Treasure Town ~ Main Square

[Virgil134]

Cabot finished setting up his profile, before putting the badge away. At least Diyem apologized, though given the mission they were about to embark on there wasn't much he had to say to him right now.

"I'm ready."

 

[Namohysip]

"Then let's--"

"Wait!" someone shouted, and heads turned to see that Surf was there with Turf right beside her. She was looking much healthier, now. "You're... you're gonna rescue Team Spice, right?"

"Just about," Soda said. "Hopefully we find 'em there."

"Then... then we wanted to send you off!" Surf said, waving. "Good luck, alright?"

Maple already had the portal open, but she nodded. "Do take care, everyone. We will be waiting by the entrance."

And with that, they were sent off. Surf and Turf both waved, shouting for them to win and rescue their family. It seemed a lot was hanging over the shoulders of the team this time, too...

 

[Chibi Pika]

"What about 'Anise' for yours?" she said to Starr.

The litten gave her a look that was somewhere in the region of surprise and shared borders with confusion and suspicion.

"From the spice. Star Anise. It would be easy to remember, kinda sound a bit like a surname if you say it in full."

Starr's ears had gone flat. Brisa's voice. Talking to... her? What. It took her several seconds to actually register the meaning of her words. A name. Anise? It didn't sound... bad. Why was she suggesting that, was there some other meaning to it that Starr didn't know about, was this some kind of weird-ass prank, what was she--

(Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered that Brisa being familiar with what human surnames sounded like was weird, wasn't it?)

"I... sure? Whatever," she replied automatically, not even sure how she arrived at the words. Too late to take them back now.

 

[NebulaDreams]

Curio stumbled into the main square after sharing that steamed bun with Cynthian. She observed the team's chatter about rescuing Team Spice, whoever they were, and needing to assign themselves food-related names in order to go in the cave. What was it with this place and food-related names? It was just making her even more hungry!

"I'll just call myself Beanpaste. I can't think of anything original, okay, and I can still taste it right now anyway."

Starr's ears had gone flat. Brisa's voice. Talking to... her? What. It took her several seconds to actually register the meaning of her words. A name. Anise? It didn't sound... bad. Why was she suggesting that, was there some other meaning to it that Starr didn't know about, was this some kind of weird-ass prank, what was she--

(Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered that Brisa being familiar with what human surnames sounded like was weird, wasn't it?)

"I... sure? Whatever," she replied automatically, not even sure how she arrived at the words. Too late to take them back now.

She watched as Starr bristled at her given name: Anise. "Pucker up, buttercup. I could think of worse names."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave was not happy about any of this. Not only were they supposed to follow the asinine naming theme the cartoon world had going on, apparently the naming theme wasn't even a real thing and just something Diyem was translating their names into for some inane reason, and then when called out on it Diyem had a tantrum about how dare you question me.

At least, he supposed, this was a world with some pretty neat technology in it. He rolled his eyes at the name prompt, refused to fill it out, and kept to himself in a corner, wishing he had something to drink.

...After a while, he sighed, booted up the system, and typed Scotch at the name prompt. Fine. Better than everyone else's terrible food names.

 

[Tanuki]

Zane's claws worked well enough with the device. The food names were stupid, but his life ranged from disaster to inane, so the latter gave a nice break from the former. He didn't need to think long for his name, a quick glance at his natural coloration filling him with joy. Being a zangoose was hard enough (even in this world, apparently), but his unique form back home made it all infinitely worse.

Red Velvet he typed with a smirk. Any sane person had the reasoning to see that name belonged on a stage with little to no costumes and poles or on a street-corner lit by a red light. Unfortunately, he was a Zane person, not a sane person.

The time to mock Diyem had long passed, but as they say, prevenge is a dish best served cold. Trouble keeping your anger in check? You should try anger management. Or therapy in general. I doubt anyone could see you long enough to make any progress before they died of prolonged exposure to your existence, but it's worth a shot! Red Velvet smirked, excited by the new shipment of throwing stones to his glass house.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"I... sure? Whatever,"

Fucking incredible. First actual interaction they'd had since nearly trying to kill each other, and it actually went okay. Maybe there was hope yet.

To clarify, no, I was not intending for you to kill a child. I may not like kids but I don't have any intention of being rid of them. Also, you should know that I knew you wouldn't have the strength to ill anyway. Turf is the daughter of a human. I don't think I know how to properly express how difficult human-Pokemon and their descendants are to kill.

Brisa had to much to chew on to reply to all that. It was a relief, if nothing else, that their coordinator was merely a weird feller with bad communication skills, and not a psychopath. Maybe the same could be assumed of Starr. She fucking hoped so.

Time to go.

 

[Negrek]

<><><><>​

Nate still hadn't gotten used to Treasure Town's return to life. It wasn't bad, really--the ghost town had been at least as unsettling as the lifeless ocean--but sometimes it was nice to be able to go out without having to worry about eyes on you. He'd have to learn the place all over again.

The decidueye and charmander easily stayed out ahead of him, and for the hundred thousandth time Nate cursed his stupid tiny mudkip legs, which not only made him slow as shit even at a dead run, but which also meant he couldn't fucking see over anything. He kept nearly losing his targets amidst the bustle of pokémon coming and going to shops and restaurants around the square.

It also turned out that sticking your hand into a ball of fucking fire was a shitty idea when that hand was also your foot and you were about to go running around on it. Nate limped despite himself, the hand he'd thrust into Maple's light throbbing every time he stepped with it, and by the time the decidueye and charmander finally stopped to wait up ahead he was hobbling and panting in the most pathetic way. Another fucking brilliant day in poképaradise. After catching up with them Nate couldn't do more than throw himself down in what passed as a seated position for a mudkip and try to catch his breath. In vicious irritation he balled up his stinging hand and punched the dirt a few times, as hard as he could, so his arm was left aching and buzzing all the worse.

"Yeah, so I'm here for the investigation or whatever," he said to the decidueye when he'd finally caught his breath. "But while we're waiting for whoever else to show up, could you go back to that whole Darkwhite thing for a moment? If nobody here knows where it is, and everybody else says they ain't seen shit, and there ain't any way to track it--where exactly did you think we were going to go from here? Can you ring up that Arceus guy and ask for some help, or what?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Yes!" Truffle said with a cheerful glint in his eyes.

Then, after a pause, Truffle relented and said, "Well, under normal circumstances, he certainly can help. However, anything related to this recent threat... distorts his vision somewhat. However, that alone allows for great deduction! Where there is a distortion, we investigate!"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave, who'd trotted along with them, rolled his eyes. "Oh, sure. Arceus is totally there to help, except it just so happens his 'vision is distorted' about anything relevant. How convenient."

 

[Namohysip]

"It is indeed quite a hassle, but if Arceus were able to solve this instantly, we would probably not be seeing any of you right now. This is quite like the Dark Matter incident in general, really... And that may be why he, too, is so focused on finding the solution before it escalates further. Several Legendary Pokemon have gone missing..." Truffle straightened. "Still! It all starts somewhere. While scouts are continuing to explore those distorted areas of Arceus' vision, we can inspect Treasure Town and other areas for further trouble brewing."

 

[Phoenixsong]

Little grub legs were not made for keeping up with the long strides of a decidueye; between that and trying to get a look at every pokémon they passed on the street, Skara frequently found herself having to ignore an interesting-looking person in favor of simply not being left behind.

"Do you know which legendary pokémon specifically are gone?" she asked as she finally managed to crawl up behind the poochyena. She wasn't sure she'd recognize most of the names regardless, but any information was better than none. "Like, I think I heard Maple say that you know another mew that isn't, um, 'Darkwhite', and that one's accounted for. But what about any others? Has anything else weird been happening in the places they vanished from? Would those be better places to focus the big search first?"

 

[The Walrein]

Jaro's sphere-to-leg ratio didn't allow for quick movement, so it took him a while to catch up with the rest of the team. He internally winced upon seeing Nate; the fact that he hadn't realized he was actually a part of Diyem's heroes earlier didn't say good things about his investigative prowess...

It was good that Dave was on the team, though; hopefully his paranoia would come in handy for detecting the shadow-possessed. Nate and Skara were also asking some good questions. "Regarding Darkwhite... I feel like maybe the best approach to finding her is to try to reason through what targets she would want to hit next, and get there first. Uh... I guess this might sound like something a secretly-working-for-the-shadows Pokemon might ask, but which of the not-already-disappeared 'Legendary Pokemon' would you reckon has the best power-to-susceptibility-to-possession ratio?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Well, Darkrai is one," Truffle said, "though as you can see, he was able to resist it enough that you were able to defeat him. If these Shades had enough power to completely overtake powerful Pokemon like Darkrai or Team Spice as a whole, there is no doubt you would have lost." Truffle hummed and looked down the marketplace's main road. "But to be able to subdue them at all is a concern... Ah, but as for Legends."

Truffle folded his wings down and recited a mental list. "Lugia and Ho-Oh have both gone missing, as have Raikou, Entei, and Suicune. Zapdos, Moltres, and Articuno reported being attacked, but were able to flee in time, but do not know the identity of their attacker. Deoxys has gone missing, which has Mewtwo very distraught even if he does not express as much--ah, I'm not supposed to say that part out loud..." Truffle coughed. "Ah, there is also the entirety of the Regi Legends, now that we have explored Aegis Cave and found them missing. Everybody else is accounted for and under Arceus' watchful eye. We also fear that those who had previously been touched by Dark Matter's influence, such as Rayquaza, Dialga, Darkrai, Kyurem, and Yveltal in particular may be vulnerable to this threat, assuming it is of the same origin..."

 

[The Walrein]

"Huh," Jaro said. All those names meant little to him, he really needed to brush up on the mythology of this place at some point...

"Uh, crazy idea, but could it be possible for the potentially vulnerable legends to somehow... I don't know, train to resist this sort of thing? Like if they tried infecting themselves with one of those shadow-slugs we have lying around?" After a moment's thought, Jaro realized that that also sounded like something he might say if he was secretly working for the shadows. Crap, crap, crap...

"But, er, getting back to our current mission, I'm thinking we should split up to each cover part of town. Ideally we want to get this done as quickly as possible, so the enemy has less time to react to us once they see what we're doing... if there actually is any kind of enemy watching us here, of course...

Also, what's our plan to make sure we check everyone? I'd imagine most Pokemon are out of their burrows right now, so just going up to everyone's burrow isn't going to work."

 

[Namohysip]

"Hmm, that's a very good point," Truffle said, nodding, apparently going past Jaro's slip. "If that's the case, we should try to split things off into three groups. The first can cover the main square of Treasure Town where most travelers would be coming and going. There is a lot of activity there, and it is also where you will see Guild members and such most often.

"The second area would be right here, the marketplace. More activity is here and has a mixture of all kinds of travelers and hustle and bustle... Explorers, tourists... High risk for something happening in the shadows, I'm sure.

"And finally, the residential district--ah, I don't believe you've ever visited there! Just north of the main roads is where more permanent residents live in quaint little homes... though, we will probably need to prove our authority to go door to door for such things. I may need to be present for those encounters so I may show my Mark of Arceus." He flashed his left wing, where the mark of a golden wheel appeared.

 

[Negrek]

"What, just like half the fucking legendaries are also missing, and we're only hearing about this now?"

More distortions, more places "Arceus" couldn't see. That was the same excuse the charizard used, wasn't it? Convenient. Yet more fucking information Nate had managed to miss somehow, thought at least from the others' reactions he wasn't the only one. So it wasn't that he hadn't been paying attention, it was that the decidueye had been hiding more shit from them.

But yeah. Put a giant fucking pin in that one. Owlface wanted to move on, fine, they could move on, at least for now. "Yeah, there's, what"--he looked around--"six of us? So two to the marketplace, two to check houses, and two to look around here, I guess. If there's a lot of explorers coming through, we should probably have people ask around at the Guild, any, uh, hotels or whatever, places they'd be staying. See if they've had anybody check in who was acting funny, or sick."

Something else pinged him about what the decidueye said. "You ain't got your own quaint little house, huh? So you ain't from around here, or what?" Okay, that was probably something he simply had missed.

 

[The Walrein]

"I guess I'd be up for looking around the main square," Jaro said. He felt like he might give too much away if he had to actually go into people's homes, and he still wasn't super-familiar with how markets worked.

 

[Namohysip]

"What, just like half the fucking legendaries are also missing, and we're only hearing about this now?"

"Shh, shh," Truffle said quickly, bringing his wings over like a dome over nothing. "It's confidential information for now. If the world found out that several Legendaries were going missing like the Dark Matter incident, there would be even more of a panic than there is now! We are keeping things on a need-to-know basis for now..."

"But..." Owen looked like he wanted to protest, but ultimately shrank away. Perhaps Truffle had a point there... But why didn't they trust them to know this?

Well, then again, considering how some of their group had behaved...

"You ain't got your own quaint little house, huh? So you ain't from around here, or what?"

"I do not!" Truffle declared, uncurling his wings into a grand spread that felt like they could touch the clouds if he so willed it. "My home is in Destiny Village of the Mystery Continent, as is the case for the rest of my team."

"So, if we need to split into three groups..." Owen seemed unsure. "Um, I can probably try going to the residential area. I think I can use my Miracle Eye to try to, um, you know... It works a little differently here, but it's a lot like a skill I think I used to have back home. Maybe we can inspect homes without having to go inside?"

 

[Negrek]

Keeping the legendary disappearances under wraps to keep the locals from going nuts? Okay, fair, but, "Yeah, sure, but it would kind of help the rest of us to not get fucking blndsided by that sort of thing. Just what else are you hiding, huh?"

Nate's scowl only deepened when the charmander mentioned his X-ray vision. In the first place, that was bullshit, and besides, Nate wanted to go with featherbrain himself. It sounded like they needed to have a nice, long chat. "I dunno, something like that sounds like it might be useful for looking into all those, you know, kinda seedy places in the marketplace, like all the alleys and shit? Maybe you take the market and I'll do the houses?"