Game Week of the Multiverse: Overlook Hill & Top Plaza

[Navar]

Seeing that Luxray being so fine was annoying, but maybe he was a bit right. Brian could have tried something to soften his landing, but the rush stopped him from doing so.

Brian frowned. "Well, first things first! That was a bit rude! And secondly... I'm Brian. Nice to meet you!"

He checked to see if his bag was fine, and his gauntlet inside of it. After confirming it, Brian sighed.

"Okaaaaay... now where am I?"

 

[Fusion]

Shane frowned. "Do you usually insult strangers?" Not that he was really one to talk.

"Only the strangers I feel can take it," Zack mewled, cracking his neck. Gods that felt nice. "Besides, starting an acquaintanceship with an insult means it can only go up from there, no? Or would you rather we fought and the loser joined the winner's team?"

Brian frowned. "Well, first things first! That was a bit rude! And secondly... I'm Brian. Nice to meet you!"

"Zack, it's a pleasure," the feline nodded. "Zoroarks are usually interesting folk, but I won't hold you to a standard you might not be aware of."

 

[Ambyssin]

Shane’s ears flattened. He could tell when someone was talking down to him. Sometimes. At least this seemed like one such instance.

“Maybe we shouldn’t cause problems when we just crash landed here?”

 

[Navar]

Brian whined a bit. Yeah, he knew his species' reputation in a... not so great light.

"It's uh... for the best. Having fun is alright, but I don't really want to draw attention," he quickly grumbled. "Which might be a waste of time because we crash landed."

 

[Fusion]

It would seem that Zack's words had been somewhat misunderstood. He probably overestimated how well sarcasm could be read from otherworlders. Zack thought over whether or not he should correct them, and very nearly thought to leave it be, but simply couldn't, in good conscious, not fix it.

The feline rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath, then pointed his tail at Shane. "Alright, for one, that was a joke. I didn't mean to upset you if I did. Secondly--" he aimed his tail towards Brian. "--I was alluding to the fact that we are not in our own worlds, so I assumed you wouldn't know the reputation of Zoroarks in my world."

"And thirdly..."

A Bayleef wearing a blue and green striped scarf ran over, face contorted in worry. "Are you all okay?" they asked.

Zack looked to the Bayleef, saying, "Hi, I think we're fine, for the most part. I am sort of tired, though..." he yawned and smacked his lips.

 

[Navar]

"This is a different world...?" Brian blinked, and it all suddenly made sense. The place he was, the fall, everything... it clicked on him like one of his machines.

"Oooooh! Gotcha, that seems way more reasonable, so, uh... yeah, no clue what my species' reputation is for you!"

 

[Ambyssin]

“You didn’t know?” Shane looked around. “I’m here because my teammate got a message out to me.” He looked at the bayleef. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen a big Pokémon that looks like it’s made of parts from other Pokémon, have you?”

 

[IFBench]

"Uh, where... am I?"

"Overcast Village! And I'm Leviene!" the Bayleef said.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen a big Pokémon that looks like it’s made of parts from other Pokémon, have you?”

"Yeah, three of them! Two that look like they're made from parts of a bunch of different Pokemon, one of them with a weird helmet, and while I haven't seen them myself, there's also been some sort of half-Arctoar, half-Ruzolt around," Leviene said.

 

[Navar]

Brian clicked his claws, ears drooping.

"I didn't know? I was searching for two of my teammates, they... disappeared out of nowhere!"

But since that Ninetales had a similar story, maybe... maybe this was related?

"Alrighty. Uh, did any Lucario and Froslass show up here?" Brian asked the Bayleef.

 

[Fusion]

"Oh, so you both are looking for your friends or whatever?" Zack asked, flopping down on the ground. Grass from another world felt remarkably similar to the grass back home. That was expected, but still disappointing. He shut his eyes for a moment, humming.

"...Huh. I feel that Zoroark I was talking about earlier, but none of his other friends," Zack clicked his tongue, then licked the back of his paw. "And here I thought I'd be getting away from his shenanigans. At least it's just him, should be easy enough for someone else to handle."

 

[Ambyssin]

Shane's ears twitched. There was a second Beast Killer here and a masked one, at that. Was probably a surreal experience for Nero.

But just a bit of psychic scanning revealed-- well, okay, there were quite a few brilliant auras in the area. Though Shane was more than familiar with Nero's, with so many colors and sensations jumbled together like some sort of cosmic lint ball. "Testing, testing."

"... Shane? Is that you?"

"No, this is your subconscious. We should really talk more." Shane fought to hide a smirk. "Of course it's me. I got your call."

"Oh, great! Then maybe you can help all these fallers get back to their respective worlds?"

Of course. There was a reason Nero went for him instead of someone less... scatterbrained, as Selene would put it. Shane frowned, however, when he focused on his ESP. "That might be a problem. I can't focus on my wormhole powers properly."

A loud sigh echoed in Shane's head. He suppressed a wince.

 

[IFBench]

"Alrighty. Uh, did any Lucario and Froslass show up here?"

"Just yesterday!" they said. "There's been a bunch of Pokemon from other worlds showing up here the past two days, and we're trying to find a way to get everyone home."

They paused, and then continued, "You're all from other worlds too, right?"

 

[Navar]

"Oh, yes! My friends are here!" Brian sighed in relief, rubbing off some sweat on his forehead. He chuckled, now a bit more relaxed than before.

"Okay, so this is another world, different from mine. I got it, thank you! Now I need to find them..."

 

[Fusion]

"There's been a bunch of Pokemon from other worlds showing up here the past two days, and we're trying to find a way to get everyone home."

"Looks that way," Zack shrugged. "You lot might have your work cut out for you, but it's not like the people that dropped in wouldn't be able to help you out. From the feel of things... a few might be able to just leave by themselves, eventually. Sparkles here included," he nodded towards the Ninetales in question. "I'll be fine, since my ticket back home arrived before I did."

 

[Ambyssin]

"Could you stop calling me that? I have a name, y'know. It's Shane." His tails twitched in irritation and he managed to stop himself before he brought up the grim fate that awaited the last person to give him a not-so-affectionate nickname.

 

[Fusion]

"There's your name, it's a pleasure to properly meet you," Zack yawned. The temptation to call him Sparkles again was strong, but Shane was very obviously irritated and figured Kora would be the better one to piss him off further. At least then no one would actually get hurt, if Shane got aggressive.

Honestly it was a miracle that Kora hadn't already come to greet them, two powerful beings and a Zoroark should normally set Kora off like a bomb.

 

[IFBench]

"Nice to meet you all!" Leviene said. "And we're looking for backup ways, just in case. Gen's been saying that it's been harder than usual lately for him to return to the human world, and he's been able to go back and forth just fine before all this happened."

 

[Navar]

"Right! I need to meet up with them, and then figure out how to go home," Brian ruffled his mane, sighing once more. "In the meantime... I suppose I should take a look around? I'm not sure, but this village does seem very nice."

 

[Fusion]

"So something's wrong here... fantastic," Zack sighed, rolling his eyes. "Retirement always has to wait for tomorrow, I guess. What a shame."

Maybe it wasn't something super-serious. It's only pulling people from other worlds and interfering with a specific human's ability to go between worlds. And assuming nobody aside from Kora is excited to be here, that means other world-hoppers are being halted as well. Not serious at all.

 

[Ambyssin]

One of Shane's ears swiveled up. Had he heard that correctly? Someone traveled between the human and pokémon worlds... like the Gates protagonist? He blinked and looked at the ground. Was this a world analogous to his? That was... something. Shane supposed it was only a matter of time before something like that happened. Probably. Maybe.

Well, it's happening now.

"I guess I'll... take a look around or something." He adjusted his chest ruff and his scarf then trotted off toward where he could sense life forces.