Poppin' Arms Guild ~ Main Lobby

[Ambyssin]

A festival? Seemed awfully premature for something like that. But if it kept the kit in good spirits, who was Bahamut to complain? "Out of an abundance of caution, are there any other gods who don't live in the city limits? Perhaps now would be a good time for Arceus to put out an order for them to move here temporarily."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

A meaningful glance. Leaving immediately. God Squad knew more than they were letting on.

Brisa found a seat in the lobby to put her thoughts together, her tail tuft sweeping across the floor in regular patterns as she tried to keep information together in her head. There were multiple dark forces. Maple's team, in pursuit of darkness from one world to the next. Humans, moving deliberately between worlds? (Did humans always transform when entering worlds like hers?) Bahamut had mentioned Eternatus, the world-ender, and its pursuit of worlds across space. There were any number of Dark Matter entities. Any number of Team Rockets. Any number of unknowns.

The multiverse was turning out to be a terrifying place.

Brisa grit her teeth and started taking notes on her badge. (Thanks for the tutorial, Curio.) She'd figure something out if she could just organise the information right...

She looked up from her work and saw Dave passing by. Dave?

"Dave? Hey there! You got a minute?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave turned around at the sound of his name. It was... Brisa? She wanted to talk to him? Okay then.

He approached warily. "Hey. What's going on?"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"How do you do, Dave?"

She smiled sheepishly. "I know we ain't talked much since our first day. I'm, uh. Tryin' to work on my people skills."

She gestured to her badge. "I've just been takin' notes on everythin' I know about our mission and situation here, with a view to puttin' the pieces together into some kinda whole. Figured a scientist like yer good self might... um. Want to help?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Huh. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

He moved to her side. "Want to give me the cliff notes on what you've got so far? I never know what kind of shit I've just missed entirely by not being around for something."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa gave one of her dry chuckles.

"Gods, I keep skippin' out on the group meetings 'cause I can't stand crowds, and then I wonder why I'm not up to date and have to pick up on things by eavesdroppin'. Fuck. Right, here, take my badge. The, uh, 'bold' bits are the broad strokes, anythin' especially pertinent is highlighted. And, ah. Feel free to drop in anythin' you know that I don't. If you want to. Hate not havin' all the pieces yet."

She flattened her ears a little. "What can I say? I like things to make sense."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave cracked a smile at that. "Don't we all."

He scrolled through the information on the badge. Honestly, this was great stuff - a clarifying summary of events and revelations, sprinkled with on-point observations. Again, he suspected Brisa was probably one of the smartest people here, never mind the whole cowboy accent.

He squinted at an entry near the end. "...Maple is a 'Voice of Life'? And her name is Blade?" Or, well, Diyem's translation of her name - as he was pleased to find Brisa's notes pointed out immediately. There'd been a bit about Voices of Life earlier, speculation that it might be possible to create an artificial one, if you could create an artificial Dark Matter. Interesting line of thought. And... "Hang on. Team Rocket? That's..." The crossdressing couple from Jean's goddamn cartoon? Seriously? That was the dangerous criminal conglomerate Starr was talking about? Not that it sounded like it was actually anything like the cartoon, but still. "Jesus. What the fuck."

Seven different factions, said Brisa's notes, in bold. Cibus Locals, Diyem's Posse, God Squad, Team Rocket, Future Dark Matter, Eternatus, Darkwhite. Yeah, this was overcomplicated as fuck.

"I still don't trust Maple further than I can throw her," he said as he finished reading. "Confronted her alone after the fucking Radiance thing, and she just went full-on if you step a toe out of line you die. She's been playing up a goody-goody image since, but I'm not buying it. Says Arceus told them they couldn't harm us, but I'm not sure Arceus is even real and not just a convenient illusion by Soda, and if he is, still doesn't mean we should trust him."

He handed the badge back to her. "Otherwise, that's good shit. Did you hear anything from the other Voice of Life you met that could verify or falsify Maple's story?"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa made a face. "I had to cut my conversation with Buffet short 'cause Diyem didn't want me accidentally clueing the fella into his true identity. But from what I can tell, a Voice of Life is the collective will of all livin' things in a world. And 'Buffet' was an amiable, generous sort of fella. Absolute gentleman, willin' to offer me a chance to meet my Pa again if I wanted. Maple, or 'Blade'... she don't seem like the collective will of a pleasant civilisation, does she?"

She put a paw to her chin and thought. "Not to mention, Diyem's cover about bein' a Voice... he sure seemed to imply that a Voice helps out worlds by sendin' emissaries. That's what Buffet did. Maple... Blade sure ain't doin' that. Why ain't she protectin' the world of which she's supposedly the embodied will? Colour me sceptical, I'll say."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave nodded along with her. "Yeah, no, that sounds like some bullshit. Maple's going around with this whole team of others, in disguise, traveling to different worlds, and supposedly just bound to whatever Arceus tells her in each place. They seem more like some kind of... interdimensional team of covert operatives?" He paused. "And apparently one of them's gone missing, and with our luck probably we'll find him shadowed somewhere and have to beat him up. Thanks for nothing, 'God Squad'."

 

[Namohysip]

"Out of an abundance of caution, are there any other gods who don't live in the city limits? Perhaps now would be a good time for Arceus to put out an order for them to move here temporarily."

To the side, as God Squad prepared to depart, Potluck nodded at Bahamut. "I think Arceus is gonna do that now for the Legends who can leave. We might go into total lockdown in Destiny Village like this! It'll be like a big Legendary slumber party!"

--

Owen, meanwhile, was listening in on Brisa and Dave and cleared his throat to get to attention. "There's a little more about that, too," he said. "The way Maple and Buffet operate aren't just different like that, either. I talked a little with Buffet, Pine, and Nanab about when they saved the world, and Buffet actually isn't that strong on his own. I mean, he's strong, but he's not, like, he couldn't save the world on his own like it seems Maple can. Buffet's body is pretty weak. Back when the Bittercold Omen started, Kyurem, under the influence of darkness, froze and shattered Buffet's body completely, killing him. Kinda. He came back a little while later by reforming his body, but he was just an ethereal presence for a while.

"Voices of Life summon people to do fighting for them, or with them. Usually humans. Maple doesn't do any of that... She just fights on her own! And this whole thing with her Radiant power... Buffet has no idea what any of that is." Owen glanced at where the rest of God Squad had been. "If Maple isn't lying, then maybe she got that power from this Joule person..."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave's ears perked as Owen spoke up. "Yeah. See, none of it adds up. Maple's clearly something different entirely. Didn't Bahamut say his power was basically Radiance? So if Joule is another Necrozma, and Maple's powers are Radiance-based, it sure sounds like that's connected."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa nodded. "For what it's worth, whatever summoned humans to protect my home world... I've been told that that entity wasn't exactly paws-on, either. I figure that'd be my Voice of Life. Fuckin' thing summoned my Pa, so I got them to thank for my bein' around, I guess."

 

[Namohysip]

"Buffet wasn't even able to help during the Dark Matter crisis," Owen said, nodding at Brisa. "Because Dark Matter was another opposing force in the world, they couldn't really interact directly with each other. He was weakened at the time, practically at mortal strength at Dark Matter's peak. Any time an Omen rises from this world, Buffet becomes weaker.

"But, there's... one other thing that Buffet mentioned to me that didn't add up when you put Maple in the same circumstances," Owen said. "It's like what Brisa said. A Voice of Life is the embodiment of a world's will to live. In other words, the way Buffet phrased it--so long as there is at least one person in the world that still has the will to fight on, he will be there, too."

He furrowed his scaly brow, flicking through the hologram's pages of notes. "Here." He pointed at a conclusion line on his notes, which looked more like a scattered list of items that was meant for personal use than for others to read. "Basically, Buffet is tied to this world. He can reach out to other worlds, but he can't actually leave it. Because in some ways the world is his body, or, you know, his true body."

He glanced at where Maple had been.

"...So how is Maple...?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave's eyes slid towards Brisa as she mentioned her father again, in a strangely tense tone of voice. She'd never answered him on where the fuck she'd got that violent animal bullshit from, but he was sure developing some suspicions. Fucking hell.

"Yeah, if that's the case, there's no way Maple's a Voice of Life at all. She's lying through her goddamn teeth."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"By the way," Brisa asked, eyeing the stone balanced on Owen's head. "I've been meaning to ask about those fancy rocks of yers. They're a piece of all this I've not got caught up on, I just... It always felt weird askin' folks about it. But I'm tryin' to ease up. So. Wanna tell me what the deal is?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Oh, this is Shady!" Owen held out his hands, flat like a stage, and the stone rolled off of his head and onto it like it was a trick. "We've been finding Shades here and there for a while, most of them on the Grass Continent, and instead of killing them, we've been hanging onto them for research. I used to have a Shade with me, if you remember. He also liked being on my head. And, uh... well, turns out they can also go into those weird stones we had. After that, I've felt like he was helping me out in battle, just a little."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa stiffened. "Yeah, I never felt too comfortable with shades myself, after what I saw happen to Turf."

She cut herself off before she could say the next, unhelpful, thing on her mind.

"So, they... help you out? They... bond to you, or somethin'? I suppose we could use any advantage we can get at this point."

She shuddered at the idea of creating a mental link with anything, let alone a shade.

 

[Dragonfree]

"There's this psychic thing. You can feel them thinking a bit, and they're affected by what you're feeling. And it seems to be able to boost our power." Dave sighed at the look on her face. "Look, they're not dangerous like this. They can't even get out of the rock. And it's not their fault."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Psychic."

Brisa looked away, her eyes trying to escape the thought her mind could not.

"Can they. Uh." She swallowed. "Can they read your mind. Talk in your head. Get at yer memories. Shit like that."

Get out of my fuckin' head, Jesse!

 

[Namohysip]

"I don't think so," Owen said. "I mean, he seems to know when I'm upset, and it seems like he understands what I'm saying, but I never tried to deliberately send thoughts to him before. Maybe I should try..." Owen hummed. "Well--either way, I don't think it's like... direct mind reading. It's all feelings, y'know?" Though Owen didn't seem sure. "Dave, have you tried more of those yes-no experiments with them?"