Battery completed.
Joshua has completed making… a battery.
Using Ace's design, he upscaled it and made it the size of a block. Made out of iron and gold, using some of the gold and electronics he's already collected.
After pcing a few pieces of pis in it, the entire thing starts shining a dim blue glow.
He isn't sure what use it will have, but having it passively store pis energy will help in the future.
1PM.
The rain has stopped.
Thank God.
Closing his Pokenav, he sighs and gets ready to go out.
Uriel is still too weak to walk, so she goes into her pokeball. Gabriel is… somewhere-
“Hi Mr. Joshua!”
Nevermind there she is.
He just has to quickly pick up Jophiel, ignoring the startled cries of a mare who was sleeping, and putting her on his shoulders.
Jophiel is too big and horse-shaped to do the Pikachu thing, so she's normally either beside him or catching a piggyback ride.
Exiting his base, it's… honestly it looks like shit.
Joshua, as a certified Cali-boy, is no stranger to harsh weather. Being retive neighbors with the parts of California that just seem to spontaneously combust sometimes, he's somewhat used to walking outside and spinning a dice that decides if today will feel pretty okay or him getting instantly vaporized by the deadly zer that is the sun.
But it's just so… dull, outside.
You know in those cartoons where it would show shitty cafeteria food as tasteless grey sludge? Imagine that, but a ndscape.
Before he could compin further, a message appeared beside him.
[StevenStoneOffical: Joshua, I will be avaible for the next few hours. But I am letting you know that I will be in a meeting with Palkia ter today. Pns for your rescue are underway.]
[I'm sorry, meeting with WHO now?]
Joshua freezes.
He reads the message again, just to make sure he's reading it correctly.
And again.
And again.
“Are… are you serious?”
[StevenStoneOffical: I wouldn't joke about this.]
“...”
Joshua wipes at his brow, looking away with a stunned look.
“Well… fuck me”
[StevenStoneOffical: Are you not happy?]
“No no I am, I'm just… wow… I guess it never really occurred to me”
Maybe it was because he's been busy, and his… very bad habit of never thinking too deeply about his situation. He would like to say that his mental state is getting better, but he knows that there's a lot more than just “freak the fuck out one time and feel better”.
Joshua wonders if he could ever recover, it's a dark, nasty thought.
He can feel Jophiel grimace at that, a tightness in her body filled with unease.
Her horn ignites, and he sees several rocks begin to hover along the trail. He looks up at her in worry.
“Love…”
“Pony” She says sternly, not quite dismissing him, but firmly denying his concern. Moving the rocks in patterns, or just moving them with mindless abandon.
Joshua opens his mouth to say something, but knows there isn't much he could say, so he just resorts to reaching up and scratching under the mare's ear.
She leans into his hand.
“Once I learn how to not lose my shit, you won't have to do all this work, Love. Imagine that”
Jophiel just rolls her eyes.
But… wow.
If Steven is telling the truth…
Maybe he could find his way home.
…
[I'm confused about something. Why would Pokemon make his world go to war?]
[Yeah I don't really get it…]
[Aren't they already familiar with Pokemon? It's a game over there, right?]
“There's been wars for less. Either for power, greed, or for some other reason. Pokemon are valuable, therefore someone would kill another for them”
Joshua states, walking back to the school. Jophiel occasionally sends psychic bsts into the grass to kill the stray mob or parasite.
…the parasites weren't here before.
“And aside from that. If I had the choice of introducing Pokemon to my world, it would be a hard no”
[What??? Why?]
[U love Pokemon though…]
“A lot of people can't even take care of their own children properly, nonetheless pets. Pokemon are mostly sapient, I think, so imagining what some animal abusers would do with an actual sapient creature with complex thoughts and feelings makes my blood boil”
The chat goes quiet for a bit at that. He knows that talking about these darker topics causes something like this, but he's just being honest.
[Is it really that bad?]
“I'm not saying everyone is like that, most people from my world aren't. There's just… the number is a bit TOO high to ignore it”
[...]
[I have a question too, why hasn't Jophiel evolved yet?]
That one makes him raise an eyebrow, he can feel Jophiel turn her head, probably just as confused.
“Because she's… still young?”
[How old is she?]
Joshua looks up at Jophiel, she thinks for a moment, but eventually just shrugs uncertainty.
She seems pretty young, but then again he doesn't exactly know how Pokemon age.
“I don't know… why?”
[Pokemon evolve from experience, and while Ponyta isn't the easiest to evolve, Jophiel probably far surpasses the threshold]
Joshua blinks.
“Really?”
Now that he thinks about it, Jophiel HAS been learning some new moves. He hasn't had the time to look into them, but she's gotten really good at using them (to kill mobs). He just thought it was a clever application of telekinesis, but was it really…
Wait.
“Do you know Psychic?”
She thinks for a moment, and then nods.
What… the fuck?
Isn't that…
He doesn't quite remember, but Psychic tends to come in at the ter levels. Ponyta tends to evolve at… what? Level 45? What level do they learn Psychic?
She's been basically grinding by killing demons for the st few days, for several hours each day, all while training her psychic abilities.
And this is before she gets on a proper diet of berries.
How fucking strong is White Horse?
“Love?”
“Pony?”
“You're fucking scary”
“Pony”
She nods, as if he's talking about the weather.
Ah, yes. Violence incarnate.
Turns out that Jophiel's been holding out on evolving, he isn't sure why, or that it was a semi-conscious choice. But it's a good idea.
If he's correct, evolution is a ft multiplier to her abilities, so he's going to abuse the hell out of it, get her jacked, then she'll evolve into a powerhouse.
Her strength is kind of pteauing too, he guesses that is the consequences of not evolving.
Uriel is definitely getting in on this too, once she can…
…
[POV: STEVEN STONE]
“Are you ready, Mr. Stone?”
Steven sighs, adjusting his cufflinks and staring up at the rge, ancient doors of an old temple. The team around him all move in sync, having already helped him up this dangerous mountain.
Cynthia stands beside him.
“Let's do this”
The doors open with a loud, drawn out creak.
There, ying on the shattered marble of a civilization long lost, lies a creature of unfathomable power. Lines of purple across its ceramic smooth white body, with blinder like wings jutting out to the sides.
The space around it seems to warp, like a mirage that stretches and warps the air.
Palkia.
Steven can feel his pokemon shake in their pokeballs at its presence, a primal fear going through him. But…
He has to do this.
He promised.
Walking forward, Steven steps closer to the Space Pokemon.
“Palkia, I wish to speak with you”
There's a deep, DEEP grumble in the air as its piercing eyes turn to him.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT… CHAMPION OF HOENN?”
Its voice is like a trumpet in his head, making him wince at the dull throb in his temples.
“There is a man, his name is Joshua Abrams. He is trapped in an alternate dimension, full of monsters… we are watching him, there is… something, broadcasting his image to us”
Palkia hums, rattling Steven's bones.
Then they speak.
“THE… INTERLOPER. THE SCAR IN… THE FABRIC. YES. I AM… AWARE”
So they CAN see it!
“We wish for your help, to send him home”
“IMPOSSIBLE”
Steven is immediately shot down. Baffling him, and making him fear that he may break what he promised.
“Why not?”
Palkia goes quiet for a bit, making Steven think he messed up, before the rook begins to rumble again at its voice.
“THERE IS NO… CONNECTION. BETWEEN THE FRACTURE AND… THE HUMAN’S HOME…”
What?
“But how?! He was sent there FROM his home world! There has to be some connection!”
“JUST BECAUSE… THERE IS NO… CONNECTION NOW. DOES NOT MEAN… THERE WAS NOT ONE… PREVIOUSLY”
“Wait… there used to be a connection? What happened to it?”
“THERE IS… NOTHING LEFT TO CONNECT TO”
Steven freezes. Cynthia tenses up. The staff around them begins to murmur.
“Do you mean…”
Palkia doesn't respond, but it doesn't need to.
Steven readjusts himself, fiddling with his tie, he clears his throat to hide the unease in his voice.
“Can I ask… what happened to it?”
“THE… HUBRIS. OF MEN WITH… LARGE… WEAPONS”
Steven doesn't even know what to say to that.
Cynthia is the next to speak up.
“C-Couldn’t you just… send him to a world like his own where it's not… y'know?”
Palkia chuckles, dust in the rafters fall at the intense spatial fluctuations.
“THAT IS… FORBIDDEN”
“Why?”
“MOTHER SAYS TO… KEEP PAWS OFF… ANOTHER'S CANVAS”
Suddenly, fshes of light startle the staff, as several Unown appear and rearrange themselves to spell phrases he doesn't recognize, a nguage he doesn't know.
It's a beautiful sight of swirling letters, a calm storm of narrative purpose.
Palkia gnces at it and chuffs a little. The Unowns disappear, leaving the spatial pokemon slightly annoyed.
“MOTHER SEEMS TO… HAVE POSITIVE VIEWS OF… THE INTERLOPER. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN DIMENSIONS NEEDS TO… WIDEN… BEFORE I CAN INTERACT. FOR NOW I… CANNOT DO MUCH”
As shocking as the thought that ARCEUS THEMSELVES just came down for a second is, Steven continues on with one final question.
“Okay… about the alternate dimension… what exactly is it?”
Palkia thinks.
Then it speaks.
“ECHOS OF… A MEMORY. THE LAST EMBERS OF… WORLDS FORSAKEN. COUNTLESS STRANDS STRAIN INTO THE VOID FOR JUST… A MOMENT. BEFORE SNAPPING.”
“Strands… what do you mean?”
Palkia turns its head, ying back down on its side, ignoring Steven's question.
He feels Cynthia's hand on his shoulder, but he already knows not to continue.
Steven walks out of the temple, mind racing, but a small amount of fear in his heart at whats to come.
How does he break this to Joshua?
