12- New Mission
“Cranidos is unable to battle,” the ref cried out. “The winners of this gym battle are the challengers, Tony Stark and his partner, Prinplup!”
“Wow, I didn’t think Tony would get so into it,” James commented.
“You should see his chat, sir. Even if SHIELD found a way to block access to our site, it’d be impossible to do so now,” replied Queen. “Over five million unique viewers and the room was essentially still for almost a whole two minutes. This is better advertisement than money can buy.”
“Yeah, even I want to hop in and play,” the man sighed dejectedly. “It’s a shame we got the MCU as the first universe. Maybe if there was a Reed Richards we could guide him to invent the needed tech for Full-Dive. If the next universe doesn’t have anyone to build it either, then we might as well attempt to do so with Stark. Seeing his reactions just now, it’s likely he’d cooperate.”
“You could just join in the first season of Multiplayer,” the AI remarked, even though she knew how her creator would respond.
“No, it wouldn’t be any fun,” he said. “People would only be able to login for a maximum of 8 hours a day, I’d have an unfair advantage from the get go. It’s better to just wait until we can even the playing field.”
“If you say so sir.”
•••••••••••
Earth-199999 - Two Weeks Later
•••••••••••
The New Year came and went and before you could blink, the release of ASTIR had taken the Marvel Cinematic Universe by storm.
News channels were all the rage on how this website had come out of nowhere and ‘thrown the world into chaos’. ASTIR was blamed for anything from distracted driving, to rising unemployment. It was plain to see that someone clearly had it out for the VR, but that didn’t stop the masses from flocking to it in droves.
While official channels tried their best to drag ASTIR’s name through the mud, forums and social media were nearly the exact opposite. From old granny’s in retirement homes to school kids on the playground, two words were on everyone’s lips, ASTIR and Pokémon.
[@ColonelNielson: Ever wonder why the two male characters of the Kanto region have such weird names? Potential answer found! #ASTIR]
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
[u/SpewdieSpy: Secret evolution methods found for Eevee! Now there’s ice and grass, what’s next for everyone’s favorite little fluff-ball?? r/Pokéleaks]
[WatchDojo: Breaking!! Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee fan clubs meet up to duke it out in Saffron City dojo!]
It didn’t take long before the first multiplayer season launched and after that, even the media had to back off as their ratings were plummeting. With so many people playing and streaming at the same time, Pokémon had become the news and they soon found themselves in a position where if they didn’t cover it, their viewers would simply seek it out elsewhere.
By now, nothing could stop the VR’s rise in the public eye and it was just getting started.
•••••••••••
James was relaxing while watching one of his favorite multiplayer streamers attempt to move the Route 12 Snorlax with a fishing boat, when he got a new system notification for the first time in weeks.
[Parameters met…]
[Mission created…]
[Mission: Complete and release two additional game worlds.]
To say James was shocked by the mission was an understatement. Pokémon had yet to even hit its stride and he was already getting a mission to create not one, but two more worlds?
Was there a need to pump out so many franchises in the future? If this was an indication of what kind of pace was expected of him, then James might’ve severely underestimated the threat that was posed to his Earth.
‘No, the tutorial missions don’t work like that,’ he thought and calmed down. ‘They only give out a new quest when a previous condition has been satisfied. What could this one be?’
He called over Queen and the two started searching through the system for anything that stood out as a potential milestone that could’ve triggered this quest.
“Sir, there is one thing that could be the parameter the system used,” Queen spoke up. “We just reached 100 million players a short while ago.”
“Oh?” James paused, feeling stupid. “I completely ignored the obvious answer. Queen, what was our initial timeframe estimate to reach that number? Before the Stark stream, obviously.”
“Anywhere from around one and a half, to two months, sir,” the AI answered dutifully. “This was taking into account exponential growth, however the Stark stream was simply too potent as free press. Ever since then it was hard to predict much, rather than ‘up’ that is.”
“Hmm, so if we go by that timeline then it’s reasonable to say that I’d be releasing the second world around three months after the first,” he mused. “I like that. The invasion of New York happens on May 4th and we have no reason to believe anything we do with Earth will change that…”
“Ok!” James clapped in excitement. “I have the perfect idea of which world to send out next. They’ll have two months to really get into it before the invasion and I don’t know, maybe by some weird miracle it’ll help them in some way.”
“Your just saying that because it’s your favorite franchise,” Queen remarked dryly, already knowing what he was considering.
“Then it should be yours too so I don’t see why your bloody complaining,” he snorted.
“I am not complaining, Master James,” the AI replied cooly. “I’m simply stating that your love of a specific video game doesn’t equate to saving lives.”
James rolled his virtual eyes before he ignored her and got excited thinking of all the ways he could bring his all-time favorite series to this world.
There were many issues to fix, overlooked bits of lore to flesh out, and gameplay that honestly needed to be redesigned from the ground up. Yet, he could already imagine the faces of these people when he released the first trailer. James could even see how Reality Sync may end up being the spark that ignites a fire under every scientist in the MCU.
There were so many things to look forward too and he just couldn’t wait.