Poppin' Arms Guild ~ Main Lobby

[Chibi Pika]

Starr was sprawled out on one of the beanbag chairs in the main lobby. She'd heard that they'd be assigned dorms soon, so she was just killing some time browsing her phone until then. Or at least, trying to... if she weren't dealing with a splitting headache that definitely had nothing to do with the fact that she'd chucked that damn "useless lump" in the trash outside the instant Chip had explained what it really was. What it contained. A shade. And apparently everyone was just... okay with this? Not just okay, apparently some of them had been worried about the shades being uncomfortable?? It felt like she'd set foot in the fucking Twilight Zone.

And as if it wasn't bad enough that half the team thought it was a good idea to keep nightmare shadow demons that turned you into a monster as pets, the fucking things had to be psychic too? No. Screw that. That was just asking for disaster, and anyone who couldn't see that was a goddamn moron.

Anyone approaching the guild building would see a small rock tapping against the glass on the automatic front door, as if it were trying to get in.

 

[Dragonfree]

Arriving in Destiny Village was a change. Hearing about a village he'd pictured something middle-of-nowhere, but no, this was an actual modern city, if a Pokémon-flavored one, just bizarrely misnamed. For his parts, that was good; he'd lived in Grace City since he'd moved out at eighteen and had not missed the small-town atmosphere.

Apparently, they were being put up at the guild, the less said about its name the better.

He headed towards the large building only to stop and squint as he approached it and found a lump of rock insistently bumping against the closed door.

As he came closer, the automatic door opened, and the stone rolled along inside. Frowning, he followed it towards one of the beanbag chairs scattered around the room, the Litten lying sprawled on it, playing with her pho--badge.

"I think you dropped your lump."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr glanced up from her phone to see that Dave had just walked in through the guild's automatic doors. Then, to her immense displeasure, she realized he was referring to the lump now slowly rocking its way toward her, one wobble at a time.

Starr groaned exasperatedly. "Yeah, the damn thing keeps finding its way back. Creeps me the hell out. Starting to feel like I'll never be rid of it."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave frowned. "Yeah, the psychic thing's creepy and all, but you can't just fucking dump them. You know they're sapient? Or like, enough so to understand you and answer questions and do mental arithmetic."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr blinked at him. "What? These things can think?" The lump had now reached the edge of her bean bag. She grabbed it and held it in front of her face with a disgusted look. "That's even worse--it was bad enough when they were just brainless slugs, but if they can think... do they even give a shit about what they've done to people?"

It fleetingly occurred to Starr that if it could understand people, then it had heard all the miscellaneous obscenities she'd hurled at the lump the first time she tried to dump it. Serves it right.

 

[Dragonfree]

"I mean, they're not really doing it on purpose, best we can tell. Honestly they seem kind of confused by the whole thing. Owen had his shade out and on his head and it didn't even try to possess him."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr continued to stare at the lump with a gaze so intense it was like she was trying to set it on fire. "So, they're fucking clueless and they don't even want to hurt people. Great. Of course they are."

She pulled her eyes away from it finally and gave a hollow laugh. "I guess there goes my backup plan to hurl this thing into a volcano."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave narrowed his eyes at her. "Jesus. What'd the shade even do to you?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr turned away with a huff. "Oh, I dunno, it only brainwashed Thyme and made him try to kill us, so forgive me if I'm not exactly in a hurry to go paling around with it, unlike everyone else, apparently." She paused, and then added, "There's also the part where it's in my head and I never asked it to be."

 

[Dragonfree]

"I mean, sure, but..." Dave paused. "Yeah. The psychic bit is weird as hell. Not thrilled Chip didn't warn us about the part where we literally can't leave them. Thinking about going down to the lab and having words. But in the end they're just, you know, weird little slugs who love you if you feed them."

 

[Chibi Pika]

'Weird little slugs who love you if you feed them.' God, what the hell was any of this. Of course she wasn't allowed to just hate the things that had been causing so much misery. No, that made her the asshole.

Starr let out something between a sigh and a groan. "Even if Chip had warned us, it woulda been too late for me. Mine had to have gotten stuck in the lump way back when we beat Team Spice." And then she'd been stuck in hell when he first gave everyone the briefing anyway. Starr gave Dave a serious look and said, "They seriously don't know why they're doing it? No one's making them?" There had to be someone involved in all this that it was safe to be pissed at.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave shrugged. "Not as far as we can tell. I asked Squiggly about it a bunch, in different ways. Had no problem answering various questions, but that, didn't seem to know what I was even talking about. Didn't know Darkwhite at all, nobody's coordinating them. But, you know, given the whole Shadow Machine thing that could also possess people in the same way, it's hard not to think there's some kind of link. Maybe whoever's behind the Shadow Machine created the shades and dumped them here."

He paused. "Look, nobody can force you to take care of the thing. If you really want to get rid of it, I say we just go see Chip. It's got to be possible to break the psychic link and just hand it off to somebody else."

 

[Chibi Pika]

'Squiggly.' He'd fucking named it. Great. Still, the things he was saying made sense, and Starr could feel her mind clearing, at least a little bit. "Feels like there's gotta be some connection. Why the hell else would that machine have literally the exact same effect on people? Unless it's like... someone's attempt to recreate the same effect?"

Wait. The machine. Whoever was behind it...

Starr smacked her forehead. "Shit, I forgot to post in the groupchat, but we did just find out one thing--the shadow machine, it's human tech. It had writing from my world, but we sure as hell don't have interdimensional portals back home, so I dunno what's up with that."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave blinked. "Human tech?" That was... that was new. Granted, by human tech she meant her world, so probably something entirely different than his, but still - there were no humans on Cibus, other than them. So the invaders were also interlopers from another world? From Starr's in particular? Why hers?

"...Wait, what do you mean, writing from your world? Doesn't Diyem's thing translate everything?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

"I mean, yeah we can understand Cibus writing or whatever the hell because of Diyem, but I mean that this was literally the same writing system, and--" She paused, shaking her head. "Okay not even just that, there was a fucking company logo that I've seen before. I'm not saying the machine was like, actually from my world or anything, but it's from somewhere similar. Sorta like how half the Pokemon here have towns matching the same ones in Cibus, y'know?"

 

[Dragonfree]

"...Huh." A company logo, huh. That... was something. Were there even companies in Cibus? Happy fun talking Pokémon land didn't seem big on capitalism. "You think there might be other worlds with the same companies? What kind of company? Some kind of experimental tech thing that might have produced something like the Shadow Machine or be developing dimensional portals or whatever the fuck, or just, like, a fucking supermarket chain?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr snorted. Rocket Grocery Store. There was a mental image. "Yeah, try an organized crime conglomerate instead. They got those where you're from?" Goddammit, Rocket didn't have portal tech or shadow tech in her world, but she couldn't just say that. Ughhh. "Everyone knows they own like half the businesses in the country--experimental tech wouldn't be all that farfetched." Ugh, that just made it sound even more like the machine came from her world, even though it clearly didn't. Fuck.

 

[Dragonfree]

...Organized crime? With interdimensional portals and Shadow Machines? Fuck. What? From fantasy talking Pokémon cartoon to, what, mafia movie?

"...I mean, yeah, but not that big, and they're not exactly at the forefront of technology R&D. What the fuck?" He narrowed his eyes at Starr. "Hold on. Does your universe have guns?"

He felt his hackles rising at the thought - which was fucking stupid, they'd faced down all kinds of ludicrous shit in here, these bodies could take a lot, but the notion still formed a tight knot in his stomach.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Why wouldn't it. Not exactly recent tech." Dave suddenly looked like he was about to be sick, what.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave scowled. "You can't exactly assume anything about other people's fucking worlds in here, can you? Sure don't seem to have guns here, even while they've got magic magnet utensils and fucking hologram phones, but yeah, sorry I fucking asked."