"Woof woof, motherfucker!" Lillia barked at the slugma (?). Whatever he was. Cool, but kinda freaky at the same time. Maybe it was the 'burning a guy to death' thing. Still, it sounded like he had a decent enough reason for wanting to, so she wasn't gonna hound him over the details. Still, she grinned at him instead, trying to ignore how much cooler his sand castle was than her own.
Gabriel smiled at the Growlithe. "Hey there. What's your name?"
Lillie's voice stuck in her throat. What do you say to that? She... didn't want to offer empty condolences. Or, empty-sounding ones anyways. She just clammed up instead. She had no idea what the right thing to say in a situation like this, only a lot of wrong things.
"I... uhh... It's g- I mean, it's not-" She sighed and restarted. "That sounds like an okay reaction to me. It's a pretty human thing, to... you know... not stopping? It would be kind of strange if you had. So... I guess..."
She took a sip of her tea to stall for time out of force of habit, before realizing that trick probably didn't actually make any sense in this context and she'd probably just made herself look stupid.
"Your friend was lucky to have you there. That's all, I guess..."
Mhynt nodded again, her body language even as she took a seat. "I knew someone like that once," she said. "For different reasons than you, but someone who had been set off and went on an attack against someone, killing them. He regretted it for a very long time, and in some ways, he still does. But now, he's come to understand that about himself, and finds ways to control it and find better outlets. I hope you have that, where you're from. He didn't. It took him a long time."
....oh. "Ah well, it's fine, right? You did it to protect someone important to you. Not out of like, spite or anything." Right? She almost added that to the end, but found she was a little afraid of the answer.
Gabriel glanced away at their reassurances. "Yeah, I guess. I have my friend to talk to, and we vent that stuff playing violent video games together. Still doesn't really go away, you know?"
The words echoed in Lillie's head. She had a hunch she knew whose they were. "Could I...? I..." She took a deep breath. "I... don't think I could. But in a bad way? I feel like I would just give up before being able to really hurt anyone. Even if it was the right thing to do. I feel like a worse person because... Well, because I don't have anything I would stand up for in general? I mean, maybe..."
She glanced at the... Null? Did that count as a Null? She didn't have any other name for it- for them. It was strange for one of them to be here. Was there a reason for that? Then again, why was anything here? It... was probably best not to think about it. But it did remind her of one thing...
"Maybe I'd just be a better person if I could do the right thing when it mattered. Maybe that's why I'm... this. Like, in my last life I closed myself off to the world and ignored everyone, so now I have to be something that has to feel what everyone else does. And that needs other people. I mean, maybe I'd not dead dead but I still can't go home like this or anything."
"Oh yeah, if it came down to that, sure!" Maybe her own carefree admission would help him relax. "Almost have, in fact! Almost, though. Not yet. But if I catch him before my mates do, well. I know how to make it look like an accident."
How were they so calm about this? The Kirlia
wished she could kill people? Gabriel listened with a growing pit in his stomach, fidgeting with the sand until it all transformed into a lush garden. He rubbed his slime into his skin and watched as characters came and went. The Espeon dared a Luxray to kiss her and he turned awkwardly away; apparently the game was drifting closer to the sorts of stories he heard from his classmates. Shouldn't he be getting out of here, anyway, if he'd already answered a question?
Before he'd finished the thought, he realized a new prompt was tugging at him from the pillar.
Dare: Transform. Or evolve, at the very least. Maybe if I can see the process in detail...
...What? How was
that one sticking? He couldn't transform into anything. How was he supposed to--
In horror, he felt his skin heating up, melting, glowing. What? He lifted his hand as the slime bubbled and watched, heart stopping, as the entire hand melted into half-liquid slime, bone dissolving. "No! Help!" he managed to yelp before his jaw disintegrated too. Everything softened into useless jelly, his body shrinking and collapsing underneath his clothes, and for a hot few seconds, as his heart pumped furiously in the middle of everything, he was sure that he was dying.
Then it was just... okay again, somehow. He couldn't feel his heartbeat anymore; he wasn't sure he
had a heart anymore. He looked around, blinking. He had no limbs, no solid form. Just...
Despite it all, he could still move, just by willing his body to
flow. He wriggled unsteadily out from under his stiff, plastic-coated clothes. A Slugma. Just a Slugma. "What the hell," he said, voice wavering, suddenly looking up at Pokémon much bigger than him. It was a dream, he reminded himself, just a crazy dream and he'd wake up and everything would be normal. "Uh, can you still understand me?"
