Sharpedo Bluff

[Ambyssin]

“Necrozma, yes.” He picked her up and placed her on his top chest spike. “You’re the only one of the humans I’ve seen enthralled with their new form. Why is that?”

 

[Persephone]

Necrozma was warm. So warm. Like napping on a stone in direct sunlight. He wasn’t always like that, right? You would have noticed.

“I was raised by a hydreigon.” Sort of. She also had a (human) dad, but... There were complicated feelings there. Alice? She loved Alice. That‘s all there was to it. “And I never really liked my life as a human. Being a deino feels much better.”

 

[Ambyssin]

"Fascinating." A chuckle escaped his beak. "But I wonder if you'll still feel that way when you sprout an extra head. I can feel everyone growing stronger in their time here. Perhaps evolution will be upon you all. Will you embrace that call or turn your back on it?"

 

[Persephone]

“Oh, I’ve had a twin... before...”

It’s fine. Cuicatl was a dragon and dragons didn’t have problems.

“Hehehe, I think I’ll be fine.”

 

[Ambyssin]

Well, someone was certainly confident. "I suppose time will tell." He set Cuicatl back down on the ground. "I'm sure, regardless the outcome, it will be... interesting. The girl who would be a dragon. 'Be careful what you wish for,' they say."

 

[Persephone]

That implied there were downsides to being a dragon. Ice, sure. And. “Are there winters here? There weren’t where I’m from. Can’t wait to go through my first as a dragon. Can you teach me to make fire? That should help.”

 

[Ambyssin]

"You have a far bigger problem than cold weather: fairy-types. You are... incredibly weak to them," Bahamut said, shrugging his upper wings. "And I'm afraid that dragons cannot simply breathe fire by virtue of being dragons. You have to learn the right moves. The marketplace would have the people you're looking for."

 

[Persephone]

Marketplace. “Like a TM? I hadn’t expected them to have those here. It’s a little... behind my world in technology.” Although the badges might be smartphones, and which is something. Still haven’t figured out if there are accessibility settings that would let you use them. “And fairies are... yeah. Alice, my Mom’s hydreigon friend, knew flash cannon. I might want to learn that if I can.”

 

[Ambyssin]

Sighing, Bahamut levitated Cuicatl's badge away from her. Just because he couldn't do anything to her didn't mean her belongings were safe, after all. He dropped it to the ground then pressed and held the central— well, the only button on the badge with a claw.

[Please say a command. For example, "Send a message" or "Tell me a joke.]

"Will that suffice, child?"

 

[Persephone]

Cuicatl started. Oh. Had Necrozma been able to read her thoughts, too? Could all dragons with psychic powers do that? Or did telepathy (or dark-types) work differently here? Maybe she was just being obvious to read. Anyway, smart phone! Accessible smart phone!

And... now she doesn’t know what to do with it. Message Astrid, maybe, at a later point. (Where had the fox gone, anyway?)

“Can I look stuff up with this? If I want to learn things? Or is there a library here... Not that I’d really know what to look up. History, maybe. Or mythology. Are they the same thing if gods are real?”

She had fought one, after all. Sort of. It was more that she’d encouraged someone else to fight a god.

“Oh, um, what do you know about the radiance stuff they offered? I’m... not sure if I should take it?”

 

[Ambyssin]

A devilish smirk spread across Bahamut's beak. "It's too late, child. You've been in close proximity to me long enough. That power is already festering inside you. The only question is how your psyche will shape it." He chuckled. "Try as some of us might, it seems the will of causality has us in its iron grip. I wonder how that grouchy pooch will react when he learns he isn't able to evade it."

 

[Persephone]

"Oh. Well, if you gave it to me... Wait, psyche? Shapes it? How? That could, um, be a problem. My psyche is... I think I should be doing now."

Cuicatl had a sinking feeling that this could go very, very badly. As she waddled ran off Cuicatl tried to message Astrid. If her psyche affected her power now (because of fucking course it does), she needed to resolve unfinished business here as soon as possible.

 

[Ambyssin]

The grin didn't leave Bahamut's face. "Well now, I'm sure whatever that was about... it will be interesting."

<><><>​

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Celeste noticed Bahamut over on the far side of town, in the bluff. Really, Bahamut was hard to not notice.

He’d changed a lot since Celeste really had a chance to talk to him, at least physically. Celeste wondered if that change had affected him mentally, too. Celeste walked over to the bluff.

“Hello. You would be Bahamut, I suppose? I didn’t really get a chance to talk to you earlier, what with the injured Lugia taking our attention. How are you doing?”

 

[Ambyssin]

"Yes."

Evidently, Bahamut had opted for the mathematician's answer. Truthfully, he had no idea why the absol was looking for him. "If this is about the lugia, then I don't have many thoughts on her. Other than how strange I find it that more than one of them exists. Are they blood-relatives or is there some other force at work here?"

 

[Shiny Phantump]

“Honestly, I don’t know either. It would be impossible for there to be two of them where I’m from as well. They insisted upon Maple referring to their older counterparts as their master, but I can’t tell if that’s for accuracy reasons or if it’s just... adolescent angst? Or... something else? They did call the young Ho-Oh their sibling.”

It felt very weird to refer to a higher being as being adolescent, much less as having adolescent angst, but it was a possibility.

 

[Ambyssin]

"Well, I find the concept of physical gods to be ridiculous in the first place... but here they are." Bahamut drifted down to the ground and lay down on his side. "I have always believed that people and nature should work in tandem. And that disharmony sprouts from those who would seek to manipulate nature to their own whims. If not for people like that, creatures like Natus wouldn't even exist." He paused. "Perhaps the same could even be said for this world's 'Dark Matter' daemon."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Celeste stopped to think. “People and nature should work in tandem, yes, but we also bend it to our own wills as we see fit. Our ability to set aside our normal role in nature is what makes us different from ferals.”

The rest... didn’t mean much to him. “And I’ve got nothing against Natus, either. Some of them are a little odd once they evolve into Xatus, but they don’t seem to be an affront to nature to me. Certainly nothing like the way Dark Matter was described to me.”

 

[Ambyssin]

If this was the absol's idea of a joke, it wouldn't even get a laugh from a hatchling. "It seems you need to clean the fur from your ear-frills. I'm not talking about those tiny psychic birds... I'm referring to the daemon that stripped me of my light and is suffocating my world to death." Despite the harshness of his words, his tone was eerily gentle. "Nah-tuss. Not nah-too. Besides, the plural of natu is still natu."

Clearly these children were both technologically and grammatically challenged.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Celeste huffed. “Come on now, I didn’t call your hearing into question when you didn’t know who Arceus or Dialga was. Your world has different higher beings than mine, we’ve figured that much out by now. I certainly haven’t heard of anything that can suffocate an entire world, thank goodness. Figuring that you’d pluralized Natu incorrectly was an entirely reasonable guess.”