[ti]open[/ti]2. ICEBREAKER

The flying snowball would suddenly be grabbed out of the air by a potentially familiar hand, as a pink-haired girl arrived. While the orb of cold had deformed a bit in her hand, and was melting a bit even now from her natural body heat, she could easily see who it had come from. Someone who had been strangely silent, but had tried to help her back during an ill-fated run through the corporation. Even though she knew now that it would’ve cost them both something precious, it was still a bit heart-warming that he tried.

”I remember you...” Alicia commented as she walked toward Respiro and his package. Returning the snow to it, she smiled softly, holding her non-chilled hand out to him. ”I’m Alicia. We, uh… hmm… I suppose ‘met’ isn’t exactly the right word for what happened at Midas Corp. ‘Crossed paths’ sounds more fitting for what happened."

”Momma, do we really wanna be talking with this guy? Stranger danger!” Nym commented, poking her head out from Alicia’s hair. The hero-aspirant chuckled softly at that.

”He’s just the strong, silent type, I think…” Alicia waved her sushi dragon’s concern off. Turning back to the quiet soul, she hummed in thought. ”After all… you did try to catch me back then.”

———————————————————————



Respiro

Alicia chuckled softly at how animated Respiro had gotten upon sighting her. Bouncing like crazy in a way that reminded her of a kid in a candy store. But still no words. Just gestures. A thought occurred to her. Perhaps it wasn’t a choice to not speak. Perhaps… it was something he lost at some point. Birth defect? Trauma? Whatever the reason, she now wished she knew a sign language of some kind to open communication that way. But she didn’t. It never occurred to her to learn. She was never around enough people to have met someone who was mute, partially or completely. She couldn’t imagine what she’d do if the world had stolen her own voice…

”Back off, bucko.” Nym snipped out as Respiro eyed her like dinner. ”I may look like sushi but I’m no one’s dinner!”

”Come on now Nym, let’s not be too hostile.” Alicia chided the little dragon softly. And as the boy made motions implying throwing snowballs at the Pokemon Lab, she chuckled softly. ”The mad doctor’s not on my list of favored people at the moment, ever since that trip to Mistra almost unannounced… So the offer is quite tempting.”

At which point a soft ping resounded, and Alicia looked over to flick her finger over the message. A similar one to that which Respiro had received at first. Modified, of course, to account for the fact that she’d just turned up after the fact. A grimace crossed her features at that. ”But I imagine she’ll be quite upset if we use the contents of her package to vent our frustrations with her, however meaningless the package itself is. Tell you what, we get this where it needs to go, and I’ll have a snowball fight with you if it ends up not being needed by the recipient.”

Closing the package up, she hefted the box onto her shoulder. Nym promptly squeaked as she had to scramble out of the way to avoid being crushed. She’d been too slow to move when Alicia first kneeled down to get the package. ”Momma!”

”Pay attention, Nym.” Alicia retorted to her Tatsugiri’s cry. ”That lack of spatial awareness could’ve caused us trouble back when you used Muddy Water without warning.”

”Erp...” the sushi dragon eep’d out as she had nothing to crack back with.

———————————————————————



Respiro

Alicia blinked in realization as a message from the beak-masked player popped up. ‘Hola’ was Spanish and that wasn’t a language she was familiar with. But also it reminded her that she got lost in the flow of UNOVR too easily. Forgetting it was a game with systems like this. Forgetting she could just open up a chat window and fire a message his way.

This game was too good by half at times. But that did point out that there was a possible communication problem beyond Respiro’s apparent muteness.

”No habla Español… Tu… hablo? Ingles?” Alicia attempted some brief Spanish of her own. The language came up often but despite her best efforts she could not parse it properly most of the time. But she’d managed to piece together just enough with the express purpose of explaining that she had difficulties with Spanish.

”What’d you say there, Momma?” Nym asked in confusion.

”I think I got the formatting wrong, but I got something implying Respiro here is Spanish so I attempted to tell him I don’t speak Spanish very well, and ask if he spoke English.” the Pinkette replied as she followed the boy once he raced off.

Coming across the abrupt construction barrier was a bit of a surprise. But the Machoke’s words were concerning as well. It would be bad to fall into the sinkhole. Not cripplingly so, but it would be an annoyance. Not to mention the Machoke would likely be upset with them if they did.

And Respiro looked like he was going to jump it. Oh boy.

”Giyun.” Alicia intoned, letting the Duraludon out. The monolith dragon glanced around and nodded softly. He stepped forward, shifting so his tail was poised. Alicia smiled at that and hopped on in Respiro’s view, tensing her own legs. ”And Fire!”

”Alley-oop!” Giyun called, swinging his tail sharply in a Breaking Swipe. And with the extra force behind her own leap, the pinkette launched herself in her own leap.

”WHOO!” the hero-aspirant cried out as all-but-flew.

”EEEEK!” Nym was not nearly as enthused. Even with Alicia’s Swimmer class granting her aerial mobility, this was still a little disconcerting! Especially with how roughly Alicia landed with the package, skidding to a stop on the other side.

If Respiro hadn’t made his own leap, the Duraludon would look back to him and wave a hand in a ‘come here’ gesture. Then he would set himself up to do another launch via Breaking Swipe.

Otherwise, the pinkette would recall her comrade and be ready to carry on.

———————————————————————



Respiro

”Sorry about all that, sir.” Giyun called to the Machoke they’d upset. ”The Boss gets ideas in her head and she’s a certifiable nut job.”

”I heard that!” Alicia shouted back.

”You were supposed to!” Giyun bellowed in return.

Alicia rolled her eyes and recalled the Duraludon to his Pokeball. Letting him back out, she flicked him on the chin. Before promptly wincing and hissing in a flash of pain.

”I mean, what were you expecting?” Giyun asked with a smug smirk. He laughed as he disappeared back into the Pokeball again.

Meanwhile, Respiro… kind of got it? There was another chat message in Spanish. Then finally a ‘Hello’ to which she immediately responded back with her own. The… well, almost complete ‘Incredible’ after the launch got a thumbs up reply in return.

It looked like Respiro’s English was as shaky as her Spanish. Which made her wonder where the masked individual was from in the real world. Mexico seemed… strangely unlikely. She wasn’t sure why but Respiro didn’t have the right vibe. Maybe… she should check more what happened in the EU server. There was a chance he was Canadian, but who knew.

More importantly, they had another issue. Lots of ambient heat in their next path forward. And not a single ice type in the team she brought to her name. Velkhana’s Icy Wind would’ve been perfect here. But alas. However… if they could cross without letting the box too close to the radiating heat, then they would be fine.

”Crios, we need a high ride.” Alicia called. The Onix appeared in a flash and shook his head a bit.

”Is that so?” Crios asked. When Alicia showed him the contents of the box they were transporting, the Onix’s eyes widened a bit. ”I see.”

Passing the box to Crios, who took it tenderly between his jaws, Alicia hopped on to his head and held a hand out to Respiro, offering for him to join her. ”Hop on!”

Once the silent soul was aboard, Crios would slowly and steadily rear up. Using just over half of his body length, he towered over the Magmar teams below by fifteen feet. As hot as their Flamethrowers were, and as many as were around, all heat dissipated quickly when removed even a few feet from their source.

Alicia couldn’t protect the box. But removing the box from danger was within her team’s abilities. Thus did Crios slither onward, carefully picking his path to disturb the crews as little as possible. And if it worked for approaching flowing magma, certainly it could work for a bunch of flames.

———————————————————————



Respiro

The pinkette smiled at seeing how excited Respiro was to join her on Crios’ head. Even the boulder serpent had a small chuckle at the sight.

”You’re welcome.” Alicia replied. Hopefully he got the memo enough… Maybe she should look into learning Spanish again. Oh well. Shaking her head, she smiled as he pointed out a gargoyle. Flicking her gaze between Respiro and the statue in question, she wondered where he was going with it.

And then he made as much of a face as he could with his mask covering his mouth. Needless to say, he got some laughter out of the pinkette indeed. It looked utterly ridiculous, all told. And he probably knew that too. Likely he did it on purpose.

It was… nice. Just chilling above it all on Crios’ head, carrying on without a care in the world. Pointing out sights that they could see from their elevated position.

Me encanta aquí

Alicia blinked as she read that, not really paying it too much mind. Something about the water, since the last word was so close to aqua which was known to be a word for water. So she could puzzle out the rest la-

Love

That caught Alicia off guard. Enough so that she didn’t immediately connect it to the prior comment. ”Wh-What!? What are you saying? You can’t just drop a word like that out of nowhere…! I mean, we barely know each other, and-and we can barely communicate so how-?”

If one was listening to her thoughts, they would be able to hear the cataclysmic crash of the trains all derailing. But that forced stop gave her a chance to piece those same trains back together.

”O-Oh! You mean you love the water…! Ehehehe… right. What was I thinking…!” the pinkette continued after the brief reboot. ‘Encanta’ must’ve meant ‘love’ and that was what Respiro was trying to say. ”Sorry for misunderstanding…”

Fortunately, they had other things to occupy their minds with in the meantime. A protest rally smack dab in the way, and they couldn’t take too long or else the package would melt away…

She also sighed softly at the sight of what exactly they were protesting. Really? The changes that were made gave UNOVR such a breath of fresh air. And these numb nuts wanted the stuff, suffocating hard limits of the main line games here?

”I will be incapable of maneuvering successfully through this crowd…” Crios mused. ”Not without some form of assistance breaking this protest up.”

Alicia nodded, and the Onix let them down. Reclaiming the package, she hummed and took Respiro’s hand. Seeing him wilt like that was… depressing… So that was another reason to get out of this quickly.

With a huff, she then picked the silent soul up as well and got moving. He looked too overcome by emotion to move on his own, so hopefully he wouldn’t mind being manhandled too much. Strength was such a nice thing to have in decent quantities. And if her math was right…

”Hup!” With a small hop, she got her foot hanging by the tip up onto a coach’s wheel. With a leap from there, she was on top of the carriage.

”Hey! Watch where you’re going!” someone shouted from within. ”I just got this waxed!”

”Sorry! In a hurry, can’t be held up by the meta slaves over there!” Alicia replied, continuing. Hops and leaps carried them over the traffic jam. Along with more people yelling as Alicia landed on their old-time vehicles. ”Right, come on!” Alicia called to Respiro, letting him back down on his feet once they were over the jam. And then she took his hand again and continued on, racing towards their destination marker.

From what she remembered of this tutorial on her first run, that should be the last obstacle?

———————————————————————



Respiro

Alicia wondered what made Respiro go so quiet. While the mask would make one think of a hawk, she was reminded more of her cat when she grabbed the little rascal by the scruff. At least when the feline was a little kitten she’d rescued at least. Well, whatever, it made things easier than she was anticipating. And being quiet from comfort was better than being overwhelmed by negative emotion any day.

And whatever good memory or feeling he was reveling in helped perk him up when it was time for him to walk on his own feet again. That was always a good sign. Though Alicia’s heart did sink in concern as she saw a human hospital was their destination.

Logically, at least a few existed. UNOVR was made to be a vibrant living world. Maybe overly so at times. Or maybe it had evolved beyond what was intended. But that brought about the reality that people got sick. That they got hurt. The surgeon NPC racing out to meet them only made the pit in her gut deepen. She was glad she had taken the most direct routes possible.

Especially after seeing their package was a donor organ. Arguably the most precious organ of all, as it was the muscle that fed life to every other part of the body. But the procedure ahead of that person…

”Good luck…” she whispered softly to the NPC. Was it meaningless? Some might think so. But she couldn’t ignore what this world was like. She couldn’t ignore how vibrant supposedly one-off characters were.

A snowball suddenly hit her in the face, and the pinkette flailed. ”Ah! What!?”

”Cheer up!” Ronda chimed, having released himself from his own Pokeball. He shivered a bit as he held another snowball in his right hand. ”It’s outta our hands now, so let’s have some fun now that we’re done!”

The Cyclizar then flashed a smug grin at Respiro, before lobbing the second snowball at the quiet soul. Something to show him he was invited despite not sharing a language.

Alicia snickered. She didn’t need to because she’d unlocked Freezer earlier… but Ronda was right and cheering up was a good idea. No way the snow would last until they got it somewhere colder, either. Might as well do it here.

She jumped in to grab some snow into balls as well, and promptly retaliated against her traitorous dragon! Yes, that’s how she’d phrase it if anyone asked, the Cyclizar shot first! And poor Respiro was collateral damage in the mini-civil war.

May his soul rest in peace.

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Respiro