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Dave's gut stung with the absolute worst feeling about this. "Or it's fucking Soda's Arceus."

Dave raised an eyebrow. "If you say so."

Dave narrowed his eyes at Giovanni. "You didn't answer the question. Did you corrupt him with Blacklight and so on, or was he always like that?"

"Why? I mean, they deserve rights like anyone else, no matter how much trouble it is. What kind of question is that?"

Dave looked back over at Soda, who seemed to have completely zoned out of the conversation. He took a step toward him, speaking quieter. "Hey. Soda. You know anything about what your other self meant by that? Knowing what makes Blacklight Mewtwo tick?"

1. Tell us about your world. The QftLverse is roughly an interpretation of the Pokémon anime universe, with a lot of bits of worldbuilding accumulated over sixteen years of writing my trainerfic The Quest for the Legends and its offshoots. The anime is broadly canon to it, except for any bits...

Dave watched as Flesh pulled Soda into some kind of embrace, gaze lingering on him for a moment, but then turned back to Diyem and to the screen showing Giovanni. "Well, what are the odds it's just that Mewtwo, as an autonomous being? When you say it followed your orders alone, was it literally...

The description of a stained-glass mind held together with spider silk made Dave’s skin crawl. He glanced over at Brisa, the simultaneously sickened and frightened expression etched on her face even as she couldn’t look away. Fucking psychics. Soda was having some kind of goddamn breakdown and...

Dave looked at Owen, at Soda, at Breaker. Well, she sure could mess with a bunch of heads. Or any sufficiently powerful Psychic, like Karat. Or... omnipresent dark emotional void Overseer therapist Bean. "Soda, we just want to figure out what the hell is going on and what happened to your...

Dave looked sharply at Owen. "Wait, what? How'd you figure it was him?" Was he implying the real Soda'd manipulated his and his own substitutes' memories? Had he always been talking to substitutes? God, what the fuck.

Under any other circumstances, his denial would be comical. As it was, there was a growing pit in Dave's stomach. He exhaled slowly. "Hey. Soda. Nobody thinks you just fucking forgot, all right? Something's fishy here. Other people have been having their memories erased in all this; maybe...

Dave tilted his head. Could Puff just... not wrap his mind around bigotry at all? What a fucking concept. "They are functionally human. But in my world people tend to look for excuses to de- to take certain groups and decide they're dangerous, or lesser, or don't belong, for whatever bullshit...

Dave narrowed his eyes at Soda. "You said you're a Substitute. Were you there? Or are you going off what the real one told you happened? Is that why you said you didn't remember how your argument with her went the morning after she attacked you? Was it you who told me that?"

Dave nodded slowly, heart hammering as Soda lashed out at Joule. "Did she or did she not want to ascend?"

Dave gritted his teeth, his gaze staying on Soda. "Okay, well, maybe you're more willing to listen to me. You told me about how you fought with your partner over Arceus not ascending her too. What exactly were you fighting about?"

“Were you here the whole time?” Dave kept his eyes trained on the Soda Substitute, wary. “Did you hear about Maple and Joule’s take on what happened with your partner?”

“Soda? Soda? You here?” Dave looked around, hackles rising, sniffing at the air for any trace of him even if he probably wouldn’t find anything even if he were.

Dave blinked. "Uh, well, in my world Pokémon don't talk. Civil society's composed of humans. So we talk about human rights, et cetera, and it's just rights that apply to everyone. Treating them like human beings just means treating them as people. Obviously if sapient Pokémon like on Cibus made...

Deep breath. “Yeah. Soda’s out of his mind on corruption. His plan is to dismantle Cibus so he can use its power, and then just... put it back. Thinks he can make sure every soul goes right back where it was and nobody’d even know they popped out of existence for a while. It’s batshit but he...

Dave listened to Joule's account, shifting. "Soda said he wanted Arceus to offer his partner immortality too. And that Arceus said he only would if Soda defected against the organization. Made his partner a hostage." What the fuck did they mean by it being the same Tree of Life.