#vro open

 A few hours after Order Up! (A year after the logout button was shut off.)

Cress’ bosses just came back from a long trip bearing bad news. The youngest sister had just died trying to fight off a Beedrill swarm. This meant that they her position as a gym leader was available. After a long conversation with the two siblings they said they would allow him to join as a gym leader if he could prove himself. He would need to gain 8 badges, they didn’t expect him to beat the league but he would need to do it and be back in 4 months.

Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.

 He packed and ran to Route 3 as fast as he could, the closest gym was in Nacrene City, he made it there at the break of dawn. When Cress entered the Nacrene Museum he was awfully confused, he noticed another player near one of the exhibits. 

 2 months before Order Up! 

Cress stood in front of the huge building, he knew that there were people there that had been working far harder than he had. Some of the players inside had been working their butts off to make sure their Pokemon were in peak conditions. It kinda intimidated him but this was where he wanted to spend his vacation. 

Hearthome City’s Contest Hall! I’m finally here. 

 He, with his head held high, walked in to the contest hall. Cress signed up for a cuteness contest with his Eevee and waited for his turn, watching the other players. A player stood up, it was their turn and Cress would be going next. 

“Good Luck!” He said as the player left the waiting room and proceeded to the stage. 

 Cress finished delivering an order to tables #2 and #4. A week from now he would have worked in the Striaton Café a whole year. The job paid well and provided housing and besides the underground prostitution that occurred outside, the job was perfect. 

 Since this was a made-like café some of the customers asked him to odd things at times. Sometimes they would ask him to battle, other times they would offer him food, however most of the time they just wanted someone to talk to. A lot of people still had a hard time dealing with the log-out button vanishing. So they talked to the Cress and his co-workers. 

 The Striaton Café was also a gym, the gym leaders were 3 siblings a brother and his two twin sisters. They were ruthless, Cress wanted the water sister’s job. He managed to beat one of them, which was the requirement for him to get the job. He knew that it wasn’t likely that he would get the job, unless she died. 

Time stamp: A few hours after the logout button vanished. 

  “Where are you taking me?” Venus asked, her eyes were blindfolded but she could tell that she was in the back of a van. She never expected for there to be crime inside a game like this. At least not to this level. She managed to untie herself and noticed that there nobody stayed in the back as guard. 

How silly! 

 Venus slammed the back of the van open and jumped. The drivers noticed and stopped immediately. 

“Go Jackson!” Venus shouted, “Use Smokescreen!” 

--Maybe he wouldn’t care if it were. What was there to go back too?

Nothing, really. Just.. passing faces in this crowd, and a job he barely cared about. Some of these other people had friends, family, to return to, but he? No, none of that.

Besides, even if he did have the acquaintances that considered him their friends, how did they know that he wouldn’t think the same? They were just more faces in his life that pass by, one day they’ll disappear like the rest.

  Venus walked out of the Lumiose boutique, she needed to go under the radar so a change of look was necessary. She had bought an outfit suitable for the outdoors, and died her hair a lot darker. When she stood in front of the mirror, she seemed to be another person, a more confident person. That was only in the surface though. 

  In the Pokemon Center Venus was about to do something pretty drastic. She opened her PC and began releasing all but one of the members of her party, Eevee. She always had a thing for Pokemon from the field egg group, it was the largest egg group and all of them amazed her. She had been so excited to play the game, experience adorable creatures with her sister, but her sister, Marissa, died saving Venus’ life. 

  After she released her last Pokemon, she sat down by the window and wept. 

How long had he been running?  Seconds?  Minutes?  Weeks?  Months?  A year perhaps?  It felt like eons.  And yet, he was still being pursued.  If only he hadn’t been so complacent.  If only he hadn’t believed he was safe.  You never knew what a peaceful life you had once led until it all breaks down into chaos.  Yoichi continued to muse his miserable existence as he booked it through the small town he had been patrolling.

He’d been catapulting himself over garbage cans, hopping benches on the sidewalk; he had even played chicken with a bus during this great escape.  Alas, he was about to lose the precious ground he had.  As Yoichi skidded around a corner, he smacked right into an unsuspecting bystander, knocking them both over.  It was too late, he had been caught.

He picked himself off the ground and helped the person he’d ran into up as well before hearing the cry of his pursuer.  The blonde leaped behind the stranger, as if that was going to protect him.  The Skitty that had been chasing him for over half an hour had finally caught up to him.

“I’m a real fan of wacky chase scenes but this one is maybe too realistic.”  Lucas was, as usual, being chased.  Although this time by a wild Pokémon rather than an unhappy ‘customer’.  His Natu trailed behind him, extremely flustered as she couldn’t fly very well yet.  Actually, it was Yoishi’s fault that they were in this in the first place.  Since Lucas didn’t have enough badges to have her listen to him completely, she tended to ignore instructions even outside of battle.

She apparently thought it would be funny to use Ominous Wind to stir up the snow around a cave the pair was crossing.  Unfortunately, she also managed to rouse a Beartic from its slumber.  Now Yoishi and Lucas were making a mad dash in a frantic attempt to get away.  Except, Beartic was large and Lucas and Yoishi were both small, so the Pokémon was quickly catching up to them.

Yoishi managed to surpass Lucas, only to find herself sliding on a large sheet of ice.  Lucas hit the ice patch not long after.  They both attempted to keep their balance; Lucas flapped his arms comically, trying not to fall but also trying to make it across the ice.  He fell anyway.