stop and find a way for love

[domeinion]

[1) Overlook Hill]

[It's Feast of the Sail. And, as Alice established a few months back, she's been chasing a theory that weird things happen in Ultern around holidays. So she'll spend a little time investigating! ...by which we mean she's checking out the epicentre of where things happened last year. You might find her flying above Overlook Hill, taking notes while riding Altareon...]

Oh, hello down there! Have you seen anything?

[...or walking... or more likely falling off a ledge and picking herself up, banged up but apparently otherwise fine.]

Not again.

[2) Turnbloom City]

[Otherwise, Alice has come back to Gateway Port and brought out the fortune-telling booth again this year! She's dressed the booth up a little more with (poorly made) paper hearts, and the machines are again labelled "Regular" and "Romance."]

Happy Feast of the Sail! I've updated the fortune algorithm this year and added new options! Just press one of the output buttons if you want your fortune told.

Comments

[domeinion]

She sighs. "Or at least that whatever happens is harmless. The odd phenomena coming in only started to be dangerous recently, and only the Malamar incident seemed intentionally so."

[chloeandeevee]

"Yeah.... Hopefully it won't keep being dangerous," Chloe sighs. She hates to think what might happen next.

[domeinion]

Alice leans forward. "Were you at Harvesting Bonds that day? I hope neither of you were hurt."

[chloeandeevee]

"We were, but we were okay," Chloe says.

"Vee-vee-vee!" says Eevee.

[domeinion]

"That's good at least." Alice pulls out her notes and starts flipping through them. "We had a lot to deal with that day. They pulled out some exploding pumpkins when we had them cornered! Thankfully, DJ was able to deal with those."

[chloeandeevee]

"Exploding pumpkins?!" Chloe says in disbelief. "Why did they do that?"

[domeinion]

"That's what I want to know." She looks down and shakes her head. "It sounded like they wanted to control or get rid of everyone but them, and take over the region. The pumpkins must have just been a backup plan."

[chloeandeevee]

Chloe and Eevee stare.

"That's horrible," Chloe says.

[domeinion]

"You've got that right." She frowns and adjusts her glasses again. "I just hope it doesn't happen again. That's why I've been trying to study patterns and figure out what went differently that time compared to the rest."

[chloeandeevee]

"I hope you figure something out," Chloe says. "My dad's a researcher.... Maybe I could help?"

[domeinion]

That makes Alice look down for a moment. She breathes before speaking again.

"...As long as you want to. What kinds of research was he doing back home?"

[chloeandeevee]

"He studies all kinds of things about Pokemon, so that in itself probably wouldn't help, but I know how to look for patterns," Chloe says.

[domeinion]

"That's fine. This is far from my usual fields of study, too." She shakes her head. "Besides, if the strange phenomena here always tie to powerful Pokémon, they might be more connected than we think."

[chloeandeevee]

"... That's true," Chloe realizes. "Do you have a list of all the Pokemon involved?"

[domeinion]

"I've got just the thing!"

She opens one of her notebooks and sets it down between the machines. Inside is a detailed list accounting for every Legendary sighting (aside from in-game characters and party members, of course) and other event Pokémon sighting and its corresponding event, all the way from Calyrex in Harvesting Bonds 2022 to Winter Wonder 2023's replacing the usual Delibirds with Iron Bundles.

"As you can see, the last few instances weren't as powerful or renowned, but they also caused more of an upset."

[chloeandeevee]

Chloe looks over everything while Eevee seems to be reading it too. "That's odd. I wonder why they're getting more aggressive with everything. Is it all supposed to lead up to some end goal?"

[domeinion]

"That's assuming communication, or..." She pauses. "That the cause of this whole thing is a person or entity more sophisticated than just a spacetime warp around one region."

[chloeandeevee]

Eevee looks up with big wide eyes. "Vee?!"

"You mean maybe we're being brought here on purpose?!" Chloe exclaims. That is a frightening thought.

[domeinion]

"I wouldn't go that far quite yet. Even if this -- what I'll call the holiday event trend -- is indeed caused by a sapient force, it doesn't mean that drifting as a whole is. However, given that all but Celebi were or appear to have been drifted in and then back out, they may be related, and if that's the case then the theory you posed is, if not proven, still possible."

[chloeandeevee]

Chloe frowns, looking over the notebook again. "... If it really is true, I wonder why anyone would do that.... And if it's those people with the Malamar.... Maybe they're the ones causing trouble at the holidays, at least.... Although these other incidents don't seem like that one...."

[domeinion]

Alice nods. "It sounded last time that it was the Malamar themselves. All the people with them were just being used as avatars, essentially. And the other holiday incidents have been far more harmless. Well, other than property damage from the Galar particles...

[chloeandeevee]

"The Malamar were in charge?!" Now that's weird and disturbing. "You don't think maybe someone told them what to do and then didn't come out themselves?"

[domeinion]

"It didn't seem that way." She thinks. "I feel like Pokémon are just like humans, but not all humans are good, either. But there's so much we don't know."

[chloeandeevee]

"Yeah.... It's hard to think of Pokemon actually being criminal masterminds, but I guess there's no reason why they couldn't be," Chloe says slowly.

"Eevee," says Eevee.

"Maybe they just seem too good for that," Chloe sighs.

[domeinion]

"I don't know." She sighs. "Either way, at least they haven't been back since. I wonder if we'll ever find what's going on."