stained_glass_threads and Peter
Adventurer Team Valiant League
Discovery Town Dojo
Affected RPers: n/a

In the end, Laura and Peter did not explore the town again. However, Team Sharpwind invited Valiant League to do some sparring at the Dojo. Laura agreed, as though she was familiar with battle mechanics in previous Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, this was still her first time in a virtual reality game like Challengers of Fate.

Since Charcold and Strikestorm both lacked functioning hands, Laura and Peter found and dragged out some practice dummies.

It was apparently Strikestorm's first time playing a Mystery Dungeon game to begin with, so Charcold allowed Peter to explain how to use moves to the player characters.

"There's two ways most people use," Peter spoke. "You can bring up the move menu and select a move from there to do it automatically, or you can execute the move manually by simply attacking! Some moves, like Tackle and Bite, are easier to perform manually than others, and of course you can only do a Default Attack manually, but with enough practice you can probably do any move without needing to select it on the menu!"

Laura thought a few moments, before opening up her move menu to check her moveset. Unfortunately, cubones did not start off with the most impressive or powerful of attacks to choose from. The moves she could learn naturally at level five were restricted to Growl and Tail Whip, neither of which actually did damage. The only offensive move she had access to at the moment was Double Kick.

She pressed the orange holographic option for Double Kick, and then selected the dummy to the extreme right as her target. Suddenly she found herself in motion, similar to those times when adrenaline take over and you find yourself doing something without consciously deciding to do it.

She dashed to the dummy, waiting until she was within striking range to suddenly lash out with her right leg. She did a funny little hop, landing on her right leg again while her other leg swung out to let another strike hit home.

She noticed she was breathing a bit heavily. She moved back towards her teammate and new acquaintances.

"That was..." Laura realized that for the first time since she had met him, Strikestorm was talking. "Not really as cool as I'd thought it'd be but-- I mean I guess it'll be cooler when you level up and stuff! What was that like!?"

"Weird," Laura said. "Like I wasn't in control of myself... But I didn't really think of it at the time. I wasn't worried or anything-- which is a good thing, I guess!"

"I wanna try next!" Strikestorm said, smiling. The logout-glitch was momentarily forgotten, it seemed.

Glowing options appeared in front of him in a variety of colors, yet they didn't seem to illuminate anything else around them. Laura saw that there was a single orange option and three white. Strikestorm poked one of the white options with his scythe, and selected a foe.

Faster than Laura could even blink, the scyther rocketed towards one of the dummies, slamming into it and back in the space of a few seconds.

"Was that Quick Attack?" Laura asked.

Strikestorm nodded. "It was-- woo, that was so fast I feel kinda dizzy now!"

Laura decided that Strikestorm's voice sounded younger than both hers and Charcold's.

Speaking of the torchic, he turned to observe the dummies. "My turn now? I don't think I need to go automatic for this..."

He trotted up to one of the dummies, and quickly dragged one of his clawed feet across its torso in a Scratch attack.

"Yeah, thought so. Scratch is really easy to do manually," Charcold affirmed.

"My turn now!" Peter said, grinning confidently.

Laura's eyes lit up as she had an idea. "No, Peter, wait a second!"

The charmander paused, looking at her. "Yes?"

Laura remembered a rather specific way to control NPCs in prior Mystery Dungeon games. She summoned her menu, selecting Team and viewing Peter's moveset.

As she suspected, visible to her were checkboxes next to each move on Peter's moveset. A sly grin appeared on her face, as she decided on the first move she would watch Peter use. She quickly disabled his ability to use Growl, and then Scratch.

"Okay, now attack," Laura commanded.

Peter tilted his head, apparently examining the options available to him, before that confident smirk returned. He puffed up his chest, and then opened his mouth as a plume of violet flame streamed from his mouth to his target. The Dragon Pulse was small, not as impressive as an experienced adventurer's attack, but out of all the moves demonstrated so far it was probably the coolest.

Strikestorm was visibly impressed.

Charcold sighed, an amused smirk present in his eyes. "Of course they give the charmanders Dragon Pulse."

Laura couldn't keep the massive smile off her face. Technically Peter had been the one performing the move-- however he was an NPC, she was his leader, and she had made the selection about which move-- to her that was close enough to her doing the move herself.

She looked around. "So... keep training or spar or...?"

Charcold took a look at his partner. "...Well. I suppose we've still got some more time to kill until the glitch gets fixed, and a couple extra levels will never hurt. They'll probably send everyone a message when it gets patched."

Laura nodded. "Okay. Good. Yeah, a couple more levels do sound nice..." She fingered the bone in her hands. "I'd like to learn a move that lets me use this-- and maybe get a few more damaging options outside Double Kick."