TRIAL OF COLOR: ALICIA

She took a shuddering breath as Seta spoke at last. It seemed she was going to get her chance. Against all odds, despite how that awful insecurity she was fighting so hard to overcome tried to convince her to give up… she was getting a shot to make things right, somehow.

”Thank you...” She answered simply, facing the trial before her.

Unsure of what would lay before her, she held her breath as the darkness cleared as quickly as it had come.

”Wha…?” She gasped out, blinking. ”Hold up, did I somehow… log out by accident?”

She knew this room. It was her own bedroom… in a home she’d gone to some considerable effort to purchase when she needed more room for what she was doing. Whirring with with a rather expansive rig that she’d accumulated over a few years with the money she charged of her clients for the repair work they needed. It took up most of the back wall, but that wasn’t important right now. If this was really her room then-.

”… I’m definitely still logged in.” She muttered as she found her closet door which doubled as a full length mirror. Instead of slim, possibly scrawny even, and plain Helen, the much more robust figure of the hero she wanted to be gazed back at her. But what she saw in the corner of her eye derailed any other thought, making her heart seize again.

Her starter, the first real ‘friend’ she’d had, lying there. It was unnerving, seeing Tikani there looking like she was just asleep. If it wasn’t for the lack of color, she would have gone over to her friend to try to shake her awake. And then she had the prompt pop up, explaining things.

> Trial Of Color: Return the color to your Pokemon through the objects in the room.

… How was she supposed to do that? Maybe it meant that there was something hidden within this eerily accurate recreation of her home? Whatever the answer was, she wasn’t going to find it just sitting around. What better place to start looking than in the closet? But as she slide the door open, she blinked in confusion.

”That’s… not supposed to be there… Or anywhere in my home.” Alicia mused, looking at an old desk from school. Turning from the desk, she hopped onto the bed and pulled the window shades aside to look outside. Instead of the city view she always had, there was a roiling field that reminded her of part of the opening of Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald. And so, sliding the window itself open now, she checked how far she could go.

As it turned out, not far. She could reach her arm out, but as soon as she tried to actually leave through the window, she got a warning message indicating she had reached the edge of the zone and could no longer progress. But the grass was in reach enough that she could pluck a few blades of it. Despite the anime-like appearance, it felt just like actual grass.

”Surely it can’t be this simple...” Alicia mused. This wouldn’t be much of a trial if all she had to do was match Tikani’s colors. But for the sake of completeness she was going to try. She had to look at this like one of her jobs. Except she stood to lose so much more if she failed. Regardless, every faulty system that ever crossed into her workshop started the same: identifying the problem.

… That much went without saying. After that was figuring out what exactly was causing the problem. Which often required a whole battery of testing to figure out what the problem reacted to, and what it ignored.

If only this trial were so kind as to provide her a checklist. She’d have to go in blind. And so she walked over to the statue-like form of the Bayleef, resting the blades of grass against her petals. To the surprise of no one, nothing happened. The possibility existed that the exact shade of green was wrong which disqualified the blades of grass, but for the moment Alicia shelved the idea. If she ran out of options she’d try this again, trying to get a closer shade of green. But until then she had to figure something else out. But… this was certainly strange. As if it plucked from her mind at random and cobbled this space together.

… She tried to not give any weight to concerning implications that came with this.

”Well? I’m waiting for your brilliant retort, ‘hero’...” Helen spat out, only giving Alicia enough time of day to glance over her shoulder. ”Isn’t the hero supposed to have some witty one-liner that will magically inspire confidence? Some kind of phrase that succinctly summarizes their unbreakable will? Something that can convince anyone to believe in them, if they have even a small spark of hope in their hearts?”

The would-be hero was still silent, feeling a creeping dread as she found it harder and harder to find her voice.

”But of course… you’re no hero.” Helen surmised, getting up and grabbing Alicia by the shoulders. Her fingers felt like the icy talons of oblivion. ”You never were. Never could be. You’re just a girl playing pretend. Because heroes only exist in our dreams in this era. Our reality is one of corruption. Of hate. Of blood. And now you’re a part of it. Sure, she was only a pile of zeroes and ones at the end of the day… but you’re pathetic enough that she held sufficient meaning to you that your hands are stained all them same.”

She could feel the crimson liquid dripping from her fingers as her insecurities continued to speak, continued their crusade to drag her down.




Alicia clasped her hands, ignoring the squelch of life fluid. She closed her eyes, trying to tune the other’s words out. She felt like she was going to go insane if she didn’t. Her insecurities had never been this loud… this detailed… this strong… She had to focus on the trial, but with everything getting jumbled she almost wished she could defrag her own head. It might’ve given her some-

”… Defrag…?” Alicia asked softly to no one. As a thought began to form in her head. A possibility that could get her through this.

”What’s the point of your fancy new idea?” Helen asked. ”Suppose it even worked. What are you going to do when she takes her second chance at life to tell you just how much she hates how she suffered for you? And how much she despises the fact you’re so selfish that you want to drag her back to life so she can suffer some more? Just because you have abandonment issues!”

”Get out of my way.” Alicia ordered, shoving her duplicate aside. Helen gave an indignant squawk at that, flipping back to her feet as the pinkette took her chair and started clacking away at the keys.




She couldn’t figure out what was giving her this new sense of certainty. But… something about this was telling her she was on the right track. How could she forget who she was as Helen? Helen was the reason Alicia existed. Of course by running away from that life she felt was cursed, she could never reach her full potential. Alicia was Helen and Helen was Alicia…! It was so simple in hindsight. As much as her doppelgänger was right, her words were also the path forward. Rarely was it the hero who took a backseat and handled the tech. Not completely unknown, certain geniuses who donned a suit certainly did computer work as well. But it was rare all the same.

But the world of technology was where Helen thrived. And so Alicia should thrive there as well. She wrote code, she restored machines to their full potential. In some cases, she even was even tasked with full rebuilds that made the result even better than when it broke. Tikani was made of Zeroes and Ones at the end of the day, yes, but the body being a biological ‘machine’ was also true. In both respects one could say Helen’s expertise applied to this situation.

She’d put her partner back together byte by byte if she had to. She owed her that much, after getting her life cut short. And despite being so strong and loud before, her alternate was loosing so much power. Not because Alicia was able to tune her out. But because she was going to take what she was hearing as the advice it could have been had it been delivered by a caring soul. Oh certainly this wasn’t going to be an end-all cure-all for her issues but… Maybe, just maybe she could figure out how to be Helen Rose again. To give the life she discarded the same love she showed her ideal fantasy.

Time seemed to blend together as she worked. She was in the zone as she wrote line after pain-staking line of code. And while she wanted to make sure this could never happen again… she could not bring herself to risk her dear partner by putting in any kind of alterations. To come so close only to fail because she got arrogant and played God… that would be embarrassing to say the least. So instead she focused purely on bringing her back the way she had been, and leave whatever ‘Change’ Tikani would have to under go up to the hands of Seta. Or whoever it was that judged that. Hours felt like they flew by, as she exercised all the caution she could regarding her partner’s new… what would this be considered? Blending technology and biology in any fashion made far too many questions about these things.

And after far too long writing, checking, tending to so abnormalities she could make out, rechecking, fixing more errors, triple checking, Alicia finally set her system to start compiling the coding into what she hoped would be the objects she’d need to restore her partner’s color… Her computer set up chimed at her, and opened up a series of it’s CD trays. Four in total, and each disc with it’s own striking color. One was a vibrant green. Another a gleaming pink. The third was a deeper purple color. And the last was a white-cream mesh.

She decided to not comment that her set up did not have this many CD slots, and instead focused on the discs themselves, trying to figure out their significance.

”… The four types of moves the Chikorita line naturally learns...” Alicia breathed out softly. Although the white-cream was odd. It didn’t quite match perfectly to the Normal typing... Her alternate was screaming at her at this point, as if furious that Alicia was getting closer to proving her wrong. TMs had taken the form of CD discs since FireRed and LeafGreen, so if she was right then perhaps applying these discs to Tikani in the same way might restore her.

Alicia was getting giddy. She was not certain this would work. But… this had been more reaction from this warped version of her room than anything else she had tried got. This had to be something related to getting her partner back. And so she took the green disc, which had to represent the Grass typing, resting it upon Tikani’s head. And after what felt like forever thanks to her earlier frustration, seeing the CD glow and break down into green motes that restored Tikani’s leaves was something that made her cry out in joy. She could practically hear her old friend again!




”VENEX!”

Alicia jumped in shock as she heard her alternate scream in fury, as well as the dragon’s roar. Suddenly she was slammed into the wall. Her cry was choked out by the claws clasping around her neck. The Naganadel wasn’t as big as he normally would be. He was now about human-sized so that he fit in her room. But that didn’t seem to diminish his power at all.

> BOSS
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… This was some bad joke. There was literally no way that she could try and fight this. She shifted just a little to look at her doppelgänger. Who looked quite proud of herself and smug now.

”Did you really think I’d just let you ignore me this whole time?” Helen asked, hatred practically dripping from her lips. ”You can’t escape the reality that you’ll fail. You can play pretend all you want. But you. Are not. A Hero!”

Alicia could feel a cold sense of irony in this situation. The one she abandoned, leading to Tikani’s death, was now the one being turned against her in order to deny her the victory she slaved over. But since fighting clearly wasn’t an option… there had to be something she could do to circumvent it...