Sojaveña Wilds Totally Normal Bulletin Board

[Hap]

Nova was as easy to spot from a distance as his general location had been to discover. It occurred to Ridley to wonder whether he ever felt self-conscious about that. Probably, he guessed; he hadn't spoken to Nova directly before, but from what he'd said during the team meeting, the guy didn't seem to be having a particularly good time. That had to suck, even if it did work out very conveniently for Ridley.

"Hey Nova." Ridley approached, greeting him with a wave. "What's up?"

Ridley hadn't had the opportunity to scrutinise an RKS chimera in detail before. From a distance he looked perhaps a little ungainly with his mismatched limbs, but up close the RKS chimera looked... weird. There was no other word for it. Nova gave the overall impression of having been put together out of spare parts; his proportions were subtly, uncomfortably off in a way Ridley had never seen on a natural pokemon. It was suddenly very obvious to Ridley how Galar's recent urban legends about mismatched fossil pokemon likely had their roots in Macro Cosmos' attempts at creating their own RKS chimera.

 

[Ambyssin]

"Hmm?" Nova glanced over his shoulder, but didn't see the source of the voice at first. He grabbed the papers for the jobs he was considering, then fully turned around. Sure enough, the one who addressed him was small enough that Nova could step on him without realizing it.

Name. Name. Nova had to remember names.

"Oh, hi. Ridley, right?" The null put the job papers into his bag. "You, uh, here looking for work?"

 

[Hap]

"Not really," Ridley said, although come to think of it he probably should. He was still making his money day-to-day by doing odd jobs and running errands, and the bulletin board would be an excellent source of those. That was a consideration for later, though; right now he wanted answers more than he needed money. "I was looking for you, actually. I wanted to ask about your pokeball."

 

[Ambyssin]

"Oh." Nova blinked slowly, though he couldn't crane his head down enough for Ridley to see. The mask was too bulky. He looked around, then beckoned Ridley with his tail. Nova shuffled off away from the tents and anyone discussing the board's daily stuff.

"Technically speaking, you're a bit too late for that," Nova said once they were far enough away. He rummaged through his bag and placed the luxury apricorn ball on the dusty ground. "Cuz I trashed it for a luxury ball." There was a hint of amusement. Yes, he was being a literal genie. And that was probably dumb.

"But I assume you mean in general. What do you want to know?"

 

[Hap]

"Whoa," Ridley said, impressed. "So you've got a source to obtain more of them, then?"

The "luxury ball" was obviously handmade, which made sense given the world, but the colours and patterns were a close facsimile of the ones Ridley was familiar with from his own world. So not just a source, but an offworlder source, and quite probably a human one.

Ridley knew Nova could self-release from his ball, but even so, the idea of pokeballs in this world troubled him.

"What's it actually like inside one of these?" he asked. "Mind if I take a closer look?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"If I open it, it'll just suck me in." Nova rolled it to Ridley anyway. "To an empty void. Weightless. It's very calming. Outside's just an apricorn, though. As was the other one. I think Mhynt said during the meeting it's related to the boss of the board." He glanced to his left. "Hence the... privacy. Our group's the only one who knows their true nature."

 

[Hap]

"Hmm," Ridley said thoughtfully. Their true nature? As an offworlder, or something else?

He picked up the ball and rolled it between his hands. "You can self-release, right? When you're inside, how aware are you of the outside world?"

The ball looked as though it would open and close easily, with no lock that would prevent whoever was inside from releasing themselves. Still, if one offworlder could recreate pokeballs in this world, then others could do it also, and Ridley certainly wouldn't want to trust a human-supremacist group like the Coven with the power to trap people in pokeballs. He said, "Do you know if they have the same exclusivity function as pokeballs from my world? Which is to say, if you're linked with this ball, do you know whether it would be possible to catch you in a different pokeball?"

To his slight embarrassment, Ridley wasn't familiar enough with the technology behind pokeballs to guess whether that was an inherent part of their function or something intentionally programmed into the modern ball to hinder pokemon theft.

He held out the ball, handing it back to Nova.

 

[Ambyssin]

Nova took it. "I had to bust my old one for this to work. So, yes, I imagine so." He put it back into his satchel. "There's always, of course, ways of getting around that with the right equipment. But I doubt apricorns and tumblestones can produce balls that bypass that link.

"As far as awareness, it's vague. I can sorta be aware if I concentrate." Nova shrugged his shoulders. "But I was always a 'mon. I had a ball once. I'm familiar with being inside one." He shook his head. "The majority of this group, though... the balls will lull you into ease. That's the nature of the void inside them. How you feel outside it is another story. And, well, you'd probably need practice with concentrating.

Now that Nova thought about it... was there even another Wayfarer who was a "trainer's" pokémon? Maybe that toxel kid who came up to him at the meeting? But, like, he seemed very young. Naive, too. Probably not a good one to rely on for help with poké balls.

"I think... I might be one of the only ones who's used to these." Nova set his satchel down. "The rest of you are humans... or from lands of only pokémon where poké balls aren't around."

 

[Hap]

"Huh," Ridley said. That was... weird to think about, actually. At this point he'd long adjusted to the idea that the pokemon around him were people, and even if he still occasionally struggled to tell the difference between people and feral pokemon on sight he was comfortable enough with erring on the side of person-until-proven-otherwise. But the idea of Nova, a sapient pokemon from a world with humans and pokeballs in it... he took a second or two to wrap his mind around that.

Ridley still instinctively thought of pokeballs as a way for humans to have power over pokemon, but Nova was clearly used to them and didn't seem uncomfortable with the idea of them. That made Ridley feel a little better about what he was going to ask next. "Do you know whether your, uh, benefactor might be amiable to making these available for the rest of our group? If they can make pokeballs then other groups might have the same idea, and I wouldn't like for any of us to be caught unawares in a ball we can't easily release ourselves from." Or even one they could self-release from, if what Nova said about probably needing to practise concentrating was accurate.

He added, "And I don't know how much you know about the recent shadow pokemon attack at the Haus, but one of our group - Steven, the beldum - was hurt pretty badly, and it took some effort to move him to safety. Most of us aren't as heavy as he is, but I'm sure a convenient way to transport injured teammates would come in handy."

Ridley wasn't sure how commonplace his own kneejerk attitude towards pokeballs was amongst the Wayfarers, but even if most of his companions hated the thought of being caught in a pokeball - even a pokeball they owned and could leave at any time - having the option might be nice. Ridley himself had a powerful sense of trepidation about the idea, but given the chance he'd like to at least try it just to see what it was like.

 

[Ambyssin]

"Do you know whether your, uh, benefactor might be amiable to making these available for the rest of our group? If they can make pokeballs then other groups might have the same idea, and I wouldn't like for any of us to be caught unawares in a ball we can't easily release ourselves from."

"Maybe." Nova hadn't kept track of the others who'd gone to Mewtwo with him. Felin destroyed her ball, though. "I'm not the only one with one anymore, actually. There are, I think, five or six others of us—

"And I don't know how much you know about the recent shadow pokemon attack at the Haus, but one of our group - Steven, the beldum - was hurt pretty badly, and it took some effort to move him to safety. Most of us aren't as heavy as he is, but I'm sure a convenient way to transport injured teammates would come in handy."

"—so it's possible one of them ended up in that attack, too." Nova glanced over at the board. "Archie told me about what happened. It sounded harrowing. I checked out of the Haus before the team meeting, so it's chilling to hear. I gave him my theories on all this. If I had to guess, the shadow voice tracked those of you it reached out to through your dreams." He pawed at the ground. "Even if it was brief, it probably knows we're in Frontier Town. And I imagine anything Betel can do, it can do as well." He paused. "Possibly better, considering how... unsure of their position Betel sounds."

Still, there was what Mewtwo had said a couple of times. "The owner has... cautioned us on being too trustworthy. In which case, I don't know if having them make poké balls for the whole team is good. I am giving... a great deal of trust this ball won't blow up in my face somehow. Because it's trying to help me break this damn mask."

 

[Hap]

"Ah, that's a point," Ridley agreed. "I guess it comes down to whether we think whatever ulterior motives the owner has are a greater or lesser risk than potentially getting caught nonconsensually by a group like the Coven."

He wasn't sure how much damage a pokeball could do if he only used it once and then kept it concealed under his disguise for the rest of time, but Nova was probably right that it paid to be cautious. But either way, Ridley was still curious about the experience of being in a pokeball. "Who else has a ball, though?" Maybe he could ask them about it to get a fuller picture.

The news about the shadow pokemon potentially tracking them through dreams was disturbing, but not exactly a new fear. Ridley had been concerned about the potential for corruption from the beginning. If contact with shadow pokemon posed a long-term risk for the group, then maybe they should start considering some form of quarantine between those who'd had contact and those who hadn't. "Betel didn't seem to know anything about shadow pokemon when Dave and I asked them about it," he said. "I think they're a kid, actually. Well, I mean, I don't know what maturity looks like for extradimensional cloud entities, but they said they don't think they were conscious when the offworlder before us arrived. Young or not, they're new."

 

[Ambyssin]

"Who else has a ball, though?"

"Hmm." Nova tapped a claw against the dirt. "Well, Koa, Jade, Gladion, Mhynt, and Leaf met the board owner with me. I don't know if they kept theirs, though. They might've destroyed theirs, like Felin did after she went with me to friendship training."

Realizing how weird that list bit sounded, Nova hastily added. "It's, uh, also something I need to break the mask."

"I think they're a kid, actually. Well, I mean, I don't know what maturity looks like for extradimensional cloud entities, but they said they don't think they were conscious when the offworlder before us arrived. Young or not, they're new."

"I could guess that from how they talked." He shook his head. "That... probably means that, for now, they're here to coordinate and not guide our actions. For that one, we're on our own."

 

[Hap]

Ridley nodded, committing the names to memory. He'd probably meet up with Koa again if they tried training together with Steven, but he'd ask the others about it if he ran into them.

Friendship training? Okay, sure, Ridley had heard weirder. He said, "Speaking of the mask, what's the deal with that thing? I think you mentioned someone using it to control you?"

Which was one of the more fucked-up things he'd heard. Isidora's world sounded pretty fucked-up too. If other humans here came from worlds like theirs, then the existence of groups like the Coven made a lot of sense. Ridley was starting to wonder whether he should consider himself lucky for coming from a world without sapient pokemon.

 

[Ambyssin]

The mask muffled a growl. Every time Nova talked about this stuff, it simply pushed people away. "The mask is painful and not part of me, so I'm trying to break it," he said.

 

[Hap]

"Do you know if Gladion's been having problems with his?" Ridley asked, curious. Information about RKS chimeras wasn't easy to find, and despite his interest in cryptids Ridley didn't know as much about the topic as he would have liked. As far as he knew, in his world the helmets were intended as power limiters to help with the chimeras' functionality, but as far as he knew was very limited. Was it something about Nova or his world which was different, or was it a wider problem?

Gladion had been a human originally, Ridley was pretty sure; at least, he hadn't spoken up when Farin and Valere had wanted to hear from the pokemon members of their group. If the nature of their souls really did dictate the form they ended up with in this world, then Ridley wondered what it would mean for someone to arrive here in a body which hurt them.

 

[Ambyssin]

"I don't." Nova said. "He's more... upset about just being one all together. He's clearly got ties to... whatever version of this exists in his world. So, I think that kind of overshadows anything the helmet would do." He shook his head, jostling it. "But I don't naturally have this. And, yes, it was forced on me. By the pokémon wielder who controls me."

 

[Hap]

Now that Nova mentioned it, the name Gladion was just barely familiar enough to Ridley that he wondered whether he'd come across it before in his research. He couldn't quite place it, though. He'd give a lot to have his rotomphone in this world, or even just access to a decent cross-dimensional search engine.

"That sounds fucked-up," Ridley said automatically, his mouth running ahead of his brain. Wielder, not trainer? "Is that a normal thing in your world?" And then, as it occurred to him: "Wait, the person helping you with it is the same one who made the pokeballs? The one who cautioned you against trusting them too much?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"No. There are many trainers." Nova looked down. "I was made to deal with the ones who stepped out of line." He figured the implication there was good enough. "There's only one wielder. He... was probably human once." His fur prickled. "But he evolved beyond his humanity. To something greater. Forced this helmet on me and sealed my spirit with the Red Chain. So, for me, this helmet's a symbol. Of being a prisoner in my own body. Of not being able to trust if these are my thoughts or actions.

"That's why I have to break it," Nova said. "I don't want to distrust people. The board owner said they could help me break this mask. I'm... choosing to believe that. But they... do remind me of someone with the potential to betray that trust." He hung his head. "Still, I've got nothing to lose. It's not like I have anything good waiting for me if I get yanked out of Forlas."

His mask muffled... laughter? "If anything, Betel lying about us returning is a better outcome for me."

 

[Hap]

Well, that was... a lot.

"That sounds like it sucks," Ridley said. Which didn't even begin to adequately describe the situation, but what was Ridley supposed to say here? Wow, it's awful that you got enslaved and used as a weapon, your universe is really fucked-up. "Shit, I'm sorry, that sounds dismissive. Your world sounds pretty awful. Even if you're still stuck in the helmet, I hope it's better for you here, at least?"

A thought occurred to him, and he added, "Have you tried asking Betel about it? They might know something about how that sort of control translates across worlds. And even if it's the worst-case scenario, it'd be better to know, right?"

Maybe not, actually. Ridley had always found himself driven to know, regardless of the answer, but he knew some people were happier in ignorance. It wasn't a perspective he could understand. Not knowing about the bad things never protected you from them, after all; you might as well know, if only so you could brace yourself.

 

[Ambyssin]

"It'll... be fine." Nova stretched out his right hind leg. "The board owner... he said I need to find a way to make this cursed power my own. Just gotta... wrestle with an inner demon." He swapped hind legs for his stretch. "So, y'know, may say some weird things in the process or whatever. But I'm being told to keep the faith. Have hope and stuff. Cuz that's how you make friends."

He looked left. That hardly sounded enthusiastic. "Just, uh, imagine I have hands. And am waving pom-poms and stuff."