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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When her clothing changes, his does too, shifting to a battered bomber jacket and Marleyan military standard issue boots. That barely gets his attention; Galliard is too surprised by how the world changes around them, how they're suddenly surrounded by bones and pure white titans with blank eyes. He instinctively tries to get around her, putting himself between Pieck and the terrifying titans, but then the two Jaw titans burst onto the scene, attacking and defending the other Pieck, the one involved in the fighting.

"I... I remember this." His voice is soft, disbelieving. "I remember... I heard you calling for me. There were so many other voices, so many people begging for help, but your voice was the loudest. Yours was the one I could follow." He looks down at her, his eyes wide with wonder. "And then I was in the Jaw again, and Marcel was with me, and we were there. We came for you."

Marcel might not have, Marcel might have come for all of them, or just followed his brother, but Galliard came because Pieck needed him. Because he could never not come when she needed his help, or his friendship, or his love. He might not have been very good at giving that last one, but he tried. Like everything in his life, he tried his best, even when it never felt quite good enough.

He oofs slightly when she gets her arms around him--she's small but she's always been surprisingly strong--and wraps his arms tightly around her. "It was always you, Pieck. Your voice was the one I could always follow, always depend on. Only you."

Pieck wasn't shy at all about burying her face in his chest, her hands on his back beneath his coat. She'd crawled inside that jacket with him many times when they'd been in the field, on the odd chances she'd not been in her titan. The fit now was no different, though the context certainly was. "I... I thought," she said, voice soft, still shaky, "that I wanted the same kind of life that other women had. I resented that the Warrior Unit took that from me. The chance to have that. A husband, a house, a few kids, but..."

But even as the world shifted around them, becoming clouded by steam from a hundred different battlefields they'd been in, them standing together after the day had been won for the sake of 'mother Marley,' Pieck shook her head. "That isn't me. I wouldn't have been happy. Even with the horrible life we led..."

She'd been with someone she could trust without hesitation. She'd been with someone who had her back. And someone she'd defend with all her influence and power - which she had very intentionally gathered over the years. Someone who understood that cooking, cleaning, minding kids, and doing laundry were things she could do but not things she could build her entire life around.

Even with the horrible life they'd led... "I'd do it again as long as you were there."

Galliard honestly can't picture Pieck doing the housewife thing. It was the only option for most women in Liberio, but he can't imagine it making her happy. Not that she wouldn't, at some point, want a child or two, but rather that she would make those children and a household her entire world. They've seen too much, done too many things, to be satisfied with something so small. Especially Pieck, who has always been so brilliant.

Ironically, Galliard himself wouldn't mind staying home with some children. While Pieck is out there saving the world, he could stay home and play with the kids, teach them things, make sure they were ready to face the world when grown. Especially if they had a pair of sons... yeah, he wouldn't mind that at all.

In the fog that surrounds them, some of the pictures on the wall start to show through again. It's Pieck and Galliard together this time, with three children standing before them. Children with a combination of their features, their hair, their smiles. The only major difference is that each child is holding a small Pokemon, and two enormous Pokemon who bear little resemblance to Carlo and Snappy loom protectively in the background.

Galliard doesn't notice any of this. All his attention is on Pieck, even if he can only see the top of her head. He wraps his arms and his jacket more closely around her, the way he used to do when they were in the field and it was cold, and drops a kiss to the top of her head. "Whatever you want, Pieck. Whatever kind of life you want to have... I'll try. I'll do my damnedest to give it to you."

He can do that now. He can be what she deserves, even if it takes him awhile to build up to it.

He can finally, really and truly, be the better man he was always supposed to be.

"It shouldn't be too hard." Where her hands rested on his back, she gave the lightest scritch through his shirt. "We're already used to most everything that I'd want."

Just... Just now they could actually have it instead of dancing around what command would say. She could hug him. Kiss him. They could live together. Maybe they could eventually have a family. Eventually. For now, they could just... love each other.

Something worth saying.

"I love you, Porco. You. Just you."

Galliard's back arches like a cat's when Pieck scritches him. More of that, please!

When she says that, Galliard smiles, and for the first time in a long time, it's a real, genuine smile. It feels strange on his face, like the muscles in his cheeks aren't used to the motion, but it feels right. He can do that here. He doesn't have to be afraid of being happy.

"I love you too, Pieck." He drops his head down to kiss her forehead. "You're the only one who's allowed to call me Porco or Pock, now and forever."

Pieck gave him a grin - and then, with a gleam of mischief in her eyes and another little scritch to his back, she said, "Pieck and Porco... Galliard."

Now that was new. And yet, she liked it. It fit. Their names had always fit together. This was just a new version. One she liked. One that fit the pictures on the walls. One that belonged on a mailbox in front of a nice house. One for them to work toward.

She smiled up at him, lower lip caught in her teeth, wanting to see his reaction. Wanting to see if it was as hopeful as hers.

Galliard blinks when she puts their names together. He would be lying if he said he'd never thought about it, but it was always some distant, unattainable dream, something barely worth considering because it would never happen.

Now, he lets the idea sink in, and that shy, rusty smile creeps onto his face again. "I like that."

Their names sound like they belong together. However...

"We could also consider Pieck and Galliard Finger."

He's not opposed to devoting himself fully to the name-change!

But Pieck shook her head, smiling up at him as she cupped his jaw and traced her thumb along the line of his lower lip. "I want your name."

The steam was clearing from around them, drifting away to form, again, walls and windows with pictures hung on them, but this time, the yard outside was green with a cute little fence entwined with flowers. The walls, decked with their photos, were soft, friendly colours instead of either wood or whitewash. Pieck wore a long skirt with flowers along the hem, and, even though the sleeves reached her elbows, there was no hint of an armband. Freedom. A kind of prosperity they wouldn't ever have a chance of knowing in Marley. All theirs. A huge change - and one that spurred her to ask, "Since we can, now - do you want to officially change your name?"

"You want the good one! Going to leave me straddled with the bad half."

He's teasing, he's teasing! Galliard looks up as the world shifts around them again, and this time, he likes the way it looks. Here, wherever here is... he could stay here. They could stay here, make a life of it. They could be happy, and free.

Pieck's question makes him blink. "What would I even change it to?"

He's been making everyone call him Galliard for so long that he's almost forgotten how to have a first name.

She shrugged. "I don't know. I know you've avoided your first name for most of your life." For everyone except her - another clue they both should've picked up on long ago. Still, she kneaded her hands against his back. "What would make you smile to hear it and know it meant you?"

Pieck paused.

"Besides 'love of my life.' I can't have everyone calling you that."

There have really only been two people, his entire life, that Galliard has allowed to call him Porco. The first was Marcel, and the second Pieck. Anyone else who tried it tended to have a snarling ball of rage on their hands immediately after any attempt, and there was usually only one attempt.

"I have no idea."

He's gotten so used to being Galliard that the thought of having an actual first name isn't something he's ever considered. It's not like Eldians are allowed to do such things; he just barely got away with being called Galliard in the military.

He chuckles at her suggestion, though. "No, probably not. That one's just for you."

That one and Porco, or Pock. Privileges only Pieck is allowed.

She couldn't stop her smile as she looked up at him, though, leaning up to kiss him and rest their foreheads together. "We have time. And we have each other. We can handle anything." And, to her, at least, it felt like they had a goal. One that was reachable. Their surroundings...

This wasn't what she'd seen. This wasn't the delusion of a little house in Liberio's internment zone. This was here. This was truth. A possible truth. Maybe this was what she'd been intended to see with all this. That this was a place of hope - and not just for her.

Pieck kissed him again, soft and gentle. "I'm so happy."

A goal of their own. Galliard has never had that before. Every goal he's ever reached for has been in the service of something else: Marley, his family, not dying on the battlefield. But to have a goal of their own, something they can work towards because they chose it... that's new. It's different, and it's something Galliard likes.

Having a goal, and having the time to pursue it. Is that what they're being offered here? It's a better bargain than they'd get anywhere else, and Galliard is going to seize it with both hands.

"Yeah. Me too." All that, goals and time, and Pieck? Yes. This is the best Galliard could ever hope for. "Are you ready, then? Let's go find it."

Whatever it happens to be.

Smiling widely, Pieck took a half-step back and grabbed his hand as the world around them became something a little more familiar, even if it was familiar in its strangeness: Route 29, where Carlo and Snappy waited, where they had all of this newfound freedom, and where they could start on their efforts to reach that goal. Their goal. Together.

Maybe some people would see it as too simple, but Pieck had now seen it as a truth she'd been mistaken about for far too long. She never would've been happy as somebody's housewife, just looking after a home and never taking advantage of everything she knew as hers: her intelligence, her cunning, her strategic mind, her strength in more ways than physical. She never would've been content that way. And the person whose hand she held - he was the kind of man she really needed. Someone who understood her and didn't resent her for being strong. Someone who took pride in what she did, and someone she could be proud of, too. Someone whose strength complemented hers instead of either of them overshadowing the other.

Marley had made her think past those truths for years. Now, she could embrace them - and she wanted to. With him, for the rest of her life.

Pieck beamed as she led him back into the newly-real world with, for the first time, a lot to look forward to.

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Event: The Reveal Glass

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And now we can see how they deal with the fallout! /eager