Forlas Spirit Nexus

[Inkedust]

"...Hold on a second... You're that sneaky little shit who kept stealing from the lab! How the hell did you wind up here?!" he called over to Tarahn, who had failed to hide behind a Zorua as another fellow called him out... An Oshawott who also seemed familiar in some fashion but Corey couldn't put a name to the voice.

“Familiar? I’m the one who booked him!” Archie nodded, reaching to the lapel of his coat to try and flash the badge he’d momentarily forgotten wasn’t there anymore. His paw hesitated at his chest for a moment longer, then dropped back to his side. “Um. You’ll uh, have to take my word for that. Sorry.”

Bellatrix placed a paw beneath her chin in thought. "An outlaw?" she asked, a bit skeptical. She glanced at the toxel behind her. "He doesn't exactly look the part and wouldn't his trainer be the one responsible for their pokémon?" she added.

 

[Keleri]

"Never met them before in my life, didn't do it, didn't take anything, don't have anything in my mouth, I'd like to speak to my trainer, please," Tarahn replied, also well-rehearsed. He flicked one of his ears, or would have, if he still had them. He sat up, rubbing absently at what felt like a horn on his head, which was conspicuously missing his fur crest and bells as well.

He squinted at the Ralts and Oshawott, who had luckily turned their attention to each other, so he could find another, larger pokemon to hide behind or crate to hide in, but... something about them...

"Do I know you guys from ranger school? Or Professor Willow's lab?"

Running for it still seemed like a good idea, but he didn't know where the rest of the team was, and no one else seemed to be familiar. Maybe ranger students from another school or region were on campus and he got separated from the rest of the group. Or had Moriko taken them to another school? Usually she'd let him out on the train or ship if they were allowed, he wasn't an Onix or whatever. He couldn't remember. Oh well.

 

[Tetra]

"You are not dreaming."

All he could do was keep walking, trying to make sense of the place he found himself in. His boots crunching on on snow, then leaves, then gravel. Slowly, then all at once it seemed, he found himself among a crowd, humans and pokemon. Talking pokemon. Frowning, he tipped his head to the side, ears flicking as he listened to the chatter, catching snatches of explanations from some kind of entity. He pawed the ground uncomfortably.

And then it was as if mind caught up to himself, and his hackles stood on end. Ears? Paws? He craned his neck, turning in circles as he absorbed the sight that met his eyes. Spiky blue fur... four stout legs, pointy tail. He was an Electrike again? Huh... A blue one, not green. He liked that. He blinked, then shook his head. Had he had this dream before? Not a dream, he reminded himself. Maybe he was just remembering a dream then? He shrugged the thought off.

A call. A world in danger. And group of heroes. A team, drawn from all across the multiverse to save it? Trying to listen to cacophony of conversations around him made his head hurt. Yet his heart thrummed with excitement as well. Heroes. Voice had called them heroes. This was a chance to be something. In a world where no one knew him.

"When do we start? And where's this hero who summoned us here, if that's not you?"

 

[Mr.RMA]

Hiding behind someone else, trying to avoid getting caught... There was no doubt in Corey's mind that this was the same Tarahn that he knew, hidden behind this magical Pokemon facade... or at least, for a short moment that was the case. Before he could even try and interrogate the Toxel further, the strangely familiar Oshawott had turned his attention over to Corey, outright saying his name as if he knew him... and that voice finally seemed to flip a switch in Corey's addled head.

"...Uh, y-yeah... that's my name... Uh... by any chance does 'Archie' ring any bells?" he asked the Oshawott, trying to make it clear that if they did in fact know each other somehow, this form of his was not one he knew the guy by.

As he asked the question, he could hear Tarahn asking one in turn, though instead of it jolting any further memories, it only seemed to puzzle Corey some more.

"...I've worked for a lot of Professors, but no one by the name of Willow... and I'm no ranger, but uh..." he turned back to the Oshawott. "If you're who I think you are, you certainly were one, last I checked."

 

[windskull]

From a patch of rustling bushes, a Sneasel emerged, crouching low as he crept across open air to the field ahead. Anxiety made the fur a long his spine prickle as worries raced through his mind. These were strangers; they could mean him harm. This space was too exposed. Wherever this was, he shouldn't be here.

Then the... Cloud... Thing spoke, rousing him from his thoughts. He paid attention as it addressed the questions of other Pokemon. Most of there forms were at least vaguely familiar, but some weren't. One in particular, a large beast with mismatched features, particularly made his fur stand on end. It made him think of them, the strange pokemon that sided with Umbra.

Trying to push the thought aside, he spoke up. "But why is? What makes us heroes?" Was I really the best the world had to offer? I doubt it. What does that say about the others?

 

[Weazel]

“His trainer?” That threw Archie for a loop momentarily. Of course, humans trained Pokemon. In universes where humans existed, that is. But the universe they’d come from, was one where humans were a myth. A story Pokemon told their children at bedtime. “Tarahn doesn’t have a… That is, humans don’t… Uh…”

The Oshawott put his paws on his hips, and frowned. Somehow this whole thing wasn’t going down like he imagined it would. If only Spencer was here, he’d know what to say in this situation. Corey wasn’t really helping him here with this apparent sudden bout of amnesia.

“Of course that’s my name. I work with your sister at the Lodge. Spencer and I have done jobs for you,” the Oshawott replied to the Ralts. “You still remember your sister, right? Gwyn? And Reid, her partner? Kirlia and Mienfoo?”

And what was this about a ranger school? Weren’t those the people who did the thing with the tops? He certainly wasn’t one of those. Or if he was, he didn’t remember that. And certainly neither Tarahn nor Corey should have any idea of what that even was, and it certainly wasn’t where they knew him from. The Oshawott scratched behind his ear, none of this was lining up. Tarahn might be the sort to tell a few lies for a laugh, but somehow this didn’t seem like that. And Corey wasn’t the type at all.

“A-anyway, he’s not, like, some kinda big bad or anything,” the Oshawott explained, somewhat haltingly, to the Zorua. Then he fixed the Toxel with a significant look before saying, “He’s just the local menace.”

 

[UnknownUser55]

The Spirit Nexus was a place, or realm, that was unlike anything Eco had ever seen before, not even in her own dreams. This was a place that far exceeded even imagination itself. Both Pokemon and humans alike, all originating from their own universes, with their own rules, all bound together by an eerie, foreign force. She had a difficult time believing what she was seeing.

But that wasn't what was important right now. All of these... people were here all united under a single reason, right? To help someone, or something.

The Vikavolt panned her eyes over the slowly expanding cast of characters, attempting to eye each and every one of them individually before she eventually decided that there were simply too many.

Her attention shifted to the light; the one responsible for bringing everyone here.

"So..." Eco began. "We've been brought all together, to this..." the Vikavolt gazed around another time. "Place. But you don't seem to know about any of us, or who we are, right? Are we really only chosen by proximity, or is it something else entirely?"

 

[VeniaSilente]

Kalas only suddenly became aware of himself flying, far above the City. The wind was punishing, and the Fearow got startled for a moment.

There was nothing but the infinite below him, nowhere to land, other than one very tall spire a short distance from him.

As soon as he perched there and folded his wings, his world was filled with white and silence. He could not even hear his own heart.

"Hello? Hello?" he squeaked.

A strong pressure, a gigantic force manifested behind him. Carefully Kalas turned about to see himself before a gigantic, ghostly dragon with a serpentine body and several thin wings, ended in red claws. His face seemed to be hidden by a golden shield. He immediately recognized the figure from scripture.

Kalas stepped back. "Oh... One of th Originals... Are you the one who sent for me?"

Giratina circled about the spire. "I'm the one to see you off. Three have volunteered for this Mission, but only you have reached past the will to make the jump."

"But— I'm not sure..."

"Are you not, you say?" The dragon rumbled and flew about, surrounded the entire spire with its body. "Then what are you doing here?"

"I'm..." Kalas looked about past the dragon. "I am not even sure who am I going to help or with what."

"Well, then with a little boost you will reach your answers."

"A... boost?"

Giratina nodded. "Only truly strong forces like gravity, or a heroic soul, can transcend dimensions. And even if it means little, I'll give you a little push that you can pursue your new fate. A call for aid that transcends even our multiverse means we ought to send our best. Represent us well."

Before Kalas could say anything else, the dragon roared and blew a strong wind; strong that it could have torn the Fearow to pieces, as the Pokémon shielded himself with his wings.

But he was unaffected; no, it was the world around him that was being dissolved. The infinite city below, the spire, the sky, everything disappeared around him until he found himself in complete darkness.

All he could hear was a calling, a voice he had heard before in weird dreams, in apparitions in the pools that formed from the rain.

As much as he could tell, a call for aid. That was what had come to his mind, and for some reason, he had desired to find out what the call was about.

...Or perhaps he was bored out of retirement already?

He turned around trying to track the source of the voices in the otherwise featureless plane. At best, all he could figure was "up", but that felt as infeasible as the infinite "down". After a few tries, he sighed.

"Okay, I don't know what did that Uber Eats delivery had, but you don't usually meet primeval gods in a dream."

Not primeval gods, perhaps, but a weird white smoke, like a cloud, a fair distance ahead.

"Hello? Are you the one who called for heroes? Are you the one contacting me?"

Now finally sensing a presence, Kalas spread his wings to head off towards the cloud. And as soon as he did, he found himself stuck on the ground, no longer in the empty darkness, but in a mysterious place he had never seen before. The cloud from before was now large and it was not alone, as Kalas saw all around him various people and Pokémon.

"...Gih!"

The Fearow shrieked out of surprise. He certainly was not alone now. With a variety of people about, some of them talking to the cloud, he took a moment before sheepishly raising a wing.

"Ahem... excuse me, I'm here for a job interview about a... hero thing?"

EDIT: for misinterpreting dialogue.

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Hey, I'm Tarahn," he said to the pokemon closest to him. "Where are everyone's trainers?"

"Uh, I'm one," she offered, raising a paw. "I was human until a minute ago, and back in my normal life, I'm journeying on the Galar Open circuit. Not sure it'll come in handy, but at least I've got a bit of tactical experience...?"

Jade turned at the word 'trainers.' The small, purple, lizardy Pokemon was the one who'd asked, so that probably mean he'd had a trainer of his own. And the girl--she was a Meowth now--was a trainer, so at least Jade wasn't the only one called here without their team.

'New bodies,' the voice had said. A Pokemon body. A chance to fight firsthand, without endangering anyone else. It was equal parts relieving and intimidating. Jade looked at her palms, unable to keep from wondering what form she'd be given.

 

[Mr.RMA]

"Alright, just gonna make something clear... I don't have a sister of any species, and for that matter, despite how you see me now, I'm a human where I come from... and so are you, and so is he," Corey gestured to Archie and Tarahn respectively. He looked plentifully confused himself for a moment more, but a thought seemed to finally seep into his mind to rationalize the inconsistencies.

"...Uh... you know what, before we all label each other certifiably insane, I think I'm gonna go on a limb here and say we just might have ourselves an issue of alternate universes going on, fellas... I'm no expert in the subject but I don't think that's required to explain how we seem to know each other... but as noticeably different people than how we know ourselves, if that makes any sense..."

 

[Inkedust]

“A-anyway, he’s not, like, some kinda big bad or anything,” the Oshawott explained, somewhat haltingly, to the Zorua. Then he fixed the Toxel with a significant look before saying, “He’s just the local menace.”

"...Uh... you know what, before we all label each other certifiably insane, I think I'm gonna go on a limb here and say we just might have ourselves an issue of alternate universes going on, fellas... I'm no expert in the subject but I don't think that's required to explain how we seem to know each other... but as noticeably different people than how we know ourselves, if that makes any sense..."

"Petty thief then," Bellatrix corrected with a flick of an ear. "But I believe this ralts friend of yours is right. If we're dealing with multiple worlds, then it's not implausible to meet different versions of people you know." Her tail swished from side to side. "So perhaps it's best to drop the preconceived notions, lest it starts getting in the way of your ability to function as a unit. Wouldn't want to become a liability now."

She padded a few paces away. "We are expected to fulfil this task as a group, correct?" she asked the misty voice. The zorua normally thought herself as someone who didn't need much assistance in completing a task but there was no denying the strategic advantage - assuming that the worlds only put forth their best, of course. She didn't want to think how dire a world had to be to send someone who barely had a head on their shoulders to begin with.

 

[Butterfree]

Dave was in some kind of fucking bizarro-realm right out of Jean's cartoons along with a bunch of talking Pokémon, and somehow it all seemed distressingly familiar.

An irritatingly chipper voice coming from an animated cloud was going on about souls and heroes. Just casually talking about the universe answering a call for help by whisking their souls off to the Spirit Nexus Woo-Woo Plane to save a different universe. And yet. He was there, listening to the Pokémon fucking talking, and something in his head just wearily accepted it all. This was just how things were going to be for a while. Nothing would make any sense by the known laws of how anything worked, and he'd get used to it.

Fine. He'd entertain this barking mad nonsense, whatever it was, and then he'd wake up back in his bed in the real world and forget this fever dream.

He didn't remember answering a call for help, but he had the creeping sense that somehow he had.

He blinked, and suddenly the girl who'd first showed up was gone, one of those spindly-looking gray Meowth in her place. Wait, what.

In an instant, everything folded in on itself, and then he was on all fours, disconcertingly close to the ground. He stared down at black paws, looked back to see shaggy gray fur and a tail.

...Had he just turned into a goddamn Poochyena? And why in God's name did that also feel horribly familiar?

"What the actual fuck."

 

[Ambyssin]

The back of Nova's neck prickled. Why did he feel like this was a less of a spirit nexus and more of a lobby of people who would get picked last for a schoolyard kickball game?

 

[SparklingEspeon]

Espurr figured she was homeless now. Or... universeless? She didn't know what the term for that was. She wasn't grounded in a single place anymore, whisked away from one world to another like she was on some cosmic waitlist for people who apparently wanted the weirdo who played checkers with the classroom hamster to do their dirty work for them. It left her confused, addled, even more unsure of her direction than she had been before. She'd come because whoever had sent the message sounded desperate and she knew she wouldn't sleep for a long, long time if she just ignored it, but had she gone too far? That was two worlds she'd been displaced from now.

She glanced around for Tricky, taking a breath to ask her if she'd heard the strange voice too, instinct driving her to search for her best friend who clung to her like glue. But Tricky wasn't there. The space next to her was empty. Scanning the crowd hurriedly, she saw all sorts of unique characters, but nothing that looked like anymon she knew. Her heart sank, creating a deep dark pit in her stomach. The world fell apart in her head. She hadn't been sent all on her own, had she?

But no amount of looking made any familiar faces appear.

Her body, abstract, a mix between fluffy, floaty, and pins-and-needles, seemed to come together now that she noticed it. For just a few seconds she thought she saw hands, her hands, before something seemed to change on a dime and they formed into the same purple paws she was used to seeing. A deep disappointment flooded her, before she noticed there weren't any other humans around in the crowd either. Were there others like her also caught up in this mess?

She bit back the shakiness in her gut and rose to her feet--at least she was still an espurr and not something else she'd have to get used to--looking around unsurely as what was... a moving cloud? explained what was going on. She'd met almost a hundred different kinds of pokemon and had never seen any like that before.

The cloud billowed gently. It was 'gesturing' to the assembling crowd.

"Does anyone else have any questions?" it asked.

"I did not say anything, actually! The Call was by someone else, and I only sent it out into the multiverse, which is the easy part!"

Espurr caught the question between the lines that had been lost to the wind. She waved her pointy paw into the air and hopped up a couple times, hoping hard that it went over some of the larger pokemons' heads. Some of them were huge.

"Wait a minute," she said. "If all you did was send the message, then who Called all of us? Shouldn't they be here also? You must know them, right?"

 

[AdamArtDraws]

"Wait a minute," she said. "If all you did was send the message, then who Called all of us? Shouldn't they be here also? You must know them, right?"

Felin stretched her limbs as she laid on the her side and propped her head up on her paw. Trainers? Humans? Pokemon with shared histories crossing paths? That all sounded like tales made up by an Oren Berry salesmon, had everything else not been bizarre enough as they were.

Much of the chatter bounced off her disinterested ears, but the other cat pricked her waning curiosity before it went to sleep too.

"Yeah, she sure is right. If you're here on that person's behalf does that make you a kind of secretary?" Felin scraped a tooth and fell into idle thought.

She wondered if they were dealing with a mon too desperate dealing with whatever they needed their ragtag lot for, or an all important individual who'd cast a shadow over them from behind the scenes for much of the their time here.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Gladion shadowed the perimeter of the group. He felt no want to draw particular attention to himself— quite the opposite, really. Though this ostensibly-not-a-dream had granted him the dignity of arriving properly dressed rather than in pyjamas, it hadn't seen fit to grace him with having his hair done up. (Perhaps it was because it was how he saw himself most often? He looked at his reflection most before finishing doing it up. In spite of all the ways it didn't make sense, it sort of did.) One way or another, he'd had to just stuff the excess hair down the back of his hoodie and hope nobody scrutinized him too much.

He wanted, at first, to reject the call. He'd not want anything to do with this, and more importantly he had a responsibility to Hazel first and foremost, but as he listened...

Well, if no time would pass at home, he couldn't object on account of that.

"You already answered the call. All of you did. You chose before you came here."

He didn't remember doing any such thing. He was pretty sure that, on a logical basis an agreement made on such a level didn't really count as proper agreement, but any objections he could've voiced stuck in the throat because... Yeah, he would have done it. As much as he wasn't particularly happy with the idea, he wasn't sure he could turn his back on the situation either.

So he lingered, listening quietly. He could always argue for release later, but he couldn't un-argue once he started. There was no shortage of new information to try to parse, either:

Spoiler: fun with me accidentally writing lots more of Gladion being existential horrorified than planned dot jpeg

- He had a soul, apparently. By the sound of it, not the mundane energetic kind either. The mythical kind, the summation of what makes someone who they are outside the sum of their cells, made to describe the comforting but implausible idea the people had a Realness that transcended physical creaturehood into... whatever was convenient to the storyteller, really. But this time it's for real and he totally had one! (No, seriously, he did and he had absolutely no idea what that meant.)

- Even if all this would be as if it had never happened when he returned, that... might take a while. Someone had been stuck there for thirty fucking years. It was hardly unlikely that'd be most of their self-aware life by this point. At that point, is it even the same person waking up? If their soul was aphysical but also didn't give the sum of what made you who you were, why should it even matter to them if the soul outlived them. (At that point maybe it is just dying. If both identities continued on without the other was it really a cut/paste of identity, or a copy/paste for a new branch that would never merge in any sense except save for vague spiritualism?)

-He was wasting his time thinking about that detail when there were more pressing matters at hand like the fact that—

- Dying would bring you back. Better that be true than not, but there was still a lair of muted horror to the whole thing he couldn't quite shake off... Dying of age-related complications was still dying, and even if Gladion personally had no plans of sticking it out that long, this stranger was probably in it for life at this point. The idea of losing most of an entire life to end up stuck back as someone you hadn't been in decades was disturbing enough he felt a pang of sympathy for them anyways. (Though perhaps he was overreacting. After all, his reason to find the idea of waking back up as someone you no longer were without the ability to remember or articulate who you are would just about certainly not apply to this stranger.)

- He was getting off-topic again he should be thing about the fact this thing was cooking up new bodies for everyone there. On one hand that meant he should either object now or he'd probably be crossing the rubicon soon, on the other hand it was strangely reassuring in its own way. None of the people here could possibly know him. Leaving his body behind was the last thing he'd need to be free from his past for his time here. He wouldn't have to worry about medication, or people casting aspersions on who he was if they found out. (He wondered what he'd become. Sneasel might fit him. He had a connection to the species by means of Silverbell and he fit a lot of the connontations they carried in the collective unconscious. Would it affect him mentally? Souls or no souls, he was still certain brains weren't just for decoration. On second thought, maybe this was a bad idea...)

Then, he was configured, and...

Fuck.

Well, technically, the thing had said "body" so jumping to "species" was perhaps a little presumptuous of him. That thing sure could "intuit" a hell of a lot about the Type: Null design schema than would be expected. Apparently the whole fucking documentation was etched into his fucking soul, which made the concept more confusing honestly. (Would this body contain the undocumented behaviour too? Because even he didn't really know the details of what was going on with that.)

Maybe that would be a good starting point for questions. He stepped into the group and looked— ouch okay he looked a little bit slightly up, insofar as that was possible for him right now.

"Not to bother you or anything, but mind explaining how you 'intuited' this particular 'configuration'?"

 

[Phoenixsong]

Spoiler: Preemptive Cliff's Notes, just for you

Just getting my foot in the door and lightening things up with someone who's actually excited to be here. There's a question at the end but it doesn't require a GM response, if you don't want! It'll get answered satisfactorily enough when the scene wraps anyway.

So! There was the tiniest chance, maybe, that this was not the backyard of the Linden residence. It was kinda missing said residence, for one thing. It didn't have a blastoise sleeping by the fish pond, or an aerodactyl in the tree with the swing, or a gengar that was... already not present, probably off smooshing his face up against some unsuspecting neighbor's window, but there weren't any neighboring houses, either. Didn't even have the tent she'd been sleeping in, the one that really had needed a test drive before setting out again, honest. (The first she'd learned of the tear in the old one was getting rained on at three AM, and, well. Did Mom want her to get bit by a ninetales? Because that's how you get bit by a ninetales. So wanting to camp in the backyard for the night was just solid wilderness preparedness and not even an excuse, actually!)

It was making Leaf wish that this was her backyard, though. Tire swings were neat, but you couldn't blame her for preferring a beach. Or a field of crisp, fresh snow. Or a towering forest that was also a quaint little plaza with a side helping of rocky desert trails. Or all those things at the same time! All the folks gathered around the big talking glow ball were feeling the excitement for sure. Some kind of excitement, anyway. Nervousness? But why be nervous if the glow ball said they'd all chosen to come here in the first place?

To be fair, Leaf couldn't actually remember 'answering' anything, either. Mostly just busying herself with setting up the tent, making sure everyone was settled, finally flopping onto her sleeping bag and letting the starry sky above ease the tension away. Just one more week and she'd be watching those same stars from Hoenn. One more week and she'd be moving again, exploring, adventuring, able to breathe, and that was all she wanted.

...did that count as a 'yes'? Weird that it hadn't just wished her to Rustboro instead, but credit where it was due, Rustboro probably wasn't quite this interesting.

Also weird: her team wasn't here. Not even Reynard, who'd been curled up in the tent with her, like, right there. Had the help-caller even invited them? (Rude.) But, well, if she really was just going to be gone for a moment... they'd be fine, right? She'd be back even before Rey had a chance to bite her if it did rain. Tch, easy.

She felt her knuckles crack and resist a little as she gave the glow ball a thumbs up, like her fingers didn't really want to separate. Huh. Hadn't felt that stiff when she'd fallen asleep. Eh, probably nothing! And what better way to work out the kinks than to get moving?

"Sounds good to me! What're we waiting around here for?"

 

[JFought]

Spoiler: short intro

There was no feeling. No others. Something compressed, then stabilized.

There were voices, many of them, all unreachable. It reacted to them, and a consciousness began to spark and sputter to life. In between bursts were memories, starting hazy and slowly gaining definition. It tried to remember.

Weavile. Magic. Gold Rose. Swift Claw. King Faraday's College. Discontent.

The last, most vivid thing was the call. And the answer...

"You already answered the call. All of you did. You chose before you came here."

Of course. The answer was yes. The answer is always yes.

~~~

Isidora's eyes opened to a cloudless starry sky and a splitting headache. She closed them immediately and brought up her claws to cover her ringing ears. Sh-shit... What...? Her entire body felt like it had just been dragged out of a freezing river, her muscles aching and weaker than she was used to, and even though her fur protected her from the cold snow she was laying in it certainly wasn't helping. The world around her was a chaos of noise, way too much for her to handle right now.

She had multiple questions. Yet as they each came to mind, she realized she had all of the answers. She didn't specifically remember hearing any of them from among these voices, but she definitely had; as if she had been half-asleep the entire time and had only now fully woken up. Multiple worlds. One world in trouble. She was here alongside others to do something about it, no going back until she did. There were no stakes for her. Once it was over, it'd be like it never happened.

Carefully, Isidora lifted a claw and opened her eyes. It was bright as day in spite of the night sky, and she could clearly see that her paw had only two claws on it, not three. Like a sneasel. Startled, her claws reflexively unsheathed fully, though she quickly realized she knew the answer to that question, too. Her paw fell onto the snow besides her and she chuckled bitterly. Right. Figures.

She didn't have the energy for any of this nonsense. What the hell was she expected to do right now, anyway? Wait? The others, whoever they were, they seemed concerned with questions, and she knew that she really should've been paying attention. But her forehead gem felt like it was about to pop out of her skull.

Still, she couldn't afford to seem useless. It was bad enough she had apparently been sleeping for most of it. She couldn't get up, but she could at least try asking this 'voice' a question of her own. Something important. Practical.

"What... What should we expect? What's waiting for us in this world, Forlas or whatever?"

Her voice trailed off, having come out quieter than she intended. No way anyone heard that. She sighed, then covered her eyes with her arms and laid on her side. With any luck no one would notice her and she could get a better start when she finally stopped feeling like shit.

 

[Hap]

Ridley had been... listening, mostly.

He'd made his way through the dark woods, a tangled thicket of thorny bushes and twisted trees, of bioluminescence not quite bright enough to see by, of figures half-glimpsed out of the corner of one's eye or mocking voices half-heard, which reminded him so happily and nostalgically of the Ballonlea Forest of his childhood. He'd been almost sad when the forest had come to its end, spilling him out into a wide plaza filled with people and their pokemon.

After listening for a while, he'd corrected that initial assumption. No, not people and their pokemon. Just people.

They were all talking at once: complaining, mostly, about having been brought here and interrogating the strange glowing cloud as to its intentions. Ridley considered that for a moment and then concluded that he didn't actually care whether or not the cloud was trying to manipulate them for sinister ends. That sounded like a worry for the future, when he actually had enough context to ask meaningful questions instead of the endless repetition of "I don't understand what's going on and apparently neither does anyone else" being passed amongst the crowd.

Meanwhile: multiverses! Dimensional travel! Other worlds! Were other people really so boring that they were complaining about this?

Ridley had never really considered himself the heroic type. He was, he had to admit, more the sort of guy who'd die first in a horror movie, the one who went to investigate the spooky noises or ran towards the bloodcurdling screams. If there was a call, then Ridley wasn't particularly surprised to discover that he was one of the ones who'd answered it.

At some point, almost without Ridley realising it, his perspective had slipped from six feet tall to somewhere significantly nearer the ground.

 

[Neirdae]

"This is a super tiny world! Or is mine just big? I don't now how many people live in Sinnoh, but it's a lot more than fifty."

Clover closed her eyes and tries to feel for who's the biggest source of anxiety and fear. But her horn felt nothing. The masked chimera ground his face into the dirt, a dinosaur seemed to be arguing with its tail, and a few humans morphed into Pokémon before her eyes. Yet she felt no pain, fear, or anger from any of them. How was she supposed to help people without knowing what was hurting them?

"Your soul is only visiting this place. And you will only visit the world you are called to. Then, when it is over, you will return to your body, without memory of this, without time passing, like a dream."

Oh. Apparently Clover didn't have her actual body, which is how she ate all those yummy bad feelings poor people suffered from. This place was weird! Clover didn't feel hot, or cold, or anything, even a breeze as she floated around. Well, she was a ghost living as a scrap of cloth, so most physical things didn't bother her anyway, but it was strange to feel *nothing*.

"I guess you're right." A rasping wheeze. Stupid fucking mask. "In a 'glass half empty masquerading as a pep talk' kind of way." Nova sure hoped the mask didn't muffle the slight amusement in his tone.

Well, if they were all souls here, Clover could help that one. At least she could easily see what was bothering him. Clover shifted her eyes to calming blue, put on her best silly face with her tongue sticking out, and popped in front of Nova.

"Boo! You know we don't really have to breathe here, right? I mean, I've never breathed anyways, but I bet you could make the air holes bigger if you wanted to. I don't think your soul really wants to suffocate." Clover thought for a moment. "Or maybe it's all symbolic of how someone back in your world is holding you back. Well, they can't hurt you here! And if they do, I'll have some very choice words for them! They can't chain you up like this!"

Maybe there were only a few dozen people here, but she'd been called to help them all! That was definitely more convenient than wandering cities looking for people to help (and feed her, but that was obvious).

"Uh, I'm one," she offered, raising a paw. "I was human until a minute ago, and back in my normal life, I'm journeying on the Galar Open circuit. Not sure it'll come in handy, but at least I've got a bit of tactical experience...?"

Yellow crept in to Clover's eyes. "Trainers are usually okay, but I've seen some that are super bossy and mean. You're not going to boss us around now since you used to be a trainer, are you?"