Destiny Village ~ Chip's Lab

[Namohysip]

After some careful planning and quick work, they got the Parasite into a barrier and out of the lab, where Eien had arrived. It was, admittedly, downright terrifying to see at first glance the huge leviathan flying toward the lab's entrance, and perhaps Dave's old Run Away instincts would have murmured in the back of his head over it.

"Oh, is that it?" Eien asked, trying to make herself as low to the ground as possible. "It... doesn't really remind me of anything. I do sense energy like mine in it, though... How strange. As if it had been twisted beyond recognition aside from its raw element..."

 

[Negrek]

Nate followed the others out to where Eien was waiting, looking like some kind of wayfaring monster who'd shown up to destroy it. He couldn't help but feel a little nervous, stepping out into her shadow, but Rocky only waved up at her cheerfully.

"So these ain't nothing like regular little eternatus, huh?" he said. "But that's what you're thinking's behind all this mess, huh? Or at least something that used to be an eternatus."

He skirted around the glowing bubble that held the parasite, keeping as far from Dave as possible. Was it looking any calmer out here? Seemed hard to imagine; if anything, Eien seemed like she'd terrify the shit out of the little guy. "These guys have shadows in them, and Diyem says they can only, like, feel fear and anger and shit. So we were hoping your nullification aura thing might calm them down a bit. I dunno if you gotta do anything special for that to work or just kinda hang out close, but... Turn it on if you gotta, I guess."

Nate stared at the parasite behind its veil of Radiance. He supposed they were all lucky that the parasites couldn't just eat through an energy construct like that.

What the fuck was he going to do now?

"Do your cool thing on it!" Rocky said eagerly.

Nate resisted the urge to rest his head against the side of the bubble. "Don't fucking call it that. Please."

Not that he even knew how that supposed Radiant move worked, or how he'd ever do it again if it existed. Well, fuck it. It wasn't like he'd been doing anything special the first time around, either.

Nate took a deep breath. "What's up? It's me again." He tried to ignore how stupid he felt, talking to a slavering worm kinda thing. "How are you feeling? We got that big dragon to come along and see if she could help with your shadows at all." He started getting that weird tingling, lightheaded feeling again as he went on. What the fuck was that? "You feeling more like talking now? Can you tap on the barrier with your tail if you're listening?"

Nate used Radiant Misdirect!

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave kept a wary eye on the parasite, ready to replenish the barrier if needed. Was it reacting to Eien at all? Or to Nate? What the fuck was his Radiant move, anyway? It just looked like him talking to the thing like it was a pet or a young child or something. Did it actually do anything?

Dave glanced at Eien. "The corruption that's twisting them around, is it just Blacklight? Blacklight combined with the raw Eterna energy? Or is there more to it?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Hmm... Let me help," Eien offered.

Little filaments of darkness emerged from the center of Eien's core, trailing toward Nate. They were no thicker than yarn.

"This may feel a little odd, but it will help you get through, I... think."

The yarn wrapped around Nate's upper shoulders and clung there like they were slathered in glue. A dull electric shock, like some kind of obscure massage therapy, followed, and then Nate would feel a cloudy sensation in the back of his head, like someone was there.

"It's just Blacklight energy and Eterna energy," Eien said. "Diyem filled me in. No Divine energy... Hmm..." She sighed.

The thing was calming down, though, watching Nate with what might have been wariness. After some back and forth, coaxing a response of any kind, it did not tap its tail, but it did stare at him.

"Hmm... If it's anything like Diyem... Well, that would require me getting close. I can't do anything while that barrier is in the way, but... would that be too much of a risk?"

 

[Negrek]

Nate froze when Eien sent some kind of coil of shadow into him. It fizzed like electricity on top of the weird kind of sparkly sensation that was already kicking up from... whatever he'd just done. He sneezed, but although the sparkly feeling went away a little bit, the strange sense of awareness. Nate tried to ignore it and think.

No divine energy? Well, if they hatched, or whatever, before Soda got ahold of the unown... before the Blacklight Thing got ahold of Soda... But it was Eien's last question that really got his attention.

"Jesus. That's... tricky." Risky? Fucking absolutely. Both in the sense that Eien getting parasitized again would be a fucking nightmare, and in the sense that Nate didn't want to think about what Diyem would do if Nate was even indirectly responsible for his girlfriend getting parasitized again.

And it wasn't like they were going to get much information as such from the parasite. Nate doubted it had more than the dimmest awareness of what was going on, same as Joule's shades had. But if there was any way to get through to the parasites, they should try it, shouldn't they? Because... Because it wasn't right, leaving them to suffer.

"I mean, it's your call. You'd be the one taking the risk, and you know what it means to have one of these guys in you better than anyone else here. If we were gonna try it... Probably I oughta hold the guy, so at least if he bites anybody, it's gonna be me and not you. Lots easier to deal with a big marshtomp than a big eternatus, you know? Might work if we put him to sleep first, so I can grab him without him biting me, and then we could try getting him close enough to you for you to do your thing so when he woke up, he was already feeling the... vibes, or whatever."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave gave Nate a skeptical glance. "To sleep? Like, with a Sleep Seed?" He... supposed that'd work. He frowned. "Well, I haven't got any of those. Do you?" God damn. He inhaled through his nose. "If we're doing that, we might want to use my Radiance to be sure it takes."

 

[Negrek]

"I can use Yawn," Nate said. It took all his self-control not to demonstrate on the mightyena. Practically a fucking saint over here today. "But yeah, we'd probably need your shiny power or whatever to be sure."

 

[Namohysip]

"I'll stay back," Eien said. "You'll need a way to hold it down while I work, if it wakes up in the middle, but... I think you have that covered."

Chip buzzed. "I might have something in the lab, but, er..." He eyed the Parasite. "Well. Let's see what you guys plan. I'll... get ready with some stunning if that goes wrong?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Yawn? Was that normal for a Marshtomp? Fuck if he knew. Not exactly a species he'd studied. "Isn't that some kind of... delayed thing?" He vaguely remembered reading something about it as part of Slugma's natural moveset, though Gabriel'd thankfully never developed that particular power. Imagine holding your baby, they yawn, and you have to put them away in the next ten seconds before you fucking collapse. "Well, whatever, I can keep the barrier up until it's out. Fine."

He concentrated a moment to cool off the Radiance in his fur. How the fuck was he here working with this dipshit. At least, if this led to new information about the parasites and what made them tick, it'd all be worth it.

Another burst of Radiance bloomed into golden shields that merged harmlessly with the ones he already had, spreading an energizing aura. Over where Nate was, another couple of shields bathed him in the same. This had better work.

 

[Negrek]

Well, if Eien was okay with it... and even the fucking mightyena was on board. Nate wished Rocky would stop smiling so much.

"Yeah, it takes a little while to work," Nate said. The mightyena seemed to accept that--honestly, Nate was kind of hoping he'd say something dickish, Rocky couldn't get mad at him for starting shit then--because a few seconds later golden light blossomed around him, putting him behind some of the mightyena's shields.

Nate sneezed again, and then twice more, but it hardly registered. He'd seen the mightyena use this attack before, of course, but holy shit, what a feeling. It was like nothing mattered besides the parasite, and the plan, and Nate knew, he absolutely knew, that this was going to work. He took a deep breath and Yawned as widely as he could.

Nate used Yawn!

 

[Namohysip]

The Parasite hissed in response and Chip distracted it with a zap once the initial barrier broke up. "Get ready to seal it again if this doesn't work!" They still had to break open the barrier so it could even take the Yawn.

The sleepy bubble popped over the Parasite and it hissed and squirmed. The very first thing it did was try to lunge at Nate, but it slammed into his barrier instead. It then curled up and flung itself at Chip, who popped a Protect Orb and blocked it the same way.

It flailed again, hissing and spewing some strange, orange fluid that bubbled on the ground and smelled like molten iron. Its twitching slowed... and it flopped on the ground, motionless but alive. It didn't seem to breathe, so it was hard to tell the difference...

Eien drifted closer. "Okay," she said. "I need to just..."

Nate would feel the presence wrapped around him dissipate, and those same threads now drifted to the motionless thing in the street. "Oh, how odd," Eien murmured, but she didn't elaborate.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave peered at her. "What?" Jesus, just say what you're fucking thinking instead of generating suspense with meaningless fluff. He glanced back at the parasite, watching for any indication it could be waking up.

 

[Negrek]

Nate's heart jolted when the parasite leapt for him, but it simply bounced off one of the mightyena's barriers. Of course it did. They had this. After the brief flurry of activity, the parasite slowed and finally subsided on the ground. Nate took a cautious step forward as Eien unspooled her shadows into the creature. Well, he supposed, he probably didn't need to hold onto it, if the mightyena was fast with his moves.

"Be ready with another bubble," he said to Dave, and prepared a Whirlpool himself, just in case.

 

[Namohysip]

"...Well... I can suppress a few things, but... I'm not sensing the same... reaction if it feels positive emotions the way Diyem does. There's nothing for me to block there. But I feel as if... it simply does not know how to feel positive emotions. It isn't a matter of being harmed by it... but simply not comprehending it. If I suppress this negativity, there won't be anything... left." Eien hesitated. "Do I continue?"

 

[Negrek]

Didn't know how to feel positive emotions? Not even the Radiance could stop a bit of unease creeping into Nate's mind. That reminded him all too much of the mewtwo.

Goddammit. And Eien was sure making it sound like she might kill the guy, and if she did that, would it be the same as destroying it? Or would the energy kind of... dissipate? The mightyena was going to make a fucking scene about this, wasn't he? "Keep trying," Nate said to Eien.

 

[Dragonfree]

Huh. "So, what, you think if you suppress it it'll just... kill it? Or just, I don't know, render it temporarily catatonic? Not a big fan of killing it if that might send it up to join with Soda's parasite."

 

[Namohysip]

"I don't know what will happen," Eien said simply. "I--I don't have much time, though. I heard one undecided and one go for it, I'm--ah, it's waking up. I need to do this now."

And so, she channeled the energy through. Her eyes dimmed, and the threads looked to be very, very delicate...

And then it twitched to life. Chip readied a stunning action; Eien tensed, but told them, softly, "Hold on."

The parasite moved around, twitched about. Then, it stopped. Alive, based on its dim glow, but unmoving. Indifferent. It simply... displayed nothing at all.

 

[Negrek]

Nate watched, tense, as Eien channeled more shadows into the parasite. Or out of it. Whatever the fuck she was doing. If the parasite woke up, he'd be ready with a whirlpool. If it died, he'd be ready to have it out with the damn mightyena. If something else happened... that was what he wasn't ready for.

He held even tighter to his water energy as the parasite awoke, but this time there wasn't any lunging. Not even any snarling or hissing, taking up a defensive stance. Some kind of attempt at escape. Instead the parasite simply lay where it was, passive, listless. Either playing a real evil con or just literally uncaring.

Nate's stomach clenched. Way too much like the mewtwo. Way too much for his liking. He took a cautious step forward--the second barrier ought to protect him if the parasite livened up and took another shot at him, but still. "Hey," he said, taking another step. "How do you feel? Are you listening now?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave hesitated, they couldn't risk killing it but why would it, that didn't make sense--

They were out of time, and Eien just went for it, and his heart jolted as it abruptly stopped moving - but no, it was still glowing. Did that mean alive...? Just, what, listless and incapable of feeling?

Nate started to approach it. Was that a good idea? ...Well, he was protected. Could give him another barrier by now in an emergency. (God, what the fuck.)

Guy was really just... treating the parasite like it was some cute injured Pokémon in the woods. Fucking Ponyta girl vibes. I found this abused nightmare parasite that was afraid of all humans, and even attacked me! But then I treated it with kindness and patience and nursed it back to health, and now it trusts only me and lets me ride it, and we're going to win the big race together. Fuck, that was kind of exactly the logic Cibus ran on. For all he knew it'd work.

 

[Namohysip]

It didn't respond at first to Nate, and it made no movements that would require Dave to do anything. Its head twitched in Nate's direction when he spoke, so he had its attention, if it used ears to hear. But it only let out a low, gurgling hiss in response. Wordless, icy, empty.

But despite their ears only hearing that, something deeper heard the words beneath.

"Why am I here?"