[ti]closed[/ti][001] A Foot Long

(ping!)

Arthur saw his UI, specifically the name of the house, change right in front of him. Instead of it just being Kyukon's House, it was now Kyukon and Torino's House. Torino was probably the other player that joined in this little quest? Or did he somehow step into another server that merged out of nowhere?

<Is this actually your house, Kon?> Gou asked, the skeptic ever so present in his voice. It was not unwarranted, since Arthur was just kind of standing awkwardly some feet away from the front garden.

❝For now, I think so. Be nice.❞ not like he had to tell his Chimchar to behave - the Pokemon had been well-behaved so far and he had no complaints whatsoever, but he said it anyway for formality's sake. Checking his mini map, he saw that the other player was coming from the backyard, but before he could do much about it, the door swung open and there stood a person that he had no memory of whatsoever.

"Kyukon, dear! Welcome home! What are you doing standing out there in the sun? Come in, come in! You're just in time for my signature apple pie."

Having no reason to refuse such a generous invitation, Arthur followed, finding a quaint interior greeting him. (NPC) Mom was all smiles and cheer, already chatting something about the berry tree saplings in her backyard and how much he had grown since he had seen her last. And he had a Pokemon companion with him too, how adorable! The trainer had momentarily forgotten that this was meant to be a quest for two until he heard a new voice from behind him along with a scampering of footsteps.

❝Oh! Good morning. Torino, was it?❞ she was very pretty, accompanied by a cute little elephant Pokemon. ❝Sorry for barging in your--our house? I'm pretty new, so...❞

All the while, (NPC) Mom was ushering them to take their seats, and there was a comment about the muddy footprints tracking the floor. If this were done in Arthur's house, the maids would either get to it first or the roomba. Either way, it was a rather sore thing to look at. Cleanliness was always highly valued in his house.

Torino

It felt like Arthur was witness to someone pushing that first domino down a line, knocking the next ones neatly until there were more and started to branch out. He could find no other way to explain it - maybe because he was in the game and his body was made of digitalized code, he could physically feel something shift, even if it felt more like a hunch. Was he making shit up? Maybe? The feeling would pass by so quickly that he thought it was imagining it, but the evidence of change would stay. He couldn't just ignore the sudden other language Arthur didn't know from Mom -- no, wait, why did the tag say Mama now?

❝A bunker full of what?❞ that was a sudden deluge of new information at once. Arthur may have been book dumb in school, but he had been playing games long enough to take note of trickles of information that revealed a story. And perhaps because he was immersed in UNOVR, he was trying to pay more attention. New to this world, a bunker full of ice and rations.

But what did that even mean?

The smell of freshly baked pies quickly slammed his senses - they smelled absolutely lovely and made him hungry. Gou seemed very eager to try out the pies as well, looking a lot more restless but with a big grin on his face. It was served quickly and piping hot, steam gently rising from the slices that had little bits of apple sticking out from the side, if he looked. Arthur picked up the fork and for a moment, forgot about all the questions Mama asked, he just wanted to eat. And when he took that first bite down, it was...woah. It was good,

(but unlike Torino, there were no memories attached to it, and he was no connoisseur, so he can only register it with taste alone, and that made things simple, it was good, he would eat it again, and it didn't really matter if he were in a game to taste this, because he'd remember it even in the real world in the form of a comparison - a memory made real)

❝Ma, your pies are the best.❞ he decided to lean onto the role-play a bit, and he really had to give it to the digital chef, or whoever coded this. Gou was already chowing down and almost finished his slice. Arthur whispered to his Pokemon to slow down and try to enjoy his food some more; it was not like there was going to be an infinite amount of pie.

He couldn't remember the questions that were asked and tried to answer as neutrally as possible, ❝Been doing OK. Not sure about Torino here.❞ she looked like she had seen a ghost. ❝How 'bout you? How's the house?❞

Another flutter. Arthur suddenly shuddered, felt a chill up his spine. This happened sometimes, so it was no big deal, but for some reason the temperature felt different. Was it...getting colder? He wasn't exactly wearing something for the winter (a blouse and pants, basically), so the chill was slightly palpable. More than that, there shouldn't be such a noticeable breeze in the kitchen, right?

Torino

The house is so lonely without you two here.

Arthur's mom, his real mom, had been present sometimes. Like an afterimage in the night, after a long day of elsewhere. The house, his house, was huge. His footsteps often echoed, met with silence rather than words. When that got too big, he constricted his world into his room, which was much more manageable and familiar and safe until it was not, until its sanctity would be breached for a moment, a minute, many minutes, by a stranger by the door.

There is so much to do around here.

What an alien thought. The only thing that he had to do in the house was to live in it. Occupy it; the space designated to him the moment he was born, a luxury in its own right. The breeze, which was bitingly cold, felt like it was picking up. Was the house reacting to Mama's feelings?

Before the accident.

The phrase woke him up. He mentally slapped himself, and physically shifted a little in his seat. He was in a game, not in real life. He didn't have to think about that, about the house that towered over him, that he lied down in to escape. Dad was never in an accident, but Papa was, apparently. The way the line was delivered was so cliché that he was thankful for it. He was prepared to listen now, to invest in a fairy tale for the sake of moving on (and to get some shoes, his feet were freezing).

❝Is he dead?❞ Arthur muttered, half curious and a tinge of sarcasm. But it turned out he was alive, so he wondered if UNOVR would ever show their father, or if he would be absent like every other off-screen father in fiction.

But then there was the noise. It made Arthur visibly flinch. Torino looked upwards, and so did Arthur. If it were warmer, a bead of sweat would trickle down his cheek, because he was not expecting anything remotely close to a genre shift. The fact that the other player looked though meant that he wasn't hearing things. ❝What was that?❞

And Mama just kept going. Torino looked like she ignored it. Arthur furrowed his brows. ❝Are we just going to ignore--❞

He suddenly noticed that in the corner of the living room, there was a small pile of white snow.

He blinked multiple times. The snow pile stayed. The cabinet along with the things lined up on the shelves had snow on it too, like a blizzard had come in without them realizing. Gou, his Chimchar, stopped eating and moved closer to his trainer. The Pokemon called out his name in concern, but he couldn't tell if he was just worried that Arthur was visibly uncomfortable, or if he noticed that something was wrong.

The box pulled him back to the conversation on the dining table (wait, where was that box even kept?) Torino took the lead, lifting the lid, and there was snow in there. Snow and a pair of snow shoes. The shoes didn't mean anything to him, but it looked like it did to Torino. Mama seemed to have notice this as well, and pulled out another box from under the table (as if out of thin air, really).

"Oh Kon, I know those shoes won't fit. Papa always thought you were a child of a different season, so he got you this." and she gestured him to open the box of a similar size, a similar color. Cautious, he too opened the lid, and found dried flowers - their color faded brown and pale, and inside were a more common pair of Running Shoes. A part of him wondered if it were rude to immediately put them on, because Mama was looking directly at them with a forlorn smile, but the floor was being invaded by white.

Above them were the sound of heavy footsteps, as if someone was purposely announcing that they were not alone.

❝Torino, about that bunker full of ice--❞

"Papa loves you both so much." Mama continued, as if on autopilot. "He only wanted the best for you both, but he cannot come home..."

Torino

With Torino putting on her shoes, Arthur figured that he should be able to do it as well, since if it were a rude thing to do, he was at least not doing it alone. And he put it in quickly, hastily tying the shoelaces into something that he wouldn't trip over, because the room only got colder and colder, and the snow started to pile until there was no where else to walk that didn't have a blanket of white,

and then the footsteps came, a barrage of them, but from above instead of from the door. But somehow the audio around him felt like it was dimming whenever Mama spoke - the wind would hush into barely a whisper and the threat looming across them would feel so far away, just to make sure that he could hear the words that came next, as icy as house was becoming.

His home is out in the blizzard.

A number of things happened in quick succession. Out of the blue (and as it turned out), the owner of the footsteps were a bunch of men that looked like they came from some far-flung mountains. Their getup was extremely thick, and he wondered firstly, how they were surviving in this temperature (though it was getting colder by the second), and also where the hell they came from, because this was a house, wasn't it? Not some kind of portal from Narnia? He didn't recognize the Pokemon that stepped forward, but he didn't need to know the species to know it was dangerous (and actually, everyone there was very much dangerous, because they had axes! Huge axes! Wasn't Pokemon supposed to be family friendly with no weapons?) The icy attack came not long after, and Arthur instinctively dodged while making sure that his Chimchar was also out of attack range. He couldn't even fully tell the damage, other than it was likely to be lethal - that kitchen table was basically a goner. A tinge of sadness bloomed in his chest - it was perfectly normal not too long ago, and then it was gone.

Perhaps it was luck or fate, but the warriors that came in were not after either him or Torino, but Mama. Visibility started to dip, and there was not a word from Mama - there was only the very real danger of death, and Arthur had no idea how Torino was still standing and willing to face them down. While watching the scene unfold, he was making sure he was ready to move out of the way, but the furniture around the house offered little protection at this rate. He let out a surprised yell when the axe met wood; the sound so foreign to him that it made him want to flee immediately. He didn't even notice that another presence was making its way towards them. He couldn't register that to Torino, this was something more than a nightmare.

Kyukon!

He never fully attached to that name, was not used to hearing it as his name, but in the midst of adrenaline and ice he turned to its direction. There was no other choice.

We have to go!

❝You don't have to tell me twice!❞

This was a fight that was programmed to be unwinnable; this was what Arthur fully believed. The game, perhaps taking mercy on them, showed them the door as the rest of the NPCs faded into blurry white and gray, and Arthur ran to the door, keeping his body low as another beam of ice blasted above him; a threat never to return.

In the garden, the snow and ice from the house was spilling over, freezing the ground closest to the door. Further away, Arthur saw a lone sunflower swaying in the breeze; if there were any others, they might've wilted or were taken by the cold.

❝Torino, we should leave the area. This feels like it's purely isolated to Mama's house. Maybe we can try to reload this--❞ a shadow appeared in front of the door, and it was there Arthur heard something different. Metal scratching the floor, but distinctly the sound of chains. He couldn't tell if it was able to leave the house. He, for lack of a better word, prayed it wouldn't be able to leave.

Torino

Excuse me what. ❝Hold on, fighting bandits in EU? You mean you're from Europe?❞ in hindsight, the question would sound silly, but Arthur did not make the connection that she was from a different server, and that in other serves, UNOVR would look entirely different. Who would think that the actions of its players could change its landscape so drastically?

The snow and ice continued to follow them, and when Arthur had the chance to look back, it was a sight that was hard to wrap his mind around--white snakes encased the house, freezing its walls and windows. It was no longer a house and they had to leave. Mama was nowhere to be seen.

He nodded at her suggestion. There was no use staying here. Their hands together felt cold as the temperature continued to drop and the land they walked on transformed from grass and dirt to something harsher. The yells they left behind did not get any more distant, however, and Arthur gritted his teeth at the fact that they were going to follow them out of the house. He had hoped that there might've been something holding them back.

He only had his Chimchar right now though (UNOVR, he was supposed to be a newbie, what gives?!) - a trap at such a short distance seemed to be impossible. The next best thing he could think right now was--❝Then let's split up to confuse them. Gou, burn the path behind us, I'll take the left.❞

<Got it!>

The fire type released a scatter of Ember, melting the snow and therefore hiding their footsteps. From there, Arthur let go of Torino's hand and told his Chimchar to jump back on his shoulder. ❝Get to the trees, I'll try to bait them!❞ he then continued to let his steps track on the snow as he willed his legs to run ahead, hoping to close in the boundary that would take them to the next area.

Torino