Marowak Dojo ~ Living Quarters

[Namohysip]

...Right, of course. You're a soldier in your old life, aren't you? So happy to follow orders. Mm. You know, if I was actually misleading you, that would not do you very well, now would it?

...Decide for yourself. That's all I'll say on the matter now. My opinion is to keep Maple from finding out until we have some form of leverage that we can prove against irrational hatred. Otherwise, I consider it to be too great a risk.

That is all. I'll leave the rest to you.

Diyem's presence faded... It seemed he'd 'left' the room.

 

[Disco]

Mellow had sat in and listened to the conversation. Once Diyem was done, she sighed and spoke up again.

"I don't like Diyem, but he has a point. And...if any one of us tells anyone anything, and it goes wrong... All of us would die and everything we did would be for nothing. Would they even bother trying to rescue the two we're missing...? You heard him, if we weren't here, getting to them would be even harder... We should just keep our heads down."

 

[Namohysip]

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In an effort to not look too suspicious, the members of Diyem's team decided to stagger their exits from the dojo one at a time, sometimes in pairs if they were commonly seen together. Eventually, only a reasonable number of them remained, and that was around the time that Soda came walking in with the hulking Snorlax, Flesh, behind him. It was a miracle how he fit through the doors, but apparently the dojo's halls were accommodating for someone of his... stature. But only just barely.

"Yo," Soda called. "Came with some news. Two pieces of news and a this, actually." He gestured behind him, where something hovered just by Flesh's side--he was too big to go past until they'd gone through the halls. It was a Porygon-Z, twitching every now and then, making various beeps and buzzes.

 

[Torchic]

Cino was silently listening to the news about Diyem. It certainly was a shocking one at first, but he wasn't sure what to think about it. An entity of pure darkness, which wanted to hurl this world into the sun. He probably did the same. But what made him different from this world's Dark Matter?

Cynthian didn't take this news in as easily as most others. Poor guy.

Cino's attention was quickly caught by the huge Snorlax entering the building, followed by Soda declaring that he had news.

But that got instantly overshadowed by the twitching and buzzing Porygon-Z. He had never seen one of these, even though he knew they existed back home. They were just extremely rare. Sure, there were species of Pokemon here that didn't exist back home, but Porygon-Z were said to be almost extinct.

"Uh," he looked back at Soda, "what kind of news do you have?"

 

[Disco]

Mellow had stayed behind to check which of the tea blends she'd delivered needed restocking, and only glanced up briefly at first when two of the so-called "God Squad" had come in. That changed when she caught sight of the thing that had come with them. "...What is that...?", she asked in fascination and horror.

 

[Namohysip]

"Greetings!" Porygon-Z said, waving a twitchy oval toward them.

"This is Destiny Village's lead theoretical analyst," Soda said, gesturing to the twitchy thing. "He's the one that we've been having analyze the Shades and stuff. We found a few new findings, but during his experiments, we discovered something... ahh whatever, I'll let him explain."

"Indeed!" The Porygon-Z floated forward and twitched a few more times. "Porygon-Z Chip, at your service!"

 

[Disco]

Mellow clung to the walls while she made her way out the room, while staring at the abomination, and fled. What was that? What was that?? She shivered and made her way to her little garden without speaking a word to anyone else. She needed to get the image of the creature out of her head, and working with her plants and in the soil would do the trick...

 

[windskull]

Nip, who had elected to take a nap, sat up as the pokemon entered the building. Soda and Flesh he recognized. But the third one? He'd never seen a pokemon like that, with its smooth body and disembodied parts. A pokemon like that had to be a ghost, right? Kind of like a haunter's hands weren't attached. That was the only logical explanation he could come up with.

"Oh, this is about the shades?" He stood up and approached the trio. "What have you found out, then?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave blinked at the Porygon-Z. He'd gotten used to this world having all the same Pokémon except they talked, but a fucking AI virtual assistant? What was next, Clippy?

"Hi," he said. "What's this about?"

 

[Namohysip]

"I made a very interesting discovery with some of your findings!" Chip buzzed--his whole voice had a light buzz to it, really--and twirled around. Like some kind of magic trick, one of those odd stone lumps appeared from behind him and floated just above his head, holding it like some sacred artifact. It did not glow.

"These strange lumps of stone have trace energy signatures inside," Chip buzzled on. "And it also seems like, for some reason, the Shades are drawn to it. We noticed that one of the lumps we had in testing was moving on its own; at first, we thought that it was because it was alive! ...But it turns out, one of the Shades escaped containment and was rolling it around."

"And that reminded me of some odd mismatched counting," Soda said. "Back when you guys helped Thyme and Pepper, you guys killed one Shade and captured three. But there were five infected folks total. Where'd the fifth one go?"

 

[Phoenixsong]

Skara fiddled with the strap of her satchel. She'd only recently retrieved the shade Curio had forced out of Cynthian, intending to do some investigating of her own after the meeting had settled down. She had also only recently picked up one of those strange stones. Not to inspect; they were supposedly "useless", after all, and mostly it just made her feel a little less nervous in the absence of a proper everstone. But the shades were attracted to them? She imagined the little shadow-creature in the jar scrabbling at the container's sides, desperate to get at the stone nestled right next to it. (It was almost kind of adorable.) Definitely something else to investigate, then, although it might be best to hear what Chip (whatever he was, whatever he did) was leading up to first.

As for the fifth shade... "Well, there was a lot of chaos going on, what with Cresselia suddenly shaking things off and then Darkrai attacking everyone... are we sure it didn't just get away in the confusion?"

 

[windskull]

Nip returned to his sleeping space for just a moment, returning with his own lump. His brow furrowed as he tried to think back. "Well... I remember Starr throwing something at one of them. I just assumed the blow killed it. That would account for the fifth one, right?

 

[Namohysip]

"Yeah, about that," Soda said. "I actually decided to check on a few things with you guys. Turns out Lugia had a Shade in her, but it never really got caught. Checked with Celeste and Cabot, who did something like what Starr did--why d'you guys keep doing that, anyway?--and then turns out, Cabot's was way heavier." He didn't really tell him, though. In fact, all he'd done was quietly lift the stones to be sure.

"In other words," Chip said, "with that new information, I would like to see it happen again! Do any of you have a Shade and a stone?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave gave Soda a skeptical look. "So you think the Shades get... absorbed by these rocks somehow? Is there a reason you think that's a good thing?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Well, for one, it already happened on accident twice," Soda said, "and it seems to keep 'em at bay. And from what we've seen..."

"It seems to augment your powers a little!" Chip exclaimed. "That was the missing piece! I need to see what happens when it interacts with your energies. You're very unstable, after all. That might be the reaction it needs. Now, come on, can't you do it for science?" Chip drifted a little closer, his digital eyes flickering with excitement.

"I guess we could also find that annoying Cranidos and see that stone ourselves," Soda said. "But Chip insists we do multiple trials, and Starr's missing."

 

[windskull]

Nip frowned slightly, bringing a claw to scratch against the side of his face. "So... do you know if it's painful or anything like that? For the shade, I mean. Like... does it kill it?" He paused, shaking his head. "I'm probably overthinking this. It's just that my kin have strong feelings about killing something quickly if you must kill it. Tormenting a spirit is cruel, according to Yveltal's code."

 

[Namohysip]

Soda looked annoyed at first, but then sighed and rolled his eyes. "Look, the thing doesn't scream or really show any signs of distress we can see, so what's the big deal?"

"It's true. We know what a distressed Shade looks like!"

"Long story short," Soda said with a slight grimace, "we got some weird readings while studying Shades, and it was usually when someone got too close that they didn't like. And then it corrupted Chip and turned him into a mad scientist for a little while."

"I should do it again sometime. For studying," Chip said. "It was an experience I should log down next time."

"On your own time, buddy," Soda muttered. "Look, point is, as far as we can tell, the Shade that's in Cabot's stone doesn't seem to mind."

The Shade in Dave's possession seemed to be listening in, and pecked at the container curiously. Were they talking about it? What were they saying? Something about stones and containers. And others like it were being put inside, and they didn't mind? That didn't make much sense. Even with this bigger cage, it was very annoying.

Meanwhile, the Shade with Nip kept pecking at the side of its own container, looking annoyed that Nip wasn't paying any attention to it.

 

[Torchic]

This whole thing intrigued him. His own slug that he caught (he forgot when exactly) was as always hissing and tried to nibble at the cage. Cino paid it no mind. "What exactly happens when they get absorbed by the stone?" Cino asked, tilting his head. "Can they get back out again?"

 

[Dragonfree]

"On your own time, buddy," Soda muttered. "Look, point is, as far as we can tell, the Shade that's in Cabot's stone doesn't seem to mind."

"What do you mean it doesn't seem to mind? Can you ask it and get an answer while it's inside? Can it get back out?" He glanced at Squiggly, over in his cage. "Look, science isn't just about fucking around and seeing what happens. You could chop people in half and see what happens, but that's not science. You have to properly investigate what's going on here before you escalate to trials on anything sapient."

 

[windskull]

Nip picked up the container he was keeping his shade in, peering inside. In certainly didn't seem distressed being around his lump. But, then again, what did he know?

He didn't ask to be a dad. And to be frank he wasn't sure he was ready for that kind of commitment. Yet here he was.

"I have to agree with Cino, here. Knowing whether they can get back out — on their own, in particular — seems very important."