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

[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."

[chloeandeevee]

"Maybe they're plotting something worse to come back with," Chloe worries.

[domeinion]

"Maybe... but that would require them to still be around, and I haven't seen a sign of them. Most of the similar events have been caused by temporary drifts, haven't they?"

[chloeandeevee]

"It seems like it.... So you think the Malamar are from somewhere else too?" Chloe frowns. That had been easy to believe for Legendary Pokemon, but regular Malamars? Maybe their Psychic powers had still made it possible. That was terrifying.

[domeinion]

"That's the theory. I don't even think Malamar are native to this area. And we've seen Pokémon drifted without their trainers before, as well as wild Pokémon, although they've never caused trouble before."

[chloeandeevee]

"Yeah.... That's really scary to think about, if even non-Legendary Pokemon have the power to come and go at will just to cause trouble," Chloe says.

[domeinion]

"That's assuming they did it at will." She frowns. "It would seem more likely that somebody or something brought them, just like it brought us. Wouldn't it?"

[chloeandeevee]

"Yeah, it would. I wonder if they just brought them for a good reason and sent them back when they were bad, or if they brought them to cause trouble," Chloe says.

[domeinion]

"That's what I want to know. Well, there's a lot I'd like to know, actually, and it feels like studying and digging to find things out will take quite some time. But I'd rather not just give up. It's a good goal to have."

[chloeandeevee]

"It is," Chloe says. "Maybe it can help prevent something else terrible from happening."