"..."
At that moment, the world suddenly fell silent. Wisps of breeze swept across the ground, rustling the red-and-white jackets on the grandfather and grandson.
Having switched into his Pokémon World-exclusive skin, Garp had temporarily taken off the Justice skin he wore so proudly.
Likewise, Luffy had also temporarily replaced the inherited Straw Hat that had launched his dream with a baseball cap identical to Red's.
Although the beginner outfit in the game was the same basic style for everyone, players were free to customize the color scheme themselves.
Clearly, these two men, both utterly lacking in artistic sense, had simply gone with the default original skin.
And it was precisely because they were wearing those identical default skins that this grandfather-grandson pair felt even more emotional, their bodies stiffening in place.
From time to time, other similarly dressed Trainers passed by them, all casting curious looks in their direction.
Anyone who did not know better might have thought the virtual game's programming was incomplete and that two unlucky guys had stumbled into some kind of bug.
After a long while, it was still the thick-skinned old man, Garp, who spoke first. He clicked his tongue lightly and said:
"I really didn't expect you to be this free right now, Luffy!?"
"Don't you know the World Government hates you people so much they've practically gone mad? And you still have time to play some virtual game?"
"Hehe, Grandpa, aren't you slacking off too?" Luffy grinned when he heard Garp's teasing tone.
"Nonsense!" Garp swung the jacket behind him without the slightest change in expression. "This isn't slacking off!"
"The Straw Hat Pirates are the World Government's greatest enemy, and who knows what weird thing you've cooked up this time. As a Marine, of course it's necessary for me to personally investigate it!"
"Tch~" Luffy curled his lip in disdain, but a crafty glint suddenly flashed through his eyes.
A red-and-white Poké Ball abruptly appeared in his hand. He raised the corner of his mouth mischievously and said to Garp:
"By the way, Grandpa, you should've received your own Pokémon too, right?"
Garp froze for a moment, then belatedly summoned his own Poké Ball as well.
"Pokémon? You mean that little guy inside this thing, right?"
"That's right." Luffy nodded, then chuckled. "So, Grandpa, how about a Pokémon battle with me!?"
As he spoke, Luffy directly selected Garp with his thoughts and immediately sent a PK invitation.
These kinds of operations had already been thoroughly demonstrated by media workers during earlier testing sessions.
Although Luffy did not exactly have the habit of reading newspapers, Usopp and the others had nagged him enough that he at least had a rough understanding of how to battle other people with Pokémon.
After all, Red had sent him out to battle for several years. Now that it was finally his turn to hold his head high, how could he not study it seriously?
Compared to him, Garp clearly had done no prior research at all.
The moment he saw the battle invitation sent by Luffy, his expression visibly froze.
That alone was enough to prove that everything he had just said about investigating things for the Marines was completely made up to fool his grandson.
But who was Garp?
Faced with Luffy's challenge, he hesitated for only a second before directly accepting.
In the next instant, a circular barrier suddenly appeared around the two of them, isolating them from the outside world.
At the same time, with absolutely no regard for public convenience, it blocked off more than half the path out of the starter village, forcing the Trainers behind them to take a detour.
But such trivial matters no longer had anything to do with Luffy and Garp inside the battle field.
Because both of them only had one Pokémon at the moment, the battle settings were naturally 1v1.
Having long since seen the imposing way Red released Pokémon many times before, Luffy immediately shouted:
"It's you I choose, Riolu!!!"
"Awoo~"
Along with a low canine-like cry, a slightly cute little bipedal pup appeared in front of Luffy, barking challengingly.
Garp immediately copied him and threw out the Poké Ball in his hand as well.
"Come out, Machop!!!"
The two Pokémon instantly appeared on the battlefield.
Luffy, already used to striking first, did not give Garp even the slightest chance to get familiar with Pokémon battles before directly issuing an order:
"Riolu, use Quick Attack!"
Even if he had never eaten pork, he had at least seen pigs run.
After being a Pokémon for so many years and fighting so many Pokémon himself, Luffy was already thoroughly familiar with this whole Pokémon system.
"Raaah~!"
Upon receiving the command, Riolu let out a low cry, its body instantly turning into a streak of motion as it darted toward Garp's Machop with astonishing speed.
"Machop, dodge to the left!!!"
Seeing Luffy attack first, Garp did not hesitate and immediately issued his own command.
Yet the moment the words left his mouth, his brows suddenly knitted tightly.
A Quick Attack used by a level 5 Riolu naturally could not escape Garp's senses.
But Machop, which had only just become his Pokémon, although filled with boundless trust in him, either had slightly inferior battle instincts or Riolu's attack was simply too fast.
Machop had only just started to turn its body when the blue figure smashed directly into its back, sending its unsteady body flying and forcing out a pained cry.
"Mach~!"
"Machop!" Garp called out in concern almost instinctively.
But at that moment, Luffy spoke again from the other side:
"Riolu, use Quick Attack again!"
It could not be helped. Although Luffy knew quite a few clever Pokémon move combos, level 5 Riolu only had three moves:
Quick Attack, Feint, and Endure.
It could be said that Quick Attack, with its 40 base power, was already Riolu's strongest move at the moment.
And so, relying on the extremely high mobility brought by Quick Attack, Luffy and Riolu gave Garp and Machop no chance to retaliate at all.
After several consecutive Quick Attacks, Machop's HP bar was completely emptied, and it lost the ability to battle, automatically returning to Garp's Poké Ball.
In less than three minutes, a battle between grandfather and grandson that should have gone down in history ended just like that in a hasty anticlimax.
After his defeat, even though he had not made any wager with Luffy, Garp's face still clearly showed his displeasure.
Looking at Riolu running to Luffy's side after the victory, asking for praise, he immediately said sourly:
"Hmph! Since when is a starter Pokémon that strong!?"
"I bet you people used your status as the game's creators to secretly give yourselves extra advantages, didn't you!?"
"What are you talking about, Grandpa?" Luffy looked up at him in confusion, then spoke in that dopey tone of his while delivering a devastating blow straight to the heart:
"You're not a sore loser, are you?"
"W-What nonsense are you spouting!?"
"How can Pokémon battles count as losing!?"
"If you've got guts, come to Marine Headquarters and fight me one-on-one there!!!"
"Hey, Vice Admiral Garp, you're not seriously hoping we'll take a day trip to Marine Headquarters, are you?"
Just as Garp and Luffy were bickering, Nami, who had just come out of the starter village, recognized at a glance that the one blocking the entrance and causing trouble for everyone else was her own captain.
And from the exchange between Luffy and the man opposite him, she immediately realized that the person before her was the Marine Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp, famed as the Hero of the Marines.
"Hm!? Storm Witch Nami?"
The moment he saw Nami, Garp's eyes narrowed sharply, radiating a dangerous aura.
But very quickly, he remembered that this great pirate, who was enough to turn the underworld upside down, was actually his unfilial grandson's companion.
Ignoring the teasing implication in Nami's words, Garp cast a glance directly at Luffy instead.
"Looks like your partner is here."
"But remember this, Luffy! This time, I'll barely count it as your win!"
"When I get back, I'm putting Machop through emergency special training!"
"The next time we meet, you won't be this lucky again."
"Hehe, who's afraid of who!?"
Having beaten Garp once, Luffy had completely experienced the fun of the virtual game Pokémon World, and his big face could no longer hold back that radiant grin.
Seeing this, Garp snorted and strode away.
He had already made up his mind...
Once Machop recovered a little, he would take it and start practicing the Six Powers and all of his own martial arts techniques.
He refused to believe it!
With over seventy years of combat experience, could he really fail to train a single Pokémon!?
On the other side, Nami also walked over to Luffy, then immediately brought a thunderous fist down on his head.
In the settings of the virtual world, although a Trainer's real-world strength would not disappear completely, the influence of that factor would be reduced to the bare minimum.
At most, it would only result in phenomena like super Pallet Town rookies.
But everyone had started from Pallet Town, so having a few super rookies around was only natural.
As for the powers of Devil Fruit users in the real world, they would get to experience what it felt like to lose their Fruit abilities and become ordinary people again.
So Nami's punch landed squarely on Luffy's head.
"Ow!"
Luffy cried out in pain.
Nami, however, immediately glared at her captain and snapped:
"So you do know how to feel pain!?"
"Did you forget what Red said, that we shouldn't draw too much attention to ourselves in the early stages!?"
"Our starter Pokémon were all assigned directly by him. If people find out we can cheat through the backend, it'll directly affect our crew's reputation!"
"I know I was wrong~"
A wronged-looking Luffy squatted on the ground and tried to defend himself.
"But don't worry. My grandpa is really dumb, so there's no way he'll notice anything strange!"
"You really are filial, aren't you?" Nami complained speechlessly, then let out a sigh of relief. "Luckily, your starter Pokémon is Riolu. If you go purely by base stats, it's actually not even as good as Garp's Machop."
"So it won't be that easy for people to notice anything unusual."
As she spoke, Nami could not help glancing toward the Poké Ball at her waist.
And inside it was a Pokémon that absolutely could not be seen anywhere in the game world...
A level 5 Electric/Flying-type Pokémon: Zapdos!
If the Trainers still fighting for their lives against Rattata found out...
They were still working like beasts of burden, while some people were born in Rome.
Who knew what kind of uproar that would cause.
Still, compared to that, in the setting of Pokémon World, once players became strong enough in the late game, they would all be able to enter the exclusive dungeons of Zapdos and the other Legendary Birds by paying a certain price and attempt to capture them.
So by the middle and late stages of the game, no one would notice anything wrong with Nami's starter Pokémon.
By comparison, Luffy's Riolu was actually the much bigger problem.
After all, Red had said that rare Pokémon like Riolu and Ralts would never appear among starter Pokémon unless the Trainer possessed some sort of special ability in addition to their Devil Fruit power...
Otherwise, there was simply no way anyone could obtain them as starters.
After lecturing Luffy for a while, Nami waved him off with practiced ease, telling him to remember his public image and go play somewhere else.
It was rare enough for her to get to enjoy being a Trainer, and she had no intention of wasting that precious time on her idiotic captain!
She was going to properly enjoy this rare opportunity!
In the blink of an eye, both Nami and Luffy disappeared from the exit of the starter village.
Not long after the two of them left, two more figures emerged one after another from behind the fence wall of Pallet Town.
"Those two just now... that was Garp and Luffy, right?"
"I really didn't expect to see the two of them here!"
"What's so impossible about that~? To put it in trendier terms, Pokémon World is where all the traffic in the world is gathering right now!"
"No one could possibly resist being curious about what this place actually is!"
"Haha~ true enough!"
"At this rate, we might really run into quite a few familiar faces here!"
A hint of wine-red hair peeked out from beneath a baseball cap, swaying gently in the breeze.
The man speaking with him immediately smacked him on the back.
"Alright already, Shanks, quit sighing over it here!"
"Didn't those media guys already say it? In the game world, one step slow means every step slow!"
"This isn't the sea! If you want to make something of yourself in this world too, you'll have to put in some real effort!"
"Alright, Beckman."
Shanks smiled helplessly. "No matter what, let's first gather our people according to our earlier plan."
"In a place this unfamiliar, having more people around really does make you feel safer."
"Got it~"
Beckman answered lazily, but his eyes were already sweeping rapidly through the crowd.
Before entering the game, they had already planned to dye their beginner outfits into a unified color scheme.
So even with so many people coming and going, they would still be able to spot their own companions at a glance.
Likewise, there were quite a few organizations that had come up with the same idea as the Red Hair Pirates.
At this moment, whether they were pirates, Marines, or Revolutionaries, whether they were from the underworld or the World Government...
All of them were continuously pouring forces into Pokémon World.
Some came for the rewards of the Indigo Plateau Conference, while others came to probe the Straw Hat Pirates and learn the truth about Pokémon.
And some simply found the idea of a virtual game wondrous and came in as genuine players, just to enjoy the game.
And so, with everyone harboring different thoughts, Pokémon World completed its perfect opening debut in a style entirely its own!
And it was easy to foresee that...
In the near future, even more players would flood into this miraculous game, gaining a full understanding of and recognition for Pokémon.
And once that happened, Red and Vegapunk would have the chance to launch the follow-up plans born from their explosive imaginations!
(End of Chapter)