route_1065 | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who: Teru Mikami (

usedsakujo) and Beyond Birthday (

usedfakeout)
Where: Route 29
When: backdated to February 14th
Summary: Setting off for Cherrygrove together. They have their first wild encounter.
Rating: PG?
Log:
There were probably worse people he could have been travelling with, Teru told himself, as he and Ryuzaki began their journey. He'd been telling himself that a lot. That, and this can't be a coincidence. What were the chances that, dragged to a completely alien world, he'd run into someone else with the shinigami eyes? Someone who seemed to have acquired them by means other than the trade he'd made with Ryuk.

...even if meeting Ryuzaki was his purpose here, though, he still didn't want to talk to the man. Everything about him was unnerving, the way he stared, the way he smiled... He'd made up his mind to say as little as possible until they got to Cherrygrove. As they stepped on to Route 29, though, Teru stopped in his tracks. Behind him, Shinobu skarred impatiently.

"That music... it's still playing, but it's changed. I assumed it must be coming from somewhere in the town, but..."

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"It's quite catchy, don't you think?" B doesn't think so, as it happens, but that doesn't matter.

He's all but given up on getting Ghostie to stop playing with his hair, and so he seems at most times to have a purple halo that negates gravity and stays away only from his face.

Edited 2011-02-16 20:23 (UTC)

It's disturbing. He'd used the phrase 'woken up inside a video game', but he hadn't thought so literally. A world with its own inherent background music just - shouldn't be possible.

He's not going to admit that it frightens him, of course. "I think I preferred the first one."

"Ah, but this one is so much– jauntier." He bounces on the balls of his feet in rhythm to the music. Slouched over, it looks bizarre. Ghostie contributes by waving his hair in counterpoint. Despite his initial misgivings, Beyond is beginning to suspect that they might make a good team.

"If that's the kind of thing you -" Teru begins, but gets no further. He started walking again as he spoke, striding ahead in the hope that Ryuzaki would fall behind a little, and he's just walked straight into the long grass.

There are two excited cries, as two wild Pokemon leap out at them.

Sentret!

Hoppip hop!

"Oh, nicely done," he observes, as Gastly abandons his hair and floats out menacingly in front of him. "Take out the pink one. The... Hoppip," he tells it, eyeing it and thinking it would make a nice counterpart to Gastly.

"Gast?"

He makes a guess at what the Pokémon means. "I don't know. I'd hurry, though."

"Gastly." Gastly looks amused, and B finds out why a moment later when Hoppip merely flops about.

"...Nonetheless," B mutters. "Watch out for the other one."

"Well, how was I to know? I never played these things -!"

Sentret jumps up at Shinobu and rakes its claws across her wing, with a nasty scraping noise. Shinobu - looks vaguely irritated by this, and cocks her head at Teru. "Skarskar?"

"I - I don't know!" He's frantically trying to work the Pokedex. Finally it tells him his choices, which are - limited. "All right - Shinobu, use Peck!"

B, who's played Pokemon Red, pulls out his own Pokedex, looking for all the world as though he'd meant to do it all along.

"You're fairly useless, aren't you?" he tells Ghostie. "Use Hypnosis on the Sentret."

After a brief, incredulous look, Ghostie sticks out his tongue at B – B responds in kind – and complies. Sentret drops like a stone. "Excellent," B mutters, but Ghostie takes it as a compliment, which B supposes is all very well.

Edited 2011-02-17 18:54 (UTC)

Teru failed to specify a target, but Shinobu has resigned herself by now to the fact that her Trainer is somewhat clueless, and decides that he probably meant her to go for the Sentret. Her attack crosses with Ghostie's, though, so she ends up just pecking its unconscious body. Teru winces a little. This now seems unnecessarily cruel.

Particularly when he looks at the Hoppip. "...is that one even trying to attack us?"

"Don't say that. I'm sure it is trying as hard as it can."

The kindness is clearly just for show, since he follows this immediately with, "Okay, now use Lick on Hoppip."

Gastly darts out at Hoppip, but, to Beyond's surprise, Hoppip manages to flail out of the way.

"That's not how I meant it. It's completely helpless, look at it! It looks as though it's about to blow away."

Shinobu looks bewildered at him. "Kar?" This might translate as And?

"It had better not." The second time round, Ghostie manages to catch it with the side of his tongue, and Hoppip falls to the ground, twitching.

Teru stares, horrified. "What did you do to it?"

"Nothing," Beyond says cheerfully, rummaging through his bag. "It was all Ghostie. Isn't he talented? Aha." He pulls an empty Pokeball from his pack and tosses it at Hoppip. Hoppip glows white, before turning into a crescent of energy and disappearing into the Pokeball, which falls to the ground.

B stares at it for a second, then grins and reaches for it – but as soon as he does so, the ball opens and flies back into his hand and Hoppip reappears, still twitching but not yet captured.

"Damn," he mutters.

Teru finds himself admiring the Hoppip, now. It's a persistent little creature.

He steps between it and B. "You're the one who gave the order."

"Hypnosis now," he tells Ghostie. Hoppip, in no position to resist, blinks slowly twice and then rolls over.

Now they have two Pokemon fast asleep, and a kinder person would leave them and keep walking, but B blinks at Mikami. "Excuse me, Mikami-san."

He doesn't move. "Why do you even want it? It's no use to you if it can't attack."

"To train it to attack. Not all of them will be as harmless as these, you know, and there are some Ghostie can't touch."

This isn't quite true, but it's certainly close enough.

...all right, that's perfectly logical as far as it goes. But he's still not moving.

"You've just beaten it into submission and now you want it to fight for you? And before you say it, I understand how the games work, but this - it's real. It's not a toy."

No, it's a weapon, B doesn't say. Instead he tries, "Of course it's not a toy! Neither is Ghostie, are you, Ghostie?"

To his credit, Ghostie makes a rude noise in Teru's direction.

"You -" Teru begins, but doesn't get any further, as Shinobu suddenly grips the back of his collar in her beak and tries to drag him away. He struggles, slipping backward. "What - no, get off me!"

Her only response is a muffled karr.

B throws the Pokeball again. This time he waits, and this time Hoppip doesn't come back out.

"Excellent," he says, picking it up off the ground. It doesn't feel any heavier at all. "Good work, Ghostie. And–" he turns to the Skarmory holding Mikami captive– "thank you very much for your assistance, Shinobu."

Shinobu narrows her eyes at him, releasing Teru from her grip. "Skar. Armory karkar." The translation is probably something on the lines of I wasn't trying to help you.

Teru scowls at her, trying to straighten his clothing. "I could have taken care of myself! There," he adds, to Ryuzaki, "you got it. Happy?"

"I am only being polite," he tells Shinobu, sticking the Pokeball in his bag. "And yes," he adds, "I am rather pleased. You could still get the other one, you know."

With nothing left to fight, Ghostie returns to his place behind Beyond's head.

"I don't -"

Teru pauses, looking at the Sentret, which is still fast asleep. And injured.

"...I'm only doing this because I can't just leave you here," he tells it, retrieving a Pokeball from his own bag.

"It can't hear you," Beyond observes, just to be annoying.

Teru pointedly ignores this, and throws the ball. The Sentret glows, and vanishes, and though the ball wriggles a couple of times, it doesn't open again. He picks it up.

"From now on," he says, quietly, "we're staying out of the grass."

"Nonsense," Beyond says briskly. "How will we train? Unless you want to put Ghostie up against Shinobu."

He's already starting to walk away.

And Teru stays just where he is. "I refuse to believe that participating in this is the only way out of here."

B stops, and after a second, turns back around. Some subtle shift in his expression suggests that he's finally lost patience.

"And why might that be, Mikami?"

The change in Ryuzaki's demeanour doesn't worry him. Not one bit. Really. And even if it did, that wouldn't change anything.

"It's inhumane."

"This has been occurring for years with no uprising on the part of the more powerful parties. Your own creature pulled you out of the way and allowed my capture. They clearly do not mind, and so to make them victims is to treat them with condescension and to deny them agency. I am truly sorry to deprive you of your moral high ground, but you are looking for excuses to be self-righteous."

"Any number of unjust systems have persisted for years - decades, centuries - without being overturned. Because people are raised within them. The cruelty becomes normalised, inevitable. They don't mind because they don't realise there's any other way for things to be."

Behind him, Shinobu covers her face with one wing. "Kar skarmory skar," she mutters, exasperated. (I'm standing right here, you know...)

"Besides, what makes you think there never has been any uprising? Those two attacked us on sight."

"The oppressed mind. They simply are not given a voice. And who, between the two of us, has played the games, and who has not?"

Ghostie has abandoned his hair to go float near Shinobu in a conciliatory fashion.

"...you, I suppose," Teru concedes through clenched teeth. "But it isn't a game, here."

"Release her, then." He nods at Shinobu.

...yes. Of course he should do that. It's strange, though, he's already started to become attached to her, even after so little time. He named her.

Still, it's the right thing to do, he sees that now, He turns to Shinobu. "You're released. I'm no longer your trainer, you're free to leave."

Shinobu ...just stares at him, unmoving.

Beyond folds his arms and waits. It's unusual to see him out of his habitual slouch.

Edited 2011-02-18 22:46 (UTC)

Maybe she doesn't understand? Teru fishes her Pokeball out of his bag. They're bound to the things somehow, aren't they? Maybe if he breaks it... "You see?" He takes it in both hands, preparing to snap the hinge. "I'm letting you go."

Shinobu's head darts forward, knocking the ball from his hands before he can break it. "Skar!" she protests, and whacks him on the side of the head with her beak. Very gently, considering she's huge and armoured, but he still staggers backward a little, alarmed. "Armory skar."

Beyond is biting his lip to keep from laughing, but he will stay silent. This is far too good to interrupt.

Ghostie is floating behind Shinobu, looking vaguely concerned, but that's probably just at the thought of not having B's hair to play with anymore.

Teru stares at her, rubbing his head - that hurt. "I shouldn't be forcing you to fight for me!"

"...kar." It sounds like a sigh. Her tone softens, as much as it can. "Kar armor skarmory." She picks up the Pokeball again, holding it carefully in her beak, and pushes it into his hand.

"Well!" Beyond says loudly, interrupting the moment at the most irritatingly insensitive time possible. "That settles that, then!"

This earns him identical annoyed glares from both Teru and Shinobu.

"...for now." He puts the Pokeball away again, carefully.

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