Destiny Village ~ Parfait Way

[Ambyssin]

"When my creators activated me, I overloaded." Nero shuddered. "I took out my creators, except the main one. He put a painful control mask on my head and sealed me underground. I got out, like, centuries later and... my friends helped me calm down and get my powers under control."

He sat down and scratched a cheek bolt. "I don't think I ever ended up killing any gods. My team's leader just sorta kinda... fired them? Like, stripped them of their powers and made them mortal."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave broke into a laugh. "You fired the gods? Just, sorry, you've been demoted? Fucking amazing." There was a cheerful thought, that there were universes where you could just do that. "And what, did you replace them, or just poof, godless universe now?"

 

[Ambyssin]

“Uhhh. I have most of their powers.” Nero pawed at the ground. “But I don’t want to use them unless it’s an emergency. I’m a space cop now.”

His mechanical parts flashed like police lights.

 

[Dragonfree]

"Great. Good. You're not out there blowing up planets. That definitely helps."

Dave paused, thinking back through the conversation. "What about, uh, your main creator? He just die of old age while you were sealed, or what?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"His next creation killed him," Nero said. "And that was that." He tilted his head. "What about you? You, uh, a scruffy dog back home, too, or something else?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Jeez. "Guess I should've seen that one coming, huh." Dave exhaled through his nose. "I'm human. You don't have humans in your world, do you?" It was hard not to automatically picture Nero's creators as human, even when he'd said it was similar to Cibus, and Cibus had people like Chip. Pokémon creating other Pokémon. Using fucking alchemy. "I'm a geneticist, actually. Worked on splicing together genomes. But, uh, if you mean anything similar to what's meant in my world by alchemy, I'm going to guess there's not much similar with my and their methods. Sounds like it from the bit about transmuting the souls of the dead."

 

[Ambyssin]

"Oh, yeah, I know humans." Nero's tail wagged. "My friend is one. Or was one. And then he became a vulpix. And then he became a necrozma." He glanced skyward. "But more like Joule than Bahamut. Also gold, not silver. Makes it kind of hard to sleep when he sneezes and the room lights up like a hundred pikachu using Thunderbolt in unison."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave raised an eyebrow. With legendary ascension being a thing in Cibus, it wasn't that strange all things considered, but the idea of a human turning into a Vulpix and then somehow from there into a fucking Necrozma was still batshit on the face of it. "What's he do with the legendary power? He share your noninterventionist philosophy?"

 

[Ambyssin]

“Well, we worked construction together for a time. Now we’re space cops together.” Nero bobbed his head. “We’ve rescued flesh and blood humans, too. I know genes are, like, important for human medicine stuff. Our healing powers just aren’t as effective on human diseases because of things like that.”

 

[Dragonfree]

...Right. Necrozma, portals. Why wouldn't they be casually traveling between universes. No big deal.

"Funnily enough, one of the long-term goals of my research was making Pokémon healing work for humans. Not exactly there yet, though." He paused. "So, what, you just sort of randomly portal from universe to universe? Can people call the space cops?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"Sort of?" Nero tilted his head. "It's like, there are a series of pocket universes that are linked together... kind of like planets in a solar system. Any world that's part of this network can call us for help. Including humans who know about us."

 

[Dragonfree]

"Huh. So you can't go to every universe, just the ones in that network? I guess that makes sense." And was nicely limiting. At least he didn't have to imagine the possibility of the fucking space cops showing up one day back home.

"So this alchemy shit," he said after a moment. "What does that mean? You can 'transmute souls' - how's that work?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"Uhhh..." Nero's cheek bolts shifted colors asynchronously. "I mean, like, have you seen any souls on Cibus? They're tangible. They have forms. Energy. My Earth is the same way. And if it has energy, then it can be manipulated." He looked at Dave. "How do you edit genes and whatnot? It's going to be similarly difficult to explain, don't you think?"

 

[Dragonfree]

"I mean, it's science, the whole point is understanding what's going on and why. Gene editing is done using an enzyme with a synthesized strand of RNA attached that binds to the correct spot in the DNA sequence and then cuts the strand, plus a DNA template that the cell's own DNA repair mechanism will use as a reference to repair the break. Generally, in my world, if something can't be explained yet, people are working on it."

Was DNA was even a thing in Nero's world? Would this mean anything to him or just amount to a bunch of fucking technobabble? Probably the latter. Whatever; if Nero wanted a genetics 101 presentation he was going to have to start paying him.

"So, what, is alchemy just manipulating the soul energies or whatever? Or does it also do shit like, you know, lead into gold?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"You can't turn a spirit into inorganic matter. You can turn organic energy into other organic energy or inorganic matter to other inorganic matter." Nero traced various symbols on the ground with arrows in between them. "It's like, you can't make a person into ice cream. That's not alchemy. That's godhood."

 

[Dragonfree]

"Huh." The true definition of godhood: turn a fucking person into ice cream. Dave smirked a little.

He tilted his head, looking at the symbols, trying to make sense of them. At least there were some rules to this. He glanced at Nero. "What about your body? It looks like several Pokémon mixed together. Was that alchemy too, or did they just literally stitch together corpses and then animate the result using the Unown soul transmutation thing?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"These are unown themselves." Nero looked skyward. "Bahamut told me about what happened on the moon. Individually, unown might be one of the weakest pokémon in existence. Together, they are hive minds. Their psychic powers can pool together to transform themselves and their surroundings."

He frowned. "I know this looks... like a bad body, but I like it. It's versatile. Good for running, climbing, swimming, and flying."

 

[Dragonfree]

"...Flying? You can fly?" Dave looked at him; he didn't seem thrilled about being compared to stitched-together corpses. Okay, maybe fair. The morphs had gotten their share of people persistently thinking, or pretending to think, that they'd been created by just stapling body parts together somehow, like a Taillow had given its wings to give Peter his.

(Granted, Nero was apparently literally a bunch of Unown stapled together with some alchemy magic applied, however that worked.)

"So your creators just handpicked what each part of your body would look like? Got that Unown sauce, then just turn it into whatever shape they feel like, to make you the best of all worlds?" If only actual gene splicing was that easy. They'd only managed to make decent headway on figuring out what the fuck had gone wrong with Peter's wings years later.

 

[Ambyssin]

“Yeah. They used existing Pokémon as framework.” He leaned over and his ears twitch. “Like my ears are sonar like a noivern’s to hear great distances and filter out background noise.”

 

[Dragonfree]

Huh. Neat. Dave wondered if a Noibat morph would have been able to have the species' ultra-sensitive hearing. He'd have to look up some papers on Noibat to find out, probably... which wasn't happening on Cibus, and he wouldn't remember it by the time he was home, so it was probably a moot point.

He exhaled through his nose. "How's the flying work, though? You don't exactly have wings." Not like he'd be the first Pokémon to levitate without wings, but usually that didn't include random quadrupeds.