“Sir, a person of interest has just started a new stream,” Queen suddenly spoke, breaking James away from his musings.
The man raised a brow and, upon seeing an AI somehow struggling to contain her laughter, searched through the data himself to find out who it was, “Hmm, Tony Stark?”
It wasn’t until he paid closer attention and heard the billionaire humming a tune he knew all too well, that his lip twitched. Turning back to his assistant he asked, “Your doing, I presume?”
Considering the lyrics of the song and his prior conversation with the woman, all he needed was to see her expression to confirm it. He sighed and shook his head before turning back to watch the stream of his, easily, favorite member of the MCU.
Hearing a very undignified snort from over his shoulder, James smirked while wiping away an imaginary tear and lamenting how they grew up so fast.
•••••••••••
Stark Tower, New York - 10 Minutes Earlier
•••••••••••
“God save the~ Dammit!” A genius cried out in rage as the beautiful song that plagued his morning refused to vacate his thoughts. “Jarvis, what’s the risk assessment from SHIELD say about this ASTIR website?”
“Moderately dangerous to potentially deadly, sir,” the AI butler replied.
“So, practically harmless to mildly worrying?” the billionaire snarked.
“It would appear that way sir,” Jarvis answered calmly. “At least for now, based on what I have gathered from multiple livestreams, everything is as stated within the description provided on the website’s homepage. Besides the rather unscientific ’Astral-Sensing’ in the namesake, it truly appears to be a fully immersive virtual reality.”
“Livestreams?” The playboy asked, surprised. “How are they managing that… and are they any good?”
To be honest, Tony would’ve never even bothered with the site had it not been for Jarvis informing him that SHIELD had recalled all hands on a Christmas morning for this sole reason. He might not know how the creator of this ASTIR did it, but unlike what many believed, Tony didn’t really care if someone surpassed him in a field that wasn’t his own. There may be some overlap here and there, but gaming was far enough away from his sphere that he wouldn’t usually even glance in their direction.
That all changed when he was directly confronted with, and humiliated by, said challenge however. Now, it was personal.
“Much like with the option to link one’s Coal account details with the website,” answered the AI, “users can also link to various streaming services seamlessly while in game. As for whether they are appealing, if not the streamers themselves, the world most certainly appears so.”
“Let’s do it then,” the philanthropist suddenly said.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Do you think that’s wise, sir?” asked the AI.
“After what they did to me?” Tony scoffed. “I may not be able to find them out here, but let’s see how many people play their little game after I rip it a new one in front of the unwashed masses.”
“Unwashed masses sir?” Jarvis questioned.
“Gamers, Jarvis,” Tony answered condescendingly, as he sat down and booted up one of the many terminals in his lab. “Strike at the target audience and the rest will follow.”
“Good luck then, sir,” the AI stated.
Tony scoffed, “I never needed it.”
•••••••••••
After viewing the, admittedly quite cool, introduction video, Tony met with a Professor Elm who answered most of his questions about both himself and the world of Pokémon.
To say he was shocked to learn that the ‘man’ he was speaking to was just a VI, not even an AI, was an understatement at best. Tony was more than a little dubious of that fact and that, apparently, every world outside of ‘Full Dive’ was also filled with only VI’s. He didn’t know if whomever made this ASTIR was still taunting him or just showing off, but he’d have to see the ‘real’ AI before passing judgement.
After seeing that the [Full Dive] option was unavailable at the moment and asking the professor about it, he was now certain the creator was mocking him. How an entire game mode could be greyed out due to the, ‘insufficient technology,’ of supposedly their entire world, was beyond ludicrous.
Since the [Multiplayer - Season 1] option had an insane queue of 42,069/20,000,000 to fill before it launched, Tony thus confirmed his selection of [Singleplayer/Co-Op] and finally entered the world of Pokémon.
•••••••••••
Twinleaf Town, Sinnoh Region
•••••••••••
Tony hummed a familiar tune as he inwardly marveled at how easy it was to get used to being in a fully animated world. He caught his reflection once during his exploration of this small town and was surprised at how, natural, it all looked.
A beep from his new Pokétch drew the man’s attention and notified him of his upcoming appointment at the lab of one Professor Rowan in the next town over. He was beginning to see a pattern to these Pokémon Professors and Tony was a tad curious to see if their names were just a tradition, or actually hereditary.
Done with his initial exploration, Tony could surmise that the game would probably kick off as soon as he left this peaceful little town and decided it was about time to start his stream.
Calling up the player menu, Tony linked his line-of-sight with the [Livestream] option and had it connect to Jarvis, a possibility that definitely wasn’t more than a bit terrifying to him. Sadly he required both a Pokédex and a Rotom, whatever those were, to shoot from alternate angles, so he was stuck with a first-person perspective for now.
“All good on this end sir,” Jarvis somehow spoke from within his mind, which he also chose to shelve for later, “You are now streaming live.”
———————————————
[3cosmicPandas: What?! Tony Stark is live-streaming?!?]
[LonelyHousewife75: This is that new game that just came out!]
[selloutStreamer99: Subscribe to my—]
{selloutStreamer99 was banned by AdminJ}
[HulksDong69: Did you see that girl in the miniskirt? This game is quite cultured..]
[notAllison2: This was blowing up all over social media this morning but it died down so quickly that I thought it was fake!]
[gottagofast: Didn’t think IM was a weeb..]
———————————————
Tony swiped away the rapidly scrolling message screen and exited the town with a catchy tune on his lips. He didn’t care about what his stream chat had to say, they all came to see Tony Stark, not the other way around.
He walked around and blatantly ignored the, overly loud, blonde child who was quite obviously trying to get his attention. The boy reminded him way too much of the press for his liking, so he treated him as he normally would, like a turd in the wind.
It wasn’t until he stepped foot into some knee-high grass that and an odd sense of wariness washed over him that the man paused.
For some inexplicable reason, this grass was giving Tony the same feeling he had when Vanko attacked back in Monaco. It was like walking into a fight without his suit and it gave him chills.
Just as Tony was preparing to ignore this completely nonsensical reaction and press on however, a man’s shout came from behind.