Test Drive Meme - Spring 2025

[indigo_league]

➞ Post with a character you wish to test drive in this game's setting.
➞ Tag other people's starters and thread out shenanigans!
➞ Invite your friends! Try out new characters! Come play with us!
➞ Have fun!

NOT SURE WHERE TO BEGIN YOUR TEST-DRIVE JOURNEY?
CHECK OUT ALL THE LOCATIONS WE HAVE AVAILABLE IN:

JOHTO | KANTO | SEVII ISLANDS

Feel free to make various prompts in multiple locations!

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OTHER USEFUL LINKS:
NAVIGATION | RESERVES | APPLICATIONS

Comments

[placates]

Before he could let her go for real, she sneaked in one last hug across his shoulders to comfort him about the things that happened. There might have been more time between his actions and now, but it still must have been so difficult for him. When they finally did release, she looked at him with soft eyes and watched his movements.

"You know I had forgotten about it, everything here is just so....distracting.", she said softly. Her arm was still broken and in a sling, and her body was still covered in bruises and wounds but she couldn't quite feel it. It was mostly like the rush of everything happening.

"I'll take the medicinal cream, but what I really need is a bath.", she said, before bending down to pick up her purse. "And shoes, good idea. Actually I think I need a whole new outfit." It was clear she stuck out like a sore thumb in her clubbing outfit.

[no_ufo_ending]

"I know what you mean," Henry replies. Pokemon World can be a lot to take in when you first arrive. And even sometimes it's still a lot. There's so much he doesn't know about this world he's called home for so long now.

He fishes the ointment out of his bag and passes it to her.

Meanwhile, his Seel had grown impatient with this whole reunion and lets out a grumpy little bark. Henry blinks at him, as though he only just remembered he was there. He reaches out to pat the little sealicorn on the head.

"Don't worry, I didn't forget you. We'll have time to train on the way." He's already making road plans. A couple days to Cherrygrove, and then...no, wait. They won't be able to warp. Eileen doesn't have warp clearance to get back back to Goldenrod.

Henry stands back up and takes on a sheepish look. "Eileen...how do you feel about flying?"

[placates]

Once he fished the ointment out of his bag and handed it to her, she held onto it a bit tightly as she looked at him more closely. It was difficult to accept that they were now both in this strange and unique situation, but all Eileen could do was just focus on how much Henry had changed. Aside from the obvious physical differences, he looked and felt older and she wasn't sure what to make of that. At least it seemed his story was true—

but before she could focus very long on all the things about him that seemed different, the grumpy little bark from the Seel snapped her back into the moment and made her look down at the creature. Surprisingly? She found it to be a bit cute despite looking odd. In fact she even smiled at it softly as she watched Henry pat its head.

"Flying? As in a plane? Helicopter...", and as she said that, the Butterfree from before seemed to swoop down, flapping its wings in front of them both before flying off for good. "Oh no Henry you don't mean on one of these creatures do you?"

[no_ufo_ending]

The little Seel watches the Butterfree go before starting to scritch at his neck with a flipper.

Meanwhile, Henry scratches his own neck, that sheepish look still in place. "Sunny's a safe flyer, she's never let Heather down. But...we don't have to! We can walk. These routes are pretty safe if you've got strong enough Pokemon."

The Seel barks. Strong like him!

Maybe he's getting ahead of himself. Henry looks back to town and offers a hand to Eileen. "Let's find somewhere to sit and rest. I'll get you something to eat..." He looks back at Eileen, worry threading its way through his expression. He's waited so long in hopes of her arriving, he hopes he can be a good guide to this strange new life. He's...a little embarrassed to tell her that he's just been sitting around and getting stoned for a decade while she's been fighting for her life in Hell.

[placates]

"Heather?", she said softly, before her eyes widened at his comment. Of course they were going to fly aboard one of these Pokemon and while she dreaded the idea of doing so, all she could do was simply shake her head and resign herself. She was in a new world and Henry knew far more than she did, so she had to trust him. He was all she had, even here.

"I appreciate it, but what I need more than anything is a bath.", she said, sighing a bit. Somewhere to change and shower, clean up her wounds and the like. It was starting to weigh on her, her feet becoming sore from the heels she was wearing, and her skin in pain from the lacerations.

"Let's just get to where we need to, okay?"

[no_ufo_ending]

"One of my roommates. She...knows about the Otherworld." Understatement of the century. He winces at Eileen's pain. "I don't know if there's anywhere in this town you can shower. There are some vending machines for snacks, but...there's not more to New Bark. It's more like a neighborhood than a town."

An idea floats to the front of his mind.

"I have Clam with me...he knows Watergun. I'm sure if he's gentle we could wash off your face and arms."

Henry tips his head to finish the question. He doesn't want to put too much on Eileen all at once, but he wants to help her.

[placates]

There isn't much for her to say as all of this information was still so new and shocking to her, leaving her with a concerned expression on her face. Someone else knew about the Otherworld? Though experiencing it or just Henry telling them about it? Additionally he was suggesting a Clam of all things spray her down in the middle of what was a neighborhood as if it was nothing?

It was all very difficult for her to handle but she decided to just push through and try her best to tolerate the way things were. She'd just have to wait in her current condition until she could finally find someplace to just unwind from everything. So with a sigh she shook her head and held her hand out, the tube of cream still in it. "No Henry it's okay, it's better if I just wait until I can find a proper place to rest. So let's try and get going then alright? I don't really want a clam shooting me with water....", she said, voice a bit tired. Besides how would she get dried? But she's sure things would work out in the end.

"Besides I have a lot of questions for you, we need to take sometime to properly talk."

[no_ufo_ending]

Henry looked at the tube of medicine. He couldn't blame her. That was...kind of a weird suggestion. He winces internally. Somehow all his years of becoming a more normal guy seemed to disappear when he's back with Eileen, his thoughts of the Otherworld so close to the front of his mind.

He puts the cream away and shoulders his backpack.

"I'll tell you everything I know," he vows. Henry nods for her to follow and begins walking toward Route 29 with slow steps. Maybe they can find a quiet tree to sit under.

[placates]

Thankfully for them both, she had gotten used to how he was and the way he conducted himself. Whatever progress he had made would have probably been a bit too much for her to handle given her already confused state— and given she was in a completely new world with zero knowledge as to why the animals here looked so strange, in a way his behavior was comforting.

With a smile, she began to follow after him, one foot after the other with her handbag swinging to the side. "It's okay you know? I get it, even if it is still so confusing for me I.....I appreciate that in the time you've been here, you're still so kind. Thank you Henry, really."

[no_ufo_ending]

A wobbly little smile makes itself at home on Henry's face. Her compliment touches him in a way he hasn't been touched before. Couldn't have been before everything happened. The otherworld. The ritual. The apartment. They were connected in a way Henry hadn't felt with another person now that he'd had time to stand outside it and look in.

His bond with Heather was unshakable. She was his sister. They had both fought God and won. But this still hit different. For the first time in ten years he could talk about his horror with a person who had been there.

Then, in an award winning show of Being Good and Normal at Words, Henry says, "I like being nice."

going to wrap this up/handwave from here ♥

[placates]

It was always strange to reflect upon the horrors she had gone through and to compare them to the way the rest of her life had been. Unbeknownst to her, many years ago as a child she had indirectly planted to seed to her own torture through being kind to Walter when she saw him in the streets. It was a terrible sight to see someone like him looking so sad, and she had shown him that same kindness as an adult later on [to his child, ghost self]. While she didn't want to say she regretted being kind, she certainly hadn't been expecting for it to be repaid so brutally.

Thankfully though there was Henry who had also known such a thing and had gone though the horrors. She didn't want anyone else to have suffered like she had, much less Henry who had gone through it first but much like himself, they both had gone through it. They could understand each other in a unique way.

So with a soft smile and a bit of a laughter to his words, Eileen held her hand out towards him and nodded. "You are, and I'm grateful you enjoy it. Let's go Henry, I want you to tell me all about this world and what you've been up to the last decade."