Moonlit Forest

[Negrek]

Nate laughed. Yeah, that was Seyka. Totally zen and kinda morbid as always. "Well, I dunno. The trees probably don't like Rocky too much. He's burned enough of 'em down, fire-type and all."

The rough path led deeper into the forest, and here and there stars glimmered through gaps in the forest canopy. Nate ddn't remember that from before. He kept an eye out on the bushes to either side as they continued through the trees. He could hear the cries of dungeon-cursed pokémon from somewhere nearby. The shadows looked like they were shifting, moving--but no, he was probably just freaking himself out. Nate shook his head and rubbed at his face.

"So how's your own familiar?" he asked. "Little archen guy, right?"

 

[RJR Basimilus]

"Something like that," Seyka replied blankly, "He takes care of himself, that's about it. For looking like my brother, he doesn't really act like him. Guess that's my fault, aha."

The Skarmory looked at Nate. "But if I have no complaints, then it's good enough for me. I heard about all that egg stuff. It doesn't make much sense, but I have nothing to say to the contrary, so as it is, so it will be."

"Er, so Rocky is out here because some of them went to the moon? I barely use my badge, I keep forgetting how to use it."

 

[Negrek]

"Oh, God, yeah. The egg shit." It wasn't really a surprise, all things considered. What was more uncomfortable was the implication that the familiars weren't in their final form... and probably nobody knew what the fuck a necrozma/eternatus/dark matter/nate hybrid was going to evolve into. "Really don't want to think too hard about it, honestly."

For a second Nate's heart leaped. Off to the side of the path he saw a round stone shattered, pieces scattered across the path. Nate bounded forward, dread spreading cold through his gut, but no, of course not. Just a regular rock, probably shattered by one of their earlier, more eventful trips through the woods. There wasn't anything to worry about around here, not anymore. And obviously Rocky wouldn't break just from, like, landing. None of the other familiars had. Nate had even talked to him after he'd touched down, for Christ's sake. How fucking stupid can you get?

"Still having badge trouble, huh?" he said, trying to keep moving like nothing of interest had happened. "Yeah, Vix and some of the familiars decided they were gonna scout out the moon. Turns out there's a giant fucking death laser up there, and they're only fucking lucky they didn't get their fucking souls blasted apart. Still their ride practically got killed, and they weren't able to come back easy. Rocky's been falling for days now, but supposedly he landed near here a couple hours ago."

 

[RJR Basimilus]

Seyka watched Nate run ahead, but said nothing.

"Well that's nice of you to come looking for him. It's too bad about the moon though. Although, that sounds like someone else's problem now. Isn't our contractual obligation for this planet only?"

The Skarmory laughed. "I suppose the team will do it anyway. No payment quite like a heartfelt thanks, even if you won't remember it."

"There's not even any trouble anymore. Why bother stopping those brutes in the tree when they can just keep at each other forever?" Seyka paused. "That's an uncharitable view. If it were up to me though, I would just seal the whole thing up. Maybe leave a few holes though, you know, to watch? You could even charge money."

 

[Negrek]

Damn. That was more strategy kinda talk than Nate thought he'd heard from Seyka at any point in the past. "Charging to watch the Maple cagefight, huh?" he said, and laughed weakly. "Seems like a decent plan. Like you said, she ain't gonna stop no time soon. Pretty steady source of money."

He looked off into the trees, determined not to go jumping at shadows this time. "Only problem is, ain't no way Diyem's gonna send us home if we don't get his girlfriend out of the damn tree. Which"--he steadied Seyka uncertainly--"ain't sure if you care much about going home, but I got shit I need to take care of. And then that fucking moon laser... If it could shoot people just a little above the planet, it could probably hit stuff on the surface, too. And probably will start, once whatever's up there finishes powering up or whatever the fuck. So even if we're here to protect the planet only, it's probably gonna make itself our problem pretty damn soon."

He was lucky Seyka was here. Talking to him, thinking about all this practical shit, it was a lot easier for Nate to tell himself that the dark blotches he thought he saw flanking the path weren't real. Imagine if he'd been out here on his own, losing his shit over every weirdly-shaped leaf.

 

[RJR Basimilus]

"Mmmm, I suppose I'm of two minds about that," Seyka said. "I have to go home for my brother. But that's me being selfish, if I never went home, that would be alright too."

The Skarmory frowned. "So we have to save the planet from the moon, huh. I suppose I'll leave it to the more inclined ones like usual. When they need me, they'll ask."

"Ah, this forest is so quiet. Reminds me a bit of home actually. Cibus is really such an odd place. I don't think I could handle living here forever."

Seyka made a face. "Everyone makes such a point to be nice too."

 

[Negrek]

"Ha! I know. The niceness is fucking weird." It sounded like Seyka's world wasn't quite so sunshine and roses and shit, even if it was all pokémon. Kinda reassuring, in a way. "What do you mean about wanting to go home to your brother being selfish, though? Sounds reasonable enough to me."

He could feel Rocky somewhere ahead, closer to the center of the forest. Figured. From what Nate remembered, the middle was where shit used to really start going down. He tried to ignore the fear constricting his chest, convincing him he saw glowing eyes watching from the undergrowth. "Shouldn't be too far now," Nate muttered, perhaps more to reassure himself than anything.

 

[RJR Basimilus]

"Oh you know how it can be. Helping him out is the only thing I'm good for. What's selfish is that I think of it that way. Essentially, I'm not essential."

Seyka smiled. "Centuries of being alive and I can't do a damn thing. Very unfortunate! But it's not that bad- at least I can still eat."

"Well, we've learned now that the moon is no good. Grow through experience or whatever. This whole thing is very strange. Everything has to be so complicated. Oh well."

 

[Negrek]

"Shit, yeah. Don't seem like there'd be much point sticking around if you couldn't even eat," Nate said. All the rest of that about being useless, though. Seemed like a real theme with the skarmory. Nate regarded him uneasily, not sure what he could say to that, or if he should say anything at all. "Well, what the hell in life is essential anyhow? Good food and fun times ain't, but it sure would suck not having them around. Dunno if essential's the most important thing to be." Right, sure. How much less helpful could you get? Nate grimaced and focused on the path.

Up ahead was the clearing where Giovanni had made camp. By now it was in a damn rough state, probably getting... resorbed, or whatever the fuck dungeons did with things that wandered in from the outside, given enough time. Here and there traces of Blacklight still flickered, almost ghostly. Nate frowned. Had those all come from the mewtwo? He'd been worried about that guy hiding out here still--probably he had to be hiding in some kind of distortion, or he'd be screamingly obvious--but if the dungeon wasn't mondo fucked anymore, he wouldn't still be around. Right?

Not worth thinking about. Beyond the campsite he could just make out a dark crater in the earth--looked like something had splintered a couple trees coming in, so yeah, they'd definitely want to kill him. And lying at the center of the depression was an Ultra Stone, yes, definitely whole, Nate confirmed as he sprinted forward again. "Rocky!" Nate yelled. "Let's go! We don't want to be sticking around this place!"

Nate thought he saw shadow spill from the stone and start to take Rocky's familiar shape, but from the corner of his eye, he caught other shadows moving. There was a figure there in the clearing, behind the haze of Blacklight. Tall, humanoid, and silent--you idiot, you fucking idiot, if there was still Blacklight around of course there had to be a source.

If the forest's illusions were gone, then that meant the mewtwo was real.

"Look out, Seyka!" Rocky yelled, before a wave of psychic pressure collapsed over him, crushing him like some physical force, so Nate was sure he felt his ribs creak. The mewtwo's eyes glowed as it drew closer, silent as ever, half obscured by the dark, like a shadow come to life.

 

[RJR Basimilus]

"Eh?" Seyka looked back and forth between Nate and the new arrival. "Are you okay?" he asked Nate.

Then the Skarmory glanced at the Mewtwo. "Come on, don't do that. We have enough problems already. If you really want to hurt someone, then just hurt me. I think you'll find it's a lot more fun." He stepped towards the Mewtwo, frowning slightly.

 

[Negrek]

"No! Seyka!" Nate struggled against the mewtwo's psychic grip. It weakened, ever so slightly, as the silent pokémon turned, glowing eyes fixing on the skarmory instead of Nate. "Get out of here! We're fucked, just get back to the entrance and--"

Nate's throat closed up. The air was growing hot with power, a splitting headache growing behind Nate's eyes as the mewtwo's psychic power intensified. Blacklight flames blossomed in the dark between the pokémon's hands as it began to conjure an attack.

Get out of here. That's what Nate wanted to do, more than anything. The headache felt like it was drilling clean through his skull, and his stomach churned. In those blank glowing eyes he saw bloodied, mangled bodies, metal and bone bent and then snapped under the power of psychic force. Every instinct was screaming at him to run, all the knowledge that even running probably wouldn't be enough to save him. But Seyka was still there, and Nate couldn't just turn and fucking leave him behind. And Rocky. Rocky.

Nate forced himself forward with a snarl, fighting against the mewtwo's psychic hold. He dug a wave of mud out of the ground, aiming for the mewtwo's face, but took off running without waiting to see if it had hit. He sprinted towards Rocky, forcing himself to focus on nothing more than that.

A brilliant flash of light engulfed him, a sudden searing wave of heat. Nate yelled and threw himself forward, landing hard on top of Rocky's Ultra Stone and struggling to gather it with an arm gone clumsy from panic or psychic interference or both. He tried to rise and fell back, all uncoordinated.

His body was awfully heavy. He was too big. He was the wrong shape. The mewtwo was doing a number on his mind. Nate struck out blindly, trying to rise, and the hand he reached out with was wrong, too.

The hand wasn't his hand. It was too large and too far away, shaped like a paddle. Like a marshtomp flipper. And on Nate's command it dug into the ground, levering him up so he could look down at himself.

Weird barrel chest and far-off stubby legs. Orange stomach instead of white. One spike instead of three when Nate shakily reached up to touch his gills. That shouldn't be possible. Nate poked himself in the chest, disbelieving. He felt that.

Nate's head snapped up as he remembered where he was, what had been happening. The clearing was empty. If there had ever been any mewtwo, or any attack at all, there was no sign. Even the Blacklight haze was gone. And Seyka was still standing there, without a scratch on him. Nate stared in disbelief, struggling to make sense of the situation.

He'd been so distracted by the evolution that he'd completely forgotten about the mewtwo.

When he'd stopped thinking about the mewtwo, it had disappeared.

It had never been real in the first place.

"Oh," Nate said. Rocky's head poked up out of his Ultra Stone, the better to stare at Nate. "Well, that was pretty fucking stupid."

 

[RJR Basimilus]

Seyka plodded around, searching for the Mewtwo.

"Huh. That's that I suppose," he said, giving up. "Uh, are you still hurt?" He turned back to Nate again. "Oh, you're bigger now. You know, I've never been sure if this is the sort of thing you congratulate pokemon on. It never happened to me, so I can't empathize or whatever."

The Skarmory leaned in to look closer. "I'll gamble on it then- congratulations on changing!" He stuck his tongue out. "Imagine that I'm jealous, because I have no idea if I am."

 

[Negrek]

"No, I ain't... I ain't hurt," Nate said. He poked himself again. Still felt it. But then the mewtwo and its attacks had sure as hell felt real, too, hadn't they? If he'd started thinking about evolving instead, then maybe--

"You evolved!" Rocky beamed, forming up into his usual infernape shape. He still towered over Nate, but maybe a little less. "How did you evolve? It looked like you weren't even trying!"

"Fucked if I know," Nate said bitterly. Rocky cutting in on his thoughts had reminded him of exactly why they were here in the first place. "Come on, asshole. Let's get out of here before some other random shit shows up."

He got to his feet, wobbled, and promptly sat back down. Fuck. It had been a long time since he'd only had two fucking legs. The next attempt was more successful in that he was at least able to take an unsteady step.

"Let's go," he muttered, doing his best to ignore Rocky's snickering. He set out at a determined but undignified sway.

"I imagine that you're jealous!" Rocky said brightly to Seyka. "Look how much more intimidating he is! Who wouldn't be jealous?"

 

[RJR Basimilus]

"Oooh, I'll just have to dream then," Seyka said, his head drooping. "Well, you never know. What's that thing they do in Cibus? Ascension or something? Wouldn't that be fun?"

"For now though, we might as well go." The Skarmory nodded at the pair. "You have some catching up to do."

 

[Negrek]

"Yeah! Ascension! Hmmm... Who would you want to turn into if that happened? Hmm. Maybe Cobalion? Or, or! What about Zapdos? I think you'd make a good Zapdos!"

"Seyka's right," Nate said harshly. "We got a lot of catching up to do. Alone."

Rocky wilted for a moment, but then Nate tried to continue forward and tripped and fell down instead, and it was hard to take him seriously after that. It took a little while, getting back to the portal, but Rocky didn't mind. It was fun to talk to Seyka again, and Nate was too busy concentrating on walking to do much more than grumble now and again. At least for now, Rocky didn't have to think too much about what waited for him in Destiny Village.

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