Treasure Town ~ Marketplace

[Cresselia92]

"I don't think I deserve this life," Cuicatl finally murmured. "Never did anything to earn it. Did one thing that should put it out of my reach forever."

Icetales said nothing at first, studying the body language of the dragon by his side. There were clearly traces of past regrets and remorse in her voice, hunting her like bemoaning phantoms taking siege in someone’s spirit.

…And that was the kind of emotional wound he knew all too well. A massive turmoil that was nearly impossible to cope with.

“…Aye. We all are saddled by deeds we are not proud of, Miss Cuicatl. Events that we wish we could undo or dust off with a simple swipe of a tail,” he said with a low voice, impregnated with a tone of understanding. “I shan’t ask to share the memento that is cause of such distress. But I do wonder: dost thou regret that unspeakable act? I reckon thou do, if thy words of not deserving this life are any proof.”

He placed a paw under his chin. “However, hmm… I wouldn’t know if thee believe in fate and destiny, but have thee ever considered the possibility that this new life hasn’t been bestowed accidentally by the forces that be? That perhaps… this could be the chance to atone, a path of purification and redemption?”

He paused to let his words sink in and took a glance at some nearby Pokémon, who were buying from the various shopkeepers. Many smiles and signs of gratitude were traded back and forth, mixed in jovial chatters and laughs.

“I mean, whatever is the matter that is troubling thee, now thou can do something swell! Helping save this world from disaster. Saving kindred souls from a grim fate.”

He rubbed his ear with a forepaw. “Do not misunderstand me, however! I am not implying that a noble deed would make thee a pure soul and compensate for any past action, but I reckon that it would still do wonders for thy soul.” He chuckled softly. “Golly! ‘World savior’ sounds like the best of things to add to a curriculum vitae, at the very least!”

She spit out a tiny ember of dragonfire, just to remind herself that she could. "But it's nice of you to say those things."

He smiled a bit wider. “I am merely saying what my eyes have seen, and they have yet to deceive me.” He glanced at his tails, wondering if he should retract them. Cuicatl didn’t seem to mind, though. “And I am positive there is a small light hidden in that void of thine. Thou only… need to find it and hold onto it dearly.”

 

[Persephone]

But I do wonder: dost thou regret that unspeakable act? I reckon thou do, if thy words of not deserving this life are any proof.

"I... I didn't mean for it to happen. It seemed harmless at the time. Then everything got out of hand far, far too quickly."

Inner light. Heh. She had that, now. Just a few days ago she'd been so concerned that she needed to apologize to Starr and make everything right but, really, she'd never stood a chance. Whatever the manifestation of her soul was, it was going to destroy her and everyone around her. It was only a matter of time.

"And I do believe in gods. If they think I can do good here..." She slowly rose back up and shrugged off the tails. "I guess I should get back to work."

 

[Cresselia92]

Icetales nodded and rose back to his feet, his tails swaying ever so lightly. Indeed, he lacked the power to lift the weight in other folks’ hearts, and he could still sense the searing pain that was tormenting the Deino.

Though, there was also a slight change in her traits and voice. It was almost imperceptible, but it was there nonetheless. He hoped to have helped her take her life back in her paws, at least.

“Very well. Then I shan’t take any more of thy time. Whatever it is thy decision and how thou wish to take on things from now on, I can only encourage thee to do what thou believe is right. Also, remember,” his voice became even gentler, “if thou will be in need of some ears to vent about anything that might trouble thee, feel free to contact me. I shall try to reserve some time for thee.”

His tails started wagging, but he made sure to keep the cold air away from the Deino. “As such, I wish the best of luck with thy future endeavors, Miss Cuicatl.”

 

[Persephone]

"You too," she said. Both the vulpix she'd met here were so different from Pixie. More intelligent, yes, but also more human. Even when she evolved and got a lot smarter, she'd still be a very smart fox with a fox's worldview. Despite having the bodies of pokemon, everyone here seemed to be in a similar boat as she: a human-like soul in a pokemon's frame. All the not-humans in her group claimed to be from worlds where her species had long since disappeared, but she had to wonder if the humans had simply moved into more durable bodies a long time ago.

Had that happened in this world, too? Was that tied to the current problems here? It would explain how someone was able to create a shadow pokemon, which had been the peak (or pit?) of human engineering. "I hope to talk again..."

She trailed off and started wandering towards the center of town. Humans and pokemon, radiance and shadows... maybe she could make sense of this whole thing yet.

 

[Cresselia92]

<><><>​

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave sipped his beer at a table in the full curry restaurant, waiting for his food. The waiters had tried very hard to sell him the Great Curry Bowl Challenge, which as far as he could tell was some combination of obvious scam and excuse for the God Squad's Snorlax to eat for free. He'd just gone for a regular-sized curry instead, like a sensible person, and hoped it'd live up to the place's reputation among the group.

 

[SparklingEspeon]

"Mind if we share?" Tricky looked up at Dave innocently from the ground beside the table. "Everywhere else is full."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave looked down at the Fennekin. What was her name again? God. "Eh, sure? Why not."

 

[SparklingEspeon]

Tricky didn't hesitate to hop up onto a chair near the one Dave was sitting on. She flopped down in the seat, resting her head upon the table.

"The curry bowls in here are really huge," she said after a moment, looking at a group of pokemon a few tables over that had a humongous curry bowl of their own. "How does anymon eat them?"

Of course she was still sore over not being able to finish one herself.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave smirked. "Well, since it's free if you finish it, the restaurant's strongly incentivized to make the bowls too big for anyone to finish. They want you to pay for the food, so they're going to make it too big for almost anyone. If most people could finish it, they'd go out of business."

The waiter arrived with his plate, a perfectly adequate portion of curry for a much lower price.

"Did you want anything? Because you can just get a regular curry and save yourself the money and embarrassment."

This was kind of nice, almost cozily familiar. What would Mia have made of the Great Curry Bowl Challenge? Either she'd agree it was a ripoff and puzzle over why anyone fell for it, or she'd be there insisting she absolutely could eat the whole bowl and it'd be easy and he'd be trying to convince her not to. Nothing in between.

 

[SparklingEspeon]

"Yeah," Tricky said. She'd come here to eat anyway. "I'll get a normal one."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave glanced at the Fennekin as she took a seat. "Sorry, your name was...?"

 

[SparklingEspeon]

"Call me Tricky!" she couldn't help but lighten up again despite herself, all thoughts of that fiendish curry bowl flushed from her mind. "What's yours? I don't think we've ever talked."

 

[Dragonfree]

"Dave," he said. "Tricky? That a nickname, or do people have names like that in your universe? You're, uh... full Pokémon, right? Not a human?"

 

[SparklingEspeon]

Tricky's eyes grew wide as saucers.

"Wait." she said. "You're a human??" she almost jumped onto the table, but stopped herself before she could. "We have fairy tales of those back home, but I've never ever seen one! What's it like? Do you guys really have laser eyes and one hundred arms?"

She conveniently never answered the question about her nickname.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave chuckled, raising his eyebrows. "One of those worlds, huh?"

He took a sip of his drink. Humans as myths. Good to see the universe wasn't entirely upside-down and actual myths were, in fact, still completely nuts.

"Yeah. I'm a human. No, we don't have laser eyes. Two legs, two arms, homologous to your legs. We're pretty boring and don't do much, besides having big brains and flexible hands that can grasp and manipulate objects. Kind of get by on being smart, making tools and using them. Not that, you know, that'd be anything special in a universe like this one. Or yours, I expect." He briefly waved the fork to illustrate, however that worked, before stuffing a forkful of curry in his mouth. This stuff was actually pretty good.

 

[SparklingEspeon]

"Sounds boring," Tricky said after Dave had finished. "At least we have battles to pass the time."

It was hard to put into words how immensely disappointed she was about the laser vision.

A thought came into her head all of the sudden. "What does it look like when Humans battle? Do you use Tools? What if you brought Tools to a pokemon battle?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Right back to politics. Dave took a swig of his beer before answering. "Yeah, most humans don't tend to fight for fun. Mostly to settle disputes, one way or another. Sometimes it's some drunk guys in a bar punching each other, sometimes it's large-scale warfare where thousands of people shoot guns at each other. Then in between you've got your knife fights. We love inventing tools to kill each other. Love killing people who aren't fighting back, too. Humans are pretty shit." ...Tricky wouldn't know what a gun was, would she? "You've seen explosions, how they can blast bits of shrapnel everywhere? Guns are just that, but in a device you can hold, and the shrapnel flies where you point it, very fast. Tears through flesh, shatters bone, et cetera. Pretty effective, as killing people goes."

A gunshot echoed in his head, the thump of a body falling awkwardly to the ground, blood spreading on the sidewalk, a nauseous pit forming in his stomach. He blinked hard, chugged down the rest of his drink.

"As for Pokémon battles? Well, at least in my universe, most Pokémon are no match for a gun. But obviously it's very illegal to shoot your opponent's Pokémon. In general, you don't get humans fighting Pokémon, outside of weird underground cage matches."

 

[SparklingEspeon]

"Wow, that's... bleak." Tricky pawed the table uncomfortably. "How do you guys live in a world like that?"

 

[Dragonfree]

"Good question," Dave just said. He shoveled more curry into his mouth. "What's your world like? More sunshine and rainbows and happy Pokémon prancing around?"