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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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.

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Event: The Reveal Glass

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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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