I cast summon update (the ritual is just starting another deep dive).
"C̸E̷A̵S̸E̸.̶ ̵D̶O̸ ̸N̵O̷T̸ ̴C̵O̴M̸E̷ ̶C̸L̶O̷S̶E̵R̷ ̴H̵U̶M̶A̵N̴.̵"
You barely duck out of the way of a blast of freezing wind, the attack hitting the scaffolding of the apartment. The sounds of creaking and breaking wood, of concrete and rebar straining to hold together, tells you that another attack like that and this place could collapse. You look back into the room to see what's going on.
In the center is a levitating Espurr, expression blank as they hold Roland in a telekinetic grip. Injuries pockmark their body, with a really nasty one on their neck. In front of the Pokemon is a slowly disappearing sigil, which looks like a six-pointed star with a hexagon in the middle with some ice and snow around it. So that's where the attack came from. Do Espurr learn Ice-moves? Nevermind that—you need to focus.
Has Trait "Phantasmal Potential": Has access to both movesets of both Male and Female Meowstic once it evolves. Has access to moves the Espurr line should have no business learning. Has access to a singular ranged Advanced Move from every type. These moves cannot upgrade. These moves cannot be used for custom move creation.
Our Espurr, now known as Renne, having a normal one.
This little magic circle she uses for her "Phantasmal" Ice move seems to be related to, but not the same as, Terastilization, and probably the fruit of the experiments done on her.
I guess I might as well go into detail on this now rather than later, even though there'll probably be a good opportunity for plenty more details as we dive into Renne's story. In the Trails franchise, there's quite a number of characters with roots in unethical human experimentation, usually an attempt to create someone with superhuman abilities. The villain of Trails in the Sky, Georg Weissman, had a pet project of "upgrading" people through mental manipulation and hidden techniques he stole from the Septian Church, your standard supervillain "I'm going to make superior humans (who are also my loyal agents and assassins)" bit.
He's just a dilettante, however, compared to the D∴G Cult (the three dots are logic notation for "therefore", but you just pronounce it DG), an organization so utterly vile even the supervillain organization that hired
Weissman went out of its way to help the continent's governments wipe them out in the backstory, with only the results of their experimentation and fallout of their political influence around to affect the current plot. I won't go into too much detail on their actions or beliefs for now (we'll see how much bleed we get from the Rime City/Crossbell plot that will be dealing more directly with their equivalent's remnants, and describing half the shit they got up to would be a SV TOS violation), but the important plot point here was the use of wildly unethical experimentation to create people with superhuman capabilities - with both of the most prominent examples being girls in their young teens (as of S.1204) , including our cat's namesake, Renne, who round up with superhuman intelligence, speed, strength, and the ability to link mentally with super technology like giant robots, in addition to every mental disorder known to man due to absolutely horrifying abuse and basically being experimented upon willy-nilly with consciousness-expanding drugs. It's awful science that mostly just murdered children to no effect and...I think we might be dealing with something similar here. Incredibly bad (morally) and incredibly bad (by competent research standards) superscience being poured into a terrified little Pokémon to make a living weapon or...not even that. Just to see what extra abilities they can give it because they
can.
I'm gonna go load my final boss save in Zero and kick someone's ass again, give me a minute...
chimecho eyes shining a light brighter than anything you've ever seen
What a weird aside to have when we're enduring a Psychic-type attack. I'm sure it's nothing.
You run like you've never run before. Following Roland's direction, you rush your way through the streets of the neighborhood, nearly bowling over multiple people in the process, and you shout apologies behind you as you continue your pace. Eventually, the distinctive green of a Ranger Station comes into view. Just like the other buildings in this part of the city, it's seen better days, but unlike the other buildings, some parts of it seem to be brand new, like someone just started renewing the place. Roland floats down next to you, chirping at you all the while. You thank and pet him for the good job he's done.
A little bit of insight into the Rangers here, namely that Leaf (and Elise, probably coerced by Leaf) seem to be trying to revive this particular branch despite the Rangers' falling out with the Paldean state apparatus. I covered a rough overview of the Bracer-Erebonia plot in one of the others of these posts but suffice to say the Rangers are doing a
bit better at re-establishing themselves in Paldea, in the sense that they're succeeding at all. I'd expect to see some drama between this Ranger Station and the Railway Military Police in the future, though, considering the latter has a vested interest in the country's biggest rail hub and center of federal power.
Also telling (albeit partially determined by mechanics) that Mariana's absolute immediate impulse when finding an injured Pokémon is "Ranger Station", not any other Pokémon Center or hospital. She knows who she trusts, being from the boonies as she is.
"Welcome to Silverleaf Office Mesagoza Branch, how may I—wait—Mariana? What're you doing here?" There Elise is behind a receptionist desk, wearing the distinctive red, white and black Ranger Uniform.
I tried to google the reference on Silverleaf but it's just giving me results of a timeshare company that I had to spend a lot of time un-scamming myself from a few years back. Someone else can get this one.
Fake edit: Wait. Did...did Leaf name the place after herself and her childhood trauma bestie. Surely she's not allowed to do that...
I will say that this is a hell of an awkward way to run into your classmate at their part-time job, though.
It's the first time you see a healing station in its entirety. Most Pokemon Centers have the miniature one for minor or superficial injuries up front, while, apparently, having a larger, proper one in the back for more serious cases. From what you're seeing right now, it resembles pictures of ER rooms more than anything else.
I only remember this being established in the anime, but despite that I do like it for the tone of this quest. It establishes there's a scope of injury beyond "KO'd in battle through depleted HP", which is
definitely where the cat is at now.
Suddenly, a Blissey wearing a nurse' cap bursts into the operating room from one of the doors, their eyes tiny pinprick dots, unlike any other Blisseys you've seen in Pokemon Centers. "Oh good, you take over, Ditzy. Sorry, Mariana, but protocol says that I'll need you to leave the room. You can explain the situation later. Take a breather, you look like you ran a marathon." You did.
This is Leaf's third Pokémon, a Ditto she likes to delegate chores to. Everyone knows Ditto. I don't have to explain this but I'm unsurprised that someone with a love of splitting work with her subordinates has a Pokémon who can hypothetically do anything, including sub in for nursing staff.
Also I assume she doesn't actually have a Blissey because she would have to name it Blissy and that would just be confusing.
You hope the Espurr will make it, even if they did try to kill you. That neck wound was horrific, and just thinking about it makes you queasy. If they die…
Your clan has taken you hunting, but it'd be the—teeth gnashing howls of mightyenas ringing in your ears—first time you'd see a Pokemon die. There were a couple of occasions where some of the older Pokemon in the clan passed of old age, but you'd never seen it happen.
Would it really be your first time seeing a Pokemon die? The Highlands can get pretty violent—your sisters cries in your ears moms worried panicked crying face chimecho eyes shining a light brighter than anything you've ever seen—maybe you just got lucky and never witnessed any.
Your head hurts. Maybe you're still feeling the aftereffects of that last psychic blast—you feel Roland licking your face. "Stop that! It tickles!" Your eyes feel wet. Did you get that torn up worrying about Espurr? Your mind did go to a pretty heavy place.
Pokémon death is an even bigger trigger than Mariana's other triggers, and this is the biggest indication we've got yet that Mariana's memories have been
deliberately repressed:
—
teeth gnashing howls of mightyenas ringing in your ears—
—
your sisters cries in your ears moms worried panicked crying face chimecho eyes shining a light brighter than anything you've ever seen—
What we can reconstruct so far is that there was some kind of attack on the tribe by Mightyenas (notably both an aggressive pack hunter in the wild
and a favorite of Evil Teams in regions where they're common), and that at some point a Chimecho (probably Mom's, Chimu) did
something. Probably
not to the Mightyena's, if it was a psychic attack. And of course, we know that our little bro Timothee* lost his birth family in a Mightyena attack.
*Little Timmy and Old Man Jenkins, remember, are the two named NPCs in the Background we picked. My hypothesis is that they're both important, just as the "handler", Raifort, is to Ostia.
As long as I busted out the Umineko reference last post, I might as well hit Arvis with it again. I think this might be obvious, or even already confirmed, but just so I can say I said it:
Blue Truth:
Mariana Ganzorig witnessed death during a Mightyena raid on her tribe - whether the death of her brother Timothee's birth family or of Pokémon who were involved - and then had her memories deliberately suppressed by Chimu the Chimecho.
This is also
probably why we have a Psychic allergy but I'm not as confident in that elaboration yet.
"It's been two hours since you left the room." Wow, you must be more out of it than you thought. "Rest up first, I'll explain once you feel better." Elise sits next to you, the two of you making small talk while waiting for Leaf to arrive.
If you experience this in real life,
I encourage you to consult a doctor. Pretty sure psychiatrists don't exist in either component of this crossover though.
"Glaseado and Montenevera still have a pretty sizable Ranger presence. I got a lot of what I know about Pokemon from them. The rest from my Mas—uh, Teacher. Life in the barony would be a lot harder without them." Your conversation is interrupted by a familiar singsong voice at the front desk.
Freudian slip of a reference to Elise's sword master, who I'll get into later when I explain Eight Leaves One Blade. Or try to. Rangers being big in the rural, distant parts of the Empire still makes sense, and I believe was established earlier. Elise getting her knowledge (and some of her ethos) from them makes sense, even if it isn't a direct parallel to Rean. It also goes to show that her home region is a lot more interested in practicality than politics, which
is a parallel.
As Leaf leaves the two of you to check up on Espurr, Elise goes to one of the windows of the station. She has a 50 Pokedollar coin between her fingers, which she uses to tap the window sill. A Murkrow suddenly flies down and swipes the 50 Pokedollar coin from Elise's hand. "Mariana, meet Murkrow. Don't try giving him a nickname, he'll get mad."
"M~urkrow. E~lise." You blink. Right. Murkrow are some of the few Pokemon that can mimic human speech. That's still really weird to listen to. Roland, who's been wrapped around your neck, hisses at the bird, who just responds by pointing and laughing at him.
"Can you tell them what the apartments where you found Espurr look like?" You comply with Elise's request, getting close to the Murkrow in order to describe where you found Espurr in detail. You can barely make out Elise complaining about how that's the fourth 50 Pokedollar coin she's lost this week. Murkrow flies off after you finish your description of the apartments.
"Are they a wild Murkrow or…?"
"Yea, they are. Apparently, they got kicked out of their Murkrow flock for some reason. Now they spend most of their days messing with me." There's something about Elise's dejected, almost pouting look, that really makes you pity her.
So. This crow.
Crow Armbrust is an upperclassman at Thors Academy who takes to messing with our pal Rean in a friendly way almost immediately, scamming him out of 50 mira with a magic trick on first meeting and generally acting the part of the layabout hedonist student who you wonder why he's even at a military academy to begin with, usually playing cards (and getting hustled by primary schoolers), hanging out with the more shady adults in town, or finding ways to illegally bet on horse races. He is a reliable guy, though, being part of the original test group for ARCUS units and pals with some more universally helpful second-years, whom I'll discuss some other time, and throwing in his hand (and guns) to help Rean out in emergencies before eventually joining Class VII properly (well, mostly properly).
And...that's all I'm gonna discuss here because I think that Murkrow is just a reference to his initial persona. And a pretty light one at that. Elise just can't help but be put upon by people, much like Rean.
After all,
he's not the only one who's hustled Elise.
Also, it's worth noting that the whole gimmick of Pokémon Ranger, the game, is a whole different thing than "catching" Pokémon in Pokéballs, and is instead more about forming temporary partnerships, which is more or less what Elise is doing here. Although they're usually less...mercenary, if I understand correctly.
"Good news, the Espurr will live." You feel a weight lift from your shoulders. "They'll have to stay overnight, to recuperate, though, and they're still not conscious. That neck injury could've been fatal." You feel guilt settle in your gut. If you had been—ow!
Did Leaf just flick your nose?!
"Stop that. No brooding allowed in Silverleaf Office! You're gonna be my employee and I'll be paying you out of pocket, so I better not catch you brooding again."
If my fake edit theory on the name origin is correct this policy is actually hilarious.
Also Mariana really needs to learn not to stress out about even
past hypothetical bad things. When someone tells you you were just in time, that's praise, dummy.
"Since you'll officially be a Deputy Ranger under me, it's time for you to meet Ditzy." Leaf turns to the Blissey behind her. The pinprick-eyed Blissey suddenly starts changing shape, color, and shrinks. The shapeshifting ends, and at Leaf's foot making gurgling noises is a Ditto. They wave at you from the floor. "They'll be in charge if neither I nor Elise are here. Elise! Take care of your kouhai!" Kou-what?
Sensing your confusion, Elise explains that it's sort of like a junior. Then why doesn't Leaf just say that?
I love Ditzy btw. Also Leaf is Japanese and Elise is a weeb. How does this gel with most people in the Pokémon world seeming to be mutually intelligible, even in this quest if only for narrative convenience? That's either a great question or pointless nitpicking and I'm gonna assume the latter for now.
"I…don't know." You finally respond. "I wanna talk to her, I guess. Take her in if she doesn't have anywhere to go. She was in a pretty bad state when I found her. If she wants to leave or has somewhere to go, that's fine as long as she'll be okay." Espurr looked scared and sad when you found her.
Mariana she shot beams at your head when you found her.
As the two kids leave, you go back into the ER to check up on your patient. Fatal wound was underselling it; Espurr nearly tore her own spine off. The Pokemon in question is still asleep under the effects of Wiggly's Sing. As for why she tried to tear at her neck, the culprit is on a metal plate next to her.
A microchip, likely a tracking device. Thankfully, it was already broken by the time you managed to take it out. Looks like Espurr was trying to destroy it or remove it after having already broken it.
You sigh. You don't recognize what model or maker the chip is from, which is impressive in your line of work.
"I need a drink." Both Wiggly and Ditzy protest, reminding you that you've almost gone two months without a sip. Ughh, the things you do to be a good teacher.
"It's been barely one week and these kids are already giving me a headache," you complain to no one in particular.
And the reveal here that Espurr's biggest injury was self-inflicted, an attempt to remove a tracking device, which was obviously implanted in a fashion meant to be impossible or unbearably painful to remove. No one really accounted for telekinesis and abject desperation, I suppose.
Anyway this was a relatively short update and most of my commentary is highly, highly speculative. I'm also not gonna analyze the every week votes, but let's instead comb through the Bond options and Festival vote we didn't take for anything interesting:
[] Jacinto: Jacinto was badly annihilated during the Round Robin. As Class President, you should probably check up on how he's doing. Hopefully he's doing okay. Improved Bond with Jacinto. 0/2 to Bond 1
Still judging us for not hanging out with him given the obvious prompting (I didn't do any Bond events with Machias either I live in a house of glass)
[] Eri: You met her during your training session last week when she was sparring with her Riolu in the school Training Fields. You made some small talk, introduced yourselves to one another and even exchanged phone numbers. You could give them a call for a quick chat. You Andosins have to stick together after all. Improved Bond with Eri Merkit. 0/2 to Bond 1
Eri does in fact have a Lucario on her boss team in Scarlet/Violet, so between that and her entire shtick as a warrior princess her starting with a Riolu is unsurprising.
Fun In the Sun: Back in the Highlands, the next few days would be Naadam, the Summer Festival of the Andosin people. The rest of Paldea also celebrates their own Summer Festival, with each settlement having their own variation. Mesagoza celebrates as part of the region-wide Summer Festival, the Masked Maiden Masquerade, a series of carnivals and street parties exalting the titular Masked Maiden, one of the leal companions of Emperor Rodrigo and a declared Saint of the Geomantic Church. Here, practitioners must wear masks to partake in the celebrations and parties occurring city wide. The three-day festival ends with a grand fireworks display on the final day. Pick Two
So we'll get more into the Festival next update (which is also
arguably the one I started doing these deep dives on, so maybe I'll word vomit less about it), but there's a lot of worldbuilding trivia packed in here:
- First, Naadam is a real world traditional Mongolian festival which is much as Mariana describes it in other updates. Normally women don't get to participate in the wrestling but when your princess looks like this are you gonna exclude her gender?
- Second, the national Summer Festival is a thing and a major plot event in Trails of Cold Steel, although there it has the quirk of being celebrated a month later in the capital than the rest of the region (if we'd kept that, we wouldn't have missed Naadam). In particular, in ToCS1, the "main villains" of the game announce themselves with a daring kidnapping at the height of the festival celebrations, which is naturally foiled by Rean and company (despite them getting beat up in an unwinnable boss fight by the terrorists' leader). Since this quest started about three months later in the year than ToCS did, obviously this doesn't happen here for pacing reasons.
- Third, we've already been over the Masked Maiden, and the fact that she's definitely the legendary Pokémon Ogerpon, but the fact that she's a Saint of the Geomantic Church is also interesting. Her Trails equivalent, Lianne Sandlot, is also called a Saint, but I actually don't know if she was canonized-canonized by the Septian Church or if the localization just picked that up as the nearest English equivalent to 剣聖 (kensei, "sword saint", denoting a peerless weaponmaster). The fact that the Geomantic Church canonized a Pokémon would be hilarious if we weren't fairly certain they actively worship Xerneas.
[] Feast of the Maiden: According to Ostia, they aren't allowed to go outside during the Festival. You offer to record and liveblog yourself going to the Festival for them to see, which Ostia eagerly accepts. It's the least you could do. You nearly lost your nerve when you found that they wanted you to go to the feasts and buffets of the festival. Remembering the last time you went on a foodie adventure, you prepared your stomach and your wallet for the challenge to come. Thankfully, Manuel heard about Ostia's predicament and sympathized as an older sibling, and has decided to help by joining you and paying for the bill. Now it's just your stomach that's in danger. Thankfully, you can handle your spicy foods. At least Roland will appreciate the extra meals. Improved Bond with Ostia, Roland and Manuel.
The Festival option we didn't pick, as per my usual shtick of going over those options. Honestly the main thing of note here (other than a reminder that mooching off of landlords is always ethical, and that Roland still canonically does not need to eat) is that Manuel has a younger sibling, which isn't the case for his Trails parallel, Jusis, whose complicated brother situation I went over in a previous deep dive (about a post way after this one. I think I'm gonna make an index once I catch up). I'm kinda curious about that, especially since I'm unsure of how much of the established backstory in Noblesse Oblige actually applies to Manuel. I think we're gonna end up hanging out with him and Jacinto on FE2 whether we like it or not, though, so I guess we'll find out.
Ah Christ this is almost half as long as the update it's dissecting and I didn't even go into that much detail on the prose, just rambled about Trails villains. I'm sure the summer festival won't be as
>8.8k words
I really hope I remember correctly that I already covered it some.
