Whisperwinds' Comb

[Jackie Cat]

They say the pokémon of the Taleska Nation take secrets very seriously. Everyone knows the lapines love their gossip, but gossip is just amateur journalism. The truth of the heart, though—

Keep that close to the chest, lest the Comb catches it.

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[Phoenixsong]

Jade's ears were filled with whistling and sighing she could barely understand, and then they were filled with calls and chattering she could barely understand.

Nothing... sinister, though? No ominous messages or wordless whispers from the wind singing through a warped dungeon. Only the myriad half-heard conversations of pedestrians as they swept through a city on a weekend afternoon.

And not just pedestrians, but human pedestrians. (Humans that seemed less tall than they should have been, compared to a meowth... if Jade were to look down at herself, she'd appear to be back in her original body.) There were pokémon, sure, tagging along behind trainers or chatting while perched on a railing or going about their own business—no sign of any of the pokémon she'd entered Whisperwind Comb with—but predominantly humans, hurrying back and forth between buildings as modern and as familiar in purpose as the ones Jade knew back home.

Maybe even more familiar than that. Not identical, perhaps, but if she looked beyond the passersby she'd catch some sights adjacent to things she'd recognize. A multi-story department store dominating the view to the northwest. Signs pointing League hopefuls toward a grass-type gym further south, with an image of a rainbow-hued badge. Just a few feet away, some sort of casino or gambling parlor. (She might've been a little less familiar with the building attached to the casino, or at least with the big cartoon meowth dominating the sign. LUCK E. KOBAN's Family Fun GAME CORNER! it declared, the sunglasses-sporting cat smirking out over the flickering letters and brandishing a floppy slice of pizza.)

The weekend bustle paid Jade no mind, pathing smoothly around her without breaking stride, like they were just barely registering her presence. She couldn't really see them, either, if she tried focusing on their faces. Except for... there, a tan-skinned preteen girl in a red jacket, jogging down the sidewalk straight toward her. Waving, even, with her other arm hugging a giggling cleffa to her chest.

"Sorry for the wait!" she said, panting a little from the exertion of catching up. "She wanted a snack, but of course she hates the stuff they serve in there." The cleffa in her arms burbled cheerfully up at Jade in between nibbles of candy. "Not that I get why you picked this place, either... hasn't exactly gotten any less lame since we were eight." A snort, and an eyeroll at the sign above them. "But hey, you're the one who's visiting, so it's your call!"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade blinked in the sunlight, shielding her eyes with hands that felt equal parts familiar and foreign as her ears failed to flatten and her arms felt suddenly bare against the breeze, no fur standing on end. Some weird, distant instinct wanted to scurry into a dark corner, away from everyone, but the rest of her was too busy taking in her surroundings.

She was in Celadon. The question of why? or how? felt distant, unimportant. She was here to find Brisa to meet with a friend (which friend?), and the Game Corner was the place to be, with all its underground cloning labs overexcited kids and flashing lights.

"She wanted a snack, but of course she hates the stuff they serve in there. Not that I get why you picked this place, either... hasn't exactly gotten any less lame since we were eight." A snort, and an eyeroll at the sign above them. "But hey, you're the one who's visiting, so it's your call!"

Jade gave a light wave to the tiny Cleffa before glancing up at the cartoon Meowth--she'd just been a Meowth, how was--on the front of the building.

"Right, yeah," Jade replied with a sheepish laugh. "I just... something about it spoke to me I guess?"

Had to get inside there, had to rescue Nine... no, Brisa... no wait--

 

[Phoenixsong]

The crowd's chatter remained nebulous; the sounds of excitement from inside were still muffled by the glass doors. But then there was something else, sharper and coming from nowhere and everywhere at once.

"Twice! Twice!" The woman's voice is shrill, incensed, words practically tripping over themselves in their rush to get out and crash into someone else. "You promise to stay away from Team Rocket, part of the conditions you agreed to so we'd even allow you to travel at all, and then turn around and dig yourself into the middle of their active operations twice! I even explicitly said you were not to go anywhere near the Game Corner—"

"That's funny." The girl's tone drips with sarcasm. "Last conversation I remember about that one is you flying off the handle when I wanted to go to Marisa's birthday party before we left. Don't remember hearing any why. So sorry the eight-year-old was too busy being upset about seeing her friends one last time to read your mind."

"That's not what I— it doesn't matter why! I said you were never going there, and that should have been enough!"

There was no one nearby. No one standing around having a heated argument in public, at least. The pedestrians went about their business as if they couldn't hear anything out of the ordinary. Jade's friend—Marisa, something (?) in the back of her mind helpfully (?) supplied—reached for the door's pushbar with her free hand like nothing had happened.

"If you say so," she said, her tone agreeable with only the slightest dash of skepticism. "But tomorrow I get to pick where we go, yeah?" Then she smiled and disappeared into the cool semi-darkness and frenetic whizzbang sounds of the Game Corner.