Destiny Village ~ Central Crossroads

[Namohysip]

"...Uh, hey... Mellow."

Owen wasn't stealthy anymore, not that Charizard had that going for them to begin with. He looked down at Mellow and regarded her with an air of caution, but then squinted as he tried to get a closer look.

"...That's weird... my Perceive isn't telling me anything is off about you..." He crouched down to get an even closer look. "...Must be your energy."

 

[Disco]

"Bwuh?", said Mellow very intelligently. "Oh. Hi Owen. ...I don't know why you would sense anything. Nothing's wrong with me...huh." It looked like someone had dropped their spare change again. She idly reached down to begin picking it up. "Anyways, I haven't seen you in a while. How have you been?"

A chill settled in the air, but Mellow didn't seem to notice. Several younger Pokémon came to a stop to stare. One tried to poke at Mellow with a stick, but it split down the center before it touched her. They squealed and ran back the other way, which did get her attention. "Oh, uh... Sorry!!", she called after them, then turned back to Owen. "Um, why don't we move off the path? We're probably in the way..."

 

[Namohysip]

Owen frowned, looking Mellow over again. He nodded and followed her away, taking a seat just off the path where a few plants were.

"Say, Mellow," he said gently, "have you ever taken on meditation exercises or anything like that?" It was an odd thing to open with, but he had a few ideas on what was going on.

 

[Disco]

"...Meditation? No...not really. I guess when I'm tending to my plants or working on making medicine I get more focused...", she answered after thinking on it for a moment. "But I have so much to do that I don't have time to fit anything like that in..."

 

[Namohysip]

"How about we do some of that now?" Owen asked, and then, deciding to mimic the youngster, he reached toward a nearby stick. His arm seemed to expand with Shadows as Wishkeeper emerged and grabbed it, pulling it back toward him. To a native bystander, it was like Owen had telekinesis.

Owen gestured for Mellow to watch as he moved the stick toward her body.

 

[Disco]

"Well...", she started, then cast a hesitant glance in the direction of the guild. In the end she shrugged and turned back to him. "Alright." Mellow blinked when Owen began reaching towards her with the stick using his shadow. It came closer...and closer... until it poked her in the arm. The Florizard stared at it for a moment, then looked back up at Owen with a very confused expression. "...What was that for?"

 

[Namohysip]

Owen furrowed his brow, then pulled back and tossed the stick ahead and out of view. Wishkeeper disappeared through his leg and into the ground, but nothing seemed to happen otherwise. "Nothing, I guess," he murmured. "Did you not see it split the other stick that went toward you before? From that Cibus native?"

 

[Disco]

"...No...?"

She looked back towards the path. The stick must have been kicked off the path, because she didn't see one... She looked back at Owen with a frown. "...You think those rumors are true, don't you...? I'm not haunted."

 

[Namohysip]

"I believe you," Owen said, bringing his tail forward to get into a more comfortable, meditating position without taking up too much space. "The problem is that the rumors came up randomly, right?" He had no idea what these rumors were, but just from how Mellow immediately behaved, that was likely the case. "The public doesn't usually spontaneously come up with rumors like that. Something started it."

Behind Mellow, Wishkeeper silently crept closer with the stick in one hand and his badge in the other. He slowly moved it toward her back.

 

[Disco]

"...I mean... I guess."

She didn't notice the stick. It split without her seeing it happen. A buzzing sound filled the air...
The photo was filled with what seemed to be cut outs of triangles swarming around her like little bees, with some lodged in the stick.
Wishkeeper may or may not have been compelled to give her money.

 

[Namohysip]

Owen looked toward Wishkeeper, who seemed briefly dazed by something, and then Owen held out his hand to catch the badge thrown at him.

"Mellow, I think you're haunted by yourself."

He showed her the simple video.

 

[Disco]

She blinked and watched it. Her face contorted as she went through several different emotions at once. "...Okay. How do I get rid of whatever these things are?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Recently, a lot of things have been emerging with us, around the same time Diyem went into that cool form of his." He nodded to himself, then looked at Mellow. "This might be yours. I think if you want people to stop feeling unnerved with you, you should try to harness it. This feels like if Wishkeeper acted on his own..."

 

[Disco]

"...Hm... Will meditating do that...? If it will, then I'll make as much time for it as I can...", she mumbled, looking pretty unnerved herself. "I don't want people to be afraid of me or lose my friends at the guild because of this..." Mellow was quiet for a moment, then continued while looking up at him. "...Would you have time? I know you're really busy too..."

 

[Namohysip]

"I do. Let's try that now, and maybe we can explore what's going on, huh?" Owen gave an encouraging smile, then scooted back. "Here, try some of these exercises..."

They began, Owen giving pointers each time with breathing, positioning, and so on.

 

[Disco]

Mellow nodded and quickly followed his lead. Breathing in...breathe out... She could do this...

Maybe...

There was a knot in the pit of her stomach despite how much she tried to relax and let it go.

 

[Namohysip]

They went through meditation slowly and methodically, and Owen soo recognized that Mellow would need more time to sort it all out. No problem; he knew that it was a gradual process, much like meditation itself.

In the back of his mind, though, he couldn't help but realize that despite her namesake and her general disposition, it seemed that Mellow had a lot to sort out...

<><><>​

 

[Negrek]

It was always some fucking thing. Karat hadn't fucking died, great, that was one thing off the list. That fucking soda was still out there somewhere, probably ready to pop up at the worst possible time. He should probably get on that, it wasn't like he was going to trust the fucking mightyena to handle that. But the goddamn mewtwo, he needed to deal with the goddamn mewtwo first.

For a little while Nate wandered Destiny Village, thinking of maybe looking for Red. Even if he couldn't handle the mewtwo directly, maybe he'd have some thoughts about what Karat had said. Talk to Diyem, get some sense of there was any Voidlands weirdness they had to worry about now that they had another dark matter inside them. There was so much shit to do.

In the end, chance made Nate's mind up for him. Even among Destiny Village's powerful and sometimes-legendary residents, Bahamut still stood out. Nate stared at him uncomprehending a moment, brought abruptly out of his thoughts, but then he turned and headed after the necrozma, calling out, "Bahamut! Hey, Bahamut! You still got that pokéball I gave you?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"Hmm?" Bahamut had been looking at his badge when he was called. "Ah, right. Yes." He produced it from his bag with his tail and rolled it toward Nate. "I had brought it to Chip and Reshiram earlier wondering if they could modify it to overwrite an existing capture... but it doesn't seem possible within a reasonable timeframe."

 

[Negrek]

Nate reached down to scoop the ball up without thinking. "Hmm? Oh, yeah. It'd be nice to be able to just fucking snag Eien, but I ain't surprised it'd take Chip and them a while to figure out how to do it." He really should see if they could at least duplicate them or something at this point, though. Add that to the fucking list.

Nate stood tossing the pokéball to himself, which was a bit more dangerous to do than when he was human, seeing as if it hit him the right way it could end up sucking him up. It was such a habitual thing that he'd start without even realizing he was doing it. "So that mewtwo, huh," he said. "I'm thinking we don't want to leave him hanging around in Diyem's voidlands for too long. You up for trying to get rid of that parasite on him?"