Mystery Continent ~ Southern Beach

[Magyk]

"Hah, you bet!" Ben replied with a grin. "I can go real fast! You can join if you'd like, I'll even offer a ride for your friend there! ...Not sure if I caught his name."

Something about the marshtomp told him he wanted to be left alone, but it wouldn't hurt to try. He used to be in the same place, after all. Perhaps Nate just needed someone who could relate to him? "Or maybe we can relax, watch the waves for a bit?" he offered politely. "I could use a little break."

 

[Negrek]

Rocky smirked. "Marshtomp doesn't like it when people use his name."

"Oh, for fuck's--it's Nate."

"His real name."

"Anyway," Nate said. There weren't many things that sounded less pleasant right now than trying to hang on while an arcanine went top speed across the beach. "You two can go for a run. I'm fine hanging out here until you get back."

Rocky's eyes were still bright with mischief. "Relax first, then run!" he announced. "I guess it'll be easier to talk that way. And the beach is nice today." He grinned. "That means you have to tell us about your favorite memories from when you were on Cibus!"

 

[Magyk]

"Right, relax first then!" Ben grinned in return and settled himself in the sand, purposefully near Nate. "Favourite memories, huh...?" he said with a hum.

Something good, something he found funny.

The arcanine's eyes lit up. "When I first met Reshiram, it was with Mergo, the gardevoir slash gallade? We had to attend an interview about the Miracle Matters, see, we'd kept Diyem's true identity a secret and they wanted to pry it from us," he explained.

"Now, Mergo's a devout follower of Reshiram and his ideals from his home world, so he was noticeably excited to meet one in the flesh. When we said goodbye, he'd accidentally called Reshiram 'Lord Reshiram,' and bowed and everything! Mergo was super embarrassed. I held back my laughter until Taz--my familar--whispered it into my ear, and I cracked up. I think Mergo liked me a little less that day, but I think it's hard to tell with that guy. He's about as emotional as paint for most of the time that I knew him."

 

[Negrek]

Rocky flopped down in the sand on the far side of Ben with his arms beneath his head, looking out over the waves. He laughed heartily at Ben's story. "That does sound funny! I bet he had a real silly look on his face when he realized what he'd done."

Nate was thoughtful. As emotional as paint? He thought of an ice cube tumbling over and over against glass until it finally cracked in half, or the furious intensity building under the gardevoir's precise words. Well, maybe the Blacklight shit had gone to his head in the end. Who could say? "What, that guy's half gallade? Looked like a normal gardevoir to me."

"What's your familiar like? You said their name was Taz, right?" Rocky asked Ben. "It's not fair that everybody Diyem brought gets to meet the other people like them, but we don't get to meet the other familiars.

 

[Magyk]

"It's...complicated, Blacklight stuff," Ben tried to explain. Come to think of it, he never asked Mergo why he'd evolved into gardevoir when he clearly wanted to be a gallade.

Then he grimaced as he tried to think of an answer to Rocky's question. "Uh...yeah. Taz took the form of a zorua for the most part, and became a really tiny Eien when she discovered her real origins. I believe our Diyem named her Taz, because she wanted a name from her father."

He said nothing about a meeting of familiars, but his narrowed gaze towards the sea would have told his companions it was intentional. "It's better for them all if they don't see us again. It may have only reopened old wounds..."

 

[Negrek]

Ah. Blacklight shit. Not really surprising. Well, the gardevoir was a weird one, that was for sure.

That sure wasn't the answer Rocky'd been looking for to his question about familiars, though. Ben was right, it *would* be better to make a clean break. Exactly the opposite of what Rocky wanted to hear.

"Oh. Well... Taz is a nice name," the familiar muttered.

Nate smirked and looked out over the ocean himself. "Must be weird being back here again," he said to Ben. "How's it treating you? Training hard for the big battle?"

 

[Magyk]

"Yeah. I was hoping I could train with Aria again, the lucario? She taught me how to handle my powers here and use them super well in battle!" The arcanine then frowned. "But...I think she's just taking this time to relax," then he smiled, "Which is cool, I hope she's doing alright—"

He cleared his throat. Why the heck was he being so open with these people? Because they're dealing with Blacklight, too? That wasn't a reason to be open.

"It's been...interesting," he then said. "It's like reverse amnesia. You know everyone and the place you're in but nobody remembers you. I feel even more like an outsider than I was in the Cibus I went to. Don't get me wrong, it's nice...but it's not the same. It's not the home away from home I grew to love."

 

[Negrek]

"Oh," Rocky said. "That sounds lonely."

Nate had to agree, privately. Seems like everything they said to the arcanine just made the guy more depressed, damn.

"At least you have your friends here, though," Rocky went on. "And... maybe there's something that's different in this Cibus that you'd like, too! Then maybe if you focused on that, you could make it feel like someplace new and fun to be, instead of a bad copy of somewhere you already liked." He nodded once, solemnly, like he'd just solved a very difficult problem. Then he flopped dramatically back in the sand. "Uuuugh. I wish we could train with you, if Aria doesn't want to. But Marshtomp would just say that's a bad idea because you wouldn't want us to know too much about how you fight."

"Damn straight."

Rocky flipped over on his stomach, frowning. "Well, what's the place you come from like?" he asked. "Does it have all kinds of crazy disasters and Dark Matters and stuff? And dungeons and adventures and everything?"

"I fucking hope not," Nate muttered. Chances that this was going to be a positive topic change? Not great.

 

[Magyk]

"It's not, actually," Ben answered, feeling quiet relief at the subject change. "My world is...perfectly normal compared to Cibus. The legends that live around everyone else here are myths, the powers are unheard of, and world ending threats? Nothing. My home has none of that. That faerie type—" the word sounded different coming from his mouth. "We just recently discovered that back home. My friends and I were preparing to travel out to a new continent that was rumoured to be off the map."

He raised a paw and pointed out to the ocean. "Dunno if it'll be anything as grand as this place, but I'm still excited to see what's beyond. Who knows? Maybe I'll find my own version of Cibus or something..."

He liked that idea. He wondered if his memories of here would return if he arrived at a place similar to this one? Only time would tell.

"We got dungeons as well, but nothing crazy. Just an extra world layer or something with space holes that morph and help us get to places or something. I dunno, was never good at explaining that stuff. What's it like in your place, if you don't mind me asking?"

Ben wondered if Nate was one of those hooman-y things too.

 

[Negrek]

"That sounds nice!" Rocky said, his eyes gleaming. Ben's description made him think of misty mountains and calm oceans, deep forests and the dark of unknown dungeons. "And going to look for a lost continent... It's like something out of a storybook!"

"You think so, huh?" Nate asked. "Didn't think you'd like it that much. Hard to be a superhero without no supervillains around to fight."

"I guess that's true," Rocky said. "But it would still be fun to explore. And you never know, maybe one of those dungeons has an eternatus or something really scary in it anyway!" He smiled wistfully. "My world, though... Well, I'm from Cibus."

Nate rolled his eyes. Every fucking time. "Nothing like here," he said. "There's humans all over, for one, and the pokémon aren't like here. Closer to the feral ones here, living in forests and caves and shit, mostly. But not the same. They're smart and all, they can talk to each other and build things and shit, but mostly they don't. Not like here. It's humans that make cities like this, and cars and computers and everything. No mystery dungeons." He sighed. "And humans capture pokémon in these little balls... You probably saw those, I figure Giovanni tried using them against you guys, too. Anyway, they catch them in those things, and they travel around together, looking for other pokémon to battle. It's like a sport. Probably sounds pretty nuts to somebody like you."

"Have you ever seen a human before?" Rocky asked conspiratorially, leaning closer to Ben. "Because I have. I can turn into one. I've been practicing!"

Nate's eyes narrowed. Why did he have a bad feeling about this?

 

[Magyk]

Ben blinked as he heard words that weren't familiar to him at all. Carrs? Compewters? Hoomans were weird. Pokemon that didn't make cities or run the world? Crazier.

He couldn't even begin to understand them. Starr, Nate, Angelo...

"It does sound crazy," Ben agreed. "I can barely imagine it, but I have seen a hooman before. A boy named Angelo! He was...with us, and then he had to go home early. Couldn't handle the Blacklight, and...he seemed kinda too young to handle it all anyways. Now that I think of it, hoomans kinda look super funny, like a Mr. Mime that's one colour."

Then the arcanine grimaced as he eyed Rocky. "I...I'll pass on seeing one, thanks. They look really bizarre."

 

[Negrek]

"Aww." Rocky sat back, his eyes dimming. "It's really good, though..."

"I mean, humans don't look that weird," Nate said. "They're practically like infernape, right? Just usually taller and, like, shorter arms. No fire. The face is kinda different. That's about it."

Rocky giggled. "Ben called you ugly."

"Oh, fuck off." But Nate's gaze was distant while he thought over what Ben had said. "That's really weird. I thought humans couldn't be human on Cibus. Like it was some kind of rule they all have to come over in a pokémon body. So how the hell did some kid end up on your team?" It did seem like it would be harder to deal with Blacklight shit as a human. Kind of squishy and all that. Or maybe the Blacklight would have given them super strength or whatever the fuck.

"You mentioned your friends were going to go looking for another continent in your world, right?" Rocky asked Ben. "Were you a rescue team, or, or, and exploration team? Like what they have here? Were you in a guild?"

 

[Magyk]

Ben's smile was wry as he tried to think of a bunch of hoomans looking like infernapes. Did they have tails? He could barely remember.

"He didn't do too much fighting, he was more in the back, helping us deal more damage with his support," it was all vague. It all felt like several lifetimes ago. All this memory stuff was confusing.

"But to answer your question...we weren't always an exploration team. They'd been stopped for a while because exploring the unexplored had been outlawed for a while when it was deemed 'too dangerous.'"

Then he frowned. "I mean, they weren't wrong, but...my team pulled it off eventually anyways. Because of that, we were allowed to explore more, and I'm sure others will follow soon. Before that? We just helped different communities. Delivered food from the city, rescued those lost in a dungeon, helped the police hunt down criminals, things like that. Helped keep the peace, y'know? It was all done through one guild run by a trio. Really cool stuff, isn't it?" he smiled at Nate.

He couldn't expect Nate to understand fully, but it wasn't like he understood hyumans any better.

 

[Negrek]

"Ah, standing in the back..." Nate said, a wistful smile on his face. "That tracks."

"Marshtomp would like to stay in the back, too," Rocky told Ben. "He likes bossing people around more than fighting."

Nate ignored him. So Ben had been off roaming the world with his friends, doing good deeds, exploring the wilds--it sounded something like all the old trainer stories, . Real storybook sort of world. One even nicer than Cibus, maybe. Nate hoped for Ben's sake that it didn't have its own nasty underside, its own Dark Matter or whatever that was going to do its damndest to rip things apart. Or, well, he wasn't getting the whole story, was he? If exploring had been deemed "too dangerous," presumably there was something unpleasant out there, or had been, once.

"Must've been a lot, coming from somewhere like that to all this Blacklight shit, people trying to blow up the planet every damn Tuesday and whatnot," Nate said. "Ain't gonna miss that when I go back home. There's plenty to hate about Kanto, but at least I don't gotta worry about nothing worse than, like, a regular war."

 

[Magyk]

"Oh, it was a lot." Ben said without shame. "I lashed out at my teammates several times over it, thought I was alone, nobody understood how overwhelming it all was to me, blah blah, blah. But...then I realised something."

He looked down at Marshtomp. Something told Ben that he hadn't come out here for the sights. The beach was beautiful, yes, but there was something often appealing about solitude.

"In my world, we've just undergone a massive change. A whole new type was introduced, and some 'mons had to adapt to their energies suddenly becoming different. It...must have been so terrifying for some of them. Just like all this Blacklight stuff had been for me."

He paused, letting that sink in. Then he continued. "And for everyone else who came here, some of them took it in stride, while many struggled to contain themselves. We caused as many problems as we fixed for each other and Cibus. I had to accept my new body and move with the changes as our powers grew, because if I fell behind?"

He let out a dry chuckle. "I'd have become a problem, and I wouldn't be any better than those that tried to oppose the changes happening back home. I guess I just...stopped caring about all the crazy? I stopped thinking about it so much and just let it happen. It all eventually fell into place so I guess I did something right."

 

[Negrek]

"A new type introduced?" Nate asked. "How does that even work? I mean, they only recognized the fairy type pretty recently in my world, too, but it was always there. The nerds who classify shit just couldn't tell it apart properly. Nobody gained any new powers or nothing when they officially announced it. Did some legend wake up and fuck with things, or what?"

"Well, it's good that you found out how to have fun on Cibus!" Rocky said. "And learned to use your powers. Your team must be really glad to have you around; you look super strong!" He cast Nate a meaningful look, which went unacknowledged.

"Your team caused a lot of problems, huh? We had a couple troublemakers, I guess, but for the most part they didn't stick around." Nate paused, thinking. "Kinda amazing, actually--you bring in a bunch of random people from different worlds, give them insane powers, and tell them to fight a bunch of, like, gods and forces of nature and shit. Honestly incredible that nobody went rogue and started wrecking shit just for the hell of it. On either team."

 

[Magyk]

"We almost had someone's shadow go super rogue or something," Ben tried to recall. "Kinda complicated, actually. But yeah, the whole 'faerie coming into existence' thing was because we discovered Xerneas and some things happened which resulted in the type being born. I don't fully understand how it happened, but it feels like its introduction just...kinda made sense. Like it was waiting to be found?"

And then the arcanine fell silent as he contemplated what Marshtomp had said. "I don't know if fate exists, Marshtomp, but I like to believe that all those Diyem called here had a potential for greatness. Whether they accepted and grew into their own, or fell into old habits was up to them. Not everyone could keep up, and maybe not everyone had enough faith in themselves, but I think Diyem secretly had faith in everyone he called, regardless of whatever baggage that came with them. I imagine if he lost faith in someone, he would have sent them home regardless of how they felt."

 

[Negrek]

"Shadows... can go rogue?" Rocky asked, ears standing up straight in alarm. But the look he sent Nate was, still, ignored.

"That's fair. I guess Diyem could've sent people home anytime if he didn't like what they were up to, unless maybe they did something really crazy, like hijack some unown or whatever." Nate sighed. "I dunno. He's always been real cagey about how he actually picked us. Can't shake the feeling that it was just luck of the draw. Guess it don't really matter, though. Like you said, people grew into it, mostly. It got the job done."

"Just think about the stories you'll be able to tell when you start to remember this again!" Rocky said to Ben. "I bet all your friends will be jealous. You're a hero!"

 

[Magyk]

You're a hero!

Ben couldn't help the small grin that made it to his face. He...was a hero, wasn't he?

But why did that make him sad?

"When I start to remember..." his expression fell into a frown. "I'd be remembering all the friends I left behind, all the folks I'll never get to see again. If there's no way to see them after this, why should I remember?" he asked.

Then he shook his head. "It's a depressing subject, sorry," Ben apologised, giving the two a sheepish smile. "It's complicated, caring about a bunch of 'mons you're gonna forget again. I might just play it off as some weird dream if I remember somehow."

Then he eyed Marshtomp specifically. "Do you want to remember, after this is all over? Do you want to remember being a marshtomp?"

 

[Negrek]

"Who says there's no way to ever see them again?" Rocky said, crossing his arms over his chest. "We know Giovanni traveled to all sorts of worlds, and the God Squad, too! Plus Eien and other eternatus can travel between worlds, and I bet that means us familiars can learn how if we try. Maybe in a long time, but... who knows how time works between worlds, anyway? And then there are even places like Spirit's Edge... If your world has a Voice of Life, maybe they could help you contact your friends, the same as people could talk to their families back home from Cibus." Rocky rubbed his chin. "It sounds like your world might not have a lot of ways to get in touch with other ones. But even if it doesn't, your friends could still come find you, after they remember!"

"Yeah, great," Nate said. "So now I get to worry about interdimensional bullshit showing up in my world, which doesn't even know how to deal with anything that fucked. Not very fucking comforting."

Rocky sighed. "You always find the worst way of looking at anything."

"It's true, though. If you can have interdimensional slumber parties with your friends, it means all the nasties can show up on your doorstep, too. Course, not using the interdimensional phone to hang out with your friends don't mean the assholes won't come by to bust shit up, so you probably might as well."

He turned his attention to Ben. "But do I want to remember? Honestly, I don't think it matters. I ain't even going to realize I forgot, you know? When it all comes back I'm probably just going to assume it was some fucking awful trip. For you, I can get how it'd be more believable. I mean, at least you were the same fucking species on Cibus. For me, what's really more likely, that I got transformed into a mudkip and zapped to another planet to fight godlike assholes, or that I took some bad pills and had some kind of psychotic break?"