Poppin' Arms Guild ~ Main Lobby

[Chibi Pika]

Starr let out a huff. "Yeah, okay, whatever, I'm just used to my world being the normal one, alright?" She rubbed her temples. God, even if it weren't for the shade's separation anxiety bullshit, this whole situation would've given her a headache. "I dunno what guns have to do portals or shadow machines anyway. If you'd asked me back home, I'd have said those other two were sci-fi bullshit."

Well, except for the fact that someone had made shadow Pokemon in her world, but that was clear on the other side of the world and it didn't have anything to do with Rockets, so it didn't count.

 

[Dragonfree]

"Sci-fi bullshit. You can say that again." Yeah. Guns didn't have anything to do with this shit. And if the interdimensional mafia brought guns, his goddamn radiance move could probably just deflect bullets, couldn't it. Wouldn't that have been fucking nice to have.

He stood there, jaw clenched, for a moment. "You keeping your shade or not?" he said abruptly, turning back to Starr.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr bristled. He'd gone and named his, so of course he'd be judging her for trying to get rid of it. Except... for the part where he'd gone and said that nobody could force her to take care of it. And that they should get Chip to break the psychic link. Which was just about the last thing she'd been expecting.

She turned the stone over in her paws. "They... make us stronger. It's useful to have one." That's all it was. Useful. That was the only reason she was even considering it.

...What if it wasn't safe? What if they could possess people even from in there? (A sudden, sickening flash hit her. Brisa snarling in pain, desperately begging for death.)

Starr suppressed a shiver. "They can't... they can't possess anyone from in there, right? It's safe?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave shrugged. "Well, me and Owen and other people have had them for a while without incident. I don't think they can actually get out of the stone on their own at all." Which he still didn't like. But Squiggly still seemed perfectly content with this, so whatever, who was he to say otherwise. Maybe there was nothing better than being a fucking rock.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr nodded absentmindedly. Okay. If it was safe, then the lump was as good a prison as any. (Even if... the shades apparently didn't need to be imprisoned? If Owen had just had his sitting on his head? What the hell.)

Even now, she could feel her anger sliding away from the lump. Was that the psychic bond? Damn it all.

"...Kay. Might hold onto it for now." Slowly, Starr stuffed the lump back into her back. A few moments passed, and she found her mind drifting back to the previous topic. The shadow machine. Cosmog. Right, she still needed to talk to him.

Starr got to her feet and made for the entrance. She got about halfway there, then abruptly paused and turned back toward Dave. "See you around," she said before heading out the door.

 

[Dragonfree]

"See you."

Dave wasn't sure exactly what he'd just done to convince her not to ditch her shade - honestly he'd kind of been looking forward to kicking down the door of Chip's lab with her - but this was good, probably. At least he wasn't going to have another one foisted upon him.

<><><><><>

 

[Namohysip]

It was the morning after, and several members of Team Spectrum had taken the liberty of familiarizing themselves with their new homes. With all of that taken care of, however, Maple had sent for everyone who could to gather up at the lobby to go over an important address. Team Spectrum, eclectic as they were, probably were not able to gather together effectively unless the world was in some kind of danger, so she did not have high hopes... But she could at least try.

Maple waited until the crowd was large enough and, assuming Diyem or the others would catch the stragglers up later, began.

"Hello, everyone. For those who are not completely aware, this is a meeting to discuss... Well. Us. The God Squad, as you call us."

"You mean the team name I made up," Soda pointed out, raising a claw.

Indeed, all of the God Squad was present. Truffle stood nearby with Leg hiding behind his feathery form, in his shadow. Potluck sat happily next to Maple,, his tail-fin wagging. And of course, there was Soda, with the massive Snorlax, Flesh, behind him.

"I suppose before I open with the main address," Maple said, "How much are you all aware of already? What more do you need to know?"

 

[Ambyssin]

Bahamut only had bits and pieces to go off from other people. Not exactly stellar for making concrete conclusions. "As best I can tell, none of you are from this world." He scanned the lot of them, metallic mane bristling. "The question, then, is what happened to bring you all here." Though he phrased it as a statement.

 

[Namohysip]

Maple nodded. "Of course," she said. "We are not from this world. In fact, we arrived not much earlier than you all did. Perhaps by a few days. The first thing that happened when we appeared was our meeting with the ruler of this domain--in other words, this world's Arceus, Pop."

"Well, more specifically," Soda said, "Pop found us after we were spread out like butter from getting our chests kicked in by whatever attacked us on the way here. We didn't even have a chance to react, and that's pretty crazy to happen between all of us. Not to mention, we went from seven to six."

 

[Ambyssin]

"You were attacked?" Bahamut's eyes turned red. "By what? And how?" He tried to soften his expression. The results were... mixed. "It's just... if you give us a more concrete description, perhaps someone here might have a theory?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Unfortunately, that is beyond us," Truffle replied, shaking his head. "We did not know where we were attacked, what attacked us, or... Well, we aren't really even sure what the nature of the attack was to begin with." He dipped his head and folded his wings down again. "It's all one great mystery. We only know that it was enough to defeat our second leader."

Maple nodded, though she could not mask the way she squeezed her own arms. "The seventh member of our team," she said. "I am currently the leader, but we used to have a partnership. He was... Joule, a Necrozma. Not unlike the form you used to take, Bahamut. And it was by his power, in part, that we traveled from world to world."

 

[Cresselia92]

“…So, the assailant is some unknown fiend or force wielding unknown powers. I see.”

Standing on the back row was Icetales, staring intently at the God Squad with a neutral expression. There were still a few matters nagging him about those mysterious aliens — if he could define them in such way — but he decided to push them aside to focus on the matter at paw. They were willing to give answers, so he might as well dust off his noblemon teachings and act politely and without prejudices.

“Then I have a few questions for you all, if you do not mind me asking,” he continued, eyes narrowing subtly, “and the main query would be knowing if you had foes in your origin world. Could anyone feed any scornful or foul feelings toward your personas? Or at least, toward you comrade Joule? And if there is anyone who suits these criteria, do they have portal powers to potentially hunt you down in this world?”

He paused and his tails quivered. “Assuming that this unknown threat isn’t already here, of course…”

 

[Ambyssin]

"Of course it's already here," Bahamut said. "... probably. Maybe." He glanced at a wall. "Well, I'd bet that whatever it is is here, anyway. Otherwise, this would be nothing but some sort of freak coincidence."

Bahamut scrunched up his snout. "Actually... where were you all trying to go before you were attacked? It could be relevant."

 

[Namohysip]

"We were tracking something that had a dark aura," Soda reported, nodding. "Happens from time to time, interdimensional plagues and all that. Part of what we do involves taking out stuff like that for worlds that might not be able to defend against it."

"And before you ask," Maple added, "no. As far as we're aware, the dark entity we were tracking and the entity that attacked us appeared to be two different things... But due to how chaotic that clash was, I'm not sure if it might have gotten involved in the battle. We were drawing near when the attack had begun."

"I, personally, don't think it's a coincidence," Soda said. "There's a chance we were attacked in a two-pronged strike and we were so focused on the entity we were tracking that we didn't see a second one coming. It's rare for chaotic creatures like that to work together, but it's not impossible."

"As for scornful or otherwise vengeful spirits," Maple went on, frowning. "The team you see before you are recruits from various worlds. For one reason or another, which is up to them to disclose, they left their homes to follow us in our efforts to save other worlds."

 

[Ambyssin]

"Oh? And what of him?" Bahamut pointed at Flesh. "At least I've seen the mimikyu around a few times. That snorlax doesn't seem to do anything but stand around looking far bigger than a snorlax should." Perhaps he was a mute? That wouldn't explain the size, though. And he shuddered to think there was an entire dimension with oversized pokémon.

 

[Namohysip]

"Oh, right. Flesh." Soda gestured toward the gigantic Snorlax. "Yeah, that's not his real form. The reason I'm always hanging around the guy is because I'm keeping up an illusion. His real form is too off-putting to have out in public right now. Like, we were thinking about doing it for a while, y'know? But we never got around to it. Though, a few folks around town know about it since we broke the illusion once or twice..."

"I doubt many of you are familiar with the species," said Maple. "But Flesh is actually something known as Guzzlord."

"Grooooogh..." Flesh groaned, slinking back about a step. He seemed nervous, but with Soda keeping the illusion up, it was impossible to tell how he really felt.

 

[Cresselia92]

“…I am afraid that the name does not ring any bells,” replied Icetales, before his eyes widened subtly. “But I have seen with mine own eyes the horrors of a war zone and the most mind-breaking abominations and daemons in my youth days, so eldritch entities do not faze me much.”

He scratched a hitch on his ear with his hind leg, before shaking his head. “But if Sir Flesh is shrouded by an illusion, then,” he tilted his head, “I suppose you all are hiding your true personas, too? What are your species, then?”

Are you all hiding behind a mask like yours truly…?

 

[Namohysip]

"Nah, just Flesh and Maple," Soda said. "I'm totes a Zoroark. Leg here's a Mimikyu, and so on, yadda yadda. Though we did pick up native names to blend in more. Before, we had names more like what Maple's true name is."

"Mm. I've already told a few others," the 'Smeargle' replied. "My real name is Blade... and I was a Voice of Life of another world. Like other Voices, I am able to change my appearance to a preferred species."

 

[Ambyssin]

Oh. Guzzlord. That made infinitely more sense. "Guzzlord are... hard to describe. Let me see if I can still remember how to communicate with them."

Bahamut cleared his throat and turned to Flesh. "Ahhh ahhh ahhhh!" If memory served him, he was introducing himself. Hopefully.

 

[Cresselia92]

Icetales glanced at Bahamut speaking in an unknown language, and his ears flicked. He hoped that whatever he said to the Snorlax-who-was-truly-a-Guzzlord was harmless. The last thing they needed was more heartbroken fellows.

“Mhmm. So, just like us, you are beings from multiple worlds who have joined forces to vanquish a common threat…” He sat on his haunches and started fanning his face with his tails. “I wonder if there is some relation between you as a group appearing and us being summoned into this world. Anyway, how did you find out about this menace and joined forces, actually? Did your missing leader gather you all and form a group, just like Diyem gathered us?”