Poppin' Arms ~ Dorm Lounge

[Cresselia92]

“Huh? Don’t you have an ice sensor or something?” wondered Petram, staring intently at Soul. “Like, can’t you feel the ice in the air or something? That’d be pretty useful, like, you could find snow in summer!”

 

[Shiny Phantump]

"I don't think so." Soul took on a crestfallen expression. "Maybe I would've been able to if I was a real vulpix. Still, we have to be able to find a fridge somewhere? There should be one in the cafeteria, we just need to get in so that we can use it!"

 

[Cresselia92]

Petram thought, thought and thought once more. Then, he nodded and flashed a bright grin… well, a bright grin made of shadows, but bright nonetheless.

“Ooh, what a great idea, Soul! We can do that, yup!”

The Vulpix puffed up his chest with confidence and raised his forepaws.

“So! Without further ado, let’s our journey for the cafeteria begin!”

And our three heroes traveled toward the closest cafeteria, uncaring of the death beam hovering over the area. The apocalypse could wait a few extra hours.

<><><>​

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Time went by in what felt like an incoherent blur since Arceus sped up time after Joule attempted to incinerate Destiny Village. Kate had gone to and fro with the rest of Team Spectrum to try and regroup much as the village's shaken inhabitants had tried with their lives. She'd listened in on the strategy session, though it was admittedly a bit hard to follow at times, not that she really wanted to dwell on it right then and there. No, right here, right now amid the somewhat-battered dorm lounge, what she wanted was to sit back on the seat she was freshly claiming, drink the cup of glühwein she'd talked the cafeteria staff into preparing, and push things aside for her to catch her breath for a moment.

CRACK!

A small section of shingles from the roof above abruptly fell, Kate hastily jerking aside as it crashed to the ground right in front of her seat. A ray of light filtered in from the fresh hole, its faintly purple hue evidencing that it wasn't sunlight, but rather from the glow of Joule's ball of blacklight that was still slowly making its way to earth. The Sneasel flattened her ears in annoyance and set her drink down for a moment to push the blackened chunk of roof aside with a low grumble under her breath.

"Bah. Can't a 'mon catch a break from that fireball outside already?"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Gods, Brisa was fucking exhausted. She just needed to spend a spare moment in her dorm or something, catch a breath, maybe get herself a drink... She thought of bothering Luz, and immediately discarded the idea. She didn't know whose company she wanted right now–

Ah. Sneasel . . . Kate, wasn't it? Yeah. Kate, sharp of wit, who Luz had landed her with after the sneasel had turned up in a meteorite of darkness. Brisa had helped her get kitted out with a badge and all but they'd hardly had a moment to speak to each other what with running about dealing with nonsense and Brisa's habit of sleeping late and rising early. She had precisely no idea what Kate thought of her.

"Howdy, Kate," she said. "Mind if I join ya?"

She left it at that. She was too fucking tired to dance around anything much.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Kate raised a brow back at Brisa. She'd seen her somewhat regularly since arriving at Cibus and accepting Luz's offer for lodging, but now that she thought about it, she'd never actually stopped and talked with her...

Well, there was always a first time for everything.

"It's Brisa, right? Go ahead," the Sneasel offered. "Just watch your head since the roof's seen its better days."

The Sneasel pointed off at the fallen chunk of roof to her side, and idly ran a claw about the rim of her cup.

"So what have you been up to anyways? You look beat."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Yeah. Uh..."

Maybe she was too tired to just talk. She needed something to loosen her tongue and quiet some of the thoughts spilling about in her head.

Brisa's eyes flashed gold as she pulled up just the slightest touch of radiance. Enough to speak freely without feeling the fatigue quite so badly.

"I'm jus' tryin' t'keep things goin'. Been raisin' spirits, extra combat trainin', had a word with Maple about our skyborne pal's potential weaknesses, that sorta thing. Could use a drink, though. ...Salt and spit, I sure ain't lyin'."

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Kate stilled her claw and cast a glance down at her cup, before looking over at the Luxio.

"'Salt and spit'? That's certainly a new one for me," she said. "I can't speak for how it'll compare to your drink, but have you ever had glühwein before? A festive drink might not be super fitting what with the giant fireball coming at us, but I figured it'd be more popular with the rest of the team than my first plan of drinking gin until I blacked out for the night."

The Sneasel blew a small puff of frost over the surface of her drink, before setting her cup down onto a nearby end table.

"If you've got a cup, I'll let you try some," Kate offered. "Your shade friend seemed to like it even if she'd never heard of it before. I usually prefer mine a bit colder than most Pokémon, but it should still be close enough to a normal glühwein to get a representative feel for it."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa gave a nod of thanks and reached in her satchel for her usual ceramic tumbler.

"Salt 'n' spit's just a kinda swearin', Kate, not a cocktail. Anyway, sure. If Luz liked it, chances are I will: we got the same taste in practic'ly everythin'."

She let Kate pour her some glühwein, and gave it a sip. Yeah, that'd do more than splendidly. She had a little more before speaking up again—it'd do well to treat her nerves in place of more radiance.

"Say, Kate. You ain't been at this so long as the rest of us. How's it treatin' yer nerves?"

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Kate closed her eyes and gave a shrug of her shoulders before reclaiming the rest of her drink and moving the cup to her mouth.

"I mean, seeing Pokémon of myth left and right is something I'm still not really used to, much like all the weird boxes and light-up slates around here," she said. "But I figured out quickly that this world was a bit strange compared to home, so I think I'll live."

The Sneasel downed her glühwein, her eyes drifting up towards Joule's blacklight attack in the distance as she finished. Kate paused for a moment, before setting the cup back down with a sighing frown.

"Not that I was expecting to get caught up in a town getting wiped from the face of the planet on my third day here. But what can you do?"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Gods, it really had been no time at all for Kate. Poor fucker. At least her body seemed able to keep up with the rest of the team in combat.

"Yeah, I can relate. Back home is sure nothin' like this. I ain't seen a legendary pokémon afore I came to Cibus. Nor any of this technology. Nor cities like this, neither."

Kate's expression suggested Brisa should continue.

"Well, from what I understand, my world's more similar to yers than to Cibus," continued Brisa. "I grew up in a wood cabin a walk aways from a town a mite less sprawlin' than Treasure Town. My parents were rangers, so I ended up bein' a ranger, too. Spent the last four years of my life keepin' the peace in Frontier Town on my lonesome."

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Kate blinked back at Brisa's story of her background as a Ranger, half-cursing herself for not going along with her initial instinct of picking gin as her drink for the evening. A little less sobriety from Brisa's end would've certainly gone a long way towards making it safer to run her mouth off to the Luxio. Though for now, she was probably better off steering around the edges until she could gauge how the Ranger would react.

"Hm, reminds me of a Quilava friend of mine, or the parents part at least," she said. "His dad did similar work, though he didn't exactly wind up taking after him."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa sighed. Kate's friend couldn't have had the same expectations as were laid on her.

"I didn't have much of a choice but to take after 'em. Nobody else stepped up as ranger when my parents made 'emselves scarce, so..."

So she'd had to protect an entire town alone, just sixteen years of age, while the ranger union continually wrote back to her that Frontier Town didn't need a ranger team precisely because of the peace that she fought so hard to keep. So she kept fighting. Alone. The half-human girl who didn't need any help, so she never got any.

"It was my duty," she finished. "That's all."

That conversation was a recipe for misery even with the alcohol. Best not to keep it going.

"How about yerself? You got a profession back home?"

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Kate's expression took a serious turn at Brisa's question, before she shook her head and casually pawed at her shoulder.

"Professional foraging," she replied. "Go out and scrounge for what you need, sell off what you don't. You'll wind up butting heads with a Pokémon or two in the process, but eh. Can't really be helped there."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Foraging, huh? That didn't mean actual foraging, Brisa was certain. That wasn't in line with Kate's species, or a number of other details she'd conceded, which meant it was probably a figurative term. So then–

"Sounds like dungeon crawlin'. Subsistence dungeon crawlin' is how my ma's folk make a livin'. Get th'feelin' that ain't quite what y'mean, but that's no trouble."

Diyem's posse hadn't all been exceptional individuals, but they'd all had more drive than a scrounger. Kate was a fighter, that was certain. She'd thought the Cibus mission was a job, according to Luz...

"The way Luz tells it, Diyem didn't have time to fill ya in. What were you even expectin' once you made it to Cibus? 'Cause I'm bettin' this weren't it."

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

"I was actually kinda hoping he was pulling my leg about this whole 'saving the world' thing," Kate said, flattening her ears in reply. "Back home, there'd be times where one would have to cut one's losses and regroup for another day."

The Sneasel sank into her seat and looked back up at the ball of blacklight hanging in the sky with a low grumble.

"Honestly, if getting back home wasn't tied to sticking things out, this would probably be one of those moments for me."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

That didn't sound so dissimilar to the sentiments a lot of the team were expressing lately, or had done in other daunting situations. Kate was pretty candid about it. Surprisingly so. What hit Brisa harder thatn that was the implication that Kate was used to fighting on the back foot, but with allies by her side. Like Team Spectrum, in fact. Nothing like Brisa.

"What we're doin' now is the closest thing we can do to regroupin'. Some things y'can't turn yer back on, an' this is one such time."

It wasn't really what she meant to say, but it was true enough. Brisa eyed Kate's pinned ears and backward slouch. She could really believe this poor gal didn't wanna be here. Of course, she had been summoned for the task, and so Brisa knew she'd fight when it counted just like the rest of them, but to go without even fully hearing out Diyem... Kate hadn't really consented to be here, huh?

"Diyem claims all his picks fer the posse had a so-called 'Hero's Aura.' Very few of us actually reckon we're the heroic type. Somethin' tells me y'ain't an exception."

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Kate's mind turned back towards her conversation with Luz on her first night in Cibus. The shade was adamant back then that she and the rest of Team Spectrum had this 'Hero's Aura', but it was hard to imagine how accurate that could be when she apparently shared a 'Hero's Aura' with a Pokémon who'd be at her throat under normal circumstances. Shouldn't one of them logically be the 'villain' to the other's 'hero'?

Kate said nothing at first, before moving a set of claws in front of her and picking at them nonchalantly.

"Meh, 'heroic' is a subjective term," she scoffed. "Like, I've done things my friends would call 'heroic', and I myself am proud of. Whether your parents would is another matter, but hey, it made the cut for Diyem."

The Dark-Type trailed off a moment, before looking back at Brisa with a curious tilt of her head.

"Though I suppose the question is... what would you call 'heroic', Brisa?"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

What constituted heroism? That was a pretty tough question, if she was honest.

"Well, I was raised on Escarpa folklore and my pa's life lessons. And both of those emphasised doin' yer moral duty and showin' bravery in the face of danger and makin' the responsible decisions even at cost to yerself..."

Was that her answer? She wasn't even convincing herself with that. After all, it had been years since she thought of Jesse's obsessive bullshit as heroic, and her ma... Yeah, Sierra sure was some fucking hero, wasn't she. And then there was Luz and how fucking insufferable she was despite embodying all that stuff...

Well, if not that, then what? Who did she think of as heroes?

She thought of her teammates. Calling out, striking hard, covering for each other. She admired them . . . why?

"I won't... let... you kill my friends! If I can't st-stop you... I'll..."

"Yeah. Better me than my friends."

"I'll hug the entire team at once if I have to! I care about you all!"

"No matter what, you won’t ever be alone.”

"Can you hear me? It's me! If there's anything you can do from inside of there, please try! You must fight this!"

"My heart should have stopped long ago, but I was blessed with the opportunity to keep other worlds beating."

"Maybe I am a monster. A monster that protects my friends."

Yeah. That fucking tracked.

"I reckon bein' a hero means bein' willin' to push yerself to yer limit, even to put yer own life on the line, fer the sake of yer friends."

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Kate paused at Brisa's reply, while it didn't get around her quibbles about this 'Hero's Aura', it did track with her own experiences. After all, it was always the Outlaws who took an extra risk to try and keep their crew together who were spoken of the most highly in her circles. Though this 'Hero's Aura' was somthing that Diyem could see and never seemed to find a miss on. Was Diyem's definition of heroism is really just being there for other 'mons in a tight situation? If so...

"I mean, that's kind of a broad definition of heroism there, isn't it?" the Sneasel asked. "I mean, by that standard, if a team of Hunters-"

Kate bit her tongue as soon as the mention of 'Hunters' left her mouth. Back in Varhyde, it was a less-than-flattering nickname that Outlaws and less upstanding types used for Pokémon on Rescue Teams thanks to the nature of their work revolving around one mission's bounty to the next. Including bounties for the capture of Outlaws like her. She wasn't terribly concerned about falling afoul of a Ranger, but still, not making enemies on the team within the first few days would probably be for the best. The Sneasel hastily cleared her throat and amended her words before continuing on.

"Ahem, if a Rescue Team from a guild corners an Outlaw in a dungeon and the Outlaw's buddies come back to try and help... is the Rescue Team the heroes for being there and putting their necks out for their guild and their client?" she asked. "Or are the Outlaws the heroes for being there and putting their necks for their buddy?"

Kate gave a smile back at the Luxio and tented her claws.

"See what I'm getting at there?" she asked. "In that case, one side's 'hero' is the other's 'villain'. Then in that case, who among them would have this 'Hero's Aura' Diyem says we all have?"