Poppin' Arms ~ Holding Cells

[Dragonfree]

"Well, yeah. It just sounded like..." Whatever. He didn't get the sense this was actually important, from how Soda was talking about it. Just another random dickhead god. "Eh, never mind."

He took another bite of his burger. "How long has it been since you picked up Flesh? Actually, what's the timeline here generally? How old are you? When'd you join the God Squad?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Bah, years, maybe a decade or two at this point," Soda said with a dismissive wave. "Flesh, we picked him up a few years ago. Maybe longer. Look, you have any idea how hard it is to keep track of time when you don't even have the same planet to track? What season was it on the world you came from compared to here, that kinda thing."

 

[Dragonfree]

"Fair, I guess." He couldn't help but wonder if his broken memory came into it too. But Soda had probably had enough of being interrogated on that. "You remember how old you were back on your planet, with Adne, before the lockout?"

 

[Namohysip]

"S..." And to this, he paused, and there was this brief, panicked look in his eyes the same way one looked when they realized they'd forgotten their keys at home. He did not, in fact, remember.

 

[Dragonfree]

Huh.

And Jesus. Realizing basic things about your life had just fucking vanished on you when you weren't thinking about them couldn't be fun. Automatically he thought of his great-grandmother developing Alzheimer's over the years before she'd died back when he was a kid, the fucking look on her face when she couldn't remember his name. (Soda would not be thrilled by that comparison, would he.) Brisa'd not even really known she was missing anything until they'd talked about it.

His grip tightened on his beer can, and he tipped the rest of it into his mouth. "We're going to find who did this to you and beat them into the fucking ground."

 

[Namohysip]

"Y-yeah." Soda looked vulnerable again and he wasn't able to hide it. He was small, in a cell, alone and accompanied only by the one person who he could truly connect to anymore, doomed to return to his own crappy life and, even now, separated by the walls of the cell. Soda was alone in the end. "Yeah."

He looked away. "Look, if... the team says something about, I dunno, being careful about me or whatever, just take the advice. I don't know anymore. Maybe they're right."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave stared at him, his chest tightening. "Look, no, fuck that. You're a victim in all this. The whole plan's got someone else pulling the strings, using you to achieve their own ends. You're a guy who goes around rescuing Cola and liberating Hells and adopting their screaming nightmare demons because you realize they're fucking lonely. Something's fucked with your head but I'm not ditching you. Just... hold on and we'll figure this out. I'll be back tomorrow."

There were a couple of mozzarella sticks remaining. He wrapped them back up and pushed them through the slot.

 

[Namohysip]

The sticks slipped through and remained on that opposite side. The Zoroark silently took them and added them to his own, but his lip quivered a little and he turned away.

"Yeah," Soda said. "Okay. Sure. Do what you want..." His claws were squeezing at nothing and now he had his whole face hidden from Dave. "...And... thanks. I... I'll see you around. I'll be in better shape. I'll be fine."

 

[Dragonfree]

Soda didn't look remotely fine. Dave exhaled slowly. "Yeah. See you tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of the food." He nudged the extra beers through the slot as well. Soda could probably use some right about now.

Fuck. Tomorrow he'd just go for chitchat.

<><><><><>​

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave had a bunch of things to do. The parasite. Flesh.

But when he made his way outside, wincing at the sunlight, headache marginally better but still very much present, what he actually did was order Cauldron takeaway again. Several beers, some steak sandwiches, two portions of mozzarella sticks. Carrying it all was harder than it should be today, but one way or another he got it all down to the holding cells.

In his head, Soda was still smiling his cracked smile, extending his hand for him to join him for God knows what. Make a little wave with your hand and change it? Everything everything everything.

He took a sharp breath as he approached Green's cell and put the bags down. "Hey. I brought food."

 

[Namohysip]

"...You look like shit," Green stated flatly, though they went through their usual ritual of pushing things through the cell exchange. Compared to jails in Dave's world, the guards were remarkably lax here--perhaps because gifts were nothing compared to what a Pokemon was innately capable of. "...Prime's still on your mind, huh?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave collapsed on the floor after getting the food through. "I mean, bit hard to ignore. One of two apocalypses on the way. Guess he's low-priority next to the one currently devouring continents."

He cracked one of his beers open and took a deep breath before taking a gulp of it. "I'm just... What have you been up to?" Up to. What the fuck would he have been up to in a goddamn jail cell. Thinking about himself going barking fucking mad up on the moon, probably.

 

[Namohysip]

Soda slid something forward until it was up the the jail barrier so he could see. It looked like it was a badge with a game downloaded onto it. A very basic one by Dave's standards--one with some bricks and a ball to break them. The score, however...

"Got pretty good at maxing out the score of this one," Soda said. "Decided to actually try some reading, too, so I know for sure I'm fucking losing my mind in here if I'm resorting to that."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave shuffled over to the barrier so he could see. “Huh. Well done.” He hadn’t played much in the way of video games since he was a kid. “What have you been reading? Anything interesting?”

 

[Namohysip]

"Been reading about marine life," Soda said, disappearing so he was standing by his bed. He returned on foot, showing the cover of a book, which was blue and with a picture of a Milotic swimming under a sunlit ocean.

"It's like a whole different world down there. Crazy to think about, y'know? Maybe I'll study it in my twilight years if I survive all this..."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave looked at the book, his chest tightening. All he could think of was his fourteen-year-old self just losing himself in shit like that. Reading about weird creatures by lamplight after he was supposed to be asleep.

"Yeah, biology was my passion too. Life and how it works, you know? All these complicated systems cobbled together by evolution, through incremental change. Just wanted to understand how it's all put together and why."

"He'll never get to study it."

He wasn't surprised exactly. His eyes slid momentarily to the side, to the spectral Mightyena now pacing in the corner.

"His mind is broken. Even Breaker can't fix it. The Substitutes keep saying going back to him would just break him even worse. And they'll do that if they stub their toe. We can't keep them from all harm forever."

"Anything else interesting? Or just binging that one?"

Shadow lowered his head, ears flattening. "And what if we have to kill Prime?"

He stiffened. Shut up, shut the fuck up. He grabbed a mozzarella stick and stuffed it in his mouth, unsure whether it disguised the reaction at all. Goddamn it, Shadow'd fucked off when he'd gone to see Soda at the park, why now?

 

[Namohysip]

Soda was quiet, like he was considering his words, or just the ones Dave was saying. "Eh. I think the time before, I was looking at a few other books. Don't really remember the rest of them." He flicked his mane, thoughtful. "Heh... yeah. I'm in a really hopeless situation, aren't I?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave was about to respond when he froze. Wait.

Soda'd heard Shadow. And why wouldn't he? He had every kind of corruption going on in there, didn't he. Probably knew exactly what he was, too, given all the intel-gathering he'd been doing. Motherfucker.

He gritted his teeth. "Look, he just spouts random pessimistic shit. I'm... we're not going to fucking kill him. Why the fuck would we need that. Cibus never works that way. Moment anyone considers killing anyone, they're redeemed by the fucking power of friendship." He waved a paw vaguely at the air before reaching for his beer again.

Shadow gave a tiny anxious whine in the corner.

"Every time. We fix things every fucking time."

 

[Namohysip]

Soda smiled sadly. "Yeah. That's true, huh?" But there wasn't any fight in his voice. "Must be something to live in a world of a god that really does empower the good. It's volatile, y'know. If that god ever gets a warped view themselves, suddenly 'good' becomes... well, a twisted evil. But I think for now, Pop's got the right head. He made a reality where hope is tangible."

But Soda was going somewhere with this. A slow, cold feeling came with his voice.

"But where Prime is now is outside of Pop's domain. Hope doesn't exist there. Just power. It won't follow the same rules." Soda laughed, looking away. "...I can't be saved the way everyone else was. The reality I'm creating is... it's not gonna be one for hope."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave took a breath that felt like he was suffocating, squeezing the now-empty can he was holding until his paw shook. "What the fuck are you talking about. Wasn't he on the goddamn moon? What kind of fucking god is Pop if his power begins and ends with the surface of one fucking planet?"

(What had the Unown said they were helping Soda with? Creation.)

"And if, what, he's already got his own subdimension going, then what the fuck's he even still waiting for?" he snarled. "Just rip out everyone's souls and get it over with and save us all the goddamn trouble. Fucking hell." He tossed the can into the corner with a clatter.

Shadow winced. "I asked him to wait," he pointed out.

"Why the fuck would that mean anything?" Dave snapped. "He probably doesn't even remember I came there."

Shadow exhaled slowly before turning to look at Soda. "What kind of reality is he creating?"