The White Elephant in the Room Playground

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Just wanna point out. Fella's name is Zeke. Not Zane. Zeke."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Abigail nodded. "Yes, Zeke. Not Zane, which is what Lee said."

 

[Tanuki]

Sevanna must have had much more customer service experience than Zeke, as she didn’t bat an eye (except at Palkia, though that seemed unrelated) when her guests started talking to a voice that wasn’t there, or when they talked to a loudspeaker like it could hear them. “Oh, don’t worry about cothtthth here. Your ththththtay wath already paid in full.”

She brought a notebook out from behind the counter and began writing their orders down with her tail. “Ah Theke. Thththuch a ththththweet boy. Thththththththththththorry to hear about hithth predicament.” Orders taken, she slivered into the kitchen and back out with each order balanced on her back.

"Thane," she pondered with a gleam in her eye. "Now that'th not a name I've heard in a long time. Ththooo burly, that thththangoose could—" She suddenly looked at Gen and interrupted herself. “Wath that all? Did you want thith for here or to go?” She asked.

"Okay, sure. Fine," Elbert sighed. "Anyone present during the spatial collapse would have died instantaneously, but I guess maybe these workers decided to leave existence—wait." Elbert must have run out of sarcasm juice. His voice sounded deathly serious. "How many did you say there were?"

 

[Shiny Phantump]

"To go, please." Once she had the soup, Abigail began the ascent to Zeke's cabin.

She was very done with Elbert. "Oh, so your counsel would've killed them if they weren't so unable to accomplish anything that even their fuck-up doesn't actually do what they thought it would. How very like this counsel that is. We have, for the record, met two of them, with a probable third."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

She looked at her Bingo card and shouted back down the hill. "Anyone got an N42 ball?"

 

[Tanuki]

Elbert waited a minute to respond. When he finally did, he spoke with very uncharacteristic care. "So, Palkia made absolutely sure no living organisms were in the area before combining it like he did. I understand your frustrations, but we did everything we could to make sure everyone was safe there. We're trying to help you get out and find Squirt as fast as we can. Do you know the names of these possibly three people? We'd like to check... against the three Soul Signatures detected on the mountain."

"Ath you withhh," Sevanna said. She happily and carefully laid the eggs in box-bowl containers, sealed them, and gave them to Abigail.

Abigail began the ascent to Zeke's cabin.

The moment Abigail opened the door, Zeke pounced on the soup as if his life depended on it, slurping it down faster than anyone could reasonably swallow. Somehow, he managed not to choke. All the frost melted off him as he drank the soup down. His eyes went back in a look of euphoria. Even when all the soup had gone, he held it to his lips to get every last drop out of it.

"Aaaaaah, that hits the spot," he said. "Nothing quite like Sevanna's soups. Thanks." His eyes stayed locked to the ceiling, still lost in the euphoria of The Soup.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Nah, but I could use a B8."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Abigail looked out towards the other side of the cliff.

"Okay, the soup is no-strings-attached, that's just yours because you fucking deserve at least that much for getting caught up in this bullshit... But on an unrelated note, the poor intern stuck trying to fix the mistakes of the idiots who fucked all this up in the first place has said he's picking up three so-called 'soul signatures' here. It's pretty safe to say they're not ours, because there's five of us and I don't think that four of us can have half a soul."

She paused for a moment to let him process that before continuing. "So. Those signatures must be you, Sevanna and the Rillaboom on the other side of the lift. Can you please turn it on, so that we can check to make sure he's not stuck and going hungry like you are? If you want one of the other members of my group to come up and confirm that I am indeed an adult human and not a ralts child who needs to be put on strong antihallucinogenic medication before you listen to me, I can arrange that."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Jesse trudged into the frozen ski lift cabin and leant heavily on the doorframe.

"Howdy, fella. Please, at yer earliest possible convenience, turn on the lift. I beg of ya."

 

[Fusion]

Abigail nodded. "Yes, Zeke. Not Zane, which is what Lee said."

Lee bit his tongue. "I don't... I don't even know how I got that wrong."

He didn't really say much along the way to Za-- Zeke. To Zeke. It was Zeke. He took just a step inside, shaking the snow off his body. "It's cold as fuck in here. How did you survive for so long?" he asked Zeke. Not Zane. "And hello, I guess."

 

[Tanuki]

The more people entered, the more Zeke scooched back. "Rally? He's at the base next to the cabin," he explained. His paw hovered underneath the left side of the control mechanism. "Why would a ski rental store be at the top of a ski slope?" The more people arrived, the less confidence he had in this group's sanity. "I don't know who this intern is, but if he's with the people in charge of this mountain, tell him I ain't turning on the lift until a replacement's on the way. You couldn't change my mind with The Word of a God," he declared, though one paw went to his chin. "Okay, maybe if one was right in front of me. That'd be pretty sick."

"I just need their names and species. That should be enough to narrow down their Soul Signatures," Elbert said. He sounded more panicked the more he didn't get an answer.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Alright... Elbert, we've got a zangoose named Zeke, a seviper named Sevanna, and a fella named Rally we're assumin' is a rillaboom. That sort ya?"

He sighed, groaned, leaned back against the wall. Fuck everything. He missed home.

"I'm so fuckin' tired. Palkia, please come tell this fella to switch the lift on."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

"No, no. He's not with the people running the mountain. We're talking about the idiots who shoved the mountain into a pocked dimension and let it devolve into a festive-themed murder. We do have a Palkia with us, but they not this worlds Palkia, and don't have their powers here because some idiot fucked up space so badly that even one of Arceus' Firstborn can't fucking fix it anymore."

She turned out the door to yell at Elbert some more. "Why the fuck would someone's name let you figure out their soul-signature?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

"While we're on the topic of bingo-balls-no-one-else-can-see... I don't suppose anyone here's got any use for G58, have they?"

 

[Fusion]

"Why the fuck would someone's name let you figure out their soul-signature?"

"Names are powerful, which is why the people of my world don't share theirs so easily," Lee shrugged. "That is the only explanation I can come up with as for why Elbert needs names at all, especially considering there are only, you know, a small handful of Pokemon here. Most of which he knows. So I'd assume we wouldn't have to fucking tell him all of that anyway, considering he already knows there are more people here."

Lee cleared his throat and exhaled, leaning on the wall nearby Jesse and rubbing his temples. "Fuck this headache of a world..." With the mention of Bingo balls again, Lee spoke again, "I have I19, if anyone needed that."

 

[Tanuki]

"You guys know Pallister?" Zeke perked up in his seat. "I haven't seen that guy since he went to ask ol' Dialysis to borrow some time." He chuckled. "Crazy bastard actually read my essay on the Quasi Conversational relationship of space and time." His paw relaxed away from whatever it was reaching for under the control console while a smug smirk reached across his face. "Got a full ride to the Arcean University for that essay."

She turned out the door to yell at Elbert some more. "Why the fuck would someone's name let you figure out their soul-signature?"

"Not quite how it works," Elbert mumbled. Whatever mic he used picked up the clicking and clacking of typing in the information as Jesse provided it. "They just cut down how many others we have to compare against. Each Soul Signature is unique, like we used to think fingerprints were. Problem is, everyone in the multiverse has one. If we can only compare them with the Soul Signatures of names and species, it cuts down... oh no."

Elbert audibly swallowed. "So, those three souls match with the names." Another excruciating pause. "Um, not to get to personal, but are you all sure that you have souls?"

 

[Fusion]

"Um, not to get to personal, but are you all sure that you have souls?"

"I mean..." Lee scratched his cheek.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Jesse slowly sank to the floor.

"Motherfucker I had a soul, I've been sent between worlds and bodies as a soul, but now? Who fuckin' knows. Now I guess we gotta figure whether we're even our real selves."

 

[Tanuki]

Zeke quirked a brow. "What's this about souls? You all right, uh, Delphox?"

 

[Shiny Phantump]

"I'm a human, so I shouldn't have a soul, but you promised you managed to cram one into me when you turned me into a ralts! If you got that wrong, you have absolutely nobody to blame but whoever's running this dumpster fire!"

Abigail paused. "Wait a fucking second. You also told us that you have an eye on the souls of those of us who got supposedly-not-killed. So, if we don't have fucking souls, then that's a fucking lie. Are they mostly dead or entirely dead because that's a big fucking difference right there."