That night, Marie’s unconscious reality centered around one person, and one person only. That person was Clancy.
She found herself back in the past, as though she were her past self. There was nothing distinguishable whatsoever between her mind and the body of 14-year-old Marie Emerson of South Carolina.
The alarm woke her at 6 AM, and 14-year-old Marie rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She could not remember anything specific about her dream - she rarely did. But the fact remained that she was sure she’d dreamed about something.
I guess it’s like a dream WITHIN a dream, huh? Because I’m dreaming about my past, and my past self had a dream. This is just like that movie Inception, isn’t it?
Marie’s 14-year-old self (scratch that, Marie herself) gradually rose from bed and silenced her alarm. After reaching her arms upward and yawning, she remembered why she’d been required to set the alarm in the first place. The reason was quite simple.
It’s my first day of ninth grade. The first day of high school!
Marie quickly got dressed and worked her way downstairs, where the family dog was watching a rerun of a rally from the 45th President of the United States. Quite frankly, Marie didn’t care too much for the dog - cleaning up after him was a lot of extra work for the Emersons. But then, some jobs just needed to be done, and as long as Marie lived with her parents, chores were a way to stay in their good graces.
After a bowl of cereal and some fruit, Marie donned her backpack, making sure it still held all the school supplies she’d bought a few days ago from Staples. There was no real reason to suspect anything had been stolen, but you could never be sure when the crime rate was allegedly skyrocketing.
The teenage girl then bade her parents goodbye and made her way down to the bus stop. The main high school in her small South Carolina town wasn’t more than a mile or two from home, but the distance between consisted of nothing but strip malls and McMansions, with very few sidewalks to speak of. And people wondered why American children had a reputation for being fat and lazy!
Marie did not acknowledge any of the other students as she boarded the yellow school bus, instead choosing a seat that seemed deliberately out of the others’ way. However, if she’d been trying to avoid her peers, she did not succeed, as a tall, lanky boy stood over her.
“M-most of the other seats are t-taken” he said. “C-c-can I sit with you?”
“I don’t see why not,” Marie replied. Even if she’d rather be alone, it would’ve been very rude to insist that the boy not sit next to her. She wasn’t from a religious family, so Marie saw no need to believe in traditional gender norms that dictated boys and girls who weren’t dating to sit separately.
“Thanks,” the boy replied. “Y-you’re going to R-rockabilly High School, aren’t you?”
Marie nodded, narrowing her eyes. “If I weren’t going there, would I be on this bus?”
“You n-never know. Maybe I m-made a mistake.”
“Well, you didn't,” Marie assured the boy. “At least, not if you’re trying to get to Rockabilly High.”
“Wonderful” the boy responded, scratching the trace amount of beard scruff on his chin. “My name is C-Clancy. And yours is?”
“Marie Emerson” she replied, running a hand through her blonde hair.
“That’s a l-lovely name,” Clancy mumbled. “I hope you d-don’t think I’m f-flirting with you. I’m just saying that because it’s t-true.”
Marie smiled. “Don’t worry about that, Clancy. You’re not making me feel uncomfortable.”
This boy seems quite nervous around me. I guess that makes sense - talking to others can be frightening at first in high school. Especially when he probably moved to this town recently.
“I haven’t seen you around before” Marie told Clancy. “Did you move here from somewhere else?”
“I’m f-from C-C-Connecticut originally. But my parents moved us down here so that they could pay lower taxes.”
Being that she was only 14 years old at the time, Marie would be lying if she said she understood the minutiae of tax policy. All she could really do was nod along and pay lip service, a skill that Clancy probably didn’t feel he excelled in.
“I’m a lifelong South Carolinian,” Marie replied. “But that’s pretty cool that you’re from up North. It would be nice if it didn’t get so hot down here.”
“Well, you know what they say. You can plan that p-pretty p-p-picnic all you want, but if the weather doesn’t c-cooperate, there’s only so much you can d-do.”
True.
“So wh-what are you interested in?” Clancy inquired. “My b-biggest interest is P-P-Pokémon.”
Marie forced a smile. “That’s pretty sweet, Clancy.” She had to be careful not to infantilize this guy. But the truth was, Clancy seemed like what the other students in her town would call a “big softie.” Indeed, that was probably the nicest thing they’d call him. (Of course, the mockery wouldn’t happen in person - school bullying had mostly been relegated to the online realm since the advent of social media.)
“There’s this one P-Pokémon,” Clancy told her, “that I think m-my p-parents would love. They’re called Braviary, and they look like eagles. Would you like to see the card?”
“I’m good,” Marie said. “I don’t do well when I read in a moving vehicle - it makes me feel carsick. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” Clancy replied. “But can I still tell you about Braviary, at risk of sounding like I just swallowed a PokéDex?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Well, their average height is four feet, eleven inches tall. Their average weight is 90.4 pounds, or 41 kilograms for those who prefer the metric system. Its abilities include Keen Eye and Sheer Force, and their base maximum HP is 100.”
“Wonderful, Clancy,” Marie told the boy. Truth be told, she’d never been too interested in all those trading card games kids played. If you were seen playing such games, you were likely to be branded with the scarlet letter N for Nerd. And nerds were frowned upon in middle school.
Maybe now that we’re in high school, things will be different.
“Another fact about Braviary is that, like all Pokémon, its entry in the PokéDex varies from game to game. According to the entry in Ultra Sun, the more scars a Braviary has on its front, the more heroic it’s considered to be. It means that they don’t back down from a fight.”
“That’s pretty cool. What if it has scars on its back?”
Clancy’s eyes lit up to no small degree. “If a Braviary has many scars on its back, it’s frequently mocked by the rest of its flock. Maybe that’s because it means they didn’t see an enemy coming from their blind side.”
“Do you think that’s fair?” Marie asked her new friend. “To be ridiculed just because you didn’t have eyes in the back of your head?”
“In my opinion? No” Clancy stated, fidgeting. “But this is a purely fictional world we’re talking about here. You know that as well as I do.”
“I sure do,” Marie acknowledged, thinking about how, in the words of some people, Clancy was the sort of teenager who refused to bury that castle. He was the epitome of that saying: Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is not.
The bus arrived in front of Rockabilly High, a two-story brick building that had been partially taken over by invasive kudzu vines. The students then disembarked one by one, during which time Clancy kept info-dumping about Pokémon.
“They say that there’s a whole new generation of Pokémon coming soon. There’ll be so many creatures to talk about - and you’ve gotta catch them all, don’t you?”
“Why, yes,” Marie said. “You do need to catch them all.” But she said this with a raised eyebrow, which carried the intent of making Clancy pay attention to why they were at this building. It wasn’t to hyperfixate on their favorite multimedia franchises.
“My l-locker is r-r-right next to yours” Clancy noted. “It’s in this h-hallway.”
“Huh” Marie stated, looking at the key she’d been given and finding that her locker was indeed adjacent to Clancy’s. They’d be seeing a lot of one another between classes.
“One l-last question,” the fidgety boy told her, practically bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. “Marie, c-can we b-b-be f-friends?”
It’s clearly taking a lot of his nerve to ask that question. It’s like he has a hard time doing it in general. I really feel for him.
Marie snorted. “Clancy, you know that only works in elementary school. You don’t just walk up to someone and ask to be their friend.”
Clancy clasped his hands together, his teeth chattering as though they were somewhere far colder than South Carolina. “R-right. M-my b-bad. I g-guess we should get to know one another f-f-first.”
Marie smiled. “I think we are friends already. It just worked out that way - you sat next to me on the bus, and we talked about Pokémon for a while. You seem quite interested in it, and I showed interest too.” Or at least, I tried to.
“R-really?” Clancy responded, sounding almost as though he couldn’t believe what Marie had just told him. “W-we c-c-can be friends?”
“Of course! But we both have to head to our homeroom now! You can’t be late for class on the first damn day!”
Clancy chuckled nervously as he looked at his schedule. “It-it seems we have our homeroom together today! M-mine is with Mrs. Franczak!”
Marie glanced at the sheet of paper constituting her schedule and found that, in fact, Clancy was correct. Her homeroom period was with Mrs. Franczak as well!
The pair wasted no more time getting to the correct room, and by a stroke of “coincidence”, they ended up sitting pretty close to one another in the back row. Perhaps that made it less likely they’d be called on, which was perhaps why Clancy had selected this seat.
As Mrs. Franczak started talking about the expectations for her homeroom, as well as some of the units her Civics class would entail, Marie couldn’t help but notice that Clancy’s attention wasn’t all there. He still nodded along to what the teacher said, but his right leg was constantly shaking as though he needed to get some energy out in a context-appropriate manner. Additionally, he had his notebook open to a blank page, which was no longer blank as he’d started drawing creatures on it.
Huh. It’s like his brain isn’t wired to sit in this chair for six hours a day going through all sorts of lectures. Maybe he just wants to draw Pokémon all day, in which case maybe he should bury that proverbial castle. Because that’s not how the real world works.
To state the obvious, second period came after first, and it was math with Mr. Claymorton. As with Mrs. Franczak’s Civics class, Marie shared this one with Clancy, and just like before, they ended up sitting next to each other. But that was totally a coincidence, not because they were friends.
During second period, Marie saw Clancy evidently drawing a number of equations in his notebook that had nothing to do with the lecture at hand. On the bright side, he was not the student who folded up a paper airplane and launched it toward the chalkboard at the front of the room.
The teeth-grinding sound of the chalk against the board ceased abruptly, and Mr. Claymorton swiveled around with a scowl on his face. Laughter sounded all around the room, too.
“Javier, knock it off!” he exclaimed.
Marie half-expected that awful song about a boy letting a girl wear his sweatshirt to start playing. But instead, Javier just kept laughing for what seemed like forever. Even Clancy was giggling nervously, haltingly, like he didn’t know if he should be expressing any amusement.
Mr. Claymorton then started writing equations on the board. “I’ll call on students at random based on a list I’ve prepared. This is just so I can tell where y’all’s heads are at. The first student on my list is Clancy Coventry.”
At the mention of his name, Clancy perked up, but also looked as though he wanted to put his head in his hands. Nonetheless, he was rapt to attention now.
“Clancy, can you tell me what the length of a right triangle’s hypotenuse would be if the other two sides were 8 feet and 15 feet respectively?”
“Uh…” Clancy mouthed. “T-the h-h-hypotenuse is the l-longest side, right?”
“Correct” Mr. Claymorton responded sternly. “It is the side opposite the triangle’s 90° angle, which means there’s a specific theorem for determining the length of that side. Do you remember that theorem?”
Clancy scratched his beard scruff. “It’s t-the one involving square roots, right? A-squared plus B-squared equals C-squared?”
The math teacher raised an eyebrow. “Yes. So how long would that make the longest side of the triangle?”
“S-seventeen f-feet, sir” Clancy replied haltingly, to the applause of several other students. The clapping, however, only seemed to annoy him, and he proclaimed the following: “Just because I t-talk slowly s-sometimes d-d-doesn’t mean I think slowly.”
“No, it doesn’t” Mr. Claymorton muttered. “You can think pretty quickly when you want to.”
After that, the rest of the day passed relatively uneventfully. Marie and Clancy did not share any more classes, but Marie had seen all she needed in order to appraise some of the boy’s personality.
One thing she thought fascinating was that Clancy clearly lacked confidence whenever he spoke to someone new. Of course, to some extent, that was normal for just about anyone, even if most people didn’t stutter as much as he did. But whenever Clancy got a chance to talk about his preferred interests (such as Pokémon), he suddenly had all the confidence in the world. He could go on and on about that topic with no stuttering whatsoever.
Over the next few days, Marie found herself spending more and more time with Clancy. At first she did this without realizing it, either sitting next to him for lunch in the ratty old cafeteria that seemingly hadn’t been cleaned in months, or else selecting a seat beside him on the school bus yet again. The pair opened up to each other about their proudest moments, their greatest fears, and other matters.
One thing led to another, and by the end of that first week, they considered themselves friends. A few weeks later, Marie became convinced that they were in fact more than friends, and she began to imagine in realistic terms what it would be like to ask Clancy out on a date, or to tell her parents that she and this painfully awkward boy were in fact a couple.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
As it turned out, in the middle of October (when the summer heat haze had finally begun to die off and Marie could feel that the weather was about to get a little better), Clancy made the first move. This occurred one afternoon after they got off the bus and were walking to their respective homes.
“M-Marie,” Clancy began, “I have s-something t-t-to t-t-t-t-t-tell you.”
“What might that be?” Marie replied. On some level, of course, she figured there had to be a reason why Clancy was raising this question now as opposed to before school. There were no other Rockabilly High School students to be seen.
Clancy sighed, neglecting to continue making eye contact with Marie. He sighed and then said the following:
“I t-think I l-like you” he stammered.
Marie formed a small smile on her face. “I like you too, Clancy. You’re a great friend.”
“N-no,” he responded. “By l-like…well, you know w-what I m-m-mean by like, d-don’t you?”
“I think I do,” Marie responded. “And honestly, Clancy, I feel the same way. At least, I think I feel the same way - I can hardly read minds.”
Clancy looked ready to jump for joy, but he walked the rest of the way to Marie’s house unsteadily. He smiled brightly, however, as his friend walked up to her home and waved goodbye. They would see one another again tomorrow, that was for sure. And probably the day after that.
From that point forward, Marie Emerson and Clancy Coventry were officially a couple.
----------------------------------------
Of course, when you were in a relationship at age fourteen, you experienced many of the benefits without many of the drawbacks. There were no debates about whose job it was to do which chore, or any questions related to managing money, or any arguments about whether or not to have children. (From what Marie’s parents told her, kids were one of the few things you couldn’t really compromise on in a relationship.)
For the most part, the relationship between Marie and Clancy was what some would derisively call “puppy love.” Perhaps it was puppy love, but that didn’t make it seem any less real.
At least once a week (and often more than that), one of them would go to the other’s house. This was strictly to hang out, not to play, since they were in high school after all. Still, as the weeks passed, the relationship continued to blossom.
After the first day when they’d declared their relationship (which was an odd word - it wasn’t like “declaring” goods in the customs section of an international airport), the days blended together into weeks and months. And every time she saw Clancy, Marie smiled even more deeply. Looking at it in years to come, she’d view specific moments they spent together as memorable snapshots in time.
For instance, there was the time in early December when Clancy came over to bake Christmas cookies. Marie had a set of typical shapes to cut the dough into; stars, candy canes, pine trees, snowflakes, snowmen, you name it. However, her boyfriend had a different idea, because he showed up with a container full of shapes that Marie didn’t recognize.
“Are those…Pokémon shapes?”
Clancy nodded vigorously, pointing to a few outlines and naming them as he went. “This one right here is Squirtle, then there’s Charizard and Ivysaur. Those are in fact the three Pokémon that you can play as in Brawl when you select Pokémon Trainer, though it’s quite silly that they make you play Classic Mode three times to get all the trophies.”
“Wait a minute,” Marie inquired. “ Brawl?”
“Yes. Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I know most competitive players don’t like Brawl because it’s a slower game and has the tripping mechanic, but it also contains lots of Pokémon and fun Pokémon stages.”
“That’s wonderful, Clancy” Marie stated, holding his hand as she grabbed a star shape and drove it into the flat expanse of cookie dough.
“Yes, it is!” Clancy exclaimed. “They even put Lucario in the game, which was quite something considering that at the time, he didn’t have quite as many furries simping all over him. He can use this substance called aura, meaning that he can sense emotions and see what others are thinking!”
“That’s pretty cool.”
“Why yes, it is. I wish I could do that in real life, though. I hate when I don’t think about what I say before I say it, and then the other person thinks I lack empathy.”
Marie didn’t know how to respond to that, so she did the logical thing and kept cutting out wedges of cookie dough. The rest of the conversation (indeed, of the “hangout session” in general) faded into the background, and Marie wouldn’t remember it in specific terms later. What she would, however, recall was Clancy’s bright smile whenever he got to use the Pokémon-shaped cookie cutters.
Winter (to the extent that it existed at all in South Carolina) soon passed, followed by spring and then summer. Soon enough, a whole year had passed since they’d started dating, but it seemed to Marie that it had been just yesterday that Clancy had asked her out. And she was determined to make sure her boyfriend didn’t regret his decision.
Another year passed, then two. Soon, the pair were walking over to the podium in their caps and gowns as they graduated high school. They were handed their diplomas, then smiled and waved for the cameras. And when the cameras stopped rolling, Marie took Clancy’s hand yet again and kissed it. (There was, of course, no point hiding their relationship when it was common knowledge in their small town. News traveled fast in rural America.)
Just over six years to the day when Clancy had first asked Marie out, the young lady was preparing to walk a different sort of aisle.
As she stood there in a white gown, as that old Scottish song “Marie’s Wedding” played in the background, Marie reflected on the day she’d proposed to Clancy last year. Much like the initial decision to start dating, it had come out of nowhere, and that was the point. If her parents’ marriage had taught her anything, it was that a partnership did not require two identical personalities, just two compatible ones. And that “C-word” certainly described how Marie viewed Clancy.
It had taken some work persuading her parents (and Clancy’s, for that matter) that they should be allowed to get married at age twenty. Marie’s mother had insisted for the longest time that the only reason she and her father knew they were right for one another was that they’d literally grown up together. Marriage was, after all, a decision that carried very real legal consequences.
“Clancy isn’t just my boyfriend, he is my best friend” Marie insisted multiple times.
“But you don’t know that for sure,” her mother had replied. “He could always be the sort of boy who becomes an abusive jerk once you’re married to him.”
“Mom, we’ve been dating for six years. If he was going to show his true colors in that regard, wouldn’t he already have done so?”
No matter how hard she tried, Marie’s mother could not convince her daughter that the wedding was a bad idea. She just didn’t understand why Marie felt endeared to Clancy’s unique, geeky personality. He might be a nerd, but he’s MY nerd!
Despite the fact that it should have been a joyous day, however, Marie’s heart sank as she thought about what she was about to do. As she stood beside the mirror in the church’s bathroom, she argued internally with herself.
I’m going to do this. I’m going to marry Clancy.
But you never know. Something could happen - maybe he’ll fall out of love with you. Maybe he’s just trying to use you for your money.
Nonsense. If anything, I’m the one you’d think is a gold digger - his family’s certainly better off than my own!
Still. Some men don’t show their true colors until you can’t leave them as easily.
As soon as Marie stepped away from the mirror, however, she was greeted by Clancy. He was dressed in a tuxedo, but his hazel eyes were the main attraction. Marie may not have been devout, but she’d heard others say that the eyes were a window into a person’s soul. If that were true, then Clancy’s soul seemed pure enough.
“Hello,” Clancy said awkwardly. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?”
I think we are.
“Yes” Marie stated, forcing a smile. She couldn’t ditch her man at the altar - she’d come too far to get cold feet now.
“I love you,” Clancy replied. “You know that, right? I love you with all my heart.”
“I love you too, Clancy. So much so that I agreed to have this wedding be Pokémon-themed.”
Indeed, right then, the lines of music about heel for heel and toe for toe ceased, to be replaced by a song Clancy had shown her on one of the retro video games he played. He always insisted that gaming these days just wasn’t as much fun, that none of the modern developers were willing to take risks anymore.
“This is the Saffron City theme, isn’t it?” Marie inquired.
Clancy nodded with a grin. “Yep. Isn’t it so energetic? It makes me feel like I could run a marathon in this suit.”
Marie snorted. “Well, you certainly seem to have the energy to run a marathon. You’re always shaking one of your legs - literally.”
Clancy didn’t look so happy all of a sudden - maybe wistful is the right word for the expression he gave.
“Just because I move a lot doesn’t mean I can do anything practical with it. Like, stimming won’t help me catch a ball or run a marathon. I was mostly joking when I said that.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Marie replied.
In any case, as the Saffron City music switched to the next song, “Good For Me” by Amy Grant, Marie took Clancy’s hand in her own. The pair then walked down the aisle, flower petals being thrown on them from all sides as Marie glanced at the Porygon balloons against the ceiling, as well as the wedding cake that had the image of a Pokéball painted on it with frosting.
The pastor stood at the altar. Even though neither the Emerson nor Coventry families went to church regularly, it was really only religious buildings that officiated weddings in this part of the state. As such, they’d gone with a Unitarian Universalist congregation, the most progressive and relaxed religion of those found here.
“Good evening, everyone!” the pastor announced. “I will first turn toward Marie Emerson. Marie Emerson, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
Marie forced a smile, though it felt like there were chains on her gut dragging her mood down. Still, that was hardly Clancy’s fault - she knew that no matter what that foreboding sensation may have told her, she was going to marry this man.
“I do.”
“Very well. Clancy Coventry, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do,” Clancy responded, and suddenly Marie noticed something else. Despite Clancy’s frequent stuttering (which he’d apparently gone to speech therapy as a child to correct), her betrothed no longer seemed afraid to speak when he was around Marie.
Maybe our marriage can help him. As long as he’s brave around me, I’m a good influence on him. I think we can last a lifetime.
“You may kiss the bride.”
The pair engaged a long, gratuitous smooch, during which much of the audience moaned cutely. Then, the party was allowed to start.
As a playlist set by both Marie’s parents and Clancy’s Pokémon hyperfixation kept blasting in the background, the cake was cut, and sparkling apple cider was poured into wine glasses. There was a lot of clapping as the bride and groom embraced on the dance floor, delinking their arms at one point to perform the “Hot To Go” dance.
Marie’s earlier doubts washed away as though by a waterfall, and she practically beamed with jubilation. This might well be the best day of her life.
Soon, however, the dream faded, and Marie sat upright on her rigid cot in Cabin Gemini. The cold, hard reality hit her seconds later, colder and harder than the bed on which she’d been sleeping.
The “best day of Marie’s Earthly life” had turned into the last day of her Earthly life soon thereafter. She’d tried to block portions of it out of her memory, but it still came rushing in like the tide came in to destroy a meticulously-built sand castle.
They’d driven to the nearest city for some more dancing, having selected a club that favored newlyweds and anyone else currently in their honeymoon period. They’d danced all night to songs both romantic and hedonistic, neither of them wanting that night to end. Getting married was the easy part, whereas staying married took effort every single day.
But they’d made their vows. In sickness and in health, they would be there for one another - that was what the pastor had told them to recite. And now they were bound to that promise.
Their Earthly marriage did not last long, however. As the newly-married couple walked back to Marie’s vehicle, the unthinkable had happened - the sort of tragedy that is both too horrible to imagine and yet all too common in modern America. It was the sort of thing that you expect to happen to somebody else, but the unfortunate reality is that we’re all “somebody else” to somebody else. The proverbial fear roulette hung over all of their heads, and sooner or later it was going to land on you or someone you cared about.
Then Marie had woken up in the afterlife, Lucas the Lucario had been there to administer her personality test, and the rest of the process needed no further explanation. After a handful of Isekai missions with Jessica and/or Sophie by her side, Judd had joined the group, and the constant bickering (all part of the plan) had resumed.
Marie would spend some of every day either trying to forget the sounds of those bullets that had rung out from one of South Carolina’s gangs, arguing with her bunkmates, or dreading her next mission. But the biggest question of all was: What happened to Clancy?
The night after the first mission Judd had been present for, she’d received her answer. Poor, painfully awkward Clancy, whom Marie hadn’t even known was at Jet Force Isekai, had failed his mission with a pitiful score of 22.
Marie had gasped loudly, but it hadn’t been enough for her husband to notice her evident anguish. In Clancy’s defense, his jitters were probably through the roof at the implications of being banished.
I’ll never see him again. That is, unless I get banished too.
But Marie couldn’t bring herself to volunteer that night. Even the following week, Judd had talked her out of it, but it had required knowing that if she threw her torch under that snuffer, she’d be throwing her bunkmates under the bus too. And she just couldn’t stomach that idea, as frequently as they were at loggerheads.
Even so, after their lives had both been ripped away from them, so had one another’s company in the afterlife. And Marie would not accept that.
One day, she resolved, I will find Clancy once more. And we’ll begin the marriage we never got to experience.
----------------------------------------
It’s pretty stunning just how quickly you can grow accustomed to something that was at first unthinkable.
Judd recalled the analogy of how to boil a frog. You didn’t put it in scalding water right away, because if you did, it would simply leap out. Rather, you were supposed to place it in pleasantly warm water and slowly turn up the heat. That analogy was also used elsewhere to describe an authoritarian regime, but that’s one reason Judd was proud of his country’s freedoms.
By the same token, it seemed notable that when Sophie first laid down the facts, Judd had been dumbfounded. It had been hard to believe that they were actually on a reality show. And to think that an audience of many millions had watched him pray, argue, go to the bathroom, brush his teeth, and of course go on missions…at first, it was an indignity. An indignity of the highest order, no less.
Don’t I have the right to privacy?
However, as soon as Toriel and Lucas had left Cabin Gemini the night Mizar was banished, Judd found himself focused on other things. It wasn’t that he didn’t worry about the audience’s perception - whenever he entered or left the cabin, his senses felt hyperaware, as though he had eyes in the back of his head.
Rather, it was that he couldn’t worry about this. Simply put, he had bigger Magikarp to fry.
Judd and his bunkmates had been told they were on probation. If any of them scored under seventy on their next mission, even if they weren’t in the bottom three parties overall, then all four of them would be sent to the Eternal Night Mine right behind Mizar. Knowing what fate awaited the banished added another degree of pressure.
In a perfect world, this would have galvanized the quartet to work together more cohesively. However, it should come as no surprise that the controlled environment of Jet Force Isekai was hardly a perfect world.
On the Thursday night six days after their confrontation with Toriel and Lucas, a familiar scene took place within the cabin.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Judd had been praying, trying in vain to get the Good Lord to listen, but he’d accidentally said a few words aloud. Sophie had accused him of wanting to rely on Jesus for future missions, and the confrontation had escalated into a full-on verbal brawl.
“Judd, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you!” Sophie bellowed. “It’s never a good idea to let Jesus take the wheel, especially now that we’re under so much pressure!”
Judd narrowed his eyes. “It’s my afterlife, and I can do what I want to.”
“But if you get less than 70 tomorrow, all four of us are working in the mines! And I don’t think you want to put that on us!”
This war of words roused Jessica from her slumber, and the red-haired woman looked from side to side as though watching a tennis match. Perhaps that was what the audience saw this fight as - just another tennis match. Easy enough for them to think that when they don’t have to face the consequences of this group going south.
“Arceus, Judd!” Jessica exclaimed. “It’s hard enough to sleep here when you’re quiet! Whenever you two are fighting, it’s far worse!”
Sophie grimaced. “You’ve got to grin and bear it, Jessica! Life isn’t fair!”
“This isn’t life, though! We’re all dead!”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “Then after life isn’t fair. But it doesn’t matter, because we have to play with the cards we were dealt. We don’t have a straight flush, we have a pair at best.”
Judd snorted. “This isn’t poker, Sophie.”
“Oh yeah, because your God is totally against gambling” Sophie retorted.
“Whatever” Judd stated. “But you do realize that we’re only giving them more ammunition! You said it yourself, Sophie - nothing’s private here, because this is a TV set!”
“Like it matters at this point. We cannot get complacent, we must be at the top of our games tomorrow, and that won’t happen through prayer or wishful thinking. It’s going to happen with action and cooperation!”
On that cheery note, Judd barely slept the rest of that night.
Although he’d been praying constantly since he’d arrived at Jet Force Isekai, the act seemed more fruitless than in the past. God was still listening, of course - He had to be. But the warm, fuzzy feeling of joy Judd received from prayer had all but vanished. No longer did it seem like he was experiencing the Holy Spirit, just a dark void where that Holy Spirit had been.
I’m being tested here. I’m like Jesus on the cross. That’s why God seems more distant, because He’s making sure I’m a faithful Christian. Just like I’ve always been, and just like I always will be.
Still he prayed and prayed, but at this point it seemed to be more out of habit than anything else. Maybe one day an answer from the Lord would be forthcoming, but until then he had to keep going.
The next mission, which entailed exploring a cavern full of spiders with Sophie and Jessica, went surprisingly well. The pressure to perform brought on them by probation must have actually helped, because the complex task ended with a score of 83. In an academic context that score was far from ideal, but anything that kept them from the mines for another week was very much welcome.
Another week went by, during which each of the Cabin Gemini tenants gave interviews once a day. Much like God, Judd believed that the Lucario assistants interviewing them were trying to challenge their subjects. It seemed like the nature of the questions had gotten more personal and touchier ever since Sophie’s revelation, as though they were deliberately trying to stoke drama. (Well, more drama.)
Nothing I say here is private. The line about it being a “confession” is a damn lie.
So Judd tried to evade as many questions as possible, but he had to give one thing to the interviewers: They were highly skilled at what they did. Their inquiries were homing torpedoes that would not rest until they found their targets, and they’d chase you around in a ferocious attempt to make you divulge what they wanted to know.
The next mission came around - this one placed Judd with Marie again. Fortunately, it did not involve cross-dressing. Despite their earlier tension, the pair worked surprisingly well together, coming away with a score of 89. Once again, they escaped banishment (or, within the bounds of a reality TV show, elimination.)
As the poor saps who received the three lowest scores had their torches snuffed and were led Elsewhere, Judd couldn’t help but be satisfied. Two down, one to go.
Mission four had been challenging. Mission five had also been challenging, but he’d scored higher than in mission four. Judd and his bunkmates had survived the first two weeks of probation. After they passed the next mission, they’d be back on the same footing as everyone else, graded on a curve. They wouldn’t need to do well, just better than three other parties.
How bad could mission six possibly be?