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Frontier Town Main Street

Reader mode
"So, your world lets kids train pokémon. Noted." Nova nodded slowly. "Makes enough sense, I guess. You start both young enough, they grow together. Like siblings." He paused. "Or friends."

The null feared saying something he'd regret. "From an Earth, then, I take it?"
 
"Yeah, an earth," he said slowly, nodding. "Is that... uncommon? Kid's training pokemon?" Maybe if other worlds were more dangerous, and they had dangerous pokemon...? It seemed like Jade and Leaf came from similar worlds to his. Nova seemed to understand the notion. "Pokemon where I'm from are generally pretty nice, if you stick to the routes. They want to fight a lot, but its not dangerous unless you go where you're not supposed to."

He still regretted his impulsive choice to sneak into the caves without a pokemon. Then again, he'd gotten Rascal for it, so it wasn't all bad.
 
"Doubt it's uncommon." Nova looked skyward. "But it's kept to adolescents where I'm from. After all, televising battles and leagues with kids has people wrinkle their noses. Replace it with hotheaded, emotional teens and it's the kind of reality sports programming people will eat up like junk food."

He approached Koa slowly. Nova doubted he'd mess up and step on the electrike, but he was tired enough that he wanted to be careful. "How's the adjustment. I was... mainly focused on the mayor's tin can cronies to keep tabs on everyone. But that must've been your first time fighting directly. As a pokémon, anyway."
 
"Actually I guess its my second?" he said after a moment. "Me and a couple of the others helped a ranger named Nico get back a lost supply wagon, but that was mostly fighting bug pokemon. Not as crazy as the gala..."

He rolled his shoulders as he thought back to the fight. Dashing around, throwing strikes, moving as a team. Being strong. "But this was my first real fight against another pokemon. It was-" Scary? Exhilirating? Empowering? "-kinda sick actually. Not my first fight but I gotta say, I'm a little jealous. Pokemon are a lot stronger than humans when it comes to that." If only he had that kind of strength back home, his team wouldn't have to fight alone.

"Did you do okay in... this body?"
 
"Not really." Nova shrugged. "I can't fight the way I'm familiar with here. This body is attuned to... defend and just be disruptive. That's not me. That's--"

He stopped. Nova had to hold his tongue. Hold it...

"--what our summoner must have seen. Or something."

Damn it.
 
Koa stared at his paws for a few moments. He remembered how awkward and slow he felt, and how hard it was to learn how to fight in this body, compared to his knowledge back home.

He eyes Nova warily. Nova seemed bothered by his abilities a lot. His words from before, while they were having ice cream, still lingered in Koa's mind. What had Nova been before he came here?

"Oh..." What should he say? Tough? That sucks? "My friend Kitto taught me a lot about fighting. It's about how you use your power, not what you have. Balance. And a good a defense can be a good offense. Maybe this is just a chance to develop another skill set."
 
Nova stayed silent at that. "I'm not unskilled at it." He was mentally scrambling. Trying to figure out a way to delicately phrase things. Or skirt around the issue entirely. The mask hid the panic that would've been strewn across his beak.

"But the same power that forced this helmet on me forces me to fight purely through defense. By sapping someone's will to fight altogether."
 
Oh. Dismay filled Koa. A long moment dragged by as he considered. "You're still free here though. And it's another world so that means different rules. So there could be a way to remove it."

After all, Electrike back home didn't look like him. Or move like he could. He tipped his head as he thought. "I mean, if I can pick up a glass somehow by thinking about it hard enough, there could be a lot possible here we don't understand, right?"
 
"There are... possibilities, yes." Nova looked down at his talons. "But I know I have a power back home that I don't want to have. So, I fear that there are more abilities I'll gain that are... not the ones I want."

He shook his head. "It's easy to say I'm free and I can make it my own. But it's a steep challenge to shake ages of the opposite from your mind."

Gah, there he went again. Reign it in, Nova. "Sorry. I don't... want to sound negative. What happened at the gala is a good thing. Probably. You're young, though. Not weighed down by memories."

And then Nova's instincts took hold, driving him to stick his foot in his mouth.

"You're not from a world whose fate is already decided."
 
Murderer. That's what Nova had basically called himself. If he had power back home, was that what he used it for? Was that tied to his helmet, and why he seemed convinced about fate?

"How do you know its fate is decided?" He blurted the question without meaning to, realizing a moment later that maybe it was possible, maybe fate did exist like that in other worlds. "Sorry. It's true I only know what my world is like. But theoretically anything could still change it, right?" His world had come so close, more than once. "Back home, are you trying to help your world?"
 
"Tried." Nova hung his head in shame. "I thought... I was doing the right thing. Making up for... the awful things that I did in my creator's name."

The more he stared at the ground, the more he saw a faint golden wheel that cracked and chipped away until all that was left was a circle with five diamonds around it. "But it didn't turn out how I was hoping." He slowly shook his head. "The Red Chain suffocated me. Trapped me in this mask. Dragged me down and down until I was moving and acting without thinking. Proclaiming myself... a prophet for a being who manipulates fate itself. Who has already written the fate of my world."
 
Koa's breath hitched and he froze. The red chain? Nausea rolled through him and he swallowed. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words caught in his throat. Was that what Nova meant about being controlled? Was that why he talked about killing humans?

"You shouldn't blame yourself," he said stiffly. He gathered himself quickly, speaking in a neutral tone. "It sounds like the red chain is powerful. It happened several years ago in my world, but the news claimed that was what would be used to control Dialga and Palkia. A group tried to use them to do that. If they can control them, these chains must be exceptionally strong."

He swallowed again, keeping his expression as neutral as he could muster. Was Nova from Sinnoh? A future version of Sinnoh? Or more Galactic? He didn't want to know. "Maybe you should try to learn more about your powers here. My friend back home, Kitto, was big on training. Mind and body. If you can train here more, maybe you won't have to be worried so much. I could show you some stuff, and you could show me." Hopefully not too blatant of a topic change.
 
"What?" he yelped. He was used to the idea now that some worlds didn't have legendaries but Nova said 'No longer exist'. As in, once had but not anymore. Had Galactic-? Or some other force? Who? No. No Nova's world could be completely different, it could have been anything. Get a grip.

"Wh- how? What happened?" The question was out before he could stop himself.
 
"...." Anger and confusion rushed through him. Helped....? Renegade pokemon? Nova had... killed them? He stared in shock, unconsciously stepping back before recovering himself, snapping his mouth shut.

Not your world. That wasn't the point though. Nova had been some kind of killer back home. Created to be one. He said he tried to do what was right. Except so did everyone. A better world. But he'd been forced, hadn't he? None of it made sense.

His voice came out somewhat strangled. "Oh." The only word he could formulate at the moment. Which didn't match the turbulent swirl of emotions going through his head. Eventually he latched onto the only thing he could. "Your Giratina... was evil?"
 
"H u h? ?" Confusion usurped the rest of Koa's emotions. Giratina wasn't... But he had heard stories like that, hadn't he? His brow furrowed "Light? Like Necrozma?" he asked, bewildered.

"So you don't even know Giratina? The Renegade Pokemon? Lives in the distortion world?"

Did his world not have one, or was Giratina fundamentally different somehow, like Aige's world?
 
Nova visibly flinched at that last one. "If you scanned the creature of light with a pokedex... it would tell you that he is the Renegade Pokémon."

He looked down guiltily. "My world's... an odd one. Most of it exists within the insides of a creature called Eternatus." He paused. "Earth included. And my creator... she was the one trying to maintain order within Eternatus."
 
Koa's brow furrowed more. It had to be a world difference then... He was sure on his world there was only one Renegade pokemon. He bit back any more questions he had though. Nova looked very bothered by talking about it.

Nova's next words only twisted his brain into more knots. Inside an Eternatus...? It sounded like something straight out of storybook or legend. In any other situation he would have probably doubted it. Except he was here in a world of talking pokemon, on another world. Doubt had gone out the window a long time ago. Worlds could just... exist inside other pokemon now.

Focusing on the weirdness gave him something else to think about at least. "My world was saved by a pokemon called Giratina. According to the stories, at least," he added. Simpler to describe it that way. "Worlds inside a pokemon is a new one... I've heard the term Eternatus but I don't think they were that big on my world..." he shook his head. It was hard to wrap his head around. "So everything is just Eternatus?" he mumbled.
 
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