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I arise from my bed to find I've woken up a lot earlier than I did yesterday. Marble is still asleep in a crate, loudly snoring. Even though it feels like it's really early, the sun is shining brightly outside with an orange morning sky. Pokémon talk and walk outside. The money we got from last night from that fight to get back all that stuff
Maybe I go out into town on my own for a bit?
No, horrible idea. I'd be like a fish out of water, culture shock! I'd probably be seen as rude. I try to shake that feeling.
I stare at the bag of coins sitting to my side, and grab it. In order to convince myself to leave I have to force myself and this is what I gotta do. If I wanna learn about this place, I have to go out there myself, solo! If I never experience that culture shock then I'll probably always have it. I know with how loudly Marble is snoring, he'll be out for a good while.
I swing the bag over my shoulder and exit the rundown shed. Maybe I shouldn't be worried at all about culture shock, like I'm overthinking things. The sun beats at my eyes and I have to keep them half closed for a while just so I can see without being blinded.
Pokémon run amok the wooden boards, there's so many here that it's like no one's in their homes right now. Peering over at all the houses I can see none of them have any light coming out their windows. Maybe this is a festival?
Sure enough when I reach the plaza with the Lucario statue there's some streamers and colorful ribbons adorning a bunch of sales stands with Pokémon cheerily buying things. After last night I deserve to enjoy myself, with the money to do so, too! What should I do first..?
Maybe I should just get a drink from that juice bar. I slip my way through the crowd of Pokémon and eventually find myself at the juice bar. There's a sign with crudely carved out letters that says "BUSINESS INSIDE TODAY" with an arrow pointing towards a door. I assume that Bisharp carved it himself.
I push open the door and let myself inside. I sit myself on a stool and wave to Bisharp who's dutifully chopping up berries, while a Gourgeist takes the chopped up berries to more finely squeeze the juice out of them while discarding the skin of the berries and anything else unusable.
"Ah! Hello!" The Bisharp is cheery. "You're a new face, never seen you around before, what can I get you?"
"Just some Oran berry juice would be fine, thank you."
"Comin' right up." Bisharp quickly chops up some Oran berries and Gourgeist squeezes out everything into a cup and hands it to me. I look at the menu which I should've done first, oops. It seems just a regular berry drink of any kind is just 100P. I open my coin bag and hand Gourgeist that amount. She smiles and takes it. "Please enjoy~"
The air in here is very odd and still. There's Pokémon having light conversation. Some gossip about the guild or something. Some seem to be tourists talking about how wonderful this festival is. You can still hear the faint commotion of all the Pokémon outside through these thick wooden walls. I like the atmosphere. A chill restaurant amongst the chaos outside!
I feel a tap on my shoulder. "Psst. Hey."
I turn to my right and I'm startled, and almost spill my drink. It's Glass sitting directly next to me. It's unknown to me whether he got there before I sat down or if he sat down next to me, I wasn't paying enough attention. I can tell it's Glass because of the white aura around him. The same one back at Moonlight cave when we first saw him.
The Noivern seems a bit nervous. "Uh, I'm not here to get revenge or anything, just so you know." Their voice is very nonchalant in tone.
"G-Glass!?"
"Shh! Hush! Don't use that name here!"
"Call me Frit, it's my more formal name rather than the name I go by elsewhere." So all those names earlier I heard were just poser names? Well I should've figured, who the heck names themselves Glass or Critical?
"W-well, what do you want then?"
"I wanted to propose a deal, see… I didn't expect to find you in Bisharps juice bar of all places, I was originally just gonna leave a letter at Marbles house." Glass picks up a class and takes a sip. He looks as calm and collected as ever. He talks oh so quietly so that only I really hear. Looking around I can see everyone is doing the same as always, no one paying attention to this interaction.
"What kind of deal?" I take a sip of my drink. Arceus, I just wanted to enjoy this festival, not feel like I'm in danger somehow.
"Well, you and Marble beat up my members. Some of my highest ranking ones. I docked their pay after you two came in and ruined it. Since you beat up my highest ranks I was gonna make you an offer, y'know what I'm getting at?" My thoughts are two things, either it's a threat to watch my and Marbles back, or it's a request for us to join his ranks because of how strong we are to have beaten Critical and Comet.
"Sorry, if you're offering for me to join you amongst whatever you've got going on it's not gonna happen." I take a sip of my juice. Frit looks disappointed.
"Well, consider it. If you ever change your mind, come to Gemdown city. I'm only considering it because of you, I hate that Marble dude, he's a nuisance." He slides me a small note of paper. It reads 'Meet me at Gemdown at the Gem Crunch Café. It's where I hang out the most.'
"Tell me- Before I leave, what's your name? I told you mine so it's only fair."
"Walker. My name's Walker."
"Pleasant to have met you." With that he just up and leaves the bar before I can say another word. I try to go back to drinking like it never happened and I store the piece of paper with the bag of coins. There's still a lot of the day left of this festival.
"You know Frit?" Bisharp says to strike up conversation. Ok, I guess he was listening somewhat.
"Uh, sorta."
"He's mighty mysterious. He just kinda shows up sometimes but doesn't talk with anyone and then just leaves town- Not through Corviknights gate, he just flies out of town." Makes perfect sense for a criminal like him, go in and out of a place undetected, unknown that you were ever actually there except hearsay.
"Is he dangerous?"
"He's never done anything outright, the only incident I've seen was the day before yesterday where he was making fun of Marble and being kinda a jerk to him. The poor kid…" I finish up my drink and leave shortly after, waving farewell to Bisharp and he gives me a friendly smile as I leave. I decide I should head back and go wake up Marble, I wanna enjoy the festival with them. I'll worry about that note later.
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"Psst. Sleepyhead. Wake up!" I poke and push Marble around. He simply rolls over and says "Five more minutes…" I keep poking at him until he's up.
"Hhuh..? Walker what's up?"
"There's a festival today. You're not gonna sleep in the entire day are you?"
"What? A festival?"
"C'mon- You live here and you don't know there's a festival going on? Come on dork, get up." I tug at Marble's paw and sorta drag him out of the crate before he gets up and starts following me on his own. He lets out a big yawn, shakes his head and suddenly he looks more awake than ever.
"So what first! Ooh! We could try the V-Wheel! Or maybe just get a few berry smoothies and watch some Pokémon do street performances!" Marble is just bouncing with excitement that I can't help but try to match that.
"Ooh, maybe the berry smoothies- Marble did you bring your money with you?"
"Yep! I have it all-" Marble ruffles his bag and you can hear the jingle of metal, "Right here!"
We go to get some berry smoothies from Bisharps. I got a Sitrus smoothie and Marble got a Chesto smoothie before leaving. We go to the center of the plaza and there's a Pokémon doing acrobatic tricks. A Pidgey flying through rings of fire being made by a Magmar. Marble seems completely awestruck, I can hear him mumble with a sense of wonder, "So cool…"
Most of the other Pokémon aren't really that impressed just keeping to themselves with their cliques while shopping but there's a scant few of us just watching. After the two are done with their fire ring tricks, they bow to us and we all clap and cheer. Marble goes up to them and gives them some money and they both look ecstatic.
"I should steal some of the tricks that Pidgey used," Marble says as we walk around town together. "They're really good… If there's anything I can gain it's how to dodge easier."
It occurred to me that I've never asked about his power. So I do just that.
"Hey, how does your power work?"
"Umm, well… Hmm. I'm not sure myself but if I tell you, I'll tell you later at home but not out here in the public, k? Let's just enjoy the festival!" I guess I can understand not wanting to talk about it publicly since scanning over the area there's no one with powers.
"Alright!" We browse around for a while. Stopping at Bewears clothing shop where Marble looks around for cool looking clothing while I try and carefully pick out some accessories.
"Ooh! Ooh! Walker, look at this!" I look to Marble and he's wearing a blue cape and a yellow banded blue top hat with a blue bowtie. He looks ridiculous and I suppress a giggle. "You look ridiculous."
"Ridiculously awesome!" The Zorua lifts a front paw and with a smug heroic look on his face. I go and brandish a fancy bowtie and a blue ribbon around my neck. For good measure I add goggles. I look in a mirror and I think I look pretty ok. "Marble! What do you think of this?" Marble drops some clothes on the ground and runs over to me. I can hear Bewear sigh angrily.
"You look cool! Like a detective! Sorta? You're missing the detective cap but you've got everything else!" I nod. Hm, maybe I'd be a good detective. I put everything back on the rack and I clean up the clothes Marble up and dropped, meanwhile he goes back to rummaging through everything.
After looking for a while we both didn't find anything we would wear on the daily so we left, but we agree to come back later. There's a Kecleon merchant and Marble begged to pick up some supplies. I lent him some money and he picked out just some basic berries and some orbs.
The rest of the stalls were pretty boring. There was an antique stall set up selling rocks. A weapon stall, most Pokémon weren't interested because of how dangerous the weapons looked towards their user, or how shoddy they were.
There was a Tyrunt selling them and I briefly stopped by to look at what was being sold. A rocket powered hammer, something that could easily backfire and hit you hard if you didn't have something to hit the moment you activate it. A patchworked arm slingshot for shooting rocks, looks like a crossbow, that one seems less harmful..
The Tyrunt squeals. "Are you interested? I worked hard on these, they should be top grade!" I feel put on the spot, I wasn't planning on buying anything.
"I- I'm just browsing, sorry." The Tyrunt looks saddened to hear me say that and now I feel bad. I go back to Marble and I quickly glance at the sky. It's dusk.
"Hey, Marble? Should we head back now? It's almost- Or is, night."
Marble looks up, one of his ears flick. "Oh, yeah! We should. We did a lot today!" Marble starts a sprint and I stumble in surprise before running after him. "H-hey! This isn't a race!" I try to keep pace but Marble greatly outpaces me on all fours and he gets to the shed.
When we get back there's two hay beds now and Marble hops onto his. I flop onto the new hay bed. My bed is on the opposite wall of Marble's. "Woo! I finally got my bed back and now you have your own! I'll thank Corviknight tomorrow."
"So… Now that we're home, how does your power work?"
Marble looks confused. "Hmmm… HMMM… I don't entirely know!" He confesses. "All I know is that I can transform like a Ditto! That's about the gist of my power. I know that I can't transform into anything bigger than myself, though. Transform with restrictions. Yeah. That about sums it." Huh. So his power is pretty cool, cooler than mine I think.
So far my power is just that I can sense others that have powers but that's it. Victini did explain that it was weak when he was giving it to me in that dream, but he did mention it'd get stronger. Maybe when it does i'll be able to tell what power someone holds, not just the fact that they have one.
"Do you… Know when you got your power?" Marble tilts his head. "No? Not that I remember when specifically. I remember the first time I used it though, it was shortly after the hole appeared below this town and while everyone was helping get wood to build bridges and platforms to everything." I sit on the edge of my bed and lean in a little. Marble shuffles a bit closer to the edge of his and continues on.
"I had to fight a bunch of bug and grass Pokémon, they were all pretty peeved about the forest getting cut down a bit I imagine. As I was fighting I really wished I had flying type moves and suddenly I felt really weird- But then! Then, I could use flying type moves! I ended up blowing all the bugs and things away, and then I transformed back to normal. It was so weird and I didn't tell anyone about it and I still haven't- You're the only one who knows, really."
I put a paw to my face like the thinker. Marble didn't get his power by any special means, or if he did he's forgotten.
"Walker, do you have any secret power? You know my secret power, so if you have one you have to tell me yours!"
"Uhm, mines not impressive…" I say. Compared to his it really isn't. His power is to transform into any Pokémon that isn't larger than him, that leads to so many things you can do! I'm basically powerless!
"I can… See who has powers and who doesn't. I can tell if someone has a power if they have a colored glow around them. But I'm sure it'll get stronger than that, EVENTUALLY."
"Huh! So colored glow- What color is my glow?"
"Your glow is purple, I guess purple like a ditto?"
"Oh my gosh- That makes so much sense! Wait, that power is way more useful than you think!"
"It… Is?"
"YEAH! Even though you can only tell if they have a power if they have a colored glow, you can use whatever color to maybe give you an idea on what their power is!" I guess I could, looking back, that Pokémon that manipulated little stars into a sword and a shield had a yellow glow to them. Their name was what gave it away from the get-go though. There's a brief silence before Marble breaks it.
"Hey, where'd you get your power?"
It's a tough question. I don't want to answer it purely on the fact that I don't think he'd believe me or my story. Or would he even know what a human is? It's gonna take me a minute to respond, I bet I look like some nervous wreck thinking of what to say- "Um, how about when you realized you had powers instead?"
"I realized yesterday, any day before that I don't remember much. Who knows, maybe the power not being at full potential is a result of whatever had hit my head in that forest?"
"Maybe…" Marble says. They turn and pace around before curling up on their bed. "I'm gonna try and sleep now, thanks for waking me up for the festival, it was totally rad."
"No problem, everything there was cool."
"Night!"
"Night." I lie back down and stretch and eventually I can hear Marble snoring. I pull out the note from the coin bag to check where the note said and the jingle of the coins startles me and I freeze for a second, almost scared I'd wake up Marble. Gemdown city… Tomorrow I gotta deal with Glass. Or maybe the day after. Or the day after that. I'd be fine with just never.
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