Destiny Village ~ Pasta Plaza

[Namohysip]

The entertainment district, between all the food and the fighting, the plays and seedy bars, was all connected by various small roads that eventually led to a central crossroads known as Pasta Plaza. Hopefully the name was not as strange to Cibus natives. Even Destiny Village, with all its Legends, were not immune to some less than noble installments, though it was at least legal. Probably. Maybe. If they weren't legal, they were at least good at hiding it.

There seemed to always be something big or small happening at the plaza. A concert, a play, a battle that wasn't Colosseum-sponsored... This was definitely the rowdier part of Destiny Village. Rumor had it that Arceus sometimes disguised himself and hung around here to get to know mortals in their true state. Nobody was ever able to confirm such rumors, however...

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[Dragonfree]

Dave exited the X-Eye Cauldron into the cold night air, making sure Mia was following behind. "All right, you want training, let's fucking go. Kept you waiting long enough."

"It was interesting," Mia said. She seemed lost in thought for now, which was maybe to be expected. She'd probably start asking questions later while he watched her train, idly interrogating him about why Soda would make the decisions he did or something in between whatever the latest Pokémon move she'd decided to perfect was. It'd be... it'd be weird and he was probably not in the best state to make sense to her but it'd be familiar and it'd be her, and that sounded good right about now. Maybe he'd wind up dozing off over her exercises but she wouldn't care.

 

[Negrek]

(( omg, I somehow managed to miss the threadmark title earlier. Nice. 👌 ))

Rocky huddled next to Nate, balancing his nerves over what was going on around them against his fear of the shadows that still swirled around the mudkip. Sometimes it almost looked like the tendrils of darkness were reaching for the familiar, and he scooted a little farther along the bench. Only a little. One of the other people around here could reach out for Rocky, too, and he didn't want to touch them any more than he did the shadow energy.

It wasn't really like this place was bad, exactly. It was loud, but that was mostly people talking and laughing, and music with the volume up. People were dancing! They were playing cards and other games. Now and again an angry shout would sound above the background noise, and there were a lot of people standing around out of the light, things happening around the edges, but mostly it was just people having a good time.

Rocky fidgeted, tail tucked in tight around his legs, which were up on the bench with him. It felt like even if nothing was really happening now, it could soon, at any time, and when it did it would be bad.

"I don't like it here," Rocky announced, loudly but hopefully not so loud that anyone but Nate would overhear. "I want to go home."

"So fuckin go then," Nate snarled into his drink. It smelled gross, and it wasn't the first one Nate had had, or the second, or the third. Rocky had his own soda and an unhappily picked-at hamburger, but

"I can't!" he said. "You know that."

"Oh, I do, do I?" Nate said, giving him a somewhat bleary sidelong look. Rocky turned away, huddling over his soda with his tail thrashing once, twice against the bench.

"I know you're mad," he said after a couple minutes, "but it's going to be okay. You did a good job, even if... Even if I didn't think so at first."

"Oh, good job?" Nate grumbled into his drink. "Yeah, good fucking job. All that work an... Shoulda put Sword with the charizard, maybe. Or stayed at the water place. Fucking pointless, show up here and... Fuck. Stupid fucking plan. Just made it worse. Fuck."

"You saved Sword from Giovanni the first time. And now we know pokéballs don't work through your shadow thing, so we can use that to save more people later!"

"Never gonna work again. Bastard'll be ready for it now. One chance to use that and it's fucking wasted!"

"But you made Giovanni tell us about his spies and come to Destiny Village and everything! Now we know a lot more about his plans."

"Oh, yeah, his fucking spies, if they even fuckin exist. Whole extra layer'a bullshit right there. Just what we fuckin need. An to think, he mighta jus' taken Sword off without any more shit, none of whatever getting blown up in Destiny Village, nobody else gettin hurt, nothing. Real good fucking job."

Rocky sighed and stared down at the can of soda in his hands. "Well, I still think you did a good thing."

"Yeah, because you're so fucking stupid you wouldn't recognize a good idea if it was fuckin pissing in your face."

"I'm just not even going to talk to you when you're being like this." Rocky said stiffly, turning away from Nate again.

"Ooh, yeah, that'll show me," the mudkip slurred. "Real fuckin stoked over here to be chattin with the fucking Freak, again, instead of literally any other fucking person in the entire universe."

Rocky's ears drooped. "I know you would have liked me better if I turned into--"

"Like oh, yes, glad to see you again, douchebag who only tried to murder me like five fucking times and ruined my entire fucking life, of course I'd love a fucking friendly chat." Nate tossed his empty cup at--well, Rocky couldn't tell if it had actually been at the ambipom nearby who kept making a mad scary cackling laugh, but it ended up missing, anyway, and nobody noticed.

"I know who you wanted me to be," Rocky muttered into his own drink. "But I couldn't. I--"

"Shaddup." Nate was suddenly alert, or something like it. He appeared to be listening. Then he was off, abandoning another partially-finished drink, and in a second Rocky would lose him in the crowd despite the obvious shadows. He was just too small.

"Where are you going? Wait!" Fortunately Nate wasn't ever very fast, and he was even slower than usual now. Rocky found him almost immediately, stumbling out past the edge of the square to where someone was going by--Rocky recognized the familiar immediately, of course, glowing green against the evening shadows. "Oh no," he muttered, and hurried up.

"Hey!" Nate yelled. "Hey, you, science... dog. I got a fuckin question for you, huh! Jus what the fuck is... what the fuck is with that familiar of yous, huh? Why the fuck you got someone half-scyther followin you around?"

 

[Dragonfree]

They were walking along, cutting through the seedy part of town, and he was thinking out loud at her about Diyem disappearing, when someone started yelling.

Dave looked around and saw... the Mudkip, clearly very drunk, stumbling and slurring his words, shadowy tendrils coming off him. How old was this guy? Jeez.

"Hey, uh, buddy. Sounds like it's time you went home." Where did he live, anyway? Dave hadn't seen him around the guild dorms. His familiar was over there, the Infernape. "You can get him home, right?"

 

[Negrek]

"What, you think you can jus ignore me?" Nate said, drawing unsteadily closer to Dave. "Less talk, huh? Unless you'd like the whole team to know what you've been up to. Experimentin on kids. Makin your own... your own lil designer slaves, am I right?"

Rocky shook his head vigorously and made shooing motions at Dave.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave squinted at him. What the actual fuck was he talking about.

Mia frowned. "He was being weird about this the other day too. I tried to explain."

"You what?"

"I told him it was for medical research but he didn't listen."

Oh my fucking God, Mia. Well, it wasn't like this was even the first drunk person to come at him with demonizing conspiracy theories about why they really made the Pokémorphs. He sighed, keeping a wary eye on the Mudkip's advance.

"Look, I don't know what the fuck kind of impression you got off whatever she told you, but they're just some fucking kids, all right? We're not 'experimenting on' them, we didn't make them to be slaves or superweapons or whatever the fuck, we're just their goddamn parents trying to give them a normal fucking life."

 

[Negrek]

"Right. 'Medical Research.'" Nate lifted a hand up, perhaps to make air quotes with it, but ended up simply leaning over against the wall instead. "Less cross people with somethin that has knives for hands, that sure sounds pretty medical. You wanna be a parent? What's the matter with a reg'lar kid, they not come with all the features you're into or what?"

"I'm reeeeeally sorry about this," Rocky said from behind Nate, his ears pinned back miserably.

"You shut up!"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave narrowed his eyes at him. 'Features you're into'? What was he... just what was he trying to suggest here.

"Well, it's a bit of a really long and bullshit fucking story," God, how was he supposed to explain all the layers of shit here to somebody who hadn't even read the goddamn news headlines, "but strictly speaking I didn't want to be a parent either. Look, I didn't exactly bring high-school-level slides on the medical applications of my genetics research when I was summoned to save cartoon worlds as a fucking dog, but yeah, the point was medical. The kids only happened because of some legal bullshit, but we took care of them. What, you expect me to sit you down and teach you Genetics 101 to prove to you that I wasn't secretly trying to make supersoldiers?"

 

[Negrek]

"Fuck no, I ain't looking for no genetics lecture. What, you think you can throw a bunch of science mumbo-jumbo at me and I'll just ignore what's obviously going on here because oh, you're so smart and educated and shit?" Nate sneered, pushing off from the wall and advancing on the poochyena again. "What I want is for you to do the decent thing and stay away from the kids around here. Her." He pointed to Mia. "That cranidos and his baby lugia friend. The vulpix familiar. That... that charmeleon kid." Nate's expression sank into a grimace of disgust. "Jesus, he was probably the youngest on the team when you decided to room with him, wasn't he?"

 

[Dragonfree]

"What." Dave felt like he was going fucking insane; here was the second goddamn guy in this place to accuse him of being some kind of fucking pedophile out of nowhere. "What the fuck is your problem? Where is this shit even coming from?" Was it Mia? ...Fuck, it was probably Mia, wasn't it. Goddamn it, he would have to interrogate her later on exactly what the fuck she had said to him and why and why whatever it was she should clearly not be cheerfully blabbing about it to strangers. He glanced over at her; she was frowning at Nate, clearly trying to work out exactly what he was indirectly getting at.

"Look, you want to talk to Owen about why we're rooming? Go, be my fucking guest." (Some part of him remembered Owen's penchant for ridiculous accidental innuendos and was not sure that was actually a great idea, but fuck, walking it back could only make it worse.) "I haven't even talked to the fucking Vulpix familiar or baby Lugia. And isn't Cabot, like, some kind of navy officer? What the fuck are you on about. I don't know what Mia said to you but I'm pretty sure she has no idea what the fuck you're talking about either."

 

[Negrek]

"Yeah, I'll bet she don't. Probably thinks it's all normal, don't she? It's amazing what kids will adapt to when their parents are sick fucks," Nate said. "Now, are you going to get away from her, or am I gonna have to make you?"

"We ought to go home," Rocky said softly. Nate ignored him.

 

[Dragonfree]

Nausea crawled up Dave's throat, his jaw clenched, claws digging into the road. This motherfucker. "You twisted fuck. I'm not going anywhere."

 

[Negrek]

"Wait! Stop, stop!" Rocky threw out an arm as if to grab Nate, but he flinched back from the darkness swirling around him. The shadows were only getting bigger.

"It's your funeral, asshole," Nate growled and charged forward with a Take Down.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave growled at him, hackles rising. Yeah, fuck this guy and his twisted imagination.

He charged towards him, snarling. Nate barreled into him with a full-body tackle that sent both of them sprawling on the road, and Dave sprung to his feet to strike the Mudkip with an Assurance before he could recover from the recoil.

 

[Negrek]

Nate stumbled back, shaking his ringing head. When he could see properly again, he froze a second, staring down a poochyena bristling, eyes full of fear and anger. Maybe...

Then Rocky broke the spell, trying to get in between him and his opponent. "No, stop! Don't hurt him!" the familiar was babbling, trying to shoo the poochyena away with his hands. Nate snarled and shoved Rocky aside, then summoned a surf. Rocky yelped and scrambled away as a wave of water came gushing down the alley.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave glanced at Mia as the wave came crashing towards them. She was... off the ground, zooming towards Nate with her scythes aloft, and his heart jolted. "Mia, no, stay out of--"

The frantic Radiant resolve to keep her safe this time rose in his chest and expanded outwards into a pair of golden shields around them, and the Surf crashed harmlessly against the barriers until it subsided.

 

[Negrek]

"I said stay the fuck away from her!" The shadows stretched from Nate to the poochyena, smothering him in darkness.

 

[Dragonfree]

The world plunged into cold, still darkness. Dave looked wildly around and found nothing but the roiling murky cover of shadow mist around him. Where'd Mia been? She was just over--

He sprinted forward to where he'd seen her last, but there was nothing there, only the cold, hard ground and thick, deafening silence. "Mia?" he called into the darkness; the void swallowed his voice, gave no answer. "Fuck, Mia?"

He reached for the small itch in his brain that'd been there since Squiggly'd gone into the Ultra Stone, and... it wasn't there. She was gone.

A sickening cold was spreading in his chest. "Mia!" he shouted again, his heart pounding. "What the fuck did you do to her, you little..."

This was... this was the thing the Mudkip had done to hide Sword, wasn't it.

And yeah, he'd hidden Sword from Giovanni, goddamn it, this little fucker was smart. Why'd he ever believed he was just drunk and spouting random nonsense? If he was the spy, of course he'd have heroically protected Sword, winning everyone's trust, only for Giovanni to mysteriously manage to get her anyway. He'd been real determined to separate him from Mia, and now he had, and anything could be happening to her out there and there was nothing he could do about it. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he was not fucking losing her again, not again.

"Mia, get away from him!" he screamed at nothing. Why the fuck would she even hear him? He charged blindly into the mist as fast as he could go, shadow tendrils sprouting around his feet - surely this space had some fucking walls, somewhere, somewhere to get out - but even when he collapsed, lungs burning and tasting of blood, the void was as empty as before, the silence interrupted only by his ragged breathing.

"Leave her alone!" Nothing. He dragged himself to his feet; what was even the fucking point? "Fuck you!" He paced like a caged animal, hammered thoughts at that part of his brain that was supposed to be connected to her, to no avail. "Just come fucking get me, you piece of shit!"

 

[Negrek]

Nate panted, watching the poochyena turn about blindly and yell for his familiar. At least she didn't seem too keen on diving in for revenge, looking more puzzled by his antics than anything. She kept telling him she was right there, waggling a scythe in front of his nose while he carried on, oblivious. "He can't hear you," Nate said. "Get out of here. Now's your chance."

Now. Trap the poochyena with a Whirlpool while he was disoriented. Keep him at a distance, he wouldn't be able to do shit. And from there, close it out with... With...

The poochyena was pacing and shouting for Nate now. Angry, sure, but Nate could tell he was scared, too. He looked just like any other poochyena trying to puff themselves up when they got in over their heads. And where the hell was the justice, this asswipe getting turned into a poochyena, of all things? He sure as fuck didn't deserve it. And now he wanted Nate to feel bad about it, was that right, like he was being mean to some poor puppy instead of a colossal dickhead?

Nate growled. Hell with it. He just wanted to teach this asshole a lesson, up close and personal. He dove back at the poochyena, lashing out with pure Frustration.

 

[Dragonfree]

And abruptly, there was something - a distorted, shadowy Mudkip charging towards him out of the darkness, eyes glowing with cold, dispassionate hatred. Dave's heart hammered with terror-addled relief, he had a chance, just one shot--

The Mudkip tackled him down, laying into him with his paws, and in a frantic jolt of animal desperation, Dave's jaws snapped out, teeth sinking into what passed for the creature's neck and shaking it.