Child's Play

[Besyanteo]

Enzo looked over at mention of the media, immediately becoming nervous. Kid quickly allayed his fears, though, and he managed to crack a smile. He looked around the table, left to right.

"I wonder what's keeping Silvie, Darren and Lauren."

[ChristianC]

"Yeah, I haven't seen much of Darren lately, especially..." Alex had conjured up another ball, and she was busy juggling it semi-clumsily, looking out the window occasionally. "I wouldn't want him to miss this, he doesn't seem to like being cooped up in here." she giggles and follows the snowball with her eyes, "He'd probably want to blow something up though, so it's good it's not PR."

[NebulaQueen]

"Iiii'm here!"

Silvie jogged into the room and plopped down on empty seat that was nearest to the other kids. She slouched back, and asked, "Did I miss anything?"

[Shinigori V2]

Kid shakes her head. "Nope. I was just about to say..."

She swings her legs off the table, leaning in on her elbow. "From what I hear? We're going into a video game. Not playing it, they're literally putting us INTO it as programming. We'll be part of the programming, y'know?"

[Idran1701]

"...Whoa! Really?" Sam grins, his mind immediately jumping into all sorts of ideas. "Awesome! What kinda game, do you know? What're we gonna do in it?"

[Kelne]

"Huh. That's pretty weird. Do you think it's because there's kids stuck in there? I mean, if the natural transforms go straight into the nearest electronic device, there must be a fair number stuck in video games." Emily wasn't sure there were actually any other sensible explanations.

[Shinigori V2]

"I dunno why we're going. I just heard a couple of the techs talking in the hallway." Kid says. She leans back again, crossing her arms and grinning. "And the game they were talking about was Mons Battler, ONLY one of the most popular crazes of all time."

[Idran1701]

"Seriously, Kid? Wow! But then I bet Emily's right!" His grin grows even wider as he starts thinking about what'll happen. "This is gonna be so cool! I hope we get to go soon!"

[Kelne]

"Well, that's not so bad. Sounds kind of fun, actually. At least it's not an RTS. I don't think we'd like being part of a quexian rush."

[NebulaQueen]

Silvie clasped her hands over her mouth to hide a dramatic gasp, and jerked back...only to topple over and fall out of her chair with a loud CLANG

"Ow..."

She scrambled up quickly, though, and there was no sign of embarrassment. There was only excitement and childish glee.

"Mons Battler?! Really?! Ohmygodohmygod, this is awesome- wait wait wait, which generation?! Is it the first one?! One of the remakes?! Is it the new one - wait, is it even the main series?! What about Mons Click! Or, or, Mons Lair Adventures! Or Mons Colosseum, or Mons Card Tournament - no, that can't be it, nobody liked Card Tournament, so it has to be the other ones...well, which one is it?!"

The more observant children might have noticed that she came dangerously close to Kid's personal space while asking her questions.

[Shinigori V2]

Kid grins, not really minding the invasion, it seems. "I heard...Phantomium. The most recent one."

[NebulaQueen]

Silvie's hands clasped her mouth again, this time to cover up a high pitched squeal that only dogs and obsessive fans could hear.

"Phantomium?! I've been waiting ages for Phantomium to come out!"

[ChristianC]

Alexis would've squealed on Silvie's level too. She absolutely loved the series.

Alexis, however, was cool, so she merely smiled, nodded and tossed the last couple of snowballs up into the roof, leaning forward.

"Wow, we're actually going to be in the game? Do we get to decide what BattleMons we want? Can we bring the ones we have?"

[BrainWalker]

Max had turned around to face his teammates and was now leaning against the window he had been looking out of.

"That's a good question. I've never been like, an obsessive fan like Sylvie, apparently, but I always thought it was pretty cool how the monsters are so unique and varied that there's really something for everyone."

"Phantomium, though? Really? They're kind of stretching for names for that series, aren't they?"

[Idran1701]

"...Wow. I didn't know there was so much with it, Silvie." Sam looks between her and the others. "Um...I haven't really played any of them since Purple. Is there a bunch of new stuff since then?"

[Shinigori V2]

Kid looks at Sam blankly for a minute. "..What, did you live under a rock or something? There's like four hundred of them now! And they can be different colors, sometimes. And Mentalists aren't the best kind anymore. There's a couple new kinds, Metal and Shadow."

Janet continues her fidgeting, looking to Max. "Actually," She begins, "They found that Phantomium is a real element and classified it as a precious metal...So I guess it makes sense."

[Animala]

Lauren skated into the room excitedly, Ambassador Leafshade clinging to her hair.

"Hey guys, guess what? I overheard some of the techs talking about our mission! Umm...does anyone know what 'Mons Battler' is?"

[BrainWalker]

Max can't help but chuckle. "Welcome to the conversation!"

[ChristianC]

"I'm playing Unobtainium right now, but I haven't played in a while." Alexis gave a little shrug, "Since we've been so busy with wunderkind stuff... I mean. I wonder if I get to play with Spooky, he's been with me since Orange."

[Kelne]

"That'd be a fair number of BattleMons to choose from then," Emily said. She'd gone through a bit of a phase a few years back, but hadn't played in a while now. Still, it'd be good to dust off a few of her old favourites and give them an outing.

[Idran1701]

While the others go back to talking about the mission, Sam looks to Lauren. "It's this really neat game series. You find monsters called BattleMons, and capture them for your team, and you're supposed to capture all of them and beat all the other Mons trainers so you're the best trainer. And there's a bunch of neat kinds of BattleMons to can catch too! I haven't played any of them in a while, but it was pretty fun, and now we get to go into the game and do it for real!"

[NebulaQueen]

"And there's a ton of other stuff you can do now," she said. "Like, there's a ton of different contests in the game, and you can breed your own Mons, and ....wait, how come you never heard of it? Were you a VirtuaMons fan or something?"

[Shinigori V2]

Mission: 9- Missing, no?
Location: Deck City- The Deck, Meeting Room.
August 2nd, 3756
10:30 AM.

As the children's internal clocks tick off 10:30 on the dot, the wooden door of the meeting room opens, with Rivendare stepping in. In one hand he holds a thick file. The other carries a mug full of some steaming beverage, the mug sporting "World's best granddad" on the side. He sets the coffee and the file down on the oak table, and flips it open. He picks up the mug and has a sip, before whistling. "We've got one heck of a job for you kids today. How many of you know the Battle Mons games? Show me hands."

[Idran1701]

Sam's arm shoots into the air, and he can't help but grin at the idea of the mission to come. Hopefully it won't be much longer now!

[ChristianC]

Alexis made a little salute with her long-and index finger. Yep, she knew!

"Only, like, all of us? Except Lauren, I guess?"

[Shinigori V2]

"A couple? Good. Well, you're going into one of the games."

He stands, pulling down a projection screen and grabbing a remote. With a few clicks, he brings up a picture of the game. "Back in June, the Empire reported the disappearances of twin brothers James and Andrew Gibson, and their classmate Kathleen Applebough, all age seven. They were reported missing after disappearing in a public mall. Security cameras fritzed out exactly when they disappeared-" He clicks the remote, and the projector changes to a series of pictures describing the scene as he talks. "They were to be supervised by the twin's father. In his own words, he looked away for five seconds, and when he turned back, they were gone."

Rivendare takes a sip of coffee, before continuing. "Now, this is where it gets a little weird." He clicks again, and it shows three sets of clothes laid out, along with various other things. "When he turned back, all that was there was the collective pile of clothes belonging to the three kids, as if they had been..." He waves his hand around. "...Sucked out of them. All three of the kids phones was still there, as was any change they had; Kathleen was reported to be wearing a pure silver pendant at the time, and that was in the pile too."

Rivendare pauses, looking them over. "You guys get what that means?"

[Idran1701]

"...Um...they turned into Wunderkind?"

[Shinigori V2]

Rivendare points to Sam. "Yes. No theft of any kind, just an active game going. Until Casey was practically delivered to us in giftwrap, we didn't know that was POSSIBLE. We're STILL trying to figure it out."

He takes another sip of coffee, commenting to himself quietly about how good it is. "So, we got the Empire to let us send a team in- You guys- To look around, see if you can find them. We HAVE confirmed that they're in there, but not Wunderkind. See, you guys have a specific code signature that identifies you as Wunderkind. Their sigs are closer to...Razzie and Benji's."

[ChristianC]

Alexis almost gets out of her chair, "Juniorkind? We have to save them, I bet they're lonely in there..." then she thought for a few seconds and shook her head. "Okay, probably not lonely. I bet they're having a great time, if they're playing Battle Mons. Will we know where they are once we get in?"

She thinks for a for seconds and then add, "If not, we could... could totally disguise ourselves as... um... arena leaders, or something like that. Every Battlemon trainer wants to face down arena leaders!"

[Idran1701]

"Um...I have a question? How're we all gonna fit inside it? 'cause aren't the games kinda small? Is there gonna be room for all of us to go inside?"

[Shinigori V2]

"You'll be going in in your data form, Sam." Rivendare says flatly.

[Idran1701]

After a pause, Sam shakes his head, giving Rivendare a weird look. "...um...yeah, I know, but even when we were on the jump drive we had to compress really small and it could only hold all of us and the juniorkind barely, and jumpdrives are really big, aren't they?"

[Shinigori V2]

"Oh, right. Yeah, you'll be fine. Trust me, you'll all fit."

[Idran1701]

That seems to be enough to satisfy Sam, who nods. "Okay, I just wanted to make sure we could all come."

[BrainWalker]

"So how did they end up in the game? Were they playing it at the time, or did they just have it on them, or were they in a game store, or what?"

[Shinigori V2]

"The game was turned on when they found it." Rivendare says. "So, we think they were playing it, but we have no way to be sure."

[NebulaQueen]

Silvie immediately straightened up when Rivendare announced the game, and tried to hide her excitement.

...which became easier when he told them why they were going in. Suddenly, it seemed less fun when there were kids in there. She bit her lip, and asked, "But how do we know it's the game? What about their Deus system?"

Deus being the most awesome handheld on the market. Duh.

[Shinigori V2]

"We've checked both pretty throughly." Rivendare says. "The game is the one that has the extra coding that shouldn't be there."

[ChristianC]

"So, we go in, we bring them back." Alexis created another snowball and let it slip between her fingers, catching it on the way down and dissolving it into steam with her hand. She was getting better at this.

"Are they... like... playing the game in there? Or just waiting around, like those people who show you the BattleStores and stuff?"

[Shinigori V2]

"As far as the game's concerned, they're the players, and still playing." Rivendare answers.