Destiny Village ~ Chip's Lab

[Namohysip]

"That Cosmog is resting in the study right now," Maple said. "Apparently he spends most of his time there, reading about the world... Or at least that's what he says he's doing. I think he just doesn't want to be around others."

"Not a very sociable human, is he?" Soda remarked, poking at one of the more useless looking heaps of scrap. "So, what's this mean? We've got a group called Rocket doing some business here, and if that's the case, that probably explains why it felt like there were interlopers before you guys showed up. Oi, Maple, you think it's about time we told them about us yet?"

Maple's left eye twitched. "Well, now that you just said it..."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr blinked at Nip. Shit, that's right, the machine had a person inside of it. And he was a human on top of it. "Okay, yeah, we need to talk to Cosmog about this. Something tells me he's gonna know a hell of a lot more than the rest of us."

And then Soda's words properly registered. She squinted suspiciously. "Wait. The hell do you mean 'tell them about us'?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Whoops," Soda said, holding a paw to his mouth with an innocent, startled look in his eyes. "Sowwy, Maple. I guess I messed up."

With just her glare, a beam of light shot from just over Maple's shoulder and into Soda's chest. It passed through and left a small scorch on the wall, but did little else; Soda himself faded away, and another Soda appeared on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall.

"But c'mon, you said you were gonna tell them once they moved into Destiny Village." Soda shrugged, holding his arms up and shaking his head. "So, what's the holdup? More trust issues?"

There was something prickly about the atmosphere radiating off of Maple, like a rapid sunburn. Then, it stopped, and Maple breathed steadily. "Perhaps now is the appropriate time anyway," she said. "Thank you for the reminder, Soda."

"No problem, Boss." Soda clicked his claws. "Anyway, I'm out. Figure we got the major info we need for now. How about a meeting tomorrow for your little announcement?"

Maple said nothing.

"Nice. See ya then. I'm heading to the bar."

Soda made a peaceful symbol with his claws and faded away.

 

[Adamhuarts]

"Well, it's a good thing we have you here, Starr. We might've not known anything about this 'Rocket' group without your insight, and knowing is only half the battle they say," Cynthian said with a relieved sigh.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr raised a paw, her face a total deadpan. "Hi, quick question, what the shit was that about?"

 

[Namohysip]

Chip was too enamored with the logo and whatever other technological marvels there were to say anything further, but Maple, still standing with a pensive frown, glanced Starr's way.

"...I suppose it will have to wait for the meeting," Maple said to her. "I will need to prepare the full explanation, because it will probably be confusing."

Hmph. How evasive. It sounds to me like she's going to try to find a way to twist the full truth so she won't incriminate herself. She's under orders to not harm you, correct? Then put pressure on her to answer now.

 

[Adamhuarts]

Well don't ask ME to do it!

Cynthian anxiously glanced through Starr, Cuicatl and Nip, in hopes that one of them would try to put pressure on Maple instead.

 

[windskull]

Even if Nip still had his reservations with Diyem, he had to admit that he had a point. A little time to spin a story went a long way, and if he could convince pokemon he'd never met that he was on a religious journey, he didn't want to know what Maple could come up with if she had a whole day to think about it.

"With all due respect, Maple," he began, keeping his eyes on the debris for just a few seconds longer before facing the smeargle, "if this is something that concerns us, that concerns your mission as well as our own... wouldn't it be better to explain sooner rather than later? I understand if you want to wait, so that you can explain the situation to our entire group. But..." Keep it together, Nip. "I know that... trust between yourself and our team is already tense, but that goes the other way as well."

That was horrible, Nip. You're gonna get yourself killed like this!

 

[Chibi Pika]

Nip was way more polite than Starr felt like being. "We don't need to know your whole life story or any crap like that. I don't care if you save that for tomorrow. Give us the damn abridged version now." Then they could verify if the full story added up later.

 

[Adamhuarts]

"Yeah! What they said!" Cynthian said, hopping on the bandwagon. Though not before hiding behind Cuicatl.

 

[Namohysip]

Maple stared at Cynthian with an expression somewhere between annoyance and pity.

Then, with an exasperated sigh, the Smeargle looked toward them all and said, "Very well. I suppose by the good word of the Arceus of this world, I can at least have him vouch for my benevolence."

...So she really isn't from this world, Diyem said. I deduced as much.

Maple brought a hand to her chest and gave a half-bow. "My name is Maple in this world, in an effort to blend in and not cause any undue attention while present here. The rest of my team, too, go by similar aliases. We have arrived here while chasing down an unknown entity that had entered this world, and were attacked upon entry. That is all we know." She removed her hand from her chest and stood straight, formal. "My name is Blade. I am... a Voice of Life."

 

[Adamhuarts]

"So, you're like Buffet then?" Cynthian asked, poking his head over with curiosity.

 

[windskull]

Wait no Starr why would you- Nip had no time to try and soften her words with platitudes. Fortunately, Maple kept true to her word. They were left alone. For now.

"I feel like I should be surprised," Nip said. "But somehow... I'm not."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr kept a wary eye on Maple. Much as she hated to admit it, she really didn't know enough to dispute it.

Diyem, how likely is that to be bullshit? He oughta know--he'd pretended to be one himself, after all.

 

[Persephone]

Cuicatl bit down a phantom headache (and weren’t migraines at the top of the list of things she really didn’t miss about humanity). “So you’re not from here? Why hide it? All the biggest heroes of this world aren’t from here.”

“And that’s a cosmog in the machine? Because those are the Pokémon that send stuff between different universes back home.”

 

[Namohysip]

"Yes," Maple replied, nodding. "I am like Buffet."

...I cannot tell if she is lying or telling the truth, Diyem said flatly. She could be. Or this was a story she had prepared for this circumstance, just as I did. There is no telling. Though, to come up with the exact same false story that I did... would she be that bold?

"As for why we hid it," Maple said, "it is simply because we were not sure whether or not you were the interlopers we were hunting down. The less information you knew, the better."

 

[Adamhuarts]

"Is that why you lured and cornered some of us to coerce answers out of them?" Cynthian asked with a frown. The only thing keeping him from shrinking further back was the burning welling up in his heart.

"Were you going to hurt them or worse if you'd been mistaken?"

 

[Namohysip]

Maple stared Cynthian down, her expression still too hard to read normally. Perhaps it was intentionally blank. "As I said," Maple said, "I am under orders from Arceus not to harm you. Even if you decared yourselves a part of some post-Dark Matter cult, I would not be allowed to kill you. So long as we are guests in Cibus, I cannot defy their god."

 

[windskull]

Nip shot Cynthian a brief, incredulous look. Was he trying to provoke Maple? He could only hope that wasn't the case. Still, there was something that bothered him about Maple's explanation.

"Just to be clear, you have no clue who attacked you? How long ago was this?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr threw a sideway glance toward Cynthian. Maple had what? She'd cornered the team to coerce answers out of them? When the hell...? But then she'd just come right out and said that she couldn't do shit to them. And now there was some other force that they all had to deal with. Wasn't bad enough to just have the one mission, no, there had to be an entire goddamn conspiracy going on.

"What kind of attack we talking about here? What are we dealing with, exactly?" Starr demanded.