Poppin' Arms ~ Study

[Negrek]

"Well, teleport's damn handy. Off to a good start." It was fucking surreal to have Silver, the son of Giovanni and one of the most powerful trainers in Johto, acting like he was afraid Nate might laugh at him and hurt his feelings. What a fucking world. "So, damage, huh? Whatever it is, it can't be more pathetic than when I was trying to learn water gun and just spitting on shit. Whatcha got?"

 

[Namohysip]

"I don't really know if it has a name," Silver stated flatly. "It takes a bit to charge up. Give me a second..."

The air suddenly felt a little hotter. Silver glowed dimly in the study room. Little clouds of white, sparkling dust appeared around the Cosmog and concentrated around him.

Silver is charging!

"...What do I use as a target?" Silver asked, his voice strained. It didn't look like he'd be able to call off the attack anymore. The ground shook with a light vibration, and everything around the room seemed darker, aside from Silver himself.

 

[Negrek]

If Silver was embarrassed by the attack, Nate had been expecting something pathetic, like a badly-executed Tackle or a piss-poor Absorb or something. Whatever the guy was up to, it certainly looked more interesting. Nate was simply watching, curious to see what would happen, when Silver asked for a target. Uh, right. Fuck.

"Here, uh, try to hit this!" Nate, said, grabbing the book off the table and tossing it into the air in front of Silver.

 

[Namohysip]

Darker and darker, until the only thing giving off light at all was Silver. Then, it all stopped. Silver's light went out, and everything was dark. The rumbling stopped. Then, half a second later, Silver sped through the air in a blazing, sparkling aura. If Nate could hear over the sudden rush of air, he'd hear the softest "Pew!" when Silver launched the attack.

He slammed into the book, stardust scattering around him in a cosmic mist. For someone as light as Cosmog, the strike packed quite a punch, sending the book halfway across the study room. Light returned to the walls and Silver drifted to the ground, his luminosity also normalizing.

 

[Negrek]

Nate watched the book go flying. It wasn't a hyper beam or nothing, but could be worse.

He wasn't going to say anything about the noise. If there even was a noise. Probably just his ears playing tricks on him.

"Not bad," he said instead. "Seems like you got a decent setup there. Teleport a guy up into the air, drop him, then charge up while he's stunned. Just when he's getting up, you knock him back down with your attack. Simple. And you've got teleport to play defense with, too." Silver didn't need him to be saying any of this. Silver was one of the best trainers in Johto--he could damn well figure out a basic combo like that, and no doubt a lot of better ones, too. "Looks like that last one was a pretty big attack for you, though. How're you feeling?"

 

[Namohysip]

"...I still make that noise when it happens," Silver said, looking mortified. He shook his pom-poms and sighed. "Whatever. If I'm really desperate, I might be able to... I don't know, knock someone off balance. But what did it actually look like? I can't judge my own strength like this. I'm too used to..." He trailed off. "...Something... It feels like I'm more used to observing it. Which makes sense." Why would he even say that out loud? Of course he was more used to observing attacks.

 

[Negrek]

Oh, God, there was a noise. Nate clamped down hard on a laugh, but couldn't help his lips quirking into a faint smile. With this and that poor bug he'd seen earlier... Yeah, mudkip was pretty shit, but it could be a hell of a lot worse.

"Not sure. Not an attack I recognize. Basically a tackle with a bit more oomph, like, sparkle power." Oh, shit, Silver probably wasn't going to like being associated with sparkles, either, was he? "Not super-powerful, but you've only been a pokémon for, what, a few weeks? Practice it up a bit and you'll be doing fine."

 

[Namohysip]

Indeed, Silver scowled at the remark. The last thing he needed was to be some kind of twinkling little... "I'm growing a lot faster than the average Pokemon. Thank God, because I wasn't about to live as a puffball for the better part of my life. Maybe if I get strong enough I can start asking for sparring partners so get this done faster."

He paused, but then stared suspiciously toward Nate. "Actually, why'd you come here, anyway? Not just to check on me, no way."

 

[Negrek]

There was always the possibility that whatever the fuck Silver was now, it didn't evolve and he was stuck as an adorable puffcloud for the rest of his time here on Cibus. Not that Nate was about to raise the possibility to the poor bastard's face.

"Well, I was kinda wondering if you'd remembered anything about what Giovanni might be planning, or what happened to you, you know, to end up in that machine and shit. Like, if the whole Mewtwo thing jogged your memory at all. If there's anybody out there who might have a clue what the guy's playing at, I figured it'd be you, you know? And we can use all the insight we can get." Nate sighed, wistful for a moment. "There's gotta be some way to get rid of that amnesia bullshit. Not that I'm sure you ain't tried everything you can think of. But still..."

 

[Namohysip]

Silver grumbled, "Yeah, well, I've been trying as much as I can, and at this point I'm definitely waiting to be awoken somehow. So far, though? It's all a blank, for whatever got me in that machine in the first place... though. I've been looking at pictures of Legendary Pokemon recently to see which ones would get a rise out of me. Mewtwo's one, obviously. And Charizard. No clue why. And there's also Pikachu... And also, I got a reaction from Lucario, too." He shook his head. "Mew's another, but I guess that's because of Darkwhite. the rest... Still looking."

 

[Negrek]

"Well, Charizard and Pikachu make me think of Red," Nate said. "He caused a lot of problems for Team Rocket in Kanto in my world, and he's another big-name trainer, so maybe you two were working together on something?" Hopefully Silver's Red wasn't like his world's Red, though. Nate would probably rather hang out with him than Giovanni, but only barely. Dude was fucking creepy. "Dunno about lucario, though. Lots of trainers work with those, and they're the type to try the hero thing on their own, too."

 

[Namohysip]

Red.

Red.

Red.

Silver suddenly clutched at his forehead, or the equivalent in this body, and keeled over. It was like a hot knife had been jabbed between his eyes.

"That got something," Silver wheezed. "Red... Definitely know Red..."

 

[Negrek]

"Wow. Uh, I guess you do," Nate said. "You want, uh, a berry or something?" He didn't really get how remembering something could hurt, but Silver didn't look like he was having a great time of it.

Well, it wasn't exactly surprising that Silver remembered Red. They had to know each other at least a little bit. Same circles and all. But the strength of that reaction suggested something more than a distant association. "I sure hope that doesn't mean we'll have to rescue Red from whatever Giovanni did to him, too."

 

[Namohysip]

"Who knows," Silver said, shaking it off. "I'll be fine. But if that reaction is anything to go by, it feels like... I'll have to tiptoe my way around that one until I can get a better hold of it. But... Red. He's supposed to be a hero, right?" The Cosmog drifted a little lower, only a few inches off the seat. "...Then why is it that the biggest thing I felt toward him, at that second, was... hate?"

 

[Negrek]

"Well, he's a hero in my world, at least," Nate said. "Don't mean he ain't got probems, though." Such as possibly having been replaced by a pod-person. "Who knows what his deal is in your world? And even if he is a hero, he could still have been a dick to you personally. Never know." There was always the professional jealousy angle, of course. Red had kind of a "perfect trainer" thing going on that might reasonably inspire some hate, especially if he kept crushing you in battles. If that was Silver's deal, though, better for him to figure it out himself.

 

[Namohysip]

Silver nodded wordlessly. "...It's still a lead." He rose a little higher. "So, uh. Thanks, I guess. You gave me more hints than any of these books could have, but what can I expect? This place has tons of texts that refer to humans as myths... Even more a myth than the Legends. Then again..." He scowled at nothing. "They seem like they're just out and about here anyway. Maybe without humans to try capturing them, they feel safer."

 

[Negrek]

"Maybe." Nate hadn't thought much about it, honestly. After everything weird about this fucking world, the legend concentration hardly registered. Would most pokémon even see them that much more often than people in his world? They were all stirred up because of the corruption thing, and Team Spectrum kept running into them because they were trying to stop the corruption thing, but most pokémon went their whole lives without visiting Destiny Village or Shaymin Village or Temporal Tower or places like that at all, right?

Whatever. It was good that Silver was remembering a little more, even if it wasn't anything hugely useful. "Anyway, it's good that you're figuring out how to use your abilities. There's some training rooms over at the colosseum you can rent out if you want to get some practice in without having to do a proper spar or whatever. Might come in handy."

 

[Namohysip]

"Yeah, the torch told me the same thing," Silver said with a grumble. "Maybe I should take that guy up on the offer. But I don't really know if I want to train against the guy. I can only imagine the... sweet, encouraging words he'll throw at me when I do some pathetic attack." Silver winced. "...Maybe it's just the bad feeling I get from his species. Who knows?"

Silver started to put away the book he'd been reading, finding that it was no longer of use to him. "Guess I'll have to find a new place to hide if the study room isn't a place to have an excuse to go to anymore..."

 

[Negrek]

Silver had gotten a sparring offer from... a torch? No fucking clue who that was supposed to be. Nate nodded sympathetically. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I ain't much for fighting, but I guess I can give it a shot if you want somebody to practice on. At least you ain't gotta worry about me showing you up with my rad moves or that kinda shit."

Nate watched Silver return the book to its shelf, perfectly at home with the place. Jesus. Just how long had the guy been holed up in here, anyway? "One way or another the training rooms are probably a decent place to hang out. I think you can just reserve one and close the door and nobody'll bother you. They stick you in one of the dorms here at the guild, too?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Yeah, with the big cat," Silver said with a shrug. "He doted over me for a little while like I was his kid or something, but he snapped out of it. He seems to know how to take care of... whatever this body is, though, so that's helped me. I guess if there was anybody for me to be stuck with, he'd be the best option..."