Team Ion!
Who is more wholesome to you guys? Team Sunrise, who have gone through thick and thin and were willing to sacrifice all so that all could live and were blessed with a second chance? The team who has engaged in therapy so that they can live together without fearing they'll hurt each other, to learn to trust Guardian, Scout, to come together as a team as they always were to take on the world together?
Or Team Ion, drawn from violently different backgrounds, each member losing their family twice in some way, Rai's family once and then left by his sister, Mane's mother killed and then abandoned by his father, and Scout's original parents and then Guardian's betrayal. How they have come together beyond it all to love and cherish each other, supporting through the hard and soft times and always will?
Who is more wholesome to you?
Ah well. Time for a festival!
"What's Victini playing at here?"
Scout read the letter in bafflement. What was this?
Mane glanced up from nibbling on Scout's tail. "Wut?"
Scout slapped the letter down on the floor, angling it so that Rai and Mane could read it as well. Their faces creased into frowns as they read.
My bestest team players.
My happiest hoolaroos, I reckon you've won yourself a free V-acation~
That's right, you've done really well, and I'm reckoning you got yourself one damn good deed you just did.
That's what explorers do, I guess. Or rescue teams. Is that right? I dunno, hee-hee.
V-acation time for Ion! You ought to stay where you are for a bit; Hillcrest Town has the bestest brightest festival around this time of the year! It should have already begun!
The Festival of Falling Stars!
Make lots of wishes, eat lots of food, party hard, maybe even ride the waves!
Oh, and have fun!
~V-ictory
P.S. Have you heard of pokémon from other worlds?
"He wants us to stay here?" Rai asked, ear flopping cutely as he cocked his head.
"What's with that 'pokémon from other worlds' part?" Mane added. "Right after we meet Marowak, Victini says that?"
"I guess it's probably good…I mean, it means he knows what's going on and probably can help?" Rai suggested.
"What I don't get is if Victini is able to keep tabs on us so closely, why hasn't he shown up?" Scout muttered.
"I mean…the Psychic Network is a thing," Rai offered helpfully.
"I guess…."
"Maybe let's not worry too much about this," Mane suggested, yawning and crawling back into bed. His claws popped out, and he kneaded the bed for a good few moments. Eventually, he determined it was comfortable and slumped down. Waving his tail lazily, he crooned. "Come back to bed."
He grinned as Rai joined him, Rai's star-tipped tail coaxing Scout along too, wrapped around one of his arms. It took more than a few minutes for everyone to find their place.
Mane was the hot core, cuddly like a hot water bottle and laid on by Scout, half mixed in with his forepaws. Rai snaked over his back, laying horizontally with his tail flicking on Scout's back, face pressed up against Mane's.
It may not have looked comfortable to an observer, but cats were weird.
Hillcrest Town, as one of the highest towns on the continent, was not known for much. Its altitude, its isolated nature, but also its festival.
Things had been far too chaotic the last year for Scout to really notice the shooting stars last year. As Rai, Mane, and Rhythm informed him of. Every year they'd enjoy a couple days of bright flashes cascading across the sky.
The exact day it started was a bit malleable, so places like Hillcrest Town, vaulted for being so high up and therefore 'closer', engaged in fun and frivolity for a full week.
They had arrived a couple days into it, no stars had fallen yet, and the town really only engaged in the excitement during the night.
It had been curious as to why Girafarig was wearing a hat with a starry plume, but Scout had thought little of it.
The morning after they had been interrupted with the letter, Team Ion brought it to their fourth member. And the two others who had come along for the ride.
"Well, this is lovely!" Rhythm beamed, pleased rather than perturbed by the contents of the letter. "It's been years and years and years since I've been in Hillcrest Town for the festival! Victory is really nice, lalala. Oooh." He grabbed his cheeks in excitement. "We get to dress up! I can't wait!"
Before he could roll, jump, or blast off, Scout caught him by the arm. "Hey, wait, hold on. Isn't this a bit strange, though?"
"How come?"
Scout frowned. "Well, asking us to stay here when he's been leading us to and fro with vague instructions."
"Meowth." Rhythm hugged Scout and then picked him up. "It's all part of the fun! A mystery, exciting clues leading to a wondrous finale! Oooh, I wonder if there will be moon bits and moon cake and meteorite soup for sale! We have to try out the stone maze, it's so exciting! And pretty. This is great!" He began to dance off. "Lalala, Marowak, Espurr? HUGS!"
He tossed Scout up, unminding the meowth's shriek, grabbed Marowak and Espurr in a crushing hug and caught Scout between them. "We must dress up!"
"Hey-hey-hey bucko," Mane said, grabbing Rhythm. "We'll take the meowth, thank you."
"Save me," Scout croaked.
He slipped out of the hold and shivered; Rhythm had some strength to his arms.
"Yep!" Rhythm beamed. "Dress up! Oooh, I wonder if they have capes." And he cartwheeled away, ignoring Marowak and Espurr as they cried for help.
"Poor guys," Rai said, staring after the trio as Rhythm smashed through a rock.
"They'll survive," Mane said, licking Scout's shoulder.
"That tickles," Scout said, although he didn't push Mane away.
"I guess we're staying then," Rai said. "You know, Wigglytuff might be right. And…hey? If Victini told us to say, considering how…vague their directions were before, who's to say there isn't something else here we're supposed to do?"
"Or they ran out of clues and needed the time to make new ones," Mane suggested. "I still feel like Victini should just come to us rather than lead us through this hoop show. I got tired of it when we needed the Reaper Cloth."
"The Reaper Cloth?" Scout asked.
"Don't ask." Mane and Rai looked furious at some past insult.
Rai had dreamed of a duskull in a Reaper Cloth cape and hat, banging a gavel of Reaper Cloth's to sentence Mane to Reaper Jail. It was a small cubby covered in Reaper Cloth's.
And Alakazam was there.
They didn't need to revisit those times.
"Fair enough then. So…a festival, huh?"
That, at least, was kinda nice. Rai brightened up. "You haven't been able to really take part in any festivals, have you?" Scout shook his head. "Well, this one should be pretty fun! Treasure Town doesn't really do much of anything for it, but there's got to be food somewhere!"
"And dress up," Mane added, smirking. "Can't wait to dress you up."
"Why?" Scout asked.
"Because then I can take them off!" He might have tried to undo his silver bow seductively, but Mane's paws were not for such delicate tasks.
"Undress Rai," Scout said.
"Oh, I will."
"Really? Interesting."
"Hey! You can't gang up on me. We only ever gang up on one of you two."
Scout and Mane shared a smirk. Rai's ears swivelled, and he glanced around. "Oh, well, look at the time. I've got to, uh, be somewhere."
"Get him."
Rai bolted, and they bolted after him, laughing into the town proper.
The festival's activities didn't really start until nighttime, and the six pokémon were all prepared handsomely for the fun.
Scout had wrangled Rai and Mane into wearing collars that they could clip stuff you could win from the games to. He planned to tease them relentlessly until they put a bow on his tail, cufflinks around his wrists and ankles, and a hat with a star on his head.
"I feel like the plan to team up on Rai got a little confused," he complained. Rai stuck his tongue out and winked.
Marowak had not been able to burn everything Espurr tried to attach to him, and he glared at the bells attached to his bone. "This is a grave insult to my ancestors," he said as his bone jingled merrily.
"No, that's your face!" Espurr said brightly, adorned with a dashing bow and ribbons around his ears.
Rhythm had gone all out, however.
A handsome vest, sized for him, with what seemed like stars woven into it. He wore gloves over his paws and sandals that didn't quite fit right. He had a monocle on and was looking as serious as he possibly could.
Which, for about three seconds, looked quite imperious indeed.
"Tally ho," Rhythm said before breaking into giggles. "I look fantastic!"
He did look fantastic. No one would say otherwise.
"If he trips over, we'll see some falling stars," Mane said, smirking with a plan in mind.
As the biggest festival in the area, hundreds of pokémon came to Hillcrest Town to party and watch the stars fall. Bets were made on what day the show would finally start, charms with seven days were handed out with tags to rip off and wishes to be made when the time came.
As the sunset and night rose, the town grew alive. Nocturnal during the festival, most places were closed or quiet during the day but crowded during the night.
Hundreds of pokémon dressing up with something starry, big, small, or Rhythm-levels of flashy. The costumes actually helped Team Ion go a little unnoticed, just another team in the crowd wearing something nice.
Scout was quietly in awe of the energy of the place. Rhythm was dragged off, and dragged Marowak and Espurr off as well, by someone soon enough to partake in some sort of game, leaving him with Rai and Mane.
They bumped him together.
"You're going to love this." Mane beamed.
"You've never experienced something like this before," Rai chirped. Their tails wrapped around Scout's own, placing him between them, as they walked into the festival.
As cute as twirling their tails together was, it wasn't feasible in the long run as slowly the tension from Scout's body faded to boyish excitement, and he ran forth, tripping over himself when his tail got yanked back from the tie.
"Oops, sorry," Mane giggled apologetically. Scout accepted a paw up and pretended like that didn't happen. No matter how well he was on two feet, meowth were naturally quadrupeds.
Beaming as a trio, Team Ion raced into the activities.
Being that this was not a human festival but a pokémon one, there were games and foods prepared for a much wider audience. Scout tossed balls at a set of clay pots to knock them down and win a prize, while Rai charged up as much electricity as he could in ten seconds to make some glass glow.
Mane leapt up and slammed his paws down, using weight and strength to knock a barbell up to ding on the top.
The food was outstanding.
It was Rai's nose that led him to it first. Rolled pastry scented with spice and filled with oozing berry jam cooked with sugar. The first bite nearly made him shiver. The crisp of the pastry melted in his mouth, allowing the jam to swirl in everywhere. His tail flicked in pleasure, devouring the puffed pastry piece in three bites.
He bought more and shared them with Scout and Mane.
Still hot, right out of the stone oven.
It was always a pleasure when he could have something more than the apples and berries of the day to day. Chimecho occasionally cooked rather than just prepared meals, but since leaving the guild, besides days that vendors would set up shop in Treasure Town, he had to live without the extra spice of something cooked.
Mane sniffed out something even better next. Although it wasn't to Scout's particular taste, Mane and Rai were more than happy to enjoy some steaming fish and noodle with egg.
However, the best thing was the meteorite cake.
"I've never had this," Scout said, paying for a serving.
It was like a doughnut mixed with a pancake with sugar and syrup on top. He wasn't sure where this had been in his life already. The crispy dough, hot to the tongue, with sweetness and a dash of salt on top, was almost making him tear up.
Rai and Mane had to partake, Scout decided. This was funnel cake, not that he knew that, stamped with the festival star theme.
They ate too much meteorite cake.
It was a good night. No stars fell.
Staying up throughout the night meant that even Rai was content to sleep through much of the day. Before they knew it, the festivities were beginning again.
Different food, games, and events were held each day to keep the festival fresh across an entire week, even if they hadn't arrived until a few days had already passed.
The previous night they'd missed the storytelling time, although apparently Rhythm, Marowak, and Espurr had not.
Marowak's eyes were bloodshot from not sleeping.
"The stories they told were horrifying," he muttered, tapping his helmet with his bone. "Horrifying."
"They weren't that bad!" Espurr said brightly, unaffected by things as paltry as exhaustion. Even Rhythm was yawning a little, but Espurr was as bright as the sun.
"Please stop smiling like a headlamp; I have a headache," Marowak groaned.
"Maybe because you're playing the drums with yourself?"
Marowak moved from tapping his helmet to tapping Espurr's head. "Careful, I might end up exploding!"
"And that would be such a tragedy." Marowak did stop, however.
Tonight's special event was a thrilling competition. The corn maze, grown over the last few months with careful tending from Florges and her grassy allies.
Team Ion loaded up with snacks and shared them with the other three.
"Can I go with Team Ion?" Espurr asked.
"No, we have to defeat them!" Marowak said, raising a fist in determination.
"Why?"
"Because shut up."
Rhythm giggled. He had changed outfits, now he was wearing a blue, purple, and black toga with a sun on the back.
After the corn maze was the costume competition, he was dressing for success, and Rhythm had his eyes on that shiny, red, delicious prize.
"Are you ready to lose, Meowth? Shinx? Litleo?" Rhythm said pleasantly.
"You think you can match our mutual speed and smarts?" Scout replied confidently.
"Yes," Rhythm said honestly and without any hesitation.
It was hard to refute such pleasantly spoken, blunt, and confident kitties all shared a look. A mutual agreement to destroy Guildmaster Rhythm, the wigglytuff.
Marowak did a few stretches. Espurr stared brightly at Team Ion. Scout's tail flicked, Mane's right paw popped some claws, Rai's fur shimmied with a charge.
There were plenty of other pokémon at the entrance, and not everyone would enter the same place. They had to move through the thick corn stalks to find a way; there was no visible path to them here.
A steady corviknight sailed above, calling out something important. "Okay, rules. No burning the place down. No attacking other groups. And have fun!"
"Ready?" Herdier asked. "Set! GO!"
And they were off.
It took them about six minutes to get split up.
"Oh dammit," Scout sighed, realising he was lost. It had been agreed to briefly split up to check out a four-path crossroads and then turn back. But apparently, walking straight, turning once, and then reversing brought him to somewhere else entirely.
He blamed it on being dark. Despite his cat eyes seeing well in the dark, the path he came from must have been thinner, and he glanced over it in all the corn.
"RAI? MANE?" Scout called, hoping one of them would respond. They did not.
Corn mazes were creepy. Scout flinched at every crack of a twig and rustle of the corn. It felt like the perfect place to get murdered.
But this was a happy shooting stars festival. No axe murderers and hockey was unknown around here. He would be fine if only he could work out which way to go. A light would be nice.
And then, a light appeared in the sky. It was bright enough that Scout noticed it immediately, head snapping up to stare at the meteor streaking across the sky.
"Ooh," he sighed, simultaneously enthralled and a little disappointed he was alone to see it. Still, it was bright and pretty and coming for him?
That was no shooting star streaking across the sky; that was a flaming piece of space rock flying right for him.
Scout realised something in that moment. If there was a chance for something to target him, that chance was taken with gusto. He couldn't envision a reality where that burning light wasn't locked on target and coming to obliterate him.
Bolting, trying to figure out where to run, Scout just sprinted in a panic and smacked into a thick part of the corn and got stuck. Claws slashed, reducing the stalks to twigs, and Scout pulled himself out, but it was too late. That meteor was actually heading right for him.
"AH!" Scout screamed. Something collided in the air, sundering the air in an ear-perforating kaboom.
He felt his face, his chest, his paws. He made sure he wasn't on a cliff or in a wagon being told to wake up. Scout had not been hit by the meteor and isekai'd into another world.
He cracked his eyes open when a cheerful voice said. "I always wanted to see if I could do that!" Rhythm beamed, holding a burning rock in his paws.
"… isn't that hot?" Scout asked; Rhythm's paws were catching on fire.
The wigglytuff looked down. "Oh, dear." He tossed the meteor up and yelled out. "HOT! HOT! HOT!" He blew on his paws, that plus the cinders on his paws caused his paws to actually catch on fire. "YEEOW!" He slammed his paws into the ground, as it was against the rules to set the corn on fire.
The soil choked it out, and Rhythm sighed in relief. He pulled his paws out. "Oww," he moaned, lip wobbling. Scout almost laughed in sheer disbelief, but he smelled the result on Rhythm's paws and deduced that it wasn't just a small burn.
"Holy shit! Wigglytuff!" Scout raced over, the fur had been burned off Rhythm's paws, and his skin had melted away in patches, revealing angry red with bleeding. "Are you okay?"
Rhythm gave an awkward half-chuckle. "I forgot actual heat can do some real damage," he said apologetically. "Ooh, I'm going to need to get back to town and to a healer."
"Won't that…be utterly excruciating?" Scout asked. He'd mostly been unconscious when Chimecho had slapped him with the healing rays, but the few times he'd experienced it while conscious, even for relatively minor wounds, it had hurt like hell.
"Yeah," Rhythm agreed, not looking delighted with the reminder. "I kinda need my paws, though. It's not like it'll be the worst pain I've felt. I…uh…do you know the way out?"
Scout did not, so he wound up cutting their way out.
"If the groundskeeper catches me, I'm very dead," Scout muttered, staring back at the rough holes he cut through the corn.
"I caught a meteor!" Rhythm said, pushing forth some cheerful confidence even as he grimaced. The smell of burning flesh was not nice. "I'm sure we could come to an understanding."
"How did you even possibly manage that?" Scout muttered. He had put aside the bafflement to get out, but Rhythm brought it up. "Where did you even come from?"
"Just bouncing around," Rhythm replied, talking helped a little. Put the pain aside. "I saw it flying down, and then I heard you, and everyone was shouting, and I just moved."
"Well…thanks. I have no idea what kind of BROB I pissed off to have meteors now target me, but…thanks."
"It was nearly unbelievably bad luck that it was you who it nearly hit."
"Story of my life, Wigglytuff. Story of my life."
"Haa…you can call me Rhythm if you'd like."
Scout blinked. "…Sure. Rhythm, you can call me Scout."
"Thanks. Thanks, it's… it's been really nice exploring with you three," Rhythm said, smiling. Despite the pain in his paws and the even worse one to come to heal them, he smiled.
"You almost got melted by a meteor!"
"I'm sure you can understand the idea of…worth it." Rhythm smiled. It was happy, it was bright, and there was a deepness to it as well. A smile that meant so much more than what he was merely saying.
Scout glanced away; his mind flew to a few different things.
"Yeah," he said after some time. "Absolutely worth it."
The town's healer was an audino dressed in a mask with a beak and a starry cape. Scout saw a flash of genuine pain go through Rhythm's body, and part of him wondered if it was really due to his paws.
"Good grief," he said, looking over Rhythm's paws. "Fire damage. What did you do, stick your paws in the communal bonfire?"
"…Caught a meteor."
Audino did not look impressed.
"He's actually telling the truth," Scout added. "Saved me from being hit by it. Can you help him?"
"I can," Audino said. "It'll be pain like nothing you've ever felt before. Eat this." He shoved a seed up to Rhythm's mouth, a sleep seed. Rhythm dozed, but the pain was a little too much to fully fall unconscious.
"Be…careful," Scout said.
"Healing won't put him at risk," Audino replied. "I know what I'm doing."
"I mean, you should be careful. He's really strong if he lashes out…."
Audino paused, gave Scout and Rhythm a second look and seemed to understand something. "I see. Okay, he's going to need to be conscious for this then." He pulled out a bell and softly chimed it, paws glowing pink as he did so. The sound was soothing, and Scout's ignored anxiety lessened a little, and he relaxed.
Rhythm's face screwed up, and his eyes cracked open, regaining their focus. "Is it done?" he asked hopefully.
"Haven't even started," Audino replied, placing the bell away. "Your friend, let me know you're strong. I can't have you dozing out and liable to smack me through a wall. You're going to need to be awake and with it. If you're strong, then I better damn hope you learned control as well."
"I…have."
"This will be one heck of a test then. Paw." Rhythm extended both, Audino took just one. "This is going to hurt, do you understand that?"
Rhythm nodded. "I…I had a partner once, who was an audino. I know how it works; I've dealt with it before."
Audino nodded. "Bite down on this, so you don't break your teeth then." He placed something rubbery and durable in Rhythm's mouth, and then his paws lit up again.
Rhythm's eyes clamped shut, and Scout watched as his entire abdomen clenched up like steel. His entire body trying to recoil away from the sensation while his will battled with that.
Despite it, Rhythm did not make a single sound.
Maybe because of the gag, maybe because he had held his breath, maybe because it was silently screaming, maybe because Rhythm's voice was stronger than his paws and crying out at all would lead to a Yoom-TAH powerful enough to end the festivities in Hillcrest Town. Permanently.
Still, it was grotesquely fascinating to watch. Not only someone so stronghold themselves in check, but the actual repairing of his paw. Blood oozed down, drenching Audino's fur, the white parts turning pink just like the rest of him. The paw went red under the soft pink light; the skin seemed to peel away, all of it. Melting away, almost, before slowly beginning to be reknit.
Healing was not a mere magical bandage to any nicks or scratches one may suffer. It was a super-rapid repairment of the body's natural ability to heal, boosted by the pokémon's infinity energy shaped towards the goal. Rhythm felt six months' worth of pain, aches, pins and needles, loss of sensation, infection, and sheer heat in five minutes.
Audino had to pause on several junctures, the gaps hurting almost worse than the pain itself due to it not being the end, only a pause due to the heat risking reversing what he was trying to do. Heal a burn.
By the time five long minutes was up, Rhythm's face was streaked with tears, his body was rigid like he'd been turned to stone. He shuddered, like stone rapidly cracking, and lowered his aching arm.
"That's one," Audino said, a flicker of guilt in his face. It was not fun to put someone through this kind of pain, no matter how surly one may seem.
Rhythm thrust the other one up and spat the gag out; he'd bitten through it. Audino placed another one in and restarted the grisly work.
Scout took him out for drinks afterwards. Rhythm was physically okay; his paws were pretty much right back to normal. But that had been painful, and Rhythm's mood to party had been spoiled.
It wasn't for a few hours that Rai, Mane, Marowak, and Espurr found them.
"Oh, thank goodness," Rai sighed in relief.
"Oh dear, where were you?" Espurr cried, running ahead first. "We were tremendously worried; I thought Marowak was going to cry!"
"No, that was you," Marowak said, appearing as cool as cool could be. "Seriously, though, where were you?" he whispered.
"Rhrr…Wigglytuff caught a meteor that nearly hit me," Scout explained.
The reaction was as expected.
"I say, WHAT?"
"A meteor?"
"That shooting star we all saw?"
"That nearly hit YOU?"
"Meowth, how are you the luckiest unlucky mon to ever live?"
"He caught it?"
"Burned his paws really badly too," Scout added since Rhythm wasn't talking. He'd drunk a lot of cider, so it was hard to say if he was even aware of the conversation. "I cut us out of there and got him to Audino to heal him. It… wasn't pretty."
All four of them winced, they could imagine. Scout knew that they couldn't, not really. Hard to imagine when the reality was so much worse.
"Oh, so it was you that Groundskeeper Weavile has sworn to destroy."
"Are you okay, Wigglytuff?" Espurr asked, approaching the dozing Rhythm resting his head on the table.
"…laa," Rhythm sung. "Laa…la."
Scout glanced over him in worry. Rhythm hadn't really wanted to talk after they left Audino. He got into the drink and didn't stop until he was too dizzy to get more.
"Okay," Espurr said, nodding as if he made sense of that.
Rhythm smiled. That was about it for that night.
"Why was there just one meteor?" Scout asked the next day. "And why did it actually come for me rather than peacefully shooting across the sky?"
To answer that, they decided to return to the hedge maze.
"Let's not split up this time," Scout suggested to confident nods. It was the three of them. Marowak and Espurr had taken it upon themselves to lift Rhythm's spirits, assuming they were down in the first place. First things first, an extended nap. No one needed a hungover Guildmaster Wigglytuff.
There was little chance of finding it soon, so they resigned themselves to essentially a whole afternoon and potentially night to find it. This wasn't all bad, however. Hillcrest Town was great, and the festival was a lot of fun, but with Rhythm around and such, it had been harder to find time to just be with each other.
They wanted to make him feel included, but….
"This is nice," Rai said, twirling his tail with Scout. Mane trailblazed ahead, but not too far ahead.
"It is less murder mystery during the day," Scout agreed, feeling much less likely he was about to be the first victim of the monster.
"How did you get lost anyway?" Mane called back. "It seems pretty straightforward to me!"
"Okay, torch and flashlight can keep their opinions to themselves."
Rai grinned at Mane, who waggled his eyebrows back and continued leading them.
There really wasn't a whole lot to say about the hedge maze. There was a lot of corn; it was corny, some may say if they wanted a kick to the face.
And Team Ion simply enjoyed the others' company.
"How have you enjoyed the festival?" Rai asked Scout, raising his voice to include Mane in it as well.
"It's been great," Scout said, a fairly neutral response. A smile slipped over his face, and he breathed out. "Weirdly enough, it feels like the first time I've really relaxed in a while and just…enjoyed myself without anything going on in the back of my head."
Rai nodded. "Yeah," he said, a little heavier than maybe he realised it would be. He grinned and rubbed his face on Scout's. "It's been a nice little vacation. It's great that no one seems to have recognised us either!"
A rare mercy, to be sure.
"Where do you think we'll go from here?" Mane asked. "Not to bring back the whole 'not relaxing' topic, but I am curious. I don't mean Soothe and Victini, just…in general?"
"Well…Dark Matter is a thing," Scout said first.
"Ignoring world-ending crap that we've done too much of already."
Scout smiled. "I dunno. To be entirely honest, I am kinda interested in this whole multiple world thing. Where Sean came from, Keira too. If they can get here…I wonder if there's not a way for someone here to go there? Marowak reminded me of that."
"Huh," Rai said. "Exploring another world entirely…."
Mane smirked. "Sounds like fun. Sean's mentioned his world a few times. I'm curious."
Scout smiled at them, and they continued chatting, unconsciously cycling between who was in front as the other two twirled tails and acted cute.
Night had well and truly fallen by the time they finally did find the spot that Rhythm had thrown the meteor, realising it was, in fact, incredibly hot. The fact he didn't burn his paws down to the bone was fortunate.
"This looks like the place," Scout said.
"You've said that before," Mane pointed out.
"Yeah, but." He pointed to the hole that had been sliced out. "That's what I did to get us out."
Rai and Mane trotted over curiously, staring down a dark tunnel of sliced up corn. "Nice."
Rai charged up some electricity to glow brightly, as Mane's fire might not go so well for them here and allowed them to look around a lot easier.
"Here we go," Scout said, spotting the dark mass. The meteor was a dark brown, darker in the nighttime, and pocketed with holes. It had crumbled significantly, but a section of it still held up firmly enough for Scout to pull it over.
There were cracks all through it, and Scout realised the thing was hollow. "Hang on a minute," he mumbled.
"This…this isn't a meteor," Mane said, spotting tell-tale triangular marks in Rai's light. "This is a minior. Or, the remains of a minior's shell at least."
"…Son of a bitch was targeting me, wasn't it?" Scout asked, deeply offended by this revelation.
"Probably knew you both would survive the landing," Rai joked before frowning. "You didn't see the minior when it crashed?"
"Well…Rhythm caught it, and I was in the middle of thinking that I was going to be a meowth-coloured paste on the ground and had my eyes closed."
"Well," Rai began before a flash from above caught his attention. "Ooh, guys, look up! It's starting!"
Scout and Mane looked up as the cloudless night sky began to flash with the passing of hundreds of meteors.
"Quick, make a wish!" Mane blurted out, pulling out his charm he'd bought for the occasion. Scout stared up in wonder; he'd never seen anything like this.
Amidst the sparkling canvas of blues and blacks, before the countless twinkling stars, was the rapid flashes of hundreds of shooting stars. Their tails leaving a brief sparkle in the sky, like they were raining fairy dust upon the planet.
Some flew rapidly, fading away just as fast. Some were tiny moving specks that crossed the whole sky before disappearing into the sea of stars. Others were so much brighter and moved almost sluggishly compared to the others.
Mane smiled. "I always liked watching the shooting stars," he admitted, playing absentmindedly with his charm. "I'd stay up, sneak out, be good, whatever it took. It's a mysterious thing to watch when you're a cub. Magical. They appear and go so quickly."
He wasn't sad about it; it was a happy memory. Still, Rai and Scout weren't far away, and Mane eventually smiled deeply and looked to them. "Want to get back to town or continue watching it here?"
"Do you really need to ask?" Scout asked, settling down.
Mane laughed and pounced on him. "Guess not," he teased, then had the wind knocked out of him when Rai jumped on him as well. "How did I know you were going to do that?" he asked.
"How did you not prepare better?" Rai teased back.
"I'd like to see the stars too, please," Scout said, buried under cat.
"You know, I liked it when we were teaming up on Rai," Scout grumbled. "That was a nice change."
"It's too much fun to do it to you though," Rai chirped, giving him a tingling lick on the ear.
"No. We should team up on Mane!"
"Yeah," Mane purred, giving his eyebrows a waggle. "You should definitely team up on me." He added a wink for good measure.
Scout's expression went flat, and only went flatter as Rai nudged him. "You walked into that one." He helpfully pointed out.
Team Ion sat together, watching the stars and comets until they slowly began to peter off.
"You know-"
"I rea-"
"Hey, uh-"
They all said at the same time, cutting each other off and waiting for someone else to go first.
"What were you going to say?" Mane asked.
"What were you going to say?" Rai returned.
"I love you," Scout said.
Rai and Mane looked to him.
"…What? Wasn't that what you were both going to say as well?"
Rai giggled, and Mane shook his head. "You're both dorks, and I love you both so much."
"Never thought I could be so happy," Rai said, nuzzling both of them. "Love you."
Scout purred.
Nothing could ruin the moment.
Which, of course, meant something ruined the moment.
"Hey, more shooting stars!" Rai said, seeing the flash first like last time. His excitement immediately faded. "Uh…?"
Scout and Mane froze up. That wasn't another set of distant flashes. The stars were falling down to the earth!
Dozens, maybe hundreds, of tiny glowing embers mixing together to make a sun during the night, breaking and splitting off in a scattershot of burning missiles.
They weren't heading for Scout this time. That was the one and only mercy to this situation.
Scout clamped his paws over Mane's ears and buried Rai's head into his lap, curling up as the meteors hit the ground in the distance.
A crash so loud that pokémon would be hearing ringing for weeks shook the entire mountainside. Cliffs were shaken and began to collapse as a hundred individual impacts shook the whole town and surrounding mountainous region.
It felt like the mountain would crumble.
Yet, as soon as it happened, it was over. A distant crash echoing for hundreds of kilometres, the only remaining cry to the near-disaster that just was.
Team Ion, despite huddling up, were quick to recover and act. Scout carved them a new trail out, following where embers still clung to the air, and the sound had come most ferociously. However, it was closer to town, and the time it took to sheer through so much corn slowed them down.
It was to horrified screams that they were led to a battlefield.
An entire plain shattered and burning from dozens upon dozens of impacts. And each meteor? The very same as what happened to Scout.
Possibly hundreds of miniors, their lights burning out from shock and trauma. A few brave pokémon had stepped into the scorched earth to see if they could do anything to help, Audino was called for, and he was running.
Scout slipped down the edge of the cliff himself and made his way onto the plains. The impacts had not been…kind. Pokémon were absurdly durable creatures, but these minior had fallen from the stratosphere at least. And based on their burning upon entry, the mesosphere may be more likely.
It was horrifying to be here, but even more so. Even worse was when the minior began to speak.
The survivors all began to say the same thing.
"The sky will fall."
Timber plodded along quickly.
It was getting close to dark, and so he hurried along. A strange feeling had gripped Treasure Town, and he was nervous about being alone, even in the remaining daylight.
But he had supplies to deliver, and no amount of self-concern would stop him. He had a door to knock-knock on.
"Oh gosh, why does Bell have to live so far out of town?" Timber whimpered, trundling along as quickly as his little legs could carry him without outright sprinting.
The abandoned, overgrown, overtaken houses in this part of the local range never ceased to give him the creeps. Timber was pretty sure Banette lived around here too, it had that sort of vibe for ghost pokémon.
He shook that thought away, that was type-casting, and he was better than that.
Although Bell was….
"No!" Timber huffed. "I'm just being a doofus."
At the very end of the area that could be called 'lived in' lay the house Bell took as her own. It was off the path, out of sight of the other little treehouses, and a bit larger. Unlike many, her house wasn't built into a tree; rather, it was just made of wood and brick.
It wasn't as run down as the rest. Timber knew that she maintained the place and was actually very quaint to look upon. He wondered what it was like on the inside. Messy? Probably not. Bell didn't seem like the kind of pokémon, not like Timber.
He imagined it was very soft and cosy, with knitted quilts and a crackling fireplace with books on the shelves. He knew she must have one; he had brought her enough books over the time they knew each other.
Bouncing up to the door, he gave a quick knock and caught his breath. "K-Knock-knock?" he puffed, settling down in relief and beginning to slide the travel bag off.
"Who's there?" came the musical voice he loved to hear.
"Tree."
"Tree who?"
"Have a tree-rific day!" Timber beamed. He loved her voice and loved her laugh even more.
"Okay, that's terrible," Bell said between relentless giggles. "How do you think of such acorn-y jokes?"
"Well, I get some time to." Timber then heard it and snorted. "I can't be-leaf you just did that."
"I'm pretty tree-mendous."
Timber laughed. "Okay, ahkay, I can't handle anymore."
"Too bad, I have more poetree for you."
Timber laughed until he couldn't breathe, and Bell soon joined in.
Sadly, his laughter couldn't last long, and he gave a soft sigh that might have been swallowed up by the wood. "It's good to hear from ya, Bell. Ah've been a bit worried, I reckon. Sorry, it took me so long to get ya this stuff."
"There's nothing to apologise about, Timber," she replied, kindly as ever. "But…why have you been worried? That's not like you. Is something going on?"
Timber sighed. "Yeah… It's mighty worrying for a lot of pokémon. We've got some pokémon going missin' lately, and no one's sure what's happened to them. You can imagine why it's worryin folks. I just hope we can find 'em soon."
Bell was silent for a moment, and so he quickly added. "I don't mean to scare you, though!"
"It's alright; I'm not afraid for myself," she said softly. "But I am worried about the pokémon who have gone missing. Do you…have any idea what might have happened?"
Timber shook his head at the door. "None. No one's been able to work anythin' out. Nothin's changed except the big new totem that one of the missing pokémon found. I thought it might have something to do with it; the thing gives me the willies it does! But no one reckons it's connected, Armaldo got Chimecho to still check it over, but it's just a rock."
"Oh, I see…who went missing?"
"Wynaut, then Wobbuffet. Spinda said he saw both of them minutes before they went missin'. He walked with Wynaut to his house, but in the time between that and they getting to theirs, they were gone. Wobbuffet came out worried and decided to go to the guild, but then she disappeared too. Since then, Octillery and Swanna have vanished too."
He frowned. "It was Wynaut and Wobbuffet who found it too, outside of town just buried! Then they both just vanish! I just… I'm worried about 'em. I know I'm overthinkin' it all, the rock is just weird, but lots of the totems around the guild are weird. I just don't like that serpent pattern…."
"Serpent pattern?" Bell asked, her tone entirely sharp and lacking the usual softness she usually spoke with. It was sudden enough of a change that Timber snapped out of his reverie.
"Uh, yup-yup?"
"Timber," she said seriously. "Can you describe this thing to me?"
"Uh, why, uh…sure. It's this big oblong-like rock, all grey and real tall. Taller than Armaldo even. It's got this creepy red serpent thing drawn into it. Even though it was buried, I reckon some of that should have come off, but it's not flaky or nothin. It's got this big black hole with no eye in it and really sharp teeth. It looks-"
"Timber," Bell cut over him, voice strained to the point of snapping. "That's a runerigus."
"A…a runeewhatsis?"
Timber started as sudden sounds of movement came through the wood, it sounded like something was being dug into, and items were thrown about. "Bell? What's a runerigus!? Is it dangerous?"
Within her house, Soothe pulled an orb that was almost difficult to focus on, being clear to the sight with a blinking out glow. Between her teeth, she crunched a seed whose shell was see-through, and her fingers curled reluctantly around a necklace she wore.
"Just for a short time," she said to herself, slowly, forcing her arms up to pull the necklace off and set it gently on the table. The pendant looped onto the necklace thunked firmly as she set it down, the treasure within now separated from her.
Soothe took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she could not be seen.
Only a floating orb. That, too, disappeared as she stashed it in the natural pockets her fur provided and walked to the door.
"Timber," she said firmly. She could hear him muttering in confusion behind the door. "Step back."
"Wha?" he managed before scrambling back as the door opened.
Timber's eyes went wide as saucers as he finally got to…see? "Bell?"
"It's dangerous to see me," she said, voice returning to the gentle tones he recognised. "You know that, right?"
"M-Mimikyu?"
"Right. I've taken a vanish seed to lower the risk."
"B-B-But why?" he was looking up, then down where he figured her face might actually be.
"That 'totem' is extremely dangerous. Runerigus are monstrous things. I'd hardly even call them pokémon. I think you're entirely right; it's responsible for the disappearances. Now, we have to go before it hurts anyone. Can you lead me to the guild?"
Timber's frazzled confusion lifted as single-minded determination replaced it. "Right." He nodded. He could panic later if that thing was dangerous, then they had to act immediately. "Follow me!"
Timber began to move. He wasn't the fastest pokémon normally, but he'd learned more than a few tricks in the guild. He ran for a few meters and then leapt up, curling his limbs in as a rocky sphere appeared around him.
Timber's Rollout would allow him to get much faster.
He could only hope Bell could keep up, but she called an occasional notice to assure him she was keeping up.
They might as well have flown the path. The trail was clear, and it didn't get bumpy until they had to move onto the road to the crossroads, and Timber sprang back onto his feet to get through there.
"Straight ahead!" Timber called, a little dizzy and returning to his Rollout. They ran along the path lit by the setting sun as the Wigglytuff Guild loomed in the distance.
Timber was cleaving a path in the dirt, spraying up a cloud of dust as he rolled fast. The sounds of feet striking the ground might have been confusing had he been able to hear it.
They reached the crossroads, and Timber sprayed a blast of dirt as he sharply turned right. The café might get a little dusty from the cloud had they not installed a door.
He broke the Rollout and leapt halfway up the stairs before finally planting his face into the next step. Nearly knocking himself out, he gasped as everything came to a stop and his whole body jarred. "Ooooh."
"You okay?" Bell panted close to him. Timber groaned something. "Stay there. That's probably better."
She ran the rest of the way up the steps as he tried to remember who he was.
Soothe reached the top of the stairs and was met with three damning sights.
The Wigglytuff Guild's head. A gravestone to the left. And a monster to the right.
She'd already seen the first two enough to ignore it. And she'd seen the third also enough to know it should never be ignored.
The statue appeared inert, just an odd totem dug up from an earlier time. There was the occasional crack across its plane, appearing random and due to age. She knew it was something else.
She'd seen this thing before. And if it was here now….
She was invisible, allowing her to move up stealthily until she was close enough. One good blast should do it.
A rainbow pathway of glitter appeared to manifest from thin air and struck the hidden monster like a cannon shot. Stone shrieked and cracked as a blast of dazzling light ripped out from its back as well.
Stone had shrieked, and then it did.
The cracks so randomly placed ripped out as ghostly arms manifested, pulling the stones apart and joining them in sliding, oily, shadowy joints. Fingers popped out of the stones like sausages that sharpened to claws. The tail blasted off and swung around blindly at the assaulter as the eyehole filled with a violet light.
Runerigus screamed, and a wave of darker light blasted off it in a wave. Part of the guild curled from the fetid touch, and the rocks cracked like they aged a thousand years.
The wave did barely anything to Soothe. She was pushed back a step before shooting it again. The force of her second attack blasted it off the cliff, but the ghostly creature chose to ignore gravity and swung itself back onto the cliff face, swinging its stony arms left and right, trying to find whatever was so stupid as to attack it.
Soothe danced around the clumsy blows, pistol shooting it with Dazzling Gleams over and over until it got a lucky strike with its tail and clubbed her in the chest.
Soothe was thrown back with a grunt, crashing into the Wigglytuff face, and the impact gave the monster its target. Twisting shadows extended from its horrific fingers to slide around Soothe's invisible body, catching her in a cocoon of energy and squeezing.
The runerigus growled as Soothe began blasting before screeching again as something very heavy collided with its back, cracking the stone.
Soothe broke free as its attention was diverted as she struck a wave of emerald light against the monster, slashing its head partly in half.
She landed and bolted as it thrashed, trying to crush Timber, who had collided with its back right as it had the invisible one in its grasp. Another emerald flash protected him from the heavy tail, and Soothe swung a blade of the same energy through the stony middle, cleaving it in half and revealing a twisting, crawling, blackness within.
The monster emitted another pulse to blast them back as the carnage finally roused enough attention that guild pokémon were chattering and stomping up.
Identifying that the jig was up, the runerigus fled into the night. Soothe cried foul after it, and she pursued as Timber, stunned and on his back, tried to roll onto all fours to go after them as well.
"Wait, BELL!" he cried, but she and the monster were already gone.
"Bidoof, what's going on!?" Diglett cried, the first to reach the top of the guild to demand an explanation.
"I. Bell. Yup. She. The monster. The totem! The totem was Runerigus! It's the culprit. She's going after it! I have to help her!"
"Hang on." A web snared him before he could roll off and dragged him back. Armaldo had arrived. "Explain what just happened." And so Timber had to explain again.
Soothe ran through the setting sun after the sounds of the demon. It wasn't getting away. She knew not why it was here but being here at all was a danger to everything she had going on.
She was invisible, but she knew that it knew who was fighting it. Once it got those tendrils on her, it had figured it out. There was one place it'd go that she could possibly find it.
The sounds of carnage drove her to sprint faster.
Her house was being ransacked, and Soothe formed another glittering blast as she charged the last few steps.
"HAH!" she yelled, unleashing a shotgun blast of a charged Dazzling Gleam, blowing the monster ripping her home apart through the backdoor to her house.
She charged out after it as the creature scrambled back, something caught in its claws. Soothe gasped as she recognised it and her eyes flashed green, white, and the darkest black as she tried to Dazzle, Shadow, and Protect at the same time.
A sparkle shot left a glittering mark, a shadow tendril smacked its hand, and the Protect just flickered in and out. The creature was sinking into darkness, and Soothe howled, trying to snare it as her Protect flickered back into place, curving around the limb that had her item.
It was like holding onto smoke, and she only heard the hissing traitorous giggle as the runerigus disappeared.
Soothe stared after it in horror.
"Well…so that's why you were avoiding me."
Soothe stiffened as another voice reached her, and she flinched back towards her broken room. A glowing blue sphere sparkled with glittering white lights. A Connection Orb. From it spoke a silky voice.
"You really thought Jirachi could-" Soothe shot the orb with a Dazzling Gleam, and it bounced off the floor and into the fireplace. She ran out of her house before the voice could snicker at her anymore. She HAD to get that pendant back.
She disappeared into the night. An invisible spectre trailing another.
The guild had dispatched once Timber stopped stuttering enough to explain what had happened. Chimecho healed him as he talked; he was uninjured, just shaken and filled with adrenaline.
Armaldo ordered groups of three to prevent the creature from getting anyone on their own and for Timber to return to the guild.
But he did not.
"I have to help her!" He raced off after Bell, barrelling into a Rollout and by far the fastest pokémon in the guild like that.
He didn't tell them where he was going, only that he was going. Alone, into the darkening night.
He knew where they must have gone. It was the only thing that made sense. Bell's house.
He smashed through at least two trees on the way and barely let that slow him down. The path was clear now, and he could map out the path in his head, having travelled it so many times.
No matter how dizzy he got and how swirly the world was when using Rollout, he could find his way here.
Timber blazed a trail until he sprung into a flying leap, soaring high for a moment, a bidoof who flew before crashing to the ground and running the last leg of the journey.
Reaching Bell's house, Timber bolted in. "BELL? BELL?" The place was torn apart, claws had ripped deep scratches in the walls. She did have books and a fireplace, but both were ripped apart from the savage attack. There was another door ripped open and blowing in the wind at the back of the house, and he poked his head out there as well. "BELL?"
He looked around desperately, there was something glowing in the fireplace, and he travelled over to it and pulled it out, blowing ash off the blue sphere within.
It glowed in his hold but did nothing. It wasn't an orb, at least not one he recognised. He didn't know what to do with it and so stashed it in a furry patch on his belly. Marill had helped weave some fluff together to make something of a pouch he could stash food in. He liked Marill.
Grotesquely, he found a severed arm as well. It was a mummified thing. Once black, it had sunk to a dark grey with parchment-like skin still attached. Three smoky claws tipped it off on one side while three jagged spikes lit the other. He nudged the thing under the bookcase. He didn't want to even think about what that was or why it was here.
He left the house; Bell wasn't here, so he'd have to keep looking. He'd keep looking. He'd keep-
Bell.
Soothe walked back in a smouldering fury. Running after Runerigus had been pointless; she knew that but did it anyway. It was hard to think logically when your literal wish-granted treasure was stolen by a malevolent beast.
She wasn't sure what her next move would be. Things were moving, a lot sooner than she had anticipated them too.
And now…? Now she was on a time limit as well.
Soothe's smouldering anger simmered away as she stomped through the trees. There weren't any threats in here anymore. It was hard to be afraid of the dark when you were the biggest threat in it.
Terribly arrogant. You were never the biggest threat.
"B-Bell?"
Soothe paused. Her anger flickered away as a well-practised smile and tone left her throat. "Oh, Timber. Sorry, I couldn't…what?"
He was staring at her. Right. At. Her.
Soothe glanced down. Her body was visible. She'd forgotten to use the Invisify Orb, and the Vanish Seeds effects had faded.
She paused.
"B-Bell?"
Soothe smiled, her eyes closing for a moment. Her smile turned jagged, and her eyes opened again. They weren't green anymore.
"I guess the fun's over," she giggled, covering her mouth daintily. "Oh, Timber. Oh…Timber…you had no idea, did you?"
She took a step forward, he didn't move. He was frozen in place, staring at her with wide eyes, confusion, yet not fear.
He swallowed. "Bell?"
"Soothe," she corrected. He gasped. "That's right." Another step forwards, he still wasn't stepping back. "It was me. All along. Even those years back when you first were heading to town. That was me who pointed you along the way. It's been me who you've been talking to. Telling me. Everything. Thank you for that, but…it seems that the fun is over. It's okay, I have to leave anyway. She has taken something from me."
"W-W-What?"
"You're not very smart, are you?" She was within a few meters of him, looming over him in the darkness, a pillar of shadow with eyes wide and unblinking. "It never struck you as suspicious that I never would let you see me? You really thought I was a mimikyu, huh? Heh. Doofus indeed."
A barb of shadow ripped off the darkness she emanated and struck Timber across the face. He was knocked back with a shout of pain as a splash of blood reddened the grass.
"Oh Timber~" Soothe whispered, kneeling down and crooking a finger. He gasped weakly as a tendril snaked around his neck before yanking him up, choking him as she lifted him up. "So sweet you were. So kindly to trust. So…very…stupid."
He whimpered, tears streaking down his face as she brought him close and ran a gentle hand over his face, the cut melting into nothing as gentle lavender light healed his wound. It stung like a bitch, but the pain was nothing compared to the squeezing ache in his chest.
Then she threw him against the tree, pinning him by the neck. "You should have run when you had the chance," she intoned, voice losing all emotive amusement. "But I guess you are just a doofus."
Timber choked out something. "Please. You're. My. F-Frie-"
Her eyes narrowed, and a blast of dark light sent him through the tree, splintering the wood and sap ran like blood as Timber gagged from the savage blow, rolling to the ground as the tree fell around him. The trunk landed right between him and her, and it was severed again from another blast, but it was a shield and just enough for him to get to his feet and bolt off.
No further blasts came after him as Timber ran, gasping, bleeding, and crying to where it was safe. Away from Soothe.
She stared after him, darkness clouding her face before she jerkily turned towards her house. She walked into it, head twitching back and forth as she walked like a mon made of stilts.
Mechanically, Soothe gathered up a few things and burned a few others before shouldering her travel bag and stepping out into the moonless night. She did not look at the bookcase or the buried books, or the stolen arm that had been hidden underneath. She ignored the giggle from the fireplace.
She had to adjust a few plans. If She was moving faster than Soothe had expected, then she would have to move even faster.
It was time.
Time for what?
Okay. So. Yeah. Things happened here. A wholesome festival. Shooting stars. Two old friends finally meeting face to face! Those are good things, right? Right? Right?
Let's just say there's a couple things going on here, and we draw ever closer to the relighting of the fire.
And a link to the discord as usual: discord gg/MUtgHqKhwg