Main Hall - Cotton Down Lounge

[IFBench]

"I'm the trainer!" Coleane said, fanning out three of her wings for emphasis. The fourth was still laid across Gen. "I'm one the first ever trainers who's a Pokemon! I'm gonna be Champion!"

Too bad she couldn't be a hero, though. She wished she could. Even if she was a hero to Gen, she wanted to be a hero to the world, too.

Gen hesitated, then waved at the two. "Um...h-hi..."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade blinked. "You're a Pokémon and a trainer? How's that work? Do you have your own license and everything? Do you battle yourself, or with a team?" A million questions were flooding her head. She knew plenty of Pokémon who were aiming to be champions, but always on a team, not leading a team. Wild.

Nine's gaze sharpened. "*You speak human.*"

Huh? Jade glanced between the two, and then abruptly realized that he was right. They weren't speaking Pokéspeech. She just... hadn't noticed. Come to think of it, she had heard some gossip about talking Pokémon at breakfast. It had taken her a bit to figure out that they probably just meant talking differently than normal?

 

[IFBench]

"Yepperdoodles!" Coleane said, digging into her bag with a vine and pulling out a trainer license with a Tropius' face on it. "I battle with both myself and a team!"

"Um...y-yeah. We...both s-speak human," Gen said, fidgeting with his reunion cape. "A l-lot of people were shocked."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade leaned closer, peering at the photo on the license. Yep, that really was her photo there, clear as day. Looked like her name was Coleane...

"Oh, uh, I should probably introduce myself," Jade realized too late. "My name's Jade, and this is Nine. We're here for the festival." That probably went without saying.

The Pikachu gazed up at the Oshawott, who was a lot closer to eye level on that beanbag than the Tropius dwarfing him. "*Is that common where you come from?*"

 

[IFBench]

"I'm Coleane, and this is Gen!" the Tropius said, gesturing to her Oshawott friend.

Said Oshawott friend said, "N-no...we're not common."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade looked back and forth between the two, bemused. It would've been hard to believe if she wasn't hearing them both right now. "It's not exactly common where I'm from either. Did you learn how, or were you always able to do it?"

Nine's birdlike gaze was unyielding. "*Some sort of modification?*"

 

[IFBench]

"I've always been able to do it! ...I think," Coleane said, wings drooping a bit at those last two words.

"Y-yeah, me too...I've b-been speaking human since I s-started speaking at all," Gen said. It was the truth.

 

[Chibi Pika]

These two were just... born able to speak human, and it wasn't normal for their world and they'd... never found out any reason why?

"Have you ever wondered why?" Jade asked, settling into a nearby beanbag chair. "I figure there's gotta be a reason why."

"*I couldn't imagine not knowing why I have my own abilities,*" Nine said flatly. "*I would do anything to find out.*"

Jade rubbed the back of her head. He didn't have to go and make it sound like it was bad to not know.

 

[IFBench]

"It's...a long story," Gen said, gripping onto his reunion cape.

"Yeppers! Gen's really cool! He's a—" Coleane began, before Gen tugged on her wing.

"N-not here," Gen said, trembling.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Oh, so... maybe the Oshawott did know a bit about where he'd gotten that talent from. It just... obviously wasn't a fun story from the sound of it.

"Sorry if that was a bad question," Jade replied awkwardly.

Nine tilted his head. "*He's what?*"

Jade let out an exaggerated sigh. Come on, he was acting like he expected these two to be as strange as him.

 

[IFBench]

"He's huma—" Coleane said, before another tug on her wing caused her to stop.

"P-please," Gen pleaded.

 

[Chibi Pika]

He was... human-what? Human-trained? Human-made? No, that was silly. Jade was just stuck on May having instantly ID'd Nine as an experiment. That didn't mean other people here had any involvement with weird stuff like that.

"C'mon, can't you see you're bothering him?" she hissed to Nine. Then she turned to Coleane and said, "Well, it was nice meeting you. I figure we'll probably see each other at one of the events." She stood up from the beanbag and motioned for Nine to follow her. He did, but not before giving the two one last look of intrigue.

 

[IFBench]

Gen didn't stop trembling until the two had left, before looking up at Coleane. "Wh-what was that for?!"

"Sorry!" Coleane said, wings drooping. "Just...you're so cool for being a human! And I think other people should know that to know how cool you are!"

"P-please just...d-don't," Gen said, before scanning the area to make sure nobody was listening.

[Foresight]

 

[Flyg0n]

Luckily, it seemed no one had heard. The Lounge remained blissfully quiet, and the two were alone now that Jade and Nine had left. Nothing looked out of sight around the lounge either.

Gen used Foresight! Everything looks normal.

 

[IFBench]

<><><><><>​

 

[Seren]

It was a struggle not to drag her feet as Kimiko made her way to the lounge. She'd stopped by the cafe only to get more coffee (Gods, is this how addictions start?) and breakfast for Olivia, because it was going to be another long day. She must have fallen asleep at some point last night but it couldn't have been for very long, if her current state of exhaustion was any indication. She'd passed by a couple other trainers on the way here and most of them looked similarly zombie-like; She expected that to be today's running theme.

At least Olivia was perky, trotting along with a slight spring in her step. She'd managed to get a respectable amount of rest, despite also keeping an invisible eye over their dorm room all night. Thankfully, nothing seemed to have happened. No notes under her door, no screams, no disappearances. Not as far as she could tell, anyway; the other sleep-deprived trainers surely would be more worked up if something else had happened. That felt like a minor miracle, because Kimiko had no real desire to do any further exploring right now.

Still, that didn't mean she couldn't investigate further. Kimiko made straight for the bookcase, searching for the one Amara mentioned yesterday about this region's history. She wasn't sure where the hell she even was though, so she picked up half a dozen different history books. She'd just have to skim them, look for any kind of crisis she'd not heard about before. And with that, she strode over to one of the bean bag chairs in a corner and flopped down. With Olivia eating quietly at her feet, she began digging through the books.

 

[IFBench]

Coleane was slumped over one of the beanbags, still holding her human plushie in her wings.

What she heard yesterday still haunted her.

Seeing a human enter the room, her expression brightened a tiny bit, but not much. She raised a wing in greeting, and said, "Hi..."

 

[Seren]

Seeing a human enter the room, her expression brightened a tiny bit, but not much. She raised a wing in greeting, and said, "Hi..."

The sound of a voice made Kimiko jump, nearly tumbling out of her bean bag chair and causing Olivia to choke on her bacon as she scrambled to get into a defensive position. Kimiko hadn't noticed anyone else in the room when she entered... but then again, she was only half conscious at best. She looked around, very alert for a moment, but her instinctual panic died down upon realizing the only other person in the area wasn't a person at all, it was that tropius from the ship.

...Wait, if there was no one else here, who had greeted her??

Her gaze drifted back to the tropius again. There was no way. She... she was just really tired, that's all. She was hallucinating. No way that pokemon just talked to her... right? But on the other hand, in the back of her mind somewhere, the thought occurred to her once again of "who knows what all other universes exist out there". And, wait... hadn't she already met a talking pokemon the last time she'd been out in the multiverse?

She was too tired to think about this shit.

"Um... hello!" she started, waving a hand with a little less energy than she otherwise might have if her energy wasn't so low. "I think I saw you on the ship, right? Are you... have you lost your trainer?"

---

Olivia relaxed when she realized her trainer had only been scared by accident. And look, it was that tropius! The one that the oshawott from the boat was looking for! ...But the oshawott didn't seem to be with her. Had they still not been reunited?? Olivia began to panic, and chirped at the banana dinosaur. "Spii, espii!! "Hey! I'm Olivia! I met your oshawott friend on the boat! He was looking for you! I was gonna try to help, but then bad things happened... Do you need me to help you find him?"

 

[HelloYellow17]

For someone who hated relying on caffeine to function, Wes sure drank a lot of it. Today was certainly no exception.

Returning from breakfast with a black coffee in hand, he wondered if maybe it would be worth it to go back to the room and try to catch up on sleep. Nothing bad happened in the night—thank gods—and he might be able sleep more at ease during the day than at night…

Broad daylight didn’t stop the other disappearances, though, a little voice silently nagged at him.

To hell with it. He’d gone without sleep before, and for much longer than one night. He could manage for the day.

He was passing through the lounge when he saw Kimiko and Olivia, the former looking about as tired as he felt, talking to…wow, was that a Tropius? Wes had seen pictures, but had never seen one in person. He paused, taking a sip of coffee while debating on whether to approach Kimiko or not.

Before he could make up his mind, Neo spotted Olivia and made a beeline for her, yapping and tail waving. Wes sighed. Fine, sure, he’d touch base for a bit. He was too tired to make an attempt at dragging Neo away, and it was probably for the best to keep tabs on fellow trainers, anyway.

He trudged over and sat in a cushioned seat near Kimiko—which he soon realized was a mistake, because these chairs were real damn comfy. “Hi. Sorry to interrupt. Neo wanted to socialize for a bit. Hope you don’t mind.”

 

[IFBench]

"Nope, I'm my own trainer!" Coleane said, a tiny smile appearing on her snout. "And Gen's with me!"

Snug in one of Coleane's wings, a white-furred arm poked out, waving. "Um, h-hi...I'm ok," Gen said, before his eyes widened as he saw Wes arrive, and he held tightly onto the wing.

Coleane raised her wing again as Wes entered the room, though she was a bit wary. This...was the human who wanted to kill all other humans, right.

"Hi! Uh...are you a bad human?" she asked.

"I d-don't think he's the one wh-who wanted to kill all humans..." Gen said. But that still didn't mean he was nice.