After what was possibly one of the fastest character creation sessions ever witnessed by the server, Vivi broke new ground on not grass, but tiling. A bare 2x2 square of clean tiling at that, since there didn't seem to be anywhere else to stand that wasn't cluttered by generic laboratory spew. Incredibly, Vivi could smell the room: compressed papers, slightly stuffy air, the clinical twang of metal, the damp plastic of PVC. Dried, old food and congealing sauces. Mysteriously sour and bitter fumes that surely came from equally mysterious beakers and glass bottles. What an incredible sense of immersion! If she was barefoot, the tiles would probably feel cold to the touch, or perhaps lukewarm. Maybe this lab had underfloor heating? 

Vivi - well no, it was, it was Emery now, wasn't it? - was a breath away from taking off her shoes to test it out when there was movement in her peripheral, accompanied by a queer voice that was almost definitely put on. But the more this catlike lady talked, the more uncertain Emery became. 

An NPC. A computer generated NPC that's controlled by the game. It has to be - no one in their right mind would act like this.

Settling on that conclusion, Viv-Emery directed a wide grin at the lady. It made even more sense now, considering that this was probably the so-called 'Pokmon Professor' that would be one of the first characters players would touch base with in older games. They would give the new player the choice of an animal companion to keep them safe on their adventures and subdue other wild animals. Sometimes rather eccentric, according to the gameplay videos Emery'd watched. And yep, those things, 'Pokéballs', over there were to be her choices. A whole 27 of them? Quit the spread.

In any case...sit nyanywhere, eh?

"Why, thank you so much for the invitation!" chirped Emery in a parody of the lady's peppy tone, sketching a vaguely mocking curtsey with her skirt as a bonus. She circled around on the spot, toed off her shoes, and sat down cross-legged right where she'd 'spawned'. 

Emery watched the lady bumble around for a little while, socked toes idly prodding at a bit of rubber close at hand (foot?), amused at what she was sure was preprogramming. 

"I'm ready, but I do have some questions first." Might as well try her luck and see if she'd get anything other than a canned response. She smiled. Something simple: "How did you know I was coming? Oh, I mean: how did you nyaow I was coming?"

I see.

Not quite a canned response then, but then again it hadn't been a tough question. Emery accepted the answer with grace, nodding along, eyes darting to the corner of her vision. Her eyes were the UI it would seem. So very immersive. If she wanted to open this "glossary", would she just have to think it? Or would she have to make some kind of hand motion?

Before Emery could shoehorn in another question, the lady rattled off three of her own.

"Oh? Is this an interview or something?" laughed Emery. "I wasn't expecting anything that philosophical. Is choosing a starter animal that deep? Or is this kind of like a wand chooses the wizard kind of situation?"

The moment the phrase left Emery's mouth, her face soured. It didn't feel good to say anything related to that franchise anymore, but sometimes it just came out as a convenience.

"Alright then, lady. Ms Doctor Professor. Am I a person? Of course I am! And why?" Emery leant back on her hands, letting her head rest on a slim shoulder. "I think therefore I am, isn't that right? It's the same way I know you're not a person, because you can't think for yourself. Logistically, I could also say that I'm made of flesh, blood, and bone. I have a wrinkly brain floating inside some shock absorption liquid; that alone makes me a real person by most standards. I know I exist - the fact that I know that and can feel it proves that I am and so on and so forth. Can we say the same about you?"

Emery smiled.

"I don't get bored very easily as long as there's something interesting to do. That's to say that lately I've been incredibly bored. I don't think it'd be...prudent" - she rolled the word around in her mouth - "to give any specific details, but yeah. As long as there's something to sink my teeth into, I'm not bored. Sitting around doing something you wouldn't want to be doing isn't exactly thrilling, is it?"

The last question gave Emery pause. Not for thought, but for a moment of confusion.

"Well...then I guess I'd leave you be. If you were the one getting attacked, I would do the same, since I know there's no way you could die or get hurt in any significant way, right? If you're the assailant, then, well, yeah, you'd have a reason to attack someone. That's none of my business," Emery paused. If this was one of those personality quizzes, it wouldn't hurt to be honest. "Unless it is. Unless I stand to gain something from either stopping or joining you, or recording evidence. Then it would be my business. How's that? I wouldn't even report you to the authorities or anything. Bystyander effect in full play."

Again, Emery smiled, signaling the end of her responses. "So, did I pass? I'd be interested in seeing what others have said to these questions, too."

"Yippee for me then," said Emery, unconsciously trying to will up the feeling of winning/passing within herself but failing due to the 'frivolous' situation. It wasn't really a victory anyway; her mind made the usual scramble for vindicated dopamine and came up without even a pittance.

The brief glimpse of what the lady had written down actually squeezed a cough-laugh out of her. Now that there was some high level of interactivity that Emery hadn't been prepared for. The bar for the game was upping with every passing minute - she hoped it would keep going as far as it could, and she'd be there for the ride up...and the inevitable drop down.

Emery caught the ball tossed to her neatly and the moment she did, an unobtrusive pop-up blinked at the corner of her eye. Instructions on how to use a Pokéball. It was smooth to the touch, the groove making the iconic design crisp around the circumference. Metallic and solid, not a brush of cheap plastic in sight (on hand?). Light; portable. Hardly felt like there was anything living inside it, and that's the thing, wasn't it? There wasn't really anything in there, just a bunch of pixels given life by code. 

Popplio. Emery was still a newborn to this franchise, so the name meant nothing to her, but she'd find out soon enough. She glanced around and surmised that yep, this was decidedly not a good place to open the ball.

"Thank you for this...Popplio, Ms Doctor Professor," the foreign, made-up word felt silly in her mouth. She stood up as she talked, slipping on her shoes and taking care not to nudge anything around her out of habit. "I'll take care of it like I would my very own child. Thank you for your hospinyality, too, and the chance to monyologue a bit. If that's all, I guess I'll leave you to turn off out of existence and go on my little adventure, or?"

The ball was an interesting presence, real yet unreal. Emery tightened her grip on it, gave it a slight shake. Could whatever was inside feel that? This so-called Popplio would be the one to fight other animals in her stead. She hoped, no, demanded that it would be up to scratch and willed that thought through the ball, similar to how one might try to send energy through a pregnant woman's stomach.