Child's Play

[ChristianC]

She almost staggered at this revalation. Sure, with a built in voice-recognition chip in her body, not to mention being programmed to be able to distinguish between the sound of a man's or a woman's footsteps, his/her relative built and physical condition, being inside the game itself meant she could... she could... She didn't actually know what she could do, but she had no doubt it was fantastic!

Wow... she mumbled to herself, almost stepping on her own foot.

Oh, and...

Silvie, if you want to I can take out my froslass... I think she might be able to redirect the cold winds a bit... I'm not sure though...

Alexis wasn't actually freezing herself... but it was getting colder the higher they climbed. It kinda stung to know that she could do this and the others couldn't, but she wanted to be fighting fit when they met some real challenge; these chumps, these trainer-wannabes wouldn't stand a chance against Team Scourge.

So, without further ado she pulled out two chips from the pocket of her hoodie, slid them into her wrist and shifted into the blue-gray hue of her Ice-form, her gray hair turning a slightly blueish-shade and her eyes becoming clean-white, her pupils vanishing.

"Don't think I can help you guys myself though... unless you want a snowball."

[Idran1701]

Sam grins, shaking his head. "Nope, they're the same. All the stuff that you can fight here is a mon, and you can capture it if you want and if you have a monsphere. You just needa weaken it first, and then you just use it and see if you can catch it. You wanna try with the next mon we fight? It's pretty easy."

[Shinigori V2]

Midgame:

The three digitized children walk through the desert for a bit longer, before the music changes:

It's the Rival's theme!

A moment later, jumping out from behind a cactus of all things is that weird Wunderkind from before...This time sporting a hat with the Monsbattle logo. "Aha!" She shouts, before spitting sand out of her mouth. "I Finally found...You?"

She looks at the three, sinking...Even her ears sort of droop downwards. "Where the hell did Thirteen go?"

[Besyanteo]

Enzo shrugged. He knew damn well, but he didn't feel like telling. No reason to be a complete dick, though. It's not like the poor girl was terribly effective at harassing Thirteen.

"Not here, sorry. Want to hang out or something, since she's not here? I don't think we need to be enemies, really."

[Shinigori V2]

Flea suddenly looks furious! "You lost track of a team mate!?" She screams, before pointing down accusingly. "You're not fit to wear the Wunderoos!"

Kid leans over to Enzo, whispering- "What the heck is she talking about?"

[Besyanteo]

Enzo sent back via their connection:

No idea... What's her problem??

Enzo looked put off, but his ratata jumped down and stood between him and Flea, trying his best to look menacing. This girl was way too high strung for his tastes.

"If you start a fight again, you're just gonna lose... you should calm down."

[Shinigori V2]

The yellowish glow from Flea's eyes intensifies, as she seems to take it as a challenge. "You wanna go, buttface? You can't mess with this! I'll knock you down!"

[Besyanteo]

Oh for crying out- She was quoting an RPG. Really? That one in particular? Really?

"Ok, Ratata. Let's go!"

He and his Ratata moved forward, intent on engaging Flea in battle!

[Shinigori V2]

A similar text box pops up again! Artist Enzo wants to battle!

Flea grins, bearing her extremely pointy teeth, and reaching for..A monsphere?!

"You won't get me so easily this time!"

Artist Enzo sent out Rattata!

"A mouse!?" Flea laughs. "You're sending a mouse after me!? Oh, I'm SOOO SCARED!"

Flea rears back, pegging her sphere into play. "Go, Battleman or whatever!"

A white light comes from the sphere, forming...A Battlemon!

Rival Flea sent out Magikarp!

Flea puts her hands on her hips. "Beauty, ain't he? Payed five hundurd for him from some NPC! You're goin' DOWN."

Magikarp simply seems to wonder why it's in a desert in the first place. In contemplates this by flopping around on the sand.

[Besyanteo]

Enzo stared for a moment. Just stood and stared. He then pulled a grin, and looked at Ratata confidently.

"Let's finish this up quickly. Quick Attack, Ratata."

[BrainWalker]

A more empathetic person, or someone who was more hardcore into the battlemon world, might be embarrassed for Flea at this juncture. Max just finds her pride in her ineptitude unbearably hilarious. He and Saguaro are having a good laugh at her expense.

Hovertank is less amused. It doesn't seem irritated, it just seems kind of... disappointed.

[Shinigori V2]

Rattata dashes up, smashing into the level 5 Magikarp..And sending it flying! Flea taps her lip, seeming confused. "That's not right, I should've had the type advantage..."

She aims her sphere skywards, recalling her 'Karp. "Oh well, at least I still have my others!"

She, again, raises her leg and pitches the ball into the field...But there's something odd about this one.

The text box opens, and the field is blank.

"Go," Flea shouts excitedly, "Thirty-seven Bidoofs!"

...A huge wave of white poured out of the ball, forming into..

...How in the world did she catch thirty seven monsters with the same ball, let alone send them all out at the same time?

Enzo, Max, and Kid were now facing down a giant wall of mentally defective beavers stacked on top of each other...That CANNOT be good.

"...I've had dreams like this." Kid says after a minute.

[BrainWalker]

Max pauses mid-laugh. Saguaro takes a second to notice, but after that second it's expression changes to one of utter confusion.

After a moment, Max eventually closes his mouth and scratches his head, under his hat. "That's... dude, I don't even know."

Suddenly Max realizes that this might not be as ridiculous as it looks, and might actually require some kind of action. Time to take some! Max points at the wall of biderp as dramatically as he can muster. "Hovertank, use psychic! Aim for the lower left guy! Let's tear down that wall!"

[Besyanteo]

Enzo wasn't sure how she'd done that... but it didn't matter. They came out of one ball, which -probably- meant that they all shared stats, like health. Enzo pointed dramatically at the wall of Bidoofs and yelled to Ratata:

"Now, Super Fang! Cut those things down to size!"

[Kelne]

"Well, I've got a vulpix," Emily said, bringing out one of her monspheres, "We'll see if she can put out some heat for you." One snappy flash of light later, there was indeed a vulpix. Specifically, a vulpix rooting about in a snowdrift. Emily seemed too busy fighting a fit of the giggles to correct this state of affairs.

[ChristianC]

Alexis' Spooky hadn't been seen for a while, as the gengar seemed to quickly grow bored of the trudging and had gone off to do whatever, but as the vulpix appeared, and sank into the snow, he floated out of a nearby snow pile with a quiet chuckle, completely normal except that he was floating upside down. Alexis gave him a stern look, but the ghost didn't seem to notice as he drifted up to the battlemon.

Then, with another chuckle, he pulled the poor thing out of the snow, rising up about six, seven feet with the poor, fox-like creature dangling by a paw, it's weird, wide grin shaking in quiet giggling.

[Shinigori V2]

"Spooky." Thirteen seems to warn. "Put her down."

[ChristianC]

Spooky hung in the air, glaring at Thirteen for a little bit, still holding the poor vulpix before it gave a "Tch" kind of sound, which in itself was pretty unusual, and dropped the fire-fox down before drifting up behind Alexis. Well there, it looked out over her shoulder, poking out its tongue at the ghost-future-parallel-universe-girl.

"Sorry Emily, is she alright?" she stepped up gingerly to where the poor thing had been dropped, before turning around and frowning at the mischievous ghost.

"Spooky. We don't tease other battlemons, behave." her voice was surprisingly stern as she held out a scolding finger. "Apologize."

Spooky didn't really look like he wanted though.

[Shinigori V2]

Midgame:

Hovertank's Psychic attack, and Rattata's hyperfang has a devistating effect! ...On one of the Bidoof.

The others, now even more confused, begin to crash down in a tidal wave of Derp.

"Uhh..We might want to run!" Kid says, beginning to back up as the 30 foot wall of beaver begins to collapse in front of them.

[Besyanteo]

Enzo needs no second bidding, running while trying to switch out Ratata as he goes... intending to bring out tentacruel in his place once he's out of the way of falling beavers.

[Kelne]

"She'll be okay, I think," Emily said, "But she looks a little ticked off." It was true. Vulpix was giving Spooky quite a severe glare.

"Vulpix," she said angrily, "Vulpix-vul-vulpix." Telling-off administered, she turned around haughtily and set off to explore a bit further afield.

[ChristianC]

Spooky gave the vulpix a slight glare, then noticed an even colder stare from his trainer, and crossed his arms, making a *tch* sound.

"Gengar."

It was the first time the battlemon had actually spoken, but it seemed enough and he lifted off the ground, floating backwards through his trainer and appearing on the other side of her once more, glaring.

[BrainWalker]

"Crap! It was supposed to topple sideways!"

Max instinctively attempts to fire up his boosters, but is immediately reminded he doesn't actually have them. But along those same lines, he decides to improvise something. He grabs on to one of his Metagross's legs.

"Hovertank, magnet rise! Saguaro, grab on!"

As Hoverank lifts the pair up and hopefully out of the way of the surprisingly terrifying collapsing beaver-wall, Max attempts to climb on top of him. Saguaro... just tries not to fall.

[Besyanteo]

With Max reaching a safe distance and Tentacruel appearing from the monsphere just in time, Enzo skidded to a halt and made his move. It would either be great, or he'd be buried under a pile of wet retardation and failure. He decided to try anyway, and hope for the best.

"Tentacruel, SURF!"

[Shinigori V2]

A massive wave of water appears from no where, inundating the area! With Tentacruel and Hovertanks help, the boys manage to escape the flood.

Kid, however, has no pokemon out at current.

She manages to yelp as the wave come crashing down, flooding the entire area, washing away the stink of failure and Bidoof. As the flood subsides, the Bidoof are completely gone, as is Flea.

...Kid, also, is nowhere to be seen.

[BrainWalker]

Max successfully climbs on top of Hovertank and, noticing Saguaro's predicament, very carefully helps him climb up as well. Not easy to figure out what to grab on to on a living cactus.

Surveying the situation, he's glad to see that the nexus of mental challenge is officially closed. But... where's Kid?

Max calls down to Enzo. "Hey, Enzo, good job! But, what happened to Kid? Do you have a fix on her location?"

[Animala]

Sam grins, shaking his head. "Nope, they're the same. All the stuff that you can fight here is a mon, and you can capture it if you want and if you have a monsphere. You just needa weaken it first, and then you just use it and see if you can catch it. You wanna try with the next mon we fight? It's pretty easy."

Lauren opened her mouth, but before she could respond, Ambassador Leafshade cut in: "Sure! I just have to be careful not to defeat it, right? I will use only a small fraction of my true power."

Lauren rolled her eyes, but nodded in agreement.

[Shinigori V2]

Early Game:

And on queue, a wild Zigzagoon jumps out from the tall grass!

[Animala]

Lauren sprung into action! "Oh, okay, umm...how did this go...Ambassador Leafshade, go!"

"Hmph." Ambassador Leafshade closed her eyes.

Lauren sent ou
*flicker*
Ambassador Leafshade sent out Ambassador Leafshade

"That's better," the Ambassador said smugly, and calmly stepped forward. "I'll take it from here."

"Bu--wha--" Lauren sputtered in confusion

Ambassador Leafshade ignored her. "Hmm...I think a quick attack will do." Ambassador Leafshade burst into a flurry of motion, racing towards the enemy at a speed suited for the most majestic and powerful of all creatures! Though thrilled at the chance for battle, she resolved to restrain herself from dealing a critical blow...to the extent the game mechanics would let her, anyway.

[NebulaQueen]

Silvie eyed the pokemon fight and quickly held up her hands.

"No no!" she said, with a nervous smile. "I'll be fine, really, it...erm, it builds character!"

[ChristianC]

"Let's keep walking..." Alexis sighed, half-considering to drop Spooky back in the sphere. But he seemed to want to behave now, so she let him be...

"Haven't met any trainers in a while, I guess most of the ones we've gotten to are the stragglers..."

[Shinigori V2]

Early game:

Leafshade slams into the Zigzagoon! And the Zigzagoon goes flying, landing in a cloud of dust against the path. It sits there and twitches, waiting for capture.

[Shinigori V2]

Midgame:

Enzo checks, and no...Kid's not on his scanner range anymore.

That could be very bad.

[Besyanteo]

"I... I can't find her anywhere. And the game didn't say anything about her blacking out. Oh man, this is bad."

Enzo tried broadcasting to everyone. He hoped that their etherware connection would carry farther than his sensor range in the game.

Kid, can you her me? Is anyone receiving this, for that matter? Answer back please.

[BrainWalker]

"Can't we just, like, search the game code for Elfin Trainer or whatever she spawned in as? Otherwise, we're down to bringing out any mons that might be good at tracking and trying to figure out where surf took her."

[Idran1701]

Sam grins at Lauren and Leafshade as the sort-of-a-furret crashes into the zigzagoon and stuns it. "Yeah! Now you just needa throw a monsphere at it and then after you capture it you can name it. D'you have a name for it yet, Lauren?"

[Animala]

Lauren was still staring dumbfounded at Ambassador Leafshade. "Wuh...oh, right!" She started fumbling around for her monsphere.

Ambassador Leafshade grinned an inscrutable furret smile, and shouted over her shoulder, "Hey, Lauren! Use your monsphere attack!"

Lauren glared at Ambassador Leafshade. "I'm getting to i--woah!" Lauren suddenly stopped fumbling around and smoothly retrieved a mosphere and tossed it towards the fallen zigzagoon, who vanished in a flash of light. Lauren would have looked almost like a competent, experienced trainer if not for the expression of utter terror on her face. "Guys, it's not me doing this!"

Ambassador Leafshade turned back towards Lauren in surprise. "Wait, did that actually work?" She blinked slowly once, then started laughing. "Man, this is so cool! Furret."

Lauren, apparently now in control of herself again, turned to Ambassador Leafshade with a frown. "This isn't funny! How would you like it if someone took control of you?"

Ambassador Leafshade snorted. "You mean like you were going to do? Look, it's just a furret game. Let's have some fun!"

Lauren's face was slowly reddening, and her voice raising to a shout. "It's not any fun if you don't get to do anything yourself!"

Completely forgotten, the monsphere shook once, twice, then lay still. A congratulatory message appeared, but neither of them cared.

"Oh, really?" Ambassador Leafshade shouted back, "You're just NOW figuring this out? You got to do all the furret cool training, you got to stomp on a zombie, you got to help rescue Kid, and now I get ONE furret chance to be the hero and you're--"

Both were now shouting at the top of their lungs.

"--HEY! We're supposed to be a team! You're my companion and--"

"--well maybe YOU should furret try a turn at--"

"--It's not my fault that--"

"--You're the one trying to take this away from--"

Lauren huffed and put her fists on her hips. "Well, I'm the trainer--"

"Not much of one!" Ambassador Leafshade snorted.

"You...you...jerk!" Lauren shot back.

"And you're a selfish brat!" Ambassador Leafshade retorted.

"THAT'S IT!" Lauren shouted, her face beet red. She whipped out a vacant monsphere and pointed it towards the Ambassador. "Ambassador Leafshade, return!"

There was a moment of dead stillness. Ambassador Leafshade looked absolutely shocked. For that matter, Lauren looked a bit surprised herself. And then...nothing happened. The captured zigzagoon waited patiently for a nickname.

"We're...supposed to be a team..." Ambassador Leafshade said slowly. A tear rolled off her snout and dripped to the ground.

Lauren dropped the monsphere, and it rolled in the grass towards Ambassador Leafshade. "I'm sorry, you're just being such a jerk and--"

"I'M being a jerk? I didn't try shouting 'LAUREN, RETURN', di--" There was a brilliant flash of light. Lauren had just enough time to let out a startled yelp before vanishing into the monsphere, her own monspheres clattering to the ground.

Ambassador Leafshade just stared. "Did that really just..."

Lauren's spheres, including the one which now contained her, shrank down to a much smaller size, and flew to Ambassador Leafshade, where they nestled themselves in her miniaturized trainer gear.

Ambassador Leafshade sat there silently for a moment, then sniffed. "Serves her right," she said in a hurt tone of voice. She then looked up at Sam. "I think I'll name it Ziggy."

[Shinigori V2]

"I think Ziggy is a great name for him." Janet says, shifting her weight, but eyeing the miniaturized monsphere. "Is..She going to be okay in there?"

Endgame:

How odd. The phone in Emmy's Monsgear is ringing.

[Idran1701]

"...Um..." Sam looks back at Leafshade, confused and a little worried. "...How'd you do that? Yeah, is Lauren okay? I mean...I know you two were fightin' and all, but I know she didn't mean anything mean or anything. Are you sure she's gonna be all right in there?"

...And with what happened to Leafshade when they came in here...Sam looks between her and Janet. "...D'you think maybe Lauren's gonna be a battlemon or something when she comes out? That'd be kinda weird, but I didn't think people could even go into those!"

Meanwhile, outside the conversation, on the edge of the group and unnoticed by his trainer, Louie eyes Sam. This is certainly something for him to keep in mind. Perhaps the good Ambassador is onto something here.

[Kelne]

Well, this was unexpected. Emily hadn't really paid much attention to her gear beyond the monspheres themselves. Still, phones were there for answering, and she snapped hers open, "Frozen wastes, Emily speaking," she announced cheerfully.