The Sap Sipper

[Flyg0n]

This cozy little bar is tucked away off to the rear of the main hall. Soft music greets you as you enter, and the dim lighting makes the atmosphere relaxed. If people speak here, they certainly know how to use their inside voice. An Octillery behind the bar serves up tasty drinks alongside his human partner, and a Machamp can be seen helping to prepare delectable finger foods and serving them to guests. Both alcoholic and drinks friendly to younger ages are available.

This is a space to get away from the celebration and get a quiet moment to think.

***​

 

[MintyMimix]

After their encounter with Gladion, Hazel wore a pensive look that ill-suited her usual curiosity. Violet might not have understood the full extent of her contemplation, but she knew that she just needed a bit of time to think things through. Clutching onto her claw with a warm touch, she lead them to a place to relax.

Though Violet rolled her eyes when she was denied any alcohol, she wasn't as bothered as the prior experience. More important to her was ensuring that Hazel got a delight for her troubles — a Watmel berry smoothie. It was both of their favorites: a savory sweetness packed with a burst of flavor yet not so overpowering as to be crystalline rich. Violet was glad to see it was enough to at least give Hazel at least a bit of a smile. She'd give her a bit of space on this; Hazel would talk when she felt ready to.

In the interim, Violet supposed she could take a look around this place just to stave boredom...
@Flyg0n
[Foresight]

 

[Flyg0n]

The bar seemed immaculetly kept, in fact, the whol restaurant was quite clean. A few miscellaneous paintings on the wall, a photo of Xavian and Klefki together with Xavian smiling brightly, and a jukebox in the corner, playing soft music. By all appearances, a cozy, well-kept bar area. The Machamp cook waved to the two of them as he passed by, delivering food to other tables.

Violet investigated area! Nothing seems out of place or unusual!

 

[MintyMimix]

Violet looked at the painting and smiled. Maybe one day, she could commission an artist to make that happen with herself and Hazel? Her smile waned for a brief moment before it expanded it even further. No, not just herself and Hazel, but the professor and Azure, too. The whole family together.

Her ear perked up as she heard the slurping sound of Hazel reaching the end of her smoothie. With a pat on the back and a jolt of surprise from the Weavile, Violet gave a nod and beckoned Hazel to head out. This was just their rest stop on their way back to the dorms, after all.

The two held hands and walked out of the bar, both just a bit more relaxed than when they first entered.

<><><><><>

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade wandered through the festival ground, still unable to get over how weird all this was. Portals and Legendaries and... other worlds. Pokemon who could speak human like nothing was more natural, and places when Team Rocket had been gone for twenty years. Most of it was a big pile of 'let's think about this later' but at least the subject Legendaries was at least something she was used to. She hadn't found any leads on how to find them, but there was no harm in exploring the island. Maybe she'd get a drink first. Where did Nine go? Heck.

Jade walked into some place called the Sap Sipper and then abruptly realized it was a place for drink drinks. As in, a bar. She probably wasn't supposed to be here. Or maybe it was okay? She couldn't possibly be the only underage person on the island. Then again, aside from May, pretty much everyone she'd seen did seem like an adult. She wasn't used to feeling like a kid.

She could just order something else. But it still felt weird. Was it normal to walk into a bar and then just not order drinks? It was too stupid a question to ask. She could practically hear Starr laughing.

...Whatever, she could just go somewhere else. Jade spun around and walked back toward the door, doing her best to convince herself that everyone in the room wasn't staring. Probably.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Despite how well her chance meeting at the lake had gone, Laura was full of jitters. Everywhere was either busy, and therefore exhausting, or empty, and therefore bound to make her feel like crap. Mal and Sleet had both fucked off somewhere. She was thirsty. Ugh. Time to try out this 'Sap Sipper' place and hope it would be serving but not particularly busy.

Thankfully, the bar was pretty much empty, except for one girl walking towards her. Was she... staff? No, she was another trainer for sure, she had that vibe. Shit, this was a weird moment. Was this girl leaving because she was done here, or because she'd got fed up of waiting for other people. Laura was other people. But wouldn't it be weird to be like, 'hey, you were going to leave, but instead you should stay, and get to know me! Hi!' or whatever? Probably. Fuck.

"Uh, hi?" she asked. "Are you another trainer? I'm Laura. Um. Have you already had a drink...?"

Howls she hoped this girl wouldn't ask to compare pokémon with both hers missing. Showing off photos on her phone wasn't the same. Nobody thought that was cool.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade blinked at the shorter girl who'd just entered. "Oh, uh... no I haven't had a drink, I was just..." Leaving? That just led to the obvious question of why she'd even entered.

"...Not sure if I'm allowed to be in here," she finished lamely. "Since I'm not old enough to drink." She didn't really need to say that.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Laura shrugged, scratching the back of her neck. "I, uh... don't know if I am. Don't a lot of countries have a legal age of twenty, twenty-one? But like, they must serve mocktails and shit, right? It's not exactly packed in here, they'll serve us."

She waved over at the octillery tending bar. "Uh, hi! Look, do you serve soft drinks here, mate?" The tentacled reply sure seemed affirmative. She didn't exactly specialise in molluscs.

"Uh, yeah, they got stuff."

Fuck, this was normally where she'd talk about her 'mon or something. Say something not totally useless.

"I'm Laura, I'm still getting a handle on this Festival thing. Wanna find a table?"

Please say yes, holy howls, please.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Oh, well, if it was okay, then... "Uh, sure, why not?" Jade replied, shrugging. She should probably try to get to know more of the trainers here anyway. That way she'd feel less blatantly out of place surrounded by all the champion-level invites. There had to be other normal people at this thing, right? May had seemed normal (bizarre time paradoxes aside).

"I'm Jade, by the way," she hastily added as they made their way to a table.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Neither of them seemed to lead the way, exactly, but by walking with each other in a vaguely directionless way, they found themselves at a table near the bar top. That was alright by Laura, it meant not having to cross an empty room to order drinks. She swallowed the usual awkward nonsense she spewed and tried to project some confidence to look at least slightly cool and experienced to Jade. Malachai was always hassling her to stop umm-ing and ahh-ing.

"Excuse me... Bartender? I'd like a lemonade, please. Or something close to that? Whatever you have that's like that."

Fucking really? Maybe if she walked out of here and directly into the ocean, she'd be able to apologise to Octillery's ancestors for being the dumbest fucking patron he'd ever had.

 

[Chibi Pika]

It helped a little that Laura didn't seem to know entirely what she was doing either.

"I guess I'll get a milk tea then." It felt a bit silly going into a bar and ordering something that you could get from any vending machine in Kanto, but whatever, she was done feeling stupid about things.

"So uh, have you ever been to any sort of event like this?" Jade asked, resting her elbows on the table. "It's all pretty new to me. I mean, I spectated at the League this year, but it's different getting an invite. Still feels weird being here instead of like, one of my friends. They're all a lot more serious trainers."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Laura chuckled nervously. "Yeah, I've been there. I mean, that sounds a lot like me. I've shelled out to spectate live at my local gym a few times, but I've never been to anything like this. Howls, I'm barely halfway into my first circuit, even. My friends have been doing circuits since before they graduated secondary school; I'm basically a novice compared to them."

She pursed her mouth, remembering what Gladion had said on the ship.

"I don't think that matters to this Xanax guy, though. There was a boy I met yesterday who doesn't have any qualifications or accolades, and he thought I was impressive just because I have a bluewing noivern for a partner. Said something about Galar trainers being weirdly competitive. That, and the spacetime bullshit... I think we got picked for weirder reasons than relative skill level. My working theory... Well, me and both the other attendees I've talked to so far have all had something to do with taking down shady fuckers from the inside. By any chance, would you...?"

Would she what? Have experience sneaking around inside a sinister organisation? Probably fucking not, right? Ah, there was her lemonade. She thanked Octillery and sipped appreciatively, glad to have an excuse to stop babbling.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Spectating at the local gym... yeah, that wasn't really possible in Viridian, what with the gym matches being private there. Imagining if they weren't sure was a wild image though. Just casually going to watch Giovanni's battles.

There was that mention of spacetime weirdness. It still didn't feel real. Jade was ready for someone to reveal it as an elaborate prank. Okay sure, a legend being about to teleport a bunch of people here across unrealistic distances made sense--Mew could do that too. But then there was May being dead convinced that Mewtwo had been made twenty years ago when Jade had personally spied on the lab where he was born last year. What the hell...

Jade almost choked on her tea when Laura brought up her theory. "Wait, how many people have you talked to who've gotten involved with shady groups? That's... kind of vague, isn't it? How on earth would Xavier even find out something like that?"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Laura laughed sheepishly and gripped her glass tightly.

"Well, there's me, there's Gladion, there's Odette... Or at least, I think so. I might not even be onto something with this, but it sure was fucking weird that the first person I spoke to also had experience with genetically engineered hybrid 'mon. I mean, what are the odds? I don't think that can be coincidence. Um. Right?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

It was a good thing that she wasn't drinking, because this time she definitely would have choked. "Wait, are you saying that you've got experience with genetic experiments? And you met other people who did?"

Jade wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not that Nine wasn't here right now.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Laura nodded, a little too fervently. Was Jade implying she had had run-ins of her own? Hard to tell. Increasingly anxiety-inducing. Better plough on.

"Um, yeah. Well, I mean, not with doing any experiments myself. Just, the organisation I'm, uh, investigating... They seem to be making a bunch of them. And at least one of the other trainers here has one as his partner. He's being real secretive about it, but there's no fucking way he keeps that under wraps for more than thirty minutes if you ask me..."

More lemonade. Maybe she should order food. The machoke staff member had brought out a menu for them. Tapas, huh? Love a bit of Cascan tapas. Laura made a vaguely indicative gesture to the menu and prayed silently that this girl wasn't too weirded out.

 

[Chibi Pika]

"The organization you're investigating?" Jade repeated, dumbstruck. Who just opened with that? That wasn't something you went around talking about. Jade had spent a year pretending it had never happened, and here this girl was willing to bring it up over a first meeting? 'Organization'... was she talking about Team Rocket?

I guess it makes sense if she's really sure that no one here is even from the same world as her? Still weird...

"Okay so, some boy has an experiment with him... did you come here with an experiment?" Jade asked, still reeling. Sure, May had known about experiments but it had sort of sounded like public knowledge somehow?

Oh, food, right. Something simple... fried seafood maybe? Sure.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Me? No. No, the ones I've been dealing with aren't... like that. It's weird, actually... You know, I don't know how to talk about it? Before this trip I don't think I ever actually talked about any of it to other humans. Hell, I barely kept most of my team in the loop, just in case. It sort of... doesn't feel real to talk about."

Laura rubbed at her face, looked to the food for a distraction, and asked Machoke for several different dishes, including calamari rings and halloumi fritters.

"I'm just trying to find commonalities. This whole arrangement doesn't really sit right with me. I thought it was some weird ploy by the group I'm used to, but then I realised that not only is everyone from different points in time, some of them are from worlds where the rules of physics and biology are massively different. There's got to be a common thread. I keep thinking if I can figure it out I'll know what to... to do here. Right now, the pattern looks a lot like 'takes on sinister weirdos as a hobby and has ties to super weird and unique pokémon'. Is that... you, or anyone you've got to know so far?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Man, Laura was really getting into trying to unravel what was going on here. Had she already talked to that many people? And here Jade would've been totally unaware of anything weird if the topic of Mewtwo hadn't come up on the boat.

'Takes on sinister weirdos as a hobby' okay, what on earth.... That was just too weirdly specific. Maybe Laura had spotted Nine earlier? Identified him as an experiment just like May had? That seemed plausible...

Well, if Laura had already found out somehow, there was no point in denying it. Part of Jade wished that Nine was here, though, in case this was a trap.

"Well... I've got experiments on my team, yeah," Jade began carefully, "but I don't think everyone here does." She'd seen plenty of normal-looking Pokemon. Granted, that didn't rule out clones without any visible enhancements, like Aros or Stygian, but.

"What sort of 'unique Pokemon' have you been dealing with, then?" Jade asked.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Nah, I saw loads of people with ostensible ordinary 'mon while I was on the ship," agreed Laura. "And my 'mon, including the ones with me here, are pretty ordinary. But... Well, it's like this."

She'd played out conversations like this over and over again in her head, usually wondering if she'd be able to sound rational and stay composed – or at least appropriately freaked out – while explaining it to some naive Perihelion staff, or a copper, or her family, or whoever. Or, sometimes, when the loneliness really stung, she'd imagined telling her friends. How sceptical they'd be. How risky and unfair it'd be of her to tell them.

She sighed. "Back home, there's this massive corporation that's got a hand in a ton of different industries, especially anything to do with pokémon, or with tech. I found out that one of their employees was scooping up missing 'mon for one of their programs, and when I did enough digging, I learned they were altering them. By, uh. Um." Phrasing, phrasing... fuck it. "Hybridising them with human DNA. Turning them into, uh, half-humans, I guess."

There was that weird pushing feeling around her eyes again. She wanted to look away, change topic, fidget, distract herself on her phone, not talk about... Salem. She dug the nail of her right thumb into the skin between her left thumb and index finger, and kept her shit together.