Wigglytuff's Guild

[Dragonfree]

Wait, holy shit. What the hell was Maple?

Dave took a step back without thinking about it, alarmed. No regular-ass Smeargle could... what the fuck.

"...Hold on," he said when he finally digested what she'd just said. "Against Bahamut?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Oh, yes. I'm not sure if you're aware, but Necrozma reacted very strongly to Radiance and obtained a truer form. He also therefore recovered his true name, Bahamut. I'm happy for him." Despite that, her tone was still quite flat, and her expression did not change too much. Still, it didn't look like she was lying...

"In any case, some way or another, being near it must have been enough." Maple shrugged.

 

[Dragonfree]

"So... just being near somebody with Radiance pushes it onto you? So it's infectious? And you think that's great and you should expose us all to it?" Dave gave Maple a flat stare. "And you still haven't told me exactly what the fuck you mean by overuse can harm yourselves."

He was silent for a moment. "Your portals, is that Radiance? Or something else entirely?"

 

[Namohysip]

Maple didn't answer for only an instant, but perhaps that was all that was needed to confirm that she was hiding something. "It's related to Radiance. It was a technique taught to me a long time ago that taps into Radiant power, at least. Overuse is something that I theorized would be harmful for you, but I did not expect it to happen so quickly. I should have known, though, the way you all run out of energy during battles so quickly, too.

"...But it is also something that can combat this darkness. Darkness withers to Radiance in the same way a Paras cannot handle flames. And because your kind are already quick to burn away, the vulnerability it also grants to darkness is not as painful a trade-off. It is not... usually so infections. We can coexist with normal Pokemon without any complications."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave narrowed his eyes at Maple. "Okay, so overuse does what?"

 

[Namohysip]

"From what I've observed..." Maple hummed, nodding. "You explode. Or, more specifically, energy explodes powerfully in all directions from your person... leaving you exhausted as if you'd been defeated in battle. The outpouring of energy has left Brisa bedridden, and I suspect she will be for a few days."

 

[Dragonfree]

"Brisa... what?" She was bedridden? "Where is she? Jesus Christ. People explode? What's overuse? Who the fuck are you and why should we trust anything you say after you pull this shit?"

 

[Namohysip]

"You're free to not trust me," Maple said simply. "To be completely honest, I do not trust your group, either. But for now, we are cautiously moving toward the same goal of saving Cibus. Am I wrong?" Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. "Should I catch even a hint that may not be the case for you interlopers... well. You already got a feeling of my strength." There was a glint in her eye. "Didn't you?"

 

[Dragonfree]

For a moment Dave's blood ran cold, then hot. So this was it, huh? She'd shown her true colors. What better to expect from the fucking God Squad? The gall of this cheery cult pretending they were friends.

He wanted to tell her exactly where to shove it, but he didn't. His mouth had dried up, an almost nauseous feeling crawling up his throat.

"Thanks for the chat," he said after a few seconds passed. As he turned around to walk out, he kept glancing over his shoulder.

<><><><><><>

 

[Adamhuarts]

Those steamed buns were delightful. Cynthian had pretty much gotten his fill, though he still couldn't eat more than Curio did. The two went their separate ways. Cynthian wanted to follow her, but he had decided to visit the wigglytuff guild's infirmary for a medical check up and see if his possession had left any undesirable lasting effects on his body.

After he arrived, Cynthian made his way into the guild, asked for directions at the counter, and trailed his way towards the infirmary. Being in the guild brought him a wave of unsettling nostalgia. Like everything else in Treasure Town, the guild looked exactly like the one in his home except in all the ways that they differed.

While Cynthian was on his way, he spotted familiar green and pink hues from the corner of his eyes. Cynthian turned to find Balm and Cepa near the infirmary. The necklace adorning Balm especially caught Cynthian's eyes. It truly was them, right? The exact same pair from the legends.

"Excuse me, Grovy—I mean Balm, right?" Cynthian asked, waving at them from below. He flashed a nervous smile at them, suddenly feeling even smaller in the face of the iconic couple. "That time gear necklace looks really well made. Does this world celebrate the Time Festival too?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Time Festival?" the Sceptile asked, a glint in his eyes. "Not quite. This is a charm given to me by Dialga himself. If it was in thanks or in apology, he'll probably never admit, but it's been useful."

"Guess he was feeling a little left out, being the only one between Dialga and I who didn't have any time powers." Cepa giggled, flitting around Balm's head. "And you're... Cynthian, right? How's it going? heard a lot's been happening lately..."

Balm gestured for them to find a place to sit in the currently-empty conference room near the dorms. At this time of day, there weren't very many uses for it, after all.

 

[Adamhuarts]

"Time Festival?" the Sceptile asked, a glint in his eyes. "Not quite. This is a charm given to me by Dialga himself. If it was in thanks or in apology, he'll probably never admit, but it's been useful."

"Oh, I guess the festival isn't a thing here after all. Then again, the version of you two that saved my world did so over 150 years ago. Maybe it just hasn't become tradition yet here," Cynthian explained, then he gasped when Balm explained the necklace. "It's the actual real thing? Well, I guess it makes sense, since you're the real thing too. Holy crap, meeting you two like this alone is amazing!"

"Guess he was feeling a little left out, being the only one between Dialga and I who didn't have any time powers." Cepa giggled, flitting around Balm's head. "And you're... Cynthian, right? How's it going? heard a lot's been happening lately..."

Balm gestured for them to find a place to sit in the currently-empty conference room near the dorms. At this time of day, there weren't very many uses for it, after all.

Cynthian followed them to the conference room and climbed up one of the chairs to sit with a pomf. "I'm doing... okay? I caused a friend to lose a sparring session today and then I got infected by one of those slug things soon after." Cynthian paused with a shiver. "A friend was there to bring me back to my senses before things got too out of hand. I never want to go through that again."

Cynthian cleared his throat and then scrambled to find a way to change the topic before they tried discussing what he said further. "You know, even though Thyme and Pepper were also a part of your team, Time Festival is about you too specifically. It's a time when people celebrate and rejoice at the end of the year to pray for a better next year. And more importantly, they say that couples who wear time gear necklaces with matching colors will share a bond that lasts throughout time."

"The legends did say you two continued to protect the world as a married pair. That's probably how the festival came about."

 

[Namohysip]

"A pair?" Balm asked, smiling fondly. "Well, isn't that something."

Cepa giggled next, flitting back. "I wouldn't doubt if that was the case for your world, too, even if they ended up splitting off to separate worlds. But that's how it goes sometimes. Well, not really. But it's how it seems to go for us."

Balm sighed, nodding. "Still, it's not all bad. The way things happened in our world, everything was a little slow to start back up again, what with time freezing for so long. Or not long at all, since, well, time stopped."

"The point is," Cepa said, "the Arceus of this world and the Arceus of ours are, in a way, universe-brothers. And they learned pretty quickly that any crisis or Omen that happened here in Cibus ended up happening a few years later in our Cibus."

"Ironically," Balm said, "in terms of when Omens took place, we became the lagging timeline. Except..." Balm trailed off, looking down, pensive. "That's sort of why we're here. We've already told Maple about it, but the information has been so strange that it must not have been divulged to you all yet."

 

[Adamhuarts]

"Ironically," Balm said, "in terms of when Omens took place, we became the lagging timeline. Except..." Balm trailed off, looking down, pensive. "That's sort of why we're here. We've already told Maple about it, but the information has been so strange that it must not have been divulged to you all yet."

"Just the very idea that there's more than one Arceus feels crazy to think about. No one's really ever seen the one world. Mons believe in him, but he's more of a myth than a tangible presence," Cynthian said, rubbing his flower on his forehead. "But hold on, your Cibus is just this one's future... well past now from how you described, wouldn't that make the two Arceus practically the same? Time travel stuff is confusing. How did you never end up with something like the grandfather paradox or something?"

Cynthian huffed and shuffled his feet and wore a thoughtful look on his face. "The way you explained it, this does work to your benefit, right? Whatever happens here, you can prepare for it in advance in your time life. However, wouldn't the butterfree effect mess that up sooner or later? Eventually the divergences between your time lines will surely accumulate till this advantage becomes moot, wouldn't it?"

 

[Namohysip]

Balm shook his head. "We aren't the same world anymore," he explained. "We used to be. However, after the Omen of Time, changing the past ended up erasing the future world that we came from... which in itself would have resulted in a paradox that could have reset everything. A combined effort between this world's Dialga and my world's Arceus did something to prevent that from happening: We simply branched off. Rather than link back to one another, we became parallel worlds. One where Thyme and I arrived to save the world... and one where we did not, and were instead born."

"So, if you go back far enough, the two used to be the same. But now they aren't!" Cepa nodded. "It's weird to think about, but it's true. I don't really know the full details... Only that it took the power of the highest pantheon plus another high pantheon entity to fix up the mess."

"Having a head start on the crises was nice, too. We were able to take down the Bittercold without calling down humans at all, for one. But..." And then, Balm grew a little more serious. "We... never had a Dark Matter crisis. We should have had one a while ago."

 

[Adamhuarts]

Cynthian's blood ran cold at the mention of Dark Matter, and he momentarily wore a morbid expression on his face. "Among all the 'dark omens' in my world, Dark Matter was absolutely the worst of them by far. My world still hasn't fully recovered from the damage it incurred even twenty years later, but we're getting there."

Cynthian closed his eyes and sighed. Talking about Dark Matter would make him feel more uneasy, so he decided to divert the topic again.

"Say, how did you two come to meet anyway? That particular detail unfortunately didn't stand the test of time where I'm from. Some say you've always known each other, some say you met during a great battle, others say Balm sought you out first, Cepa."

 

[Namohysip]

"Well, I--"

"Balm was a native of a place called the Hidden Land, back in the Sea of Wonders," Cepa explained. "And it was there that we met, some time after the world froze. Oh, that was a long time ago, wasn't it? Well, for you."

"Very." Balm nodded, though he didn't seem to be keen on thinking about it. "I never really lived in a world that wasn't frozen, though, so that was all I knew. The Hidden Land was a place where time was able to flow just enough that the living beings on there could still... survive, you could call it."

"It wasn't easy," Cepa added. "But it being so close to what remained of Temporal Tower, it at least wasn't like... the rest of the world, which had been completely plunged into darkness. It was like the Voidlands itself had risen up..."

 

[Adamhuarts]

The mention of the void lands made Cynthian's petals to clench tightly, and that was when a frightening memory returned to him. It was the time he was plunged into the void lands along with the rest of the world for a brief period before the heroes stopped Dark Matter.

Cynthian shook his head and snapped back to reality, though his face had visibly paled.

"It... must've been quite a scary time to live in," he began, taking steady breaths to calm down. "It truly must have been, if Cibus looked anything like the void lands back then."

"Hey come to think of it, wasn't there someone else other than Dialga and Darkrai?" Cynthian asked with a flower over his chin. "The Dusknoir... what became of him after everything was said and done?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Ah, him..." Balm nodded. "Well... He was Dialga's helper in all this. Misguided, but it's hard to blame him for everything he did when you think about it. He was just trying to preserve his own life, and the life of his world, while I was trying to destroy it for a better one. But when I returned to the future, which by then we thought was doomed... right at the very end, he decided to let it happen. We fought Dialga one last time to ensure everything would fall into place." He nodded silently. "We ended up becoming neighbors, actually."

 

[Adamhuarts]

"Oh, that's really great for you then!" Cynthian said, holding his flower to his chest with a relieved expression. "I was worried his story ended in tragedy or something. The legends never really say what became of him in my world, so I'm glad things worked out in the end for all of you. Come to think of it, how come he didn't tag along with you? Is he in a kind of retirement?"