Rocky Road ~ House of Brisa, Dave, Koa, and Owen

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Spa, huh? Sounds fantastic. I've never been to a spa," said Brisa, her voice turning ever so slightly wistful. "Never was an option before, never occurred to me to take the time out fer it here."

She looked at Starr, at her satisfied, enthusiastic grin, and felt her chest swell at the thought of Starr actually getting to decompress properly. Especially if it was Brisa's gift to her. Even better if they could go together... She bit her lip. It felt presumptuous. But when had Starr been anything other than happy to spend time together in the last month...?

"D'you wanna . . . go t'gether, maybe?" she asked, bracing herself. "Take a vacation from Spectrum duties and hit the spa fer a while. Just us."

It's okay if y'wanna go alone! It's no big deal! But also please let me come with, holy fuck.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr blinked at her, utterly baffled. "You really had to ask? Of course I fucking wanted you to come with."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa beamed, eartips flushing.

"Ah, that's grand! I can't fuckin' wait."

She really couldn't. If she could help it . . . they were gonna have the time of their lives.

<><><><><>​

 

[Flyg0n]

Koa edged into the house and glanced around. No sign of Brisa or Owen. Good. He only meant to stop by the house for a minute, grab something from the fridge and head back out. The other Soda's were still out there, and they were either their best shot at finding out more about what was going on, or a potential enemy. Either way, he intended to find them.

He cracked open the fridge and stared at the contents for a long moment. His mind drifted and he blinked, his eyes glazing over for a moment. His search so far had been fruitless. There had to be a better angle... Then it hit him. Duh. Dave. Dave seemed to know Soda better than anyone, perhaps. If someone would know where to look, it would be him.

Food forgotten, he turned around and glanced around the house. "Dave?" he called. It suddenly occured to him that for living in the same house, he barely spoke to the guy.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave snapped awake from where he'd dozed off on the sofa in an awkward position. He'd been trying to look up information on Substitutes, last he remembered, maybe had a couple too many beers in the process. Fuck.

He shifted his aching body to be more comfortable. Didn't help the headache. Someone'd just been calling his name. He blinked blearily and raised his head above the back of the couch to find the Manectric standing there, looking around. "What?"

 

[Flyg0n]

Koa eyed him. He looked tired, not that he could blame him. Everyone was.

Might as well cut to the point though. "I've scouring everywhere, trying to find the other... 'Sodas'." Whatever they were. He was still trying to wrap his mind around these 'autonomous' substitutes. "I thought maybe you might have some ideas?"

 

[Dragonfree]

"Well, he said one of them was at the Tree of Life. Been meaning to try to find that one, see if he'd have any more information and how easy it'd be to convince him his mind is shot without Breaker. The last one he just said was hiding and he had no idea, so dunno how easy it'd be to find that one." Dave tried to remember how Koamaru had acted about Soda. He'd wound up apologizing before, hadn't he? But before that...

"You said Soda was trying to get you to defect, right? You feel like he'd let you find him?"

 

[Flyg0n]

The question caught Koa somewhat off guard. He frowned a little, a bitter taste in his mouth. The thought of how Soda had tried to tempt him still had him conflicted.

"Yeah, he did. And to be honest I don't know. Probably not though. Soda doesn't seem like he trusted anyone much." He paused and regarded Dave somewhat curiously. He couldn't help but wonder why. Was it all a game again, a manipulation ploy? Or did Soda really care for Dave?

"What do you think?" he asked finally. Perhaps that was why he hadn't any luck finding the last substitute.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave clenched his jaw. Yeah, Soda didn't trust people much, did he. Not enough to have just fucking talked about what he was up to.

"Well, I don't know how much you've talked, or how that whole conversation between you went, but you didn't seem to have a lot of love for him back at the meeting when he appeared." He cast a glance at the Manectric. "I'm hoping he'd talk to me if I came there. Persuade him he's being manipulated. Again."

 

[Flyg0n]

Koa looked away for a moment, clenching his jaw. He hated Soda. Or had hated him. Actual confirmation that his memories had been screwed with like that complicated things. He didn't know what to think anymore.

Half of him wanted to fight him for what he'd done. The other half of him wanted to save Soda though, save him from himself and whoever had done this to him. Maybe saving Soda could somehow make up for- Stamping down the train of thought he considered the issue again.

Maybe he should've kept his nose out of this whole mess. Too late for that.

He needed to fix this.

"Maybe you could come with we next time I go looking then." It was his best shot. "If you're there he might... he might show up."

 

[Dragonfree]

The kid looked conflicted as hell. Dave watched him, doubtful. "Well, yeah, that's why I said I was planning to go to the Tree of Life. Is there something you're desperate to ask him? Because if there is you may just want to visit the one in the Holding Cells, and not the one who's still out there planning to erase Cibus."

 

[Flyg0n]

Koa quickly shook his head. He didn't, couldn't, talk to that one. "We still need to find the other ones. If they're still under the same mindset that Soda is or was or... whatever, they could pose a risk." It was that simple. There'd be no point in talking to the other one. That was all.

He glanced towards the door. No point in rushing out now, not until him and Dave were both ready to go. Might as well take a second to breathe. Besides, he didn't want to talk about Soda anymore. The topic just annoyed him.

And made him feel things he didn't want to think about.

With some reluctance, he flopped into one of the other seats in the living room.

"So what's your world like anyway?" He asked casually. Hopefully his attempt at changing the subject wasn't too obvious. He wondered if Dave was a trainer too, like he'd heard Starr was. He at least knew he was human, but that was about it.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave squinted at him. Kid was really not getting the hint that he didn't need to come, but for the moment he welcomed the transparent topic change. He wasn't going anywhere until he'd had some food, anyway. And maybe painkillers.

He pushed himself to his feet, shook out his mane and jumped off the sofa. "Well, Pokémon don't talk, for one thing," he said. "Humans are the dominant life form, there are no gods or legendaries and especially no Mewtwo, kids train Pokémon for sport, people are idiots." He padded over to the kitchen, looked through the fridge for some leftovers he could just stick in the microwave. He returned while it cooked. "You were, uh, a Pokémon trainer, right?"

 

[Flyg0n]

Ho-Ohs feathers... Dave's world sounded depressing.
"Yeah, I was a trainer back home." He couldn't muster much excitement, however. He suppressed a sigh. Normally he was more than happy to discuss stuff about his team and being a trainer.

But right now he just felt restless and uneasy. He should be doing something.

"Your world really has no legendaries? That's... rough."

No protectors. No Giratina. No Pop. No one looking out for the world.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave raised an eyebrow. "Nope. I mean, there are people who think they exist but they're weird nuts. All the supposed evidence is pathetic, obviously fake or so vague it doesn't indicate anything at all. They're just myths. Pretty fucking insane to come here and every random conspiracy theory monster is just casually real."

The microwave dinged; he retrieved the food and a fork and returned to the living room sofa. "So your world's got them too? Just, perfectly verifiable, obviously there?"

 

[Flyg0n]

Koa cringed inwardly at the mention of weird nuts. Most people in his world at least believed a few of the legendaries existed, though one or two he'd encountered insisted they were fake, exaggerated or now dead. It wasn't the first time 'weird' was mentioned. Although by the sound of it, Dave's world genuinely maybe didn't have any.

"Yeah, they exist alright."

Burning red eyes, a dark figure, dripping shadows-

He smiled as a memory flashed through his mind, of open skies, dew covered grass and a shining rainbow in the sky. A crimson phoenix soaring overhead, and a single feather cascading down into his hand.

"I actually.... met Ho-Oh once. Well, not met, but I saw them with my own eyes, and even got a feather," he said, grinning. "It's so hard picturing a world without them. I mean... who protects your world then? Who looks out for it and keeps everything in balance?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave wasn’t sure how to feel about his world being the odd one out in not having any fucking legendary Pokémon. Was that technically some kind of evidence in favor, if every other world had them…? Christ.

“Yeah, uh, personally I’m not a huge fan of divine beings keeping things in balance. Anything with the power to ‘balance’ the world also has the power to royally fuck it up. Did the legendaries create the universe over there? Like, verifiably, and not just in stories?”

 

[Flyg0n]

Koa frowned. "Verifiably? I mean technically you wouldn't know. No one would, since they weren't there. Can you verify what created your world?" he asked, more perplexed and curious than anything else.

"And it seems a little pessimistic to assume just because someone has power that they would use it for evil or messing stuff up." Plenty of people assumed some legendaries were evil but... They weren't. That much he knew. "That said, in my world... Well I think that an Arceus created it. Legends speak about it and I know the legendaries of my world do possess real power." An Arceus. That was so weird. There being more than one. His whole life he'd just assumed his was the only world too.

 

[Dragonfree]

"Well, in my world there's stories about supernatural beings creating the world, too. Every culture has a more batshit one than the next. That doesn't mean it's true. When there's no tangible evidence of supernatural anything, then chances are there is no supernatural anything. One would think in a world created by a supernatural being there'd be some evidence that that's what happened, right? Technically God could've created the universe last Thursday and just made a point of making it look exactly like it's fourteen billion years old and driven purely by physics for shits and giggles, but at that point you're just making excuses for the evidence not going your way. You can't know for sure, because you can't know anything about the physical world 100%, but usually when something is the truth there's some form of evidence for it."

Usually. Apparently there were fucking souls. Goddamn it.

"I mean, in a world where you've actually got legendaries with the kind of power that could create a universe, you'd have to adjust the prior probability of 'a legendary did it'. So maybe it's perfectly reasonable over there, I don't know." He raised a paw in an agitated half-shrug. "My point is, if you've got a legendary with that level of power, they can probably also unmake the universe, and that's really fucking bad. Sure, maybe the legendaries are all saints and they're super fucking responsible with their power and their judgement is infallible, but, you know, what if some crazy fuck manages to control or manipulate them somehow? Like Giovanni and his Mewtwo, or whatever the fuck's going on with Soda. Soda used to go around rescuing and adopting lonely demons from torture dimensions, then somebody got into his head and now he's trying to vaporize a fucking universe. What's stopping that from happening to the legendaries in your universe?"

 

[Flyg0n]

Koa felt absolutely nauseous at the mention of people controlling and manipulating legendaries. A pit twisted in his stomach and clenched at his throat, despite his best efforts to ignore it. A few more uncomfortable memories gnawed at him.

You've seen that. You know exactly what happens when people try that.

'Do not look for me.'

"They don't last long," he muttered quietly. "That's what happens to them."

Pushing the thought down, he mentally shook himself and glanced at Dave briefly. If he wasn't so tired, the speech might have annoyed him. But even so, it didn't make any different what the Mightyena wanted to believe. His world might very well be different. After all, it sounded like Soda's world really was ruled by a lunatic Arceus. Maybe Dave really did just live on a world that was just... ruled by humans or whatever.

"Anyways, maybe your world is like that. And maybe there are no legends in your world. But I much prefer a world with benevolent guardians, beings who are good and help humanity. There's always going to be forces stronger than a human." He shrugged. "But to me its no different than having faith in a friend. Any one of us is strong enough to probably kill each other, aren't we? I mean, look at Pop. Or Diyem. You have a measure of faith him now. He could send our souls straight to Voidlands or whatever but he's using his powers to protect a world."

He shrugged wearily. "I'm glad legendaries are looking out for my world."