[[This is slightly late and out of order due tom the lateness but just pretend it was happening at the correct time, yeah?]]
"Thanks!", Saltriv said, trotting over towards Kimiko's hand. A smile was on their face, but internally, they were in turmoil. They weren't too worried about being hurt themselves, but if they got too overwhelmed...even if nobody got hurt by it, nobody here would see them the same way again.
Kimiko returned Saltriv's smile and gently stroked its leaf. The little chikorita seemed to have calmed down a bit, so Kimiko returned her attention to the party just in time to see Odette taking a potion... and then burst into song.
Where'd they come from? she thought, eyeing the accompanying orchestra.
Nice touch.
The song rounded out, and on the final beat, the lights turned back on, the orchestra disappeared, and Odette was released from the potions hold. She slapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide, signaling just how mortified she was.
Kimiko paused her petting of Saltriv to clap briefly. "Impressive! You've got some voice," she called out
Hoopa appeared quite suddenly, near Red, hands outstretched and glowing with psychic power as they restrained him. Then a loud feral cry interrupted everyone, accompanied by a wave of eerie energy that would likely cause most to stumble, save for ghost-types perhaps.
"NO!" For a brief moment, Hoopa's voice changed from its child-like, cheerful tone to something haunting, an ethereal voice that overlapped, as if many spoke at once. It spoke again, voice returning to normal.
"Hoopa forbids murder!" Especially after that whole thing last game. Last thing they needed was Yveltal getting antsy because they added some souls too early... They exerted some force, separating the Flareon and the human boy with telekinesis, before glaring harshly, especially at Red.
"No stabbing!" they said, sounding more grumpy than distressed. "Stabbing hurts people! Okay?"
A chill went down her spine as Hoopa chided Red. The eerie voice was only a mind concern in her mind, though; Did Red just try to murder that flareon? At least Hoopa proved it would intervene if necessary to prevent serious injury. Whether or not that included potion effects, however, was another question. Also, wow, that Red really could not hold his liquor at all. Hopefully that was just the effect of the potion he'd drank prior.
The Core eventually rolled up to where everyone else was, and waited for a while, before saying, "We have not consumed alcohol. That is all." And then it rolled away.
Before today, this might have been the
strangest thing Kimiko had seen in her life. So the garchomp really was zygarde? Or... a vassel or something, maybe?
Odette held her hands up in complete shock. "HAAAAAA, WHAT, SH--" she stammered. "Why would you fucking say that?!"
Make that two murderers. Another chill down her spine; at least Odette had a defense. Kimiko thought she might have done the same in that position. Either way, given the choice, she'd rather deal with these two killers than another gang of ghosts.
Altair raised his voice so that it could carry itself through the marketplace and stated, "Never have I ever lost a bet." A bet's not over until the loser repays and he never lost them, he just never finished them.
Well, this one is easy. "I can't say I've ever made a bet," she said aloud to no one with a shrug.
No potion this time, thank the gods. And then with a glare towards Altair and Antares...
Well, not these
gods.
Saltriv's eyes widened. Those two humans had...killed people?! Actually killed people? The second human's...that sounded like it was self-defense, and that person had done something awful to her...but the first, he sounded gleeful about it. That was...
They pressed up against Kimiko, quivering all over, and shakily said, "I've never...never lost a bet."
The shadowy wisps began to creep back up again.
A flicker caught her eye and Kimiko looked down - this time, Saltriv definitely was leaking shadowy wisps. "Whoa," Kimiko gasped, flinching away. She vaguely wondered if this was a shadow pokemon, but... hadn't that whole incident been cleared up? "Hey, um, are you alright?" she asked Saltriv quietly.
Then, her jaw began to grow sore. It was difficult to hold her mouth shut. She felt something shifting. Anxiousness settling in, she retreated behind a shelf for privacy. Hands pressed to her face, she felt as mandibles like those of an Ariados began to pierce the skin on either side of her mouth
Kimiko had never been more glad she was able to skip this round of potions. Gods, if anything like that happened to her... she dreaded the next time she'd inevitably have to down one of those concoctions. Maybe turning into a plant wasn't the worst thing... She was about to ask if the poor girl was okay, but Odette beat her to it (or was it Odile? Since the demon could apparently impersonate the other girl, too). The pair seemed to have formed some sort of understanding during their absence. She turned to Ghaspius instead, jerking a thumb at the poor girl's face as she called out to the ghost. "That ain't permanent, is it?"
He turned his head towards Altair and said, "No, no, I mean, like," Ghaspius paused for a moment, "Like just then! It said I paused! And when you came up to me, it said you overheard me and you cocked your head, it's... really descriptive. Spookier than spooky."
But Ghaspius seemed, at least for the moment, preoccupied. Voices in his head? That sounded like something a ghost would be
causing, not
suffering from.
Meanwhile, the garchomp and the strange-looking yveltal continued their petty bickering, and Red and Odette were talking about some sort of cunt. It sounded as though things were getting heated again.
Does anyone even remember that we were here for a relaxing game? Maybe someone should pose another question, she wondered.
