Mandy Striff (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
0189d8cf) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
farawayplace2022-10-30 12:41 am
0189d8cf) wrote in farawayplace2022-10-30 12:41 am
Entry tags:
intro post 8)
[ A lone figure can be seen walking up the western beach of Ohritori, past Banyan Labs and towards Turnbloom, carrying a backpack and dressed warmly (beanie, turtleneck, cargo pants, gloves and boots) despite the tropical weather. They seem to be talking to themself, looking around with jerky, birdlike head movements, and poking at a classic Pokégear on their left arm. ]
"Now ain't this a pickle. Don't think I stumbled into weirdspace, don't think I'd be eligible to bubble up twice in a lifetime, but if this beach is in INDIGO I'll eat my hat. And that means... drat. The POKéGEAR's no use either. 'Area unknown'? Come on. It's not even doing anything interesting."
[ They over-enunciate the words "Indigo" and "Pokégear", as if each proper noun were its own sentence. ]
"Well! Nothing for it! Guess I'll hoof it 'til I meet someone to ask for directions."
[ With that, they start whistling a tune and continue on their way... ]
((OOC: Heh, been a long time since I wrote this character... or did LJRP at all, for that matter. But I saw advert posts about Faraway Place and decided I might as well dip my feet back in. Hi all! ))
"Now ain't this a pickle. Don't think I stumbled into weirdspace, don't think I'd be eligible to bubble up twice in a lifetime, but if this beach is in INDIGO I'll eat my hat. And that means... drat. The POKéGEAR's no use either. 'Area unknown'? Come on. It's not even doing anything interesting."
[ They over-enunciate the words "Indigo" and "Pokégear", as if each proper noun were its own sentence. ]
"Well! Nothing for it! Guess I'll hoof it 'til I meet someone to ask for directions."
[ With that, they start whistling a tune and continue on their way... ]
((OOC: Heh, been a long time since I wrote this character... or did LJRP at all, for that matter. But I saw advert posts about Faraway Place and decided I might as well dip my feet back in. Hi all! ))
2/2
Both Gold and Umbar blink in confusion.
"That's weird. It used to scan Umbar right... And the voice is kinda different..." Gold mumbles to himself, pressing another button. "Oh! It went back to normal!" he says, expression brightening immediately, turning to show it to Mandy. The screen is showing the regular Pokedex UI, and the SEEN index looks normal too. "Look! There's no need for paperclips after all! Is that one of those failsaves?"
"How fortunate," Umbar says, leaning in closer to see it. "I do wonder why it did that again. Perhaps there's something in the air, affecting it?" He slowly looks at Mandy pointedly, before giving a friendly smile. "I'm sure our resident Pokedex expert has some guesses, hm?"
(Unbeknownst to either of them, the Professor Oak of Gold's world did a lot of research into glitch Pokemon and made sure his Pokedex never freezes fully around them. Also unknown to them, the sixth item in Gold's backpack is now his bicycle. Good thing backpacks can fit so many of the same item with no problem!)
1/2
[ Mandy is this close to panicking. Gold wasn't even scanning them! He'd pointed his Pokédex at Umbar! Was it seriously doing some kind of 360 degree sweep whenever you activated it, just sort of scanning opportunistically? If it was a Professor Oak original, it would theoretically make sense - he was handing them out to new Trainers who might not know what to look for, so the device might as well scan everything if possible - but... gah. How to even handle this? ]
2/2
"Well! It's. Certainly not the result I expected! Guess it's speculation time, then. No assumptions, like UMBAR said. Hm..."
[ Mandy snaps their fingers, coming up with an idea finally. ]
"...GOLD, when you first came to ULSAI, how long was it before you used that POKéDEX for the first time?
"The little I heard about ALOLA's trouble with the ULTRA BEASTS involved some people radiating some... weird energy after falling through a wormhole. Maybe it's detecting that on me, somehow, since I DRIFTed here an hour or two ago at most? I assume your POKéDEX has worked on at least some of the native POKéMON since you came here, so it'd have to be something left over from the journey itself, not just that the POKéMON you're scanning are from a different world than you."
[ Mandy is pretty sure it doesn't work that way, even if they never paid too much attention to all that Faller business; weren't those folks still attracting Ultra Beasts weeks later? But it'd be a way to correctly pin the issue on Mandy's own presence, without making it sound like something intrinsic to them. That is, unless Gold had used his Pokédex within the first couple hours after Drifting in. In that case, the fact that he didn't trip the failsafe himself, until now, would immediately debunk the theory. ]
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Ultra Beasts? Wormholes? Gold tilts his head. This is all way above his understanding, but he assumes Mandy knows what they're talking about.
"Umm... I did use my Pokedex after arriving though?" he says, a bit confused, but the memory of that first day here is still fresh in his mind. "I appeared on the beach, then met Nami, who mentioned some Pokemon I dunno, so I checked my Pokedex but it didn't know it either..." He recounts the events, mostly to himself, pondering. "I didn't scan anything though so maybe that woulda happened if I did."
"It sounds like a perfectly reasonable explanation," Umbar says brightly, having kept a close eye on Mandy's reactions throughout the conversation. He can't be certain, but he gets the feeling that Mandy's not a bad person at least, despite whatever secret they're clearly hiding. He'd be fine with dropping this and letting Mandy keep their facade up. Still, he can't help but ask "I don't suppose that energy could be responsible for that item in Gold's bag multiplying?" while pointing at the pile of TMs on the ground. At this point, he's just curious to see how Mandy talks their way out of this one.
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[ ...even if so, Umbar isn't challenging the story where Gold can hear. That's good. It means, no matter what he suspects, he at least doesn't consider them an immediate threat, or a danger to Gold. That's... that's the most important thing here. They try to look casual and confident. They can do this. ]
"UMBAR, sir, despite some niche technical skills, I'm no PROFESSOR or scientist. Everything I know about ULTRA SPACE is stuff they said on the news, and they didn't mention anything like that. But if there was that type of side effect, I doubt they'd've brought it up. The FALLERs were already getting harassed by weird alien POKéMON; it'd just encourage regular humans to bother them too."
[ Mandy doesn't wince, but they want to. The theory sounds good. It makes sense at first glance. But it'd fall apart if you picked at it at all. If Ultra Space energy or whatever intrinsically wrote to possessions, then Ultern's locals would have noticed it; it'd be considered a normal part of Drifting. Since it isn't... this will probably be enough, in hindsight, to convince Umbar that something else is up, if he wasn't already convinced. Even if he doesn't think Mandy was deliberately fibbing. ]
[ Well! Nothing for it, but to see how he reacts, and whether Mandy's implicit argument – that "a person ambiently duplicating items" is the kind of anomaly best kept a secret, for that person's own sake – is enough to convince him to keep a lid on things. ]
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Unfortunately, while Umbar is perfectly willing to let it go, Gold has no reason to do so.
"Huh? No it can't," Gold says directly, looking at Umbar like he's being dumb. "I dunno about Ultra Space or Fallers or whatever, but I haven't seen any weird alien Pokemon and my items haven't multiplied when I meet a new person drifting to Ultern until now." He pauses, then looks at Mandy with a newfound shine in his eyes. "Wait, was that you? Do you have a secret special power to make more items??" Though he's excited, he makes sure to lower the volume of his voice, since it seems like a secret.
Umbar stands there silently with a complicated expression, a frozen, polite smile that is both awkward because of Gold's straightforwardness, and sharp because he's keeping an eye on what Mandy might do now that Gold may have discovered something they didn't want revealed.
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"...nononononono..."
[ Sixteen years. Sixteen years since the last time they were rumbled this badly. And all it took was an alternate universe's Oak making slightly different design decisions, and an unlucky break or two. There's nowhere to run. Word will get around unless these two take efforts to keep it secret. And how will they know what they need to keep secret? It's not just the out-of-bounds quantity write. Everything weird about this meeting has been hint after hint, and one of those hints might let the bigger picture slip, depending on what other people who Drifted here might already know. ]
[ Finally, Mandy manages to croak out an answer, glancing around them fitfully at the Route 1 walking path that runs past the house. ]
"Please. Can we please go someplace. Private. Just the three of us. Before I answer that. It's... it's personal."
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"Oh, um, it's okay, I'm not gonna..."
But then Mandy starts muttering to themself, and Gold shuts up. Oh no, oh crap. Were they having an attack of some kind? Was it Gold's fault? Of course it was Gold's fault, why wouldn't he ruin things? And Mandy was so nice too. Gold hated himself sometimes.
On the outside, Gold just stares at Mandy, expression a blank mask of no emotion, hand hovering, not daring to try and comfort Mandy. Umbar, too, watches, unsure what to do.
"Okay," Gold responds when Mandy finally speaks up, nodding, still expressionless. "I'm not gonna tell anyone. I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry as well," Umbar says gently. "I may have prodded too much." He did notice Mandy seemingly speaking both human and Pokemon language at once, which is... not something he's encountered before. However, that's not important at the moment. Umbar glances at Gold, who doesn't seem to be ready to make decisions at the moment, and then turns back to Mandy. "How about we head to Professor Banyan's laboratory? He's out at the moment, so we should have privacy."
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[ Mandy gives a weak chuckle, and follows Umbar and Gold wherever "Professor Banyan's laboratory" happens to be. Now that it's inevitable, Mandy is... adjusting to the idea of somebody knowing their secret, and is trying to decide exactly how many of the blank spots to fill in. ]
"Does PROF. BANYAN have security cameras? Might want to explain it different, depending."
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"Ah... Gold?" Umbar says, a bit awkward, then points back at the pile of TM 49's lying on the ground where they'd all been standing earlier. "You left those behind."
"Oh, yeah, I'll grab them," Gold says, expression still unchanging, and rushes off to pick them up. Once he's out of hearing distance, Umbar turns to Mandy, leaning down to be face to face with them.
"As much as I feel sorry for you," Umbar whispers, "I'm sure you understand I must keep Gold as my first priority. So I'd like to state directly, if you misuse Gold's kindness in any way, you will die." He pauses, then chuckles, tension disappearing. There's a bit of laughter in his voice as he leans back a little and says "I'm sorry, that's a bit of an overstatement. I've just wanted to say that, that's all. You're in no real danger." He glances at Gold, expression turning somber. "I'm just worried about him."
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[ Mandy watches him run off, not paying attention to Umbar until startling as he leans down. They flinch at his threat, but don't react much more than that; they're sorta out of adrenaline at this point. ]
"UMBAR, sir, I'm glad you're looking out for him. Cross my heart, I don't wanna hurt the kid – I seem to have hit a nerve just now, and I'm sorry about that – but even if I had wanted to, I wouldn't dare."
[ They go quiet for a bit, thinking over how to phrase what they want to say next, so long as they've got Umbar alone. Normally, they wouldn't be so worried about folks stumbling into strange happenings accidentally. But after today, Umbar might take it personally if they neglected to pass along a warning... and if they told Gold directly, it'd put the idea in his head, which might be dangerous on its own – kids so often get the urge to do exactly what they were told not to do. So Mandy would have to cover it now, with Umbar alone, while they had the chance. ]
"Since you are lookin' out for him... well, this'll make more sense to you when we all sit down for our talk, but... there's other weird stuff out there – weird like I'm weird – that may not be as safe as little ol' me. If he goes to a GAME CORNER, you keep him away from the branded COIN CASEs, okay? Just keep the tokens in a bag or something. There's a... let's say a bad compatibility, potentially, with that POKéDEX of his. Wouldn't want him to trip over it by accident."
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Being a father figure to a human child, especially one as troubled as Gold, is difficult no matter how legendary one is.
Umbar listens to the warning about the Coin Case, and his worries grow by the word. Though Gold has luckily bypassed the Game Corner in Goldenrod without getting a Coin Case, and has no interest in trading real money for fake play money, Umbar isn't actually aware of that. In fact, he thinks a Coin Case sounds like something Gold might be very interested in. He glances at Gold, who's still gathering up TMs.
"...Just out of curiosity, if he did have a Coin Case already... Would you be able to tell? Is it a very noticable effect?" Umbar asks, very concerned.
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[ Mandy also keeps an eye on Gold, watching for signs that he's on his way back. If they're going to explain Coin Case resonance to Umbar, they'll have to make it quick. ]
"It's not a gradual thing, if that's what you mean. Anything that'll happen will happen all at once. What you specifically gotta look out for is this: if he plays recorded POKéMON CRYs from that POKéDEX, it'll set up... vibrations, let's say, in some COIN CASEs. The ones from GOLDENROD, I know are problems. The CELADON ones aren't. Dunno other regions. If he opens the CASE before the vibrations have died out... well, that's when the trouble starts. And it'll be the kind of trouble where you'll notice right away something's gone wrong - something unnatural - though there's too many factors for me to predict what, exactly. At that point... best you can do is get GOLD to fall asleep as soon as possible. That'll usually put things back to normal, if you do it fast enough, and if he's got a team member with HYPNOSIS to put him under who hasn't been taken out by the effect. But better to avoid the situation entirely, if you can. Ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, for things like this."
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Umbar does also notice the way Mandy used the term 'humans' but isn't surprised. It just proves what he already suspected.
He listens to their explanation, expression grim.
"Goodness... Yes, that sounds worrying. But it's good to know it's not an instant problem simply from owning it, and can be prevented." He pauses to think. "So, in other words... If he plays Pokemon cries from the Pokedex, I should make sure he never opens the Coin Case? Until, perhaps, the next day or so? That shouldn't be too much of an issue." Umbar's certain he an distract Gold if that ever does happen. "Unfortunately our team can only cause Confusion, so prevention may be the only option."
In the meantime, Gold's done with his TM gathering, and is zipping up his bag and about to head over.
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[ Mandy looks out at Gold coming back, and a wistful expression creeps onto their face. If these two are gonna be the ones who know... well, it could've been a lot worse. They manage a ghost of a smile, even, as Gold catches back up. A tired and somewhat defeated smile, but not a forced one. ]
"Alright. Lead the way, you two."
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"Alright! Let's go!" Gold says with a bright grin, pointing at Professor Banyan's house, and starts heading that way with determination.
Umbar glances at Mandy, a somewhat meaningful look in his eyes, then follows along, walking. A walking Lugia is very much a less majestic sight than a flying or a swimming Lugia, but Umbar pads along, feet flapping, arms tucked behind his back.
When they arrive at Professor Banyan's lab (which is a regular-looking house covered in hibiscus, surrounded by a garden somebody clearly takes good care of, and has a rocking chair at the front deck) Gold turns to Umbar.
"You wanna go back in the Pokeball?" he asks. "You don't really fit inside otherwise."
"Ah, no, I think this conversation would be best had in person," Umbar says. Then, with no warning, a puff of silver feathers and shimmering soft light appears and fades in seconds, and in the Lugia's place there stands a human. "This will do," he says, voice unchanged.
"Oh, wow," Gold says, blinking. "You can do that too?" He doesn't sound too surprised, though.
1/2
2/2
"Bravo, sir. It looks good on you. Much more stylish than my own get-up. And physical? Not just an optical illusion? Wow."
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"Thank you, I'm quite proud of it myself, though I don't think yours is bad either. Certainly more in tune with the fashions of the modern day, though that's never been much of a priority for me," he says, flipping his hair. "I assure it's completely physical and real." As if on cue, Gold pokes him with a finger, and Umbar pats him on the head in return. Gold gives a bit more of a genuine smile, before going to open the door.
"Huh? Oh, right, it's locked," he says out loud when the door fails to open, and digs the key out. It's the first time he's actually had to use the spare key Professor Banyan gave him, and he's privately a bit excited about getting to use it.
While he's unlocking, Umbar offers a hand for Mandy to shake, now that he can.
"Is yours an optical illusion, then? Ah, you can tell me once we're inside, if that works for you better," Umbar tells Mandy. He's a bit curious, because he did see them shake Gold's hand earlier, but he doesn't want to pry too much.
((ooc: also btw just got word that banyan's lab doesn't actually have security cameras so let's just pretend that exchange from earlier went a bit differently ^^;))
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"Well, I do have to work with what I can find in shops, and what'd be inconspicuous. It's modern or nothing, at that point. And the pockets are handy."
[ Mandy enthusiastically accepts the handshake. They're... quite strong. ]
"Let's just say that there's a reason I cover up so much, and you'll find out more once we're all sat down for our chat."
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Umbar is unphased by the strength of the handshake, just smiling. He raises an eyebrow at the comment about covering up, in a way that subtly implies something, but says nothing, smile widening a little. He'd be tempted to crack a joke if Gold wasn't there.
The lock clicks open, and Gold opens the door.
"Alright, come on in!" he says, not bothering to hold the door open for the others, so Umbar grabs the door and holds it open for Mandy. "Let's go talk in my room!" Gold calls out as he's taking his shoes off at the entrance.
The house really looks just like an ordinary home from the inside too. No signs of a lab are seen around the path Gold leads Mandy through. He heads up the stairs, and to a small-ish bedroom, where he sets his backbag on the bed. Basically everything in the room was there before he moved in: a bed, a closet and bookshelves, and a desk with a chair, all mostly empty. There's a view of the ocean out of the window, and a potted plant at the windowsill. There are some stickers attached here and there as decorations, but none of them are Gold's. Though Gold called it his room, he doesn't quite think of it as anything but a space he's borrowing, yet.
"Sit down wherever, I guess," Gold says. Him and Umbar both sit down on the bed, though, so the chair is basically the only option left. "And, um... I guess you can tell us what's up now?" He's starting to get a little nervous now, not knowing what it is Mandy's about to explain, but his face just shows neutral curiosity.
1/3
[ Mandy follows them in, unperturbed by the homeyness of the space. After all, there's only some Professors who would strew their living spaces with science fair projects. If anything, they're more interested in seeing what a "human dwelling" looks like in general - what people usually put there, and what it implies about what they do when they're home. Once inside Gold's room, they sit down on the chair, look out the window at the coast, and take a deep breath to steady themself. In, out. ]
"Alright.
"I've thought about this a bit. You already know the parts I was most scared of. GOLD, you were right when you guessed I was the reason the TM thing happened. And UMBAR, sir, I think you figured out a while back that I'm a POKéMON in disguise. So mostly I wanna get everyone on the same page, maybe fill in some context, and... explain why I'm so nervous about anyone knowing those things.
"When you fished out your POKéDEX and it had that error on it, I told you I'd seen that problem before, or a problem like it. That it happens when it'd try to scan something that it thought was a POKéMON, but that it couldn't interpret as a POKéMON. Later, I floated the idea that the extra copies of that TM in your bag, mighta been caused by the same thing as the error. Now, all that was true; I was only fibbing about why all that would happen."
2/3
[ Mandy rolls up the right sleeve of their shirt, exposing the arm below, and two things become immediately clear. ]
[ First: up until now, the human parts of Mandy that Gold and Umbar have been seeing - the face, the body structure - were never precisely the shape they appeared. It was always some more complicated, twistier, multilayered shape, that just so happens to overlap into the image of a human face and the outline of a human body. It just isn't noticeable unless you can also see a part of them – like their exposed arm, for example, now revealed from under their turtleneck – where the overlapping purple and tan and black didn't align quite right, letting the gaps between the multiple layers peek through. ]
[ Second: Mandy is quite a bit bigger than they looked. Even if only glimpses are visible, between the stacked-up layers, it's enough to give the impression of a ten-foot-tall creature, folded back on itself into a six-foot-tall space. As if their right arm was really just the top part of a huge, Aerodactyl-like wing, which had – up until now – been impossibly contained within a couple inches diameter of sleeve. ]
[ After giving Gold and Umbar enough time to get the picture – and regain their composure if necessary – Mandy rolls their sleeve back down, and with their arm hidden, the optical illusion takes effect again and Mandy is back to looking pretty much human. They chuckle as they continue. ]
"...you can see why a POKéDEX might get a bit tripped up on scanning that. In fact, to put it simple, it gets so confused about how to write its observations into its memory, that it ends up writing into your backpack instead! And - the same as a PORYGON turning from a computer file into a physical creature - the data your POKéDEX tries to write to your backpack turns into... well, about a hundred copies of something else you've got in there."
3/3
"Now, all that puts me in a bit of a pickle. I don't want people chasing after me, to use me as a bargain brand JIRACHI; if I'm handing out help, I want it to be on my own terms. And that'd get a lot harder if someone figures out they can toss an ULTRA BALL at me and keep me around for whenever they like. I'm no battler, so I can't really defend myself unless I get a lucky shot. And... well I lived in CELADON. I know how ROCKETs do things. I'd be a juicy target for that kinda guy, if they knew.
"But now... now you know. So what can I do, but trust you, and hope you'll be willing to keep the secret? Not everything, of course. We can say that we met, and that you told me about the region, and stuff. That you were excited to show me your POKéDEX, since I was interested in that kinda thing. We can mention UMBAR, or leave him out, whichever you like. If you're willing, I think it'd even be fair to say that we parted as friends... or we can stay strangers, if you'd prefer that. But the error you saw on that POKéDEX, and where you got those extra TMs from, and the fact that I wasn't just another human... any one of those, if the wrong person heard about it, might be enough for them to figure out what's up.
"So... now that I'm at your mercy... please. Promise me they won't hear about it."
1/2
"Whoa..." he says, tilting his head right, then left, to see from different angles. "That's so weird! I thought you'd have like, a scary secret or something but that's so cool! Like, super cool!" The way he says 'weird' sounds like a big compliment.
"It's like a distortion in reality," Umbar whispers. He's heard of Distortion World before, and he's heard of Pokemon - humans, even, at times - who seem so otherworldly their existence breaks the rules of reality, but this is his first time seeing something like that up close. It was as if Mandy were made out of distortion themself. Unimaginable, before this moment.
The way Mandy explains the glitch that caused the items to multiply has Gold's eyes kind of glazing over, but he's nodding along despite not really getting it. So it's a mystery power, he thinks. Umbar doesn't get it any more than Gold, but he thinks about how marvellous it is, for someone to see the world in a completely different way than others, to look at things unimaginable to Umbar and explain them like they're simple physics with a logical explanation. It makes him feel like the world is so much bigger than he ever thought, even though he's lived such a long time. He finds himself smiling fondly.
2/2
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