Topic - Sinnoh - Indiv Trainers - Hilbert Kuroiwa
TheAllSeeingXatu (Original Poster): The guy saw someone cheating in a tournament (MimeSenior's thread here) and decided to throw the arena at them instead of the book. That's all I've got. Don't necro the thread when he does something crazy, I'm keeping an eye on him.
UmHaxorully: Was bored. Clicked. Watched the video. I've seen plants in conferences that were more convincingly fresh than this guy. Joining a rookie tourney when you can do that is scummy.
TheAllSeeingXatu (Original Poster): No, I think he's a rookie too. Look at his other Pokémon. Fling and Mega Drain aren't high level moves, and if he had more experience, he would know that ripping up the arena would get him disqualified for causing delays.
UmHaxorully: Looked pretty controlled for a rookie. No, I say plant who's playing dumb. Probably sent by some knock-off Pokétch peddlers to make the name brand look bad.
TheAllSeeingXatu (Original Poster): Setting an alarm for two weeks. We'll see.
The Lights in the Sky Are Thunderbolts - V - Inside Out
Hilbert felt like his fighting spirit was close to sputtering out. Not his literal spirit, of course, thanks to the perpetual motion machine lodged in his chest. No, he just felt rather put out after being disqualified.
So, the morning after the tournament, after laying in at the motel and getting his Pokétch set up, he decided to take a walk around town. Jubilife was the largest city in Sinnoh, after all. There would surely be some sights to see.
Intellectually, he knew that his dreams and visions should have been enough to motivate him. In reality, though, he felt he needed to reconcile with his human side.
He went to the Global Trade Station and rode its elevator all the way to the top floor, where a viewing deck had been established. As he ascended, he felt more and more distance from the great spirit of the Sinnoh region, the rock beneath them, though the connection always lingered.
When he placed a hand on the wall to steady himself, he felt a pulse within the concrete. Had it been mixed from the region's resources, and kept a bit of its spirit intact? If he pushed a little bit harder on its spirit, he was sure that it would respond just as Sinnoh's ground had before.
Most didn't spare him a second glance as he flopped down on a bench and let Sinistea out to breathe. He was hardly the only one there spending quality time with his Pokémon. From dozens of stories and hundreds of feet in the air, Hilbert observed a good half of Sinnoh's skyline.
To the south, there was the distant clearings of Sandgem Town, and a little bit further, a small archipelago. Further from there was some kind of regional park, where trees of all kinds towered over Sinnoh's usual. Lake Verity was opposite that direction, its surface smooth as the window pane he viewed it from. A little bit behind it was Twinleaf Town, but as he focused further, the image began to shimmer.
He backed off, though he became curious. Would Mesprit…?
The spirits of those around him came into sharp definition, almost making the colors of the horizon look washed out by comparison. The humans were the same as usual, with only small variations and size and hue from the blank whitish-silver that generally covered them. Those souls that served as conduit had a purplish tinge, hence the name Platinum. Unusually large spirits had a sort of redshift effect occur, predisposing them towards learning the Fighting-type techniques that used that color of Type Energy. Hilbert saw neither description in the crowd around him, and he hadn't expected to.
He had theorized that when souls were crammed together in close proximity, they couldn't grow; literally or figuratively. It wasn't so much that a certain percentage of the population would be spiritually abnormal than it was that an absolute minority had the space around them to develop abnormalities.
The Pokémon were about the same, and their typings became apparent and nearly blinding as he focused further. Normal TE was muted compared to the brilliant elemental lights of the others.
He began hearing whispers, the faint cries that spirits made to each other, begging to be heard. It pained him, but those were the spirits of the living; there was little he could do for them.
The lake began shimmering in his vision.
He was cautious. He knew that he was approaching its territory. He knew that Mesprit likely knew it as well.
As he cut himself off, he realized how heavily he was breathing. Sinistea had floated up to wobble worriedly in his face. He smiled at the Ghost-type and waved them off before he plunged back into his own thoughts.
Even from there, miles and miles away, he could feel the lake's spirit, and it could feel him too. For a brief moment, he was both terrified and relieved. Even a city of this scale was under its protection.
But that also meant that a Psychic-type was aware of him and could sense him from where he couldn't ordinarily see it. If it deemed that his death was necessary, well, Ghost-type weren't resistant against psychic attacks.
The crowd continued milling around him, unaware. He was immensely grateful for that fact.
If he had still been spiritually focused at the moment he realized that, perhaps he would have felt another spirit latching onto that gratitude from afar.
The next place he ended up was a trainer school lecture. He had never been particularly scholarly, mainly because he didn't put in the effort to study, but that didn't mean he ignored the theory portion of being a trainer. Everything was connected, and knowing just a little bit more than he did already could mean the difference between victory and defeat in the future.
Jubilife had the largest trainer school in the region, though it was more of a university than anything else. They were offering free lectures to beginning trainers for much the same reason as the Pokétch Company. Goodwill from the public was good for any organization.
Because it was meant for beginning trainers, the lecture was focused on the professions that a trainer could eventually go into, because frankly, not many people were good enough to make a lifetime career of battling. Unless one was a Gym Leader or in a similar position, it was odd to be over thirty-five and still battling competitively because of the physical requirement alone.
There was a brief survey handed out, which Hilbert considered for a moment.
1. What type of Pokémon are you most likely to befriend?
2. How much traveling would you like to do in a month?
3. What age do you want to settle down at?
4. How important is salary compared to your enjoyment at work?
5. Do you prefer big city or small town life?
The list went on like that for a while. He had to focus on the graphite in his pencil to keep it from snapping off. He knew that most of his answers were ridiculous, but his mother taught him to be honest.
A teaching assistant collected the papers, and soon enough the lecturer was leafing through the sheets in front of the hall. It wasn't particularly crowded, but Hilbert stopped counting around the one hundred mark. Really, the odds that the lecturer would actually read his answer couldn't have been very high.
"Who wrote 'dead ones' for the first question?" the lecturer said sharply.
On second thought…
The hall fell silent.
Hilbert's chair scraped against the floor as he stood. "I can explain-"
"Do you think you're funny?" the lecturer asked, burning holes into Hilbert's eyes with his own. "I may not be tenured, but I expect to be given a modicum of respect. If you won't do so, you're free to leave."
Hilbert steeled himself to answer. "I'm not trying to be funny, sir. See, I'm a medium."
The hall was silent again.
The lecturer's stare became slightly lighter, if only because he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "A spirit medium," the scholarly man clarified.
"Yeah," Hilbert said, suppressing a cringe. "I can see ghosts and stuff."
"Is that so," the lecturer hummed. "Alright. Question… thirteen. 'What is your ideal training environment?' What did you write?"
Hilbert began trying to avert his gaze from the other attendees, who were very clearly trying not to openly laugh at his predicament. "Dream during a coma. Sir."
"And why, precisely, is that the case?"
Hilbert flinched. "Uh… I was just being honest. The reason why's private."
"Oh, is it?" the lecturer asked. "No, never mind. Let's continue. Question twenty three. 'What meeting with a Pokémon impacted your life the most?' What was your answer?"
Hilbert sucked in a breath. "The one where I died. Sir."
People were openly laughing at him at that point, but the lecturer seemed laser focused on Hilbert.
"I see, I see," the lecturer said, before raising a finger and pointing to the air to their right. "I happen to own a Ghost-type." He took a Pokéball from their pocket and tossed it once. "They're invisible right now, but if you can identify them accurately, I'll believe you."
The hall was entirely silent as Hilbert stared at the lecturer.
The boy was confused, frankly.
"There's no spirit there, sir."
The lecturer tutted. "As expected."
Hilbert raised his arms and pointed to the exit door on the opposite end of the lecture hall. "Your Gengar has been watching the doors since we walked in."
Everyone's heads swiveled to where Hilbert pointed.
The Ghost-type became visible in all of its purple, hellish glory, and looked cartoonishly shocked. They whipped between looking at Hilbert and the lecturer while pointing at themselves with impossibly wide eyes.
Someone screamed, which was just plain melodramatic. Ghost-types could be creepy, sure, but really?
The lecturer raised an eyebrow. "...I see. You may be seated."
Hilbert was more surprised about not being kicked out than he was when the lecturer gave him a business card as he walked by. He had been a Silph Co. guest speaker who had personally worked on something called a Silph Scope.
Huh.
After Hilbert dealt with everything he could in Sinnoh, he would probably give them a call. His answer for the desired profession question was 'wanderer,' but that was only because he didn't have an actual answer. He hadn't been thinking much further into his future than about what he'd dreamed of.
Why was that?
He pushed it out of his mind. Ah, there was the reason. He had to worry about saving the world from… whatever it was that would end it, before he could worry about after. He didn't have to be invested in the results to do the right thing. That was the way of the Hero, wasn't it?
His brow furrowed. Was this doubt coming from Mesprit? He hadn't felt such a thing in years.
"Yo, Hilby!"
Hilbert felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to pull a brick from the road and throw it at Barry. Specifically Barry, too. It was like his subconscious had picked up on the speaker's identity before he had.
Sure enough, when he turned around, he saw the blond running up to him followed by Dawn and Lucas.
Barry pointed at himself with his thumb and proclaimed, "Me and my posse were just about to check out the Mecha Tyranitar set!" He opened one eye to peek at Hilbert's reaction. "I guess you're cool enough to come along with us, so how about it?"
Hilbert glanced over Barry's shoulder to make sure that Dawn wasn't about to burst a blood vessel. She looked apoplectic the moment Barry had referred to her as a member of his 'posse.'
Lucas looked about as resigned as Hilbert felt.
"Alright, I'm not doing anything else," Hilbert said, before sticking his hands in his pockets. "Lead on."
It took nearly half an hour to actually get to the set, as it was about five in the afternoon and there was heavy foot traffic from people leaving work. The sun was dipping over the distant horizon, after having only become visible late in the morning.
5th Street was a rather wide alleyway, nestled between two warehouses that stretched down the entire length of the street. Sheets of greenscreens and wirework covered the buildings, breaking up what should have been monotonous flat walls. The pavement was littered by scraps of metal as well as chunks of concrete randomly driven through with rebar.
Two spirits flooded the entire street, pushing back against everyone present without any effort.
Hilbert shuddered.
Two massive, hulking Pokémon stood opposite each other in the middle of the street.
One was like a Sharpedo on two legs, covered in gritty scales. Its talons gouged the concrete beneath them with no effort. The blades that emerged from its elbows shone like swords, despite being purely biological. Their underbody was a bloody red, and he couldn't be certain that it wasn't the natural color. Its head alone had the presence of a falling meteor, and it was shaped such that no wall could hold it back.
Garchomp.
The other stood taller, nearly eight feet tall on its own, even hunched over. Spikes of limestone stuck out of its back like they'd been brought out by a volcanic eruption. Its teeth looked sharp enough to chew through the Earth's mantle and whatever might have blocked it. Its body was wide like a boulder, and its arms, though stubby, could no doubt tear Hilbert in half. Wirework was strung across its body, along with a set of advanced-looking armor. One of its eyes was hidden by a metallic strap that plunged into its eye socket. That the beast seemed to feel no pain was even more troubling.
Tyranitar.
Hilbert had seen greater strength before. Mesprit, whatever it was, had more power than he could comprehend. These two Pokémon…
It wasn't their strength alone. Their presences weren't centered around Emotion like Mesprit. They were mortal, and that was why their strength terrified him so. They had fought for that strength. Others had likely died for it. Dragons were not docile Pokémon.
He recalled a proverb about caged Pokémon being pushed to the brink.
Hilbert grabbed Barry's shoulder before the boy could walk closer to the barriers that prevented people from harassing the producers. "We should hang back. Let…"
He was going to say that they should let other people get a look, but that didn't seem right, either. He didn't think anyone should get so close to such dangerous Pokémon.
"We can get a better view of things from here," Hilbert decided.
"Aw, what? Fine," Barry agreed, though he crossed his arms and looked slightly annoyed.
Lucas pulled out his Pokédex and began recording new entries. Tyranitar weren't native to Sinnoh, but it was also unlikely that he'd seen a Garchomp in person before.
Dawn had her arms crossed as well. "This is stupid. They only use CGI for these kinds of movies, what's there to see?"
"They're going back to special effects for this entry," Lucas said offhandedly, still typing.
Dawn rolled her eyes. "Whatever."
Hilbert wanted to agree, only so that they'd leave faster. It didn't feel right.
Garchomp and Tyranitar; though they didn't feel hostile, they seemed to simmer with energy like the surface of a volcano. It was like they were just at the tipping point into becoming a disaster. A single flame being lit in their spirits was all it would take to cause a flash point explosion.
The producers in front of them continued running around. A portly man was flipping through a cue sheet while technicians prepared boom mics and other materials. Multiple Magnezone attached to cameras floated around overhead, with the technology only working despite the electromagnetic interference because they powered it individually.
The man who was seemingly the director raised a megaphone. "Alright, everyone! It's time for the Mega Evolution scene."
There were a few cheers from the crowd, though a lot more confused mutterings.
Mega Evolution was not a new technique. Hilbert's father had died in the short war that Hoenn and Kalos had fought over it. However, the technique was rarely used commercially, and news about it was scarce. The most well known incident had occured while he was still in a coma. He'd read up on it afterwards and felt terribly nervous. Something had gone down in Hoenn, and while he hadn't been able to find direct details, it involved a meteor and allegedly some Legendary Pokémon. It was something that he should have been involved in, but wasn't.
Why hadn't he woken up sooner? It truthfully hadn't been a decision on his part. It was like he had been waiting on a spark to put his body back into motion.
The technicians unveiled a new machine that was towering with beacons and antennae, linked by heavy cables into Jubilife's power network. Panels covered it that displayed some kind of data that Hilbert couldn't read, due to numerical jargon as well as being rendered in Sinjohan-Japanese.
He'd read up on Mega Evolution itself. It involved a bond between a Pokémon and a trainer, and it was seemingly fueled and controlled by that bond. When it went wrong, when the bond was incomplete…
He hadn't seen the pictures. They were marked as 'nsfw' on the forums, but he had read the descriptions.
People had died. Rather viscerally, at that. It made a pit of anger form in his stomach, though he wasn't quite sure why.
Bianca had been even less academic than he was, but at times like this, he would have appreciated her emotional intelligence.
A heavy whir began pouring out from the machine, crashing into them like a wave. It felt like the air itself had begun squirming.
Hilbert began reciting prayers in his mind. He grabbed Barry and shoved him back into Lucas.
"Go," he said, trying and failing to keep the fear out of his voice.
He pleaded with the earth beneath these people. "Please, keep them safe," he shouted with his spirit. Golett began forming beneath the street, though distant still.
The two Pokémon's spirits began shrinking and growing, as if placed into a state of flux. He was certain, however, that they were becoming denser, and taking on an almost platinum shade.
"Hey, what's the issue? I've never seen a Mega Evolution before," Barry whined.
Dawn had an eyebrow raised. "Me neither, actually. I'm interested in seeing what happens."
Something reached out and grabbed Hilbert's heart. He palmed his own chest, feeling nothing different.
He heard the Garchomp begin snorting, and in his mind's eye, saw it double over and claw at its skull. The Pokémon's emotions… sheer panic, it washed through his mind.
I can't save them, Hilbert realized. He felt almost a million miles away from himself in that moment, as if his own spirit was trying to run away.
They don't want my help. They haven't seen what I've seen. They can't.
Distantly, he heard an assistant say to the director that Garchomp's reaction was out of the ordinary, just before Tyranitar began growling as well.
One of the Magnezone swooped down, panning between the two Pokémon.
Garchomp threw its head back and roared.
Spiral-like orange and blue flame erupted from its mouth as the deep, throaty sound reverberated through the city streets. The flame engulfed it entirely, before the same occurred within the Tyranitar. A higher tolerance for the same energies?
Death.
Hilbert felt his death again. He felt the stone being driven into his stomach, the confusion, the misunderstanding of whatever god decided that he ought to die, and then his horror when he realized that it had not been the end, but rather, a rebirth.
Pressure poured outwards from the two Pokémon. Involuntarily, everyone took a step back.
Garchomp's arms had been melted, reforged, strengthened, and had become great scythes like that belonging to the reaper. Tyranitar's spikes became even more pronounced, and looked as if they could each hold up the weight of the world.
Both's eyes were a deep, furious red. Rage had completely substituted their spirits, and it seemed the spirit of destruction itself had taken form.
Garchomp blinked towards them, there in one moment and gone the next.
It scythed through a Magnezone, causing a faint crackle and then, total silence.
It took until the Magnezone's halves struck the ground that someone screamed.
Garchomp roared, as if it were laughing. The fire of mega evolution, orange and deadly, leaked from between its teeth like gas.
Tyranitar took a step forward.
Barry fell backwards, losing his footing as the pavement shuddered and cracked. "Wha-"
Garchomp turned towards the machine that had caused its pain. Its eyes, though their pupils were hidden, focused on a technician that was slowly inching away. It raised its arm once again, with the limb glittering with iron sand and the Magnezone's remains.
A pillar of concrete and stone poured out of the Earth and slammed into Garchomp's face.
The Dragon-type was pushed backwards, but it had taken the blow with its heavy skull. It roared, and the pillar was shredded into pebbles and gravel.
Tyranitar shredded the fake armor, with more spikes driving outwards from its core. The street began vibrating, coming up in chunks.
Hilbert realized that someone was trying to drag him away. He pushed them off and leapt over the first barrier.
"Hilbert!" he heard someone cry. Their voice sounded indistinct, and in his haze, he couldn't assign a name to the speaker.
He pleaded with the spirit of Sinnoh, reaching downwards with everything he had.
It answered.
As he crossed the last barrier, a wall of earth erupted behind him and grew taller than every building around, becoming denser with each passing minute.
Garchomp smiled, summoning malice in their spirit he thought not possible.
Tyranitar lost its footing as Hilbert matched the frequency it was quaking the earth at. It snarled, and inky blackness began dipping from its myriad teeth as it steadied himself.
The boy crossed his arms, trying not to betray the utter terror that was playing through his mind. He ignored everything, closing his eyes and feeling only the spirits of the two Pokémon. The pressure created a wind which blew all around him, sending his jacket flapping wildly.
I need you, Golett.
Garchomp roared once again and darted towards him. Tyranitar reared back and gathered a sweltering heat within its jaws.
His heart pulsed.
His eyes shot open like a flash of lightning, shining with the light of neutron stars. His spirit and the air around him took on a platinum sheen. Blue stone tore through his shirt, and a hole opened in his heart, revealing Golett's spirit concentrated within his own.
"Communion!"
Spirits accumulated experiences as they aged. They often formed from the residue of other spirits, or because a spark was placed in a vessel. On the scale that Hilbert understood, they could form because ideas desired form. Though not demons of the mind, if enough people believed that something had a spirit, that it meant something, then that spirit would come to exist. For this to be a conscious process was unnecessary. It was understood, by however few, that sentimentality was an additional fundamental force of the universe.
In the beginning, there may or may not have been an egg.
But the spirit within that egg needed a birthplace.
For that birthplace to exist, there needed to be material. That material was the Earth.
But buildings can't exist without a foundation. That foundation, throughout however many iterations of the legend, was called Spear Pillar.
But foundations need to be built into something as well, else there is little point. That something came to be called Mount Coronet, and it was named as such by those that believed its peak would pierce the heavens.
But that mountain needed to be piled on something. That something was on the back of the first tectonic plate. It would be the one that set the rest in motion.
But for that motion to exist, it needed to move endlessly. To make it so, the mantle of the earth was created, and so was the core of the Earth.
But that wasn't what Hilbert showed to the two Pokémon. The Earth was a magnificent thing, but it had not come first.
The first tectonic plate. The first continent. The first to walk on mantle and push aside the seas. It was said that in the deepest barrows of its stomach were the primordial titans and monsters of Sinnoh, pinned beneath the weight of the first of the world.
The being that hatched from the egg was sometimes called Sinnoh, or the Great Sinnoh.
But perhaps it had been Sinnoh that called on that being, in order to create Sinnoh from the Spear's peak. Perhaps the Pillar had only been anchored there at Sinnoh's request.
What was certain, or what only Hilbert was certain of, being a man of the Earth as well as spirits, was that Sinnoh held the power of both.
That was what he showed to the Pokémon.
"This is what you're standing against," he said, trying to convey his sympathy the best he could.
On Earth, they stood as giants, gods among monsters. But as was apparent in many religions, there are gods among gods, as well. When compared to the entirety of the ground they walked on… they were small. Spiritually, they looked no larger than Gible or Larvitar.
And in those tiny forms, they cried.
He hadn't done much, truthfully. By drawing on Golett's power, their ability to connect to his soul, he connected the rampaging Pokémon's souls to Sinnoh's, the mighty Torterra that may well have been the first. There was always a bigger fish, and sometimes, making that fact apparent was all it took to stop a fight.
That didn't mean he had to like it.
The flash of Hilbert and Golett's soul subsided, and his spirit began receding within himself.
Garchomp had its head pressed to the ground, covering it with its talons in its normal form. Tyranitar bowed, still shaking from the revelation.
Hilbert looked aside. He didn't always like what he'd become. He'd only come to terms with it.
The street was still destroyed. The wall behind him had taken on damage, and seemed to be tinged slightly blue. The color was fading, however.
He walked over to the Magnezone's remains. Unlike the solid slab of metal that some assumed, its inner workings were a mess of techno-organic wiring and organ-shaped lumps of metal. It spilled out of either side.
Its spirit lingered, but only weakly. From the surrounding scrap metal, Hilbert drew a wire between each part of its body and a nearby socket. He wasn't certain that spiritual energy could be conveyed through electricity, but he had to try. Golett had tried for him.
Magnezone's eyes remained shut.
Hilbert grimaced, but did his best to get the Pokémon its last rites. He wasn't particularly religious, but a prayer to the land was often done at funerals in Unova. Landorus wasn't exactly a god of the Earth, but it was said that it kicked up dust storms when the earth was forced to accept the dead. His prayer was that of pleading for the earth to accept the soul of the departed, and asking that they do so peacefully. It was more apologetic than anything else.
By shifting the pavement, he moved most of the Magnezone's remains to the same spot.
"Golett," he said.
His heart pulsed, sending some of his spirit back into the world. Normally, his energy was compressed, but when let loose, it tried to dissipate like grounded electricity.
"Let's get going. I'm… I'm tired."
Golett pushed a wave of soft, non-intrusive sympathy towards him. They understood. Both of them did.
The walls he had formed began melting away, crumbling into rocks and sand. At the same time, Hilbert sprawled himself across the ground, shaping the Earth as if he had been thrown.
There was something to be said about taking on the greatest responsibilities while ignoring all the rest.
Dawn, Lucas, and Barry had ended up waiting on Hilbert to be released from the Pokémon Center, and then had to wait a whole lot longer because as soon as they patched him up, Officer Jenny wanted to ask him some questions.
Dawn didn't get all of the details while they waited in the department lobby, but she had gotten the gist of it by listening to other officers' heated discussions with the film's management.
Of course, knowing what she knew, whatever Hilbert was spinning for them was total Ponyta shit, and she wanted to let him know that fact as soon as possible.
The foundation of science was predictability. If something was predictable, you could form a meaningful hypothesis and prove by what measure it could be predicted.
Hilbert, so far, had proven himself to be very hard to predict.
Dawn, being a scientist, took personal offense to this, and planned to let him know this as well as soon as possible.
It wasn't just the vague hero syndrome she'd diagnosed him with, that much was obvious. She put it down to mania or suicidal ideation, which would have seemed reasonable if he complied with the basic laws of reality.
Water was dihydrogen monoxide. Carbon was the foundational unit of all life. Put a human in a room with two angry and very, very strong Pokémon, and you'll end up with a mess that you couldn't fit in a body bag.
But he lived, so she might as well have thrown her haphazard diagnoses out the window. She considered some kind of anxiety disorder which led him to be right this one time, but it wasn't generalized. It would have to be a specific phobia of dragons, which was rational if nothing else, but running towards them rather than away hinted at something else.
Eventually, they were allowed to visit, despite not being family. Officer Jenny gave her an amused look that annoyed her.
She couldn't be concerned about someone for purely academic reasons? Bah. He was an idiot and kind of an ass, but her curiosities overruled such petty feelings.
"What's up, Hilby?" Barry asked, as soon as they entered the dimly lit room. An officer stood in the corner, despite there being no arrest and them not having any reason to charge him other than the "mysterious" explosion of the device that had been used to trigger the Mega Evolution.
Hilbert shrugged, which played against her expectations yet again. He was a stupid teenage boy that had a thing about being called stupid nicknames! He was supposed to react violently!
"I'm alright," he said, apparently not noticing her fuming. "Got a little knocked around, but not much else."
"You are so full of shit," she desperately longed to say.
Everyone turned to look at her.
She tried to maintain a stern face and not squeak. She had really meant not to say that out loud. Well, she thought, might as well commit.
"I mean, how do you get "a little knocked around" by a Dragon-type and live?" she probed.
Hilbert shrugged. "Luck, I guess. Maybe they saw I had a gentle soul and decided to calm down. I forgot exactly what happened."
Her eyebrow twitched. If he was an idiot, well. he was just being an idiot. If he was smarter, that meant he was throwing up a flag about his alleged spirit powers.
Which she still refused to believe he had, because otherwise, he'd be glancing at all of the ghosts that would surely be wandering around. People hated dying. It was the end, that was that. There was no 'next great adventure,' and she'd read the foreign texts of Nietzsche. If ghosts existed, they would constantly be partying or something, indulging in the joys of an infinite life.
Still different from Ghost-types. Those were Pokémon. They were exempt from the usual rules.
No, he had to be an idiot. He was a walking contradiction, and if he were at a normal place in the bell curve, he would at least act like he wasn't.
Hilbert leaned forward and clasped his hands. "So, while we wait for Dawn's witty retort… do you guys wanna grab a burger after this? I haven't had one in a while."
"Sounds good," Barry agreed. She figured food was always on that idiot's mind.
"I'm not opposed," Lucas said, appearing to carefully mull it over. She… didn't have much of a problem with him, but he always took the least troublesome approach to things. It was kind of lame, even if he could carry a conversation about some mildly advanced subjects.
"Great, how about you, Dixie?" Hilbert said.
Her brain stopped, fizzled for a moment, and she glared at him. "What did you call me?"
"You know," Hilbert said, raising both his index fingers and waving them around. "One of them poor man toes. Dawn, Uxie. Dawn-uxie. Doxie sounds kind of stupid though, so Dixie. Like the cup."
"Portmanteau," she snapped. "And I've never seen Uxie before!"
Hilbert opened his mouth again.
"The fact that I can't remember it isn't evidence! And that's a stupid nickname anyway!"
"Huh." The boy paused in thought. "Like Hilby?" Hilbert said dryly.
Dawn glared at Barry. "Don't get any funny ideas."
Barry, wisely, held up his hands in surrender and backed off. "Wasn't thinking about it."
A few moments passed.
Barry, still holding his hands up, snorted and quietly said, "Heh. Dixie," before laughing to himself.
Barry got saddled with the bill, naturally.
AN:
Last update for a few weeks, going to be away from computer while I'm out of town for work.