[ti]complete[/ti] here kitty kitty...

"What the hell's this place?"

A spiky green head poked into the Tower of Cats just in time to see a three-foot weasel with a feather hat slash through a Patrat like a sushi chef at a knife show.

"Oh hell no."

She wanted to put a quarter mile between herself and whatever the hell that was, but the Tower of Cats didn't give her the chance. The door slammed shut behind her, leaving a UI notice. TOWER OF CATS - GROUND FLOOR.

What kinda Sword Art Online bullshit was this? "No, no, nono," the ninja said quickly, tugging at the handles, but found no way out. It seemed they had to clear the floor before the exit would reopen.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, Jade turned to face the others already in the Tower. "Aw, hell," she said begrudgingly. "Guess we're in it now. Where's that Torchic..."

She dug out Roger just in time for the chick to react to a Patrat rushing Jade from behind. <Watch out!> he squawked, darting forward and sending the rodent hurtling back the way it came from. <You have to be more careful.>

"I couldn't be more careful if you got me a hazmat suit and a ghost detector," Jade muttered, looking around. Her eyes were adjusting to the dimly lit tower - she thought she could see two people, but there might have been more. "Y'all know how this thing works?" What were these things attacking them?

torchic used quick attack!

NEXT PROMPT:
[Tower]cZeEvGGO1d50

"Hoenn Pokemon, eh?"

Jinx had to check the game's database to remember what those even were, but once she did, she grinned.

"Guess both of us are breaking out our starters today, then! Skipper, hit 'em with your strongest Tackle!"

The Mudkip wasn't actually much bigger than the Patrat, and in a proper battle, the hit probably wouldn't have been enough to take it down in one fell swoop... but this wasn't really a proper battle, and so the Patrat collapsed practically the instant the attack made contact.

"Follow the prompts," Jade muttered, looking around. Where were these so-called prompts supposed to be? She'd turned all her UI and notifications setting down to the bare minimum when she'd started the game. Hell, she wasn't here to get overstimulated by a bunch of pop-ups and flashing icons like an old MySpace page, she was here to relax. UNOVR was like a paid, climate-controlled vacation. Sure, the console was just as expensive as a real one and the fancy people at bars weren't as impressed when you said you'd been to the Tower of Cats as opposed to the Eiffel Tower, but who gave a damn anyway?

Plus, this wasn't even really her game.

"Sure, more the merrier," she said to Cleo. She blew a wisp of green hair out of her eyes. Probably good to have someone else in here, it oughta go quicker. Now, just gotta find one of these prompts...

Anyway, what Jade didn't know was that turning down the HUD settings didn't actually remove the prompts, it just tried to incorporate them into the world. So when the next Patrat jumped at her, she was surprised to see it was wearing a collar.

Maybe that triggered reflexes, like a big dog at a neighbor's house trying to jump on you. "Augh!" Jade brought up her knee and kneed it in the chest with a hollow thunk. An oof of air left the rodent's lungs as it bounced back with a startled squeak.

The light glinted off the tag on its collar. But instead of a name, owner, and street address, it said "Use a Paldean Pokémon."

"Get Nymble!" ordered Roger.

"Who the hell's Nymble?" Jade snapped back.

Perhaps saying its name summoned it, because the tiny grasshopper appeared in a flash of light. The Patrat fled, squeaking, leaving an acorn behind.

Jade reached down and picked it up. The cap fell off, and inside was a small, rolled-up scrap of paper like a fortune cookie.

NEXT PROMPT: [Tower]RSY4LYMo1d50

"Not too shabby," Jade said, eyeing the lady with the fire who'd just turned up out of the blue. She had to get used to people doing that. This wasn't no real-life tower where people had to pay $10 admission and take the elevator to the observation deck. This was the kinda tower where people appeared and disappeared like they were beaming in and out of a Star Trek episode. She had to play it chill. Play it cool. Act like the cool gamer.

"Arright," she said, looking between Roger the Torchic and her unnamed Nymble. "One of y'all's gotta go. Don't volunteer all at once now."

Torchic scuffed the ground with his long toes. <Okay, okay. Got it. Hey, you! Get out of here!> He rounded on a Patrat trying to sneak along the wall. <Go on!>

"Get!" Jade echoed, getting into it. She shooed the big rat with both hands, feeling a little more confident now that she'd fucking kneed one in the stomach.

Together they shooed the bug-eyed rodent through a mouse-hole in the wall, where presumably it stayed out. Too bad Jade couldn't find a mousehole of her own to squirrel out of. Then again, now that she was getting used to it, this place wasn't so bad.

"See any more of those little fortune-cookie messages?" Jade asked, looking inside the mousehole. There was something written on a scrap of paper inside, which she pulled out. It said:

NEXT PROMPT: [Tower]F2A7G1Fd1d50

Jade didn't necessarily know what "stat-raising" entailed- like most people who played Pokémon who weren't nerds, she usually just selected whichever moves had the highest attack power and went from there. But a quick look at Roger's move list, meager as it was, seemed promising.

"What's this move - Flame Charge?"

<It's what it sounds like. I flame, I charge.> Roger cocked his head, looking pointedly at his green-haired trainer. <If you want me to use it, you should just say so.>

"Hold your horses, I'm just checking," Jade said quickly. She sure as hell didn't want to find out what happened if you made a mistake in this game. Like if you sent out a Kanto Pokémon when it asked for Hoenn, or used a status move instead of a stat-lowering one. Maybe she'd be eaten by Patrats. It seemed like too much to hope that she might just get kicked out of the level. "Is Speed a stat? This guide says it raises your Speed."

<You really need to be clearer,> said Roger, who clearly had no idea what she was talking about.

Jade shut her trap. What was she thinking, talking game logic to a game figure like it was supposed to give her a spontaneous tutorial? She was on her own. Guess I just have to risk it.

"Arright, let's try it. Use Flame Charge."

Roger's clawed feet took off, scoring burning scratch marks in the tower floorboards. Patpatpatpat! An aura of fire built around the chick like a bullet as he launched himself at the nearest Patrat, sending it hurtling out of the tower. Even after the flames faded, an aura of heat seemed to remain.

Something had definitely increased.

Genesis raised an eyebrow at the sight of the Patrat using improvised weapons, but while it was an interesting sight that doubtlessly had profound implications on the development of wild Pokemon within the setting of UNOVR, it didn't really affect what they had to do here much.

"You think a few improvised weapons will make a difference, huh?"

The Patray didn't pay Genesis' words any heed, but they didn't mind. The speech wasn't really for the Patrat anyway; it was just for their own satisfaction.

"Well, two can play at that game... Sable, show them a Pin Missile!"

The Chespin launched a series of pins at the Patrat, who looked more than a bit peeved about the attack.