Frontier Town The Wanderin' Zera

[Butterfree]

Dave smirked at Odette's incredibly straightforward approach. Better yet, it actually worked. Sure, just get Moltres some enrichment where she can go to town wailing on a world-ending scumbag; why not?

"Sure. You'd be the only Saint in your location. Maybe some Wayfarers'd accompany you. Head in there and beat the shit out of whatever cronies or tentacles he's got in there, purge the corruption, show him what for."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade couldn’t say she’d been expecting the direction Odette decided to go for, but there was no denying its effectiveness.

“Riiight, yeah! You could totally just let loose against him!”

Except… wasn’t the Hydreigon supposed to be some master of Shadows? The rest of them had Powehi’s blessing, but… Jade still had her doubts regarding Moltres’s grasp on her own Shadows.

 

[Sinderella]

Odette cast a subtle look over to Dave and Jade, quietly clicking her tongue, as if to say, “Piece of cake.” Because it was. Moltres, while astronomically less homicidal and a little less liberal with F-bombs, she really didn’t seem much different from Odile. Wrath gods were built similarly across all worlds, apparently.

She appreciated the other two pivoting into Moltres’s newfound excitement about the escapade, and couldn’t help but grin.

“I’d be happy to tag along on your side of things. Try to help make sure there’s always something for you to hit,” she suggested. “Besides, two angry flamethrowers are better than one. More carnage, you know?”

And, perhaps, try to make sure her Shadows didn’t get too far out of control again. A battle for the fate of the world was the last place anybody needed to have a Shadowy meltdown.

 

[Inkedust]

Moltres leaned her head back slight and clicked her beak a couple times. "If you're that eager to go, fine," Moltres said. "I could carry you if I wanted.

"Buuuuuuuuuut," Moltres added, dragging out the word for emphasis, "you're still taking about me going to a random dungeon and where's the catharsis in that? I want to fight the bastard himself. Directly. Face to face."

While it was great that the trio had managed to bring Moltres on board, it would be apparent from the outset that her suggestion might cause some problems down the line given Alexander's command over Shadows and Moltres' own partially-Shadowed status.

"So point me right at him and we can leave as soon as possible," she finished, shaking her wings out, getting ready to take off.

 

[Butterfree]

That was quick. From one banal position to the next. Maybe what Moltres needed wasn't so much to be reasoned with like a normal person. "Well," Dave said, "aren't you always talking about teaching mortals to take charge of their own shit and act? We're planning to act, heading right in there, taking him down ourselves, with some necessary assistance because of the can't be in two places at once thing. But if you just waltz in there and beat the main event for us, you're kind of undermining your own principles, aren't you."

This was either exactly the right approach to Moltres or exactly the wrong one.

 

[Sinderella]

Odette nodded along with Dave, pursing her lips in agreement even as she sipped her tea again.

“Also, if you think about it, you are technically fighting him directly. When I last fought him, he was able to shove his Shadows in any which direction, however he saw fit. We were never really that far from him. You'll get a chance to fight him...and any other Shadow lacky he decides to yank out of the void."

 

[Inkedust]

"I'd be doing it for me, not for you," Moltres huffed at Dave's comment. She rolled her eyes. Obviously there was a big difference between the two according to the Saint's logic. "And fighting him 'by proxy' is still not fighting him directly so, if I'm stuck with just the dungeon, all three of you are coming with me, I'll make you miss out too."

While Moltres thought this to be an ultimatum, to the Wayfarers this was nothing short of ideal. In her odd, roundabout way, the Saint had agreed to give them her aid.

"So?" she asked, beating her wings a couple times. "What will it be?"

 

[Butterfree]

Dave rolled his eyes a little. Well, they could use more people in each dungeon anyway. Why not? Probably better to do this with Jade and Odette than go fight the nightmare Malamar at Terminal One.

"Sure, fine. We'll all cover a dungeon, and then hopefully converge on Alexander from there."

 

[Sinderella]

Moltres really was just like Odile. Sighing, Odette rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, fine. That works for me. Whatever coverage we can get going into it is helpful. But," she raised a finger, "if we end up close to Alexander, and that causes a surge in those Shadows of yours and you start going nuts on us, you either have to fall back, or we have permission to lay you out. I'm totally for you curing your boredom, but the world kinda sorta still needs to be around for you to do that, so we'd like to try to keep this attack as clean as possible. Is that fair?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Well, in a roundabout sort of way, they’d done it, and to be honest, Jade didn’t mind tackling a dungeon rather than heading back to Malantau. It was still important either way.

Except she got the sinking feeling from Moltres’s posture that the firebird meant now, and had just enough foresight to tie her bike to the Zera’s front porch before giving her answer:

“Alright. We’ll go with you, then.”

 

[Inkedust]

"Hmph. Fine. Have it your way then," Moltres grumbled, sounding disappointed. "And my Shadows are fine, thank you very much."

With no chance of exchanging another word, Moltres took off in a flash of black and magenta rising high into the sky. With a tuck of her wings, she shifted into a dive, in less than a second, the Saint had descended upon the trio of Wayfarers. Before the three knew it, they were soaring, the ground rapidly departing from beneath them.

Dave and Jade would find themselves caught in each of Moltres' talons; she had a tight grip on their midsections, leaving their limbs to dangle in the air. Odette, however, was not so lucky and she would find herself – specifically her nape – clamped within Moltres' beak.

Begrudgingly, Moltres would leave it to the Wayfarers to direct her to where she needed to for the duration of their flight. Hopefully they would be able to find an infected dungeon sooner rather than later.

<><><>​

 

[Butterfree]

Drinks at the Zera were a familiar routine by now. Dave ordered one of Gerome's more moderate options and drummed his paw on the counter while he prepared it, looking around the saloon.

That was when his eyes fell on a gray-and-brown Luxio, sitting by herself with a half-full glass, ears twitching restlessly. Something stung oddly in his chest, some strange echo of Jean looking like that, curled up on the sofa, tails lashing. Christ. It wasn't like they even looked alike, in any rational way. It was just...

Gerome plopped his drink down on the counter. He gave a nod of thanks, picked up the glass and padded over to her.

"You, uh, you okay?" he asked, letting his glass hover over the space next to the empty chair opposite her but not quite putting it down yet, in case she just told him to fuck off.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Brisa's hackles rose immediately, something sharp and hot forming in her mouth. Then she recognised Dave, and eased up.

"Jus' fine," she replied, glancing away – checking on other patrons – before indicating with a nod that Dave could take a seat.

She sipped her whiskey while she composed something more substantive to say. Apparently she was usually a laconic drinker.

"Strange times," she said, eventually. "Sure ain't where I expected to be this time a year ago. Guessin' that's true of yerself too... But I'm gettin' by, an' it ain't like I got nothin' t'be grateful for."

The Luxio grinned in a way that didn't quite reach the eyes – but Dave would catch on that he was welcome to stick around.

 

[Butterfree]

Dave put his drink on the table and sat down, watching her. Something was naggingly familiar in some maddening way he couldn't put his finger on. He took a large gulp of his drink to wash the feeling away.

"I'm guessing you're anxious to get your partner back, huh?" He shook his head. Starr. Human. The one who'd gotten Betel to bring them here. Somehow also naggingly familiar. "I heard some shit about what you told the team who found you in the Comb, but, uh, there were some gaps. Did you have any idea where exactly you were being held? Or do you think she got taken somewhere else entirely?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Uhuh." The Luxio sighed into her drink. There was a lot of feeling in that sigh – longing, regret, fear, guilt...

"Pretty sure they got a slew a' different places to drop folks in. I was in some holdin' cell in Magna City fer a spell, but fer all I know, Starr could'a been there near enough the whole time I was, or never there at all. Pretty sure I got an inklin' where she ended up, at least."

(Why was that?)

"Reckon they keep their own folks in the dark, so as they can't spill their guts 'bout anythin' they don't know. Scared the livin' shit outta one or two of their goons hopin' to learn somethin', and I hardly got a thing from 'em. Stands to reason they divvy up their gaols too."

 

[Butterfree]

Dave sighed. "Yeah. The fucking Covenant, huh."

He sipped his drink. No matter Articuno's noble intentions, the organization as it stood was shady as fuck. "So you think you know where Starr is right now? Based on her managing to speak to Betelgeuse, then?" Multiple jails... "You went out there looking for your dad, right? Jesse Stranger? You find him?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Brisa nodded, then pulled an ambivalent face.

"While I was holed up in Whisperwind, I had all sorts a' weird fuckin'... Well, 'dreams' ain't the right word fer it. Insights, you could say. I got the outline of it, like a buried memory, just waitin' fer the right inspiration to push it to the fore of my mind. She's in some kinda dungeon – a Mystery Dungeon, I mean. At least, she sure is some of the time. Just gotta find somethin' that clues me into where the damn place is."

She gulped whiskey, her tail thrashing restlessly.

As for Jesse Stranger...

"We ran into my pa, sure. Had the chance to clear the air, y'might say. 'Course, his take on things was as I should'a stayed back in the Soja', lookin' after things an' makin' sure they didn't go to shit without 'im. And in hindsight, maybe he took offence to Starr's bein' summoned at all, seein' as he was makin' his own moves 'gainst the Lanterns and didn't need any help."

Brisa gave Dave a sardonic smirk. Her deadpan sarcasm was dry as dust.

"At least now I know fer sure the old fox is still alive."

She tipped her head to one side, skewing her mouth. "You went chasin' his trail in yer own way, too, right?"

 

[Butterfree]

Well. Dave could relate to not wanting his daughter to go running off into trouble fighting a bunch of ruthless fanatics. But, crucially, Brisa was at least an actual adult (if barely), and Jesse Stranger himself had chosen to fuck off and leave her to apparently handle an entire town's worth of prejudice and ignorance on her own. If she ended up coming after him after years of that bullshit, that was on him, the prick.

He rolled his eyes as he sipped his drink. "Yeah. We investigated the cabin after we'd taken down Ignatius. Found he was looking into the Covenant and had headed east and left you to rot. Don't feel like we've made all that much fucking progress finding him, but at least we did find you safe." He paused. "So Stranger's still out there right now, fighting them? He's fine, just didn't care to let anyone know? Jesus."

 

[Namohysip]

"...Mm. For what it's worth," called the gruff voice of Gerome as he marched to the table with what seemed to be two glasses on the house, "Jesse showed up here once, real long time ago. Don't know the details... doubt it'll be useful nowadays... but when he was on the run, I threw some folks after 'im off the trail. Not you, 'course."

Gerome nodded at Brisa.

"I don't know the whole deal behind the guy. But I know that this place was a rare safehaven. Pretty sure any info getting back would've made the folks he loved... a liability. More'n usual." He harrumphed. "Then again, maybe I'm just sympathizin'. He wasn't the only father in this bar who made some dumb mistakes in the past."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Brisa grunted in a non-committal fashion, sipping more of her drink.

"He got hi'sself caught up in an endless stalemate with the Lanterns, is what happened. Dunno whether he fucked up, or what, but I've had my moments of thinkin' that if he'd just brought me an' my ma along, we'd have put paid to the lot of them an' hardly need to catch our breath. But nah, he's Jesse Stranger, he can't go around dependin' on others to help him."

Brisa shot Dave a dry grin.

"It's hard to stay mad about it, considerin' my partner only showed up 'cause he weren't up to the task. Not that I'd know, but I can't wish fer things to have gone so different that Starr didn't end up here... She an' I were meant to finish the job. Only, that didn't go right either, obviously. And that, I can stay mad at."

The anger in her was held tight, well under control. Brisa was good at restraint. She'd been doing it her whole life.

"My pa is constitutionally incapable of trustin' anyone but himself to do a job right, and that's what fuckin' got the three of us captured, in the end. I expect he'll have had some kinda plan, some contingency fer if that happened, but for all I know, he's still in lockup somewhere dark. I hope he has some notion of how he ended up thre. I hope he's thinkin' real hard on it."

The malice in Brisa's voice was half-hearted – a coping method to avoid despairing, or dwelling too deep on Starr's predicament.