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Aile swayed just slightly back and forth as she listened to Sub and Darts discuss the situation, frowning slightly. Going back to the village? But what about the other hybrids? Almost certainly they wouldn’t be allowed in either, would they? And not to mention, the one sticking his neck out the most here? There had to be some other way they could get back in without hanging him out to dry. There just had to be. But, time was apparently of the essence, and Darts was, in his own words, willing to be the chip Sub played at the immediate moment. As long as they got him back.

All of this attention on her, though. Darts, Sub, Wren… It was just a missing arm, and it didn’t even hurt. As long as the bleeding stopped, she’d be fine. It’d be fine. It’s not like… Well, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to get a say, anyways, and people were going to keep fussing over all of it. Didn’t mean she had to like all of it. Just not going to fight to get people to leave her alone. It took too much energy anyways, and a nap was sounding pretty good right about now.

At least it did, until Wren finally put the paste on her arm to stymie the flow of blood coming from her arm. A rather coarse chain of words emerged from her mouth, and it was probably a good thing that there were no children nearby to hear them. “Damn,” she muttered, wincing. “You weren’t joking.” She hung her head, shaking it tiredly. “Can… Can we pass on the actual fire? At least for right now? Cauterization’ll probably happen later…” The channeller wobbled a little more before leaning on her staff for support. “A nap really does sound good. Like, really good.”

Beau could feel his eyes drilling towards his soul, having somehow managed to discern that there was something off with the world. How could anything have given it away? Was the sword so connected that the very lack of it left some discernable 'weight' difference in the air around? Larrimore couldn't have that level of sense though, right? Otherwise he would have known about the sword long before Beau was forced to show it still existed. But still, that stare was telling him that something was off enough for Larry to perceive. He had to keep it secret as long as possible, otherwise there was going to be a severe derailment from what appeared to be a plan to get Aile some medical attention. Well, guess that was going to mean powder burn-induced cauterization was off the menu. As was him roaming around free. But either way, anything to keep the number of amputees to a minimum was a must.

“That’ll work just fine. Should be enough to fool them.” Sub said in response to Amaranth and her suggestion of using her Butterfee’s String Shot as ‘binding’ for Darts. While the butterfly went about its work to tie Darts’ hands in front of him the Dark One responded to the recent addition of Amber. Looks like she was spat out somewhere else when they all arrived. “Spooky? I haven’t seen any Shuppet since we got here, sorry.” He answered the Froslass hybrid. Sub would nod at Leon as he intended to go ahead of them and let Commander Kamado know of their approach. Made sense to him, ensuring that there were no surprises or accidents when they show up with Mega Satan in tow.

With Darts tied up and Aile at least temporarily patched up and made somewhat comfortable, the Snagem leader would look to his team, it was time to set out. “Alright, if we’re all in agreement we’ll head out for Jubilife Village. All of you be on your very best behavior. The humans of us will certainly have an easier time in the village and I completely expect the hybrids among us to be treated differently even with our gift of the devil but still try and remember that these people are just ignorant, a few hundred years away from bigots.” He warned them. “And while we will go in peace and try with all our might to keep the peace we will not take violence completely off the table. We’re more than capable of defending ourselves.” The man reminded and reassured his teammates.

Larrimore nodded, not paying too much more attention to the vibe he got from Beauregard and instead focused on the matter of hand. He wasn’t worried about the villager, and not really Darts.

With everyone ready the Snagems would set out for Jubilife Village, Sub leading Darts by the ‘leash’ connected to his alleged bindings.

—--

[Morning of the next day.]

The Snagems were welcomed into Jubilife Village largely thanks to the gift of their hated god, the humans more readily accepted than the hybrids, no real issue when they arrived thanks to Leon warning them. The humans were given the same living quarters as before, little apartments in the north of town near Galaxy Team HQ. The hybrids however were ‘exiled’ to the far southwest side of the village, south of the farmland, put up in hastily put together dwellings along the interior wall that could only be described as shacks, and only two for the six of them. It was certainly a huge step up from camping out in the wilderness but a considerable step down from the modernity they were all used to. Fortunately they were fed just like anyone else, though likely out of convenience.

Aile would still be in the medical corps bay recovering, having received extensive treatment, Wren there as well as they insisted upon cleaning his wound again. Darts had the worst quarters possible, thrown in a dungeon underneath Galaxy Team HQ, chained to the floor by his ankles, the chain just long enough to barely reach the bars in front of him to reach what food they might bring him. Beside that the outside of the cell was adorned with paper tags, allegedly enchanted by the local medium and while Darts knew good and well such ‘containment spells’, usually via Pokemon, were possible the Ghost hybrid also knew these things were just what they were made of, paper and nothing more. In fact the medium that placed them was still here, allegedly channeling her ‘energies’ to keep him contained, however a Channeler this person was not, in any sense of the word.

Waking up, Sub was quick to head out, proceeding to loiter around the general goods store, having informed the humans to meet him there in the morning. He wanted to get them together before heading over the bridge to check on the hybrids, not given much of a chance yesterday to speak to them after entering the village, the guards quick to ‘escort’ the hybrids to the southern side of the village for their own ‘protection’, though no one told them they had to stay there but there was the implication that they should. Needless to say the hybrids did not have a warm welcome.

With everyone gathered they would head south across the bridge to meet up with the hybrid at their ramshackle settlement, if you could call it that.

[In your post go ahead and detail your character’s experience upon arriving in Jubilife Village from the afternoon prior to the morning after. The hybrid characters will definitely experience a lot of bigotry though the humans will also be met with suspicion. You’re free to have your character visit anywhere in the village.]

Despite going back towards the village on foot, the trip wouldn't take all that long despite having to make the mad dash away from some temporal mess that was out there in the fields. Though as they made it back to the village, Freth ended up staying silent the entire time, ever watchful and waiting on someone to make a wrong move, on either end of the spectrum.

What made things a bit harsh was that even in her time, she did deal with the occasional scorn of bigotry, albeit probably not to as great of extent as say Beau or Larrimore. But this was honestly much. Fear and paranoia was abound, and it made her rather uncomfortable. And irritated. Part of her wondered that maybe she could try something today; something to show good faith. She noticed as she sat around at the southern end of the farm lands the hard work and toil the citizens of the village were trying to do. Large rocks to be smash, land to be tilled. Maybe show off Pokemon were not to be feared, that they could be helpful. Mamoswine could make short work of some of the larger rocks in these fields. Not to mention, she remembered in the history books that they do in fact figure that out on their own somehow. At least in her own reality. Do some labor in the fields to make life a hair easier at least for a day. But then again, probably to show off creatures appearing from tiny metal balls from the future was probably not going to go over well either. She didn't want to be the one responsible to jump-start civilization in this reality for that matter. She would just merely try to wait it out. Be grateful for the meals, keep her head down, and make sure no one else screws up; though given her lack of abilities, she wasn't sure how much of a fight she could make.

The next morning, Freth was already awake. She couldn't sleep the greatest given their conditions. Not really all that much better than at the campsite at the fieldlands. She would see Sub making his way over, finally seeing a friendly face for once, and hoping there was good news coming with him.

Aile was feeling somewhat decent once Leon channeled to numb her pain, she recovered enough to walk, though she was actually using the staff for a more intended purpose, instead of her more common use of swinging it like a club, or at least how she used it a good while back. She would have loved to have Tatooine out, though, but with how the villagers were so petrified of Pokémon, having a six foot tall Pokémon next to her, carrying her or anything along those lines would probably not go well for the group as a whole. So, solo hoofing it was what it had to be.

Once the team arrived at the gates of the village again, she would be reminded of why they were here, as Aile would be whisked away immediately, thanks to Leon being their runner. There would be no resistance from the woman- she was tired enough from their walk over, and was really wanting to just take a nap. Again, though, there’d be no rest for the wicked. Yet, at least. She’d be taken to the medical wing of the Galaxy Building where they’d immediately begin getting to work on mending what was left of her arm. It took a bit, and it certainly wasn’t painless, even with both what Leon did and the medicine they applied beforehand, but the operation was successful to mend up her arm. She’d be cleaned up and given a fresh set of clothes afterwards, being told to stay in the Galaxy Hall for at least the rest of the day, and preferably stay in bed. There’d be a good long while where that was followed to the letter, as she passed out not long after they were done with her and working on cleaning Wren’s wound from before.

Her rest would be interrupted in the evening by a visit from Professor Laventon of all people, bringing a small box full of potato mochi and some water to drink, as anything else to drink would have been vetoed by Pesselle. The pair would begin talking over dinner, then, with the conversation drifting to how specifically Aile had lost her arm. “So, you say that you encountered one of those energy bubbles, as you call them, and Pokémon just kept appearing and disappearing, being replaced with other Pokémon as they left? And you were leaving pretty much right at the end, with your arm still caught up in the bubble when it disappeared?” Aile would nod in response, looking back over her left arm before turning back over to face the Professor, more grateful that he decided to sit on her right side. It kept her mind off of what was missing, you know, outside of getting directly asked what had happened. “I see. Well, that answers what happens if someone is partially in the space-time distortion when it collapses.”

“I… Pardon, what? That’s not the first time that’s happened?” Aile stared wide eyed at Laventon, realizing what that meant. “And you call them space-time distortions?”

“Indeed. They weren’t always here; they only started showing up relatively recently, and with them, all of the bizarre happenings that you mentioned. The Pokémon that show up are at the very least, not native to that area of Hisui, sometimes not even the land of Hisui as a whole, and some of them look very strange. I mean, goodness, one of them looked like a floating metal orb with two additional pieces of metal on its sides. That one might actually be from the future.”

“Magnemite? Huh,” she muttered, tilting her head. This caught Laventon’s attention, giving her even more attention now.

“You’ve heard of that Pokémon?”

“I-I mean... I’ve seen it in Kalos when I was a young girl. Once. They’re extremely rare there still, though,” she lied, slightly annoyed with herself that she let the name slip that loudly. She thought there might have been an ancient depiction of a Magnemite from something she saw in one of her history books back in school, but she couldn’t be so sure. In any way, bluff check. Hopefully it passed. “Anyways, how do you know that it also drags Pokémon through time, instead of just from different regions?”

“Ah, yes,” he’d exclaim, quickly jumping topics back to the space-time distortions, “well, when another one of those distortions appeared, I had a handful of metal pieces with my initials carved onto them. Had them made for this very thing. I tossed them in and quickly left, because those Pokémon get very out of hand very quickly. They disappeared when the distortion left. Check another one a day later, and I find one of these pieces in there, only rusted and worn down, like decades or centuries of wear, despite it only being a day since I threw it in.” He pulled out a couple of metal pieces from his lab coat and showed her, one looking rather pristine, and another one looking like it could have been an artifact. “I kept one of them as a control, see?”

“Huh. No kidding…” Her face grimaced when she thought about the possibility of her arm appearing in a similar vein. Mostly now as a skeletal hand, and that would probably be a best case scenario for it. Yeah, maybe a change of direction would be good. “And when did these all start happening? I can’t imagine that they just popped up out of the blue, no warning, no other eye popping event happened. There has to be a cause to all of these time bubbles.” I hope it’s not when Miss Gold Feline Queen arrived, she thought to herself, noting when things started getting weird with time for the Snagems.

“So, they started happening when a tear in the sky above Mount Coronet happened. It’s one of the sacred places for the Diamond and Pearl clans here, so that was auspicious in and of itself. The tear isn’t always visible now, but whenever it does appear, it’s usually followed by a new spawning of these distortions. Not that they haven’t been showing up when the rift isn’t in the sky, but they get especially prominent then.”

“Mount Coronet… Apologies, but I’m not that familiar with the region and its legends.”

“Well-”

“Okay, that’ll be enough, Professor. She still needs to rest, and if you get onto that sort of thing, you’ll be up with her all night, and that won’t be good for either of you. Now, out! You can talk more in the morning!” Pesselle shooed the professor out, who took the now empty box of potato mochi with him, waving to Aile as he did. The Medical Corps. Captain sighed as she crossed her arms, shaking her head. “Goodness. I know he’s been trying to research those things, but to disturb one of my patients like that,” she muttered, turning when she heard Aile.

“Uh, is the professor… normally like that?”

“Oh, yeah, sometimes. He’s quite jovial and pleasant, but can go down some tangents like nothing else. However, that’s not something you need at the moment. At least until tomorrow, you’re still my patient, and considering everything you just went through, I wish I could keep you here longer. At least until I know your wound won’t reopen.” She nodded, giving Aile a stern but compassionate look. “You’ll at least be staying overnight. You’re still rather pale, and I want to make sure we have someone watching over you through the night.”

Aile gave an annoyed sigh, though with a small smile. “Fine, fine. I suppose I can’t argue with someone who saved my life. Thank you.” A smile crossed Pesselle’s face.

“Of course. That’s why we’re here. Now then. Lay back down and see if you can’t get more sleep. Professor Laventon did bring you dinner, at least, and I can’t fault him for having a conversation during that. Now, though, you need to rest some more.” Aile merely nodded and laid back down, the small smile on her face fading as she stared at the ceiling. The conversation with the professor had woken her up plenty, so her mind was racing as she rested, going from thoughts about the space-time distortions, to how she inconvenienced the group by losing her arm, to how she wanted to curl up with Tatooine and cry about how she screwed up once again, even though, buried somewhere underneath all of her other thoughts and pushed aside, she should have known that there was very little she could have done with the information she had at the time, which amounted to… nothing. Absolutely jack all. Still, logic tended to disappear during a mental spiral. When she finally got to sleep, it wasn’t the restful sleep she needed, filled with uneasy dreams of being caught in one of those distortions when they collapsed on themselves, other Snagems getting caught in them, or just the hordes of Pokémon never ending, just wave after wave of Pokémon battering the team down until they couldn’t fight back.

When the morning came and she slowly woke up, it would be a relief for the woman, despite coming to the realization that indeed, yesterday wasn’t just a dream in and of itself. Her bandages would be changed, and she’d get permission from the Medical Capatin to walk around the village, though she’d have to return periodically to make sure everything still held, and she was told to not leave the village at all until she was cleared. Aile would begrudgingly agree, knowing that her current survival probably hinged on keeping her stump as well kept and out of danger as possible. She’d leave the Galaxy Hall, walking with her staff being used as a walking stick, and stare up at the mountain range in the far distance, tilting her head. Was there something there? If there was, it blended into the current sky quite well. She shrugged and met up with the other Snagems, informing the humans (and a disguised Monique) about what Professor Laventon had told her about the space-time distortions, as well as her current agreement to Pesselle to not leave the village for the time being. While she was looking a little bit healthier than yesterday, she still didn’t look the greatest, and the fact that she was using her staff in a more logical sense would probably point towards that also.

The medium tries to ignore Darts at first, giving the appearance that she was far too deep in her 'trance' to hear him. The Dragon Clan initiate knew better though, he knew what real trances and deep meditation looked like and this 'medium' couldn't even begin to fool him. As if sensing the skeptical eyes staring a hole through her the medium opened one angry eye to stare at the creature across from her in the cell. Deciding there was no further point in continuing she opened the other eye and let out a deep sigh of annoyance, smacking her lips a few times and glancing around the room, indicating how little she cared for Darts and his question.

"Oh put it in a song." She scoffed, dismissing Darts' question. "Foul demon, the stench of evil which exudes from you disgusts me. Thy presence runs afoul of nature itself. I hate you." With one last scowl she closed her eyes again and restarted her nonsense chanting. Not like that would stop Darts from bothering her again.

Amber deflated a bit when Sub answered that he hadn't seen any Shuppet since they'd arrived. Had Spooky not been transported with her? If that was the case, then he must be worried sick about her. She knew he trusted very few others besides her, though for some reason, he seemed to get along better with most of the hybrids than he did with the humans or Channelers in Snagem. She was worried that if he did get transported through the wormhole, that he was dropped somewhere else, and if that was the case, then all she could do was hope he didn't wind up near a human settlement.

She followed along behind the others as they headed toward the village, silent as her mind was on her missing partner. She barely noticed when Darts was handed over, though when she and the other hybrids were 'exiled' to the outskirts of the village, she took a look around, so she could familiarize herself with the layout of the village. From what she could see, there were a few farm plots near where she and the other hybrids were, as well as a battlefield across the bridge from that. Other than that, there seemed to be only a few places of 'business' that they could go to.

She didn't sleep at all that night, too worried about Spooky to sleep. Well, that and the fact she was part Ghost-type. The next morning didn't see her any better, though Arauth had freed herself from her Pokeball during the night, presumably able to sense Amber's worry and to keep her company in Spooky's absence. She was grateful to the Misdreavus for doing this, knowing Arauth had grown to care for her after their initial encounter. Once she'd gotten her bearings, she went out to meet with the other members of the team.

Walking, or rather, hobbling along with the others back to town, Wren had to suppress the anger that rose up rather unexpectedly when the villagers began to spew their ignorant venom at not only Darts but the other hybrids as well. The others had done nothing to deserve such vitriol but Darts was the one that angered him the most. The hybrid was willing to sacrifice his freedom and possibly even his life if it meant safety for the rest of them. These people had no idea what was going on right under their noses, too caught up in their fear and hatred of the unknown to see beyond their emotions.

When Darts was dragged off to be imprisoned, he was escorted alongside Aile to the medical wing of the Galaxy Team building. His treatment was nothing compared to Aile’s, a simple aseptic rinse to clean blood and dirt away and a checking of the few stitches it had taken to close the arrow wound. It wasn’t until after he had been tended to and allowed to go eat that he decided what to do. He had seen Laventon speaking with Aile when he left to get food but when he returned, it appeared the professor was leaving Aile’s bedside. As he watched the professor walk toward him, he was struck by a thought. He knew from the man’s introduction when he came to speak with Aile who he was but little else so this might be his only chance.

“Hello, professor!” He greeted, throwing a hand up to wave in greeting. “I don’t believe we’ve had the chance to meet my properly. My name is Wren. Thank you for keeping my friend company while I was gone. Do you have a moment before you return to your work?”

Thankfully, it seemed the rather jovial man was more amenable than most others the group had met so far. After a short conversation with the professor, in which Wren explained he was somewhat of an academic himself, he was able to gain permission from the professor to review some of his notes on the region. Most notable of all was the large map in the professor’s quarters that allowed him to understand the way this land of “Hisui” was laid out compared yo the more modern world the Snagem’s hailed from. The Grass Channeler talked with Professor Laventon late into the evening, comparing his “notes” of nearly forgotten memory with yo Laventon’s more accurate recent studies.

“Thank you for the time Professor.” Wren would finally say to the slightly portly professor, fighting back a yawn. “It would seem there’s very little trustworthy information regarding Hisui in the world beyond its shores. I hope your work here helps to change that! Unfortunately, it’s gotten rather late and I believe it’s time I turned in for the night.” Exchanging farewells, Wren headed out to the apartment he’d been allotted to use for the night, unsure which of the others was likely to be there already. He headed inside, and found his place to sleep occupied by someone, though he had no interest in determining who, so he pulled a bit of rope from his bag and was quick to put together a hammock for himself to sleep in, though he did very little of it. This region was familiar but different enough in just enough ways that it was becoming increasingly concerning how the team’s presence would impact the way this world progressed along it’s timeline.

When morning came, he woke later than his cabin mate and was one of the last to arrive at the meeting spot, dark bags under his eyes to reflect the lack of sleep and his borrowed cane still supporting the weight on his injured leg. “I think we should discuss what we know once we’re all together.” He told Sub as the group headed off to the southern edge of the small settlement.