Sojaveña Wilds Dusty Highway

[Hap]

"I think Odette heard something different," Ridley said. Honestly, he hadn't asked Koa what he'd heard. At the time, immediately after the dream, his brain still buzzing with the aftershocks of pain and terror, it had seemed obvious that they'd heard the same thing. Ridley had made a guess that the shadow dreams worked the same way the Voice's dream communications did, as a general broadcast rather than individual messages. The worst which would happen if he'd been wrong was Dave would think he was an idiot getting worked up over nightmares, which the guy seemed halfway to doing anyway so no loss there.

But apparently, he'd been right.

Ridley said, "But you get why I want to talk to the Voice about it, right? If this thing is using the same method of communication as they are, then they might know something about it. Even if they don't, I can at least warn them that there's something else out there. Sure, right now it's just some creepy messages in our dreams, but who knows how it might develop in future?"

When they'd encountered the shadow charmeleon the Voice had mentioned fearing it could be infectious or corruptive to them, and it seemed clear to Ridley that the shadow pokemon had once been regular pokemon, regardless of whether they were people or wild pokemon. Were those dreams how that started? Everyone had only been hit once so far; were the effects cumulative? Was there some way the shadow voice could somehow use their heads as a stepping stone to get to the Voice? Ridley didn't know enough about the topic to even guess whether those worries were possible, much less plausible, but the Voice might.

 

[Butterfree]

Dave squinted at Ridley's awkward dodge of the actual question. He was at least implying he and Koa had heard the same thing, right? Ridley'd been the one who'd first brought up 'not belonging here', so if he was making this up it'd be one heck of a convenient coincidence if he'd just so happened to stumble into the same same thing Dave had heard. Why would Odette hear something different? Well, she'd had an entirely different encounter days later with an entirely different shadow Pokémon, so maybe that did make sense.

"Well, if everyone did dream the exact same thing, yeah, it's worth asking the voice about." He frowned. "If it's the same kind of communication they're doing, then who exactly has access to it other than the cloud and how? And how is it connected to the shadow Pokémon encounters? Because the shadow Pokémon we bumped into acted pretty fucking feral, right? Hard to see the Charmeleon talking to us. And if it were, pretty random thing for them to say, isn't it."

He looked around. "Hey, cloud? You there yet?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Hello, Dave!

I am glad we can hear each other clearly.

...

And Ridley! Hello!

Did the two of you travel towards the Silver Ravine node to speak to me?

What would you like to talk about?​

 

[Hap]

Oh!

Ridley lit up to hear the Voice finally respond to their call. He took a mental note of where he and Dave were standing, in case he needed to communicate with the Voice again in future. "Hey!" he said. "I'd like to continue the conversation we were having before, but right now I really want to hear what Dave has to tell you."

 

[Butterfree]

"Finally." Dave sat down, looking around. Okay, it wasn't too far to go if they needed to talk to the cloud.

"All right, so first of all, we met with this pretentious Inteleon who's part of the human supremacist gang. Call themselves the 'Covenant of Light', because they think they represent the fucking enlightenment. Big secret society, keeping tabs on humans and human activities, supposedly to prevent the misuse of human superpowers. Apparently convinced that being in the presence of regular Pokémon 'leaches' their power into the Pokémon and this is a travesty, and when I asked if they have any shred of empirical evidence that that even happens he acted like it's unknowable and untestable. Real fucking stand-up dude." Dave rolled his eyes.

"This guy said," he went on, sighing irritably, "that he's been investigating Ignatius Voclain for these people. Couldn't stand him. He'd been investigating the Pokémon trafficking thing, too, figured out people have been shipped off and made into shadow Pokémon. Seemed to think the guy behind the shadows is this Wolf guy who's on some of the wanted posters around town, and that he's somehow a shadow Pokémon himself. I don't think he was lying. So they're not behind him and not behind that. He also he said there was a big spike in shadow activity just before we got here. So, what, is that the real reason we're here? Because if we're actually here to help out the friendly neighborhood racists and go home, I'm not a fan."

 

[Jackie Cat]

...That is quite a lot of information to consider and respond to.

Dave, you mentioned the reason you are here. I do not truly know what that is, only that the hero who asked me to bring you here could not handle it alone.

I obliged that hero because I believed I should, and so I brought you all to Forlas.

Now that you are here, I have to have faith that you will do the right thing...

I am sorry. I wish I knew more, but there are still many things I do not understand.

I can at least tell you that I sense stronger Shadow presence almost by the day. I would not think it strange if you were brought here to help with that soul-sickness.​

 

[Hap]

Huh. That was a lot.

"I'm not exactly eager to help the human supremacists out either," Ridley agreed. "The group I was with met up with a couple people who are working to oppose the Covenant, so there are more than two sides at play here, at least."

Probably. Ridley didn't think that Valere or Farin seemed like the sort to be involved in trafficking, but all he'd done was listen to them talk for a few minutes and then fought with them. He didn't actually know them.

 

[Butterfree]

"Shouldn't you maybe have asked this hero for the slightest bit of explanation of who they are and what they want?" Dave growled. Their summoner was clearly some kind of naïve sheltered alien, but even then, asking for no details whatsoever before summoning three dozen people from different worlds to carry on this person's mission was gratingly dumb.

He looked away and took a breath. How likely was the previous human hero to be a member of the Covenant, anyway? He was still pretty sure it must have been Brisa's feline companion who'd been staying at the cabin. So it sounded like they were friends, at least. Gerome, who was clearly anti-Covenant, was sympathetic to Brisa, and said he doubted Jesse would have joined them. And the whole her having trouble with her strength thing, while it'd pissed off Voclain, sure also sounded like it'd be the sort of thing that would have the Covenant going after her. So... probably she hadn't casually befriended and lived with one of them? Unless that was why Brisa was gone.

(Now that he was thinking back to the cabin, hadn't Jesse Stranger kept writing in his journal about speaking to "her" in the night, and how "her latest sorry sucker couldn't hack it"? If that was indeed the same kind of summoning entity, something that could talk to people in dreams, then was the fucking shadow voice her?)

"I'm not exactly eager to help the human supremacists out either," Ridley agreed. "The group I was with met up with a couple people who are working to oppose the Covenant, so there are more than two sides at play here, at least."

Just when he was about to bring that up, though, Ridley spoke up, and he turned, blinking. "Huh. What'd they tell you?"

 

[Hap]

"Mostly that the Coven attracts idealists by telling them they're doing good, but it's the sort of doing good which cares more about its own sense of righteousness than it does what the people here actually need or want," Ridley said flatly. "They've got the colonist mentality, as far as I can tell. I think talking about this is part of why Laura's been talking about wanting a team meeting, actually; she was part of that group too."

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Shouldn't you maybe have asked this hero for the slightest bit of explanation of who they are and what they want?"

I would have liked to talk to her more...

...
​

We did not have very much time at all to speak with each other.​

​

The brief contact we had with each other was enough for me to understand that she needed help.

So I brought you.​

 

[Hap]

"Speaking of talking more," Ridley said, "our previous conversation got cut off, but people who engage with the shadow pokemon are receiving messages from them in dreams. It feels similar to the way you contact us. Are there any other entities like you which could be related to this? Any risks this form of communication might pose to us?"

Ridley shook his head in frustration, a back-and-forth wobble of his disguise. He had too many questions! How was he supposed to prioritise asking them? "And what sort of entity are you, anyway? You didn't answer that when I asked it before."

For good reason, considering the situation, but they had time now for an explanation.

 

[Butterfree]

"Yeah, I'd really like to hear more on that too," Dave said. "And also, if there's someone else out there like you, any chance it's a 'she' who might have talked to Jesse Stranger in his dreams?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Oh... Those questions are quite difficult to answer, especially all at once.​

You asked what sort of entity I am.

I think I am a pokémon. I am also different from all other pokémon, however. I do not think I can exist in the same way, in the material plane of Forlas. I exist in the Astral Plains, and project myself into Forlas where the walls of the world allow me to.​

I hope I really am a pokémon.​

You asked about other entities like me.

As far as I know, others like me could certainly exist. The summoned heroic spirits who came before you were presumably summoned in the same way, and therefore they imply the existence of another like me. However, I have hailed the Astral Plains of Forlas and I have not heard a reply. To the best of my knowledge, I am alone here, as I always have been, aside from when I called you all to a Spirit Nexus.
​

I hope I will not always be alone.
​

You asked about other entities that communicate as I have done, in dreams.

If several of you received an identical message in a dream, that would certainly be reasonable evidence that another entity like me exists. It would also not surprise me to learn that Jesse Stranger maintained contact in his dreams with the entity who summoned him to Forlas.
​

I hope she is not gone.
​

Was this helpful to learn...?​

 

[Butterfree]

God help him, having to take seriously something revolving around the astral plane and dream messages. "Okay, so... You're alone in the astral plane, as far as you can tell? But someone else is still contacting us, so... what, is there a second astral plane that they could be hiding in? Or could some entities like you exist within the physical world of Forlas? Think shadow Pokémon could send dream messages, or would they have to be some different kind of entity? Any idea what it could mean if it's telling us we 'don't belong here'?"

 

[Hap]

"Any idea what it could mean if it's telling us we 'don't belong here'?"

"Well, in the most literal sense, we don't belong here," Ridley pointed out. "We're from other worlds. And if you're saying the group behind the shadow pokemon is at odds with the human supremacists, they might know that."

Dave's other questions were all ones Ridley had wanted to ask. Although... He added, "Hey, Voice, how old are you?"

They seemed young, or at least inexperienced, but Ridley didn't know what that meant for a probably-pokemon entity existing on a different plane of reality. If their promise that each of the summoned offworlders would eventually return to their own world at the same moment they'd left was accurate, then that suggested the timeline was a little more flexible than Ridley was used to thinking about.

 

[Jackie Cat]

I am... not entirely sure.

I think I must have had some kind of existence before I became aware of myself and the world, and able to think about it consciously. I am not sure either how long I have been conscious.

I suppose that I must not have been aware of the world when the hero I met was summoned. I am quite sure I would have felt her arrival in Forlas, if I were aware enough to witness the distrubance it would have caused in the Astral Plains.

I am very sorry, Dave, but I don't really have any answers to your questions. I would be surprised to learn that Shadows can send messages like that, but I do not know what could explain what you heard...

 

[Hap]

Ridley didn't know how often heroes were summoned to this world, but if the Voice was saying they'd never witnessed the arrival of one... they were potentially very young.

He said, "After the shadow charmeleon, you said you were worried that touching it might have damaged or infected you in some way. Do you think it's possible something like that happened to the others of your kind, and that's why you can't contact any? And if that's the case - I don't know how the dream communication works, but is there any risk we might act as carriers and accidentally pass it onto you?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

...​

I do not know.
​

I hope not.

I do not understand Shadow, but I am scared of it.​

 

[Butterfree]

Jesus. If the cloud didn't even exist yet, or wasn't conscious, when the last hero appeared, then at least as a conscious entity it couldn't be more than a year old. How fast did sapient Pokémon age, anyway? Were they literally a child? That would explain a lot.

He said, "After the shadow charmeleon, you said you were worried that touching it might have damaged or infected you in some way. Do you think it's possible something like that happened to the others of your kind, and that's why you can't contact any? And if that's the case - I don't know how the dream communication works, but is there any risk we might act as carriers and accidentally pass it onto you?"

Well, that was fucking disconcerting. "Didn't you say it was fading, though?" he asked the cloud. "Are we still infected or whatever or back to normal? Do Pokémon become shadow by just, what, touching a Pokémon that's already shadow for long enough?"

He paused. "Another thing the fucking Inteleon told us is that shadow Pokémon might be weak to some power of light associated with heroes and 'saints'. Do you know anything about that?"

 

[Hap]

Well, that wasn't the most helpful or encouraging response, but Ridley had told the Voice both what he knew about the shadow pokemon and what he was worried about. He could only hope they'd learn more about the topic in future, ideally before anyone died or turned into a monster.

"Another thing the fucking Inteleon told us is that shadow Pokémon might be weak to some power of light associated with heroes and 'saints'. Do you know anything about that?"

"They do hate light," Ridley remembered. "The shadow skorupi was so light-averse that it wouldn't enter the light from the watchtower, even though it really wanted to hurt us." He considered that for a moment, then added, "I'm pretty sure that one started as a wild pokemon, though, not a person. Smarter ones might be able to overcome their aversion for the sake of their goals, so I don't think that's something we can rely on."

But if they could somehow wield light as a weapon against these things... Possibly it was just a myth, something people had made up because they'd noticed the monsters in the dark were afraid of the light, but they were in a world where heroes were regularly summoned from other realities. It wasn't outside the bounds of plausibility that something like a "light type" could exist here.