You heard of April Fools, get ready for-

[ulternnpc]

The reverse of that.

*image vaguely related

Silly white lies? No, none of that will be coming out of anyone's mouths today. Instead, anyone you meet and talk to you be shocked to realize you're incapable of lying. Staying silent may be an option--or is it? For whatever reason, it's really hard to keep your words in today.

You just might be spouting the first thing that comes out of your mind!

What another, peaceful day in Ultern it is!


...what do you mean that it's not? Well, things have been mostly peaceful for a while anyway. Some chaos is always in order! (Apologies to any Domeists in our midst).

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(🌺You thought there'd be no April Fools event?! Surprise! It's true, this is reverse-April Fools. Please enjoy, and don't forget about the OOC plotting post!🌺)

Comments

[domeinion]

[Apologies to Domeists indeed. Alice can be easily found writing in her notebooks or tinkering with something, but out of nowhere, she might say...]

I wish I could tell you all about my dad. But I don't want to trouble anyone, and... I mean, it's not like anyone would understand.

[closedbond]

[Oops! X was just passing along being carried on Kanga's back for once when he noticed Alice. As he opened his mouth ready to greet her did he overhear her.]

I have a feeling I wasn't supposed to hear that.

[...oops]

I don't know much about parents mine are never home but...if you wanted to talk, I'm good at listening.

[domeinion]

[Alice pales. But she looks to X, and while she wants to hesitate, the compulsion gets the better of her.]

I haven't seen my mom in years, and my dad... well, only an alternate version of him, recently. The real one's been gone a long time. I just feel wrong burdening people here with it, though. Ash and Iris were upset enough when I said my parents were divorced. How do you just say, "And also my dad's dead, he was a criminal mastermind and the one who created the Randomizer, among other things like harvesting souls via PC, and it was apparently all to bring me back in the first place?"

[Alice looks up at where X is riding Kanga. For once, she puts away her notes.]

You didn't know your parents much, huh?

[closedbond]

[X gave pause taking in what Alice had to say. He couldn't begin to imagine how it felt, learning your very own father caused a lot of strife for your sake.]

Alice... I can see why you wouldn't want to say that to anyone.

[At her question, he bowed his head.]

My parents found it easier to just disappear behind their work, instead of paying attention to me after I closed myself off from everyone. As if making more money would fix the problem...

[Oh, he...he didn't mean to go that deep.]

I'm sorry, this isn't about me. I just wanted to lend an ear to what you wanted to say.

[domeinion]

[Alice winces. She shakes her head and steps forward.]

No, I'm sorry. Even if they thought they were helping, it must have made things worse.

[She goes into her bag again, but this time for a Poké Ball, letting out a Sandslash with spines made of fire. Flamesplash looks up at them in worry, and Alice pets her, unharmed by the flames.]

Randomizers change things around. Pokémon, humans. There are more complex models now, made by other people who took my dad's research, but even the original was big enough to change appearances, distribution, moves, and abilities when it rewound time and rearranged the world. I think most of the people here assume that my Pokémon are regional forms they haven't seen. Not that the fact that we're randomized is really a secret, but I don't like getting into the why of it. I didn't think you'd all understand it.

...But thanks, X.

[closedbond]

It's okay--I mean, it isn't, but both my friends, and Grace took care of me. Grace is one of my friend's Mom.

[He felt compelled to add. Peeking back up from Kanga, he looked as Alice began to pet her peculiar looking Sandslash. He wasn't used to seeing regional variants still, but Flamesplash admittedly made him think about it.]

...you're right that it would be hard to wrap our minds around it. Especially given that a lot of people wouldn't be familiar, but...since we're both here, I can try. It may take some time, given that there's still a lot I haven't experienced but I don't like seeing you upset. You've been nice to me and I like to think of you as a friend.

[domeinion]

Thanks. I hope it's not too much trouble. Dome knows things have been enough of a mess already. I've told a good number of people about the Randomizer. Just not where it came from or why. I guess I wondered if it happened to anyone else. Glad it hasn't so far, given the instability inherent in the modifications even in the later models.

Though I would say I have a lot of things I could try to explain. Just let me know what you want to ask.

[closedbond]

I don't think I'm that great at talking to others like some of my friends, but I can listen. I've done that a lot, in the past.

[He'll nod while Alice explained a little about the Randomizer.]

I think I get an idea what a Randomizer is given what you told me but it sounds like there's a limit to what it can do. So...is it okay if I ask? Do you know what your Dad is like? Do you hate him- ah, no. That's not it. How do you feel about him?

[domeinion]

["Where do they go, Dad?"

"That's a secret. But don't worry, they're happy there."]

...I know he made a lot of people hate him. And by the end, when he knew he couldn't win, he tried to make me hate him, too.

["You'd better... oh, forget it. Goodbye, Alice."

The bomb beeping, then letting out nothing but smoke and falling harmlessly off of her.]

But I don't think I ever did. Don't get me wrong, he was a real b a start. He hurt a lot of people. A lot of them are my friends. But... I don't know. I should have hated him, but I never did.

[closedbond]

I think I understand, at least a little bit. I mean, I don't really hate my own parents even if what they chose to runaway ran than face me.

[But...to have to face against your own parent, who you couldn't even hate...]

It had to have been scary knowing that he did all those things for your sake. I don't know what I would have done in your shoes...I might have never left my room altogether.

[domeinion]

I made mistakes, too. In the end, even after we'd fought, I fell for what he had to say and let him use me. Someone else had to save the world from there. But... I guess it's hard to see outside of personal bias, even when you call yourself a scientist.

You're a kind person, you know that?

[closedbond]

I'm sorry Alice. I know apologizing won't fix it, but I know what it's like to be hurt like that. I've let my own anger get in the way too, and getting others hurt.

[He's frowning at Alice's comment.]

Not really, or...I don't feel like I am. My friend, Tierno is far kinder than I am. I think it's just easier for me to understand others now, because I was able to go outside and meet a lot of people. People like Emma, who's been hurt for all of her life or someone like Ash who seems like he won't ever stop, no matter what goes his way. Also, you. You were nice to me too. Despite what you had to face, you could have just...not reached out to me. You could have just ignored me, but you sat down and spoke to me. Even gave me that meal once--even though it was hard to eat, but it made me happy that you thought about me anyway.

[domeinion]

[Alice winces at the comment about her cooking. It's true... But she smiles anyway at the rest.]

Of course. You were there, and I didn't see why not. ...Sorry about the food. Cooking's never been my strong suit.

[Probably true of every TPP protag, given that it is a universal truth that if there is a cooking minigame, a host will fail it. Tulio's idea of a sandwich was one piece of lunch meat.]

I should be saying I'm sorry to you. It sounds like you've been through a lot back home, and not just your parents, huh...

[closedbond]

[At the wince, he gave an apologetic look.]

It's okay, I don't think I could do any better myself. I never cooked before. My friend's Mom always did.

[X shook his head.]

It's okay, I wasn't alone in all of that. My friends and Pokemon were all there. What about you Alice? I...I hope that you didn't have to go through what you had, by yourself.

[serperiority]

[Oh, he shouldn’t have hears that, probably. Trip froze, turned back around, and tried to walk quickly, but quietly away, before he’s say anything:]

What about him?

[Great going! Slow turn with an apologetic half-smile and the hope of maybe ignoring he said anything?]

… we could pretend not to have heard each other if you don’t really want to talk.

[domeinion]

I think we've thoroughly proven that whatever's going on has measures built in to disallow that.

[Alice sighs and deflates a little. She waves, defeated, at Trip.]

My dad -- he's the one who created the Randomizer. And the reason I still have trouble trusting the PC, even though I know it's safe now and it's never caused trouble here or in any of your homes. He engineered it to harvest life energy to power his plan, all for longer than a normal person should be alive. All to fix one thing, no matter how the world broke to compensate.

[serperiority]

… sounds grim.

What was he hoping to accomplish? [Cold, unaffected tone, but he quickly added:] Not saying he was justified, but I wanted to know why he did it.

Not that the reason’d change how it affected you. Seems like he prioritized whatever he was doing over being a decent dad. Starting to think those hardly exist.

[domeinion]

Who knows? Supplanting the gods. Reshaping the world. Stopping the Voices. There were a lot of things he was going for in the end, it seemed like. But the first was me.

[Once the truth effect draws it out of her, she shrinks back a little.]

There was an accident when I was a kid. In the original timeline, the way things were supposed to be? I didn't make it out. The key change made by the first Randomizer was switching me with my world's Red. But it never just makes one change, and knowing the last host was going to try and follow him through and bring the Voices down the stream back in time, he played to that. The whole world went... you've seen my team. Weird. Bizarrely fascinating, but unsustainably unstable.

1/2

[serperiority]

Oh, so he had some fatherly qualities to him after all.

[That wasn’t very nice, Trip! He sounded genuinely impressed, though.]

… still selfish and destructive, but understandable, at least.

2/2

[serperiority]

Alice, slow down, you lost me again.
Sorry… the last host? Follow who through?

[domeinion]

Oh, sorry. [She adjusts her glasses.] Back through the stream, when the Randomizer was going to reset and remake the world from the point of divergence. Dad was going through after activating it so he could live in the new timeline. A -- Camila A. Slash, that is -- she was the previous host of the Voices before me, from their temporal standpoint. She tried to follow, even if it was risky because she wasn't supposed to be there, and the process left her... kind of disembodied as well. Temporarily! We managed to fix it and get her her body back while we were repairing the world. But for a while, she'd essentially joined the Voice hivemind.

I always kind of wondered if that was why they picked me. If she kind of drew them towards another A. So I used that name, too, while I was travelling. In the end, though, we both stopped using it and just went back to our actual names. It was a lot easier that way.

[very belated, but!]

[serperiority]

Disembodied…

[He repeated slowly, looking more confused than before, and he added a touch too sarcastically before he could stop himself:] Oh, thank goodness for that. [At being restored to her body.]

… sorry.

[Being kind of a sarcastic jerk was also pretty deeply ingrained. He held his head and looked at Alice for some time, then asked:]

… so, how did it turn out for your dad? Was it worth it? Did he even make it through?

Also, hold on, did you say he tried to replace you with Red? Like… lioe the two Reds we have here? Was he going to let someone else die in your place?

[That seemed to have just clicked for Trip and he looked much more disturbed. Sure, she mentioned harvesting life energy, but on its own, it wasn’t quite do disturbing as leaving another kid to die in his daughter’s place, it felt much more personal, given that Trip knew and got along with an incarnation of Red in this world.]

[domeinion]

[She shifts and holds her arms to herself.] Uh-huh. I don't know if it was because they'd been enemies before or just because he was there. Red's back now, after the world started coming apart and trying to put itself back to the way it was, and Dome knows that took a lot of effort. Randomizers are unstable. The first one ever was especially so.

As for my dad... I don't know if he thought it was worth it. He definitely didn't stop once he made it through. He left a weird message at a Pokémon Centre once -- presumably when he found out there was a new host -- and it didn't sound like I knew him at all. So I had to go find him and confront him about it. After that... Things were rocky, is the best way to put it. He made me come fix his PC once. But then once they moved on to the next host, he took me out for ice cream and didn't do anything bad. Like he was trying to forget, too. Not that I could. Not that anyone could.

I guess that's why a few years later, I was stupid enough to come find him and try and talk him out of his plans. But the world was unstable. Something had to be fixed. And by that point, either he'd gone so far that he didn't care what happened to me anymore either, or he knew he'd gone far enough that he thought it was better if I hated him. ...I never found out which.

[serperiority]

That's—sad...

That's so wrong.

[He didn't really know what to say, looking at her with pity, but the words came out whether he wanted to say them or not, and they weren't very comforting.]

... you don't have to answer anymore questions, if you don't want to. Um, do you... want to talk about something else?

[domeinion]

If you have something. I don't know what else. ...But I'm grateful, Trip, don't get me wrong. Thank you for listening. I know my life's more than a little ridiculous to deal with hearing about, and you've probably got your own problems. So it does mean a lot that you heard me out.