and doesn't act like all crazy things are normal or not scary."

After a thoughtful pause, Boober adds, "I wish I did know him better, though. He really seemed to respect kitchens."

"He... he does."

He has to stop himself from using the past tense. Hunk is fine - Hunk is fine. He knows that. Trusts people have promised him that.

And things begin to grind forward again. The air starts to circulate. The hesitation making things start to creak, slowly opening. Shiro's head whips around, as folders and x-rays begin to ooze out of the medical crate. As eyes glow in the dark cracks of suitcases.

Frantically, Shiro grabs the nearest box, moving once again.

"He's a teammate. A friend. He's - he's a genius."

Everything starts up again, something that would've been far more overwhelming if Boober weren't so focused on Shiro's words. He sounds so lonely over Hunk being gone. And with the work once again demanding to be done - so to speak - a thought occurs to Boober.

"You miss him. Why aren't you letting yourself be sad about it?" he asks, abandoning his attempt to move any luggage. Instead, Boober walks over closer.

Of course he misses Hunk. He misses Hunk, Pidge, Lance - Matt. All of them. He misses Jean, and Krieg, and Newt and Jaskier and Byleth - And if he stops to think about it too much, he will fall apart. He'll stop moving and the trunks will fall open.

So he shakes his head.

"It won't help." Short, clipped. It really won't help anything. It won't bring Hunk back. It won't bring anyone back. "It never helps."

"No, it doesn't help," Boober agrees, tilting his head and if puzzled by that takeaway from what he'd said. "It's not like anything could, when you're still missing someone. But that includes trying to keep it in, too."

He crosses his arms with a scowl.

"If you're going to be hurting anyway, what reason is there to pretend you're not? Then you're still hurting, and you'll drive yourself nuts trying to force it all down."

"I have to."

If he were talking to someone else, and they made that excuse, he'd see it made no sense. He'd tell them as much, as gently as possible. But this is him. This is his problem - his problems. No one else needs to take up the burdens.

No one else should.

"This is - this is just how it is. Someone has to." It's better him than anyone else.

Boober's scowl remains present, but it softens. Less of a harsh and judgemental look, now, but sympathetic instead.

"But why? It seemed like when you stopped to think about Hunk, everything actually stopped going crazy here!"

Ah, but that's the judgment creeping back in, and Boober knows that others being harsh with him never helped with worrying, even when his worrying really waa getting out of hand. He sighs deeply, and tries a different tactic, one that has also been failed him in the past... But he since realized that it failed because he was fighting it, he didn't want it to work.

"What do you think would happen if you just thought about how sad it is to miss people? How would it be bad? 'Cause, well... If you tell me, I can try to help you see another way that could go. My friend, Mokey, calls that writing the story differently. She does it with me when I get too anxious, and I'm not the best at it, but- I'll do my best."

"Because then... it all falls apart."

For just an instant, he pauses, he looks at his companion here. Looks him right in the eye - or hat hair, as it were. The weight of everything sits in that stare. Stubbornness, determination - exhaustion and hurt. Years and years of it. Of Atlas bearing the world in those dark eyes.

When he stops, when Shiro takes a moment long enough to answer, and simply look at Boober... the room begins to boil up. Trunks and baggage writhe open as lurid yellow eyes blink to life in the shadows. Photos begin to splatter down like papery raindrops - Hunk, and so many others. Something like purple lightning snaps over the ceiling, threatening to crack it open entirely. There is noise, there is light, shadow and the sounds of dozens of voices whispering in a sudden breeze.

Shiro shifts a box an inch to the left, and everything... rewinds.

It becomes a simple baggage sorting room once more.

Boober opens his mouth to speak,
but falters before he can even get a full word out. He should ask something like "well maybe it won't!" or "why can't someone else take over keeping things together now and then?" Shouldn't he? The whole point of a different story is to think about the positive, but-- It doesn't feel right to say those things. It would be misleading, at least coming from him.

Because it all falls apart anyway, doesn't it? In one way or another. Boober has always seen life's dark times as inevitable, and he just does his best to either put them off, if he can, or more often to prepare for the bad. He can't stop it, so he wants to be able to recover from the dark times as well as possible.

That's never how Mokey would think of it, but then, he isn't Mokey. He can't see this situation the way she would. Maybe instead, though, he can see the hope she'd find from his own perspective; get there via a different path. He sighs, stands as tall as he can - which isn't really tall at all, but he's not slouching for once - and speaks plainly.

"Alright, so it all falls apart. So what? It will happen sooner or later anyway, I'd say. You stop doing thos to yourself, and it all falls apart, but at least then it's done. You're done. You can work on whatever needs to come next."

Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. Atlas can't keep up his grip forever.

Maybe he knows that.

But he moves again, to at least silence the horrible storm of memory and bad dreams. Resumes putting the boxes on one side of the room, then the other. If his new companion wants to talk, it's probably best to do it where they can actually be heard. And over the whirlwind of sound and images, he can't.

"It hurts people," he says, matter of fact. "One way or another, people hurt. Or they're afraid. I ... I can't let that happen to anyone."

And maybe there's some kind of personal horror there - people being afraid of him. What is he, if not some broken, battered experiment? Maybe he's made strides, maybe he had a new purpose, but that's still there. Deep down and buried. Isn't it?

"That's going to happen," Boober huffs, with a few taps of his foot. But while he's certainly getting frustrated, it's not enough to make him give up. If anything, these specific protests of Shiro's have him determined not to do that.

"Look, it's not--" He hops up on a piece of luggage. He knows it's unlikely to be enough to leave Shiro unable to lift it, but it's a start. "It's not bad to want to protect people from that stuff. A lot of us need protecting, but if all the people who keep others safe wreck themselves doing it..."

His voice falters there, as a sickly feeling hits his stomach. There's a lot of reasons this is hitting him the way it is, and he just realized one reason must be how strongly this all reminds him of Riz overworking himself. He sighs and takes a seat - with a soft thump - atop the suitcase.

"I bet people want you to take care of yourself, and not just so you can protect them."

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Event: The Reveal Glass

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