Destiny Village ~ Central Crossroads

[SparklingEspeon]

Lunch earlier had been disrupted by a certain not-Mew thing who was definitely on their side now and not just playing everymon else for dummies, but lunch was a special meal that you could have as many times as you wanted as long as you ate it between breakfast and dinner. Tricky was determined to have the perfect lunch, and she was going to do it here, where it was Darkwhite free and she could eat the stack of sandwiches next to her in peace. And try not to think about fading into the void if the others couldn't find Diyem, but she was too busy trying not to think about that to think about that. Back to sandwiches.

 

[Namohysip]

One of the sandwiches, for some odd reason, seemed to be a lot darker than the rest. While most of the others had been prepared well, was this particular one made with less than desirable ingredients? More importantly, though, it seemed like there was one more sandwich than there should have been, too. Not to mention the fact that it was blinking.

 

[SparklingEspeon]

Tricky finished scarfing down one sandwich, and reached down for the next one in the stack--the darkish-looking one. She raised it up to her snout to take a bite, but happened to look down at the piece of food before she did.

The sandwich had eyes. Tricky screamed loudly and dropped it to the ground.

 

[Namohysip]

"HAH! Got you!" the sandwich laughed at Tricky, spewing a few slices of meat and cheese with each laugh before it transformed back into Darkwhite, who did a few flips in the air for good measure. "I can't believe you fell for it! Can you even count?"

 

[SparklingEspeon]

Tricky broke for five minutes straight.

"What are you even doing here?" she asked, once she had recovered. "I thought you went on that investigation thing with the rest of them or something. A-and I can count! All the way to thirty!"

 

[Namohysip]

"Yeah, and we're back now! I need to get ready for my next trip, though. Gonna rescue the Ho-Oh they failed to save. It'll be easy easy easy!" Darkwhite disappeared, and there was a voice in Tricky's left ear. She had turned into a tiny, tiny Joltik. "They'll never be able to repay me. They'll owe me sooo many favors."

 

[SparklingEspeon]

"Ugghh..." Tricky shuddered. She could feel Darkwhite hovering around near her ear. She quickly took a few steps back to distance herself from Darkwhite. "How can we owe you favors when all you've been doing for the past few weeks is torturing us? You owe us favors. Big ones."

 

[Namohysip]

"I," Darkwhite said, her little Joltik body hovering where Tricky once was, "got you guys a whole Lugia and made her one of the easiest boss battles you guys had yet! Come on! Imagine if you guys had to fight Lugia WITHOUT my help, huh? You guys would all be washed up at the bottom of the Silver Trench whatever place!"

 

[SparklingEspeon]

"I-if that's true, then why did you make yourself look like the bad guy?" Tricky pointed out. "Why- why did we even have to fight lugia? If you can make these battles "easier", what's the point of making us fight them at all?? Something here stinks."

Tricky crossed her arms and turned up her snout. She was pretty proud of finding that out, if she did say so herself.

"I think you're just trying to lead us into a trap. If you're really on our side, prove that you're not just going to bring that Ho-oh back and turn on us there!"

 

[Namohysip]

"Because being the bad guy is FUN, DUH!" Darkwhite flicked Tricky on the nose and floated back. "Besides, Lugia was way out of control. You had to beat out that last corrupt energy from her to make it all better! And if you want proof, I'll give you proof when I get back here with Ho-Oh for you guys to beat up! After all, I helped you guys get the three beasts and mini-Oh, right?"

Darkwhite moved forward again, humming. "I bet you're just jealous because I'm the cooler Mew"

 

[SparklingEspeon]

Tricky couldn't stop herself from sneezing after Darkwhite flicked her nose.

"'I'm the cooler mew'?" she asked, unable to keep a few hints of aggression from leaking into her voice. "Now you're just speaking nonsense! What's that supposed to mean?"

 

[Namohysip]

Darkwhite, tilted her head, then giggled. "Oh? You don't know?" she asked. "I can smell it on you... huhuhu... uhuhu..." She drifted further away. "Oh well. That just means I'm cooler than you in every single way!"

 

[IFBench]

A red-leafed Chikorita entered the area, thoughts of worry hidden behind a smile. "Hi!" they greeted, waving their leaf.

 

[Namohysip]

Darkwhite didn't seem to notice Saltriv at first, but then giggled and disappeared. "And who are you? A new one, right? Uhuhu... huhu..." She hovered around, looking Saltriv up and down.

 

[SparklingEspeon]

A new pokemon... Tricky's first instinct was to immediately say not to trust Darkwhite and her tricks, but for once she bit her tongue. This was too much to take in all at once, and as much as she wasn't going to admit it at this point, Darkwhite had successfully sewn some seeds of doubt. And whatever that mew stuff she "didn't know yet" was about... She was going to pry later. At least there was one more pokemon here, so now it was two against one.

The pokemon waved their leaf in greeting; Tricky had never seen that before! She ignored Darkwhite for the moment and waved back. "...Hi! My name's Tricky. What's yours?"

 

[IFBench]

"Yeah! I joined the team just about a month ago!" Saltriv answered, before looking towards Tricky. "And nice to meet you! My name's Saltriv!"

There was a geniune smile on their face.

 

[Namohysip]

Appearing to be insulted, Darkwhite snorted and floated away. "Well, fine!" she said. "Ignore me! See how that'll do you when I get back with Ho-Oh! After that happens, you guys will be kissing my FEET! And you'll LIKE IT!"

With an angry huff, she disappeared. It didn't seem like she was coming back.

 

[SparklingEspeon]

Trick quickly straightened out her fur, which at some point between Darkwhite's arrival and departure had gotten all tousled up.

"What a gumhead," she said.

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[Namohysip]

Destiny Village was in an uproar. Most of it was localized to the western portion of town, where Poppin' Arms was located. The Guild had, thankfully, not been "blown up," but was instead partially damaged on parts of the western wall, where Karat had been contained with Shield. There were still several explosions and the sound of clashing attacks, however--the battle was underway.

"Let's hurry!" Maple said. "Our presence might be enough to scare them off!"

"Whoever has Sword," Owen shouted back, "try not to be obvious about it! Keep her safe!"

 

[Ambyssin]

Bahamut's immediate thought was that this was one of those textbook tricks. Which meant Owen or Maple had Sword. But he was still thinking about what happened before they left the mountain. The team was acting like Sword was saved, but that was not the case from his perspective. All that effort expended. And for what? To potentially make her salvageable. Meanwhile, if they had just disposed of her and the larva, perhaps they would have made it back to Destiny Village in time to prevent this situation.

They maybe saved one soul... and put countless others in peril in the process. No matter how many feel-good statements his teammates made, there wasn't any rationalizing this.

He was just so sick of it. So, Bahamut marched off in the direction of the explosions. He doubted they were strong enough to do him in. But the sooner this malarkey was over, the sooner he could try and get one of these so-called gods to do the right thing.