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Auranosa Walled Gardens

A gazebo, huh? This was feeling less like a dungeon and more like they'd stumbled into some wealthy person's secret vineyard. Nova was half expecting to find grapes for wine-making if he looked hard enough.

His crest fanned out and he pulsed out a telepathic, "Any Waferers out here?"
 
Jade jolted mid-step. She'd been in the middle of trying to push Betel's inert body onto the palm leaf she'd grabbed, to use it as a makeshift sled, when a sudden telepathic voice echoed in her brain. Wait... telepathic? Did that mean—?

I'm here! she thought back.

Seconds passed. Nothing. Now that she was thinking about it, the telepathic voice hadn't had the same ethereal quality that the Betelnet comms did. More like standard psychic-type local sending. There went that momentary bit of hope. It did mean that someone was nearby, at least. Not that she could judge the direction without any sound, though.

Jade glanced around and spotted a relatively low-hanging tree branch. She took a deep breath, and... leaped up to grab it with her claws, slowly dragging herself up until she was lying across it. God, she'd gotten so used to cat-level agility that the sluggish motion felt like being back in her old human body. Well, anyway, now that she was up here, she could get a view over the dense ground cover, and... there! The telltale silhouette of a Graydian.

"Hey! Over here!" she called out, waving her arm.
 
Gladion snapped to attention as he heard the call, looking for and eventually locating the Meowth it was coming from. He couldn’t understand what she was saying, but he recognized Jade.

“Hey, Jade!” he called back aloud so that she could locate him, before switching to telepathy so that they could actually communicate.

“Hey, glad to see you alright. We got a new person claiming to have just arrived here after hearing a voice, which sounds like a new Betel summon. Which is probably a bad thing for, you know, the fabric of reality. And probably for Betel themself, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. You were at the CDE, right? Any chance you know what the hell happened back there?”

Telepathy with people of other languages seemed to be working alright so far, hopefully she’d at least get the gist of what he was trying to say and ask.
 
Jade slid down from the tree and landed clumsily in a patch of ferns as the two chimeras came trotting over, followed by Leaf and a small, round bird. Gladion called out what sounded like a greeting and then another telepathic voice filled Jade's head. She was just about to ask why the telepathy in the first place when it struck her that the words were... off. The literal words didn't make any sense, but it came with psychic impressions... Betel. New arrival. Bad news. What happened? Had... had their translation stopped working with Betel unconscious?

And then:
Ambyssin said:
"Where the hell did you get that?"
Click to expand...

Jade blinked. "Well, it was here when I woke up, but I haven't been able to—" She paused, realizing the obvious thing that the others didn't know. "Oh, right, uh..."—she gestured with both arms to the inert Porygon—"...this is Betel. Their physical body, anyway. We found it in the CDE basement, but before we could get them out, they got forced to do a summon and it... went wrong, or something. Gladion's words clicked in her brain suddenly. "Wait... new arrival? So it worked, and it summoned... you?" She stared quizzically at the sharp-eyed little bird.

The Rookidee glanced away. "*Evidently. I don't know why I was chosen in particular, but there is someone I am meant to aid, apparently.*"

Normal Pokéspeech, huh. Well, Jade wasn't about to complain about not having a language barrier with someone. Still weird, though.

Rookidee had hopped forward, scrutinizing the Porygon. "*So this is the so-called beetle responsible for our current predicament?*"

Jade bristled. "It's. It's not their fault," she muttered defensively. Why did she feel so on edge?
 
Nova tensed up at Jade's explanation. Forced to do a summon and now it seemed like the Wayfarers were scattered around in random places.

Just like. What happened. When they'd gotten here in the first place.

The tightness and frog at the back of Nova's throat acted up again. His crest tightened.

This wasn't quite a tightness. Something was stuck back in his throat. Nova coughed. Then he leaned over and coughed again. And a third time. And a fourth time. That last cough yielded some sort of balled up wad of paper that dropped at Nova's feet. He looked down at it with wide eyes. How did that happen?

He nudged the paper and froze.

"Oh for god's sake."

The paper had a familiar eight-pointed star on it. Nova uncrumpled the paper and saw what was written.

Nova called for help!

... But nobody came.
Click to expand...
Nova read the paper over again, frowning. He didn't remember calling for any help.

"What happened with this forced summon?" Nova looked at Jade. "If you found Betel's body, you must've seen something, right?"
 
More strange words in her head, more psychic impressions of the abstract meaning to go with it. It was a weird way to hold a conversation, but it seemed to be working well enough, at least. Summon. Betel's body. Saw what?

Jade exhaled, running a paw along one of the corners of the Porygon shell. "We tried to get Betel out, but Neo—one of the CDE guys—stopped us and ran some program on the computer... to summon a partner for the Living Sun, I guess? I don't really know what happened after that. Everything got weird, I couldn't see straight, and it felt like my body was floating away. Betel said something about not being able to refuse the summon, but that they'd try... something. Some way of getting around it, but I guess it was too big a strain, because when I woke up, they were already like this."

Too big a strain... something about that was nagging at her. Why had the summon wiped Betel out so badly?

"Honestly, I didn't even know that I wasn't alone in this dungeon. It's a relief that I'm not the only one who landed here," Jade admitted, glancing between Nova, Gladion, and Leaf. Then her eyes fell on the small, round bird once more.

"Um... sorry you got dragged into this. Do you have a name?"

Rookidee let out a low, disgruntled chirp. "*You may call me—*"

In typical Pokéspeech fashion, the name was a concept. Sheets of rain that fell without touching the ground. Jade wasn't sure how to best translate that, but through the weird, multi-person psychic field the conversation had going, she got the impression that it was meant to be 'Virga.'

"Virga, right." Jade's words trailed off. She wasn't sure what the best thing to say in this situation was.

Virga must have picked up on that, because she added, "*Forgive me if I do not appreciate being stripped of my power and forced into this diminutive form.*"

Jade blinked. "That's not your form?" She'd been under the impression that Virga was a normal Pokémon, what with the Pokéspeech. What reason was there for her to have gotten a new form?

Virga inclined her beak toward Nova. "*This one mentioned something about my body not being compatible with this world.*"

Jade clicked her tongue. Hm.

Virga eyed the Meowth suspiciously. Why was she noticeably guarded?
 
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Well, the frog--or paper--was out of Nova's mouth. He could talk now. But he wasn't sure he could talk in a way everyone would understand. Gladion, Leaf, and Jade were from different regions of different Earths, right? God, that was confusing.

"We got rid of the Living Sun," Nova reported. "We awakened Amida from her long, radiance-induced slumber. But there was a whole Covenant goon squad atop the Mesa. There was this... giant lizard lady who'd made a mechanical volcarona to absorb Amida's radiance, but us waking her up screwed that up for them. I think she had a change of hard and repurposed the volcarona to be Amida's new body."

But if Nova was here, then was anyone left on the Mesatop besides Amida, the Sunward people, and the covenant goons not named Matthias? Great. Wonderful. He was connecting with Amida and then got thrown into a random part of the world. Nova wanted to glare at Betel's body, but couldn't. Hadn't he broken things terribly before?

"Well. Between us getting flung to a random spot on the world, Virga over here and... this stupid piece of paper," Nova looked down at his forelegs, "I have a sneaking suspicion what happened."

He looked at Virga. "You said you felt like something in this direction was calling you. Well, we found somethings." Nova gestured to Jade and Betel. "The cat's Jade and the robo-duck is the one who summoned us here originally. So, it's got to be one of them.

"And I think Betel's version of 'trying something' meant doing the exact same thing that got all of us here in the first place. A mass summoning of... partners. Our partners."

A mass summoning. When the walls of the world were already strained to begin with.

He hung his head. Powehi's warnings echoed in his head. If this wasn't overstepping, he didn't know what was. Which meant... Powehi was totally going to kill them. Or, at least, attempt to get them off Forlas like he tried (and failed?) with Lorrel.
 
What he’d gotten from Jade made it seem pretty damn clear to him that this was, somehow, Neo’s fault. Neo’s fault for trying to summon back Amida’s partner despite the fact that he wasn’t supposed to fucking be here anymore. What an absolute dogshit idea. Gladion hated that guy. Yeah, whatever Betel did probably hadn’t helped the situation, but they wouldn’t have been forced to do that if not for Neo. Hell, whatever summoning had happened might still be better than Lorrel coming back, if he was still spiteful and still filled with as much power as Auriga had given him before.

“Something weird happened to me when everything went wrong.” (Smoke billowing out of his RKS System as if he’d overwritten it with his own will. But it was outside his control.) “Like something was trawling through my memories, looking for… someone.” (For his sister. For a moment there, hadn’t he wanted to see her again?) “Did anything like that happen to you? How many of us…”

He cast his gaze towards Virgo. Were they someone else’s partner?

Was Lillie here, lost somewhere in Forlas now?
 
Nova held up the paper.

"My world rejected Betel, from the sound of it," he said, cheek bolts slowly turning once. "Not surprising, of course. It was an Overseer who ferried me to Betel's custody to begin with."
 
The relief that went through her on hearing Jade's voice—even if the words made no sense—and seeing the meowth waving at them from above was immeasurable. How had she gotten dragged here, though? She hadn't even been at the mesa. Had something happened to all of them?

Leaf moved to stand by the porygon shell on the ground while Nova and Jade filled each other in. Felt weird to see one like this. Solid parts at all, mostly, but also so... motionless. Quiet. There, physically, in a way she was pretty sure one from her world just wouldn't be if it was powered down, but not there. Poor Beetle...

She tried to pick them up with her telekinesis— oh, oof, okay, that was heavier than most stuff she usually needed to manipulate. Not Steven-stuck-in-a-hole heavy, but enough of a lift that for the moment she settled for just righting the porygon onto their feet instead. At least they weren't just... lying on the ground anymore. A little less sad. (Kind of.)

[We'll think of something,] she said to the silent network. They would. Somehow.

Nova's theory caught her off guard. "Partners?" What partners? Like, what, her team? Someone else? The feeling of being turned inside out had come with that other weird sensation, she remembered now, a dozen different memories flashing past at dizzying speed like riffling through the pages of a book. Searching for something, someone. The Game Corner the storm at the power plant that night at home the shouting no the party at the ranch—

If anyone was called, they're not here right now. Nothing's pulling you anywhere like it was the bird. Focus on getting yourself—everyone—out of here safely first.

...Right. Leaf hoped fervently that that would remain a figment of her imagination it was, she knew it was, she knew she had called someone safer someone who bothers to try to understand and turned back to Jade and Virga. "So... do you two know each other, then? Or at least come from the same place?" Hadn't really sounded like it so far, but they did seem like they could understand each other without Nova's help. And she didn't need to be a psychic unicorn to sense that something between them felt very awkward. Tense. Did Virga just have that effect on everybody, or...?
 
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Ambyssin said:
"You said you felt like something in this direction was calling you. Well, we found somethings. And I think Betel's version of 'trying something' meant doing the exact same thing that got all of us here in the first place. A mass summoning of... partners. Our partners."
Click to expand...
Shiny Phantump said:
“Something weird happened to me when everything went wrong. Like something was trawling through my memories, looking for… someone. Did anything like that happen to you? How many of us…”
Click to expand...
Phoenixsong said:
"So... do you two know each other, then?"
Click to expand...

Virga's gaze flitted from Nova, to Gladion, to Leaf, and then back to Nova, uncomprehending. Even aside from the disjointed nature of the psychic conversation, the subject matter was alien and nonsensical. A work of storytelling. Mass summoning. Trawling through memories. Partners. Now everyone was staring uncomfortably at her, including the Meowth, the one whom Nova had called—

Virga stepped backward, wings fluttering involuntarily. "Wait. This is absurd. You don't mean to tell me that she's..."

Her words trailed off, staring at the Meowth in bewilderment. Jade stared back, the dawning realization creeping down the back of her neck.

"Wait, wait wait wait, you can't be serious," she muttered, glancing between the others in quick succession, waiting for one of them to say that actually! they'd got it all wrong and the summoning had nothing to do with any of them, because why would it have? Neo had been trying to summon Lorrel, so why—

The rows and rows of text scrolling down the monitor as if caught in a loop. A loop of summoning partners for each of the Wayfarers, and this was—

"That's not, you're not... Lugia?"

Virga felt the waves of incredulity digging into her from the Meowth's gaze. Jade's own befuddlement melded with the Rookidee's in a way that should have been impossible, a way that she hadn't felt in months, that familiar feeling of a mind within her own, the constant presence in the back of her head, inseparable, inescapable—

"Why did you call me here?" Virga asked in a low voice.

"I didn't call you here!" Jade retorted, a dry laugh cutting into her words from the absurdity of it all. You think—you think I would have—??

Who else?​
​
Anyone other than me, that's who.

Ridiculous, this entire situation is ridiculous—​
 
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Gladion’s eyes widened. Virgo was supposed to be Lugia? Rookidee must be one hell of a downgrade to get used to, although it did seem consistent with Forlas’ summoning restrictions.

He remembered talking to Jade about their respective teams but he really didn’t remember Lugia coming up during that conversation. Okay, yeah, they probably weren’t a formally registered team member, that would be weird, but he had still clearly made some faulty assumptions about how well he’d understood what Jade’s trainer experience had been like.

“You know Lugia?”
 
Lugia? Wait, really? How... oh. Oh. Now it made sense, the way that cold, appraising stare had felt so familiar—

The sensation of falling, falling, falling, a massive winged shape looming dispassionately overhead, psychic pressure all around and in her head insisting that there was no point—

Did Virga—Lugia—know about that, remember that? No, she couldn't have. That was just the Comb; she hadn't really been there. So she'd just been judgy of someone she'd never met for no reason?

(...didn't seem like that was new, though, did it. Leaf hadn't heard the argument but she'd heard it, didn't know what it was about but had sure heard what had happened.)

"Here to help now, are you." Leaf narrowed her eyes at Virga. "Well, if you didn't want to see Jade again, then why'd you even bother answering? What's the point, huh?"
 
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Lugia was here. Lugia. How—why... Nova had theorized that Betel had accidentally summoned partners for everyone. It almost felt like a joke, except she knew Betel didn't have the context, so... some kind of cosmic joke?

Shiny Phantump said:
“You know Lugia?”
Click to expand...

Gladion's exclamation dragged Jade out of her thoughts. She blinked a few times, rubbing the back of her head. "I, uh... yeah." She resisted the urge to add 'unfortunately' to the end of it. "But I'm not the only one... that is, the situation back home was like— there were a bunch of us trying to save the legends, so it wasn't just me. My friend Ajia got picked first, I was just..." She really wasn't selling this as normal, was she.

Phoenixsong said:
"Here to help now, are you." Leaf narrowed her eyes at Virga. "Well, if you didn't want to see Jade again, then why'd you even bother answering? What's the point, huh?"
Click to expand...

Virga hopped back from Nova with an incensed look, feathers ruffled, but then whirled around to face Leaf, eyes flashing. "Excuse me? She is the one who did not wish to see me again. How was I to have any idea that she was the one who had called me here?"

"I didn't—" Jade began tiredly.

"This one acting on your behalf, then," Virga cut in, gesturing to the Porygon with her beak.

"Look, we don't know how Betel's summon worked, and I don't think they knew either," Jade retorted, throwing her arms up. "I sure as heck don't think they meant to summon partners for all of us."

She stared unflinchingly at the Rookidee for a long moment (it was easier, not having to look up, not having to feel small, not having to feel vulnerable). Virga eventually broke the eye contact with an exasperated huff.

"'What's the point' indeed. I do not know what the point is, and it would seem that my being called here was a complete accident. There is nothing I can do about it, not while I am powerless." Truthfully, Virga was unsure what she could have done even with her full power, but didn't wish to dwell on the hypothetical. "Shouldn't we be locating the rest of your allies?"

She could hope for a solution once they were out of the dungeon. If one existed.
 
"Well, we often got navigation from the one who summoned us all here," Nova said, shaking his head. He walked up to Betel. "Lemme take a look at 'em."

While he had his doubts, he did know machines. "I disarmed, then rearmed and activated my kill switch back home. So, maybe I can find something. Or maybe they just need a spark of power to turn on."
 
Jade dusted a few bits of fern leaves from the side of Betel that had been face-down before being righted by Leaf. "Actually, I'd been wondering if that'd help. Maybe they just ran out of power... Radiance, that is."

It felt too optimistic, but it was worth a shot. She pressed her paw against the Porygon's side and nodded for Nova to do the same. She wasn't totally convinced she could charge much Radiance in her current state.
 
Nova extended his foreleg toward it. He was tired, yes. But if it would hurt with his fatigue, he'd stomach it anyway. It wasn't as if he'd have much time to lament anything when he got back home.

Tensing, Nova forcibly drew from that inner radiant spark and pushed it toward the porygon. Wake! Up!
 
Jade felt the buzzing light radiating from Nova's talon and grit her teeth, reaching for the light within herself even though it felt more distant than ever. Stumbling through the fog, seeking out that will to make a difference, now when it really mattered for Betel.

Her paw lit up, barely, soft light rippling across the Porygon's faceted shell, overlapping and melding with Nova's light. The seconds dragged, each one more draining then the last, but a low hum was steadily building, so Jade kept it steady until there was almost nothing left to—

A sudden spark made her draw her paw back. With a disjointed bzzt and the crackle of static, the Porygon's eyes flickered and Jade's heart leapt into her throat... until she realized that it'd only been a flicker. Several seconds passed, but the eyes remained dead, and she hated herself for getting her hopes up.

That said, there was one minor difference with the Porygon body—namely, the fact that it was now hovering very slightly off the ground by an inch or two. Jade experimentally reached a paw out and found that she could, with some effort, push it. Like trying to push a boat while in the water.

"Well, we should be able to transport them easier now," Jade said with a sigh, shaking out the arm that'd gone slightly numb. She glanced around in search of something that they could use to pull the Porygon along.

Lugia Virga hopped closer to the Porygon, observing it from various angles. "This being is human-made, correct? Why not simply seek out the required human technology?"

Jade pulled a vine—a nonmoving one—loose from the closest tree, looping around the Porygon's middle. "Well, that's gonna be a problem since human tech like computers and such are pretty rare in this world."

Virga blinked at her, bewildered by this news. "Well. Someone must have created it. They would presumably have the means to repair it."

"Yeaaahhh, we're not exactly gonna be on good terms with them after what happened." Also the CDE could have been like, a continent away, if the tropical climate was anything to go off. And they didn't have teleportation while Betel was offline. Stupid, still thinking about how inconvenient this is.
 
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