Poppin' Arms ~ Study

[Negrek]

"I was doing a whole lot fucking better before I heard anybody mention Team Fucking Rocket. What the hell are they supposed to have to do with that fucking machine? Or, you know, absolutely anything else in this fucking world where humans don't even fucking exist?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

"...Rocket... Yes. Yes, I know a lot about..." It was barely a whisper. He knew, certainly, about it. "I was..." He spoke again, a little slower this time. "Something to do with..."

Starr stared at him. He knew about Team Rocket. That didn't... that didn't mean he was... pretty much everyone in Kanto knew about them. But still, that definitely confirmed that his world was like hers in at least one way.

"Hey," he barked, going over to the table where the group was gathered. "What the fuck is going on over here? Where the fuck is that from?"

Starr turned to see the Mudkip that had suddenly barged into the room out of nowhere. His name was... Nate, right?

"It was printed on the inside of the shadow machine," Starr replied, examining him. Yeah, he looked way the hell too flustered for someone just learning about this. "Gonna go out on a limb and say your world also had a Team Rocket?"

 

[Namohysip]

"I remember..." Cosmog tried to follow up. "That symbol, I remember... seeing it... for many of the battles I had. Battles... I had a team? I can't remember them..." He trailed off, slowly. "...And... I was fighting... against them, but... I know a lot about them. Way more than any normal person should... But I don't remember anything more than that... Nnnngh... Names. I need names..."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Battling against Team Rocket. Well, he'd have had plenty to talk about with Jade. But if he knew more about them than the average person, then... "If you were fighting them, any chance you might've been a infiltrator? My friends and I had a lot of experience at that. Any memory of seeing the inside of a base or anything?"

 

[Namohysip]

"...None... no specific ones... but I do know I was in them a lot. I had free access to almost anything there... I..." Cosmog squeezed his eyes shut. "Nngh... I remember... I don't remember anything else about that. C'mon, can this infiltrator be someone who can have free access to anywhere in the facility? I remember it was... I remember... I remember being... shorter than everyone else. Was I younger back then...?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr stared at him, a chill running down her spine. Yeah, they were onto something for sure. But if he had access to everything in the base, then...

"You asked for names. It's probably stupid to expect our worlds to have the same people in them, but..." Should she be saying this? Fuck. "In my world, Team Rocket was run by someone named Giovanni... that ring a bell?"

 

[Namohysip]

Cosmog froze. Even the nebulae around his body froze, like that was a thing he could do. The dim glow of his eyes flashed a little brighter, flickered, and then returned to normal. His breath, if he was capable of holding his breath, had probably stopped, too.

"...Gio...vanni..." Cosmog trailed off again, his nebulae now quickening and shifting uncertainly. And then... "He's... my father. I know it."

 

[Negrek]

(( that awkward time when Starr discovered her long-lost unknown sibling ))

What the litten said didn't make any sense. "I mean, yeah, obviously they're in my fucking world. But what the fuck would a Rocket logo be doing on that thing? Ignoring the fact that there shouldn't be any fucking way for them to be here in the first place, Cipher was always the one with shadow tech."

What the cosmog was going on about hardly sounded any more plausible, but it at least wasn't as wild as Rocket getting in on the shadow pokémon trade. "Giovanni's son?" That rang a bell, if only faintly. That's what they said about one of those Johto Champions, wasn't it? "Uh, Silver?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Ignoring the fact that there shouldn't be any fucking way for them to be here in the first place, Cipher was always the one with shadow tech."

Well didn't he sound confident about that. "Yeah, Rocket sure as hell never had shadow tech in my world either. Or fucking portals, for that matter. Believe me, it's weird as hell."

"...Gio...vanni..." Cosmog trailed off again, his nebulae now quickening and shifting uncertainly. And then... "He's... my father. I know it."

Starr went rigid, staring at him in disbelief. What? He was... what? How?

Should she... tell him?

 

[Namohysip]

"Sil... ver..." Cosmog stared ahead, but then his gaze hardened. "...That's it," he said, barely a whisper. It was a smile yet there seemed to be so much weight behind it. "That's my name. Silver." He finally had that answer.

 

[Negrek]

"Huh." So he was talking to a fucking celebrity, then? Of all the random fucking things. This mission had been shit enough without getting Team Fucking Rocket all mixed up in it. "Well, I guess that makes a good start. I dunno, can you... Can you remember anything else now? Like maybe how you ended up in that fucking machine?"

Rocket working with Cipher wasn't so far-fetched, he supposed. They'd kinda almost tried it at one point, in his Rocket. Which apparently there were multiple versions of, because what the litten had been talking about couldn't be his world. Or at least, not his time. Giovanni'd been gone for a while. And if there were multiple Rockets out there... Yeah, fucking interdimensional shadow Rocket, why the fuck not.

Meanwhile, the litten herself looked like she was having a stroke or something. Just what was her angle on all this?

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Giovanni's your... dad." Starr was still frozen, unable to process it. What the hell. What the hell. If it wasn't bad enough that there were multiple versions of Team Rocket, there were multiple versions of him. What the hell.

SIlver. His name was Silver. And Nate had known that. Maybe his and Silver's worlds were the more similar out of the three. It was something to latch onto, at least.

...

God dammit, if it didn't come out now, it'd come up eventually. Screw it.

She fixed Silver with a hard stare and said, "That's something we have in common, then."

 

[Namohysip]

Cosmog--Silver, rather--stared at Starr again, by now completely losing interest in the book that he had been reading. Looking somewhere between concerned and amused, he said, "I'm a girl in your world?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr snorted. Okay, that kind of helped take the edge off, at least a little. "Well, that's one way to put it. Another way would be... I don't know, fucking interdimensional siblings or something." Anything would be an improvement over her actual brother back home.

 

[Negrek]

What in the actual fuck was going on? The cosmog was like the litten's mirror universe twin or something? And she'd been Giovanni's fucking daughter this entire time?

Nate opened his mouth with every intention of pointing out that there was more pressing shit to deal with here, like how had Team Rocket ended up in this world in the first fucking place or how did the cosmog end up in that machine, but after a moment closed it again without saying anything. Actually, he kind of wanted to see where all this was going.

 

[Namohysip]

Silver sighed and shut the book. "Well, I know where I'm from now, but I still have no idea how to get my body or my memories back. But I think I can help you out here until I do." He said the book forward. "I don't have any other information for you guys, just guesses. For one, pretty sure Giovanni's behind some of this. And if I'm a Pokemon, maybe he is, too."

 

[Chibi Pika]

It was like an icy fist had grabbed hold of Starr's chest, clenched tight. "What--you don't think Giovanni could be here?"

It wouldn't... it wouldn't be him. Not really. Another version of him. He wouldn't recognize her. But...

Then something else jumped out at her. "Maple," Starr blurted out suddenly. "She said that someone had attacked her group when they first came to Cibus. Someone not from here--that's the reason why she suspected the rest of us, what with us being from different worlds and all."

 

[Namohysip]

"Then I guess that's something to bring up when we talk to her again," Cosmog said, grumbling. "Maple... I saw her for a little while. She's too intense for a Smeargle, isn't she?" He shrugged. "Hmph, I can't focus on any of this now. Great. Too busy thinking that this dad I don't even remember is probably wandering around as a... I don't know, what would he want to become?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Yeah, she sure as hell isn't a Smeargle. Said she planned to tell everyone her whole deal tomorrow, but me and Nip grilled her until she told us she was a Voice of Life." Starr paused, then added, "Dunno whether it's bullshit or not, but it's pretty safe to say she's telling the truth about not being from around here."

Silver went with further musings on what Pokemon his dad (their dad?) would've become. Starr glanced away. "Well, Nidoking was always his ace. Could see him turning into one of those." Powerful. Ruthless. Unrelenting. It was a decent fit. "But if he got a choice in it, he'd probably want to be the strongest." Her throat clenched up. "Something like Mewtwo."

 

[Negrek]

It was a good thing Nate had decided to shut up. He had obviously missed some fairly important shit somehow. The boss of motherfucking Team Rocket might be what? (At least him going on an interdimensional jaunt would explain where the fuck he'd disappeared to.) Maple was what? Why the fuck hadn't he heard any of this shit? And more depressing yet, why did it sound so plausible, the complete insanity of it aside?

"Well, at least there's already a Mewtwo in this world," Nate said. "Maybe if we're lucky and Giovanni tried changing into one of those, they'd cancel each other out and explode." He frowned. "Kinda wondering what happened to your team over here. Like we got maybe Giovanni and who knows how many grunts, are we gonna end up fighting shadow, uh, crobat and all them, too?"