Destiny Village ~ X-Eye Cauldron

[Negrek]

Manifesting on the physical plane, huh? That was new. Sounded more like a god sort of thing than proper legendary. But dammit, now he was curious about just what was so scary about this "Voice of Life"'s true form. "Yeah, I mean, the two of you seem kinda similar, no offense. You can call people in from other universes, and Dark Matter can do that too, right? But you can't leave your home universe, and Dark Matter... can?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Well... typically that isn't the case," Buffet admitted, frowning. "In fact, that was one thing that had me convinced for a little while that your patron was a Voice of Life. A powerful one, but a Voice nonetheless... After all, Maple is also a powerful Voice, even if I'm... puzzled by how she's here. But, well, she is!"

 

[Negrek]

"Yeah..." Nate wished he had, like, a napkin to shred or a napkin to shred or some shit. He settled for trapping Rocky under a hand and tapping his fingers on top of the stone. The shade rattled in protest, but what he was projecting at Nate was only amused exasperation. "You said before, as long as even one person in this world still had the will to live, you'd be around, right? So what if... There was only one person left? If the rest of the world was, you know, gone, maybe you could go wherever they went. Ain't like there'd be any other place for you."

 

[Namohysip]

"Well..." Buffet considered this, but then shook his head. "No, I'm afraid that still shouldn't be possible. I am tied to this world's very fabric. I cannot leave it, I can only reach from it. To ask me to leave this world would be like asking you to send your brain to go grocery shopping. If there was only one person left, I would likely accompany them to the end of their days, and then die alongside them.

"When the world is finally over, and I'm sure one day in the far future it will, my role will then transition to guiding this world's spirits to beyond. But that isn't for a long time, I hope! There's still so much living to be done."

 

[Negrek]

Nate nodded, still drumming his fingers on top of Rocky's stone shell. "Yeah. Hopefully you got some time on that one." It had been worth a shot, anyhow, with how everybody around here seemed to be in the fucking tragic backstory club. But Maple wasn't what he'd wanted to talk about anyhow. "Back up a second. For a while you were convinced Diyem was a Voice of Life, right? But you could still tell there was something weird about us, right? People keep going on about how our energy's all weird and unstable and shit. And Arceus says he knew what was up with us from day 1. Can you tell when somebody's been brought to this world by a Voice of Life, or a Dark Matter? Or would you think I was a totally normal mudkip if you didn't have any reason to think otherwise?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Oh, I can definitely tell you're not a normal Mudkip," Buffet said. "And I actually... was not convinced that it was a normal Voice, no. Though there were similarities, it wasn't... Well. Arceus and I had a talk, and I had a talk with Xerneas, and we all decided to keep an eye on things, just in case you were actually allies. Your first act, after all, was to stop something we couldn't... Well, that Charmander did. He failed, but it was the effort that convinced us to wait and see.

"To be honest, I'm good at telling if someone isn't someone I summoned, or someone summoned by other ways, but I had a little trouble differentiating between humans I summoned myself. I had an awkward moment where I mistook Pita for Pine... Aren't even the same species, even. A Lucario and a Haxorus look completely different, yet, well, human spirits summoned by me, I simply didn't realize they were not the same person!"

 

[Negrek]

Nate had to smile at that. It sounded kind of like the thing where a lot of people couldn't tell pokémon of the same species apart. No reason it shouldn't be the same for humans, if you weren't one. "Can you kinda like... feel all the living things in the world? If they're all sort of part of you?"

Well, they could probably sit around talking this shit all day, but there were a couple things he needed to be sure they got to before they finished dinner. If they ever actually got their food, anyway. Just how much had that hydreigon ordered?

"You ever met Silver? Uh, well, I guess he's--little puffball guy. Kind of blue and purple and floats around? We found him after we, uh, after the thing at Shaymin Village. Another human." He tried to describe Silver's cloudy shape with his hands.

 

[Namohysip]

"I have! A little. Unfortunately, I don't have any sort of connection with him. I did not summon him, and I wasn't able to look into whatever memories he may have lost. The poor thing... I don't need a connection to know how conflicted he must be feeling. The humans adjust to amnesia well, but sometimes knowing a little about their past is worse than knowing none. Bone had a lot of trouble with that for a while, over in the Air Continent."

As he spoke, the waiter came with Nate's burger and fries, and then some of Buffet's buffet.

"Oh, thank you!" Buffet said, eating one of the sliders in one bite. "I have a connection to all living things native to this world, and all living things I summoned here. I heard that in other worlds, it is the same connection that humans can share with their closest Pokemon. Well, that's a lot like me, but with everyone!"

 

[Negrek]

Like being close with your pokémon, except with everybody? That had to suck. Obviously there were some people you wanted to get that close to, but there were way fewer of them than the metric fuckton of shitheads he wouldn't want to touch with a ten-foot pole. But the hydreigon was clearly one of those smiley happy friendship types, so he probably fucking loved it.

Their food turned up right about then, though, which improved Nate's mood immensely. He scarfed the hamburger down in about four bites, but the potato wedges he would have to go easier on. Rocky rolled around the perimeter of the plate as if circling prey, and Nate offered him a wedge.

It took Nate a moment to remember what they'd been talking about. "Ah. Yeah. That amnesia thing. Does that happen to everybody who gets, ah, Voice of Life'd? I mean, none of us had to deal with it. It goes away after a while, right?" But had a Voice of Life even brought the guy here? It wasn't the hydreigon here. Could they send people to other worlds as well as call them to their own? "Do you have any clue how the guy got here? He ain't one of us, and obviously you didn't bring him in. Could you tell from his, like, aura how he got turned into a pokémon?"

 

[Namohysip]

"No, not always," Buffet said. "Bone, the first human in modern times? She voluntarily wiped her memories so she could be more effective at proving herself during her journey. I helped from the shadows along the way. Thyme is from my future self's world, or, future-past parallel... It's a bit confusing! But he lost his memories due to an accident and scuffle on the way here.

"Ahh, and then there's Pine, who I personally summoned and guided--he never lost his memories at all. Pita was actually from the distant past, who sent himself and Mew here to stop Dark Matter when they failed the first time. They have quite a story... They lost their memories as well, in order to combat Dark Matter with pure minds instead of their dampened past. But they have also gotten their memories back... Memories have a tendency to return, when removed in that way. But as for Silver... I'm sorry." He took another slider, considering his words. "Without a connection, I don't even know how his memories were lost to begin with."

 

[Negrek]

Huh. So it actually wasn't all that common at all. On the other hand, everybody was apparently out there getting their memories wiped on purpose. Didn't seem like such a bad deal, honestly. Way less shit to deal with, and it wasn't like you could miss somebody if you didn't remember they existed. On the other hand, forgetting they existed was kind of fucking harsh.

Rocky nudged his hand impatiently, and Nate started. "All right, all right. Hold your fucking horses." He pressed another potato wedge against the rock and watched it slowly start to disappear. Damn but he was never going to get used to how these guys ate.

"Didn't realize so many people gave up their memories on purpose. Kinda doubt that's what happened with Silver, though. So you didn't notice anything weird about him when you met him? No, like, unstable aura like what I got?" Rocky rattled at him, and he picked up another potato wedge. "I'm just thinking, like, how the fuck'd he even get here? Like there's those portal things like the smeargle uses, I guess. But he doesn't have any of the Radiance shit she uses, right? And why'd he end up as a pokémon?"

 

[Namohysip]

"You're right," Buffet said. "There's something odd about Silver that doesn't match up with the usual story that goes with humans coming here. That is... Usually I'm the one behind it. Maybe I should look into it more... What do you think?" Buffet seemed genuinely unsure. Silver seemed like a nice boy, and he was already trying his hardest to recover his memories on his own.

 

[Negrek]

"Well, maybe. It might be damn helpful to know how Silver got here. But mostly I was wondering whether you noticed anything off about him, like about his aura or whatever, that you could sense. And maybe you could, like, tell if anybody else like that was around? From what you said before, I guess you wouldn't have a connection with anyone else like him, so maybe not. But there's this Mewtwo guy you might've heard about who's from Silver's world, too. If Silver's got a weird aura, he should have the same thing. And if we could figure out where he is... That'd be important. Like, even just so we can stay the fuck out of his way. But we're probably going to need to deal with him at some point, and to do that, we're going to want to be able to figure out where he is and go catch him by surprise, not have him get the jump on us like he did last time."

Nate sighed and gnawed on a potato wedge of his own. There was way too much shit to deal with here. Too much for a regular pokémon for sure. "And another thing. Silver thinks there might be another person from his world here, too. Another trainer like him. I think we want to figure out if he's actually in this world, and then where, if we can. After what happened to Silver, if he's here, he probably could use some help, and if we find him, it might help us figure out what's going on. So yeah. If there's any way you could, like, sense if there are other people like Silver around, that'd probably help a lot."

 

[Namohysip]

"Oh, that's right, the other Mewtwo... Odd to think about it that way, isn't it? Especially with Karat around. He wasn't very happy when he learned about this new Mewtwo. At first I thought it was some kind of rivalry, but it... seemed to go deeper than that.

"But..." Buffet took another bite, then nodded. "Yes. I think I will speak to Bean about this, actually. Oh--you might know him as Zygarde. Bean is very good about looking around the world for abnormalities when he needs to, so perhaps he can locate this Mewtwo? I'll also be on the lookout for anything like Silver... We have a lot of venues to gather information. Perhaps I can ask Reshiram's team to do some investigating, too... If they aren't already, at least. They always seem to have an investigative project..."

 

[Negrek]

Oh, right. Of course any kind of mewtwo would have big problems with Giovanni showing up. Maybe if they were lucky, the two of them would fight and, like, destroy each other. Cancel each other out. Probably not actually a good idea, since one of them had pokéballs and that meant the failure state was "now you're fighting two Mewtwo," but a guy could dream.

It didn't sound like the Voice of Life was going to be able to help much with this, at least directly. "Yeah, if there's somebody who's good at finding, like, abnormal shit, that'd be good," Nate said. "Zygarde" sounded vaguely familiar, so that was probably some other legend from whatever the fuck region that was here for whatever reason. "The other thing is... I dunno, can you kind of, like, see stuff in other universes kind of shit? Obviously you can bring people over here if you want to. I dunno if you heard, but the guy who's supposed to be in charge of all of us up and disappeared. I figure he's probably not gone, at least, or I wouldn't be able to understand you, but he's all our tickets out of here, so if there's some way we can figure out what's up with the guy, that'd be great."

 

[Namohysip]

"I heard, and I tried looking for him," Buffet said. "I actually had a request from someone on your team to look for someone else, too. I might put that on hold while I search for your patron... But I don't even know where to begin looking! Bean might have a better idea there. He corresponds now and then with other Zygarde. Apparently it's a habit of theirs to do that, conversing with Overworld patrons."

More than half of the sliders were gone at this point. "I'll be sure to let you and your team know if I see anything strange during my search. Well, stranger than usual. The multiverse is an odd place."

 

[Negrek]

It sounded like this zygarde was really the person to talk to when it came to finding shit. Nate wondered where they'd been--helping out with all the corruption-tracking going on earlier? But if so, why hadn't the team heard from them before now. "Thanks. Yeah. There's a lot going on out there, I know. But if there's anything you can find out, it'd definitely help a lot."

Nate watched the hydreigon suck down more sliders. There were only a couple potato wedges left on his own plate, and Rocky was making just the occasional wobble... kind of close to the edge. Nate frowned and slid the shade back towards the center of the table.

"So why is it," he said, "that when a world like this is having problems, you like to reach out and bring in a human to help with them? Seems like it'd be a better move to drop another world's Arceus on the problem or some shit. Or at least somebody who know how to use attacks."

 

[Namohysip]

"Ahh, isn't that the question," Buffet said with a wistful sigh. "Humans... They are both the strongest and weakest species, in a way. Despite their lack of individual strength, they always seem to dominate the biomes that they enter, especially if they do so in great numbers. When the Dark Omen of the Bittercold had first arrived, I had assumed this and summoned as many humans as I possibly could to overwhelm it with sheer numbers. Unfortunately, well... I was wrong. Only some humans have this talent, and I knew to search more carefully next time. I do wonder if your Dark Matter had a similar philosophy, or if he tried what I had, and got as much as he could...

"Right, humans. Sorry! Distracted. Humans are unique in the kingdom of life because of the way their energy interacts with Pokemon. Humans are not strong, but they strengthen their Pokemon allies--both in terms of raw power, and growth. This power originates not in their bodies, but their spirits... And so, that is all I need to bring over.

"So then, what happens if you wrap a human spirit in a Pokemon body? You get something that is... truly powerful. Something that can oppose the gods themselves... to an extent." Buffet giggled. "They have their limits, but for the purpose of calming a god, or felling one that was already weakened and corrupted, much like what you're doing now? It is certainly enough.

"But that sort of power is risky. I have to select humans very carefully, and, for a while, the decision was that once a human's duty was complete, they would be forced to return home. Humanity would send this world off its balance of power, or at least change the status quo. And gods tend to be averse to changing things unnecessarily. Though"--Buffet lowered his voice to a whisper--"they probably should. Arceus took far too long to modernize his language, and I think he misfired the era when he tried.

"Anyway!" Back to normal. "That's the gist of it. Finding a human is the base need to conquer a problem we cannot easily handle on our own. You know, I once heard a story about a human who had tried to become the next Arceus in a world like this one, though I heard tell it did not end well... Hmm. But I suppose that's not important for here. It is interesting to think about, though. If one could summon an Arceus-human to assist... But then, well, they'd have their own responsibilities, wouldn't they?" He frowned, pensive. "And I do not know how to feel about a human Arceus. It seems... uncharted. Perhaps for the better."

 

[Negrek]

Nate smirked when Buffet mentioned summoning humans indiscriminately. Yeah, maybe Diyem had tried something similar. And he'd gotten a bunch of pokémon mixed in, too. Baby's first world-saving mission?

"I dunno," Nate said after a few moments. "The human-pokémon Diyem summoned don't seem any stronger than the pokémon-pokémon ones. Like, that Bahamut guy has been pokémoning it up for thousands of years or some shit, and he's probably stronger than anybody else on our side." Of course, it was possible that the humans Diyem brought over just sucked. Entirely possible. "It's weird to me that people are all saying on one hand that pokémon are like super powerful, and that's why you get Dark Matter and, uh, you, the whole reshaping reality bit. But on the other hand, pokémon need humans for some reason when shit hits the fan. The whole human spirit in pokémon body thing kinda makes sense, but ain't Dark Matter and all a spirit thing, too? Like, ain't nobody made any of that shit go down by being super physically strong or nothing."

Some human deciding they wanted to become the next Arceus, now that sounded like a problem. Nate wasn't sure he agreed with how the Arceus around here ran shit, but some superpowered asshole booting the guy out and running the place instead didn't sound great, either.

Nate swirled the last dregs of his beer around in the bottom of the glass. Rocky was tumbling his way towards the edge of the table again, goddammit. Was he doing that just to be annoying? Nate readjusted the shade again and downed the very last of his beer. He set the empty glass aside with a sigh and said, "Well. You ever brought over anybody you kinda regretted afterwards? Like, all humans ain't heroes, like you were saying." The whole idea of any rando being a "hero" was seriously fucking ridiculous. "I mean, I gotta imagine that sometimes you bring somebody over, and they only make things worse, am I right?"

 

[Namohysip]

Buffet's expression darkened a little, and then he said, "Well, yes. There have been a few humans who were not up to the task. Some of them were for Omens long, long ago, and others were the humans I had summoned for the Bittercold Omen. It was a scattershot, after all. A rushed choice to at least have one that would stick. Unfortunately, some of them were... less than ideal. Too frightened, or too mean-spirited, or they simply didn't take their duty as seriously as I would have hoped." Buffet sighed. "I love humans, really I do. I may be wary of them, but I see what good they're capable of, too, like any Pokemon. We aren't so different. We're all of life. But life has flaws."