Destiny Village ~ Pasta Plaza

[Negrek]

Another night, another visit to Pasta Plaza to find some grub. For some reason Nate was always fucking hungry, lately. It had to be the evolution, but that was fucking stupid--like the most anticlimactic evolution ever. At least marshtomp had fucking hands.

What was worse, the evolution hadn't gone unnoticed, or indeed unremarked-upon, by some of Pasta Plaza's other frequent visitors. Nate had had to shut a couple jokesters up, but at least by now it seemed like people had gotten the picture. He was able to get some pizza unmolested, at least.

Perhaps people were just distracted tonight. There was another recently-evolved pokémon--or something--around to gawk at, and he was a lot harder to overlook than a marshtomp. Nate watched him for a little while before ultimately flagging him down. "Hey, Owen. Over here."

 

[Namohysip]

He stood above nearly everyone, but it seemed to take a few tries for him to finally notice Nate. "Oh!" And he came walking over, covering in one step that would have taken Nate twenty or more.

"Hey, Nate. Looking for food around here? I've been having trouble finding ones that serve really large meals... I might have to start custom ordering like Flesh does!"

 

[Negrek]

Nate raised an eyebrow. He needed as much food as flesh now? Yeah, he was big, but Flesh was, like, just one gigantic fucking mouth. "Well, it ain't too hard to find a place that can feed a marshtomp around here. I guess if you were looking for a lot of food..." He waved a hand towards a bustling cart with a picture of a heatmor's head and a taco on it. "That place does giant portions anyway. Maybe they'll make you a double order or something."

 

[Namohysip]

"Hmm..." Owen rubbed his chin, thoughtful, but then took a seat across from Nate. He didn't use a chair and was still a little too big for it. "I might try that. I was also seeing if there were any mega-sandwich places. I know there was a restaurant somewhere that used to be too much for me... And how've you been doing? Getting used to two legs? ...Again?"

 

[Negrek]

"What, like that curry place people hit up now and again, with the infinite bowls or whatever? It ain't sandwiches, but it sure sounded like it was too much for most people." Nate stretched out his legs, almost unconsciously, in response to Owen's question. Unlike the charizard, he still had to use a tall stool to reach the table at all. "I guess. Never thought I'd forget how to fucking walk. But these ain't much like human legs, anyhow. It's like they didn't grow at all when I evolved." Fucking stubby little bastards.

Nate glanced at Owen out of the corner of his eye. He still wasn't clear on what exactly the charizard's relationship to humans was. Would he even know what human legs looked like? "What about you. Sure sounds like you've had an... exciting... couple weeks."

 

[Namohysip]

"E-eheh..." Owen's flame dimmed a little, but he kept a smile. "It's kind of eventful but at least it worked out. I'm just worried about what could have happened, I guess..." He sighed, glancing around. He kept his voice quiet--he was getting good at that--and added, "It's... not a good feeling that I could have actually been turned against you guys at any time... And they were just waiting for the right moment. I think it almost happened at the Tree..."

 

[Negrek]

"Yeah. Ain't a good feeling." Nate's grip tightened on his beer, and he took a swig to give himself a moment to think. "Me and Astrid got pretty close to that mewtwo guy, you know." Of course he knew. Everybody fucking knew. "What I kinda don't get is why... Why he didn't put us under the way he did with you."

 

[Namohysip]

"I heard about that," Owen said. "It might have been because... at the time, Diyem was weakened. You see, when I first fought those Magikarp and, uh, lost, Diyem was channeling way too much energy into me to take them down. He strained so much that I think he lost connection for a little while, or it was weaker. Not to mention he was a world away. Maybe... that apparition of Diyem that fought back--what if that wasn't strong enough for me?"

 

[Negrek]

"I wondered whether it was something like that. Or something to do with him 'channeling his energy through us'"--Nate made air quotes with his free hand--"that was taking a while to build up or whatever the fuck, and that's why everybody showed up as babies at first. Anyhow." He leaned back against the table, frowning. "I guess I'm kinda worried, you know, that if something happens with Diyem again, against that mewtwo, we'd all be fucked. Or who knows--maybe if the guy had more time, or could get at more of us at once, he'd be able to overcome whatever shadow bullshit kept me and Astrid safe. What I'm wondering is--you think there's any other way to defend against that sort of thing?"

 

[Namohysip]

Owen nodded. "I'm not really sure. I do know that it might have something to do with, you know, Mewtwo being there, or just Diyem being weak, or something... But combating it?" Owen sighed, curling his tail around the table to take up less space. The heat of his flame briefly brushed against Nate, but it was a gentle heat despite the proximity. Seemed he still had control over his flame.

"It's... just such an abstract-given-form power. I don't know how to wrap my head around it..."

 

[Negrek]

"Yeah? That's a damn shame." Nate had been hoping that, with all his meditation shit and, let's be honest familiarity with mental bullshit, Owen might have had some ideas for how to keep somebody out of your head. Nate set aside his beer and steepled his fingers in front of himself, scowling at nothing. "There's a lot that ain't adding up for me about that guy. You think he's really the mastermind behind all this? I mean, if he was, why the fuck is he wasting his time out at the tree in what must be the world's most fucking pointless battle? Did he lose control the same as Maple? Some shitty master plan if so."

 

[Namohysip]

"...You're right..." Owen trailed off, humming. "I mean... it's not like I don't know how it works at all. In fact, when I was fighting it off in my own head, it felt like I knew exactly what to do to get it out. But that was my reality. I had control. And my friends helped me remember that. So... What if... that's it?" Owen tapped his claws against his chin. "...What I don't get is why he's so weak. If he was this strong... why isn't... Why did we beat him so easily? Or is... he getting stronger with us?"

 

[Negrek]

"Exactly. And apparently some of the locals kicked his ass once, and he got destroyed by Red, too. But if he's growing along with us, I don't get how he was able to mindfuck Soda way back in the day, like before we even showed up. Or do whatever the fuck he did to Sword. Nothing about him makes sense to me." Nate tapped his fingers together and looked sidelong at Owen. "I don't know if you got any sense when you were fighting that thing, or... I dunno. I guess you got that mark on your chest for a bit, right? Like the glowy star thing? Same's the mewtwo always has." Nate absently traced a couple lines on his own chest. "Just kinda makes me wonder if that means he's got one of those things in his head, too. Like was he trying to control you, or has something got its hooks in him that's like acting through him for whatever reason. Like Diyem's whole... Blacklight Eternal whatever." He waved a hand.

Then again, Chip's mewtwo tracker had been pretty convinced that Owen was a mewtwo, in a way that S'more and Xerneas and the rest of them apparently weren't. What was different there? From what Nate had heard, whatever was living in Owen's head had definitely seemed like some kind of eternatus thing. Being controlled by the mewtwo? Or what? Fucking hell.

 

[Namohysip]

Silence followed, but it was a contemplative one as Owen tried to sort through what he knew.

"...I think... we should assume that Blacklight Mewtwo was never holding back, or if he was, it was because there was no chance that he'd be able to get through us when he needed to. If we work off of that assumption--because why else would he not have beaten us by now?--we can try to trace back exactly what was going on. In the past, he was strong enough to influence Soda, but we don't really know what state Soda was in. If they just got off of a fight against Eien and a corrupted Maple, chances are they don't remember what happened. Joule is super powerful and he was corrupted after that clash; what if Soda had some corruption, too, and Blacklight Mewtwo latched onto that? They might have been vulnerable. Same way as me--with so much of Diyem's power right after that fight, but none of his protection because he did too much..."

 

[Negrek]

"You think it's got to do with corruption, huh?" Nate asked. "Shadow corruption specifically? It ain't a bad theory. But then how was the guy able to kill somebody like S'more, get his hooks into the guildmaster? Far as I can tell he was never corrupted, just showed up at the meteor crash site and got offed, right?" Nate sighed. "Could be he didn't do that himself, like had Soda do it and now Soda doesn't remember or was lying about doing it, but I dunno. I wish... Wish we'd done more with him when we had him in the lab. All that bullshit with Soda and the other possessed people..."

 

[Namohysip]

"We might have learned more, but he also wasn't responding to anything. And touching him... You might have gotten the same kind of possession I had. That would be trouble..." He rubbed his chin, thinking. "But S'more... That's true. Something about him is different. And S'more isn't exactly weak, either... Unless the energy nullification already existed back then. If that happened, and S'more had no idea what to do, then..."

 

[Negrek]

"True. No reason to think why the energy nullification wouldn't be happening, unless the mewtwo hadn't gotten into the eterna yet. Which, since it sounds like he was probably around Eien and whatever eternatus Maple swallowed. Maybe that would be enough." But nothing more they could do than speculate, was there? Whatever bug had been in Owen's head, it hadn't given him any special insight. "So you're doing okay now, right? Finally got all your memories, nothing weird going on upstairs, all that good shit?"

 

[Namohysip]

"I do," Owen said with a little laugh. "It's... I'll be honest, it's surreal to not have any gaps in there anymore. Back home, I was used to that hazy feeling or blank spots in my head. I thought it was just... normal, subconsciously. Now that I can remember everything, or, you know, as much as an almost-normal person can... I don't really know how to feel. I guess... a little bittersweet, since I'm going right back to the gaps when I go home... But for now it's nice."

 

[Negrek]

"Well, it's good you got them back, but yeah, that must be strange. And I dunno... I'm guessing some of those memories might've been all hazy for a reason." Oh, shit. This was going heavy places, wasn't it? Nate wasn't sure he was ready for a repeat of the conversation with Diyem. Better to keep it light, even if there was still something bothering him. "Don't suppose Diyem'll let you write a couple things down before you go? Take a cheat sheet back, that sorta thing."

 

[Namohysip]

Owen smiled sadly. "...Yeah. Yeah, some of the things I remembered are... painful." He sighed. "Mostly people I've left behind. Or who left without me. A lot of people I just forgot about that are long gone, no matter what I want to do now. And... I don't think Diyem is going to let me take anything with me. Or if I even can. My world is... far from here. I think only my spirit will make it back. Nothing else can follow..."