Chris Waters ("NightFox" / Fennekin) & Natalie Pence (MoneyBunny / Buneary)
Exploration Team Lucky Strike
Discovery Town Center
Affected RPers: N/A

In the aftermath of the terrible news, Chris was convinced the best choice for everyone was to get out of Discovery Town Square. Trying to figure out how much had completely gone wrong and make up a plan just had to wait.

"IS THIS SOME KIND OF $*#&%ING JOKE!?" Natalie screamed.

But her scream of anger and frustration was simply one among thousands of horrified players that had to voice their shock and anguish over the trap they had stumbled into. The deathly trap. It left Carla in so much dismay and depression that she was coughing, wailing, and was on the verge of vomiting over it.

As if by instinct, Chris used his Fennekin fox paws and even his mouth to just yank Carla, Naomi, and Natalie away from the scene of chaos and near-rioting. He wouldn't have been surprised if in fact a player riot had erupted because of this, but he tried not to think about it. He wasn't even thinking about his plans to try and find a way to deal with this situation. He just wanted everyone to be safe. For now, he dragged all three of them into a vacant alleyway that was away from all the panicked players.

"We're going to die!" Carla wailed in agonized horror, cursing her Flabébé form. "I knew it! I knew-"

"WOULD YOU KNOCK IT OFF!?" Chris shouted at her angrily. "Let's play a game! It's called stop panicking, get your head on straight, take a deep breath, count to ten, and let's just relax and talk this out peacefully and quietly. CAN WE DO THAT BECAUSE HOLY CRAP, I REALLY WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME SO BADLY RIGHT NOW? SERIOUSLY, CAN-"

"Okay, god almighty, I hear you," Natalie spat as she interrupted him. "You know, I think it's understandable she and everyone else is upset as hell about this. I can tell it's pissing you off, also, that's for sure. I sure as $&#% didn't think Pokémon Mystery Dungeon would suddenly decide to have a crossover with SILENT HILL.""

"God dammit, he's right though," Naomi looked down worriedly, realizing she was going to be stuck as a Petilil far longer than she could imagine.

They stopped and just looked around them. Discovery Town truly did look more like Silent Hill's Otherworld rather than the cheerful, colorful world it had once been. The walls were ravaged with scratches and blood and anything that had been made of wood was now bloodied and splintered while the metal had become twisted and rusted. Meanwhile, the skies were just a toxic, filthy soup of angry-colored reds, browns, grays and blacks.

"I can't do this," Carla muttered. "I can't do this."

"Yes, you can, now come on," Chris urged her. "The more you freak out, the more you make whoever is behind this ecstatic."

"Man, #%@# the asshat who set this up," Natalie spat. "Pricks like that deserve to contract and suffer through months of stage 4 terminal cancer before just dying in a fire anyway. Anyway, Chris is right, let's just focus on beating this stupid game. And the best way to do that is just grind like hell and play through this very conservatively."

Chris breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't a very big step in trying to solve the problem they were currently in, but it was at least the first and that was important.

"Thank you, that's how we get through this hell," Chris replied. "Although... look at this place. Do we even still have a Exploration Guild or did that get taken over by whatever this Silent Hill-inspired hellhole is?"

"Hell if I know, I barely even give half a damn," Natalie muttered.

"You know, you sure talk nasty for a Buneary," Naomi looked at her strangely. "I mean, it's just... well, different."

But Natalie just shrugged and looked away. Meanwhile, for Chris, it was tricky to try and figure out exactly what would be the best way of going about this, but for the moment, he couldn't really think of a plan. If someone was willing to cause this much pain and death over a game, he doubted just "beating the game" was going to put an end to the terror. He felt the terrorist that had planned this most likely had some other kind of motive, but until Chris figured that out, it was only speculation. It just seemed unlikely that whoever was behind this whole trap would be perfectly okay with letting everyone go home after beating the game... if it was even possible. For all they knew, the final boss could be a hideously overpowered Acreus raid-style monster that wasn't even beatable.

"We need to learn more about whoever is behind this," Chris told the rest of the group. "They've got to have some reason for willing to go through this much trouble and kill this many players. Ransom from our parents, trying to cover up a specific assassination on a VIP who is logged into this right now, or they're getting some other kind of leverage from the government out of us being hostages."

"Yeah, that sounds pretty likely," Natalie nodded. "This isn't some kind of rite of passage crap where they're just trying to test our mettle. Half of these people will be dead in a week. They're probably using this to rush whatever their demands are from someone who isn't logged into this hellhole right now. And the more players keep dying, the more it will force someone on the outside to have to comply and negotiate."

Reluctantly, Naomi nodded in agreement. She really didn't like the sound of it, but she knew she was with players who were smart, thought things out, and didn't run and rush into something dangerous. They would make sure they were prepared and would have each other's back. And even Carla understood this as well.

"Whoever is doing this will get what's coming to them," Carla told the others in a dark voice. "Whoever this... coward, child-killer is. When the cops... or the military find them, they'll be dead. So dead. I'm just... hurt I'm not going to be there to watch it. I want to see him get gunned down like the dog he is and just watch his horrified face as the blood leaves his body and the life slips out of his eyes."

"Okay, moving on," Naomi told her. "I swear, you get freaky when you get angry."