Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Dec 9, 2023 11:45:21 GMT 9
Did Jinx know that the radio station rules said one request per person? Sure.
Did Jinx care, once the mood struck her? Not especially.
After all, this song was just so perfectly fitting to the story of Ostellia, the city that once was and the apocalypse that never should have been... and yet nobody had suggested it yet! Sure, this game was geared towards kids and all, but it wasn't that old of a song, really--not even as old as Jinx, er, Sheila herself! And it was just on the radio this morning, which was what had gotten her thinking about it in the first place, so clearly people still listened to it, right? Surely somebody had to give it a shout-out, and since nobody else was stepping up, that left Jinx to do it herself.
Plus, she'd made her first request right when the radio station first asked for songs, and now she was on the tail end of things, right before they wrapped it all up... maybe they wouldn't notice that she had requested a song before, given how long it had been between the two requests.
It was a good theory, anyway.
I'm nominating 99 Red Balloons, by Nena. A city in ruins, a world gone awry... this song just SCREAMS Ostellia vibes to me!
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Nov 29, 2023 11:57:39 GMT 9
Was Jinx a good dancer? Not really.
Did Jinx know how to dance well? Questionable at best.
Was Jinx going to let that stop her? Absolutely not.
Jinx bobbed and swayed her way through the tower, nodding her head and wiggling her arms whenever it felt right. The Horde, for their part, were following suit in their own way, each member of the Falinks doing an odd dance move here and there, though always in perfect unison. They had to get some kind of extra credit for that synchronization, right?
Well, no, that's not how that worked. Wishful thinking, perhaps.
But how it actually worked wasnt' too hard for Jinx, either...
"Hit 'em with an Iron Head!"
The Horde went from spinning their shields to each bowing their head and ramming headfirst into the nearest worm. Jinx winced a little as Abigail hit her mark; that looked like it had to hurt.
Not her problem, though. All she had to do was keep fulfilling the prompts... and dancing. Dancing was important, too.
Prompt #30: [Tower]4LXbfSqf1d50
1d50
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Nov 9, 2023 10:19:47 GMT 9
A radio station for Ostellia, huh? Man, that took Jinx back. Or rather, it took Sheila back, to when she had dabbled in college radio back at U of F before finding out the hard way that even an hour could be a *lot* of time to fill if you didn't have a plan but needed to prevent dead air at all costs. And that even her classmates didn't really want to hear her rambling nonstop to fill the space. (Which was fair enough. She didn't really enjoy hearing herself rambling, either. And did her voice really sound like that?)
But as for a song... well, the lady who suggested songs without lyrics was onto something, she thought. That was one great thing about video game music, that it was good for setting a vibe without having words to get in the way. (More than once she'd fallen victim to the old "listening to a song while writing something down and then realizing you'd put some of the song lyrics in what you were writing down" trick...)
And that took Jinx, or rather Sheila, back even further than the radio station mention had, to growing up back home with her Dad, how he'd fool around on the guitar and sometimes whistle along with what he was playing if he felt like showing off, and it always felt a little like magic.
Of course, it was one thing to think of one of those old songs her father used to play, and it was quite another to actually come up with its name and the artist who did it, especially when you couldn't really type "instrumental song that goes DEE da da do da dooooo" into Google and expect a coherent response. But Jinx got there eventually.
I'm nominating Classical Gas, by Mason Williams. It's an older song, but that doesn't mean it's not fun to rock out to just the same! And it definitely has that sense of awe and discovery and excitement that fits into the whole exploring Ostellia thing, you get me?
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Nov 9, 2023 9:59:46 GMT 9
Jinx couldn't have explained, exactly, why she kept reading and rereading the letter from Professor Ash, at least at first. She knew the Professor a bit, had spoken to her back in the raid... but then, so had everybody else, often with more thoughtful questions and queries than her own. So why her? What made her so special?
Well, that much the letter explained pretty straightforwardly, at least. Jinx was special because she was one of the players. They were all special, in a way, to the NPCs. And hearing that was... oddly touching. Sure, she knew that really the words had been drafted by some nerd behind a computer screen somewhere, but they felt real. They felt... right.
Except for the spelling mistakes, that was.
"Suppernatural" she caught on first read, and it made her smile a bit every time. Supper-natural? Natural like supper? Thinking about how supper worked in the Pokemon world too much would just lead to trouble, though. And most people probably didn't even use that word. A lot of people not from the South just call it dinner, like some weird TV newscaster.
"Incadents" she caught quickly too, if only because Jinx herself had trouble with that word sometimes. But Jinx always tried to put an S in there instead of the C, she didn't futz with the vowels like Professor Ash did. "Incadents"... trying to pronounce it in her head, it didn't even sound like the word it was trying to replace. What kind of Professor was Ash, making sloppy mistakes like that? I mean, maybe she was in a hurry, or stressed--well, the stressed part probably went without saying at this point--but even so, to swap out letters like that in a word that didn't even make sense when you said it out loud... why would she do something like that? What could leave her so predisposed to making mistakes that even Jinx never made in all her years of bad spelling?
Unless... unless they weren't really mistakes after all.
A secret message. A code. A letter within the letter.
And so Jinx's rereading took on a new light as she painstakingly spellchecked every word, putting together the misplaced letters, trying to find a code, thinking vaguely of the codebreakers back in World War II and how she'd dreamed of being one back when she was in middle school, even writing letters to friends in the clearly unbreakable code of "swap letters out for the number of each letter in the alphabet"...
P-L-A-S-M-A.
Jinx didn't know what significance "plasma" had in Pokemon, if any, and while she could have just gone to Google and searched for "plasma Pokemon", somehow that felt too much like cheating to her. She was going in blind, if she was going in at all.
But Jinx did know, vaguely, of the meaning of the word plasma. The fourth kind of matter, wasn't that it? Or part of your blood? Either something they could take out of your blood and donate to those in need, or the kind of stuff you only found in stars... either way, seemed a bit ominous, but that fit the tone of the rest of it well enough.
And when Jinx got that quest marker about find professor ash, while she hadn't known where to go, she had a pretty good idea about what to say when she got there.
"Plasma?"
Jinx hadn't meant to sound so unsure of herself, but... she was pretty unsure of herself, truth be told.
Professor Ash was gone, sending secret messages in code, and Jinx was left scrambling to put together the pieces.
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Aug 23, 2023 10:30:39 GMT 9
OOC NAME: Haberdasher REDEEMING (4) TICKETS (maximum 4) - STORY ITEM: ASH'S GOODBYE LETTER Jinx - SPECIAL: ZAPDOS EGG Jinx - TITLE: THE TEMPEST Jinx - Move mod: Thunder Jinx FINALIZED?: Yes
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Aug 23, 2023 10:23:04 GMT 9
Jinx was a fan of these whole tower things, and this obstacle course was no exception. Sure, it made getting around hard, but that was the whole fun of it, testing the limits of your body and making sure you knew what you were doing and all that! It was a giant mess, but in the best way!
Though... it was hard to keep track of it all. Especially when having to keep track of all those prompts on top of the obstacle course itself.
Increased priority move, increased priority move, did she have one of-
Jinx was so lost in thought that she didn't notice the giant metal ball descending from above, about to land right on her head.
Thankfully, while Jinx wasn't paying attention, her Pokemon were. Skipper saw the danger and launched a Protect attack before the ball could make contact with the Marshtomp's owner, deflecting the ball with an odd metallic noise.
The noise caught Jinx's eye, and she looked up just in time to see the Protect attack in action... and to see the prompt change before her eyes, as Protect was an increased priority move, of the very kind that had so preoccupied her before.
"Oh. Hey. That's nifty." Jinx's words sounded casual, but as she watched the ball slow to a stop off to the side, she broke into a huge grin. "Nice one, Skipper. Worked out in more ways than one there!"
PROMPT #89: [Tower] _zS3OBxc1-1001-100
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Jul 22, 2023 13:06:48 GMT 9
...well. That was just the way of the world, now, wasn't it?
People made mistakes. People hurt others without meaning to. People didn't think twice about their actions, didn't have a clue about the consequences unless and until they came home to roost. It was as true in the real world, the world outside UNOVR, as it was in this one.
There, maybe it would be getting the one-day shipping and not caring that a warehouse employee would be worked to the bone to get it there in time, or splurging on an Internet purchase from China and not thinking about the sweatshop worker making it for pennies or the cargo jet spewing pollution to move it across the ocean.
But there, at least, it was easy to dismiss all of that as systemic. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, etcera, etcera. Throw ten bucks to Amnesty International once a year and call it even.
Jinx started heading downwards, her training guiding her wings carefully so that while she descended, the pace wasn't nearly as steep as Zapdos' had been, and she could control where she was going along the way. At least that chaos hadn't been for nothing.
Here there were no nameless, faceless corporations that valued profits over people, or billionaires who would commit untold atrocities if it meant adding a single cent to their bank account, to blame for it all. (Not yet, anyway.) Here it was just... people. People doing as they were told. Following orders.
Jinx wasn't a huge history buff, but she knew enough to know that "just following orders" wasn't enough of an excuse there.
Professor Ash meant well. Zapdos meant well. His siblings meant well. Cygnus meant well, even if Jinx had some qualms about his methodology. The players meant well... mostly, anyway. A few were still attacking Zapdos, apparently, and Jinx was definitely giving them the stinkeye, but as she got closer, Jinx could tell that most had redirected their attacks to the Duraludon waiting below.
It was hard to escape systems, here and there. The warehouse wouldn't close for lack of one order, and the cargo jet would still fly even if this shipment was a package or two lighter. Her attacks had been only a small sliver of the total damage done to Zapdos in this raid, and the cannons would still be a potentially-deadly problem even if there were one less Duraludon down there to man them.
But what could she do to fix any of it?
What could she do now that the victim of the system's unthinking processes was staring her in the face?
(Well. Not literally. Jinx was still above Zapdos, although not by much now, and Zapdos' gaze was always directed either at the players on his own level or at the Duraludon far below. She wasn't even on his radar, any more than he had been on hers before the raid.)
First step: do no harm. That much, she had down at least. No Pokemon out to fight with still, even if she wanted to.
Next: do what she could to right what had gone wrong.
In a genuine way. Giving back directly to those she had harmed. No ten bucks to Amnesty International. (Not like it existed in the game anyway.)
In real life, Jinx--Sheila--figured she did that by giving back to her community, caring for her husband and daughter and the rest of her extended family, looking after those who were in her circle.
In UNOVR... Jinx wasn't sure if she even had a circle. But there was no better time to work on that then now.
Jinx slid onto a nearby bit of Light Screen shield and let out the two Pokemon she had brought with her that hadn't already been knocked out. Both Steel-types, as it happened, like the Duraludon below.
As she released them from their Poke Balls, Jinx went into her User Interface and turned on the setting for Pokemon speech.
She was here for them, now. She was listening. She wouldn't demand their silence for her sake ever again.
"Minnie? Jim?"
"Hmm?"
Jinx wasn't even sure which Pokemon's voice that was. She had never heard them speak to her before.
"I, uh, I can hear you now. Like, your actual words. Clear as mine."
"Really?" Okay, that was Jim speaking, his mouth was moving along with it. And that voice was deeper and louder than the other one, so that must have been Minnie? Aw, Minnie's voice was cute. And if not for this raid, Jinx might never have known.
"Yes, really. And I'll keep it that way, I promise. If I have the option to let you guys talk, it's only fair to do that, right?"
"Huh. Alright."
That was... a bit of an under-reaction from Jim. But then, she'd just gotten him not long ago. They barely knew each other. He could just be hiding his feelings, but Jinx got the sense he didn't know what to think of it all, and you know what, that was valid. This was all a lot to process.
Minnie, though... Minnie was positively beaming.
"That's so cool! How does that work? Oh, I have so much to tell you, where do I even start... wait..."
Jinx nodded and waited patiently for the Cufant's next words... but as the Cufant started glowing, her form shifting and growing in a matter of seconds, Jinx realized that the Cufant's reaction to this news had led to more than just words.
Or, not the Cufant, not anymore. The, uh. Copperajah, apparently. The little lady wasn't so little anymore.
"Way to go, Minnie!"
"Thank you, thank you! Now, uh, this is some sort of battle, right? Who are we fighting?
...oh boy. There was a lot to fill them in on. But all they needed now was the basics.
"We're taking down those Duraludon! And you've each got attacks good against 'em, I checked. Jim, hit 'em with a Mud-Slap! Minnie, use your High Horsepower!" Both Ground-type moves. The ground was still far below, but Ground was working for them rather than against them this time around.
"Hit 'em with everything you've got! A life is on the line! Oh, and Minnie?"
"Yes?"
"I can't attack like some of these guys can, but I still wanna be part of things... mind if I ride on your back? Looks like there's plenty of room up there."
Minnie knelt down and extended her trunk in front of Jinx as a makeshift ladder. "It would be my pleasure."
There, though, Minnie was wrong. Because as Jinx rode through the sky on the back of a metal elephant, watching the cannons fade out one by one, a giggle escaping her lips all the way, Jinx was sure that she was getting as much pleasure out of this experience as her Pokemon now was.
Maybe a certain kind of responsibility wasn't so bad after all.
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Jul 22, 2023 6:11:16 GMT 9
Jinx is one of the first pushed off Zapdos' wings by the force of the air as he enters a steep dive, her small frame forced back into the air with nothing but her wings keeping her aloft.
Her Marshtomp and Cryogonal don't have wings. They did get help from a stranger fighting the same fight along their side, the one healed and the other buffed, but it doesn't matter in the end. All they can do is fall down, down, down.
But they would just faint in the end, right? Pokemon didn't die. At worst, they went to the Everworld, but even that seemed to be saved for special occasions. They fought, they fainted, they got back up again good as new.
Except, apparently, for Zapdos. Zapdos could die. Apparently that was all being a Legendary Pokemon was good for around these parts.
Zapdos keeps diving, and the wind he leaves in his wake pushes Jinx further upwards, far into the air once more. The battle played on below her, but she could barely make out the individual players and Pokemon from this height, let alone make out the words they were screaming as they went.
She was alone up here. No Pokemon by her side--Jinx didn't have any that could fly in her party, and even if she did, this would be a lot to ask of them. No other players. Not even those NPCs that she had taken for granted for so long. Just her, and the miniature world far below her feet.
Jinx thought of the old cliche that from planes, people and cars and houses looked like ants. That wasn't quite right, though. From up here, it all just felt... distant. Unreal. Like a dollhouse version of the real things.
Jinx can't make out the players' words, or that of their Pokemon, but Professor Ash's words, and those of Zapdos, still rang through to her clear as ever.
Jinx had come here to follow the prompts, to follow the Professor, but now the Professor was standing down, and those prompts were nowhere to be seen.
Was all of this Jinx's fault, at least in some small part? After all, Jinx had been one of the players to give a Duraludon to Professor Ash, what felt like ages ago now. Jinx had taken the Professor's Bytes, and thought nothing of it, besides that it was a quirky little sidequest for a game to have. The Duraludons' reappearance had been unexpected, but oddly charming, at least at first.
But one of those Duraludon's had been her own, once. Jinx was the one who had decided to give it to the Professor, to what she had assumed was the greater good, and now it stood with cannons ready to fire, ready to kill--to murder--Zapdos unless forced to stand down. Jinx had taken the Professor's money in exchange, taking some small fraction of the Professor's livelihood, without ever thinking where it might have come from.
And now it was all too real, the Professor was sentient and Zapdos was sentient and even her Pokemon were sentient--though she chose not to hear them, she turned off the setting that would allow them to speak in voices that she could hear, and was that wrong of her, too, denying them a voice, refusing to listen to them and meet them at their own level?
It looked like a dollhouse below, but even in her wildest of playtimes (and Jinx had certainly had her fair share of them back in the day, and again when caring for her daughter), Jinx never could have dreamed up a conundrum like this one.
Jinx had come here to avoid responsibility, but responsibility had found her in its own way, soon enough.
Then time slowed, and a pop-up emerged. A choice. The prompts that had seemed gone for good, but now she was to create their path, not have them guide her own.
It wasn't a difficult choice, not now, not after actually opening her ears and listening to what was going on. Jinx had been so devoted to the idea of taking down Zapdos in large part because she thought that that was their only real option, save for standing down and ending it all in some anticlimactic stalemate. She thought that the only way to progress further was through sacrifice, even an involuntary one, forging a new path with blood-stained hands.
But now... now, the game had shifted, opening up new possibilities. Another area just waiting to be explored, opened up to them with the help of the Legendary Pokemon, not their demise.
They really could FIND ANOTHER WAY. And Jinx was all for that.
So why did she still feel so guilty?
How could she make it up to the one she had fought without second-guessing only moments before?
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Jul 15, 2023 12:05:53 GMT 9
Mechanical (Easy)ZONE B
Jinx. Do you think what we're doing is right? Everything we learned at this point was a lose-lose situation. I want Zapdos to keep living. I don't know if I can trust Ash's words any longer. I don't know if there are any alternatives to us becoming villains to stop this Corruption or whatever. I needed a concrete answer because I don't know what to do next.
The question was posed: what did Jinx think about this whole situation?
And. Well. The truth was, Jinx had been trying to avoid thinking about it this whole time. She didn’t come to UNOVR to think. But she couldn’t avoid a direct question like that, especially from the guy she’d shot the shit with when waiting for her egg to hatch, the guy who had sacrificed his Cryogonal (before her own had emerged from their egg) to save her Pokemon from the worst of Zapdos’ wrath, the guy who she might just be starting to think of as a friend.
So. Now she actually had to think about this whole storyline, huh?
Jinx started taking in the chaos of her surroundings again, bit by bit, replaying the dialogue and cutscenes that she had tried to tune out earlier in her mind.
The Giant Shrine did seem like it was the key to getting rid of this whole Corruption business… but it was connected to Zapdos, and doing whatever anti-Corruption magic it could do back on the ground would kill him in the process. And Zapdos hadn’t asked for this fight. And Zapdos didn’t want to die. (And who could blame him?)
That was a tricky one…
As Jinx thought it over, something happened to a bunch of the players around her in the blink of an eye. Even with her back to paying attention to things for once, she couldn’t really say what, exactly, had occurred, but a bunch of players suddenly changed outfits, and the same few players started yelling something about someone named Articuno, who apparently was Zapdos’ brother, and was in favor of the whole dying to stop the Corruption business?
It didn’t really make sense, though. Jinx certainly hadn’t seen anything about this Articuno before. Jinx didn’t have a clue who this Articuno even was, except presumably another big strong bird thing. And whatever those players had heard from Articuno, or seen along the way doing whatever it was that had transformed their outfits so, Jinx wasn’t a part of it, and had only proof that an event of some kind had occurred and left her behind.
If Articuno had a message, well, Jinx wasn’t the messenger, or even a passing witness. Jinx was in a different scene entirely, so to speak. All she could do was trust that the players who were talking about Articuno knew what they were talking about, and that they really had gotten a message from that brother of Zapdos, and that they weren’t just entirely making up the whole thing for shits and giggles.
…this must be what Professor Ash felt like, huh? Someone had spoken, presumably, but she couldn’t hear them, no matter what she did. All she could do was trust in the truth of their message, and in the honesty of their messengers.
Which, apparently, was that Articuno was tired of hiding and ready to die in the fight against the Corruption. And given that Moltres was still in the middle of attacking Zapdos, it (he?) clearly felt the same way.
Two out of three were ready and willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Did that mean they outweighed Zapdos’ opinion on the matter? Did simple numbers mean that Zapdos had to die when he didn’t want to, because everybody else said he should?
Jinx was reminded of her father’s old joke about politics being like three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner…
Was that what this was, though? Politics?
No, that wasn’t right. Politics might be able to rile people up the same way, sure, but it wouldn’t lead to all these passionate cries about love and life and friendship.
(Politics definitely wasn’t what had brought those guys from one guy flipping off the other to the two outright kissing in the middle of a battlefield, though you know what, good for them. At least they were enjoying themselves.)
No, this was bigger than that. This was... somebody had broken out that old Star Trek quote about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few or the one, and that felt right. Even if Zapdos was "alive" in some fashion, even if this was the only world he knew... his death would be worth it to open an un-Corrupted world up to everybody else living there, player or otherwise.
Right?
Before she decided, Jinx figured she'd give one of the prompts a whirl and ask her Pokemon for their advice. This was their world, too, the only one that they knew, and their input could be invaluable here.
Though. Uh. That prompt had probably been designed for players who hadn't instinctively turned Pokemon speech off and then never touched that setting again...
"What do you think about all this, you two? Skipper?"
The Marshtomp was clearly feeling the hits that he had taken over the previous cycles, and was having trouble even staying on his feet. There was no way he was making it through to the next cycle like this; frankly, Jinx was surprised that he had made it this far. But though he was ailing, the Marshtomp didn't hesitate to launch a new volley of rocks at Zapdos, and even managed to smile while he was doing it, though the smile was really closer to a grimace.
"And, uh... Cryogonal? Little buddy? I need a name for you, huh..."
The newborn Pokemon looked around for a moment, their wide eyes taking in the scene around them... before glaring at Zapdos and chucking sharp shards of ice his way.
Even without Pokemon speech enabled, Jinx was pretty sure that counted as an answer, and with that, she felt confident enough to message Morpheus back her response.
It's a toughie, but I think we're on the right path here. Sometimes not everyone can win in life, you know? And even the other NPCs seem to agree that Zapdos is wrong on this one. It's time for us all to move on. Literally, heh.
GOAL (ALTITUDE 2): -41/5141
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Jul 15, 2023 12:03:55 GMT 9
Fast AttackPokemon: Cryogonal Move(s) Used: Ice Shard Move Type(s): Move Target: Zapdos fwWfDeixsweeper3sweeper3
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Jul 15, 2023 12:02:25 GMT 9
Charge AttackPokemon: Marshtomp Move(s) Used: Rock Slide Move Type(s): Move Target: Zapdos ThWe85i_tank3tank3
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Jul 13, 2023 11:53:55 GMT 9
Jinx knew well enough that Pokemon didn't actually need food in this game, and that they definitely didn't need treats like the berries she had gathered up and was sorting through now.
But even if it wasn't necessary, it was a nice gesture, and it was fun, too, surprisingly fun to go rooting around in bushes for berries, sticking her hand into a bush and hoping that she came out with a fistful of berries and not just new scratches on her wrists for the effort.
Jinx hadn't noticed, however, that while she sat with the berries in her lap, dividing them into different types and sorting each one by size before figuring out which Pokemon would like which one the best, at least one of her own Pokemon was every bit as focused on her task at hand as Jinx herself was.
The matter presented itself pretty clearly, however, when Minnie climbed onto Jinx's knees and started using her trunk to sort through the berries herself, giving each of Jinx's groups of berries a tentative sniff.
"Uh, Minnie, I'm not done yet..."
The Cufant took a deep breath before gobbling up the berries in one fell swoop and then climbing into Jinx's lap.
The Steel-type's metallic surface was hard and uncomfortable against Jinx's legs, and she was pretty sure the Cufant weighed more than she did in here. But even if her legs started falling asleep just seconds afterwards, she couldn't bring herself to move the Pokemon off of her lap, or to get up and disturb the Pokemon, now curled up in Jinx's lap as tightly as possible given her size with her eyes closed and her trunk stained with multicolored berry juices.
"...alright, Minnie. I guess I'll gather some more berries for the rest of the team later..."
Jinx rubbed her hand against the Cufant's back.
"Love your enthusiasm there, Minnie, but I think I might have to teach you some manners."
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Jul 13, 2023 11:38:10 GMT 9
The birds were French now, huh? How did that even, like, work? Did they even have France in here?
Whatever. It didn't really matter. It was the same old story: birds were angry, they had to do prompts to take 'em down, simple as that.
Jinx still didn't have a good handle on which Pokemon where from which region in here, or what all the regions even were for that matter, but luckily it was easy enough to look that up and find that she had not one, but two Pokemon that qualified.
On the one hand, she could use to try out her fancy new Pineco on the battlefield. On the other hand...
"Booger?"
Jinx never would tire of saying that Slugma's name.
"Use... uh..." It didn't matter for the purposes of this prompt, of course, so Jinx figured it was a good opportunity to check out a move she hadn't had the opportunity to use before, see what it looked like. "Clear Smog, how about that?"
The resulting cloud of smog smelled... weird. Not bad, per se, not like that Koffing she had that always kind of reeked, but it was definitely a distinctive scent that was left lingering in the air afterwards. A little like hand sanitizer, Jinx thought, maybe mixed with the sting of sea salt.
Jinx wasn't sure she'd be using that move again any time soon...
Prompt #15: [Tower] VvxsCMBC1-501-50
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Jul 13, 2023 11:28:05 GMT 9
In all the chaos of the battle unfolding around her, Jinx had practically forgotten the egg that she was holding as she flitted about and commanded her Pokemon's attacks, caught up as she was in the fighting and all that came with it.
That was, until that egg started to hatch.
Jinx wasn't sure exactly when the first crack appeared, but she noticed it just after her Falinks, lovingly nicknamed the Horde, fell over and didn't get back up, their body (bodies?) unable to cope with the electricity crackling around them. Which... probably hadn't been helped by moving from the platform to literally on top of the electric bird enemy, and Jinx felt a pit in her stomach as she wondered if that move had been a mistake on her part, one that would prove fatal for the Horde.
Was the timing of the egg hatching a coincidence there? Or had it been hastened by not only all of the motion that came with the battle, but the vibration caused by six little Falinks soldiers collapsing, the movement every bit as synchronized as any other the Falinks made, six small bodies hitting the ground (the wing) in perfect unison?
Jinx didn't know, and it didn't really matter in the greater scheme of things, either. What mattered was her egg breaking open and revealing... a living snowflake?
Well, she definitely wasn't familiar with that Pokemon species. It looked neat, though. And was that a smile on its face, or a frown, or some strange mixture of the two? It was at least some sort of facial expression, wasn't it?
"Welcome to the world, baby." Jinx whispered--or tried to whisper, anyway, though she'd never been the best with controlling the volume of her voice, and the cacophony of the battle around her wasn't exactly helping matters there.
Jinx thought for a moment about what advice she could give to her newborn Pokemon, entering the world in the middle of an epic battle for... the Giant Shrine? The new area? Getting rid of the Corruption? Jinx was losing focus of what the actual, in-game goal here was supposed to be.
But she knew well enough that this Pokemon's first sight would be of a world filled with electricity high in the air, its first sound heard would be that of people and Pokemon warring amongst one another... what could she say to help guide this newborn Pokemon towards the right path in life, a life started in this setting of all places?
Jinx decided to keep it simple.
"Try not to get too overwhelmed, alright? It just gets better from here, I promise."
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Jinx
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The Tempest
Player Character
Posts: 152
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Sheila Michaels
OOC Username: Haberdasher
Arena Points: 20
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Post by Jinx on Jul 12, 2023 9:18:46 GMT 9
Mechanical (Easy)ZONE A > ZONE B There was... a lot going on right now.
Professor Ash was talking. Zapdos was talking. A cutscene played. The platform was cracking. Another bird joined the scene and was attacking the first one. A Cryogonal zoomed in and protected Jinx's Pokemon before collapsing from the strain and falling far below. The players were screaming at the Professor, at Zapdos, at each other. One of Jinx's buddies for that flying quest was flipping off the other one after giving a speech that was clearly heartfelt but was, to Jinx at least, mostly incomprehensible.
How did Jinx handle all of this? By... tuning out most of it, honestly.
She knew some people liked this whole video game story stuff and would have strong feelings about what was being said. But that wasn't Jinx. Jinx came to UNOVR because she wanted a game that was fun and relaxing and would let her turn her brain off and just screw around the whole time without a care in the world. Jinx came to UNOVR to avoid responsibility, not to get caught up in a whole new round of it.
And that was the gist of it, right? The Professor didn't get Pokemon, Zapdos was saying things that didn't line up with what they'd been told, and some players were being "responsible" and... backing down in the middle of a fight? Where was the fun in that? Sure, it was chaotic, but a big chaotic battle was what Jinx had signed up for, and she wasn't about to stop now!
Though... her Pokemon were pretty close to stopping, actually. Only that one Cryogonal coming out of nowhere had stopped them from giving up the ghost already, she was pretty sure, but they were clearly worse for wear just the same. And Jinx was still on that platform as it cracked to show the ground far, far below, and even with a pair of wings strapped to her back, she didn't really want to be on the platform when it fell apart entirely.
So. First order of business: get the heck off the platform.
"Eenie meenie miney... you!"
Jinx jumped from the platform onto Zapdos' left wing. It was still weird, using her opponent as a battlefield, and people who came here to think would probably have something to say about him being a force beyond their comprehension or whatever, but at least there was something fairly solid beneath her feet again.
Second order of business: get her Pokemon to attack while they still could.
"Skipper, use Rock Throw as a Disrupt again, I think that worked out nicely! Horde, use Iron Head again, give him a taste of his own metal! And both of you, focus on the shrine, there's a prompt for that I think!"
The Pokemon went into position, and Jinx took a deep breath.
Oh yeah, about those prompts...
Third order of business, Jinx supposed: talk to Professor Ash.
She didn't have the incisive questions that the others posed, or that same strength and determination. But maybe just saying what was on her mind would be enough.
"Professor, you really can't hear Zapdos, huh? Or the other Pokemon? But I mean, Zapdos is super loud, so that's hard to ignore... what, does he just sound like a bird screeching or something? Because he's. He's definitely saying words. And like, they sound smart enough to be coming from a person to me."
They weren't, really, of course. Or they were, but not from Zapdos as a person, but some game developer way back who coded all this stuff. But by that logic, Professor Ash wasn't really a person with her own thoughts either, and the last thing they needed was for her to start getting an existential crisis about being a video game NPC. This whole raid was confusing enough as it was.
GOAL (ALTITUDE 2): 7704/9473 ZONES B & C DISRUPT: 907
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