The smell of my favorite spring blossom fragrance made me snap out of my daydream. I shook my head, pretending it would help getting rid of these thoughts I've been having. Instead, I was reminded of my encounter with the hand luggage compartment. Ouch. 

 

"Do you mind me sitting here?" a charming voice asked happily.

 

"Of course not," two voices responded at the same time, one of them being mine.

 

Seemingly, she didn't hear me, and followed the other voice instead. The pizza guy removed the cardboard covered in cheese and pieces of garlic, freeing the seat for her.

 

"Hey, Norah!" I exclaimed. "How's it going?"

 

She turned around, kneeling on the seat where greasy cardboard used to be only seconds ago, crossing her legs behind her back. Her artsy gel nails held her own headrest and her face was now really close to mine. In moments like these, I wished the seats offered less legroom than they already did.

 

"Ace! I never thought I'd catch the bus in time! Luckily, the driver made an exception."

Her cheeky wink emanated both self-awareness and confidence at the same time, sending a pleasant electric sensation through my entire body.

"Yeah, right!" I replied. "True heroes are wherever you expect them the least."

 

It felt kinda awkward. The seat holding my backpack was actually meant for her, but asking her to change seats now would make the awkwardness even worse. I was sure that she felt the same way and just didn't expect me here, with my head lowered to ease the pain.

 

Norah chuckled in her cute way, immediately finding a way to direct me away from my misery. Her face approached mine, and I could feel her lips' warmth as she whispered in my ears "Know what? That means I can take my new Litwick to the hot-spot without missing classes!"

 

We winked at each other, speaking in unison, pointing our index fingers at each other in excitement; a move we repeated anytime we were on the same bus. "Hot-spot, here we co-ome!" 

 

"No way! Don't tell me you caught it while you came running here!" I said, quieting down again somewhat. Litwick was a rare catch, so it was better not to have anyone eavesdrop on us. "Doesn't it only appear on really hot days?"

 

"Okay, okay, I won't say it, but that doesn't make it any less true. Besides, it is rather hot today, don't you find?" she responded with an innocent face.

 

While considering whether or not to accuse her for the increased temperature, I dried my sweaty forehead with my sleeve. A few awkward seconds had already passed, as she already shifted and started to turn back around. I had to do *something*.

 

"Battle!" I said, perhaps a bit louder than necessary. "Let's fight!"

 

Norah didn't seem to be too happy about the idea, but she retained her smile.

 

"You know, we're surrounded by a lot of trainers right now, who'd only jump at the idea of a Pierce. I'm sure you understand why I'd rather avoid that right now."

 

I did understand. The Pierce (PRS: [Anti-]Pokémon-Replication-System) was like a server-initiated battle over a certain Pokémon, meant to prevent exploits like duplicating rares or legendaries. The server only allowed one trainer to keep a certain individual, even if multiple persons managed to successfully catch it, accounting for slower mobiles or cheaper internet connections. The PRS analyzed the battles, checking for suspicious behavior, patterns, bots, and so on.

 

This system was meant to deter cheaters, and those trying to inflate the online market with cheap, rare Pokémon. After leaving the area in a certain radius that depended on rarity, the true owner was decided, encouraging people to defend their catch against potential thieves by laying low.

 

However, it was a double-edged sword. If any ill-minded trainer got wind of a certain individual being caught recently, they could try and catch the same one, before the true owner could flee the area, triggering a Pierce in the process. Naturally, the programmers denied this possibility, claiming it would take way too long to deduce the ID.

 

Still, it changed the way the game was played. Every legitimate trainer feared a forced Pierce match, so they had to keep their team at full strength while they escaped the area, just in case.

 

"Fair enough, well, I guess you could always watch me brawling it out with randoms, then?" I asked. "A lot of trainers entered the bus when we stopped at your station, after all, so there’s gotta be some easy fights to laugh over!"

 

Norah approved. I deeply cherished that smile.

 

Both of us activated AR mode, searching for a viable opponent for me. Norah looked even more amazing in that mode, with her trainer self being projected on top of her. She wore a lilac cap, spelling POKÉ<3 in wide, white letters, and the rest of her trainer outfit was displayed in a fitting color scheme. 

 

The only garment she left unaltered was her Vulpix-handbag, no filters, nothing. Something was off though. I looked at her through the display, then at the real her, then back to the display.

"I never realized you actually adapted your hairstyle to match your character's," I noted.

"Let's just say I had to try out a few colors and styles, before I found the right one."

 

She blew a single lilac strand out of her face, talking progressively faster without catching air: "You know, I've tried everything by now. Adding features is okay, longer hair, more muscle mass, changing shirt color, no problem, but, do you realize how weird it looks, whenever you ask the system to remove parts of yourself, or, like, make them smaller? It's so frustrating! Their weird algorithm should just use the collective data from all their AR users to draw a proper background instead of a weird glorified copy paste of pixels with similar colors."

 

At last, she took a breather. I only heard half the words of what she was saying. She was probably talking about modifying her pants, to wear shorts as a trainer or something - but as a brief glance confirmed, her actual pants came quite close to those of her AR image, color aside.

As far as I was concerned, if anything, I rather experimented with adding certain features to my appearance in AR. However, the system would only allow so much, and I didn't want to pay real cash to merely change my virtual appearance to a female one. I nodded and smiled awkwardly, putting my thumb up, estimating how long it'd take to save up for such a gorgeous, Norah-like body.

 

The bus left the station, as Norah's phone started to vibrate rhythmically.

 

"Oh no!" Norah called out, her body tensing up in shock, her voice gradually fading to a rasp. "They… they are piercing me!"

 

At this very moment, two exclamation marks had appeared above the respective heads of the combatants, one of them above a passenger in the back.

The second mark aimed directly onto Norah's head.

While the bus seats turned into comic-style mountains, the aisle was transformed into a rich green grass-arena, bounded by massive granite boulders, surrounded by spectators, with the contestants superimposed on either end of the AR arena.