Blaguarro Town Main Station

[Chibi Pika]

Jade started slightly; she hadn’t been expecting anyone to address her, and had let herself get lost in the memories of the things she’d seen during the battle. Doubly weird that it was the Poochyena—well, Mightyena now—that she hadn’t talked with much outside of missions since it sorta seemed like he was always in a bad mood.

…Right, he’d asked about Legendaries.

“Well, I mean… yeah?” she replied awkwardly, a bit confused by the tone of the question. “I guess they’re not called that in my country, but maybe some people do, somewhere.” She wasn’t exactly an expert on cultural views of Legendaries worldwide.

 

[Butterfree]

Well, that was a dodge, wasn't it. Dave sighed. "I mean, in my world Zapdos and Moltres and so on are myths. Not even consistent myths. Some of them say Moltres is this glorious fiery bringer of spring and some other cultures went no, actually those guys' patron god Moltres is this asshole that curses everything near it. Guess Forlas decided cool, all myths are true, there's just fucking two of them."

He looked away briefly, rolling his eyes. "But no, what I was driving at is during the fight you sounded like this wasn't your first rodeo trying to deal with one of these things. Like, the ways you were trying to appease and placate her from the start, and how it'd do her good to hang around mortals even though it's not exactly normal where you're from. So have you done something like this before?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade wasn't sure what to make of that. 'Just myths.' So like, what, the Legendaries weren't around anymore and all anyone had left was old stories with no way to figure out which ones were true? She supposed that made sense. After all, if people back home hadn't gone and woken up Groudon and Kyogre, those two would've just faded into myth too.

But then he asked if she'd done something 'like this' before, and Jade had to ask herself that same thing.

"Well, not like what happened with Moltres specifically, but yeah... I did try to help the legends back home. I guess I haven't really talked about it much with anyone here because, well... I just wanted to feel normal. But if we're gonna be fighting Legendaries here too, there's no reason not to. Talk about it, I mean."

(Even though she'd quickly learned that her home situation was normal compared to half the team. Evidently not Dave, though, if the legends weren't around in his world.)

 

[Butterfree]

Dave'd been imagining Jade as perhaps some hapless citizen of a town victimized by some legendary deity, someone who'd gotten used to telling them whatever they wanted to hear until they stopped and maybe trying to coax them to change, what with all the frantic diplomatic concessions about we don't have the right to decide who's worthy of being a Saint and please help us understand stuff. But that wasn't quite what she was making it sound like now. His brow furrowed. "So you were trying to help them but also fighting them?"

Well. Maybe he shouldn't be so surprised. Technically, somehow, that'd been what they'd ended up doing with Moltres. What the fuck.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Oh, right, she should’ve realized that that was sorta confusing without any context…

Jade scratched at her cheek fur, tail swaying back and forth. “It started with trying to save them from people who were trying to abuse their power. Then fighting the ones who’d already had their power taken.” Then fighting the ones trying to strike back at that injustice, because they’d taken it too far.

“So…helping some of them and fighting others. But either way, I’ve negotiated with Legendaries before, and thought maybe I could know how to help here, even if the situation’s different.”

 

[Butterfree]

"'Had their power taken'?" Dave asked. "And... then you had to fight them? So you're talking about... like, capture? Some kind of mind-control or what?"

What the shit went on in every other universe. A bunch of Pokémon with power that nobody could come close to running around doing whatever they wanted was already questionable, but other people being able to abuse their power opened an even bigger can of worms. Surely Jade couldn't mean any random idiot with a Pokéball could just capture a legendary and have them be as psyched to follow their commands as any Pokémon, right? Hardly if there was such a thing as negotiating with them?

 

[Chibi Pika]

“Er, yeah…” Jade rubbed the back of her head—she’d gotten so used to putting it in terms the legends would understand. “I meant captured. The people doing the capturing had the tech to pull it off. And, uh… they were being funded by the government, so there’s that.”

Jade had the distinct feeling that she wasn’t explaining this very well. She fidgeted with her shoulderbag as she added, “And the free legends were split on how to handle it, so there was a lot of mediating.” And, well… that wasn’t too dissimilar to the situation with Moltres.

 

[Butterfree]

"Funded by the goverment? Jesus." Okay, so regular human politics in all their inanity were still a thing in at least some universes. "So what's... like, what are these legendaries like in your universe exactly? Because on the one hand you're saying they've got political opinions, and you're mediating, but on the other hand you're fighting them when they get captured. So they're... intelligent like here, but the capture's controlling them somehow? Or do they just, what, insta-go along with getting a trainer anyway? What about regular Pokémon over there, are they the same?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

What are they like? If that wasn't a hard question, Jade didn't know what was. It made sense that he'd be curious, if they were all gone from his world with nothing but stories left. Hell, she'd have been curious too, if she were in that spot. But still...

"They're... I mean they don't normally get involved in human business, but people capturing them sorta forced the issue. Before that, they were just vibing out in the deepwilds. And, yeah, obviously this wouldn't be such a big problem if the people catching them weren't able to control them." She really should have mentioned that part sooner...

"And the Pokemon aren't like the ones here; they don't, like, make towns or use money, they're just... normal." She really hated that that word had lost all meaning.

"I mean..."--Jade swirled a paw around, searching for a comparison--"I mean like, like the Escarpa--normal like that." Okay, so the Escarpa's tents and jewelry were still a bit beyond what the Pokemon back home got up to, but it was at least close to familiar.

 

[Butterfree]

"So... sapient, but big on battling, not so big on technology and clothes and modern civilization?" Well, 'modern'. Either way, another weird subtype of universe with Pokémon that were somehow in-between. He shook his head. "In my universe Pokémon aren't sapient, but it's starting to sound like that's a freak minority of universes. Like, they can be sort of smart, in their own ways, but they can't talk. They can express simple sentiments to each other, but no real language, no complex communication of abstract ideas. Mostly just acting on instinct and base desires, that sort of deal."

So the legendaries... Fuck. He took a deep breath. "That legendary situation sounds like a clusterfuck. What kind of power are we talking about here? Pokémon that can blow up buildings, level cities? And they're being captured and mind-controlled by... who exactly?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Aren't sapient. Something about it just tied Jade's brain into knots. It would've been easier to imagine a world where all the Pokemon had their types scrambled up. Part of her wanted to imagine that something had to have happened to make them like that, because it felt wrong otherwise.

"Yeah, that's... weird," Jade said in a low voice, tail curling around her legs. "Weird to think about them being... not a person."

...Were there any worlds where humans existed but weren't people?

But, that wasn't really the point; the point was the Legendaries. As a kid, before everything had become such a big mess, city destruction wasn't exactly the first thing that would've come to mind when describing the legends' power. It didn't feel right to jump to that. That wasn't the way things were supposed to be. Viridian wasn't normal.

"I mean, I guess if the legends' power couldn't be used as a weapon, there wouldn't be anyone after them," Jade mumbled. "I guess it's like... storms? That's probably the best comparison." (It vaguely occurred to her that she couldn't even bank on that being universal. Maybe the legends being gone meant no more storms either.) "The people catching them were part of this crime ring that my friends and I were infiltrating; that's how I got involved in that mess in the first place."

 

[Butterfree]

Yeah. Yeah, that would sound fucked up, wouldn't it, if you came from a world where fucking everything is sapient. Nonsapient versions of people you know! Watch normal-looking people run in circles trying to catch a laser pointer dot!

(Maybe some of the Pokémorphs could've turned out that way, if they'd messed with the wrong genes.)

But then she got to the government-funded legendary-capturing organization being a straight-up crime ring, and that was a nice swerve of that train of thought. "Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah, let's fund a crime ring's quest to obtain superweapons, no possible way this can go wrong."

Kidnap and brainwash the superweapons, more like. From the superpower that according to Jade had thus far at least been minding its own business. Astronomically dumb move. But probably made because having a superpower next door - by storms he at least assumed Jade meant hurricane-level, surely nobody would have bothered if all they could do was create your average winter storm that maybe topples an already-dying tree or two - with no recourse if any of them should ever choose not to mind their own business had made them uneasy. Christ. At least the nuclear codes were generally locked behind some clumsy layers of democracy.

In the process of let's-solve-this-through-kidnapping-and-brainwashing, of course, they'd just ensured the legendaries would stop minding their own business. Self-fulfilling fucking prophecies. And why the absolute fuck would they involve a crime ring here? Had to be one of those poorer countries with weak, ineffectual governments serving at the mercy of their local crime lords, then?

Dave exhaled through his nose. Something was creeping up on him. Wasn't Jade one of the plucky teen trainers of the group? And she was infiltrating government-funded criminal organizations?

"...You were a trainer, weren't you?" he asked. "You and your friends, who's that?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade felt her shoulders tense up involuntarily. Something about the question... some unspoken air of 'why you?' Why was any of this your responsibility?

"Yeah, I was," Jade said cautiously. "My friends got involved years before I did, separately. I first got involved when I... when I rescued one of the experiments that the organization had made." She didn't want to think about The Rebellion. Funny that rescuing Nine and the others felt easier by comparison. Maybe because Laura and Gladion had similar experiences, so she wasn't alone there.

 

[Butterfree]

Of course this organization was creating experiments, too. Just some kids staging big heroic rescues. Having better luck.

Dave took a long breath. "Years before? So your friends are older?" Hopefully. "What sorts of experiments were they doing?"

He imagined Jean, learning about something like Sage. Rushing to the rescue, all simplistic justice and heroic idealism. Getting shot.

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Uh, yeah, they're--" She caught herself before she said that they were adults. It gave the obvious implication that she wasn't one. She hadn't thought of herself as a kid in a long, long time, but... that's how people viewed these things. “They’re a few years older, yeah.” Not old enough for the League to take any of them seriously. Old enough for the Rangers at least.

“But yeah, those guys had been making genetic experiments like… sort of like the Graydian we found? Pokemon hybrids. I ended up rescuing one, and…” She rubbed her arm, glancing away. "That was before I had any idea what I was doing, and I wouldn't have gotten out of it if I hadn't had help.”

 

[Butterfree]

A few. How many was a few? Probably left them still young, still getting involved as kids or teenagers putting themselves in danger. Pulling other kids into it. Kids who only narrowly got away.

"Pokémon hybrids," he said. Hybrids of multiple Pokémon, she must mean. Like Type: Null. "I'm guessing the criminal organization wasn't engineering them for research purposes so much as for battle use." Like Cipher. Creating people to be weapons.

His chest was heavy with a tangled knot of hot anger and cold Shadow. How the fuck were these random kids being left as the only people trying to stop a gang of science-misusing criminals provoking outright fucking war? Jade's world didn't sound like a fantasy world where everything's going to be magically fine if some young upstarts just beat up the bad guy. And if it wasn't, sooner or later Jade was going to be one of the victims, whether drowned by legendary hurricanes or shot and bleeding somewhere on a church floor.

"You, uh. You said you've been helping some of the legendaries?" God. Let them at least be fucking adults. "They helping you in return?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade leaned her head against her palm. “It was sort of research… part of the point was to figure out how the legends’ power worked, so… the hybrid I saved—Nine—he still saw himself as a weapon.”

She glanced back at Dave. He seemed… weirdly invested in all this. Like it was hitting close to home, or something. He asked about the legends, and she thought of Mew, who’d been working herself to the bone. Ho-oh, who’d given up everything. Lugia…

Her mouth was dry. “Some of the legends are helping. It’s complicated.”

 

[Butterfree]

Jade really didn't seem to want to talk about the legendaries helping very much. Dave supposed he couldn't exactly blame her, given everything, but it did not make her situation sound better.

"What sort of hybrid is this Nine?" he ventured instead. Figuring out how the legendaries' power worked did actually sound pretty worthwhile, by itself, but the connection from there to creating hybrids seemed pretty tenuous. Not that it wasn't always a pain to explain to people how the fuck human-Pokémon hybrids had medical applications, but if all they'd wanted was to figure out how Pokémon's power worked, there were a million better ways. "I mean..." He frowned. "You mean he's a hybrid of a regular and a legendary Pokémon?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Right, that was... sort of the obvious implication, wasn't it. It really shouldn't have felt weird to talk about at this point--she'd long since realized that things like "having a Legendary hybrid on your team" weren't nearly as bizarre here than they were back home, and maybe, eventually, that reality was going to stick in her brain.

"Uh, yeah, he is." Feeling like that was kind of a lame non-answer, she added, "He's a Pikachu. And, uh... part Zapdos." It still felt a little weird to admit.

 

[Butterfree]

The criminal organization had hybridized Zapdos with... fucking Pikachu? Maybe they'd wanted to try what they'd done with Peter, added a third set of limbs? (He pictured a Pikachu fluttering tiny useless spike-wings - no way had this criminal organization in another world figured out how the heck to make that one work right if he hadn't.) But if the point was how legendaries' powers worked, why not just choose a goddamn Pidgey and minimize the headaches of hybridizing two very evolutionarily distant species?

He raised his eyebrows at Jade. "Somehow the cutesy rodent mascot wouldn't be the first Pokémon I'd imagine a bunch of criminals experimenting with, let alone to combine it with a fucking bird. How'd that turn out?"