A Shadow, an Eon, and a Worm (Worm/Pokemon)
- Thread starter ShadowPixelle
- Start date
- Crossover
MaskedCritic
Verified Obsessed with Yuri
- Location
- Fluttershy's Secret Dungeon Shrine to Metal
Ah, this fic is always fun. Still wish to see Taylor have a chance to truly shine, saving the day when the others can't, though.
So, how is the Pokémon lore being treated here? Is it more bright and cheerful, without real problems, like the anime? Or is it more like the in-game lore, a bright and cheerful camouflage on top of a horrific death world that would make even a Space Marine hesitate?
Like, from game lore, all Cubones have dead mothers, and wear their skulls. Metagross stomp forest critters into paste before eating them. There's some really insane Dr. Moreau shit going on in Galar, with freakish abominations being created from random fossil combinations. Gyarados actually destroy cities. There's a ghost type Pokémon that likes to pretend to be a teapot and tries to kill people with its "tea," and only fails because it tastes horrible. Drifloons and Drifblims abduct children and small animals, which are never seen again. This isn't even an exhaustive list of the terrors that lurk in that hellscape!
So... which is this story closer to?
So, how is the Pokémon lore being treated here? Is it more bright and cheerful, without real problems, like the anime? Or is it more like the in-game lore, a bright and cheerful camouflage on top of a horrific death world that would make even a Space Marine hesitate?
Like, from game lore, all Cubones have dead mothers, and wear their skulls. Metagross stomp forest critters into paste before eating them. There's some really insane Dr. Moreau shit going on in Galar, with freakish abominations being created from random fossil combinations. Gyarados actually destroy cities. There's a ghost type Pokémon that likes to pretend to be a teapot and tries to kill people with its "tea," and only fails because it tastes horrible. Drifloons and Drifblims abduct children and small animals, which are never seen again. This isn't even an exhaustive list of the terrors that lurk in that hellscape!
So... which is this story closer to?
...The anime isn't all sunshine and rainbows either
eonmoon
Verified Kitsune.
- Location
- flint michigan usa
this story pulls from the mystery dungeon series of games most heavily. as overall team lead of Team Inari. i only need to say. this is shadows story and the little tale keeper will share it as she can.
as to soon to be shared words. its gonna be goood.
as to soon to be shared words. its gonna be goood.
Chapter 37- Planning, emergencies, and wariness
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
Eon yawned, stretching and fanning out his tails behind him. Things were looking pretty good, in his eyes, and he was glad of that. The Time Gear was out of the way somewhere unknown, where no-one was likely to find it any time soon, his team was coming along well in terms of focus- four months of working on it and it was paying dividends very nicely- they'd managed to get Uber and Leet into a situation where they were not only causing less trouble for the rest of the Capes in town but they were also actually helping with Inari's training, which was extremely good.
It'd been a little under two weeks since that meeting had happened, and Inari had met up with the duo a few more times to work out things with the idea Shadow had had for doing some kind of projected Mystery Dungeon. They'd only done one test run over the weekend, mocking up a single 'floor' of a Dungeon to work their way through and make sure that things were functional. Things had gone ok, Eon working quickly through the floor on his own to reach the stairs that were being used as a checkpoint to move between floors, though occasionally the enemies being used as projections- generic human shapes with no features- glitched out when he hit them with an attack.
Leet had been paying attention to the energy produced by that and had promised to take a look to see if he could figure out a way to fix it, but the five of them had come to the group conclusion not to do any more testing for the next few weeks, since there was an Endbringer attack likely to be coming along soon and none of them wanted to wear out the main Inari members, given how much damage they'd been able to do to Leviathan.
While both of them were concerned about fighting with Behemoth or Simurgh, unsure which one was going to be showing up, Eon and Shadow had been working to strategise in the hopes of figuring something out. They didn't think any of the Endbringers were affected by Types in the way Pokemon were, given how things had gone with Leviathan, so they didn't think Behemoth would be immune to Thunder or Simurgh would be any weaker to it, but given that Behemoth had the ability to manipulate energy, both of them were worried about using any of their Special Moves. They didn't know whether or not it would count as something that Behemoth could manipulate, given that Aura was apparently unknown on Bet, but they didn't really want to risk it.
Which meant getting in close, which then led to the issue of the aura Behemoth had, that kill aura that neither of them were willing to test themselves against.
Suffice to say, Eon was fervently hoping that it was the Simurgh. While there would then be the potential issue of Mastering, both Shadow and Eon had the ability to break that, so they were safer fighting the Simurgh than they were Behemoth.
Trying to come up with strategies was still annoying, of course, given that Thunder could be be pretty inaccurate sometimes, but in the end they had to hope for the best.
"Morning, Eon!" Shadow called, looking over from where she was running her tail through the fire pit idly.
"Good morning, Shadow." He smiled. "Sleep well?"
"Well enough." She shrugged, being careful not to move her tail too much in case she brushed some of the fire out of the pit and onto the grass. "I got a bit distracted before I fell asleep trying to come up with something we could use."
"Any luck?"
"Nope." She grimaced. "Both of them are really annoying."
"Aren't they just." He lay down along the other side of the fire, dipping the end of his own tail into the fire as well. "Though I think most people would be annoyed at us referring to something like the Endbringers as annoying."
Shadow laughed. "Probably. And understandably, as well. They suck. It's just that, well. They are annoying. They're a really big problem, and they deserve the name. But they're annoying." She sighed. "I wish we weren't having so much trouble figuring out a way to deal with them, though. If we can take them down..."
It'd save a whole lot of lives. Eon mentally completed, nodding. "No-one can begrudge us for doing what we can, though. And we're certainly doing that. Besides," he shrugged a little himself. "Maybe we'll come up with something in the fight that we'd be able to use."
"Maybe."
The two of them idled together for a little while, thinking. Eon wasn't quite certain that Shadow had taken in what he'd said about everything, but at the same time he was well aware that he wasn't going to be able to persuade her about this. It'd gotten worse since they'd come to Earth Bet, he'd noticed; over the first two years of being a team together, Eon had been able to mitigate it all a bit, but that self sacrificing, I-need-to-save-everyone mentality had started making a return once they realised that she could work in the hospital to help out with Panacea's healing, and come back even more violently when they'd discovered the fact that Aura was incredibly powerful against the Endbringers and that they could help Mastered people. While Eon was trying to handle that again, it was difficult, more here than it had been back in Alma.
In Alma, the rest of the team would be able to pick things up and handle stuff, reminding her that she didn't need to handle everything on her own. Here on Bet, though, where there were a number of things that only she could do, it was harder to keep her from getting into the mindset that she needed to do everything she could all the time, even when she was exhausted.
It was annoying enough that Eon was contemplating taking his team mates on some kind of enforced vacation after they were done dealing with the Simurgh Containment Zones and after the Endbringer attack was dealt with, just to force Shadow to remember that she doesn't need to try and deal with everything on her own. Or even just to give her a break long enough to actually recover properly, since he was fairly sure she was exhausting herself too often to be ok. That was another thing the pre-Endbringer fight extended break was good for, at least in his eyes. Shadow was taking a break for once.
The semi-tranquil silence was shattered by a shrill ringing. Eon startled, whipping his tail-tip from the fire, and jumping to stand. Shadow's head snapped up in tandem, looking around warily and tilting her head.
"Is that the phone?" She asked, confused. "I thought the PRT had said they weren't going to be calling us for anything about the Simurgh..."
"Maybe it's to do with the upcoming attack?" He suggested, hurrying over to the Den and grabbing the phone with Extrasensory. "Hello?"
"Eon." The sharp voice of Director Piggot returned.
"Director." He nodded. "Is something wrong?" He traded glances with Shadow as he returned to the fire pit, putting the phone onto speaker and holding it between them.
"We're... uncertain, actually." It was surprising enough to hear that from the usually assured- and unwilling to admit to weakness- Director that he cocked his head, ears forward. "Something occurred approximately an hour ago. We've been unable to figure out exactly what it is. We were hoping you might be able to help."
Eon blinked. Either they want me for the Dimensional Scream... or they think it's something we'd be able to handle better. Worrying. "We'll be over as soon as we can, Director." He replied, when Shadow nodded her agreement to the question placed in his eyes.
"Good." The call ended abruptly, and immediately Eon dialled a different number.
"Eon?"
"Something going on at the PRT building." He explained succinctly, not bothering to respond to the greeting as Shadow started hurrying around, packing up the Treasure Bag and her own backup bag with Berries and other items so that they could be ready to head out. While they did have their 'bug-out bags' for Endbringer attacks, they didn't want to use those; they were full of the remaining Max Elixirs and a lot of Leppa Berries, ready for Shadow to use while healing, and Eon didn't want to touch those for something that might end up being nothing.
"Endbringer?" He could hear the sound of Taylor moving on the other side, getting ready to change into her costume despite the somewhat early hour to bolt over to the PRT building if she needed to.
"Unknown." He replied. "You coming?" She hesitated.
"I'll stay in town." She decided, after a long moment. "If we're not shipping out to deal with an Endbringer right now, then you might be busy if the alarm goes off. It's better for my to hang about here just in case. I can head straight out onto search and rescue."
Eon nodded, even though he knew she couldn't see it. "Alright. Stay safe, Swarm."
"You too."
The bug user disconnected the call for him, and Eon placed the phone in the Treasure Bag as Shadow handed it over. She'd filled it with Oran and Sitrus Berries for the most part, he noticed, as well as a number of the Berry Cookies that she and Swarm had been making during the downtime. The bug-out bags were also in there, so that they'd take up less room, and he gave her a look.
"In case something happens with the Endbringers while we're gone." She explained, putting her own bag over her back. "Don't want to be caught unawares."
"Good point." He agreed. "Come on, let's get moving." He twisted and started rushing for the path they'd worn into the edge of the Den from all the coming and going, boosting once with Agility to move faster, and heard Shadow doing the same to keep pace.
Mystery missions were going to be the death of him, someday.
Taylor couldn't really blame her father for being annoyed at being woken up by her hurrying around at nine in the morning, given that he'd had a somewhat late night the day before stressing about the Docks, but with the threat of an Endbringer attack on the horizon- not exactly any day now, but within the next few weeks- she felt that she had at least some leeway to be running around.
"Sorry, Dad." She apologised, finishing putting her costume into her bag. She put that on the bed with her clothes once she was done, heading towards the bathroom a moment after. "Just... with everything going on..."
Danny sighed. "I understand, you want to be out and showing the flag of your team since they're going somewhere and there's an Endbringer due soon. Just... try and be a bit quieter, ok? I don't really like waking up and thinking that my daughter's about to be running off into a battle somewhere."
"If it was an Endbringer, you'd hear the sirens first." She pointed out, hugging him. "But yeah, sorry."
She pulled away and slipped into the shower, quickly getting ready to leave the house so she could make her way to the Den and prepare to patrol. As she did, she looked around at the area with her bugs, trying to see if there were any problems in the blocks nearby.
Danny hadn't been wrong about the reason she wanted to be out while her team was busy. While Inari's takedown to Leviathan had managed to move into the stuff of PHO legends, people were still rightfully nervous about the Endbringers. What was one attack against the hundreds that'd come before it, after all? And while it wasn't in any way likely that the next Endbringer would be showing up in Brockton Bay, it didn't stop people being worried about what city would be targeted.
So Taylor wanted to be out there. She wanted to be ready in case something started on the streets, since New Wave didn't patrol much and the Protectorate were more focused on dealing with planning. Even just having one hero wandering around to make sure there weren't any issues was a good thing.
Although it had been oddly quiet recently. It was sort of strange, really, how few issues there'd been. But with the Merchants in a mess because of Skidmark's death, the ABB mostly being neutral because of Inari, and the Empire being quiet because everyone else was, the heroes had been able to take a step back and only need to deal with the smaller issues of petty street crime, rather than needing to worry about the Parahumans of the various gangs suddenly going on a rampage. Possibly that was a side effect of the Leviathan attack, possibly it was because of the on-coming Endbringer attack, or maybe just everyone had finally given up on causing issues.
Taylor snorted. Fat chance of that happening, I think. She mused, scrubbing at her hair. The day the gangs give up is probably the same day Scion dies.
It would be nice if the gangs had just given up, of course, but it wasn't likely. Still, she supposed, at least when patrols were quiet it meant more time to be able to spend just talking to people rather than needing to actually fight. It was nice to have fans, and the kids were cute, even if most of them preferred Eon and Shadow to her. They liked the butterflies, at least.
Shadow breathed out, slowly and deliberately, and pressed slightly against Eon's side.
"Pix?"
"Sorry." She muttered, not moving. "Just."
There was a long silence.
"Just?"
She shook herself. "Just. Something feels odd." She swallowed. "I think it's nothing, or probably nothing, but something feels a little weird."
Eon looked down at her properly, raising an eyebrow. "Weird how?"
"I don't know." She frowned. "It's like... a feeling, in my stomach? And a little bit around my chest, too. Just something odd. But it's not really there, just a feeling of it being there? Does that make sense?"
"...Honestly, no." Eon admitted. "Sorry, Shadow. But if you're not feeling well..."
"I don't think I'm ill." Shadow argued. "But something about this entire thing is making me nervous and I don't like it."
He wrapped a tail around her, and she was abruptly glad that they were in an alleyway, under an illusion, and still a few blocks from the PRT building. "It's probably going to be fine, Shadow." He assured her gently. "Whether you're nervous about it or you're picking up something else that's odd, it's still probably going to be fine."
"Yeah, probably." She shook herself. "It's just... with the Time Gear suddenly appearing, and now something else that the PRT can't identify... it feels like a lot of bad things are all happening at once, and I really don't like it." She pawed at the ground. "Maybe this is what Hoopa sent us to do, to deal with, but I hate it because we're dealing with such big things. I mean, the Endbringers were bad enough, but now there's all of this and it implies such horrible things about everything going on in this world, and I just..." She exhaled sharply. "It feels like something is going to go wrong. It makes me wish we had Team Burning Flame here to help us, because at least they have experience with Time Gears that we don't, and experience dealing with paralysed worlds."
"You're scared we won't be able to handle it."
"And Bet's going to pay the price if we can't." Shadow murmured. "I'm terrified of that, Eon. Swarm and Aquamarina and Amy and Vicky and all of the Wards..." She rolled her paw in the air as she trailed off. "If we fail, they're all doomed. And I really don't want that to happen, but I don't know how we can avoid failing with something like this. Sally and Chika only really succeeded through luck, really, and the fact that people were willing to trust them. Sure, people trust us here, but what if it's not enough?"
Eon leaned down, nosing at her crest. "It'll be ok, Shadow." He replied. "We'll figure it out. There's no guarantee we're going to need to stop the planet's paralysis alone, the PRT here knows and when eventually things come to a head we'll have backup. It's ok."
"Yeah. I guess." Shaking her head, she stepped away from Eon's side and straightened. "I guess we should get going then, right? The sooner we know what's happened this morning, the sooner we're gonna be able to plan against it."
"Or around it, or with it." He pointed out, but started forward again.
Things will be fine. Shadow chanted to herself as they walked. It'll be fine, we have allies, we're more than capable of working even by ourselves, our Team is Hyper Rank for a reason, it'll be fine.
The odd feeling in her stomach didn't lessen.
Colin sighed, long and quiet, as he leaned back from the computers. As much as he wanted to start pacing, he wanted to keep an eye on the thing Dragon's sensors had picked up. Pacing wouldn't get Team Inari to the building any quicker, and if he kept an eye on things, he'd know the second that something changed and be able to give a more accurate report to the spirits when they arrived.
Admittedly Dragon was watching over things as well, but two people were better than one in the end. It also helped to keep his mind off of other things by focusing on the situation at hand, which was good, because otherwise he'd end up spiralling into wondering about the defence systems they'd been working on for his lab and the sensors they'd been making to try and detect this 'Aura', and if he started thinking too much about that he'd end up trying to adjust it more, which wasn't helpful for the current situation.
Check the computer, check the scanners, check to see if any of their attempts at getting some sort of camera in the area they thought the thing had landed in had succeeded yet, check to see if Inari was at the building, lean back for a moment to breathe, and then promptly start the entire thing over again to avoid thinking about anything else. It was a strategy that had been holding fairly well for the past half an hour or so, ever since they'd managed to get everyone together to start looking at the event, and it had been holding since the incident with the Time Gear too. Keep moving and working on other things, and he wouldn't have time to wonder when the Slaughterhouse Nine was going to appear in the Bay, when Mannequin would manage to infiltrate his lab and attempt to kill him, what on Earth Shadow had seen in the Time Gear about Dragon that she was so reluctant to share.
Keep moving, and stop thinking about the damn tower that still haunted his dreams with its screaming even now. He had no idea what it was, or where Inari was going to end up encountering it, but he was glad that he'd likely never be involved in seeing it. The sound of it howling was almost as frightening as the Simurgh's scream, and he knew what the Simurgh did. While it wasn't likely that that tower did the same thing, the mere fact that it reminded him of her was...
Colin shook his head. It was incredibly uncomfortable, to say the very least. He was incredibly thankful that he wasn't likely to ever end up seeing it, since it was likely going to be something that Inari dealt with themselves.
Then again, that wasn't to say that they wouldn't end up working with the PRT over it, depending on what it was, and if that happened it was likely that Brockton Bay's PRT would be the ones handling things since they had the closest rapport...
And now Colin was starting to worry again about having to see the thing. Damnit. Check the monitor, see if the cameras were in position yet, check the scanners around to see if anything else had happened, and just start doing whatever he can to avoid thinking about the fact.
"What's the status on Inari?" He asked, just for something else to do.
"They're on the way." Hannah told him, leaning over his shoulder to look at the camera- still approaching the estimated landed spot of whatever had come through, so there weren't any visuals yet- and smiled at him slightly under her mask. "Hopefully they'll be here before the camera gets there, so we can fill them in on what's going on without needing to deal with the fact that it's already on the screen."
"Perhaps." He nodded. "Dragon, what's the position on the cameras look like?"
The taller Tinker, standing on the other side of the room and monitoring a number of other computers, including the one that was controlling her camera drone, shook herself out of some kind of deep thought, glanced over at him, then back at the screens.
"At a guess, the drone should be getting towards where we think whatever it was landed." She replied, over the heads of a number of technicians and Director Piggot. "It'll probably take another five minutes or so, then if it's not there, we'll start circling around to see if we can figure out where it did land. I've got an approximate range for it, so we can start searching that area in the hopes of finding it. If there's nothing in that range, then we can assume it moved somehow or something."
"Or didn't actually land there."
Dragon gave the impression of a grimace. "Well, yes, but I really hope not. If it's merely moved, then we might be able to take advantage of the fact that Inari have more powerful senses than we do, so if we took them to the place we assumed it was, we might be able to have them track it." She said. "If it didn't actually land there, though, then we're pretty screwed when it comes to finding it. We have no idea where it might've landed, since our estimate came entirely from that picture on the Simurgh's monitoring cameras, and it went by so fast that we didn't have time to try and reposition any of them to get another image. If it didn't land there, we can assume that we're never finding the thing expect by good luck."
Pretty much the entire room cringed at that. The idea of having to rely totally on good luck and nothing else to find whatever it was that had come through was definitely not something that made anyone happy in the least.
Someone tapped on the door, making everyone look up, and a PRT agent poked their head through. "Inari's Shadow and Eon are at the desk, ma'ams, sirs."
"Thank you, Officer Raymond." Hannah responded, smiling. "I'll head down and meet them." Normally, Colin would want to do that himself, but given that he was focused on keeping an eye on the camera views, he was happy to leave his second in command to that.
"No Swarm?" Someone wondered, as Hannah left the room. "That's unusual, isn't it?"
"Other than that first trip to Canberra, they're usually together, yes." Dragon agreed. "Perhaps they're just as uncertain about things as we are?"
"They could also be leaving her to keep an eye on the Bay while they're working with us." Colin pointed out. "There is an Endbringer attack due fairly soon, after all."
"Also a possibility." She nodded. "It would also make sense, based on previous patterns of wanting to keep the peace in the city. Since there's a number of us busy dealing with this, perhaps they're planning to have Swarm take care of things so that we can do other things."
The room mostly lulled into quiet after that, with the main sounds just being the sounds of people shuffling around and checking monitors, until the sound of footsteps approached the door again and it opened.
"Thank you, Miss Militia." Eon acknowledged, as the room turned towards him. Both he and Shadow paused for a moment, likely to take in the number of people in the room, before heading over to the Director. "Madam Director, a pleasure." They bowed slightly. "What seems to be the trouble?"
"Still uncertain." Director Piggot admitted. "Something appeared about an hour ago, which was caught on the Simurgh's monitoring cameras. We weren't able to see it fast enough to move any other cameras into place to try and track it, so we're doing our best at the moment to make an estimate as to where it might've landed. There are a few cameras heading into place now."
"I see." Eon murmured, weaving his way around the rest of the room to head over to Dragon. "Is there any way we can see the image that set everything off?"
Dragon seemed startled, from what Colin could tell as he made his own way over, then nodded. "One moment." He arrived at their side at the same time as she pulled it up, showing a blurry picture of the Simurgh's cocoon, and a much smaller blur rocketing past it. There was little to see, just a tiny orange shape moving extremely quickly, but Eon and Shadow both propped themselves up on their hind legs against the table and peered at the image.
Shadow sighed. "Not much to go on, is it?"
"Unfortunately not." Colin agreed. "We're hoping that our estimate of a landing place is correct, and that whatever it is hasn't moved from that spot. Otherwise we might not be able to get any clear view at all."
"How did you even manage to get a guess?" She asked, sounding genuinely curious. "You said you didn't have time to get any other cameras on it, so it seems like it'd be hard to figure out where it was going?"
Colin nodded in agreement, but before he could launch into an explanation of how many cameras there were pointing at the Simurgh at any one time from different angles and how they could use those images to make a rough estimate as to the thing's movements to try and find out the landing spot from that, one of the computers let out a ding.
"One of the drones is in position, it just picked something up." The technician nearest to it announced, reaching over to put the feed onto one of the larger monitors in the room.
Everyone turned to look.
He blinked, surprised. The thing that they'd been tracking wasn't some sort of meteor, as he'd half-expected it to be the entire time- though admittedly an orange meteor wouldn't have made sense, he'd assumed that it was just because of the heat of entry to the planet or something.
Instead, the thing that they'd been trying to find was actually two things, and neither of them was a meteor at all. The first one that he noticed was the orange thing in question, though it was no longer the blot it had been in the blurred image. It was about five and a half feet tall, going by how it stood compared to the trees around it, and a very bright orange colour that made it stand out impressively. It was extremely bulky, almost like a power armour of some kind, with wide, flat legs, and a compressed body that seemed to have a helmet fused into it. It seemed like it would have trouble moving, but from the way it was looking around, it had no such issues. A blue mask covered its face, with a thin black line running down the centre, and two blue lines rose up from its shoulders. In the centre of the body was a small indent, holding a lilac light; possibly a power source of some kind.
It was the arms that made Colin stop considering that it might be armour, though. There was no way a human could be in there, as the arms were instead two long flat tendrils of some kind, one the same orange as the main body, and the other the same blue as the face.
The second thing was just as unusual. Incredibly small, maybe a foot in height, with short legs and somewhat longer arms, and two long streamers trailing behind it starting around about the neck. Its head had a large yellow helmet of some kind on it, with three points sticking out, and on each point was a blue rectangle that fluttered in the wind. A large black line was horizontal across its stomach, and it was floating in the air.
That smaller one lifted a hand to its face, as if it was yawning, and the orange thing moved to surround it with one pair of tendril-arms, bringing it closer to its chest while looking around cautiously.
It was a surprise that it didn't notice the camera drone, but apparently Dragon's cloaking was good enough to hide it from whatever those beings were. Unfortunately, the camera didn't have audio, so if the things were speaking, they weren't able to hear any of it.
From at his side, Shadow gasped, and Eon murmured something in a low voice that, if Colin hadn't known any better, would have seemed like a prayer.
"What is it?" Director Piggot asked sharply.
"We know what they are." Shadow replied, quietly. She seemed awed. "They're some of ours, spirits like us. Mythical spirits, incredibly powerful, incredibly rare to find. We've met... some, like them, but these are..."
"The orange one is the guardian." Eon continued, when the smaller kitsune's voice apparently failed. "Deoxys, it's called. And the little one... that one is Jirachi, a Wish Maker."
It'd been a little under two weeks since that meeting had happened, and Inari had met up with the duo a few more times to work out things with the idea Shadow had had for doing some kind of projected Mystery Dungeon. They'd only done one test run over the weekend, mocking up a single 'floor' of a Dungeon to work their way through and make sure that things were functional. Things had gone ok, Eon working quickly through the floor on his own to reach the stairs that were being used as a checkpoint to move between floors, though occasionally the enemies being used as projections- generic human shapes with no features- glitched out when he hit them with an attack.
Leet had been paying attention to the energy produced by that and had promised to take a look to see if he could figure out a way to fix it, but the five of them had come to the group conclusion not to do any more testing for the next few weeks, since there was an Endbringer attack likely to be coming along soon and none of them wanted to wear out the main Inari members, given how much damage they'd been able to do to Leviathan.
While both of them were concerned about fighting with Behemoth or Simurgh, unsure which one was going to be showing up, Eon and Shadow had been working to strategise in the hopes of figuring something out. They didn't think any of the Endbringers were affected by Types in the way Pokemon were, given how things had gone with Leviathan, so they didn't think Behemoth would be immune to Thunder or Simurgh would be any weaker to it, but given that Behemoth had the ability to manipulate energy, both of them were worried about using any of their Special Moves. They didn't know whether or not it would count as something that Behemoth could manipulate, given that Aura was apparently unknown on Bet, but they didn't really want to risk it.
Which meant getting in close, which then led to the issue of the aura Behemoth had, that kill aura that neither of them were willing to test themselves against.
Suffice to say, Eon was fervently hoping that it was the Simurgh. While there would then be the potential issue of Mastering, both Shadow and Eon had the ability to break that, so they were safer fighting the Simurgh than they were Behemoth.
Trying to come up with strategies was still annoying, of course, given that Thunder could be be pretty inaccurate sometimes, but in the end they had to hope for the best.
"Morning, Eon!" Shadow called, looking over from where she was running her tail through the fire pit idly.
"Good morning, Shadow." He smiled. "Sleep well?"
"Well enough." She shrugged, being careful not to move her tail too much in case she brushed some of the fire out of the pit and onto the grass. "I got a bit distracted before I fell asleep trying to come up with something we could use."
"Any luck?"
"Nope." She grimaced. "Both of them are really annoying."
"Aren't they just." He lay down along the other side of the fire, dipping the end of his own tail into the fire as well. "Though I think most people would be annoyed at us referring to something like the Endbringers as annoying."
Shadow laughed. "Probably. And understandably, as well. They suck. It's just that, well. They are annoying. They're a really big problem, and they deserve the name. But they're annoying." She sighed. "I wish we weren't having so much trouble figuring out a way to deal with them, though. If we can take them down..."
It'd save a whole lot of lives. Eon mentally completed, nodding. "No-one can begrudge us for doing what we can, though. And we're certainly doing that. Besides," he shrugged a little himself. "Maybe we'll come up with something in the fight that we'd be able to use."
"Maybe."
The two of them idled together for a little while, thinking. Eon wasn't quite certain that Shadow had taken in what he'd said about everything, but at the same time he was well aware that he wasn't going to be able to persuade her about this. It'd gotten worse since they'd come to Earth Bet, he'd noticed; over the first two years of being a team together, Eon had been able to mitigate it all a bit, but that self sacrificing, I-need-to-save-everyone mentality had started making a return once they realised that she could work in the hospital to help out with Panacea's healing, and come back even more violently when they'd discovered the fact that Aura was incredibly powerful against the Endbringers and that they could help Mastered people. While Eon was trying to handle that again, it was difficult, more here than it had been back in Alma.
In Alma, the rest of the team would be able to pick things up and handle stuff, reminding her that she didn't need to handle everything on her own. Here on Bet, though, where there were a number of things that only she could do, it was harder to keep her from getting into the mindset that she needed to do everything she could all the time, even when she was exhausted.
It was annoying enough that Eon was contemplating taking his team mates on some kind of enforced vacation after they were done dealing with the Simurgh Containment Zones and after the Endbringer attack was dealt with, just to force Shadow to remember that she doesn't need to try and deal with everything on her own. Or even just to give her a break long enough to actually recover properly, since he was fairly sure she was exhausting herself too often to be ok. That was another thing the pre-Endbringer fight extended break was good for, at least in his eyes. Shadow was taking a break for once.
The semi-tranquil silence was shattered by a shrill ringing. Eon startled, whipping his tail-tip from the fire, and jumping to stand. Shadow's head snapped up in tandem, looking around warily and tilting her head.
"Is that the phone?" She asked, confused. "I thought the PRT had said they weren't going to be calling us for anything about the Simurgh..."
"Maybe it's to do with the upcoming attack?" He suggested, hurrying over to the Den and grabbing the phone with Extrasensory. "Hello?"
"Eon." The sharp voice of Director Piggot returned.
"Director." He nodded. "Is something wrong?" He traded glances with Shadow as he returned to the fire pit, putting the phone onto speaker and holding it between them.
"We're... uncertain, actually." It was surprising enough to hear that from the usually assured- and unwilling to admit to weakness- Director that he cocked his head, ears forward. "Something occurred approximately an hour ago. We've been unable to figure out exactly what it is. We were hoping you might be able to help."
Eon blinked. Either they want me for the Dimensional Scream... or they think it's something we'd be able to handle better. Worrying. "We'll be over as soon as we can, Director." He replied, when Shadow nodded her agreement to the question placed in his eyes.
"Good." The call ended abruptly, and immediately Eon dialled a different number.
"Eon?"
"Something going on at the PRT building." He explained succinctly, not bothering to respond to the greeting as Shadow started hurrying around, packing up the Treasure Bag and her own backup bag with Berries and other items so that they could be ready to head out. While they did have their 'bug-out bags' for Endbringer attacks, they didn't want to use those; they were full of the remaining Max Elixirs and a lot of Leppa Berries, ready for Shadow to use while healing, and Eon didn't want to touch those for something that might end up being nothing.
"Endbringer?" He could hear the sound of Taylor moving on the other side, getting ready to change into her costume despite the somewhat early hour to bolt over to the PRT building if she needed to.
"Unknown." He replied. "You coming?" She hesitated.
"I'll stay in town." She decided, after a long moment. "If we're not shipping out to deal with an Endbringer right now, then you might be busy if the alarm goes off. It's better for my to hang about here just in case. I can head straight out onto search and rescue."
Eon nodded, even though he knew she couldn't see it. "Alright. Stay safe, Swarm."
"You too."
The bug user disconnected the call for him, and Eon placed the phone in the Treasure Bag as Shadow handed it over. She'd filled it with Oran and Sitrus Berries for the most part, he noticed, as well as a number of the Berry Cookies that she and Swarm had been making during the downtime. The bug-out bags were also in there, so that they'd take up less room, and he gave her a look.
"In case something happens with the Endbringers while we're gone." She explained, putting her own bag over her back. "Don't want to be caught unawares."
"Good point." He agreed. "Come on, let's get moving." He twisted and started rushing for the path they'd worn into the edge of the Den from all the coming and going, boosting once with Agility to move faster, and heard Shadow doing the same to keep pace.
Mystery missions were going to be the death of him, someday.
Taylor couldn't really blame her father for being annoyed at being woken up by her hurrying around at nine in the morning, given that he'd had a somewhat late night the day before stressing about the Docks, but with the threat of an Endbringer attack on the horizon- not exactly any day now, but within the next few weeks- she felt that she had at least some leeway to be running around.
"Sorry, Dad." She apologised, finishing putting her costume into her bag. She put that on the bed with her clothes once she was done, heading towards the bathroom a moment after. "Just... with everything going on..."
Danny sighed. "I understand, you want to be out and showing the flag of your team since they're going somewhere and there's an Endbringer due soon. Just... try and be a bit quieter, ok? I don't really like waking up and thinking that my daughter's about to be running off into a battle somewhere."
"If it was an Endbringer, you'd hear the sirens first." She pointed out, hugging him. "But yeah, sorry."
She pulled away and slipped into the shower, quickly getting ready to leave the house so she could make her way to the Den and prepare to patrol. As she did, she looked around at the area with her bugs, trying to see if there were any problems in the blocks nearby.
Danny hadn't been wrong about the reason she wanted to be out while her team was busy. While Inari's takedown to Leviathan had managed to move into the stuff of PHO legends, people were still rightfully nervous about the Endbringers. What was one attack against the hundreds that'd come before it, after all? And while it wasn't in any way likely that the next Endbringer would be showing up in Brockton Bay, it didn't stop people being worried about what city would be targeted.
So Taylor wanted to be out there. She wanted to be ready in case something started on the streets, since New Wave didn't patrol much and the Protectorate were more focused on dealing with planning. Even just having one hero wandering around to make sure there weren't any issues was a good thing.
Although it had been oddly quiet recently. It was sort of strange, really, how few issues there'd been. But with the Merchants in a mess because of Skidmark's death, the ABB mostly being neutral because of Inari, and the Empire being quiet because everyone else was, the heroes had been able to take a step back and only need to deal with the smaller issues of petty street crime, rather than needing to worry about the Parahumans of the various gangs suddenly going on a rampage. Possibly that was a side effect of the Leviathan attack, possibly it was because of the on-coming Endbringer attack, or maybe just everyone had finally given up on causing issues.
Taylor snorted. Fat chance of that happening, I think. She mused, scrubbing at her hair. The day the gangs give up is probably the same day Scion dies.
It would be nice if the gangs had just given up, of course, but it wasn't likely. Still, she supposed, at least when patrols were quiet it meant more time to be able to spend just talking to people rather than needing to actually fight. It was nice to have fans, and the kids were cute, even if most of them preferred Eon and Shadow to her. They liked the butterflies, at least.
Shadow breathed out, slowly and deliberately, and pressed slightly against Eon's side.
"Pix?"
"Sorry." She muttered, not moving. "Just."
There was a long silence.
"Just?"
She shook herself. "Just. Something feels odd." She swallowed. "I think it's nothing, or probably nothing, but something feels a little weird."
Eon looked down at her properly, raising an eyebrow. "Weird how?"
"I don't know." She frowned. "It's like... a feeling, in my stomach? And a little bit around my chest, too. Just something odd. But it's not really there, just a feeling of it being there? Does that make sense?"
"...Honestly, no." Eon admitted. "Sorry, Shadow. But if you're not feeling well..."
"I don't think I'm ill." Shadow argued. "But something about this entire thing is making me nervous and I don't like it."
He wrapped a tail around her, and she was abruptly glad that they were in an alleyway, under an illusion, and still a few blocks from the PRT building. "It's probably going to be fine, Shadow." He assured her gently. "Whether you're nervous about it or you're picking up something else that's odd, it's still probably going to be fine."
"Yeah, probably." She shook herself. "It's just... with the Time Gear suddenly appearing, and now something else that the PRT can't identify... it feels like a lot of bad things are all happening at once, and I really don't like it." She pawed at the ground. "Maybe this is what Hoopa sent us to do, to deal with, but I hate it because we're dealing with such big things. I mean, the Endbringers were bad enough, but now there's all of this and it implies such horrible things about everything going on in this world, and I just..." She exhaled sharply. "It feels like something is going to go wrong. It makes me wish we had Team Burning Flame here to help us, because at least they have experience with Time Gears that we don't, and experience dealing with paralysed worlds."
"You're scared we won't be able to handle it."
"And Bet's going to pay the price if we can't." Shadow murmured. "I'm terrified of that, Eon. Swarm and Aquamarina and Amy and Vicky and all of the Wards..." She rolled her paw in the air as she trailed off. "If we fail, they're all doomed. And I really don't want that to happen, but I don't know how we can avoid failing with something like this. Sally and Chika only really succeeded through luck, really, and the fact that people were willing to trust them. Sure, people trust us here, but what if it's not enough?"
Eon leaned down, nosing at her crest. "It'll be ok, Shadow." He replied. "We'll figure it out. There's no guarantee we're going to need to stop the planet's paralysis alone, the PRT here knows and when eventually things come to a head we'll have backup. It's ok."
"Yeah. I guess." Shaking her head, she stepped away from Eon's side and straightened. "I guess we should get going then, right? The sooner we know what's happened this morning, the sooner we're gonna be able to plan against it."
"Or around it, or with it." He pointed out, but started forward again.
Things will be fine. Shadow chanted to herself as they walked. It'll be fine, we have allies, we're more than capable of working even by ourselves, our Team is Hyper Rank for a reason, it'll be fine.
The odd feeling in her stomach didn't lessen.
Colin sighed, long and quiet, as he leaned back from the computers. As much as he wanted to start pacing, he wanted to keep an eye on the thing Dragon's sensors had picked up. Pacing wouldn't get Team Inari to the building any quicker, and if he kept an eye on things, he'd know the second that something changed and be able to give a more accurate report to the spirits when they arrived.
Admittedly Dragon was watching over things as well, but two people were better than one in the end. It also helped to keep his mind off of other things by focusing on the situation at hand, which was good, because otherwise he'd end up spiralling into wondering about the defence systems they'd been working on for his lab and the sensors they'd been making to try and detect this 'Aura', and if he started thinking too much about that he'd end up trying to adjust it more, which wasn't helpful for the current situation.
Check the computer, check the scanners, check to see if any of their attempts at getting some sort of camera in the area they thought the thing had landed in had succeeded yet, check to see if Inari was at the building, lean back for a moment to breathe, and then promptly start the entire thing over again to avoid thinking about anything else. It was a strategy that had been holding fairly well for the past half an hour or so, ever since they'd managed to get everyone together to start looking at the event, and it had been holding since the incident with the Time Gear too. Keep moving and working on other things, and he wouldn't have time to wonder when the Slaughterhouse Nine was going to appear in the Bay, when Mannequin would manage to infiltrate his lab and attempt to kill him, what on Earth Shadow had seen in the Time Gear about Dragon that she was so reluctant to share.
Keep moving, and stop thinking about the damn tower that still haunted his dreams with its screaming even now. He had no idea what it was, or where Inari was going to end up encountering it, but he was glad that he'd likely never be involved in seeing it. The sound of it howling was almost as frightening as the Simurgh's scream, and he knew what the Simurgh did. While it wasn't likely that that tower did the same thing, the mere fact that it reminded him of her was...
Colin shook his head. It was incredibly uncomfortable, to say the very least. He was incredibly thankful that he wasn't likely to ever end up seeing it, since it was likely going to be something that Inari dealt with themselves.
Then again, that wasn't to say that they wouldn't end up working with the PRT over it, depending on what it was, and if that happened it was likely that Brockton Bay's PRT would be the ones handling things since they had the closest rapport...
And now Colin was starting to worry again about having to see the thing. Damnit. Check the monitor, see if the cameras were in position yet, check the scanners around to see if anything else had happened, and just start doing whatever he can to avoid thinking about the fact.
"What's the status on Inari?" He asked, just for something else to do.
"They're on the way." Hannah told him, leaning over his shoulder to look at the camera- still approaching the estimated landed spot of whatever had come through, so there weren't any visuals yet- and smiled at him slightly under her mask. "Hopefully they'll be here before the camera gets there, so we can fill them in on what's going on without needing to deal with the fact that it's already on the screen."
"Perhaps." He nodded. "Dragon, what's the position on the cameras look like?"
The taller Tinker, standing on the other side of the room and monitoring a number of other computers, including the one that was controlling her camera drone, shook herself out of some kind of deep thought, glanced over at him, then back at the screens.
"At a guess, the drone should be getting towards where we think whatever it was landed." She replied, over the heads of a number of technicians and Director Piggot. "It'll probably take another five minutes or so, then if it's not there, we'll start circling around to see if we can figure out where it did land. I've got an approximate range for it, so we can start searching that area in the hopes of finding it. If there's nothing in that range, then we can assume it moved somehow or something."
"Or didn't actually land there."
Dragon gave the impression of a grimace. "Well, yes, but I really hope not. If it's merely moved, then we might be able to take advantage of the fact that Inari have more powerful senses than we do, so if we took them to the place we assumed it was, we might be able to have them track it." She said. "If it didn't actually land there, though, then we're pretty screwed when it comes to finding it. We have no idea where it might've landed, since our estimate came entirely from that picture on the Simurgh's monitoring cameras, and it went by so fast that we didn't have time to try and reposition any of them to get another image. If it didn't land there, we can assume that we're never finding the thing expect by good luck."
Pretty much the entire room cringed at that. The idea of having to rely totally on good luck and nothing else to find whatever it was that had come through was definitely not something that made anyone happy in the least.
Someone tapped on the door, making everyone look up, and a PRT agent poked their head through. "Inari's Shadow and Eon are at the desk, ma'ams, sirs."
"Thank you, Officer Raymond." Hannah responded, smiling. "I'll head down and meet them." Normally, Colin would want to do that himself, but given that he was focused on keeping an eye on the camera views, he was happy to leave his second in command to that.
"No Swarm?" Someone wondered, as Hannah left the room. "That's unusual, isn't it?"
"Other than that first trip to Canberra, they're usually together, yes." Dragon agreed. "Perhaps they're just as uncertain about things as we are?"
"They could also be leaving her to keep an eye on the Bay while they're working with us." Colin pointed out. "There is an Endbringer attack due fairly soon, after all."
"Also a possibility." She nodded. "It would also make sense, based on previous patterns of wanting to keep the peace in the city. Since there's a number of us busy dealing with this, perhaps they're planning to have Swarm take care of things so that we can do other things."
The room mostly lulled into quiet after that, with the main sounds just being the sounds of people shuffling around and checking monitors, until the sound of footsteps approached the door again and it opened.
"Thank you, Miss Militia." Eon acknowledged, as the room turned towards him. Both he and Shadow paused for a moment, likely to take in the number of people in the room, before heading over to the Director. "Madam Director, a pleasure." They bowed slightly. "What seems to be the trouble?"
"Still uncertain." Director Piggot admitted. "Something appeared about an hour ago, which was caught on the Simurgh's monitoring cameras. We weren't able to see it fast enough to move any other cameras into place to try and track it, so we're doing our best at the moment to make an estimate as to where it might've landed. There are a few cameras heading into place now."
"I see." Eon murmured, weaving his way around the rest of the room to head over to Dragon. "Is there any way we can see the image that set everything off?"
Dragon seemed startled, from what Colin could tell as he made his own way over, then nodded. "One moment." He arrived at their side at the same time as she pulled it up, showing a blurry picture of the Simurgh's cocoon, and a much smaller blur rocketing past it. There was little to see, just a tiny orange shape moving extremely quickly, but Eon and Shadow both propped themselves up on their hind legs against the table and peered at the image.
Shadow sighed. "Not much to go on, is it?"
"Unfortunately not." Colin agreed. "We're hoping that our estimate of a landing place is correct, and that whatever it is hasn't moved from that spot. Otherwise we might not be able to get any clear view at all."
"How did you even manage to get a guess?" She asked, sounding genuinely curious. "You said you didn't have time to get any other cameras on it, so it seems like it'd be hard to figure out where it was going?"
Colin nodded in agreement, but before he could launch into an explanation of how many cameras there were pointing at the Simurgh at any one time from different angles and how they could use those images to make a rough estimate as to the thing's movements to try and find out the landing spot from that, one of the computers let out a ding.
"One of the drones is in position, it just picked something up." The technician nearest to it announced, reaching over to put the feed onto one of the larger monitors in the room.
Everyone turned to look.
He blinked, surprised. The thing that they'd been tracking wasn't some sort of meteor, as he'd half-expected it to be the entire time- though admittedly an orange meteor wouldn't have made sense, he'd assumed that it was just because of the heat of entry to the planet or something.
Instead, the thing that they'd been trying to find was actually two things, and neither of them was a meteor at all. The first one that he noticed was the orange thing in question, though it was no longer the blot it had been in the blurred image. It was about five and a half feet tall, going by how it stood compared to the trees around it, and a very bright orange colour that made it stand out impressively. It was extremely bulky, almost like a power armour of some kind, with wide, flat legs, and a compressed body that seemed to have a helmet fused into it. It seemed like it would have trouble moving, but from the way it was looking around, it had no such issues. A blue mask covered its face, with a thin black line running down the centre, and two blue lines rose up from its shoulders. In the centre of the body was a small indent, holding a lilac light; possibly a power source of some kind.
It was the arms that made Colin stop considering that it might be armour, though. There was no way a human could be in there, as the arms were instead two long flat tendrils of some kind, one the same orange as the main body, and the other the same blue as the face.
The second thing was just as unusual. Incredibly small, maybe a foot in height, with short legs and somewhat longer arms, and two long streamers trailing behind it starting around about the neck. Its head had a large yellow helmet of some kind on it, with three points sticking out, and on each point was a blue rectangle that fluttered in the wind. A large black line was horizontal across its stomach, and it was floating in the air.
That smaller one lifted a hand to its face, as if it was yawning, and the orange thing moved to surround it with one pair of tendril-arms, bringing it closer to its chest while looking around cautiously.
It was a surprise that it didn't notice the camera drone, but apparently Dragon's cloaking was good enough to hide it from whatever those beings were. Unfortunately, the camera didn't have audio, so if the things were speaking, they weren't able to hear any of it.
From at his side, Shadow gasped, and Eon murmured something in a low voice that, if Colin hadn't known any better, would have seemed like a prayer.
"What is it?" Director Piggot asked sharply.
"We know what they are." Shadow replied, quietly. She seemed awed. "They're some of ours, spirits like us. Mythical spirits, incredibly powerful, incredibly rare to find. We've met... some, like them, but these are..."
"The orange one is the guardian." Eon continued, when the smaller kitsune's voice apparently failed. "Deoxys, it's called. And the little one... that one is Jirachi, a Wish Maker."
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
This is, indeed, Worm. Hopefully the end outcome from this last chapter is keeping your spirits up, though.
...An informal coalition formed to keep the fallen away from the home of the spirits that is the best bet against the endbringers. Did not quite expect that, but it makes perfect sense.
Yeah, the Fallen get the dubious honour of being 'Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Fic' here. Because I don't like those guys, and honestly the idea of them getting offscreened by the gangs in an attempt to make sure Team Inari doesn't need to deal with their bullshit amused me.
So as Eon said, this fic does pull mostly from the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, where everything like that is a bit more brushed over. However, I do have one thing that might help answer- a deleted scene, from the original writeup of chapter 34- the version from way, way back when this was literally just a snippet collection and nothing more, and the plot was very different;
(Shoutouts to the 2018 plan of this fic, eh.)
So yeah, my original plan was that both 'versions' of the Pokemon world are the same world, with PMD on one side and anime/games on the other, split down the middle with a weird border that twists space about, making it seem like they're two separate worlds. I ended up scrapping this segment for various reasons, but when I picture the way the world works, it's the same sort of idea; two worlds on one planet, essentially. For the most part, though, I'm ignoring a lot of the Pokedex things. Cubone 'skulls' are actually inherited relics, not specifically that of their mother, Metagross tend to hang more around mountains than anything and while they can easily crush other Pokemon don't, let's not talk about the crazy scientist because that's a problem for the human world, Gyarados' whole thing is more of a strength comparison...
Man Pokemon is fucked up.
But yeah, we're gonna roll with the fact that the Pokedex isn't necessarily accurate, and also what it is accurate to is the human side of things, where stuff is a little different. We'll take Polteagiest and Drifloon/Drifblim as more trolls than anything, and assume the Pokedex isn't quite correct on what's actually going on.
Also I'm super sorry about all the delays that I keep ending up with. I'm a bit of a derp, writing is hard right now because my hands hate me a little, I'm very tired pretty much constantly, and I'm working on getting ready to move back home again in a week, so everything is hectic. I have like, one chapter in buffer, too, so if I die a bit after next week, sorry again. I'll do my best to avoid that happening.
Collin has seen The Temporal tower or equivalent? Very interesting, though his current state of mind is something he should probably deal with, instead of hiding in his work...
...Deoxys and Jirachi? Things are starting to heat up and I have no idea where it is heading.
Remember that one joke about Bidoof being the reason the plot of that game existed? It did have some valid point. Jirachi is called the Wish Making Pokémon button it doesn't do anything like that, it more just says "Reality can be whatever I want it to" to get whatever the Wish wanted. So you could wish for bread but it won't just appear, there will be some kind of event that leads to you getting bread. Press F for the sane people of Bet and laugh at the insane people who've got it coming.
Windborne
Devourer of Stories
- Location
- Oregon
Interesting, I'm hoping Eon and Shadow are getting some much needed reinforcements with Deoxys and Jirachi here now and they just aren't here to screw with Simmy before leaving. That and I'm thinking Dinah could use some rescuing if she did end up being kidnapped here. If anyone is wishing really, really hard for rescue it'd be Dinah after all.
That being said I'm also hoping you just have the S9 quietly put down off screen because Cauldron is tired of their shit and them possibly attacking the "golden goose" that is Team Inari being the proverbial straw. Let Inari deal with some other S Class threat like Heartbreaker or something.
That being said I'm also hoping you just have the S9 quietly put down off screen because Cauldron is tired of their shit and them possibly attacking the "golden goose" that is Team Inari being the proverbial straw. Let Inari deal with some other S Class threat like Heartbreaker or something.
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- Location
- England, Smugsville.
Colin definitely has some very healthy coping mechanisms, and anything anyone says against that is definitely wrong. Dragon's worried looks totally have a different reason.
(Colin's coping mechanisms are bad and Dragon is worried.)
Yeah, Jirachi is kinda powerful.
I already have the rules for how Jirachi's wishes work in this world laid out (I did some of that in this chapter, in fact). And while Dinah did get kidnapped in this world- the bank still happened, after all, and was actually a better distraction than Coil planned because Inari made a proper public debute there- I also have plans for dealing with that.
Additionally, and hopefully not too disappointingly for you, the S9 have not been quietly disappeared. I do have... plans, though. Hopefully they live up to the expectations of 'How To Deal With The Nine'.
If the PRT wasn't scared of the pokemon world before they will be now.
the pokemon they met so far were 2 Heroes (but they don't know iirc) that actually dealt damage to an endbriger and now they will meet 2 pokemon that THEY call legendary and aren't even the strongest legendary around.
they will probably think that every pokemon is a DBZ character and that Dialga is a capital G God can destroy the planet by sneezing too hard
the pokemon they met so far were 2 Heroes (but they don't know iirc) that actually dealt damage to an endbriger and now they will meet 2 pokemon that THEY call legendary and aren't even the strongest legendary around.
they will probably think that every pokemon is a DBZ character and that Dialga is a capital G God can destroy the planet by sneezing too hard
MaskedCritic
Verified Obsessed with Yuri
- Location
- Fluttershy's Secret Dungeon Shrine to Metal
I know I've brought this up before, and I'm sorry if it's getting annoying, but each successive chapter of the story is just leaving me wondering: why is Taylor even in the story?
Since Leviathan, she's had less and less of a part, with her biggest impact being baking, of all things. She doesn't really contribute to the big important things, she never really offers any unique insight that Shadow and Eon couldn't get elsewhere, and she's repeatedly been left to do the custodial work instead of being involved with the actions of her team. At this point it's starting to look like the story is being prepped to leave her behind, waiting for her team to come back from their heroics so she can ask them about their adventures before they finally head off home, leaving Earth Bet forever. That, or it's being set up to transform her into a Pokémon to allow her to have relevance again -- an outcome which has a laundry list of problems with it, including body horror, forced psychological alterations, grief at the loss of the potential to have a romantic relationship, despair at the loss of the potential to have a family, having to abandon her life entirely, and more.
Yet at the same time this and previous chapters indicate, by having her as the PoV character for some segments, that she is meant to be one of the main characters of this story. A theme of her being left behind due to being useless for the problems at hand contradicts that, and doesn't really fit the tone of the story so far.
Having one of your main characters slowly sliding into complete irrelevance like this is a serious problem, and it's one I hope you address at some point before it becomes so incongruous for her to be useful that any contribution she makes feels forced, shoehorned in just to say "see, Taylor's a main character, too! She does stuff! I promise, guys, she's important!"
Since Leviathan, she's had less and less of a part, with her biggest impact being baking, of all things. She doesn't really contribute to the big important things, she never really offers any unique insight that Shadow and Eon couldn't get elsewhere, and she's repeatedly been left to do the custodial work instead of being involved with the actions of her team. At this point it's starting to look like the story is being prepped to leave her behind, waiting for her team to come back from their heroics so she can ask them about their adventures before they finally head off home, leaving Earth Bet forever. That, or it's being set up to transform her into a Pokémon to allow her to have relevance again -- an outcome which has a laundry list of problems with it, including body horror, forced psychological alterations, grief at the loss of the potential to have a romantic relationship, despair at the loss of the potential to have a family, having to abandon her life entirely, and more.
Yet at the same time this and previous chapters indicate, by having her as the PoV character for some segments, that she is meant to be one of the main characters of this story. A theme of her being left behind due to being useless for the problems at hand contradicts that, and doesn't really fit the tone of the story so far.
Having one of your main characters slowly sliding into complete irrelevance like this is a serious problem, and it's one I hope you address at some point before it becomes so incongruous for her to be useful that any contribution she makes feels forced, shoehorned in just to say "see, Taylor's a main character, too! She does stuff! I promise, guys, she's important!"
Garreon
Paldean Top Champion
- Location
- Mesagoza, Paldea
Considering the Government could deal with the Nine by dropping a Moab on their pants but are only around because of Cauldron, my expectations is a curbstomp. Yeah, I love it when the 9 are nothing more than a footnote. Jack doesn't deserve an epic battle
Windborne
Devourer of Stories
- Location
- Oregon
To be fair since @ShadowVulpix has returned from the hiatus Taylor hasn't been a key player in the latest chapters because this is looking to be an Arc that focuses on Shadow. Also action has been incredibly light, if not outright non-existent, so where exactly would Taylor shine? Everything since Leviathan has been extremely laid back almost Slice of Life, I mean the first hint of trouble since was us learning that the Nine are on their way to the Bay, and that was only a couple chapters ago. Taylor will have her time to shine soon I bet.
As for Taylor going with her team when they leave, well she doesn't have to become a Pokémon, if anything she could easily just travel there as is and be perfectly fine. I'd prefer that outcome to be honest. Why complicate it when she could live on that world comfortably as a human easily.
I'm actually hoping for a curbstomp because Jack really doesn't deserve more than a quick ignominious death. Also because I can't see Cauldron fucking around when they have a hell of a lot more to gain by keeping Team Inari happy, whole, and alive. They're clearly Pathable to some extent so it's not like they're a blind spot to Contessa.
On the other hand, Jack's shard is BS. Though contessa might manage a rude Goldberg using nonpowered to take him out. Most logical would be either surprise normal in a cape fight like Canon, or a pokemon facing him, whom would negate his key advantage while having no idea what it was, simply by not being a parahuman.
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- Location
- Moscow
I'm more curious about what could have caused Deoxys and Jirachi to team up in the first place. The first is an alien, the second sleeps the avsolute majority of the time - what are the odds of the two meeting at all? There's likely some wish-related shenanigans going on already!
MaskedCritic
Verified Obsessed with Yuri
- Location
- Fluttershy's Secret Dungeon Shrine to Metal
It's less a problem of Taylor getting her moment to shine and more a problem of having that moment not feel forced. Up until this point nearly every single problem or dilemma that has come up has been solved by Shadow or Eon. Taylor getting bullied? Sure, them helping out is reasonable. Every single thing since then? It, like I said, leaves the question of why Taylor is even included in the story. The most emotion she's shown in recent chapters is concern over Shadow working herself to death, and a brief moment of uncertainty when she gets left behind for the first Simurgh zone clearing, which is quickly overcome and never mentioned again. She's fading into the background more often than not, becoming nothing more than set dressing. She has no drive to contribute, no motivation to improve, no jealousy over her lack of utility in comparison to her team mates, and is completely content being nothing more than a blind follower, all of which is entirely out of character for her. It's a massive plot hole and an amazing opportunity to further the story at the same time, but it's starting to drag things down.
The thing is, I know that @ShadowVulpix is talented enough to fix this! Everything else in the story so far has shown that time and again. That's why I'm bringing it up.
And there's plenty of ways this can go. Maybe Shadow and Eon come back one day to find her passed out, and she's been doing something foolish to try and make herself more useful to the team. Maybe she starts being able to feel aura due to her immense level of exposure to it through Shadow and Eon. Maybe she gets kidnapped and decides that she's too useless to be a member of the team, and they start a lengthy undertaking to cheer her up and help her become more able. Hell, maybe she just gets removed from the story somehow, because at this point she's basically the level 5 Pikachu you can't bear to put in the box because it's adorable, when you're already all the way to the Elite Four.
Though at least in this chapter there are hints that she's starting to realize all of this. Thinking about Team Inari's fans, and how people really don't seem to care that she's there when compared to Shadow and Eon.
Nightchill
from the cold of night
- Pronouns
- Derg
Is it gonna be grandpa giratina? I really want to see grandpa giratina in a fic
- Location
- England, Smugsville.
Yeah, the PRT is about to start getting a taste of what some of the really powerful Pokemon are like.
There will be mixed opinions on the experience.
Consider this as a response to both your posts;
So I actually hadn't noticed how much Taylor was slipping into uselessness. This arc is mainly Shadow and Eon- as are a lot of the previous ones- and in my focus on that I hadn't noticed how much she was slipping out of the way. Much like @Windborne said, she's gonna be getting her time to shine soon, but I suppose that is a big problem- soon. Hopefully that moment is close enough that no-one gets too sick of my writing, though I will start working on looking into the upcoming arcs to see what I can do to rectify this.
(Also thank you for having the confidence that I can fix this.)
Re; everyone on about the Nine; yeah, the Nine are getting... something, alright.
looks at the prewritten documents
Hopefully it lives up to expectations, cause it's sure gonna be something.