Destiny Village ~ Chip's Lab

[Namohysip]

"You know, there used to be only a single Mew and Mewtwo on Cibus if you don't count Nutmeg," Chip said. "Now there's that Mithos one, Darkwhite, Giovanni... next thing you know, I'm a Mew! Who knows, right?"

Silver stared at Chip.

"A guy can dream..."

Silver ignored him. "Sounds to me like Karat had his own agenda. He was working with Shield, right? And they thought you guys were working with Giovanni. Nobody was on the same side here."

 

[Negrek]

"Yeah, I'd say he's up to something on his own. Which makes me wonder why he didn't just fuck off the second he got out of prison. Unless Giovanni was already around and he ran off to fight right away? I ain't clear on the order shit happened in, here."

Nate nodded to the fox familiar thing. "Could've been a trap for him, yeah, but then why didn't Giovanni just go ahead and catch him when he got all up in his face? Why'd he leave without the guy. With the timing, you'd think shit would have to be connected, but what if it wasn't Giovanni who sent that fake message? What if it was somebody who wanted to bust Karat out, so they waited until we went off to fight, then sent the other bigshots around here off to join us before bringing down the security. Of course then why did Giovanni pop up in Destiny Village at all? Why not go grab Sword from us at the magic water place?"

"But there's a lot that don't make sense about what the guy's up to. Why's he keep fucking off whenever we show up? Keeps going on like we're so weak, we can never stand up to him, but he sure ain't eager to hang around and fight. Why'd he go and tell Sword to kill us instead of finishing the job himself?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Ah, well... I've never known Giovanni to be one for getting his own hands dirty, if he could help it. Suppose he's probably had to relent on that a bit now that he's a Pokémon, but eh." Lexx shrugged heavily. "You're right that it's hard to imagine why he wouldn't have caught Karat, if it really was a trap. Then again... Gio did say that some of the moles were conspiring against him. Maybe whoever busted Karat out was trying to screw with his plans after all."

 

[Negrek]

"Sure, he ain't the hands-on type. But he don't really strike me as the kind of guy to keep running away instead of dealing with someone who was a real threat to his operation. It just don't feel right that he keeps running away all the time," Nate said. "One of the moles could have let Karat out, that's right. That'd put one among the group with us at the magic water place and one here in Destiny Village who's maybe not so in with the original plan anymore. If there's even any to begin with. Wouldn't be surprised if Giovanni stuck some kind of recorder on somebody, set up a psychic anchor to them, whatever, without them even realizing. One thing I was coming out here to ask about." He waved a hand in Chip's general direction.

"Speaking of Karat, though..." Nate turned back to Silver. "We know your memories got sealed by a powerful psychic, right? Specifically a mewtwo? Might be that another mewtwo could undo what Giovanni did, and we know Karat hates his fucking guts. I dunno that I'd want that bastard rooting around in my head if I was in your shoes, but it's an option."

 

[Namohysip]

Silver looked uncomfortable with the idea, the way he shifted about the moment Nate proposed the idea, but he still considered it anyway. "Would it help?" he said. "What could even be sealed away that Giovanni would intentionally try to erase?"

"Could it also be that Karat is acting?" Chip asked. "What if... Well, no... I don't see how Karat would ever try to align with Giovanni, especially given his past. It did cause a lot of chaos, though..."

"Would chaos be all that Giovanni would go for?" Silver asked. "Sounds more like something I would do just to cause trouble. I know he's my dad and all, but I don't know if we're all that similar with how we approach problems."

"Hmm... We don't really know how you two were personally." Chip looked at Silver. "Always seemed to me like you were more careful."

"The way my team treats me," Silver said, "I think they're used to someone more... direct. Pure power. If I was in my dad's shoes, I would have attacked the place directly and got Darkwhite back."

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Mm, yeah, causing chaos just to make trouble doesn't feel like his style. Bit too inelegant." So Silver was more the sort to brute force problems, then. He was more similar to Starr than to Lexx in that regard--not that she'd ever admit that. "He had another angle for showing up, besides just grabbing Sword. Speaking of Sword, I heard the team was planning a rescue?" Another chance to go back to the Isle of Light? To check out the lab? No way he was missing out on that.

 

[Namohysip]

"Whatever they're planning, I'm not interested in going," he replied flatly. "Weavile back there challenged me to a fight and I lost to what was supposed to be a grappling blow. I won't be helpful, even with whatever that hidden power is in me. And I'm... just so tired." He shook his body, as if sleep was getting to him. "It's been getting worse lately..."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Lexx shrugged. "S'fine. No need to push it, I'm sure the team'll have it covered." He tilted his head. "What's getting worse, though?"

 

[Negrek]

"Well, as far as what might be locked up in there... I figure it's got to be something important, or Giovanni wouldn't have bothered. He didn't wipe none of the pokémon's memory that we got back, as far as I know." Nate frowned and shifted uneasily. "If you've been feeling tired, though, have you tried visiting the guild infirmary to see if something's up? I think they're supposed to be pretty good."

No way Giovanni would have showed up just to have fun blowing shit to pieces. Was it just a trick to lure them back to Destiny Village for some reason? Why didn't he just attack at the stream place? What that was supposed to have to do with Silver's personality, Nate didn't know, but it didn't seem worth speculating about. It had to be rough, having everybody more interested in who you used to be than in who you were.

 

[Namohysip]

"What's gotten worse..." Silver yawned. "That. I've just bee so tired lately..." He shook his body again, bringing his pompoms over his eyes. "Whatever. Yeah, I'll ask the Guild about it... Hmph, I doubt they'd know what to do. They tried to do some kind of body diagnosis on me and they didn't know where to begin."

He floated forward, but even his floating seemed to be... slowing down. "I think I'm just... going to..." He wobbled again. He looked like he wanted to say something, but no words came. His eyes were vacant, and there was a sudden, but subtle psychic aura swirling around him.

 

[Negrek]

"Hey!" Nate said. "Hey, what's--?" But it didn't look like Silver could hear him.

The stirring of psychic power set off every alarm in Nate's head. Had Giovanni put some kind of psychic link to the guy way back when? Was he taking over somehow. Was he about to fucking show up down here?

He bounded over towards where Silver's team were hanging out, still listening in, presumably. "Alakazam! Hey, Alakazam, what the fuck is going on here?"

 

[Namohysip]

Alakazam turned and started to leave the room that had been given to Silver's team, but just as he stepped out, Silver's body erupted in a bright light. The air in the room seemed to be sucked away and toward his body, pulling a few small objects along with it. Alakazam grasped at his spoons as his moustache was drawn toward Silver, though the wind was too light to do much else.

Silver said nothing, but eventually the light faded. A Cosmog no longer floated in place; it was a silent, dense thing that floated there instead, lined with a solid gold ring of some kind. It was as if Silver had stuffed himself into a tiny little ring...

"Did... did he evolve?" Chip asked. "Like some kind of... cosmic Metapod?"

 

[Negrek]

Nate shielded his face from the sudden light, heart pounding. Whatever the fuck was happening, it couldn't be good. Nate braced himself for a fight, gathering energy, but when he was able to see properly again all there was was some strange pokémon--Silver?--just kind of... sitting there. And it kept sitting there.

"Evolved or... changed form, I guess," Nate said. Wouldn't be the weirdest form shift out there, but it was still pretty fucking unnerving. Was Silver just... asleep now? How long was he supposed to stay like that? Nate approached cautiously. "You, uh, you okay in there, Silver?"

"Hey, wake up!" Rocky said, rapping his knuckles on Silver's golden edge.

"Rocky, fuck's sake."

 

[Namohysip]

Silver did not respond, not even in the slightest. A light humming accompanied by a strange, twinkling noise came with each breath. Silver... really was asleep.

"Should we... take him to the infirmary anyway?" Chip asked.

 

[Negrek]

Rocky drew in a huge breath, and Nate just knew he was about to unleash an Uproar or something, or maybe just a very loud scream. Instead the familiar yelped and stumbled sideways as a jet of water hit him in the chest. "Knock it off," Nate said as Rocky rounded on him, dripping and with shadowy ectoplasm swirling to fill in the hole knocked out by the hydro pump. "Maybe if he's asleep he oughta stay asleep."

Rocky let out a hmph and folded his arms but didn't argue about it, at least.

"Yeah, the infirmary's probably a good idea," Nate said to Chip. "Hopefully they'll be able to tell if this is... normal."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Lexx let out a low whistle. He'd managed to record the second half of the transformation on his tablet, and was now playing it back repeatedly. "Welp, guess that answers that. Some evolution--no wonder he was tired, getting ready for that."

Lexx edged a bit closer getting a better look at the golden shell encircling Silver's new form. "Y'know, he does look a bit like a Metapod, now that you mention it. What sort of Pokemon is he again? Anyone know what to expect when he comes outta there? Cosmic butterfly?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Arceus said that he might evolve into something that's mostly dormant," Chip said. "Maybe that's what this is? A cocoon or something, before he evolves a second time to become his true form. Ooh, I wonder what it'll be? Arceus said it could be one of two things..."

 

[Negrek]

Well, that was good. If Arceus had predicted something like this would happen, then it at least probably wasn't dangerous or nothing.

Jesus, though. At least Nate hadn't gotten stuck as anything with a cocoon stage. That one rectangular bug-type wasn't having a great time of it, but at least she wasn't constantly hibernating.

"Well, I don't think he can just hang out here and sleep," Nate said. "Let's get him back to the Guild and see what they have to say, huh?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Yeah. Take him there for now, and, uh... Maybe I can do an analysis later." Chip seemed exhausted by everything that was happening. "I'm gonna... do some defragging..."

<><><>​

 

[Negrek]

Silver's rather unexpected, and rather spectacular, evolution had kind of put a damper on Nate's last visit to the lab. He hadn't even asked if Chip had found anything interesting in the pile of Rocket shit they'd dragged out of the Isle of Light, or anything at all about whatever the fuck had been going on with Maple's badge. And there was Silver's team, too, apparently living around here now. He needed to have a word or two with them, for whatever good it would do, given the fact that they spoke completely different fucking languages.

All this rushing around trying to pin people down. Sure would be nice if everything would stop going to shit around here so he could take some time off to go ice skating or watch a movie or whatever the fuck else Rocky was whining about today. But of course it wouldn't, so here he was headed underground to try and pry some answers out of this world's best excuse for a mad scientist, who also happened to look like a duck on some pretty high-quality drugs.

"What's up, Chip?" Nate asked when the inner set of lab doors whooshed open. "Got a few minutes?"

Rocky followed along behind. Thankfully he hadn't complained about having to come down here--apparently the place had enough gizmos lying around to keep him entertained.