Destiny Village ~ Chip's Lab

[Negrek]

Nate sighed as he watched the Porygon go bouncing off. He'd kind of been hoping that the substitute was a now kind of thing they could try, but Chip clearly wasn't feeling urgent about this. "I guess we got to go see whatever fuckery Bahamut's got planned up at the tower," he said. At least it wasn't much of a walk.

"And you've got to practice your Radiance!" Rocky said, beaming at him. "You have to get it ready for the next fight. I wonder what it does? I bet it's really cool!"

"You are out of your fucking mind," Nate told him, but mildly. This whole trip had been pretty pointless, ultimately. The parasites were resistant to negotiation, for whatever reason, and everything else they'd tried had gotten a firm "won't work" or "maybe later." They hadn't done anything towards figuring out how to rescue Eien, and Soda was still up there in his moon base or whatever the fuck. But Nate was feeling strangely good about it all. Mad fox wanting to blow up the planet? Eterna storm eating the world from the ocean out? No big deal.

"Later, then," he said with a nod to Brisa and the zeraora familiar--fuck, what was his name again? The luxray brought him up short mentioning Radiance again. What the fuck was everybody talking about? "Yeah, thanks," he muttered, distracted, in some kind of haze. It didn't really seem to matter too much. "Come on, Rocky. Let's... let's see what all the pre-battle shit is about."

 

[Dragonfree]

Nothing. Of course fucking nothing. Why’d he even bother.

"And, ah, nice one usin' Radiance fer th'first time. Good to see."

Wait, the first time? Everyone else had been using Radiance this whole time and he’d only just managed… whatever the fuck that even was or did? God. Maybe that shouldn’t even be surprising given he’d only just managed to evolve into a goddamn Marshtomp.

The temptation to comment was considerable, but he valiantly resisted. “Have you got an ETA on when Buffet can come check them out and all that?” he asked Chip.

 

[Namohysip]

"Hmm, hmm, given the timing of everything, I think you guys will have the results by the time you're back from your latest mission! Maybe. Depends on how quickly you get that done."

He was oddly cheerful, but that was expected after finally getting the hope of performing some proper experimentation. That Porygon had some strange priorities...

"Lexx! Help me write up some data tables for recording!"

<><><>​

 

[Dragonfree]

The strategy meeting had suggested the parasites were pieces of the Eternatus that'd gotten mixed up with Maple, that they functioned like Substitutes. Cool. Great. Info they really could have used before Diyem had killed the parasite that was in Eien, thus sending all that power over to make Soda's parasite even stronger and more corrosive. Fantastic. A+ job, O Wise Leader. Everyone talking in calm, reasoned tones about how Soda couldn't be reasoned with, like he wasn't the only one who'd spoken to him after he got like this, like killing Eien's parasite wouldn't probably be a significant part of the reason why at this point.

And yet he hadn't spoken up about any of it. Just sat there, stewing with hatred for all of these people. What was even the point? Getting more lectures about how yeah they might have to murder him in cold blood and that's just the way it is, too fucking bad?

He made a beeline towards the lab after the meeting was done, jaw clenched, staring forward. What more did Chip have for them? Buffet? Whoever else he got? This had better be fucking great.

 

[Namohysip]

Chip was at his usual business deeper in the lab. With Silver's team out of the place and at Starr and Nate's home, he seemed to have more free time--especially since he'd lost interest in checking and studying the team for a while, now.

The two parasites they had taken were still in their containment chambers, looking uncooperative as ever. Today, Chip appeared to be tinkering with the broken remains of his Mecha Reshiram, with schematics for a 2.0 version in the back.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave threw a glare at the parasites before marching up to Chip. What the fuck was he working on and why did he have the strongest suspicion it had nothing to do with the impending Sodapocalypse.

"Hey. Chip. You get those results you talked about? Anything new?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Results? What was that about results?" Chip emerged from his office and tilted his head. "Finding Soda? Still working on that. It's pretty hard. Oh, but I was able to figure out where the two Substitutes we do know are, so that's a good first step! But the range is only to within the city limits or so. Can't even reach Destiny Tower! Working on expanding the range now."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave gritted his teeth. "Okay, that's great, but no, I mean the fucking parasites. You said you'd get Buffet and Xernatus and so on. Anything come from that, other than the bit about them being like Substitutes? Or did you just waste everyone's time, again?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Eh?" Chip asked, fidgeting again. "I, er, I... What do you mean, again? I don't waste time! E-everything I do is for the sake of scientific advancement and research! I, well, I mean, I'm for the sake of scientific advancement!" He floated this way and that. "Buffet looked, Xernatus looked, it was awkward when I brought them both here, actually. I even got Deerling--er, the real Xerneas--to take a look! But really, they're just... things! I don't know if they can detect anything odd about them, because of what they are! A-and, er, well... the only other finding is just that even though they can't starve, they're still hungry for... well... you know. Power, in the literal sense. I wouldn't doubt if they could even imprison spirits to satiate that kind of gluttony..."

 

[Negrek]

Nate was exhausted and bruised and very much looking forward to a day or two of sleep, but he saw the mightyena tear off in the direction of the lab, and great. Fucking fantastic. That was exactly what he wanted to deal with right now. Nate seriously considered heading home, and to bed, anyway, but fuck it, if the mightyena found out anything important, Nate was probably going to have to be there to see it or he'd never find out about it.

The mightyena rapidly left him behind, of course, because there was no way in hell Nate was gonna ask him to wait up or nothing. Rocky no doubt could've caught up, but he was hanging back with Nate as usual, giving the marshtomp long, meaningful looks. Nate ignored him.

He showed up just in time to catch the mightyena being a dick to Chip, of course. This fucking guy. And Rocky wanted Nate to be nice to him? "Hey!" Nate barked, breathlessly making his way over to the pair of them. "Piss off. Chip's been doing his best to help." He refused to look at Rocky, but was sure he felt the familiar's gaze remained on him.

It took a second for Nate to catch his breath, and he furiously tried to make sense of what Chip was saying, plus what they already knew about the parasites. "So, these guys are supposed to be like subsitutes, right?" he asked. And wouldn't that have been handy to know earlier. Fuck's sake. "But not, like, real substitutes? Like can they heal and shit? And what're you talking about, imprisoning spirits?"

 

[Dragonfree]

He heard yelling behind him and-- oh, for crying out loud. Had Nate fucking followed him here? How the fuck was this any of his--

He glanced back at the stammering Chip. Whatever. So long as they got any kind of actionable fucking information. He had better things to do than dignify that little shit with a response.

"They're hungry for power? So, what, they just want to feed on the most powerful thing around?" His mind raced. If they could just weaken Soda enough, like they'd done with Maple, would the parasite just instinctively jump out of him in search of more power to feast on? If they had somebody like Pop or Diyem with them...? Could catch it with his Radiance before it could get there again, easy. Was that all it'd take? "And yeah, the fuck do you mean imprisoning spirits?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Well, it's only theoretical," Chip said, "but I think that's what might have happened if someone with an Eterna Parasite was overpowered naturally, instead of by an external force. Perhaps that was what happened to Xerneas before he was placed somewhere else to not raise suspicion, same for S'more... Goodness, it might have even happened to Owen if we weren't fast enough to find the problem." Chip shuddered. "Imagine that. Being sealed away while someone else controlled your body... took your mind, too."

He sighed, mulling it over again, buzzing. "Well. It didn't happen. Er, well, aside from Xerneas and S'more, but we have them recovered. And hey! Maybe having second ones around could be good, too, now that they'e been de-corrupted. Backup Legends. Ah... that was in bad taste, wasn't it?"

 

[Negrek]

"So you're thinking that whatever's living inside Xernatus--you know, the actual bug thing--that's basically the next stage of these guys, if they manage to take over somebody's body?" He waved a hand at the parasites behind their barriers. "What about S'more, though? He didn't seem like he had a parasite... in him. Is it like hanging out somewhere else, controlling him somehow? Just made a whole new body for itself because ghosts don't got nothing inside anyway?"

 

[Dragonfree]

"What's overpowered naturally mean here? Like, that's... that's not what happened to Soda, right?" Couldn't be, right? Then he'd have looked like S'more to Breaker, flat, not shattered. "As in, the parasite itself overpowers them?"

 

[Namohysip]

Chip nodded. "S'more might have been different. His was an encounter with Blacklight Mewtwo, and he's still recovering with Diyem. But of what we've been able to gather... It might have been an accelerated process. Copied the body since S'more's a bit too small to properly hide inside, for example. Oogh, that makes my bytes flip..."

 

[Negrek]

Copied the body? Jesus. But these guys were pretty damn powerful if they could do something like that. Not that it seemed to help much. All it had meant for S'more and Xernatus was a bunch of anxiety when they realized their memories were fake and they possibly murdered somebody.

"You say these guys feed on power, right?" Nate said. "Any kind of power? Or are they after, what, Life energy specifically? They don't give a shit when a familiar's around, and they obviously got shadows and eterna and whatever the fuck in them. Do ghosts even have Life? I don't really get why they only attack people and won't much, like, an apple or whatever the fuck."

 

[Dragonfree]

Accelerated...? Chip wasn't really answering his questions. "Can we go back to the overpowered naturally versus by external forces? You're saying S'more's body was copied, but Xerneas's wasn't, right? So that's not the distinction you mean. What makes the two of them 'overpowered naturally'?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Well, nobody went and beat them up in time, I guess," Chip said. "If you make them weaker by an external force--you know, attacking them--the Parasite would go look for a new host. Since that never happened, the Parasite... just took over. Or, in S'more's case, maybe it... simply was strengthened quickly. For all we know, Xernatus was the same and we never realized it...

"I don't really know what they're attracted to. Life, maybe? Perhaps? Though, now that your Ultra Shades have hatched... hmm, I wonder..."

 

[Negrek]

"Oh?" Rocky perked up. "Do you think I should go see if they want to attack me now?" He sauntered over to press his hand up against the parasites' barrier, peering at the creatures inside.

Nate watched, pensively. Something Chip had said was bothering him. Didn't know what they were attracted to, exactly, but they were always hungry... "Wait, hang on. Was that what was up with that crazy rattata from around Treasure Town? The one that was always trying to eat everything? I know these guys don't care about food, but... The rattata was different from the pokémon who got infected by shades like Rocky."

 

[Namohysip]

"That's possible..." Chip hummed. "Then again, feral Pokemon infected by Shadows tended to behave by their vices more, as Reshiram put it. Maybe that Rattata was a gluttonous one. Or maybe it was some early Parasite..."

Meanwhile, the Parasite seemed to be staring at Rocky, though it had no eyes. When Rocky pressed his hand against the barrier, the one he was staring at didn't do anything... but the one next door lunged at Rocky, hitting the barrier. It must have thought it was in Rocky's blind spot.

"Ah! Ah! A discovery!" Chip zipped toward his notebook. "They react to hatched Ultra Shades!"