~~~ Chapter 74 - Oot ~~~
"Go."
The message was received, and the so-named Oust stirred.
They stretched their six limbs, finally healed, though the limps would/had/did/are going to continue a while yet.
Through the distortion they passed, traversing from the current anchor into the other realm. Unbroken. The hole between realities, it and she, had shattered. Oust paused, choosing to rest as it watched the roots flow.
Still, the time wasn't yet.
Distortion rushed into her original world, not her home.
Without care, it would shatter under the Pressure. However, that was not the desired outcome. Oust had followed Leah, to her once-home. The child could/was going to/already did have a little fun.
For, what was reality without a little chaos?
The seeds were planted. She had shattered them, he, the child, it, so-named Oust, closed the broken bits of reality behind her. It watched her panic, unleashing a beam through a house. The inhabitants of the world would triangulate the source. They would find unnatural growths left.
The distortion would ease the seed and cause it to grow.
Picked her up and dropped her off, back at the train, Much to her distress. Kids were meant to be cared for, after all. In this cause, he had chosen to cooperate.
Unfortunately, the responsibilities under the banners of Chaos were many. Infinite, even. It squirmed under the weight, still healing from eras of scars that had starved it of growth.
Fulfill the conditions of its labor, then rest.
Then be called off to another.
Rest never stayed for long enough, not even for Oust.
Memories, the slate swept clean. The cold had already diverged, choosing to follow their surrogate. The child traveled to the world again, and urged the seeds to grow. Filled the contract. A fleeting moment in causality, really. Again, the portal closed behind it, it observed the work of the others.
They traveled back across the distortion world, hopping from distortion-consumed world to distortion-consumed world until they returned to the oceans of dreams.
The oceans were silent. There, sat Darkrai and Cresselia, tending to one another. It knew the lunar duo well. They were silent as Giratina's child approached. They sat together in a moment of rest, Cresselia and Darkrai still recovering from their battles. It was slow, as they were old.
As the child sat, localized to that spot, it filtered through, locating and processing dreams of interest. A desire floated up. It wanted a particular thing that stemmed from experiences of its own.
And Oust, Oust would have it.
For all things in motion were beholden to chaos.
~~~
Meeting with Macie and her dad again was fine? I guess?
She threw herself at me, and I, getting better, held my arms in ways that would actively keep her safe, but both Lanky and her father stopped it. Which caused the girl tears. She really needed to wear a full-body kit of leaves if she was going to spend any time with me.
If it wasn't for her chatter, I would have started making her one. But Lanky had said it would only be for a short time, not all day. Not making something for her was wrong, so I did. I took a leaf, used my mouth to cut it into a star, and gave it to her.
Then, she noticed Fidged, who had been watching in anxiety, but more worried about me, his scent gave off, than Macie. That was nice of him, though I wasn't really in the mood for his doting, and ignored it.
Spending alone time with Macie over with, as the girl's eyes went wide at Fidget. And it took a moment before she realized that too. But she would not stop talking, that initial burst of energy that she'd ran herself into the ground with had recovered after just a day or so.
Lanky and Macie's dad both watched, though I stopped paying attention to Macie as much when Lanky and Jacob had started to argue in earnest. The words didn't matter so much, however, I could tell Lanky was tensing up— and Batty's bats were also steadily getting closer to their trainer.
That had made me and—apparently Lea-Fidget too—nervous enough to pause, and even as we pretended to play with Macie, I found myself standing between Lanky and Jacob, arms stretched out.
It took a second before the argument died down, especially when Jacob noticed that Macie had decided to follow me. I could tell from her accumulating salty and iron scent in the air that she was getting stressed. Arguments had always made me nervous, even from before I had woken up as a leavanny.
It did feel nice that Lanky was getting into them, in a way. When Jacob had backed off, it was a similar feeling of relief as I had those odd times I had flipped Leaf into the ground. Like we were getting better at it all, somehow. Not that arguing was ever quite as nice as a new move.
Eventually, Macie and her dad left, and we went back into the city. Macie cried, though I left her with another nice little leaf-necklace. Her words had fallen into inconsolable sobs for a few moments, though her dad let her work her tears out and said something about being willing to take a sewaddle if we ever got any.
Unfortunately, we didn't have any sewaddle and even if one showed up, I couldn't fathom giving her one.
"I'll keep that in mind," Lanky had said! "I'm not really sure what will happen in the future, but if you're in Castelia next spring I might have to..." he'd said, betraying us. There was no way a human could do as good of a job taking care of baby swaddles as a leavanny. They didn't even produce silk. How could you take care of one without it?
Luckily, we didn't have any. They were all swadloon and leavanny. In fact, we would probably all have been leavanny in the near future.
"Haha—" Jacob had said. "Well, between Alola and Kalos there's some nature reserves that could use a few pokemon with protective motherly instincts and caring attitudes. I'm partial to Kalos," he'd said, before picking Macie up and strapping her into the kid-sized straps that would hold her in place on the Noibat they rode around on.
Macie complained. But what I wanted to know was what the point would be of sending a Sewaddle to a nature reserve alone. It would just die. I could feel it though. When Jacob finally left, Lanky let out a final sigh, visibly relaxing for some reason, before deciding to just go on a walk. We—except for the silcoon, which just sat on the log and watched because it was a silcoon—followed.
It took everything I had not to give him a bunch of berries or make something for him— he was clearly incredibly distressed— I could taste it in the air. He muttered to himself.
~~~
Scratch knocked on the door to Liam's flat. She had seen his messages, copied across all of their shared spaces. There was a banging and scratching sound from through the door. She pulled out the key she still had from when Liam had let her stay with him while she was between jobs.
"It's me, Liam, I'm coming in!" She said, opening the door. "Holy shit!" she exclaimed at the sight that greeted her. A goddamn-fucking vaporeon was in front of her. She stepped into the apartment and shut the door "What the fuck?!?" she said.
"Holy shit!" she exclaimed again, this time because she slipped all over the floor, and her and her over-laden backpack crashed to the floor.
Sitting on her ass, she pulled off her backpack, the various pins and keychains hanging off, clanging around. She set it to the side and just stared at the vaporeon staring at her.
"Goofier than I expected, not gonna lie" she said, rubbing some goop off her fingers onto her jeans. It really wasn't a lot, and her marine biology pastimes had long ago acclimated her to general oils.
"Is that really you, Liam?" she asked. She'd have pinched herself, but the pain in her tailbone was already doing wonders assuring her that she was awake. The vaporeon nodded, with an aborted "vaa—"
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In that second, the lights in the room flickered, including the monitor screen, which glitched, then reverted.
"Well, fuck" she said. A slew of emotions running across her one after another. "If you get to turn into a vaporeon, I'm gonna be pissed if I don't get to be a popplio."
Liam just eyed her. "Yeah yeah I know I always said the best pokemon was primarina but c'mon, I wouldn't want to just be a final evolution and miss out on all the learning and stuff!" She knew him well enough that even his expressions being filtered through an inhuman body didn't stop her from being mostly-sure at what he'd have said.
Even when they shared the flat together, they had interacted mostly online, so it was easy to imagine what Liam would say.
Relaxing a bit, she sat down on the floor and pulled out of her bag a notebook. "Well, we can figure out the mechanics of this all later. For now, we need to get a reliable communication method going. How much control over your vocals do you have?"
"VaaaAAAAaaaaa" Liam said, shifting his pitch around.
"Eon eeee eon eeon" He said again, vocalizing.
She took down a few notes. "Shape control seems tough, and you're struggling with pitch, though I bet if you could practice it a bit you could probably hold the beat and tone well enough we could make a custom language." She noted absently.
"Pooor" Liam vocalized "PoooOOooor" he said, again, obviously trying to figure out pitch.
"Okay, so let's start easily enough: Give me a Vaaa—"
"VaaAaAaa" the pitch was wobbly and inconsistent.
She yawned, then slapped herself. It had been a longer day than she thought, apparently.
If he could hold the pitch and beat, this would make for an excellent dubstep voice. Scratch thought to herself.
"aaaaAaaaAAAaaaapppoOOoooOo" Liam practiced.
Then the realization hit her. "Okay, let's uh, let's hold off on the extended pitch practice for now. I do NOT want to find out that you can accidentally stumble on a song-move."
"Oooorrr" he said, clearly dismayed.
"Yeah no sorry, as the first human you get to be around, I'd rather not learn that you can accidentally stumble on a perish song for one, and for two, that it works on humans."
"Rrrreeeeeeonn" he said.
"It's fine," she said, flicking a lock of hair behind her glasses. "We'll figure something out, but for now, we have to play it safe until you know exactly how pokemon magic works and we don't accidentally murder a bunch of people at a rave or something. Because I am SO taking you down to the club this weekend."
Liam just shook his head. "Awe, come on! It's the one down by pier 33. I go scuba diving with the DJ!"
Slipslapslop, slipslaplop smacked in her ears, Liam shaking his head even harder, small bits flicking around. "Ow, some of that got in my mouth!" Scratch exclaimed.
"And it stings a bit. Not as fishy as you'd think. I think that's almost like a vinaigrette. Oh god. Nope. Not going there! Also stop! I need my notes!"
Liam thankfully took a moment to pause and Scratch took the opportunity to glance around and see the mess that was being made. Tiny drops of goop were everywhere. It really wasn't that bad or even that much, but the mess was going to build up really fast. He was lucky the place was covered in tile and that they were still in the entryway of his flat and mostly in the kitchen.
Other than the laptop in her bag, (and was still dry) things were fine.
"I think you're at least a bit acidic," she said. "Do you know how to, you know…" Scratch tried searching for the word, "go… 'blorp'" she mimed collapsing on the floor. Liam tried, but just ended up flopping down like an angsty teenager flops on the couch,
"All right, well, you can practice that one more later. I'm sure if you can go 'blorp', you'll find a use for that at some point. Let's get back to business," she said, settling on a simple "vaa" for yes, "poor" for no, and "eeon" for maybe/i don't know. It was low-bandwidth communication, but there were still plenty of emotive tells. It was just hard.
"You woke up as a vaporeon, right?"
"Vaa"
"Any memory of fur or fuzziness? Strange feelings of evolving?"
"Poor" he said, flatly. His tail and not-whiskers were twitching. The vaporeon side was getting bored, and starting to eye the log. They needed to figure things out fast. Liam just shrugged.
"Okay, so two options: you either just turned into a vaporeon without evolution— weird, it doesn't feel like that should be a thing, but not everyone wakes up as a pokemon… Or, two, you turned into an eevee overnight and then had contact with a water stone or other trigger if they exist. I'd say that pokemon shouldn't obey the lore given how stupid it and the canon pokedex are, but you look exactly like one from the games."
"Poreo" He said, sympathetic and with a shrug, starting to fidget with the tassel on Scratch's backpack.
"All right, we'll figure that out later." She paused as a thought crossed her mind. "Well, you're basically fucked from an institutional perspective," she said.
"Eeeeon!" Liam complained, dropping the flat monotone of the yes/no/maybe/idontknow.
"Yeah yeah I know you've already been going over this shit in your head. You've had all day to stew, and I can barely keep a straight thought without the endless questions popping into my head!"
Having roomed with him for a few months and been friends for years besides, she knew Liam was profoundly weird. Hell, she'd met him by herself, being profoundly weird online—though that was when she was midway through her undergrad career and extremely disillusioned with the educational system. Finding an outlet by diving even deeper into her favorite fandoms than other people along with him had been a good outlet.
The kind of weirdos that talked about this stuff like some kids in highschool would talk about what they would do during a zombie apocalypse.
"Well, we will put the power tests on the table for now. We need to get your stuff in order."
Securing the basics— covering the electrical bits of his house with plastic trash bags. Rigging up an accessibility controller—which didn't really do much— hopping on his phone on his behalf and checking texts and emails.
"Do you remember your online bank passwords?" She asked.
"Eon" he said, flatly.
"Where's your phone?" she asked.
"Vaaa!" he said, motioning to the open door to his room down the hall.
She got up and walked down the hall to his room, only slipping a couple of times before finally making her way down the hall, into his room and back out.
"So a couple things here. You can't stay in your apartment— you need to fly under the radar for at least a month, where we can talk to some lawyers and shit. Animals don't have rights under American laws. In the wrong situation, someone might literally try to see how vulnerable you really are to electricity."
Which sucked for him— he'd need to stay as far as possible from open electrical connections. And given the new structure and musculature of having claws, meant twenty-plus years of programming that he wouldn't be able to capitalize on any more.
And if the need to let the energy out kept holding even once the novelty faded, it also meant largely disappearing from online spaces. He'd been dealt a combo punch that basically nixed any ability to function the same way humans did, even if his memories and intelligence were entirely intact.
"I'm going to need the password to your phone." she stated. "We only have a small amount of time before all this explodes. That cash is going to need to be put to good use buying as much time as we can."
It was still pretty early in the month, though summer was going to end soon.
"We need to find a team of lawyers as soon as possible. I know a guy who knows some people at at PET—"
"Eon! EEEEEEEEE!" Liam basically shouted.
"Oh. Okay. I guess we're not going to try relying on them. At least at first. But you know they'd be the best group to establish your rights, right?"
"Vaa" he said, dejected. A disdainful harumph, and Liam dove into the log, chewing it at it like it had personally offended him and spat on his mother.
"You cleared the entire room with that jump" she muttered as he chewed into it. She got into the phone, and realized she had a problem. His password manager was locked to his fingerprint. Not wanting to disturb the clearly out-of-patience, newly-minted pokemon who had nearly destroyed their bedroom door trying to get out of their room that morning, she sat down and took notes.
"Do you really not remember any of your account passwords?" She dared, "poor!" he exclaimed.
Nope. Luckily for Liam, Scratch was a tech/opsec researcher and knew how to get past those walls, though it needed certain hardware. Fingerprints were far too easy to fake to be considered secure against someone with physical access, but with physical access for her, all things were possible.
Android developers were pretty lazy with the deeper bits of security. Sure the central repositories of cash and tracking of the cash at banks were well-secured, but most phones and mobile app encryption in particular would only stop the most petty of potential thieves.
It wouldn't do if the phone was so protected that they couldn't sip your data, for tracking purposes, after all. That was the cynical, security researcher side of her, who rooted her own phone, locking it down as much as possible.
That said, this was the kind of time when being a security researcher had particular benefits. When they had the basics covered for him—a more open and friendly environment for what was a human turned into a superpowered animal, she could put on some nice drumstep and zone out and in a few hours she'd have full access to Liam's bank accounts.
Still, it itched at her, like a scratch on her breasts that she couldn't scratch without drawing attention to herself. Liam was totally fucked in basically every way that mattered with respect to his interaction with civilization. She knew that he wouldn't have cared much, having been fucked entirely by the system before.
"Did you know your credit can get so bad that banks will refuse to give you a checking account?" He'd told her out of the blue one day. It had taken a solid decade for him to get that unfucked, and by the end, the way he had to scrounge money up to fix things to at least get to a null balance, the excess charges, late fees and costs of using an ATM had cost him nearly a quarter of the money he'd actually owed.
Scratch had nearly dropped Liam's phone when it started ringing, disturbing him from his dutiful taking-down of the log.
"Reeeooo?" he asked.
"It's your mom!" She said. "Should I answer it?"
"Vaaa!" he said.
"All right!" She said, swiping the green icon to answer the call.
"Hi, uh, name's Vinyl, a friend of Liam, I was given his phone to help him through some unexpected… issues."
"Vinyl… Scratch?" The older woman said. "Nice to meet you."