Destiny Village ~ X-Eye Cauldron

[Negrek]

"Poison?" Nate forgot himself and tried to raise an eyebrow. Wait. He was still some kind of goddamn... fish thing. "Weird. Feels like I mighta heard something if people were all getting sick left and right." He honestly couldn't tell if the guy was trying to be serious. Hell of a poker face, Nate would give him that. And a real sense of drama, if that spooky wind thing was him and not just Cibus being fucking Cibus. Seriously, what was this guy on?

Well, okay. He was a goddamn psychic. They were all at least halfway fucking insane.

Nate had to crack a grin at the gardevoir's comment on friendship. "What, are you saying your Cibus wasn't banging on about love and understanding and shit all the goddamn time? Wish I coulda washed up over there instead. But yeah, it might be bullshit in general and all, but it's, like, a law of the fucking universe around here. Call it a home field advantage, then--if your team ain't so hot on the friendship thing, you really are gonna get your asses kicked."

He was kind of expecting Rocky to back him up on that, but the familiar didn't share his amusement. He'd pulled his bag close when the wind whipped past, shifting nervously back and forth. He regarded the gardevoir warily. Well, whatever.

Nate considered a moment. An afternoon at the colosseum watching junior-leaguers get thrashed wasn't the most enticing thing in the world. And who knew, maybe he could get a thing or two out of the gardevoir about what really mattered, namely the reality-warping monstrosity they were all supposed to be getting ready to face. Diyem and his cryptic bullshit be damned. "Well, if all you're looking for is somewhere to pass the time, what do you say we grab some drinks? I'm buying, not that I imagine they'd charge you anyway." He smirked. "Gonna be your best opportunity to poison me. Guaranteed."

 

[MadderJacker]

"Drinks?" Mergo exhaled sharply through his nostrils. "Hasn't even been four hours and I've already been asked out twice," he lamented. "Fucking hell. What is it with outworlders and Gardevoirs? I know the power of friendship comes with benefits, but this is absurd."

In the back of his mind, he remembered his own team, and he knew he didn't have a leg to stand on. But that wasn't his place to speak of.

 

[Negrek]

Nate's mouth twisted downwards in a grimace of disgust. "I ain't a monfucker," he said harshly. "Your skirt's safe around me. But if you'd rather stand around staring like a moron, I ain't gonna complain."

"No, I-I don't think Mergo meant it like that," Rocky said hastily. "Come on, we're supposed to be nice to the other team..."

 

[MadderJacker]

Mergo hummed. Here too, it seemed, he was far too powerful for the common people. Excellent. To wield such power at the tip of his tongue...

"It was a joke," he said. "At your expense, though, I suppose. Forgive me. I can be too convincing at times." Mergo dipped his head down for a brief moment.

'Monfucker,' though. Meaning Nate was something else? Hm.

"I think I could go for a drink," he relented. "Give myself a bit of a break. Where's a good place to go?"

 

[Negrek]

Rocky laughed. "See? Don't be so grumpy."

Nate only folded his arms and scowled. Some joke. Well, whatever. At least he had a better idea of the kind of person he was dealing with.

Rocky was chattering away, apparently over his earlier discomfort. A joke at Nate's expense was good for that, apparently. "The X-Eye Cauldron isn't far from here. It's really good! They have all kinds of things." Nate let the infernape guide them away, turning dark thoughts over in his head.

The Cauldron was fairly quiet this afternoon, a faint murmur of conversation filling the air. It would be a few hours, probably, before things started getting rowdy. Rocky bounced excitedly in his seat while he looked over the menu. "I think I'm going to get some chicken wings today," he announced after a moment. "The really spicy ones!"

"Same," Nate grunted. Good enough.

"You're from one of the pokémon worlds, aren't you?" Rocky asked. His eyes glowed brightly. "Then you probably have places like this there, too. Do you have the fake meat and everything? It's so fun learning about where everybody's from!"

Nate let Rocky steer the conversation where he would. For now, he was content to listen.

 

[MadderJacker]

"No. None of this fake meat," he answered.

The X-Eye Cauldron was a far nicer establishment than one would expect from something named after a drug. It looked pretty okay. Classy without being pompous, seeming to try and capture a full dining experience instead of merely getting people wasted. He'd had worse, but similar to The Hero, he couldn't shake the fake feeling from this establishment. It was trying to be something it wasn't.

"Where I'm from, we get our meat from ferals. The meat here is a pleasant idealized solution that is sadly unrealistic, but, much of the issues of this world are," he went on. "For as much as I miss all the imperfections in the cuts of meat that honor the struggles of life, it's... Mm. I suppose it's a good thing that people can live without it."

Which even he did, for a time here. There were a number of idealized realities in this world that made no sense to him, but he had no other choice to accept.

But then something else caught his attention, and Mergo backpedaled a step. "A 'Pokemon world,'" he echoed. "Are you not from one of those?"

 

[Negrek]

"I'm from Cibus!" Rocky said brightly. Nate suppressed an eyeroll.

"I mean, my world has pokémon," he said. Were there ones out there that didn't, at all? Now there was a fucking depressing thought. "But outside of Cibus everywhere I've been has had at least regular animals too. Like bugs that ain't two feet long and fish that can't use water attacks and all that. Regular birds. But from what I hear, I guess that's pretty rare."

Which made all the gardevoir's rhapsodizing about hunted meat around a thousand times creepier. Like, sure, pokémon ate other pokémon, some of them, that was a thing. But it was usually a thing they stopped doing once they got on the level of hanging out together... certainly before they started, like, building houses and inventing the fucking internet. "Sounds like wherever you're from, it ain't as cute and cuddly as Cibus, huh?"

 

[MadderJacker]

"Not quite, no," he answered. "We don't have whatever technology can solve world hunger, so we unfortunately need to rely on ferals. And there's none of this nonsensical harmony."

He took a sip of his water, taking a moment to eye the menu and consider his choice of drinks. His attention stopped for a moment on the familiar Cobalt Velvet, and he wondered for a moment if he wanted on that wild ride again. Perhaps... He'd pocket it, depending on what Nate went for.

"Don't get me wrong. I'm not against peace. I aspire for it too. But the fact is that Cibus has gone through several crises that their own governing bodies weren't able to do anything against, and they had to rely on foreign entities to save them. It's no wonder that they rose to be major influences in the world. But as far as I could discover, there weren't any major groups who had tried to push to make themselves strong enough to not rely on foreign entities. Nobody continued to mistrust them? Or putting trust in the powers that be, for that matter, if this world's recent history continues to suggest that calamities will occur and the powers that be will prove incapable of stopping it?"

Mergo tapped his finger on the table. Merciful stars, he was becoming that one uncle at all the family gatherings, wasn't he? Was that the phrase?

"At least where I'm from, cuddling has to be earned." He huffed and took another drink of his water.

 

[Negrek]

Nate frowned and leaned back in his seat. "Gotta admit, I ain't exactly paid a lot of attention to Cibus politics. I mean, being here"--he waved a hand around, taking in Destiny Village in general--"well, it's not exactly the kind of place I'd expect to see much pushback against the legends. What with Arceus fucking living here and all. But if what you say is true and there really ain't nobody anywhere who ain't happy with how they run the place, yeah, that's pretty weird."

"People don't want to go against Pop because he's nice! He's a good arceus," Rocky said.

"Eh, I mean, you can't really argue that the guy doesn't at least try to keep things in order around here. But that don't mean everybody's gonna think he's done enough, or the right things. Like you know loads of people died from the moon thing. Wouldn't be surprised if some of their families got pissed at the legends for not preventing yet another crisis. There's been enough of them."

"None of that was Pop's fault!"

"Yeah, well, that's life." Nate gave the gardevoir a considering look. "That where you're coming from, then? Somewhere trying to become strong enough to deal with this kinda bullshit without dragging in a bunch of humans or heroes or whatever?"

Not even touching the cuddling comment. Either the gardevoir was seriously weird, or Miracle Matters or whatever the fuck their name was were seriously weird. Or both. Nate had a strong suspicion it was both.

 

[MadderJacker]

"Mm. Sort of," Mergo answered. "We've never had any of these grand omens that needed humans to solve. My people have always been strong enough to handle our own issues, and the humans are nothing but-- oh, thank you."

A Gengar floated by with their first round of orders, offering pleasantries that you'd find at any fine establishment as she passed out bowls and drinks. Water was refilled and they went on their way, saying something about returning in a bit to check up on them. Mergo didn't pay them much mind.

Instead, he raised his own drink, some kind of brandy with a big fancy ice cube that floated in the middle of it. They'd left the bottle. Mergo hummed and took a pull of the stuff, momentarily forgetting this form's lower tolerance.

"Right, yes, where I'm from. To be honest, a lot caught me off guard when I found out about the inner-workings of people's other realms-- mainly just how many worlds seem to be unable to function without the interjection of these humans, and more so just how many are fine with it. Our handler, even, doesn't seem to show much care or fear around these humans. Event though they apparently foiled him at every turn, thanks to their..." Mergo frowned and vaguely waved his free hand about. "Their power of hope, or whatever makes them special."

 

[Negrek]

"Power of hope, huh? I thought it was supposed to be, like, some kind of energy thing. Makes pokémon stronger, makes them stronger when they get turned into a pokémon. That's what Buffet told me, anyhow. Sounds like bullshit to me. As far as I can tell, the humans on our team ain't no stronger than the pokémon." He frowned at the gardevoir. "But if you ain't got the kinda catastrophes Cibus does in your world, why the fuck do humans keep showing up?"

Presumably they couldn't all have the same kind of asshole legendary problems he did.

Nate eyed the gardevoir's drink with interest. Some kind of fancy shit. And what the hell was with the fucking ice cube? He definitely couldn't go too hard on the booze here, but the waiter had left the bottle... "What is that, anyway? Mind if I try a bit?"

 

[MadderJacker]

He glanced at the bottle. Admittedly, he'd forgotten the name of the brand.

"Empoleodor," Mergo answered. "It's a brandy. Help yourself." He took another pull from his own glass. It was only moderately better than most drinks, and probably cost as much as a piece of fine jewelry.

"Where were we again...? Right, yes, humans." Mergo idly rolled the great fancy ice cube with a telekinetic finger, tossing it like a ship in a storm. "I... I'd rather not get into that mess," he dismissed. "They make me uncomfortable, but I'm still able to stay cordial around them, don't you think?"

 

[Negrek]

"Thanks," Nate said, and poured himself a glass. He was almost tempted to try one of the fancy ice cubes. Almost. He did have some standards, here. He took a careful sip while the gardevoir went on.

"Oh, yeah, I hear you," Nate said. "Don't care much for humans myself. Or the pokémon around here, to be honest. The civilized ones, or whatever the fuck. The ones back home are better." Rocky was giving him a sidelong look, but Nate didn't know what his damage was. Wasn't like that was a lie or nothing.

He took another sip of the brandy, which burned pleasantly in his mouth. Damn, this was good shit. "I guess you were lucky didn't have to deal with that at all on your team, huh? No humans there. But you took out the Blacklight just fine. So all that human hope, or energy, or whatever, clearly it don't actually matter that much. And I mean, you got rid of it the same way we did, right? Just punching it until it stopped moving?"

 

[MadderJacker]

Mergo hummed. There actually was a human he had to work with. Two, actually, thanks to Gene’s Guardian that somehow managed to be more arrogant than Mergo himself. But there wasn’t any point on dwelling on that. Besides, Angelo hadn’t been too bad, for a child.

“Well, sort of,” Mergo answered. “It was a little bit more bizarre than that. You know how this Blacklight nonsense works. A combination of punching and tactical friendship to save the day, yeah?”

 

[Negrek]

"Right, right," Nate said with a dismissive wave. "Well, more like you gotta punch all the Blacklight shit outta them first, or they won't listen to your friendship whatever."

"You already knew that," Rocky pointed out. "Lucius told us."

"Right." Nate gripped his glass a little tighter. "I'm kinda curious, though. The big bad in your Cibus ended up being Giovanni, right? What the hell happened to him? I mean, for us, it was that zoroark, Soda. And some people actually liked the guy, like wanted to work pretty hard to make sure he didn't buy it from all the Blacklight shit. But Giovanni's just a huge bastard. So did you end up, you know..." He dragged a finger across his throat.

 

[MadderJacker]

Mergo snorted. "'The big bad.' Yeah, sure. The guy was just a sleeper agent caught up in all this memory-trading Blacklight mess. Everyone was a sleeper agent for the true big bad, and even then, they were just a victim of the Blacklight. I couldn't have killed him even if I wanted to. Don't you know? There are no big bads. Everyone's just misunderstood."

When did he reach the bottom of his glass? Brow furrowed, an invisible grip popped the top off the bottle and refilled his cup.

"'Blacklight,'" he said again. "Don't you know? The real villains are the friends we made along the way."

 

[Negrek]

"Okay, you're right. He was being controlled by the Blacklight and all, didn't know what he was doing, blah blah blah. But he ain't got a cuddly backstory like that zoroark, saved a bunch of orphans, liberated some shit, all that. Guy was a bastard long before he showed up on Cibus. Chased the eternatus to Telum in the first place. Made that mewtwo into some kind of soulless slave. Killed a load of people. Ain't nobody was making him do that. I mean, yeah, like you said, everybody around here's some kind of tragic misunderstood softie, whatever. But Giovanni ain't from around here. Where he's from, evil bastards do exist."

Nate watched the gardevoir pour himself another glass of brandy. He made himself stop after draining his own glass. Grab one of Rocky's wings since the familiar wasn't eating any. Rocky was looking droopy, brooding about something. Probably not a very fun conversation for him. Well, he was the one who'd decided he just had to tag along for this. He could fucking deal.

Nate sighed and reached for the Empoleo-whatever it was called. "Not that any of us were going to get rid of the guy, either. Our Giovanni's still hanging out in his cell. God knows what they're going to do with him once we're gone."

Rocky perked up just enough to smirk at Nate. "You wore the special bow tie for him!"

Nate went on without looking at the familiar. "Anyway, fair enough, Giovanni weren't the big bad. So when we do go up against the thing in its own little hell world or whatever, I suppose we're gonna find out it's scared and needs a hug, too? Something like that?"

 

[MadderJacker]

Throughout the whole ramble, Mergo shut his eyes and leaned forward, resting his chin on an open palm. It was almost like listening to music. There were so many thoughts that he'd mostly kept to himself. He'd been respectful and aware of his own personal biases enough to know that his opinions on such matters were not welcome, but from the moment he'd been briefed on Giovanni's history he had wanted to have him eliminated. Releasing him back onto the world was only going to make that world worse. Freeing him had been nothing but a feel-good act that would release a sociopath with blind ambition onto the world, and for what? Because Cibus was 'civilized?'

Or was it because Cibus's justice system only worked when crimes were yet to be solved, and criminals only got away with smacks on the wrist? Mergo was half-determined to test that for himself. If only he could find The Grace.

There. Two things he'd chose to take to the grave, and yet there they were, alive and in his skull. Mergo took a longer pull at his brandy. His head was swimming.

"... The thing," Mergo echoed. "I remember the thing, yeah. It was... bizarre. This whole mess is bizarre, but this took the cake. It was slamming us with attacks while we just had to... stand there and endure. Just keep calling out to it and showering it with positive messages." His hold around his glass tightened as he let out a rueful chuckle. "Just like how we've been fighting it all along, isn't that right?"

 

[Negrek]

The gardevoir kind of spaced out in the middle of what Nate was saying, and he hesitated, briefly. But whatever, psychic, he was probably meditating or some shit. Nate took the opportunity to top up the gardevoir's glass, then his own. Probably he should slow down a bit... nah. Things were going fine.

He definitely wanted to take a drink after the gardevoir's answer, at least. "Really? I mean, I know that's how we've done all our other fights, but people were already saying it would be too tough to get through to Soda, and he at least used to be a normal guy. We didn't have any luck with the parasites, even with Eien doing her shadow suppression thing." He sighed. "I mean, what even positive shit do you say to a nightmare shadow demon thing, anyhow? 'Yeah, it sucks that you hate happiness and feed on suffering and all, but at least you have pretty eyes?'" He shuddered, thinking back to the oozing thing they'd briefly confronted on the moon. "Ugh, more like too many eyes..."

 

[MadderJacker]

"Oh, but don't you know, Nate? The Blacklight is just misunderstood," Mergo drawled. "It didn't have its parents around to teach it any better. It was an accident, rejected from its parents and made from several foul sources of power. They were able to normalize themselves into society and have a cute relationship and utterly disregard their nature, so why shouldn't this be given the same chance? Because everything can change to fit this fairy tale."

The ice cube continued to toss and roll in the glass as it gradually melted. Invisible clouds and winds assailed it relentlessly.

"... Anyways though," he continued. "Yeah. You just stand there and take it and wait for its will to break. I know it's stupid, but it's just how it works. People like you and I should work on shielding others while the squishy and hopeful ones can get out all their pleas. The less you defend yourself, the more it will realize you're a friend. Empathy is the most deadly weapon here."

An audible crack broke the ice cube into two as it capsized beneath the brandy. Mergo set the glass down for a moment. He needed to breathe.