Sojaveña Wilds Brisa's Cabin

[Jackie Cat]

"I get it," said Laura, softly. "You need to imagine it as a possible thing, first. Until now it was just a fact of existence, huh?"

She smiled. Howls, she was proud of the chimera.

 

[Ambyssin]

"You're not the only one," Nova said. "I never thought mine'd come off." He looked over his shoulder. "Then I made some friends. It's... funny how that works.

"Things feel different. The air. The light." He tilted his head up and slowly shut his eyes. His crest fanned out like a plant bending in the direction of the sun.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Some bird impulse in Gladion’s head wanted to make a physical gesture of caring, go fix those feathers or something. Of course, he clamped down on that. It would be weird. To do that. Especially in front of other people.

“It always felt impossible ‘til right before it happened. We all needed help with ours. I should thank you, for helping give me the push I needed, even if it was kind of happenstance. So, uh, you need a hand getting the feathers sorted or something, I know that can be a pain to do on your own…”

 

[Chibi Pika]

Sage nodded along with Nova's words. "The air, the light, they feel good." The chimera closed their eyes for a moment, experimentally letting their crest fan out the same way before glancing down at their crumpled neck feathers. "Probably, I will need help..."

But then their eyes lit up, as if they'd just remembered or realized something, tail swaying back and forth. "But first, snacks, is what I was thinking."

 

[Ambyssin]

Nova was going to respond to Sage's request when he saw their eyes light up. And what came out next was... not what Nova expected at all. He gave a hearty laugh at that, his turquoise feathers jubilantly flashing.

"Of course." He bumped Sage's shoulder. "We can do snacks. I bet they'll taste much better now that that musty helmet's gone."

He strode toward the cabin door and held it open, beckoning his friends inside if they so chose.

<><><>​

 

[Ambyssin]

Nova wished he could've found the return to the Soja's wide open spaces refreshing after all the big buildings and crowded city streets. But the Comb had... certainly made things uncomfortable. And now there was apparently some sort of election thingamajig that the Wayfarers were involving themselves in to various degrees.

Of course Nova knew what elections were. But it wasn't like he'd ever witnessed them. Or any politicking, for that matter.

Not to mention that the cat they'd rescued just so happened to be the person whose cabin he and Sage had been squatting in. Nova wasn't sure if they'd both have to leave.

All he could bring himself to do was put his Water Memory in, head outside, and try to tend to the plants and shrubs scattered around the cabin. Sloshing water around his legs and sprinkling it around him.

 

[Weazel]

Admittedly, Archie was rather fond of Novelux. The hustle and bustle of the city on the edge of the frontier reminded him of nothing so much as Castelia City, the shining metropolis of Unova with the great desert beyond. But cities were expensive, and all the best work for bounty hunters was here, in the Sojaveña. And so, back to the frontier the Dewott had come, putting his hunt for Cipher agents on hold temporarily to rebuild his funds.

Once such job, upon its completion, left Archie actually rather close to the isolated cabin Nova had been squatting in. He hadn’t actually had much of a chance to speak to the Graydian during the whole Whisperwind misadventure. They hadn’t been paired together, and had ended up finding their target quite quickly after the regroup… Actually, Archie wasn’t quite certain why it was so important they find that Luxio to begin with? He’d been pursuing his own investigations back to back for so long that he felt rather out of the loop of what exactly it was they were trying to do, these days. Maybe Nova would know better?

And thus, a detour was born. Archie found Nova, once he’d approached the cabin, tending the garden again. He hesitated briefly, not quite sure how to break the ice, before deciding on something lighthearted.

“So, you and Mhynt a couple now?” he asked, jokingly, in lieu of a greeting, “I hear that’s a common result of making it through the comb.”

 

[Ambyssin]

Nova wasn't expecting company. Much less someone opening with a question like that. His crest fanned out in alarm and, with a startled squawk, he fell over. Nova barely managed to twist himself around to avoid crushing some of the shrubs on the side of the path to the cabin.

"That's just an urban legend!" he said, eyes wide. He tried to untangle his heap and get back to his feet. "Brisa didn't send you here to get us to leave, did she?"

 

[Weazel]

Archie snorted, then brought a paw to his muzzle to stifle the laugh threatening to escape him. Urban legend or not, Nova’s reaction suggested to the Dewott he might at least be in the right ballpark. Still, he at least hat the grace not to push the Graydian on the subject of his taste in Grass Types, instead focusing on his question.

“No, would you believe she and I have actually never spoken?” the Dewott said, “I’m actually not quite sure why it was so imperative we find her to begin with. All I know was that it was important to Koa, so…”

The Dewott made a vague half shrugging gesture. He left out the part about hoping Nova might be able to enlighten him. Certainly it was better she wasn’t having to hide out from the Covenant anymore, at the very least.

 

[Ambyssin]

Nova managed to get back to his feet and started to rub his forelegs together to get the dirt out of his chitin. "Oh, so to your new BFF."

He shook himself out. "Admittedly, I think I'm still foggy on some of the details. But apparently, when we all arrived here, Jade ended up in Novelux. With Brisa." Nova drew a couple of rectangles, then a small cactus several centimeters away. "They tried to escape on a train." He drew tracks between his other drawings. "But got ambushed by a greninja. Brisa detached her train car or whatever, so Jade continued on to Frontier Town." He circled the cactus.

"Brisa ended up laying low in Novelux." He doodled a terrible by the rectangles. "But that greninja," he added a tongue doodle, "was still poking around looking for her. So she ended up in the dungeon we went through. Meanwhile that greninja was part of the group going after some magical dungeon de-distorting invention that rotom inventor guy, uh, invented.

"The squad that went with the inventor fended off the greninja. And we got Brisa." Nova drew a big arrow from the cat face to Frontier Town. "That greninja... sounds like he's with the part of the Covenant that's bad news."

He took one look at his slapdash mess of a drawing and offered a sad smile. "Aaaaaand that's all I've got." Nova balanced on his hind legs to wiggle his talons. "Ta-daaaaaaaaah~"

 

[Weazel]

The Dewott snickered again, “Sorry, I’d’ve asked you but Koa asked me first, plus it seemed like Mhynt had you on lockdown. Don’t worry, though, you’re still important to me.”

He followed along with Nova’s explanation without further comment. Some of it he’d gathered already, having been present for the conversation at the Duel Dome, though the part about Jade on a train was new to him. They had really been split up that far from one another to start? Overall though, it seemed like Nova was as much in the dark about the whole thing as he was.

“Why Brisa specifically, though?” he asked, more rhetorically than anything, “It can’t just be the human thing.”

Archie sighed, shaking his head. That was probably a question only the Luxio herself could answer, and at this point they had bigger fish to fry, between Alexander, the Covenant, and Cipher.

“Well, anyway, it’s probably for the best you weren’t my partner, the dungeon apparently picked a hell of a thing to show Koa,” Archie said.

 

[Ambyssin]

"I think it's more to do with her father being Jesse and—" Nova started, only to cut himself off when Archie said that bit.

"Ah." He looked down at the dirt. This dungeon "showed" deeply personal secrets, right? Well, given what he'd recalled from past conversations, one thing immediately sprang to mind. "Something to do with your old world, I take it?"

 

[Weazel]

Jesse? Arceus above, who was Jesse!? Another person he was going to have to keep track of!? Between the half dozen or so remaining Cipher agents, Alexander, and who knew how many Covenant agents – not to mention that Sceptile and his team that try to make off with the Relic – Archie felt like he was about out of brainpower. Best not worry about that now, he’d just stress himself needlessly.

“Yeah, more or less,” Archie affirmed, with a nod, “Necrozma, at the end of my world.”

 

[Ambyssin]

"Necrozma." Nova clicked his tongue. "So that's... the species of those light dragons, then?" His cheek bolts slowly turned. He recalled the term Laura had used back in the Comb. Silvally. Silv-ahl-lie...

"I guess I can see... why people wouldn't like it. It even sounds evil." He grimaced.

 

[Weazel]

Necrozma, a species? To be honest, Archie didn’t want to consider it. Though it was likely illogical, Archie had derived some comfort from considering the monster a singular entity. If there were more of them, that meant more universes dying, didn’t it?

“I wonder about the name, myself,” Archie said. If he focused on it clinically, maybe he could get through the conversation without working himself up again. “Dead plasma. I guess it isn’t unlike a black hole?”

The way it had glittered, in the end; a dead star come back to life. He saw that visage in his nightmares, in all its terrible glory. Was that Necrozma’s true face, he wondered? Did it eat light in the hopes of restoring its own? The Dewott turned, and looked skyward, contemplating.

“In Unova,” he begin, after a minute of silent, “We have – had – a legend, about a pair of brothers and a dragon. With the power of the dragon, the brothers united the region into a glorious kingdom. But then they began to fight.”

He stuck his paws in his pockets, and looked back at Nova, before continuing, “The dragon couldn’t choose which brother to side with, so it split itself in two, and each half followed one. But some people say, it wasn’t so clean a split. That the now two dragons left the shattered remains of their old body behind, which came to life as third dragon.”

“Do you suppose that dragon ever wished it was whole, again?” he asked.

 

[Ambyssin]

Nova tilted his head, thinking over Archie's tale. And the question that followed. "So the dragon... split its spirit in half, and the empty body then took on a life of its own, too?" His brow furrowed. And then he gave an answer that, perhaps, might've surprised Archie.

"I... don't think so. At least, not from what I know."

After a beat, he added, "But I... think you're comparing apples and oranges here." His claws dug a bit into the dirt, expecting Archie not to like that last bit.

 

[Weazel]

Archie shrugged. It did sound pretty silly when it was reduced to just the basics like that. But then, his world had also largely subscribed to a sincerely held belief that the universe was created by one being that spun off three aspects of itself into their own separate beings, one of which hated the other two. Apparently legendary beings were just splitting and budding all the time.

“No, huh? Well, maybe you’re right, it probably never knew what came before,” the Dewott shrugged. And, Nova was probably right, as well, that there was no comparison between the legendary dragon and Necrozma. It was probably foolish to even begin to try and ascribe motive and reasoning to a universe destroying monster. To humanize it at all was a fool’s errand, for whatever reason it sought to destroy, the result of the path it cut across universes was clear.

“Yeah. There’s probably no point in trying to understand a monster like Necrozma. It’s not like that understanding will get you anywhere,” he said with another sigh.

 

[Ambyssin]

Nova's triangular ears folded slightly. "That's... not what I was going for."

How could he put it? "You're right about the dragons. Those split souls... might not remember their time being whole. Their split lives could be all they really know." Nova poked one of his backwards facing talons into the dirt. "How could they be sure they wouldn't 'die' by recombining? Who's to say one half wouldn't have control over the other? And the husk left behind... it'd be empty. It wouldn't have wants or desires or anything. Maybe it'd try to become whole based off some instinct, but it wouldn't know why."

His claw went a bit deeper. So his other talons were angled up. "Now imagine... if your body and spirit were broken. If just trying to move around or use an attack was painful." Nova shook his head. "I knew a necrozma who was already broken. He wasn't some brilliant golden dragon. He was this... hunk of misshapen black crystals. He could it hide it okay, but he was always in pain. Craving light wherever he could find it. And it frustrated him.

"I was just... able to take advantage of that anger. Direct it at a common enemy."

 

[Weazel]

“You… Knew a Necrozma?” Archie asked. For a moment, all he could do was silently gape at the Graydian. Then he laughed. What else could he do? More than just knew, Nova had directed one, pointed it at his foes. Universe destroying monster, wielded as a weapon. And to tell him this now, after so long? Of course, Archie had no right to know anything Nova didn’t want to share, and there were certainly many reasons Nova might not want the Dewott to know this little tidbit about his past. Archie had no right to feel betrayed.

But he felt it all the same.

“Hunk of black crystals, always craving light? I wonder if we knew the same one,” the Dewott said ruefully. “It’s too bad we didn’t have you in my world, huh? Maybe you could’ve pointed him somewhere else. Some other enemy you could’ve had him destroy instead of us. Or maybe told him to jump into that big black hole at the center of every galaxy, and put him out of everyone’s misery.”

Archie shook his head. No, he wasn’t going to feel sympathy for that monster, if indeed that was what Nova was trying to make him feel. Oh, it hurt to use attacks? That didn’t stop the one Archie knew from laying waste to whole entire cities, or vaporize people where they stood. It hurt to move? Didn’t seem to be an impediment when it came from jumping from star to star, universe to universe, leaving a path of death and destruction in its wake. It was frustrating, was it?

“I’m sorry, I’m sure it must be so very difficult,” Archie said, his voice betraying the complete lack of sympathy he actually felt. “Having to feed on stars must get so very tiring, especially when all the little people keep trying to stop you.”

 

[Ambyssin]

Nova's cheek bolts turned. He slowly pivoted toward the shrubs. Small amounts of water gathered around his forelegs as he held a Multi-Attack.

"Let me ask you something, then." Nova held a foreleg over the shrubs. Water dribbled down onto the shrubs. "If you had power — devastating power — that you couldn't control... what do you think would happen to you?"