If I was to pick one as the secondary target for the next jump, it would be gamer. But what Gamer system-settings would be best?
Most of my "Game system-like" jumps are also Isekai series simply because those are easiest to find, and it would probably be better to include more actual gamer jumps.
If I was to pick one as the secondary target for the next jump, it would be gamer. But what Gamer system-settings would be best?
Most of my "Game system-like" jumps are also Isekai series simply because those are easiest to find, and it would probably be better to include more actual gamer jumps.
The original gamer manhwa might be an option but he might just get turned into mana battery as soon as he enters, and he isnt guaranteed to get a gamer system to begin with since thats given to the MC by gaea.
I'm a spider so what is an option if he doesn't mind getting picked up and played with by D.
A lot of tower Manhwas offer a system to anyone who enters the towers but i'm pretty sure they dont work outside the tower.
A lot of the novels or manga with gamer things rely on an external source to acquire them, so unless you have a way to bypass that, it's going to be really hard to find something that fits.
Closest thing i can think of for a universal system is the voice of the world in tensura. I'm not 100% on the lore behind that but it's all i got.
Making up an AU setting works too.
Actually if you're willing to look really deep, there are some really good systems in the webnovel space.
Shadow Slave.
Blood Warlock: Succubus Partner in the apocalypse (book sucks ass, system is gas)
Infinite Mana in the Apocalypse (if you don't mind getting deleted upon entry by cultivation young master stereotypes)
Leveling through Lust (cool concept if you're not one of the regular people.)
The primal Hunter (this might be the best choice because OP people are required by the system itself to leave you alone if you're too weak)
The original gamer manhwa might be an option but he might just get turned into mana battery as soon as he enters, and he isnt guaranteed to get a gamer system to begin with since thats given to the MC by gaea.
I'm a spider so what is an option if he doesn't mind getting picked up and played with by D.
A lot of tower Manhwas offer a system to anyone who enters the towers but i'm pretty sure they dont work outside the tower.
A lot of the novels or manga with gamer things rely on an external source to acquire them, so unless you have a way to bypass that, it's going to be really hard to find something that fits.
Closest thing i can think of for a universal system is the voice of the world in tensura. I'm not 100% on the lore behind that but it's all i got.
Making up an AU setting works too.
Most of those are already on the list. Generic Gamer, Spider, Tensura. I had actually removed Slime from the list to avoid overlap with another cluster (Because for some reason I thought it would be good to have both a "Gamer" Cluster and a "LitRPG" cluster even if they cover the same sort of things) I've added it back in though.
In terms of Manhwa... Solo Levelling is on the list but that's it.
Actually if you're willing to look really deep, there are some really good systems in the webnovel space.
Shadow Slave.
Blood Warlock: Succubus Partner in the apocalypse (book sucks ass, system is gas)
Infinite Mana in the Apocalypse (if you don't mind getting deleted upon entry by cultivation young master stereotypes)
Leveling through Lust (cool concept if you're not one of the regular people.)
The primal Hunter (this might be the best choice because OP people are required by the system itself to leave you alone if you're too weak)
Okay...
Shadow Slave lacks a jumpdoc. As does Blood Warlock, etc.
...All of them lack a doc. Joshua could go to them through Generic Gamer, but Generic Gamer would work better for creating an original setting.
Most of those are already on the list. Generic Gamer, Spider, Tensura. I had actually removed Slime from the list to avoid overlap with another cluster (Because for some reason I thought it would be good to have both a "Gamer" Cluster and a "LitRPG" cluster even if they cover the same sort of things) I've added it back in though.
In terms of Manhwa... Solo Levelling is on the list but that's it.
Okay...
Shadow Slave lacks a jumpdoc. As does Blood Warlock, etc.
...All of them lack a doc. Joshua could go to them through Generic Gamer, but Generic Gamer would work better for creating an original setting.
oh i forgot you were using jumpdocs...
Well one of the most popular jumps for a good system used to be. "I've Became Able to Do Anything with My Growth Cheat, but I Can't Seem to Get out of Being Jobless" (title is a bother but the job system is fire)
but your best hope for a system will have to be Spider. It has the best perks for your situation. (system 2.0 and homebrew system)
I've not finished reading Spider so I'd need to start reading it again if it's the destination. Growth Cheat looks interesting though. I'll throw that into the cluster.
Let's see... what will I swap it for? Reincarnated as a slime? The system is strong but Joshua isn't likely to pick up gluttony and IIRC humans have relatively low limits in it if they aren't heroes and that's a further cost for Joshua. I've got slime in other clusters anyway.
Just in case one of these will require me to spend a week reading to catch up, I'll do the dice rolls now:
Primary Target is the final fantasy cluster he's been to before. 50%
Oh... yes? Okay, new random Cluster. That's... okay, it's safer at least.
I'll be frank, I was worried when I was doing this. There's a special thing coming in this next jump that will scale with whatever the jump itself in. Most gamer jumps scale on the high end so I was a little worried.
Of course, now it could be just about anything so... Yeah.
*Generates a random Cluster*
Xenoblade Chronicles
Pokemon Arceus
Digimon Cyber Sleuth
Fakemon
Lord of the Rings
Generic Sci-fi Frontier
Godbound
Xenoblade Chronicles X
*Nervous chuckle* Wow, that's just about the worst result I could have rolled. Hilarious though. And it makes a good book end for the first "arc" of this story.
He fell back the way he'd come. Tracking down the worlds of Final Fantasy might be a bit tricky as he was caught in that storm since then and had no real idea how to trace his way back. There was some kind of tugging within him though, a tether that linked him back to it.
Could it be his powers? That ability he'd gained to watch and replicate the use of magic called that world its home, so was it leading the way? He couldn't be sure. He couldn't even be sure that the direction he'd chosen to fall/fly was the right direction.
As Joshua flew though, the "Cosmic wind" picked up. Stardust and light flew by him all the faster. He'd experienced this before, it was the start of another Storm.
The wind picked him up, dragging him along. A piece of flotsam caught in the riptide, dragged back and towards the whirlpool. The multidimensional twisting vortex that was the storm.
Space twisted, distance distorted. Two eyes were not enough to grasp the "Space" involved as the stormed ripped through space. The maelstrom spat him out near a cluster of worlds that gave Joshua the thought of "Gamer." That had been one of his backup plans before and it was better than getting dragged back in but he didn't react fast enough.
Like a rope attached around his chest, the storm dragged him back into itself and all distorted once again.
Who knows how far he was carried before he was flung out at multiple times the speed of light? Who knew how far he flew before he recovered enough to slow himself to being "Still" relative to the surrounding worlds?
All he knew was that he was once again lost amidst endless space.
The storm was gone now so he could focus enough to pick a new target. The closest world. Fighting against the storm had sapped his stamina and he needed to rest before his mind frayed at the seams this space of madness created.
He set his new direction. That planet was "Down" and he fell. As he approached it though, he noticed sounds of fighting. Space and time were warping on the other side of the planet. Joshua couldn't see the fight, eclipsed as it was, but this seemed to be a fight between two different beings, each on a scale that dwarfed the worlds themselves.
Thankful at least for the distraction, he bent down and cut a hole into the world and slipped through, sealing it behind himself.
He fell through blackness and rainbow-hued light for a moment before bursting out high above the ground. Well, not too high, thirty meters, maybe.
"Oh this'll hurt." He realised aloud before he crashed into the rocky surface of a mountain. Pain shot through him but his momentum wasn't completely stopped. He bounced and continued to roll down the mountain's slope until he drew out his sparkblade and stabbed it into the mountain, it just slashed, like how pirates get down the sails in some old movies.
He had to turn the blade to the side, a ninety degree turn, before it finally stopped his movement before he fell into a ravine.
The first thing to hit him again was the pain. He didn't think anything was broken but he wasn't sure. He would definitely be bruised later though. The next thing that hit him was the chill. His clothes were warming (He had enough layers on) but seeing as he'd just come from summer weather in the States to winter weather… wherever he was now, he was bound to feel the chill.
How did he know it was winter? It was snowing. Big flakes were coming down and settling atop layers of already piled snow. He wished his outfit had gloves because the snow chill was starting to get to him. Regardless he pulled himself up with his sparkblade and pulled himself to his feet.
Where was he? A mountain's side, obviously. He was still quite far from the top which he saw extending ever higher, like a spear towards the heavens.
Shaking his head to clear it of the mental fog that was setting in, he looked downhill. He'd need to get to lower ground to avoid the chill. From his vantage point though he could look over a lot of the nearby land masses. Rivers cut the land apart though and he didn't have a good way of crossing them.
The most telling thing was he couldn't see any sort of human settlement at all. This was a land beloved by nature.
However the question then became "How do I move about?"
Travelling on foot would be blocked by nature but using his broom would immediately mark him out as an outsider if there was anything intelligent that lived out here. For now…
Joshua sighed. A mix of both methods was probably for the best. He starts on foot, walking…
He checked the sun's position. Early morning, probably. At least as far as he could tell. That also told him that he was on the east side of whatever mountain this was. Fair enough then. Joshua headed south to avoid falling into the ravine. He carried his suitcase easily as he glanced around.
No birds? Well, there weren't many trees about either.
As he pondered that, the earth began to shake. Joshua grabbed tight hold of his case in one hand and his blade in the other, crouching down to make it less likely for the earth to throw him into the ravine.
But this was no natural earthquake. As he held that position at the edge of the mountain, a great explosion, an upswelling of earth, appeared in front of him. Out of it burst a column of rocks- no. Not rocks. He'd seen this before.
The great Onix burst out of the ground and looked down at him furiously.
This was the world of Pokemon. Shit. This is what Arceus warned him of.
"...I will state this clearly. If you continue on your path and ever return to one of my worlds, I will kill you. I cannot allow a Renegade to act freely, even one with good intentions."
And he couldn't leave either, not without damaging this world.
It seemed the Onix was ready to kill him though. Joshua turned and ran from it back the way he'd come.
He couldn't fight it right now. All of his Pokemon were inside the case.
The Onix kept on after him, it charged through the earth before blasting up and throwing of Joshua's balance. He was in serious danger here.
Eventually the Onix had enough and a lucky shot blasted Joshua off the edge of the ravine. As he fell though, he was able to stab the wall with his sparkblade to slow his decent, finally turning it to stop himself before sliding into a thin stream at its bottom.
With a sigh, Joshua dropped into the stream, thankful that his shoes were waterproof. That didn't stop the water's chill from getting to him though.
After a few minutes of walking, he found a small island in the ravine and set up his case before ducking inside. He needed to warm up and call his Pokemon together.
It was snowing in the case though, he remembered he'd set it to follow the climate of the case's current location. It was a touch warmer though and he made it to the cottage where the hopping pot was already brewing a potion to help with the pains of landing.
He found the Pokeballs in a storage cupboard where he'd put them and returned all his Pokemon.
Before leaving, he took a sip of the potion and it mended the worst of his injuries. It was time to keep on exploring though.
Continuing to walk downstream, he came out onto a field. The mountain still stood tall to the west though so he could use that as a point to navigate with.
He saw more Pokemon as he walked but all of them were furious with him. Even younger Pokemon went out of their way to attack him. Was this because of the lack of humans?
Luckily his Pokemon were very strong and were able to protect him. Generally it was Ninetales who was walking with him. His heat was able to keep Joshua warm despite the weather.
The water ran into another valley but this time there were ledges that ran alongside the stream that he could follow. These eventually took him into an area that hade been hollowed out by water and wind. And it was the first sign of civilisation he'd seen.
There was a bridge that crossed the gash that the stream was forming and on the other side of that bridge, sitting on the same lip of rock that Joshua was walking down, was a small hut alongside a table and chairs made of metal and a campfire that was steadily burning with only a bit of fuel left.
Beside the fire was a drying pole with sheets and dresses hung up, the fire ensured they were drying properly despite the chill weather.
So what did he draw from all of this? A woman who had decided to live out in the middle of nowhere. Well, hopefully she'd be able to provide him with some directions. It would be best to blend into a settlement while he waited for it to be safe to leave again.
Walking along the lip of rock to the camp itself, Joshua called out.
"Hello, is anyone home?"
After a moment, a woman pushed out of the hut's door. She wore a long black dress probably designed to help her retain heat in this climate. Atop her head was a wide-brimed hat
She looked at once old and yet ageless. White hair with only the slightest of lines on her face.
"It's rare for me to get visitors." She noted with a smile "Greetings, and you are?"
"My name is Joshua. I'm a bit of a traveller." He nodded politely "And you?"
"You may call me Cogita." The woman told him "I'm… let's say I'm a keeper of lore. I keep up to date with the lands around here, making sure that they aren't disrupted by hostile forces."
Joshua nodded. Something about her looked familiar but he couldn't place it.
Looking him up and down she frowns "It looks like you're a bit cold, come inside. I'll make some tea."
Joshua thanked her and followed her inside the hut. The interior of the house reminded him of the archetypal "Witch's huts" that you saw in media. Lots of herbs hung up to dry and the like. Of course, that might just be for cooking.
There was another fire in her house, it was a combination of oven and hotplate which she put a teapot atop after filling it with water and leaves.
Joshua sat by the fire, looking into the dancing flames. He wondered how he'd avoid Arceus' ire.
He remembered what Jake had said before though, Joshua just looked like a normal person to powerful entities unless he used his powers. If he could just blend in somewhere, he should be safe.
It did raise the question of what the fight was outside of the world though. Was it Arceus fighting something? MissingNo again, maybe? He couldn't be sure.
As Cogita poured tea, she asked him.
"So where have you travelled? Where are you from?"
Joshua looked down at his tea cup as he thought. What could he say that wouldn't arise suspicion?
"A lot of places, I travelled through Kanto a few years ago for example."
"Kanto? Ah, yes." Cogita nodded "East of the silver mountain."
Well, mount silver, but yes.
"It was a nice trip, it got me used to travelling."
"But you're not from there?" Cogita asked and Joshua nodded.
"I'm not, I'm from a much more built up area."
"Galar?" Cogita guessed "I would have guessed Hoenn but your accent is wrong."
Joshua considered it for a second. He'd never actually played Sword or Shield but he knew some parts of it and it was the best analogue for England.
He offered a nod.
They both sat drinking their tea for a moment but Joshua had to pause. The heat had caused him to recoil slightly.
"Are you okay?" Cogita asked, "Too hot?"
"It's fine." Joshua noted "Cat's tongue."
It was a term he'd learned that fit the situation best. Hot drinks always needed to cool first. It was his problem, not that of the drink itself. This was a Pokemon World though, should he have said "Meowth Tongue." or something like that?
"Are you with the Galaxy Exploration Team?" Cogita asked "A relative of mine told me about them."
Galaxy Exploration Team…? Oh, OH. This was Pokemon Legends Arceus. He'd never played it either though for a different reason than sword and shield. He hadn't recognised Cogita by name but he did remember her now.
Joshua shook his head though "I'm just a solo traveller, for now at least. I didn't even intend to come to this region. It just sort of ended up happening. I intend to leave when I can."
Cogita nodded at that and looked out towards the door flap while deep in thought.
Here is the start of the last major world of this arc, Pokemon Legends Arceus. What distinguishes the beginning and ending of arcs… you'll see once this world is over.
There is actually a bit more to this chapter though as you may see below. I just want to restate what I said before. I swear that Joshua will not be mind controlled in this jump. He has not taken the drawback that makes him vulnerable.
A girl appeared on the beach south of Jubilife Village. She was not Dawn, nor was she Akari She was not the chosen hero, not the one Arceus had called for.
With an excited smile, the young woman looked around.
"It really is so much better in reality." She remarked.
Her phone rang and she pulled it out. It was not the Arceus phone either, it was a normal-looking phone, the type that wouldn't be out of place in the modern day.
The girl tabbed through the phone to the messenger app where she saw her Patron's message.
"Get to work. Don't make me waste time wrestling this stupid, pacifistic and nature-loving llama."
She smiled and shook her head. She knew the plan. Sadly she couldn't just take this world as she'd wanted to. In a perfect world, she'd be able to just play around like she had when she'd actually gotten the game but no, apparently the Pokemon God didn't approve of the idea of her doing that.
So she just had to do this. She'd steal this world out from under him, at her Patron's request.
She already saw her first target coming. The dark skinned man in a lab coat, Laventon.
"Hello there! That was quite a surprise." The professor called out "Your appearance from nowhere I mean."
The girl smiled, "I'm just special like that."
"Special, are you?" The professor smiled "Did you figure out how to get a Pokemon to teleport you somewhere intentionally."
"Yes," the girl lied. "Do you want to see how? I've got a picture."
"A picture?" The professor asked as she took out her phone and clicked on a particular app.
She showed the professor the screen, colours flashed, the professor was enraptured by the shifting hues and then- he vanished.
The Girl closed the app and checked on another one.
Inside was just a record of the digital storage space. It showed that Professor Laventon had been digitised successfully. Next to that was a countdown and a note.
"Current Depth: 0, next depth increase: 19 minutes and 49 seconds. Estimated time until breakpoint: 3 hours, 19 minutes and 49 seconds."
The girl scowled. At the current rate, it would take her a day until he was entirely hers. That slowed down her progress immensely. If only she had access to the drugs, but no, that would have costed too much.
…Well, she could always take on a loan, just fifteen credits would be enough. Based on how they were described to her, she could drop someone down to Depth 30 incredibly quickly. Plus. That would be enough for her to simply tell him what she wanted him to do.
She'd need to work fast, she didn't want to disappoint her Patron.
Here's what I mean, this girl works for the company. Yes, we're going to have an actual head to head here between Joshua and those he's sworn to defeat. That said, I actually have good odds on Joshua being able to do this. What do you all think?
Cogita allowed Joshua to spend the night at her retreat as long as he helped with the housework. As they worked, she kept a close eye on him though. Joshua wondered what she expected to see.
Joshua's little bed (More just a pile of cushions she'd arranged on the floor) was disturbed in the early morning. Cogita had gotten up before dawn to do something. Joshua poked his head up too.
"Can I help?" He asked her as she went to leave the hut. She paused for a moment but nodded.
"Do you mind changing out the wood in the oven? It will be running low."
She kept the flame going all night to help heat her house during the winter months, or at least that's what she said she did when Joshua had asked about it last night. And the warmth coming off it had helped him rest too.
Cogita returned a little after dawn with a basket of provisions. A basket she handed to Joshua.
"Here, I sent a message to a friend of mine to arrange this for you last night. Having pre-prepared food for a long journey is essential, even if you can live off the land."
…How she got a message to someone when she'd barely left the house was left unstated, also how the provisions had gotten here so fast. As far as Joshua knew there were three major settlements throughout this region and none of them were anywhere near here.
Regardless, Joshua thanked her.
Cogita nodded and offered a slight smile "I've always had a fondness for travel. Even if I don't partake in it much anymore, I like helping them out when I can."
She then drew Joshua's attention to a map of the region that was in the basket.
"You said you intended to leave? Then Jubilife Village would be your best destination. I don't know how often ships come but you might be able to find one to another region."
Joshua nodded. The village was roughly where the City was in modern times, maybe a bit further west.
…Actually it was closer to Canalave City, looking at its location on the rivers around it. It made sense that Canalave would have been the place that they expanded out from.
"What's the best way to get there?"
"You'll need to cross a mountain, regardless of if you travel north or south." Cogita pointed out "Best head south for a while until the peaks begin to descend and then cross over.
With her advice in mind and the sun warming the frozen world, Joshua set off south as recommended.
Exploring wilds, untouched by human hands, reminded him of his travelling in the world of ruin. Alone, living off nature, setting up camps and repelling monsters.
Only in this case the goal wasn't to kill the monsters, while he had no idea what was making so many pokemon hostile towards him, he always made sure to just have his pokemon knock them out.
As they were pokemon trained for gym battles, his pokemon knew how to pull their blows to make them not as dangerous while still knocking the target out.
For food there were the rations he'd brought in his cottage from the Psychonauts' main base and Cogita's packed food (Which included a whole loaf of bread, a jar of japanese pickles and a few links of sausage.)
…Okay, where did she get the bread from? The region was meant to be based on Japanese cuisine right? This was wheat-based bread. The pickles made more sense as did (in theory) the sausage. The only question was "What Pokemon was used in the sausage."
Whatever. Not important for travel.
After two days of travel, Joshua ended up on top of a tall and rocky hill that overlooked marshes. So this would be roughly where the Pastoria City great marsh would be one day. Well, maybe not here exactly. Probably over there somewhere, somewhere further south. The marsh was north of the town after all.
From here his next destination was west. But he'd have a tall waterfall to cross to reach the otherside. Joshua decided to descend from the clifftops to find a way across on lower ground.
As he descended, he encountered a small wooded area. There was even a watering hole he could rest at. As he did though, he heard a loud cry. It sounded like a clicking voice.
"Li- Li-" A windstorm flared up, a spinning twister forming quickly as Joshua jumped to his feet.
A golden pokemon burst out of the storm. Though the gold quickly shimmered away revealed a Lilligant within, the Hisuian version of course.
She raised both her arms dramatically.
"Li- Gant!"
It danced forward at Joshua who ran to the side. It was fast, too fast.
Joshua went for his belt and threw out a Pokemon.
"Ninetales, let's go!"
The fox burst out of the Pokeball and began taking on the noble pokemon. Something seemed strange though. Or there was something that should have felt strange but didn't.
While he hadn't personally played Legends Arceus, Joshua knew about the Noble pokemon, specifically that they stayed gold during the battle. Why had Lilligant so quickly reverted?
The pokemon was powerful though, very powerful. It pushed Joshua's team away from the spring. As Joshua turned to retreat though, it didn't follow. It let Joshua and ninetales get away safely.
It took two more days for him to fully descend down the hills. At the swampy land below, he noticed a collection of tents he hadn't seen before. There were people living here?
…Judging by the colour… Diamond Clan? Huh, he'd thought they'd lived elsewhere. Nope. He'd just been wrong it seemed.
His food was starting to run out though… hopefully they'd provide him with some charity. Assuming that they weren't angry about him disturbing the Noble pokemon of course.
Upon heading in, he found it was an entire village of tents and other construction work. It was designed to be easily mobile should they require it but it was also protected from the environment.The swampy terrain wouldn't be getting any of them soaked, not with exactly where they'd all pitched their settlement.
Their leader was out apparently, as were some of their caretakers. In return for some hard work around the village for a day, they did provide him with some more food. His basket was filled with potato mochi but they warned him to try to eat them all before two days had passed else they might start to go off.
Now then, it was time to head west. This hike took three days and as he hiked, he finished off the mochi and began digging in to his stored rations.
Of course, he had to deal with constant pokemon attacks too. It seemed that every pokemon wished him ill somehow. He'd mentioned it to the Diamond Clan and they'd just kind of shrugged at it.
Their best guess was that it was some sort of curse from the "almighty Sinnoh" AKA: Arceus. Joshua… actually thought that was pretty likely.
He spent eight to twelve hours walking depending on the day and by night he'd figured out a decent way to keep his suitcase safe. He buried it in the ground and then used a little alchemy trick to cover it with earth as he went inside.
When the morning came, he'd shove the case open and blast the dirt away. If anyone was travelling with him, it would give him away but since he was alone… well… he was that much safer.
At the eastern edge of the region-spanning mountain range, he paused and drew out the map. Where was he, roughly? Probably somewhere near where Hearthome City would one day be built. Hmm… south of that, actually. Around near the Pokemon Mansion where you can catch "Cute" pokemon.
Regardless, the next day he began his climb over the shorter parts of the mountain.
Five days, it took five whole days of travel to cross over this shorter mountain range. He couldn't hike nearly as far and at night a howling night wind blew over his camp. Plus the dirt here was too full of stones to do that "Dig in" trick he'd been doing over in the marsh.
He'd needed to find good ways to anchor the case while he left Alakazam in there to go grab food for him. Taking the time to rest himself just wouldn't have worked.
And of course, wild Pokemon constantly attacked him. Couldn't Arceus let up a bit? Joshua was planning to leave as soon as it was safe.
The walls of reality felt… weaker than normal, so even though he'd spent the same amount of time in this world now that he had back in Psychonauts, the wall didn't feel anywhere near healed enough for him to pierce it again yet.
What was going on here?
Two weeks-ish earlier
With a sad sigh, the Contractor took out a loan. The ability to use drugs would really speed up her captures of the people of the village.
With that loan, she bought the mind altering concoctions package and selected five doses of obedience injections. That would be her full daily allowance but it was enough in this case. Instead of getting them delivered physically, she tapped to open her digital storage again and had them all injected into the currently-digital Laventon.
The depth reader now read "Depth: 30, breakpoint required."
Eh… 40 would be nicer, or at least for him to be beyond the breakpoint. But she was impatient. That said, keeping him in there wasn't really helping at this point. She got her phone to eject him and talked to him firmly, her voice overriding the professor's will.
"Tell no one you met me today, head back into town and pick up camping supplies. If anyone asks, you have something you wanted to investigate overnight. If someone offers to come with you, you are to allow only one person. Come back out here with the camping gear, if you have someone with you, you will stand by and let me pull them under my control. Understood?"
The professor frowned but he wasn't able to reject the orders, as much as he likely wanted to. He simply left to follow her orders.
From there, the contractor looked around the winds. It would have been nice to get some Pokeballs but no, she hadn't been given any.
…That said, her phone's hypnosis should work on Pokemon too.
Every pokemon she tried to meet up with fled from her "sadly" so she was still alone when Laventon returned with a bag of camping supplies and he had with him a man that looked like a random Galaxy team nobody.
Well, good enough for her. She headed over to meet them and quickly hypnotised and stored the random away digitally.
Laventon, now aware he'd lead a man to suffer the same fate as him, underwent another breakpoint. Right, then she could begin working to make him a more useful pawn. She left him with a VR headset in the form of two hair clips. She forced him to wear them as she set up camp.
She'd never been camping, this might be fun!
It wasn't. She hated it. And in the morning she was all the more desperate to invade the village so she had somewhere nicer to live.
The professor had hit another breakpoint in the night and she assigned one of this morning's injections to him to break him through to depth 41. Now then, it was time to get to work.
She modified his memories to make him believe she was a friend he'd made out here while travelling and researching things that night. She also used three injections to pull the random under her control enough to force him to agree with Laventon (Even if he technically still remembered the truth).
With everything set up, she moved on to her grander ambition- she'd hypnotise the leadership of the Galaxy Exploration Team!
Back in the present, Joshua had just finished crossing over the mountain. Now he stood above a waterfall that would one day be known as Oreburgh City! Well, the waterfall would vanish sometime in the next three hundred years or so, at least if the theories he'd heard about how long in the past Legends: Arceus took place were true.
How did he know this was the right place? His map marked this area "Oreburrow tunnel." Well, that was a tunnel system a bit to the south but he was in the right kind of area anyway. There was a large hill across the river that he could imagine would one day house the Oreburgh Gate. Beyond that should be Jubilife City. Well, he'd probably need to also head north-west from there as he'd noticed the base was built closer to where Canalave was.
Didn't matter, he was getting closer. He'd head on top of that neighbouring hill as it might give him a better view to navigate by.
As he planned to cross though, a voice called out at him.
"Stop! Who might you be, a stray traveller?"
A group of women emerged from behind a ridge. They must have been travelling too.
"I'm on my way to Jubilife." Joshua noted, as he looked at their clothes. They looked like bandits so he continued "If you want money, I don't have any on me."
"A likely story." Their leader harrumphed "If you had no money, why would you be going to Jubilife?"
"To leave." He admitted "Which will likely require me to make some money there so I could afford a boat passage."
That stopped the women "You're trying to get out? Why? Did you offend someone you shouldn't've in one of the clans."
"Something like that?" Joshua shrugged.
The women looked at each other then formed a huddle. They whispered together for a minute or two before looking up.
"Okay, we won't rob you. But we won't tell you for free. you'll have to battle us if you want us to tell you where Jubilife village is!"
Well, Joshua had a map but he didn't object. His pokemon were quite a bit stronger than theirs so even if they dealt heavy blows or attacked much faster than he or his pokemon expected, they still all fell quickly enough.
With a sigh, they pointed him the way to Jubilife, it was to the north-west as he'd expected. Apparently there was a gate he could use to know when he was getting close.
The group of women introduced themselves as the "Miss Fortunes" as they left and Joshua chuckled slightly at the joke.
It took most of three days to get from crossing the mountains to up to the top of that hill. That wasn't because of the height but more a matter of how wide it was and how hazardous the terrain.
Descending down to the river's edge to make it easier to cross, he stopped for a while to rest before making the climb up the mountain. There though, Vileplume found some shards of pottery as they dug into the ground.
Joshua cleaned off the pottery before giving it a read.
"Long have I travelled.
Near and far, here and there.
From step to leap to jump.
Finally I stopped, my journey over.
Here is where I settled, in the land favoured by the almighty Sinnoh."
Huh. A message left by a traveller. Joshua wondered how old this pottery was.
Maybe it was the ancestor to one of the clans? This looked too old to be from the Galaxy Exploration team.
Curious, but Joshua likely wouldn't have the time to look into it.
After struggling for a day and a bit to reach the top of the hill, he recognised how much better the gate was in gen 4. Considering how short the tunnel was in the gen 4 games, it was no wonder that they preferred that to building a long and complicated road over the top of this hill.
Up there he ran into a very territorial (And massive) Kricketune. The pokemon reminded Joshua of a friend he'd had back on the earth he had called home. While he had been growing up, this friend had loved bug types and had even gotten good at mimicking the Kricketune's cry from the games.
Of course, reality was quite a bit different.
Joshua's Pokemon were easily able to defeat the rampaging Alpha Bug and he let the creature flee instead of doing anything too it.
Huh, Joshua now wished he had spare Pokeballs. While his pokemon he'd obtained so far were his closest friends on this journey of his, he did sometimes wish for more.
But he didn't.
With a sigh, Joshua climbed up to the very highest point on the hill and he overlooked the area to the north-west. There, far in the distance, he could see a small gate.
He was almost there it seemed. Maybe a few more days of travel until he reached it.
She'd gone into town with Laventon and used him to set up a meeting with the leaders of the Galaxy Exploration team. Since the space-time distortions didn't appear to be happening yet in this version of Hisui, they were friendlier than they would have otherwise been. All the better for her really.
The Contractor gifted Commander Kamado an incense burner and left without doing anything more to him or anyone else involved in the team. For now she'd stay in Laventon's house while waiting for it to take effect properly.
That single stick wouldn't push the commander's depth that much higher, at least when compared to her injectables, but it also wouldn't be noticed.
The commander wouldn't fall fast but he would do as she suggested. And starting with him… she could work on collecting all of the keys to power, one captain at a time until she found her true goal.
Her favourite character in this game, Volo. He'd make a lovely servant for her.
Out in the Alabaster Icelands, a blond trader sneezed and continued researching. He wasn't done yet, he would find the Renegade Pokemon, no matter what happened.
The contractor is working fast. While they haven't yet taken Jubilife village in its entirety, she's getting close. Meanwhile Joshua hikes across all of Hisui, And he's probably going to keep doing it for a while. In case it's not obvious, Volo hasn't even started his plan yet and the space-time distortions have yet to occur. Even if they did start, Arceus is a bit too preoccupied to call for a hero from the future right now.
I'm using a dice to keep track of how fast the contractor is growing their power base and they're basically getting the best rolls they can get so far. I decided to interpret that as "The situation is such that their way is smoother than expected."
I'm really hoping for a low roll next chapter, it will give me an excuse to throw a wrench into their plans.
Meanwhile, other than Arceus, basically no one in the world is aware of the problem yet. While that will change in the next chapter (or the one after that, I don't know) the fact remains that they are getting really lucky.
Joshua hopped down from a stone to the flat ground below. It was only a single ledge though, it was still quite a way down from the heights.
The sun sunk in the sky behind the rise before he reached ground level. The sky was slowly darkening but the sun hadn't yet fully set on the other side.
The rise's shadow stretched far though, plunging the fields and river into a night-like shadow. Joshua resolved to try and reach that river before night fully set in.
Though he was attacked by a flock of evening Zubats on the way, he managed to fend them off before setting up camp and ducking away into his cottage.
He was trying to eat the things that would go off first out of the rations given to him by the Psychonauts. There was a lot of frozen meat which would actually take a while to go off so the greatest risk was the fresh greens.
He took some lettuce and chicken he'd left out to defrost and made a fried chicken salad for supper then went up to rest in his bed for the night.
Travelling was far better now that this was an option. Really.
He woke before dawn broke due to long winter nights and he spent an hour in his cottage to relax before the daily hike. He checked on the Logbook to see if there were any deadlines that needed managing. He hadn't thought of any but…
Nope. Nothing new.
He left the cottage as the sun rose and set off to look for a bridge with which to cross the river.
As he went to cross the bridge though, he saw a group of three packing up their camp. Were these the bandits from before?
No, as it happened. It was an old man and a pair of young adults, a man and woman.
"Hey." Joshua announced his presence to avoid surprising them but the young woman still jumped. The old man looked over with a cool expression and the young man nodded with a smile.
"A traveller?" He noted "I'd avoid going to Jubilife Village now. Something strange is going on there."
"Something strange?" Joshua asked, wandering over "Like?"
The old man sighed "Someone is using some kind of drug to mind control the populace."
…That really didn't fit in with what Joshua knew of the lore of Legends Arceus. That was worrying.
The trio introduced themselves as Beni, Irida and Adaman. A restaurant owner of the village and two clan leaders. It was a rather bizarre party. But there seemed to be a story behind it.
Beni was the one to tell the story of what had happened.
Professor Laventon had brought a traveller he'd met into town and that traveller had met with various higher ups in the Galaxy Team. Beni hadn't noticed what was wrong until he noticed the commander acting out of character…
Around 12-ish days ago.
The Contractor stopped by the Commander's office the next day and the minor effects of the incense allowed her to get him alone long enough to show him her phone's much faster brainwashing.
She was able to get him to a breakpoint and just got him through it the "Normal way." while he was under the trance, she made him strip.
A breakpoint is passed normally by having someone do something they wouldn't do if they weren't under trance, the amount of discord required increased with each further breakpoint that was required, something like this would do basically nothing at later depths but at this point she needed it to be subtle.
…She took a glance at him and shivered. Old man… *Cough*
Once she confirmed the breakpoint had been passed, she quickly asked him to put his clothes back on. She then passed him a special stick of incense. On top of increasing his depth, this one would make inhalers simply accept things as normal.
He wouldn't question what had just happened in other words, at least not until tomorrow.
So, that meant she still had four daily doses of drugs she could use. She chose four more incense sticks, these ones infused with a lack of curiosity. She gave that to the various leaders of the Galaxy team. Cyllene, Zisu, Pesselle and Tao Hua. The latter were the most important, they'd be able to convince the people to take any drugs she passed through them to the common people. It was the start of the ability to take all of them over.
On future days she continued to work on the leadership staff. She bypassed the breakpoints of the other captains in similarly easy ways, though some of them were more resistant to her suggestions of removing clothes so for them she just had them lie down on the floor spread out for a while.
It was something silly enough that they wouldn't normally do it though and it still wasn't as obvious as using a needle to push them past the breakpoint.
As they all neared Depth 20, she broke their next breakpoints by having them all kneel before her in a meeting room. They knew something was wrong but with a set of incense sticks, the Contractor could make them fall even further.
This was the point where things broke from her plans though, someone had seen her. Beni, the cook and the commander's right hand man.
She had to go after him instantly of course, but he escaped before she could catch him. The Wallflower Canteen was unstaffed when she visited it.
It was a problem though, from what she remembered of the game, Beni was some kind of Ninja. She didn't want to be assassinated in the night.
She had Commander Kamado put out a notice that made Beni out as a criminal. Everyone in town, even those who weren't yet brainwashed by her would now be working to catch him. He was a familiar face to them so people were warned to look carefully if a "strange newcomer" was wearing something to conceal their face.
It wasn't enough though. Beni ended up doing enough damage in the end.
Worse yet, her loan payment was almost half-way through. She needed to pay 14% every month. While that was only three credits, she didn't have three credits to take out right now, she'd probably need a loan to cover her loan!
She needed to get to selling slaves soon to pay this debt off.
"After she made me a wanted man." Beni explained "I had to work from the shadows. I had an old base hidden underneath the Wallflower that I could use but Commander Kamado knew where it was so I needed to get out of the village before she ordered him to hunt me down personally."
Adaman took over the story "Irida and I were in the village for diplomatic purposes, but Beni was able to warn us so we could all escape whatever was going on together."
Irida nodded with a shiver "If they'd gotten us, our clans would be at risk too. We'll not let our duties be ruined that easily."
"We were going to the clan to ask for help dealing with the situation." Beni noted "But these two couldn't agree on which clan to go to first."
Joshua shivered, thinking back on the past.
Every time, why did every world have someone who plotted to mind control people? Okay, not quite every world but a lot of them.
The Deluginists in Psychonauts who brainwashed people into following their madness. The Death Eaters who used the Imperius curse (Granted, he hadn't had to deal with that one personally), the Jumper's cult in the magical first world war, slave crowns in Final Fantasy 6. Debatably you could include MissingNo's Cult back in Pokemon.
Before all of those was the Company, but it wasn't the root cause of them, at least it probably wasn't.
Why was it so common though? Really.
He reflected for a moment on the narrative Trope. Mind Control was so common among media. Why? Because it's abhorrent and a good way to make you hate an antagonist? That was Joshua's first instinct.
If that was true then, how did Jake, the Jumper from before justify getting a cult. He couldn't remember if he asked and if he had he couldn't remember the answer. He had just wanted to rule and he hadn't even really specified his goals with the power he'd get from rulership.
Regardless, this time it was some sort of brainwashing chemist or something. It wasn't likely to be the Company as Judging from experience Jumpers were far more common.
Why did Jumpers, supposedly the enemies of the Company, act so much like them? Was it just part of having that much power? Corruption from having too much power?
Joshua finally looked up from his thoughts "How about this? I want to help you all out. You take one of them to their respective clan while I take the other one."
Beni and the clan leaders glance at each other.
"Sounds good to me." Adaman remarked.
Irida nodded too after a moment "As long as it lets me get back to my clan to protect it."
Beni nodded too "Very well, but stay safe. We don't know fully what our foe is capable of yet."
So who goes with who? Joshua had already stopped by the Diamond clan but he'd rather not go there again so soon.
"I'll take the Pearl Clan," You suggested. Irida didn't object and Adaman shrugged.
"So I get the awesome Ninja? I can handle that."
Beni shook his head and sighed and Joshua stepped over to him.
"In the mountains north of the Diamond Clan's base there is a retreat a few days walk in. The woman who lives there could give shelter in emergencies."
Beni nodded "I've heard of her, but I've never found the retreat in person. I'll remember what you've said though."
The two groups split up, Beni and Adaman would be heading east towards a pass Adaman knew of that was an easy way to cross the spine of the region. Irida, meanwhile, would be leading Joshua north via a river course that led up to the snowy north.
This travel was actually harder for Joshua than normal as he didn't want to show off his suitcase's storage without needing too. He didn't want to draw attention to powers from another world without knowing Arceus' thoughts on the Jumper. For all Joshua knew, this was a Jumper that Arceus was allowing to do this.
If they weren't, why had the creator not interfered yet?
After two days of travel along that river, Irida had pointed out to the west where Joshua could make out a small village.
"There it is, the village that was taken over."
Joshua considered it. He couldn't see the people of the village. Taking into account how wide the river was and that they were on higher ground, the people were like insects.
The river led north to massive fields of flowers.
Irida smiled as she walked through, pointing at some of them and telling Joshua their names. His ears perked up at one of them though.
"-and those ones over there are Gracidea flowers."
Ah, this must be where Floaroma town would be in the modern day. Or something like that.
Wind blew against them as they followed the river north and east for a few more days. Across the river was a great forest but they were just following the bank.
"They say that forest is haunted." Irida commented.
Joshua nodded. This would be before the Old Chateau was built so the ghosts must fill the forest instead of staying in one place.
As the river bent north again, they rested again. It had been roughly one week since they'd started off north. The temperature was dropping as they moved but it hadn't started snowing yet.
By the banks of the river that one day would flow beside Eterna City, Joshua found a piece of pottery.
"Almighty Sinnoh walks with many across many worlds.
He walks with the Hero of Ransei.
He walks with the wielder of the Guardian Signs.
He walks with the Pokemon who conquered the Tower of Destiny.
He will walk with the hero that will come to this world.
To some of us though, we didn't merely walk with him, we leaped."
Irida saw him looking at it and came over.
"Oh I've seen these before. It's an old verse. They were left here long ago and they normally speak of Almighty Sinnoh."
Joshua nodded "I've seen one before, but these words…"
Ransei… Pokemon Conquest. Guardian signs.
Tower of Destiny was the only one that Joshua didn't get at first. But judging by the last line, this was something to do with all the Pokemon Games where Arceus was recruitable or… friendly in some way? How would it be phrased?
But the fact that someone wrote these requires that person to know a lot more then Joshua would have expected.
Otherwise… Almighty Sinnoh…
"Almighty Sinnoh, you call him that too. How is it that you actually picture them?"
Irida blinked "Well, they created the world. They're a giant with arms that can shape space."
She went on to tell him the Pearl Clan's story of how the world had been created. How the giant had stood at the top of the mountain and created all space from that single point. The Space was already moving, time existed already.
"That's why I don't get the Diamond Clan." She noted "Time has always been going, It's a fact."
"When did time start then?"
"It didn't have to." Irida complained "The question misses the whole point. Almighty Sinnoh created space and the world."
Hmm.
"In another Region, I heard a similar story." Joshua began "A great Pokemon that creates more space with every breath."
Joshua gestured skyward "Space is still expanding, and that gives credence to the idea of the pokemon."
Irida puffed up at that "So other regions know of Almighty Sinnoh too."
"They have a different name for it though." Joshua noted "Palkia, the Pokemon that defines Space. It is also…" And he raised an eyebrow "Associated with pearls."
"Palkia." Irida mused "Almighty Palkia… yes, I can see that. Is he still a giant?"
"Indeed." Joshua nodded "With two great arms, a long neck and small wings."
"Incredible."
"There's more though." Joshua finally pointed out "It's part of a set of three."
"What?"
"A set of three creator Pokemon, each attributed to creating different things. Palkia creates space with his breath while his sibling Dialga defines the passing of time with his heartbeat."
…
Irida paused for a moment before asking "By this other Region's view, which came first?"
"You don't want to know about the third sibling?"
Irida shook her head "Unless you want to say he was born before Almighty Palkia, not really."
"He wasn't." Joshua shook his head "In truth, it was believed that either he was the last born or all of them were born at the same instant."
"Then it doesn't matter. Which was born first?"
"Time is defined by Dialga, looking at it that way, it was first by default as there was not time for anyone to have done something before him." Joshua smiled "But I'm of the mind that they came into existence at the same time."
…Or at least that was the theory he'd had when he'd put too much thought into this as a Child. The Games came out at the same time after all.
"Of course, they had a creator though."
At that Irida stopped dead.
"What?"
"Yes, there was a being that existed first. It was called Arceus."
Here you go, telling the Locals spoilers and becoming a heretic in a few easy steps. Regardless: Ha! The enemy got a really bad roll.They've officially lost time and three of the most important people they could have caught escaped.
Valid, there is a reason I made them the antagonist. I don't like them much either.
Edit: Additionally, I'm making sure to always write at least 2k words of Jumper stuff in each chapter. Anything about what the antag is doing is extra. Feel free to skip it if you want.
The date was July twenty-fourth, 1987 and Truman was sitting in his office, tending his plants. It hadn't been all that long since Joshua left. A few weeks and change. Much had happened though.
They'd looked into the brain that had been brought back and discovered it belonged to the heir to the Gzar, who had been a spy in the Psychonauts who worked in the mail room before going missing.
He was currently in Psychoisolation, imprisoned while everyone worked out what was to be done diplomatically. The fact is though that his plans to resurrect Maligula had been foiled- and by accident at that.
The young boy, Razputin, had wanted to try and heal the mind of Ford Cruller. In the attempt, he'd discovered that not only was Maligula already alive, Ford had convinced her that she was Razputin's grandmother.
One thing led to another and he'd helped his Grandmother repress the demon she'd once been. With that done, he stuck around as part of the junior Psychonaut division, he'd earned it. He was still in training though as he jumped into things far too readily and without preparation.
Doctor Loboto had been healed of his brainwashing but he'd ended up going on the run. There were currently people out looking for him but he seemed to have found his way into some kind of underground network which made it hard to trace his movements.
Speaking of people on the move… Truman's mind turned towards Joshua and his warning.
The Company… they'd held a meeting about it drawing up an action plan based on what little they'd been told.
The Company's mind control abilities were amazing and far reaching, full brainwashing in moments and it was strong enough to compel self-mutilation if the story Joshua told about his home was true.
Their abilities weren't purely psionic in nature either which made preparation that much harder as they'd need to find entirely new ways to protect themselves.
The Psychic Six were currently devising a technique based on the Psionic shield that would allow one to lock down their mind while in a dangerous situation, but there were risks with its use. If used improperly it could freeze up the mind, bringing thought to a standstill. That would be even worse than not using the shield so until it was refined, it shouldn't be used.
He'd told Joshua that if it came down to it, they'd put up a fight. He intended to make sure they could.
The Company disgusted him with how they just subjected the minds of others so awfully. They had no care for anyone except themselves it seemed.
Truman wouldn't let them have this world, he'd rather die first.
It was the twenty-first of October, 1971 and Aberforth Dumbledore was wiping down a glass in the Hog's head pub.
The school year was now in full swing, but that didn't mean the Death Eaters were any less active. That said, they didn't tend to act around the Hogwarts area at these times. They wanted allies and their leader knew better than the use of fear alone. He wouldn't threaten his follower's children and they'd love him for it.
Aberforth shook his head and glanced at the back room where he still kept the Hallow. There had been that one visitor though…
He thought of the man who had called himself Joshua. The Daily Prophet had said his real name was "Volence Maltren" a foreign mage who'd killed many pureblooded wizards overseas. But Aberforth knew that it was most likely a lie.
When his brother had come round to investigate the fight between one of his students and an adult wizard, he'd mentioned that the Daily Prophet apparently got that information from an anonymous letter.
The question was of course, who would want to make him out to be some great criminal? The answer was easy. It could only be the one who benefited from the country calling her a saviour for defeating him.
That person? Mary White, first year student at Hogwarts. Slytherin and friends with the heir of Black.
Defeating and driving off a Dark Wizard so badly that he hadn't yet shown up again was prompting her up to stardom as she learned quickly. She was said to be beautiful, the smartest in her classes and a skilled duelist.
In a Gryffindor, or even a Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff he'd only see those kinds of praise as a good thing. Students accomplishing all they set their mind to.
However… when it was a Slytherin and combined with all the praise she was getting from elsewhere he was worried. The Order's information suggested that she was muggleborn but that she might also have been killed and replaced by a Death Eater using Polyjuice.
No kid was that smart, surely?
It worried him a little.
Future President of the United States, Jake Christ, smiled as he looked out the window of his manor house.
It was February the 28th, 1919, and he was still waiting for the day he'd be elected.
His popularity had grown immensely, the current president's approval numbers were taking a sharp dive simply because "He's not Jake."
That sort of thing always made Jake smile broadly. His election was all-but certain at this point.
What did he want to do with that power? What was his policy? He hadn't really figured those out yet. He wanted to remove Russia as a threat before they even had their revolution but that would require precise work.
He'd used contacts in the military to start up the Manhattan project early and it top secrecy. Occasionally he'd go in person to root out spies and inspire the scientists to silence. If America was the sole holder of WMDs in the world, then they could bend that into forcing all other countries to bow to them.
Once everything was America, he'd lead his people to the stars, that would be fun. He probably wouldn't last that long though, his Jump timer would be up by that point and there was no way in hell he'd choose to stay on his very first jump.
Thinking on his jump made him remember the Renegade.
He understood the Englishman's reason for being a renegade but that didn't really mean much. Renegades were monsters, or they'd all become monsters in time. That's what his benefactor had said.
In Joshua's case, his dagger stole power from the worlds instead of trading for it like Jumpers did (with their benefactor performing the actual trade of course). If he wanted to, he could "Kill" a world like that. Stealing all its power for himself at the cost of everyone in that jump dying as their world imploded on a spiritual level.
But what he was fighting was debatably worse. The Company.
When he'd asked, his benefactor had given him a story.
Where there is light, there is darkness. Where there is good there is evil. Where there is freedom, there is the death of freedom.
In the.Blind Eternities, or so his benefactor called the space between worlds, there is always a kind of balance. As Benefactors and Jumpers are "Of freedom" there came to exist beings that sought to control and bind, to force everyone under their power.
Some Jumpers liked that idea, believing in their own personal freedom but having no care for the freedom of others. They turned against their Benefactors and became the first Contractors. Serving new Patrons, they attempted to conquer everything that was to paint over it in their own colours.
The war was always relatively even, but then they took one of the core worlds, the worlds from which all others supposedly originate from. Jake was from one of them too, but not the fallen world.
Not enough time had passed to see if that would tip the balance, but it apparently had Benefactors worried.
Jake thought about it all and nodded. He'd take the Company down. He didn't want them conquering his worlds after all.
Relm stared out her window. It was currently the 26th of July in the second year of the new calendar (Based on the old imperial one), and Relm was thinking about how the world had changed in the last year.
It was roughly a year, give or take a few days, since they'd worked together to save the world.
Celes and Locke had founded the "United People" collective. From what Relm understood it was kind of like an empire you "Opted into." If you didn't want to be part of it you didn't have to be, but economically they ensured that their members were recovering quickly from what had happened.
Over the year, Thamasa had been rebuilt and it was becoming a prosperous town. She had helped the others out when she could, but she was still quite young. She was twelve, turning thirteen in a few days and she no longer had magic to make up for her youth.
Her Grandfather was similar. He spent many days in bed now. Thought he still played with Relm when she wanted. She made sure to paint a lot of pictures but she could tell by comparing them that he wasn't improving. She worried for him.
Relm's weakness annoyed her sometimes, while she could still charm the world with art, it wasn't safe for her to wander the world looking for vistas to paint anymore. Not until she was older though. Terra had promised to teach her the sword properly but that would need to wait until she was older and for a time Terra wasn't dealing with taking care of her own town.
Her father had let her bring Interceptor with her while travelling the lands nearby but that wasn't really all that much. She got some good paintings of life returning to the forest to the west but…
She sighed.
Another reason she wanted to search was to find Joshua. He'd gone missing after being let off the airship and he'd missed her birthday party. She resented him for missing it, and wanted to give him a piece of her mind, But that wasn't the whole story.
It wasn't just her, none of them knew where he'd gone. Everyone was worried about what had happened to him. Even her father had admitted to that when pressed. He was acting as part of a new global information network that Celes had set up, using his skills to teach the new members while also keeping an ear out for news.
And on the matter of News on Joshua? Nothing. People had seen him wander out towards the fallen tower and then nothing.
She wanted to find him, she wanted to go out and explore, to find where he was hiding and tell him face to face to apologise for missing her birthday. She'd probably then hug him and bring him back so everyone else could know he was safe too.
No matter what it took from her, if she had to get hurt to do it then so be it, if she needed to go out before she was trained… well, she'd be endangering herself but it was a risk she was willing to take. She was fast on her feet, she could keep running.
She stepped away from the window. She had a lot of gil saved up from selling paintings. She could probably hire a ship that came into Thamasa's new port to take her to the mainland. Though, that probably wasn't the best idea. If he was on the main continent, someone would have heard of him by now. He's probably on some unknown and undiscovered island! How interesting.
That might require her needing to make a full exploration of the sea for unknown islands. Well, she could just keep painting for the crew to pay them in paintings?
As long as she found Joshua, that was a price she wasn't afraid to pay.
She headed to the door and turned "Interceptor, here boy."
The wolfdog loped over to her as she stepped out the door.
"I will find him, out there somewhere."
Somewhere else, someone heard that and smiled.
"And what would you pay in return for finding him?"
Space bent, time warped and dimensions overlapped.
The one, the creator of the world below flew through the void of nothingness.
"Judgement!"
At Arceus's cry, an orb of light appeared above his head and fired blasts of power at his opponent, a purple-skinned djinn. With a wave of his hand, the blasts of power were caught up in banks of fog. While unable to directly oppose the power of a creator deity, his opponent could redirect attacks to force the move to miss when it would otherwise be unable to.
Arceus galloped through space in an arc, gaining Extreme Speed and then dashing towards his opponent. The Djinn took the hit hard before shoving Arceus to the side. No visible wounds were done but at the power level the two of them fought at it wasn't unlikely he'd just picked up a power to hide "defects" like injuries.
The Djinn countered, shooting a large cloud of energy balls. What was this again? Ah yes, the one from Dragon Ball.
"Hellzone Grenade!"
"Shadow Force."
Arceus vanished as the orbs of Ki exploded. The man didn't lower his guard though so the Shadow force was unable to take him by surprise as Arceus reappeared.
It was easy to tell though, this man wasn't born powerful. His power was stolen from others. Well, maybe he might have Jumped for it but considering he was part of the Company, theft was more likely.
There was another layer to this fight too. A simple thing.
"This attack is undodgeable."
"I dodge it."
The words weren't said out loud, but they were enacted on a conceptual level.
Such contradictions were possible, but it cost the person doing the dodging more than it cost the attacker to make their attack undodgeable. That was the true fight. At any point either could simply say "My resources are fully recovered." and if the other didn't have the strength to negate it, then the entire fight up to that point would become pointless to them.
The reverse "You are dead" isn't as useful though, as each had immunity to things like instant death.
In a calmer moment of the fight, Arceus considered the world below, just one of thousands of copies of its particular creation and yet he valued it highly because of what it was.
This was the type of creation he was closest too, physically and conceptually. It was linked to him, one of the times he came to act upon the planet itself. He did it a few other times too, but this one is more special than the others.
This is the type of world one of his first Jumpers had decided to stay on when they were done with their journey. They had claimed a spark and then returned here. They'd helped craft the first of this type of world.
They weren't on this world, but the images they left behind were. And those images would be protected. He wouldn't let the Company paint their awful ideals onto this place that he treasured!
And Arceus wouldn't let them down. No matter how long this battle may take.
How many days in the world must have passed by now? Weeks? Time moved far slower within worlds. It was why Jumpers considered travel between worlds to be instant.
If Arceus had counted up once each second during the battle thus far, it would be a number somewhere around 10 to the power of 20. Or somewhere around three hundred million years.
Time scales like that mattered less to beings of their strength though.
The man who called himself Siegfried sat upon a throne. This throne sat on a balcony and that balcony overlooked the massive castle complex that had once been called "London."
It was 11 AM on the 29th of April, 2024 and this world had ended roughly one year ago. Or that is when it had started at least.
In his hand was a glass of Wine. His dominion stretched over most of Europe and that included various countries with excellent wine exports.
Wine wasn't a story though, so it was his own choice to work with them instead of an order from his Patrons. Those sorts didn't care about the attack other than it giving them control over one of the core worlds.
He took a sip and mused to himself.
The attack, the domination of a world so much like his homeworld, was it worth it?
An evil grin grew on his face as he nodded. Of course it was.
"What is a man?" He quoted. Man was his power. Humanity were his servants. While a god of fire might command it absolutely, he could do the same with humanity. That was the source of all his power, other than the link to the Company itself of course and the magic he'd been studying over the last year and a bit.
With his power, he looked over all the humans in his territory, his gaze lightly falling on the millions of people there. The population was a little lower than what it had once been due to many people getting sold off world but their Patrons were letting them keep some of the people for personal projects.
Plus, there were the authors, the core of the experiment. It was apparently common knowledge that these core worlds were the source of all others and that the others were created by being written about and read.
Authors were constantly writing now and the slaves were compelled to read, in theory this should lead to the creation of worlds following their design. Worlds which will not give birth to heroes but to resources for the Company to make use of.
Worlds which wouldn't produce Jumpers, but that the Company could hire contractors from.
…That bit was a long shot though. A benefactor could try to make one of them into a Jumper anyway, but hopefully the people there wouldn't have the "Jumper's spirit" that makes Benefactors want to make them into Jumpers.
The man who called himself Siegfried lacked that spirit. As could be guessed due to how it's been written, his real name wasn't Siegfried. That was just the name he chose when he became a Contractor. He had wanted a cool name, a name that would inspire respect unlike his original one.
He had been born on a random world as the most background of background characters. It was in a perfectly normal earth, no supernatural powers. Some sort of slice-of-life anime he was born on the wrong side of earth to get involved with.
One day, he'd received a new App on his phone out of nowhere. The Logo was of a Pink Book with a heart on the front. Thinking it was a virus, he'd tried to get rid of it. When that hadn't worked though, he'd tapped on the app to see what it was at least.
The app gave him an offer when he opened it. The chance to become a Contractor, to have his wildest dreams fulfilled and to be able to claim anyone he wanted. In return he'd assist the Company in everything. For pay, of course.
He'd been given a few months to play around with the app, and then he'd been given the offer. Help out with the invasion of a world that matters, unlike his own. A random guy from a world that was just one of a billion billions, to a ruler of part of a world there were only five of in existence.
Maybe he could go even higher, he'd heard from his Patron that there'd be an event once they figured out if this world's ability to create other worlds worked as predicted. There would be a massive PVP world war tournament to decide a single Contractor to rule over all of this world's humanity.
That throne was the highest one could get before becoming a Patron themselves, in fact he could leverage his position as sole ruler of the world to get a promotion, surely?
Dreaming of days to come, the man who called himself Siegfried stood up out of his throne.
A nobody like him, becoming ruler of an important world and then a Patron of others. He'd have enough power to finally fill the void that's been inside him since he learned how small he really was.
There was a knock at the door and he called for them to enter. His first purchased slave walked in primly.
Artoria Pendragon, Saber from Fate/Stay Night. What boy of his youth hadn't loved the idea of having her all to themselves.
…Probably all the Rin fans. He'd tried out a copy of Rin but she just wasn't as good.
His slave was dressed in a gothic maid dress like her Alter's and it contrasted her blond hair quite nicely.
Oh what he'll do tonight with her… A dark smile formed on his face.
"Master." His slave spoke "There has been an update on the matter of the runaway."
His face melted into a frown.
"Him? Has someone finally collected the bounty?"
"The information bounty." She nodded "It seems someone caught his trail. Your Patron has already sent people to trace the trail. They'll find him soon."
"Good." The man nodded. The Runaway was someone who'd somehow managed to escape his control. He'd been too busy, his power split too many ways. That was the only way it could have happened.
His Patron had been angry but it was just one guy, sure, he had become a Renegade but there was nothing he could do. His world was already claimed and there was absolutely no way anyone could overcome the forces protecting this world now.
I've been planning this for a while. A one year anniversary special where we go over what the people Joshua has interacted with are doing now. "Now" as around last chapter for reference. Though that's a bit strange to say as of writing this special I haven't yet written the chapter you know as "Last chapter."
I wrote this on the twenty-first.
Edit (Added on the day of release): I also intend to write a proper chapter later as it's the right day for it.
The hint of a power offer to the young artist was bad. I hope it isn't the Company. I did like the glimpses into the worlds he visited, and it does show how he messed up in the FF one, but after what happened to him there, it is easy to see why he didn't warn them about why he's doing this.
The hint of a power offer to the young artist was bad. I hope it isn't the Company. I did like the glimpses into the worlds he visited, and it does show how he messed up in the FF one, but after what happened to him there, it is easy to see why he didn't warn them about why he's doing this.
I mean, final fantasy basically went per canon. There was no real mess up there, he just failed to prevent things from going wrong. His main mistake was leaving without telling anyone.
Yeah, that's what I meant. His entire reason for being now is to fight the Company, and while he gained personal power there, he got no allies aware of the threat, and left them helpless, knowledge wise, if a Jumper or Company stooge visits.
It took Irida a few moments to decide on something to say after that revelation. After finally shifting through a few shades of confusion though, she spoke up.
"Where? How? Why? No- what? I need more context than that, Almighty Sinnoh- rather the being you call Palkia… he has a creator? Where is that society that you mentioned before? Are they evolved from the Celestica people?"
…Joshua hesitated. There were a few ways he could explain this. Up to this point he'd just been describing it as "Another people's legends" but…
The reason he was doing that was he hadn't wanted to admit to his world travelling. If he admitted it, then it wasn't something he could use anymore.
What exactly did he mean by that though? That he wouldn't be able to flee through a rip? That he wouldn't be able to use powers from other worlds? Neither was true of course.
…Maybe he just didn't want to be doubted. He didn't want to say something true and important that would be disbelieved.
That said, the other Jumper was already messing things up. Would there really be an issue with admitting the truth?
He looked to the side "In a manner of speaking I guess. I'm from the future. I'm just repeating what the scholars of the day think of it, and what has been discovered by the greatest Pokemon trainers of the era."
Irida was silent and Joshua waved around. He wasn't telling the technical truth but it got the idea across at least… Maybe he should try telling the actual truth at some point instead of inventing more stories.
"This place we are in right now will become a burgeoning city in something like three hundred years. It will be called Eterna City."
He nodded to the east where the rising points of the mountain range that ran along the region's side could be seen.
"In that direction, a statue will be created. Its features are likely based somehow on the clan's belief. It shows a single legendary Pokemon with design elements taken from both of them."
Joshua closed his eyes "And in those years, this region will change its name. Hisui will become Sinnoh."
…
"Prove it." Irida finally said "You… what you've said… I can't believe it. It sounds like too fantastical a story. Besides, Time Travel? Didn't you say that was… what was his name again? The Diamond Clan's Almighty One's Power?"
Joshua nodded and looked up "That it is, but for a matter of proof…"
He thought for a moment. How could he prove it? His knowledge of the future?
He first pulled out a Pokeball, Alakazam's, and showed it to her.
"This is how the balls containing Pokemon look in the future. They're made via automated means, no expert craftsman needed."
But it wasn't quite enough for Irida.
"Something more." She asked "Something that is completely undeniable? With just that Ball I could think it was custom work."
Joshua hesitated then nodded. He had an idea but it was a risk. It would make it dangerous to escape if everything went wrong. Even so…
He drew out his sparkblade and very carefully poked the smallest hole through the surface of the world. The colours that didn't belong flowed in and Irida's eyes went wide before she quickly shook her head and turned away, closing her eyes tightly.
Joshua waved his knife through the air to close the tear but wondered how much attention he'd drawn by doing that. Hopefully it wouldn't make Arceus madder at him.
"Do you believe me now?" Joshua asked.
Irida still kept her eyes closed but she nodded "I saw it, that world beyond… that's where the one called the Almighty Sinnoh lives, isn't it? The real one I mean, not his children?"
Well from a certain point of view…
"Yes." Joshua gave an answer he wasn't entirely sure of. Arceus surely inhabited it but if he lived it? Joshua believed that those powerful entities would probably still chose to "Live" in a world rather than outside of them. More interesting, maybe?
Irida shook her head, as if trying to clear images of the void from her. Joshua felt that she would be okay, but that she needed time to rest after having her world shaken like that. She didn't stop though.
"Why did you come back, something to do with the woman taking over Jubilife village?"
"It was an accident." Joshua admitted, glancing to the side "I didn't mean to come here. I was trying to return to a time where I'd be able to help my friends. I slipped though and a storm took me here."
Irida nodded slightly but asked "Then why are you helping?"
Hmm. Why was he helping? It was easy enough to find an answer he liked.
"Because what that other invader is doing sickens me." Joshua titled his head to the side "There are some lines one shouldn't cross if you still want to be seen as a good person. Mass mind control is one of those lines."
It was the same story as it always was.
"Additionally," Joshua continued, "I decided to get involved. I won't leave a job half-done, not again."
Irida nodded, smiling "Thank you again then."
In the morning, the two set off again northward. The temperature continued to drop and on the second evening since setting out from the region of Eterna Forest they saw snow falling.
"It's cold." Joshua muttered, "I'm dressed warmer than you are too, how aren't you shivering?"
Irida was keeping a look out over the nighttime environment. She was keeping the fire behind her to keep her night vision.
"I'm just kind of used to it." She admitted "Most of my tribe is. We and the Diamond Clan can withstand a great heat too so it's not too strange that we can resist the cold, right?"
…Wrong, you'd say. That was strange, even for the Pokemon world.
Briefly, Joshua wondered how it worked before putting the thought out of his mind. It didn't matter. She could survive the cold, so be it.
It took two more days from there to reach the Pearl Clan settlement. As they walked through the place that Irida called the Alabaster Icelands, Joshua kept getting caught in large drifts of snow.
His travelling clothes he'd got in Psychonauts were really designed for walking in slightly more temperate climates so each night he sat shivering by the fire with Ninetales' wrapped around him as a living hot water bottle.
The fire type wasn't enjoying the weather much but at least he had more to do about it, generating excess heat that normally resulted in the campsite being surrounded by a circle of melted snow come morning.
When they reached the Pearl Clan's huts, Irida called out.
"I'm back everyone!"
Some people exited huts and called out to her, she greeted each by name and told them to get word around town, there would be a meeting tonight.
For now though, she invited Joshua to her hut so they could rest after the long journey.
The inside of the hut was cold, but not wet. It seems they were built in a way that allowed them to keep it dry even if a fire hadn't been lit inside for a while.
Joshua got the fire started and then collapsed onto the floor to rest in the spreading warmth. Irida pulled up a chair to join him for a time but later in the day she left to make sure all of the adults at the camp knew that a meeting was being held.
In the evening, Joshua left the hut to meet up with the rest of the village in the center where a large bonfire had been lit to keep them all warm on the now early spring night.
"I have a lot of news." Irida said "But before getting to it, I must first ask- Is there any news from up here other than what I'd heard during the day?"
A man who decided to wear no shirt on this chilly night raised his hand.
"I do Leader, one of the Merchants made their way into the Temple without permission."
Irida scowled "That… I'm going to be too busy in the morning to hunt for him."
She turned to Joshua "Can you speak to me in the morning about that?"
Seeing Joshua's nod, she went on. She told the clan what had happened in Jubilife village. At first the Pearl clan were angered that Jubilife village would attempt to control their leader but she managed to calm them.
"There is one we can blame for this!" She called out "One young woman is behind this, of taking control of the village and trying to take control of myself!"
When it came to the question of "What could they do?" Irida only had one idea.
"We'll drive them out, we'll work with the Diamond clan and drive out the influence upon them. We'll take her down! She's an outsider and the people of Jubilife have no training in working with Pokemon. Together with the creatures of the land and the noble Pokemon, this region will be safe!"
A cheer went up and she raised her hand and began to call out.
"Wardens, are you here?"
The man from earlier stood straight as did a child in the kind of hat Texas was famous for and… a train conductor?
Irida wasn't focused on the man with ripped futuristic clothes though, she looked for more.
"Where are Calaba and Palina?"
A girl stood up wearing a lot of clothes for one of the people of the Pearl Clan. Well, it seemed she wasn't a member.
"They're both away, tending to their respective charges."
Irida nodded to the girl "Very well Sabi, in the morning I want you to return to the Diamond Clan to fill them in on our plan. Can we trust you to act as a messenger?"
She nodded, but tilted her head to the side "I'd be glad too, the cold here is starting to get to me."
A chuckle ran through the group.
The meeting continued after that but people started drifting away. Joshua returned to Irida's tent and set up some guest bedding that she'd pointed out earlier in the day when he'd been recovering.
In the morning, Irida requested that he go to the Temple to try and find the Merchant. First to get him out of there as he wasn't allowed to be there and second to ask him if he'd be able to rally the rest of the Merchants to help the clans deal with the current threat.
Joshua agreed readily and headed out into the snow once she gave him permission to enter the temple.
Snowpoint temple hmm? Well, it was just north of the city in the games but he didn't know where the clan base was relative to the city. It was believable it would be around the same place though, right? Only… while there was a body of water near the Pearl Clan settlement, there wasn't any sea access like Snowpoint city had.
Well, as long as he went north he should be able to find the temple, right?
There was a problem with that though as he found out around two pm in the afternoon. There were massive, steep cliffs to the north of the settlement.
Joshua smiled slightly, recalling when he'd played generation four for the first time as a child. You'd needed rock climb to get up the walls. Pity none of his Pokemon knew it…
Joshua hit his head slightly. He was an idiot.
He sent out Dragonair and rode the pokemon up the cliff wall and then returned her to keep her safe from all the cold and ice types.
From the position atop the cliff, he looked out over the icefields in awe. The games certainly weren't like this.
Shaking his head, he turned east and saw the Snowpoint temple. Looking the other way was a lake. Probably "The" lake of this area.
…That said, it was strange that the temple's entrance was facing the lake. It wasn't like that in the "Present." after all. And neither would likely be moving over the next three hundred years.
With that mystery put aside though, Joshua headed up to the front of the temple.
Out front of the temple were a large collection of light footprints, some were all-but filled with last night's snow.
That said, Joshua was able to find a campsite that probably belonged to the Merchant. There was nothing valuable left here though, probably because Pokemon (or the locals) might steal it.
Well then, the temple awaited.
As Joshua stepped up to it, a wave of nostalgia hit him again. More memories of his first Pokemon journey on an old DS.
Of course, real life was very different to how it had been on the screen. But the mental link was there all the same.
Stepping up to the doors, Joshua pushed against them. They swung slowly on great hinges and let a blast of freezing air into the still-chilly temple. Once Joshua was inside, he closed the great doors again to stop Pokemon (or the chill air) from just entering without asking.
Unlike the snowpoint temple that was now so bright in his memories, this temple went up instead of going down. He climbed up a set of stairs and explored the old temple until he came across a man feeling a wall and muttering to himself.
The wall was decorated with ancient text, Unown characters and engraved images of a time long past.
That was the Merchant then? He was wearing a cap and blond hair fell in his face to cover one eye. On his back was a large pack full of all kinds of things.
Wasn't this… he'd seen videos of it online. The "New hardest battle in Pokemon." The Legends: Arceus Superboss that made you fight a full team of six inspired by Cynthia's then Giratina twice.
…Maybe? He looked similar and his face echoed Cogita who echoed Cynthia. It was hard to tell though, it wasn't like there was a cartoony artstyle or something like that.
"Hey." Joshua called to him. The man stood up with a start, looking at Joshua first with surprise and then confusion.
Stopping a short distance away from him, Joshua raised an arm to wave at the ruins.
"You know you're not meant to be here without permission, right?"
The merchant chuckled though.
"Wouldn't that mean you're trespassing too though?"
Joshua shrugged "I was given permission purely to pull you out. Apparently they got quite annoyed by your trespassing."
The man nodded and shrugged "Well… what happened, happened."
He stuck out his hand "Hello though, I'm afraid we haven't met before. My name is Volo, of the Ginkgo Guild."
"Joshua." Joshua replied "Wandering adventurer, currently doing odd jobs for the clans while some stuff is going on down at Jubilife village."
"Oh, what's going on in Jubilife?" Volo asked.
Joshua looked to the side, "I'll tell you while we move. It's a long story though."
Volo agreed with a shrug and the two of them traced their steps out.
"If I may," Joshua noted before starting his story "There's something I'd like to ask."
"Go ahead." Volo shrugged.
"Why did you even come here? What interest could a merchant have in ruins?"
Volo hummed "I've always had an interest in ruins, though in the past few days I've mostly been looking into the Pokemon that come from legends."
"Then…" Joshua looked around as they passed a statue of the golems "The Regis then? The legendary Golems?"
Volo shook his head though "I am curious about them of course, but my direct interest is in a different myth. By any chance, have you heard of 'The Pokemon that Lives on the Reverse side of our world'?"
Joshua paused for a moment and nodded. It was the very Pokemon he had thought of earlier in the videos of Volo's boss fight.
"Giratina, right?"
Volo actually looked surprised at that "Yes actually, I thought they were more unknown though. The clans don't know anything about them."
"I learn a lot in my travels." Joshua admitted "So you're looking for them?"
"Indeed, I've heard the most interesting myths about them and I want to meet them in person to see if they're true."
Joshua nodded. Well, it seemed that Volo hadn't caught Giratina yet in this world, if that was what he did in canon.
Joshua tapped his head, wishing he remembered more of the story from Legends Arceus. It had been years ago now since he saw it though so there wasn't really anything to remember.
…Damn it.
Regardless, the two of them exited out into the waning sunlight. Next thing to do would be to head back to the camps. Besides, Joshua had a story to tell.
No enemy segments this time. You've already got the anniversary sidestory and a really long chapter. I don't think anyone will be disappointed by this though. Keep in mind though that their plans are still continuing even if not on-screen. They luckily rolled poorly today though, so the clans have a good chance.
...More tragic was that Joshua didn't find any more pieces of Old Verse this part, I had intended one to show up that Volo had but the chapter was already really long and I didn't want to add it at that point
"Should we return tonight?" Volo asked as he saw how low in the sky the sun was sitting. "We could always spend the night at my camp and head back in the morning?"
Joshua looked over the ridge and shook his head.
"No, this shouldn't be a problem."
Volo raised an eyebrow at that "You think we can find a way down before the sun sets, I don't want to be rock climbing in the dark."
"Not a problem." Joshua shrugged as he sent out Dragonair.
Before Dragonair had taken on this magical form during final fantasy, it would have been a struggle for her to carry two riders, now though she could easily take them both down the cliff.
Volo raised an eyebrow.
"I've never seen a Pokemon like that before?"
"She's not native to this region." Joshua remarked as Dragonair let him mount "Come on."
Volo shrugged and joined him after grabbing his supplies from the camp. Dragonair took off and began slowly gliding through the air towards the ground.
As they descended, Joshua filled him in.
"Someone took over Jubilife village." He began "I don't fully understand who but I was told they used special drugs to control the people in charge."
"...What?" Volo blinked. It was something out of left field, even for him.
Joshua shook his head "I don't really get it either, but the clan leaders managed to figure it out early enough that they managed to escape. We're preparing for a battle against them, gathering everyone able to fight."
"..." The merchant was lost for words but he just offered a nod. After a moment he opened his mouth again "How could… this be allowed?"
The natural question in response was "Who could stop it?" But there was a possible answer to that, being the Legendary Pokemon. So, why had Arceus done nothing?
Joshua shrugged and Volo looked angry "They should… this is why…"
There was no easy way to predict what was going through the young man's head as they landed at the bottom of the cliff.
After returning Dragonair to her Pokeball (Which Volo had commented on the design of) the two of them set off towards the Pearl Clan settlement.
Volo finally broke his silence, though it sounded like he was quoting something.
"'There is fair use of power, a level at which you do more good than harm.'"
Joshua looked over "What's that from?"
"A fragment of the Old Verses I found once." Volo noted before continuing "'I wield power beyond ordinary people, but does that give me the authority to disrupt their lives? I shouldn't, but I can. To do so would be Tyranny of force, but is that naturally bad? There are people that only a Tyrant can protect. There are people only a Tyrant can defeat. So is it wrong to wield this power?'"
"Does it have an answer?" Joshua asked.
Volo shook his head "It ends on the question, so I think it's saying that the power is necessary."
Joshua hesitated, thinking about his home. Like whoever wrote the old verses, he held a great power, that which he had gathered across the worlds. Even so, he didn't want to use it to disrupt the common folk.
"They do point out that it shouldn't be though." He pointed out "That it can be used for good, but doing so is disrupting something."
The merchant shook his head "I disagree, the first line was that there was a level of power that allowed you to do more good than harm."
"A specific level." Joshua noted "I don't think it was just saying 'any amount over this level' or something like that?"
Volo thought about it for a moment "How about this, say you were all powerful and had perfect knowledge of what any of your actions would do. Would it not be the right thing to do to find the best possible outcome for the greatest number of people, even if you disrupted their lives in the process."
Joshua shrugged. There was something wrong with that logic though.
"What about your corruption in this example?" He asked "You or I, we're just people. We're fallible."
"So is Arceus." Volo noted "If he's not doing anything to stop the madness in Jubilife village."
Joshua didn't have much of a response to that, though for a moment he couldn't remember when he'd told Volo the real name of what he should know as Almighty Sinnoh.
Joshua had encountered many powerful beings over his journey. Kefka alone would have been enough to say that no human should hold god-like power. That was the case of an already mad figure though. Maybe if someone sane held it?
What separated a god and a man, assuming the man had obtained godlike power? Was there something different in their psychology?
He didn't know the answer.
Reaching the Pearl Settlement, they found the people of the clan discussing exactly what they'd need to do to win.
After teaming up with the Diamond clan, they'd need to hit the village with everything they had. The Galaxy team had been subverted and they had a lot of skilled trainers.
The ultimate goal would be to defeat the one behind it all. She'd likely be on the back lines so they'd need to send a team into the village to defeat her specifically. While they did though, they'd also need a big enough threat out in front of the town that could draw out all of her defences.
With that plan set, there was a need for a place to meet up with the full team. A safe place.
"I know a place." Volo spoke up "An old woman has a retreat-"
"Cogita?"
Volo nodded, surprised. "You've heard of her?"
Joshua explained how he'd met with her and how she'd sent him on the way to the village.
Volo nodded with a look of understanding "Ah, now I understand. You were the one she mentioned."
It turned out that he was the one who helped get Cogita her supplies. She'd sent a message to him in order to request the items that Joshua would need for his journey.
That answered a lingering question at least.
It seemed that Volo had access to an information network of sorts. He was able to call a Starly to carry a message to other merchants. There were apparently members of the Merchant guild all over the region so he could get messages sent just about anywhere.
"There's only one problem." Volo explained "Our guildmaster was staying in Jubilife village and has quite possibly been turned."
In other words, there was no way to know if the guildmaster had subverted the other members of the guild yet. They had to hope he hadn't though.
The bird pokemon would arrive tomorrow afternoon so until then they'd rest. When it arrived, they'd be able to tell the Diamond clan exactly where they were meeting.
As the moon rose over the cold world, Joshua watched it. The heat from the settlement's bonfire burned late into the night so he wasn't that cold.
What was Arceus' game here? Volo had asked earlier and the question was still sticking. Calling Joshua out for endangering a world and then allowing a world to be torn apart by another traveller?
So then, was Arceus a hypocrite, or was there more at play here then Joshua could see. There had been that battle going on when Joshua had arrived after all. Maybe Arceus wanted to help, but was being distracted.
That was the only way he could see it really. In Joshua's mind, Arceus wasn't evil. It just wasn't. He assumed it could act malicious by choice, but that didn't mean its inherent nature was evil.
…Was this what Arceus had seen in him when he'd refused to give up travelling during their meeting. Had he seen Joshua as this kind of a monster, a monster that would rip apart a world for…
Well, he didn't know what the madwoman behind this planned to do really. He didn't know her motives.
Even so, she was in the wrong. And Joshua would stop her.
"Late night, huh?" Joshua looked back at the voice and saw Volo.
Volo wandered over and sat beside Joshua as the latter nodded "Yeah, I wanted to get my thoughts in order."
"About?"
"Almighty Sinnoh, mostly."
Volo nodded knowingly "Yes, why would he be allowing this to happen, right?"
"Sure, but I don't think he is doing this willingly."
Volo raised an eyebrow at that "Well, what could stop him, he did create everything."
Joshua looked out across the field of stars above.
Could he tell Volo? Should he tell Volo?
He'd remembered a tiny bit more of the lore since he'd been travelling. He remembered memes on the internet about how telling it was that Volo taught the main character how to attack from behind.
He was the villain of Legends: Arceus. At least, he normally was.
How strange it was, that the villain was sitting next to him and Joshua didn't see him as the greatest threat.
"Joshua?" Volo prodded "A coin for your thoughts?"
"What's going on isn't Arceus' fault." Joshua murmured "I just know, okay?"
"But how can you be sure? Have you heard of something that can resist him?"
"Yes." Arceus himself had complained about other beings, he wasn't the strongest thing there was even though he was a creator god.
Volo looked interested but Joshua shook his head "It doesn't matter." He noted.
"You're switching between his names." Volo pointed out after a pause "Did Cogita tell you about Arceus?"
Joshua leaned down "No, I'm a traveller, and I encountered his name before. Along with Dialga, Palkia and Giratina."
Volo nodded thoughtfully and Joshua asked him a question.
"How do you know Cogita. A relative maybe?"
"We are related." Volo agreed "But not too closely. I met her as a child."
"So what? A great aunt or…?"
Volo scratched his head "I don't know actually, I know that she is much older than she looks though, she looks the same as she does now when I first met her… Probably fifteen years ago or so."
Wow, then she's ageing quite gracefully indeed.
The two chatted for a while longer before heading off to bed.
When the sun rose, everyone who was going to join the battle began preparing supplies. Massive backpacks full of food and other supplies were prepared and even Joshua had to pull one onto his back.
They set off after lunch. While they walked, Volo scanned the skies for the messenger bird he'd called for the previous evening.
It arrived after a while and Volo stopped to take a letter from it.
He read while they all walked, he was near the back so he wouldn't slip and fall in any snow as it was being pressed down by those walking ahead of him.
Scowling, he pocketed the letter and pulled out another piece of paper. The message they'd prepared last night. He added an extra note to the end and attached it to the Starly's leg.
"Take this to the Diamond Clan Settlement." he instructed the bird. It tweeted and flew off into the sky. As it left, something hit Joshua's shoulder.
Bird droppings.
Joshua scowled and used some snow to clean up the marks before they dried. Volo caught sight of it and laughed though.
"Wow, that was a rude Starly."
Joshua shrugged "A lot of wild pokemon are like that around me. But… that Starly is trained isn't it?"
Volo gave his hand a wave in a "Sort-of" gesture then he explained "They are trained, but we don't keep them in balls."
Joshua nodded and they walked further in silence. Then Joshua spoke again.
"What was in that letter, you didn't look happy."
"The guildmaster wants me to return to Jubilife village, given what you told me, there would only be one real reason."
An attempt to brainwash Volo.
Joshua nodded but continued.
"What do you actually think of the guildmaster?"
"He's a good enough guy normally." Volo remarked "His name is Ginter, he taught me everything I know when it comes to being a merchant."
There was a strange tone to his voice. Maybe he was worried about his old teacher?
Travelling to the edge of the icefields took three days and as they approached the passage that led into the area east of Hisui's mountainous spine, Joshua found some more pottery.
It was another Old Verse, Volo and Irida came over to give it a look over Joshua's shoulder.
"There are no Pokemon in this world that have a domain of good and evil, nor are there pokemon who have a domain over responsibilities.
There are Pokemon that are Good and Pokemon that are Evil. There are Men that are Good and Men that are Evil.
How does one determine if one's responsibility is right? Be it a responsibility forced upon you or one you take for yourself? You are not the best judge of your own actions.
If I was to provide an answer I would say it would have to be 'friends'. They are how you determine if your action is right. Become friends with the people your decisions will affect and if you then feel bad about what you have to do, then you know the morality of your actions."
Irida shook her head "I get the legendary hero was important, but I didn't know they thought about this sort of thing so much."
Volo nodded "You'd expect a hero to be entirely sure about what they were doing, without any doubts."
Joshua wasn't so sure "The ability to ask yourself 'is what I'm doing right?' is valuable. If you're not sure then you're not careful. In my mind, a hero should ask themselves these sorts of questions."
"But what if asking these things stops them from helping people?" Volo asked "Something like 'should I help these people or will they go on to do more harm?'"
Irida looked to the side "What sort of people would that be about?"
"Bandits maybe?" Volo could only offer a shrug.
"Even bandits deserve a second thought, they are people too after all."
At Joshua's words, Volo offered a hesitant nod. He wasn't convinced but he was fine leaving it off there.
They continued talking about other things as they headed south-east, out of the cold north and into the calmer south. It took around three days to travel through the rocky area though but they had reached the area of the region where Cogita's house was. The Diamond Clan should have received the message so it was almost time to have the big reunion.
The time for them all to save the region was at hand!
It had taken her blood, sweat and tears but the contractor had managed to bring all of the Galaxy team under her control.
Now then she could organise her plans properly. As a month had passed, she'd needed to first pay off her loan.
The Interest built up at a rate of roughly 14% per month, as she'd taken out fifteen credits, now she had eighteen to pay back.
She'd instructed the guy in charge of the merchants to call Volo to the village. She didn't really understand why he hadn't already been here (As he was here when the main character showed up in the game) but now enough was enough.
While waiting for him to come, she organised a hunt. The Galaxy Team went out into the Obsidian Fieldlands en masse with orders to catch every Pokemon they could. When they returned, she got right to selling them off.
Unfortunately, because of how common Pokemon were on the grand scale and the fact that few people were buying them from the Company (as they'd rather go to one of the Llama's worlds themselves to find their own) most of the common pokemon her hunters could catch weren't worth very much.
Oh it was enough to pay off the debt at least. As she now didn't have that to worry about, she shifted to her other job. Her main job, as it were.
She had to sabotage Arceus' defence of this world, distracting him from her Patron and letting the Patron get in a good hit against him so they could steal this world away from him entirely.
For that, she needed to follow the plot to a certain point.
It was time to begin gathering the plates.
Legitimately I didn't think it would take this long for the contractor to take full control of the village. They were getting bad roll after bad roll. Luckily that means our team is almost ready to face off against her.
In case it isn't obvious yet, Volo hasn't actually begun his plan yet in this version of the world. To give a recap to those who haven't played LA, He wants to overcome Arceus in order to recreate the world (You know, as all the best villains do) to do this he recruits Giratina and challenges the creator pokemon. Doing this distorts space and time, sending the noble pokemon mad and pulling the main character from the future. In this world, his plan's start was delayed. Just a random change without a clear origin.
As they walked the final few kilometres, Volo pointed between some of the hills and called out.
"Not far now, I've seen a lot of this sort of terrain before."
Joshua nodded, he was less sure, but the terrain looks about right.
That said, as they all walked on there came a sudden fog. It was so thick that it was hard to see more than a few meters in front of you.
Irida called out "Everyone! Stay together, don't get lost."
With everyone in a little bubble around their leader, Volo led them on. While everyone had been distracted, he'd detached and lit a small lamp from his bag. The burning oil shone a light through the fog that could be used to navigate.
"Fog isn't that unusual out here." Volo noted when Joshua glanced at him "I was prepared for it."
With Volo in the lead, the entire group made it to that scene Joshua remembered. The small hut with a bridge out front that spanned a ravine.
There actually seemed to be a lot of people here though. Not just the Diamond clan but there were a few other groups too. A few members of the Ginkgo Guild along with all three Miss Fortunes were here.
As the Pearl Clan joined the group, they called out. In return the guests already there welcomed them. Old rivalries put on hold while the current threat was dealt with.
Well, mostly.
Cogita emerged from her house with a wry smile for Volo and Joshua "My, you two have brought me quite a few guests, haven't you?"
Joshua apologised while Volo scratched his head, glancing away.
Regardless, there was some tension in the group. Notably the Miss Fortunes. There was some enmity between them and almost everyone else present.
Joshua went over to talk to them about it and they explained. All their members had left various groups. All three had once been part of the Galaxy team while the followers had left the clans too. The latter two's dislike of the clans (and the clans' dislike of them) was causing emotions to flare hotter.
Even so, their leader Charm tried to get them under control. She wasn't too fond of the clans either but she understood the point of this gathering.
As Charm put it "Better working with them then being enslaved."
The others agreed after some time, though it seems the reason they'd left in the first place was because of a dislike of some of the rules put in place by the current clan leaders and their precursors.
They were channelling that dislike of rules into their sense of freedom and that freedom would not permit the control of someone like the person who seemed intent on taking over the region.
The teams plotted, Cogita sitting in a rocking chair outside of her hut as the sun broke through the fog. She was also playing mediator when the various factions didn't agree.
What they had here was likely the largest gathering of human strength in the region, along with their pokemon they might be able to outmatch the invader from elsewhere.
As plans were constructed though, Volo spoke up.
"I'm not sure even this will be enough." He shrugged "From what I've heard, this person- do we even know her name?"
There was a few moments pause before Adaman spoke up.
"I think she introduced herself as… Karen?"
Joshua stifled a laugh that was quite inappropriate as Volo continued.
"Yes, anyway. Karen's powers are unknown, she might possess much greater ability than she's shown. Mind control might only be one aspect after all."
"What do you suggest we do then?" Irida asked.
Volo smiled "Why, we get even more help, between myself, mistress Cogita and Joshua over there, we could very well track down one of the legendary Pokemon to beg their help."
That idea ripped through the ground, sparking excitement and worry.
"Yeah!" Someone yelled "With one of them by our side, they wouldn't stand a chance!"
"But what if they turn on us?" Another voice came.
"Almighty Sinnoh!" Another yelled "We need you."
Joshua glanced at Volo's smile. He was a little worried about all this. It looked like Cogita was disappointed too.
…Wait, didn't she have a legendary? Joshua couldn't remember well but he could swear Cogita was at least friends with one of them. The weird pink member of the forces of nature.
The crowd had made the decision for Joshua though, they agreed that they should try to contact a legendary Pokemon.
He and Volo joined Cogita as the latter drew out her maps.
"So, which Legendary Pokemon are we looking for?" Cogita asked with a slightly forced smile at Volo.
The crowd was chanting about "Almighty Sinnoh" so Volo raised his finger.
"So as to get something powerful, while not setting off a religious war between the clans, I think Giratina would be the best choice."
…Of course he did.
Joshua sighed and looked over the map "Finding him would require finding an opening to the Distortion world." His finger traced over the Cobalt Coastlands region of the map, he then tried to overlay what he knew of the map from Diamond and Pearl.
He pointed at one spot.
"Miss Cogita, is there a large lake surrounded by cliffs in this area?"
She glanced at Joshua for a moment, as if understanding his question perfectly but she looked down at the map and shook her head.
"No, can't you see on the map. It's just a mountainous area."
Volo was looking interested as Joshua continued "I've heard a story that Si- that this region actually has four lakes. Lake Verity-" he pointed at the bottom left of the map "Lake Valor-" he pointed at the right side of the map "and Lake Acuity-" he pointed at the top of the map "are the most well known ones but there is actually a secret lake north-east of Lake Valor." He now pointed back at the mountainous spot he noted before "The Sendoff Spring."
"And we can find Giratina there?" Volo asked, excitedly.
Joshua hesitated "Maybe? The walls between our world and the Distortion world are thinner there. If we can find him anywhere, that's a good place to check."
…Cogita sighed.
"Fine, yes. That is where the Sendoff spring is located." She admitted, glancing at Joshua "You are remarkably well informed for someone who never intended to come here."
Oh yes, that was what he'd told her. Joshua shrugged though.
"I learn a lot, it came up in my studies."
It was decided that Joshua and Volo would travel there along with the clan leaders to beg the legendary's aid, so after a day of rest, that's what they did.
The contractor, Karen, looked at the notes she'd been given by one of her slaves.
They'd managed to collect a decent amount of the plates already; Zap (taken by force from Noble Electrode who has been brainwashed to serve her), Fist (Given by Kamado when he was fully brainwashed), Stone (Found in the Grueling Grove when she sent a search team up there), Insect (taken by force from the now-brainwashed Noble Kleavor), Mind (Taken by force from the Noble Wyrdeer whose kind now serve as steeds for her servants).
That was 5 plates out of the 18 she needed.
Hmm… She knew where she could find a few more though, and maybe she could lay a trap for Volo if she did this right.
"Go gather my strike team." She commanded her maid "I have a new target for them."
Actually getting to the coastlands took three days of travel, but the team now had a very good supply of food.
As they walked, Volo managed to get Joshua to talk about what he knew of Giratina from his studies.
Joshua sighed.
"I'll start like this. I've told Irida this already but I'm no normal traveller. I've journeyed here across time."
"Time?" Adaman asked, shocked "The domain of Almighty Sinnoh-!"
"Not quite, well yes, but also not quite." Joshua tried to explain and sighed "I'll get to it in the story of Giratina, but my knowledge of the future is where much of my information comes from. Okay?"
It took a bit of convincing for Adaman but strangely Volo just accepted it.
After taking a breath, Joshua began.
"In something like three hundred years, give or take, a team will emerge calling itself team galactic. Unlike the Galaxy team though, they are pure evil, with the intention of reshaping the entire world to their wishes."
His three companions were each watching with curious faces.
"To that end, they plan to create something called the red chain from the Lake Guardians. It possesses the power to control the great pokemon that created the world."
"Almighty Sinnoh?" Adaman asked and Joshua hesitated again "The thing is, both of your clans are actually talking about two different pokemon."
He gave the explanation he'd once given Irida about Dialga and Palkia.
"They also had a third sibling-"
"Giratina." Volo nodded.
Irida glanced over towards the tallest peak in the region "So, the red chain was made to control the three of them?"
"Yes, the leader of team Galactic took the chain to bind Dialga and Palkia so he could force them to make the new world he desired. He was stopped though as Giratina arrived to pull him into the distortion world. His plans were stopped and team galactic fell apart without his leadership."
"So what is Giratina's divine domain?" Adaman asked.
Joshua shrugged "It's unclear in the research I read. Antimatter was raised as one of the most likely possibilities but something about that doesn't work."
Volo blinked "What is Antimatter?"
Joshua pauses a moment to think of how to phrase it to people with a much older grasp of the world.
"It's an inverse form of matter, it looks and acts identically to its counterpart but if matter and antimatter come into contact, it creates a massive explosion, enough to level cities or more."
All three of them shivered at that but Joshua glanced to the side "That doesn't really make sense though, to me at least. Things from our world and the distortion world can interact without destroying each other."
Volo hummed "Maybe whatever the gate is between our world and the distortion world inverts what passes through? Turning matter into antimatter or the reverse to make it safe?"
"I don't know." Joshua admitted "But I feel that something more must be off. The distortion world's reality doesn't follow the same rules as ours. Gravity works differently and that sort of thing."
After a moment Joshua threw out some possibilities "Mirrors maybe? Reflections? Gravity? Dimensions other than space or time?"
He didn't say it aloud but there was also the implication in one episode of the anime that the distortion world was where things went after death, combined with Giratina's ghost typing raised the possibility that Giratina was lord of the Dead. Not of Death, that was Yveltal, but of 'The Dead' Like the difference between Hades and Thanatos in Greek myths.
From the entryway to the Cobalt Coastlands it was another two days' travel to reach the spring, though one of those days was mostly spent finding a way up the cliffs to reach the spring itself.
Reaching the spring though, everyone allowed themselves to enjoy the sight. Crystal clear water, not disturbed by a single Pokemon. And there was a cave opening on the north side atop a small patch of dirt that led into the cliffs. There were pillars around it.
"Those look like the pillars up on the mountain." Volo identified "I think that means we're in the right place."
He was very excited but now was the time to be careful. The team descended down to the cave entrance and Joshua gave them the safety instructions.
"Turnback cave is a maze and I'm fairly sure it's supernatural in nature. It will try to mislead us, make us lose our way. In the future it's 'safe' in some manner, if you get lost, you'll arrive back at the entrance. I don't know if that's true now though. And judging by what I know of Giratina's personality, it might be lethal to get lost."
Everyone nodded and Joshua looked ahead "Stay together, no matter what. No. Matter. What. Understand?"
He got another set of nods and they stepped into the cave.
In the center of the room they entered into was a raised platform, on its walls was some writing that Volo immediately ran off to read.
"Stop!" Irida called "Did you not just hear-"
Volo ignored her and read off the wall.
"It looks like something written by the author of the Old Verses!" He called then continued.
"'You will find the opening past three pillars.
Find your way to the sleeping lord
If you fail to before 30 is surpassed you will never leave.'"
Adaman and Irida shivered but Joshua joined Volo at the wall and was shortly followed by the others.
Joshua brushed his hand against the writing and nodded.
"In some ways, it might be fair to say we are already within the Distortion world. Quickly now though. I know in the future that 30 means rooms, but it might mean minutes now."
The others moved quickly,
They fought a few pokemon that made their home inside the distorted cave. Some looked different to the Pokemon outside, slightly different colouration. Not quite shiny but…
Ah, these were Pokemon that could never leave. That warning was correct.
Nevertheless all the Pokemon wanted a piece of the explorers and they still had to hurry.
After a few minutes of running, they found their way to the first pillar room. They all ran over to look at what was written on it.
1
7
Once there were three, the children of Almighty Sinnoh.
The story continued as they reached the next pillar room, though it took a bit longer to reach this one.
2
18
The Renegade wished for authority and violence, it lashed out against the others.
It worried Joshua just how long it took to reach the last room but they made it before 30 was reached.
3
28
Exiled and sealed away into the distortion world, the Renegade now sleeps.
Joshua looked at the surrounding paths. Judging by what he knew from the future games… whichever they entered now would lead them to the innermost depths.
"Is everyone ready?" He asked quietly, "Depending on chance, we might see Giratina waiting for us just through any of those doors."
Volo nodded and the others steeled themselves.
Then everyone walked through one of the doors.
They ended up on the "North side" of what Joshua knew as the innermost chamber of the Turnback cave.
There was a massive pillar in the center of the room. It obscured the space where Giratina would be if he was here.
Joshua mimed for the others to be quiet and together they moved anticlockwise around the room to check the other side of the pillar.
It was empty. The Renegade wasn't here right now. Granted, that now meant they needed to find a way from this room to the distortion world.
From a certain point of view, they were standing right above the distortion world. This was as close as it was physically possible to get without crossing over.
There were some things in the room that stood out to Joshua though. In Diamond and Pearl there had been a wall behind Giratina that you could read. Here though there was only a strangely warped and curved mirror. On the back wall of the room, there was also a wall of text that stretched across the entire length of the wall in massive letters… but none of them could read it. Not even Volo. The letters were… wrong somehow.
As they all searched around though, they also found a table containing some kind of offerings.
A ripped piece of cloth, a bone and a bag of fine glittering dust.
It was Volo that figured out the trick. He had returned to the center platform. The mirror in front of him and the strange letters behind him.
"Ah." he said quietly "The mirror… I see."
Joshua joined him and saw what he meant. When standing before the mirror, it reflected the back wall and the distortions in the mirror made the text legible.
"'This is a holy place
That where life sparkles is in the world above
That where life has faded is in the world below
A place where two worlds overlap is here, the entrance to the underworld sealed by stone.'"
Volo looked thoughtful and Joshua was in a way justified. If Giratina was the lord of the distortion world then this message implied he was indeed the lord of the underworld.
The only question then was how to summon Giratina.
Volo clapped his hands suddenly, startling everyone. He bowed, his hands forming a praying motion as he spoke to the mirror.
"I ask you, as one of the thousand born and thousand dead- open up the path below so that I may look upon you- oh, fallen deity."
The prayer was met with silence, and Joshua thought about the words Volo had used. Thousand born and thousand dead, along with this place as an "Underworld sealed by stone."
…Wasn't there a Japanese myth about that? The entryway to Yomi…?
"Where did that come from Volo?" Irida asked and Volo remained silent, looking into the mirror. When nothing seemed to happen, he murmured something about a prayer he'd read about in one of the ruins he'd explored.
He made the prayer twice more, when he tried it a fourth time though, there was a rumble. The shake of an earthquake.
Irida screamed about a cave-in but that wasn't what was happening.
The mirror in front of Volo warped further. Colours twisting. All becoming black or purple. And then there was a ripping sound. Shadow burst out as a gate opened in the mirror.
A gate to the abyss below. The underworld.
Cogita and the rest of the clans had been living fairly peacefully. They had set up a large collection of tents across the bridge from her house.
Briefly, Cogita wondered if this was the start of a new town. That would be nice in a way. She knew what would eventually come to this land and she was looking forward to it in a way.
At least if it meant she could keep doing her job.
She was sitting on her rocking chair when it started.
People across the bridge started yelling and pointing. Atop a nearby cliff was a group of people in the uniform of the Galaxy team riding Wyrdeer. Each of them had a blank expression.
…Damn. It had come to this.
Cogita shot to her feet and yelled.
"Flee!" She screamed "Run for your life!"
There was no time for neatness. It was do or die.
Cogita rushed into her own home, quickly diving for the cupboard where she kept her cooking equipment.
She had so much planned, she had known that one day a hero from the future would arrive and collect the plates. Between this Karen and Joshua, things hadn't gone as expected.
She had intended to keep hold of this for longer.
Reaching into her collection of cutting boards she pulled the Pixie plate out and dropped it into her pocket. She had been hoping to reveal it as a bit of a joke, claiming to have not known what it really was. It would be a trial of character, she'd only reveal the plate if she judged the hero worthy.
Given the circumstance though, she knew Karen was certainly not worthy, so she couldn't allow this plate to fall into her hands.
"Enamorus!" She called to her partner with which she'd travelled so far. The Legendary Pokemon was with her in moments.
Cogita looked back at the town of tents as it was overrun by the girl's slaves. She then forcefully turned away and grabbed on to Enamorus."Sorry old friend, can you carry me?"
Enamorus let out a cry and together they flew off east. She'd place her bets on Joshua. That was the only choice Cogita had.
We're beginning the endgame. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I certainly enjoyed writing it. I must say Turnback cave in Legends Arceus wasn't that interesting so I imported the Gen 4 version quite happily. The sacrifices left on an altar were the reward items you can get for clearing the turnback cave, which one you get depends on how fast you clear it.
And then there is Cogita. In my mind, she knows far, FAR more than she lets on.
