Archie - Pokémon: 4 Deaths: 0
Blue - Pokémon: 4 Deaths: 0
{Monua 23rd, 11:26AM}
{Route 204}
Although Blue and Archie had stayed out in Jubilife all day and kept a watchful eye out for any Galactic activities, they hadn't seen anything suspicious or worth interfering. They hadn't come across Looker anywhere either, so there was no telling if he was still around or if he'd arrested anyone or if he'd just plain up and vanished despite his words.
Two days of watching later, Blue decided that they would resume their initial plan and head up to Eterna to investigate the supposed building that was there.
"For all we know, Looker went up to Eterna before us," Blue said with a shrug, watching the Aqua Leader's Shinx tear through a couple of brown Pokémon that looked to him like a weird mid-evolution of a Rattata and a Raticate. Archie explained that they were Bidoof, and experts at collecting wood and building nests and shelters not only for their own species but also for other Pokémon. "He looks like the kind of guy who'd show up in the entirely wrong city."
"I think he's secretly very scarily perceptive and good at pretending he isn't," Archie muttered.
"We are aware that the man was staring directly at your wig, but perhaps he did not notice what it was and simply liked how it looks?" Prince suggested.
Archie tugged at a couple of blond strands, not very convinced. "It's not like I gave it a particular style or anything..."
"Maybe he was noting how dumb it looks instead and he didn't say anything to be polite," Blue said. Archie groaned.
"I said back off!" Star snarled, loud enough to get the trainers' attention again. This time, the Bidoof that Star had been dealing with scampered off, looking a little disappointed. It took a second for Archie to recognise his companion.
"Hey, look at you!" Archie grinned. "You evolved!"
"Your fur is looking quite nice," Prince commented, inspecting the new, dark fur around Star's head appreciatively. "I have seen a Luxray once, coming from the Sendoff Spring to visit our swamp. I am confident that you will become just a fearsome as them in no time."
"Thank you, darling," Star said with a smile.
"Prince, you're pretty close to evolving too," Archie said. He gestured to a grey and white Pokémon pecking at the grass. "Try and challenge that one?"
"With pleasure!" Prince said, waddling over toward the opponent as fast as he could-
-and tripping midway, tumbling onto the ground.
The wild Pokémon saw and burst into laughter.
Its laughter quickly died down when it was hit by a stream of bubbles. Blue watched as the bubbles quickly grew bigger, faster, and popped louder, while the Piplup on the ground grew longer and longer and the two golden bumps on his head had turned into arcs that stretched from his beak to the back of his head. The grey Pokémon quickly fled and flew away.
"Congratulations on becoming a Prinplup, your Highness," Archie said with a smile.
"We would have quite liked to give that Starly a scolding before they left," Prince huffed, getting back to his feet and wandering back to his trainer. The Prinplup was tall enough to reach Archie's waist now. "Their behavior was most rude!"
"Well, maybe now that you've evolved you'll be less clumsy," Star offered.
"Two evolutions down, one more to go," Archie chuckled, patting the Magikarp in his arms lightly. "You're up next, Mark. Shouldn't be long anymore. Are you excited?"
"...Do...Do you really think I can become a Gyarados?" Mark asked timidly.
"Remember, Mark, you are in the hands of an expert," Prince said. "And I mean that quite literally."
Mark seemed to hesitate for a while longer and didn't say anything to that. But after a while, when they'd started walking again, Blue was almost sure he'd heard the Magikarp make something that sounded like a soft giggle.
{Monua 24th, 5:49PM}
{Floaroma}
They hadn't even set foot into Floaroma itself yet, and the only thing the wind seemed to carry was the smell of flowers. The Aqua Leader adjusted his wig again to be sure none of his natural hair was accidentally sticking out from underneath before they actually met anybody who would be out and taking a stroll- honestly, Floaroma struck him as the perfect retirement place, with clean air and peaceful ambience like Verdanturf's, back in Hoenn.
"Huh, they have a gardening shop here," Archie noted.
"What a shock," Blue said flatly. The Aqua Leader groaned.
"Do you have an interest in plants, perhaps?" Prince asked curiously.
Archie shook his head. "Nah, not really. But I was thinking that they might sell berries or something and they we could go check them out."
"Let's go," Blue said, picking up the pace and instantly marching toward the shop.
It wasn't a particularly small shop, but it was made to feel a little like it was from the amount of potted plants that occupied the shelves and the corners of walls, and made space feel overall slightly cramped. There were at least three workers here (or, well, two workers and a kid that was visibly trying to help move some large pots), which only made it feel even more crowded.
"Welcome!" the lady by the register greeted warmly. "How can I help you?"
"We came to ask if you had any berries for sale," Blue said, sticking his hands in his coat pockets.
"We do!" the lady said with a smile. "We've got a few plants ready to be harvested, so you're welcome to take a look, eh? Belle, sherry, would you mind?"
A tiny green Pokémon poked out from among the berry plants with a laugh. It had a yellow face in the middle, with two vines carefully curling up over its head. It took the Aqua Leader a moment to place it as being the pre-evolution of Roselia. "Your accent is getting better, chérie," the plant-type giggled, before turning to the two human trainers. "Alright, les garçons, place your orders! The trees here are very kind and generous, we should not have any problèmes finding what you are looking for, hmm?"
"I bet they really like you," Blue said. "Do you have any chesto?"
"Certainement!" With that, the Budew quickly hopped over to one of the berry plants. She unfolded her vines, humming as she easily picked off a batch of chesto and dropped them one after the other in Blue's hands. "Did you have a préférence as to how many?"
"All of it," Blue answered bluntly.
"You're raiding their entire stock?" Archie asked, surprised.
"Damn right I am."
Belle laughed.
A big pile of chesto berries later, Archie simply requested a small handful pecha berries, and a slightly larger batch of cheri. Star conveniently had a preference for cheri berries, on top of it helping her potential paralysis problems later on, and Archie was almost sure that Mark liked cheri too. He wasn't sure about Prince, but the Prinplup had- unsurprisingly- declined the offer of berries being picked for him.
"Why not?" the Budew asked curiously. "Surely our berries are worth tasting, non?"
"We appreciate your kindness, but we do not require assistance in obtaining food," Prince said politely. "Our kind enjoy finding food ourselves, and as one of royal blood, we ought to set an example."
"Ooh, de sang royal?" Belle repeated in not-Fairlan. "Such an honor, then, to be in the présence of all of you! Are you staying long, or leaving our town soon?"
"Can we go yet?" Star whined quietly, lightly headbutting Archie's leg as Prince answered the Budew.
"Soon, Star, don't worry," the Aqua Leader murmured back.
"Eterna, hmm? In that case, may I request a favor of you?" Belle asked. "Mon frère lives in Eterna Forest, right on the way there. Could you take my camarade to him?"
"Surely we could," Prince said with a nod. "Are they both Budew as well?"
"Mon frère, oui, he is a Budew. My camarade is a Wurmple." Belle quickly spun on her feet and hopped off somewhere with a quick "I will go fetch him!"
"I'm right here though," a voice yawned quietly from behind them. Archie turned and saw that the presumably-said Wurmple was sleepily plodding through a couple potted plants. He couldn't say for sure, but judging from how big the Wurmple was, it looked close to evolving. And maybe a little overfed.
"I don't think Belle heard you, Warin," the shopkeeper said, giggling a little. "But what do you think of these people? Are you fine travelling with them for a few days?"
"You know I'm not fussy," the Wurmple said with something that resembled a shrug. "If they don't mind me tagging along, then it's all good."
Archie leaned back slightly and held a hand out- the distance being small enough that he could easily reach the pot where the Wurmple was- and allowed the bug-type to crawl up his arm. "Warin, right? Welcome aboard, for the time being."
"Thank you for indulging Belle's request," Warin said, yawning again as he finally reached the Aqua Leader's shoulder. "Good Gods, winter rolling in is making me so sleepy..."
"So, do you know who you're looking for, aside from 'Belle's brother'?" Blue asked.
"I can't say I've ever met him, but considering Belle's pretty...'unique', I wouldn't be surprised if her brother was, too," Warin said. "His name's Rapier. He's probably easy to find."
"Is there a reason for which you are required to seek him?" Prince inquired curiously.
Warin shrugged again. "She just wanted me to go and watch his ass."
"There you are, Warin!" Belle said as she came back. "You could have told me you were ici! I even had the time to make une couronne de fleurs!" She huffed and held up a small flower lei with the buds on her head.
"That was pretty quick, though," Archie commented. "I couldn't do something like that even if you gave me three hours."
"I simply have a lot of practice, mon mignon," Belle said, smiling sweetly. "In time, you can surely do the same." The little Budew then proceeded to toss the lei over Prince's head.
The Prinplup blinked. "...That was rather unexpected. We thank you for your gift."
"Well of course! After all, a crown is only befitting for a prince, non?" she said with a wink. Prince stared, cheeks slowly flushing.
"C'mon, let's gooo!" Star insisted, shoving her head against Archie's legs harder.
"Okay, okay, hang on," Archie said quickly. He pulled out some money and handed it to the shopkeeper. "That's enough for the berries, right?"
The lady quickly scanned over the money to count. "Yup! Here's your change. Good luck on your way to the forest, eh?"
"Merci for everything, Warin!" Belle said, waving her buds.
"Take care," Warin answered before Star shoved all the boys out of the shop.
{Monua 25th, 9:17AM}
{Route 205}
"I am beginning to believe that you have certain issues with other females," Prince commented to Star, watching the white and blue rodent run away.
"Of course I have an issue with other females," the Luxio growled. "You're my boys. You too," she added, giving the newly recruited Buizel a gentle lick to the cheek. "Don't worry, Basil, nothing can happen to you while I'm around."
"You sound like you're worried they'd challenge you over some kind of ownership position," Archie said. Though he wasn't entirely sure how to feel about belonging to a Pokémon. Then again, people still regularly referred to certain Pokémon as 'theirs', so he supposed that the roles being reversed wasn't unusual?
"Luxray packs are always led by a female," Star said with a huff. "Sometimes they fight over the right to merge both packs and become the leader. I'm not letting anyone else take over, and I'm not taking the risk of having any females in my pack who might try and challenge me."
"But Star, you're already so strong," Basil said timidly. "Why would you worry about that?"
Star looked down at the road, looking unusually serious. "I used to be in my mother's pack. I really looked up to her. I've seen other Luxray packs before, but my mother always won and chased them off. I thought she was invincible. Then one day another Luxray- from my mother's own pack- challenged her and killed her." She ignored the quiet gasps of shock. "My sister and I were chased down, but we managed to get away by escaping through places that she was too big to fit through and she couldn't follow us anymore." She looked up at everyone again. "I want to follow my mother's ways. She didn't believe in killing other Pokémon over being the pack leader, and I don't want to believe in that either. But I refuse to be taken down, and I refuse to allow anyone in my pack that could pull the same stunt that bitch Lina did."
"We're definitely gonna have a problem, then, because I've got another female on my team and I'm not getting rid of her just to make you happy," Blue said bluntly.
"You what?" Star gasped while Archie tried not to mimic her shocked reaction. "Since when?"
"Since five years. Sam was my very first companion, so we go a long way. She's also a shitton stronger than you, so don't try to 'challenge' her over being the pack leader or anything."
"You know, I still haven't seen any of your Pokémon," Archie started. "Maybe it'd be a good idea to introduce our teams to each other." And maybe I can get him to bring out Shanks…
"I know you haven't, I've been purposely keeping them in," Blue said with a shrug. A smug smile tugged at his lips. "It was fun seeing you constantly look like you didn't know if I actually had Pokémon or not." Archie groaned. Of course Blue hit the nail on the head again. "Sorry to break your hopes and dreams of me just bluffing, but I'm afraid I very definitely have a team that'll trounce you if you act funny. Anyway, I'm seeing a bridge over there, so how about we cross that first and then I'll show you my team? Hope you're emotionally prepared to meet a bunch of badasses."
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AAAAAAAND Dimensional Destruction has officially started! As you'll probably notice eventually while reading, we've tried to keep both stories separate enough that you can read the one without having read the other and still understand what's going on, but have them connected enough that the happenings in the one directly impact the story in the other. It's a fun ride and we hope you'll enjoy the odd connections as much as we do :p
ARCHIE
Shanks the Sharpedo, Prince the Prinplup, Star the Luxio, Mark the Magikarp, Warin the Wurmple, Basil the Buizel
BLUE
Sam the Blastoise, Pete the Pidgeot, Adam the Alakazam, Gary the Arcanine