1x1 Glitched Away (Gwoomy x Barandofl)

Ethan... he was right. She had to move out of here. To do something. Whatever she could. Whatever they could. The little ray hope was back. Her eyes lightened up. Okay, let’s do this! she thought, suddenly smiling.
But the Ralts had started talking again. Kelly tried to catch up.
"...go out and take a look around town, maybe I can find something to progress the story of the game. Maybe that'll fix it, maybe not, but I still need to try. Wanna tag along?"
"Y-yeah, sure! It’s better than staying here doing nothing anyway." The Dewott got up. She didn’t want to stay alone with her thoughts, especially if Ethan was out trying to get them out.

 

As she looked around, Kelly saw a Shroomish coming to them. Her expression was a mix of hesitation, confusion and determination, which made her face looking quite strange. Before she could warn her partner, the mushroom Pokémon called out to them.
"Er, huh, hi, huh, you two are a team, right?" she asked.
"Actually–"
"Er, I mean, of course you are, the Shroomish added, interrupting the Dewott. "There’s... er... my friend Horsea is in the Sleepy Woods, and, huh, please rescue him! Now, huh, I think I gotta go-"
"Wait!" Kelly interjected. "First, where are the Sleepy Woods-"
"O-oh! You don’t know that? It’s easy, turn left when you go out of here, then just follow the signs, it’s not too far from-"
"Hey, I’m not finished! Second, we’re not even a Rescue team!" the otter almost shouted, a bit annoyed.
"You’re-" the NPC started, before pausing. Her face was showing pure confusion now. She stopped, but it looked weird – as if the 3d model was frozen!
"Er..." Kelly waited for it to move before turning towards Ethan. "I might have broke-"
"...not a team?" the Shroomish finished, startling her. "It’s weird... I feel like I should say something in particular but... also like if Horsea should be here for me to say that... and... Ah, I don’t know... everything is messed up in my head..."

 

Kelly thought about it for a moment.
"...Yeah, makes sense... And it’s a rescue mission, so it’s more likely urgent, which is a good motivation for the player to do it. So we have to get to those Sleepy Woods. Weird name."
She looked at the Shroomish, who was mumbling to herself.
"Why are they called like that?"
The NPC looked like she was reconnecting to "reality". "Huh, what?"
"The Sleepy Woods. That’s a strange name."
"Oh, that’s just because there are a lot of Pokémon with soporific moves or abilities."
This made Kelly think about the fact that Ethan and her certainly had moves and abilities too. Would they need practice to use them? They’d probably need to somehow make a movement associated with the move. Like, using a Claw or Punch move without moving would seem super weird. The moves they had where probably at least indicated somewhere though. But what if... they were supposed to get some kind of tutorial at the beginning on those things and they missed it because of the glitchy game? What if they missed something important?
She stopped that chain of thoughts before it trapped her in a state of panic again. In the case that they indeed missed some things, they’d probably figure it out in some way or another. Besides... she wasn’t alone.
She waved at the Shroomish to have a good reason to walk a few steps away from her. Since the Dewott had the thought that the NPCs may feel like sentient beings now – who probably didn’t know they were in a game –, she found herself having a bit of compassion for them, and didn’t want to risk to confuse the mushroom Pokémon even more with the "fourth wall breaking" stuff she was gonna talk about with Ethan.
"So huh," she started, "we probably have moves too. I think it’d be useful to check them and maybe get somehow used to them before we go into any dungeon, even the first one."
She kept her anxiousness quiet, preferring to bury it in the deepest part of her mind.

 

Kelly followed Ethan in the town's streets. Stopping on their way to the Woods, he turned around and proposed to start training.
"Yeah, sure... Huh, I should probably check my moves first, just in case I don't have Water Gun, you never know what can happen," the Dewott said.
She opened the menu, looking for a "moves" option. There was an "Info" button. That should be it, she thought. Good news, it was.
"So I have Water Gun, Fury Cutter, Rock Smash and Double Team... neat. Oh, and Torrent as an ability, apparently. That could be way worse."
Quitting the menu, she informed her partner of her discovery and suggested that he should check too.

 

So it seemed that they both got pretty good moves. At least they had that...
Ethan invited Kelly to start first with Water Gun. She nodded and thought about how she’d do it.
So... I could probably spit it like Pokémon are often represented doing so... but... I wonder if...
The Dewott stretched her arms in front of her for her open palms to be facing the Ralts. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the thought that she wanted to shoot water through her hands, or paws. Taking a deep breath, she noticed a strange feeling of power flowing through her veins, going all the way to her open hands. Which seemed a bit too much for just a video game... but she pushed that thought away. Stay focused. Opening her eyes, she felt more than she saw a sphere of water, from the air around them and a bit from her too, forming at the tips of her fingers. Suddenly, the power was released, and the sphere shifted into a squirt flying right towards Ethan who fell down on impact.
"A-ah! Are you okay?" she asked as she ran to her partner.

 

After he had recovered from the hit, Ethan looked around and began staring at a rock. Before she asked him what he was doing, Kelly realized that he was probably thinking about using the psychic powers he talked about earlier. She saw him closing her eyes like her, but when he opened them again, they were glowing! Funny how psychic powers are so often represented by eye glowing, she thought. As the Ralts was carrying the rock around, the Dewott wondered if he had that same kind of weird feeling that she felt earlier.
"Woah, this is amazing... a little weird, but amazing," he said. "I'm not sure how this works exactly, but maybe I can do some psychological damage to our oponents."
"Yeah, that’s it! Strange but amazing. That’s how I felt too," she answered, skipping the last part as she was mostly excited about their powers. Suddenly, she got an idea. "I’m gonna try something."
Before her partner could ask what, she bent her knees, her palms opened in front of her, one facing the other in some kind of (what she hoped was) cool-looking pose. Forming another water sphere – it was already a bit easier –, she suddenly leapt as high as she could and aimed the squirt on the ground. Propelled even higher by the strength of the jet, she localized and locked her eyes on her target as she moved her arm back, only to throw the stronger punch she could.
The rock was destroyed.
And, of course, to truly complete this scene of awesomeness, she fell down on her feet but somehow managed to trip and took the most pathetic tumble of her entire life.

 

Kelly got on all fours just in time to see Ethan healing himself. She had seen a rock shard hitting him out of her eye’s corner. She was about to apologize when his bruise started disappearing and she couldn’t help but stare at it.
"Yo, I'm not gonna lie, this is actually kind of amazing," he said.
"You bet it is!" the Dewott exclaimed.
"I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think we're ready for taking on our first quest. What do you think?"
"Yeah, I think we can go. We can always try our other moves in the Woods," Kelly answered. "Oh and by the way, sorry for your head."

 

The Woods’ atmosphere alone felt sorta cottony. Kelly was walking carefully. Wandering in potentially dangerous places like that wasn’t really her cup of tea. Fortunately, she wasn’t alone; she probably would’ve been terrorized without Ethan’s comforting presence. A slight fog was twirling around the trees.
Suddenly, she heard something. Turning towards the origin of the sound, she saw a rather big-looking Breloom stand in front of her. It seemed in a bad mood. Immediately, her brain started thinking: Breloom. Grass/Fight. Resistant to two of her attacking moves – the last one, though...
Following her intuition, the Dewott took a step, her claws coming out of her paws and starting to glow. As she dashed to her foe, her Furry Cutter successfully hit, but, as she wondered how she managed to pull it off so well, she felt her eyes slowly closing.
"Heck... I forgot about that damn Effect Spore..." she whispered, her voice going down as she was falling, carried away by her momentum.
"Sorry..." was her last word before she fell asleep on the floor.

 

Kelly’s waking was quite brutal. "I-its okay, I’m-" she tried telling Ethan, before noticing-
"Watch out!" she exclaimed, grabbing the arms that were shaking her to make them both roll on the side, out of the Breloom’s Mach Punch’s way. The Ralts looked relieved and stared at the Breloom. Seeing Ethan’s eyes glowing and as the Mushroom Pokémon seemed to have an headache, her partner was probably using a Psychic move. Coming back into the heat of the battle, she quickly got up and prepared a Water Gun. She could see the surprise in their enemy’s eyes when the jet hit him, throwing him at a tree. As the Breloom slided down the trunk, the Dewott felt the battle’s tension flowing back. But, as she was going to turn around to celebrate with Ethan, she saw the Breloom literally disappearing into the ground!
"What the-" Kelly started, still in shock as she approached the place where Breloom was a moment ago. However, it wasn’t the last of their surprises... as the team heard a child’s scream, seemingly coming from the spot!
The Dewott fell on her knees but, as she tried touching the ground in an attempt to understand what had happened, her hand went right through.
That’s when it suddenly made sense.
"Ethan!" she said, turning her head toward the confused-looking Ralts. "I think I got it!"
"This is game is full of bugs, right? This is a collision one! There’s a hole here, and someone in it!"

 

Ethan got a fair point by saying that Kelly should probably take her hand out of the bug, but before she could, another scream startled them. The Ralts sighed and basically told her that after all, they couldn’t just wait here, which Kelly agreed to.
The Dewott took a deep breath and despite her mind telling her that it could be a bad idea, she thrust her head into the ground.
It felt kinda weird but she seemed okay. There wasn’t much light in there, but she could somehow barely see. There was a massive non-moving thing right beneath her – probably the Breloom. And in the corner...
"aaAAAAANOTHER ONE!" the Horsea screamed. "Please-dont-hurt-me please-dont-hurt-meeee..."
Kelly’s ears didn’t like that, but she nevertheless tried to answer in the nicer way she could:
"Hey, calm down! I’m your friend. I won’t hurt you, okay? I’m here to save you. And don’t worry, this Breloom won’t be moving for a moment."
Fortunately, the child now seemed less scared. He came a bit closer.
"Really? You won’t attack me?"
"No, I promise! Try climbing on that Breloom to reach my hand."
However... it wasn’t enough. Kelly tried thinking of a solution.
"Wait a second here, okay? I’m gonna ask my friend how we can get you out of here. I promise I won’t go away."
"O-okay..."
The Dewott took her head out and turned it towards Ethan.
"The hole’s too deep..."