Landsverd Site A-06 "Prism Hollow"

[Chibi Pika]

Anubis had been listening intently and tipped his head to the side. “How do you mean… they are making gods? What do they want to save the world from?”

Jade glanced over at him. "Oh, uh... we actually rescued one of them. An artificial Saint... they call themselves 'Sage' now. You might've seen Gladion or Nova around—they look like that."

Koa stared at Starr, a cold feeling spreading through him. “What do you mean, destroy Betel? Why?”

Starr bristled. "Look, maybe you guys are friends with it now, but like..." She trailed off, running a hand down her face. "All I knew was that these guys making an artificial Voice of Life was bad news. Like, 'the sort of thing that could destabilize the planet' type of bad news. The friggin' World-Spirit never told me why." Auriga hadn't told her what, specifically, she was supposed to do with that information either, even if it was obvious.

Jade tapped her paws together. "It's because too many offworlders being here at once puts too much strain on the world. And... if they had their very own Voice of Life, then... then they could summon as many humans as they wanted, and power them up all with Radiance."

Starr huffed. "Yeah, well, there you go. I was gonna put a stop to it, except..." She paused, eyes tracing the floor.

Except the Lighthouse had spoken to her, when she'd entered the control center. Asked her who she was, and what she was doing there, and sounded so damned happy to meet her. A real offworlder. A so-called human hero. And by the time she'd finished answering all of its questions, it was already too late for to do what she'd come there to do. So she'd used it to call for help, and made everything worse.

"Well, obviously I never got that far," she muttered.

A long moment passed.

"On the bright side, you guys are here and the world hasn't exploded," she added with a dry laugh.

 

[Cresselia92]

Throughout the conversation, both Silver and Lyra stayed equally quiet, with the former connecting many loose ends that had been unconnected for so long and the latter trying to make heads and tails regarding the entire strange (but also somewhat familiar) situation. After all, megalomaniac mortals wanting to play god was a fairly popular goal across vastly different worlds, including their own.

When Starr admitted of having attempted to destroy Betel, Silver felt two specific moods surfacing: some understanding regarding her pragmatic approach of removing an extremely valuable asset from an extremely powerful organization (not like he agreed, but he knew that dire times often called for dire solutions), and the realization that the Wayfarers being there wasn’t something planned. If the initial idea was to destroy Betel, then that meant they were… the second best choice. Which meant he had been right all this time… because why would some world in peril request his help?

A light chuckle broke through his reverie, and Silver turned his head to see Lyra beaming one of her usual smiles. It was clear she was done mulling things over and was about to unleash a wave of Lyra-ness.

“Well! I guess this proves that this world is far more durable than it looks like!” she chirped in her trademark enthusiasm, clapping her hands, but soon a veil of sadness entered her gaze and she lowered her hands to her hips. “And, um, it’s good that Betey is still in one piece…? Like, I dunno them very well yet, but they sound like a genuinely sweet soul who only wants to help this world.”

Silver merely blinked, unsurprised by her heart-first-logic-later reaction. “Gotta play devil’s advocate here, but if we didn’t know Betel personally, wouldn’t the other option have looked akin to shutting down a computer?” He quirked a brow. “Not unlike how we destroyed the files in that Rocket HQ?”

“Yeah, I understand that,” she replied, nodding, and her somber mood vanished in an instant. “But hey! If some human-turned-‘mons and powerful Pokémon want to use their augmented power to do as they please,” she pumped her fists and held them close to her face, “then now they’ll have to deal with us — aka other humans-turned-‘mons and awesome and powerful Pokémon — who can use their own augmented power to keep those meanies in check! That sounds like an absolute win to me~!”

Silver blinked again, before snorting as he suppressed a chuckle. The fabric of the world might be threatening to unravel, but gods, how much he missed Lyra’s unwavering optimism…