Destiny Village ~ X-Eye Cauldron

[Dragonfree]

Dave narrowed his eyes at him. "If you think the missions might fuck with his head more, why bring him? Taking kids on dangerous 'missions' is pretty questionable even when their brain isn't shot to hell and back."

 

[Readerlove]

Danithan nodded. "I know better than to take him on anything dangerous. At most, traversing through one the safer and emptier dungeons is the most I'm willing to let him do or helping deliver a berry to a client. Stuff that helps him out with speaking." He met Dave's gaze. "I only bring him along if he agrees to it. Now way I am gonna drag him along." Danithan hummed. "I ... I still don't know why the guilds allow teenagers to even join. Sure, there are precautions of mission restrictions and precautions to make sure they don't get hurt, but I don't get it. They still get paid at least."

 

[Dragonfree]

"Well, Diyem sure sent some actual kids on our dangerous mission. How about yours? Any reckless kid endangerment on the Miracle Matters side?"

Dave took a chug of his drink, watching Danithan. At least the guy had some vague sense of responsibility.

 

[Readerlove]

Danithan blanked. "Well ... there was the ten year old kid who has an abusive homelife and kept denying the abuse even though it was blatantly child abuse." The emolga shuddered. "There was also that pichu that ... I don't even know. Hope they got help. Diyem did send them back to their worlds after things got to be too much for them." Danithan snapped his paws. "There was also a Marowak grandma ... I miss her. She gave everyone nicknames and could kick ass."

 

[Dragonfree]

"Oh, Jesus. A fucking ten-year-old? Christ."

He downed the rest of the glass with a shudder. "Would say it's good they got sent back, but actually, sending the abused ten-year-old back where he came from isn't exactly fantastic either. Did it occur to nobody to try to do something about it?"

 

[Readerlove]

Danithan frowned. "Aria and Maple helped the kid out and everyone in our group got therapy sessions after the fight with a shadow generator." The emolga shuddered. "Fookin hate phiones." Danithan growled. "What pisses me off the most about it, is that the memories won't stick because of that hero's aura."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave idly swirled his empty glass on the table. "Yeah. We're all such fucking heroes we won't remember any of the heroing we did. Ultimately all this just means fuck-all."

 

[Readerlove]

Danithan barked out a laugh. "One 'ell of a thankless job." He shook his head. "But hey, at least this world isn't blown to bits." Danithan tapped against the table. "Well ... Diyem did say that the aura would wear off, but he has no idea whenever that does happen. We might be old coots by that point. It'd be a fun story to tell while everyone thinks ya've gone senile."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave raised an eyebrow. "Well, if I remember all this one day, the rational explanation would be it was some kind of trippy dream, not that I was actually abducted to another goddamn planet and turned into a dog and then conveniently forgot all about it until decades later. Occam's razor. I'd be fucking worried if my future self decided it was real."

 

[Readerlove]

Danithan nodded. "Aye, a dream is much more believable than all of this." The emolga sniffed the air. "Say, how long does it usually take em to make the food here?"

 

[Dragonfree]

"Usually not this long. Is that it over there?" Dave eyed a waiter carrying a sandwich out of the kitchen.

 

[Readerlove]

Danithan nodded. "Yeah, that seems like it!" The sandwich was set down on the table, the delicious scent wafting around the duo as Danithan licked his lips.

 

[Dragonfree]

"Cool. Enjoy your meal." Dave pushed away his empty glass and stood up from the table. Danithan was still kind of a weirdo, but ultimately he'd had worse company, he supposed. "Good luck with your Riolu kid."

He left the Cauldron with a pleasant sense of lazy non-urgency. Just nothing at all hanging over them. Dicking around on Cibus until whenever the next stakeless fight happened.

...And the therapy appointment. That was still a thing, wasn't it. Technically.

Whatever.

<><><><><>​

 

[Chibi Pika]

The vibe around Destiny Village was pretty chill. Lots of people still taking it easy after the big fight. A bit of training here and there, but nothing too serious yet. Well, things would probably start getting a bit more serious once the date got closer to the big fight. But until then, chill was good. Welcome, even.

Starr had a few things planned with some teammates in the afternoon, but she didn't want to wait 'til then to grab food, so she opted to stop by the Cauldron for some wings. The ones coated in Tamato--that was the good shit. She placed her order and then took a seat, glancing around at the other patrons to see if she knew anyone there.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

At the Cauldron, Kate happened to be at the counter. Much of the recent weeks had been a blur, almost as if she hadn't really been there at all for their events. But even so, she made sure to make room for the priorities in life. Like a nice, stiff pint of ice-cold beer. The Weavile waited for her mug to hit the counter and reached for it when she noticed an Incineroar come in at the door. Wait a minute, that was...

"Oi! Starr! Perfect timing! Come up and take a seat!"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr glanced over to see the Weavile flagging her down. She hadn't been expecting to run into anyone from the team here at this time of day, so it was a nice surprise. It'd been a while since they'd gotten the chance to catch up, too.

Starr got up from the booth and went to grab the seat at the counter next to Kate. "Heya. Been up to anything interesting after they finally let us cool it with the recovery bedrest?" she asked, making an exaggerated grimace at the end.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Kate tilted her head back at Starr, before giving a shrug in reply. Life really had been a blur lately, between that, and those 'mons that Diyem suddenly called over. It was easy to just get lost in things sometimes.

"Eh, I've been managing," she said. "Been trying to get to know those new guys- or I guess they're old guys a bit better, but it can be a bit hard to strike up a conversation with them."

The Weavile raised her mug and took a brief sip, before setting it aside and leaning on her shoulder against the counter.

"So what is the deal with them? I could've sworn we saved the world already, but didn't Diyem bring them here to help toughen us up?" she asked. "What's the deal with that?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr chuckled. "Yeah, I don't think I've got a shot in hell at understanding half of them. But I did have a chat with the Arcanine, Ben--nice guy. From what he said, they're basically like us. Just, y'know, if our team was totally nuts," she added with a snort.

How had he described them... reckless, insane, drunken, sex-crazed? Being on that team must've been a trip.

"Ah, but who am I kidding, we're all nuts for letting Diyem drag us here. They basically went through the same shit as us on another Cibus. Dunno how the hell they wound up on this Cibus, but I guess they're gonna help us get ready to take on the Eternal Blacklight shit wherever it's hiding now. Make sure it doesn't go screw some other world after we kicked it out of here. So yeah, clear as mud."

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Kate sighed and pinned her ears back at the 'clear as mud'. Even now, she hadn't fully understood why of all the Pokemon in Varhyde, in all of Wander, Diyem had sought her out. But then again, it was Diyem, there were a lot of things about him that didn't make sense to her at times.

"Yeah, that Diyem really seems to like to be the mysterious type sometimes," she said. "Though I suppose I shouldn't be complaining that he went out of the way to find help."

The Weavile trailed off a moment as he realized that in order for those Pokemon from that other Cibus to have come, Diyem would've had to have gone to get them from someplace. Had he gone to each of their home worlds? Did the Pokemon in that other Cibus just never get the chance to return? Or else what was the tale there?

"Though did he get them all from that other Cibus?" Kate asked. "Or did he just know where to find everyone? If so, how sure are we this Eternal Blacklight thing will really be the end of things once everything's settled?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Just then, the bartender set plates of food in front of them both and Starr didn't hesitate to dig in, tearing through half of her wings within a few seconds. The Tamato spice warmed her whole body--yeah, that was good stuff.

"From what Ben said, they really did go back to their own worlds when it was all finished," Starr explained, licking some of the hot sauce from her claws. "So, y'know, lucky us, we finally get to go home." She forced a grin, feeling a strange tightness in her chest. More spice, then. "As for if that'll be the end, well... those guys all got dragged back together to meet us, so I guess anything's possible. I'm pretty sure they had to agree to it, at least."