Frontier Town Main Street

[Cresselia92]

Witch’s hour had fallen in Frontier Town by the time Silver returned from the secret hideout and his final meeting with Giovanni. With his muscles still aching from the fight with Alexander and his mind atwitter from the rapid succession of events, it was mostly through sheer willpower that Silver could wander through the much quieter town.

Alexander, Cipher, and Giovanni were gone. Words spread faster than wildfire and the folks around him were once again breathing with relief. Things were finally looking much brighter after so many days of anxiety.

So why, why did he have that weird gnawing emptiness drowning whatever elation he should have felt? Why couldn’t he simply join in the celebration like a regular person? Why did he feel like something had torn a gaping hole in his chest?

It didn’t make any sense! Nothing about his current mindscape made sense! He should be happy, dammit! So why wasn’t he happy?

A sudden gust blew across the town, and a piece of the tattered black suit flew out of his bag. His eyes widened in shock, and without fully knowing why, he raced after the fleeing fragment. He turned around a corner, and with a few swift dashes, he caught the piece of fabric into his claws.

The young Sneasel panted, utterly confused. He sprawled nearby a wall, too tired to even bother with social norms and customs, and his bag slid gracelessly to the floor.

“…What the hell is wrong with me?” he mumbled while tilting the fragment in his claws, and his gaze drifted to the opened bag, which showed the pile of remaining tatters. In a sense, that jigsaw of high quality black fabric reflected the state of his own mind.

That was yet another oddity he couldn’t explain: the sudden attachment to that torn suit. One of the few reminders that Giovanni had ever been in that world, aside from the two Ultra Balls still in his possession.

Overwhelmed by fatigue, Silver closed his eyes and buried his head between his crossed arms, trying to shut off all sensory input. Colorful phosphenes danced in his blackened sight. Sparks floated toward the sky. A Nidoking with a tattered suit melted into flakes of light, leaving Forlas behind. A black man with a black suit and a suitcase walking away, toward Victory Road, never to be seen again…

In his tiredness, he couldn’t stop a question from barging into his troubled mind: Where are you, Dad?

That was it. Silver uncurled himself as those words flooded through his system. He had always done all he could to avoid asking himself that question, fueled by his spite and resentment toward his father, but now that those words had been laid bare in his brain… he still didn’t know what to think and feel, but something had definitely clicked deep inside his spirit, even if he didn’t have a word to define that tangle of sensations.

Was that nostalgia? Longing, perhaps? Or something much more profound?

Silver gazed again at the tattered suit. For some reason, the more he stared at it and the more the storm in his mind quieted down. The vague idea he had formulated in the hideout was brought to the top of his priority list, and a new wave of determination filled his heart.

Slipping his bag back on his shoulder, Silver made a mental note to visit the tailor in the morning and resumed his walk, directed toward his room.

The truth about his past and his father’s whereabouts could wait a little longer, and once he tracked down the old man, Silver would be ready for it.

<><><>​

 

[Chibi Pika]

It hadn't really been that long since Jade had last been in Frontier Town. A few weeks at the most, after a bunch of time spent hopping between Novelux and Magna City (plus a few more to account for the time apparently spent drifting through timespace before appearing in the Walled Gardens in Auranosa. Still, the place had come to feel like home in a funny sort of way, and she'd missed it. She'd missed training on the riverbank and making runs through the ravine and doing deliveries around town and curling up in the corner booth of the saloon with a hot drink at the end of the day with the usual satisfying soreness.

Once the Betelnet had been restored, it hadn't been too hard to locate a tame mining rift in the vicinity of Paydirt to use as a Waypoint, and from there she found herself on the trail south from Silver Ravine. Familiar as ever, albeit with a much fuller river and more plants sprouting than the last time she'd been there. Winter really was coming to an end, huh.

Sada had stayed behind in Paydirt to do a few additional tests and checks with Betel, and after that? Seemed like she planned to make her way northeast to collect her research materials from the congress and inform them of her recent conclusions. Which would probably involve either a letter of resignation or some big changes in the CDE. Time would tell. As for Betel, well... it wasn't as if they couldn't warp to Frontier Town whenever they wanted now. That was a plus.

Now the main question left was how many others had made it back to Frontier Town before her?

'So, this is where you and your allies reside,' Virga said. The Rookidee was presently flying far above taking in the details of the town, and its setting.

'I know it doesn't look like much,' Jade replied, 'but it sort of feels like home after a while.'

Virga glanced around the environment, from the still-snowcapped mountains to the west to the dry grasslands to the east. 'This place is even further from the sea than our previous destination.'

Jade bit her tongue to keep from laughing. 'Well, you're not really aquatic anymore either, so...'

'There is no need to remind me of that.'

 

[Phoenixsong]

"Oh, no you don't. Prove it."

Leaf The rapidash froze mid-overjoyed-bounce, still only halfway across the street from him, and stared down at him in genuine bewilderment. "Prove what?"

"Prove you are who you say you are." Blue glared back up at her, shoulders squared, realizing slightly too late that there'd been a low dog growl under everything he'd just said, god damn it. "Prove you're real."

"But... but you're the one who called out to me?" The rapidash put her hoof down slowly, blinked, took another couple hesitant steps toward him, like she was struggling to understand his eminently reasonable request.

"Yeah, because the people I got stuck with said my friend was here somewhere, but considering the absolute circus sideshow they turned out to be I think I'm allowed a little healthy skepticism." He took a wary step back from the rapidash, only half noticing that he'd knocked over a passing wooloo's groceries. "They already tried to feed me like four bad sci-fi movies' worth of garbage about 'multiverses' and 'alternate versions of people'. And there was a zoroark who was actively impersonating somebody else. I'm not an idiot, y'know." He certainly had not been about to throw himself into a giant hug with the only person here he actually knew. At this rate there was like a ninety-five percent chance she wasn't. "How do I know you're really you?"

"'Cause Beetle's Lighthouse Buddy System thing couldn't've summoned you here for a soul who didn't actually know you?"

Ah, of course. Silly him. That explained everything. "...Make that five. Look. Just say something only the real Linden would know about the real me."

"Right now? Really?"

"I'm not trusting another word outta you until you do."

"If you say so." The rapidash gave a bemused snort, then made a show of frowning as she thought. "Okay, I got one. One time you told me you thought the Teachy TV guy was ho—"

"What I very specifically said," Blue interrupted, crap why had that come out so loud someone would hear get a hold of yourself man, "was that I did not think he was hot." Unlike here. Must be summertime on Made-Up Planet 'cause it sure was warm today! Like, wow, you wouldn't think a growlithe should be able to feel that, but it was definitely super warm! Haha, weird, right? Damn it.

"If you reeeeally wanna play the technicality game, then all right, sure, I guess that's what happened." She smiled innocently down at him, where "innocently" meant "like a persian with a rattata squirming under its claws". "You said you weren't watching the show because you thought the Poké Dude was hot, as an answer that totally made sense for the question I'd actually asked, in a tone that in no way implied you were trying to hide that you did in fact— hey!"

Blue had zero chance of actually clamping her mouth shut, why did he have to be so low to the ground and horses all the god damn way up there, but his desperate, badly-misjudged leap did send him crashing into her side, and that was enough to startle her out of finishing the sentence. Small victories. (Tiny, minuscule, infinitesimally small, actually completely meaningless victories, given how much she'd already spilled. And the way he'd reacted. Why hadn't he just denied it outright? He could've said he had no idea what she was taking about, could've been a different Blue from a different universe, one who had never been so catastrophically uncool as to believe the stupid Teachy TV dude was kinda fine, just a little bit, it was last year okay, anyway he was over it.)

She stumbled, had to take a second to collect herself, but she was laughing when she did. "It's cowboy times, genius. They don't even have television yet. No one here knows what Teachy TV is. Or that it's a show for babies. Relax!"

A bunch of the pokémon on the boardwalks were definitely watching them. None of them seemed like they were about to sneer "the hell is a gym leader watching Teachy TV", fair enough. The wooloo was harrumphing and giving him the stinkeye as she retrieved her scattered vegetables, though. He muttered an apology, nudged a wayward potato back toward her, then looked back at the r— at his friend.

"...Gonna mail all your furniture to Kalos, Linden." He punched the side of her leg, because he couldn't reach her shoulder. He was almost surprised by how solid it felt. Like this still should've been some kinda edgy cartoon D-movie nightmare. But at least there was finally someone here who made sense, who was safe.

"I'm glad to see you, too, Blue." This time Leaf's smile was genuine, and now she wasn't messing with him she looked about as deeply relieved as he felt. "Man, I was starting to think maybe Beetle actually hadn't called anyone here for me, but—"

Blue froze. He hadn't been sure whether the warmth was actually the temperature, or the fire-type thing, or the relief of seeing someone familiar, or the unfortunate momentary lapse in dignity. Didn't matter; it vanished in an instant. Cold ran up and down his back like he was still stuck in that rainy hellhole. "What do you mean, 'called anyone here for you'?"

Leaf blinked again, confused. "I mean when Beetle was freaking out? Before you guys showed up and everyone got scattered. Their program or whatever was checking what people we were close to? And a bunch of us had friends, or... other people... brought here. Something like that? I'm still not sure I get—"

What the hell did any of that mean. Actually? No. Who cared. "So you asked the 'beetle' thing to drag me here against my will and turn me into a growlithe? You got a little lonely and thought 'hey, you know what'd be great? I should haul my friend into this hellhole with me!'" The dog growl had worked its way back under his words. He kinda didn't care, at the moment.

"What? I didn't ask for anything! It just happened!" She stared at him. "Everything was weird and it felt like somebody was shaking my brain until something fell out and all I could think about was home and then everything went dark—"

"So the beetle, what, attacked you? And then dragged me— wait." Voices in his sleep insisting he was needed in some other world, that someone was in trouble (of course she fucking was, you brought her here, you bastard), low-grade muttering in the back of his head even now. He gripped the edge of the boardwalk so hard his claws dug furrows into the planks. "Is that what Satan Voice is? The thing that babbled nonsense at me in my dreams and then dumped me in a mass grave with a bunch of maniacs I couldn't even fucking talk to? Because if you know where that thing is then I—"

Blue jumped as Leaf slammed her hoof into the boardwalk. "Don't talk about Beetle like that," she hissed, rounding on him. "It's not their fault, and it's not my fault, it's not anyone's fault other than the Coven asshole who forced this to happen! Something went wrong, okay, yes, and if you'd shut the hell up for ten seconds I can try to explain what I understand, but I am not letting you tear me—or Beetle—down for something out of our control when all anyone's trying to do is fix things!"

To Blue's credit, he shut the hell up. Half because there was something genuinely terrifying about being a little puppy dog staring up at a huge angry horse with a very sharp object attached to her face, even one that'd come flouncing off of a rainbow-vomit notebook cover. Half because he knew he'd heard it before: the anger, the frustration, the desperation, the exhaustion—

"I can't believe this. I actually can't believe this. You waste time bullying us instead of helping the people who are literally being held hostage, and then you turn around and rat me out for doing the right thing when you wouldn't? Do you have any idea what I had to deal with when I got dragged home?!"

"No, I— well— I mean... I wanted you to get in trouble, yeah, but... I didn't know it was that bad. I—"

"What did your grandpa say to you when you got home from Saffron?"

"What? Uh... that I should never do that again? He was just glad I was okay? Something like that?"

"Oh! That's nice. You nearly ruined everything, those people barely even mattered to you, but since you were okay then it's all fine, right? No harm done! I try to get my own dad away from Team Rocket and I'm an idiot. I'm a liar. I don't care what happens to anyone other than me. I can't be trusted to do anything or even think for myself. But hey! I'm so happy someone was just glad you were okay."

When he snapped back to himself Leaf had already stepped back, her head and ears drooping and her eyes not quite meeting his. "Sorry. I shouldn't've... What I was trying to say is that if anyone did have to get called, I... I've missed everybody, and I thought better you or someone from my team or something than... I was worried they might've called..." She trailed off, gaze still somewhere down the street. "I'm just tired of some... stuff. Some people. I'm sorry you got brought here, I really am, but... I was glad it was you."

Something twisted in Blue's chest, and he felt a little less glad himself. But he took a deep breath, ran a paw down his face, and sighed. Leaf was invested in this. Even if he still had absolutely no clue what the hell "this" even was. "Yeah... yeah. Okay. Sorry. I just... I have been having kind of a time lately? Doesn't feel great. But I... I believe you didn't mean it. Sorry."

"Come back with me to the Haus, where we're staying, okay?" She inclined her head down the main road, where other streets turned off into less busy parts of town. "We can sort it out there. Beetle, what we're trying to do, all of it. All of it that I, uh, actually for sure understand. Promise."

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever." All the fight had drained out of him by now. Easier to just give up and wait for Leaf to deliver the Grand Unified Theory of This Mountain of Bullshit. At this point he might as well've been climbing the mountain of bullshit for how dog tired he was, anyway. (...dammit.) Any place with actual, honest-to-god beds sounded amazing.

Then he lost contact with the ground entirely, and before the swooping in his guts had settled he'd been slung over Leaf's back. He sputtered for a couple seconds before remembering right, yeah, the other kind of rapidash was psychic. So she... was carrying him? Not just gonna let him walk? He must've looked as bad as he felt. Well, he wasn't about to pretend he wasn't grateful for the ride.

"Good friggin' luck makin' any sense out of any of this," Blue grumbled as they set off down the street. "Seriously, have you seen this place? I'm a dog, Linden. You're a horse! There are talking pokémon, and some of them have swords. There are magic abandoned heavy construction labyrinths full of ghosts and mangled corpses. There are gunrunning barons locking people up for just walking into their towns. There are vigilantes dragging random people into dangerous half-cooked attempts to humiliate those gunrunning barons, which, by the way, all the other maniacs I got dumped with were nuts enough to go along with like it was just another fuckin' Tuesday!"

He groaned and pressed the bridge of his snout with both paws. "There's a chickenstein somewhere out there, Linden. Chick-en-stein. I don't know how else to underline how fucked up this is?"

"There are pokémon that are swords back home, though? It can't be weirder than— ugh, no." She shook her head. "Not the point. Shocker, I know, but you're not the first person to realize it's dangerous here! I've seen that kind of stuff. I've seen worse stuff. We've had to fight a lot of it. But—"

"You've had to what?!"

"Let me finish! I told you, I'll fill you in later. Most of it wasn't that big a deal anyway," she said, in that way she sometimes did about things that were in fact a deal the size of three wailord in a trenchcoat because she couldn't tell the difference. "But come on. Have you seen this place? Right here, right now. Does Frontier Town look like a 'hellhole' to you?" She gestured around them with her horn. "So what if it has pokémon instead of humans? Forlas is still a normal world. These are still good people who just want normal lives. Yeah, there're problems, and some of the dungeons can be pretty messed up, but nowhere's perfect, yeah?"

They'd turned down another street by now. Quieter around here than by the main shops, which was at least better for the headache that'd settled firmly behind his eyes. A little mercantile, with a duskull flipping a sign around to "Closed". A library or something over that way. A delcatty and a little round pig chatted as they left a restaurant called "Nina's Place". Some of the pokémon before had stared at them, but they'd been shouting, hadn't they? Now they were mostly being ignored, aside from a few here and there who waved at Leaf, and she smiled and nodded back.

Still a bunch of pokémon in clothes running businesses, still super friggin' weird, but no ghost guys (other than the duskull, whatever, not what he meant), no weapons brandished at them, no paths actively twisting around just to spite them. Not a mountain of bullshit. Just a normal town.

...In cowboy times. With no TV. But normal enough for that, anyway.

"There is some really bad stuff going on, but Forlas doesn't deserve to get screwed over. And the Wayfarers have a chance to help everyone who lives here fix it." She looked back over her shoulder at him. "I asked to come here, but you didn't, and that's not fair to you. But I can't stop now. Not yet. Not until I know I've done everything I can to help."

Her tone was apologetic, but he knew that look on her face. Same look she'd had back at Silph: the one that meant she was sure this was right. And the kind of thing she didn't need him fucking up (again) by insisting she go back home.

"This 'Wayfarer' stuff's important to you, huh." He blew out a sigh. "Well. I'm glad one of us is havin' fun, anyway."

"You don't have to help if you don't want," Leaf insisted. "You can stay out of the way, stay safe. Beetle will understand. So will the other Wayfarers. And if they don't they can talk to me about it." She punctuated it with a stomp. "I can make sure nothing happens to you! I'm super strong like this, y'know. Me and some of the others beat a zapdos. Two of 'em, even! Technically."

Blue snorted. "Yeah, right."

"Hell yeah, right!" Leaf grinned back at him. "Ask any of the others. We're just that badass. I could show you later... or, oh, oh, we could battle! As ourselves, as pokémon, for real."

"What? No! I'm not really a pokémon, I don't know how to do that!" Not unless coughing on sausages so hard they needed a burn heal counted.

"Well, you are for now, at least! C'mon, you gotta at least try battling while you're here. Even just once. Do you have any idea how awesome being able to do this is?"

For a second time his stomach dropped out from under him as Leaf threw herself into a sprint, flying the rest of the way down the street so fast they were at the inn's door before all the pokémon-businesses resolved back into solid objects. He grabbed her mane to steady himself even though they'd already come to a stop; she just laughed, a little smug but mostly cheerfully.

"I'm telling you, man, I dunno if I'll be able to go back to just watching battles back home after this." Leaf winked at him, then helped him down in front of the door. "Besides, what else are you gonna do while you're waiting for us to finish up? Might as well have some fun, yeah? I'll hafta go easy on you, of course, but you'll get stronger real fast, too. Not stronger than me, I mean, but." She twitched her head in her weird horse shrug. "Pretty strong!"

Blue didn't answer right away. The run—quick attack?—had startled him, yeah, but only briefly. The rest of the way it'd been familiar, comfortable, exhilarating. Just like riding Arcanine back home. The jab got his attention pretty damn quick, though, and he glared defiantly up at her smug little grin.

...If Arcanine could do that, then he could probably do that. Something in the back of his mind really, really wanted to try. Missing running with his friend, maybe. Or some kinda competitive pokémon instinct. (Or just dog brain desperate to chase a moving object.)

"You know what, Linden? Fine. I'll let you show me how to battle. And then I'll make you regret thinkin' you can outrun an arcanine." Wait, dammit, no. "Growlithe. Whatever. You're on." Was evolving a thing he could do? It would actually be pretty cool if that was a thing he could do.

Maybe Made-Up Planet wasn't a hellhole all the way through. There had to be at least a couple things here he could do to keep himself occupied.

"Deal!" Leaf pushed the door open with her mind, then paused before stepping inside. "What's a 'chickenstein'? Not sure I've heard of..." She frowned, then, somehow, put two and two together even though one of the twos was poultry and the other was a combine harvester. "Ohhh, you mean like Gladion and Nova? No, they're just graydian."

"They're what?"

"They're cool! I think you'd like Gladion, actually. Oh, and Sage, Sage is really sweet. They're—"

"How many chickensteins are there?!"

<><><><><>​

 

[Cresselia92]

Flea market was back to town, and a lost in thought Sneasel walked slowly on the dust-covered path, looking mindlessly at the various merchandise while vaguely listening to the incoherent chatters.

No matter how much he tried to, Silver couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Kotone was actually in Forlas, probably hopping somewhere in town and oversharing bright smiles and random details about her life with total strangers. (Survival and caution had never been her strongest suits.)

Silver was worried, he couldn’t really deny that. Worried about that place tainting her boundless innocence and excitement. And the Shadows… what was going to happen to her when the darkness of her heart broke the lock of her soul and infested her thoughts? How much darkness did she even have? Was it going to be like those horror movies where a bright soul cast a long shadow?

I guess I’ll have to be ready by then. Be there for her or something, he thought with a sigh and shook his head. Gods! It wasn’t supposed to be like this!

Alas, there wasn’t much else he could about that situation. Kotone was nearly as stubborn as she was cheerful and saccharine, and she made it painfully clear that she wouldn’t have left Silver behind to return to their world. So they were stuck there for a while. Together.

And frankly, he didn’t exactly dislike that situation, either…

Silver scoffed at that thought and focused his gaze on a stall with bags. Right, back to the important matters! He was there for a reason: to get some basic gear so that Kotone could survive her first days in Forlas. Now, what kinda bag would be best for a tiny female rabbit with loose lips…?