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Frontier Town Founder's Square

Reader mode
Felin sprang off her bench with a leap and dashed up a wall. She climbed up to a rooftop in mere seconds with the nimble agility of any cat.

"Fare thee well, all of you!" She smiled and waved and laughed to herself. "l'll be off getting my new gear and exploring what this place has to offer. Any and all are free to follow!"

With that, she left. Felin never actually stopped to see if anyone followed or not.
 
Mhynt nodded sagely. "I'm going to do some walkarounds in town to get the ins and outs of the place. Afterward, there was one lead that had been given to me recently by Gerome about a strange... bulletin board. I think I'm going to investigate that after asking for directions for where it is. It's apparently not too far... the way he spoke of it, at least."

With a casual wave, she turned around. "I'll meet the rest of you at boarding. I doubt we'll lose each other that easily in this town if we're going to be the talk of it for a while."

No avoiding that, she supposed.

The Treecko walked along the roads, notably going under shade when it wasn't too out of the way.
 
Laura turned and padded towards Traveller's Haus, unsure if she'd sleep well – or at all – tonight. Cats could sleep anywhere, any time, right? She hoped her natural rhythms in this body would allow a diurnal lifestyle...

The human-turned-meowth had a feeling this would be the least of her problems by the time they were done here.

<><><><><>​
 
Kalas had been totally I swear participating in the rest of the conversation. No, actually he had been distracted long enough that he had conveniently missed some of the others leaving. In his mind was a liiittle issue...

«I thought we got here to help, not to get help...»

He sighed, and took off to the nearest roof to take a look around town. Lucien had said they would answer for them at the Maus place at least for a while. And, in Kalas's eyes, the shortest that time was, the better.

"Well well... a nest might be accounted for for now," the Spearow thought aloud. "But a job..."

He decided the practical thing to do would be to do a quick scan across the Main Street before heading for the sleeping accommodations. If anything, an early bird might get an early recommendation for a job.
 
[Ch01] - Arctozolt and Gladion: Chimera to Chimera Communication
  • Threadmarks
    • Arctozolt could do without the stares they were getting.

    It made sense. They were a Pokemon that should not exist, and their top and bottom halves were very disjointed with each other.

    Nevertheless, as they entered the square, they saw one of the Pokemon they didn't recognize. A mishmashed Pokemon, though less overtly than themselves.

    Were they similar? Only one way to find out.

    "Hey, you there!" Arctozolt called out towards Gladion.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • It took Gladion a moment to realize that "you there" was him. He paused and took a deep breath. He just needed to see if he could find something the help him sleep more comfortably, but public heckling might be his new reality for a little while. It was best to be patient. He didn't want to accrue a bad reputation.

    Trying with limited success not to sound impatient, he addressed his assailant. "Yes? Do you need something from me?"
     
    "You a mishmash too, like us?" Arcrtozolt asked, coming a bit closer. "Trying to get our bearings here, and you and Nova are the most like us we've seen here so far."
     
    Gladion took a step back, trying to get a reading on who all was around around him. He wondered if he'd misheard the sentence somehow, that Gladion was the most like 'us' ala this person and Nova, but he was pretty sure it had been that Gladion and Nova were the most like 'us' which suggested a fourth person he was unaware of. Maybe he'd meet them later...

    "...Is the word you're looking for chimera? We are chimeras, and you also look like one to me. Translation has decided to relay what you said as 'mishmash', though, which doesn't mean anything distinct in this context. So I'm not sure."
     
    Gladion sighed. "I'm still uncertain. How literally are we talking here? Is that your attempt at describing genetic engineering, or a sequel to I have no mouth and I must scream?"

    He was really trying not to be too sarcastic, but he was tired, physically and mentally uncomfortable, it was late, this person was really annoying, and he was starting to wonder if he was in such a sequel himself wherein his first— second, actually, or at this point maybe third form of torture was having to field deeply stupid questions from someone who was always just barely vague enough to make it impossible to draw a meaningful conclusion despite the fact it felt like doing so should be incredibly easy.
     
    Gladion shot this fu— these fucking assholes a scathing glare. "By some function of the word lucky, I guess. Yeah. I've just been having a super fucking lucky day today. Everything's a hot mess not, but..."

    He cut himself off before he could add 'at least I'm not a clown car, so things are looking up on that front.' He was trying to stay within a quota of one enemy per day, that way he'd have at least a month before he'd burned bridges with everyone. Except maybe Wes. He'd be extra careful not to burn that one.

    "I guess it could technically be worse. For this place really can revel to me further horrors beyond h— my comprehension."
     
    Gladion suppressed the urge to say something he’d definitely regret. Instead he hedged his options on a merely possible regret.

    “Yeah. Guess I could’ve. Could’ve done worse too. Your predicament sucks, but I reserve the right to call you annoying if you go on about how lucky I am. You want to argue over who gets the gold metal in the suffering olympics, go petition someone else for it. I’m not in the mood to commiserate you. That all you had on the iterate? ‘Cause I’ve got other things I’d like to finish before night falls without a way for me to sleep without causing myself spinal distress.”
     
    That was about when Arctozolt's tail reached up and smacked their snout.

    Instead of deciding to scream at she own ass, they shook their head, and said, "Look, maybe we got off on the wrong foot. Flipper. Paw. Whatever. What I was GOING to say is that maybe us three and Nova should stick together."
     
    Gladion winced. So that's what 'two souls' meant. What the fuck? Did they have two brains? Did the bottom half have some kind of decentralized nervous system? Maybe it was simply that science as a discipline was dead.

    Still, the death of science did not give him a bedreavement period from having to talk to people.

    "Sure. I think everyone here is more or less planning to stick together anyways, so why not?"
     
    [Ch01] ~ Cats and Cats' People
  • Threadmarks
    • Laura made her way back to Founder's Square, head spinning with information from the town library, from comparing notes with Mhynt, from trying to remember every last howling thing that could be relevant. The sensory overload alone was killing her – cat's senses, in a hot and dusty climate, in a town when she'd grown used to trekking Galar's routes and wilds. She needed to learn more. She needed to keep track of the rest of the party. She needed to find a fucking job. She needed to practice using attacks, because she was a meowth now, and what did that mean for her diet, would she have to hunt, she didn't know nearly enough, and she just missed her pokémon so fucking much it was going to kill her.

    "Goddamnit," she muttered to herself, sitting down at a bench by the fountain, in the shade of the empoleon statue.

    She missed Salem. If she could've come here with Salem, this wouldn't be half as insane, or so daunting. But she was alone, and all she had in this world – 'Forlas' – was her (anxious) mind, her (weak) body, and her (complete stranger) allies.

    For now, said the stubborn part of her. All I have, for now. Not forever.

    She ran a paw over the green scarf she'd found in the Haus' lost-and-found box. That was something else she had, technically.

    She glanced up, and saw that toxel, the one with the weirdly feline mannerisms, that she remembered from the Spirit Nexus. If she said hi, made a connection... that'd be one ally who wasn't a complete stranger. She bit her lip.

    "Hey there," she called, feeling stupid. She wasn't even totally sure it was the same toxel. Except, there, the same cat-like behaviour. What was with that?

    She called again, "Hey there, remember me...?"
     
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    • Tarahn had followed the others to town dutifully, annoyed at his lack of agility: normally he'd've been able to dart ahead or lag behind to investigate any bush or hollow that looked interesting and then catch up with the plodding main group as needed, but as a Toxel he was a plodder, too, and he watched Silver the Sneasel with envy.

    In Frontier Town the others wandered off, leaving Tarahn unsupervised. He saw other pokemon from the initial gathering trotting from place to place, but no one seemed to be looking for him, and there still weren't any trainers around. He went exploring, drinking some water from the fountain, and scuttling through alleyways looking for forgotten and unattended items, or interesting spaces or crevices. Almost instantly he found a crawlspace under one building that was chock-full of bugs, so he had lunch and then napped for a couple of hours.

    Tarahn went back to the fountain to wait, and really started to feel uneasy. There were only pokemon around, all wearing this or that bit of clothing like they were all in on the game, and not a single human. A lot of them moved like humans, too: poorly aware of their surroundings, only paying attention to what they saw in front of them. One time, a demon pokemon had put him and Moriko's other pokemon and her friends' pokemon to sleep, and stole their trainers. This was different, though, not having the awful, obvious energy field from the demon over everything, for one. They all knew something was wrong before the trainers got stolen and even the humans could feel it.

    Tarahn felt the other pokemon's attention on him periodically as he people-watched, and one or two stares would've raised the fur on his back if he still had any. He pretended to groom himself each time, licking a paw nonchalantly, and the other pokemon moved off, bored, but he missed having the whole team around to eyeball somebody right back. Where was everybody?

    Jackie Cat said:
    She called again, "Hey there, remember me...?"
    Click to expand...

    The gray Meowth from before was trying to get his attention! He trotted over, tail raised. "Hey! I'm Tarahn! What's your name?"
     
    "Laura," she replied, fighting the urge to coo and try to pet Tarahn. The spoken Galarish, the cat-like behaviours, and the toxel body gave her so many mixed signals it was hard to know just how to treat him. She tried for friendly but neutral and hoped for the best – he seemed easygoing, at least.

    "I'm one of the, uh, you know." She paused, intensely aware of the locals passing through the square and Kimiko's warnings not to make her original species public knowledge. "One of the ones who used to be a trainer, before being sent here. No idea if I'll ever get used to this, or how much use I'm gonna be without my team, but..."

    She hesitated again, immediately overthinking the relative level of sapience her never-human teammates might have, and whether their cultures even had a concept of pokémon training. Tarahn might not even be from a world that had humans. Goddamnit.

    "Well, maybe I can coach you and our other teammates?" she tried, a little meekly. Ugh, what would Malachai say if he saw her being this wimpy? She tried to project confidence. "I was pretty good at it, back home!"

    Yeah, super impressive. Pretty good at it. She must have sounded like a dumbass.
     
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