Mystery Continent ~ Northern Pines

[Chibi Pika]

Starr's tail twitched. And just as she was starting to wonder if she's been wrong to think he was a fake, he had to go ans say shit like that. Like he'd never had any sort of bond with them to begin with. Maybe he didn't even know if he wasn't the real Silver. In fact, he probably didn't.

And then something jumped out at her from that talk she'd had with Giovanni. "This is gonna sound weird as hell, but have you felt like you've been missing anything besides the whole memory thing? Like there's something you're supposed to have that's just gone, for whatever reason. Again, not talking about the memory shit. I just mean like... some kind of incomplete feeling." Yeah like that wasn't hopelessly vague or anything.

 

[Namohysip]

Silver rolled his eyes and looked away. "What, does it matter? My mind was apparently totally erased. If it comes back, that's great, but... There's no point in fighting it the same way over and over. And with so much sealed, I obviously, therefore, would be missing something. I—"

Silver looked even more annoyed when Nate started listing off Pokemon as if that would mean something. But he humored him. "I guess I don't care much about..." He paused, contemplative. "Well, Mewtwo is obviously powerful. If Mewtwo was on our side, it'd be an advantage. Persian..."

He was quiet at that. Something stirred on his mind. "I guess those ones are fine. Maybe I had good experiences." He smiled a little.

That wasn't Silver's smile. And Starr would know it.

 

[Chibi Pika]

What.

Th... there was no way. It didn't make any sense. Nothing about this made any fucking sense. How the fuck could he be--

(He didn't even know his own his own name. He just reacted to the names he was given.)

But then who the hell was in jail--unless they were both--

(Multiple worlds, multiple copies of the same person.)

Did... did he even know??

"Hey. Who the fuck are you, really? You said your name was Silver. Are you sure that's your name." What the hell kind of answer was she hoping for, anyway?

 

[Negrek]

Huh. Nate narrowed his eyes, trying to focus his anger in a productive direction. It had been kind of a wild guess, but--he glanced over at Starr. Yeah, okay, same page. She was thinking that too, huh?

 

[Namohysip]

Lunala squinted at Starr. "Your team said I was Silver and seemed pretty confident about it. A lot of things add up, aside from my missing memories. Who else could I be?"

He shifted, looking cautious. "...And why are you staring at me like that?"

There was no way Giovanni would keep up a bluff like this unless he genuinely didn't know. He acted a lot like Silver and had a lot of Silver's memories. The only thing that didn't fit was his innermost 'bonds' with certain Pokemon. In a world like Cibus, could that transcend Psychic power?

 

[Chibi Pika]

This wasn't a goddamn bluff, there was no way. Like hell Starr wouldn't be able to spot that.

"You were the one who said you were Giovanni's kid. And you sounded pretty damn sure of that." So then why the hell...?

He'd remembered things that he shouldn't have. The lost memories didn't matter half as much as the memories that shouldn't have been there.

 

[Namohysip]

"Yes," Lunala said slowly, trying to run it by Starr very slowly, so she could really, really understand it. "I remember being Silver. Based on your description. So it seems pretty clear that I'm Silver. Who else would I be?"

 

[Negrek]

Enough dancing around the fucking issue. "Giovanni," Nate said bluntly. "Let's face it, you and your team are like strangers. You hate Red, you hate Pikachu. And you like persian. Plus that guy we got locked up has the same kinda psychic locks on him as you do, so I hardly buy him being the boss of all this shit. Somebody's playing all of us. And maybe it's some fucked-up alternate reality version of you."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr's eyes flickered toward Nate. She hadn't known that something was up with Giovanni as well. Pretty much everything she'd seen and heard from him felt like him. So then what the hell was going on?

"Giovanni said that he was missing something. What if he was missing part of himself?"

 

[Namohysip]

That silence settled in. Lunala looked left, right, like it was some kind of prank and soon they'd all show up to laugh at him. But none came.

"...You're insane, then." Lunala looked away, but something about what Nate said seemed to shake him. "I'm not... my father. My father is... a horrible--I'm not. That's..." But there was no feeling behind those words. All Lunala had now was doubt. And there was a flash of terror in his eyes, and, in just a second, he looked like he was about to fly away.

"It makes no sense! This is... absurd! If I'm Giovanni, then where's the real Silver?!"

 

[Negrek]

"That's the real question, ain't it?" Nate said. "I mean, Red told us that back on Telum, Silver was a flareon. And you're, you know. Not."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr couldn't look at Lunala. She couldn't stop seeing herself reacting to being told something like that.

So instead, she just focused on Nate. "When I was talking to Giovanni earlier, he said that one of our allies had been for awhile. Replaced with a fake." Her voice was monotone, emotionless.

 

[Namohysip]

"Don't ignore me," Lunala hissed, ghostly energy flowing through his wings. "Do you really think I would die that easily? That I could be replaced?! I'm..." He seemed trapped. "This is absurd. Go away. I don't need this kind of talk." He turned around, staring at the dead campfire, celestial brow furrowed.

 

[Negrek]

"Well, I dunno about 'died,'" Nate said, glancing sidelong at Starr. Somebody who'd been replaced? Now there was some grim shit. But even if that was true, replaced didn't have to mean "dead." After all, like literally nobody was fucking dead in this stupid world, including the entire goddamn planet of Telum. "But there's something there, ain't there? Else you'd just to be able to laugh this all off."

 

[Namohysip]

Lunala didn't say anything back, though his head lowered, pensive. If this really was Giovanni, or some aspect of him, what exactly did that mean for the Mewtwo? And what did that mean for how they would treat Lunala going forward?

What would happen when Lunala gained the power to create wormholes?

...Starr. Nate. I am sensing extreme stress from your location. Is something wrong?

 

[Negrek]

Nate watched Silver--Giovanni--silently. He wasn't sure what he felt. Pissed? Super fucking pissed? That sounded right, yeah. Oh, nothing big. Just turns out Silver is actually Giovanni is all. Figure that's another one of the 'involuntary spies' we've been looking for.

 

[Namohysip]

...What.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Just turns out Silver is actually Giovanni is all.

Starr kept found herself running through it in her mind, over and over. It was too ridiculous to be true. There had to be some other explanation. But what the hell else could it possibly be? At least Diyem was just as confused as they were.

He's not... Giovanni pretending to be Silver or anything like that. He thinks he's Silver, he's got some of the right memories. It's like he's a combination of the two? It doesn't make any fucking sense.

 

[Namohysip]

...You know. Diyem paused, then continued. Some time ago, I entered Owen's home, and there was a tree in the bedroom. It waved at me. At this point, I'll believe anything.

Lunala continued to stand there, perhaps mulling over everything in his head. He ended up not flying away--where would he fly to?--and finally turned back to them. "Well, then where does that leave us? If I'm Giovanni, then am I supposed to be in jail right now? Or because I didn't do anything, is my record completely clean?"

 

[Negrek]

Nate shifted side to side, scowling. Yeah, where the fuck did that leave everybody? "I dunno," he said at last. "I mean, as far as I'm concerned, you ain't done nothing to nobody." As far as Nate knew. Could even Silver himself say that with confidence right now? "And maybe you're just a damn fine actor having a bit of fun with us, but I don't think so. I think you didn't realize it any more than we did. So if you want to be who you are now, and not like Giovanni, then it don't seem right to be locking you up on account of who you maybe used to be. Don't seem right to have somebody watching you all the time, waiting for you to fuck up neither, but," Nate sighed, "if Giovanni, or, like you in the past set up something in your head, like after a certain amount of time you remember who you are and the Giovanni part of you, like, takes over... You know, whatever evil plan bullshit. If something like that could happen, I dunno if it's safe for you not to be watched."

Yeah, there's definitely some Giovanni in this guy. But the Silver stuff don't seem fake, neither. And there's something weird about the Giovanni we got locked up, too, like he's gone soft or something. Like maybe there's a bit of Silver in him. Nate studied Silver appraisingly. I kinda want to get them together, just to see what would happen. If we pressed Giovanni on him not being himself, neither. I'm pretty sure somebody's fucked with them both, and maybe we could figure out more about it from how they react. But at the same time that seems fucking risky. Giovanni with his missing piece--what if this is his missing piece, and if we show up with it he can, like, power up and finally put his master plan in motion or whatever the fuck?