Destiny Tower

[Namohysip]

"Not at my best," Pop admitted. "I would still have some of me missing. I would need to work together with Cola to be at my best."

"And, um, when you say work together, you don't mean that literally, right?" Cal asked nervously.

Pop chuckled a little. "In the same way a team works together," he replied. "If Cola is so apprehensive, I should listen. Perhaps that is my own self telling me something."

Cal and Owen both seemed visibly relieved, then glanced at Lexx. Just then, Soda appeared behind them and whispered, "It's really obvious Lexx has Cola right now if you keep looking at him."

Cal and Owen both jumped, then looked at where another Soda was still reading his magazine. Silently, they realized Soda was conjuring an illusion of them looking natural.

"Owen, people can read you as easily as you can read them. You should split before you give it away. I'm gonna call your badge. Answer it and dip."

"What's a dip?"

Soda disappeared, and moments later the badge floating in Cal's shoulder buzzed. She dug around for it and answered. "Yeah? ...Oh, god, uh--yeah, I forgot. I'll be there soon." Cal nodded at the others. "Sorry, gotta go. Um. See you guys, and good that you're doing better, Pop."

Hastily, she departed, with Pop only managing a weak glance over at them, though he tried to smile back with his eyes.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Probably for the best that they were leaving--subtlety really wasn't Owen's strong suit.

"Gotta say I'm with Koa on this one. Even if you've got the same spirit and have to rejoin in the future, well... nothing saying that's gotta happen anytime soon, right?" Lexx paused, crossing his arms behind his head. "Say, couple of the other folks on the team were wondering... any idea what would happen if Cola wound up visiting the Tree of Life now?"

 

[Namohysip]

"If Cola were to go to the Tree now...?" Pop repeated. "Hmm... If I had to guess... he would restore his power, and then come to Destiny Tower to finish the job Joule could not." He nodded. "Considering you came here to ask me these questions for him... I'm certain he is not happy with the way these plans had turned out."

Hm, so he figured it out, huh? Cola remarked with Lexx's cool confidence. I guess that doesn't really change anything anyway, since it's not like he can move... But does he really think that lowly of me? he asked, ignoring the fact that Pop was also correct.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Well, this did complicate things, didn't it. Naturally neither one wanted to fade entirely, but Pop seemed a lot more open to it, despite prooobably being the better choice to visit the tree. Not the most interesting end result, though.

"Ahh, he was just a bit worried I think," Lexx said holding both palms out. "Doesn't wanna miss out on the chance to grow and learn for himself, y'know?" That was one way to put it. "And who knows--maybe the whole teamwork situation could work out, lead to a new perspective, that sort of thing~"

 

[Namohysip]

Pop chuckled a little at that. "That's true, in an unintuitive way... He and I are the same, but he doesn't really feel that. We cannot quite feel each other. Not yet. Perhaps... we can find a way to compromise. Meditate together over time to become more in sync, to the point where perhaps recombining won't be much of a change at all..."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Lexx grinned. "That's the spirit!" He pivoted around to face Koa. "Welp, that basically answered all my questions." At least, pertaining to this subject. While he would have loved to hang around and chat with the creator some more, it was probably best if they didn't push their luck with Cola being there any longer. "What say we head back and let the others know what we've learned? Figure they'll want to know before they get too much farther with their plans for visiting the Tree."

 

[Flyg0n]

Koa nodded in agreement. "That sounds good. A compromise. I uh... I think Cola would like that. It'd be really cool if you I mean, if we could figure that out."

He turned back at Lexx and let out a sigh of relief. The philosophical implications of the conversation was killing him. It was too nebulous, too complex... The idea of getting away was more appealing. "Yeah that's it then. We better get back."

It was too bad though, that Lexx and Cola were there. Pop seemed so nice. The kind of legendary he wanted to get to know. To ask questions and maybe-
In another time, he would have talked with him a little more. One day.

With a final goodbye, he followed Lexx out.
<><><><><><><><><><><>

 

[Ambyssin]

And, of course, Maple's portal took them to the guild. Bahamut grumbled obscenities under his breath and floated out, heading in the direction of Destiny Tower.

... oh, right. With all the excitement buzzing around the human-turned-Owen-impersonator, there hadn't been any attempts to follow-up on the events at the Tree of Life. Bahamut heard rumblings that Chibi Pop tried to stage a one-man rebellion by using that dumb scraggy shade and it went about as well as one could expect.

Bahamut knocked with a crystalline leg, but then opened the door anyway. As a cat, he was about half a meter taller than Arceus. Now, he was more than twice the guy's size. Of course the fence might've contributed to that in some way.

"The one responsible for the disturbance was a mute human impersonating Owen," Bahamut announced. "I think, like Giovanni, there are multiple variations of him. Pretty sure I found one on the same Earth as Giovanni before Eternatus destroyed it."

 

[Namohysip]

"Maple has told me tales of this person before, but they were only offhand stories," Pop replied.

The room was crowded with books and binders of all kinds, as well as games and little figures. In the corner, Cola was digging through a pile of books to look for something specific.

"I intend to have a look at him, and a talk with him, later. Er, if... well. He doesn't speak much, but I've been told that he has a way to communicate with Pokemon regardless. Perhaps that is true even for myself..."

"Was he cool?" Cola asked, popping his head out of the book pile.

 

[Ambyssin]

“No. He’s a charizard. If they’re cool, they’re dead,” Bahamut deadpanned. “More to the point, have you two made up since your big episode?”

 

[Namohysip]

Cola shrank back until he was just a golden wisp under the pages.

"I believe we have... been able to talk to one another," Pop said. "Cola isn't really comfortable talking about it yet, and I'm not going to press. We are just spending some time bonding for now. Talking and understanding one another. It's quite... surreal, in a way. It isn't often that I speak with my own reincarnations in this way."

 

[Ambyssin]

“The idea that a soul can even be fractured in such a way is blasphemous to me.” Bahamut looked at Cola. “But the will of causality would say there’s a reason you’re both here, even if you don’t realize it.”

He shook his head. “Regardless, I think there are more pressing matters at hand. Namely the guild that bears your name. How involved in its day to day operations are you?”

 

[Namohysip]

"S'more would know more than I would," Pop replied frankly. "It is under my name, and I have final say in certain matters, but I entrust S'more to handle the more minute operations while I focus on... worldwide matters and observations. Meditations, and so on."

"He's like the boss of the boss, but S'more does more of the involved things," Cola explained. "Sounds boring."

 

[Ambyssin]

"I see." Bahamut frowned. His tail tapped against the ground. "I'll get straight to the point, then. I believe Red was the one who attacked Destiny Tower. Which the guild tried to pin on Owen, using something that marshadow character did." He raised an upper wing. "Then that same person is the one who happens to find Giovanni right before the two of them are attacked by Red. He didn't engage us immediately despite our own blacklight energy. He offered us a 'friendly' battle.

"I do not believe any of this is a coincidence. I smell a rattata. So, I wanted to know if you think any of the guild folk or these lesser gods have been acting... different."

 

[Namohysip]

"Xerneas," replied Pop immediately, nodding. "Though I don't think that's relevant to what we're working with right now." Pop tapped a hoof on the ground, looking at Cola again. Something was still bothering him. He hadn't said everything.

Then, he said, "My foresight has been blurred for a while. My ability to see things has been itself debilitated by the Blacklight, and by Eternatus. If someone is secretly corrupted, then it is so thorough that I cannot see it. But surely that Charizard that Red had been compelled to frame did."

Pop did not seem at all surprised that Bahamut suspected Red was the one to strike Destiny Tower. Perhaps he had already come to the same conclusion.

 

[Ambyssin]

"Yes, well, I made clear to Maple that I believe Eternatus got to Xerneas... intentionally or not," Bahamut said. "Judging from what I experienced, I'd actually go with the latter. It's my personal belief that Eternatus is trying to use the Tree's pure energy to ward off the blacklight. Stop herself from going mad like Joule did."

Bahamut noticed the gesture. He might not've had whatever magical thing made Owen babble endlessly during fights, but he wasn't naive. He looked between Pop and Cola. "There's still something I'm missing here, isn't there?"

 

[Namohysip]

Cola drifted toward Bahamut and disappeared, reappearing in a blink in front of him, by one of his crystalline toes. "Pop is worried," Cola explained, disappearing again and reappearing next to Bahamut's would-be shoulder, mimicking Bahamut's intonation surprisingly well, despite the slightly different vernacular. "You see... There is a chance that someone he really cares about is corrupted, and either deceiving him, or they don't even know it. It's hard for a god to be paranoid because that's dangerous. You're not a god, but you know what it means to have great power, and then be paranoid with it."

 

[Ambyssin]

"Perhaps that's true." Bahamut hummed. "But I believe that, to some degree, my paranoia is justified." He tilted his head to look at Cola. "People I have cared about have stabbed me in the back far too many times. Some of them literally." Bahamut stared at the ceiling. "And every time you tell yourself that the next time will be different. You guard yourself to stave off any pain. But it comes anyway."

He crossed both sets of wings over his chest. "It can be tough to separate fact from fiction, Arceus. Especially if you've grown to rely on a sense of perception that has been stripped from you. I was the same way in the aftermath of losing my light." There was an urge to flick Cola off his shoulder, but he was holding it back. "However, you have an advantage. You have allies who are... detached from your friends." Bahamut pointed at himself with his tail. "Maybe some of my overly-touchy-feely teammates have grown connected to the Cibus natives, but I'm willing to consider things from an outsider's perspective.

"Tell me what's on your mind. If you want to relate to mortals, then you must understand that bottling something like this up and letting it fester does you no good."

 

[Namohysip]

"I never said it wasn't justified," Cola remarked, tilting his head. "Only that it's bad to have for us."

Meanwhile, as Cola drifted around the room again, occasionally flickering randomly across different parts of the piles of books, Pop sighed and gathered his thoughts to articulate.

"I do not know who might be working against me, and it could very well be one of my closest friends without them realizing it. There is simply no recourse for this until the spies are found, if there are multiple. And until Eternatus is defeated and the Blacklight is taken care of, I do not think there is a way to feel at peace. It is merely... something I do not know how to solve, and something I do not know will be solved, since my foresight has been obscured."

 

[Ambyssin]

Of course the answer was essentially a riddle. Blasted gods. This was why Bahamut cringed at the myths about them in his own universe. He slithered through the air to Arceus. "It sounds to me... like you're relying too much on that foresight. Its absence is making you feel naked." Bahamut looked Arceus over. "Figuratively speaking."

His head tendrils bristled. "On the other hand, if you don't leave this place often, I can understand falling back on it. And calling your friends over here to try and sniff out the truth could potentially be dangerous. If you had some names, I could go poking around." He glanced at Cola. "In theory, if you're looking for an excuse to check up on people, he could provide an avenue. He should meet all your old friends, because seeing what they do with themselves is more engaging than reading about it in a book. Yadda yadda. Etcetera etcetera." Bahamut twirled an upper wing in a circle.