Event: The Reveal Glass

[indigo_league]

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.

Comments

[warriorworkhorse]

There was a question - one that had to be asked, one that she was nervous about asking, but if he was here in Liberio without an armband, he needed to be asked: "Are you... Are you Eldian?"

She doubted it, but she had to hope - because he'd need an armband if he said yes. If he was caught without it--

[crystalmaster]

"Uh, no," Radley says slowly. "I'm ... Spanish-American?"

He rather doubts these countries will even be recognized here.

[warriorworkhorse]

His doubts were right. If anything, Pieck looked confused, but at the same time, a bit of relief came to her, too - thank heavens he wasn't going around Marley without an armband if he needed one. "Oh," she said. "We must've just made--"

A trade agreement? An anti-war pact? An alliance?

"--contact with your nations."

That was safe. But at the same time, it was like some cracks started to form in the world around them. Spanish-American? Where was ... Span? America? She'd never heard of them before. And this truth-telling world of hers wasn't able to build reality around something she couldn't categorise.

[crystalmaster]

"... Yeah, maybe so," Radley says. He's not sure whether to play along or not. The cracks forming make him uneasy.

"So, what is this place like?"

[warriorworkhorse]

The sounds outside... changed.

Instead of generally normal sounds - horses pulling carts or wagons, people shouting hello to one another, kids running and laughing - there was instead the sound of voices steeped in authority shouting for groups to be broken up. Can't be more than five of you, you know that, or Get back from the gate! Where's your day pass?! You expect to get through without a goddamned day pass?? Or, from the distance, a gunshot that doesn't even make her flinch.

Pieck does, however, look... blank. There's the truth of the world outside this falsely-cheerful little house, or there's this sunlit kitchen with its tasty meal, the steadiness of family and the warmth that would come with it--

While people are under military law outside.

"It's..." Her expression falters before a smile that is much more practiced than genuine is put in place. "It's home."

[crystalmaster]

Radley is horrified by what he hears.

"... How long have you lived here?" he asks. With things like this?

[warriorworkhorse]

An easy question to answer. "I was born here."

And just a few moments later, with the sound of weeping in the distance over whoever was shot all that way away, she said, "You're lucky you aren't Eldian. It's better, outside Liberio."

It was better outside Marley.

For a split second, the rooms outside the kitchen became the balmy warmth of a Hizuruan bathhouse - a place that he would likely see as Japanese. Tatami mat floors, sliding paper doors, the faint scent of natural hot springs, friendly speech and laughter a few walls away. All of those details were clear. Real. Memory held dear seen for maybe the span of a heartbeat before the vague reality of Liberio returned to the world that the mirror shard had made.

[crystalmaster]

Radley stares at the new scene in amazement and awe. "... Haven't you ever lived anywhere else?"

[warriorworkhorse]

This time, when the surroundings change, it's with all the grace of someone having dropped a weight.

Barracks.

Single beds, footlockers, desks between the beds. A training yard outside filled with people carrying heavy rucksacks and rifles, all with an armband on their left arm. Theirs were in shades of grey over khaki uniforms.

Pieck's was red. She had changed, though. Instead of the white and pink sundress, she wore a white button-down shirt and khaki jacket over a brown skirt that reached past her knees, almost to her ankles. Under her left arm was a wooden crutch that she leaned on like it was natural.

For a few seconds, it looked like the kitchen wanted to fade back in, but here, instead of the scent of roasted chicken there was the scent of old sweat and a little blood under bleached sheets, boots that had seen better days, and for all it might've seemed wrong, Pieck looked a bit more at ease here - as if she belonged. The whole place felt more real, even if a five-foot-nothing woman might not seem like a soldier.

But she closed her eyes as the world around her changed. No. She didn't want to think of this place as home. She didn't want to think that this was where she'd felt comfortable.

[crystalmaster]

Radley is surprised and stunned by this change. "... You're a soldier?"

[warriorworkhorse]

"I'm a Warrior." There's something about that word. A weight to it that's different from 'soldier.' And something about the surroundings that makes the hazy unreality of the kitchen, the house, the life from before all the more understandable. That was what she'd never had.

This was reality. Undeniable. True.

And she wasnt' going to get away from it.

[crystalmaster]

"... Oh." Radley thinks he's coming to understand now, since he knows what this mirror world is.

"... Are you happy?" he asks.

[warriorworkhorse]

Was she...

Her eyes drift toward one of the desks. Was she happy? Before, in the kitchen... Had she been?

Here, in the barracks, was she?

"I wasn't," Pieck said. "And... I don't know if I am now."

A few moments later, she added, "But I might be closer."

[crystalmaster]

"Really? Why is that?" Radley asks.

[warriorworkhorse]

After what he'd seen. After what she'd inadvertently shown him? The walls of Liberio Internment Zone and the armbands, how people barely lived--

Life in the military. Going to constant war, battle after battle...

Porco. Porco alive.

"Because here, I'm free."

[crystalmaster]

"You mean here in the Pokemon world?" Radley prompts. He wasn't sure if she remembered.

[warriorworkhorse]

The Pokémon world. That was the right word.

And it was another change, at last - one that looked to be melding more and more toward what was, now, reality. A snowy, green reality, but still. It was Route 29, marking her as a new arrival, but with someone standing not far from her. A man. Taller than her - but, truly, that didn't take much - wearing a green jacket, cargo pants, and boots.

"Yes," Pieck answered. "Here."

[crystalmaster]

Radley smiles. "Then I hope you'll both have a long, happy time here."

[warriorworkhorse]

It was as if she knew, without looking, just where that companion was. She reached out, and his sleeve was there for her fingers to take hold of, as if it was the product of a lifetime of experience. Odd, perhaps, for people in their early twenties. But at least it brought the ghost of a smile with the answer, "So do I."

[crystalmaster]

Radley nods and steps back. "I'll leave you both now." It looks like his assistance here is probably finished.