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Frontier Town Traveller's Haus - Lobby

Reader mode
"They aren't," Eco reassured him, her expression looking unreadable. "Just need some sleep, and maybe also a drink. You're free to come with me, if you'd like. I don't mind."

A pause. "The drinks, mind you."
 
The Oshawott snorted, covering his muzzle with a paw moment to stifle a chuckle.

“I got what you mean, no worries,” he hummed. Still, he didn’t seem entirely convinced that Eco was as fine as she claimed, but, he chose not to force the subject. “I might take you up on those drinks sometime, though. Have you… Been keeping busy? I haven’t seen you around much.”
 
How did one train by themselves and get this battered looking? Maybe it was better he didn’t pry…

“Is that, uh, it? Well, probably smart to keep your strength up,” the Oshawott nodded, “Still, uh, try not to overdo it? You don’t exactly look like you’re getting enough rest. It's important to have an off day now and then so your body has a chance to recover.”
 
Eco gave Archie an odd look as if the Oshawott had said something weird to her. Her mandibles spread for the Grubbin to speak, but it seemed that whatever she was going to say, she hadn't. Just a slow sigh.

"You're right about that, I guess, Trenchcoat." she conceded. "Worth not my time at all when I'm still as weak as a kid, apparently. I don't work for nothing to come from it."
 
The Oshawott's frown deepened, "It's, uh, Archie. Remember? From the bar?"

He shook his head, "Well, anyway... I'm not your boss, or anything, so I'll keep the un-asked for advice to a minimum. But, we all gotta look out for each other, so, don't be a stranger, okay?"
 
"Sort of," Eco said with a yawn. "I'm not all that great with names; There's a lot of them to remember." The lethargy in her voice could make someone want to sleep by just listening to it.

Her weariness swiftly diminished for a moment, as the Grubbin suddenly eyed Archie with confusion. "Stranger?"
 
Archie sighed. Well, he supposed it was a lot to ask for the Grubbin to remember him, they'd only met the once and they'd likely all had had a stressful time since then. The Oshawott knew he did.

What was with that strange reaction all of a sudden though? Was there some kind of significance to the term 'stranger' to the Grubbin? Or was that not a common idiom where she was from? "Uh, you know, a person you've never met? I'm saying we should keep in touch."
 
Uh... Okay. Was she not going to explain herself at all on that front, then? Maybe he was starting to overstay his welcome?

"Well, uh... I guess I'll let you get back to it, then?" The Oshawott gave the Grubbin a wave, before stepping back to let her go about her business.
 
A Bramblin rolling across the desert landscape would've felt far less awkward than the way Eco had looked at Archie. It was difficult to tell what exactly the Grubbin was thinking about, which made her following question all the more puzzling.

"You're a human, right?"
 
Archie blinked once, then twice. Where exactly had this come from, all of a sudden? Well, it wasn’t wrong, exactly, but… The Oshawott was hard pressed to think of any tells he’d been giving! But, well, the earnest confusion on his face made the next thing he said probably that much more believable.

“Where’d you get that idea?”

It wasn’t so much that he liked lying, really. It was just that that was a card he would be holding as close to his chest for as long as possible. It absolutely wasn’t a thing he was going to reveal in the middle of a well traveled place!
 
"Hmm..."

Eco stared at the Oshawott intensively, as if she were meticulously keeping an eye on every gesture and movement he made. It hadn't appeared that she was skeptical, but something still felt odd about it all.

"A guess."
 
The Oshawott groaned, slumping forward and rubbing his forehead with a paw. A guess? Really!? That’s what all this was about?

“Jeez… You gotta be careful making accusations like that, Pokemon here are weird about humans you know,” he said, lowering his voice a little. The last thing Archie wanted right now was to get abducted by some crazed cultist with weird ideas about humans. It was far better if, so far as anyone else knew, he was just an Oshawott.
 
The way Archie had responded to her was more than enough to give Eco a more confident idea than just a 'guess', as she worded it. This Pokémon before her definitely sounded like a human, but whether or not to confirm such a fact was just as Archie had said; it was absolutely a bad idea for the moment.

Though, still... the way he acted was a raise for worry, somewhat. She couldn't help but shudder a little at the thought of a Pokémon native to this world asking him that. Maybe she'd warn him about that in private at a later time.

"Er, uh, sorry," Eco said hesitantly, lowering her voice. "I shouldn't have asked that of you. Pardon my curiosity about it as a Pokémon."
 
The Oshawott looked around the room, then stuck his paws in his coat pockets. Why did he feel like he was being scrutinized here? He still had no idea what had gotten Eco off on this tangent! And now all of a sudden the Grubbin seemed almost apologetic?

“It’s fine, just, uh, try to remember what Kimiko said Gerome told her,” Archie said. To be honest, at the time it’d felt like the only useful bit of information they’d gotten out of the Tyranitar. Though, to be fair, Archie hadn’t gone back to the Zera since then, so maybe the barkeep had become more forthcoming since that day.

… He kinda seriously doubted it, though.

“Do they… Have a lot of humans, where you’re from?” The Oshawott asked, trying to get a feel for what had brought Eco to this topic in the first place.
 
"There's not any at all, actually." Eco shook her head, lowering her voice even further as she shuffled a little closer to Archie. She felt that she ought to have as few people listening to this as possible.

"I'm from a world where they're all myths, or real legends that happened long ago, depending on who you're asking."

She briefly paused, before snorting loudly. "Mostly, it's the weirdos that would say they are."
 
Archie nodded, “Yeah, they’re all considered fairy tales where I live as well.”

He rested his muzzle against a raised paw, and frowned. If humans didn’t exist in Eco’s world, how had she pegged him as one? Just a lucky guess? He certainly hadn’t appeared in human form in the Nexus like some of the others had – he was just as much an Oshawott there as he was here, and in the world he’d left. Was she lying as well? Or was she in contact with another former-human among their number who’d filled her in, purposefully or otherwise, about what to look for?

How many humans did he know about? He’d seen that Meowth transform in the Nexus. He had some idea of Corey’s life story – including his past as a human. Wes had revealed his own humanity fairly casually – and so readily Archie actually kinda felt bad about not returning the favor. He did kind of imply having been human by knowing what a Trainer was and did, but… Well, Ridley had also revealed his past humanity, it was pretty much the first thing the Mimikyu had said about himself! So that made for four, for sure. Five if Archie included himself.

“I still don’t think I fully understand the obsession,” the Oshawott sighed, again.
 
"The obsession?" Eco raised an eye at him, with a small hint of a scoff in her voice. "Tell me about it. Saviors of another race of beings arriving from another universe, dimension, or whatever you want to call it, blessed with the power of the 'spirits' to defeat an unfathomable evil? It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? You can tell that it's some story made by some Pokémon from long ago."

The Grubbin shook her head once more. "Then again, isn't that practically the situation we're in, now? Barring the fact that we're Pokémon?" Her eyes fixed on Archie, awaiting what he would say in that regard.

Eco held a stub to her head and then sighed. "It's weird, being so used to a concept that's supposed to be just a bunch of myths then they're suddenly a real thing all along."
 
“I honestly don’t know,” the Oshawott sighed, “We’re here to help someone, somehow, do something. I don’t know if I caught everything that cloud said.”

There had been a lot of cross talk back at the nexus, and he had kinda been more focused on Corey and Tarahn, and the second time the cloud had come through clearly, he’d been fighting and couldn’t split his focus. This had left Archie somewhat on his back foot when it came to the wider goals of their group. If only they could find a way to reach out without the need for a huge group to gather together…

When he’d made his first universe hop, it had been down to pure dumb luck that he’d been the one. That made it especially strange to the Oshawott to think about having been specifically chosen to come to this one. What was it about them that had made them so special? There didn’t seem to be a single unifying characteristic between the lot of them. Certainly, he couldn’t think of anything that made him special, specifically!

“If you want to talk about weird? Some of the people here, I know them back home, but, like, different versions of them,” Archie said, “And they know different versions of me. Just imagine, somewhere out there, there’s probably other versions of you, too.”
 
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