[ti]private[/ti]Shequwasar Sour [Big Bee]

Yggy stationed herself on the pitcher's mound (of course), ready to pitch her baseball in an extremely professional and athletic way. "Whew! This should be fun. Man, I haven't pitched since..."

She trailed off. Why did her mind blank there? She was sure she'd thrown a winning screwball in UNOVR recently. She'd been trying to impress someone really important. It must have been Big Bee - who else could it have been? Barely anyone played with her these days, not on UNOVR anyway. She had to stay in practice for when the season started back up.

But that gave her an idea. "I know how to get an extra player!!" she exclaimed, minimizing her other windows and pulling up her UI. There he was: the little Microsoft Office-style Porygon waiting in the corner. Immobile. For now. "Hey C0D13! Can you play with us? You used to do it all the time, remember? You can be shortstop!"

She glanced over at the Kyogre egg, reflecting on how easily Codie had zapped its predecessor out of existence with his Customer Service Cannon. Somehow, it made her feel a little bit better that they would both be in the presence of the merciless computer entity. Codie had been Yggy's friend before the High Tide Raid, so she hadn't been scared of him even after what had happened. Kyogre, though...

"Anyway, let's go! Batter uuuup!"

She paused mid-wind-up to offer a name. "Oh shoot! Name him... Nacho! Uhh, yeah! Like... not-cho-Heracross, you know?" The tomboy grinned foolishly.

Then she turned her baseball cap backwards and let fly at Taka.

In an extremely hokey and engineered turn of events, the Kyogre egg was in imminent peril. What would happen if it was smashed apart by a flyball?!

Well, it would be smashed apart, duh.

None of the Codies who'd appeared on the field so much as moved to protect the unborn whale as the ball hurtled towards it. "Foul ball!" Yggy yelled, but rules and voice alone could not protect the egg.

"Tigger, go!"

The bobcat was a million times faster than Yggy was. Already primed in the Catcher position, it was a simple launch of the haunches and burst of sand and gravel as the Torracat leapt for the flyball like a serval catching a bird out of the air. His jaws gaped and both paws clapped shut on the ball. Yggy had a sudden vision of the Pokemon evolving into Incineroar and getting those HUGE catching mitt hands. Wouldn't that have been awesome?

But Tigger stayed as quadrupedal as ever and hit the ground, now soaking wet after also taking the jet of water from Taka's cannon. "Yay, you saved it!" Yggy said, giving the fire-type a thumbs-up.

I wonder what color Kyogre yolk is... Would it be blue, or red? Or just normal yellow? That would be pretty boring.

They continued to play baseball for awhile. Yggy was distracted thinking about yolk colors, which was better than re-living the experience of being trapped in the Recycle Bin with glitchy Original Kyogre, at least.

When she was finally able to focus again, the bases were loaded and they were almost at the end of the first inning. "Here goes!" Yggy said, aiming a fastball at the current Pokemon Big Bee had up to bat. "Road ends here for you, kid!" That was the catchphrase of Kenny's favorite member of the Vancouver Canadians baseball team, Iggy Brooks!

At this point, Yggy had forgotten what they were doing (trying to hatch the Kyogre egg) and was just in it for the game.

As she threw her pro-level fastball, she saw C0D13 move, positioning one of his flat, polygon-shaped panels to oppose the shot. It was just that simple-- when you were a living physics engine, you didn't need to do anything fancy to calculate the speed, trajectory, and angle of a projectile. Yggy had played with Codie many times, and it had always been like pitching at a wall.

Today, that wall was pointed up.

"Oh man, that's outta here!" Yggy said, taking off her cap and letting out a whistle as the ball flew up, up, up over the seaglass of the monument. Not even her winged outfielder (Ducker) was gonna be able to catch that one in time. "Shoot..."

With a home run for Big Bee's team, Yggy mopped her forehead and let out a sigh of frustration. "Aww, man! I shoulda known that wouldn't work on Codie." And now they needed to find the ball, too! "Okay, water break while we find the ball. Let's split up and look!"

She and her Pokemon team scattered in all directions. Some of them headed towards the edge of the Canopy, others higher up the slopes towards the Crater. Yggy was about to take off herself when she saw the Kyogre egg sitting all by itself in the little pool of the shrine. She picked it up, hefting it experimentally. Did it feel heavier? "I guess I shouldn't just leave it here. Big Bee, how'd you hatch your egg?"

What hadn't she tried yet? "Maybe it needs like, sea water," Yggy said, having a sudden idea. "Yeah! Like aquarium fish, you know? You have salt water ones and fresh water ones. Whales like salt water, right? I mean, they're mammals, but maybe it feels good on their skin or something." She grinned dorkily. "C'mon, let's go get some water to dump on it! Do you have a bucket?"

She beckoned towards the edge of the Coastline.

The tomboy skidded to a stop at the edge of the beach, spraying clods of damp sand. "I see it!" she exclaimed, shading her eyes with one hand and pointing into the water. The baseball was out there, bobbing among the waves. "Good thing they float, right?"

She kicked off her sneakers, hopping on one foot as she peeled off her socks and stuffed them into her shoes. "I'm gonna go get it. Haha!"

Wading out above her knees, Yggy managed to scoop up the baseball as Big Bee finished explaining how he and Orion had hatched his Groudon. "Lightning? Haha, that's awesome!" She struck a pose with her baseball bat held high over her head like the peak of a church. "Maybe lightning will strike here, too! We just need a big rod!"

<Did you want this?> asked Tigger from the top of the sand dune. The Torracat had the Kyogre egg balanced between his paws like an emperor penguin, having apparently rolled it after them. <It's making a "sound.">

OOoooOOooOloooloOOOlooo, the egg hummed. That was a good sign, right?

"Dope! I mean, weird!" said Yggy. She splashed back out of the water. "What do you think it's doing, big bro? Hey egg, are you singing? Maybe we should play music! Or do whale impressions. Like from Finding Nemo!"

Unable to keep a consistent thought in her head for more than two seconds, Yggy plonked the egg down in the shallows, letting the little waves lap around it. The excitement of trying to play with her new toy was finally overriding her general fear of Kyogre— maybe that weird Bergamot Gristleborg girl had been right after all!

Trust her big bro to know the perfect song for the occasion, haha! She stood up straight, putting one hand over her heart as Big Bee began to sing. Yggy sang along patriotically, envisioning the seventh inning of a traditional baseball game. But they couldn't just sing normally to a whale egg, they had to make whale sounds too, or it wouldn't touch its heart!

"Let me root, root, root for the home team.
OolooOoolooOoooo!
If they don’t win it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out.
At the old ball game!
OoolOOlooLololOOO!"

Of course she knew the lyrics! Who didn't?

"Did you know that's Frank Sinatra? Crazy, right?" she asked when they were done. She massaged her neck with one hand. "Man, my throat kinda hurts now. Did it work?" She rapped on the side of the egg and listened. "Nope! Still pretty eggy."

The tomboy seemed a little discouraged. Short of summoning a lightning strike, she was pretty much out of ideas. "Aw man, I really thought that would work," she sighed. She'd read online that it'd hatch if you did stuff related to Kyogre, but it looked like baseball wasn't one of those things after all. She couldn't believe it. "You should like baseball," she emphasized, looking at the egg. "Baseballs totally have red lines on them, just like you! See?"

She held up the baseball she'd fetched from the ocean. Then she did a double-take. "Huh? This isn't my baseball!"

In Yggy's hand was a glowing, sapphire-blue sphere. It strobed softly in response as the egg ululated, as if responding to its energy. "Holy cow! It's the Blue Orb! I thought it felt kinda funny..."

As soon as she realized what she had, she began to panic. "Oh man, oh man. Big Bro, what do we do?" She tossed the sphere from hand to hand like a hot potato, terrified to even touch it. "I bet real Kyogre is looking for this. Oh my god, what if it comes here?!"

Just when she'd started getting used to the egg and the idea of having a baby around, the likelihood of facing the real deal again was thrust upon her. "Big Bee, do something!! Here!" Yggy tossed the orb to the Bandana Guy. "Uh, uh, just throw it! Like, back into the ocean! Yeah!" Put it back where they'd found it! Then Kyogre couldn't be mad, right?

Where it sat in the sands, the egg began to pulse gently in time with the orb.

You're afraid of something else, aren't you?

Water filled her ears, her nostrils, her eyes. The sea swelled, burying the beach below the High Tide Shrine in a wave of water. A storm surge. A flash flood. The Blue Orb had drawn the tides like the moon, covering the beach in biblical waters.

Maybe you're afraid of drowning.

That girl's voice seemed to echo in her mind. On the day she'd gotten the Kyogre egg, Yggy had tried to refuse. "No way, it's too scary," she'd tried to say. What had come next had stopped her in her tracks. The idea that she was running away. The idea that she was scared, not of the legendary Pokemon she and so many other trainers had encountered during the High Tide Raid, but of something else.

Maybe it was drowning. Maybe it was being deleted. Maybe it was UNOVR itself, and the realization that you were never as safe as you thought you were. The thin veneer of 'this is just a game' had been broken a long time ago, but Kenny kept coming back. He didn't have a choice. Game or no game, his dad was somewhere out there. Nothing that happened to Yggy in here was more important.

It was easier to say it was just Kyogre.

But she wasn't gonna run away anymore. She wouldn't be a dad who left her kid behind.

She saw her baseball cap drift by, caught up in an eddy of seawater, and snatched it back. Gimme that! Her lungs burned for air, but her finger moved underwater, pulling up her User Interface. It glitched faintly around the edges, an ever-present reminder of the truth of this world.

BETA TESTER: COMPLETE. WOULD YOU LIKE TO EQUIP A NEW SUBCLASS?

EQUIPPED: SWIMMER

Immediately, the huge pressure around her abated. The salt and cold on her skin lifted as if she'd just stepped out of a sauna. Woah! This is crazy... Tentatively, Yggy breathed in, and was relieved to find she could breathe normally despite being underwater. Wicked...

Taking a deep breath, she mashed her baseball cap back onto her head, feeling it dry instantly as it came into contact with her avatar. Now, about getting my egg back...

Big Bee, the egg, and the Blue Orb were all swirling around together just up the flooded beach. Yggy wasn't worried about her bro-- he was also a Swimmer, so he should be totally fine in the water. The Kyogre egg was another story. What if it got cracked, or shaken, or scrambled? Or washed out to sea, where she might never find it again?

No way! I won't let that happen!

As she swam furiously forward, Yggy reached for the Blue Orb, straining the tips of her fingers to catch it as it floated by. Getting rid of the Orb was the key to fixing this whole mess. Got you! She tried to put it in her inventory, but immediately encountered an error message. UNSPECIFIED error 0x0000000643

"What?!" she exclaimed as the orb disappeared. "Are you kidding me?"

The beach drained like someone had pulled the plug on a bathtub. Meekly, as if it had just realized it wasn't supposed to be part of the ocean after all.

As the waves pulled back, leaving Yggy standing with her sneakers dry on the sand, she saw the Kyogre egg begin to glow.