Yeah, just been busy with life here. My posting pace is basically a crawl currently, and I can't promise a post anytime soon, so don't wait up on me. I'll just slide back in when I'm able, if you'll still have me then.
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Cavan Maynard
Mushroom Forest || Night
The climb down was a shaky one for Cavan since his mind was still caught on what he’d seen moments prior. A mess of leaves and wood filling a dragon-like frame—had Blossomon really become that? And if Blossomon had, was it really Cavan’s job to deal with it right now, with a Rookie-level digimon who had virtually no chance of winning?
The obvious answer was yes, but that made no sense. As much as it was clear that this was real life and not part of some game he’d started playing before he could spell Wednesday correctly, a part of him still wanted to process it like the game, if only because he’d gone through some of this in the game. Talking to Blossomon was the goal, and though the situation had changed, maybe the core principles were still in place. That meant there was probably something he was missing here, like an Ultimate-level ally he could recruit, or some easy-fix artifact or cure he’d overlooked. Either of those made more sense than having him and Bax fight Blossomon in monster mode, because what kind of quest put a Rookie against an Ultimate?
Spotting a Ninjamon with a guy around his age at the base of the tree brought a grin to Cavan’s face, and he jumped off the last branch, landing on his feet and jogging over to the dude. “Let me guess—Clock?” There were only two other guys in the chat, so he had a good chance at guessing. As for why this guy struck Cavan as more of a Clock than an Apollo, Cavan wasn’t really sure. Maybe it was that Apollo was a guild leader and a pretty active player overall, so Cavan was expecting somebody more talkative, but now that he was thinking about it, this dude looked pretty chill, and Clock hadn’t sounded very chill from the few messages they’d exchanged, so…
“Wait, Apollo? Asher?” Cavan blinked, looking the dude up and down again. He didn’t strike Cavan as the mature authority figure Apollo sounded like over text, but hey what did Cavan know anyway? “Eyy, nice to meet you, guild leader,” he said, resuming his grin as he raised a hand to clap and bump fists with Asher.
Looking around and spotting nothing but the Ninjamon at Asher’s side, Cavan furrowed his brows. “You had a Vorvomon, right?” he asked, then shrugged. “Well, this is Bax,” he said, indicating the Gabumon at his side, who eyed Asher with clear suspicion, “and Flynn,” he said, throwing a thumb at the Kiwimon behind them.
“Great, another one. Is this it, or should I just wait here until everyone who needs help climbing a tree gets here?” Flynn asked dryly.
“Nah, I don’t think we’ll need it,” Cavan said, looking back to Asher with a grin. “So, I have an idea, and it might be kinda dumb, but hear me out.” He looked between his audience, who looked varying shades of wary and interested. “You know the portal thing Blossomon had? Well, it’s there. Behind all these trees. Problem is, Blossomon’s also there, and he’s turned virus—into this huge, gnarly lizard thing. He’s a whole lotta leaves now, and he doesn’t look nice. But, you saw the mission right? ” Cavan fished his digivice from his pocket, turning it on. “‘Return Mushroom Forest to its original state’—that definitely means we need Blossomon back, and I’m willing to bet that portal in there is how we’re going to do that. Maybe it’ll portal us to somewhere where we can get help, or maybe it’ll portal us to a lower-level place to train—I don’t know, but my gut says it’s the key.”
He looked to Asher, his grin wide. There was something exciting about the situation. Sure it was dangerous, and sure what he was suggesting was potentially very stupid, but it felt like the moment before he attempted a new trick. He knew what he needed to do, and all he had to do was go for it. If he fell, he fell. If he scraped his shins and elbows up, then he’d get a few more bandages, but there was never a world where he didn’t attempt the trick at least a dozen times. Jumping into the deep end was how he learned to skate and swim, and that’s how it worked. That’s how he worked.
“How about it? One of us can distract the thing, and the other can make a run for it. Check the portal out. If it’s broken, we bail. If it’s not, well, we save the day.” He could feel Bax’s eyes on him, but he didn’t care. This—this was exciting.
Alice Takigawa
Mushroom Forest || Night
The trek through the forest was silent, which was both annoying and not. While Alice didn’t want to talk to Afton, she also didn’t like that they hadn’t shared what they knew. They were on the mission together, after all, and sharing information and discussing possible plans seemed to be the obvious next step. That said, Alice wasn’t about to initiate a conversation, and since it didn’t seem like Afton was planning on initiating one either, they were at an impasse. One of them would have to give in and start the conversation, and though a part of Alice knew that she probably should, that it’d be the best and more mature course of action, she didn’t. Doing so would be like admitting defeat in some way that she couldn’t quite put a finger on, and it wasn’t like she needed anything from Afton anyway. All of the information she needed was on her Digivice, and all of her questions could be asked and answered when they found a Floramon, so she trudged on in silence, ignoring the glances Doru directed at her. He could pretend like taking the mature loss was some sort of win, but she wouldn’t. She’d rather have silence.
Afton stopped suddenly, forcing Alice to stumble back awkwardly in order to avoid crashing into her.
“What?” Alice asked, fully irritated as she looked around. Following Afton’s gaze, she spotted a light-colored tree with large purple mushrooms growing out of it. Considering the fact that it lacked leaves, it looked pretty dead to her, but one dead tree was nothing much.
“That’s a Woodmon with five Mushroomon on it,” Afton said, her voice flat as ever.
“Yep, and they stink,” Monodramon said, swiping at his snout with a wing.
Glancing to Doru, who was looking intensely at the tree, had Alice realize that she was probably the only one who hadn’t caught on, and she was none too happy about that.
“Aw, you found us?”
A pair of blue eyes opened on the tree, and the middle of the trunk cracked open to reveal a maw of jagged wood that curved upwards on either side to outline a grin. On top of the trunk, the mushrooms lifted their caps, revealing toothy smirks that glinted in the moonlight as the Mushroomon stood and flexed their hands through fuchsia gloves.
“Your turn to hide then!” the Woodmon exclaimed happily, its voice higher than what Alice would’ve expected, but with a throaty scratchiness that created an unsettling contrast. “I’ll start counting now.” It covered its eyes with its spiky arms, the Mushroomon on it continuing to leer. “Ten, nine, eight…”
Alice looked to Afton, eyes wide. Running seemed like their best bet since they were both outnumbered and outmatched, but exposing their back was like asking to get attacked. Taking the Woodmon at its word didn’t seem like a good idea no matter how she looked at it, yet there wasn’t a better option at the moment. The risk, then, was equal parts necessary and worth it.
“Should we?” she asked.
Afton nodded, her eyes steady as she met Alice’s gaze, and Alice got the impression that they had the same idea. “Run.”
They turned tail and ran, with Monodramon being the only one who seemed caught off-guard, judging by his cry of surprise. Doru, on the other hand, had kept up with Alice, flanking her as he glanced behind to where a sinister quintet of laughter chased after them. Nearby was Afton, who maintained a few feet’s distance but didn’t seem to be running at full speed beside Monodramon. Given her outfit, Alice wouldn’t have thought her particularly athletic, if only because the athletes she knew tended towards tennis shoes and athletic wear even on their downtime. From the way Afton effortlessly kept pace, her strides looking like a casual jog even in a pair of ostentatious platform boots, though, it was clear that Afton’s frame was leaner than it seemed, and this realization had Alice grit her teeth as she tried to speed up her own pace.
Spotting a faint glow in the darkness ahead, Alice frowned, glanced at Afton, then veered towards it. A few seconds later, a dragon-like digimon revealed itself between the trees, its claws and horns glowing bright enough to faintly illuminate the Floramon beside it.
“Vorvomon?” Alice looked around as she came to a stop beside the lava digimon. “Where’s Apollo? Asher?”
“We’re headed to the Flower Council to find them,” the Floramon said, looking over them warily. Since they weren’t digivolutions of Mushroomon, Alice figured the Floramon would connect the dots soon enough, so she turned her attention backward instead, peering through the leaves as another slew of delighted laughter echoed out.
“We’re being chased. Five Mushroomon and a Woodmon. Help us out,” Afton said, and Alice fixed her with a stare, surprised. That wasn’t cool, and it didn’t seem like something someone who liked coming off as cool would do, yet Afton had done it—and looked cool while saying it, Alice realized in retrospect. Though she’d thought them helping was a given when the Woodmon caught up to them, informing the other party was better, and now she was back to being too conscious of Doru’s eyes on her.
Just as Alice opened her mouth to add something—please, or that she agreed?—the stomping started, the sound muted but able to shake the leaves behind them as Alice glanced at the others.
“Fe fi fo fum, ready or not, here I come!” the Woodmon shouted, and Doru gave Alice a nod. Yeah, this was happening, and Alice was going to prove that Doru was better than the loudmouth Monodramon. Somehow.
“Doru, Metal Canon!” Alice called as the quartet of Mushroomon burst through the trees, sniggering with delight as they reached into their pockets. They were going to use their signature mushroom bombs, no doubt, but Metal Canon was a stronger move, and that’s what counted.
Doru shot her a questioning look but complied, his mouth opening and glowing with energy as an iron sphere formed between his jaws. Beside him, the Floramon lashed out at the closest Mushroomon with vines, and Monodramon followed suit after getting a nod from Afton, leaping at another Mushroomon and ramming his head into it as fire pooled in his jaws.
Given that Metal Canon took a bit to charge, it took a few seconds before Doru actually launched his first attack. Alice had thought this a calculated loss that would pad the way for a bigger win when the move struck, but as she watched Monodramon and Vorvomon throw out one fiery breath after another, she realized that she’d miscalculated. Besides the advantage the dragon digimon had with their fire-based moves, there was the simple fact that Metal Canon didn’t have enough DPS for this battle. While it hit hard, it failed to one-shot any of the Mushroomon, and as the last Mushroomon fell, Alice realized that the only digimon Doru had done more damage than was Floramon.
“Oh, are all the little mushrooms gone?” The Woodmon feigned surprise as it stepped forwards, its eyes round but brimming with mirth. “Then it’s time for some fun!”
Smashing its two large, branch-like arms together, it cackled, leering as its eyes swept across the group. Though Alice hadn’t questioned why it’d stood back as they made quick work of the Mushroomon, she had to now, and the only explanation she could come up with was that it didn’t care—that it was much stronger than its rookie-level counterparts and had no problem assuming that it could tank them all alone, and that in itself was scary.
“Eenie meenie miney mo, let’s see which one takes a blow!” the Woodmon shouted, charging for the Floramon, its arms raised.
“Monodramon!” Afton called.
“Doru, Hyper Dash Metal!” Alice shouted at the same time.
Again, Doru shot her a funny look, but he followed her instructions again, charging at the Woodmon alongside Monodramon, who’d streamlined his wings against his body as slivers of flame leaked from his jaws. They made contact with the Woodmon with consecutive headbutts, and the Woodmon cried out as it fell, the Floramon stepping out of the way and directing the vines she’d tripped the Woodmon with onto its arms. As the Woodmon struggled against its thin restraints, snapping vines easily despite its stunned state, Doru, Monodramon, and Vorvomon bombarded it with attacks. Doru had chosen Beast Attack, Alice realized from a distance, and judging by the way the Woodmon’s side gradually splintered away under his claws, Alice realized it was working.
“This isn’t fair! You’re not playing fair!” the Woodmon cried as its struggles got weaker. “I-I don’t want to play anymore!”
Within another few seconds, though, the Woodmon froze, then collapsed in on itself, its form dissolving into small blue cubes that glowed as they swirled towards the digimon around it. Monodramon was the first to jump towards the data, growling as he looked between Doru and Vorvomon, his gaze challenging. While the Floramon was the first to step back from the fray, Doru was a close second, and Monodramon was left staring down Vorvomon as the data flowed into the two of them.
“Doru! Why aren’t you absorbing the data?” Alice was all confusion as she came to a stop beside Doru, looking between him and the last traces of glowing data. Was he really letting his maturity come between him and digivolution?
“It’s just some data,” Doru said, his tone placative. “There’ll be more later.”
“That’s not the point!” Alice hissed back, but her words grew quiet as she saw Afton approaching with the rest of the digimon. Where the Floramon looked concerned, Monodramon was fully smug, which wasn’t made better by the lack of tells on Afton’s face.
Holding Alice’s gaze for a second, Afton blinked, then looked to Doru, nodding. “Thanks.”
At that, Doru hesitated, looking at Alice questioningly. Her “don’t talk to her or else” glare, though, prompted him to settle for a nod, which Alice wasn’t too upset about. It was simple, did the job, and she’d have a word with him about all of this later.
A snort from Monodramon made Alice want to snort as well because, really, what was this? They were guildmates and perhaps part of the same party, but gaining experience was an individual thing. Trying to pretend like everything was going to be split fairly when Ephie was involved was a joke in itself.
The disapproving look Afton shot Monodramon had the purple dragon straighten a bit, though her attention shifted immediately to the Vorvomon and Floramon. “Were you heading somewhere before we met?”
“I was taking him to the Flower Council so he can be reunited with his humanmon,” the Floramon said, glancing at Vorvomon briefly before continuing. “I can take you to them too. They will know where the other humanmon is, if you are looking for him.”
“Take us to them,” Alice asserted immediately. Though she was acutely aware of how unnecessary her rushed tone was, she didn’t want to be left out of the decision-making like some blind follower.
“This way,” the Floramon said after a hesitant glance at Afton, who’d only spared Alice a bland glance. Under the Floramon’s guidance, the forest felt slightly less ominous than before, even if it’d remained just as dark and crowded.
Afton Reimer
Mushroom Forest || Night
“Announcing Aftonmon, Alicemon, Dorumon, Monodramon, and Vorvomon! Found in the southern woods!”
The forest clearing wasn’t bright, but there was enough clearance above to allow moonlight to illuminate the area and reveal the numerous digimon speckling the trees around them. At a glance, the crowd appeared to consist of Floramon and its champion forms, Ninjamon and Kiwimon, and a closer look simply revealed more and more of the same plant-based data digimon. Even considering how the Floramon from earlier had immediately helped them against the Mushroomon and Woodmon earlier, the crowd of digimon gathered around the clearing, simply standing around and watching, felt a distance from friendly.
“Humanmons, tamers, and digimon, you stand before the Flower Council. We have already met Cavanmon and Ashermon, and we have sent them with guides to see Blossomon,” a Floramon slightly larger than the Floramon beside it said, its voice feminine and steady as it carried around the clearing. “You are welcome to meet them there, but we have been informed that battle has broken out near our southeast border. Thus, we humbly ask for your assistance on the front.” The Floramon met each of the tamer’s eyes in turn, communicating an elegant plea with its gaze. “Our battles along the border are usually won, but at too great a cost for us not to ask for help. So please, offer us your aid and let us work together to limit the casualties in these endless battles.”
“Let’s do it. There’s no reason we need to all be in the same place, so if Asher and Cavan are already with Blossomon, we might as well go and help fight,” Alice said, looking at Afton expectantly. She expected Afton to agree with her, and Afton had to admit she was tempted to. There really wasn’t a reason they all needed to see the old flower together, and though pooling information was a priority, they needed information to pool first.
“Vorvomon,” Afton said, looking to the fiery dragon, “will you be joining us on the front?”
Whether or not he wanted to join them didn’t matter too much. He’d be a force on the battlefield considering his natural advantage over all plant digimon, but Afton couldn’t fault him if he wanted to reunite with his tamer instead. Considering his temperament so far, he seemed the type to prefer a fight over most things, but Afton didn’t want to assume—yet. So, she waited for his answer, a small, silent part of her thinking that Monodramon’s challenging glare at Vorvomon would be enough to convince the fire dragon to tag along to the war front, and another, smaller, and more cynical part of her wondering whether he’d be interesting enough to prove her wrong.
Pokemon: Sanshu
When the red-haired simp, Marcus—Scarves, Julian figured, because what kind of dipshit wore scarves?—asked him if he’d been alone, Julian nodded. “Yeah.” Of course he’d been alone. The only thing worse than being forced to spend time outside was being forced to spend it with family. None of it, not listening to his sister whine, his parents nag, or his grandparents ramble, was enjoyable, so of course he’d headed out alone. Inviting one of them along was unthinkable, though that choice had clearly come back to bite him in the ass. Despite all the whining, nagging, and rambling he might’ve had to put up with, being stuck with a family member was more reassuring than being stuck with this lot of randoms, but fuck it it was what it was.
The conclusion Scarves came to was so strange that Julian had to wonder whether the dude’s head was screwed on right. Talking with people was what got them stuck in the forest? Besides the obvious fact that both he and Julian had been alone—which he’d admitted himself, for fuck’s sake—there was the fact that people talked to each other every day without getting stuck in crazy-colored forests. The more obvious answer would be that Marcus was trying too hard to connect dots that had nothing to do with each other, and that forests had something to do with it. Brenton and Venassa dude had been camping, and Julian had literally been walking through a forest. Most obviously and importantly, they were currently in a fucking forest, so why hadn’t that been the go-to connection?
The question of why, then, was the issue. Since Julian was pretty sure no one in their right mind would want to kidnap a borderline anemic kid, he had no idea why he’d been taken. Transporting him without killing him on the road was impressive, but dumping him in the forest? Shooting him on arrival would’ve been more helpful for both of them. At least then he’d get to skip the suffering and starving and the plants would get their fertilizer faster.
A yowl cut through Julian’s thoughts, and he flinched back in time to see something darting through the forest. A cat? Punk rock fantasy, or Aubrey, seemed to think so, though the weird Wonderland reference got her a squint from Julian. She didn’t strike Julian as a book snob, but if she was going to keep making allusions to classics, he’d have to put her down as one.
The group dissolved into dumb theories for a minute, during which Julian tuned out. Instead, his attention went to the forest, which was colorful and strange, its branches flowing into each other like something out of a fantasy game. As far as he knew—and that wasn’t far, but still—trees tended to grow up, not to the side, but here, trees reached in all sorts of directions besides up. Some favored the left or the right, some chose both but still refused the obvious compromise, and some stretched towards nothing at all, letting their curved branches hover ominously overhead.
What stood out more, though, were the flowers. Vivid reds and borderline-neon blues popped in nooks and crannies, and smatterings of golden hues helped bridge the gap and pad the glow of surrealism. But the colors weren’t what bothered Julian; it was the realization that he hadn’t sneezed since waking up. He had thought about sneezing, had had the urge to sneeze, but he always did when he looked at flowers. The more important thing was that he hadn’t sneezed, and that was very, very strange. As someone allergic to every tree and flower on the west coast, including but not limited to style, he was used to the sneezing, itching, and wiping that came with existing, but for some reason he wasn’t feeling particularly uncomfortable at the moment. It was the lack of discomfort, then—the ability to breathe smoothly, to be unbothered for minutes at a time—that unsettled him, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.
A cry cut through the air, and the group rushed to it, Julian included. The sight that awaited them, however, had him recoil: A boy struggled in the mud of a riverbank, two alien-like creatures grasping at him among the bones. While his brain tried to process the sight, his eyes had a mind of their own, flicking from teeth, to claws, to bones, then back in some delayed circle of confusion and disbelief. His eyes were seeing goblins, but his head was telling him it wasn’t so, that there was no way he was seeing goblins because goblins didn’t exist. This wasn’t some D&D campaign, wasn’t some fantasy game on a screen, so there was no way he was seeing what he was seeing.
So he stood, watching the other kids surge forwards from his place at the edge of the forest, his own body frozen in fear. What the fuck was he supposed to do? Charge in and act like a hero? If there was one thing that Julian was sure to his core about—surer than he’d ever been, than he ever would be—it was that he was no hero.
That said, Julian could be stupid. He’d gladly admit to idiocy now and again, and when he saw the boy shift into a horse and grab onto Pink with his horsey molars, the multiple disconnects in his brain sparked into one, singularly stupid idea.
“Hey, shitweed! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” he shouted down the bank, his eyes meeting the horse’s with a challenge. And, in the split second it took for the horse to process his words, his own brain finished processing the shitty rehashed movie line he’d just uttered, and the bones in his legs pretty much melted where he stood.
Yeah, he was fucked.
Kenny Sokoloski
Rushford: Jenkin’s Diner || May 7th
Katie’s mention of the rooftop sounded like a good idea to Kenny. Conceptualizing the softball field from a bird’s eye view was something she’d done often, so she was partial to making strategies from vantage points. There were few safer ways to get a clearer grasp of their situation, and she was glad when Karen agreed.
The supplies Lena brought up, however, were overshadowed by her truck, even if Kenny knew a truck was nowhere near the answer to their problems. Besides the obvious gas shortage, a truck would struggle to fit three people, much less eight, and riding in the back was hardly an option at the moment. Still, a car was the safest mobile option they had, and it’d be another ace up their sleeve when they found a use for it.
“I’d like to volunteer to go as well,” Kenny said after Lena, glancing at the woman who’d volunteered first before looking around at the group. They were older than her, but she was fast, and that counted for something. As for the sick, dead, or otherwise zombie-seeming figures stumbling around outside, she’d gotten this far, and someone had to go.
A ding from the toaster oven drew her attention, and she headed over, sliding the biscuits out onto a plate and grabbing some silverware before returning to the counter. “Biscuits are done,” she said, setting the plate down and glancing behind to where Katie stood in front of the stove. Breakfast was coming together nicely.
“Anyone want honey or jam for their biscuits?” she asked, checking the master condiment caddy beside them. Inside were bunches of small jam packets, available in strawberry, grape, and mixed fruit flavors. There seemed to be fewer packets of honey, perhaps because honey tended to be used for tea as well, but it was something. “Or margarine. There’re a few packets left.”
Eryn Montero
Wet Caverns || Day 5: Afternoon
Though Eryn had known that Peri’s roar was nothing compared to a full-grown Onix’s, that didn’t mean she was prepared for when Peri’s parents started roaring, or that she was anywhere close to being cool with the ear-splitting cacophony that ensued when the whole colony joined in. A glance to her side showed that none of her Pokemon were taking it too well, and even Tula had stilled to let her properly cover her ears.
“Do any of you want me to return you?” she shouted, barely making out her own voice in her head.
Dei was the first to shoot her a glare, followed by Kylie, whose annoyance quickly melted into a shade of sadness that Eryn had a feeling was for show. To his credit, Eri had put on a brave face, but his eyes had shot to Dei first before he closed his mouth, and from the way his Nuzleaf hands were clamped over his ears so hard she could make out the indent of where they pressed into his skin, it was obvious he wasn’t taking the roars well.
Still, no one had volunteered. Even Tula was staying calm in her arms, so Eryn turned back to the Onix, hiding a smile. Her Pokemon really were adorable, and as for her ears, she could take it too.
After another few seconds of unadulterated sound, Peri made to follow the other Onix off, sparing Eryn a glance that Eryn returned with a nod, thumbs up, and smile. While there wasn’t a world where she’d mind Peri going off with her parents, it was nice to note that Peri had checked with her before going off, however brief that check was. Maybe it was Peri’s constant stubbornness, but Eryn would’ve guessed her to be the first to roam off without permission, so she was pleased to see that the Onix still minded her somewhere under that rocky exterior.
When the silence stayed put, she looked over to her team and Ms. Diglett next to them, shrugging. “Well, I guess it’s just us for now then.”
Her eyes wandered into the murky darkness of the tunnels as she rubbed a hand over Tula’s carapace, comforted by the way her fingers skimmed over the Margikarp’s cool, smooth scales. Last time she was here, she’d had two goals: to get to Lakewatch, and to find a Pokemon. She’d achieved both those goals, but the second one had panned out differently from how she’d planned. In her head, she’d always wanted one type of Pokemon from the caverns—the type that people came specifically to Lakewatch to find, and the type that always came to mind when she thought of an ace trainer. Sure she wouldn’t trade Peri for the world, and sure she had her hands pretty full with her team at the moment, but if she didn’t pursue her original plan now, she’d be admitting defeat. It'd be in in a small way, but in a meaningful one, and four years staring out classroom windows dreaming about her bright future on the road hadn’t shaped her into a defeatist.
Reaching up to touch the tip of her cap, she frowned. “What did I read in the trainer school again?” The books in the library had confirmed that there were dragons in the cave, but the specifics were escaping her. “In the deeper caverns? Near the water? Or not.”
She sighed, shaking her head. It’d only been a few days since Pureplain, and already she was beginning to forget. “Maybe I should start taking notes,” she joked, rubbing Tula’s chin with a thumb. “Should I, Tutu? Should I?”
Looking at her team showed that no one was impressed by her baby voice, and she cleared her throat, straightening. “Well, since you’re all so helpful, maybe I should ask you,” she said, then paused. “Wait, that’s it!” Grinning, she fished out her Pokedex, scrolling through her contacts. “I’ll ask Braith! He knew about the true Dragon Lake, and he’s got a Noivern, so he’ll probably know something. Plus, I need to tell him that the Descent Tower is super not boring, though would that be a bad idea? Probably, huh?”
She turned to her Pokemon, half-expecting them to answer back. Instead, she was met by faces of annoyance, confusion, and forced, happy cluelessness that gave her little to work with. At least Ms. Diglett was actually happy.
“See, this is why I ask Tula,” she said, rolling her eyes dramatically as she dialed Braith up. It was late in the afternoon, and most people would be planning for dinner if they weren’t trainers with skewed travelling schedules, but Eryn had a hunch Braith would pick up. While reception wasn’t strong in the tunnel, it was functional, likely because she was still close to the walls, and Eryn rolled with it.
The aura of smugness that surrounded Peri when she returned was thick enough to force Eryn to acknowledge it, and she did so by giving the Onix a suspicious look through slightly narrowed eyes. “There something you wanna share?”
Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t Peri taking a successful dive down into the ground, and the dots connected when her attention flicked from the other Onix to the tunnels around them.
A grin split her face, and she ran over to Peri, wrapping her and Tula into a hug with an excited shriek. “Arceus, did you learn to dig? Like the move proper? So you can ram opponents and caves for me now?” Eryn’s toes tingled with excitement at the prospect, and she shrieked again when Peri gave a casually smug nod. “Thank you so much!” she called to the Onix gathered behind Peri, who didn’t look particularly taken by her reaction.
The one closest to Peri—Peri’s mom, probably, since Eryn's Pokedex was telling her the Onix was female—gave Eryn an unimpressed look down her nose, and Eryn got the message.
“Loud and clear, Momma Onix! I promise to only use Peri’s power for good!” she said, straightening into a salute.
After thanking the rest of the Onix and letting Peri have her final goodbyes, during which Eryn got the idea to crown Peri with the King’s—rebranded Queen’s—Rock, Eryn headed away from the tunnels and back into the main cavern under Peri’s lead. Something about having a giant rock snake who now knew how to traverse said tunnels reassured Eryn, and she was brimming with confidence as she headed deeper into the caverns.
“One dragon-type and we’re good,” she said, looking to her team with a grin. “One last teammate and we’re full house and ready to rumble, so keep your eyes peeled!”
Brandon Unicorn
The presence of another voice in his head was alarming, to say the least. This one came quieter than the first, its words hissed and trailing into each other. That the first voice he’d been talking to didn’t respond to the newer one struck Brandon as strange until he realized that the first one couldn’t hear the new voice. Should he tell the first voice? Honesty begot honesty, and as far as he knew, the first voice hadn’t lied to him. Still, the cards were not all on the table, and so Brandon swallowed, deciding not to bring up the second voice until he determined whether he believed the accuser over the informer.
His strongly-worded request was met by a strange sound that he managed, after a few seconds, to identify as a laugh. While it was good that the first voice registered that it wasn’t a direct threat, the voice’s return hit harder than Brandon would’ve liked to admit. Indeed, he would be making things harder if he didn’t listen to the voice providing him guidance in a world he was now lost in. The voice’s gibe about his father only dug the knife in deeper because it’d guessed his thoughts perfectly. Though he’d ultimately chosen not to pursue foolishness, he’d considered it, and that was enough to bring about a wave of shame. He was green and everyone knew it, in life and in death, and he supposed he deserved the harsh sense the voice was speaking.
When the voice admitted weakness, Brandon paused, surprised. Given how the voice had responded to his questions back when they were inside the vision, with the ring of light and endless dark, he hadn’t been expecting much in terms of answers or admissions, but its words just now were… humanizing. No longer did the voice seem like that of a titan or seraph—it was that of a man. A being, perhaps, if the voice had transcended humanity, but nonetheless one with flaws and desires. It was not omniscient or omnipotent, and it wanted not to lie dormant, which made Brandon believe in it that much more. Its statement about igniting his body had him crack a small smile. Since its goals aligned with his for the foreseeable future, there was room for trust.
The mental nod he felt as he commanded the army was a reassuring one, and it inspired continued confidence as he rode on. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a skeletal horse trotting alongside a spear-wielding soldier, and he was struck with an idea. Looking at around at the skeletons surrounding the bone horses, he willed them to mount the horses, and they did, interpreting his command as he’d meant them to. One soldier mounted each horse, rising and trotting to keep pace behind him. Suddenly, his battalion had a cavalry, and a look back had his mind call up the stories of the grim riders of old, who were said to be core to many undead armies. Would he really be able to command such creatures one day?
“Commanding the dead,” Brandon said, realization dawning on him, “I’m doing that through magic, aren’t I?” That was the only explanation he could think of aside from being mentally linked to the skeletons, which was both more and less unsettling depending on how he thought of it.
Hearing that the voice didn’t have access to his thoughts was a relief, though the inclusion of “yet” in the voice’s words left room for doubt. After all, if it had access to his thoughts, it had no reason to inform him of it. However, given that the voice seemed to have limits, like not being able to hear the second voice accusing it, Brandon figured it to still be telling the truth. His mind was his own, then, he had until the time the voice was able to read his thoughts from the workings of his brain to decide whether he truly trusted the voice, which seemed far enough away for there not to be any rush.
The pause that came after his request for a name was concerning, if only because identity was key to a lot of things. Brandon, for example, was a Unicorn—a son of a respected Duchy family in the Holy Griffin Empire. Mentioning his name alone could open doors, and he figured it no different for necromancers, of whom there were the infamous and not. Of course, he was assuming the voice belonged to a necromancer, but he saw no reason why it would not. All the signs were there, from being trapped in a tomb artifact to directly performing magic with his body, and given the circumstances, he preferred a necromancer.
When the voice claimed himself a lord, Brandon paused. There was a difference between being a lord and a knight, and that difference lay with whether or not one was granted land and titles. But that was within the Holy Griffin Empire; outside it, lord titles were won through conquest, self-claimed with blood and steel, and the implications that came with a necromancer claiming a lord title were… many, to say the least.
Exhaling, Brandon nodded. “Lord Dietrich.” Calling a lord a sir was selling the lord’s accomplishments short in the best case, and insulting them in the worst, so he’d call a spade a spade. “I believe we are currently in the western outskirts of the Unicorn Duchy, and we are headed towards the foothills, where I’ve heard reports of an orc encampment.” Unfortunately, he had little more information to offer than that. He’d been neither important enough to hear nor driven enough to seek out further information about the encampment, and the rest of what he knew were simple rumors—fear- and humor-driven accounts passed through the ranks of soldiers frequenting the border. “Travelers usually avoid the foothills, so the fire ahead should be that of the encampment, or of a group split off from it. From what I’ve heard, it doesn’t seem like a war party. A scouting party, perhaps, or just a nomadic group passing through.”
What he’d just said was a combination of basic geography and a conservative estimate of the encampment that any patrolling soldier could offer, but such was the extent of Brandon Unicorn’s responsibilities. He led patrols alongside experienced knights twice his age and attended ceremonies to smile and wave at crowds. With his academy days behind him, his recent education had been limited to war theory and jousting tournaments, to knowing what troop formations worked best against each other and which ladies tended to fill the spectating stands. How to fight orcs with an infantry? Prioritize ranged troops and distance and whittle away at the barbarians until they closed the distance. Magic made all the difference against them, and successfully fending off the initial onslaught usually meant winning the battle.
But that was for empire troops equipped with steel and years of training. A knight at their helm was enough to galvanize them, and priests and sisters in the back helped widen the difference between a good offense and a better defense. With the dead, however, Brandon was lost. The textbooks had covered their weaknesses and strengths, but with a focus on how they matched up against human armies, not how they compared to other ones. All that came to mind about skeletons were how they were the fodder for necromancers, disposable and as easily reanimated as they were dispatched. Their numbers were what made them threatening, but he was in the process of building a legion, not wielding it.
Nervousness had begun to pool in Brandon’s gut, but he focused on the next steps. “Are there any strategies I should keep in mind against orcs? Against their goblins, warriors, and centaurs?” He did his best to sound confident, but even he could hear the falseness of it in his voice.
Thinking that he’d be able to sneak up on the camp had been too ambitious, it seemed, but perhaps it was for the better. A small pack of goblins noticed them just as they reached the edge of the foothills, and they scampered over, the sound of their shrieks and yelps pitchy and wild enough to raise the hairs on the back of Brandon’s neck as they scampered over. A few deeper-toned calls supported the higher-pitched ones, making Brandon aware of a few leaders in their midst, and his hand clenched down on the skeletal vertebrae he’d been holding onto.
“Goblins led by some orcs.” He looked to the army at his sides, heart racing. This was it. His first battle, and alone, if having a seasoned necromancer in his head could be called being alone. “They’re probably a scouting party, or a patrolling one.” Goblins and warriors—what was the strategy against those? “Archers, to the back!”
The skull faces grinned at him as they moved, their bone surfaces gleaming white under the moonlight. His riders were already at his side, and the footmen were scattered around them, the hounds at their feet. Looking at them, at their unwavering stillness and utter lack of life, Brandon wondered whether directing them like human infantry would be enough.
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