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Mhynt said:
"...Do you... know him, then?" she asked Silver.
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That question was to be expected, but Silver didn’t feel any more ready to answer it. He fidgeted on the spot, his crossed arms squeezing his chest tightly, and he nodded slowly.

“I’d… say so. If Mewtwo is who we believe he is…”

He paused, somewhat apprehensive about finishing his sentence. A side of him thought it was only a matter of time until his secret leaked out, and maybe it would have been better if they heard it from his own mouth.

“Then yeah, I’ve known him for as long as I lived. Or, well, that applies to the version of Giovanni in my world. Dunno if this guy is really him.”

Silver didn’t elaborate further, leaving the task of connecting the dots to the others. He stared blankly at the spot where Mew was floating only a few seconds ago, then grunted and shook his head. “Hmph… We can only guess what kinda plan they’re working on. For now, we should just… go back. There’s still plenty of stuff we gotta do.”
 
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Cresselia92 said:
“Then yeah, I’ve known him for as long as I lived. Or, well, that applies to the version of Giovanni in my world. Dunno if this guy is really him.”
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"That's some... very specific wording," Nova noted, tilting his head slightly. There were a few hypothesis he could draw from that, but he wasn't going to just openly drop them if Silver was keeping it close to his chest. "Far as I know, my world's Giovanni loved his mother and his persian. That was about it."

He slowly turned around. "But I suppose this is all we'll get for now."
 
Mhynt nodded. "Let's return. The others might be waiting for us to depart," she said. "We'll note this down and form a less impromptu team to confront... 'Giovanni' next time." She had no idea who that was, but he sounded like a 'big name' in other worlds. She wondered if it was the same one or not...

Something for later.

For now, they had an oasis to get to.

<><><>
 
[CH05] Shop Talk
  • Threadmarks
    • The walk from Frontier Town to the tent city surrounding the quest board was the same as always, but it took him less time than usual. He wore the same coat and hat he always did, but they weren’t so ill fitting anymore. Nothing had changed about the board itself, but it didn’t seem so imposingly tall anymore. No, the only thing that had changed was him. Archie reached up a black furred paw, scratching at the white whiskers extending from his sky blue muzzle. He’d evolved. He had no idea how anyone ever got used to the concept.

    The Dewott sighed to himself. He’d evolved, but life had to go on. They’d just finished a huge mission, dislodged Cipher from Blaguarro, and arrested something like half the organization’s leadership on Forlas. But he still had bills to pay, supplies to buy, and a stomach to fill. It was monotonous, in a way; come to the magic bulletin board to find work, team up with whatever bounty hunters were willing to have him on – or find something small he could do by himself, when the outlaw pickings were slim – do the work, come back, get paid, return to Frontier Town. Repeat it all again the next day. It was so very much like life in the Adventurers’ Guild back home. Maybe that was why he kept doing it?

    Today, though, he was having trouble focusing. The notices on the board were all beginning to blur together. Had he not recovered fully from the Blaguarro mission? Or maybe he just needed a distraction, something to help him ease back into the day-to-day work after Wayfairer business had eaten up so much of his time. Archie took a quick look around the area, and was actually a little dismayed to see there was no sign of Nova. Though, if it meant the Graydian wasn’t still camping out here, maybe that was for the best.

    … Still, did mean he’d have to find someone else to talk to.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • A soft paw landed on Archie's shoulder and a feline face swung into view. A dark fur marking decorated her face to form a mask of sorts, which served to add an air of mischief to her otherwise friendly smile.

    "Am I interrupting something?" asked Felin, lifting her paw and leaving it to hover. "Couldn't help but notice you looked a bit lost in the clouds, Archie."
     
    The Dewott, lost in his thoughts, completely failed the spot check. He actually jumped a bit when the Floragato's paw landed on his shoulder!

    "Sonora!?" he gasped. Then he shook his head, no, that was ridiculous. "Er, sorry, Felin."

    He turned to study the cat a little closer, just to be sure. Archie'd actually never seen this species of Pokemon before coming to Forlas. He still wasn't actually sure of the best ways to tell them apart from one another. Thankfully the pair at least sounded suitably different from one another that he could be reasonably confident that this particular Grass cat was fellow Wayfarer Felin, and not the partially reformed outlaw. In response to her question, he shrugged, and gestured towards the board.

    "Just trying to find work without my eyes glazing over," he said, "Kinda hard to just go back to it after the Blaguarro mission, though... What brings you out this way? Same thing?"
     
    If it helped to tell the two apart, Felin often carried a sheathed rapier with a swirled pommel on her person. A dark cape hemmed with a pink pattern clung to her shoulders as well.

    "This is my daily routine pretty much," answered Felin. She rested her paw on her hip and glanced off to the side. "You sound like you're itching for something with big epic high stakes again. I get that. Jobs like that are hard to come by though, you know?"

    She walked past him, paw reaching for a job post. "Fill in the downtime with smaller stuff to keep your paws spring loaded and ready for the next big fight."
     
    The Dewott hummed to himself, "Yeah, this is pretty much my daily routine, too."

    Archie folded his arms, glancing from Felin, to the board, and back again. Was he really seeking some high stakes job again, so soon after the last one? Well, there were always more Fiends to capture of that was the case, despite their efforts a decent chunk of the gang was still at large, including Hawthorne himself. He wasn't quite sure if that's what he was looking for, though, and it definitely wasn't a job he could handle on his own even if it was something he wanted to attempt again.

    "I think it's more that it's just... Strange, to go back to the daily grind, after what happened in Blaguarro," he said with a sigh. "Cipher's still out there, and they won't be so keen to ignore us now that we've wrecked their operations at Terminal Two. It's hard to just pretend like everything's normal."

    Still, he followed the feline's lead, and plucked a promising looking notice off the board. "At the same time, though, I've got to eat, and keep a roof over my head."
     
    "I think it's a good thing that they can't ignore us now. Means they'd be eager to come to us. We won't have to go hunting them for ourselves." Felin twitched her whiskers, eyes roaming over the job post.

    She raised her gaze at Archie and rolled the job post, inserting it into a gap on her belt strap.

    "Speaking of which, what are your thoughts on humans?" Her gaze narrowed. "Are you one?"
     
    “Well, I definitely understand the appeal,” Archie replied, absentmindedly tugging at one of his own whiskers. “I just worry about my friends. If something happened to them when I wasn’t there to help. I don’t know if I could forgive myself…”

    The Floragato’s next question caused him to pause, and drop his paw back to his side. The Dewott set his jaw, and stared back at Felin a little warily. Typically he was loathe to answer this particular question, but, he reminded himself that more people probably knew than didn’t at this point. He didn’t have to get into the whole thing, he could just give the Grass Type a simple, direct answer.

    “I was,” he said, “But that was two realities ago.”

    He broke eye contact, looking down at the job in his paws. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Are you?”
     
    "I'm not. Was born as a normal Sprigatito for as long as I can remember." Her gaze shifted to a grin. "With you added to the count that means the tally of good humans I've met to remain more than the bad ones."
     
    "Well, I don't really know if I should count as one of the good ones," the Dewott demurred, "But thank you."

    He stuffed the job into his coat pocket, and quickly scanned the area for something to change the topic to. He wasn't really sure if he felt up to going through the whole song and dance about what had happened to his human world to make it the first of two he'd called home prior to coming to Forlas. Eventually, his eyes settled on the sword on Felin's belt.

    "A fellow swordsmon, huh? Are you self taught?" He asked.
     
    "No need to be some humble. Unless you're secretly murdering innocents behind our backs I'd wager that you're good." Felin offered him a friendly pat on the back. She drew back and glanced at her sword in response to his inquiry.

    "It's half-half. My grandfather gave me some training before I left home, and the rest are tricks I picked up along the way." She drew her blade and slashed a few arcs in the air with the motions of an adept dancer. A metallic shink rang from the sheath as she returned the sword. Felin smirked at Archie. "He is a Samurott, by the way. I couldn't have asked for a better master."
     
    Well, he could at least promise he wasn’t killing anybody. At least, not to his knowledge, and certainly not willingly. And as long as he didn’t run into Alex again, he probably wouldn’t be a danger to everyone. He just had to keep reminding himself not to isolate himself, and trust in his friends like he wanted them to trust in him.

    Back to the topic at hand, though, Felin’s sword seemed well cared for, and there was a certain amount of elegance to her swipes and thrusts. It was certainly nothing like the more pugilistic style he’d developed for himself in the school of trial and error, which, given she’d had some proper training – and with a Samurott, no less – certainly made sense that’d the Floragato would have a more refined manner of swordplay.

    “I mostly had to find things out for myself. I did get some lessons from an Aegislash as a reward for a mission once – that’s where I picked up the Sacred Sword technique,” he said, folding his arms. To be honest, it was a flashy and powerful move, to be sure, but he’d found that it was no substitute for his Razor Shell. There was a reason certain techniques stood the test of time, he supposed. “Have you met Ayda, the Ranger Chief? She’s a Dewott, had some thoughts on the kind of Oshawott swordsmon that come out from back east. She might be interested in crossing swords with you sometime, if you were trained by a Samurott.”
     
    "Ayda huh..." Felin pocketed that thought to the back of her mind. Her paw hovered over the pommel of her sword as she hummed. "Show me your Sacred Sword. I want to check for something."
     
    Archie shot Felin a look of obvious confusion, not quite certain what the feline could possibly want to check. But, he drew one of his scalchops for her all the same, and summoned up the glowing orange Fighting Type blade, which extended from the shell perpendicularly between the Dewott and the Floragato.

    "So, what is it you're checking for, exactly?" Archie asked.
     
    "Wow!" Felin drew her face dangerously close to the sword, eyes glowing with excitement as she studied every inch of it. She took mental notes, made comparisons in her mind and finally she drew back with a sheepish grin.

    "Sorry, got carried away there. Been a while since I last saw a Sacred Sword. Not since this world took away my ability to use mine anyways." Felin plucked a leaf from her neck and hung it over the blade for execution. She almost giggled when coated it in aura and let it go, a satisfying sizzle reaching their ears as the blade sheared through the aura and cut the leaf in half.

    "It works almost the same as the one I'm familiar with, but I sense something... different. A misplaced vibe." She shrugged her shoulders. "It might be a quirk of being from different worlds. What do you think, Archie?"
     
    Admittedly, this was not the kind of reaction the Dewott was expecting. Still, he couldn't help but chuckle at the Floragato's expression. His expression got a little more somber, however, when he heard her explanation.

    "This world took that power from you?" He asked. It was true that when he'd first arrived here, Archie also hadn't been able to access his full suite of abilities. But as he'd regained his strength, it had all come back to him, and he was probably more powerful now than he'd ever been back home. Plus, even at his weakest, his Sacred Sword had never left him. "I'm sorry."

    What might be the cause of the difference in his blade Felin was sensing? Was it as simple as their being from different worlds? For a moment, Archie thought of Alex, of the taint the Zweilous had left in him. Was it a trick of the light, or had the energy blade momentarily sputtered. Had the blade turned the color of rust, or was it just his imagination? The Dewott shook his head, and dismissed the attack before he could psyche himself out further. Because that's all it was. Alex wasn't here, and he couldn't hurt the Dewott or the Floragato.

    "The Aegislash that taught me believed that all Oshawott had the ability to call on the Sacred Sword, they just needed to learn how. He thought that this was because the species had been blessed with the ability by Cobalion, who also taught the first masters of the Scalchop and Seamitar that they could use their tools for more than just cutting berries and bashing open Clamperl and Shellder," he said, deciding it was better to focus on old folk tales than evil Shadow hydras. "I never put much stock into it, but maybe that's the difference you're sensing? If in my world Sacred Sword is a Legendary granted gift, rather than something you manage with your own power, I mean."

    He shrugged. It certainly made the move sound less impressive - or maybe that was just him that seemed less impressive for knowing it?
     
    "Something like that." Felin beat her paw over her chest, her cape dancing in the wind as she took on a calmer visage. "Sacred Sword is only one name it's known by. Some mon call it the blade of the heart, because it shows the strength of one's heart in what they believe in."

    Her paw dropped back down beside her to rest on her waist. "One thing we do share in common is the fact that Sacred Sword got handed down by the swords of justice in my world as well. That happened in a mythic era, long before my egg was even laid."
     
    The strength of one's heart, huh? Archie wondered what his Sacred Sword revealed about his own convictions. He supposed it wasn't something he'd ever really thought about.

    "In my world, no one living's ever seen the Swords of Justice, or any Legendary, really - or if someone has, they're being pretty tight lipped about it," the Dewott said, "They only really exist in stories. Never appearing, even in times of great crisis. Kind of like the Saints, here. Luz is the first and only I've ever seen."

    That was a lie. The Monster that Ate the Sun had to have been a Legendary, hadn't it? What else had that kind of power, the power to take everything a whole world could throw at it and keep going? The power to kill stars. The power to rip holes in reality and jump through them?
     
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