Destiny Village ~ Parfait Way

[Dragonfree]

"But why wouldn't-- How does that work? Like, why can you drain some corruption and not some other corruption? What's--" Probably another fucking arbitrary Cibus thing. Goddamn it.

"Please try," said Shadow quietly, behind him. Was he still there? Why? He was just fucking... going home, asking Saltriv a goddamn question. He looked over his shoulder; the other Mightyena was restless, fidgeting, looking at him like some kind of...

Deep breath. What the fuck. Was he this drunk? The spark of apparent clarity was fading. For some reason Mia was what came to mind, her frowning at him and telling him he was making no fucking sense.

 

[IFBench]

For a brief moment as Dave's Shadow entered Saltriv's view, terror appeared on the Meganium's face, before quickly disappearing, replaced with a small frown.

"Well...I don't know Soda very well. It'll be hard for me to empathize with him...and because of that, it'll be harder for me to drain his corruption," the Meganium said, before smiling slightly again. "I-I'll still try though! ...though I'm scared I'll make things worse."

 

[Dragonfree]

Empathize...? Dave blinked. Saltriv was out there draining corruption by empathizing with people? That was the big secret of corruption management? Christ.

He took another deep breath, pressing a paw to his forehead. The headache from this morning was still pounding at the inside of his skull. He swayed on his feet and had to regain his balance. "Okay. What do you need to know? He's a former human. Had a long-term partner, some relationship issues but still loves her. Skeptical of gods. Likes to liberate Hell-dimensions. Freed Flesh from one of those and has been taking care of him ever since. Any of that, uh, empathizable?" He had a sinking feeling it was probably not. He didn't know much about Saltriv, but they didn't seem like the liberating-Hells type.

 

[IFBench]

"No..." Saltriv said, looking down at Dave, frowning again. "The only former human I know personally back in my world is my uncle's partner. I'm aroace, and only 15 anyways. My village has its own guardian legendary. The only, uh, 'Hell dimensions' I've ever been to is the Voidlands in my world when Dark Matter petrified everyone, and maybe that freaky platform place, and I wasn't doing any liberating there, and...I guess I've been sorta taking care of Gen since meeting him, though my family and Burhalla are helping a ton, too."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave stared at them, his stomach twisting into a knot. Fifteen. Another fucking kid running around on Team Spectrum this whole time, and he didn't even know. Maybe he should've guessed.

A flicker of anger at Diyem floated into his head. On another day it could have been a proper fire, but right now, all the energy had been drained out of him, and the flicker dissolved into empty exhaustion. He closed his eyes, took a slow breath. "Look... never mind. Don't... don't go near Soda, when we confront him. He could... Just stay safe." Why the fuck would it have worked, anyway? Wasn't like Saltriv'd been able to just uncorrupt Giovanni's Mewtwo, or the corrupted Starr.

"Green just -- the Substitute in the Holding Cells, he just told me he watched a lot of horror movies and he'll probably be..." His throat was closing. He swallowed. "Said we should be 'mentally prepared' for him to do some horror shit. Illusions to freak us out. Whatever that means." As a fifteen-year-old he'd watched every horror movie he could in mesmerized, queasy fascination, but somehow that wasn't the sense he got from Saltriv.

"Soda thinks we have to kill him," Shadow murmured. "Maybe we can't save him but we have to try."

Yeah. Save the guy who was going to do his best to traumatize and possibly kill this fifteen-year-old. Dave clenched his jaw, looking away.

 

[IFBench]

Saltriv laid a vine on Dave's back, in an attempt to comfort him. They looked away from the Shadow.

"It...it's okay. We'll find a way to save him," they said, a soothing quality to their voice. Dave might feel his worries slip away, just a bit.

They hid their quivering tip of their tail behind their hind legs, trying to hide their own fear from Dave.

"I'll do my best to help," they said, giving Dave a look of compassion. "We'll find a way."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave started to shrink away from their touch, but some curious feeling of calm came over him and stopped him. For a moment he stood there dumbly, eyes closed, the vine wrapped around his back. "Yeah. Thanks."

A moment later he realized Saltriv had done something. A... was that technically a 'call'? Something else? His eyes snapped open as he shrugged the vine off. Goddamn it. Did he look like he needed that? He cast a glare at Shadow as he stepped away.

"Stay out of danger," he said before picking up the takeaway bag. The weight of it put him off-balance again; he teetered on his feet for a moment before he managed to turn away.

 

[IFBench]

"See ya!" Saltriv said with a smile, waving their leaf as Dave walked away, before their smile faded as Dave disappeared from view. Then, they began walking back home, keeping their quivering tailtip hidden between their forelegs.

They hoped they'd be able to save Soda. They hoped that Soda wouldn't do anything too terrifying to the group.

They hoped Dave would be ok.

<><><><><>​

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave dragged himself to Soda's place despite how badly he wanted a drink and like a week of fucking sleep. He'd meant to visit Flesh before they even went to confront Eien, and yet time'd just slipped away from him into a blackout stupor and fuck, at least he could get things done first.

He squinted blearily at the house as he approached. It looked like some kind of spooky mansion in one of those kids' horror books. One way or another, he'd never actually visited Soda's home before. Making his living space this was nuts but also seemed like something he'd do, didn't it.

He walked up to the door and knocked with a paw. "Flesh? You home?" Brisa'd said he had some kind of translator, so hopefully that was working. Otherwise this'd be a pretty one-sided conversation.

 

[Namohysip]

Silence at first, and then... Rumble, rumble, rumble, a little louder each time. It felt like each tremor would lift Dave off the ground by a millimeter. The door opened, and Dave was face to face with the vaguely glowing maw of the Guzzlord, staring down at him.

He growled loudly, but that was apparently some kind of greeting, because he turned around and left the door open for Dave to enter. It seemed that neither substitute was here for now...

 

[Dragonfree]

Jesus. From everything he'd gathered Flesh seemed like basically a big puppy, but that didn't make him any less fucking terrifying. He entered the house and looked around. "So, uh, Brisa told me you had a translator gadget?"

 

[Namohysip]

Flesh made a loud groaning noise and waddled deeper into his lair. It looked like it was cleaned quite regularly, but there was no way Flesh, in his size, would have been able to keep the smaller places so tidy...

He returned with the gadget in question. Seconds later, a hologram of Soda appeared, standing neutrally as Flesh growled into the device.

"Hello, Dave. I'm happy to see you. Soda talked a lot about you."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave blinked at the hologram. That was one way to do a translator device, he supposed.

"Hey. He's talked about you a bunch, too." He looked around. "Are his Substitutes still coming round here often? They keeping the place clean?"

 

[Namohysip]

Flesh hesitated, like he was unsure if he should answer. But he nodded, saying nothing into the translator. Though, it made sense; how else would the place stay tidy? And Soda said himself that he had been visiting to keep the place clean...

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave nodded slowly, on guard, ears perked at Flesh's hesitation. "Which ones?"

 

[Namohysip]

Flesh''s mouth, somehow, closed entirely. And he looked horribly nervous. He made a few growls, but whatever it was, the translator didn't pick it up.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave took a deep breath. "Flesh. Is he here right now? What, is that him?" He gestured at the translator hologram. "Are you him?" God, wouldn't that be something. "Look, if this is where the last Substitute has been this whole time, just... can we talk?"

Under other circumstances the idea that Soda'd been here under his nose and just, what, kept hiding for no good reason would have pissed him off, but at this point he'd take it. God, let this be the fucking end of it. Let this mystery turn out simple and dumb and something he could've just done a goddamn week ago if he hadn't been too busy drinking himself under the table to even start the task of looking.

 

[Namohysip]

Flesh glanced around again, waddling deeper into the room. He mumbled into the device. "This isn't Soda," he said. "He said I'm not supposed to tell where he is. Because I don't want you to hurt him." Flesh turned around and pouted like a child. He flumped on the ground, knocking Dave off his feet from the mere gesture.

 

[Dragonfree]

Jesus. Dave clambered back to his feet. “Flesh, I’m… I’m not going to hurt him. Why the fuck would you think that?”

 

[Namohysip]

More mumbling. Flesh's voice had little, higher pitches to them now and then. "You won't, but everyone else wants to. He's not bad. But everyone thinks he is."