Poppin' Arms Guild ~ Main Lobby

[Dragonfree]

"You're a Necrozma. Same thing as Joule. Right?" It was a little hard to believe, granted, one a big goofy cat with extra limbs and the other a fucking dragon. "Any insights about this overdramatic move he's charging? Is casually being able to destroy planets normal for you, or is this special circumstances?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"Yes, it's normal," Bahamut said. "In fact, shadows or not, Joule's is far smaller than the ones I managed. Perhaps able to level the city, but I doubt it would blow up the planet."

 

[Dragonfree]

"Oh, well, that's different. Only potential to kill millions of people instead of billions. Small fucking potatoes, huh?" Good fucking God. The guy was standing there casually boasting of how he could totally destroy a planet without a shred of self-awareness, and it made Dave's skin crawl.

"I don't think there are millions of people in Destiny Village," Mia said.

"Well, no, not literally." Dave glared up at Bahamut. He couldn't fucking wait to not be the size of the guy's goddamn paw. "So, what, in your world people just walk around knowing if you had a bad day you could just make it all go boom? Or do you, I don't know, hide and pretend you don't exist?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"I can't use that attack anymore. My body is broken. I need to be in the same form as Joule," Bahamut growled. "When I was younger, I did things like use that power to shield planets I hoped to call a home from asteroids and other cosmic phenomenon." His eyes darkened. "And I was almost always rewarded with people attacking me or trying to steal my light for themselves." He looked skyward. "Some of those I did in with the same attack. The rest were destroyed by Eternatus."

 

[Dragonfree]

"Okay, so it is situational? If you're broken so you can't use it, can we break him?"

Shielding planets. Yeah, it'd be cool to have a real legendary Pokémon on your side, wouldn't it, all the way until they decided to stop being goody-two-shoes.

"You did people in with this attack, the one that can level cities even when far smaller than when you used it?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"We can," Bahamut said. "But it is an incredibly painful experience. Do you want to try convincing our allies to do that? Because they will refuse if they hear it from me." He looked at a pillar. "As it stands, there's a way to deal with the attack. It's just very risky for our team... and possibly Arceus. I already told Owen about it."

He did his best not to keep a neutral expression through Dave's comments. He could hear the exact same judgmental tones as Cabot and Brisa and the others who wore their emotions on their sleeves. "Our universes work quite differently. Those who brought harm to me... almost always summoned Eternatus to their planets. It was either I send their spirits into an afterlife of sorts... or Eternatus destroyed their planet, dooming them to spend eternity in a realm that disobeyed the laws of nature. Never aging. Unable to die no matter how much suffering they were in. Just drifting through existence."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave narrowed his eyes at him. "What's 'incredibly painful'? Battle painful, eternal torture painful?" Mia frowned, probably wondering what difference it made. "I mean, if we've got a better plan that's great, but we may want to have a fucking plan B, no? What's plan A involve?"

But Bahamut was already continuing, talking about his past, being incredibly vague in the kind of way that indicated you were probably brushing past something you really fucking shouldn't be. "Hold up, did you or did you not fucking level cities full of innocents?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"I did not," Bahamut growled. "You speak as if you come from a planet that's as bustling and full of life as this one. But most of the planets in my universe are nothing like that. They have only a handful of communities. A small populace. They tried to destroy me... so I got rid of them first. I did what I had to to survive.

"And, again, that was generous of me. The afterlife is a tangible thing where I'm from. I allowed them to move peacefully to the next life among the stars." His eyes darkened. "Eternatus eradicated countless innocents and didn't give them such a luxury. It was always lured to their massive planets by the scent of malevolence and greed. Of people trying to play God and twist the laws of nature to their benefit."

This poochyena was making too many assumptions. Was Bahamut judging him for the mutant chimera that his familiar was? No. Despite the fact that splicing together life in such a way was barbaric and sickening. "And, judging by the look of your familiar, if it ever pried its way into your universe, it would head right for your planet and wipe everything out. So, consider yourself lucky this light ball is the worst of what you have to deal with. Some of us have nothing to return home to."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave blinked at him. A... tangible afterlife. That sure was a thing to drop casually like an incidental fact about his universe.

But then he got to the playing God bit, which was all too familiar, and Dave's eyes just about rolled out of his skull. "You know, I like to think any god worth worshipping would care less about people intruding on his fucking territory by advancing science and more about, you know, the hellscape abomination going around devouring planets. It's cool if you were trying to do something about it, but you sure seem eager to validate its judgement anyway. Oh, Eternatus is evil, but they had it coming because of the malevolence and greed and playing God? Jesus. Maybe don't make excuses for indiscriminate genocide."

Actually Eternatus wasn't a bad analogue for some gods, was it. Spending eternity in a realm of suffering because a grand cosmic monstrosity decided to wipe out your entire society for petty sins sure sounded familiar. Dave scowled. "What's this tangible fucking afterlife you're talking about? How does it work? There some sort of legendary deity presiding over that one too? Is it you?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"Are you trying to call me a god? I do not appreciate such a label." Bahamut took a step toward Dave. "Deities do not exist in my universe. A god is one who can shape reality and defy the laws of nature. There are no pokémon capable of that. Some of us are quite strong, but our powers do not operate on such a scale. I take light and convert it to energy for attacks. Like a plant, but on a much larger scale. I don't have control over time, space, or global climate like some of these Cibus folk do. But that didn't stop countless groups on countless planets from trying to take all of my light and use it to do such things. To prolong their lives past natural end points or give themselves powers to match their pokémon partners or even strip away pokémon's powers entirely."

He shook his head. "You make a lot of assumptions for someone who hasn't set foot in my world. Seen the things that I've seen. Dealt with the cruelty I've experienced." Bahamut's prism arms tensed up. "I did what I had to do to survive."

 

[Dragonfree]

"Well, then that's one thing we have in common. No fucking gods in my world either."

"A lot of people think there are but that's because they're stupid," Mia added, and he chuckled.

"Thing is, in my world you don't have planet-devouring hellscape legendaries either, or a goddamn afterlife. So again, how the fuck does that work?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"Well I wouldn't know the specifics. I'm not dead." Bahamut scowled. "Not for lack of trying, but Eternatus cursed me with immortality. My body will literally pull itself back together no matter how much it's damaged." He paused. "All I know is that there is an ethereal realm deep within the cosmos that spirits drift to after leaving their bodies."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave narrowed his eyes at him. "How do you know that? Like, can you detect the spirits making their way there? See them still around for good afterwards? Any evidence the spirits are, you know, conscious and happy and not just experiencing eternal locked-in syndrome?"

God. How did you even define a fucking god? Following the laws of reality was one thing, sure, maybe he was just doing super-efficient photosynthesis, but - a guy who was fucking immortal and had the power to destroy planets wasn't all that much better than a god, was he. If you were going to have a god who was real in the first fucking place, then by definition the shit they could do was part of reality. Maybe this was just what it looked like when gods actually existed - choose whether to be murdered by the planet-devouring monstrosity and sent to eternal suffering Hell, or by the uptight immortal photosynthesizing fucking lion-dragon and sent to float around a spirit realm that he figures is a bit better.

Dave shuddered. One day he'd go back to a world with none of this shit, and hopefully not remember any of this.

 

[Ambyssin]

"The auroras out in space. They represent the spirit realm," Bahamut said. "The colors shift in tandem with the state of the spirit realm. Bright, warm colors symbolize happiness... and in places where Eternatus never appeared the cosmos were full of such vibrant colors. But no matter how close I got to them, I could never truly interact with them. They'd phase through me."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave squinted at him. "Yeah, uh, I don't know about your world but where I come from that sounds incredibly bullshit. You're literally looking at the colors of auroras? Is there actual evidence that the colors represent the current status of the actual tangible afterlife, or are you just figuring red means happy because symbolism?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"I'm a psychic-type. If I'm concentrating, I can sense emotions underlying auras," Bahamut said. "Again, you have literally nothing to gain from all this judgement. It's just going to cloud your mind in battle. And we're all going to go our separate ways and forget all of this, anyway. So this interrogation is meaningless. I told you what I know about Joule's attack and that I've given a plan to Owen." His eyes reddened. "If you're going to just stand there and continue to judge anything and everything about where I come from, then perhaps with the fleeting moments before my memory loss kicks in, I'll throw you into a portal back to Etherium and you can try to survive there on your own."

 

[Dragonfree]

"I mean, if you don't want to be understood as talking nonsense, maybe when I ask how you know the spirits are doing fine, you should just say it's your goddamn psychic powers, and not start going on about what the colors of the auroras symbolize." Was there even any point talking to this guy, if he was going to be deliberately vague and then go on about judgement and make fucked-up threats when understood in accordance with the actual words that came out of his mouth? He couldn't actually fucking portal him back to his hellscape dimension, right?

(But if he did, he'd be proving Dave's goddamn point for him, go ahead, yeah, such a compassionate fucking immortal, driven purely by necessity and survival and lesser evils, booting someone into a hell-dimension for fucking judging him during an obtuse conversation. Fucking go ahead, I fucking dare you--)

Dave took a frustrated breath. He wanted to know more. Was there a reason you didn't just evacuate the goddamn Eternatus planets? You know, take a third option, instead of choosing to kill them to a slightly better afterlife? But Bahamut was just going to explain that he couldn't possibly understand and he did what he had to do and lecture him about judgement and dodge the actual question again, wasn't he. Waste of his goddamn time.

"But fine. Cool that there's a plan. Did you want to tell me what it is or not?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"Arceus manipulated the flow of time close to Joule." Bahamut glanced out a window, where everything in Destiny Village was moving as normally as he could remember. "With his power, I want to take Joule and his attack and move them somewhere else. Somewhere they won't be a threat. Like what happened when the three dragons fused together." How long had it even been since that fight? Weeks? Months? Everything had blended together.

"It's something I wish I'd had the ability to do back home when Eternatus was in the picture... but you can't just take an entire planet and pop it out of its orbit," Bahamut growled. "Likewise, every planet is different. Different atmospheres. Different amounts of day and night. Different distances from the nearest stars. Just because a world is inhabited doesn't mean its inhabitants can be safely moved to another planet. Even if the planets are similar." His shoulders sagged. "Learned that one the hard way the first time I ran into Eternatus. And nearly killed myself keeping open a wormhole long enough to even try and make it happen.

"But this world seems to be linked to other places. Like Cepa and Balm's home, if Owen is to believed. So, it's a risk I'm absolutely willing to take." Bahamut pointed at Dave. "Namely since I want us along for the ride to hold Joule's attention."

 

[Dragonfree]

Okay. That probably made sense. Dave considered asking for more details about the particulars, but he'd should probably just ask Owen later, if he was in on it, rather than try to get more out of Bahamut right now.

At the very least it was good to know he'd tried other ways to resolve the Eternatus problem than just killing everyone first. Maybe one day, when Dave was feeling less irritable and they didn't have a goddamn apocalypse hanging in the sky, they could get into what alternatives he'd had. Maybe.

"Fair enough. Yeah, I'm sure we can hold his attention. How long's it going to take?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"It should happen instantaneously... but I can only assume Arceus needs time to charge such a power," Bahamut said. "I sent a message to him as soon as I left the infirmary. Whether he follows through or not is up to him." His tail lazily swished side to side. "That said... since I know there are way too many on the team who value yelling encouraging messages during battle instead of actually battling... I think it wise to bring Maple and have her take that role instead." He looked at the floor. "I cannot speak for others, but I would find strangers yelling random sentiments at me to be a bit... disconcerting. And an enraged psychic may misinterpret things. But if it comes from someone he's supposed to love... well, that's another story entirely."