Canal Boneyard

[Jackie Cat]

Is there such a thing as a grave for an enterprise that never achieved completion? How strange, that civilisation would rather write elegies to unfinished edifices than mourn the living 'mon lost in their construction.

It wasn’t the heat, or the humidity, or the swarms of biting insects that drove the canal project to fail. Pokémon can endure such things as they labour to construct such ambitious projects as a mercantile waterway extending deep into the continent. It was the rushed schedule, poor management, and mishandling of blasting explosives that turned the San Porthos Canal from the Protectorate’s greatest feat of engineering to a mass grave.

All that’s left following the collapse is strewn rubble and never-ending rain. The rain presses on endlessly even in the dungeon’s lowest levels, where near-complete segments of the canal, even working locks, can sometimes be found. Gray, miserable clouds hang low overhead, casting gloom where the restless spirits of the buried laborers thrive. Ghost-types prowl the shadows, while Ground-types constantly churn the earth, perhaps on an endless mission to complete the project, or perhaps to return the excavation site to its natural state, or even driven by the dungeon’s unthinking will to unearth the countless ‘mon whose bodies were never recovered.

While the air is alive with the constant hum of mundane bugs and feral Bug-types large and small, echoes of the Boneyard’s past reverberate through the dungeon with distant clangs and low rumbles. Sometimes, you can even hear the roaring of water, as if the ocean is coming to wash you away... but it never comes.

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Many thanks to @Panoramic_Vacuum for her help with the writeup!

 

[Sinderella]

Guzma didn’t remember where exactly he was before everything went black. He was thinking about how to apologize to Odette for the roach. He didn’t expect it to fly at her, and he definitely didn’t expect her to get so pissed. But then again, that was pretty stupid on his part. The derivative of Wrath incarnate was bound to find some reason to lose her shit. His bad.

He had decided to tell her as much on his way to her place, saying a silent prayer that she didn’t jump on him (or that she did…beggars couldn’t be choosers). He didn’t get far enough before his existence was shrouded in a mix of light and shadow, and the thought of his dearly angry love of his life friend floated by his mind’s eye.

When he came to again, he knew he was still outside. Cicada cries didn’t lie. Not to mention, the humidity was doing its absolute damndest to get his sweat glands going, and he groaned.

“Guzma?”

His eyes snapped open. When the fuck did I—?

He didn’t remember getting to her. He also didn’t remember her being a fucking mawile.

Their eyes remained in a deadlock for a second that dragged against the muggy heat. Neither one of them could tell what the other was thinking, and it didn’t seem to matter. Guzma broke down into a fit of hysterical laughter before Odette could process his look.

“YOU! LOOK! SO! FUCKING! STUPID!” he squealed. “OH MY FUCKING GODS!”

Odette’s concerned regard shriveled up into a scorching leer. She watched him scream, his cackle grating on her patience like sandpaper.

“Speak for yourself, rat.”

The laughs ceased. Guzma’s body went rigid, eyes darting around in time with his racing heartbeat. He started to pat himself down. Fuzzy. Prickly. Then he noticed his hands. Badger claws.

Big. Meaty. Badger claws.

“Oh my gods—“ he inhaled, the horror digging deep gashes into his forehead.

Odette approached slowly, hands outstretched to draw in the calm. “Guzma, calm down—“

“What did we say, Odette?” he said in a shrill rasp.

“I know that—“

“I thought we were done with the world hopping shit.”

“Yes…” she said, averting her eyes in hesitation. “But—“

When she glanced back, he was up, skulking toward her with his head lowered in warning.

“What the fuck did you do?”

She inhaled a sharp breath. “I can explain.”

“I’m fucking waiting, then!” Guzma hissed.

Another breath. This one, she held longer. “I was…upset…”

Silence. She tapped her fingers on her garter belt. “Because…of the roach…” She watched his eyes widen, and her tapping sped up. “So I…answered this silly little call that…took me into one of those…Mystery Dungeon games…” She couldn’t bear to look him in the eye now.

“And push came to shove…I guess…brought you here…by accide—“

He was tackling her to the swampy ground before she finished explaining. He bared his badger teeth (holy fuck, his badger teeth) at her.

“YOU DRAGGED ME INTO FUR AFFINITY: THE GAME BECAUSE OF A FUCKING ROACH?!” he shrieked, his voice reaching a decibel he didn’t think his dropped balls would allow him to access.

That thought made him stiffen again, his frown pinching up. He didn’t protest as Odette kicked him off. She scrambled up to smash his head into the ground, but stopped mid lunge when she noticed his mouth hanging agape.

“Odette, I have a very serious question to ask you. How you answer is gonna determine how the next 5 minutes of your life are gonna go,” Guzma said slowly and carefully.

Odette wasn’t sure whether to frown in concern or glare at him. Instead, her brow was weighed down with dubiety. “…okay.”

“Where are my balls?” he asked with curt urgency.

She blinked at him. “Huh?”

“Where. The fuck. Are my balls?”

Odette was simultaneously caught off guard and entirely unsurprised that that was his concern at a time and place like this.

“I assume they’re, like…in?” she offered with a vague gesture toward his backside. He silently gaped at her in a way that left her wondering if he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, or on the verge of taking a shot at her. She wouldn’t know that it was most certainly the latter.

“You know…how they’re…drawn…” she trailed off into a cringe.

“How do you know how they’re drawn?” Gold eyes ignited with accusation, as if the answer to his question would help him determine if she were guilty of a heinous crime.

“W-we’re not talking about me right now,” she sputtered. “I know where my balls are!”

“Yeah, in?” he spat.

He moved to pace away, stopping mid step when he noticed the others they were surrounding. He sat down, raising his front paws to claw down the sides of his furry, prickly fucking face.

“This has to he early onset schizophrenia, or I’m gonna crash the fuck out.”

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Lillie groaned as she awoke. Her too-short arms shot to the space above her head, finding a fin that acted as the receptor for senses alien to her being. After a moment, she picked herself up off the ground, only to find her vision partially obscured by a mop of green hair. There were no properly-formed human hands at the end of her arms. The skirt didn't feel unusual to wear, but she came to understand that it would probably more correctly be called an annulus. This was because, against all reason, she appeared to be a Ralts. This didn't feel like a dream, but it did feel like the contents of a fairy-tale were playing out in her life.

It felt like a fantasy. The kind of fantasy where a voice reaches out, tells you that you have a heroic soul, gives you purpose.

The voice had shown her a face that she knew must have been her brother. She'd woken up with someone. A familiar-looking chimera. There was only one person who he could be.

"You're... Gladion? It's me, Lillian."

Gladion awoke feeling more drained than the battle had left him. But his initial thoughts were pushed aside by those five words.

"Wha—? Lillie? Why are you here? How are you here?"

Something must've gone deeply wrong for her to be summoned here. He shook his head. A prolonged conversation with Lillie here wasn't a good idea. This was a dungeon, after all.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be... Nevermind. You can explain later. This place isn't safe, we've gotta get the hell out of here."

Exhausted though he may have been, he raised his guard. Physically, because there could be ferals about. A fresh summon would still be weaker than him, so it would fall to him to make sure she was safe. Emotionally, because crash-landing in a dungeon with Lillie was not something he was prepared for right now. It had already been a long day.

Though she found that she wasn't well enough in-touch with her faesense to clearly perceive his emotions with it, Lillie could still pick up on the raising of his guard, and raised her own in turn.

"Lillian," she corrected. Truthfully, she still used 'Lillie' with everyone she knew. But he didn't know that, and it felt wrong for him to walk back into her life after four years and assume it would be fine to refer to her as if nothing had changed between them. To assume she hadn't changed at all, even when he had. She was supposed to be a hero now!

Gladion could tell something was wrong, and took his best guess at the reason:

"C'mon, Mother isn't here. Live a little."

Lillie bristled. He was wrong. That hadn't been the source of her problem.

"I— No, it's... just..."

But she didn't have much fight in her to push back with. Luckily, a distant sound would provide a much-needed distraction from the subject at hand. Someone was yelling, a bit to far away to make out most of the words clearly. Albeit, there was one word loud enough to provide an exception to the unintelligibility:

balls?

Lillie reacted before Gladion did. That, or Gladion simply didn't want to do anything that would attract the attention of the strange man. She, however, clearly had no such concerns and was perfectly content to call out:

"Hello? Is someone else there? Can anyone hear me?"

 

[Phoenixsong]

Blue didn't know where he was. "Forlas" was not an answer, no matter how unhelpfully the last flickers of that stupid dream tried to insist on it, because that wasn't a word. "Outside, in the rain, currently hiding under a pile of long-forgotten equipment" was an answer, but it was also a terrible answer, because he was outside in the rain under a heap of garbage that was doing jack and shit to keep said rain off of him. The only thing he did know was that whoever that golden voice had been, they had ten seconds to show up and explain themselves or there would be hell to pay.

Ten seconds passed, and even an extra ten seconds that he counted real slow and disappointed sister–like so it'd be crystal-friggin'-clear just how much trouble Golden Voice was in, and still no one submitted themselves to Blue's righteous indignation. Looked like he was gonna have to find the bastard the old-fashioned way. Which, deeply unfortunately, meant exposing himself to the full force of the weather, as opposed to the fifty percent he was currently enduring under the dubious protection of the old tool pile.

God, had water always been this wet? It was weighing down his fur (which was a thing that he had now, by the way) and ice cold against every inch of his skin and just everywhere, all the time, forever. How the hell did Arcanine deal with this? (Or with his own wet-dog smell? Ugh, and he had a dog nose now, too, it was so strong, he was never gonna be able to escape it, was he.)

And then suddenly, blessedly, Blue was no longer totally alone. Unfamiliar voices in the distance were getting a head start on the shouting. More of the Golden Dipshit's dissatisfied customers? At least they might have half an idea what was going on. Maybe? Now that he was straining his dog ears to listen, none of the words he caught meant anything to him. Didn't sound thrilled, whatever it was about.

...Wait. Was it some weird coincidence of whatever foreign language they were speaking, or had that guy just screamed my balls?

You know what? Never mind. Those clowns were on their own.

More voices, closer this time. Quieter. Still unintelligible, but somebody, and anybody was miles better than the radio silence he was getting from the Dream Dognapper up there. He struggled to shift some of the busted shovels out of his way, stuck his head out to see—

—and immediately shrank back, only just choking down a yelp, at the sight of the towering Whatever The Fuck That Was looming just a few yards away. Blue froze and desperately hoped it hadn't heard him, except it probably had because he was freezing and all his shivering was just rattling the stupid goddamn tool pile, oh god, oh fuck.

To recap: good ol' Satan Voice had turned him into a puppy and then dropped him in an abandoned construction site full of water and mud and one million OSHA violations and giant monsters that were half chicken and half dog and half six machetes for hands. Thanks, Satan Voice! God, he was going to die like this, wasn't he?

He took a deep breath, tried to calm down. The Whatever The Fuck That Was was massive, and terrifying, and those talons were perfect for shredding through his miserable little broken shovel hovel and also his own tiny growlithe body, but it hadn't yet eaten the ralts next to it. It was just... talking to them. And they were talking back, agitated but not, like, oh my god aaaaa this mad science murder gryphon is trying to rip me in half aaaaa. (They could unpack the fact that a ralts was talking at all later. Assuming he didn't get filleted first.) And whatever they were saying, none of it sounded suspiciously like spirited debate about anybody's undercarriage. At this point, that was probably about as good as it was gonna get.

So... probably okay? Hopefully? He still ought to play it safe. He didn't have to break cover, not just yet. (It was still too god damn wet out there, anyway.)

"Yo, Ralts and Chickenstein's Monster," he hissed, settling for poking just his nose out only as far as he needed to be heard. "What the hell is going on?"

It was all Blue could hope for that the ralts and the creature might at least get the gist of what he'd said. (And that the sounds "Chickenstein's Monster" were not, in their language, somehow a homophone for "testicles".)

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Gladion’s eyes narrowed at the tiny Growlithe. “The hell are you saying?”

He couldn’t understand any of the words that had been levelled at him, but he had a feeling he was being insulted.

"I can't understand them either.”

His, uhh, righteous indignation was radiating from him strongly enough for her fairysense to pick up on it clearly, even though he was further away from her than Gladion. Telepathy wasn’t an exact science back home, but her species was the poster child for interspecies communications. It was worth a shot, especially given that the Growlithe seemed to have some form of language.

Lillie tilted her head upwards to make eye contact with them from behind the hair shielding her face. (With her right eye, at least. She had prey species eyes now, one towards either side of her head.) Even if he couldn’t understand her words, she could still communicate with her tone, slipping into her Aether Conservation please do not thrash I’m trying to administer your medicine coo as her eyes began to glow faintly. “Hi. I’m going to, uhh, try to psychic at you now. Okay?”

She had no clue what on earth she was doing. (What on Forlas? Her brain helpfully supplied the name Forlas to her.) But she could sense something from his direction. Like his mind was casting a warm glow, but not quite visually. Just a disembodied sense of thoughts that were not part of her mind and emotions that she did not herself feel, as well a intuitive understanding of where they were in space.

She reached out with one arm towards him, skeuomorphically mapping her new ability to reach out with her mind onto the feeling of reaching out physically. With no experience handling or moderating such a gesture, Blue was blasted with raw mental data from her thought processes.

There was an image of her face in the mirror. Scrutinizing it for for flaws, blemishes, anything out of place. A water lily, and the feeling that she was named after it. A nickname, really. Mother didn’t think it sounded authoritative enough to be her name on its own. She was talking to her brother. They were twins. Growlithe had litters of multiple pups, right? It was like that, should make sense to him. A gladiolus, his name. No image of his human face, she didn’t seem to know what he looked like. A glimpse of a younger Lillie’s own face glowering back at her. Was he lost? Did he need help? She didn’t know what to do if he did. But he was literally the proverbial Growlithe in the rain. Didn’t that give her a responsibility to do something? And beneath all her thoughts, a constant undercurrent of disassociation, like she was being carried forward by a vague sense of what she should be doing even though nothing right now actually felt real.

 

[Phoenixsong]

The Whatever The Fuck That Was said something, bristling with annoyance. Blue was one twitch of those machete claws away from going "screw this" and bolting, but, mercifully, it stayed where it was. The ralts moved instead, holding out a hand and cooing at him like he was a baby, and the part of him that wasn't busy being relieved about not getting torn into confetti had half a mind to be offended—

Thoughts that weren't his tumbled through his head. Not too weird by itself, not after Alakazam and Exeggutor, but still not at all the same. Gentle instead of cheerful and boisterous, halting instead of confident, saying too little and also too much instead of exactly what was meant. (Only one stream instead of three separate channels trying and failing not to yammer over each other, unable to focus on whether they were supposed to be telling him about revising their trick room strategy or the funny new arrangement they'd thought up for the challenge tiles or did he know the food court across the street had a very tasty salad? It had the tiny crunchy breads in it!)

(For a split second, he was aware just how far he was from those three channels of scattered rambling, and his chest ached.)

Blue shook his head to clear it and sort through the deluge of images. And then shook the rest of himself without thinking, and felt gloriously un-drowned for one blissful moment oh look at that the real deluge was still happening he was soaked again. Great.

Okay. Lily and... Gladiolus? (The hell kind of name was "Gladiolus" for a cyborg turkey?) That was something. Communicating was something. He could work with that. "My name's Blue," he said tentatively, remembering too late that that was completely pointless. Dammit. Uh. "Blue," he repeated, slowly, pointing lamely at himself with one sodden paw. This was going to take forever, wasn't it.

Could he think back at her? Not the way it worked back home, but no telling what'd happen in Forlas We're Just Making Up Words Now Land. Worth a shot, if it meant not being trapped here alone any longer than necessary.

"My name's Blue," he tried, and he thought real hard about the color for good measure. "I'm human, too." His own face in the mirror, or wait, no, not with bedhead, a less tired memory, hm what was that issue of Pokémon Journal he'd been on the cover of, that had been a great photo, yeah think about that one— no, never mind, not the point. "Is your brother supposed to be a... that?" There were no memories to adequately describe a That; he imagined a pidgey with kitchen knives taped to its legs. "Where the hell even are we?" The godforsaken hole full of mud and broken tools they were all wallowing in, and a thousand question marks.

 

[Sinderella]

“Oh, perfect, I’m hearing voices now,” Guzma whined. He had more to say, but Odette walked up and shushed him before he could.

“No, that’s not you,” she said quietly, trying to listen. Whoever was calling for them was just far away that she couldn’t quite make out who it could have been, but just close enough to know it was familiar. She rushed in the direction she was sure it was coming from.

“C’mon, this way,” she said.

Guzma responded with noises that toed the line between baby babbles and a dying car engine. “‘This way?’ No explanation, just ‘this way’? You got me crawlin’ on four legs right now, not a testicle in sight, and all you have to say for yourself is ‘this way’?”

Her patience began to wane again. “I’m sorry, do you want to stay in this muggy, bug-infested ditch?”

His nose scrunched up as he considered his options, before he thrashed his head with a single, absolute nod. “Actually, yeah. I feel right at home here, thanks for asking.”

“Oh, right,” Odette laughed viciously. “Roach-obsessed bridge troll finds happiness in muddy, shit-stinking pit overrun by mosquitoes and cicadas. How foolish of me; you’ve found your place of belonging.”

“What, you scared you gonna break a nail down here?”

Odette sucked her teeth with an audible ‘pop.’ The gun tucked in her garter suddenly felt overdue for a shot.

“You know what? I didn’t sign up for this assault. You can sit your furry little badger butt here, make some mud pies, and I’ll go find who was calling by myself.”

She started walking ahead, only making it a few steps before she heard the smacking of Guzma’s claws hitting the mud as he bolted up behind her.

“N-now hang on,” he wheezed. “It’s your fault I’m in this body-swapping bullshit in the first place, so you are sure as fuck not leaving me alone.” He tried to square his shoulders, but all it did was make him look more nervous. Odette tried to drink up the humor of seeing him at her mercy, but she still wanted to see how it felt to watch her heel connect with the side of his skull. She offered nothing more than a grunt before walking on.

It wasn’t long before the sound of arguing rose over the buzzing bugs and churning pipe water. Odette was able to relish in approximately 60 seconds of sweet silence before Guzma opened his mouth again.

“I’m thinking about it, and this all makes perfect sense, actually. The devil couldn’t reach me by normal fucking means so he—she,” he corrected, “incarnated as a 5-foot even piece of ass who’s the sole reason my cardiologist needs a cardiologist. This is all just a product of me being at my fucking limit.”

Odette curled her lip at him. “You don’t have a cardiologist.”

“But if I did.” She could see that typical vein pulsing on his forehead, even through the fur. “You’d sure as shit be getting my fucking bills.”

“Guzma, I am literally fucking immunocompromised. You and your delinquency bullshit have gotten me more sick than anybody else I know has, and I know a lot of stressful people. So you can’t say shit to me about medical bills.”

The former-Skull-Boss-turned-zigzagoon looked taken aback for half a second before an impish grin curled up his snout.

“Awww, did the poor wimpy thing have to go get a few spine corrections after all the times I blew her back out?

Odette froze mid-step, her body going rigid. She turned to him slowly, deliberately, and dangerously, her lips smoothed into a featureless frown.

“Wanna run that by me again?” she threatened.

Undeterred, Guzma approached and pushed up onto his hind legs. Nose to nose with her.

“Sure,” he said. “I said that I’d call you a cunt, but you lack both the depth and warmth.”

Her eyes blazed, but her expression didn’t budge. “You’re the byproduct of too much tequila and a gas station condom.”

Guzma tongued one of his fangs. “Shark Week called, they want their jaws back.”

Odette gnawed her cheek. “Wow, you finally look exactly like what you were meant to be: imprisoned.”

“Beak.”

“Badger claws.”

Thunder crashed, and their reservations broke. They were kissing each other before either one realized what they were doing. Of course, the dungeon wasn’t really on board with this strange malicious foreplay they had going on, because the muddy ground shifted, and next thing they knew, they were sliding down an incline, screaming shocked murder as they went.

But, as luck would have it, they came to a stop right in front of exactly who they needed to—the other three intrepid adventurers, stuck mid argument.

Odette was the first one to look up. “Oh. Gladion,” she said stiffly. “Thought I heard you before. Who’re your friends?”

Guzma, still with his badger paws wrapped around her, did a double take. “Gladion?! You’re here too, you motherfucker?!”

 

[Phoenixsong]

Screams cut through the air, pinning Blue's ears back against his head and cutting off the next question he was going to ask. (Think. Whatever.) Revealing an absolutely shocking lack of structural integrity in this otherwise impeccably-managed hellworksite, one side of the trench gave way just ahead and dumped another two pokémon, and also more sludgy water gee thanks for that, right in front of them.

He still had no clue what they were saying. Given the way they were practically knotted around one another, he had at least a tiny bit of a clue what they'd been doing.

"Guess that explains the balls." He declined to include an accompanying visual. Lily could puzzle that one out herself.

 

[Sinderella]

Odette squinted at the growlithe she didn’t recognize. She couldn’t understand a word he was saying, what on fuck? She’d gotten so used to just immediately understanding every single person she ran into, that the gibberish this guy short-circuited her brain…until she realized why she couldn’t understand him.

Fucking Betel. Dammit.

She exhaled a sound groan and began to paw at the side of her face. So not only did a bunch of new Offworlders show up, understanding them was going to be a bitch and a half without an auto translator. She couldn’t even begin to pinpoint what language the growlithe was speakiing. However, she did understand hand gestures, and her face ignited with heat.

“Th-that’s not what was happening here!” she insisted, despite knowing it was futile.

“We were arguing about it, yes,” Guzma said, raising a claw, which earned him a nasty glare and a swift kick in the side.

“Ball-less!” she yelled as she pushed his head down into the mud.

“Get offa me, you fucking dwarf!” Guzma shouted back as he wrestled her off.

When they rolled to a stop again, Odette exhaled a deep, calming breath. She stood up and gestured to herself, cringing at how filthy her dress was.

“I’m O-dette,” she said slowly. She then motioned toward her fuckass companion. “Guz-ma.”

“Sup, bro,” he said in an aggravated huff.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Lillie shrugged at Blue's questions: She had no idea where they were, and Gladion wasn't really supposed to be a Null, but she also wasn't supposed to be a Ralts. And apparently he wasn't supposed to be a Growlithe? During that psychic feedback, between the name and his face, she got the impression that he was Blue Oak. Gym leader of Selene's hometown and, famouly, the champion of Kanto and Johto for multiple consecutive hours. Which, yeah it was kinda funny when he was on the news joking about how he'd secured his legacy because no one would ever break his world record shortest reign, but in all seriousness a champion was a champion. She sent back an image of an Alolan magazine Selene had bought about the Battle Tree, the cover photo being two people who she seemed to believe were Blue and Red despite being in their mid-twenties, standing as if trying to appear back to back while both actually cheating out 3/4s to the camera. Red, in an unremarkable tee shirt and jeans. Blue leaning back against him, one leg kicked out into the air, wearing tacky sunglasses, a floral dress shirt, and green shorts while pointing finger guns at the camera.

"Hey, Gladion, I think this guy is Blue!"

Gladion didn’t seem to care, or to be listening to her at all. After all, Odette and a man who seemed to be Guzma had arrived, and he looked preemptively exhausted by them.

"Obstagoon's a good look for you, Guzma. Black, white, and lurid."

His tone was flat and dry, as it usually was when he made remarks like this. But this time, his face didn’t betray any particular amusement. He wasn’t in the mood to laugh at their antics.

"This is, Li— uh. Lillian. My sister."

He glanced towards her, looking pained for a multitude of reasons. (She shouldn’t be here.)

Something occurred to him: No one Betel summoned had lost their memories so far, but what was happening right now a new kind of mess.

"I didn't ask before, but, do you... have all your memories? People tend to lose them when they jump realities."

That made Lillie nervous. She’d been asked this question once before by Burnet for the same reason, after Cosmog distorted reality around her in Aether Paradise, and was told she’d gotten lucky. But that memory seemed to be intact, and she flitted through some of her earlier ones to confirm they were all there. She was two for two on dodging that particular bullet.

“I’m fine. I think Blue is too? But… You’re not speaking from experience, are you?”

“Me?” Gladion brushed off the question. “Nope.”

Lillie turned her attention to Odette and Guzma. “What about you two? Are you also… y’know. Human up until right now?”

Something clicked in Lillie’s head as she snapped to look at Guzma. “Wait, is that why you were so…” Then she stopped, realizing she didn’t actually want to ask this question, and bit her lower lip while she came up with a segue away from it. “Nevermind. But, uhh, you two also speak Alolan?”

 

[Sinderella]

"Wait, Blue?" Odette asked, tilting her head toward the ralts. "The Champion? Why the fuck is he talking like that, then?" The Blue she knew of could speak perfect Galarian. Another version, perhaps? Like this Gladion?

Meanwhile, Guzma held the Null's unamused leer. "Suck my tight, manicured ass, Paper Towel."

Odette shoved him with her boot, and he held his paws out to his sides in disbelief, shooting her a look that screamed "What?"

"Wrong Gladion," she said under her breath. Guzma still looked no less confused.

"What do you mean 'wrong Gladion,' there's only one fucking Gladion and he's a bitch." He smirked back at the Null. "Bitch."

Odette's sigh sounded like it was muffling a threatening yell. "No. Remember the ruins?"

Guzma's brow furrowed in thought. The gears apparently didn't turn long enough before Gladion started speaking again. Guzma regarded him with a tight, "Are you stupid?" squint.

"Lillian?" he asked incredulously. "Since when the fuck is her name Lillian? Her name's Lillie, and--ooohhhhh."

The realization hit late, but at least it hit. His mouth flexed with words that didn't want to come before he stammered into another answer to one of the millions of questions being launched at him.

"Yeah," he said. "Human."

"Me as well," Odette added. "And...no signs of memory wipes here, I don't think?"

Guzma stood up and shook himself out (like a fucking dog, except he wasn't a dog, he was a fucking badger, but holy fuck he was still a fucking badger--). "Is that why I was so what?" he pressed. "I don't speak it very well, but I understand it like a G.' He studied this "Lillian" closely. "Why?"

 

[Phoenixsong]

Blue received an image of a magazine in kind, but a different one, with another picture of... wait, what? That wasn't... like, it looked like him, but... older??? Had somebody run one of those weird "age filter" things on this photo? Was that other guy supposed to be Red? Where was Leaf? Where was she? He was supposed to be looking for her, didn't he still have to apologize for... no, dumbass. No, that had already happened. Ages ago, even. (Hadn't it?) Sure would be great if he wasn't suddenly beating himself up about it again out of nowhere. But something in his gut insisted he was supposed to find— And where even was this? He'd never seen a tree that massive, let alone taken a photo anywhere near one. What the hell was this supposed to mean?

But the feelings that she'd sent along with the weird magazine cover were definitely recognition. His name, he was sure of that. So how...?

"Lily," he tried to think back, struggling with how on earth he was supposed to visualize where the hell did you see that or when the hell did you see that or are time travelers real now, too, is that what you're telling me, but he didn't get much further before the exhibitionists trampled all over his concentration.

Back to arguing again, were they? Fantastic. Arguing would be much less horrifying to watch, at least, so silver lining there, but he still had no clue what even their non-innuendo blathering was about. Did these guys recognize Lily and Gladiolus or something? (Was everybody on Satan Planet just casually friendly with circus sideshow taxidermy?) And now Gladiolus was muttering something at them all worried-like, and now the mawile was looking at him funny, like she recognized him, but who the hell even was she, and now oh for god's sake this was just getting ridiculous.

"Can y'all take like five seconds out of your happy little high school reunion to tell me what the fuck is going on?!"

 

[JFought]

There were a few things he could say about his current predicament. One was that he was exhausted. Another was that he was sopping wet. And yet another was that he was naked.

None of this was acceptable, and so in his lethargic state he dismissed everything else and assumed he already knew the worst of it. With staggered movements, he pushed himself onto his paws, and once he was on all fours and his body locked into a natural stance, that is when he realised there was something far more wrong with him than any mere trifle.

He glanced back at the small, lithe, and wet form he currently inhabited. He was a sprigatito again. "I've been... cursed?" he mewled to himself as he inspected his tiny and graceless paws. He brought one to his face and gasped when he touched fur where there should have been none.

No, this was different from a curse. "I'm... I'm beautiful again!?"

At that moment, adorable would have be more accurate. Though he refused to completely believe it, not until he could see himself. For a while, all he could do was sit and prod at his face with a morbid fascination.

It was then that new memories returned to him. A familiar scent like that of an old colleague. A voice calling to him in his sleep, to send him to a new world for some yet unexplained purpose, for which he had been both cursed and blessed...

He took in the grim and oppressive nature of his surroundings. This place is called Forlas? How dreadful. No wonder they called him here.

That was the type of confidence he would have liked to possess. Instead, as his paws clung protectively to his cheeks, he felt exposed, and inexplicably hollow. Bereft of both mask and enigma, he could hardly call himself a phantom or a star. No, for now, he was a nameless, adorable Sprigatito. For as long as he remained in this pathetic state, that identity would have to suffice.

Sprigatito sniffed the air. Wet. Obviously. Then listened to his surroundings, and heard a multitude of voices riding the wind from not too far. Voices likely meant townsmon, which meant a chance to further understand his situation, and while there was an odd quality to the sound, he was not in a position to be so discerning. And so, Sprigatito began navigating the odd landscape he found himself in, until he could hear the voices nearby from around a bend in the earth.

He felt the air on his whiskers, determined that the wind wouldn't betray him, then crept low and close against the corner of the bend to eavesdrop. He could introduce himself, but in a place such as this it was necessary for Sprigatito to remain cautious around strangers, lest he risk demonstrating one of the many proverbs about dead cats.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

“I’m just not really using that nickname anymore,” Lillie lied. (Or, maybe it was true as of a couple minutes ago? She could be Lillian, the Heroic Spirit now. Yeah, she liked the sound of that.)

Unfortunately, none of that was enough to stop her from being intimidated by Guzma. He was definitely bigger than her by weight class than she was as a Ralts, and she couldn’t sense anything off him to clarify how he felt. She took a step back and raised her hands to her chest. “It—It’s nothing, sir. Just something we overheard you yelling about made sense now. And I thought it was odd that four of five of us speak the same language. Especially if you think you know me.” He did know her name, somehow.

Gladion scoffed at Guzma, pulling attention off of Lillian. "You're even more of a vulgar asshole than the Guzma I know. I guess you make a hell of a first impression in every universe."

But far from eager to engage in some verbal sparring, he looked more resigned to it than anything else.

"Look, whatever happened to pull you two – uh, three – and who knows how many others here, it's a safe bet you share a home universe with, at most, one other person already here. If that." He shut his eyes for a moment before resuming speaking. "Not that it's ever stopped people thinking they already know me, before."

He was angry. Lillian could tell that without needing a fully working fairysense. But he wasn’t directing the totality of that anger at anyone in front of him.

"Anyway. If this guy is Blue, maybe Leaf is around here somewhere. For him to be, uh... drawn to, I guess."

Lillian took the reprieve from Guzma to duck away and return her attention to an increasingly disgruntled Blue, reestablishing the connection she’d dropped when she’d been startled.

She sent him an image of three different earths, each nested in their own separate cosmos. Onto the center one, the imposed her own face and the date in her timeline. Left of it, Blue’s and a date ten years earlier, with a question mark appended to it to indicate some room for error or differing date systems. On the world right of both, a Mawile and Zigzagoon and a date a few years later than hers, with multiple question marks for a high degree of uncertainty.

A Silvally’s face fluttered in and out of view next to Lillian’s own face. Whether she didn’t know what he looked like, or wasn’t 100% confident he had to be from the same world, or both, she clearly didn’t know how to place him in the mental image.

Then, she asked a question: A green leaf appeared on Blue’s world, with a question mark. Did he know who the leaf was?

This time, she managed to hold the connection even when something else drew her attention. Another set of emotions approached from outside her visual sightlines. (How was it that she could clearly sense someone relatively far away but it barely worked on half of the people right in front of her? She didn’t understand it.) She found an angle where she could keep her left eye on Blue while watching the space the fifth person appears to be hiding with her right one. She wasn’t sure she could focus on all that information at once while maintaining and paying attention to a psychic link, but maybe she could at least make this other person feel like they were being watched.

 

[Sinderella]

Animalese Blue was yelling now, making Odette's shoulders tense up. He sounded pissed--rightfully so, because she would also be losing her mind if she was surrounded by four other people who didn't understand a word she was saying--but she didn't know what else to do to explain his new predicament to him.

"Uh, anybody speak Muppet?" she asked. "I got nothing."

Guzma studied the ralts closely, as if he was expecting something else damning to come tumbling out. He wasn't a fan of the way this Lillie recoiled away from him--his Lillie had gotten over that shit once they "settled the donphans in the room"--and he pulled away from her ever so slightly. This one, somehow, seemed younger. More naive.

He slanted a frown back at Other Gladion, at first appearing annoyed, and then springing a grin. "Speak for yourself. I'll be sure to let my Gladion know that the Stick-in-Ass Syndrome reigns supreme over every version of him."

The difference was that at least his Gladion had mostly removed said stick. Still some fragments left, but he didn't get as prickly upon retaliation to altercations that he fucking started (gods it was so weird to think of Gladion as "his Gladion," like they were fucking lovers or some shit...).

Odette wasn't slick about the way she moved between Guzma and Other Gladion, her jaw set in a hard look that warned against insulting her fuckass companion because only she was allowed to do that. She felt the "What the hell is your damage?" building on her tongue, but decided against opening her mouth. With Animalese Blue having a meltdown and Other Lillie slinking away in apparent fear, rehashing her strange relationship with Other Gladion wasn't going to help anything. She knew by now that he was too moody, too hot and cold, to ever dream of seeing perfectly eye-to-eye with. How he could go from calming her down to looking at her like she was the scum of the Earth, and insulting her fuckass companion for responding to it, over the course of maybe a few hours was beyond her.

However, she did realize, indeed, that a version of Leaf was here--that mouthy ponyta that reminded her closely of a caffeinated Koa. She hadn't put two and two together until then, and perked up, angling her look in a direction that looked to her to be a way out.

"Well. We're not going to get anywhere just standing here and perpetuating the cycle of screaming.” Not that she was helping with that, but it was the principle of the thing. “We should try to walk on and see if we meet up with anybody else. Muppet-speaking Blue will just have to deal until we get somewhere and figure out how to reboot our fucking bot."

 

[JFought]

“I’m just not really using that nickname anymore,”

"You're even more of a vulgar asshole than the Guzma I know. I guess you make a hell of a first impression in every universe."

"Uh, anybody speak Muppet?"

"Speak for yourself. I'll be sure to let my Gladion know that the Stick-in-Ass Syndrome reigns supreme over every version of him."

One thing for certain could be determined from his eavesdropping: he had absolutely no idea what any of them were saying. It was human language, that much he could tell from the structure of their articulation. Alas, in this situation poor Sprigatito was as a wild cat in a convention of philosophers: faced with nothing but unparsable nonsense.

He felt a powerful urge to peek around the corner. It would be a risk from this distance and elevation, but the benefits seemed so tantalising, and in the worst case he could simply use his magic to escape. Though casting any magic would be unideal when I am already drained...

He peeked around the corner anyway. It was a group of five pokémon, and his eyes widened when he spotted among them a silvally, of all things. Fascinating. Seeing all of them speak human was a surreal experience, he had to wonder what he had just stumbled upon.

And then he noticed the ralts and he immediately retreated. Shit!

How could he have been so careless, so as to not account for empaths before getting too close? He blamed his handsome face, it must have had a disarming effect on him.

Except, no, Sprigatito was not careless. Sprigatito was just a kitten! He couldn't be careless, as ralts were not common enough for him to be aware of them to begin with. And Sprigatito was tired, and lost, and scared, and so this mistake was perfectly in-character for him. He would want to approach these strangers despite the danger, for even though he could not understand them, there was no reason to believe they could not understand him (they were still pokémon after all, surely?), and the weather by now would have turned him desperate. If they possessed any kindness, his deception would pay off in spades by engendering sympathy instead of distrust, while accounting for the ralts having potentially already noticed him. And if not, it would put them off guard...

Alternatively, he could keep a greater distance and follow their trail. But more than having it's own risks, it would be boring. A plan such as this could only be possible when one had a face worth showing...

So he held onto the fear of discovery by forgetting his magic and reminding himself of how vulnerable he was, and how desperately he needed guidance and shelter from the rain. Sprigatito poked his head out again for the slightest instant before pulling back, like a timid child attempting to build his courage. Then he crept from his hiding spot with anxious steps: eyes dilated, ears forward and alert, stomach scraping the earth and legs always poised to jump at a moment's notice.

"H-Hello?" he called. "Pardon me, I...I-I think I'm lost."

His heart beat fast and his legs shook from unironic fear. Staring the chimera down was actually having an effect on him. This was a terrible idea, he felt, and that meant it was perfect.

 

[Phoenixsong]

Blue narrowed his eyes at the mawile. Didn't need fancy dog hearing or to know what the words were to make out the dismissive tone. "Must be so rough for you," he muttered, "actually being able understand people and have half an idea what's even going on." He had half a mind to see how well she understood sign language. Tragically, growlithe only had two digits on their front paws.

Whatever. If his legitimate problem was such an inconvenience then he'd just tune her out and pay attention to the one person here who could actually help. At least she... hm.

She sent him an image of three different earths, each nested in their own separate cosmos. Onto the center one, the imposed her own face and the date in her timeline. Left of it, Blue’s and a date ten years earlier, with a question mark appended to it to indicate some room for error or differing date systems. On the world right of both, a Mawile and Zigzagoon and a date a few years later than hers, with multiple question marks for a high degree of uncertainty.

...okay. Multiple worlds, yep, sure. Alternate universes, even without including Satan Planet. All right. Makes perfect sense. Cool!

I give up.

But—

Then, she asked a question: A green leaf appeared on Blue’s world, with a question mark. Did he know who the leaf was?

"Yeah— yeah, I know a Leaf. Why? Is she here? Where?!"

Had Satan Voice grabbed her, too? Of course she had to be here somewhere. He knew that. ...how did he know that? So he wasn't just stranded here alone after all? Oh, that was— awful, actually. Bad enough he'd been dragged into the literal mud and dumped with a bunch of strangers; now it was kidnapping his friends, too? Alternative option: this was her fault. That shouldn't've made any sense, she wasn't a goddamn wizard, but something about this circus seemed very much the kind of thing Linden would somehow be responsible for.

He caught the scent before he saw anything: something new, something other than wet dog or wet weasel or wet everything. Wet... grass? Something plant-ish, definitely, not far off at all. (Some annoying dog nonsense buried deep in the back of his brain helpfully appended cat.) What were fresh plants doing in a mud pit like this?

And then, from behind them— huh. How about that. A cat. One of those Paldean pokémon, common grass starter over there he was pretty sure, except instead of being cheerful and fluffy and mischievous it mostly just looked like a sad, soggy wet beaſt. Same here, buddy.

It meowed at them. Not words, just timid, plaintive baby cat meowing. Unhelpful, but at least felt more familiar than whatever Extreme Total Immersion crap he'd put up with so far. Was this an actual pokémon that'd been dragged here, rather than a human?

"Shut up, don't scare it off," he hissed back at the peanut gallery. Then, at the kitten: "Hey, little guy. Where'd you wander in from?"

 

[Shiny Phantump]

For a moment, Gladion locked eyes with Odette as she inserted herself between him and Guzma. The jet black scelra that came with an RKS System set to dark made the look come off harsher than he probably intended to. Then, he sighed and rolled his eyes at Guzma.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be me if it weren’t terminal, right?”

Lillian turned her attention from Blue back to the group.

“I asked, Blue says he does know Leaf.” (He was thinking a bunch of other stuff too, but it seemed private, so she tried not to focus on it.) “And not to scare off the kitten.”

If that meant Leaf was somewhere around here, then they should probably avoid leaving her behind. But they couldn’t remain exposed to the elements for too long, not while they had a fire type with them. She glanced up at Gladion.

He’d shifted his attention to the Sprigatito, having no interest in trading further jabs with Guzma.”

"Don't wanna speak too soon, but I'm pretty sure this cat's sapient. Call it a hunch. Too bad we don't have another former-pokémon with us to translate..."

He looked them over for any garments.

"No sapience-marker, so... not a local, but another 'new arrival'?"

Lillian had no idea what a sapience-marker was, but she had noticed that he was wearing a necklace-y amulet-y sort of thing. That had to serve some kind of practical purpose, or there was no way he’d be wearing it unless he’d really softened on jewelry. Was that a sapience-marker? Something that marked him as clearly non-wild? That would make sense, and would mean that Sprigatito was either wild or a new arrival like her.

She looked at the cat and slid into the voice she used when trying to communicate friendliness purely through tone of voice. “Will you follow us, if we leave?”