“….aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-”
CRASH!
I landed in a face-down belly flop. It hurt, but somehow I don’t think I was injured. Still took a minute to get up.
I had nothing to mutter.
The others dropped back in around me, though they quickly returned to their original forms.
I wanted to address the elephant in the room as soon as we could, and my team couldn’t find it in themselves to argue. I made sure to emphasize I wanted to be civil about this.
So we sat down on and around the couch opposite Anita, who remained in Rito form given Latias weren’t known for sitting. Even as a twenty-three-year-old Rito woman, all of the dark grace was gone from her posture; she looked almost wilted, even.
“Anita,” I said, causing her to look at me like a sad puppy dog. “I’m not mad at you. I’ve calmed down since then. I just want to know, do you understand what you did?”
“…Yes…” she replied, her voice weak. “I attacked an entire race… My own race…”
“Do you know why?”
“I… I wanted to challenge you, to make you prove your strength to me… I thought my new memories of being a Rito would provide such a thing… But I didn’t know how much that me had darkness in her heart, and it… it all snowballed… People died because of me…”
“The power that comes from being a villain can be all-consuming. I know that that’s not you, and that, while she’s a part of you, is a part you won’t let run wild again. As long as you work to not do anything like that again, no matter what deals the elevator gives you, then far as I’m concerned, you’re part of the team.”
“Yes, I need to focus on what’s important here… You won… You not only stopped my plans, but… her madness is gone… I’ll be proud to have you as my trainer, Master…”
“Just Robert, please, Anita.”
“Welcome to the team, Anita,” said Terra. “For real this time.”
The other Pokémon were pretty much just as happy for her as she was.
“Can’t say I’m completely following,” Tooty added, “but if you guys think she’s a good fit, I won’t complain about it.”
“Same here,” said Twig.
“There’s just one thing I don’t get…” she said. “If you had my Ball… why didn’t you use it the first moment you could…?”
“Because that wouldn’t have solved anything,” I said. “Sealing away a heart full of hate… I’ve heard that story before. It just makes it fester and grow. Anita the Rito was running away with you, drowning your Pokémon heart in her obsessions and passions, and making you forget that our true strength comes from our teamwork. She needed to be defeated. Needed her plans to be stopped. It was the only way she could be helped.”
Anita held her hands over her heart. “Yes… Immersed in her delusions, I closed my heart… I was always removed from the Shadow Pokémon incidents, but is that what it was like…?”
“Hey.” Bolt walked up and gently patted her shoulder. “I know what that’s like. Like you’re empty inside and everything is out to get you. I got better because other Pokémon pooled their power to help me. And we can help you too.”
A puff of smoke, and he was hugged by a crying Latias. The others, warmed by this display, joined in.
I got up and walked over to the living room window, looking out to the warehouse. “We have a week to get comfortable with each other. Until then, there’s still the other elephant in the room.”
“Are you sure you don’t have at least a pool?” Timothy called over from the pile of boats that took up a large corner of floor space.
Luckily, a new door had appeared in the Warehouse that lead to the inside of the cabana on the Private Oasis, and Manaphy was glad we managed to keep it; with permission, Cody relocated the Chu breeding pen there to provide the closest thing to a natural habitat he could get for them. Unluckily, none of the ships could fit through the door, so we ended up using the original farm framework and the same sort of plumbing diversion we used for the garden to build a pool for Timothy and making some supports to properly hold up the rest.
The water around the Oasis was no longer cursed, so Manaphy could swim in it, but the whole place missed all animal life, and going out too far resulted in some fog bank kicking up that caused whoever went out to approach the island from the other side. As far as we could tell, there was no other land out there, and the sun moved along with the Warehouse’s time.
The notebook also explained that, at Manaphy’s choice while building an imported persona, he could deploy the Oasis as an actual place in the world for the jump, though that would remove instant Warehouse access from it and said location would be random though in an appropriate climate. Though it wouldn’t keep anything that was on it just for being on it that it didn’t enter with.
Speaking of Manaphy, he also relocated his Glowbos to the island. Once he made sure they wouldn’t accidentally drown themselves, he even took down the pen. I’m have my doubts about how this’ll affect his ability to get whichever one he needs in an emergency, but he assures me he has it all under control.
Twig also spent a lot of time there as he found the idea of being cooped up in a giant warehouse with no sky a bit too much like being trapped in a lantern.
As for the ships, we worked together to get the smaller ones in the lifeboat docks of the “Ocean Queen;” the original lifeboats fit on the shelves. The submersibles fitting were a pleasant surprise – it was weird how they were only big enough for one while the enemy ships like it were huge. Guess you needed both choices for that. Worked out pretty well for us, all things considered.
Most of the week was spent helping Anita feel a bit more like one of us. She still valued her alone time on the high shelves, but the others took turns getting to know her. She and Bolt have clicked a bit more than the others. I decided to have her prioritized for the next world as a way to have a non-Latias form that didn’t have a bunch of painful memories tied to it. Hopefully it will help her to forgive herself.
And then there was Bitbit, who was confused as we explained everything to him but mostly bummed that he missed the chance to participate in saving the world again.
“….aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-”
CRASH!
I landed in a face-down belly flop. It hurt, but somehow I don’t think I was injured. Still took a minute to get up.
“Y’know, the fact you like pratfalling mortals everywhere says a lot about you,” I groaned. “I’m not sure what besides ‘giant fucking twit,’ but I’m sure there’s more, especially helping my teammate turn on me.”
“I have already promised the entertainment requirement will be waived for the next ten years,” it replied. “That is already fair compensation.”
“Oh yeah, sure, don’t need to entertain, you say, and then next thing you know I’m middle of a zombie apocalypse or something!”
“As a matter of fact, all three of the next potential stops have more than ample ability to be a calm experience. Whether it will or not is up to you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That is a shame. Here are your available selections.”
The panels displayed three new inkblots, and I looked them over.
- The top one was… a hexagon. It was an inkblot, but I could only think of hexagon.
- The middle one made me think of jagged lines.
- The bottom one gave me a sense of disorientation, as if the world had briefly turned upside-down.
Well, picking the last one worked out real great last time – I was only held captive by main villains twice –but at least it made me think of something besides some random shape, so I went with it.
“World selected. Now making choices.”
Another barrage of lights. Maybe it was part of the whole thing and I shouldn’t be looking at them – something I would have to save for next time.
“Your selections have been made. Have a good decade!”
“Geronimo,” I said as flat as I could as I dropped.
Jumpchain: A Man Chooses 