Spinda Cafe

[Dragonfree]

"I don't know if they're even Pokémon, except for the bit where everything seems to be a Pokémon in this world." Dave irritably scratched his ear. "Of course these God Squad fuckers were just dying to make us use them. Jesus."

He frowned at his own stone, then Nate's. "Is that it? You're upset because of the fight?"

Two wobbles from Squiggly. "No? Then what?" Ugh, fuck it. "You want a berry or something?" A hesitant little wobble.

Dave took an Oran Berry out of his bag and pressed it against the stone. "I guess it's pretty hard for them to eat anything like - augh!" The berry burst under his paw, splattering him, the stone and the counter with pulp and berry juice. Why the fuck had he even tried? He grabbed for a napkin to dry it, first off himself, then the counter, then...

...The stone actually seemed to have absorbed the juice. Squiggly gave a happy little acknowledging wiggle.

 

[Negrek]

"Well, what else would they be? They ain't regular animals for sure."

He was about to say that the poochyena didn't need to smush the berry on the stone like that; Rocky would always pop out and take one if he was gonna. But then the berry fucking exploded, and Nate jumped about a foot in the air. He noticed the goop before even realizing what had happened, purple spatters all over himself and the bar. He started to swipe the stuff away, heart hammering, but no, don't touch it, you fucking idiot, don't touch it! He grabbed a messy handful of napkins and scrubbed the droplets away like he was covered in acid.

It was just berry juice. It was just fucking berry juice, you asshole. Calm down. Nate threw the napkins aside and then realized he still didn't have shit to drink. But once he'd settled that, and actually taken a drink himself, he figured that after that little experiment he might as well see whether Rocky actually did like booze.

Nate put the stone back on the bar and carefully poured a bit of his drink over it. The liquid wicked into the rock almost instantly, and its restless shivering ceased.

For a moment, anyway. Rocky went right back to shaking, maybe a little slower, but that was all. Nate sighed. "Oh, fuck."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave raised an eyebrow at Nate giving the shade alcohol. In his world, that'd be toxic to a lot of Pokémon, but he supposed over here it seemed pretty safe, or at least there was no indication they wouldn't serve booze to whomever. "Might take more than a sip to do much," he suggested.

He poked Squiggly's rock as he downed the rest of his glass. He was still shivering a bit, too, despite the berry. It wasn't the fight, apparently. And they were long out of the fight anyway, but it would've made sense if it was the fight, Nate's being more affected too. What...

...Huh. They were generally telepathic, weren't they. He picked up the stone, held it for a moment, feeling the gentle shiver. He casually turned towards the Spinda to order another drink, away from the Mudkip. Squiggly's shivering stilled just a little, and increased again when he turned back, just enough to feel the difference.

Jesus.

He seriously considered making an excuse and leaving, just getting Squiggly out of there. He looked at Nate's still-shuddering rock and the Mudkip's miserable attempts to cheer it up. It really could not be less of his fucking business if this Mudkip who jumped out of his skin at a little berry juice was giving his pet rock anxiety.

Dave sighed, took a gulp of the new beer the Spinda brought him, and set Squiggly down on bar. Would it change anything to talk about something else? Couldn't hurt to find out. "You're human, right? What kind of world did you come from?"

 

[Negrek]

More than a sip, huh? Yeah, probably. Nate had the sense that this problem was going to require a fuckton of booze, actually. He swirled the drink in his glass for a second, then ended up downing it himself.

"Used to be. And I dunno. Normal world. People and pokémon and all that shit. I'm from Kanto." There was no doubt in his mind that the poochyena was human, too. Well, there was no reason a pokémon couldn't think of Mewtwo as a government conspiracy, but for the most part he didn't think they bothered considering governments much at all really.

Fucking Mewtwo. He needed another drink.

"What about you? You a trainer?"

 

[Dragonfree]

"Kanto?" That was the place from that cartoon, wasn't it? "Huh." Whatever. Of course it was. Why wouldn't it be, at this point. Another cartoon sunshine and rainbows world? ...On the other hand, the Mudkip didn't seem all that much he'd stepped out of a cartoon, did he. An alternate grittier Kanto like in one of those shitty live-action reboot films, maybe? (God, the fact he was even thinking about this at all.)

"Nah, I was never a trainer. Not really my thing. I studied genetics." He took a sip of his drink. "So, in my world Pokémon don't talk. Do they talk in Kanto?"

 

[Negrek]

(( Excuse you, Dave, I'll have you know he comes from an extremely-high-quality grittier live-action reboot, thank you very much >:( ))

Genetics? That was definitely some science shit, wasn't it? Nate scowled and picked Rocky back up. Maybe he actually was doing a little better. It seemed like he might be shaking a little bit less. But now he smelled like booze. Great.

"Nah, pokémon usually don't talk, to humans at least. There's some that can mimic shit, like, you know, chatot, but not proper talk about shit. Other than that, there's some psychics that can talk in your head and shit, but not unless they're, like... really fucking powerful." God, fuck Mewtwo. Why the fuck was he thinking about this? Mewtwo and genetics and all that bullshit, that was the absolute last fucking thing he needed right now. "So pokémon don't talk in your world neither, huh? And I'm guessing they don't, like"--he waved his hand around at the bar, the pokémon in it, the door with the village beyond--"build houses and read books and make whatever the fuck kind of doohickey this is, huh?" He prodded at the badge on his scarf. "Must be fucking weird, going from them not even talking to all this shit."

Nate sipped at his drink, and without even realizing he'd been thinking about it, blurted out, "You ever think this is just what it's supposed to be like, if pokémon were by themselves? Without people around to fuck shit up for them?"

Oh, yeah. Real fucking happy thoughts today.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave chuckled. "Yeah, no, they don't do any of this shit in my world. Coming here was a trip. It's like living in one of my daughter's fucking cartoons."

Nate sipped at his drink, and without even realizing he'd been thinking about it, blurted out, "You ever think this is just what it's supposed to be like, if pokémon were by themselves? Without people around to fuck shit up for them?"

Dave blinked. Sure, let's swerve into flirtings with ecofascism, why not.

"What, you think Pokémon from worlds like ours would just... get together and start building houses, if not for humans? That seems, uh, unlikely." He took a sip from his glass. "I mean, yeah, sure, people are pretty shit, but whatever fucking magic is making me able to hold things with Poochyena paws definitely isn't a thing in my world, so, you know, even if they were sapient enough and had any interest, they'd have their work cut out for them."

 

[Negrek]

The mention of a daughter surprised Nate for a moment, but it shouldn't have, really. Most of the "team" seemed too young for that shit, but the poochyena had the air of somebody who'd seen all the shit and got tired of it a long time ago. Wouldn't be a huge surprise if he was, like, forty or some shit. So, he was a family man? Well, better him than Nate, for sure.

"Yeah, I guess it's pretty bullshit," Nate said. Well, of course it was bullshit. He'd said that often enough himself. So why couldn't he stop thinking about it? "But so what if there's weird kinda magic here? Just because it don't exist when you live doesn't mean pokémon couldn't gain it later. Or maybe it's already there and you just don't know about it. I bet you woulda said getting your soul yanked outta your body and transferred to another dimension wasn't something that could happen in your world, either, but here you fucking are anyhow. Maybe this is just the kind of shit that happens when pokémon get to do their thing, you know? I mean, from the sound of it, there's way more worlds like this one than like ours. Ever think that maybe ours are the ones that're fucked up?"

Why the fuck was he talking about this? Things didn't even work the same here as they did in the pokémon world he'd been to. None of that sticky fork nonsense, but still plenty of nonsense, with the dungeons and all. He sure as fuck didn't really *believe* that all the pokémon were hanging out, having a jolly fucking old time in their cute pokémon houses after all the humans died out. Maybe he just needed to hear how stupid all that shit sounded when he said it out loud to another actual human. Or maybe he was just going bugfuck insane. Sure seemed to be how this fucking day was going.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave raised his eyebrows, chuckling. "Touché on the soul-yanking. Honestly, realistically speaking, odds are none of this is actually happening. Even if it turns out souls exist, you know, already a massive stretch, how the fuck are there alternate universes where by some magic the exact same Pokémon species evolved, except they can fucking talk? Everything about this is pure fucking nonsense. But right now I'm stuck in this nonsense one way or another, so until they wake me up from the VR simulation or whatever the fuck, this is the world we live in."

He sipped his drink, contemplating that. Did he really think it was a simulation? Not really. Why would somebody create this ridiculously elaborate cartoon simulation and why the fuck would he be part of it? Every scenario where that happened was probably about as ludicrous as souls existing, honestly. He didn't know what the fuck was going on. He was just going to have to provisionally accept it so as not to lose his mind entirely.

"In any case," he said after a moment, "people love to imagine humans are a special evil and everything'd be lovely if we would just go away, humans are the real virus, et cetera, but frankly we're not that special. If you ask me, any time you've got a sapient species a bunch of them are probably going to be dicks. You just have to, you know, try to avoid them, and keep them away from the people you care about."

He clenched his jaw. After a moment he picked up his glass again and chugged down half of the rest of it.

"So you were a trainer?" he said as he set it back down on the counter. "Were you any good?"

 

[Negrek]

Well, something there had certainly touched a nerve. "Yeah, that's true. I mean, look how many shitheads there are in this place, and it's about as pokémony as it gets," Nate said uneasily. The poochyena's change of subject stopped him from dwelling on the topic any longer, though. Was he a trainer? Yeah, it was pretty fucking past-tense now, wasn't it?

"No. I was complete shit," Nate said. Rocky had calmed down a bit, whether from the drink or from whatever else, but now the stone was starting to shake again, as though it realized Nate's attention was back on it. Of course. After fucking everything up as a trainer, here he was making all the same stupid mistakes over again.

"Here," Nate said, shoving Rocky at the poochyena. "You should take him. You're obviously way better than me at taking care of them, and, and, if he's all fucked up after that battle... You should take him. Before something even worse happens."

 

[Dragonfree]

Wow, Jesus. Where'd that come from. Dave had been sure he was going for the most lightweight topic possible. "Hey, whoa, what? I'm not fucking..."

It occurred to him that maybe he should. If the Mudkip was radiating trauma or whatever and it was making the shade nervous, honestly, wouldn't it be better off his hands? If only temporarily?

He took the stone in his paws and stared at it for a moment, then back at Nate.

 

[Negrek]

Rocky kept vibrating even after the poochyena took him, and for a moment Nate was dismayed, but what had he been expecting, after all? It would probably take him a while to calm down, all things considered. Plus he might feel like he was getting abandoned or, like, Nate was trying to offload him or some shit. He couldn't really tell how much the shades understood, but if they knew what it meant to get offloaded for being annoying, yeah, that had to feel really shitty.

Nate started to say something, but stopped, remembering that of course the poochyena was still there. Was he really going to comfort his pet rock in front of this asshole? "Yeah, that's good. Hopefully he'll calm down soon. He oughta feel better around someone who knows how to take care of him properly." Sure, that sounded real comforting and like something a mon would believe when it thought you were trying to get rid of it. Nice fucking job. That's why Rocky should stay with someone who wasn't complete shit at this in the first place.

Well. Time to get out of here before the poochyena could change his mind. There were other places in Treasure Town he could go for a drink. "Anyway, thanks," he said to the poochyena. "I should probably go, you know... packing for the move and all that shit." He'd barely been paying attention to what the smeargle was going on about. Something to do with destiny? Whatever. If anybody actually needed him for something, they could come find him.

Nate slid off the barstool and made for the door before the poochyena could protest, already considering where to head to next. That curry place? Nah, that was a pretty popular spot for other members of the team, and he'd rather not have anybody else randomly dropping--

Something jerked him back, like someone had attached a rope to the inside of his skull and suddenly given it a good haul. Nate stumbled back blindly, reeling and disoriented, and at the same time the stone in the poochyena's paws tried to lunge in his direction. Nate put a hand up to his splitting head and said, "Jesus, what the fuck--?"

 

[Dragonfree]

"Wh--" Dave had no sooner looked up as the Mudkip tried to leave than the rock took a jerk in his paws, and he only barely avoided dropping it. "Huh. Is there a..." He almost told Nate to try that again, but there was no way that'd be helpful to anyone. "...some kind of invisible link? Hang on."

He left Squiggly on the counter and experimentally backed away. Sure enough, at a certain distance he started feeling a strange tug at his brain. "That's..." Not great. What the hell. Fucking Chip. He had not fucking agreed to this.

But all the same, he was kind of relieved.

"Well, looks like I can't take your shade anyway, so, uh." He pushed the stone firmly back towards Nate. Should he tell him what was going on? Exactly how the fuck would that help, if he couldn't be away from the stone anyway?

"You know, whatever's bothering him, he'll probably get better," was what actually came out of his mouth, without much conscious thought. What a half-assed fucking platitude. The drink must be getting to him.

 

[Negrek]

The pressure behind Nate's eyes receded a little when he turned back towards Rocky, but his skull throbbed dully, threatening worse later. Forget a fucking headache, though, the shade had just--the poochyena was going on about some kind of fucking link, but no, that wasn't...

Nate took a step backwards. The pain in his head flared again, the sensation that he was trying to drag something heavy on a line tied through his sinuses. Another two steps back and it redoubled, and the stone actually scraped forward a couple inches along the bar. Fuck. Fuck.

This was... He didn't even know. What the fuck was he supposed to do, he'd never signed up to like be caretaker for life of some kind of empathic slug thing. What if it was already inside his head somehow? What if it was going to, like, brainwash him somehow?

God, the entire fucking place was watching this shit. Even the fucking bartender looked like he was about to say something. This was... This was about the worst possible fucking place to try and work through whether you were like soulbonded to some kind of mind-slug. Forget the drinks, he needed to get out of here. He just needed to get... He needed someplace where he didn't have to be around fucking people.

Nate scrambled back up to the bar, not even bothering to sit properly, and scooped Rocky back into his back. "Yeah, sure," he grunted at the poochyena. "He'll be fine, we'll all be fine, we're all going to have a great time in fucking happy pokémon land and institute world peace and sing Kumbaya and all that shit. Have a fucking lovely day." Then he left, for real this time, unless Darkwhite wanted to pop up out of the floor or whatever other fucking nonsense the world wanted to throw at him today.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave raised an eyebrow as he looked after the Mudkip. Well, whatever his problem was, it wasn't Dave's. He clambered back onto the barstool and poked Squiggly; the rock was still and pretty much content now. Great.

He downed the rest of his drink. He supposed he should probably be getting over to Destiny Village by now. The notion of living right by the God Squad wasn't thrilling, but at least one way or another at least they'd be able to find out more about who the fuck they were and what they wanted.

He put Squiggly back in his bag and nodded to the bartender before leaving.

<><><><><>

 

[Phoenixsong]

It had taken Skara longer than she'd anticipated to pack up the last of her belongings for Destiny Village proper. She hadn't realized that she'd accumulated so many loose notes, for one thing; hopefully she could pick up a proper notebook at her destination. (She preferred not to think about how long she'd spent rooting around in the bedding for her missing everstone before remembering that she hadn't been able to bring it to Cibus in the first place. Hopefully Destiny Village had some of those, too.)

Collating notes and not forgetting about everstones was thirsty work, apparently, and so before stepping into the portal for the last time the grubbin made her way into town for a quick berry blend at the café. The constant syncopated tink, tink, t-tink, tink-tink, of Limax bopping away in its stone and bumping against the jar kept her company as she went. Hm. Limax had seemed partial to the wepear juice someone had accidentally splashed on it the last time she'd been here—assuming she'd interpreted its wobbling and the fuzzy sensation in her head correctly—so maybe she could try ordering some of that for it while she was here. Still no telling what its counterpart in jar time out wanted, of course. Just as recalcitrant as ever, no matter what got spilled onto it.

Well, whatever. It could sit there and be obstinate and mildly creepy all it liked. Limax was cooperative, at least as long as it wasn't overstimulated, and that would have to do. Skara climbed up onto a stool, set Limax's stone on the table, flagged down a server and ordered wepear juice for Limax and the mago-pecha blend for herself. For now, she'd just enjoy her juice, divert herself by figuring out how best to tackle Limax next, and take it easy. Forget Jar Shade for now, just like anything else that was more stressful than useful to think about. Maybe that Chip person would get something out of studying Jar Shade instead.

 

[Adamhuarts]

Roughly a day before Cynthian's near unfortunate exploration in the Pine Woods, and after meeting up with Vix, his wandering eventually brought him back to Spinda's Cafe.

He'd made quite a few memories in the Cafe, whether it be the one in his world or the one in Cibus. A shade had possessed him once, and there was also the afternoon he shared with Icetales...

Right, he'd said he'd help Icetales throw a party together, but what he never told him was that he had no idea how to organize one. It didn't help that Icetales was very upset when things didn't pan out, and for some reason he never pointed the blame at Cynthian despite his blatant failure to be of any assistance. Cynthian groaned. He rested his head on a flower and frowned. Maybe he could admit that he didn't actually know how to help and apologize to Icetales, though Icetales might think less of him if he did so...

After an exasperated sigh, Cynthian leaned forward on his stool and chose to focus his mind on other matters. That was when he noticed a familiar Grubbin walk into the Café. He narrowed his eyes and widened them when he realized who she was.

Cynthian recalled that he didn't exactly give her the best impression on their first encounter. After all, he had tried to kill her. His chest tightened just recalling that day, and he hadn't properly apologized since then. Still, he might as well do so since she was already in the Cafe as well.

"Skara!" Cynthian said with a wave. Did he remember her name right?... Yes. Yes he did. "Fancy meeting you here. How have you been doing? Would you like to share a drink as we talk?"

 

[Phoenixsong]

There was a split-second flutter of panic in Skara's thorax when she recognized the roselia waving at her from another table, and then it was gone. As it should have been. Cynthian was an ally, here for the same reasons she was, and he seemed to be in a friendly enough mood. No need to jump at shadows (ha ha).

"Oh, Cynthian! Good to see you, too. I've been... as all right as most of us could expect to be, I guess." She paused, considered his invitation, then let the server know to deliver her order to the other table before making her way over, Limax wiggling slightly in her pincers. "How have you been holding up?"

 

[Adamhuarts]

"Oh, things have been going as well as you'd expect," Cynthian said with short laugh. He stared at the drink that stood before him and sighed.

He closed his eyes for a moment and opened them again. "Listen... I'm really sorry about the things you went through back then because of me. Sure, I was being controlled by a shade, but it was still these roses that aimed a Solar Beam at you. If there's anything I can do to repay you, I'll do it in a heartbeat."

 

[Phoenixsong]

"It's okay. It wasn't your fault," Skara said. There was still a slight hesitation in her tone that she wished she'd hidden better. "I can't blame you any more than I could those heroes or Lugia or anyone else. I'm just glad someone was there to help you, and sorry that there wasn't more I could do myself. Back home I'm supposed to be learning how to help people, but this whole..." She waved a stubby claw at nothing in particular. "...everything is completely different from what I was taught to do, and I've been kind of on the back foot ever since." In her mind she could see Paldros looming over her, clacking his metal beak irritably, tutting and lecturing and sweeping her forward with a wing. You're not going to find the target by just sitting there, greenhorn. The longer you try to map out the twists from a distance, the more time the mistlord has to twist them somewhere else entirely. Get those little legs moving and get the job done. "Heh. Still too slow."

She paused when the server wobbled over with two sloshing bowls on a tray, then slid them across the table to her. It occurred to her that she hadn't thought of how she'd actually get Limax to try the juice. Just taking the bowl in her pincers and trying to drip its contents onto the rocking stone was just asking for a mess. Hm.

"Please don't feel like you have to do anything, Cynthian," Skara continued after a silence that was just about long enough to be awkward. "I don't think I need much more than time to actually get some proper studying done. Not that anything I figure out is likely to be relevant for more than three days before Darkwhite or whoever rewrites all the rules yet again. My effort's probably better spent on, I dunno, more combat training or something than any of this." She shook her head before lifting Limax's stone. She frowned, considered, shrugged, and just set the stone down directly in the bowl of juice. Limax could decide for itself how much it wanted, she supposed.