[Parameters met…]

[Mission created…]

[Mission: Establish a connection within the linked reality and propagate your VR.]

“Huh, that’s it?” James asked dumbly, before sharing the mission details with his assistant. 

“Sir,” came Queen’s voice from the VR, he had set it so that only she could contact him  from within. “I can feel the connection from here. How would you prefer for me to do so?”

James smiled with satisfaction, this was why he’d created her in the first place, “Just create a website…wait, do they even have internet?” 

“Yes sir,” came the reply. “From what it looks like this world has a few figures you know about. Most notably, the likes of a Tony Stark and one Bruce Banner. In fact, based off what I’ve gathered, this would appear to be the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”

“Well the initiation packet did state that this connection would be one that was widely spread before my death,” he mused, not overly surprised. “No matter, design a new website and have it linked to some of the more popular gaming distributors. I’ll let you handle it all, I know you have good taste.”

“Your too kind, Master James,” Queen japed, “I’ll get right on it.”

[Mission complete.]

[Processing reward…]

[Reward: Reality Sync.]

“That was fast,” James said to himself, a little shocked at his assistant’s efficiency. 

He looked up the reward and instantly applied it to the Pokémon world. It was so useful that he wondered why he hadn’t gotten it before this quest. 

What the Reality Sync did was use the system’s knowledge of various universes to synchronize any worlds he made with their actual real counterparts. This meant that whatever mistakes James made in his design over the laws governing the Pokémon world, were fixed to match what they should be. 

“This is essentially an anti-glitch button,” he murmured to himself as he entered the VR to inspect any changes. 

The moment he did so, Queen appeared at his side with a confused expression as she asked, “Sir, what did you do? At the exact same time, every single AI in the Pokémon world flinched before relaxing. I asked Arceus and he said that the world just felt ‘right’ all of a sudden. Mewtwo, Cynthia, Giratina, and Lance all said the same as well.”

James just chuckled and sent over a memory of the last few minutes while inspecting the world for any new problems. 

Somehow the animated style he’d set on the world hadn’t changed with the Sync, which was what he’d been most worried about. He really tried to make it look good in ‘live action’, but it never had. Pokémon are just not meant for that kind of treatment and he was honestly now kind of terrified of visiting that world in real life. 

Luckily in VR, you can live as an animated character with no issue. James was actually pretty excited to see the reactions of the first few visitors in his world. 

•••••••••••

New York City - December 25th, 2010

•••••••••••

Peter Parker plopped down at his PC desk and booted up the most popular online game store in the world, Coal. 

They had just finished exchanging presents and after his Uncle Ben had given Peter his, he ran to his room as fast as possible. His Aunt had just laughed in understanding, it wasn’t every year they could afford to get him a gift card for Coal after all. 

Peter was initially excited, but that quickly died down after seeing all the games available on the store. Eight out of ten were based on some battle in World War II, half of those were also based on Captain America, and the last ones were what his friend Ned called pay-to-win’s. 

He was only ten years old! His Aunt would kill him if she found him fighting Nazis and his Uncle would do the same if he found a new bill in the mail with his name on it. 

He was about to close the tab and head back for breakfast, when he saw an ad on the side of the screen with a cool looking yellow mouse. Curious, he clicked it and was rerouted to a new website. 

“Astral-Sensing Transcendental Immersive Reality,” he read aloud with some difficulty. Peter knew he was a smart kid, but if even he struggled to understand the title, then his friend Ned would have no chance. Thankfully, the website address was simple enough to remember as {ASTIR.portal}. 

Beneath the giant logo had some more text that Peter chose to ignore in favor of watching the video playing right below it. It showed a boy around his age, traveling through the woods with that same yellow mouse he just saw on Coal. 

“Wow…” he remarked in awe. The mouse had shot electricity at a small bird and then the boy threw a red ball at it, which made the bird disappear. But that wasn’t the end, next the boy threw the ball again and started using the bird to fight against a monkey!

“This is so awesome!” Peter cheered. “How do I get to play?”

Luckily, the site had a way to link with his Coal account and he would even get to use his gift card to pay for it! In no time at all he was all set up and clicked on the big [Pokémon] logo. 

•••••••••••

“Oh?”

“You felt that too?”

“Yes, it would seem we have our first guest sir.”

“So soon?“

“Yes sir, but it’s not surprising. It’s actually around Christmas in that world.”

“That would explain it.”

“Indeed sir.”

“Do you want to go over and watch?”

“I am not, as you would say, a ‘peeper’ sir, so I will refrain from doing so. You are however, free to indulge in your hobby of watching children as you wish.”

*Scoff* “Coming from the child that tried to solicit me not a few hours ago. Tsk tsk, not even a day old and already hitting the streets, where did I go wrong.”

“Obviously, in many ways, Master James.”