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Frontier Town Grand Station Construction Site

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Nip's fur puffed up the moment Nova spoke. "Ah! S-sorry. Sorry." He didn't move. He couldn't move. Why couldn't he move? Come on, where was his sense of self-preservation?

Squeezing his eyes shut, the sneasel took a deep breath. Maybe this one wasn't like those other Pokemon. Logic dictated he wouldn't be, but all he could think about was that charizard's snapping jaws.

But if he was brought here, too, then he had to be heroic, right?

Maybe. Nip still wasn't fully convinced.

"Sorry," he repeated a third time. "You're... With our group, right? The group that fell here. That saw the strange cloud... Thing." If he was right, then maybe he could calm his fears. If not... He probably sounded crazy.
 
Nova glanced over his shoulder to see if any of the others were lurking around, then nodded slowly. "Unlike the lot of you, though, I have a workable cover story. It's easy to say I'm the product of a mystery dungeon and have people believe me."

It was also true to some extent, so that helped.
 
The product of a mystery dungeon? He'd never heard of dungeons that could do... That. But different worlds could have different rules. So he wrote that off.

On the subject of a cover story, he mumbled, "Maybe I could make up a story about growing up outside of towns..." It wasn't too far from the truth, but he wasn't sure it would work.

Realizing he was speaking his thoughts out loud, he shook out his fur and turned his attention back to the strange pokemon. "What are you, anyways?" A heartbeat later, he realized he probably sounded rude. "Sorry. What I mean is... I don't think there's anything like you in my world. What do I call you? And what is your name?"
 
"Then yours is probably a better world," Nova said, sighing. "I'm just Nova." He shifted his weight around as the vest was digging into his shoulders slightly.
 
And here Nova thought Mhynt was the only one on the team with a single-syllable name. At least, of the people he'd met so far. "I do. People like me don't exist through natural means. The fact the summoner could recreate this... is a bad omen for this land."
 
Mon like him don't exist naturally? That did explain why he hadn't seen anyone like him before. But at the same time.

"How so?" He pressed. "What concerns you?" Should he be worried? Now his mind was more on the situation, instead of his concerns over what Nova might be.
 
"This land... does not have the equipment to make a body like this." Nova was quite confident in that. "Which leaves two theories. The first... the summoner hunted down pokémon and took the parts they needed to stitch together this body." Which, if Nova had to be honest, felt less likely. He imagined that would put his body under a constant strain of falling apart. "The second... some divine power materialized this from someone's memories."

Hopefully not mine.
 
The first possibilty was hard for Nip to wrap his head around. The idea that someone could create life from a bunch of body parts... Only a god could do something like that. But from what he'd read, there was certainly belief in God's here, so it wasn't impossible...

The other idea, however seemed more plausible. "There are others among our group that may have seen something at least similar to you, are there not? Not to mention these... Humans, including those that came before us."
 
Nova's fur prickled up a bit. "Yeah, humans..." He pivoted away from Nip. "Heard some of the rumblings. Don't blame people for thinking like that. My creator and I are what you get when humans go too far. When that willpower of theirs becomes dangerous ambition."
 
Dangerous ambition? ...Okay, yeah. He could believe that. Not that Nova specifically was dangerous, but the idea that he could be the product of someone trying to pretend to be a god.

"...What do you know of humans? My world does not have them, so most of what I know has been gathered here." Were they something to be afraid of?
 
"I think everyone who knows about them will give you different answers," Nova responded. And, frankly, he thought his would be the least useful to Nip. But the sneasel did ask. "Where I'm from, all humans are ruled over by a single pokémon. No matter what authority they think they have, they answer to the emperor."
 
He considered the answer for a moment. "I could believe that. From what little I've heard, they're nothing special. And yet they seemed to be treated as so important. N-not to discredit any among our group. It just... They don't make sense to me."
 
"Because pokémon can grow stronger faster alongside humans," Nova said. "Sometimes. No one really knows how it works. And there's certainly a limit." He lowered his head. "Humans like to push past limits. And that desire is what spurns ambition. What can turn them dangerous. When that 'bond' is twisted and warped in a way that you get something you're unprepared for. Something that seizes power."
 
"Now that, I can believe," Nip replied, expression turning dark. "Though I doubt it is limited to just humans, if my experiences are anything to go off of."
 
"The difference is... most pokémon lack the means of building what humans can build," Nova growled. "The machines. The technology. We don't have the same degree of dexterity. Even telekinesis can't match human fine motor skills." He again glanced over his shoulder. No one was paying him any mind or asking for him to come back yet. So, that was good, he supposed.
 
Nip glanced down at his paws. Though he was fairly dexterous, there was no denying that his claws got in the way at times. And he could only imagine how much harder most quadrupeds had it. "I suppose you have a point there," he reluctantly agreed. "That's something they have going for them, at least." Still, he didn't like it. The idea of some powerless creature being dominant purely by wit and ingenuity... It felt wrong. How could they survive against creatures with claws and fangs and elemental powers long enough to reach that point. "At least the ones in our group are here to help some greater good?" At least, he hoped so.
 
"Time will tell." Nova shrugged. They didn't even know what the threat was. "The last time a human was supposedly summoned here for a crisis was for the Entropic Crisis. Which I don't know much about. Probably related to mystery dungeons."
 
Entropic? Nip did not know that word. He took a moment to try and work it out based on context, but gave up and instead focused on what he did understand. "Perhaps... I wonder how Mystery dungeons work here. In my world, they're believed to be placed where time and space became twisted and warped, a result of an ancient war between Doalga and Palkia. They are... Annoying, but ultimately only dangerous if you get lost or can't defend yourself from their inhabitants. But the way you speak, I gather that isn't the case here."
 
Nova stared blankly. He managed to stop his fur from prickling. There was something he could say. Should say, even. But it never made it to his beak.

Instead, what slipped out was, "What the fuck is a dialga or palkia? Sounds like hatchling babbling to me."
 
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