Pokémon Training & Daily Attempts (Last refresh: 2/24/16)

[Oath]

Lynne Lockley

[spoiler=click for music]
http://youtube.com/v/plCw_qsJ9Eo&autoplay=1
[/spoiler]

Lynne looked at the Piplup and sighed. It spread its arms out and leapt into the air, but it didn't look nearly excited enough. "No. No. No! Pippy! That isn't how you're supposed to look. You leapt into the air and it looked like you had no ENERGY. How am I supposed to get a good shot if you look like you're depressed and not even happy to be here?! You need to adjust your wings. You have them too far down. Maybe bring them up about oh let's say.. 75 degrees or so, and open your mouth while you're jumping! You'll look so much happier and it will result in an amazing shot."

The Piplup tried to follow Lynne's instructions, but failed. Instead of adjusting its wings to be in an upright and excited looking position, they just got lopsided, and its mouth looked more surprised and confused than excited. She shook her head again dropping the camera, to have it hang around her neck as she called the Piplup over. She crouched down and pat it on the head. "Alright Pippy, let me show you what your wings should look like." She adjusted its wings until they made a V shape, she nodded with approval at it's current form. "Okay Pippy, now you make your wings go like that as you leap into the air!"

It once again tried to do as Lynne had asked, but this time when it leapt into the air it was so concentrated on keeping its wings in the proper position that it didn't open its mouth, and then landed awkwardly on one leg and tumbled over. She could hardly believe that her Piplup was that uncoordinated. She wasn't asking him to do anything fantastic, just a simple jump. She sighed again. "Alright Pippy, you can take a break. Ruby! Show him how it's done"

The Growlithe panted and nodded with approval, before running a short distance away from Lynne and planting its feet. She readied her camera, as Ruby came charging back towards her. Ruby stopped on a dime, planting her feet and leaping into the air. She spread her legs while leaping much higher than you would expect, tongue hanging out and eyes lit with joy. click. Lynne took a picture, and Ruby made a graceful landing, with a sort of smirk on her face, shooting a sideways glance at Pippy, as if to brag.

Lynne rubbed the Growlithe's head, and scratched behind her ears. "Wow, great job Ruby! See, Pippy, you can do it too, if you try!" The Piplup looked at her, with annoyance written all over its face. That Growlithe had probably been doing parlor tricks for years, but Piplup was at heart a beast of nature. Jumps and modeling were not its forte. However, not to be outdone, it tried again.

The Piplup waddled fiercely across the grass, building speed before leaping into the air. Pippy spread his wings, opened his mouth and let out a whoop of joy as he soared through the air. Lynne got  a great shot of him, at the peak of his jump. Then he came crashing back down to earth, forgetting to land properly. He tumbled and rolled across the grass, ending up in a heap. Lynne rushed over to check on him. "Pippy?! Are you okay?! He raised a single wing, as if giving a thumbs up, and then rose a few moments later. The Piplup looked elated, and leapt into the air again, wings raised even higher before sticking the landing.

Lynne was beaming. "Wow! Great job Pippy! I knew you could do it!" This time, Pippy shot a look over to Ruby, as if his jump had one-upped hers. Ruby barked, and took off running a decent distance away from Lynne. She barked several times, and begun a rapid approach, sprinting at top speed, right towards Lynne. Lynne was crouched down, Camera at the ready, and when Ruby got to her, she leapt off the ground, tongue out, and begun to do a backflip, right over Lynne's head. Clickclickclickclickclickclick. Lynne was taking photos rapid fire, as the Growlithe rotated over her head. It was a clean flip, and Ruby landed on the other side, looking at Pippy, she barked a few times as if issuing a challenge.

Not being one to back down from a challenge, Pippy distanced himself from Lynne, and let out a whoop. It began to waddle towards Lynne as fast as possible, looking as if he was about to trip and eat dirt at any moment. As he approached Lynne, he rose his wings into the air, whooping frantically as he planted his feet. He got into the air, but his jump was poor. He started to rotate, but didn't have enough height or distance. His eyes filled with fear as he sailed over Lynne, knowing that he wouldn't be able to land on his feet. Lynne dove back and caught him before he could hit the ground, sliding with him in her arms.

"Pippy, don't let Ruby get to you! She was just trying to show off! You already did a great job today. Let's take it easy and relax now. And Ruby, you shouldn't try to bait Pippy like that. You know your jumping skills are completely different!" The Piplup looked up at her, clearly excited and pleased with itself, while Ruby looked at the ground a little downtrodden, but understanding why she was scolded. "Alright you two, I got some great shots of the both of you today! Now let's give Teddy a turn!"

The Teddiursa looked up from his snack with a look of confusion. click. "No, no Teddy, don't worry you don't need to do any acrobatics! Just be as cute as you can be, and we'll go from that angle. Ruby and Pippy are much more athletic than you are, so we've got to play up a different side of you. That's what modeling is all about! For a Photographer, our job is to do our best to bring out what makes our subject unique. We do our best to make them stand out. You just need to be yourself! You're plenty cute as it is!"

Teddy went into all sorts of various poses, most of them revolved around eating. He loved his snacks, and Lynne loved to spoil them. However, the pictures started to look a little too similar for Lynne's taste. "Alright Teddy, can we give this a try? Lay flat on your back, and then sit up. Don't worry about how fast or slow you go, I'll try my best to take the picture at the right time!" Teddiursa sat up, eying the honey that Lynne had set near her to help create the ideal pose. He sat up slowly, but had a great facial expression. clickclickclickclick "Yes Teddy! That's it! Perfect! Such a great expression! The emotion in your face! The pose! The posture! you're a natural at this cute thing!" Teddiursa had a smile on his face, as he stood and began to pad his way over to Lynne and the honey. She took more pictures as he moved towards her, his eyes glowing as they stared intently at the honey. He arrived, sitting back down and sticking his paw right into it. clickclick "Teddy! You're so adorable! You'll win the hearts of millions, I just know it!

Lynne sat with the three Pokemon surrounding her. It had been a long day of training for all of them. The Pokemon learned some new modeling moves, and Lynne grew as a Photographer. She was thankful for her Pokemon, and glad that they were willing to put up with so much trouble for her. "Thanks you guys! You really helped me improve at my photography! You all make for such interesting subjects and push to be the best you can be for me, so it's only fair that I do the same for you! She continued to feed her Pokemon snacks, and cuddle with them while soaking in the sun and enjoying their break.

[info] Lynne uses Group Training to train Ruby, Pippy and Teddy for 30 minutes each.

Teddy uses his Pick-up skill. This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d20 : 5, total 5[/info]

[littlestcrouton]

Elizabeth tries to breed Thea and Adan!

[Throndir]

[blockquote]Elizabeth's Pokemon Edu for Breeder 4d6+2 : 6, 5, 3, 1 + 2, total 17[/blockquote]

[Throndir]

[blockquote]Species roll 1d20 : 11, total 11[/blockquote]

[Throndir]

[info]Eevee Egg added to Elizabeth's sheet.

Training for Lynne resolved (or about to). Lynne receives an X-Speed.

Sheets updated.[/info]

[FoxyPox]

[info]Foxy trains Glitch for one hour.[/info]

Come on, Glitch. Time to play.

Starting up the Pokedex, Glitch uploads himself promptly. Rose watches curiously. My experiment begins with Porygon entering one of the many training simulations I thought up. I figured that if Glitch could interact with Cyberspace, he could train in it too. Perhaps skills he learned would carry over to the real world. I could teach him martial arts, or cooking, or bellydancing. All in a few keystrokes. But for now, we'll start small. I told him to stay put for a bit, and hopefully he listened.

Tracing through the save data puts his location somewhere in the nether regions of my random-access memory. Perhaps if one quit without saving, the Porygon would be hopelessly lost, deleted, corrupted, or worse. The missing numbers might never be found. The very thought makes me shiver and double check my batteries. Most likely, he'd have the time and presence of mind to eject before deletion. Computer cycles are fast, to traverse them, a Porygon should be faster. It's only logical.

"Glitch, can you hear me?"

A few lines of hex rained down. It unscrambled to read:
{PRESENT DAY. PRESENT TIME. HAHAHAHAHA}
Yes. So he as access to the microphone system, or at least notices the input. Maybe he's like a Rotom in some respects, except with code instead of machines.

"Can you open the program I installed yesterday?"

A cascade of blips and bloops. Either he was searching for the program, or...

"No, Glitch. Not the meowth videos. I'm looking for the one with your name on it."

Another series of loading noises. I got the feeling he was messing with me.

"...Fine. Go ahead, load that one up."

The screen faded to black. That one catchy jingle began to play. Then the title screen.

This game was meant to practice reflexes. Maybe Glitch could get something from it.
[Obfusticating Platformer of Impossible Quicktime Death 2.0.0.01]
[New]
[Load]
[gLITcH]
[Options]
[Ragequit]

There he was, smack in the middle.

"Try loading a game."

The game menu glitched right into the game, full of stereoscopic hazards that Glitch seemed to navigate with ease. He weaved through walls like it was nothing, but then again, he was probably just glitching through them. However, one of us had full blown administrator access, and therein lay the challenge. A quick glance at his state variables revealed simply that the game did not recognize him. In short he did not exist. A few tweaks rendered him vulnerable enough to actually collide into walls, hazards, etc, and the training commenced.

Glitch's sprite collided with the next wall head on, as expected. Unexpectedly, his pixels bent in shapes unnamed, twisted across dimensions beyond comprehension, and reassembled, only for him to continue towards the goal, laughing through a familiar series of blips. Thank Arceus I typed fast - even his 'teleportation' could be accounted for as I coded in additional walls, ever-shifting according to Glitch's obscure transformation metrics. He couldn't play by the rules in the real world. He had to learn that, and the best way to do so was to handicap him in the virtual world.

More tricks up his sleeve. Faked error screens. Popup ads plumbed from the depths of my browser cache. Ominous static and configuration scrambling. He was fast, but I was faster. A couple of times he tried to write himself into the victory screen. By then I was on full automatic, a ravenous diviner of the will of a hundred thousand firewalls, begging to be written, growing exponentially. Glitch had begun to break a sweat.

"Stop cheating, Glitch. I'll let you binge watch that show you like, if you can win fair and square."

Glitch looked up, hopped twice, and stopped spamming for a few cycles. His eyes lit up with excitement, almost lust. He zoomed ahead at a pace I could agree with. Fantastic.

An hour later, we set down the Pokedex. My eyeballs were falling out of my head, and Glitch had reached a score I would never touch.

"Good boy, Glitch... you can come out now... rest..."

The Pokedex skipped a beat. Glitch decided to binge watch first. Might as well let him... he's earned it. I flop on the ground, already asleep.

[Throndir]

[info]RP Entries added for latest RP posts above. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Hpmi1US5lYZfPBjUb08E7HXQ3Y-WkkagmTsDk4Wrq34/edit?usp=sharing

Foxy's training resolved shortly.

Ending Training Round tomorrow at 8 PM PST, mention that you're training before then.[/info]

[FoxyPox]

Rose pawed at my leg, again. Her growing impatience and boredom poured out like a melting glacier. Hour by hour her impermeable, infallible composure decomposed ever more viciously. At first content with her usual tactic of merely squirming around and tickling me with her tail, Rose currently engaged herself in an improvised reenactment of the classic "Step All Over the Essay You're Writing So You Can't Write It" dance, made famous by Rose herself just last week. Not that she was slowing me down by much, mind you; writer's block and procrastination were continuing their traditional, eternal double team beatdown on my resolve. Deadlines were dawning, and I was hopelessly behind. Rose threw me a look that just begged for attention. Traitor, I taught you that move... and taught you well, too...

"Not now, Rose. I'm studying."

Rose must have interpreted that to mean:

"Oh, keep it up, Rose! You're doing great!"

Purring in response, she maliciously shredded yet another hapless and perpetually unfinished worksheet. I sighed and petted her head.

"Rose, why don't you go play with Glitch or something? Sorry, but I'm really busy today."

She rolled over, exasperated. Though the boundless font of joy and energy called Glitch was always ready for any kind of game anywhere, Rose had already spent the better part of five minutes playing hide and seek with him. And if you didn't know, playing hide and seek with a porygon was no fun if he had the gall to hide in a television set and forced you to flip through channel after tortuous channel of daytime television game shows and soaps looking for him. This was especially true if you had no opposable thumbs to speak of and had to work the remote with your stubby little paws, pushing all sorts of tiny nonsensical multicolored buttons to no avail. No, sir. Rose was done.

She stretched her muscles, aching for entertainment. Funny, she always wants to play and has plenty of energy, yet absolutely loathes going outside. Something or other about dirt, I think. Dirt and weather, those were Rose's two ultimate vices. If the sun peeks out at all, she complains about the heat. If it even smells like rain, it would take at least three people to drag her outside, and a fourth to patch up the carpet she'd inevitably claw out in a frantic bid to stay indoors. Strange, though, she liked thunderstorms. And taking little midnight walks. Maybe if she couldn't see the dirt, it was better.

Snow was another matter entirely. It was absolutely gorgeous, and you could see the little sparkle in her eyes as she pressed herself to the window. Nobody can resist the allure of freshly fallen snow. No one. Well, except maybe a Charmander. The only problem, however, was endurance. Rose and I never played much in the snow, at least not for very long. It was far too much of a hassle. An hour of preparation and bundling up, not to mention another hour afterwards solely for wet, shivering recuperation, and laundry, all for what, ten, maybe twenty minutes of fun before her snout gets frostbite and she drags me back inside? Nahhhhhh.

Actually, to be honest, I guess those little forays were worth it in the end. She really enjoyed those little bursts of play. Since we moved to this region, there hasn't been nearly as much snow...

Before I knew it, I'd spent the better part of an hour rummaging through the photo album on my Pokedex. Her first snowfall. First bath. Third time she missed the litterbox. Second time I regretted letting her sit on my head- wait, those last two are the same picture.

I flopped onto the mattress, caving at last. Rose leapt on top of me, curious.

"You win, Rose. What do you want to play today?"

I swear she died and was reborn the minute I popped the question. Skipping around, mewing like a newborn. Rose was herself again.

"Wanna play... squats!?"

I leapt off the bed, doing squats like a madman. She did a couple herself then rolled over. I guess Eevee's just aren't built for squats.

"Or.... jumping jacks?"

Again, I went off on another volley of reps. She hopped up and down for a good minute, then flopped down, bored.

"How about that exercise video again?"

She rolled her eyes, bit my leg and batted it away. Even Rose knew I watched those for a different reason.
"What do you wanna do, play outside? We can't run around much in my room, not enough space. You remember last time."
I didn't need to point out the hole in the wall. Rose and I mutually agreed to keep quiet about it, at least until I could afford the repairs. Plus, it was a perfect spot to hang a "Silence of the Mareep" movie poster.

Rose stretched and headed over to the door. She plopped onto an end table, then latched onto the doorknob.


"I guess I could go for a walk around campus. Here, let me help."

She was barrelling down the hall the second I opened the door. I ended up chasing after her.

An hour later, we arrived back at our room. We had survived fourteen near-accidents, five misunderstandings, two bullies, a spill of an unknown substance, nine wrong turns, a teacher, and two cheese wheels. I collapsed onto the bed, and Rose followed. We had spent a whole hour running around the halls like dorks. We also found an empty gym and practiced some fighting moves. Good thing I brought up some inconspicuous posters~ those were useful in covering up scratch marks. Of course, some people might get a liiitle suspicious of "Groudon Day" and "Dances With Houndoom." Meh. Not entirely sure if our escapade counted as horseplay or not, but I figured either way I'd be getting a notice from the disciplinary committee some time soon.

"Whew... let's do that again...after I... rest~"

We slept through the day. Tests could wait.

[Mysticsage]

[info]Grey trains Hiro, Koraru, and Nora for 1.5 hrs using group train.[/info]

[Fellow Rabbit]

[info]Vinny trains Klaus for 1.5 hours.
Sigon trains Parfait for 1.5 hours.
Thane trains Troy for 1.5 hours.[/info]

[Throndir]

[okay]Refreshed!

Letina
Cyndaquil Egg age: 4
Houndour egg age: 3

Elizabeth
Eevee egg age: 1
[/okay]

[Throndir]

[info]Fayleen trains Sparkles and Truffles.
Nena trains Kippy, Beary, and Leafy.
Kedric trains Digger, Crawler, and Berry.

Digger's Pick Up
[blockquote]Rolled 1d20 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Beary's Pick Up
[blockquote]Rolled 1d20 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]
[/info]

[Fellow Rabbit]

[info]Vinny trains Kimmel for 1.5 hours.
Sigon trains Parfait for 1.5 hours.
Thane trains Troy for 1.5 hours.[/info]

[FoxyPox]

[info]Foxy trains Rose for one hour.[/info]

[Linwelin]

[info]Corey trains Chomps for an hour.
Dan trains Rue and Crusty for a half hour each.

RP Posts later. Will resolve training exp for myself.[/info]