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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{CONDENSED DUE TO MASSIVE STONE OCEAN SPOILERS: CLICK AT OWN RISK}

As with everyone struck by the shards of Reveal Glass, Emporio doesn't immediately notice when it hits. He doesn't even blink- so focused he is on sketching ideas and plans, sorting teams of pokemon and so on.

But the day runs long and it's eventually time for sleep. He puts his books away, goes to brush his teeth-

...And then he's somewhere else. Some place he hasn't moved on from, not really. Before him lies the ocean and he feels like he's as small as he was 4 years ago. Back in his baseball uniform, standing in the water as it fills with blood. As bodies float.

Yet there are walls here as well- the same walls he never quite left, the same walls one could argue lock him in entirely. There's no immediate danger though. No....immediate danger would imply an end after all, and instead there's a child standing in something that fluctuates between water and sand with a look of peril on his face.

With blood running down from his eyes like tears.

Unbidden, he says-

"...I'm alone again."

He probably won't notice anyone's presence until they appear and even then, it's hard to tell if he'll react.

Whatever this place is, time feels so strange here. Louie feels like he's been here for such a long time yet can't entirely recall how that time has passed. It's not like one of those weekends, though, where after the fact the things have are hard to recall in a hazy, dream-like way. This no dream, just a stressful and confusing nightmare.

Besides, the weekends only feel that way after the fact. Louie has no question if he's still in the midst of... all of this, when he finds himself in the ocean. Or, on the edge of the ocean? It's somehow both at once, with concrete walls at that, which he supposes lines up with what all the other disorientation. Fortunately, it's still easy enough to move through things as if water, and swimming is one of those rare physical activities where Louie excels; living on a houseboat for years will do that to you.

Plus, well, like a duck to water as they say. And a duck is what he is right now. But even with Louie's penchant for swimming, he's so taken aback when he spots Emporio that for a moment, he almost goes under. Always the sharpie, on some level Louie understands that with all he's already seen, this explains some things. The walls, the ocean... He sees how these start to tie back to what he does know about Emporio's life back home. It's just hard to focus on all that when he's looking at Emporio, distressed and out in the middle of this with blood running down his face.

Harder still when Louie hears what he says.

It's those three words that shake him from his stupor, and he goes from barely treading water to swimming as fast as he can manage until he's standing by Emporio's side. And figuring out how now he can stand, what all this ever-shifting weirdness about, that's not important.

"Hey... Hey, Emporio, it's me. I'm here, it's--" What's he going to say? It's clearly not okay. His voice loses a bit of its strength but is no less sincere as he tries again. "I'm with you."

Some of the bodies might be recognizable. Jolyne, sinking down with a knife in her side.

(She lives a little longer, ties him to the dolphin before being-)

Jotaro, face staring blankly upward, a line down through the right eye where a scar sits on the one they travelled with not so long ago.

(It would never have healed. It went through the back of the skull. It's a reminder-)

"...for how long?" Emporio asks, and his voice is quiet and broken. There are bones in the sand, but one is missing from the skeleton; the sacrum sits in his hand, and of all the things Emporio would have ever shared, this much at least would have been known.

Emporio keeps a single sacrum bone with him at all times. At all. Times.

(It was his mother's.)

Louie has never felt more gutted by a single question. It's such a simple one, too, and yet he can't answer it. No one would be able to answer it, and that complete unpredictability didn't sit well with him from the start, but it's so much worse now. By now he's experienced it firsthand, both on the left behind end and the leaving someone behind end. And there's so much to lose now, so much he could leave behind forever without having any say in it. He wouldn't even remember.

"I want to give you a good answer. I wish I could give you any answer." He reaches to take Emporio's hands in both his own. "But you know I'm not going to pretend things are better than they really are, and the truth is I don't know."

Though this conversation has Louie's focus in a complete chokehold right now, there's so much more here he's taking in more passively. He has so many questions, and he really wants those answers, but he can't just ignore this part of it, either.

He doesn't refuse the hand, but nor is he really and truly reaching himself. He just shakes his head and shakes, looking to Louie with eyes that drip with blood. It pours from more than just his tears, but from the very center of his pupil as well- a waterfall becoming a greater river, rippling with the twitches that come with each breath. This is what happened to them in his final battle, but the battle is the last thing on his mind.

"I can't lose anyone like this again," he manages brokenly. "I can't...I don't want to see this anymore, I keep seeing it..!"

The boy repeats. "Don't go..."

It's hard to keep looking at Emporio like this - not just because of his bloody eyes, but because seeing him so upset and scared... It hurts. And it hurts even more to hear him plead for Louie to stay when it's beyond his control. But as difficult and overwhelming as it is, Louie doesn't look away.

"I don't want to," he says in a small, helpless voice. "And I promise, anything I can do for us to stay together, I'm gonna do it. I already have been...!"

Louie braces himself before moving one of his hands away from Emporio's, to instead rest against his cheek. It seems pretty gross, and beyond that, so distrubing. But it also feels very important, and finding the strength to do that helps Louie's voice pick up some of that strength, as well.

"I mean that. All the crazy stuff my family's gotten through? I know I could get back to you if one of us..." He trails off, unwilling to say it outright in this moment. "I-I'd just need to remember, that's why I thought maybe the bracelet--"

His gaze shifts to the woven friendship bracelet he now always wears on his wrist, ever since giving Emporio its match.

"It sounds dumb, I know, but I don't want to lose you, either. You mean way too much to me; I want to be with you. And I... I want to be there for you."

The last sentence, said with earnest emotion, carries such weight. It's not that he didn't feel that way before this moment, but seeing Emporio in such distress? It's hitting Louie for the first time that what he knows about Emporio's life back home - which is already heavy information - is probably only some of it.

And in a way he's never actually experienced before, not quite like this, he wants to be there to take care of someone else.

There is something...terrible, in how the boy is looking at Louie right now. As if simply disappearing was never the issue. As if 'leaving', as if not 'being there' was never the issue.

Something bobs in the water- but most of the surroundings are the prison, with distant bickering among them. It's two people, resembling Jolyne and Jotaro but....Not.

It isn't them. It's very much not them.

"...Just don't die..?" There's something else there but without the context it might be better to simply appease the mirror-self. Or perhaps even just...acknowledge it's alright to be sad. To talk about it.

He clearly hasn't been.

"Ohh. Oh, like that."

There's a bit of relief in hearing that, odd as it may seem, because he can promise that one. At least, he feels he can now, in that he's very young and he's survived so much he probably shouldn't have already. Death feels very distant to Louie when he's not directly fearful in a life-threatening adventure.

"Yeah. You don't have to worry about that with me."

On the other side of that relief, though, is that it lets him feel just enough more at ease to think about more of... This. What he's seeing and hearing, and what it could all mean. It's pretty gut-wrenching to even start to think about.

"I'm not dying on you, man. But... Other people did, didn't they? What happened?"

Emporio's voice cracks as the words spill out, and if it were a more cognizant Emporio, an 'older' version perhaps, he might seek out a hug. Instead he's holding himself, curled there and shaking. "...They were just 'in his way'... ...Th...that's all we were to him...Th...It's been...years...and I can still see..."

It's a mess to try and say it, but it's easier to whisper this- "...you really won't..?"

Louie's not sure who it is Emporio's referring to, but the rest of what's said makes it easy to assume that he is, if nothing else, a problem. A scary and probably powerful problem.

Emporio looks like such a wreck, too. Frightened and stunned- It's new, seeing him this distressed. And though no hug was asked for, Louie puts his arms around him anyway.

"I won't. Okay? I really won't." He holds him tighter. "Did... 'Porio, did this happen before we met?"

He doesn't truly need to ask. Things like... This, they seem to simply not happen in the world where they've ended up. But it's just unsettling, thinking this has been something Emporio's been carrying all this time.

Emporio's body right now looks as it did when he was younger after all. He had long stopped wearing that baseball uniform by the time they met, and the Green Dolphin logo might even be alien as a result. The boy shakes in Louie's hold but he doesn't pull away, only managing a frail nod as he cries.

"Why does it still hurt?" he can't help but ask. "It's been years, hasn't it? Why does it still hurt?"

Feeling Emporio shake in his arms, Louie instinctively hugs him tighter, closer. He pats him on the back and makes a soft hushing sound.

"Because stuff like this is big and scary. And it's really, really messed up. It shouldn't happen, at least not to kids, and-- It's hard. It's hard to move on even when it ends well, because this stuff's too much."

When this is all over, Emporio is probably going to turn a brilliant scarlet for embarrassment and hide in his room for a week.

That's for future Emporio and Louie to deal with however, and for now Emporio is a sobbing mess without words. If there's a way out of this place, they should probably keep an eye out for it now- Emporio's 'learned' as much as he ever will, and it's up to his real self to sort out the rest.

Now Harry was not expecting to be stuck in this place but he certainly knows that it is one of those weekends again. You know, the weekends that throw wild curveballs at everyone in this world and last for an entire 3 day period. While he has no clue as to what this place might be, this does give off very creepy vibes beyond what words can describe. The bodies alone made him flinch a bit as it gives him flashbacks of the bodies of the people who died fighting for Hogwarts including those of Fred, Colin, Remus and Tonks on that grim fateful night.

Now he isn’t an Olympic swimmer but the experience he gained from living at a seaside city like Olivine City has him gotten very used to swimming in the water a lot. Even then it is not the blood filled ocean that somehow manages to creep him out for the walls take the cake: they look so tall compared to him. Geez, they might as well give Hagrid a run for his money. He begins to wonder what these things have to do with Emporio when he is able to find him but as a young lad with blood on his face and looking rather distressed. He is starting to discover that this strange place might have a dark shadow over the young man in his world.

Then just the mention of three words from Emporio is enough to snap him out of his morbid curiosity that he immediately tries to swim fast as he could to reach him until he is able to reach where he is on: losing a bit of breath but still alright despite the physical stress he might have taken.

“Hey Emporio, hey Emporio, over here! It’s me, Harry. There is no need to worry right now… I’m here as well.”

Young indeed- younger than he should be, which is a pretty big tell that this is going to be messy.

"...No one stays," he manages with a sniff, shaking and curling over on himself. "...They were so close, we were out, they're gone...!"

Harry’s heart sank hard and his jaws drop even harder as the situation they’re in begins to dawn on him. This is going to be really, really messy indeed.

“What?!? That is horrible. What happened in here? It looks like someone had just committed some sort of killing spree in the water.”

"He killed them."

Emporio's voice is numb, and distant despite the misery permeating the air. "...Th....they were just...'in his way'..."

“He, he, he - killed them!?!” He couldn’t believe that someone was this ruthless enough to kill all of Emporio’s friends in cold blood, Harry could’ve sworn that his blood is boiling in rage that he could’ve stepped in to fight the killer in question.

“Why would he wanted to kill your friends outright when they’re apparently in his way of whatever it was he’s attempting to do?”

"Because they were in his way," Emporio emphasizes with a sniff, wiping at his eyes. "It's why he targeted me, I wasn't even... ...He just decided since I was 'fated' to beat him one day, he had to..!"

what a curious predicament that Harry Potter definitely doesn't have experience with at all nope not at all

Oh Merlin, this is getting to be very bad indeed: that sounds almost like the whole ‘Voldemort tries to kill me badly since I was a baby because of a prophecy saying a child born at the end of July 1980 was going to end him and he decided to target me’ scenario from home. That is so not great that someone else took notes from the Dark Lord and somehow succeeded in targeting Emporio. What a total tosser, this friend killer Emporio speaks of.

“This whole fated thing. It seems like he must have take some notes from a man from my world who managed to kill my parents just because they were in the way of his plot to kill me. Because he thought that I’m his main target said by a prophecy saying a boy born in the last day of July was going to, um, be his end. He and, um, Tom might have made for a horrible pairing. Guys trying to kill loved ones because they think that we are THEIR main rivals even if we didn’t ask for it. I think that the friend killer is just as delusional as Tom was.”

The boy sniffs.

"...He said if he left me alive, I'd grow up and kill him..." Another sniff.

"...it didn't...bring anyone back, when I stopped him earlier than that..."

Emporio wipes at his eyes, grinding his teeth through the tears. "I know...I know nothing...nothing he believed makes sense, but why does it still hurt..? It's been long enough, hasn't it?"

He didn’t seem to notice the tears coming from his eyes as he does his best to reach out to Emporio and expresses his sympathies towards his plight. The pains of being so called Chosen Ones, a situation stemmed from circumstances out of their control. The loss of loved ones and people close to them. Delusion mad men out to destroy the world and reshape them in their own image. All of this is coming back to Harry.

“Oh dear. Emporio, I’m so sorry. This type of loss is still felt in me as it does with you. We all experience it in some form. I lost several people who are close to me other than my parents too: my godfather, some friends of mine, a couple of schoolmates, some of my teachers including one who I didn’t get along with. Every time I see these memories in my sleep, it almost felt as if I hadn’t left them even if it has been at least two years for me.”

"I just..." Two years is shorter than it's been for Emporio now, even if his body looks as it did back then. But he doesn't draw away from Harry this time, instead breaking down as the other reaches out to offer comfort.

"Why doesn't it stop? Why...Why even here, after it's over..?" he weeps, unable to understand it.

“Oh gee. I wish that there was a way to make the whole process of losing loved ones to be less painful than it would have been. That no one we know from home wouldn’t have to die for us from a cruel fate. But I don’t think that they want us to languish in our misery for the rest of time and not trying to, sniff, sniff, learn to recover from the pain. Not to let both their memory and sacrifice to go in vain.”

He’s still shedding the tears despite not noticing their presence. It almost felt like he is helpless to do anything to stop the pain that both he and Emporio have went through despite sounding like he is trying to his best to sound less grim.

"Then how can I make it stop?" he pleads, and perhaps that's the worst possible question. Because no doubt Harry himself knows that the answer is they can't, not immediately; but they can't bottle it either, and it's clear that Emporio has been doing just that. The boy- teenager in the reality outside this strange mirror realm- hasn't given a clue even once, that these are his feelings after all.

"I just...is it all the time for you too..?"

Emporio Alniño | OTA

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CW: minor eye gore/continued blood warning (...wait shit i forgot the initial blood warning didnt i)

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cries i feel bad it's been more than a week and this tag is so short,,

sshhh no worries at all!

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handshakes in 'got prophecied into a fight' like oh noooo

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