18 Airport

Once more, what Blaze's father had said didn't make much sense. Or rather, it did in that weird way devoid of logic that Blaze had come to expect from him. What was he trying to accomplish with this? It took them all a moment to process the discussion before they were ready to speak again.

(He said you were the leader.) Pointed out Aurora.

"He also said to not loose you." Added Gilly towards Aurora. "We haven't done anything yet and I already feel like we lost somehow. Blaze, what is going on?"

"I have no idea. I don't see what's going on or even understand what he meant to say. It's all gibberish, I'm completely lost.

He needed to calm down a bit, focus on what he had said and extract any useful information out of it.

After reflecting on it with the others, they managed to understand a few things. First, the kidnapping of Aurora had nothing to do with her father but all to do with herself instead. But what for? Why didn't he care about her being with Blaze instead of his own custody and why was it fine as long as she didn't go back home?

Then, they now knew he was following some sort of rules, this meant that whatever he was doing may be less outlandish than they thought. He also denied any complexity in his plans and claimed the other two were far worse which meant that it wasn't a duel or a one against all but a three-way instead. A three-way in which everyone involved believed Blaze was teamed up with Craze.

The most annoying for Blaze was that with all this, he still wasn't any closer to guessing what he was planning to do. All he knew was that Craze believed Blaze would need his guys at some point, that he wanted him to become strong and that he believed the police forces would soon be distracted with something else.

After they had made the point on this, they continued to talk. In fact, they continued for a very long time. There was much to talk about still, plans to be made and information to be verified. Anyway, they had to keep hiding in that dark place for a while more. The reason why was that Aurora's father sent them a text a bit later saying he had agreed to make them some masks and uniforms.

That was great for them, even better, Gilly didn't have to design them on her own. She felt very relieved that the life of them both didn't rest on her shoulders alone.

This also meant that they had to stay close to the airport while they waited for it to be done. They all agreed that moving from this empty building wasn't safe and decided to stay hidden until it was ready.

While they waited, there was only to things worth doing, plan and train. Training was the easy part, at least for Blaze. He would practice his movements, run laps in the dark and all that kind of things. What was really exhausting was trying to train his own monster, teach Aurora how to properly exercise, train her and also, help her with Magus.

The only reason he could keep up with the training of four beings at once was because he had nothing else to do and had an almost superhuman stamina. Gilly could barely keep up and she was just taking care of her own dog while he did his best to teach battle techniques to three very different students.

Aurora needed to gain some endurance, Magus needed to understand what every notes she played meant to say and Dawnshield still needed work on his accuracy.

He had been very surprised about the way Aurora taught Magus, he would have never thought of it. With him there, the training speed of Magus improved sharply, not because he replaced her but because he could interpret her notes for Magus.

Aurora would play something and Blaze would tell Magus what she wanted. With that, the step of her mimicking what she wanted her monster to do was completely gone, saving a lot of time.

As for the girl herself, he started to have her practice the basic sets of martial art movements. Because she had bought it in the shop, she knew every move but her body wasn't used to them yet so he had to make her repeat them over and over again to imprint them into her. At some point he would have to spar with her but for now, she was in bad shape, untrained and inefficient, sparing with her would be pointless.

They all knew by that point that getting better in all those things was vital for what would come next, whatever it was that would come next. None of them wanted to slack off and none of them did. Still, they couldn't train all the time either, even if they had the will, their bodies couldn't keep up, especially Aurora who was almost a stick figure.

This meant that there were a lot of breaks and a lot of time to talk about any and all things. Of course, at first, they mostly tried to figure out what was happening but with such a huge lack of clues, any discussions or hypothesis they had went nowhere.

With that subject discarded, Blaze focused on his next big problem, money.

(Why would you need more money? Can't we take mine, I have a lot after all)

"Sure we could use yours for most things but I need a large sum of it to buy rings for Gilly and I, I can't use the money of a small girl for that."

(I'm not a small girl!) Sharply gestured Aurora, punctuating her sentence with a harmless kick.

"It's true though, if you want to dodge all the dirty things on my list, you've got to hurry and do something about it. A marriage costs a lot doesn't it?"

Gilly had one of the most mischievous face he had ever seen her with. She was really enjoying him struggle to give her what she wanted.

(If you don't want mine, how are you going to get so much money?)

"I don't know, maybe we could rob a bank."

"Blaze!"

"What? With how we are now, it's basically consequence free."

"Not if we get caught!"

"I'm just kidding, don't get so riled up, of course we won't rob a bank."

At least not now, they would be caught immediately if they showed up near a bank. Maybe later. He thought.

How could they make money then? Aurora could do magic tricks but that wasn't the kind of thing that would get them a lot and it still wouldn't be his own cash. He was proficient in many things too but taking a normal job wasn't something he really had the luxury of doing right now.

They talked for a bit but in the end, they only found one solution. Either they really robbed a bank or a jewelry store or much more realistically, they used the official battle-monster league.

By defeating someone in an official league match, a preset amount of money was automatically sent into the account of the winner. Defeating some random person on the road might not get you much but defeating a gym leader was something else entirely.

So, in order to gain money while maintaining his training, the only realistic way was to go to gyms here and there, collecting badges and the money he wanted. Anyway, he would need to go there for Aurora, might as well fight them too.

As long as they did not realize who he really was, everything should be fine. An official fight with a gym leader was always tailored around the number of badges one had. This was meant to help the trainers and test how much they had progressed. Really fighting against a gym leader was a very different thing, they weren't leaders just for show.

If one wanted to be a gym leader, they had to have collected eight badges and be able to defeat one of the already established leaders. this was made this way in order to make sure that leaders would always be stronger than their predecessors. Always more apt to protect the town they were in charge of.

Blaze didn't have any intention of becoming a gym leader but, the money awarded for defeating one in an official match was tremendous.

With only that money, someone couldn't expect to live a normal life unless they became a gym leader themselves but he didn't need it to sustain him for long. He only needed a large amount for that one time.

All that talk about money and marriage brought back the topic of Gilly's mother to the forefront. Craze had casually accused her of serial murder. None of them wanted to believe him but they couldn't help but wonder if this was really a groundless accusation. After all, she was a woman who would break the arm of a guy casually and always gave that dark creepy stares to anyone but her husband and her daughter.

And there were all those rumors too about women disappearing sometimes...

More alarming, he had claimed that Gilly was very much like her mother. What did that mean? She was clearly not a murderer, he was always with her, he would have noticed by now if she had offed someone.

Gilly felt really uncomfortable speaking about her mother in that way. They couldn't just call her either to ask, not only was that a strange thing to ask someone, or even dangerous if this was true, but the police was all over the place. Talking about that kind of things in the middle of the police officers was just asking for a disaster to happen.

Since they couldn't find the truth about this either and Gilly didn't want to expand on the subject any further, they went on to talk about their future team composition instead.

With a third person in the group, they had more possibilities on what to include or not and how to divide the roles between them. Each of them needed to be balanced enough on their own to get things done and keep themselves safe but they also needed to make sure that the combination of the three of them would be a force to be reckoned with.

Who they chose to place in their teams would not only influence the general tactics they employed but also which gyms they would go challenge. After all, there was no rule saying you had to take your eight badges in adjacent gyms.

The other thing that would change how they proceeded forward was the existence or non-existence of the characters they knew from their original world media.

A quick search on the internet revealed that some of them did exist. The Gym leaders in particular seemed mostly unchanged. The only two differences were that some were too old and passed on the title to a new leader and the fact that there was many more of them in reality than represented in the games.

What Blaze would call the colors existed as well, each of them were celebrities for having defeated an entire criminal team on their own and having become a regional league champion. From there, one could assume that their companions did too and the professor's existences were easily confirmed as well. After all, they all had tree names.

However, characters from the anime and movies didn't seem to be present. The eternal ten years old never existed or at least, no one knew about him.

Knowing that almost everyone was present, Blaze really wished he had played all the games. Because he had not, there were a bunch of powerhouse roaming the world and he knew nothing about them at all. Not only that, since the game events seemed to all have been done already, he couldn't even use the knowledge he did have to figure out where they would go or what they would do.

In the gap between the games and the current day, Red had even managed to become a continental league champion, defeating Gold in the finals.

There was no way for the group to know for who any of them would stand and that was stressful. Blaze would rather be sure to be able to beat them in case they met and turned out to be hostiles. He'd rather have them as allies but better safe than sorry. Maybe if he had known a lot about them, he could have made a solid argument to convince them but his memories of the games he had played were already pretty hazy. He didn't have a perfect memory back then. Only the big lines stayed, like how they hated criminal teams, like the one he was supposedly the leader of.

All in all, they only learned that the games happened in a similar fashion and that the timeline was consistent with the releases of those games. Blaze and Aurora had been taken from their world in 2015, Blaze was reborn in this world in 2001 and Aurora in 2008. The first game came out in 96 so Red, Green, and Blue should be around 32 by now. Aurora was more familiar with the 2013 game, with Serena and Calem, both of which should be around fifteen by now. In a corner of his mind, Blaze kept wondering why they didn't have color names like they should.

More seriously, Blaze also knew there was another game scheduled for release but he wasn't knowledgeable at all about it. In all probability, its plot should have ended around two years ago meaning it was probably related with the wormholes that had appeared in the tropics.

With that much information, there was not much they could do except assume they were all stronger than back then.

After less than a week, Aurora's father organized a press conference. Like most of the things the president of Starfuel said, it was broadcast on every news channel. The three of them watched it live on the internet.

Richard stood in front of the stardust manor, or almost a palace, thought Blaze. It was a spectacular sight, except for the entrance that was devastated, a ruin. There was broken glass everywhere, the roof was half collapsed and the walls were falling apart. Apparently, Stardust had chosen this specific place in order to show this to everyone. To all the cameras turned towards him and the devastation, he spoke with strength and conviction.

"Earlier this week, team Dragonlaw attempted to kidnap my daughter."

Surprise erupted from the media with only his opening sentence. Dragonlaw was currently the hot topic so hearing about it unexpectedly was very exciting, and very disturbing. Mr. Stardust waited for everyone to calm down before he moved on.

"They had managed to infiltrate my security team and the care taking staff. My wife, league champion of Orre, fought the assailant in the hall behind me, and managed to defeat them. She was not injured in the encounter but is currently unwell due to the emotions and stress and is now resting. I would really appreciate your comprehension and ask you all to spare her from meaningless challenges for a while." (1)

The meaning of the last part of his message was clear, don't bother challenging her for the title of master, she will not answer.

The journalists were still restless though, what about his daughter? What had happened to her?

"As for my daughter." Richard answered their silent questions. "She suffered injuries on both her neck and face but is now safe and protected in a secret location."

Gasps of shock and sighs of relief spread across the crowd. Despite the recent controversy surrounding her, no one wished for a small girl to get hurt. At least, none of the journalists present.

"In the light of the recent event. A came to the conclusion that my large security force was of no use whatsoever and in this particular case, was even a liability. So today, I came in front of the camera to present these masks to everyone."

From behind his podium, Aurora's father got an example mask to show everyone. The mask had five hornlike protrusion but aside from that, was perfectly smooth, there were no nose, no mouths and not even eye holes in it. The whole thing was painted black with a large yellow painted band at eye height. Finally, a Starfuel logo was printed on the forehead. The whole thing was thick and very polished, reflecting the lights of the cameras everywhere. It was meant to be held by two large straps around the wearers head.

That thing was intimidating to look at and very sci-fi. Blaze just wondered how someone could ever wear that without suffocating.

Starfuel president showed it to everyone and then proceeded to explain what it was and how it would be used.

"These mask were made by my company in extremely limited quantity. The inside is an immersive screen designed to make the wearer feel like they aren't wearing a mask at all, an air filter is integrated too making it an hybrid gas-mask and a voice modulator to mask the voices of the wearer. They are meant to protect the wearers identity entirely while still giving them a certain freedom of senses and maximum comfort for extended periods of use."

He took another short pause to let everyone understand the concept before he moved on.

"Nothing inside or outside of this mask is that special but their wearers will be. Those masks will not be sold to anyone, they will be made for the only purpose of protecting the identity of the new line of expert bodyguards I am hiring. Each of those will be carefully selected and will only be hired with my sincere deepest trust. Two of them, a man and a woman, have already been selected to protect my daughter during her trip to collect badges. As I already stated, they have my deepest trust and were trained a long time for this very purpose."

Blaze could hardly believe he was trying to convince everyone that this was a plan that had been in the making for a long time. Regardless of how blaze felt about it, it was still what Richard was going for.

"With these masks and the uniforms that go with them, it will be easy to recognize them while still protecting their families from threats and blackmail, letting them exercise their jobs with a peaceful mind."

Using the excuse of blackmail to explain the masks was brilliant. Without that kind of excuse, people would always wonder why they needed to wear masks.

"I came here today to tell everyone that Starfuel and my family will not let themselves be intimidated by violence and threats. I would like everyone to understand that those are not meant to be the creation of a team but rather an opposition to them. They are meant to protect my family and I hereby pledge that no criminal acts will be performed by wearers of these masks. Like every citizens, they will only use violence in self defense."

"Does he really mean that or is he just saying it for the sake of it?" Asked Blaze to the other two while the reporters rushed to ask questions.

(About what?)

"When he said no crimes will be committed by the wearers. It's not like I want to commit crimes but I may have to at some point."

"If you do, you won't do it while wearing it though." Stated Gilly.

Probably not but Blaze wasn't sure that Richard really cared of whether he was wearing the mask or not. Was it an attempt to control him or just a show of his goodwill to the public?

"How will we know the masks are the real deal? Anyone could make a copy with enough talent and knowhow." One of the journalist asked.

"This is true." Confirmed Stardust with a nod. "They could make counterfeit masks pretty easily since nothing in it is that special but they would not be able to duplicate the identification chip inside the mask. Every single wearer of these masks will be meant to stay close to either my daughter, my wife or myself. This means two things. First, seeing one apart from us three probably means he's a fake Starfuel security agent. Second, to make a copy that would fool the other security agents, they would need to possess one of the existing mask to crack the identification chip inside meaning they would have to disable an entire group of them. At that point, making a copy to fool the agents would be pointless since they would have already won. It is virtually impossible to fool the other agents and by consequent, the public."

He also proceeded to explain how each mask would be numbered so anyone could keep track of which agents were supposed to be were. At a first glance, the system was perfect. Blaze had no doubt everyone would soon be talking about how crazy this whole thing was and he was pretty sure many would try to pierce the mystery of their identity just for the fun of it. He just hoped that no one would actually manage to do it, that would be a catastrophe.

After that, he showed everyone how the uniform looked like and ended the conference after a flow of questions.

The following day, they received one more news in the morning. Many Battle-monster masters had expressed their support to Aurora's mother. They felt very frustrated that a criminal team had the guts to attack one of them and try to kidnap their daughter. Red in particular had an interesting statement.

"We only have a single monster each, can't you give us a break?" Complained Blaze.

Why was he even there? He should have stayed up on Mt Argent. He was already ridiculously strong in the games compared to everyone else. What would he be like here, in the flesh, years of training later and with a team of eight instead of six? Randomly encountering him would probably be an instant death sentence. He could have at least stayed with his wife in the forest she's protecting.

(Is he that good?) Asked Aurora. She had not played any game in which he showed up and had never seen him in action in real life either.

"He is, a continental champion isn't just a title for show. There were a lot of people in our home world that thought he was the strongest trainer in the world."

"That much? So he's a star even in other worlds, that's kinda scary knowing he's after us." Commented Gilly.

"There's something even scarier."

(What?)

"If that guy is only a continental champion, how strong must the world champion be?"

"I'd rather not find out."

(Me neither, we have no reason to anyway, we just need to live.)

"Yes but we better continue training anyway. Let's go, try out that new move I showed you yesterday."

Like that, they resumed their intensive training until the moment of the delivery came. They received a message from Aurora's father saying the uniforms had been delivered into Hitawar's airport. Now, they only had to get there without being seen. That was easier said than done.

(I could go get it by myself.) Proposed Aurora.

There was no way that no one would see them from here all the way to the airport. They had no monsters that could really distract people or hide them and they had nothing to hide their identities properly. It would be way easier if she went there by herself.

"But I'd feel bad sending you out alone again."

Gilly felt it was unfair for a small girl to have all the work. Also, there was no telling what could happen on the way there. Going to a small convenience store nearby was very different than going all the way to an airport.

Blaze thought differently, going there was too risky for him if he didn't have that mask beforehand.

"We should let her do it. I'll let you borrow Dawnshield again."

"Blaze!"

"Look, it's only that one time, after that, we'll have the masks so we'll be able to go anywhere."

(You don't have to worry Gilly, I feel way stronger than before.)

She felt that the training helped her a lot, she was ready to beat anyone up. plus, it wasn't night time this time around so she had no reason to be scared.

Blaze looked at her confident face wryly but decided to not tell her that just a week of training was far from enough. He needed her to do this after all and just that bit of courage might be enough to make sure she would make the trip safely.

He told Dawnshield to follow her up to the airport and make sure she was safe. He was pretty sure the small monster had no idea what was an airport but it didn't matter.

Like the other day, Gilly gave her a meaningless safety advice.

"Be careful on the way, don't talk to strange people and look both way before you cross the street."

"You understand that her chances of meeting someone weirder than us is pretty slim right?"

"You never know."

Just like last time, Aurora set off by herself, with her two grassy friends on her tail.

They had all looked at exactly where it was on the map and she also had a previous experience there so she knew where she was going.

Since it was a big city, it should have been an important airport but there were a great amount of people using personal flying monsters rather than planes to move around. Because of that, even in major cities, air traffic was minimal and mostly consisted of cargo planes. The airport occupied a lot of space but didn't have a busy feeling to it.

When she got there, instead of going through the main gate, she walked along the fence until she reached the side gate Dragonlaw had used to smuggle her into the region. Said gate was still not locked, she guessed no one bothered to check if it was even properly closed.

Magus pushed it aside for them and they walked towards the many hangars and runways. The osprigeons hanging out on the fence didn't even look at them as they passed by.

Things had been pretty simple until now. She came across many people on the road but none since she slipped in the airport. Nothing out of the ordinary showed up. The hard part had not begun though, now she needed to find the delivery.

She got her P-gear out of her pocket and sent a message to her father.

<I'm in the airport, what am I looking for?>

An helicopter?

That was true, sending important material using a bad guy was far from a good idea. Although, they probably wouldn't have interfered since it was a present for their 'boss'.

As for the helicopter itself, that was a funny coincidence considering what Blaze had her buy one with the points.

It took them almost a week to get it but this was indeed the most logical way to obtain an helicopter if it didn't appear out of nowhere. Blaze would be happy to know they finally had it.

Now, she only had to find it. her father told her to ask around for the right helipad but she didn't want to. First, it would mean she had to meet people and she didn't want to. Second, it would take her a ridiculous amount of time to get her questions across and then, she would be stuck with airport employees following her around. It was much better to look for it herself.

Where could the helipads be though?

She walked along the runways and around the hangars, looking for something that would look like a place where an helicopter could land. It took her a good half an hour before she found them. There were a bunch of them in line. Almost all of them were empty and the huge 'H' painted on them was obvious.

She looked again at her phone to confirm it was fourteen and walked up to the dark machine. There was no pilot to be found anywhere nearby. She asked magus to open it with a few notes from her instrument and peeked inside the vehicle. On a backseat, there was a large cardboard box with a note stuck on it. She pointed at it and Magus brought it to her using his vines.

She smiled at her great helper and gave him some loving pats while Dawshield kept watching the surroundings for intruders. The note read <Two sets of security agents uniforms for my daughters guardians, double sealed. If either of the seals are broken, the contents of the box may have been compromised and should be sent back for replacements.>

She could only see one of the two seals on it but it seemed fine. She grabbed the box and had magus close back the door.

The box was heavier than it looked. As much as she wanted to carry it herself, it didn't take long before she had to give it back to Magus.

Either there were no cameras around or no one cared at all that a girl walked in and out of an airport to pick up a package from an helicopter because no one stopped her or even crossed her path on her way out. That was a good thing too.

The gate in the fence was opened and closed once more with no one to witness it but a bunch of osprigeons and she walked back towards the abandoned building. After only ten steps though, she stopped as an idea came to her mind.

An osprigeon was an easy thing to catch right?

Maybe she could defeat it and place it in one of her empty balls. They were dirt cheap anyway and since she had the uniforms in her possession, they could go to a monster-center any time now.

She turned back around, picked up the box from the clutches of magus and placed it down at her side. The two small bodyguards looked at her confusedly.

"Why are we stopping here second lady?" Asked dawnshield.

"What is it?" Simply asked Magus.

Aurora answered by gripping her keytar and pointing at the birds, playing the notes of battle.

"Fight them?"

Magus took a combat stance and stared at them all, vines at the ready. She understood that flying monsters were good against grass but a small thing like that couldn't be that strong. Even their beaks didn't look that good.

She was though now and magus knew vine whip, she could easily defeat one of them. A starling would have been good too but from what she knew, they went around in flocks so getting one to fight alone would be hard. That Osprigeon would do a perfect first foe!

The birds turned their attention to her and Magus and she commended him to attack one of them with vine whip. A tackle would probably be more effective but he would have to jump the fence to reach them.

The attack hit one of them squarely and sent it plummeting to the ground in front of the tall fence.

Perfect! She thought, as the rest of the birds flew away in disorder and fright.

The one Magus had hit swiftly got back on its feet and decided to fight instead of running, no doubt angry about the hit it had received. The creature spread its wings and waved them to send dust flying everywhere before taking off and quickly chaining into a charge directed at Magus.

Her small protector had to momentarily close its eyes to protect itself from the dust so he didn't see the bird flying at him and received a hard hit.

Magus stumbled backward before Aurora asked him to tackle the bird. The budding-saurian ran forward and tried to ram into the bird but it just flew up and magus ran into the fence instead with a loud clinking noise.

Aurora chained with the notes for vine whip again and Magus did his best to slap the bird out of the sky. He missed its target twice.

"Do you require my help?" Asked Dawnshield.

"No." Claimed Magus strongly.

Seeing the determination of her pet, aurora denied Dawnshield with a shake of her head and asked Magus to wait with a few notes. The budding-saurian took a defensive position on the sidewalk and awaited her signal.

"Oh! Big mistake!" Chirped the bird as it swooped down towards Magus again.

Her companion did not move, trusting her to tell him what to do. Just as the bird got too low to change its course again, she played the vine whip notes again. The vines darted forward and the bird veered right to dodge them, he was way too close to escape properly and the attack clipped his wing.

Because it was so low, getting its wing hit got it to touch the ground and after scraping it against the sidewalk for a mere instant, it's flight collapsed and it crashed into the pavement.

A few painful looking tumbles later and the Osprigeon was stunned and confused, sprawled weakly on the ground. This was her chance! She got a ball out of her bag swiftly and threw it at the creature.

The ball bounced on it before opening and a bright red light burst out of it to absorb the monster.

She had never witnessed a real ball in action before. This was so exciting!

The ball fell over and barely shook before a successful click made itself heard. She would have yelled hooray! If she could but instead only played herself a victory jingle on her instrument to celebrate.

She gave a big hug to her companion and placed her new friend in a safe place before resuming her trip back to the hideout. She was so proud and pleased of herself. She couldn't wait to tell the other two of Magus's grand victory.

It didn't take her long to make her way back. Her mission had been successful. Not only had she brought back the uniforms but she had also caught her first battle-monster and earned her first victory! This was a great day!

She made sure no one was around and got her two guardians to open the door for her. The other two greeted her inside.

"Welcome back, did everything go well?" Simply asked Blaze.

"You took so long I got scared something might have happened to you again!"

Gilly complained before squeezing her in a hug. Aurora didn't resist, she liked to be hugged. After Gilly was done, she told them about her small adventure.

(It took so long because I couldn't find our things. Now i have them though and dad gave us an helicopter.)

"Nice, so that's how it works. When you buy something in the shop, it doesn't just give it to you instantly, it puts it in your way. Now that we know, we'll be able to work with this properly. It would have been horrible to buy something urgent only to find out you don't get it immediately." Blaze detailed aloud, more for himself than for the two girls. "I guess the masks are in the box Magus is carrying?"

(Yes.)

Blaze fetched the box and took a look at the note while Gilly interrogated her further.

"Did something happen to you on the way? Did you meet someone strange?"

"I didn't see anyone but I had a fight with an osprigeon!" Spelling that name was pretty time consuming but she did anyway, very excited to tell her story.

With how happy she looked about said fight, Gilly didn't worry about the outcome and let her tell the whole story. She described to Gilly how valiantly Magus had fought and how they managed to catch the bird.

"That's great! I'm happy for you, so now you have two monsters, that's more than us. Blaze! We'll have to try harder, Aurora is going to beat us and she's half your age."

He made a comical face at the mention of his 'old' age and focused on opening the box instead of answering their nonsense.

In the cardboard box, there was a second box, this one made of plastic. The second seal was stuck to that one. They opened it as well and got the uniforms out of it.

"Nice, now we can get out of here." He said with a smile.

A few minutes later and the two wanted criminals were dressed up in Starfuel agents uniforms. One Blaze's mask, a large 2 was painted in the middle of the Starfuel logo while Gilly's had a 1. Blaze had chosen to give her the number one because he felt that if he was to be the one to provide the main defense her own number would trick most people into thinking she was stronger than him. Ordinary people usually believed that the number one was better than two. If she never made a move, people would always wonder how much stronger than him she was. Even if he was having a really hard time protecting them, he hoped the other side would give up because of the unknown menace she represented.

The first time they put the masks on, Blaze and Gilly had a hard time because of its complicated closing mechanisms. Once it was placed on their faces, everything became super dark, obviously because there was no slits for the eyes, but the moment it was properly locked on, the interior of it was brought to life.

"Wow, that thing is impressive!" Exclaimed Gilly in a distorted more womanly voice.

Like Mr. Stardust said, the whole inside of it was like a screen, wearing that mask was akin to wearing a virtual reality helmet except it only showed you what was around you instead of a fictional universe. Well, only if you considered that this world wasn't a fictional one.

The thing was comfortable and light enough to not be an hindrance, breathing in it was easy too. That was great equipment. the only thing he worried about was if Aurora's father could spy on them using the masks. There were cameras on it after all to let the wearers look around. A microphone was easy to place and hide too and a localization ship even easier. Thinking about that, he had the sudden urge to dismantle one to check.

"Can you ask your father what happens if a mask is opened or dismantled?" His voice sounded like an horror movie villain.

Aurora thought that this voice was a bit freaky but since she knew it was just Blaze, she didn't mind it that much and asked her father.

(He said the authentication ship will be invalidated and the mask will stop working.)

Clever, annoying for himself though. Just asking him if he could use the masks to spy on them would be rude as well and pointless since he would just say no whatever the true answer was. Blaze chose to keep his apprehensions for himself.

Meanwhile, Aurora continued her conversation with her father.

<Dad, I caught an osprigeon!>

<Why?>

She had forgotten to ask about Hergis again. She had just said goodbye too.

<Wait, dad, did you get Hergis? What happened when mom fought him?>

At least there was that.

Now, they could really start.

***

(1) I was very sure Orre was a place made up by quicksilver for the sake of the jump but I just learned I was wrong. Orre is the P*kemon stadium place. I had not changed the name because I thought it didn't really exist but now I failed you all. I am sorry XD. There is no consistency in my rules it seems.

(2) The canon characters.

You should have noticed here that I didn't change the names of the characters, I felt like giving you all a break from name changes. It would get a bit too confusing combined with the rest.

Here's my reasoning behind why I set up the canon like that.

I couldn't start at the beginning of Red/blue because the technology level wasn't advanced enough for the super hi-tech laptop to make sense. I had to place it further down the line. I didn't want to be stuck in the middle of a story either since I have my own to write down.

Wiki says that Red is indeed 31 in UM/US, games that came out in 2017. The timeline of those games really match up with their release times. I decided to follow suit and have my story take place on the year I started releasing it, 2018. Hence, Red and Green are 32 and US/Um just finished.

This means that all known teams have been defeated, most legendary monsters are in the pocket of someone, very old gym leaders are probably dead or retired and most of the kids are grown up now.

Next chapter