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s1nn0hh · 2 months

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'In Which Celebi and Cresselia Have A.. Lesser Than Friendly Chat'

Celebi finds out that Twig was alive during the 30 years where she was presumably dead, and with Cresselia being the only one who knew where she was and all the while choosing not to say a word to Twig's friends who were mourning the death of a a person who was alive. Celebi decides to share her own two cents on the matter. A thingie I wrote for @sincerely-sofie and her Mortality Exchange AU, because why not?

Celebi wasn't one to hold grudges. Or resentments, for that matter.

Now, all of that depended on how and where you knew the little lady from.

Be it from the once-cold and tethering future or from the warm and chilly present, you'd always see her as this cheeky and cheery individual who would always have a smile stapled on her face, who just likes to goof on and about for no reason.

But as of recently, Celebi didn't feel like that.

It all started 30 years ago, on one faithful morning. Twig, one of Celebi's friends, simply.. disappeared. Nobody knew where she went or how, as the only clue that everyone had was that it happened at night. Perfect enough for no witnesses to see. And the worst of all? There were no traces left behind. She was gone. Like the wind, she came and she went.

Treasure Town underwent a rather depressing change with her disappearance. Wigglytuff's Guild issued that all explorers will scout any possible dungeon and report any signs of Twig, be it from the closest Beach Cave or as far as the Zero Isles.

They all returned empty handed.

The future only became darker as people eventually started giving up, simply choosing to accept the fact that she was gone. That she isn't coming back.

Those strings of words made the minds of Twig's friends hurt, and almost hurl at the implication.

Kip, her partner, never stopped looking for her even after everyone gave up. He stayed up nights, trying to figure out just who or WHAT was capable of taking her away, and for what reason. Even after decades and having to evolve out of distress, he never stopped looking for her. He would've rather perish than accept that she was gone for good. Be it out of determination or out of desperation, he wasn't gonna stop.

Grovyle, her closest friend, grieved in his own way. Constantly blaming himself for Twig's disappearance, almost as if he was somehow supposed to know that something like this would happen. He stayed up countless nights, not having the willpower to face whatever nightmare was conjured for him after all of this. It was depressing to see him this way. At one point, he set out to the other regions, hoping to find Twig there and pray for a chance that it wasn't too late.

Dusknoir.. grieved the hardest. Knowing his own history with Twig, the fact that she was gone played with his heart while simultaneously ripping it out. Despite maintaining such a collected look on his own face, he was mourning.

Everything felt dim. As of something essential was ripped from everyone's lives, and it slowly deteriorated them. Celebi felt like this. She hated it. She missed Twig. She missed her so, so much. But there was nothing to be done. She was gone. And all they had to do now was accept it, and move on.

... Or so they believed.

A week ago, Kip was escorting a guild of explorers that were on an expedition to the ruins that were a few good miles away. Something about the place having a curse that made people fall asleep in there forever when they get tired, apparently.

Obviously, with the hell-load of Chesto Berries everyone packed, falling asleep may as well be a dream. But the biggest thing that was discovered within said ruins was what CAUSED the curse.

It was a Charizard. It boasted a different appearance, almost akin to a Mega Evolution counterpart, yet it's body looked entirely different.

And yet.. it only took one good look from Kip to know who it was. He immediately recognized her. And she recognized him. Twig.. was alive.

With her return, life returned to Treasure Town, and after the lovely reunion (and Celebi zipping all the way to Grovyle who was on the literal other side of the globe at this point to tell him the news), everything was good and happy once more.

At least Celebi hoped it was. She eavesdropped on a conversation that Twig had with Dusknoir, something about her explaining just how and WHERE she was.

".. I ran away, more or less. Turns out that when I killed Darkrai in Dark Crater, I just sort of.. got his powers? I didn't want to hurt everyone, especially after people only started recovering from Darkrai's grip on their dreams.."

"While I appreciate your intentions, you must be aware that you've had all of us absolutely worried, Twig. For the longest time, we all thought that something horrible happened, and nobody even knew WHERE you were."

"I mean.. you'd almost be correct with that last part."

".. How come?"

Twig went on explaining that Cresselia essentially knew where she was. Something about her having some kind of ability to see where Darkrai was back when he was alive to ensure he wouldn't cause all that harm. And since Twig IS Darkrai, it also worked with her.

And Celebi was absolutely enraged with that fact.

Now, Celebi and Cresselia didn't know each other that well for Celebi to form her own opinion, but she DID come to take a few Lunar Feathers for when Grovyle and Kip were on the brink of collapsing from the lack of sleep they went through. Celebi eventually told her about what happened to Twig and how much she misses her, with the latter talking about her own experiences with both Twig and Kip and how they ventured off to fight against Darkrai -- doing something that most people would consider a death sentence -- in his own domain.

Celebi didn't want to mention it, but everytime she talked about Twig.. Cresselia acted rather odd.

She barely made eye contact with Celebi as she spoke, fidgeting with her own hands or her mouth curling into a distasteful frown. Almost as if she wanted to know something, but chose not to.

Celebi believed that maybe Cresselia was processing the grief in a different way than did. That this was just natural for her.

Oh, how wrong she was.

Not only did she pour her heart in front of Cresselia about how the person she saw as a family was simply gone, but the latter just chose to ignore all that grievance and act like it didn't matter; all the while knowing that the person who everyone grieved for was just a few miles away.

To say she was enraged was an understatement. This was a new low, this.. this was just indescribable. Celebi never felt so angry, and she dealt with Dusknoir and Primal Dialga before.

But this? This felt like someone spit in her face and rubbed it all in.

She was gonna give her own two cents on this very predicament to Cresselia, but she couldn't just fly off without notifying anyone.

Grovyle, Kip and Twig -- Arceus bless their hearts -- all knew that something was going on with Celebi. It was obvious. Clear as day. But she held out on, just to ensure that no one would get too worried.

But opportunity struck like gold as Twig voiced her worries about her powers causing everyone to have nightmares again, with Dusknoir suggesting to ask Cresselia for some Lunar Feathers to ensure that Twig gets to stay AND the nightmare problem is solved.

Celebi was on board with bringing the Feathers best, as Twig will have a reason to not run away again and Celebi could get her message across to the ol' crescent head. It was a win-win!

Leaving the warm and humble home back in Treasure Town, Celebi's expression steeled as she made her way to Cresselia's place, hands curled into fists and determination harder than a Steelix.

Now, trying to fight a Legend is foolish. Cresselia was very much out of Celebi's power capabilities, and trying to fight her would only create more issues than it would with problems, and the possibility of accidentally finishing off Cresselia and gaining her powers was an entirely new bucket of problems.

But Celebi wasn't gonna use power, not at all. It's like how that one saying went.

'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.'. Oh, she was gonna make sure those words hurt, alright.

After making her way to the top of the mountain Cresselia lived on, Celebi came face to face with none other than the Lunar Pokemon herself, with the latter meditating and not noticing Celebi's presence.

Celebi made a loud and clear 'ahem' to let her know of her presence, to which Cresselia was very alerted by, not before seeing who made the source and calming down when seeing it was only Celebi.

"Ah, Celebi. Good afternoon. How can I help you?"

Celebi let off a very coy smile, sending off the vibes that she was totally okay on the outside, even though she was seeping with anger on the inside.

"Heeeey, dear. I'm just gonna need some of your feathers again, if you don't mind. I feel like we may need a use for them soon."

".. I see. I can spare a few, I suppose."

Giving her the slick Lunar Feathers, Celebi gave her thanks before pretending to walk away, not before stopping by the way down.

"Actually, darling, there's something I wanted to tell you about. You remember my friend, Twig, right?"

Something about the way Cresselia's twitched at the mention of Twig's name spoke volumes, and it gave Celebi just about enough legitimation on how to act next.

".. I am aware of her, yes."

"Good! Good. You see, turns out she was alive all this time. Her friend found her huddling away at some old ruins far from Treasure Town. I was so happy and relieved when I saw her. It felt like a piece of my life was finally brought back! But you see, I heard her say something that has rather.. caught my interest, and I just wanted to know if you can confirm that or not."

Cresselia was silent for a moment. Be it out of anticipation or worrying, Celebi know she has her on the ropes.

"That thing being..?"

"Twig said something about you knowing where she was all this time. Something about you having the ability to know where Darkrai was, and by extension Twig since she took his place."

"Now, the last thing I wanna do is point blaming fingers here, my dear Cresselia, but do tell me this. Why did you choose to hide the fact that she was still alive from us, all the while allowing us to grieve and mourn like it meant nothing to you?"

Cresselia was silent once more, but her face displayed more panic than it ever did in their previous encounter. The truth was out, and the Delcatty was out of the bag.

"Celebi, listen. I can understand that you're upset! But you need to understand that Twig specifically asked me to avoid telling any of you where she was! And I respected her wishes! There was nothing I could really do in the matter as her counterpart!"

At this point, whatever calm and collected facade Celebi had up has practically desolved into nothingness. She may regret saying what she'll be saying in the future, but at this point, she may as well say what she has to.

"Oh, sure, darling, sure. There was absolutely nothing you could've done.. besides realizing that the wish was SO BLATANTLY SELF-DESTRUCTIVE!! GOOD GOD, ARE YOU CALLED THE LUNAR POKEMON BECAUSE OF YOUR FEATHERS, OR BECAUSE YOUR HEAD IS SO FAR UP THAT IT'S CONSIDERED A CELESTIAL OBJECT?!"

Cresselia was immediately taken aback by the comment, but something about the look in her eye showed that she acted as though she deserved any part of this. Celebi only spiraled downwards from here.

"I LOVED HER LIKE SHE WAS MY OWN FAMILY! I FELT LIKE MY SOUL WAS GETTING CRUSHED WHEN I FIRST HEARD SHE DISAPPEARED, AND HOW EVERYONE AROUND ME FALL INTO NOTHINGNESS AS SHE DID. AND YOUR SELFISH, PRICKLY LEVITATING BUM JUST SAW THIS AND MOVED ON. WHY?!"

"Because I didn't want another Darkrai scenario to happen, alright?!"

Celebi froze at that statement, almost having to rehear it as she did. She wasn't exactly well versed about what happened between Legends, but she was intrigued as to what might've happened to require such a promise to follow.

".. How come?"

"The reason Darkrai ended up the way he did was because no one was there to love him, with me only kicking him aside when he could not control himself. I believed that if I could change myself with Twig, I believe that may I could prevent a second Darkrai scenario. She kept insisting that she was fine where she was, so I eventually set her off on her own!"

Celebi could only remember how Twig looked like during the day she was found. She looked scared. So, so scared. Filled with such immense power, yet she couldn't even bring herself to be around people out of fear.

"Cresselia.. do you want me to tell you how Twig looked like when her partner brought her back home? She was suffering. She was dehydrated. She was hungry. She was tired. Every part of her body just made her feel more ashamed of herself, and it tore her apart. Is that supposed to be 'okay' for you, dear?"

Cresselia could no longer respond this time. All she did was look down in shame, with Celebi's judgemental gaze not leaving her at all.

"You.. I have no words for you. I can't even stand to look at you anymore. I need to go."

Celebi began making her way down, before Cresselia piped up again and called Celebi as she looked miserable and regretful. Celebi was gonna stick out her tongue and bolt away as she did, but at learning and listening to just whatever this scum of the earth has to say would be entertaining enough.

".. Celebi, can I at least tell you send something to Twig before you go?"

"Fine. Whatever. Get on with it."

"I wanna tell her that I am sorry. For everything, with my whole heart. And I am so sorry that I have done such a.. horrid and selfish thing to you all."

Celebi was silent. The quietness strew between them. It felt suffocating.

".. Okay. I will."

Celebi left, and Cresselia was left alone with her own woes on the mountaintop. In the end, she wondered. She could only think about all the indirect pain she caused. It was overwhelming.

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riraro489 · 11 months

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@heropartnerweek Day 7: Free Day | Previous Prompt -> AU

To put it simply, this is an antagonist swap AU and I'll talk more about it under the read more (+ there's an additional art piece!! Watch out because the explanation is very long and disorganized)

In this AU, Grovyle is swapped with Dusknoir while Cresselia has swapped with Darkrai. I came up with the idea of swapping Darkrai and Cresselia initially before deciding to combine it with my interpretation of a Grovyle and Dusknoir swap AU. Now, about Grovyle and Dusknoir. They wouldn't be too different from their main iterations; Grovyle becomes an instantaneous celebrity while Dusknoir tries to collect the Time Gears, hoping he'll find his friend Amber (now turned into a Chimchar) along the way. Because of this, I decided to make the partner a Treecko (named Oran) as I feel like being betrayed by Grovyle would hurt a lot more. Where this AU differs, however is Grovyle's motive. It's not that he wants to avoid disappearing; instead, he wants to prevent his friends (Dusknoir, Celebi, and Amber) from dying. Unfortunately, when Grovyle joined with Primal Dialga (who he calls Lord Dialga) his friends felt that he was a traitor and cut ties with him. Even so, he still continues to try and stop them from changing the future. This leads up to the events of Special Episode 5, where Grovyle essentially arranges for the Sableye to kidnap Celebi as he attempts to lead Dusknoir to the same spot. As Dusknoir and Grovyle venture together, Dusknoir begins to believe that Grovyle has given up on trying to change the past. However, once the two reach Icicle Forest, Grovyle reveals that he intended to have Spiritomb prevent Celebi and Dusknoir from leaving as one last ditch effort to prevent history from being changed. Grovyle finally admits that he was doing so so that Dusknoir and Celebi wouldn't disappear. Dusknoir and Celebi both speak with him and convince Grovyle to be on their side. Naturally, Grovyle agrees and has Spiritomb release the two. Unfortunately, Primal Dialga shows up to ruin the heartfelt moment and starts attacking Grovyle. Dusknoir immediately steps in with Fire Punch, screaming at Primal Dialga and calling them a monster. Just before Primal Dialga is able to retaliate, an aurora appears, showing that the future has been changed. Dusknoir, Grovyle, and Celebi all combat Primal Dialga at the peak of Vast Ice Mountain. They are victorious and Dusknoir holds his two lovers friends in his arms as they disappear. Just like in the original Special Episode 5, all the Pokémon are returned to the future and are able to live out the rest of their lives.

Moving on to Darkrai and Cresselia :]

Oh boy these two are vastly different from canon. Darkrai is highly optimistic and hopes to make many friends (hence the Friend Bow) despite the fact that he causes nightmares wherever he goes. Meanwhile, his delusional sister Cresselia constantly puts people to sleep, saying things along the lines of "Would it not be better if everyone slept forever?" Essentially, Darkrai is constantly trying to chase her down and stop her. In this AU, Cresselia is the one responsible for the collapse of Temporal Tower and she begins distorting space after that fails. Believing Team Sunset (Amber and Oran) are in the way of her plans, she attempts to pin the distortion of space on the two children. This ultimately fails as Darkrai manages to catch up to her and convinces Palkia that Cresselia is in fact the one distorting space. Cresselia then flees to Moonlit Mountain (a dungeon near Crystal Crossing, meant to be the opposite of Dark Crater) after she taunts Amber, Oran, and Darkrai into going there. Upon reaching the pinnacle, Cresselia informs Amber that she was the cause of Amber's memory loss. She also goes on to explain that she initiated the collapse of Temporal Tower as well. Cresselia proceeds to summon six other Pokémon to fight alongside her. Once she is defeated, Cresselia opens a Dimensional Hole and gloats about her victory instead of actually escaping. Because of this, Palkia is able to show up and stop her. Unexpectedly, Darkrai leaps in front of the attack, pushing Cresselia aside. The Dimensional Hole closes and Cresselia is utterly mortified as she cries out, questioning why Darkrai would even bother to save her. Darkrai reminds her that despite everything Cresselia has done, she is still his sister and that she has the capacity to be a good person. Cresselia finally remembers why she had done everything: Cresselia was trying to protect Darkrai. After all, Darkrai was constantly harrassed for simply being himself. Cresselia believed that if she put others to sleep, then they would stop berating Darkrai. Her desires eventually grew twisted as she derived satisfaction from harming those she deemed to be evil, leading her to become the Pokémon she is in this AU. To make up for her misdeeds, she uses Lunar Dance, healing Darkrai. Palkia leaves, convinced that Cresselia will not continue to distort space. Darkrai requests to join Team Sunset, which Amber and Oran happily accept. Cresselia on the other hand, decides that she needs time alone to reflect upon her actions, but, when she is ready, she will return to the peak of Moonlit Mountain for a fair battle should Team Sunset wish to recruit her.

That's my take on this AU! I'm not sure if anyone else has made this AU before I have. If someone has, I'd love to see their iteration of it!! Thank you for taking time to read this! I know it was really long, but I hope it was at least of some interest to you :] I might draw more of this AU, but I am (slowly) working on a different PMD 2 AU idea I had so I might not draw too much of this AU in the future :/

#HOUGH I FINALLY FINISHED HOORAY!!!!!#I am absolutely not normal about this AU please feel free to ask any questions about it!!!#chimchar #amber/chimchar #treecko #oran/treecko #dusknoir #dialga #grovyle #cresselia #darkrai #au #swap au #pmd #pmd2 #pokemon mystery dungeon #pmd explorers #pmd eos #pokemon #heropartnerweek #heropartnerweek2023 #well since you're looking through these tags I'll give you a little treat: I'll tell about another AU I've thought of!!#the AU I'm writing a fic for is where Darkrai becomes the hero and ends up having to share a body with hero #hero can't use Darkrai's move and vice versa but they're still super strong #I'm going to be using my eos team for that and I might post it here once I've written at least 3 chapters but idk :]#anyway thank you so much for reading my rant!!!! ily /p and hope you have a wonderful day or night!!!!!!!!

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asimplearchivist · 5 months

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do you ever think about the fact that Grovyle was possibly and most likely in denial about the fact that he had already permanently lost the hero?

(putting the rest under a read more because I snowballed)

because even though in the future he tells Dusknoir that his partner is still in the past out there somewhere and that they would still go after the time gears and even though it’s most definitely a bluff (that gets immediately debunked by Dusknoir revealing that the hero was right there the whole time) he still had to realize that he hadn’t come across any traces of the hero.

right?

because he wouldn’t have had any idea that amnesia would have come into play after they got separated and he would’ve been looking for and waiting to bump into the hero while traveling to gather each time gear and I can only imagine him hoping that he’d find the place already frozen and empty to indicate that the hero had at least already passed through and been there already even if he hadn’t seen them and couldn’t find them but did he realize that by the time he got to Crystal Cave’s time gear that the hero had just disappeared seemingly off the face of the earth and did he start to lose hope that he’d ever see them again and was he simply refusing to believe the possibility that he might have lost them without ever knowing where they went or what happened to them?

and then he gets his ass beat by this random Exploration Team and then Dusknoir who he’d thought he’d managed to avoid so far shows up and then he gets captured and then he almost gets killed multiple times and then he has to help this random ass team out of the future back to their time and not really thinking about it too deeply because he’s got more important things on his mind because he’s got to get back to the past and get the time gears and prevent the planet’s paralysis

and he’s so distracted and caught up in his mission like it’s the only thing he has left holding him together to the point that he’s competent oblivious to Celebi and then everything goes even more to shit and they’re cornered and blocked off from the Passage of Time and Primal Dialga shows up and Grovyle’s faltering wavering resolve finally cracks and shatters and his last potentially dying hope is that his partner is still out there somewhere because that’s all he has left to hold on to and he boasts on their behalf believing with his whole heart that they couldn’t fail

and then all of a sudden Dusknoir of all Pokemon pipes up and elects to inform him at that exact inoppurtune moment that Grovyle’s long lost partner had been right there under his nose the entire time and that Dusknoir had turned them against him and that Grovyle had grievously wounded them completely ignorant to the fact that they no longer knew him no longer recognized him and now has a partner whom their Dimensional Scream works so much better with

and then all of a sudden he has hope again but it’s so small and fragile because how in the hell are you all supposed to get out of this and your new partner comes up with a plan even Grovyle couldn’t in the heat and intensity of the moment after he’s so drained from running and running and running all by himself being accused of being a criminal being chased and hunted and attacked because he’s running out of time

and then by some miracle you three make it back in one piece and then you’re there you’re alive but you’ve lost everything you once had all your knowledge and memories and willpower to accomplish your suicide mission and even though it hurts indescribably to realize that things will most likely never be the same never be like it used to be and never again would you even look at or speak to him the same way he still has you

and now he’s determined never to let you go again you’ll have him until the life is pried from his body and he’s just so so so relieved that he can hardly stand it because now he can afford to admit to himself that he had been terrified that he’d lost you and had already started to grieve you before your time but then he has to leave you with your new better trusted partner to make sure Dusknoir couldn’t stop your plans

and even though he’s telling you “though the parting hurts” meaning you’ll have to make the decision to sacrifice yourself for the greater good at the expense of leaving your new partner all alone he also means “this wasn’t how this was supposed to go I was supposed to be there with you I didn’t want to be alone I never ever thought I’d lose you so but we’ll lose so much more if I don’t do this if we don’t do this and I’m sorry that it all had to end like this”

and then he goes through everything else fighting until his last breath trying to help you as much as he can even though he’s deceived and almost dies the closest he’s ever been and he cannot fathom the stakes at which everything rides in the balance but then the winds start to blow and the ice starts to drip and the sun starts to rise and he’s done it you’ve done it everything isn’t lost and at the very least he’s not alone while he fades into nothingness

but as he’s brought inexplicably back from the brink by ‘a higher power’ and his first thought is that same hope flooding back that he’d get to see you again that you’re still alive that you’ve both survived despite the improbable odds set against you and the hope you summon in him is so palpable you inspire it in every single person around you and you hold so much power without even realizing it and how could he ever forget you when you mean so much to him?

do you ever think about that? no? because I do. every waking second of every damn day this wood gecko haunts my thoughts.

#this got way longer than I intended #wow #whoops #pokemon #pmd #pokemon mystery dungeon #eos #pmd eos #explorers of sky #pokemon mystery dungeon explorers #pmd2 #pmd 2 #grovyle #meta #long post #mine #fisara’s scrawlings

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fujii-draws · 1 year

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How do you think Dusknoir felt when he learned who Hero was? Like at first they were just that young but surprisingly capable explorer he met and was getting kind of attached to, then he realized “oh, I’m gonna have to hurt this kid. It’s my job to hurt them”.

Side note, why did he drag Partner to the future too? Was he worried they would become a threat? Did he not want to separate them?

ANON???? YOUR MIND IS SO HUGE??? MY GOD????

YES. I WAS LITERALLY THINKING THE EXACT SAME THING. BUT AT THE SAME TIME I don't want to take away from the main storyline Dusknoir, he IS a sinister, cunning ghost when he needs to be. He would still show sadistic pleasure towards learning who hero is. As for the partner; I believe he knew Aimilios (riolu) would get worried and immediately start a panic in the town so.. :( gotta get rid of him too just in case.

But I truly believe after Special ep 5, he would start to reflect on how much he hurt Ribbons and Aimilios. These two kids looked up and meant the WORLD to him. And what does he do to repay them? All of that guilt would finally catch up to him. And regaining their trust is gonna be so so much harder. Their looks of adoration and joy whenever he was around, would be replaced with fear. Dusknoir knows he deserves every second of it, but it hurts.

#pmd #pmd eos #pmd dusknoir #BUT ANON. HIM DREADING THE FACT THAT HE HAS TO HURT THESE KIDS IS SO BIG BRAIN.#ALSO TYSM FOR THE ASK EEEEEEEEEE!!!! I LOVE TALKING ABOUT THESE THREE SO SO MUCH SO THANK YOOOU #anyways come off anon and spread dadnoir propaganda w/ me (/J)#dadnoir

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ecoamerica · 1 month

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i-never-forgot · 5 months

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THE. THE WAY YOU WROTE ELIANA’S REUNION WITH GROVYLE AND CELEBI. THE WAY YOU USE WORDS TO ENHANCE CERTAIN EMOTIONS MADE MY HEART TWINGE A LITTLE. AND OH MY GOD. THE WAY YOU WROTE DUSKNOIR’S ENTRY. AND HOW ELIANA TOOK NO CHANCES AND IMMEDIATELY ATTACKED HIM???? NOT TO MENTION MOMENTS OF HER REMEMBERING JUST HOW TERRIFYING HE WAS WHEN SHE WAS A SMALL EEVEE. AND HAVING TO BE CALMED DOWN????? I-

Ranting about that ghostly old man under the cut:🫡

She was already so overprotective of Grovyle in the future since they met when he was a Treecko and so terrified of everything being so small…then once she recalls her memories and realizes that Grovyle had to take that place for her after she lost her memory, protected her with his life once they discovered the truth, she grieves over losing him all over again…now she has him back, with Lu, safe and sound and she has abilities now to protect them both so much better and…yeah. She snapped.

That was pure instinct stemming from the harrowing experience of being hunted down plus his betrayal, almost being killed multiple times, being convinced that he would no longer be in the picture (perhaps also having blocked out the idea that he might still be around bc she couldn’t handle the thought of seeing him again after all that trauma) after the future was restored…Eliana is not having a great time because after Dusknoir already took advantage of her amnesia and broke her trust the first time, so even Grovyle is going to have a hard time convincing her that Dusknoir has sincerely changed for the better and for good😭

Going from a barely one-foot fox who fits in the palm of his hand, completely trusting and admiring and looking up to him, to him killing her for seemingly no reason…you always touch on those tones in your composition so well I wanted to try to emulate that a little🥺👉🏻👈🏻

Also I’m glad they the reunion expressed how important and intimate I wanted it to sound—with Grovyle in particular. He means so much to her and vice versa and just…they’re so happy that the other is okay and I wanted that to come across so badly🥹

I wanted her to see him entering the room in kind of slow motion, but I’m uncertain I expressed clearly—just this dawning, horrific realization, the embodiment of all her fears, sneaking (in her point of view) into a room filled with the people she cared about most, with their backs exposed to him…nope, she’s not having that. He’s such a big, foreboding figure that I wanted that eeriness to come through

And Lu and Grovyle are her rocks from two different points in her life—they keep her steady, they keep her calm, and them working together to soothe her anxiety and fight/flight instinct was something I wanted to touch on. You know. For funsies :)

I didn’t mean to leave dusknoir out without any dialogue but I’ll get to him in no time, believe me😈

#fisara’s answers #my asks #leafeon/eliana #lu/lucario #grovyle #dusknoir #celebi #pokemon #pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #fanfiction #ao3: in the morning light

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catflowerqueen · 3 years

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Hydreigon is an interesting character. I love him a lot, and how kind and genuine he is and how even he seems to undergo character growth in the short time you know him.

Like… I genuinely do not believe he thought everything through in regards to his plan to contact humans for help. And a big part of that is just because of his very nature as the Voice of Life (or at least one of them). We don’t know what form of sentience he had before assuming his current shape, I suppose, but it makes perfect sense that his first priority would be his own world—his own self, in essence, but I don’t think he was thinking about his own individual survival, either, simply because his nature would mean that he wasn’t really an “individual” per say? Not until later. But because of that, I doubt he was really thinking of long-term goals, or the deeper consequences of bringing a human in to help.

Focusing just on the effects to the actual Pokémon World for a moment… he might have known from the onset that the humans wouldn’t be able to stay after providing help… but I doubt he’d thought about the ramifications that come with the fact that they would still have to spend time in the world as they figured out what the problem was, and that it would mean they would be making connections—friends, allies, etc. We don’t know how much contact he actually had with the other humans before they fell for Munna’s trap, but he did seem to genuinely worry about them as people—at least as far as their general welfare went. Like… his being upset about their defeat seemed to go deeper than just “each one defeated is one more that can’t help me.” Which is nice. And then he did genuinely seem to grow fond of the player themselves, and were very happy and proud of how deep their relationship with the partner was.

And that’s part of why I think he was crying when he confessed that the player would have to leave. He’d grown fond of them, and he knew how much the others—especially the partner—cared (and could maybe even feel it in the world itself?) And he was genuinely, truly heartbroken at the fact that they had to leave, and that he would probably be the only one to remember them. Which is probably why he stayed with them for as long as they could while they journeyed out, agreed to take them to see Paradise one last time, and just felt so bad about not being able to do more. As well as why he tried so hard to get them back in the post-game.

As to other things he didn’t think through… mostly the ramifications it had on the human world that he was pulling so many people out of it. Yes, the population of humans is very large, and we don’t know exactly how many people he actually called out to (and for that many, how many accepted his call. Was he just pulling in anyone that could hear him? Because, like… he asked for help, but then didn’t really ask permission to take them, or get any formal agreement. At least not verbally—it’s possible there was something going on behind the scenes with souls or intent or whatever). But there was enough that people were taking notice of the strange lights in the sky—and considering how many the Pokémon of Post Town were seeing on the hill, how many more must have been in other places? After all, the humans can’t have all arrived in the same place, and the pokemon world itself is quite large. How long has this sort of thing been going on? We don’t know, but given the problem I would think Hydreigon would have tried to pull in as many people as possible, so that could be anywhere from… let’s say five (to account for the fact that the Post Town citizens saw multiple balls of light, in addition to the one the hero saw and the hero themselves), to something like a hundred. If not more.

And depending on where in the world he took them from, their ages, their jobs, what was going on in their own lives… this could have some pretty dire consequences, especially considering that the post-game makes it clear that time was passing at more or less the same rate in each world, in addition to the fact that it was a genuine worry of the partner’s that the hero’s friends and family would have noticed and been distressed by their disappearance. So even if it might not affect the human world on a large scale… Hydreigon definitely did not take into account how it would affect things on a smaller scale—namely, the lives the humans were leaving behind for the duration.

In addition to the trauma of having literally died/been so near death that it amounted to basically the same thing in order to actually return home… how many humans then returned to eviction notices, lost jobs, truancy alerts, etc.? How many missed once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, or deadlines? Was anyone on an organ donor list that was now once more at the back of the line because they weren’t there to receive the donation? Or had to reschedule other general surgeries/miss important appointments? Did anyone leave their own children behind, who then had no one to look out for them? Or was the only person in the office who had access to the important equipment/files meaning that now multiple people are out of work? Or was in the middle of doing something/maintaining something really important that crashed and burned in their absence and caused multiple other deaths or injuries?

The human world is complicated, and while it makes sense Hydreigon wouldn’t know about that or prioritize that—not that I blame him for it—it just… yeah, he didn’t think things through.

Which is why it is so genuinely heartwarming that the partner did. And, sure, maybe they didn’t understand the complexities of the situation either, but they at least could consider the ramifications for the hero’s immediate friends and family members if they never went home.

Honestly, it does bring up its own can of worms as far as how the hero will use their new abilities to travel between worlds—because, again, the complexities and bureaucracy of the human world don’t really lend themselves to someone being MIA for long stretches of time unless they’re independently wealthy/have someone willing to look after their stuff while they’re gone, so it might mean that the hero really will eventually have to pick a side, as it were, to stay full time and just the other one as a minor vacation spot (which… like, I hope Emolga was just joking when he said those lines to the hero in post-game about them having to work extra hard to make up for all the lost time while they were in the human world because… if that genuinely is his belief, then the hero isn’t going to be getting any chance to rest in between whatever jobs and things they have to maintain in the human world and their “job” in Paradise. Burnout is not pleasant).

But that’s probably getting too meta about things, anyways. It’s just that Gates is the only game in the series that actually brings those implications to the forefront, because, again, no amnesia for the hero, and the partner (and others) directly speculate about it a few times. Rescue Team was… well, the amnesia thing means that not even the hero knows what their life was like, so it is a… relatively simpler choice to make? In some ways? Yeah, maybe they are leaving some things behind in the human world… but they could just as equally have hated their life. They have no way of knowing, and just based on the new memories they created, they know that could have a good life in the Pokémon world. In Explorers, they didn’t really have a life to go back to afterwards either way. Again, there’s some ambiguity in us not knowing if they were actually from the paralyzed future, as opposed to just being taken their by someone else because of their abilities, but… either way, as far as they knew, they were going to disappear at the end and effectively be deceased. And then even after the fifth special episode, their options were still kind of limited to just the past/present from their perspective and living in the future. Which is fixed now, sure, but the only real connections they’d have to the place would be Grovyle and Celebi—who they only remember from their brief period travelling together over the course of the game. …And also Dusknoir and the Sableye, I suppose, but I feel like that would just be very complicated and awkward. And then I’ve already made myself abundantly clear as far as PSMD goes. Is the hero actually leaving a life behind? Who knows! Not them, thanks to the mind wiping, and even if they were, it isn’t like anyone bothered to give them options or think too deeply on the matter.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #gates to infinity #hydreigon

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nelvana · 4 years

Text

In which the dusknoir is taken around town

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: Intermission Previous: In which the dusknoir is met

Dusknoir had never quite expected to see the sun, or experience other leisure of the past. He had always been aware that for his master, Primal Dialga, to thrive, that the dark future was required. It made sense anyway; what Master Dialga said had to be law, as they knew best. They would fix things in the dark future, even if it had to stay dark.

Being here in the past now, made all that strange. The world was suddenly full of many simply beauties that deep down he longed to explore more, but he couldn’t help but wonder if this was really right.

Regardless, he was here, and he would get answers soon. In the meantime, it was fascinating to learn more about what he could experience now, including the other pokemon in it. Somehow, that obnoxious time travelling trio had built more friendships, though in hindsight, it probably shouldn’t have been so surprising, and each new pokemon was almost more interesting than the last.

Right away, Dusknoir was curious about the situation with that human, Nelvana. It didn’t take long for it to come out that she was, in fact, the cubone he had glimpsed fall behind the island table and then hurry up the stairs. He managed to learn that she had amnesia, but despite that still made the same choses and acted similarly to before; which, in a way, Dusknoir found odd. Apparently, Gardevoir had been involved in both the transformation and the amnesia, but past the fact that she had been able to do that because of a ninetales, he didn’t get much out of her. Strangely enough, even Gardevoir didn’t seem to have all the details on the situation.

Either way, he didn’t have much more than the word of the others in the household. Somehow, she had found a way to never be caught in the same room as him, even when he thought there would be no way for her to noticeably run off. In fact, just when he thought he had cornered her in the living room so that he could try speaking to her, it felt like he had just blinked and she was gone, despite literally being in a corner before he even tried entering the room in the first place.

Aside from that, most of the new pokemon seemed to try treating him with respect, but still otherwise kept their guards up. Evidently, that grovyle had been catching them up on all of his crimes. Sometimes Dusknoir wanted to laugh at that thought; he was doing his job, it was what was right.

One pokemon though, was especially new to him. He had glimpsed her the first night as well for a moment, but she hadn’t even lingered for a moment before going back upstairs; of which he still hadn’t seen yet, though he wanted to. It took awhile, but she finally showed herself to him. He learned that her name was Tsuki, and that her species was an absol.

“Ah… I see, an absol. That would explain it,” Dusknoir murmured, looking over the long-furred quadruped that stood uncomfortably in front of him.

“Explain what, if I may ask?” Tsuki questioned, wincing for a moment but holding her composure.

“Why I hadn’t recognized your species before,” Dusknoir answered immediately, “I have only heard of absols in passing before; I believe that they went extinct in the future.”

“Extinct?” Tsuki repeated, looking at Ceebee, who also was in the room for this introduction.

Ceebee nodded sadly, “yes… I believe that the others hadn’t brought it up before since they weren’t certain, and probably Keahi explained absols well enough to them…” she murmured, “but, in the dead timeline, many absols could not handle the constant disaster. Many went mad, and most ended up disappearing either into the dungeons or from the world entirely.”

Tsuki merely hummed in response, accepting what sense that answer made. Exhaling and shaking her head, she made her way over to the door.

“Well, at least that is not the case now,” she mumbled, “anyway, it was nice to meet you, but I must be going now,” she continued.

As Dusknoir would later learn, he apparently gave the absol headaches because he “carried disaster”, which, to him, didn’t make terribly much sense, but he had also picked up that Edgar could sense that he had killed others before, so he supposed she too could pick up on that.

For his first day with this rescue team, Team Galaxy, he reminded himself, he had practically been locked in the house, stuck on the main floor still even when no one else was up there, until everyone else could “figure this out”. Evidently though, they realized it would be ridiculous to try keeping him inside for too long, and Keahi decided to take it upon zirself to show him around Pokemon Square.

Pokemon Square was a loud and bustling town, with townsfolk who were cheery and loud. They were all fairly friendly, though evidently intimidated by Dusknoir’s appearance, which he didn’t mind. He did his best to come off as polite and respectful, noting the importance of keeping his relationships here positive. Though, deep down, he found most of them too cheery and loud. He wondered if they had ever dealt with someone troublesome before. They acted as if nothing would ever go wrong, he found.

Regardless, it was still interesting to him to meet all these pokemon. He had never met so many others at once that responded to him with such friendliness, and despite his mild annoyance at this naivety, it was still nice, in a way. The two kecleon brothers running a shop were polite, but he could tell that they were shrewd salesmen; that put them higher on his enjoyment list. Persian was the other who he actually considered to not be annoying. She spoke of Edgar fondly, but otherwise was actually a bit snappy and protective over her business. Otherwise, there was Kangaskhan, who Dusknoir felt came off as too sweet; Lombre, Snubbull, and Bellsprout, who Dusknoir figured only ever shared a single thought between them at a time; Whiscash, who astonished Dusknoir at being still around, at his age and forgetfulness; Spinda and Gulpin, who Dusknoir just found plain annoying; and Makuhita as the only other notable one, who Dusknoir found was far too lenient with his business. There were, of course, others around town, but he hadn’t gotten much of a chance to meet them yet, though grouped most of them under the same general category of “cheerful and loud” that he was gathering.

It was fascinating how much pokemon in the past let their guards down around others. Part of him wondered how quickly he would get caught if he actually did do something, but he knew better than to do that. There was no point aside from curiosity, and that wasn’t nearly enough motivation, especially with how he understood the grave consequences of such curiosity here.

Keahi led him off eastwards, the sounds of chatter from the town fading as they headed further away from town, being replaced with the noises of something pounding on the cliffs that came into view. As the smell of the ocean hit Dusknoir’s senses, he realized that that unfamiliar noise was water crashing onto the rocks.

“Did you like the townsfolk?” Keahi asked hesitantly, zir voice pulling Dusknoir back away from the sound of ocean.

“Yes,” Dusknoir lied, because for as interesting as they were, he still found most of them annoying; not that he was going to admit that, he needed to be more well-liked around here.

Keahi frowned, making Dusknoir pause. He had always thought of himself as a good liar, not that he actually found himself lying that often, so how…

“Look, my partner wears a skull over her face. I’ve learned to keep an eye out for body language and tone of voice more than facial expressions,” Keahi told him with a sigh, answering his unsaid question. “I’d rather not be lied to. Why don’t you like them?”

Dusknoir made a mental note not to underestimate the other pokemon on Team Galaxy. Clearly, his old foes had done well picking other teammates. They weren’t like the citizens of Pokemon Square he had just met.

“I am simply not used to them yet,” Dusknoir responded, “such volume and blind positivity was not seen often in the future,” he added.

“Alright, yeah… Nel took awhile to get used to the noise too, I can only assume so did Alex when he first got here. Ceebee too, but she did get used to it pretty quickly,” Keahi hummed, zir gaze drifting off to gaze at a large board with papers attached to it. “This is the mission board. Pokemon needing help will post requests up there, and rescue teams will take them and complete them. Though, since the meteor was destroyed, there have been a lot fewer missions!” zir explained, “and over there is the Pelipper Post Office. We won’t go there today, but if we had a letter to send somewhere, we would give it to the workers there.”

“I see…” Dusknoir murmured, eyeing the board and then the building by the cliff as Keahi mentioned them. “Is that it, then?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s most of the town!” Keahi answered, “I think I’m going to check out how the others are doing at the dojo, you can go back to the house if you’d like-“

“Actually,” Dusknoir interrupted, “I think that I would like to go there as well, if that is no trouble to you.”

Keahi blinked, but then after a moment’s thought, slowly nodded, “okay. We don’t want to really disturb them though, they’re probably busy.”

Earlier that day, Alex decided to take some of the others on a training session. With the impending idea of another adventure to fix the world’s balance looming over them, he wanted to see about touching up some moves and battle techniques. He had the idea of doing this with Edgar in particular, who didn’t know many actual attacking moves. Tsuki came with him, and so did Damien; who was finally beginning to run low on chores to do around town. They planned on working in the dojo, while Ceebee took Gardevoir and Nelvana out to train a bit while Keahi started zir tour with Dusknoir. Nelvana was with the two psychic pokemon as they had discovered that Gardevoir already had the best psychic bond with Nelvana; it just seemed to be the best way to build up strength by training with her as well. Plus, at least in Alex’s opinion, Nelvana wasn’t in need of much physical training, currently.

After a bit of warming up, Alex decided to start Edgar training up his pursuit move. It was one Alex was quite familiar with himself, and Tsuki as well. He figured that Edgar was at the right level for the move, so it was just a matter of getting him used to using it.

“Alright, Edgar, have you ever used pursuit before?” Alex asked, stepping out further into the center of the large room.

“No, I haven’t…” Edgar admitted, following the grovyle at a bit of a distance. “That’s the move that gets stronger when your enemy is running away, right? I’ve seen some of the others at the tower use it before!” he added.

“Yeah, that’s the one!” Alex responded, “now, Tsuki and I are going to demonstrate first. You can hang back with Damien for a moment, okay, Edgar?” he continued, “actually… Damien, can you learn pursuit? I can’t remember if that’s in your movepool.”

Damien shook his head, “nah, I don’t think so. I wonder if there are any moves we have in common…?”

“Eh, you’re more likely to have common moves with Tsuki or Edgar,” Alex muttered.

At being mentioned, Tsuki stood up from where she had seated herself over by the wall. Shaking her fur out first, she padded over towards Alex while Edgar spun around and headed back over to Damien.

“Did you remember to bring your TMs that you mentioned?” Edgar asked the gengar as he floated up next to him.

“Augh, damn, I forgot… Should I grab them now?” Damien responded, glancing from the duskull beside him to the grovyle across from him.

“They can wait for now. Right now, let’s focus on moves we actually should know already,” Alex answered, sparing Damien a look before focusing on Tsuki. “Now then, would you like to use it on me, or should I attack you?”

“I resist the typing. You can hit me for this demonstration,” Tsuki decided, shifting her position to a more battle-ready crouch.

Alex nodded, “great. Alright, so, like Edgar said before, this is a move that gets stronger when the opponent is fleeing. However, you can use it at any time. From experience, it’s easier to pick up when you fall into that instinct of attacking as they flee, so we’ll go straight into that,” he explained, turning back in Edgar’s direction again. “There are plenty of signs to look for and timing to get right, but we’ll keep things simple for now. Usually, someone only runs away from a fight if they think they are going to lose. Keep an eye out for that. They may start trying to look for escape options, and focus more on dodging than attacking, becoming jumpier.”

“Okay!” Edgar called back, bobbing along in the air to confirm his understanding.

“Now, we’ll demonstrate then.”

With that, Alex made a lunge for Tsuki. He purposefully went wide though, and the absol barely had to sidestep to avoid the attack. Baring her teeth, she snapped at his head leaf, again, purposefully missing. They didn’t have to hit each other to make this a battle; the only attack that would be important to land for this demonstration would be the pursuit attack.

After about a minute of throwing out various attacks and jumping around each other, Tsuki began shifting her gaze. She exaggerated nervousness, pawing at the ground as she moved around Alex. He wondered if he should point it out to Edgar, to be sure he understood what to look for, but trusted the duskull had already noticed just fine. Instead of speaking, he readied his pursuit attack, gathering dark energy in his claws. Normally he would try hiding his hand to keep his foe from suspecting anything, but it would make more of a difference to Edgar here if he made the move more visible.

Sensing that Alex wasn’t about to say anything to add to this lesson and was instead going right for the pursuit, Tsuki turned tail and fled. She bolted across the room, using her full potential for the first time in this battle to put as much distance between herself and the grovyle as possible. As she began moving away, Alex crouched down and then lunged towards her, the dark energy only growing and pulsating around his hand. Then, he appeared upon the absol, striking her with the move. It was almost as if he had teleported, except his movement, while extremely fast, was still quite visible, as if a teleport had been drawn out instead of instantaneous. His weight threw Tsuki to the floor, though after a moment, she easily stood up again and threw him off her back, shaking her fur out afterwards.

“And that’s pursuit for you,” Alex said, brushing himself off as he turned to look back at Edgar, who clapped quietly with his robed hands. “Would you like another demonstration or more explanation, or would you like to try it out for yourself?”

“I… I think I’d like to see it again!” Edgar decided, almost answering instantly but hesitating to actually think about it before making his decision.

“Got it.” He glanced back at the absol as he made his way back towards the center of the room. “Do you want to get to hit me this time? You’ll probably end up taking the brunt of the hits when Edgar gives it a shot,” Alex offered.

“I can always take an oran berry if I get worn out,” Tsuki assured him, following him some of the ways, providing them with more space for the fight. “Thank you for the thought, though.”

Alex only hummed in response, accepting her choice and preparing himself to fight again. This battle went similarly to the last. In a way, it was a chance to practice some of their own moves, even if they didn’t want to actually hit each other with most of them. Eventually though, Tsuki tired of the dodging and throwing around various attacks, and took the chance to flee again, earning another pursuit to the back to finish the fight.

“Okay! I think I want to try now!” Edgar exclaimed, hurrying over to the others.

“Alrightio,” Alex responded, stretching. “You’re up against Tsuki then. Pay attention to when you think she’s going to flee, and get your dark move ready. Dark-type moves work best with negative feelings, at least when learning, so channel frustration at her running away. Keeping in mind that you want to stop her from fleeing will help ready pursuit as well,” he advised.

Edgar nodded, and Alex made his way over to sit beside Damien. Sitting beside the gengar earned him a chill, but he didn’t mind that so much. Instead, he focused his gaze on his two teammates, who positioned themselves for the battle. Tsuki continued giving more advice to Edgar before they began, and Alex distantly listened, paying more attention with his eyes rather than his ears.

“Edgar mentioned that I should be able to learn confuse ray and night shade like him. I’ve used both in the past, but it would be good to touch up on,” Damien mumbled, not really looking at Alex as he spoke either, watching the battle about to unfold instead.

“That’s a good idea,” Alex agreed, “the confusion status is good to have on our side. If you use it too, then that frees up time for Edgar to land a will-o-wisp instead in a fight.”

With that agreement, Damien didn’t pursue any more conversation for the moment, and instead watched as Edgar and Tsuki began to train. It took a few tries of the absol running off and then returning for Edgar to get the hang of the move, but eventually he pulled off a successful pursuit, nailing Tsuki from halfway across the dojo.

“Oh, hey! You got it!” Damien cheered, sitting up with a smile.

“Yeah!” Edgar exclaimed back, doing a victory spin in the air.

“That’s great! Can you ready the attack without the idea of attacking a fleeing pokemon though?” Alex asked, standing up on his feet and taking a step towards the duskull.

“Oh, hmm… let me see!” Edgar responded.

His eye flickered for a moment, before finally disappearing from the socket all entirely, and the dark energy managed to form around his hands. It wasn’t as much as Alex had been able to form in his demonstrations, and evidently took much more focus, but was still great progress for him.

Alex grinned, “great job! So, do you wanna take a break for now, or do you want to practice that a bit more?”

“I think I want to practice it a couple more times, but then I think I want to help teach Damien confuse ray!” Edgar responded.

“That would be a good opportunity to train the rest of us how to snap out of confusion quicker,” Tsuki pointed out, strolling over towards where most of the others were.

“Ah, that’s a good point! I didn’t think about that, but you’re definitely right. We should give that a try,” Alex agreed, snapping his fingers at the thought. “After Edgar finishes with pursuit, of course,” he added.

Nodding along, Edgar turned back away from the grovyle and back towards the center of the room, where Tsuki followed. They continued this repeated training, but before Edgar could announce that he was ready to change to train something else, the door to the dojo opened up.

Keahi entered the room, almost sheepishly as Dusknoir trailed behind zim. His large eye scanned the room, landing on the pair, who were still training without much of a pause. They had, of course, heard the door as well, but for now were not letting this bother them. Keahi hurried over to Alex and Damien, hopping up to sit up on the bench.

“What are you guys doing here?” Damien questioned, tearing his gaze away from Dusknoir to watch he torchic scurry over to them. “You already passed by the dojo for the tour…”

“I wanted to come back to train with you guys!” Keahi explained, “and… Dusknoir wanted to come with too. If he’s going to bother you, I can take him back to the house first…”

Dusknoir, overhearing the conversation, floated over to weigh in his own thoughts, “I do not plan on being a loud disturbance,” he told them, “and if it is the idea of me learning your moves and applying them to avoid later… Remember, we are unlikely to get into a battle against each other in this time. I was actually considering teaching a few of my moves. It would be best, after all, for a ghost-type to teach a ghost-type…”

Alex narrowed his eyes and frowned, “I’d rather not,” he insisted, “I guess you can stick around here for a bit, just to watch though, if you insist,” he relented bitterly.

“Ah, please, it would be no trouble. Edgar is part of my evolution line, and I happen to share a similar movepool to that of a gengar…” Dusknoir pressed, the corners of his stomach smile creeping upwards.

“I said no,” Alex snapped, crossing his arms.

“Is this really your choice to make?” Dusknoir questioned.

“Why are you so insistent on this?” Alex questioned instead of answering, sending a final glare at Dusknoir before looking back at the battle, which Tsuki was about to flee.

Dusknoir merely hummed in response to this, turning his own gaze to the remaining moments of the battle as well, “training pursuit?” he commented, “I have not used that move in a long time… It is quite handy though.”

Alex muttered something under his breath. Dusknoir glanced over at him, but did not request for him to speak up and say whatever he was muttering to his face; not for now, at least.

With this round of battling finished, Edgar headed over to join the others. Tsuki stared over towards them longingly for a moment, but instead proceeded to the opposite end of the room, where she began searching for one of the oran berries stored in the dojo. Edgar’s pursuit attacks weren’t doing that much damage, but too much of any attack can wear someone down.

“Hi Keahi! Hi Dusknoir!” Edgar greeted cheerfully, “did you see? I’m learning pursuit!”

“That’s really cool!” Keahi chirped, “now half the team knows it! That ought to be pretty handy!”

“What move shall you be training next?” Dusknoir asked, staring down the duskull.

The light in Edgar’s eye flickered momentarily, but it quickly returned to its usual brightness, “confuse ray!” he told him, “Damien and I plan on working on it together; I already use it a lot, but he hadn’t in awhile.”

“Ah, I see. I’ve only used that a couple times myself, but I can see the use in it for others,” Dusknoir replied, “I was just talking about maybe getting the chance to train you and Damien sometime; I know a lot of moves you could learn.”

“And I said no,” Alex spat, “don’t try to twist this like I had been agreeing with you.”

“It is merely an offer, and it is their choice,” Dusknoir stated calmly, with almost a smug undertone to his words.

“Oh… uh, I don’t know. I’m not that experienced anyway; there probably isn’t a lot you could teach me until I get stronger on my own,” Edgar murmured, glancing from the grovyle to the dusknoir. “Thanks for the offer though!” he added politely.

Damien blinked, paling as he realized he would have to answer as well, “well… aren’t you a physical attacker? Most of your moves won’t be that good for me; I’m a special attacker, usually,” he said.

Something seemed to darken from Dusknoir at these answers, but he let out a low hum and slowly nodded. They were fairly reasonable excuses. He would accept this, for now.

“Very well. Let me know if you change your minds,” Dusknoir murmured, “don’t let me interrupt you, you may get back to your own training now.”

“Come on! We’re going to need a couple targets for this move; no sense in confusing each other!” Edgar hummed, heading back towards the middle of the room once more.

Alex, Keahi, and Damien all followed. Dusknoir stayed over by the wall to watch, and Tsuki stayed on her end of the room to watch as well, doing her best not to let her ability make her too bothered by the large ghost-type across the room.

They trained for another hour at least after that, but then Gardevoir entered the dojo to gather up everyone to take a break and do something at home. Despite the interruption from Dusknoir, Alex considered that to be a good training session.

As for Dusknoir himself, he was quieter for the remainder of the day, though he did not seem too upset either. It was strange, though not something for anyone to really comment on. Nelvana was quiet too, actually. Though, she did remain around the same room as Dusknoir to be with the others, so that seemed to be a step forward. Dusknoir noticed during this time, that a torn scarf that almost looked like a reaper cloth was tied around her wrist; a mobile scarf. Well, at least that answered one of his questions.

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: Intermission Previous: In which the dusknoir is met

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rainbow-squirrels-7 · 6 years

Text

DND tonight on The Kleos Guild

-We began with scenes to set the tone of what was going on. Like scenes that the audience saw but the characters didn’t.

-We had a suspicion throw on Peregrine, who was shown to be crossing out places where the Song Thief struck

-We had a scene of Murphy (whose town just got trapped by losing its Song Crystal) have a sad moment but be comforted by Peregrine

-There were a few scenes in Roots showing the trapped citizens including my breakfast lizards and my raven man Huitzilopotchli and my annoyed retail employee/artist, Frida

-We saw some rich folks annoyed because their rich people cactus juice wasn’t able to be delivered, and also a meeting in Ferryrock that explained all the Guild knew about the rash of Song Crystal thefts, as this couldn’t be kept under wraps for any longer

-and we saw a scene of the Song Thief in a savanna environment knocking out some guards and heading into a jungle

-Also our Monk left the group because she was too busy, but for my plot to work out, I had to make it like she was never there, not like she just left

-anyway, my players were summoned by Peregrine who said Sam the Tiefling Guildmaster of the Emerald Division was at the Guild and said there was an emergency

-they were given some ‘morph suits’ as I described them, which had a button on the collar that caused a fishbowl air bubble to pop out when pressed.

-My Druid kept her bubble up the whole time even before they went to the jungle

-They the warped to the jungle islands and found an African-style village, but no one was there until Sam put down the illusion and it was revealed to be a very large group of guildmembers with instruments

-the whole Divisions concept (but specifically the Emerald Division) is based on the PMD fanfiction, The Silver Resistance where there are different Divisions of Pokemon instead of Guilds, and anyway, the Emerald Division in that story is kind of stoic and uncaring, which is the inspiration for Sam’s personality. And in the story, there’s a fallen Rayquaza statue in the Emerald Division, which inspired my fallen Tree of Life statue at my own Emerald Division

-Sam had her Division play a song: link and projected an illusion that told the story of the islands and the Emerald Division

-the Emerald Division had been on the island for generations and their ancestors found the Tree of Life deep in the jungle, and they also found a vein of pure magic within the earth, and they built a temple complex and treated the tree as sacred. then, scientists came to the island, hearing about the magic, and they forced the Emerald Division ancestors out, building the city of Noble Springs and their nucleo-magic plant on top of the temples. then there was a Chernobyl-style nuclear meltdown and the city was destroyed and abandoned and the entire jungle was made radioactive

-the players were then lead to the jungle and told that the Song Thief took one of the longer routes, but they will be taking the shortest route, trying to reach the temple before him

-my Bard has also had a Hat of Disguise this whole time, which he changes to match my environments. He had a stetson hat in Roots and he had a pith helmet in this jungle.

-they then trekked through the jungle (which had glowing green plants and irradiated animals like monkeys with two heads and birds with four wings and centipedes like eight feet long) and came across a sign they couldn’t read with an elephant on it. I was expecting someone to use a comprehend languages spell, but no one could, so they were left to wonder what it said. It said “test of faith”, though... anyway, they went forward and found a patch of quicksand.

-my Druid Tarzan-swung across, my Paladin (and Peregrine) shimmied along the edge on the trees, and my Bard froze the surface and walked across

-then they stopped to rest for the night and Peregrine requested of them all for them to let her talk to the Song Thief before they attacked. My players reluctantly agreed (they very much want to kill the Song Thief)

-the next morning, they found another sign, this time with more unreadable words (it said “test of wits”) and a picture of a panther. The test was a raging river to cross. My Druid did another vine swing. My Paladin threw a javelin across the river with a rope tied to it, and then my Bard tightrope-walked across (though it was shaky with my Druid trying to hold it while failing strength saves). My Paladin and Peregrine just hand over hand crawled across under the rope.

-then they came to the ruined city, which I described as ‘looking like Chernobyl because that’s what it’s based on”

-my Bard went to investigate a creaky rusty noise and left the party to wait for him. He came to an ‘old abandoned old abandoned amusement park’ and found a ferris wheel. he poked a ferris wheel cart and angered a gorilla that was taking a nap. the gorilla also had four arms. My Bard then thought quickly and cast an illusion of a ‘really pretty gorilla’ and my buff gorilla failed his save and went chasing after it and my Bard ‘ruined my entire giant gorilla fight’

-so he went back to the others and went up to the temple, where my Paladin saw movement around earlier. they found the door closed with this riddle on it:

-I bring back light in the darkest of times. I give hope to the hopeless in a verse that rhymes. I may give out glory, I may give out none. I am left to remember when the story is done. What am I?

-they immediately said ‘song’ but the actual answer was to play a song, so they waffled around a bit guessing things like poem, ballad, ect. until my Paladin suggested they actually play a song, and my Bard chose to play the Campfire Song Song from Spongebob. Which opened the door.

-inside, they found a hallway, and after convincing the Bard that he didn’t need to keep watch, he was left inside anyway when the door shut behind him. Then the walls started getting all Inception-y and things started getting weird. They were in an illusion of Roots, then in the battlefield where they played the Tree of Life to stop the monsters, and then in Bard City, then the arena at Gods’ Doorstep, and then in the shipyard in Ferryrock, and then on the hill in the Town of Heroes where the journey started. And then they saw stuff they didn’t recognize, which was a deep, dark, misty, quiet forest (which I had my Druid recognize vaguely, like deja-vu), and then a ruined temple that none of them recognized.

-these last two scenes are actually places in the future, but none of them remember they’re from the future, and Peregrine lied and said she didn’t recognize them either.

-they then found a grid of tiles on the ground, and my Bard stepped past my traps again and used Mage Hand to press on each tile individually, testing each for poison darts. And then he walked by all of them, using Mage Hand to block the dart as he stepped on the tiles.

-then they went down a floor and found along hallway with doors that had just shut at the end. And Peregrine ran faster than the rest of them and threw the doors open to find the Song Thief inches away from taking the Song Crystal

-There was a silent face off for a moment between both sides and Peregrine said “You have to stop this. You know what will happen.”

-and the Song Thief replied, “Then you know why I can’t do that.” and he grabbed the Song Crystal and used an Escape Orb to get out.

-and then my players used their own Escape Orb and got out of the temple to the edge of the jungle where they got in and started running away back to the village

-they were, with combined 5+ rolls on a D10 able to yell out and tell the Emerald Division to get to the warp panel, able to save about half the Division, with the rest of them trapped on the island in silence, just like Roots and Bard City

-everyone got back to the Guild, and at this point my players are VERY suspicious of Peregrine, and she says that she has some things to say, and she calls a town meeting

-Peregrine gets anxious easily (I have her constantly holding her violin and messing with it. I only realized after we ended that I never said ‘fiddled with her violin’, which I must remedy next session) and she doesn’t like public speaking, but she gave a speech about what was going on, and what just happened in Noble Springs.

-and then she said that there are some things that are hard to believe. Including that the Song Thief was never part of the Ameythyst Division.

-but mostly that she and the Song Thief are from the future

-and my Paladin’s player (who has played PMD) gave me a look and said “you’re having fun with this, aren’t you?” and I said, “Yes, yes I am”

-and everyone was surprised, (I had them hear a “WHAT THE-” and then get cut off, which was Rowena getting censored by her wife, Lily) and stuff. But they hatched a plan to capture the Song Thief at King’s Reach in the mountains where the Sapphire Division is based. My Bard wanted to use some sort of guarding runes or something to basically set a fire trap, but Peregrine insisted that they not kill the Song Thief, she wants to capture him and take him to face justice in the future. She suggests that they use the Tree of Life song to freeze the Song Thief in place and stop him from taking the last Song Crystal

-and then the players had another meeting with only the Guildmasters, where they tried to interrogate Peregrine, who was constantly lying through her teeth. She said she doesn’t know who the Song Thief is, that she doesn’t know why he’s stealing the Song Crystals, that she doesn’t have any connection to him. None of which is true

-My players do NOT trust Peregrine

-Which I guess is okay. They shouldn’t. But going on PMD, at this point, the Hero and Partner still trusted Dusknoir. By the PMD plot, we’re at the part just before Grovyle is captured at Crystal Cave

-Anyway, after a visit to Gerald and Charlie (my players used his Swap Cauldron to get some cool items. My Paladin got a Robot Boy which takes a player’s failed Death Save [based on the creepy doll from TAZ]. My Druid got a thermos of Super Spicy Curry that allows for a cast of Fire Bolt and a spicy aftertaste. And my Bard got some Thunder Tapshoes which can cast Thunderwave [based on the Thunder Tapshoes in BombBarded.]) my players wanted to have a private meeting with the Guildmasters minus Peregrine

-they found them and tried to interrogate them as well, asking mostly if they knew anything about Peregrine. They only said that she’s kind of a new Guildmaster (she only became it two months ago, when Bard City fell) and that she was a Professional Hero before becoming the Guildmaster. The other Guildmasters also said that they didn’t want to kill the Song Thief either, they just want things to go back to normal

-my Druid and Bard, however, do want him dead. My Paladin doesn’t. They had a player-on-player altercation that was really amazing. My Bard even cast Hold Person on my Paladin to stop her from walking out of the room because he though she was going to go tell Peregrine that they were talking behind her back

-I love when drama writes itself

-anyway, the last thing that happened was that my Paladin went outside and used her Holy Megaphone (which allows the user to shout to the sky at their god [the DM] and ask them one yes or no question). My Bard and Druid players were actually arguing at this time, so it was even better that they didn’t hear the question, as their characters weren’t there. My Paladin (who serves the Moon goddess, Selune) asked if Peregrine was telling them the whole truth. And the moon answered “No.”

-It reminded me of that whole scene with Magnus and the Voidfish, with him asking whether he should trust the Director. Man, it was cool.

-anyway, next, they’re off to King’s Reach, where the Sapphire Division is based, and Bremen Manor, where the Song Crystal is located. I’m still deciding whether I should have a murder mystery episode because frankly, I don’t know if my players’ characters would care too much if they had to solve a mystery because they’re too focused on catching the Song Thief. But oh well, I’ll work it out. Maybe I’ll just have the capture go smoothly, and then just get on to them getting dragged to the future

-they suspect that Peregrine has some personal connection to the Song Thief, which explains why she doesn’t want to kill him. I think it’s okay that they’re figuring that out. But I don’t think any of them (besides my Paladin’s player) suspect they’re from the future, too. And nobody expects that my Bard is actually Peregrine and Kes’ half-brother.

#hawk plays dnd #dnd #dnd 5e #d&d #dungeons and dragons

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catflowerqueen · 4 years

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How about something for The World's Treasure verse with Stars?

citrus-chickadde said: (Oh, and I forgot to specify character(s), but how about Dusknoir for that prompt I sent you?)

Here you go!

Stars

“…Are you all right?” the ghost-type asked of his redhaired friend as he approached her cautiously. After the exhausting “day” they’d just had, as well as the fact that she was mildly injured, he would have expected her to be in bed, rather than sitting dangerously close to one of the broken ledges that were so numerous around what remained of Temporal Tower, staring up at the dark, dismal sky. Her hood, for once, was actually up and covering her fiery locks, and while this normally would have pleased Dusknoir—because, really, that shade just made her that much more of an easy target for the pokémon who had completely lost themselves to the madness of the dark world—at the moment it was just further proof of how really not all right she was at this moment.

The woman gave a start, briefly glancing at him in surprise before turning her gaze back skywards. “Mm. I’m fine,” she said mutely—and rather unconvincingly. Her voice, after all, still sounded rough and hoarse from all the screaming she’d done earlier. Dusknoir raised a brow, and even though her back was turned so that she couldn’t see his expression, the two knew each other well enough by now that she could definitely tell she hadn’t fooled him. He didn’t even have to say anything before she sighed, flipping her hood down and half-turning around to make the inevitable conversation easier. “I am… still a bit upset at Dialga for how he acted today.”

Dusknoir winced himself at the reminder. As aware as he was of the massive amounts of cruelty his master possessed, he still hadn’t expected the sheer brutality of the slaughter that took place earlier—especially the fact that Dialga, for once, didn’t listen to any of Little Imp’s pleas for mercy—even going so far as to physically push her to the side, which resulted in her mildly-injured state—until she outright attacked him herself. It wasn’t enough to save the adults of the sableye tribe who’d had the misfortune of incurring Primal Dialga’s wrath, but…

“You managed to save the children,” Dusknoir reminded her.

“For a given value of saved,” she spat. But he just raised a brow again and she sighed, scrubbing her face with her hands. “I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve that. None of this is your fault, and this whole situation… it’s put you in a rather tight spot, as well.”

Dusknoir frowned before sighing himself and moving to join her. “It will be… different,” he acknowledged, “but on the whole… I can’t say that it won’t be nice to hear children roaming about again. Given how large my family was, growing up… well, it’s a sound that I hadn’t realized I’d been missing until I heard it again.” He paused here, wincing a bit, “Ah… The unfortunate circumstances immediately following it aside, of course.”

“No… I know what you mean,” Little Imp said, her hands moving from scrubbing at her face to propping it up as she briefly leaned to look over the edge of the ledge they were sitting on before raising her gaze once more to the sky. “You never really know how much you’ll miss something until it’s gone.”

At that, Dusknoir raised his own gaze to the dark, gloomy heavens. “…That’s true enough, I suppose,” he agreed, a bit of caution to his tone. Considering everything that his friend had given up in order to be here now, those were some very loaded words.

The Little Imp blinked at his tone before giving an airy chuckle and rubbing her neck, a slight blush of embarrassment rising to her face. “Oh, no,” she said, “it’s probably nothing like you’re thinking, just…” she gave a wistful sigh. “Back at the orphanage, after putting all the children to bed—especially if one of them was having a bad night—I would go out and look at the sky,” she explained. “And while the circumstances here are obviously… different… I just… well, I fell back into old habits, and… I just hadn’t realized how much I missed doing that. Taking care of a group of kids, and then going to look at the sky…” she paused again, not noticing the pained look on her friend’s face as she worked through her thoughts. “Of course, none of the children back home were orphans due to such extreme circumstances as this. And they all still understood that they were children first and foremost, and not… not what Dialga wants them to be, for me.”

That last part had devolved into an angry mutter, so Dusknoir didn’t quite catch it. Not helped was the fact that he was distracted by a different part of what she’d just said. “Yes…” he agreed, rather distantly, “the sky… it must have been very pretty. All those stars…the history in those constellations…”

He was abruptly startled out of his longing when his friend gave a rather undignified snort. He turned to her, mild hurt in his expression, where she sat trying to muffle her laughter.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said, not really sounding all that contrite, even though he could tell she was trying. “It’s just… I never really saw the appeal in constellations.”

Dusknoir was surprised. “But… given how much you like paining… I would have thought—the concept of pictures painted in the night sky, wouldn’t that—?”

“Well, sure, when you put it that way,” she waved him off. “But… that’s probably the core of the problem.”

“…Explain, please?”

“Sure,” Little Imp said, a wry grin on her face as she flopped down, flipping over her stomach and doodling in the dust that was ever-present on the Tower, despite her many attempts to clean things up a bit and make it more habitable—especially today, given that there would be children living there.

“Okay,” she said as she finished, sitting up and dusting her palms off on her cloak. “Imagine this is the night sky, and tell me what sorts of pictures you can make out by connecting the dots.”

Dusknoir looked at her in confusion momentarily before deciding to humor her. Looking down at her work, he studied it for a moment before connecting a series of six dots, declaring, “Here—a girafarig.”

“Are you sure?” His friend asked, a smirk on her face.

Dusknoir scowled, irritation clear on his face. “Yes. These two dots, here—they make up the head and snout. And then connecting them to these…”

“Ah, but are you sure those two dots make up the head of a girafarig, rather than a krabby’s claws?” she asked rhetorically, tracing a different path with her fingers that, yes, did vaguely resemble a krabby. “And then this dot, here, that you seem to think make up a tail… in actuality, don’t they really resemble a farfetch’d’s leek? Or a—”

“Yes, yes, I see your point,” Dusknoir said, a frown on his face as the dots and their many possibilities swam in his vision.

The human shrugged before taking pity on her friend and wiping the dots away. “I agree that it was fun to make pictures in the sky, and that the view was really lovely, but… given where I was, and who I was with… I lacked the context for true constellations.” She shrugged again. “Some of the more fanatical worshippers, especially those were conversions, or became worshippers later in life, claimed that the stars were ‘perfect representations of Relatia’ or ‘her thousand eyes that watched from the skies,’ but… that really couldn’t be farther from the truth. It’s true that, depending on where you were, you could use the stars to navigate your position in space, but… going too far in one direction or another changed the context of the constellations; not all stars can be seen from both hemispheres of Earth. And even the closest star—the sun—wasn’t necessarily a good measure of the time depending on where in the world you were. Go too far north, for example, and the sun didn’t even rise at all if it wasn’t the right season.” She paused here. “Of course, ‘rise’ isn’t really the proper term, seeing as it wasn’t the sun that was moving. It was actually—”

“Yes, I get it,” Dusknoir said, rolling his eye. “We’ve had that particular conversation before.”

The Little Imp smiled. “Relatia always found those ideas amusing, though. Her favorite stars were actually the dead ones, believe it or not—she always said that she felt bad that I would never be able to experience what it was like to travel through a black hole. Apparently the journey makes one’s stomach feel ‘pleasantly swirly’ and ‘it’s fun to see where the white hole spits you out.’ Assuming, of course, that you could actually survive the trip. Alas, that is not something that mere mortals like us can experience.”

Dusknoir shook his head, amused despite himself, and the two lapsed into pleasant silence for a while, looking out over the barren landscape.

“…You know,” the Little Imp finally admitted, “This view isn’t really all that different from some of the stuff I saw at the orphanage.” At Dusknoir’s stunned look, she explained further, “Relatia hid her islands within the folds of time and space, you know? So the view… it was always changing. And depending on which timeline we were closest to… well.” She leaned back on her arms a bit. “What people tend not to realize is that a lot of times, when they think they’re seeing a star? It’s actually just a ghost image; it takes about eight minutes for the light from Earth’s sun to reach the planet, so just imagine how much longer it takes for the stars that are so much farther away. By the time that their first rays of light actually reach Earth… the star itself may be long dead.”

“So sometimes the timeline you were closest to would be so far in the future that the stars were long dead and gone?” Dusknoir surmised.

“Or that they haven’t been born yet.”

“Still, that’s rather… sad. And the fact that many of the stars are actually ghosts…” Dusknoir shuddered.

“Hey, now, what’s wrong with that? Some of my best friends are ghosts, after all,” Little Imp said, a wry grin on her face as she shoved Dusknoir playfully, making him blush. “Besides… I actually think it’s rather heartening, y’know? To think of all those ghost stars… still giving the Earth life, and a myriad of opportunities for constellations, even long after they’re gone…”

“I suppose, putting it that way…”

“And then of course you have shooting stars, which aren’t even stars at all—just bits of space rocks and meteors, rocketing out of nowhere and giving us a brilliant display, even as the journey burns them to nothing in the atmosphere—unless they get lucky and land as meteorites.”

“Now, that sounds interesting—I don’t think you’ve told me about those before.”

“I haven’t? Well you’re in for a treat, then! You know, some theorize that it was a meteorite which led to the extinction of the dinosaurs—or at least, the dinosaurs which Relatia and some of the other Panthoen members didn’t save or move elsewhere…”

“What are dinosaurs?”

“One story at a time, Dear Friend! First, let me…”

The two friends would converse for quite a while, long after they both should have been asleep, and neither of them would notice that a tiny sableye head would occasionally peek around the corner, from where one of their new charges had snuck out of bed.

And “years” later, as Dusknoir fought alongside his former enemies, Grovyle and Celebi, as he tried to save the past and change the future… he couldn’t help but compare himself to those ghost stars, still shining and spreading their light despite being long dead… or to a shooting star, burning brightly for a purpose even as it assured its own destruction in the task.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #the world's treasure #fanfiction #writing #spoilers #missing scenes

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catflowerqueen · 4 years

Text

Bag Swap AU

The main differences in Laura’s behaviors and attitude towards Grovyle in the bag swap AU, at least before the truth of her identity comes out.

In the version where it takes place after the expedition, she is far more confident about the situation because she actually knows where they are and where they will inevitably end up. She doesn’t bother trying to escape that much—though she will make a few attempts in the beginning, especially before she starts to recognize the surroundings they pass through on the way to the lake—since it actually works to her advantage not to let Grovyle she knows what they’re headed for, since it means it will be a two-on-one situation once they hit Uxie. Or at the very least she will have more of a chance of warning him. The two will probably end up talking more, and earlier, and she will hear more stories about Relatia. Her demeanor will also remind him more about his partner in terms of general attitudes while travelling—he is used to a silent, wary companion, after all—but her general aloofness and more calculating attitude will throw him off a little bit. And she may be less inclined to help him out in battles—especially towards the beginning—as a sort of passive-aggressive type deal—which isn’t to say that she won’t help him at all, because she isn’t just going to let him get extremely injured in cold blood or anything, but she is less dependent on him in terms of general safety since actually knows where she is and how to get back home if something did end up happening.

But also… Grovyle is going to keep her treasure bag in both versions, and she knows that it would be hard to actually get too far without one. She probably could do it… but it’s just easier to go along with him for the moment.

In the version that takes place before the expedition, Laura definitely struggles more. She makes more desperate attempts to escape in the beginning, which slowly peter out the farther away they get from home since she is less confident about her ability to actually get back without help. She does her best to memorize where they are and try to navigate and remember the route they’re taking, but some things are bound to be lost, especially since she doesn’t exactly know where in relation to Treasure Town they are besides “east.” She is also trying to stall, as she is hopeful that the Wigglytuff Guild may eventually intercept them. But she isn’t staking all her hope in it since she isn’t one hundred percent certain this is the route Chatot was talking about when he first announced the expedition, and she also figures that it may have been delayed anyways given by the fact she was kidnapped. She also is more proactive in helping Grovyle fight this time around—as much as she can be, given that she ends up tied up for longer here—since she is more dependent on him for things like safety since she can’t easily make it back on her own if she does successfully escape.

They probably won’t start talking in earnest until she gets injured protecting him—at first because they are both distrustful of each other, but after the injury they’re stuck a while waiting for her to heal, and Grovyle is guilty about her getting hurt in the first place since it wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been hindered by being tied up… and also that she wouldn’t have been in this situation in general if it weren’t for his having kidnapped her. Likely he tells her a little bit about what he’s doing as a sort of apology—which he may have been doing a bit more vaguely earlier on to try and ameliorate his guilt, but he definitely goes into more detail now—and she starts to calm down a little even if she still doesn’t fully believe him. Also, this situation hit home for both of them that their current travelling situation is really bad on both sides—it’s too dangerous for grovyle to let her go, but it is equally dangerous for him to keep such a tight leash on her the way he’s been doing… and it isn’t that great for Laura to help him if he’s lying about the situation, but it’s also dangerous for her to keep running like she has been—especially if it turns out he isn’t lying.

The two will probably get into a discussion about ethics—specifically Lima and Stockholm syndrome—and Grovyle will probably wonder internally if this is the way Dusknoir felt all this time, and then become slightly annoyed/disgusted with himself over the comparison, even as he decides it probably is.

Throughout it all, Grovyle is going to be reminded of his partner through Laura’s determined spirit in her struggles, as well as her innovation in her escape attempts. For example: she fashions a sharp rock into a sort of knife, which she will use to either attempt to stab him or to cut through the ropes. Most pokemon wouldn’t think to use tools like that—at least not immediately—but it is something that human would try.

Laura’s early struggles are what prompt most of the rumors the guild hears in regards to the “strangely behaving, sceptile-line family heading east.”

Things that will happen in at least one of the versions:

-Laura will briefly contemplate escaping via tree climbing before Grovyle—catching her brief glance at the trees and getting reminded of his partner’s tendency towards heights—nips it in the bud by informing her that he also has excellent tree climbing skills.

-Laura, while still in the tied-up stages of this journey, will save Grovyle from an attack from behind (which would have knocked him out) by head-butting the enemy. This will leave her with a mild concussion, and when Grovyle is trying to ascertain how bad it actually is she will ask him when, exactly, did he teach himself the move double team, and why is he using it now that the battle is over, and how did he manage to teach their surroundings the move, too? …Meaning of course that she now has double vision, and Grovyle has to carry her for a bit until they can find someplace that she can rest for a bit until she heals up. In the post-expedition version this likely will not be extremely serious, but will probably be what prompts him to start opening up—a combination of general guilt for her plight getting injured as a kidnap victim and situational guilt because part of the reason he left himself open like he did was that he forgot this treecko wasn’t actually his partner, so he was expecting defensive battle tactics from her which he really shouldn’t have (even though she did, surprisingly, deliver them).

If it happens in the pre-expedition version, then this is also the reason he starts to open up a bit, but it’s more out of a desperate attempt to keep her awake while he tries to heal her—since she definitely gets more injured in this version for… various reasons, the least of which is that she is pretty much always in a mildly injured/exhausted state from her many escape attempts, and the fact that she has been helping him so much only intensified his feelings/memories/muscle memories of fighting alongside his partner, especially because Laura is getting so adept at using makeshift weaponry here. So he probably tells her the Time Gear legend amidst his many apologies, and she gets hooked. And then starts demanding he tell her more, totally milking the fact that he’s super guilty about the whole thing, while they wait for her to heal. Because, again… he isn’t heartless. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone in the past world, because they don’t know any better, so he doesn’t want to leave her. Also… he keeps irrationally (or so he thinks) being reminded of his partner whenever he looks at her, so he can’t bring himself to the logical conclusion that he should just do what he can for her and then send out a rescue request/do something more… drastic to fix the problem that having a hostage is causing.

-Laura is going to get the chance to actually handle the time gears at some point. Possibly when Grovyle is explaining what they’re actually for. Her reaction is going to be interesting—probably a lot of awed wonder, and he may have to repeat himself because she’s going to be totally absorbed by the sight/feel of them, but unlikely anything that would tip him off about her true identity—either in regards to the fact that she’s his partner turned into a pokemon or the fact she is the Rainbow Child and, thus, has a deeper connection to them in general.

Because isn’t it interesting that the Player never got to actually touch them in-game? Grovyle certainly did, but aside from him… it was the partner who picked them up from the ground when Grovyle dropped them after dragging Dusknoir to the future. And it was the partner who ultimately put them in place at Temporal Tower.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #the world's treasure #spoilers #fanficton #bag swap #what if...?

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