"Victini, you mentioned someone named Twitch before we came through the portal," Twilight said. "And you just mentioned it again. Mind telling us who you're referring to?"
"An excellent choice to hear about! Twitch is.. well... huh. In order for you to understand it, first I'd have to explain to you a lot of things like computers, streaming, and Porygon. How best to go about that?"
Ponyta coughed, getting Victini's attention. "A better question is, why is a Psychic type asking that question?"
Victini paused, and then connected face with palm. "Right. Silly me. Prepare your brains, guys." Victini began to distribute information about computers, the internet, and how Porygon are connected to Cyberspace which, according to Twitch, required the capitalization. Twilight was practically hyperventilating with excitement by the end.
"How do they work? What spells do they use? What kind of power source-"
"With a combination of coding, electricity, and satellites, none because our world doesn't have magic, and electricity." Victini interrupted. "But that's not important. What's important is how they're used. You see, computers can be used to communicate with people anywhere else on the planet, play games with them, and any number of things. Twitch likes to stream - that's live-stream, meaning it shows a recording as it happens. Think like if you sent a picture to Princess Celestia, but it doesn't stay still and instead shows what's going on through the camera's lens - playing games. That would be rather boring and admittedly pretty much the same as most streamers with one major difference. You see, it has been modified so that what it sees can be displayed on LiveGameStreamer.com, the website we use to stream. While streaming, the video is usually accompanied by Chat, which is where those watching can chat about what's going on. Sometimes, the streamer reads them, sometimes they don't. Rarely do they actively influence the game, but Twitch takes that to a whole new level. You see, another mod that Twitch has is one that sends Chat straight to it as well. It also has mods that allow it to change how much Chat influences its behavior, form not at all to complete control. This 'Twitch Plays Game' or 'Chat Plays Game' or 'Chat Plays Twitch' thing has led its channel to become fairly popular, especially within the dedicated members of Chat. In fact, that's how I met Twitch in the first place."
You see, I had a stream of my own at the time. Still do, in fact. My username is StarOfVictory. My gimmick, aside from always winning, was that I set various win conditions every time, like 'I will only capture your pieces with a Knight'. I could be beaten, sure, but not at what I set out to do. In that way, I was sometimes called a cheater when playing online with someone who didn't know who I was. A really good example of just how far someone can go against me with my win conditions is when I say that 'I won't lose a single round' while playing a fighting game.
"Oh my. Is that really safe?"
Fluttershy, calm down. It's just characters on a screen, no one is actually getting hurt. Anyways, this one guy - who I later found out was the World Champion - he didn't win a single round, as that would involve me losing. But he managed to get me down to the tiniest sliver of health every single round and, one time, managed to make it a tie.
"Health? You mean like hit points in Role Playing Games?"
Wait, You have those here?
"Yeah, Ogres and Oubliettes."
Sounds like Grottoes and Goodra. Remind me to play that with you when we have free time, Twilight. I want to know the differences and similarities.
"Don't worry Twilight, I already put it on the list. Any other good examples?"
Yeah. The game was Chess, and the condition was win. I was having fun on this online chess website under the name 'Deepest Blue', as a reference to one of the greatest chess playing programs ever coded. Someone in my chat dared me to search for a certain username, 'Twitch'. I think you can guess who that was. I challenged 'Twitch', who accepted. We played, and it kept making silly moves and I kept outmanuvering it, but once in a while it would surprise me - and almost scare me - with a really smart move from out of the blue, and put me in check. I won the first round easy, but this "Twitch" was beginning to seem like a threat: I couldn't predict it, and it seemed to hide skill behind supposedly bad moves. I got suspicious pretty quickly, but dismissed it as a new player.
The second round, it got smart. It was as if it had changed gears entirely. It was at this point I thought to look up Twitch on the streaming site, and that was a good idea. I found out his secret; this round, only two people were really giving moves, and both were really good moves. Sometimes someone else said a move, but not very often. I won, naturally, but it was a much closer match.
Before the third game, I made Chat stop with one sentence. I said, word-for-word, 'I will take every last one of your pieces. Then, and only then, will I allow you to be mated'. Chat, once they recovered from the shock that Victini just posted in chat, went crazy at the fact that the opponent who they were fighting was Victini. Twitch didn't seem all that fazed, and it later told me that it had checked my web history and used that to figure out who I was. All it said was 'Bring it on, one-on-one'.
That third round was just me and Twitch, no chat influence. They were watching, sure, and sometimes Twitch humored them by taking a suggestion or two, but they weren't in direct control. Heck, the earlier matches it just chose one of the moves, but it could have ignored them. Let me tell you something, that Porygon-Z is insanely good at chess, possibly because, while we played, it was downloading the code for Deep Blue, Deeper Blue, Deep Fritz, and Hydreigon, some of the best Chess-playing computers ever made, running them through itself, its computer, and my computer. Using them, it was able to analyze every single possible game from each point, saw each program make the choice of what move, and then selected a move from either those choices or its own. I won with it only having its king left, as I claimed, but I only had my king and a rook left.
After that point, the respect was large and mutual. We became friends fast, and proceeded to play games and do other challenges together, with varying degrees of chat influence and success. Our streams became friendly rivals, with viewers of both watching the other.
"Somewhere along the line, I Favored Twitch. After that point, games that Twitch Plays tended to get played a lot better, or at least a lot funnier." Victini giggled.
"I don't mean to intrude, but what do you mean by Favored? Is that a Pokemon thing we haven't been told about?" Rarity looked to Sableye, who shrugged.
"First I've heard of it." Ponyta raised an eyebrow at Victini. "Care to share the knowledge?"
"You I can understand." Victini pointed at Rarity. "You and your partner, however, need to know this. You two have no excuse, especially seeing as you're heavily favored by Reshiram and Zekrom."
Keldeo stood. "That would explain being able to use their special attacks. I didn't think about that. That would explain most of it."
"That's how I figured it out in the first place. I'm surprised you didn't. Hey, aren't you supposed to be the Pokemon with all the facts in this group?"
"Hey! It's not like I've Favored anyone myself. How would I know what-"
"Ahem?" Twilight raised an eyebrow, and was as confused and unamused by the argument as everyone else. Well, except for Pinkie. She appeared to be extremely interested in the debate.
Victini grinned sheepishly. "Right. Explanations. Legendary Pokemon have the ability to Favor others, often when the Favored has skills, goals, or abilities that have similarities to that of the Legend or, in some cases, just highly amuse them. Twitch falls under both categories."
"When one is Favored, they gain skills, traits, or powers relating to the one who Favored them." Keldeo pointed a hoof at Blitzle and Ponyta. "Examples include the Trailblazers here, they can use the signature moves of Zekrom and Reshiram. There's also this Smeargle, the Painter Pokemon, Favored by Arceus himself, and it has the power to-"
"No no no, Keldeo!" Victini interrupted. "That one isn't Favored, that one was created by Arceus himself! Of course he has abilities other Smeargle don't have!" Victini put a hand to its chin in thought. "There's that many-time memory champ, they say that he's Favored by Uxie... Eh, probably just a joke though."
"Who would you favor, Keldy?" Pinkie asked before blinking. "Keldy... I like it!"
"Uh...not sure. Probably someone who could best or otherwise match me in honorable bladed combat." He turned to Twilight. "And if I see him again, maybe your brother. Hey Victini, how do you Favor someone?"
"I... Hehehe... I don't remember."
"What of Twitch?" asked Rarity.
"It and Chat became a lot more coherent when playing games together... or doing anything together, for that matter. Chalk it up to the Streamer and Twitch getting better programming, or to chat getting better at doing things together, or to Twitch being Favored, or any of those causing each other - whatever it is, everyone benefits."
"So... what is Twitch doing right now?" asked Blitzle.
"Good question. Their time is pretty much stopped in comparison to us, though, so even if we saw it they wouldn't continue until Dialga resumes time. I think Arceus, Mew, and Celebi are capable of moving through normal time, and maybe any that Dialga or Celebi Favored if it was due to something involving time, but that's it."
Victini huffed. "You take the fun out of things, Keldeo. Not all the time, but this time, at least." Pinkie proceeded to collapse in a fit of laughter with Victini joining in immediately after, leaving all the others to wonder what had happened.
Cyberspace is a weird place. Few can truly understand how it all fits together. Fewer can travel through it to get to a specific location. Luckily for Twitch, it was one of those lucky few who could. Geez Twitch, when you warned me that Cyberspace is bad on the eyes, I didn't think you meant it like this. Twitch chose not to respond, instead continuing along a path it knew like it knew the exact coding of the Streaming Modification, which is to say perfectly. Several minutes passed, and Twitch saw the chat discuss what could have happened to their friend,
Could Victini be sick?
Doubtful. Victini doesn't really get sick, and could have easily recovered by now.
Even if it was sick, Victini could at least post something or let us know.
Yeah. It hasn't even made a post on anything lately.
I can't think of anything that could have happened that would have prevented Victini from doing something.
Twitch, what's your ETA?
"Declaration: Arriving at Liberty Island now." Twitch exited the computer and changed back from code into a physical body. Looking around, it didn't see anything. Looking around, Anthony's voice said what everyone was thinking. What the- Where's Victini? Looking back at the computer, Twitch sent a foot into the computer once more. "Strange... the computer has been idle for several weeks now. Victini hasn't just done nothing online, judging by the dust it has done nothing offline either." A website pulled up on the stream, merely at a corner of Twitch's vision. "According to the height, Victini hasn't done anything at all for several weeks. This corresponds perfectly with the computer's information." Having determined that an issue was, in fact, real, Twitch looked around to see if Victini had redecorated. Several posters for new games were hanging, the large pile of video games and board games had grown even larger, and a skateboard was sitting on the bed. Examining it, Twitch got an idea. "Query: Hey dudes, wanna go skateboards?" Laughs filled chat as Twitch turned around to see if there was a clue as to Victini's location. Something it missed, something it didn't consider. It knew there had to be something, and expected that something would just make sense if it looked at it correctly.
Absolutely no one expected a note to be taped to the computer screen.
"I- What- How the- ERROR! ERROR! DOES NOT COMPUTE!" Twitch was completely flabbergasted, and if chat was any indication, so was everyone else.
How the heck did that get there?
Someone explain this! Did we all just straight-up miss that being there?
Twitch, are you sure you aren't stuck in some kind of 'escape the room' game?
Looking carefully at the note, Twitch read it aloud. "So, you have come looking for Victini. I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised that you would. Victini is out on a dangerous mission at this time. if you so wish, you can attempt to assist it. Be warned. You would be going up against a foe who may be capable of controlling you completely. Due to your nature, however, you may hold a large advantage in a fight against it. Do you wish to proceed?" Lower on the paper, there were two choices with the words 'Circle One'. Well... that's not something you see every day. What are your thoughts, Twitch? "I'm not sure. Chat seems to think we should, but perhaps that is only the vocal portion. All right, let's put it to vote. Find Victini or not? Check chat for a link to the vote." Several minutes pass before Twitch checks the results. "Not a single one of you voted not to. I'm glad that we're on the same page." Twitch turned to the paper, grabbing one of Victini's pencils and circled 'YES'. The paper dissapeared, and a portal appeared in front of the computer. Twitch flew around it, and checked with chat. "Any change in stream quality?"
Nothing.
I'm not having any issues.
Signal isn't losing strength on my end, buddy. You're good to go. With the final confirmation, Twitch entered the portal.