20 The Trailer

"Hahahaha," the emcee laughed, "that's all for today folks! I've been your announcer, Steven Sto-…! Everyone, please hold on for a moment, I'm receiving an update."

The exiting crowd paused and, as they watched Steven raise a hand to his ear, the entire stadium grew silent. They'd all just experienced something like this not too long ago and last time it led to the arrival of five legendary Pokémon!

Thus, the air grew heavy with anticipation as the entire stadium eagerly held its breath.

"Yes, yes, yes. I see…" Steven's solemn face gradually shifted as he nodded more vigorously with every passing second. He made a showing of peeking up at the crowd from time to time with a slowly growing grin as he received his new orders.

"EVERYONE!" he suddenly declared loudly, waving his arms while looking around at the stands and down into the arena. "May I please have your attention for a little longer. I have just been notified that, due to the massive attendance of today's semifinals both here in White City and at home on screen, those behind ASTIR have decided to release the first trailer for their next world, LIVE! RIGHT NOW!"

As soon as the echoes of the announcement faded, the stands erupted into a cacophony of noise. Cheers, shouts, and various scattered conversations, littered the air.

"What?! A new trailer?!"

"So soon? Pokémon has only been out for a few months!!"

"I haven't even gotten all my badges yet and there's already a new game?!?"

"Will we be animated again or will this be a realistic game?!"

"Wahh!! I can't wait!"

After waiting for them all to process the news, Steven lifted his arms into the air in a placating manner to allow himself to continue, "Now, now, I know your all excited, however there are a few things I need to inform you of before we can all begin."

Seeing he had everyone's rapt attention, he continued in a slightly more serious manner, "First of all, I regret to inform those still watching at home that this first viewing will only be available in VR. How~ever! Right after this broadcast ends, a slightly edited version will become available for you all to watch online on the ASTIR website for free."

"For those of you who already own a copy of Pokémon," he said while scanning the crowd with a smile, "you can log in at any time after this first viewing to re-watch the same trailer as often as you'd like."

Hearing confused mutterings popping up all around him, Steven smirked, "What? You think ASTIR is just some regular gaming company? HAH! You should know by now that we never do anything small, why should a little video be any different?!"

As shocked gasps and exclamations filtered in through his digital ears, Steven's smirk grew into a full-blown devilish grin as the sky dimmed throughout seemingly the entire Pokémon Multiplayer server.

With a snap of his fingers, all sounds ceased to exist in the world before he finally finished his speech, "To those at home, thank you once again for tuning in. This has been Steven Stone and I'll see you tomorrow at the Finals. For now, all of us here have a trailer to experience!"

•••••••••••

The stream ended as the stadium faded away from everyone's view alongside all those within the arena. No matter where anyone turned to look, there were no indications of them being in side White City anymore.

Slowly, from within the darkness, two alternating piano notes could be heard as they slowly grew louder and louder.

A dense fog settled in, or was it dust? There was no time to ponder as the sounds of gunshots and explosions steadily grew in volume from all around them. Below their feet, a dirt path, littered with scars and strange shapes, crept into being and a vague lone figure could barely be made out within the smoke.

All the sounds in their surroundings were coming in clearly now, allowing them to hear orders being screamed from every angle. Before long, the scene before them solidified as well to reveal a person clad in blue armor running with a cylinder under one arm and a strange looking gun in the hand of the other.

The viewers felt themselves slowly be drawn into the sprinting figure, until they suddenly found themselves looking through 'their' eyes.

They could hear 'themselves' panting and even felt a faint tinge of exhaustion on the far edges of 'their' being. Their vision bobbed up and down as the body ran, taking them along for the ride.

A translucent HUD could be seen at the corners of their vision, but they were swiftly distracted from it as 'they' looked down and swiftly input a code into what they now knew was a bomb under 'their' arm.

Gradually, the viewers felt themselves leave the body they inhabited as it continued to run forward. As it happened, they got a view of dozens of more soldiers, each carrying weapons they'd never seen before, running alongside the one they'd been a part of.

Blue lasers came streaking in through the smoke on the horizon as the nearby soldiers returned fire.

The audience's viewpoint gradually started to ascend into the sky, giving them a wider look of the battlefield as the piano in the background was joined by resounding drums. They soon got their first look at a few aircraft strafing the fight, before their vision zoomed back towards the ground.

For the next half hour, the music faded in and out as it danced with the sound of battle, joined intermittently by the echoes of a ticking bomb and complemented by the pleasant hum of a woman.

The audience experienced more than one point of view on this rollercoaster of emotions; ranging from an onlooker, to a sniper, to even one of what they could only label as an alien, but it all focused around the sprinter in blue armor from the beginning. Eventually though, even this seemingly invincible woman was knocked down, her body splayed out upon the dirt with her visor cracked and mission unfulfilled.

The audience nearly despaired at the loss of such a brave warrior and were only put at ease when another came to carry on their burden.

When this new figure, adorned in similar armor to the first, looked inside the alien 'mothership,' chills ran up all their spines. They had seen maybe less than a few hundred of those aliens throughout the entirety of this trailer yet here there were thousands, all lined up in rows and supported by numerous strange vehicles.

The audience saw this all through the perspective of the second highly armored 'soldier' and when he paused atop the overlooking platform, they could faintly feel his emotions through the connection. Anger, hatred, resignation, and lastly, vindictive pride. They felt them all and their heart skipped a beat as he chucked the now rapidly beeping bomb into the heart of the ship.

They all silently mourned the brave man as their view left him and zoomed out to show the ship breaking apart. The viewers felt their own personal pride at seeing the enemy being done in by humanity and their blood started boiling in excitement, until it stopped cold as they zoomed out.

Further and further they ascended, until they were overlooking half the planet. What they viewed as their hard-fought victory was shown to be taking place all across the surface, but when looking closer, they all could see that it wasn't nearly enough.

Their view continued to zoom out until the planet took up their entire vision before stopping. The faint melodious humming in the background their only companion as they looked down upon a scorched world.

Slowly, two words came into view of the audience, one after the other; Remember Reach.

The screen faded to black once again as the words disintegrated like smoke, only the humming was left to reach the solemn hearts of the crowd.

HALO, one final word that came into being before the trailer ended. Underneath, a timer appeared, counting down until release; 6:23:59:59-58-57.