6 Planning

As they ate, they analysed what they had. They had a lot of clothes and blankets, enough to last them quite a while. They had some food but not much, about enough for three or four days. They had of course Blaze's computer, balls and potions and many strange things they had picked up in the warehouse locker. A parachute, a wing suit, rappelling gear, a rebreather, a welding torch, an echorecorder, a flak jacket and of course, the sniper rifle. Gilly also found a letter in one of the packs, an invitation letter to join the party of the participant Blaze.

"What is this?" She asked puzzled while showing it to Blaze.

Blaze was stunned to see it.

"Where did you find that?"

"Just there in the bag with your computer in it."

Blaze approached while quickly finishing his toast and grabbed the letter. He wasn't sure how to feel about this thing, it was after all a proof of that white space thing existence.

"That is a thing I got from before getting in this world, this is one of the boons I got to help me. With it, I should be able to invite another participant in our party if I find any. That means that we will continue on other adventures together."

"That seems awesome. Why are you making that face."

"I can't use it on you because you are not a participant."

"Oh... I see..."

She was visibly disappointed but moved on quickly.

"Well that can still be useful I think."

Blaze could only swear in his mind that he would find a way.

"This was the last thing, this is all we have if we don't count our pocket money our p-gears and my glasses." She finished.

As they watched Dawnshield devour a bunch of toasts like there would be no tomorrow, they listed what they needed including some kind of metal grids and pots to put on top of the fire. Blaze then proceeded to open the sniper case up and started to build it.

"You are building it?"

"Of course I'm building it!"

"Do you really intend on using it on the police?" Asked Gilly a little incredulous.

"Why not?"

"Because it would be murder! We are not murderers!" She yelled.

"We are not but we kinda also are. Without us, that bomb would never have blown up."

"That is not the same!"

"How is it not the same?" He said, a bit angry. "We killed hundreds by typing on a keyboard, the only difference between this and that is that you have to see them to kill with the gun. Moreover, they are the one trying to kill us. It would be incredibly stupid to not build that gun now. If they try to shoot you and the gun isn't ready, what the fuck do I do? Am I supposed to look at you die without doing anything? And that thing can be used on many other things, like fighting off gang members or dangerous wild monsters. Think about that, what do we do if we encounter an angry mallma? Send Dawnshield to his death while we escape?"

"Ok, stop please, I get it, it's not what I meant to say. I'm sorry."

She took him in her arms to try to calm him down.

"I just don't want you to be the bad guy. The policemen aren't evil, they just refuse to understand. I only want to make sure you know what you are doing and that we won't regret it afterwards."

"I'm sorry I got angry. I'm just scarred I won't be able to protect us both if anything happen. We have no goal, no plan and no allies."

"That is because we are way too cool to have allies. I never noticed before you were such a protective guy."

"You never needed protection before, aside from when you are climbing in my bed I mean."

"As long as we understand that being chased by the police doesn't make us bad people, you can keep that thing. Don't hurt people that don't deserve it and the rest I don't care OK?"

"Okay, of course I won't shoot at unrelated people. I just hope that those that come for us understand that I have no choice but to attack back."

"I hope they do, but I also hope they just won't come. I don't want to watch you shoot someone."

Blaze felt relieved she thought that way but he also felt that something was off. Not with her in particular but more with the world they lived in.

Neither of them were really afraid of seeing blood, and no one seemed to find this story strange in the general public. Was it because people were so used to have monster fight each other half to death or was it because of the great number of people who just died everyday from things like bandits and savage battle monsters? He felt that they were somehow insensitive to violence and death.

Gilly, who thought about the policemen going after them was more the exception than the rule. The only reason he noticed this was because he also had memories of another world where no sane person would ever think that shooting at people was reasonable in any kind of circumstance. (1)

"I will try my best to be reasonable."

"You know, I don't mean to compare you to your dad, but I feel like I understand your mom a little."

"What do you mean?" Asked Blaze frowning.

"Well, I want you to do some things and not do some others. Like her, I do love you even though you are such an idiot. I understand that sometimes, things won't go my way because this or that or just because you decide to be a bull head. I think it must have been the same for your mom and your dad, maybe just a tad more extreme."

"Well, If I'm about to do something really stupid one day, I do hope you will stop me before I do it."

"Of course I will! I always did!"

"Discounting the code thing and the bomb?"

"That's an exception, how was I supposed to know? Anyway, I will do my best to keep you straight, is that not the job of any good wife?"

"We aren't married."

"Yet!"

"Crazy."

"But you love me crazy."

"I love you like crazy however you are."

"That is the right answer, you win a kiss."

He enjoyed his reward before finally getting back to assembling the rifle. He had never done something like this before but he was really good at building things, disassembling mechanical things and getting them back together. It did not take him much time to do it. He gazed at the final result thinking that maybe he should test it first in case he fucked up the assembling somehow. They still had important things to discus but if he put it back to later, he would end up never doing it and the consequences could be disastrous.

"Let's pick everything back up in the bags and prepare to go. Once we are ready, I'll test the gun and we will immediately start walking to get away from the noise. Then we will be able to talk while walking. Is that plan alright with you?"

"Yeah, I guess. My legs are still burning from yesterday."

"Too bad, we just started the journey, we can't stop."

"I know, I'll do it. I will still complain about it though."

"We will try to find you some kind of mount later."

"Oh, that would be good, I would be able to relax all the time."

"That is what I thought you would say."

They packed up quickly as Dawnshield ate the last toast and Blaze prepared to fire on a target he had drawn on a tree. Might as well see its accuracy too. He backed as far as he could from the target in this small clearing and aimed the weapon.

"Protect your ears, I'm going to fire. he said."

"Okay."

She stepped aside and blocked her ears with her hands. The two monsters obediently went by her side and sat there to not be in the way. Blaze looked through the scope, removed the safety, adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger. His shoulder was powerfully pushed backwards as the loud bang echoed through the forest. The bullet went straight to the middle of the mark he had made. It had been an easy shot but a successful one none the less. Many monsters in the vicinity were startled and nearby birds flew away in a symphony of panicked cries. He put back on the safety and lowered the gun towards the ground.

"Wow." Gilly said, approaching the tree. "You got it right in the middle."

"It would have been awkward if I missed while being this near to the target."

"I'm sure I wouldn't even be able to hit the tree."

"I'm sure too, you would close your eyes and not look at where you are shooting."

"Yeah, probably."

They both looked at the serious face of the other and couldn't help but laugh.

"We should go now."

"Mhn" Gilly nodded. "Let's go. Which way?"

"It doesn't matter for now, as long as we get away from here. We'll talk about it while walking."

They advanced in the forest without much hurry. They were careful as to not disturb the wildlife while they made some distance with the place they slept at. They needed to train their battle monsters of course but they should really practice in something else than a real combat first.

They chose to not follow the road as it would be too easy for the police to catch them. That led him to think about how different reality felt from the games. The distance between the towns was the most obvious right now.

In games it was of course possible to go from town to town in mere minutes and only the important ones were represented. But here, in reality, there were many more towns and the distance between them was like you would expect from real life.

The good thing about this was that they weren't confined on the roads between town. It would be much harder for the police force to find them in all this wilderness.

In this world, the wilds occupied a much bigger part in the everyday life of its inhabitants than his old one. After all, It was there they found the monster they used and raised. It was also an incredibly dangerous place for someone who wasn't well prepared. How many people died every day, killed by a wild beast? The wilds were a death trap for most, so much so that rewards were often offered for finding the belongings of the lost.

Even with all the danger it was a fantastic day to walk around in the woods. The sun was bright and it did not feel too hot. Gilly was once again wearing her jeans and her leather jacket. Blaze, him, was wearing his foresting clothes, mostly in tints of browns and greens.

As they slowly progressed outside the paths, they talked about their plans.

"What are we going to do?"

"For now, we should aim to get to get to Hitawar city which is west of here. They think we're going to Wolfington up north so we can lose them for a while by going through the woods."

"Sure, cool, but that's not what I meant. I was looking for a real tangible long term plan."

"That is what we are supposed to come up with today while we walk."

"What is our aim then? Hide, spoil your dad plans or prove we aren't guilty? I would go with the second option."

"Yeah, I agree with you. We can't prove we are innocent because we aren't, the third option is a no go. We could do the first but I don't think we can last forever if we just hide. It won't be long before everyone knows our faces. We would have to live in the woods like hermits and I'm pretty sure you would dislike it."

"But on the other side, if we go against your father, we don't fix anything at all and we will still have to hide away at some point."

"Maybe, but maybe another way will present itself. We can possibly gain the support of some people. it's true we are somewhat guilty but it's also true we were set up. Maybe we can sway the common folk opinion to our side like a redemption arc in action movies. We only have to prove we can do more good than bad like batman for example."

"I don't know who batman is."

"Sorry, it's a fictitious character from the other world. The important part is that the police wants to catch him but everyone else loves him because he saves people and arrest criminals faster than the cops."

"So you are saying we have to convince people that it is more worthwhile for them to help us than to give us to the cops?"

Meanwhile, The dog Houndy was trotting along beside her with his head held high as if he was a great champion and Dawshield was training himself seriously by jogging and jumping besides his masters. Both monsters weren't paying attention at all to the conversation.

"Yeah, and if we are good enough, the governments may retract their bounty hunters and any other kind of agents to stay on the peoples good side." Said Blaze.

"How do you think we should do this?"

"No idea. You are way better than me for this kind of things."

"Do you realize I tried to make you love me for years and it never worked and now you are asking me to make everyone love us to the point of ignoring the incredible bounty on our head?"

"It's not the same at all, I am so bad at this kind of things that I never saw but I am sure the common people are smarter than me."

"I guess. Let me think about it for a second."

"Take your time." Said Blaze while moving some branches out of her path.

She brainstormed for a couple of minutes before getting her phone out.

"I guess the first thing we have to do is damage control."

"Damage control?"

"Yeah, the bomb happened only yesterday but such a big news spread like wildfire. We have to catch the curious while they are looking for more information before they set their opinions in stone. In a couple of days, it will be way too late, whatever we say or do will be drowned in negativity. It's already very late but we can still catch some late people."

Blaze agreed to what she said, they had to be quick.

"We need to appear apologetic for the victims but also make clear that we never intended for this to happen. We also need to be clear on where people can find more information on us and what we do and be as transparent as possible. If they know at all times what we are doing and why, we become way less scary all of a sudden."

"We can't do that, if we say what we are doing the cops will fall on us instantly."

"It doesn't have to be super precise, I said as much as possible. Only saying that we are going after dragons law for example is enough for now. We will use the echorecorder to make a quick video, a vlog of sorts that we will post an explanation on everything that is going on with us.

"A vlog? That sounds out of place and stupid in those circumstances."

"It is. I intend to divide the internet with this. There will be people who think we are trying to use the bomb as publicity for something and will want no part of it. Those will probably refuse to talk about us at all cost to try to brake our campaign but in our case, that is a good thing as there is nothing positive to say about us right now anyway.

Others will think that we want to be sincere and made the effort of appearing on camera for it instead of just writing an apology. those are the people we will try to target the most with our future interactions with the web. Then there will be those who hate us no matter what, they will do all they can to spread their hate as much as possible and they will probably be backed by the authorities.

Since we really intend to be sincere in this vlog, the third group will appear as trolls for the second group and the first will find them annoying since they fuel the argument keeping us under the spotlight. We cannot get rid of them and we can't even ignore them because the rest will say we only respond to what is in our favor. We will be in a constant argument against random internet people in which we will have to appeal to the majority of them while defending ourselves all the time against the rest."

"That sounds incredibly tiring. Forget I ever suggested that, it is way too complicated."

"No no, I don't mind, I can do it. Trust me on this. I'll do my best!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Anyway, this is one of the very few things I can do for us. It's not as if I would be useful in a fight or for all those survival things. Let me help."

"Okay, if it fails it can't be worse than now anyway. If you want to do it, of course I will let you but I want you to know that just being here by my side is already plenty for me. You don't need to do anything."

"I don't need to help you, I just want to, it's not the same thing. Don't worry. She said with a smile while putting a hand on his arm."

Blaze just nodded his agreement and let her continue.

"So right now, I am cycling through all the social medias I know to refresh my profile pages to make it very clear I am the real Gilly who is going around with the known terrorist Blaze Sherwood. I will go around yours too it won't take long, I already know your passwords.

"The known terrorist?"

"Yeah, it's the easiest way to identify you for now. I will use the opportunity to present our usual username to everyone so that they can follow us if our accounts get banned and tell them that we will send an explanatory video shortly. I also want to invite them to throw questions at us instead of only insults so that we can answer."

She made a pained face just after she opened her mail box. Blaze made no comments and just waited for the news while clearing the path ahead.

"Right now, it's looking pretty bad. My mailbox is flooded with all sort of crazy messages. They mostly think I'm crazy it seems. Some are worried about me as they still think I was kidnapped and some are plainly insulting, I fear yours will be much worse."

"I don't care at all, I won't read them anyway."

"You will have to read at least some of them in the future, right now, they think you blew up a military base. If we can convince them that you were not related to that part, the hate mail will deviate to something more concrete we can fight, but to fight it, you'll have to hear them."

"I really don't want to. It will be tedious and will eat up all the time I have to actually try to keep us alive."

"But this is also part of keeping us alive, it was your idea in the first place."

Blaze gave her a frown, still unconvinced. Gilly could only sigh.

"Fine, I will go through both our mails myself. But I won't yield on everything, you better be prepared."

"Sure, I'm prepared." Answered Blaze quite happy to be freed from that chore.

"Oh, I will remember this. While I do all this, Mr. prepared, What else do we need to think about."

"Well, since the start, we made a bunch of stupid mistakes because we were panicked. We burned the letter for example. The good thing is, most of my father's plan hinges on the fact that we will make mistakes, like for the letter, I'm sure he left many opening we can use. The most obvious of the bunch is the badge he sent me in the package.

"Yeah yeah, the weird looking purple and orange thing."

Blaze nodded while continuing

"At first I thought it was terrible and that I was used as a scapegoat but now, I think it was an enormous mistake on his part."

"I'm sure if I thought about it for a minute, I would find out why but I'm feeling lazy, please, tell me why this is a mistake."

"Well, now the police think I am the leader and will relay the info. Everybody will think I am their leader even if I am really not. Now, I can just anger a bunch of other criminal groups for fun and everyone will go fight Dragonlaw because they will blame them for my actions."

"Oh, I see! Your dad can't tell any outsider you aren't really the leader because the info could leak all the way back to the cops, so he will have to go through everything the hard way."

"Not only this, he can't possibly tell every small time goons about the plans so a bunch of guys from Dragonlaw will really think I am their leader and will help us if I ask."

Gilly and Blaze both had a giant grin on their faces.

"This is awesome, we could buy a bunch of stuff and send the bill to them."

"We can do pretty much anything and go free as long as we don't hurt ordinary peoples. I recon we just have to find out what their end goal is and piss off everyone involved around it. "

"Maybe but finding out the end goal is probably the hardest part."

"We don't know, we haven't even tried it yet."

Blaze stopped there and got his computer out of his bag once again. He resumed walking while making a quick internet search. Too bad their phones couldn't do the same he thought. That was one of the only things he found was better in the other world.

He wrote Dragonlaw in the search bar and let the machine do its magic. Since everyone was talking about them, of course, the criminal group was at the top of the search result list.

They read all that they could find about them, which was, a really bad description of their leader and some sort of quote or motto.

<Dragonlaw's leader name: Blaze Sherwood

location: Unknown

Strength: Unknown

Pokémon roster: Unknown.>

<There are no true laws, no one can force anything on anyone. You cannot shackle a dragon with rules. A true dragon will break them and destroy those who attempted to rule it. The strong rise and the weak fall. This is the Dragon law. Let everyone fight and see who, in the end, stands tall.>

Blaze almost fainted from all that stupidity. Were they just a bunch of anarchist that wanted a fight?

"What the fuck?"

"That can't be it surely. This makes no sense. Did they blow up a bomb just to anger everyone and fight them all?"

"That would be the stupidest thing ever. No one can fight everyone at the same time. They must have a real goal hidden somewhere."

"But we won't ever find it on the web, we will have to get one to spill the beans and even the cops didn't make it happen."

Blaze didn't reply right away, but in the end couldn't find a good answer.

"I guess the only thing we can do is be as annoying as possible and mess with everyone until someone who knows what is going on gets to us."

"So there's nothing we can do?"

"Well, I can't make a plan if I don't have any information at all. Anyway we are too weak to do anything right now. We need to train our partners a lot if we want to go against that sort of people."

"So now we are ready for the real complicated talk, the team and training plan?"

"I think so, unless you have something else?"

"No, not for now, later when we stop, I'll need to customize your clothes but I can't do it while walking."

"What do you mean customize my clothes?" Asked Blaze, confused.

"Well, you can't present yourself to the world wearing that."

"Why not?"

Blaze liked these clothes very much, they were comfortable and useful, how could they not be good?

"I don't mean to say that they are bad but to make people like you more, you need to advertise yourself like a brand. People need to be able to recognize you instantly without even seeing your face. To do that, what you wear needs to match what you are and what you want to be called.

Was this a superhero thing? Like batman wearing a black bat suit? He wasn't trying to be a superhero though.

"Are you sure this isn't overkill?"

"Very sure, with all those cheesy things you said to the cops earlier, if you look like a woodman people will think you are just an idiot. You need to wear flames and light on at least your upper half and maybe some dark pants and boots to make it appear as if the light of your top is dawning upon the darkness bellow."

Blaze never really thought about clothes. Since this was the case, he couldn't be sure if Gilly was right or if she was saying nonsense. Was this necessary?

"Well, you are the one who knows about this stuff, I will leave this all up to you and train our monsters while you do that."

"Perfect. You will look awesome for the vids, trust me."

"I always trust you."

"Yeah, you always answer that. Trust me is just a manner of speech, I do know you trust me. I don't have to ask for it."

"But it's the kind of thing worth saying every time."

"Like 'I love you'?"

"No, that's taboo. The guys who says that always end up dying the next page."

"We aren't in a novel!"

"Still I don't trust this one bit."

"But you said it just earlier."

"Yeah, I was very careful with the circumstances."

She looked at him with a frown and a wry smile.

"You are an idiot."

"I can say I love you all you want but not in tense situation, I'm sure something horrible will happen if I do." Blaze defended himself.

"Anyway, back on to the battle monster topic, how do we go about this? Should we just catch whatever we find or gun for something in particular. What kind of team are we even trying to build?

"Well, you're going to dress me in fire and light right? People will think I'm some kind of fire monster fanatic. I guess I only have to build myself a team made mainly from things to counter what counters fire monsters.

"I see, if they think you have a bunch of fire monsters, they will send water and rocks at you but you'll have grass like that chesspawn instead."

"Exactly, but we also have to keep in mind that not everything and everyone we encounter will be specifically designed to counter us so we should still try cover most possibilities with the rest of our roster.

"Well, it's fine, between us we will have twelve monsters, it should be plenty."

"I would like to end up with something like one or two grass, one electric to recharge the phones and the computer and blast flyers, an ice to fight dragons in case dragonlaw is really all about dragons, a dragon for us too because we need to look like their leader after all, a steel monster to serve as a tank and probably a fire type to pose as our main."

"Leave the lightning to me since I need to shine anyway, I will go with a fairy because they are cute, resplendent and good against dragons, my houndy, a bird to scout, anything that can serve as a mount, and leave the last empty in case we find something amazing."

"Okay, if you do that, than I can take two grass types. The only things we would really lack then are psychic and fighters, we don't have anything to deal with poison or normal types."

"But those aren't usually a big deal. We can do without. We just need the steel one to cover both."

"That is what I was thinking too."

"Great minds think alike."

Blaze laughed and asked her.

"So, great mind, how do you want to proceed with the team building, do you want to just go with the flow or go straight for the perfect team members?"

"I feel like both have some value, she said straight away. If we go looking for something in particular, we may pass over one that would be a good match for us. We can't just catch the one we think will be useful, it's personality must be good with us too or it could cause us trouble later."

"You are probably right, I never thought of that."

"That's because you never think about emotions."

"Said like that, It sounds like I am a robot."

"You almost are, I need to tell you what you are supposed to feel half the time."

"That's not because I don't have emotions, that's because I am confused on how to react, it's not the same thing at all!"

"It could as well be!" She said with a mischievous grin. "Anyway, just look on the web what we can find around here so we can see if we have to go looking for something nearby.

Blaze checked and commented with interest.

"There are a bunch of things that aren't useful but there are reports of some interesting ones nearby as well."

"Many of them are useful but I don't think we can take them down." She said while looking at the list from over his shoulder.

"We just need to train ours a little and we will be fine for most of them I think, Between the two of us, we got most things covered.

"Then, we go to town first, get what we need and go back out in the woods to hunt."

"The way you said it is a bit weird but yes, it seems to be the best plan until we are strong enough to go against other people."

They would soon take a break and work on their clothes and training but for now, they advanced in the woods, admiring the scenery. Gilly couldn't wait to fix their clothes, she loved to tinker with them. She had also just remembered that she had not given him his birthday present.

***

Aurora

What was the other way to make sounds her father had talked about? She was listening to some classical piano music with her budding-saurian while thinking about it as her father had suggested. How could she make sounds without a voice? Maybe she could clap? That surely wasn't it.

Her thought were interrupted by a sudden change in the rhythm and the rising tension in the music. She loved that part so much. She wasn't bad with a piano herself but that part was extremely hard to do, the notes were so fast and complex, she could never do the same. Distracted by the song, she fetched her keytar from its stand in a corner of her room. (2)

They had a real piano too in a living room somewhere in the house that she used in her lessons but the keytar was hers alone. As often when listening to music, she tried to replicate it with her own instrument. It wasn't quite right yet but her friend seemed to like it none the less and was twisting it's head in the rhythm of the music.

She made a silent laugh and tried to follow the song once again.

She had done so for only a mere moment when it hit her. She could talk with the music! the only thing she had to do was associate note sequences with some actions like how people heard clapping as "good job".

She couldn't wait to try it and ran straight to the garden with her lizard. For the rest of the day, she worked really hard to teach the budding-saurian tackle. It was the most simple of all moves so she did not associate it with a complicated string of notes. She just chose something short and sharp.

It shouldn't have taken all that long to teach her lizard to ram things but she couldn't help but take many, many, breaks to run around the garden with it, stretching the necessary time until the end of the day.

In the evening, just before supper. She went back to her room and searched around for a piece of paper and a pen. She wanted to write something for the cook. There was many things she needed to do still before her departure but this one was really easy to do and would not take a long time. Better do it sooner than later in case she forgot or lacked the time afterwards. She wrote her small message and took it all the way to the kitchen.

While going there, she even resolved one of her other question. She would go to the federation of Vanta. She had decided so because of the budding-saurian. She didn't want to be harassed for being herself and didn't want to stand out as an outsider. Since the budding-saurian came from there and was used as a starter monster, she wouldn't appear strange going around with it. Language wasn't a real problem for her, not more than usual at least.

She arrived at the kitchen door and slipped inside. There, the cooks where hard at work. She easily spotted the usual cook she went to and got his attention by tugging at his sleeve like usual. He was quite busy but he still turned around with a smile when he felt the girl behind him.

"Hello miss Aurora! What can I do for you? Are you here to inquire about supper?"

She shook her head in denial and extended the paper towards him.

"For me?" He asked.

She nodded and shook the piece of paper. He put down his cooking tools on the counter and delicately took the paper to read it.

<You are always kind and smiling and you always make good food. I wanted to thank you and the other cooks because you are the best peoples I know. Would you like to be my friends?>

"Silly little miss, of course I want to be your friend." He said smiling. "Here, let me show this to the others."

She smiled as he tapped on her shoulder.

"Hey guys, look at what the little miss brought us. There's even a small drawing of a smiling face."

He passed the note around which made them all smile. In the end, they taped it on the wall with the breakfast choices.

"We truly are always happy to see you come by. Come back anytime you want and thank you for your kind words."

She hugged them in turns really quickly to not disturb them in their works and then ran off. Leaving the staff laughing and smiling.

In the corridor to the dining room, she came across her elusive butler.

"Oh, Aurora!" He said with his strange self important tone. "I heard you met your father without me?"

(Yes I did) She signed.

"I'm curious, how did you say anything to him without me?"

(I used my phone) She signed, half Angry. (It's faster and also more reliable.)

"I see..." He said in a dark voice. "Well, no matter, your parents are already sat around the dining table, you should go too."

She quickly turned her back to him and did just that. She had no time to lose with useless people.

She ate with her parents without much words and went back to her room. She trained with her budding-saurian for half an hour and then opened up her computer to check the news and the internet. The terrorist guy had still not been caught and the stories surrounding him had somehow not buried the story about her. She decided that she didn't care much anymore about either stories so she closed everything and went to sleep.

The next day, she trained much more. It was the last day before her departure. She had to make the most of it before she ran out of time. She found a funny set of notes that resembled a growl if she repeated them really fast and used it to teach the namesake move to her lizard.

Every time it did well, she patted it's forehead to praise it or clapped energetically. She even hugged it the day before when it managed a tackle for the first time. She was super excited to be able to do like trainers with music notes. It felt so fun!

She also made it practice tackle some more but failed to teach it vine whip. She showed it video of other budding-saurian using vine whip and tried to imitate the move with her arms but to no avail, it didn't understand or couldn't do it. Either way, she did not really feel disappointed. She had already achieved way more than she thought she could.

Of course, on that day too, she couldn't escape the grasp of her mother and her hair time. She also lost a good chunk of that day on deciding what to pack up for the next day. Her father had taken care of most things but she had to choose her clothes and all non essential things herself.

Somewhere in her afternoon, she had the brilliant idea to get herself a laser pointer to show the target to her budding-saurian but at the end of the day, she was still not very good with it. Her problem was that she had a hard time playing the notes while pointing the laser. Maybe it would be easier if she attached it at the end of her keytar or her wrist? Still it was better than not giving a target at all or just pointing at it.

She also had just enough time to teach it some basic commands like stop or come here. She wanted a note to tell the lizard to look her way but didn't find an effective way to tell it what she wanted it to do so she had to forget the idea for now.

The next day would probably be the biggest day of her life so far so she felt really stressed about it. As usual, just before going to bed, she checked the news to change her mind. Two videos where going around right now. One had been made by the terrorist himself and was quite long so she didn't watch it immediately. It would still be there later after all. The second video was by an anonymous guy who claimed to have stolen records of a phone call between the cops and the terrorist and was a little short. Since it had quite a lot of funny comments and thumbs up, she decided to watch it.

Of course, since it was a phone call, there was no video attached, instead, he had put a still picture of a boy and a girl. Aurora knew they were the terrorist and the girl who was with him, his girlfriend according to the internet. The boy was wearing a long duster with a high dented collar and a ripped lower end flowing on the ground giving the impression it was on fire. On his chest, a big sun was imprinted and in the middle of it, a shining badge Aurora did not recognize. He looked like a movie bad guy who only used fire monsters. The girl felt bright and happy, she wore a long sleeved vest that went all the way down to her knees but didn't button it revealing her belly button.

The recording itself was quite funny too, the guy was not only looking like a guy from a movie, he was talking like that too. At first, he sounded confused, then scared. He asked about the girl and Aurora heard her behind him saying she wasn't leaving. Then, after that, he started to sound more serious, confident.

"Of course not, it wouldn't be a challenge to survive ten years if it wasn't so. Fucking adventure..."

The police man rebuked him as shivers passed through her. Did he really say that just now? She replayed that part a second time.

"Well, you are after all saying that I am dead if I do so. So no, I don't."

" Right, nothing you do matters now in regard to your punishment."

"Of course not, it wouldn't be a challenge to survive ten years if it wasn't so. Fucking adventure..."

"Ten years? You won't even last a week. I pity your mother, she did her best but raised a monster."

Aurora paused the video again. Was this real? she thought while jumping off her chair. She had no idea how to react. Happiness and fear mixed together with confusion. Was she not alone in this case? Did this mean that all of that dream was real? Was it all just a sick coincidence? Why did it have to be the scary criminal? would it turn out like in the hunger games movie and they would all die but one?

She ran around her room, jumped on her bed, played a couple of angry notes on her keytar and ruffled her hair to calm herself down. She then went back to her computer and watched the rest of the video. The rest of what he said felt silly but she wasn't in the mood to laugh about it anymore. Nothing in the rest of that talk helped her discover if this was a coincidence or not. At least she had no reason to ever meet him. There was no reason to be scared. He wasn't even on the same continent as her.

She went to bed still thinking about it and had a hard time falling asleep. She had opened her computer to calm herself before bed but the internet had betrayed her expectations for the second time this week.

(1) Unless you live in the U.S. XD I'm sorry, it's a joke alright, stop throwing rocks at me. XD. Most of my readers come from the U.S. of America according the the graphs. Everybody knows that the best way to gain points is to make jokes at the expense of your main audience. It seems to be working well for Blizzard and their PC using fans. By the way, no I don't have a phone, I don't have the money for that Blizzard.

(2) If you don't know what a keytar is, it's a guitar with keyboard on it instead of strings. It sounds like an electric piano. (it is in fact an electric piano.)

() Since the characters are answering questions next time, it's the best moment to be meta. If you want to know anything about how my version of this world function, or them, leave your question somewhere I can see. Webnovel, Reddit, Patreon, Discord or whatever. I would answer them anyway but now you get to appear into the chapter if you want.

() Also, EU article 13 sucks! Do something Europeans, stop this madness!