#would it be twisted to introduce their baby to the gen 8 kids!?

[simthorium]

“That was such a fun night,” David said as all the cousins sat around the living room after movie night. “We should have more of these!” “Yeah, maybe with an actual good movie next time,” said Zuri. “Oh my god, you’ve got to let it go, dude,” said Ollie.

“Shea’s our cousin, you gotta support her movie career!” Miles Jr. said. “I don’t gotta support shit!” Zuri said back. Ollie and Calia stood up to kiss an embrace, ready to turn in for the night. Joey on the other hand was watching intently.

Zuri turned around to face her boyfriend, catching him staring at Calia. She smacked his hand, snapping him out of his stupor. “What the hell was that?” she asked. “Nothing, nothing,” he said a little too quickly.

Before Ollie and Calia had a chance to head upstairs, Calia grabbed her belly and suddenly spun around into maternity clothes. She was pregnant! “Oh my god!” she exclaimed. “You really been putting in work, Ollie,” Zuri said with a laugh.

Ollie jumped back up and hugged his girlfriend, absolutely thrilled. He always wanted to be a dad. “This is incredible, baby!” he said, squeezing her but not too tight. “We’re really gonna have a family.” On the couch, Joey couldn’t help but feel turmoil. He knew what he was about to do was going to ruin everything, but if there was even a chance that that baby was his, he needed to do it. “Are you sure it’s his?” Joey asked. The room fell into stunned silence as everyone turned and faced him. “Who else’s would it be?” Zuri asked, her arms folded tight against her chest. Joey hung his head, unable to hide it anymore.

“Wait, are you serious right now?” Ollie asked Calia, feeling his heart break. “You slept with him!?” “You have GOT to be kidding me!” Zuri screamed at Joey. “You think I’m some kind of fool!? You thought we wouldn’t find out!”

“I’m so sorry, Ollie,” Calia cried into her hands. “We just got so caught up and-” “I don’t want to hear it!” Ollie shouted. “Is the baby mine or his?” “I think we should-” “Is it mine or his!” Ollie screamed, sending the room into deafening silence again. Calia looked from Ollie to Joey, tears staining her cheeks. “His,” she said in a smallest voice imaginable.

“Get the fuck out,” Zuri said, pointing to the door. “I never want to see your face ever again!” “Baby, please, I can explain,” Joey said. “You too,” Ollie said. “Get out.” “You can’t just toss me out, I’m pregnant!” Calia replied. “I can, and I did,” said Ollie. “You and your baby daddy can work together on finding a new place to live, far away from here.” Joey and Calia looked at one another, hung their heads, and left.

“And here I was jealous I didn’t have a girlfriend,” David muttered. “SHUT UP!” Zuri and Ollie screamed at the same time. “Yeah, probably not the best thing to say right now,” said Miles Jr.

[inkribbon796]

Like a House of Cards Ch. 11: Opposites React

Summary: The heroes go looking for Dark and Logan’s group.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

As they stood on the street, the Anomaly that would appear in a bank vault gone from the Host’s hands, they had to recover from the power of the Anomaly coursing through them for a second time.

Chase collapsed onto his knees, feeling just a soul-deep sorrow. He was crying from memories and loss he couldn’t remember. “Fook.”[1]

“Chase?” Jackie dragged his feet over, he was feeling sluggish but it was thankfully easing from his body quickly.

“I’m fine,” Chase wiped his face with his arm. “I’m fine.”

“We can stop fer[2] a bit,” Jackie promised, helping Chase up.

“I’m grand,”[3] Chase promised.

“The Host and Chase will form one group, and Silver, Ethan, and Jackie will form the other as they try to find Dark’s group. “He asks that the heroes get their outfits back on, and for Silver and Jackie to try not to get themselves into trouble.”

“Ehh, we should be fine,” Jackie promised. “So long as Chase is gonna be okay.”

“We gotta talk anyways,” Chase nodded at the Host. “Try not ta[4] fight a hoard ‘a[5] bears.”

“No promises,” Mark smiled, and then the three of them left.

Silver, Crank, and Jackie waited in the alley for almost five minutes, getting bored. Ethan’s ADHD kicked him in the teeth before Mark’s did. Then a shootout started next to them. Several people were screaming and someone that the heroes thought looked a lot like Dark when he was pretending to be Damien. Except he wasn’t in his typical outfit, his hair was wild, and there was a streak of blue in his hair.

Ethan immediately cloaked them with his invisibility. They began to approach.

Two guys jumped on him and dragged him away. And then someone who looked almost exactly like Chase passed by the mouth of the alley.

“Don’t fookin’[6] let that arsehole[7] escape again!” Chase shouted.

The heroes got closer as the men used magic to tie “Damien” up.

He looked down at the bonds and then smiled at “Chase” which made the other man groan, “Dames, Don’t.”

“Kinky,” Dames smiled, his smile huge, leaning forward as much as the bonds would let him. “Chase. How’s life, doll?”

Chase glared at his captive before leaning in to get close to his face. “What the fook is wrong wit’ yeh?”[8]

The bound man just smiled, shrugging, “You’re going to have to be specific?”

“I meant Marvin, yeh mad fook, are yeh tryin’ ta kill my kid?”[9] Chase spat.

Dames’ only answer was, “If you wanted to get rough in bed, we’d need a bed for that.”

Chase grabbed him by the front of his shirt, “Keep yer[10] brat away from my kid, I don’t want the General killin’[11] him.”

“What’s with all this “killing” business,” Dames chuckled. “You and Gen are worried so much for your little games. They’re old enough to make all kinds of decisions.”

“Yeh taking the boys ta’a whorehouse isn’t a good choice, ya nutter,”[12] Chase spat.

“True,” Dames agreed, “they really had more fun with each other.”

“Fook this,” Jackie finally decided, as his whole body began to shake.

Silver grabbed Ethan and flew up, Ethan keeping them invisible as Jackie punched one of the thugs and then grabbed Dames, racing off with him. Silver flying in to keep up.

“What are you doing?” Silver demanded. “We’re supposed to be laying low.”

“I don’t know, I’m makin’[13] this up as I go along,” Jackie yelled, tugging Dames with them as they ran.

“What are we doing?” Dames asked. “Are we playing tag?”

“Yes!” Jackie yelled before anyone else could speak. “An’[14] Brody back there’s it.”

“Oh,” Dames said with a soft realization, then he smiled and grabbed them. “Well, we won’t win like this.”

Then they suddenly found themselves being slammed into the concrete wall of an alley, Jackie taking an especially hard hit because of his momentum.

Dames was looking them up and down as the heroes regained their composure, the corner of Dames’s mouth twitching a little bit. “You three aren’t from around here.”

“How’d yah[15] guess?” Jackie smiled as he got up, Silver floating before he was able to stand.

“Silly cheaters,” Dames laughed. “Couldn’t win your own game so you jumped to a new board.”

“It is so weird seeing you like this” Silver set his feet on the ground.

Dames shrugged, and then a portal began to twist open. It wasn’t quite like Dark’s dark purple-black Void magic. It was a deep red-magenta that felt more like hands ripping their way free.

Ethan tried to shield them but Dames couldn’t be cloned and excitedly stepped free to meet the man who stepped out of the portal. He had a sharp black suit and a bushy black mustache. A red and magenta aura coming off of him like Dark’s red and blue aura. He had dark red and magenta after images that echoed and stuttered off of him.

“Gen,” Dames smiled excitedly, holding his arms out.

“Where’s Junior?” Gen asked.

“I don’t know,” Dames denied, his good mood quickly starting to evaporate. “Ask your little trackers you put on them.”

General glared at Dames, “What were you two doing?”

“Nothing,” Dames almost giggled.

Dark’s glare became more baleful and he grabbed Dames by the front of his jacket, Dames giggling in response. “Don’t give me that bullshit, Dames. Did you let Bim go off with that hooligan?”

“Mayhaps,” Dames’s smile became almost giddy.

“Dames!” the General pinned him against the closest wall. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you did,” Gen spat. “You can waste your time at brothels and clubs all you want, but you leave Junior out of it.”

Dames began giggling, “You have to admit, yours and Chase’s faces when you saw they were gone was pretty hilarious.”

“This isn’t funny!” the Entity snarled. “Bim is impressionable, no thanks to you. It burned down with them still in it!”

“At least I show him how to have a good time,” Dames dared. “You’d have him at a desk working papers until he died. He’s a kid.”

“Not anymore,” the General warned. “He stopped being a child when he turned sixteen. They all did.”

Dames rolled his eyes, “Ughh.”

The General stepped closer, “You cannot insist on treating them all like children, they are not.”

“Only because you wanted them to grow up, they never got to be children in the first place,” Dames argued back.

“You’re absolutely insufferable,” the Entity scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Why is being alive and safe so unfavorable to you.”

“You’d have him die in an office,” Dames spat.

“No I’d have him alive doing something,” the demon spat. “You insist on treating all of them like children. They are not, nor have they been for years.”

“I want my babies back,” Dames looked away, clearly upset. “What was so wrong with them being my babies? You said I could keep them.”

“They are safe, that should be enough. Do I make myself clear, Doomstrum?” Gen spat, his aura coiling just a hair too tight around the mad mayor.

Dames struggled in his hold for a bit before stopping, clearly refusing to look at or answer him.

Mark would have forced himself out of Ethan’s invisibility bubble, but the hero watched the demon’s expression soften for a couple seconds and then sighed before opening up a massive portal to show a relatively spartan office except for a very nice looking desk and a couch that looked extremely comfortable to sleep on. He let Dames go. “Let’s go Dames.”

The madman frowned and took a step before turning around, a smile spreading on his face again, “Oh, Gen, I have to introduce you to my new friends.”

“Your what?” The demon growled in frustration.

“Yeah they’re just,” Dames began, pointing to the three heroes at the end of the alley right before a portal ripped open behind them and a dark purple aura pulled them in and swiftly closed before the General or Dames could really react in more than surprise.

The three heroes landed on their backs around Dark’s feet in a dimly lit room.

“There we go, problem solved,” Dark announced.

“How does this solve our problems, you’ve led him straight to us!”

Jackie looked up in confusion, Virgil didn’t come with us?

When he looked up at Virgil however he was in a huge dark grey-black overcoat. His hair was different, but the eyeshadow still darkened his face.

Dark brought his aura up in time as a red-magenta magic tried to get into the room. He threw his aura against it and it was gone. “Nonsense, I can cloak areas to keep 

 magic from getting in.”

“Andy,” someone in a black beanie insisted, tugging on “Virgil’s” coat. The Side had some vitiligo marks on his face and hands, his eyes a deep golden yellow.

“Dee, not now,” Andy hissed.

“But they’re telling the—” Dee tried to report, before he was protectively pushed behind Andy.

“No,” Andy nudged his companions back and pointed to Dark. “I don’t trust you.”

“I don’t trust you,” he pointed to Wilford.

“And I sure as shit don’t trust you,” Andy spat at the Host. His voice was practically dripping with contempt.

“All we need to get to the next rift and we’re gone,” Dark scoffed. “We don’t need your trust.”

“So what’s the actual plan for getting home?” Silver asked the Host. “Seems like they’ve got a lot to deal with right now.”

“Simple we go into what is probably a horribly designed version of my office, and activate the Anomaly so it takes us home.” Dark dusted off his suit with his aura. “The plan’s already been made if you want to talk to the others.”

The Host dispelled an illusion and they saw the three Sides talking to Glitch Logan, and J.J peacefully napping in the corner. There was no sign of his double anywhere.

“I will have everything under control,” Logan spat at his doppelgänger.

“I don’t need to be reassured of anything,” Glitch Logan dismissed. “I have made redundancies and failsafes to ensure they do not die. If I was not certain, I would have raised my complaints. You will protect them, that is the only objective I need to give. If you work with the heroes, or with Google, I care not. Roman, Virgil, and Patton’s survival is all I care about. We spent a year’s worth of time working for it and I have come too far to fail now.”

“I will do so without needless killing” Logan promised.

Glitch Logan gave an inhuman smile, “We shall see, either way it’s inconsequential to me.”

The Anomaly glowed and it engulfed the two Logans completely before just Logan was standing there. He gave a shudder and a bunch of nanites fell to the ground around him, twitching once and then going offline, their components frying themselves so they couldn’t be used by anyone else.

Logan stiffened and Roman raced in to catch him.

“Lo, sweetheart?” Roman pleaded desperately as Logan blinked and coughed as air returned to his lungs.

The Host used a couple words from his narrations and the nanites were all gone from the floor.

Janus briefly checked on Logan before clearing his throat and drawing attention to himself, summoning his staff.

“The Host allowed us to speak with the other Sides, we got but a minute but we’ve come up with a plan,” Janus reported. “There is one fusion we have that enables us to make as much noise and commotion as possible, while showing that we are different people. I have spoken with this world’s Deceit and they cannot fuse—”

“Please don’t call me that, that’s not all I do,” Dee asked.

Janus paused, looking at Dee, “Of course do you have a preference?”

Andy was just watching Janus, staring at him.

“Dee,” Dee told him.

“Alright,” Janus agreed. “Anyways, I have spoken with Dee and they can’t fuse so it will be the easiest way to get the message across.”

“So we’re gonna use Remy?” Jackie asked.

“No,” Logan cut in. “Even before the merge I was not in the right emotional or mental mindset to fuse. My fusions are impossible without that mindset. My future self hinted the feeling would get worse and unfortunately he was right.”

“Okay, you’ve never exactly told us how fusion works,” Ethan reminded. “But I’m guessing that I’m gonna take a group in?”

“The heroes will not need to cause a distraction because the fusion will be enough to convince the General that they are different. Besides, the General will wish to speak to the Entity.”

“Will he?” Dark asked. “Last time he saw me he tried to take my head off.”

“Maybe we should talk to him,” Wilford smiled. “We never gave them a chance.”

“It is so weird seeing him in pink,” Andy commented.

“Why, what’s wrong with it?” Wil frowned. “Pink is a lovely color.”

“Nothing wrong with it, it’s just you’d rather set yourself on fire than wear pink,” Andy explained.

“No I wouldn’t, I’m wearing pink right now,” Wil gestured to himself.

Dark rubbed at the bridge of his nose, “This is going to take forever now.”

“No, I meant the other you, the douchebag in Armani,” Andy explained.

“Well then he should wear pink too,” Wil decided.

Andy let out a snorting chuckle, “Oh, trust me everyone in this city would love to see that.”

The group started to plan a bit so that Silver and Jackie knew what they were doing, and during that time, Janus leaned over to Roman.

“This means nothing, I’d rather Remus was here,” Janus told Roman.

“Well I'd rather Patton was here,” Roman agreed, emotions still running high from the mess with the doppelgängers.

“Good,” Janus spat.

“Good,” Roman glared at him.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Accessibility Translations

1. Fuck

2. for

3. I’m alright

4. to

5. of

6. fucking

7. asshole

8. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

9. I meant Marvin, you crazy fucker, are you trying to kill my kid?

10. your

11. killing

12. You taking the boys to a whorehouse isn’t a good choice, you nutter

13. making

14. And

15. you

[beardycarrot]

I’m the world’s worst as predicting things or having my hopes come true, but that’s not gonna stop me from weighing in on tomorrow’s Pokemon Direct!

We are, obviously, going to see some new Gen 8 Pokemon. That’s a given. I personally hope we don’t see the evolved forms of the starters, as I like evolutions to be a surprise when I play the games... buuuut, I’m pretty sure it will be impossible for me to use the internet for the next five months without it being spoiled for me, so whatever.

As always, I want... no, I NEED more butterfly and moth Pokemon, and some cute Grass-types. Where my hummingbirds, dolphins, and capybaras at? Evolutions of existing Pokemon please? I’m actually legitimately expecting not one, but TWO new Eeveelutions tomorrow. Ground and Ghost baby, c’mon let’s see ‘em! I also expect there to be some new fairly humanoid Fairy-types, since it’s based on the UK... and by that same token, some kind of big green wyvern. Make it happen, Game Freak!

I legitimately don’t know whether Galar forms will be a thing. I think Alolan forms were an elegant solution to shining a spotlight on older Pokemon, and have with every new game been mad that we’re not getting new Shellos and Gastrodon forms... so yeah, I’m all for it. Gimme a Galarian Zangoose that looks like a badger, a highland Miltank, a Stantler with a face that’s anything but Stantler’s current face. I feel like, if they did a version of variant forms, it wouldn’t be quite how Alolan forms worked... but I would be completely happy if it was.

I’m most curious about this game’s evil team. Aside from Team Magma’s cute costumes, I haven’t really cared for any of the non-Team Rocket bad guys... right up until Team Skull, who were by far my favorite thing about Sun/Moon. The new team could be pretty much anything... if you want to go by British stereotypes, maybe football hooligans or Oliver Twist-style street urchins. Maybe an aristocratic secret society that hunts Pokemon for sport, complete with Slowpoke heads mounted as trophies all over their hideout. An ancient order of knights? The logos for the game also makes it feel like there could be two teams again.

I’m pretty sure we’ll be given a more in-depth look at the stadiums that seem to be replacing the gyms. I expect it to culminate in a Pokemon battle with some kind of leader... but what will lead up to that? Probably not sports-based minigames, probably not just plain battles against other trainers... so what else fits? The soccer uniform your character wears in the stadiums, the stadiums themselves, and the Japanese logos for the games all bear this swirly, spiky red and blue pokeball symbol:

What does it mean? Well... the same spot in the logos for the last two generations bore the symbols for mega evolution and Z crystals, so it’s probably a pretty big deal. As I said back before the Gen 8 reveal in February, the term Alter Genesis had been trademarked in Japan, which I predicted would be either the name of a TCG set or some new gameplay mechanic. As it turns out... yeah, it’s a TCG set. If that symbol is related to the stadium gameplay, then we might not be getting a new let’s put something on kids’ wrists that isn’t a Yokai Watch gameplay gimmick... which is perfectly fine by me.

It kinda reminds me of rotation battles, with the three things swirling inside of it. Maybe the stadiums will feature battles using entire teams of Pokemon? What’s interesting is that they’re swirling freely between the red and blue portions... which in my mind, symbolizes two different teams. Maybe the mechanic will involve the Pokemon you send out switching sides throughout the battle? That would actually be pretty cool... It would prevent either side from being overpowered, since sometimes you would have to use your opponent’s Pokemon while they use yours. The battle would have to be based on points rather than knocking out the other team though, and that’s dangerously close to contest territory for my taste.

It’s also possible that it’s a traditional battle with all the Pokemon involved shuffled between the participants... but that feels like it would really undermine the premise of the series, and isn’t a very interesting gimmick. What could it be, then? For all I know it’s a big game of battle chess and the meaning behind the symbol only makes sense once you’ve seen it in action. Maybe it’s like a canine agility course and the symbol depicts the trainers calling out to their Pokemon with instructions?? Yeah I have no idea what it could be.

They also recently filed a trademark for the term Pokegenic... it’s entirely possible that it related to the new Pokemon apps and games introduced at that event last week and unrelated to the main series. I’m only mentioning it because Pokegenic sounds like photogenic, and could be a photography-centric replacement for the “bonding with your Pokemon” modes that have been in the last two games... though whatever it is, that’s an absolutely terrible name for it. Right up there with Gen 4′s Poketch. People got all excited when Armored Mewtwo was trademarked, since the games are called Sword and Shield, before realizing that it was in relation to the upcoming CG Pokemon movie.

Which brings me to my final point: why Sword and Shield? Ever since Gen 2 the game names have referred to what people call the “box legendaries”, which we’ll probably be seeing tomorrow... but lately, they’ve also tied into the games a bit. Black/White’s plot is squarely focused on morality and extremism, X/Y’s big focus is mega evolution, which is implied to be genetic in nature... I probably don’t have to explain Sun/Moon. So, what about Sword/Shield? Will there be equippable weapons and armor, distinct from held items? Will there be a Fire Emblem-style weapon triangle to deal with in addition to existing type matchups?

Now that I’ve gone on the record with all of that, it’s guaranteed that none of it will be even close to what we’ll see tomorrow, so you can look at all the things I didn’t say for clues as to what the direct will focus on.